it’s based on the progressive talking point that democrats lost because Harris wasn’t far enough left.

Is that a talking point? If so, progressives aren’t sticking to it very well. I mean, it’s true, but only because being further left is also further populist. Progressive analysis is far more extensive than “not left enough”. What you are talking about is a straw man constructed by establishment democrats. You love sources, so show me one progressive arguing this way.

You’re not doing work for me.

I am, because this stuff is easy to lookup, and your arguments are nothing but uncritically accepted vibes.

Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see any source for that map.

It’s a map of individual donors by county in the 2020 Democratic primary. The reddit link was the first to come up when I searched. I’ll find you a better link as soon as you show me a progressive saying Democrats lost because they weren’t left enough.

I’m not going to debate based on assumptions. Use your words.

If I have to explain to you that Democrats doing better in elections means getting more votes, I’ll be writing fucking novels. How about using your mind just a little?

I must be missing something.

That’s a little understated. You don’t see the significance of the furthest left Democratic candidate getting through to a fox news audience as applicable to the question?

You really don’t get it and, at this point, I’m happy to just leave it that way.

Care to share those studies?

Why? Is your belief that progressives don’t show up based on anything but establishment talking points? But sure, I’ll do some work for you. See this Pew study.

Who’s “we” and what makes you so confident that you know how to reach “these people”?

Progressives, this, and this.

Better in what way?

Um, get votes? I thought that was pretty obvious.

Which indicates that these voters wanted someone furthest right.

Or, maybe the political universe can’t be captured in a single dimension. Most of the American public (barely) pays attention to politics for 3-4 months every 4 years. They aren’t exactly policy wonks. The dominant measure today is populist vs establishment. People don’t know what they believe, but they do know that neither party establishment gives two shits about them. They wanted a disruptor, and astoundingly they managed to figure out which candidate that was. Not that Trump will do shit for them, but they will learn that (again) soon enough.

Meanwhile progressives claim the opposite is true: that democrats need to go further left.

Do you know where left and right come from? It was the French parliament after the revolution. The left stood with the people, and the right stood with royalty. Democrats need to stand with the people. As I said above, left vs right political theory isn’t something that most voters (or politicians if we’re being honest) give a shit about. But, with growing inequality and corporate overreach, people do want politicians taking their sides. Trump had more leftist rhetoric than the Democrats.

To not support democrats is to support republicans.

Supporting Democrats and supporting the Democratic Establishment are two different things. I don’t give a shit about red vs blue, but I know that one party is more assailable than the other, so that’s where I look to make change for a better world.

I think Walz in a Walz campaign and Walz in a Harris campaign are two very different things. Walz in that debate was playing the message discipline game and pulling his punches because of it

What planet do you live on? Ever hear of the Lincoln Project? Do you not remember the Republicans throwing out their own Speaker of the House?

The turnout thing is accurate to a point, but is almost always (intentionally) misunderstood. The more left a voter gets, the more engaged they are, and the more likely they are to show up and vote for Democrats. That has been shown in multiple studies and is well understood even by establishment bobbleheads.

It’s the vast sea of disengaged and ideologically confused working class Americans that sometimes show up and sometimes don’t. We know how to reach these people, and the Democratic establishment just isn’t that interested. Their process is to message to these folks just enough to get 51% in swing states. That’s what keeps the margins so consistently tight, and Republicans win because reality doesn’t always conform to Democratic expectations.

In order to do better, Democrats have to be willing to anger their patrons. That’s not something they have been willing to do.

What was unique in this election is that the Republicans managed to pick up a lot of those voters. This election wasn’t swung by voter turnout. The unreliable voters turned out, but they turned out for Republicans. Democrats have now officially become the party of the wealthy,band Republicans are now the party of the working class. That’s obviously an insane disaster, and it’s pathetic that anyone is still defending the Democratic establishment.

A little baking soda to lower the PH takes away some of the unpleasantness. With the right PH, salinity, and temperature, you barely feel the water flowing. You can also add just a drop of baby shampoo to help clean out crusties.

How exactly do you make raising profit margins illegal? You can do it for natural disasters and such, but companies raising prices when the market allows is just what all companies do all the time.

The government is capable of addressing these issues, but not by making profiteering illegal. They need to break up monopolies, vertical integration, and certain trade associations. They also need to address short term performance pay for CEOs. Any performance pay should be tied to company performance over at least the next ten years, not this quarter.

To be fair, you are probably not taking into account all the things Americans have to spend money on that are government services elsewhere. Healthcare alone takes a large chunk of American income. By the time people are spending money on groceries, there is often little or no money left.

Um, yes.

Democratic media strategies haven’t changed since the 90s, and that’s a problem. Also, Trump did the independent media circuit and Kamala just didn’t. In the few sit down interviews Kamala did, her top priority was message discipline, not connecting with voters. Every answer sounded like a stump speech. For all of Trump’s lack of humanity, he came off as far more relatable than Kamala.

The entire campaign model used by the Democrats needs to be shredded. The consultants that have failed over and over and over need to be gone. Democrats need to deliver better for the working class, and they have to get much better at bragging about it. They can’t continue to dull their message so as not to offend wealthy donors.

Voters need a narrative, and narratives need an enemy. Republicans have no problem finding an enemy, they just pick a disadvantaged group and go at it. Democrats must take on the corporate and wealthy interests that are legitimately keeping workers down, and they must do it loudly. That’s the only narrative available to them. The strategy of beating up the targets the Republicans chose, but not as much, is a total loser.

Whatever apathy was down, Democrats did it to themselves. Our job right now is to crush the damn establishment that is intent on continuing to do it. They are trying to throw out a million reasons why this loss was anything but their fault, just so they can go back to business as usual. That cannot happen again.

If you think infighting hurts a party, then why the hell do the Republicans own all three branches? Infighting is critical to prepare the party and build a narrative where voters know what the party is about.

No, now is not the time to play nice with the establishment that got us here. They are lining up a new batch of clones as we speak.

If you want to help the Democrats, then get behind Ben Wikler (best option I’ve seen so far) out of Wisconsin for the DNC chair position. The establishment is going to try and quietly shuffle one of their useless clones while nobody is looking, so look, and tell everyone you know to look. Write to your Democratic representatives and tell them the party needs to find it’s feet again with actual leadership that knows how to connect with working class voters.

So, it’s not what Democrats do in office that matters. It’s not how they dodge and weave every question in every interview until nobody even remembers what was asked. Democrats lose because people are mean to them? Is nobody ever mean to Republicans then?

Yes, but they don’t have the best record on the Supreme Court.

It’s hard to spread FUD about establishment Democrats when they are all clones. America knows exactly what to expect from a Democrat, and it’s not much.

We have a DNC election coming up very soon, and the midterms after that. This is the time to challenge what it means to be a Democrat. If Rahm Emanuel gets the DNC chair, then the next ten years look to be very much like the last ten.

There are legit regulatory issues that strongly incentivize manufactures to sell giant vehicles. Fuel efficiency standards for larger vehicles are a lot easier to meet. A lot of the demand for larger vehicles is driven by advertising.

Of course people could stop letting corporations drag them around by the nose, but it seems like most of the public still likes it that way.

They’ll definitely get a circus now.

Apathy doesn’t get sown, enthusiasm does. Apathy is the default and it’s the job of a politician to inspire.

I weep for the timeline where Bernie won the 2020 primary.

That’s why you have real primaries. I’d bet Wallz could have won at the top of the ticket. Any Democrat with a scrap of charisma and an anti-establishment vibe could have done it. It was Harris’s ties to Biden that did her in more than anything else.

He could have done it any time between the 6th and the 20th last time and didn’t. He might do it now, or he might not. It all depends on whether he sees personal advantage in it. Trump is big on loyalty, but it only flows one way. The reality is that Trump despises MAGA.

Justice for oligarchs wasn’t on the ballot. No matter which party won, the ruling class was going to remain more equal than the rest of us.

Maybe next time Democrats can do a better job of judging the character of their nominees.

and convicted in a fair trial.

To be fair, that’s kinda just what pardons are for.

I almost want to give Hunter a break because he never would have even been charged if his dad wasn’t President. Then I remember how he misused his father’s status for personal gain. I figure that takes the first issue off the table.