Best I could do without a definition for the stupid use of “leftist extremists” with no definition. My point is, there is zero evidence to blame this election on leftists of any stripe.

You have data to back that up I assume?

Biden had polling in his hands that said Trump would get 400 electoral votes against him on the day he decided to run for a second term. Then he held on just long enough to make certain we would have no primary and be stuck with a candidate who couldn’t shake the stink of his presidency.

Harris lost the popular vote by over 4-million votes. There aren’t that many “leftist extremists” in the whole damn country, and only a small subset of those wouldn’t have voted for Harris.

The vast bulk of those who stayed home were left leaning apolitical normies. Most of the country fits in that group.

Maybe they both die and we get Mike Johnson!

The sad part is that that also describes what the Democrats did to get us into this mess.

For the US to readopt slavery, wouldn’t it have to give slavery up first? The thirteenth amendment specifically allows for the enslavement of prisoners. That’s a big part of the reason we put so many blacks in prison.

Not one Republican ended up voting for it anyways. Most of the compromises were for blue dog Democrats.

There is no way we don’t get a massive recession or worse in Trump’s presidency. MAGA won’t care, but a lot of the idiot moderates always blame the incumbent party and will vote in a Democrat.

All it takes to eliminate the filibuster is a bare majority. Democrats did it selectively to carve out exceptions for the few promises they actually wanted to fulfill.

It’s certainly not obvious to many within the Democratic establishment sphere. historic_flawlessly_run_campaign

Exactly what it should look like next time is hard to say because it will to a large extent depend on the candidate and what issues have the public’s attention. There certainly should be a lot more engagement with independent media. Progressives had an early lead in that area, but that was mostly quashed by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats threatening regulation to get social media companies to dis-empower independent news in favor of corporate controlled sources. Republicans then spent a fortune promoting right wing channels while Democrats did nothing. This goes to the root issue that Republicans seek out engagement with their base, while Democrats avoid it as much as possible.

Another thing would be for Democrats to drop messaging with technocratic measures that don’t sync up with how voters feel about the economy. While the economy is technically in good shape, a lot of voters in any economy will be suffering. The message received becomes “we don’t plan to change our approach regardless of how the economy is working for you.” When interest rates skyrocket, the impact doesn’t go away once they are back under control. When inflation skyrocketed, Democrats tried to minimize the issue when they should have mirrored the outrage and focused on how Trump policies created it.

In the big picture, Democrats need to get serious about going after wealth inequality. This improved somewhat with Biden, but Biden was incapable of selling it, and Harris barely tried. She let Trump take the lead on working class economics and had to chase the “no tax on tips” and “no tax on Social Security”. Playing catch-up just made her look insincere. (Yes, ironic given Trump)

The American middle class has been under siege for decades, and they know it. It’s human nature that they need someone to blame. Republicans hand them immigrants, LGBTQ+ and DEI. Democrats step in on the defense, but they offer no competing villain. They could tell the truth and show how corporate money and Billionaires have bought legislation to give themselves an advantage over consumers, but Democrats don’t want to do that (for reasons you can speculate on). Democrats won’t even go after clear cases of Republican corruption with any level of conviction.

The town hall meeting Bernie did on Fox was a great example of how Democrats can reach a right wing audience with left wing rhetoric. Running to the center never works, but speaking to their struggles and frustration in a real way can.

It’s not like progressives haven’t been shouting the answer to this for the past 20 years, but here it is again from an apparently recent convert from within the Democratic establishment camp.

Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?

What it doesn’t look like is campaigning with Liz Cheney. It doesn’t look like sending Bill Clinton to Michigan to lecture Muslims on how important it is to fund Israel’s genocide. It doesn’t look like Biden’s garbage gaff. It sure as hell doesn’t look like Harris having no answer to the question of how she would break with the Biden administration. All of these failures might have been irrelevant were it not for 50 years of Democrats looking down their nose at working Americans. A lot of it is policy, but a lot is just a failure of messaging.

That’s good advice no matter what the political situation is. However, it’s pretty irrelevant in facing a Trump presidency. It does nothing for economic turmoil, crumbling infrastructure, etc. It’s also irrelevant to facing down federal or state force. If the cops want into your house and have legal cover, you aren’t going to stop them by force of arms.

Organize my community to do what? Refocus on what? Revolution?

Until the next election is cancelled, I plan on trying to win it. That means understanding how the Democrats failed.

And what useful action does this information enable us to take? Next election, should we nominate better voters?

We have the voters we have. We need Democrats that can reach those voters. Blaming them wins us nothing.

This is awesome. You just absolutely nailed the exact cause. Now all we have to do is what? Eliminate the voters? That sounds like the Republican plan to me.

Or maybe your plan is to convince the voters to do otherwise? Don’t you think the politicians have a tiny little bit of responsibility in that area?

Neoliberalism leads to fascism via a well understood pattern that’s currently repeating all around the globe. If you want better voters, then you need better Democrats.

You aren’t looking for solutions, you’re looking for someone to blame. Quit bitching and start working towards something better, or you’re as useless as the Democratic establishment.

Yeah. This is the most unsatisfying “I told you so” opportunity of my life - by a long shot.

I really think the Democratic establishment saw it coming and tried to stop it. What I don’t think they understand is why they failed. They seem to have a neverending capacity to delude themselves with the idea that they just didn’t “centrist” hard enough. It’s almost like they’re paid to think that.

Agreed. However, I’m less bitter about 2016 than 2020 because Bernie was such a longshot who wasn’t even running to win at the outset. The establishment also didn’t get that Trump could actually win. By 2020 their eyes were wide open about Trump, Bernie was a serious contender, and the establishment did everything they could to undermine him. That was a totally unforced error made with full knowledge of the risks.

Aside from being aware of the rightward motion I’m not really well versed on European politics. The best we have in the US is the Working Family’s party that primarily works within the Democratic party because of our two party system.

I know Spain has done some interesting things with restructuring corporations to put workers in charge. I’m not familiar with the political landscape that made that possible.

The 2020 primary was a joke too. The Democratic establishment manipulated it with a heavy hand in plain sight of everyone. Even so, their first choice, Kamala, flamed out spectacularly. Yet, somehow, we ended up with her being crowned as the next nominee almost before anyone saw it was happening.

I think it’s fair to say that we wouldn’t be in this position today if Bernie had won. The “anyone but Bernie” coalition is 100% responsible for the next 4 years.

Don’t blame it on populism. Populism is just people objecting to the ruling elite and a rigged economy. It’s right wing populism that always gets paired with nationalism and xenophobia to breed fascism. Left wing populists don’t have the same tendency.