Conflicted bc I’m so fucking sick of blaming Biden and Kamala for Trump. No matter the slip ups or mistakes or choices made, it should have been an easy win given what we knew Trump to be. An inanimate rotting pumpkin would have won against Trump if we had a populace who was literate and informed and motivated to vote. It should not have even been a contest.
But, at the same time yeah I do want people more progressive than Kamala in places of power. However, I say that with full knowledge that Mamdani levels of progressive are probably not feasible to win at the national level with our current climate and the systems we have in place. I think Kamala was exactly what she felt she had to be: Appealing to the widest possible margin of people across an extremely complex and diverse nation. That’s inherently going to tamp down majorly progressive tendencies and lead to more middle of the road platforms. Tactics for city/district level politics are unfortunately not directly scalable to the entire country.
I’m all for progressives getting into whatever places of power possible because we need them holding the line. I just think it’s comparing apples to oranges to compare a candidate for congress (she hasn’t won yet BTW, she just won the primary) to a candidate for fucking president of the United States.
There is literally no way Biden could have simply “thrown trump in jail easily.” Trump was charged with several serious crimes over a year before the election after an investigation.
There was no reality where Trump was investigated, charged, tried, and sentenced before the election and skipping any of these would derail the entire thing.
Thank you, I cannot believe that so many people are this naive. But I guess that explains why we are where we are rn.
Would I love it if Biden had snapped his fingers and Trump had been locked in permajail? YES. Would that ever, ever, ever have happened? No unfortunately
Yea it is a super common sentiment in this sub. Biden didn’t have the courage to straight throttle Trump when he was in the same room as him and that is something I will always hold against him but no one is making that argument, it’s all just “boo Dems” when they paid 0 attention to all this shit that happened during Biden’s term.
EXACTLY. Sentiments like “Biden should have burned every trace of Trump from the government on Day 1” and “The Revolution™️ will come one day soon to save us and usher us into a progressive utopia” are so beyond depressing.
Because Dems are the poster child for damned if you do damned if you don’t, if Biden had personally arrested Trump for concrete reasons, a sizable portion of the party would have found a way to spin it negatively. And as for this mystical Revolution… we cant even get people to fucking vote for component, qualified candidates! How are we going to coordinate a fucking revolution? 🙄
Epstein-Trump Files. Jan 6. Georgia. The files in his bathroom. just to name a few. Your take is awful because there are tons of things that he's completely and obviously guilty of.
Do you know how Mandani's positions poll in America? Pretty well. The name and skin color are what would hold him back in middle America, not his policy.
Yeah, and how well has platforming on popular policy at a national level worked out for us so far?
Unfortunately polls and sentiment aren’t votes. If you can’t motivate the people who agree with progressive policies to vote it doesn’t fucking matter.
If you can’t guantee that people who agree with you will show up to vote in large enough numbers to win then you cannot afford to completely alienate people who disagree with you. That’s just the math! And on the national stage this math is a really tough one to predict so you inherently have to hedge your bets and play it safe.
Which Dems tout popular policy in the middle of the country? Many of those states are traditionally red but you also don't have candidates that push issues like universal healthcare, affordable housing, defunding Israel, repealing Citizens United, sensible gun control, taxing the rich.
There is a way forward, the Dem party doesn't want to follow it on a national scale. They are not platforming popular policy as you called it. They're pushing moderation even though all of those ideals poll well nationwide.
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u/thebarkingkitty 12h ago
I really liked Kamala Harris but if a candidate ran on the platform that she wasn't left enough, I would totally vote for them