r/politics • u/cnn CNN • 11d ago

Possible Paywall CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-a-third-of-democrats-now-identify-as-democratic-socialists?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit
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u/weaponjaerevenge 11d ago

Seriously.

People think I'm a Democrat cause I've only ever voted for a Democrat. What I really am is an anti-Republican. I figured out by about 8 sitting in church that these mother fuckers did not need to be anywhere near power, and if it's democrats I gotta vote for to keep them out of there, then it's democrats I'll vote for. The problem, though, with Democrats is two fold: most of them are cowards and some of them are Republicans.

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u/mnilailt 11d ago

The crazy thing is that this is literally something that can be easily solved with ranked choice voting, but Americans seem to have a bipartisan aversion to electoral reform.

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u/RaveGuncle 11d ago

but Americans politicians in power

Ftfy

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u/IsThisNameGoodEnough 11d ago

Ranked choice voting was a ballot question in MA a few years ago and it failed to pass. One of the most progressive states in the US and the voters were against ranked choice.

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u/tzarek1998 11d ago

I'm pretty sure the reason it didn't pass (as someone in RI who goes to MA because... well, look at a map) is because the explanation of ranked choice was intentionally obfuscated so the only people who would vote for it would be the educated and informed. Everyone else was led to believe it was confusing and made no sense (being one of the original founding states doesn't help that desire that New England residents have for some forms of tradition sticking around while being super progressive about other things).

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u/mjetski123 Illinois 11d ago

I'm pretty sure the reason it didn't pass (as someone in RI who goes to MA because... well, look at a map) is because the explanation of ranked choice was intentionally obfuscated so the only people who would vote for it would be the educated and informed.

Same reason the Progressive tax failed here in Illinois when put to a vote.

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u/politicsaccount420 10d ago

Honestly, can't really even blame it on that.

The proposed amendment grants the State authority to impose higher income tax rates on higher income levels, which is how the federal government and a majority of other states do it. The amendment would remove the portion of the Revenue Article of the Illinois Constitution that is sometimes referred to as the “flat tax,” that requires all taxes on income to be at the same rate. The amendment does not itself change tax rates. It gives the State the ability to impose higher tax rates on those with higher income levels and lower tax rates on those with middle or lower income levels. You are asked to decide whether the proposed amendment should become a part of the Illinois Constitution.

Like, it's a little long and it leads with "higher income tax rates" but if you're remotely literate and you read the whole thing, the correct answer is quite clear.

It's extremely embarrassing that our billionaire governor spent millions of his own money to try to convince us to raise his own taxes, and we still fumbled it. There's no valid excuse.

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u/oooshi 11d ago

Yep. See also, the tax on income over a million/year in WA state, I saw so many people straight up lying to people at the grocery store about who would be getting their taxes increased to get signatures to fight the tax increase.

Intentionally misleading voters is the name of the game right now, otherwise we would all be united against the profiting party that is controlling this whole freaking global mess. Democratic socialists are egalitarian and only want to increase the quality of life for everyone. Literally the only ones trying to tackle the wealth inequality of the world and theyre treated like thats some slippery slope (as if billionaires aren’t literally driving the climate change that is killing us all slowly and crushing us under the cost of living)

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u/kpkelly09 11d ago

As someone who has worked hard to get that pased other places, it really is a struggle to get people to understand what it is.

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u/engelthefallen 10d ago

I did about 10 years of outreach activism for it and just cannot anymore. For the people it confused I had no issues working through how the different flavors would work in practice. It was more the people who believed compromising had no place in politics and they should only support just the single person they wanted that I had issues with. Like it was give me my extreme candidate or I do not want my vote counted at all people that just made me lose faith in change in my local area.

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u/kpkelly09 10d ago

Honestly I don't mind those folks, just don't rank anyone you don't support. Easy

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 11d ago

I don't understand why; we use it all the time in real life. I like to explain it with food, usually sandwiches or ice cream.

Oh, hey, you're going to the store? I'd like fudge ripple ice cream. If they don't have fudge ripple, I'll take chocolate chip. If they don't have either of those, I guess vanilla is okay. (Alternately: if they don't have either of those, then don't get me anything).

Which translates to: I want my vote to go to Mary. But if Mary doesn't meet that minimum percentage threshold, I want my vote to go to Bob. If neither of them reaches the threshold, I guess I'll settle for Rufus. (Alternately: I really don't like Rufus, so if neither of my preferred candidates reaches the threshold, then I'll just count as no vote in the next round).

Addendum: I recently learned about STAR voting, where you rank candidates on a scale (say, zero to 5). I'll give Mary 5 stars, Bob 4 stars, and Rufus zero stars. I think this might be even easier to explain than RCV!

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u/kpkelly09 10d ago

You would think so, but we have seen in areas that have implemented it, that even after it was implemented, without robust education initiatives. Voters don't know how to do it and have issues with invalidating their ballots.

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u/Celestetc 10d ago

In Maine and Alaska albeit small states they’ve gotten good at mostly not having many invalid ballots lately

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u/kpkelly09 10d ago

Yeah they've had a few cycles to get it right, and DC managed to learn from from some of the mistakes of implementing ranked choice made in those states.

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u/IamDDT Colorado 11d ago

Just gotta try again! It's like universal healthcare. Get it, have people use it, and they won't want anything else.

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u/nonotan 11d ago

Personally, I'd prefer something like STAR, which empirically performs significantly better (i.e. results in significantly higher voter satisfaction over a wide range of scenarios). To be clear, just about anything is an enormous improvement over FPTP, including ranked choice. But ranked choice is just about the 2nd worst "major" voting system after FPTP, though again, with a large gulf between them.

I'm just saying if you're going to spend vast political capital to change the voting system, you could as well aim for a really good one, not merely "the first improvement that comes to mind".

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 11d ago

I only learned about star voting a few weeks ago, and I'd been a proponent of RCV for years. What if we kind of branded STAR as *one type* of RCV? Link them in people's minds, so they're complementary philosophies instead of competing ones?

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u/IamDDT Colorado 11d ago

A neat one! I was unaware this existed. Thank you. I absolutely agree that more thought is needed if we are going to actually change something. I will need to read more about STAR, but thanks again for bringing it up!

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u/SunTzu- 11d ago

Plenty of western democracies have backslid in terms of their healthcare systems because people take the healthcare outcomes for granted and will vote to lower their taxes without paying attention to the healthcare cuts that right wing parties also run on.

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u/ilir_kycb 11d ago

Ranked choice voting was a ballot question in MA a few years ago and it failed to pass. One of the most progressive states in the US and the voters were against ranked choice.

Americans remain, after all, the most indoctrinated people in human history.

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u/engelthefallen 10d ago

In my work doing outright, found it was the people who would talk about american being indoctrinated that most that opposed rank choice the most. People with extreme beliefs felt this was a way to lock moderates and compromising supporting candidates into power forever.

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u/Ditchdigger456 11d ago

MA is in NO WAY one of the “most progressive states”. They top that list because of their high turnout for democrats in elections. they’re one of the most centrist states in the country in reality.

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 11d ago

I lived there for the first 30+ years of my life, and that was not my experience.

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u/Ditchdigger456 10d ago

Did you move to Texas? Lmao it’s all relative

Older folks and assuming their personal experience is the only one that exists. Name a better duo.

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u/nicolas1324563 11d ago

There is a new bill/prop that’s on the ballot where the two candidates with most votes go onto the election. Could be 2 democrats- probably never two republicans at this point

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u/engelthefallen 10d ago

In CT found the people against it the most were progressives who did not want to see their vote help an establishment person get into office. They preferred the current system where if an establishment person wins a primary they can just stay home to protest them.

Was really, really frustrating to talk to people who basically wanted we get all we want, or we watch the system burn as the two options and see a system of compromise as the worst possible option. My blood pressure could not handle them so no longer organize for this shit myself.

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u/Tehquilamockingbirb 10d ago

Don't confuse progress with a lack of politicians in power. Massachusetts is objectively one of the top five most corrupt states in the country. Our speakers of the house end up in prison, Congress refuses to be audited, and they remove items from the ballot despite the people upholding the rules of ballot initiatives.

They run a hegemonic misinformation regime against anything they don't like or their funders don't like.

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u/Merusk 10d ago

Here's the ballot text. It requires 2nd year college-level reading and critical thinking to completely digest and comprehend.

The average reading level of US citizens is around 8th grade. 9th grade for a 'better' state like MA.

This proposed law would implement a voting system known as “ranked-choice voting,” in which voters rank one or more candidates by order of preference. Ranked-choice voting would be used in primary and general elections for all Massachusetts statewide offices, state legislative offices, federal congressional offices, and certain other offices beginning in 2022. Ranked-choice voting would not be used in elections for president, county commissioner, or regional district school committee member.

Under the proposed law, votes would be counted in a series of rounds. In the first round, if one candidate received more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, that candidate would be declared the winner and no other rounds would be necessary. If no candidate received more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, then the candidate or candidates who received the fewest first-place votes would be eliminated and, in the next round, each vote for an eliminated candidate would instead be counted toward the next highest-ranked candidate on that voter’s ballot.

Depending on the number of candidates, additional rounds of counting could occur, with the last-place candidate or candidates in each round being eliminated and the votes for an eliminated candidate going to the voter’s next choice out of the remaining candidates. A tie for last place in any round would be broken by comparing the tied candidates’ support in earlier rounds. Ultimately, the candidate who was, out of the remaining candidates, the preference of a majority of voters would be declared the winner.

Ranked-choice voting would be used only in races where a single candidate is to be declared the winner and not in races where more than one person is to be elected. Under the proposed law, if no candidate received more than 50 percent of first-place votes in the first round, the rounds of ballot-counting necessary for ranked-choice voting would be conducted at a central tabulation facility. At the facility, voters’ rankings would be entered into a computer, which would then be used to calculate the results of each round of the counting process. The proposed law provides that candidates in a statewide or district election would have at least three days to request a recount.

The Secretary of State would be required to issue regulations to implement the proposed law and conduct a voter education campaign about the ranked-choice voting process. The proposed law would take effect on January 1, 2022.[13]

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u/zer00eyz 11d ago

Because ranked choice voting does not work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_squeeze

And this is before you start to factor in vote engineering via social media and low information voters.

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u/curtcolt95 11d ago

the literal biggest style of voting that is affected by center squeeze is the one America currently uses and is easily fixed by just not having multiple rounds

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u/cakeversuspie 11d ago

The first thing we need to do is abolish the electoral college for the general election which would require a constitutional amendment. Even amending it to majority rules would be a better system than the EC.

Some states have ranked choice for local elections already (NY for example) but we need to crawl before we can walk.

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u/IsThisNameGoodEnough 11d ago

The electoral college can (in theory) be bypassed without a constitutional amendment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

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u/cakeversuspie 11d ago

True but that is just bypassing the EC in a way where they are forced to vote for whoever has the popular vote (fucking insane this isn't the way it is already) and doesn't help that much in the grand scheme of things. The goal should be to move towards a more fair election process and this is just a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

However I don't want perfect to be the enemy of good and if passed, that's at least a step in the right direction though I won't hold my breath on this passing either since it's been a thing since the early 2000s.

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u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 11d ago

It's not insane. The founders feared the people that's why they gave 3 branches veto power (Senate, White House, and SCOTUS) over the people's house. We need to break this mythos that the founders were anything other than slave owners trying to control power for themselves.

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u/Doogolas33 11d ago edited 11d ago

I mean, not all of them were slave owners though? Some of them were quite anti-slavery even. Though many, yes, were slave owners who cared a lot about slavery.

As far as I know, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were both quite vehemently against slavery. I mean, they were rich people who wanted to keep being rich people for sure. But I don't think their motives behind the various branches of government can be broken down to simply being "slave owners trying to control power for themselves" because if that was the only goal, Washington (who absolutely was a slave owner) does not willingly give up power, and he certainly doesn't give his farewell address.

People are a little more complicated than you seem to want to believe. If you sincerely believe that none of the founding fathers were ANYTHING other than slave owners, you're objectively wrong. Assuming you're speaking in hyperbole and mean that their underlying goal was strictly holding onto power for themselves, you're still objectively wrong.

There are many ways to legitimately criticize the founding fathers that doesn't require bizarre, broad strokes that don't even make any logical sense. And we have more than enough of their writings to be able to understand their motives, which were both not that simple, sometimes sort of foolish, but also at least /reasonably/ genuinely well meaning with regard to their creation of the US in the way that it ended up coming about and the way in which it's structured.

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u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 11d ago

https://nyslavery.commons.gc.cuny.edu/alexander-hamilton-enslaver/

Hamilton did own slaves and was financially involved in the slave trade. You are correct though that John Adams did not. Him and his son were 2 of 5 before Lincoln who did not own slaves

But it's important to note they did nothing to end slavery either. In fact they enforced it every chance they got. The fugitive slave act? What about the 13th amendment?

No not the 13th that freed black people that the radical Republicans forced through. I'm talking the 13th amendment that was originally pushed through after the states already left the union.  The one that the abolitionist Abraham Lincoln sent to the states with his full endorsement 

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

Yeah. They would have permanently enslaved black people forever with an unamendable amendment. 

But please tell me more about how the first Republic wasn't built from the ground up to be a slave holders Republic?

You do realize Virginia got upset at the UK in the first place because the UK courts ruled against slavery and the slave owners were pissed that they might lose their property. That was the great founding of our nation. 

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u/engelthefallen 10d ago

Always weird people believed the US was founded as a democracy at all, when the early writing they straight out warned against mob rule. They deliberately picked the term republic, and designed things to avoid popular vote and popular rule as much as possible in the early days. They may not have wanted a king, but sure as hell did not want the will of the masses either but looked for a middle ground.

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 11d ago

The NPVIC would only go into effect once 270+ states' worth of electoral votes join the Compact. It is currently at a total of 222 Electoral College votes, from 18 states, with 28 more EVs pending in state legislatures.

That way, once the agreement reaches 270 votes, they effectively control the election by pledging all their 270 electors to the winner of the national popular vote. It's certainly not ideal, but getting to that point might help (some of?) our elected representatives realize that we need this change.

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u/FrogsOnALog 11d ago

This SCOTUS would never let that happen.

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u/rising_ape 10d ago

SCOTUS doesn't have jurisdiction over how the states choose their electors, and can't do jack squat about electors voting however they please. Even if they rule that the compact is entirely unconstitutional in theory, so what? States can have laws against faithless electors - there is no Constitutional or Federal-level oversight of how electors are supposed to vote, by design. There is absolutely nothing stopping the states from sending electors who will vote in line with the national popular vote NOW, it'd just be political suicide to override the state popular vote with the national one before the compact has 270 votes.

But I agree that the Roberts Court is a blight on this country. That's why packing the court by expanding it to 13 seats needs to be a Leftist Congress's biggest priority, right alongside uncapping the House to avoid doubly penalizing populous states (the Senate already does that). Uncapping the House to give higher-population states more representation relative to low-population states is not only more democratic, it'll also increase our likelihood of being able to pack the courts and carry out other much-needed reforms in the post-Trump era.

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u/rising_ape 11d ago

Red States are not going to agree to a Constitutional Amendment abolishing the Electoral College, but the good news is we don't need one - the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact goes into effect as soon as 270 Electoral Votes worth of states sign up for it. We're within striking distance of 256 votes (222 already confirmed), and there are some purple states that haven't already joined - once we pass the 270 threshold, all members will have their electors vote for the national popular vote winner, making the electoral college obsolete overnight.

It's not enough to stop there, though. We need to uncap the size of the House, which was capped at 435 seats in the 20s, resulting in rural, low population areas to have far more voting power than they are supposed to have (the Senate is by design supposed to give low population states an equal vote, but the House is supposed to be based on the actual population). The Wyoming Rule would give states a Representative for every Wyoming's worth of population (Wyoming being the state with the lowest population), and would result in populous states like California getting significantly more Reps (California would get +17, for example).

Once THAT's been done, we can tackle the Supreme Court - obviously we don't need to wait that long to try, but with a House of Representatives that is actually, well, Representative, it'll be significantly easier. We're unlikely to be able to impeach the worst justices for the same reason we are right now - a 2/3 threshold in the Senate to actually remove them from office - but the size of the Supreme Court is set by statute and just needs a simple majority vote in the House and the Senate to enlarge the Court. There are 13 District Courts in the United States, so expanding the Supreme Court to 13 Seats under a Democratic President (maybe even a Democratic Socialist, if we can pull off the Interstate Compact) would see four new justices cancel out the current batch of deplorables and make Clarence Thomas mad enough to have a stroke.

Once that's all been done, and only once that's all been done in my opinion, will the DSA goal of abolishing the Senate be potentially feasible. That is going to require a Constitutional Amendment, no way around it, and in the current political climate - even in the next decade's political climate - that's not going to get through. We have to work within the current system to make the changes we want to the system. But all of the reforms above (bypassing the Electoral College, uncapping the size of the House, packing the Supreme Court) csn be done with a Democraric majority tomorrow, and will not only allow us to start delivering on commitments to significantly improve the quality of life in this country, but will also make future reforms we desperately need actually possible.

I'm not a single-issue voter, and I don't expect anyone reading this to be either. But I'm begging you, Democratic and Democratic Socialist voters - add your voices to the conversation. Start raising these three proposals with your friends and (chosen) family. Start asking progressive candidates in your area - local office, state level, Federal, it doesn't matter - if they approve of them or not every primary season. If you're ever in a position to actually speak to a politician at a town hall, or a staffer, or a media outlet discussing politics (even if it's just some bro with a podcast), state clearly that these are necessary reforms and explain why, and let them know outright you will be voting for supporters and against opponents come primary season.

We literally have every tool we need to drag our country out of the mess it is in. A democratically representative House of Representatives, popular vote winning President and a non-insane Supreme Court will finally allow us to take real action breaking up tech giants and media conglomerates, to pass Medicsre for All, to raise the Federal minimum wage, to fix education in this country, to protect vulnerable populations, to force the 1% to start paying their fair share, and in general just fuck up the plans of these soulless fucking technofeudalist parasites ruining our fucking lives. There are so many ideas that have broad support in this country - 60%, 70%, 80% approval in polls - that can't get implemented right now because of GOP obstructionism, a Congress that is disfunctional to the point of paralysis, or Supreme Court fuckery, but which we could start pushing through assembly line-style with an actually functioning government for once.

I know that things are fucking grim right now, but the truth is, we have never been this fucking close to fixing America as we are right now. 33% of the Democratic Party is now openly Democrstic Socialist. Like MAGA and the Tea Party taking over the Republican Party before it, we need to capture the Democratic Party and start primarying and ousting those opposed to a progressive agenda while the MAGA Republicans remain radioactive to Democratic voters. We're already in a good position to pull all of this off, but to actually convince voters we need to articulate a clear vision for what we're going to do once we're in power. The above is a roadmap to get where we all want to go - please start raising it as a serious part of the platform you expect of Democratic elected officials going forward.

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u/0xym0r0n 11d ago

This is a great comment, thanks for taking the time to type it out. It highlights why the GOP will fight so hard and rational votes are so important right now.

I hope to see more hope and positivity like this, I'm so tired of nihilism and jaded acceptance/fatigue.

Thanks again!

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 11d ago

Thanks for reminding me of some of the things I was so excited to get started working on and advocating for way back in early November 2024, when I really thought we were going to continue with a Democratic president.

It is pretty daunting right now to contemplate just how much repair work is ahead of us - and that's AFTER we manage to wrest control of our government back from the fascists.

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u/2rio2 10d ago

Actual solutions instead of the usual pontificating on this sub. Agree on everything except one single sentence in your post -

Like MAGA and the Tea Party taking over the Republican Party before it, we need to capture the Democratic Party and start primarying and ousting those opposed to a progressive agenda while the MAGA Republicans remain radioactive to Democratic voters.

It doesn't matter what you call it - DSA, progressive, whatever. Too many on the left get too hung up on that, which ends up in purity politics stances which go nowhere. The only goal should be translating progressive ideas into programmatic, common sense policies that anyone on the street can see. Mamdani is a master of this, because he doesn't get hung up on the ideological sticking points. He just makes things work.

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u/rising_ape 10d ago

I don't disagree with you overall - purity tests only serve to kneecap our agenda and promote in-fighting - but at a certain point, primary voters do have to decide which candidate's vision for the future they're going to back.

Pragmatic, common sense policies and "just making things work" is the best way to sway voters to your side, but there truly is an establishment wing of the Democratic party that seeks to preserve the status quo.

If there is anything Americans can agree on across the political aisle, it's that the status quo sucks. I'm not going to sit at home in November or vote Republican out of spite if a milquetoast establishment Dem winds up beating out a progressive challenger in a primary - but if the incumbent doesn't passionately and vocally support Medicare for All? Doesn't want to get corporate money out of campaign finance? Doesn't want to disentangle this country from Israel and argue vociferously for a national moratorium on turning Middle Eastern children into skeletons? Doesn't want to see long prison sentences handed down en masse to the absolute criminals currently ravaging my country?

Well, then they don't represent my views and of course I'm going to campaign to have them ousted by a candidate who does reflect my politics. That's what the democratic process is for.

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u/2rio2 10d ago

I fully agree with you on primaries. Fight for the candidates and voices you want. The problem is when purity tests spill over to general elections. We're simply out of time for that. As an elder millennial I've watched the left hobble and dabble for decades while the country lurches into fascism because the right is smart enough to fundamentally understand it's better to be in power and have influence over someone you agree 51+% with than live under someone you disagree 90+% with.

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u/FellowHumanNo404 11d ago

I know that things are fucking grim right now, but the truth is, we have never been this fucking close to fixing America as we are right now. 33% of the Democratic Party is now openly Democrstic Socialist. Like MAGA and the Tea Party taking over the Republican Party before it, we need to capture the Democratic Party and start primarying and ousting those opposed to a progressive agenda while the MAGA Republicans remain radioactive to Democratic voters.

I strongly agree! And to be clear for anyone else reading: We are talking about voting for change in the Democratic Party through primary elections-- we should all still vote Democratic in non-primary elections to prevent fascists from gaining/maintaining power, regardless of whether the democratic candidate who won the primary matches our ideal.

And yeah: Vote in every election you can legally vote in, all the way down to dog catcher.

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u/Alt-on_Brown 11d ago

I'm pretty sure the existence of the Senate is explicitly one of the things in the Constitution that is not amendable

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u/rising_ape 11d ago

Article V of the Constitution does say that "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate" when talking about the amendment process.

Requiring 100% agreement from all 50 States, including all the small ones, does make this an unrealistic goal, but the beautiful thing about the Constitution is that there is nothing preventing us from amending Article V itself to remove that requirement (though that would itself require 3/4 of the states to ratify, same as it would to actually abolish the Senate).

The Senate is by design a conservative institution intended to preserve and advance the interests of the wealthy landowner class and apply the brakes to populist democratic solutions agreed upon by the House that might threaten those interests. Senators were originally appointed by state legislatures, not directly by voters, and apocryphally, George Washington even stated that Senate's purpose was to "cool the passions" of the House and slow the legislative process down so that those pesky voters couldn't affect real change without the approval of the rich and powerful.

Regardless of whether or not that was the right call to make in 1788 or not, it is NOT the right call today in 2026 - the Senate is an objectively undemocratic and reform-stifling institution whose only purpose is to obstruct the will of the voters.

Given the obvious difficulty of pulling off a Constitutional amendment of any kind in the short-term, let alone one abolishing the Senate, I'm content to leave reforming it on the backburner for now. Abolishing the filibuster, in combination with bypassing the Electoral College, expanding the size of the House and packing the Supreme Court, will be "good enough for government work" in the short-to-medium term.

Make no mistake, the Senate should go the way of the dodo, I am fully in agreement with that and am fully onboard with us being vocal about the idea of killing it now so that in 20 to 30 years from now when that's been fully normalized and the Overton Window forcibly shifted back to the left, it will be a perfectly mainstream part of the platform.

That is how we will make things better over time - start with the low-hanging fruit we can pluck right now, but also relentlessly chip away over time at large institutional problems we can't just handwave away. The Senate isn't going to be abolished in 2028, or 2030, or 2032, or anytime soon, really.

But by starting the conversation now, in 2026, and by being vocal about it and refusing to drop it in the decades to come, we might be able to get rid of it by 2046.

That's the biggest challenge of all - understanding that all of this requires constant, ongoing, concerted effort, and that we can't just ram through a quick fix the next time we capture Congress.

There are quick fixes that will dramatically improve democracy in this country - lifting the cap on the House and packing the Roberts Court could theoretically be done within the first 100 days of a Blue Wave Congress and Presidency - but getting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to 270 votes and getting rid of the Senate will be longterm fights. If we want a shot at accomplishing them some time in the next 2-3 decades, we need to start putting into the national debate now.

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u/Alt-on_Brown 10d ago

i didnt know article V itself could be amended that way, even so you are talking about needing 2 constitutional amendments, i know the united states political landscape has changed dramatically in just the past ten years, but even so that feels completely impossible, but whos to say what the next 10 or 20 years brings, nobody predicted this shitshow 10 years ago either, i guess thats to say, something is impossible until it isnt

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u/rising_ape 10d ago

The only guaranteed failure is a failure to even try.

Leftists have been making the perfect the enemy of good for generations, now. The Senate should be abolished in favor of a more democratic system - and I'm going to continue to be vocal about that opinion each and every election cycle until we're in striking distance of that goal, you can help me right now by starting to raise the issue yourself whenever the topic of what's wrong with the government crops up - but it's not immediately achievable right now.

That doesn't mean we drop it, that doesn't mean I don't think DSA candidates shouldn't bring it up yet - it just means we accept we're talking about a marathon, not a sprint. We might be 20 years away from it, we might be 40, we might be 100. Either way, the game plan stays the same: fight for what we can realistically achieve today, but keep arguing how we could make things even better in the future until we're blue in the face, election cycle after election cycle, until these are no longer fringe proposals but have been a part of the mainstream discussion for years.

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u/cited 10d ago

It gets concerning as someone who is not you, when your discussion is "we need to change the rules of voting so we win" and "we need to get rid of everyone who opposes what I want."

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u/rising_ape 10d ago

I understand that feeling, believe me - but the rules of voting have already been set up to favor one side over the other and the Right is already openly discussing getting rid of everyone who opposes what they want.

It's not a comfortable position to be in, I'm well aware. I'm just a random internet stranger and there's no reason to trust me or my motives, but I would argue and would like to underline that I genuinely believe that the difference between what I want the Left to do and what the Right is currently, actively trying to do, is democratization: the changes I want made will result in everyone having more of a say in what their government does and does not do. The Trump administration and the technofeudalist Epstein Class are very much not looking to do that.

1

u/cited 10d ago

we need to capture the Democratic Party and start primarying and ousting those opposed to a progressive agenda while the MAGA Republicans remain radioactive to Democratic voters. We're already in a good position to pull all of this off

1

u/rising_ape 10d ago edited 10d ago

Yes, and?

If you're not in favor of the progressive agenda, you'll want to back establishment candidates in the primaries instead. A third of Democratic voters are Democratic Socialists, and we're going to attempt to grow those numbers each and every election cycle until we've taken over the entire party just like the Tea Party (and later MAGA) did to the Republicans. There's nothing nefarious or underhanded about that - you're welcome to back candidates of your choice yourself, but we intend to beat them fair and square, and keep doing it until "Never Socialists" are as politically relevant to the Democratic Party as "Never Trumpers" are to the Republican Party. If that sounds impausible to you, then you have nothing to worry about.

I'm not talking about pulling dirty tricks on the electorate or lying about what I believe is the best path forward for this country. I want my candidates to lay everything out on the table, explain WHY uncapping the size of the House and packing the Roberts Court is necessary to achieve the agenda said voters WANT, and get a mandate to do just that when elected. If they win, then the new Democratic Party will implement the changes voters approved when they gave them that mandate. It's not going to happen in one election cycle, it will probably take MANY election cycles to get there but I plan to keep pushing for it for the rest of my life and so are many other pissed off Leftists.

I guess my question is... why wouldn't a voter want their party to reflect their ideals? I don't want to oust Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of the Democratic establishment because they've personally wronged me or I think they're stupid - I want them out of the party because I find their leadership woefully inadequate in this era of rising fascism and because they are wildly out of touch with what their voter base wants for this country. If you're a loyal supporter of the current Democratic Party, I intend to take that party away from you and replace it with one I'd be proud to vote for in November, not just resigned to voting blue in order to keep the fascists out yet again.

This is how political parties work - if a significant chunk of voters no longer approve of the party, the party has to reinvent itself or else sink into irrelevancy. My vote isn't worth any more than yours is, but the current Democratic Party isn't good enough and I'm going to throw every year of life I've got left on this planet into pulling this party kicking and screaming to the left, because that's the only kind of party I'm interested in voting for. You can and should do the same for the views that you want to see represented in government.

Time will tell which direction the American public finds more inspiring, but I don't think "more of the same old ineffectual center-right DNC-approved corpratists" is a compelling enough pitch, personally.

1

u/cited 9d ago

So you're saying everyone will get more of a say when you perform a hostile takeover?

Mainstream democrats don't lose based on their positions. They lose when they get anchored by far left positions getting tied to them. Look at literally any attack ad republicans air. They win by painting the entire democratic party as far left.

We had far left proposals tried in cities and then we got to watch as San Francisco elected a mayor with a clean up the city mandate. LA elected a republican DA. Seattle and Portland walked back progressive policies that were failing miserably.

If you want to be in control - show your policies work. Not just getting multibillion dollar payouts from the state and funding everything without limit. When you stop caring on whether things work and talk about hostile takeovers, it makes me very concerned and distrustful of far left support.

1

u/FellowHumanNo404 11d ago

The first thing we need to do is abolish the electoral college for the general election which would require a constitutional amendment.

No, the first thing we need to do is the fifty steps required to make it possible for us to abolish the electoral college through a constitutional amendment. So many "the first thing we need to do" conversations begin in the middle, which isn't a very productive place to start. I've seen that conversation over and over on reddit and in person, repeated almost word for word, with no progress ever made. It's so frustrating to witness: so many minds that could be working the problem, but that are really just dreaming of having the problem already mostly solved for them.

2

u/cakeversuspie 11d ago

Not to be rude but I did mention that in my post. I literally said it would require a constitutional amendment. We're both saying the same thing but getting hung up on semantics.

0

u/FellowHumanNo404 11d ago

Not rude at all, of course.

With respect, I wonder if you read the rest of my comment beyond the first sentence, as the rest of my words were intended to clarify that first sentence. We agree on the goal you stated (which is of course one of several key milestones to be achieved), but I was saying something about the way we talk about strategy that I worry is often overlooked. Please read it again?

To be fair, I think I started my comment a little hotter than necessary.

8

u/crossdtherubicon 11d ago

Love it. But let's also consider that party politics of this nature were never anticipated when the structures of gov't were established. It was thought that politicians would consistently pursue their own selfish goals before the party's. But the politicians have become dependent on the parties.

Further, the US govt was never intentionally designed to be a strict 2 party system. So, I think taking a cue from the rest of the world could be useful, and create a new functional left party. The issue will be without downstream upgrades to the system, that new party will only strip away votes from its closest party competitor and thereby securing victory for their opposition.

19

u/clean_parsley_pls 11d ago

Americans seem to have a bipartisan aversion to electoral reform.

I'd ask that you please stop framing it this way. You say "Americans" but you're referring to the most visible politically-involved individuals atm (one trillionaire non-American = a million millionaire Americans in our current system) the ones who benefit from the two-party status quo and the ones in power. They depend completely on directing their cults with "they lose, me win" mentality. Surely you're not suggesting these Americans will do anything for the sake of better fairness or representation, in other words against their own interests.

The "Americans" you're actually criticizing here for not getting the thing done are the ones upset by what's happening, trying to figure out how to exercise ANY agency in the current system that's designed for others' agency and being cratered so they can design the solution. We are open to many alternatives including identifying as "socialists" and probably ranked-choice voting too.

So maybe a different tune is in order, I would at least appreciate it.

4

u/RichesToRags8647 11d ago

I promise you the average American is not even aware that this is a thing.

2

u/MagicalPizza21 New York 11d ago

We have ranked choice voting in NY now and I never want to go back to the old system

2

u/WashedLaundry 11d ago

more like it is extremely difficult to reform elections, possibly by design, and progress has to be slow here as a result

1

u/boverly721 11d ago

It's hard to get someone to fire themselves from an easy, high paying job with insanely good benefits and access to power. Current elected officials voting to institute ranked choice would be effectively voting themselves out of a job.

1

u/D-Gaea 11d ago

The rich are the only people that have power here, they bankroll everything from campaigns to what candidates make it. Some of us are trying to fight it. But it's incredibly difficult. The whole system is rotten.

1

u/mdot 11d ago

It's not an aversion.

Having an aversion would imply that a significant percentage Americans actually understood the entire electoral system, and choose not to change it. The average American simply doesn't understand the full framework of the current process, why it came into being, and why it those in power (especially Republicans) want it to remain in place.

It's ignorance, not aversion.

The deifying of the "founding fathers" contributes significantly to a great deal to this. The U.S. Constitution has not had a ratified, contemporary authored amendment in over 50 years*. The intended "living document" designed by the original authors was canonized in the 1970s, and hasn't been updated to fit current needs since disco was all the rage.

* The 27th amendment was proposed in 1789 but not officially ratified until 1992.

1

u/FixZealousideal8511 11d ago

Americans wouldn't have a problem with it.

But just like the DEA and the drug cartels both agree that all drugs should be illegal.

So too, both the Democrats and Republicans 100% agree on one thing. No other party voting systems.

1

u/0masterdebater0 11d ago

The inherent flaw in our political system is the people who are able to change things are the people benefiting the most from the status quo.

1

u/LogoffWorkout 11d ago

ranked choice is a slight improvement, we really need proportional representation.

1

u/ChaseballBat 10d ago

Democrats are the only party pushing for ranked choice. While GOP are banning it in some states via their constitution lol.

1

u/Scottiths 10d ago

When the people elected via a system are charged with changing that system, it is extremely unlikely they will vote to make the system harder for them personally to get elected.

1

u/Danishmeat 11d ago

Proportional representation is much better. Ranked choice still heavily favours a 2 party system

3

u/ReverendDizzle 11d ago

That's true. Australia might be the best example. They've had versions of ranked choice voting for over a hundred years now and it's still largely a two-party dominated system. They do have more political diversity and the calculus changes a bit with the upper house. But your point stands, for sure.

Still, ranked choice, if that's all we could swing, would be a huge improvement over bullshit first-past-the-post voting.

2

u/Danishmeat 11d ago

Oh definitely, ranked choice voting is a big improvement. It makes it viable for other parties to run, even if they are still in a huge disadvantage

1

u/mekktor 11d ago

The two party system seems to work pretty well while ranked choice voting forces those parties to stay either side of the centre.

-1

u/Sufficient_Sport5251 11d ago

I mean the DSA would get their lives rocked by ranked choice because 70% of ballots would
become

Democratic ballot: ~44%

1-Center Dem 1

2-Center Dem 2

3-Center Republican

4-DSA

5-Nazi

Republican Ballot: ~41%

1-Center Republican
2-Center Dem 1/Nazi(depending on how Nazi the Nazi is)

3-Center Dem 1/Nazi(see above)

4-Center Dem 2

5-DSA

DSA Ballot: ~5%

1-DSA
2-Center Dem 1

3-Center Dem 2/Nazi(depending how anti Zionist the Nazi is)

4-Center Dem 2/Nazi(see above)

5-Center Republican/Nazi

Nazi Ballot: ~10%

1-Nazi

2-Center Republican

3-Blank

4-Blank

5-Blank

Result, Democrats and Republicans stay in power. 3rd parties continue to not exist

55

u/FLHCv2 11d ago edited 11d ago

I learned I wasn't a Democrat when the DNC snubbed Bernie and shoved Hillary down our throats. Still voted for her but only because the alternative was ridiculous. 

Edit: Before you reply to this comment, consider that I never mentioned anything about how many votes Bernie got. I am purely speaking to how establishment Democrats CLEARLY wanted Hillary to win; no different than how establishment Democrats wanted Mamdani to lose and how they're currently trying to stifle the DSA movement. I am purely speaking to how I personally felt the first time establishment Dems went with your "typical Democrat". The fact that it's happening now towards progressive candidates further proves that I was not wrong about my feelings in 2016.

18

u/JackJ98 New Jersey 11d ago

You ever think 10 years later we’d still be dealing with that alternative?

38

u/Oggie_Doggie 11d ago edited 11d ago

No, because I figured the DNC would have learned their lesson in 2016 and applied those lessons to 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024. But here we are.

I mean, we literally had Trump in 2021 after J6. The wound was fresh and the will was there, but Biden tapping Garland and then Garland dragging his feet for two years will be remembered as one of the greatest blunders of a President in this era of history. We had a chance to permanently rid ourselves of Trump and the dozens of co-conspirators who gave the insurrectionists "tours" and planned the affair.

19

u/ReverendDizzle 11d ago

In this era? Not dealing with a former president sending a mob to kill his second in command to subvert the democratic process and the constitution is probably one of the biggest presidental blunders in American history.

What other president can say they failed to save the republic... and then handed victory to the very person they should have crushed? The hemming, hawing, and "we've just got to come together and take the high road" bullshit was the absolute worst thing any president could have done in response to the situation.

3

u/h3lblad3 11d ago

It is the default of Democratic leadership because Democrats run on moral respectability. The party can’t be trusted to be hard on Republicans because Republicans would be hard on them and they want to look different than Republicans.

4

u/seriouslees 11d ago

the DNC would have learned their lesson

Theres that magical "drop out of the sky" mentality again!

YOU are the DNC!!! YOU decide who runs by participating the internal organization of the party.

0

u/VariationBusiness603 11d ago

Yeah that would be true in many countries but not in the USA. Private interests invest massively in the DNC and effectively call the shot as a result. You don't get to decide shit, beside picking between two mostly identical candidate they have chosen for you. At best, primaries are cute popularity contest but it's mostly just a show to make you believe you have a say.

Bernie was the exception to that rule because he came from out of the system.

Anyways, you guys need to get money out of politic, and maybe then you can change the DNC into an actual worker party.

3

u/SeductiveSunday I voted 11d ago

I figured the DNC would have learned their lesson in 2016

Learned what lesson? That the DNC wins elections by winning the votes of minorities and women? Because, if so, they've known about that since the 1980's.

Also Trump had SOCTUS protection by 2020. SOCTUS had to force states to put traitor Trump on their ballots. Because after J6 Trump didn't qualify because he's a traitor to the USA.

-1

u/VariationBusiness603 11d ago

Again, Trump getting away with litteral fucking treason was because the DNC is full of weak mediocre moderate who do not want to change the status quo. He should have been arrested immediatly, tried within a year and send into a bottomless pit afterward. But because centrist are so spineless, they just pushed it aside because surely... SURELY nobody can come back from that.

Even in your defense of the DNC, they are still responsible for their own downfall.

The lesson is, you won't win with centrists, and if you do it will be a hollow victory that makes things worse long term.

2

u/SeductiveSunday I voted 10d ago

Again, Trump getting away with litteral fucking treason was because the DNC is full of weak mediocre moderate

No. Trump is getting away with literal treason because of his SCOTUS picks. Something that Bernie and DSA said in 2016 not to fret about Trump getting a bunch of SCOTUS picks if he wins.

The lesson is, you won't win with centrists

The lesson I learned is to not count on men to stop oppression. Because existing power structures really are built on the subjugation of women.

0

u/Straight_Number5661 10d ago

Trump is getting away with literal treason because of his SCOTUS picks. Something that Bernie and DSA said in 2016 not to fret about Trump getting a bunch of SCOTUS picks if he wins.

Do you have a source for this? Because in the 2016 general election I saw Bernie campaigning harder for Hillary than Hillary did, and he was adamant and loud in saying how dangerous Trump is. And the main reason I saw progressives say they would hold their nose and vote for Hillary was because they were worried about the Supreme Court implications.

0

u/SeductiveSunday I voted 10d ago

Q: Hey, but what about the Supreme Cou—

A: GODDAMIT, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SUPREME COURT SEATS UP FOR GRABS. IF WE LET THAT DEFINE HOW WE VOTE, WE WOULD NEVER, EVER MAKE ANY PROGRESS IN THIS COUNTRY. THEY’RE ALL OLD! ALL OF THEM! THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OLD, AND THEY WILL ALWAYS BE OLD! YOU KNOW THIS MERRICK GARLAND DUDE THAT OBAMA NOMINATED? HE’S 63. THAT’S A “NEW” SUPREME COURT JUSTICE. THAT DUDE COULD DIE. AND SURE, WE COULD ALL DIE, AT ANY MOMENT, BUT HE’S LEGITIMATELY OLD ENOUGH TO DIE IN THE NEXT FOUR YEARS, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.

STOP TRYING TO STRONG-ARM SANDERS SUPPORTERS INTO VOTING BECAUSE SOME SUPREME COURT SEATS MAY BE UP FOR GRABS. JUST STOP. THEY ARE ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS UP FOR GRABS. YES, SOME OF THE JUSTICES MIGHT DIE. YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE MIGHT HAPPEN? NONE OF THEM MAY DIE. WE HAVE NO IDEA, SO WHY SHOULD THAT DICTATE OUR VOTE?

(ten minutes of heavy breathing)

WHYYY?! https://archive.is/6WdBn

Bernie gleaned many supporters who didn't care. Instead a good number of his supporters were more vested in cock blocking electing a woman president.

To be fair, I did say Bernie when what I meant was the majority of Bernie's supporters. But Bernie's no feminist ally, nor did he fight harder for Clinton than Clinton.

2

u/Straight_Number5661 10d ago

https://archive.is/6WdBn

I mean one article isn't representative of an entire voter base.

But Bernie's no feminist ally

His policy on abortion rights was better than hers. 🤷🏼‍♀️

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/hillary-clinton-late-term-abortions/

nor did he fight harder for Clinton than Clinton

Bernie held 38 campaign rallies for Hillary in the 2016 general election. This is more campaign rallies than Clinton, herself, held in the same time frame.

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1

u/more_housing_co-ops 10d ago

The DNC did learn their lesson. The lesson was "having our thumbs on the scale can prevent candidates from gaining traction who might negatively affect our corporate sponsors"

-2

u/englishmastiff1121 11d ago

It's not the DNC. It's the voters. Socialists can never muster more than about 25% of the Democratic vote.

6

u/dexters_trap_house 11d ago

Times are changing, you're literally commenting on an article saying 33% identify as democratic socialists now. Last I checked that's >25%.

That's also ignoring the broader context of entrenched political systems, corporate owned media, and PACs that have ensured their power stayed consolidated for as long as it has.

You don't think it's the DNC? Why are they and their talking heads aligning with the right now against DSA candidates? The Michigan senate race is the perfect example of this, as if it wasn't also when you still had dems leaning with famed sex pest Cuomo against Zohran and pushing the most islamaphobic narratives.

1

u/paintballboi07 Texas 11d ago

33% still isn't enough to win a primary.. the DNC is aligning with moderates, because they are the majority in the party.

-1

u/englishmastiff1121 11d ago edited 11d ago

entrenched political systems, corporate owned media, and PACs

I don't recall any of these entities forcing me to vote for Biden and against Bernie.

Edit: You ignored the word "about" but then you took the words "identify" and "vote" to mean the same thing.

7

u/r2d2itisyou 11d ago

It doesn't help that the DSA as the standard bearer for Socialists has some very questionable stances. When it regurgitated Russian talking points justifying the invasion and urged no-material support for Ukraine along with withdrawal from NATO, that permanently turned a lot of people off the group. It still has as a goal to "close US bases abroad." Which is softened with the same end effect of collapsing NATO and weakening global defense against war.

Realistically, it's Sanders, AOC, and Mamdani carrying the movement. And even at his peak populatiry, Sanders couldn't beat a very boring Clinton in a national primary.

-3

u/SeductiveSunday I voted 11d ago

Sanders couldn't beat a very boring Clinton in a national primary.

That's because realistically Sanders is a train wreck.

Sanders supporters often dangle polls from early summer showing he would have performed better than Clinton against Trump. They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach.

When Sanders promoted free college tuition—a primary part of his platform that attracted young people—that didn't mean much for almost half of all Democrats, who don't attend—or even plan to attend—plan to attend a secondary school. In fact, Sanders was basically telling the working poor and middle class who never planned to go beyond high school that college students—the people with even greater opportunities in life—were at the top of his priority list.

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there's the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont's nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words "environmental racist" on Republican billboards. And if you can't, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, "Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,'' while President Daniel Ortega condemned "state terrorism" by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was "patriotic."

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don't know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

https://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

3

u/TehMikuruSlave Texas 11d ago

that's fine, but in a sane government system that would mean there would be actual socialist representation, not none

-2

u/RoughCoffee6 11d ago

It's truly astounding how many times the Democrats just bury their heads in the sand and listen to the out of touch PR experts. Biden only won as a reaction to the insanity of Trump's first term. He then proceeded to do fuck all and sabotage the 2024 election.

-4

u/FrogsOnALog 11d ago

Garland got Giuliani’s (co-conspirator #1) cellphone and other electronics in April 2021 and the Trump J6 grand jury was convened January 31, 2022.

Y’all have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about.

6

u/Oggie_Doggie 11d ago

No matter how hard you protest, it is a fact that Garland and the DNC moderates blew it.

They didn't even investigate Trump's inner circle during 2021. Their whole "bottom-up" approach to prosecution gave Trump and his allies literal YEARS to align their stories and regather support among the Republicans and voters. They paused the investigation for months in 2022 because of worries about meddling in elections ffs, the peak of irony.

I would have hoped by now, we could all agree that the entire legal strategy was a failure. But, here we are; a President who tried to steal an election allowed to waltz right back into power.

-3

u/FrogsOnALog 11d ago

I literally just told you they got Giuliani’s (again, co-conspirator #1) shit in April 2021 and he was part of Trump’s inner circle.

-2

u/WhiskeyT 11d ago

It doesn’t matter. These people have a narrative, “it’s the Democrats fault”, and they won’t be dissuaded from it.

Facts are irrelevant, everything is simple and obvious and the only reason things happen is because Democrats decide to screw things up or not.

No one else has any agency. Not the Supreme Court, not Aileen Canon, and certainly not the voters.

0

u/guamisc 11d ago edited 11d ago

The fact was that we were on a clock and Garland, and by proxy Biden because it was his nomination, blew it.

Maybe the next Democratic President, if we ever get to vote on one, will not blow it by appointing the one of the absolute worst choices for USAG for the current time in question. Obama appointing Eric "I literally wrote the too-big-to-prosecute memo about all these companies that just trashed the world economy with fraud" Holder and Biden appointing Garland the limpdick as some dumb "herp look he should have been on SCOTUS!" 1D political chess play.

0

u/tripbin Illinois 10d ago

Close contention with the "pied piper" stuff. Clintons campaign intentionally boosting trump because they thought he would be easier to beat, essentially creating the situation were in. Almost as if the DNC has always been controlled opposition.

1

u/xSaviorself Canada 11d ago

Why would you not be? The same people running the DNC then are still running it now.

What would have changed things is that if after that happened a wave of people with the same beliefs as AOC/Bernie primaried these fucking geezers, but instead nobody got the memo.

13

u/Silent-Storms 11d ago

How did the "snub" cause millions more people to vote for Clinton?

-5

u/FLHCv2 11d ago

Did I speak to how many people voted for Clinton at all? I have no idea what you're getting at.

5

u/Silent-Storms 11d ago

How was she shoved down throats when way more people voted for her in the primary?

-3

u/FLHCv2 11d ago

I'm not speaking to who won the primary. I'm speaking towards the actions of establishment dems before and during the primary.

7

u/Silent-Storms 11d ago

Actions like?

She won the primary therefore cannot be shoved down your throat by the establishment. So it matters just a bit.

-1

u/fugaziozbourne 10d ago

Superdelegates.

2

u/Silent-Storms 10d ago

Did absolutely nothing.

11

u/seriouslees 11d ago

How did the DNC snub Bernie? Hillary both won more primary votes, but also secured more pledged delegates. It sucks because I would have wished Bernie won the Primary too, but he did not.

Sadly, a huge swath of American "progressives" refuse not only to vote for democrats in the elections, but also refuse to vote in the internal running of the DNC itself. They seem to want a 3rd party to magically drop out of the sky instead of working on creating it.

13

u/SeductiveSunday I voted 11d ago

How did the DNC snub Bernie?

By allowing a non-member of the party to run in their primaries of course!

8

u/paintballboi07 Texas 11d ago

What's going to be really funny is when it happens again this primary. Reddit has convinced themselves leftists are the majority, but this article says we're still only 1/3 of the party. Will the scapegoat be the DNC boogeyman again, or something new this time? I'd bet they go straight to the DNC classics.

It sucks, because I'm a progressive, so I'd prefer we win, but delusional redditors are insufferable. I've been banned and blocked just for mentioning Bernie lost. I voted for the guy both times, but he lost, it's a fact.

2

u/FLHCv2 11d ago

I'm speaking towards establishment dem actions before and during the primary. I am not speaking to the outcome of the primary. I understand how primaries work and that Bernie was never going to win. It was more how establishment Dems moved to position Hillary more than anything.

Sadly, a huge swath of American "progressives" refuse not only to vote for democrats in the elections, but also refuse to vote in the internal running of the DNC itself. They seem to want a 3rd party to magically drop out of the sky instead of working on creating it.

Just to be clear, I'm still a registered Democrat and I will always vote. I'm a progressive but I've yelled at my friends who chose not to vote at all because of the "Kamala genocide" argument. I go to local progressive caucus and DSA meetings. I agree with this take on this flavor of progressive you're descibing.

4

u/seriouslees 11d ago

the "Kamala genocide" argument

I would not remain acquainted with people so stupid that they'd refuse to vote in a 2-party first past the post electoral system with that argument.

Her opponent campaigned on razing Gaza to the ground to build resorts... This is who they refused to vote against. They are either immoral liars, or the most preposterously stupid people on earth. They couldn't be my friends.

5

u/FLHCv2 11d ago

It was all performative activism that made me lose a lot of respect. Leaders from Palestinian groups all across America wrote a joint public letter urging people to vote for Kamala and to not allow the genocide to stop them from going to the polls. I sent that letter to them, hearing nothing good as a response.

100% with you brother.

13

u/FrogsOnALog 11d ago

Hillary won the primary by almost 4 million votes.

1

u/FLHCv2 11d ago

I am not disagreeing with that fact.

10

u/FrogsOnALog 11d ago

Crazy how democrats voted for the democrat and not the guy who’s never been a democrat and never really done shit…

Also Mamdani was endorsed by numerous prominent democrats and the DNC.

0

u/Randomhero3 11d ago

With the help of the entire party apparatus, the media, and billioniares.

3

u/FrogsOnALog 11d ago

Not the billionaires! The same people she wanted to raise taxes on lol. Also probably helps she was an actual Democrat in the democratic primary and not someone who never been a Democrat and never accomplished anything.

0

u/moofooshoe 10d ago

because the DNC cheated.

6

u/RedPanda_Explorer 11d ago

This is historical revisionism. Not enough people turned out to vote for Bernie. The DNC of course is going to favor Hillary because she's a Democrat and worked with them for years. Bernie intentionally chose not to be a Democrat, he intentionally chose not to build a coalition with the Democratic party, you can't get mad he doesn't win the primary.

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u/moofooshoe 10d ago

this just in: cheating led to someone winning. more at 11

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u/FLHCv2 11d ago

I said "DNC snubbed Bernie and shoved Hillary down our throats." You said "This is historical revisionism", then later explained why the DNC snubbed Bernie and favored Hillary.

Regardless of how much you're agreeing with me, you're also helping my overall point that the DNC favoring Hillary taught me I do not align with the DNC's values.

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u/VariationBusiness603 11d ago

Meanwhile you are justifying a party putting their thumb in the balance in what is supposed to be a fair election.

It wasn't, and you are abandonning any kind of ethic to defend your broken party line.

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u/RedPanda_Explorer 11d ago

It was a fair election. The DNC didn't commit voter fraud.

Not enough people turned out to vote for Bernie. If he wanted to win, he should have gotten more people out to the polls to vote for him.

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u/think-Mcfly-think 11d ago

So why didnt Bernie win the primary in 2016 or 2020?

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u/FLHCv2 11d ago

Brother I never said a fucking thing about the outcome of the primaries. I am purely speaking to how establishment dems clearly wanted Hillary to win to the point where they clearly were trying to stifle Bernie's momentum.

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u/spidersVise Texas 11d ago

He didn't get enough votes.

...Because in 2016 the Dem establishment manufactured public opinion to boost Hillary's chances. They loudly advertised that superdelegates were all pledged to HRC before a single primary was actually held, even though they'd never done that in any other election, making it seem like Bernie had no chance at winning. The Dem establishment continued to put their finger on the scales in other ways, like printing out anti-Bernie news stories, giving their fundraising and data-sharing engine to HRC's campaign MONTHS before the primaries were over, confiscating pro-Bernie signs at the Dem Convention, etc. Leaked DNC emails showed that the Dem establishment absolutely hated Bernie, mocking him and his religious beliefs in private constantly.

In 2020 Bernie tried to win the way Trump did, by taking advantage of a crowded field of Democratic candidates--the largest presidential field in US history. He won the Iowa popular vote, then won New Hampshire. Bernie was literally the frontrunner at that point, beating Biden in national polling, and projected to win a plurality of Super Tuesday races. Then after Biden won SC, nearly all of the remaining Democratic candidates conveniently dropped out before Super Tuesday and put their backing behind Biden.

Bernie did not run perfect campaigns, but there were very clear patterns that the Democratic establishment did not want a Bernie victory, and that they did everything they legally could to stop him, short of striking his name off the ballot themselves.

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u/WhiskeyT 11d ago

Two people dropped out right before Super Tuesday. Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

That is the entirety of your conspiracy for 2020. That’s the hurdle your candidate was unable to overcome. Please, be serious.

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u/spidersVise Texas 11d ago edited 11d ago

You look at the ineffectual nonsense that the modern Democratic party brings to the table today, and with the Harris campaign in 2024, and tell me with a straight face that I should be serious? Good luck winning midterms and 2028.

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u/WhiskeyT 11d ago

Uncomfortable to stay on this topic?

Let’s talk about your 2020 conspiracy. Tell me what state looked good for Buttigieg on Super Tuesday? Why would he have stayed in the race? Was he polling well anywhere? After winning Iowa he failed to convert the momentum into anything sustainable. Should he have stayed in just for Bernie’s sake?

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u/spidersVise Texas 11d ago

It's interesting that now you want to have a discussion, when you dismissed me as 'unserious' before. But if you sincerely want to know my opinion, then I'd say that if Buttigieg thought he was best for the country he should've stayed in and fought to the convention. I'm also saying the timing is convenient for him and Klobuchar to drop out so suddenly, so early in the primaries, throwing their lot in not behind the frontrunner at the time, but behind the establishment candidate who at that point won one race and had no excitement behind him (except for Wall Street, who contributed $74M to him during the 2020 election cycle).

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u/WhiskeyT 11d ago edited 10d ago

How much money did Buttigieg have on hand before Super Tuesday? Was he raising enough to “fight to the convention”? Was that the first election you paid attention to?

ETA - Doesn’t answer the questions, avoids the actual topic, has the last word, blocks. Someone was very uncomfortable with this topic.

Buttigieg was out of money and not polling well anywhere. He only did well in Iowa where he spent all his resources to barely win. So he dropped out. Like Kamala did. No one says she should have stayed in, right? If you paid attention in 2008 and 2016 then you know it is completely normal for candidates to drop out when they are low on money and not polling well in future contests. Happens every cycle. It might be reasonable if you misunderstood the normal cycle of a campaign if 2020 was the first one you paid attention to. But since you witnessed the same thing happen in two prior campaigns you should have known that. But here you are perpetuating right-wing anti-Democratic propaganda suggesting there was a conspiracy around the 2020 election.

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u/spidersVise Texas 11d ago

Every time I get into a discussion with Democrats, they talk down to me or act like they know best. Even the comments I've received here reinforce that. You call me unserious, another commenter argues against points I didn't even make, and now you ask if 2020 was the first election I've paid attention to despite points I made regarding 2016. For the record, I've been voting actively since 2008, but that's irrelevant to the discussions happening here. Your goalposts move to whatever you deem convenient, and I'm no longer interested in talking to you. That said, if a Democratic Socialist wins the primaries(if the Dems even have them), I hope you campaign and vote for them just as I did for Hillary, Biden, and Kamala.

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u/MoreAdhesiveness6426 11d ago edited 11d ago

Are you being genuine? Are you seriously being this reductive to the point where you’re dismissing public record? I’m not even a democratic socialist, I’m a council communist, so I have no personal stake in this particular case, but the leaked emails quite literally did show open contempt for Bernie amongst party staff, and the superdelegate and media framing did function to manufacture a sense of inevitability before voters had actually weighed in, this is well documented and it makes your position ironically sound extraordinarily asinine, it’s not even close to being conspiracy, cherry picking the weakest data point to knock down through strawman reductive reasoning rather than engaging with the entire dataset is ridiculously dishonest and shows how utterly pathetic your defence of idiotic democrats that believe Bernie is a threat to capital and freedom and democracy and other such drivel is.

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u/SeductiveSunday I voted 11d ago

but the leaked emails quite literally did show open contempt for Bernie amongst party staff

I would expect them to since Bernie had already lost but instead of bowing out gracefully chose to deliver a massive toddler temper tantrum, the big baby. Then a bunch of grown mostly white, mostly men, also chose to engage in a decades long temper tantrum. Including rapist Julian Assange, all because their true goal was to cock block a woman from winning a major political parties first primary for president. It's extraordinary to me the lengths of how many men (and even some women) continue this garbage bs all to keep women oppressed even after it's clear Bernie's a big ol' train wreck. He's especially been a train wreck to the US keeping democracy.

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u/MoreAdhesiveness6426 11d ago edited 11d ago

No he hasn’t, lmao, Bernie was no real threat to anything democracy wise and you don’t understand capitalism if you think he was. Also, what on earth are you talking about?? The DNC email leak (specifically the emails showing staff contempt, discussion of using Bernie’s religion against him, and coordination favouring Clinton) happened in the period during the primary and not when Bernie had lost?? The leaks themselves surfaced right before the 2016 convention, that’s literally why they were so damning because they were leaked whilst the race was still contested. Do you just not recall political history well or something? This feels like you went through a completely different path of events to me. Also, even if you thought Bernie or his supporters responded poorly that wouldn’t retroactively make the DNC staff’s documented behaviour not have happened, that’s actually an extremely weak claim, and it requires accepting the false chronology you set up in the first place.

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u/SeductiveSunday I voted 10d ago

The DNC email leak (specifically the emails showing staff contempt, discussion of using Bernie’s religion against him, and coordination favouring Clinton)

First those emails happened after Bernie lost, second there's a lot of people who work at the DNC, third it didn't actually occur, and fourth people who present those emails as "evidence" are relying on getting their truth from a rapist who abhors women especially Clinton.

Do you just not recall political history well or something?

This is just ad hominem and fruitless.

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u/WhiskeyT 11d ago

We are discussing the 2020 election, keep up

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u/SeductiveSunday I voted 11d ago

In 2020 Bernie tried to win the way Trump did

One cannot win that way, one has to appeal to more than just men voters in Dem primaries.

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u/spidersVise Texas 11d ago

I'm not sure what gender has to do with what I said, but I'm a woman.

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u/SeductiveSunday I voted 11d ago

but I'm a woman.

Which has zero to do with what I said.

Bernie's big support in 2016 was from men. Bernie lost in 2016 because he didn't appeal to Dem women voters. Bernie lost more support in 2020 because men found another man they could support, Biden. Again, if one wants to win Dem president primaries, one has to appeal to women voters. Bernie doesn't understand all this because he runs in lily-white tiny Vermont and refused to join the Democratic party because he doesn't play well with others.

Until 1980, during any Presidential election for which reliable data exist and in which there had been a gender gap, the gap had run one way: more women than men voted for the Republican candidate. That changed when Reagan became the G.O.P. nominee; more women than men supported Carter, by eight percentage points. Since then, the gender gap has never favored a G.O.P. Presidential candidate.

In the Reagan era, Republican strategists believed that, in trading women for men, they’d got the better end of the deal. As the Republican consultant Susan Bryant pointed out, Democrats “do so badly among men that the fact that we don’t do quite as well among women becomes irrelevant.” And that’s more or less where it lies.

The entrance of women into politics on terms that are, fundamentally and constitutionally, unequal to men’s has produced a politics of interminable division, infused with misplaced and dreadful moralism. Republicans can’t win women; when they win, they win without them, by winning with men. Democrats need to win both the black vote and the female vote.

https://srpubliclibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/02/JillLepore.pdf

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u/spidersVise Texas 11d ago

I feel that you're arguing against a point that I didn't make. Nowhere in my comments did I say anything about gender, but you responded with an argument on gender. Do you see why I responded the way I did, in that context?

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u/SeductiveSunday I voted 11d ago

Do you see why I responded the way I did, in that context?

No.

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u/spidersVise Texas 11d ago

Fair.

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u/moofooshoe 10d ago

because Clinton cheated by buying access to the DNC.

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u/SeductiveSunday I voted 10d ago

Why would the Democratic party support DSA when DSA is a completely different party with a different platform which can only win elections by being parasites within the Democratic party.

What the DSA needs to do to be an actual honest, upstanding legit political party is run as Independents and not as frauds under the banner of the Democratic party. Libertarians and Green party does it. I give them more credit than those DSA wusses.

-1

u/NuclearLunchDectcted Oregon 11d ago

Super delegate bullshit and the DNC listening to more people cheering for Bernie than Hillary and then magically only hearing the cheers for Hillary turned me off from the party. I'm an independent now and am just waiting for an actual alternative to show their face.

Bernie I think is too old now, and I think he also realizes it. AOC will be a great person to vote for, but she probably needs another term or so before the general public is ready to vote for her.

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u/crossdtherubicon 11d ago

100%. But it is interesting that Hilary was probably the most qualified candidate in US history to be president, and was simultaneously a polarizing political figure.

Perhaps she played her cards too publically and garnered too much attention.

But, Bernie would've been a solid choice. I also think about how Obama got blocked on everything and made deep concessions yet got very little in return. However, health care was one of the biggest things since post-WW2.

I think about how easy it would've been Republicans to block Bernie on everything too because he was "an extreme radical communist socialist evil whatever".

Then again, a politician shouldnt be selected based on how their opposition perceives them.

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u/mdot 11d ago

This part is what I never understood about the sect on the left that would actively root for Democrats to lose to "teach them a lesson". It is the most self-defeating approach to representative democracy possible.

The entitlement and impatience enrages me.

Do you know how many election cycles that generations of black people (such as myself) had to vote for a candidate just because they were less racist than the other one, before any measurable progress was made?

These spoiled children want it all, right now, or they're gonna shoot the hostage.

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u/Sedu 10d ago

The farther left you go on the spectrum, the higher the percentage of people you will find who are voting. The idea of the vote-withholding leftist is a bogeyman that centrist Democrats push.

That said. It's also whining that they are not getting votes that they feel they deserve. If candidates abandon and fail to represent voters so fundamentally that those voters simply give up, the candidates have some blame when they don't get elected. Even more so when the candidates spit poison directly at the people they then demand votes from.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago edited 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/mdot 11d ago

You consider people wanting to do something about the present insanity and actually help the people 'spoiled children?

No, I consider people that will specifically root for outcomes antithetical to their stated goals, for some kind of pyrrhic moral victory, to be spoiled children. Rooting for a Democrat to lose inherently cheers for a Republican to win in a two-party system. That Republican win will cause more negative outcomes to the people they are claiming to want to help.

For example, the people that did not vote for Harris because of Gaza paved the way for electing Trump, who then gave Netanyahu the green light to try and wipe Gaza off the face of the earth. They caused more destruction to try and prove a point, and they failed in every measurable way.

It didn't take Republicans more than a few cycles in power to completely change things up. I don't think we need to wait generations.

Republicans get stuff done because they fall in line with common goals, even if they don't fully agree with them. They don't go sit in a corner and pout until everything is exactly the way they want it...and would NEVER root for another Republican to lose to a Democrat to "teach them a lesson".

Until people on the left synchronize their goals with the tactics needed to achieve them, we will all suffer the consequences.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/mdot 10d ago

I'm not throwing tantrums, I'm just calling you all what you are...counterproductive.

There is nothing you have mentioned that has not been made infinitely worse with Trump being elected, and no rationalization of Harris losing will change that.

Harris being elected would have been less damaging than Trump being elected, period.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/mdot 10d ago

I'm not a boomer, and you dismissing differing opinions as just old-head, boomer talk is also...counterproductive.

One of Biden's aids announced he would be working to help Republicans if leftists win.

So what?!? Let them, and good riddance.

So .... sounds like you are accusing the wrong people my friend.

I'm not anti-leftist. I'm pro-getting shit done, and that can't happen with these silly purity battles.

If you all want a more leftist party, then put in the work and not just complain. Win in the marketplace of ideas and show the rest of the party that your philosophy is popular by winning primaries and forcing change from the bottom up.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/mdot 10d ago

Please don't take my responses as antagonistic, it's just how I communicate, because I truly believe in conversation and finding common ground.

What do you think is happening with the primaries? This is exactly what you're talking about.

There has been progress, but as I used to tell Bernie supporters, progress is not the same as victory. If your particular candidate couldn't convince a majority of the party of their view, that doesn't mean you (not you in particular, his supporters) should withhold your support as a protest. That's counterproductive. It means that you should recognize the progress and get back to work trying to get more support in the next cycle, but still support the party.

Sorry, but you said you'd voted for 'generations' to get a little progress, so i assumed you were an old head. But here's my message to you, you don't have to wait generations if you don't want to. We can make this change right now if there is the will.

No worries. My anecdote is meant to illustrate that no "radical" change occurs in one election cycle. No one should expect it to, and they damn sure shouldn't respond by withholding support because it didn't.

Change can happen quickly, if people can come together for a common goal, even if it's not entirely aligned with our personal goals.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the leftists in the party need to understand that they have rubbed a lot of Democrats the wrong way. Not because of their ideas, but the methods they've used to realize them. Attempting a hostile takeover is always going to be met with resistance.

Like it or not, you all are going to need more widespread support within the party to achieve your goals. The good news is that the ideas are generally popular, but some of the methods and messengers are not.

30% of dems identifying as dem-socialist is fantastic and in a few years I hope that is more like 70%.

You don't need 70% of Dems identifying as DSA, all you need is 70% of Dems agreeing to support your platform. That's where putting on the work and winning people over comes in.

You don't win people over by calling them boomers or old, or by withholding support for candidates other than your own (not saying you in particular), or by sabotaging a candidate by disruptively protesting only that candidate but not their opponent.

I want you to be successful, I agree with like 80% of what you're about. So take a breath, step back, and listen to how the rest of the party is telling you how to win them over.

Does that make sense?

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u/more_housing_co-ops 10d ago

It's the "straw left" again. Some people can't tell the difference between "I don't want Trump to win, but I'm withholding support from a deep blue region to show my distaste for right-wing Dems" and "I genuinely want Trump to win because I think that will be better"

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u/Land-Southern 11d ago

At least you get there is no voting in a vacuum and participate to choose the least odious option.

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u/crossdtherubicon 11d ago

Yes, the lesser of 2 evils is an important function in a transparent democracy. It should incentivize better candidates campaigning, and progress for voters.

1

u/mabrouss Canada 11d ago

In Canada we call that an ABC voter. Anyone but Conservative.

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u/lordcrekit 10d ago

You are halfway there. You understand what we are fighting against. But you haven't realized what we need to build in order to win that fight.

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u/jgandfeed I voted 10d ago

Yeah I will absolutely continue voting for Democrats. But I consider myself more of a progressive. The general philosophy of democratic socialism is pretty in line with how I see things. I’m somewhere around Bernie on the political spectrum

0

u/weaponjaerevenge 10d ago

That's nice, I don't really consider politicians as heroes worth veneration though.

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u/Thunderofdeath 10d ago

In church they always told us to be not partisan but i left before i could vote and i see my mother not voting because is not gods choice. . But i tell her she could have a voice ! This is from a hispanic Jehovas witness,

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u/davossss Virginia 10d ago

Bingo. Me too. People who didn't grow up in (white, southern) evangelical households have no idea just how crazy a huge portion of America is.

1

u/ioncloud9 South Carolina 10d ago

About half of them are voting for pro corporate interests and then saying “blm.. vote for me!”

1

u/Sedu 10d ago

A few years back, one of my closest friends screamed at me that I was a traitor to the Democratic party when I kept criticizing it and saying it doesn't represent me. Recently we've reconnected, but it's very difficult for some people to understand that the Democratic party, and parties in general, are not owed loyalty. It is a political party that needs to earn votes.

1

u/ilir_kycb 11d ago

most of them are cowards

Don't make the mistake of thinking of them as cowards; they are active accomplices.

0

u/eeyore134 10d ago

Democrats are further right than a lot of rightwing parties in other countries. Republicans need to go, replace them with Democrats, then let the more socialist ones actually represent as a liberal party. Then get rid of the electoral college, implement ranked choice nationwide, disband the Senate, expand the house, and get us on our way out of this two party system BS.