This is the most insane thing you've said in this topic series. REPUBLICAN VOTERS are more adversarial with the party? REALLY? The party who runs on a platform of "Democrats are pure evil and must be stopped at all costs" is the party that holds their own accountable? Meanwhile, the big tent party that has to thread a goddamn tightrope between progressives who think they're not doing enough and moderates who think they're doing too much...THOSE voters fall in line and fawn over their candidates?
Jesus CHRIST, Cyclo. How can you even say that sentence with a straight face?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Kevin_McCarthy_as_Speaker_of_the_HouseThey removed him because he worked with democrats, so their platform of "democrats are evil" was still in full swing here
I think people are talking about different things wrt Republican voters. Internally its super bloodthirsty eg in primaries where its a constant purity test to be the most MAGA. Externally the general Republican voters will just vote for whoever, much more reliably than Democrats. Nobody is wrong here.
correct. and even if you just wanna talk about trump- like foolmo said, a lot of the pre-tea party gop is currently endorsing and voting for kamala. they are willing to oppose trump. other than like tulsi gabbard I have never heard of a dem politician endorsing either the gop or a green or something. they toe the line.
but that's exactly why they get what they want more. one of the things that dems say to jill stein voters etc is "purity tests are for the primaries" but democrats in the primaries STILL vote for the candidate they think is better for the general and not for the candidate they like the most. so the only possible explanations are that either those people are liars, and ARE actually voting for what they want the most, or they are acting not to get what they want, but to stop the other side from doing so.
I think democratic voters prefer moderates more so because they are concerned about electability than because they are against the policies of the left wing. I think the polling supports that. If I am wrong though, all the more reason for leftists to organize somewhere besides the Democratic party.
Isn't it possible that Democratic primary voters just...PREFER the candidate they're voting for? It's not some political calculus about "Well, who can win in the general election?" Isn't it possible that the majority of Democratic primary voters just tend to be moderate rather than progressive?
The main reason people don't default to Democrat in the same way they do Republican, in my eyes, is simple: People don't believe the Democratic Party wants to improve things. In fact, people like Inviso say it all the time "we just need things to stay the same until the Republicans are beaten".
Sure, that's possible. But like we've discussed before, we know President Obama called the other candidates and told them to rally around Biden, and they did.
So they checked out. And they continue to check out because there's no trust! While polling shows an event spli between party identification, the largest group of nonvoters tend to be an ethnically diverse group of the poorest people, that should be Democrats bread and butter.
so your point is that voters voted for what they want (a progressive), and then centrists and republicans teamed up to stop the progressive, and that means democratic voters don't want a progressive? no, they did, they voted for it. the fact that centrists will team up with republicans to oppose progressives is not something I dispute. It is why I do not bother trying with the Democratic party. I know no matter what, centrists will always abandon you even if you win fairly. So I do not consider them my allies whatsoever.
In Florida, there was a race between Marco Rubio(R), Charlie Crist(I), and Kendrick Meeks(D). Charlie Crist is the moderate. He loses to Rubio, because all he really did was take all Kendrick Meeks voters. That is how that plays out in most scenarios. The Lieberman example is an outlier, because it is a really small state, he was a powerful politician, and because the state is so blue, voters were more willing to abandon the R nominee to get Lieberman over the progressive. It really is not a race, which btw was 18 years ago, that says anything about how popular progressive policy is.
The reality is while most people are definitely to right of 99% of people on Board 8 and elections in two party systems are won from the centre, the political establishment tends to overshoot and drastically underestimate how progressive people are on average. In an American context look at the mass support for public healthcare, abortion access, and gun control. That is not being met by the political class, and on at least two of those even the Democrats dont fully agree.
There is absolutely space to the left that the public are willing to accept. Helped by the fact that the Republicans have gone so far-right.
The reality is while most people are definitely to right of 99% of people on Board 8 and elections in two party systems are won from the centre, the political establishment tends to overshoot and drastically underestimate how progressive people are on average. In an American context look at the mass support for public healthcare, abortion access, and gun control. That is not being met by the political class, and on at least two of those even the Democrats dont fully agree.I kinda disagree here. Left-wing policies are popular in general, true, and they get more people to go out and vote. But it's the classic first-past-the-post problem - progressive policies scare away the swing voters who almost always tend more conservative. In an election it doesn't matter if you get an extra 50% on top of the votes you were already getting in areas you're always going to win, it matters if you get that 5% of conservative swing voters in key areas, or at least prevent them from voting against you out of fear. If Democrats pull for any of those issues it's probably an instant loss of a lot of the most important voters, as well as encouraging conservatives who aren't really bothered about voting to get out and vote through fear. Like, Republicans are already so far right and 45% of voters turn out like clockwork for them. The left-wing policies will not be accepted in practicality unless they're dressed up in right-wing populist rhetoric.
There is absolutely space to the left that the public are willing to accept. Helped by the fact that the Republicans have gone so far-right.
Yep political identification is in many ways about culture more than policy. There are probably a good number of Republicans who support left-leaning policies but will always vote Republican because of how they were raised.
I mean, your example is in Connecticut. It tells me what I said, centrists are willing to work with Republicans to stop progressives. (which is why anyone who believes them when they call you a piece of shit etc for not voting for them to stop republicans is a mark, rube, etc.) My example is in Florida. it tells me Florida is pretty moderate and has an extremely weak Democratic party (and always has and still does) .
I kinda disagree here. Left-wing policies are popular in general, true, and they get more people to go out and vote. But it's the classic first-past-the-post problem - progressive policies scare away the swing voters who almost always tend more conservative. In an election it doesn't matter if you get an extra 50% on top of the votes you were already getting in areas you're always going to win, it matters if you get that 5% of conservative swing voters in key areas, or at least prevent them from voting against you out of fear. If Democrats pull for any of those issues it's probably an instant loss of a lot of the most important voters, as well as encouraging conservatives who aren't really bothered about voting to get out and vote through fear. Like, Republicans are already so far right and 45% of voters turn out like clockwork for them.
The reality is while most people are definitely to right of 99% of people on Board 8 and elections in two party systems are won from the centre, the political establishment tends to overshoot and drastically underestimate how progressive people are on average. In an American context look at the mass support for public healthcare, abortion access, and gun control. That is not being met by the political class, and on at least two of those even the Democrats dont fully agree.
There is absolutely space to the left that the public are willing to accept. Helped by the fact that the Republicans have gone so far-right.
the "extreme" social issues posts like HeroicCrono (is that TimJab? Remind me who this is?)red sox
...WHAT? How...how do you see an election result of "Republican candidate gets approximately 49% of the vote, Independent candidate/Former Republican governor gets approximately 30% of the vote, Democratic candidate gets approximately 20% of the vote" and think "That spells moderate and the Democratic Party apparatus is just really bad"? Like, if you're adding the numbers and saying "50% didn't vote Republican compared to 49% that did"...okay. But you then HAVE to take the other side and say "79% didn't vote Democrat compared to 20% that did". Like...do you understand that, to me, that comes across as absurd levels of mental gymnastics, all to deny the statement of "American voters are not as progressive as we believe they are/should be"?
I agree, not making things worse is a positive, but that puts the left in a position of we offer you maybe things not getting worse and the right gets cabinet position under a Democratic President.
Yep political identification is in many ways about culture more than policy. There are probably a good number of Republicans who support left-leaning policies but will always vote Republican because of how they were raised.Why is why nearly 100% of major issues are centered around demographics. Abortion and immigration primarily, but also public school which supposedly have the power to change someone's demographic (make kids trans, etc)
Oh to be clear I agree with that fully in principle, I just think they overshoot and go more centrist than they actually need to in order to win (which I think Labour did in the UK as well). Like 60% of people in the US support public healthcare provision, you can win an election with that in your platform.
I'd like to piggyback off what Thorn said above (because A, I agree with him, and B, I recall either earlier in this topic, or in the last topic, he felt that we'd completely ignored his contribution...and I definitely don't want to ignore that.) I think--and I fully acknowledge that this is likely where a lot of progressives are getting their belief in progressive popularity from--that if you took individual progressive policies completely in a vacuum, without any context or discussion of potential impact on taxes, most people would probably vote favorably. But the problem is that the only one of the two parties who makes any effort to address those popular policies...gets none of that popularity rubbed off on them. They are constantly told via elections that voters would rather put politicians in power that stand AGAINST those massively popular progressive policies. And the message THAT sends is that EITHER those policies aren't as popular as polling would suggest...OR they might be popular, but they're not as important as other policies are when it comes to determining which candidate to vote for.
I know I'm a broken record on this, but this position belies how either of Bernie's campaigns worked.
He legitimately got "moderate/center" working class voters to come into his fold, because people believed him when he said he wanted to improve their economic conditions. At the end of the day, the "extreme" social issues posts like HeroicCrono (is that TimJab? Remind me who this is?) say scare people away only scare away people who don't think the economic benefits make it worthwhile. If their needs were being met, they would have a whole lot less time to stew and become disgruntled over the social issues that don't actually affect their life at all.
The way it is now, they see their lives getting worse and assume it has to be because of the leftist weirdos, when it reality it's the morons in the center who also let the "leftist weirdos" take the blame when they don't do shit.
ok well people like you call anyone who votes based on policies and red lines a massive piece of shit so how do you expect us to give politicians the hint that policies matter and send that message if we don't ever send that message
I mean...this is just me spitballing...but maybe consider WHICH politicians you need to be sending the message to
I have done so and decided to go with the ones who are closer to where I am at instead of the ones who literally are nowhere near me.
not being a centrist is not my problem its your problem. it works great for me.
Then why are you complaining so much about the Democrats? If everything's so great, then you should be fine with them understandably ignoring what you want when you actively choose to remove yourself from the political process.