When she went MiA after the election instead of actually leading the opposition party like she claimed she wanted to but it appears she really only cared about the title so I no longer consider myself a democrat
I’ve never considered myself Democrat, even when I voted for them.
I considered myself a Democrat, because that all they was really, until progressives really started coming around two decades ago.
It’s honestly purposeful Chuck has one goal and the American people being more than a disposable piggy bank isn’t it
They’re losing young people due to social media influencers and terrible male role models
and also because they continuously pick terrible candidates that don’t reflect most of the populations views. and then they go and nuke whichever actually progressive campaign they don’t like (sanders, hogg, etc).
to be completely honest, I think social media has less to do with it than most people are ready to admit.
Time for a Labor Party in America.
Now is the time for world socialist revolution. The time for a Labor Party was 60 years ago. Instead, the leadership of the trade union movement subordinated itself to the Democratic Party and imperialism. This process has been replicated worldwide in the various Social Democratic and Labor parties in support of capitalist exploitation and imperialist war. The entire system is in a state of advanced decay and historical bankruptcy with no possibility of meaningful reform.
we still generally need ground work and revolutionary momentum
This is correct. We are witnessing some of the greatest upsurge in working class militancy in several decades, as well as a veritable renaissance in revolutionary thought. The stuff of great historic movements is available in plenty abundance. It depends on what we do with this moment.
Can’t use the word socialism, the well has been thoroughly poisoned as a buzzword
Hard disagree. We must use the terms “socialism” (and “communism”) openly and directly.
Go for it, dig your heels in.
It’s a needless uphill battle, we’re trying to get people on our side who will never understand what socialism is.
They only “know” that it’s bad.
They have no idea what it is, only that they’ve been told ad nauseum that it’s bad.
It’s a losing battle with ignorant people, better off just going at it with fresh nomenclature to make any kind of progress on it
We can try to educate these people until we’re blue in the face and will not change anything
Freedom fighters
I keep writing my senators. One senator I voted for under the Working Families’ Party (his name next to both WFP and Dem). The Second Senator is an old fart who I wanted to look up to, but continues to enable the R party as a Dem.
I write them often, and a few days ago, wrote the old fart to let him know his actions directly are why I just changed my voter registration to independent. Im no longer registered Democrat. I was there for Bernie, and nothing good has come of anything over my 10 years as a Dem. I write the WFP senator to remind him I voted for him under that party name.
Will it do anything? I don’t know, but I hope everyone is writing thier senators and reps at least bi weekly. Its so easy to do today, you dont even need a stamp!
I really hope that the Dems leadership actually listens for once. Chasing these mythical “reasonable Republicans” has not worked, will not work, and will continue moving the Overton window further right.
So I’m sure that’s exactly what they’ll do. Could we please get another party that actually represents people???
Here’s the thing. No.
We don’t really have two parties. We have oligarchs in control of both parties, and both parties work together to make sure no more parties can exist. They do this by making it seem like the right and the left are opposed to each other, but really both work together to keep you down.
We can’t fix this with parties. What we need to do is abolish parties. Prevent rich people from consolidating power. Give no small group of power-hungry bastards the ability to control everything. This means a drastic overhaul, and the people in power are not going to give it up willingly. They won’t fight fair, they won’t accept the results of an election unless it goes their way, and they won’t give you an opportunity to win.
We need to draft a new constitution.
… that’s what shithead is trying to do…
That’s like not liking how your Civilization game is playing out and hitting restart, it’s lazy.
I disagree, we need to do it the hard way and have actual reform so we have stronger checks and balances.
The guys who wrote the original constitution would have suggested drafting a new one over a century ago. It was never supposed to be unchanging.
I disagree, we need to do it the hard way and have actual reform so we have stronger checks and balances
Which would require rewriting significant portions of the Constitution…
Which is different than starting over entirely
Barely. It’s not a long document to begin with.
You can entirely rewrite something while still looking at the first version. It doesn’t mean you start from scratch
I agree with the sentiment, but I do not agree that political parties should be abolished. Instead, there should be proportional representation, and more political parties, with more perspectives — the majority of solutions come from a democracy.
Parties are just a power transfer from voters to oligarchs. Coalition governments are just as easy to manipulate as two-party systems. Politicians shouldn’t be permitted a short-hand explanation of what they stand for. They should be required to make a full throated defense of their positions on the record. Parties provide political cover to do unpopular things while pretending to not be in a position to stop it.
You do have a point, but what would be the alternative? I have considered direct democracy, but the ultra-wealthy may still use that to their advantage.
You can still elect representatives, you just remove money from the equation. Candidates are given a public forum to share ideas, provide their credentials, and debate issues. Voters use a STAR voting system to vote for all the candidates they like. Special interest groups are free to speak and advertise all they want, but they cannot promote or attack a specific candidate.
It’s more or less how local primaries work, just on a larger scale.
How do you have proportional representation with a president? And from what it seems like your president is king.
You do need to change the system, but you can keep the President, reduce the President’s powers, and have a prime-minister to take care of many areas.
P.S.: I am from Portugal, he’s definitely not my President.
Americans: We’re very unhappy with the status quo
Dems: Best I can do is more status quoI’m watching from the sidelines but my gods, you guys need to take your politicians to account. Bricks for the current lot first, mind. The two “sides” aren’t equal - one is awful and the other is redefining how bad human beings can be without directly sending people to gas chambers.
Some of us have been trying. The masses tend to bully and tell us it’s all our fault, somehow. According to the Democrats and their base, progressives are simultaneously too weak and unimportant to listen to, and so powerful that we can swing entire elections. I’m still waiting to hear how that one makes sense.
And yet progressives say their policies are so supported and yet they can barely get Anyone elected.
Begs to wonder how that makes sense too or else they would’ve tea partied the dems by now.
I wish it were true but either progressives are too few or too lazy. Either way, same result.
See the part about the Democratic Party actively working against progressives, to the point of funding propaganda against them. The Dems saw the Tea Party and care more about avoiding that with progressives than they do about running candidates that can either beat the Republicans or serve the people.
And from what you just said: you’d better have never once blamed progressives for losing the Democrats an election if you’re taking the “progressives are too weak” position.
If progressives were numerous enough that wouldn’t matter.
Somehow the magats got their psychos in power over a number of years. Progressives don’t.
People aren’t going to like what you’re saying, but there’s an element of uncomfortable truth. Money and establishment power didn’t let the neocons beat back the tea party movement. I desperately want solid progressives, but the ones who appear on my local ballot are either obviously unfit or don’t garner enough votes from a “moderate” electorate. And I live in a rabidly “blue” area.
There is a hearts and minds campaign that progressives have continuously failed at, and blaming democratic elites solely for this failure is no more accurate than Democrats blaming progressives for their losses. Politics in a democracy is coalition-building, and we’re apparently all failing together.
Gonna continue to call bullshit here. The grassroots movement failing to gather momentum in the face of propaganda at the cost of the nation’s future is not the same as the Democrats blaming a minority for their own failures. Not even a little bit, can you please reflect a little on how absurd that claim is?
You’re also not comparing apples to apples here. First: the Tea Party was an unknown element, there hadn’t been a growing fringe movement like that within a major party for a century. The Democrats had the benefit of seeing that happen on the right. Second, the Republicans were willing to embrace the crazy of the Tea Party for the sake of their continuing victory. Very much in contrast, the Democrats are very clearly willing to sacrifice national victory in order to keep progressives down. Three elections in a row they’ve insisted on running the most centrist candidate possible, resulting two very predictable losses and one surprising victory.
Democrats insist on siding with money and corporations every time, their failures are their own fault, and very much also the fault of their supporters.
You’re talking about national elections, and I’m talking about presence in state and local elections. Candidates with a sustainable/viable chance nationally must first have an established local presence. That base builds credibility and sustainability for a movement, as others in the movement can also point towards local or state wins to justify their own candidacies.
I also happen to be familiar with my state Democratic party chairs. The idea that they could be systemically suppressing progressives in state or local elections would require a level of competence and political acumen I’ve never seen them demonstrate. They barely have control over their party, as is. I’m connected to the political world in my state both personally and professionally, and the concept of Democrats being able to exert this kind of control is actually laughable.
The bottom line is that you’re mad that Democrats don’t support your candidates, and Democrats are mad you don’t support theirs. Both attitudes are unproductive. In the end, if either progressives or Democrats wants to pick up votes, they’re going to need to actually persuade voters to show up and vote consistently, and not just in federal elections. This will include voters you don’t necessarily like or fully agree with. You know who ran candidates in and voted for every single school board race? The damn Tea Party.
Are you with Democrats or not? You act like it’s some shadowy cabal. People just go vote in a primary. Progressives don’t win. And my main point is- Republicans voted in the primary for their far most right candidate but still voted Republican in the general. They trained the party to move to the right, like a dog.
Progressives either 1) aren’t numerous enough to do anything like that or 2) get upset and either never vote in the primary or sit out both the primary and general when their preferred person doesn’t make it.
Again, either way theyre irrelevant. This is the uncomfortable truth the op is talking about. Like Bernie and Aoc are popular yes? Holding rallies that get a lot of support? Then where are the rest of progressives?
The DNC is spending a lot of money and effort to keep Progressives down. See Bernie 2016, see lack of proper primaries in 2024, see having some old ghoul with cancer snap a seat from AOC to then retire a few month later because of his cancer.
The gas chambers will be televised.
Murca is so fucked.
“Now if we just could be a little bit more like the republicans, that’ll surely work this time around.”
“The “What Happened in 2024” report confirms that 30 million voters who showed up to the polls in 2020 failed to materialize in 2024. That is a big number, and it represents the largest number of drop-off voters dating back to 2012, when 27 million voters failed to return to the polls.”
It wasn’t a “drop off” and I was telling people why this was going to happen before the election.
The 2020 numbers were artificially inflated by vote by mail covid precautions.
Republican precincts saw the increased Democratic turnout and actively worked to make vote by mail harder which limited participation and when fewer people vote that only helps Republicans.
It was all so predictable and the fix is 100% vote by mail EVERYWHERE.
Not just that, but making voting day a holiday would help. Make it a friday to monday four day event for fucks sake!
If we had 100% vote by mail, we wouldn’t need a holiday. :)
Vote by mail addresses a huge obstacle to voting, employment. A lot of people can’t take time off to vote.
Opening more voting sites would also be a good idea.
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I want every US citizen to enjoy a convenient opportunity to vote and express their will for the leadership of the country and I want the law of the land followed.
I understand that you look at anyone that disagrees with you on anything as being your strawman caricature, but there are all sorts of people that have a variety of beliefs. I didn’t vote for Trump, nor would I ever. Your hostility to others who disagree with your feelings and beliefs only push them further away from agreeing with you. Drink some water and go for a nice relaxing walk.
What your polls close before people get off work? We have 3 hour law if need 3 hours to vote put if polls close at 7 and you get off at 5 it means you have to get off by 4 to have a 3 hour block to vote.
Not everybody has a 9 to 5.
Yes voter suppression is very effective
COVID people, that’s why the huge turnout in 2020, nothing else. Especially mail-in ballots.
Pretty much, look at a non-covid election and compare vote by mail states to the average American turnout.
I’m biased because I live in Oregon and we tie voter registration to DMV licenses AND do 100% vote by mail.
2016: 80.33% voter turnout.
2018: 67.8%
2020: 78.5%
2022: 66.9%
2024: 75%In 2016 there were 2,553,808 registrants and 2,051,452 voters, compared with 2020 and 2,951,428 registrants and 2,317,965 voters.
In 2024, the difference was negligible, 75% returning ballots and 2,308,256 voters. Yeah, a slight drop, but then we had a bunch of people die from Covid too.
Sources:
https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Documents/Voter_Turnout_History_General_Election.pdf
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/12/26/oregon-voter-turnout-dropped-75-percent-2024-election/
If you compare that to the national averages:
2016: 59.2%
2018: 49% (highest mid-term turnout since 1914)
2020: 65.3%
2022: 46% (highest since 1970)
2024: 63.5%Sources:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/
We need to abandon the Democratic Party at this point. Democrats are not capable of winning national elections. The Democratic Party is not run by serious people who actually intend on winning power and wielding it wisely. Those still telling folks to vote for Democrats are not politically serious people. The only future can be found in parties like the Working Families Party. Centrists will simply need to hold their nose, quit dividing the left, and vote for progressive candidates. Remember, a vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Republican. Democrats can’t win national elections. In a two party system, we can’t afford to throw our votes away on parties that are doomed to lose.
They literally won one election ago.
That’s great, all we need now is another worldwide pandemic with millions of deaths to push through whatever idiot the DNC decides to run.
My vote was against rump roast, not FOR the Dem running office in 2020.
I’m not for any candidate standing against Medicare for all and the working people.
So yeah they won, but not because of love for the party.
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Dem strategist brains are as wormy as RFK Jr’s, they’ll never accept that it was anything other than the moral impurity of the voting base that lost them the election.
“It’s not the product it’s the marketing” - Dems (probably)
They have no interest in listening to constituents. The “us or all hell breaks loose” tactic has worked too many times.
