I wrote this on day 0. And I was not alone.
In a sense this was a failure of voters to identify the greater threat and act to prevent it. But that’s not really the business of the Democratic party. They should be trying to garner votes and provide representation, not point fingers when the electorate fails to do what they anticipated.
Strategically, this is a failure that rests on the shoulders of the Democrats. They utterly miscalculated the relative value of appeasing their rich donors over fighting tooth and nail for the actual coalitions that give them enough clout to win. Ultimately, all donors can do is help get their message out. But in order for that to matter, they have to have an effective message that will draw votes.
They’re never going to have that again by simply clinging to the center and fearing change. They need to speak up and do what’s right. Pass actual economic reform. Speak out against genocide and use their power to stop it instead of fueling it and pretending it isn’t happening. Empower the people instead of ignoring them and talking down to them. Win votes with a compelling platform instead of just pointing across the aisle and saying “at least we’re not them”. It’s clear at this point that that shit does not work.
I’m not saying those who pushed to throw the election rather than picking the lesser of two evils had the right idea, they clearly didn’t and are part of the reason we are where we are. But you know what would have prevented that? Not simply being the lesser of two evils.
Democrats need to do better, or else they need to make way for someone who can.
If they’d given Bernie a real shot in 2016, none of this would be happening. When the next Bernie shows up, they’d better fucking take notice if they ever want a sliver of power again
I’m not saying those who pushed to throw the election rather than picking the lesser of two evils had the right idea, they clearly didn’t and are part of the reason we are where we are. But you know what would have prevented that? Not simply being the lesser of two evils.
This is the conversation I had with so many people. It doesn’t matter if you think voters are dumb to do something (i.e. stay home in protest over Gaza): if you know they’re going to do that, you actually have to react accordingly.
But at this point I’m convinced the Democratic Party leadership would rather Republicans win than progressives, because Republicans don’t threaten their positions in the party.
I’m also afraid that the message they will take away is, “an important portion of our base doesn’t want a woman as president”, rather than, “there’s a portion of our base that we need to excise because they’re misogynists”.
