Protest no voting is the reason why Hillary isn't finishing up her second term, with a solid 8 years of climate action, still having Roe, likely much better budget, likely hundreds of thousands of lives saved from covid, not facing project 2025, and who knows what else. Thanks protest no voters.
Hillary is the reason there were protest votes and general voter apathy.
She instructed her media cronies to promote Trump as the front runner, and also ran a rigged primary that stonewalled all attempts for competition to get a word in edgewise.
She knew how much of a threat Trump was, and yet she persisted in incompetently throwing what should have been the easiest Democratic win in history, with her fucking meddling.
It's a shame that the only way to destroy the Democratic party is to kill the Republican party first, but alas, business always comes before pleasure, doesn't it.
Hillary lined Trump up as her rival thinking he'd be an easy win, not realizing that she was still Hillary Clinton, the only one who could possibly lose against the least likable candidate in human history.
Her candidacy was america's biggest mistake since the republican party cheated Teddy Roosevelt out of their nomination and got us stuck with fucking woodrow wilson - the trump of the early 20th century.
Except Bill Clinton won. Biden won. They learned from Carter and Hillary Clinton respectively to not stick your neck out. Even Obama was running on broad and vague "hope" instead of actually saying anything specific. Obama learned that from Gore losing, to not actually say anything and stick your neck out. So no, you have it backwards. They win when they go to the center.
No I doubt that they won because of appealing to centrist when we keep seeing in House/Senate races that actual Leftists keep beating Diet Republicans and Real Republicans.. also keep beating Diet Republicans.
And if you're accusing me of something, just come out and say it.
They literally win by going to the center. A center vote is worth double because you get a vote and you take a bow away from the other party. Every time the Dems lose they go to the center to find voters.
What are you on about the house and Senate, they lose there too. Bill Clinton had both for 2 of 8 years. Obama same thing, had it for only 2 of 8 years. Biden so far had it for 2 of 4 years. This is why progress is slow, because they lose that too and they need all 3 to actually pass anything. GOP can block with only 1. So they do to the center to find house and Senate seats. Dems have had all 3 houses for 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 or the last 44 years. That's why progress is so slow.
Biden won by going for the center. Biden didn't run left, he ran center. Plus, when you go against an incumbent you run a center candidate, that's what he was and that's what he did.
And I'm not whining, I'm literally laughing lol. Like what gymnastics do you have to do to think anything else lol.
I think I'll just pull up my history writeup for you:
Ok I've had this conversation and realized that people can't do the math. So lets do it:
Let's evaluate the last say 24 years and when the Dems had all 3 of the House of Representatives, Senate, and Presidency. Note they need all 3 to pass pretty much anything. Obama had it for 2 out of 8 years. Biden had it for 2 out of 4 years. Let's add it: That means Dems had control for 4 out of 24 years. Read that again, they had control for only 4 the last 24 years.
And that can still be filibustered. So if you want the filibuster proof majority, then Obama had it for 4 months. Not years, MONTHS. Biden never had it. Add it up: Dems had filibuster proof control for 4 months of the last 24 years.
Look at those stats again: Dems had control for 4 years of the last 24 years. For filibuster proof control, Dems had control for 4 MONTHS of the last 24 years.
This is why Dems compromise, because they basically never have control. To get literally anything done they need to compromise. Take your pick, either 4 years of the last 24 fucking years, or the 4 months or the last 24 years. And you wonder why they have to compromise? And why they go to the centre?
If you want progress you have to give Dems overwhelming and consistent victories.
(Want to add Bill Clinton? That goes to 6 years of the last 32 years, and still 4 months for filibuster proof for the last 32 fucking years. Want to add Bush senior? Then it’s 6 years of the last 36 fucking years. Want to add Reagan? Then it’s 6 years of the last 44 years. That's right, 6 years out of the last 44 fucking years that Dems had control. And for filibuster proof majority they had 4 months of the last 44 fucking years.)
And you wonder why they go to the center to find voters? Because they never win. The left never shows up.
More than that. Protest voting only works if you're vote is important to them. If you aren't a representative part of a large group of reliable voters or donors. THEY DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR VOTE. If courting you would help their margin of victory. But might alienate other more reliable voters or donors. THEY DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR VOTE. If they don't really care about your vote. Then they don't really care about your protest. Then your protest is pointless and counterproductive.
As cruel and heartless as it sounds. Resources and bandwidth are always limited. They have to put their attention and efforts where they think they will get the best payout. Trying to please a broad swath of fickle unreliable left-leaning voters generally falls outside of the good uses of those limited resources.
Literally our passive leftist protest voting is meaningless to them. Even if they lose. Meaningless to them. They will spend millions of dollars analyzing trying to figure out why otherwise reliable group didn't vote for them. If they hear that they didn't get leftist vote, they won't bat an eye.
If we want their attention. If we want their concern. We need to ingratiate ourselves. And make ourselves indisposable to them. We need some primary them. We need to replace them with ourselves. Then they will pay attention. Then they will care. Before we do any of that though. Protest voting and putting the car before the horse and completely useless.
If you're going to what if, if the DNC leadership wasn't caught off guard by Obama's popularity in 2008. They would of railroaded him like they did Sanders.
Then we would have had 8 years of McCain because Hillary was and is un-electable.
You're whatifing hard about primaries. I'm informing what happens when the left voters don't show up.
Every single time the left voters don't show up, the Overton window goes to the right when the GOP wins, and again when the Dems go to the center to find voters (because the left never shows up). And then people ask why the Dems keep going to the center.
You can't have it both ways. You're arguing the Democrats simultaneously don't care about leftist voters because they don't show up and vote and aren't a significant enough chunk of the electorate to be worth catering to, yet claiming that this same group not showing up resulted in Hillary's loss against Trump. Which is it? Are we the deciding factor in US electoral politics, or a bunch of rabble-rousers not worth concerning yourself with?
The reality is that Clinton lost the election due to extremely narrow margins in a handful of flyover states not known for being bastions of leftism. Leftists of Lemmy in LA or NYC could have all gone for voter fraud and voted for her multiple times, and she still would not have received any more votes in the electoral college from California or New York, because she already got them all! Conversely, she wouldn't have gotten any fewer votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, which were the decisive states at the level of the Electoral College because of leftists in other states.
tl;dr: Get lost with your ahistorical, left punching bullshit.
They exist, but they don't show up (or very rarely if you want to be specific). And because they don't show up, they aren't courted. This is really simple.
So the Dems go to the center to find voters. Because the left doesn't show up. No one is going to court the left that doesn't show up.
Sanders supporters, Hilary supporters, Obama supporters, like how many hoops do you have to jump through to divvy things up? I'm not even going to try to figure that out. This is really simple, I'm saying the left voters need to show up. How many are there? Who knows, because they never show up.
Hilary promised free ice cream and puppies for everyone. Protest no voters are the reason why I'm not enjoying a cone with my puppy new best friend right now.