Maybe people are more complicated than something that can be measured across a single dimension?
Socialist concepts actually sell a whole lot better in red states than blue, even as the word itself doesn’t. Farmers co-ops are extremely common. VFW halls in rural areas are often busy social centers. Poorer areas like those around abandoned coal mines are totally dependent on federal aid. Such areas care a hell of a lot more about issues than labels.
Take a look on YouTube for some old videos of Bernie doing town halls in the deep south. That will tell you a lot more than I could.
As long as the focus is on blaming voters instead of figuring out how to reach voters, all you are doing is virtue signaling. Blaming voters is a defeatist mentality.
The issue is also not about people voting GOP. Democrats who chase GOP voters lose in almost every case, with rare exception for oddballs like Manchin. Winning elections is all about turnout for Democrats. When there is high turnout, Democrats win, which is why Republicans focus their efforts on suppressing turnout.
People who don’t think either side is working in their best interest and addressing their problems don’t show up to vote. They don’t even show up in conversations on lemmy. They have decided that politics is just a scam they want nothing to do with. That is a direct result of rampant legalized corruption in the Democratic party, and no amount of fear mongering about Trump or Republicans is going to change that.
I’m not telling you that you are wrong, I’m telling you that being right doesn’t win elections. Convincing potential voters that you are in their corner does, and that takes a long time to happen once trust is broken.
Bernie couldn’t even win the primary, how was he supposed to win presidency?
There was a reason Trump was pushing to run against Bernie in 2020.
What was the reason that most voters gave in exit polls for voting for Biden instead of Bernie? Do you know? It was about perceived electability. Bernie and Biden polled nearly identically against Trump, but the media constantly harped on the same false claims you are making here. Beating Trump was Democratic voter’s top priority, and the media relentlessly claimed that Biden was the “safe” candidate, with zero evidence to base it on except for opinions within the establishment bubble. (The same bubble that thought Hillary was a shoe-in.) That is not something that would have been a factor in the general election at all. When voters were asked who’s policies they preferred, Bernie was the clear favorite.
Trump and his campaign were constantly sending mixed messages about whom he would rather face. There is no clear indication of what they really thought. More than anything, Trump wanted division among Democrats. As always, the Republican strategy was to suppress the vote.
https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/trump-sanders-2020-election/
