There’s No Hope for a Party That Hates Its Own Base
Democratic Party leaders want the benefits of an engaged activist base like the one currently challenging Donald Trump without actually having to listen to or engage with it.
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Nobody hates and think as little of their base as Trump does. It's why he never misses a chance to sell them grifts and tells them the craziest lies. He sees them as an ends to a means.
The Dems do have a bunch that could care less, but I don't think it's the overwhelming majority like the GOP. And it's also harder to get a party in lockstep when values vary widely, instead of just "Dear Leader tell us what you need of me".
“Republicans worse” and “the democrats are a big tent” are some classic excuses that still don’t make up for the fact that Democrats can’t win elections.
Democrats have won the majority of presidential elections since the 90s…
And only one since Obama, where they decisively shifted against progressivism.
I tried to push back against the "Democrats only lose" mantra a few months ago. It's confirmation bias and "don't look back more than 4 years" that drives this thinking.
I went back to 1992 and was accused of cherry-picking.
Edit: found it
And lost congress and a ton of states in the same time.
And that majority is a majority of one, and both were two term presidents who were hamstrung by Republican Congresses.
So I stand by my assertion that democrats can’t win elections. Not enough to matter anyway.
Only by sheer nostalgia or 'anyone but (R)Name' campaigns. I don't know that the democrats have actually fought for the people in a long while, but at least Obama tried to get healthcare enshrined.
I think that has to do a bunch with that "big tent" as you called it. Just look at this last election, instead of going with Harris a large amount of people got pissy about her being to center, to right, to pro-Israel, to Biden, etc. at nauseum and voted against her or just sat out.
I think if we want Dems to start to shift we need to support candidates that lean that way, and keep Republicans out of offices where they can instantly roll back all progress. It's going to take playing the long game and leaving some people that want to be R-lite behind (but still represented because they are still ppl). Republicans didn't build this government destroying force overnight, they have been chipping away for decades.
Edit ugh autocorrect
That last part is another classic line: “Just vote as much as you can and they’ll listen.”
I’ve been voting every election - primaries, local, everything - for two and a half decades and it feels more useless every year.
If I’m playing the long game I must be playing the wrong game
because the truth is that our system is too corrupted for that to work. People have absolutely been trying to get leftists in their local offices. They often face a united opposition from local Republicans AND Democrats. The two sides are happy to work together to prevent other challengers.
Not the wrong game, there are just too many people that bounce between parties, or that sit out/vote 3rd party if their unicorn candidate isn't on the top of the ticket. If you could get everyone that doesn't want fascism to vote Dem at the top of the ticket every 4 yrs, and get them to also vote for and encourage more progressive candidates to run at all the lower levels we could see a change. And get enough progressive candidates running as Dems at all the lower levels, maybe we even see a decent Presidential candidate.
It's easier for Republicans to rally around taking things away from people, it's much harder to run a functional country, with everyone having equal rights, and income equality, and everything else that would better the lives of Americans.
Well, I can’t do that so I’ll just keep voting and watching the world burn around me because everyone else is a fucking idiot.
