Democrats: "Understood. We must try harder to win over the center-right."
"center right":
Honestly, we should have seen it coming with all the "nostalgia" for the Good Old Days of GWB.
And here I am nostalgic for the good ol days of Obama.
I do miss when my tax dollars got spent to keep American corporate greed from crashing the global economy, again, and merely continuing the neo-Crusades instead of escalating them.
That was a nice almost decade.
"Nothing will fundamentally change" + "there is not a thing that comes to mind."
Two killer statements.
To be fair Biden's "nothing will fundamentally change" is a lot better with context. "There's not a thing that comes to mind" is fucking inexcusable though.
To be fair Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” is a lot better with context.
To be fair, it became clear over the course of 4 years that it was correct at face value.
One of the biggest unforced failures of the Biden administration is the reported complaint of Joe Biden that people weren’t acknowledging the economic turnaround.
Biden did a lot of good for the economy! Massive stimulus via the infrastructure bill, a sensible approach to recovery from Covid, acknowledging that recovery from an inflationary period would be necessarily painful, etc. He was a steady hand at a time when America needed one.
But what sends me into apoplexy, what really grinds my gears, is that this motherfucker was so out of touch to believe that this was a messaging problem. He felt that Americans had not yet heard of his accomplishments in turning around the tide of economic misfortune, how badly the republicans would have bungled it, and how the next four years would have been a period of huge growth based on the previous four.
All of these points were absolutely true.
But there is no housing supply. The economic pressures are so hard on young people that their biological impulses are changing.
Young empiricists have taken a look at the climate and have correctly deduced that their future is full of pain in the absence of truly radical action.
And Kamala’s strategy for relieving pressure on the housing market was a $25,000 credit for first time home buyers? In an environment where housing prices have doubled and tripled in fifteen years?
I am one of the very few members of the public that attended Feinstein’s funeral at San Francisco City Hall. And the only one there that day wearing sneakers. I attended her lying in state, paid my respects to a committed civil servant, and in the book, cautioned Pelosi against a similar, “ignominious” end. Then I hear that Pelosi has filed to run again in 2026. As an 86 year old.
At some point the Democratic leadership looks less out of touch and more actively malicious considering the serious and existential crises of the young and near-young in the United States.
The country is in decline because of its extreme individualism, its lack of compassion, and its ruthless “politics is the art of the possible” approach by leaders who could not possibly inspire with bold leadership.
The party is chasing local maxima.
Harris' solution to the housing problem really annoyed me. There are so many other more effective ways to go about making housing more affordable but she just ignored them. This, in my uneducated opinion, would have also motivated more voters.
In a more general sense, the mainstream Democrats have always had a difficult time with messaging which is nothing new but really showed itself in this past election.
Democrats think that if you just spend time educating the voting population on all the good their policies will do then the voter will make a rational decision in the voting booth. And in the exit polling that is exactly who voted for Harris, highly educated people that like that kind of lecture type of politicking. But most people don't vote like that - they don't want a professor in the oval office they want a cheerleader.
And Kamala’s strategy for relieving pressure on the housing market was a $25,000 credit for first time home buyers?
This was also going to be coupled with a large tax credit to construction companies for building single-family homes and another tax credit for selling them to first-time homeowners.
Taken together, that all sounds pretty good. But I think what really needs to change is zoning laws. The problem is that the federal government has no control over the zoning ordinances of local communities. Hell, state governments barely have control over that. Usually whenever a rezoning of a neighborhood is brought up, it causes a firestorm at city council meetings.
Wait, so apparently Americans don't want neoliberal economic policies so they didn't vote for Kamala, but instead voted for Trump and his neoliberal economic policies?
This shit is stupid and old already. It reeks of people using unhealthy coping mechanism to deal with the idea that the average American shifted even further right.
The average american doesn't know what neoliberal economic policies are, but the average american can feel the impact of neoliberalism on a daily basis. Convincing people you have a solution to what everyone knows is wrong (even if your solution is even more neoliberalism and blaming minorities, the old reliable) is what get people in booths.
Conversely, saying things are fine the way they are is the easiest way to lose an election.
What killed Biden and Harris was the outright denial of what people were feeling.
"The economy is hurting us!"
"What are you talking about, Jack? We have the best economy ever! Look... inflation is only 3% (on top of 3%, on top of 9%), we're doing GREAT! Not a joke! I'm serious!"
1/3 of voting age Americans voted for Trump (that 3rd wants fascism)... 1/3 for Kamala, and 1/3 stayed home... A lot of the 1/3 that stayed home did so because they don't want neolib policy, and probably a lot of the 1/3 that voted for her also don't want neolib policy. There's very little to support the idea that anyone "shifted right"... They shifted home when they weren't given an option to vote against genocide and other neolib bullshit
No. The majority 40% didn’t vote, and roughly 30% votes for trump and Harris.
Okay, but my point remains unchanged
Trump’s economic policies aren’t neoliberal so much as mercantilist. He wants tariffs and trade wars. (There’s obviously also a dash of fascist policies where he wants companies to serve him.)
Fascism was the rebranding of mercantilism. State supported industry with a blurry line between state and private actors and owners, all ultimately supported by imperial conquest and colonialism.
Trump verbally promised to change the system. Harris said the system is doing great, you're doing great, anyone who says they aren't doing great doesn't understand the economic genius that is Biden's economy.
The predictable happened. Democrats were warned when Biden tried to take a victory lap on the economy in 2023. They ignored that warning and didn't attempt to pass legislation they knew was required. Even if they failed they could have been seen fighting for the people. We know they knew what the required legislation is because Biden suddenly promised national rent controls right before being forced to step aside. Then Harris silently kept them in her campaign but didn't highlight them again until a week before the election. When she was desperate.
Until Democrats actually show, in their actions, that they're fighting for the working class, the beatings will continue. And no shutting down strikes and one vote on minimum wage isn't going to cut it. They need to be in the news every week on some aspect of the financial pain the working class feels, and repeats are not only okay, but necessary. A term has 208 weeks in it, that's enough to press several issues. They can also do a quarterly podcast, this entire idea of silently governing was proven inferior by FDR. Even Obama had the petition system which generated national conversations. People do not expect that a quiet government is doing something. In fact they are suspicious of it.
This is BS. People saying Kamala was too liberal, or too centrist, she was riding too much on Biden achievements or not enough etc etc.
The real reason for this is that majority of people no longer get their news from MSM, they get their news from social media which are hevily slanted for trump. Not only GOP understands how influential those are, but they are helped with foreign entities who are free to use these media as well.
This also isn't just happening to US but also to Europe.
The fucking solution is to get your family off of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok etc. it is a cancer and essentially hacks their brain.
You might think that social media is great, because everyone can have a voice. This might be true for sites like Lemmy, but in other places what you post is irrelevant, because their algorithm controls what others see. It is very clever, because they can hide behind freedom of speech to not restrict the sites, while essentially still having full control of what it is shown and zero consequences.
With AI they don't even need people anymore they can generate content themselves and say it is a real user.
Why do you think companies involved in social media are also heavily invested with generative AI?
The fucking solution is to get your family off of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok etc. it is a cancer and essentially hacks their brain.
What you're implying here is that people aren't smart enough to navigate social media intelligently, without being duped by propaganda and group think, yet you are.
Protecting dumb people by hiding them from social media, is a bad fix for a symptom of other major problems. Fixing symptoms like this is never a good solution.
What we need is education massively overhauled, to the point it would be unrecognizable to what we have today. People should have the critical thinking skills and educational background to laugh there ass off and shrug off ~~right wing~~ propaganda, and never let it take hold.
This is a much bigger problem, and we're losing significantly, but it's what should be discussed instead of just hiding social media from people.
But who will pay for our campaigns if we don't lick the boot of oligarchs?
Before the 1980s that used to be the unions paying and funding campaigns. The reason Democrats started chasing and boot-licking oligarchs. Is because the unions stopped funding elections and campaigns at the rate they had been before the 1980s. If you can figure out why that was. There were two solid hints given. Then we could probably understand why they're seeking funding from oligarchs. And how we should probably go about changing that.
People love to complain about Democrats begging for oligarchs money without understanding why. Which helps the oligarchs. And gives them even more control over the DNC than they would have otherwise. I'm not saying we should accept the oligarch funding and ownership. But until we come to terms with why that came to be and address it appropriately. It won't end anytime soon.
It sounds like you're saying we need to bribe our politicians to get them to represent us. Is that what you're getting at? Because I fundamentally disagree with that concept.
Democrats:
"The DNC hears ya. The DNC don't care."
The message to Democrats is clear: (insert your agenda here)
Boring
Based on the assumption that it was some economic issue, that lost them the votes, this article is pretty good.
The message to ~~Democrats~~ neo-libs and neo-cons, is clear: you must dump ~~neoliberal economics~~ corporatism.
DNC:
Thanks to idiot non voters there will not be a chance to dump these policies since there wont be another election
Run a shit candidate, get shit turnout. No matter how angrily you lecture.
Hahaha, good one. I'm sure that's exactly what's going to happen.
They shouldn't have existed ever. Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. My spelling may be off.
It goes beyond just that. I think a Democratic presidential candidate could do well addressing elitist thinking in general. I think they could do quite well with a pledge not to appoint anyone to their cabinet or to a court that graduated from an Ivy League school. One of the reasons we keep seeing the same shitty approaches is that both parties recruit heavily from the same handful of schools. This they're recruited from the same social circles. I would suggest that candidates just flat out state that they'll be filling all their major spots with people who got their education at state schools.
Harris and Biden aren't even neoliberal lol. The message was also not clear because the margins of victory were small. We know Trump is going to tank the economy like last time. It's a fact. All of his idiot supporters will keep claiming some sort of perceived benefit because of all the other horrible shit he's going to do that don't affect in the positive whatsoever, but they will PERCEIVE a win.
The message was also not clear because the margins of victory were small.
Yes, but remember: Their opponent was Trump. They should've cinched this election.
You can always rely on Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The post mortem is still on-going but there are two conclusions that ring true for me (so far anyway):
Harris failed to reach middle-Americans: she didn't make many statements about how she was going to tackle inflation and help the average American. Instead she spent WAY too much time trying to secure Republican endorsements.
As a result, voters stayed home. Many of middle America aren't politically active. In the same way, they don't see themselves being affected by Trump's policies (for right or for wrong). Many of these voters did vote for Obama but couldn't be bothered to vote for Harris.
Trump is the first Republican president to win a plurality of votes what 20 years? Trump ran a campaign of "ImMiGrAnTs ArE tHe PrObLeM!1!1!1". He was so unhinged that voters should have voted against him. The numbers so far show that he won a similar number of votes as he did in 2020 so it's looking like his base came out to vote but Democrats didn't.
Republicans fall in line.
Democrats fall in love.
We need better candidates.
Republicans fall in line.
Democrats fall in love.
We need better candidates.
Democrats seem to think they can run shitty candidates and lecture people into falling in line.
If the electorate consisted of 9 people who were doing fine, and one person that wasn't, we would have 9 no votes and one person that voted to destroy the system that allowed the 9 to be doing fine.
We're gonna just continue to blame the Dems while ignoring that a massive online propaganda campaign brainwashed enough morons into voting again for a convicted felon who tried to steal the last election, and already had a dogshit first term? Even if you "fix" the dems, the propaganda will still paint whoever is representing them as worse than the fascist puppets on the other side, and the masses of dimwits will swallow it while thinking they're enlightened centrists.
Look, this chap has all fair points and your favourite deity knows I’d be the first to “put an end to” neoliberalism, but again, it’s all opinion. I haven’t seen anything telling us:
Best we got are some anecdotes about some Latino voters discovering that Trump considers them brown people too, but I’d be far more interested in actual hard numbers. Anyone who knows some?
Everyone is in agreement: the takeaway for Democrats this election is to adopt my specific political views and eliminate any positions that I personally dislike.
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