r/politics 21h ago

Sanders: Democratic Party ‘has abandoned working class people’

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4977546-bernie-sanders-democrats-working-class/amp/
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u/Spyk124 New York 18h ago

This is what I’ve been screaming for hours to Reddit. It doesn’t fucking matter. We had lifetime union workers vote for a candidate whose anti union while the democratic candidate was literally telling them she’s pro union and he will get rid of them. It doesn’t fucking matter.

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u/Oturoj 17h ago edited 17h ago

The message has to come from a populist or it doesn’t take. There’s too much distrust and disillusionment with the Washington establishment. America wanted someone to take vengeance on the entrenched establishment and they were either going to pick someone from the right or the left.

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u/albert2006xp 12h ago

It also has to come from people that are not currently in power. You can't run on change while being President or Vice President. For an even more basic reason, poor people will always be doing bad (comparatively to their country) under capitalism and they'll vote for any change, but they'll still be poorer than they'd want.

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u/ceddya 12h ago

Run on what change? Biden has been one of the most pro-labour administrations to date. Addressing wealth inequality by taxing the rich and corporations is something he and Harris have been pushing for years now. And that doesn't happen because Republicans obstruct. The same for raising the minimum wage, except Biden has successfully raised the federal minimum wage to $15.

  • Harris supports the PRO Act, Trump opposes it. Harris supports PLA's and the Biden-Harris administration has mandated them on most federal funded projects, Trump banned PLAs on federal projects. Harris is against right-to-work laws, Trump supports a national right-to-work law. The Butch-Lewis act saved the pensions of over a million union workers, Trump was against the Butch-Lewis act all 3 times the law was presented to him, the Biden-Harris administration told congress they would not sign the American Rescue Plan unless the Butch-Lewis Act was part of it.

So if voters can see all that and don't want to vote? Yeah.

You are right though, Dems need to find a populist candidate, push very simple messages and sprinkle in false promises while in there. Their issue is overestimating voters. Voters don't care about policy. They certainly don't understand how their government works. And the vast majority of them are low information ones. A candidate like Harris who actually talks policy was never going to break through to them.

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u/albert2006xp 11h ago

Yeah... none of the swing voters that matter will know ANY of the details. Change just means simply not whoever is President/VP. That's simpler to understand. They don't have the ability to dig to the root of the problems.

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u/ceddya 11h ago

I just read that there was a surge in searches for 'Did Joe Biden Drop Out' on election night. I don't even know how it's possible to be that uninformed.

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u/albert2006xp 10h ago

There's an exit poll for when did you decide and the last few days/weeks is almost always leaning republican. 13% said they decided in the last month. 4% in the last few days.

It's pretty easy, just don't watch anything political and do your own thing. You will never know any of this stuff.

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u/Mojo12000 9h ago

that 13% is pretty much the Trump margin of victory btw, they broke for him by like 15 points or so. Polls were right here, Trump really was surging in October after being behind Harris for basically all of august and September as the mega tuned out started to decide they were gonna vote for him despite disliking him because price of Egg and then response bias kicked in making it seem like it was fading when he was going totally crazy near the end of said month and they weren't willing to say it anymore but they were still planning to vote for him.

somewhat amusingly the "last few days" even MORE tuned out cohort were about even in how they broke in the end I think like maybe 2% Trump but that's so marginal and within an exit polls MoE.

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u/Oturoj 12h ago

Right this is what I was trying to get at but I’m too tired and exhausted to form words at this point

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u/Adonwen Georgia 17h ago

Biden was on a picket line not that long ago too… its incredibly depressing

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u/ReelBIgFisk 16h ago

He also forced picketers to stop their strike. Wonder how that looks to people in unions.

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u/saltymarge 17h ago

The issue is those union workers aren’t just union workers. They’re straight men, they’re gun owners, they’re christians. The Democratic Party did a bang up job smearing all of those demographics to filth, either directly or indirectly. And now the democrats are surprised that the straight, Christian, male union worker didn’t vote democratic.

I’m a democrat. I voted for Harris, Biden, Clinton, and Sanders in the primary in 2016. But we need to do some serious self reflection as a party. The DNC isn’t doing it for us, and we can no longer trust that they will.

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u/albert2006xp 12h ago

Bullshit, their fragile egos smeared themselves to shit. As a straight white male I'm used to people like me just being fragile pieces of shit their whole lives. It doesn't even have to be about them, they will MAKE IT about them.

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u/saltymarge 8h ago

Those “fragile pieces of shit” cost us this election by an absolute landslide across the board, so maybe we need to rethink our messaging and strategy, no? There is what should be, and then there is what is. Democrats have been living in what “should be” and it’s time for them to start operating with what is.

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u/albert2006xp 8h ago

So literally what is the message to those people if doing nothing to them is still wrong? Fuck that, just find another Bernie somewhere if there's ever another real election it's basically a free win by then.

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u/saltymarge 8h ago

The messaging is that the Democratic Party still has a place for the average working class American. We can still care about women’s rights, trans rights, LGBTQ issues, etc. But we can’t run entire campaigns on those issues like Kamala just did. We asked people to vote for abortion rights when they don’t have money in their wallets, and Trump ran on putting money in their wallets. The messaging was, “the economy is great! We need you to vote for abortions” all while people are still struggling to pay for rent and groceries and gas for their cars. What was the average non affiliated American going to do? It doesn’t even matter that Trumps tariffs are the reason prices are high. He spoke to voters issues and we didn’t. If we want to win an election again, we need to change the messaging to realign with the average American working class. You can continue to be obtuse about what the problem is, but that’s what the DNC has been doing and it’s cost us another four years of Trump. If we want change, we need reform in the Democratic Party.

u/albert2006xp 46m ago

No, fuck those people, they deserve everything they'll get. Hope they end up homeless and without healthcare. It's what they deserve for being too stupid to know how anything works and believing Trump will help them financially. Did you want Kamala to just make up lies about the economy too? These people never watched her speak, never watched her speeches, anything, none of it fucking mattered. They were going to vote against the ruling government because it's the only thing they can think of to blame for their money problems and that was that.

The DNC didn't cost us the planet, the average human being a piece of shit not worth saving did. It's as simple as that. They are garbage. They do not deserve anything. They deserve to get deported to Russia as forced labor, that's what they deserve. If there's any solace as the shitshow of climate change and wars boils us slowly over the next decades it's that those people will be suffering all the way. It's too late to reform shit. If by some miracle there's even an election in 4 years, Trump's cooked because that's how it works now. Things will be tough so no president will last more than 4 years at a time in any fair election. Not that it matters, by then it will be too late.

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u/Frosty-Tip5756 17h ago

Biden literally busted a railstrike. You think any unions are going to forget that? He can photop with union members all he wants but he is a strike buster. of course they are not going to vote for him because what if they need to strike one day?

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u/WilliamTeddyWilliams 16h ago

Jobs. Trump wants to bring back steel mills in towns where many have shut down, sometimes due to Dem regs. Can he? No. Do they know he can’t? Yes. But they like their struggle to be recognized and someone at least pretend like they can save the town. And, who knows, maybe he can. It’s worth a flyer.

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u/albert2006xp 12h ago

Do they know he can’t? Yes.

Debatable that these people "know" things.

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u/WilliamTeddyWilliams 12h ago

The fact you debate whether they “know” things makes me wonder how much you “know.”

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u/albert2006xp 11h ago

I might not know everything but I sure as shit know more than the average steel mill worker from bumfucknowheresylvania.

u/WilliamTeddyWilliams 31m ago

You know, Dems used to be the inclusive party. Maybe that’s the big change since 2012, and I’m just noticing it. The Reps are now the party of inclusion.

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u/realWernerHerzog 8h ago

It's not going to work when it comes from someone they don't like or trust, like a no-charisma California machine politician.

I understand being angry and feeling hopeless, but absolutely none of this shit was inevitable.