this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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Then they would lose votes from moderates and lose again
The sheer number of trump voters I've heard say they were originally gonna vote for Bernie is larger than you would imagine.
People are angry the system is rigged, trump channels that anger and says he will solve it. Granted he won't and they're dipshits for believing him, but that's how it goes.
100% of Trump voters I’ve met call Biden and Kamala radical leftist that are responsible for inflation and many other things.
I’m sure there are some fringe trump voters that would vote for Bernie but not enough.
Trump has foreign bots, the billionaire class and republican propaganda machine all helping him.
Bernie would be depending on donations from lower income workers.
I am talking about the voter swing required for trump and GOP to sweep the whole government. That isn't because of Trump supporters, they would vote trump if he personally knifed their mother in front of them. That is because of disenfranchised fence sitters who put zero effort into educating themselves and then vote for a change of leadership off of a gut instinct that a different person cant do worse. Its ignorant and wrong, but look no farther than worldwide elections this year showing a huge ousting of incumbent officials. Inflation has been unreal, and the uneducated think the president controls literally everything (see the "I did that" stickers on gas stations nationwide) People want change but they don't know how to get it, and here is a man yelling and screaming about how he is going to change shit.
I know its difficult to imagine being this ignorant, but i truly believe this is how a lot of people operate. Its not malice, its ignorance and apathy.
I would vote for Bernie but in my experience many voters are closer to the middle of the ideological spectrum than far left or right.
This is very true, a lot of people get wrapped up in their bubbles, either the internet bubble or their own personal bubbles, so they believe the bubble when it says "everyone is left or right" but there's a ton of people sitting in the middle just apathetic towards being invested politically.
The kicker is that those people in the middle are villanized by both sides as being a part of the other side. Instead of them trying to bring them to their ideology, they push them away. But this was what the constant polarization through wedge issues get you, an easily divided populace that is fighting about things the political figures on either end don't actually care about, so you vote for those issues instead of the ones that prevent the ever increasing cancer that is billionaires.
Its all a distraction.
Agreed. It is also the strategy that Russia openly admits to using to defeat the US from within.
In this case, id have to say they're full of shit. We did this to ourselves when the government chose to chase the needs of the capitalist over the people that make up the country. That's like tossing a match into an active fire and saying you started it.
I think think there are more moderates that far left or far right because the majority of people are exposed to talking points from all ideologies.
I think the internet is causing more people to stay inside their echo chambers and drift further left or right instead of being exposed to nuance.
But I suppose capitalism has played a part in forming those echo chambers. Facebook being one example that comes to mind.
There not getting votes from moderates now! Why is it somehow smart and good to go, "wow, moderates didn't vote for us, I guess we have to get more moderate," but it's somehow dumb to say, "the left didn't vote for us, maybe we should go more left?"
Especially because, according the Pew Research Center, you're, "the left doesn't vote," premise is a lie, and people on the far-left and far-right are more likely to vote, donate, and attend rallies than people in the center?
What makes you think moderates arent voting for democrats?
Because they keep fucking losing when they try to pick up moderates. In 2016, Chuck Schumer makes a grand prediction that Democrats will pick up two moderates for every one working-class voter they lose. Turns out they just lost working class voters. A NY Times study showed that hidden Trump voters were much more likely to be moderates. 2020, Biden went much farther to the left than Hillary, and he did better than her with not only moderates but conservatives. Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney to try and flip moderates, and she wound up doing 11 points worse than Biden with moderates.
The Democrats won big with a moderate message exactly once in 1992 when Bill Clinton beat Bush, and they've been chasing that high ever since, even though they keep losing. Gore? Moderate, loser. Kerry? Moderate, loser. Obama? Progressive (at least in platform, he pivoted hard to the center almost immediately), winner. And we've already been over Hillary, Biden, and Harris.
The data is in. Chasing moderate voters is a much worse strategy than having a robust, progressive platform. But they keep doing this, and they keep losing. It's ridiculous.
Biden catered to moderates in 2020 and wouldn’t have won without them.
So you are wrong. Moderates are voting for democrats.
Yeah, no shit, that's literally in my comment! Maybe try rereading it and getting back to me.
This was your comment. How bout you proofread it.
Oh my god, you're right! I should have said, "They're not gaining with moderates and, in fact, are losing moderate support in many crucial elections, especially when they weaken their message to try to be more appealing to them!" What an idiot I am for using concise language that anyone with half a brain would understand.
Anyway, since I'm also a pedantic twat, I looked it up, and it turns out a lot of leftists did show up in 2020! Looks like your assertion that, "The left doesn’t show up to vote," is false as well. Looks like you got some proofreading to do! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They lost moderates to Trump in 2024 for going too far left and the left didn’t show up to fill the gap. Punishing democrats for moving left.
You think they went left? Are you drunk? Are you doing a bit? Did you forget the /s? If you legitimately think she went left, you're probably the only person on the planet that thinks so:
New York Times: Harris to Court Moderates With a Onetime Right-Wing Provocateur
Wall Street Journal: Kamala Harris, with Liz Cheney, Courts Moderates in Pennsylvania
Politico: Harris is courting moderate Republicans.
The AP: Trump targets hardcore partisans, Harris goes after moderates
What, in God's name, makes you think this campaign was more left-leaning than 2020?
Ms Harris supported a number of progressive tax programmes. She co-sponsored a bill with former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to expand social security for the elderly by increasing the tax rate on investments. As a presidential candidate in 2019, she supported a corporate tax rate of 35%, up from 21%. This was more aggressive than President Biden's proposal, which she also backed, to increase the rate to 28%. During her acceptance speech after being confirmed as the Democratic candidate, she said she would "pass a middle class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans". This refers to the restoration of the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit would give families with newborn children a $6,000 (£4,630) tax cut. A campaign official also told the BBC that the vice-president would continue to back President Biden's proposal to not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 (£310,000).
Earlier in her career, Ms Harris supported expanding publicly-funded healthcare programmes that cover the elderly, youth with disabilities and poor. This included backing Medicare-for-All, a progressive policy that would make all healthcare publicly funded. Her campaign told the BBC that she would not push for a single-payer system if elected to the White House. During her vice-presidency, the White House has had health care successes. It reduced prescription drug costs, capped insulin prices at $35, allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices and capped out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare drug coverage. On the campaign trail, she has said that she wants to erase billions of dollars in medical debt for Americans and would work with states on the issue.
As a prosecutor, Ms Harris defended California's climate laws and sued oil companies for environmental damage. She also called for climate change policies via a "Green New Deal" during her 2020 presidential campaign - some of which came to fruition under the current administration.
A) 3 random, disconnected positions are not a lurch to the left, they're just...3 random policies.
B) She abandoned her Medicare for All position before the end of her 2020 run for something less progressive.
C) None of these happened after 2020, how is any of it evidence that they went too far left in 2024?
Anyway, I'm gonna stop replying now. It's a waste of my time, and I'm starting to feel like I'm punching down.
A) they are policies to the left of center. Saying they are random policies doesn’t even make sense.
B) something less progressive but still left of center. Meaning a move to the left.
C) the way time works, things have to happen before 2024 for them to exist in 2024. No one is saying “too far left”. That’s a straw man you are try to create.
Your opinion of how left Kamala was doesn’t matter.
It’s the voters opinions that matters. Republican propaganda convinced voters that Kamala is a radical leftists.
I agree that you should stop replying based on your feelings. Join reality instead.
You Charlie Browns types are just actually incapable of learning, huh?
I learned that “leftists” on lemmy claim they won’t vote unless dems act in a way that would lose votes from other groups. It’s an obvious bad faith argument.
“Leftists” on lemmy aren’t willing to compromise and claim they won’t vote for dems unless dems have the same attitude and also don’t compromise.
America isn’t made up of leftists though so you can’t win in a diverse democracy without compromise.
Lol, okay buddy.