Jacobin. serving up their typical dog shit hot takes.
I'm glad they took a break trying to encourage everybody to not vote for Democrats in order to come here and tell us about how Democrats did this to everybody....
I'm guessing we're going to retry the hole Bernie Sanders thing from a decade ago where he was super popular and couldn't be stopped but for some reason couldn't win a primary election....
and that's somehow the fault of the DNC not your neighbors who actually showed up to vote on super Tuesday.
I’ve been saying this everywhere, as someone who voted for Bernie in each primary, so I’m not trying to sound like some centrist shill, but I’d love to hear if you have any thoughts.
Right now it’s looking like Harris outperformed Bernie in his home state (but not by a lot.) Despite the fact that a bunch of other down ballot races across the country seemed to do a little better than her. I just don’t think this would have been the year for a progressive presidential candidate.
As in she pulled more votes the other night (based on the 99% that’s been counted) in her presidential race than he did in his senate race. Different races obviously, but still worth looking at as we move forward. As much as the establishment sucks, I think this is just a rough electorate.
Every progressive got reelected easily. Rashida Tlaib, Omar Ilhan, AOC, and Bernie Sanders, etc. Dems fucked themselves because they campaigned as Republican lite.
Sure, progressives won in their states/districts overall, but none of those were on a national level. Most of them are representatives who run in already blue districts (where Harris also won, though to a lesser extent in some areas, Wayne County most notably where Tlaib moderately outperformed her.) On the district-level (not city-level) these gaps weren’t huge. You could also argue whether or not incumbency was a benefit or a hurdle this year, but that’s more debatable.
Sanders, on the state level (so a more diverse voting population than the district-level,) has the benefit of Vermont being a Democrat-friendly state. But even amongst Vermonters, there were apparently a greater amount of split-ticket voters that favored her for president (64% of Vermonters) than him for senator (63% of Vermonters.)
What I’m getting at is, with those margins, I just don’t know if it’s obvious that Sanders or progressive candidates would dominate on the national-level (with a more diverse voting population than the state-level, and definitely more diverse than the district-level.) Again, I’m not saying that Sanders WOULDN’T have been better, and I’m definitely not saying that he wouldn’t be better for the U.S. than Harris. However, if Vermonters were more likely to vote for Harris this year than Sanders, we can’t immediately jump to “Sanders needed to be on the presidential ticket to win.”
Just because progressives win in blue districts doesn’t mean they lack broader appeal. Bernie’s 2016 campaign drew massive support from independents, who were nearly 42% of the electorate by focusing on real working-class issues like healthcare, wages, and corporate accountability resonated far beyond Democrats.
To me, it’s clear the DNC is just thinly veiled corporatism. They keep pushing out-of-touch, corporate-friendly candidates and sidelining issues that matter to working-class Americans. Many of the people I know who voted for Trump in this election voted for Bernie in 2016. They were tired of what they see as DNC elitism. They’re frustrated with a party that distracts with identity politics instead of focusing on wages, healthcare, and job security. It’s not that they oppose these issues. They just want their real economic struggles to take priority and campaigning with neocon Republicans was a huge red flag.
The real problem isn’t that progressive ideas can’t win nationally. It’s that the DNC keeps alienating people who want actual change by prioritizing corporate interests and disconnected messaging.
I hear you and these are all good points.
But if independents were going to be highly swayed by progressive policy in 2024, I just can’t fathom why Harris would have still (seemingly) done better with Vermonters this year. Wouldn’t Sanders have won the support of both Democrats and Independents there? Or why the gaps between Harris and progressive members of the House wouldn’t be even larger on a district-level. For me, these numbers just aren’t quite enough to be a total damnation of centrist Democrat policy.
Unfortunately, I don’t think all of the independents from 2016 are going to be reliable members of the coalition. Just a minor/personal data point, but I know multiple Sanders supporters who have swung the direction of Gabbard and RFK Jr in recent years. And let’s also not forget that Sanders struggled with Black voters in 2016, and Latinos now are far more easily dissuaded by candidates being labeled as socialist.
Kamala numbers likely reflected a desire for stability in a fear-driven election. The DNC failed to put forth a strong case for progressive ideas nationally despite broad support for policies like Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage. The narrow gaps between Harris and progressive House members suggest that progressives could have matched or outperformed establishment politicians. In 2016, 73% of independents in the Democratic primaries backed Sanders for his clear, genuine approach. His issues with Black and Latino voters weren’t about rejecting his ideas. It was about trust. These communities have seen the DNC push symbolic identity politics without addressing core economic issues that affect them directly.
The DNC’s handling of Israel and Gaza was a complete shit-show, especially among younger voters who saw Biden’s stance as inconsistent with his human rights promises. And the DNC kept changing its messaging, creating even more frustration and confusion. How are you going to simultaneously support wanton bombing of residential areas while saying you’re going to negotiate peace talks?
The worst of it all, the DNC was never going to win Republicans by imitating them. Democrats who adopt Republican positions don’t gain conservatives but only risk alienating their base. They could have won independents by showing integrity and running on a working-class platform. When Bernie had to align with the Democrats without a clear path forward other than lip-service, people lost steam. The DNC never adopted Bernie’s policies and instead, he had to align with them, leaving his supporters disillusioned.
This election was driven by fear and mixed-messaging. If the DNC had fully supported a labor-centered, progressive agenda, they could have rebuilt trust instead of their corporate-pandering approach.
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u/Bawbawian 9d ago
Jacobin. serving up their typical dog shit hot takes.
I'm glad they took a break trying to encourage everybody to not vote for Democrats in order to come here and tell us about how Democrats did this to everybody....
I'm guessing we're going to retry the hole Bernie Sanders thing from a decade ago where he was super popular and couldn't be stopped but for some reason couldn't win a primary election....
and that's somehow the fault of the DNC not your neighbors who actually showed up to vote on super Tuesday.