Vote for the change you want to see.
The Republican party got remade because trumpists showed up and outvoted the party elites. No reason it can’t happen for the Left except for laziness and apathy.
If all the progressives furious about the state of affairs now had shown up for Sanders in 2016, I doubt we’d be in this hellish timeline. Sadly, he needed the young progressive vote to show up.
Bernie was doing well in 2016 until the DNC kneecapped him.
Get money out elections if you want change, but neither party is willing to. The oligarchy works for itself
Obama outperformed the establishment Democratic candidate in 2008 and became the candidate. It’s not impossible.
You just proved OP’s point.
Look at Obama. No one thought he could get past Hilary in 2008. He got his people motivated and hit the streets.
You want to get your candidate in? Organize!
That was before citizens united. This doesnt prove op’s left bashing. Like I said earlier GET MONEY OUT OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS
Sorry, there’s no magic genii going to pop up and reverse that decision.
You want change? Roll up your sleeves and get to work. And typing all caps doesn’t count as work.
Did the DNC stop anyone from voting? There was nothing to stop us from outvoting the establishment. “Oh no, the moderators liked Clinton!” The RNC tried way harder with trump and failed.
Are we not as capable as goddamn republicans?
Do you understand how superdelegates work? they’re not assigned by vote.
As well, the Bernie campaign was blocked from accessing the voter rolls because they reported a bug to the DNC that allowed them to view stuff the clinton campaign was doing. They did not exploit it, they just reported it.
Also, did you read that hacked/leaked memo where the DNC chair admitted to intentionally sabotaging Bernie’s campaign? no one has ever contested the contents of that memo. in fact the DNC chair resigned over it. (and you’re an idiot if you think Hilary wasn’t pressuring the DNC chair to do just that. Hilary always has someone else to throw under her campaign bus.)
You do realize the super delegates never came into play right? I mean I’m sure they would have if they needed them to but it never got that far.
Maybe you don’t?
Sanders didn’t win a majority of the votes so whether the super delegates would’ve over-ridden the votes is fairly irrelevant.
You can argue it wasn’t a completely balanced playing field but there was nothing stopping us from winning the votes except for our refusal to show up rather than bitch online.
Yes they did actually, do you not know or remember what fucking happened??
This response is ironic considering your post.
Failure to acknowledge how the DNC and super delegates operated in 2016 is a great way to ensure the rightward ratchet.
The super delegates do not change the fact that Clinton got 3,5 million more votes in the primaries than Sanders did. Or, to put it another way, Sanders got 43% of the vote compared to Clinton’s 55%. Those are voters, not pledged delegates.
Blaming superdelegates is a great way to make sure we don’t change a damn thing. (Also, the DNC changed the role of super delegates afterwards to make them less powerful.)
You would vote in the Republic primaries…
Don’t try to stretch the Overton window. You need to move the right side of the window left.
This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries, no matter who won the general election they were better off.
It’s basically ad hoc ranked choice and it prevents extremist candidates from winning.
This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries
The black voter enjoyed a heavy Republican bias for nearly a century, and suffered much of the same treatment (GOP treated them as a captured constituency, Dixiecrats suppressed their turnout with fraud, incarceration, and terrorism).
By Kennedy, the northern Dems were embracing civil rights not as an electoral strategy but a labor organizing strategy. The vote was largely split, with black voters biasing by party in individual regions rather than as a national block.
It wasn’t into Clinton - when Southern Strategy Repubs had fully purged their party of black voters - that the trend was fully reversed. That wasn’t a decision by the NAACP or the median black voter. It was a Nixonian gambit. Black voters were viewed as a handicap. Appealing to fascism was how you obtained a majority in American politics.
Reagan, the Bushs, and then Trump seemed to further this theory. You’ll get two white voters for every black voter you lose, by being the most racist candidate in the ticket.
remind me, what Primary did I get to vote in to pick against Harris?
She was on the ballot in the primaries, which is entirely the point of the post.
I would need to know what US state [if any] you are registerer to vote in to look up what your primary options were. And how you might have used it best to state an opinion.
In NJ:
We did have the uncommited option (got 9%, nearly the rest to Biden at the time, you could have also written in any other elegable person) However we also had a senate race:
In the democratic primary senator race, the results were (aprox) 9% for Lawrence Hamm 16% for Patricia Campos-Medina 75% for Andy Kim
If you want the US to be less involved with the Netanyahu government Kim was the worse of the three.
And this decision (ie who will be in the senate, driving laws) makes a huge difference in the party wide policy, that is the primary policy Biden (now Harris) is following… Since the president is inherently a centrist roll. (Ie center of those the people elect, this can of course shift left/right/up/down/ect with the electorate)
Is the system perfect no… (but posts on instant runnoff voting, or ranked choice will make the post a book, and they are not yet the system in play, last these systems would really only help reiterate the signal the primaries give… It would be still someone in the center of the electorate at the top… And if we are lucky more parties)
Not the best argument in 2024 given the circumstance but yes, in 2020, the “we need someone to beat Trump” crowd scoffed on the idea of Warren (my pick) or Bernie. But with the current system it kind of makes less sense too since Biden mostly won support in states he had no shot winning, so by the time it was even CAs turn there was no hope.
At least in 2008 I felt like it worked. Obama was a thousand times better than Clinton.
Totally fair point about 2024. Though I would suggest that given Sanders’ outspoken opposition to what’s happening in Gaza, we might have a very different situation in the middle East had progressives voted in sufficient numbers in 2020. (Which in of itself would be a good thing but when I see complaints about Harris also being bad for Palestineans, this is my first thought.)
I doubt it would have made a difference. DWS would have ratfucked it for Hilary even if Bernie got more votes. Nobody ever remembers the unpledged delegates which are about 20% of the total and don’t have to follow the will of the voters.
Meh, I’d be pretty stunned if Bernie had won more votes and then the super delegates turned around and gave it to Clinton.
Given that we didn’t get anywhere near that, it’s a moot point. Let’s get the majority of votes in a damn primary before we start complaining about what the super delegates might or might not do.
Yeah, I know exactly why you memed it and I’m only poking fun since 2024 was primary-less. I’m not sure if anyone would have approached Gaza differently (save for some of the crazier options, like Tulsi Gabbard) because even Bernie might find himself in a bind on this one.
At this point I almost fell like we just need more people to get into politics. More AOCs rising the ranks, but even getting smarter people running the DNC. Too bad most of the poli-sci people I’ve met in school were dense as hell.
Edit: oh dear, 2020 was more depressing primary than I remember. Biden won such Democratic strongholds as… Oklahoma. Texas. Arkansas. Alabama. etc etc. I get that the minority blue in those states should get some say, but they are who you can thank for Biden. I mean, Florida handed him 162 delegates to Bernie’s 57. Ugh.
What Democratic primaries?
In case you’re unaware, there were tons of them around the nation. There wasn’t one for the president this time, but there were still plenty of primaries that were very influential. Your local officials have more impact on you than the president does.
There wasn’t one for the president this time, but there were still plenty of primaries that were very influential.
There technically was, it just not one where other candidates can really compete. The incumbent is pretty much guaranteed to win their primary.
AOC has entered the chat.
The guy she unseated in the primary was along term incumbent with lots of connections to the NYC establishment.
No, for the president there literally wasn’t. The party gets to choose to hold a primary. It isn’t a given. Usually they don’t hold one if the previous president is running again. There were primaries for other positions, but there was not a Democratic primary for the president.
So even in local elections people are not allowed to vote for a third party?
What the fuck are you talking about? Do you just want to act like you’re a victim for no reason, while also acting like you have some moral highground?
Of course you can vote third party. I’d still do it strategically, but local is where they can actually win and gain influence. You can also vote in the Democrat and third party primaries (if they have them) to get candidates that suit you better.
Odds are a leftist will run under the Democrat banner, and try to win local primaries, and this is how parties change. They don’t change from presidential elections (usually, Trump arguably did but I’d argue that change was happening for a long time locally first). You need to win local elections and build a power base of enthusiastic voters and experienced politicians (and donors). They usually have to prove themselves locally first, and if you aren’t supporting them then you’re never going to have someone you like in positions of power.
You’re allowed to do whatever you want.
If you want to actually make a difference you use strategy.
The smart play is to get a Left leaning Dem nominated. Most voters aren’t going to vote for a 3rd Party candidate no matter how good they are.
I’d rather vote for a mild Left candidate who has a real chance of winning than throw my vote away on my ideal candidate.
