That would require getting elected, which would require them being broadly popular.
Barack Obama pulled off a surprise victory over the established Democratic candidates by campaigning on a message of hope and change. Of course his administration ended up only slightly more progressive than a standard Democrat’s, but the fact remains that a non-mainstream candidate can run and win on the promise of progressive reform.
I think Biden has been more progressive then Obama. Yeah, Obama was a minority and he was a damn good orator and importantly he wasn’t Hillary. He represented progress. But his actual policies? Nah. There is something aspirational about having someone who isn’t another old white man, and I think Obama was a decent President, just not particularly progressive.
I like to think Obama walked the worlds highest tight rope and never flinched. That was more progress than America had ever seen before. He also established that it is character not color that makes a leader. The current GOP rather burn it all down than accept these simple truths.
And the established dem party learned from their mistakes. It will be much tougher to slide a progressive by again.
More specifically, progressives would have to actually turn the fuck out for those progressives at the primaries.
Bernie can tell you counting on that is counting on pigs flying.
Bernie’s strategy to victory was turning out a huge number of young people and disaffected non voters. He lamented in the last months of his campaign that he wasn’t getting the numbers he needed.
It’s so much easier to blame the corrupt DNC than to recognize we need to work on turnout and a broadened message. It should be obvious after 2016 that the virtue of a righteous message is not enough on its own to get a following.
A platform of legal weed, free college, free healthcare, and student loan forgiveness couldn’t even achieve a 75% turnout of young voters – and I say that as someone who was mid 20s in 2020. You could hardly imagine a better platform for young people. There needs to be a much, much better ground game for progressives to win.
Bernie wasn’t on the ballot though, because he got fucked out of the opportunity. Of course the people who were incredibly motivated to vote for him didn’t show up when they were denied the opportunity to vote for him. That’s not a failure of Bernie’s message, that’s a failure of the establishment to embrace a message that motivates young and disaffected voters.
He sure as hell was at my (very close to national average demographics district’s) caucus in 2020. Damn near the whole room lined up for Biden nearly instantly. It was the same for Hillary in 2016, btw. These lies people like to repeat on the internet about how one progressive or another has overwhelming support and only loses out due to manipulation by the democratic party are not borne or by reality, and I think are often spread by those trying to either disenfranchise left voters, or are the voters that fell for it and are now doing the dirty work of repeating the lies.
Sorry, but you give people free food, they’ll show up and cheer for any one. Hell. May not even need to bribe them with food.
Also it’s not 2020, and I wonder how many people are okay with his support of Israel’s genocide? Or his track record on climate.
Biden is not broadly popular, and you’re telling the same lies you’re accusing others. Biden is broadly tolerated- and as always been merely tolerated.
