token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
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User ID: 1737
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
6d ago
(2) and (3) seem pretty accurate. I'd disagree strongly on (1): the Democrats' failure in 2024 was in no small part because they failed to communicate their successes to the electorate. Unless you were watching closely, the Biden administration appeared to be merely keeping the government going and not rocking the boat. Policies on the left can be sold as popular. People on the left regularly claim polling shows their policies are popular as long as you don't use use language pattern-matching to existing right-wing attacks on them. The problem is the Democrats either don't try or aren't good at it. And they try to fight any candidate that is good at it like Mamdani.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
6d ago
Not that any leftist/progressive was expecting good takes from Pod Save America, but listening to that makes it clear the DNC fully intends to repeat their mistakes of 2024. The only realistic path they have to a 2028 presidential election victory is some surprise candidate winning the primary over the wishes of the DNC like Obama did. Obama and Mamdani (NYC mayor being very different from a presidential election, of course) are recent examples of that happening, so it's not impossible, but the Democrats badly needed that in 2016, 2020 (sure Biden won, but it was embarrassing that beating Trump was a challenge at all), and 2024 as well. And this interview confirms the old guard is just as entrenched as ever.
The leftist/progressive position (at least the more practical leftist) is not that the Democrats are good, but that getting elected outside of the two-party system is infeasible and they aren't welcome in the Republican party, so the only remaining option is to try to co-opt the Democratic party. Which outside of a few exceptions (Mamdani, "The Squad") has not seen a lot of success.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
6d ago
One way for Democrats to win is to half-repudiate peak woke. Admit some things went too far, stop talking about censorship and trans rights, pivot to healthcare and industrial policy, loudly promise not to let in thirty million illegal immigrants, quietly promise to be lefter than Trump. Voters might not trust this pitch, but they could be convinced if Democrats really did learn their lesson. Voters could be sold "let's be nicer to illegal immigrants" if it really isn't a workaround for open borders.
Another way for Democrats to win is to do the same thing over again and expect a different result. Everything is fine, identity politics, DEI, trans kids, amnesty, Democratic policies have always been correct about everything and there are no trade-offs for anything.
This is exactly the consultant-brained nonsense that the DNC is likely to continue doubling down on and losing with. "We're almost as Republican as the Republicans!" is not a winning message for anyone other than the DNC donors who want Republican policies and there to not be an effective opposition to them. Voters presented with "Republican-lite" or "Republican" on the ballot are going to continue to vote Republican or stay home.
But Harris did back down on woke. The only candidate that mentioned trans people in the 2024 election was Trump. The Democrats tried to push for further right immigration policy. The result was a lot of left-wing voters stayed home and many others were upset but reluctantly voted for her and no voter had the thought process of "I like Republican policies and the Democrats adopted some, so I'll vote against the Republicans".
Even accepting the premise that it's impossible for a party to the left of the Republican Party to be electorally successful, the Democratic Party still doesn't have a path to victory by moving to the right because the Republicans will continue to put out attack ads insinuating that they're further to the left and that's bad.
This is all focusing way too much on policy and ideology which is realistically not a major consideration for the vast majority of voters. To a large extent the last three presidential elections were voting for Trump to do something or boring Democrat to do nothing; the precise "something" that Trump promised to do certainly mattered to some voters, but the fact that the Democrats couldn't communicate that they had their own something in mind to do was a major part of why they failed (although maybe they'll stumble into winning in 2028 for the same reason they did in 2020: after 4 years of Trump, "nothing" sounded good).
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