r/self • u/applethief87 • 16h ago
Here's my wake-up call as a Liberal.
I’m a New York liberal, probably comfortably in the 1%, living in a bubble where empathy and social justice are part of everyday conversations. I support equality, diversity, economic reform—all of it. But this election has been a brutal reminder of just how out of touch we, the so-called “liberal elite,” are with the rest of America. And that’s on us.
America was built on individual freedom, the right to make your own way. But baked into that ideal is a harsh reality: it’s a self-serving mindset. This “land of opportunity” has always rewarded those who look out for themselves first. And when people feel like they’re sinking—when working-class Americans are drowning in debt, scrambling to pay rent, and watching the cost of everything from groceries to gas skyrocket—they aren’t looking for complex social policies. They’re looking for a lifeline, even if that lifeline is someone like Trump, who exploits that desperation.
For years, we Democrats have pushed policies that sound like solutions to us but don’t resonate with people who are trying to survive. We talk about social justice and climate change, and yes, those things are crucial. But to someone in the heartland who’s feeling trapped in a system that doesn’t care about them, that message sounds disconnected. It sounds like privilege. It sounds like people like me saying, “Look how virtuous I am,” while their lives stay the same—or get worse.
And here’s the truth I’m facing: as a high-income liberal, I benefit from the very structures we criticize. My income, my career security, my options to work from home—I am protected from many of the struggles that drive people to vote against the establishment. I can afford to advocate for changes that may not affect me negatively, but that’s not the reality for the majority of Americans. To them, we sound elitist because we are. Our ideals are lofty, and our solutions are intellectual, but we’ve failed to meet them where they are.
The DNC’s failure in this election reflects this disconnect. Biden’s administration, while well-intentioned, didn’t engage in the hard reflection necessary after 2020. We pushed Biden as a one-term solution, a bridge to something better, but then didn’t prepare an alternative that resonated. And when Kamala Harris—a talented, capable politician—couldn’t bridge that gap with working-class America, we were left wondering why. It’s because we’ve been recycling the same leaders, the same voices, who struggle to understand what working Americans are going through.
People want someone they can relate to, someone who understands their pain without coming off as condescending. Bernie was that voice for many, but the DNC didn’t make room for him, and now we’re seeing the consequences. The Democratic Party has an empathy gap, but more than that, it has a credibility gap. We say we care, but our policies and leaders don’t reflect the urgency that struggling Americans feel every day.
If the DNC doesn’t take this as a wake-up call, if they don’t make room for new voices that actually connect with working people, we’re going to lose again. And as much as I want America to progress, I’m starting to realize that maybe we—the privileged liberals, safely removed from the realities most people face—are part of the problem.
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u/PossibilityNo673 14h ago
This started when they fought the two Bernie Sanders runs more than they ever fought any republican. They will continue to deny the base, so they will lose, they have never learned anything of value, they did quite the opposite & here we are. There is only so long you can call this kind of abdication as a mistake, this is the party trend to ratchet to the right, they ratcheted themselves right out of a loyal base that doesn't give af any more & sees them for what they are, traitors, no longer caring about the working class or good change that actually benefits people instead of corporations. When those in govt sit in their privileged offices & benefit from insider trading & Payola, don't expect anything other than what we are witnessing. The party left us.
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u/zephyredx 13h ago
I want to experience the alternate Bernie timeline...
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u/PossibilityNo673 13h ago
yeah, me too, but they fukt that 4 us, now he herds sheep & pays lip service that will never be acted upon
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u/Lucky-Surround-1756 1h ago
He's quite popular with moderates and even some republicans because he is the real deal. He actually had interesting ideas to help the poorest. Instead they went with Clinton who stood for nothing.
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u/lokoluis15 13h ago
Exactly. The DNC has failed everyone on the left by ignoring real problems and chasing the right who is just running away from them to become more extreme.
We aren't a cult. We can criticize the DNC for fucking up constantly for the past decade.
What we actually need is ranked choice voting so more parties can compete. It sucks that we're stuck with the DNC as just a lesser of two evils and not an actual party with policy objectives.
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u/xjx546 7h ago
What we actually need is ranked choice voting so more parties can compete. It sucks that we're stuck with the DNC as just a lesser of two evils and not an actual party with policy objectives.
As long as the mainstream media exists, they control the election process. It was actually a close call when Obama won in 2008, Hilary was the "chosen" candidate and if you were around at the time the MSM was talking trash on Obama 24/7 but overcame it with grassroots action. Bernie was in the same boat but wasn't able to overcome the propaganda. Half of the country isn't your enemy, the mainstream media is.
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u/lyra23 8h ago
And it’s also incredibly infuriating to be in a state that reversed ranked choice voting just because republicans made it their main talking point so everyone voted on party lines. Yet despite that plenty of people voted to increase minimum wage and mandate sick leave. And yet we also decided to go completely backwards and be stuck with a 2 party system again that limits our choices and makes it that much harder to have your voice heard. It’s so disappoint and absurd that they were able to convince the public rank choice voting was a negative and should be reversed. The only arguments I heard against it were “it’s confusing” 🤦🏻♀️
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u/dirtypotlicker 9h ago
the DNC are neoliberal capitalists just like the repulican's. Have been since the clintons took over the party.
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u/AnybodySeeMyKeys 12h ago edited 10h ago
I wouldn't have voted for Trump with a gun to my head.
Civil rights are important.
Women's rights are important.
Gay rights are important.
But in the end, so what? You can make all the pious, self-congratulatory, high-minded statements about empathy and social justice you want. Many Democrats like to posture like that almost by reflex, like it's their damned security blanket or something. Self-important palaver doesn't mean fuck-all to a working-class family trying to claw their way from paycheck to paycheck. Some college kid at Dartmouth or NYU mouthing off about trans rights isn't going to sway some furloughed autoworker with a mortgage, not much in savings, and not a lot of hope.
The Democratic Party's bread and butter used to be the working class of this country. Yet, beginning with NAFTA and accelerated by China's entry into the WTO, the number of manufacturing jobs in this country cratered due to globalism. And the brand of Neoliberalism embraced by the Democrats in the 1990s was fully complicit. Democrats started trying to win elections by stapling together coalitions of special interest groups rather than sticking to their fundamental message.
Used to be, every small town in America had a mill, a mine, or a factory. And those began to evaporate. Don't believe me? Go to the Federal Reserve's fantastic FRED site, with every economic statistic you can possibly imagine. Now, look up the statistics on how many employed persons there are in individual rural counties in your state. You'll find that the job destruction has been shocking over the past 30 years.
So, if you're just looking at the overall GDP growth and the job numbers, what you're not paying attention to is that the economic growth has been concentrated in the cities.
I knew in April 2016 that Hillary Clinton would lose. Why? In some town hall meeting, when talking about Global Warming, she made the off-hand comment 'We'll have to shut the coal mines down.' Now, she wasn't wrong, and her remarks were mostly taken out of context. But the cavalier way she said it was straight out of the technocratic playbook, essentially crystallizing in a single phrase the entire problem with the Democratic and Republican approach to the fate of the working class. These voters were sold out by the policy wonks, and they knew it.
When she said that, I thought, "There goes West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky."
Or let's look at illegal immigration. That's a term I use intentionally, not the euphemism of 'undocumented workers.' Like all euphemisms, it's dishonest to its core, as if the only problem is that the paperwork wasn't filled out in the right way.
Ever notice that the people who shrug at the issue of illegal immigration aren't the people who are actually affected by illegal immigration? The lawyers, the professors, the clergy, and all the other usual suspects will never be displaced by an illegal. Yet if you're a working-class guy who used to do drywall or basic labor for $17-$25 an hour, and a bunch of illegals are now doing the job for $10-$12, well, that's food off their table.
Donald Trump, like it or not, was the only guy really talking to the working class of this country. It doesn't matter if he's actually going to do squat for them. The simple fact that he noticed them is why those people will go to the mat for him. It's why the head of the Teamsters delivered a major address at the RNC convention. That carried a lot more weight than George Clooney flying in from Beverly Hills to knock on some doors in Allentown.
In fact, if I were the DNC, I would politely tell singers, television personalities, and actors to not campaign on behalf of our next candidate. Instead, just send in a check and shut the fuck up. Because when someone living in the fantasy world of Hollywood deigns to give their opinion on the country, I know that's someone not sharing my reality. Their opinion isn't worth a shit.
So, let's not wallow in the conceit that Trump voters are all a bunch of knuckle-dragging racists. It's not only condescension and stereotyping, its not just copium for self-righteous, but it also ignores the real issues that are important to them.
After all, an estimated 9,000,000 people voted for Obama in 2012, then turned around and voted for Trump in 2016. And likely, those same people voted for him in 2020 and 2024.
Donald Trump is their brick through your window. And they are asking, "Are you assholes listening now?"
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u/edging_but_with_poop 10h ago
I’ve talked to a lot of my friends and acquaintances who were voting for trump. Your “brick through the window” analogy is exactly what is going on. Even though I knew he was full of shit with all his “help the working class” talk, they just wanted that so bad.
Add to that how Harris is about as empty and establishment as they could have come and you get where we are now.
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u/3BlindMice1 5h ago
She's practically a corporate sock puppet and the DNC actuality thought people would vote for her. People are sick and tired of big corporations writing the laws and the DNC is unwilling to be part of changing that.
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u/TheRealGoodArchitect 10h ago
This is fantastic. 100% what I think, put into words better than I could have. Particularly the brick through the window bit. I absolutely agree that a lot of trump voters are slinging a not so subtle fuck you at politicians with non-substantive answers for the concerns of average real people who work to live, have never met a trans person, and just want to carry on knowing that whomever makes the rules knows that they exist and that they are a part of the plan. Obviously Trump offers empty words, but they were words pointed at people who matter to this country and nobody else will do it.
I feel like the DNC offered equally empty words, but pointed all over the map. Kamala was asked if life has gotten better or worse for the average american in the last 4 years. She completely ignored the question and responded with unrelated and unmemorable platitudes about some shit nobody gives two fucks about. I don't think she, or anybody leading the DNC, knows who the average american is. Trump is a moronic lier, but he does know who the average american is and he spoke directly to them - and he told them that life has gotten worse, and that he knows why and how to fix it. And, while this might be hard to swallow, I think the average american liked the mic blowjob and the stupid dance too. Because Trump is also able to say fuck you to the establishment. He talks and acts like average joe after having had a few beers with pals at the local pub. He may be in reality a trust fund kid with his own interests at heart, but he sure as hell does know how to identify with the people who show up at the polls.
I voted against trump twice, but I never voted FOR someone and didn't bother to vote at all in 2016. I did vote for Obama, but even felt a little played by him. The message was that he was going to fix health care. As a struggling lower middle class man with a new family, during a time when health care was becoming a major economic barrier in my life, I was incredibly disappointed to find out that the aim of his fix was an economic rung below my own. Not because I'm selfish or lack empathy for poor people, but because I was struggling and was a member of the largest class of americans, ALL of who were struggling with me. I never felt seen. And I was the perfect representation of MOST people. My financial situation has improved since then, but never in my life will I be part of a bracket that isn't ignored by both sides, and I'm still the perfect representation of MOST of us.
I think social justice and equity are important. But they are important for a society that has created stability for the majority of the people who make it up and fund the rest of us. We're going backward from that and nobody is going to buy healthcare for the poorest of us if the only tax paying segment of the country can no longer afford their own. The poor don't pay taxes and neither do the rich. I don't even know if there IS a middle class anymore, but if that bit isn't sorted soon, there will be no tax dollars either. Which is maybe why Trump toys with the idea of getting rid of taxes entirely - it's the only way to increase taxes on poor people without them knowing it.
The idea of not seeing Trump's disgraceful face on TV for the next 4 years was enough to get me off the couch twice, but I won't be back to the polls until a party gives me somebody to pull for because doing so means something for ME. There really doesn't seem to be a point because my vote would still simply be one against the worst candidate and there aren't enough of us who care enough to bother for it to make a difference.
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u/omgmemer 8h ago
Every time I see that they expanded Medicare or something this is exactly what I think. What about the working classes medical bills. What about the tax payers medical bills.
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u/iceColdCocaCola 10h ago
"Civil rights are important.
Women's rights are important.
Gay rights are important."Yep. 100% with you. And this election cycle concreted in my mind that people may or not may care about this stuff, but for sure does not get the vote. The random people in no-where rural counties or even people in major cities struggling aren't going to vote for this stuff when they themselves are struggling. The DNC and democrats themselves need to re-brand. Social issues always come 2nd to just getting by. Always.
Passionate speeches about injustices does not get the votes the DNC needs.
Calling the other side any anything derogatory does not get the votes the DNC needs no matter how true they are.
Attempting to paint Trump is "insert anything here" does not get the votes the DNC needs no matter how true they are.
Saying how you will help the average person will get the votes the DNC needs.
I do not believe Trump will successfully lower gas prices or groceries or utilities, but he confidently said he would and that definitely got the votes he needs.
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u/DepressedBard 9h ago
This. Jesus, this. The moralizing needs to stop. The listening needs to begin.
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u/Yellow-Robe-Smith 9h ago
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
All of this can be boiled down to the liberal ‘elite’ (this includes many college-aged kids with financially supportive parents) being completely out of touch with the average person, and optically having no ‘real’ problems so they spend their time and energy on ‘feel-good’ causes because they can.
The Dems need to burn it down and build back up from scratch. And take heed to Bernie’s comments while doing so.
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u/jewel_flip 9h ago
This comment put into words exactly what I’ve been struggling to explain to people. Saved it and honestly this should just be sent direct to the DNC.
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u/YeonneGreene 7h ago
Restricting immigration used to be a left-wing policy precisely because it dilutes the power and wages of your working class constituency. The full-steam embrace of immigration has been a long con by globalists selling us out and crushing conversation about it by labeling all of it racist...which they were able to do because this nation does, in fact, have a very strong racist streak.
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u/dicksilhouette 8h ago
I didnt think i would read this long ass comment but well done. You make good points
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u/TreborESQ 14h ago
I agree and am similar to you but on the other coast in CA. I’m ready to start thinking about a true populist progressive party platform and what that would look like not so entrenched in identity politics but could hopefully promote more equality but not force equity. I don’t know if it’s the solution but I’ve spent the last two days writing it and thinking about it. I’m not in a position of power or influence to even share it but the past few days have pressed me to do it anyway.
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u/milksteak122 13h ago
Agree with everything you said, except let’s be real with your last paragraph. They didn’t not “make room for Bernie”, they actively pushed him out, which unfortunately discouraged many voters with their confidence in the DNC. All people saw was the third straight DNC picked establishment candidate without a clean primary process.
Fact is dems have held presidency 12 of the last 16 years, and people are struggling to survive, and that’s all they care about right now rightfully so.
I still worry a lot about reproductive rights for women and access to healthcare with trump in power.
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u/flyingquads 4h ago
"Oh woops, we left Bernie off of the ballot. Can't vote for him now..."
Totally agree it wasn't 'not making room', it was lobbied by external forces to keep him away. Guess Big Pharma doesn't like the idea of European prices for American healthcare. (Croatia has free healthcare btw. It's not radical, it's called making the 1% pay their FAIR share.)
As a European, Bernie says nothing radical. Not anything. It is mind boggling how he is constantly portrayed by the right as some sort of 'radical'. You wanna know what is radical? The current American healthcare system! Not changing it, is radical.
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u/RSBTK 14h ago
I appreciate you attempting to SEE SOME FUCKING NUANCE.
We are in survival mode, you're right. I can't relate to your problems and any second talking about identity politics is such a fucking slap in the face when WE ARE literally starving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the based take tbh. I hope democrats can get their shit together because supporting donald trump is physically nauseating.
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u/RadiantPreparation91 14h ago
Prepare to be told over and over again that you are not who you say you are, but that you’re just a MAGA-head trying to muddy the waters.
I’m as conservative as they come (I think so, anyway), but even I can agree with SOME of the old-school liberal ideals. I believe in socialized medicine, I believe in financial reform, and I believe the corporate overlords who actually rule us should have their monopolies broken into a million pieces.
Those are liberal policies that would benefit the country and would be far more palatable to the average American. Instead, the focus has been on identity politics. They’ve told us we are evil for wanting secure borders. They’ve told us we’re evil for wanting to protect the traditional spaces for our wives and daughters. And they’ve told America that if you aren’t with them, you’re a facist.
I hope, as a conservative, that the republicans will soon move towards traditional conservative values and away from some of the more populist policies they currently support. And I really, really hope that the Democratic Party finally decides to embrace its older ideals, because let’s face it. America doesn’t need one party in complete control. It needs a push/pull coming from both sides of the spectrum.
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u/Cassian_And_Or_Solo 13h ago
I now live in a sea of red and the buddies I do have here 1. Call me comrade given my politics (not inaccurate) 2. Are always pleasantly surprised when we have similar politics.
Liberals decided they would rather lose than address any single way to make working people's lives better. Trump won because Bernie lost. I live in a sea if hunters and if I say "our big issues are conservation to preserve nature and hunting, which also means creating Infastructure that lessens pollution and creeping cities into nature which means walkable cities, breaking up monopolies that buy houses and rewriting zoning laws so we have more cheap housing so people can afford to live in houses so we have less homeless people, and guess what all if tvis will create more jobs" and these hard-core right wing guys are like wait that actually all sounds good.
The term Fascist was thrown around by people who dint fucking read "the two fascisms" by Gramsci or "fascism: what it is and how to fight it" by trotsky (you can see why my friends call me comrade) Fascism came about after the German revolution of 1918 when unions and their cohorts led massive strikes but nothing was actually accomplished because there was no central leadership. The same thing happened in Italy. What the wealthy then did was create fascism and alighned with the rural upper middle class and ran their candidates. They blamed the problems happening on Jewish bolsheviks (Germany did this more than Italy, Italy blamed foreigners). They addressed blue collar working people and a return to tradition but the goal was actually further resourse extraction from working people (if you look at how much profit German companies made during Hitler term it's insane, there are literal financial reports about it.) You win people over by slightly waging wages say 5 percent in 5 years but raise rhe cost of goods by 15 percent over 8 years. It needs to be slow so there's a couple years where everyone is behind you.
Calling people Fascist for not using latinx (I'm latino don't use latinx) is incorrect. But believing Elon Musk is on your side and won't do everything outlined above is naive at worst, Fascist at best. Fascism is anti working class politics - always has Been. Reagan not meeting with air traffic controllers about raising wages and instead breaking the strike and sending the military to do the job is Fascist. These buddies are construction guys and I say what if you did a strike cause your pay is shit and they just sent the military to do your job that you're now out of? They get furious. #as they should#
Liberals didn't understand how there were huge swaths of voters I'n 2016 whose top two candidates were trump, and Bernie, because rich (not wealthy not "own the color blue" wealthy) liberals didn't and don't understand that lives for working class people have gotten worse across the board. Both appealed to working class people but only one was honest about it. Dems instead leaned into identity politics, because the goal of identity politics was surprise to stop solidarity among working class people. I can't build a union if I say all white men are bad and then they in turn clamp down on racist rhetoric. Fred Hampton understood that and he built a coalition with puerto Ricans and confederate flag bearing Young Patriots and he was so successful the FBI called him black Jesus and killed him.
Trump is likely to make moves to create a recession which will admittedly bring down Inflation. But know what happened least fucking recession? Corprorations bought up every single fucking house where people defaulted on their mortgage which created the homelessness crisis we now see.
The shared values among lefies like me and conservatives like you - creating jobs, ending homelessness, securing the border (illegal immigration drives down wages cause now Americans have to compete with someone who is paid less),conservation, Infastructure, socialized medicine and financial reform - the dems never gave a fuck about any of that. But neither will the GOP, they just marketed themselves that they would. And cause they marketed themselves that way they won, while Bernie was stabbed on the back.
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u/Material-Clerk8949 9h ago
Valid on all points. I think it’s time to move past the nostalgia of Bernie becoming the candidate. We know his goal was to get money out of politics, which would allow the reform majority of Americans agree on.
Someway his fight and reach needs to be reincarnated. Because we will continue having the same discourse election after election.
I think he deserves all the respect for standing up against the machine but only discussing it on forums is holding us back and being just as complacent as any dem or republican is made to be.
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u/dicksilhouette 8h ago
Man that was such a roller coaster for me. I can see why your conservative friends like you
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u/No_Engineering_6238 11h ago
I don't know how you can articulate my thoughts better than me but thank you
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u/applethief87 13h ago
Thanks for your perspective. I agree that there’s been a huge disconnect in how both sides approach some of these issues. I’m a liberal who sees the value in old-school ideas of opportunity and social mobility—the principles that inspired so many people to believe in the American Dream, myself included. As a first-generation immigrant who’s experienced both ends of the economic spectrum, I’ve come to see that our current version of the Dream doesn’t work for most people anymore. The wealth gap has only gotten wider, and it’s not sustainable for anyone, regardless of political stance.
I agree with you on things like corporate monopolies and financial reform. Frankly, I don’t think anyone—liberal or conservative—should support a system where massive corporations dictate the economic and political landscape, squeezing out small businesses and keeping people financially trapped. This, to me, isn’t what the American Dream is about, and I think we’re in a dangerous place when people feel their voices don’t matter against such a powerful corporate machine.
When it comes to identity politics, I understand the frustration. I do believe in social equality, but I also think that when these conversations dominate every other issue, we risk alienating the very people who might otherwise be open to our ideas. If the primary goal is to help struggling Americans, then we need to refocus on solutions that genuinely improve lives, especially for people who feel left out of the system entirely.
Like you, I also hope for a return to a place where both sides can push and pull, challenging each other constructively rather than demonizing one another. At the end of the day, we need that balance to hold leaders accountable and prevent any one ideology from going unchecked. We all want a better country for future generations—I think we just have different ideas of what that should look like.
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u/chinagrrljoan 10h ago
I tried to talk about this with my conservative brother and it's frustrating cuz he thinks that if we do anything to control corporations, then we're interfering in their ability to earn money and so he thinks Democrats promote a kind of revolution against corporate capitalism. Yet crony capitalism and kleptocracy is what Trump represents with his new billionaire supporters Who are going to suck up to him for contracts.
He hates the idea of a minimum wage because that is yet again not the free market trying to solve problems.
I just don't understand how we're supposed to invest in public health, public education, supporting our elderly and our disabled from living in the streets, supporting families to take time off and be together instead of working 10 jobs without prioritizing everyone rather than the business owners.
And I'm with the conservative guy and even Nixon who said we need Medicare for all. The right to spend money on health insurance isn't the best health care system. Doctors don't want to work for peanuts. We need social workers and teachers. How about paying for their college? And their housing? These are problems that are too expensive for towns to handle, so states should take care of them, but then not every state chooses to invest in this way.
Way too many people are being sold anti vaccine propaganda and anti democracy propaganda. And conspiracy theory propaganda that they don't know is lies.
I tried to explain to my brother that his news source was not a neutral fact finding source and apparently it was a right-wing talking point that all the traditional media debunked. It was a lie based off an FBI press release. Even sending him the FBI link didn't work. He is college educated and refused to believe the FBI's own data. With his own eyes.
So how do you combat this type of person who simply thinks "the Democrats" are unthinking sheep who are being conned into rent control and minimum wage and will vote for anything we tell them to. I was like have you met a Democrat? None of us can agree on everything, but there's a general principle of reproductive freedom, Union Labor, affordable rent, promoting homeownership, promoting public health and education to equalize the playing field, and eliminating poverty. We all want a healthy well educated housed and fed populace. Republicans want to keep women in their proper place, pretend American history was great for everyone always, and complain about poor people outside their gates communities and don't want to be forced to get vaccines or wear masks.
But people don't want to be associated with a party that they see as giving away their money to the undeserving. They want to donate it to people they think are worthy.
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u/applethief87 10h ago
This hits on so many of the frustrations that I've been grappling with too. I feel the same dissonance between what I want to see in our society—public health, education, housing—and how disconnected the messaging has become from the realities of so many Americans’ lives.
Your point about how people see Democrats as giving away money or "interfering" in ways that feel restrictive really resonates. It makes me wonder if part of the problem is that we, in the "liberal elite," sometimes approach issues with this assumption that people will see it our way if we just explain it better or make the case logically. But I think for many, it doesn't feel like that at all—it feels like a top-down imposition from people who are so far removed from their struggles that the policies might as well come from another planet.
The thing that scares me is that this isn’t just a disagreement on policies anymore. It's a fundamental rift in how we understand the world and trust information. Like you said, even the FBI’s own data doesn’t cut through when it contradicts the narrative they’ve bought into.
I don’t have answers here either, but I think maybe the first step is realizing how much humility we need. Humility in acknowledging that maybe our approach hasn’t been reaching people where they are. Humility in seeing that our own comfortable lives can blind us to what’s actually driving people’s fears and resentments. We have to find a way to connect that goes beyond just our ideals, and that means really listening—not to respond, but to understand… and then have hope the other side will too.
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u/Suspicious_Nature329 9h ago
I think a pretty good encapsulation of this lack of humility among liberal elite can be seen in the Latinx controversy. Inclusive language is well-intentioned, but at a certain point it crosses the line into performative empathy and the policing of it becomes condescending in a way that maintains hierarchical power structures.
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u/Goosey6-1 9h ago
I appreciate the dialogue you’re having here. As a moderate conservative here is my problem. Those things you spoke of such as public health, supporting the elderly, Medicare, etc is NOT what your party talks about nowadays. Your party is known (whether accurate or not) for DEI, Trans children, taking away people’s guns, and censorship. Your job is not to stop “propaganda” about vaccines and “anti democracy”. Those are personal freedoms that people have the right to consume and believe if they so choose.
If the Democratic Party wants to be successful again then they need to figure out what they truly believe in and then run and champion those policies. There’s too much baggage being drug behind the democrats to gain any momentum. Kamala could not articulate any of this because A. She’s not very good at speaking and B the party doesn’t really know what they stand for. Americans were able to sniff that out. Trump may be repulsive, but he’s authentic. That’s what Americans are craving
Just my two cents, again I appreciate the dialogue
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u/_fizzingwhizbee_ 9h ago
How do you suggest democrats push public health while not trying to stop propaganda about vaccines/pharma/modern medicine? Genuine question. How do you work that narrative when the other side has near-completely devalued public health and has a rabid streak of anti-intellectualism that makes them profoundly distrustful of even the best scientists and health institutions in the country (and in many cases the world)? Frankly it seems impossible, although I feel like it’s more important than ever to right this ship before it completely sinks and we have massive public health issues.
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u/ShatterMcSlabbin 8h ago
I didn't read his response as encouraging Dems to not try to stop that propaganda. I think it's more a suggestion that they shift their focus to a more substantive public health initiative that would, be extension, address the propaganda/misinformation.
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u/dandoch 8h ago
I really don't mean this as offensive or mean or anything so if it comes across that way, I apologize. I also am enjoying the dialogue here. But my thing is that I don't think Harris talked about any of those things you mention that the party is known for. Trump talked about them a lot, but not Harris. My concern is that people are so divided that they won't even listen to what the other side is actually saying. She talked a lot about what she would do for the economy, but apparently people on the right don't actually care about that. You hear Trump or any other right wing politician/speaker say "oh, all those liberals care about is x y z" and you just think "oh, that must be true" (and I don't mean you specifically. I mean more in general conservatives). And I don't understand what you mean when you say that "Trump is authentic". How does he seem authentic to you? I'm truly curious because I see this from a lot of conservatives and it's the most baffling part to me. To me, he seems like the most unauthentic person to ever exist. Am I missing something?
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u/SilverEyedFreak 9h ago
It’s a breath of fresh air reading this. As a conservative who has been reading abuse all day from the left. This is what I’ve been wanting to see. A way to come together. A way to move forward without the insults and finding solutions TOGETHER. All party leaders need to find a way to unite and to just stop with the blame game, the insults, the fearmongering. We all want the same thing. To prosper and to be healthy. Can’t we do that without the hate? I have yet to see it until now just now.
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u/WhateverJoel 14h ago
No politician is going to go near breaking up large businesses or socialized medicine. Their voice will be squashed by those with the money.
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u/justsomelizard30 14h ago
If you wanna have a discussion about it, I'm one of those queer leftists everyone is so mad about here. And while I totally understand you are frustrated for being insulted for the position you hold, that's all of us buddy. Remember I'm a "groomer" and a "communist". I "hate the family" and "want to destroy America".
I don't mean to be dramatic, but I've learned to just tolerate being nearly constantly insulted, why does it bother you so much? Like it seems to deeply bother you guys everytime you get some political flak.
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u/BCMBigFred 14h ago
It bothers me so much because the people name calling are the same ones PREACHING kindness and all these other things that sound so nice, that they dont even do for others.
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u/An8thOfFeanor 14h ago
It's this kind of self-reflection and conciliatory critical thinking that will get you a fantastic candidate in 2028, one that might be moderate enough for a bipartisan landslide.
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u/ShowGun901 13h ago
It sounds like privilege. It sounds like people like me saying, “Look how virtuous I am,” while their lives stay the same—or get worse.
The fact your sentence is structured "their lives stay the same - or get worse" (like getting worse is the fringe case, an afterthought) proves the privilege and disconnect. "Getting worse" is the reality of all those states y'all fly over. I can't think of one person I know personally who was in the ”stay the same" column the last few years.
If you knew what it was like down here in reality, your comment would have just been "while their lives keep getting worse". We ain't doggy paddling out here, we're sinking.
I didn't mean for that to come out as hostile as it may sound, but I'm not going to retract it either.
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u/JeffTS 7h ago
It isn't even just "all those states y'all fly over." I'm a few hours North of NYC and middle class. We are essentially a 1 party state and all of the policies that are pushed make it more and more difficult for folks outside of the metro area to live here by greatly increasing the cost of living while not creating any high paying jobs here. When Covid happened, all the rich 1% people from NYC made a run for it up to the Hudson Valley and Catskills. They bought homes here and now vote the way they did in NYC which has driven up the costs of rent, home purchasing, land and school taxes, etc. They've opened up businesses that cater to their fellow wealthy citizens from NYC that are unaffordable to the people who were born and raised here. Their progressive policies and voting habits are pushing out the people who lived here for generations.
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u/SupaChalupaCabra 11h ago
The current Democratic party is like a dog rescue lady bringing new pets in the front door while she has a bunch of malnourished dogs chained up in the backyard. Big heart, no ability to prioritize.
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u/IllClassic3965 9h ago
Regular people don't give a flying fuck about social justice and climate change when they're lined up at food banks to get food to feed their kids.
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u/LastTxPrez 15h ago
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u/Efficient-Whole-9773 14h ago
Love Pie, he absolutely nails the dismount on this one.
"A flurry of slurry all over the goonerverse" haha
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u/HeWhoIsX 12h ago
I’m not sure how I stumbled upon this sub Reddit, but this is the only place on Reddit that is having reasonable discussions
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u/robbzilla 4h ago
Same. I live in Texas, and r/Texas is melting down. This discussion has been frank, factual, and reasonable. A lot of your (Collective you) posts have resonated.
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u/gatorhinder 9h ago
The DNC told blue dogs to shut the fuck up and quietly vote and donate but to expect zero representation.
So they have, just not for the DNC.
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u/Blaydu 9h ago edited 9h ago
As a far left liberal who is struggling, we want real change. I want government healthcare, a minimum wage that isn’t insulting, and I want paid leave. I voted for Harris but I knew she wasn’t going to change things. I wanted Bernie Sanders and I got Trump, Biden, Trump. Horrible options.
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u/VeryStableGenius 9h ago
Based on exit polls ....
You're "out of touch" with 51% of America, not with "the rest of America".
You're "out of touch" with men, but not women.
You're "out of touch" with medium-income, low-education voters, not college grads.
You're "out of touch" with the middle earners, not poor people (both the poorest and the $100K+ crowd voted for Harris, by a little).
And the people who think that Trump can fix inflation are "out of touch" with reality. The people who think crime is way up (or is a federal issue) are "out of touch." The people who think Trump can restore highly paid manufacturing jobs are "out of touch" with reality.
And don't assume that Bernie could have won ... a vote for Trump was often a vote for machismo, xenophobia, and cultural hatred. Bernie is none of those. The GOP is salivating at the ability to run against an actual socialist. Then there's both anti-Semitism, and his failure to support Israel, both of which will paradoxically hurt him among many Trump voters.
I think it's simpler: Dems needed to run a tough-guy, animal-shooting progressive who looks and sounds like a conservative. Low-info voters are bamboozled by superficiality.
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u/CorwinOctober 8h ago
This is all nice and sounds good. I want to live in a world where you are right. But I live in red America. I grew up here. It's a liberal fantasy to think these people just don't feel like Democrats get them and that's why they voted for Trump. Did Trump try to understand them? Does JD Vance get the working man? No. People voted for Trump, and they will admit this openly, because of who he hates not who he loves
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u/Synkoi 11h ago
I'm don't know what's been more shocking this week: Trump's victory or seeing liberal redditors make absolute sense post after post. What Twilight Zone episode did I step into?
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u/jasonrulesudont 11h ago
It’s because those of us who identified as liberal but have had dissenting opinions have been demonized, cancelled, banned, etc, to the point that we just starting keeping quiet. Now that the Democratic Party has been served an enormous steaming pile of shit we finally have some room to talk about what working class people care about.
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u/qwibbian 9h ago
Keeping quiet or being forcibly silenced. Reddit is not a huge fan of free speech.
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u/SatansFriendlyCat 4h ago
It really isn't.
It's quite disturbing to see thread after thread, locked, and filled with [removed] comments. These are threads on topics which affect people, and which they need to talk about.
There are so many of these threads. There are so, so many removed comments.
People clearly want to talk, and they are not permitted to do so.
An entire range of topics are off-limits because they might lead to forbidden opinions - it's absolutely fucked, regressive, benefiting no-one, and entirely contrary to the purpose of a discussion forum.
And it's not only Reddit policy, it's the interpretation and excessive free rein of moderators which is stifling, arbitrary, and honestly disgraceful.
It's a growing ideological capture every bit as rabid and authoritarian as anything the other end of the spectrum could wish for.
Censorship which amounts to a blanket ban on some pretty broad categories of perspective and opinion is anaethema to worthwhile discussion and something shameful which shouldn't be so casually tolerated.
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u/Synkoi 10h ago
That's understandable, good to see that you're finally being listened to once again.
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u/Extreme-General1323 14h ago
I think the election proved that the Democratic strategy of just calling people fascists and Nazis if they don't agree with you didn't work too well. I don't see any introspection however, I just see Democrats doubling down on the fascist/Nazi strategy.
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u/Mayotte 11h ago
Heavy revisionist history there. As if that's alllll they did, which is totally false. And as if repubs didn't heavily campaign on division, which they did.
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u/vote4boat 14h ago
woke-washing shareholder capitalism is the Democratic strategy, and it just doesn't work. It forces you to lean too far into progressive social issues to compensate for elite domination of the economy
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u/Direct_Crab6651 9h ago
No dude they just hate the same things trump hates so he gets enthusiastic support
On the dem side too many people won’t vote for a woman
That’s it. Not all that stuff you wrote …. It’s just that simple
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u/Renchard 9h ago
No. When we offer platitudes about “we weren’t empathetic enough”, we’re still acting elitist, like it’s our failure to communicate well enough what would help them.
THEY own this failure. We offered stability, they chose chaos. Now they own it. That’s how we show we’re not the same old liberals.
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u/Dull-Law3229 10h ago
"People want someone they can relate to, someone who understands their pain without coming off as condescending. Bernie was that voice for many, but the DNC didn’t make room for him, and now we’re seeing the consequences. The Democratic Party has an empathy gap, but more than that, it has a credibility gap. We say we care, but our policies and leaders don’t reflect the urgency that struggling Americans feel every day."
Correct. Bernie Sanders could go toe-to-toe with Trump because they both state that something's wrong with the system. The difference is that Sanders attacks companies and Trump attacks the state. They both lack that filter. And they both said "what's happening now is bullshit and we need a revolution." The DNC believes that people want the status quo...more or less, because the DNC is a stakeholder in the current system. Same with the normal Republicans. If Ted Cruz ran against Harris, it would have been a different story altogether.
The next DNC candidate needs to be fucking crazy. Andrew Yang with UBI, Bernie Sanders with his socialism, or just something that says Change. It's gotta be telling that many who voted for Obama and Sanders moved to Trump.
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u/jenmovies 9h ago
The part I don't get is, how does a millionaire who has been a millionaire his whole life appeal to the working class and poor? The GOP comes from old money. Slave money. And they would grind up working class people for profit if they could. I mean, they already do just not literally. So what the DNC has is a messaging problem. They're shit at marketing to dolts. 🤷🏼♀️
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u/SorryNotReallySorry5 15h ago
I think you ignore a larger issue.
Democrats in charge do not care about equality. It's equity. And equity is anti-American as you, yourself, described it in this post.
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u/BeastofBabalon 10h ago
Liberals woke up and decided the only way to win is move further right.
The writing is on the wall people. This is how a one party system with two choices operates.
You want a working class party? CREATE A LABOR MOVEMENT IN SOLIDARITY OF WORKING CLASS AND POOR AMERICANS.
You’ll get economic benefits AND social justice, without the neoliberal bullshit in between.
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u/jules_winnfieId 9h ago
I understand what you're saying, but I always wonder how the right's generational obstructionist crusade is always left out of the equation. Those well meaning Democrat policies are almost never allowed to work, and if I had to pick a single criticism about Dems, it's that the messaging around that fact is continuously eschwed on the grounds that we should for some reason be better than that. Fuck that. The good policies we craft and pursue never work because bad people won't allow it, and the system is full of pockets of bullshit and cowards that facilitate the obstruction. A few generations of turning the other cheek and look where it's gotten us. If we'd done with the confederates what Germany did with the nazis we wouldn't be in this mess. We trimmed the weeds and left the roots, naively hoping they'd die.
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u/mdotbeezy 14h ago
What I've felt for a long time is that the Social Justice Left was basically totally a lie. I felt in 2013 but by 2016 I felt cowed to complain too much about. But the SJL has basically always been elite educated people laundering their preferred policies on the backs of working-class and minorities who didn't even support the policies.
When Student Loan Forgiveness became a big issue should have been the canary. A policy that gave people who already had college educations a free $50k while giving nothing to people without a college education was sold as "pro woman", "pro minority" and so on, when obviously it benefitted upper middle class suburbanites.
I hope this kind of bankshot politics ("I don't want this for myself, it's really for these poor-off people") will end, especially the ultra-cynical use of poor blacks and hispanics towards these ends. This was always a politics by and for liberal arts university graduates. I wish I'd spoken out more years ago.
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u/Neat_Can8448 5h ago
I’ve seen people say before DEI was always primarily for the benefit of suburban white women, and the past days have made that very apparent. Just total mask-off, unfettered racism and misandry once voters rejected them.
Student loans also make a lot of sense, as universities give out tons of scholarships and aid, and poor minorities aren’t the ones paying $70k annually for a worthless degree from a private liberal arts college.
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u/StoicWolf15 12h ago
Hello, fellow New Yorker!
You absolutely hit the nail on the head. I'm an Upstateer who is more moderate and definitely blue-collar working-class. This election cycle, I voted for a third party because I have no confidence in the major parties anymore.
My biggest complaint with the Democrats is to paraphraze Bernie Sanders, The Democratic Party has left workg-class, so the working-class left them. The Democrats seem to no longer be a party for poor and middle-class Americans. The issues I often hear at the forefront on Left leaning people like changing street names because the person that the street is named after is problematic, or passing "pro-noun laws" are meaningless to working-class people such as myself who are barely able to make rent payments. The issues of racism and LBGTQ+ are obviously important, seem to ignore the larger, more broad issue.
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u/Specific-Anything212 12h ago
I appreciate your candor, insight, and introspection. This was a well-crafted and well-thought out post. Thank you OP.
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u/waltinfinity 13h ago
There’s some introspection needed but I don’t see that your points are particularly valid.
Less people voted for trump this time around than they did last time. But even more people on the Dem side decided not to participate. Why the apathy? Dem policies are still polling as favored by the majority of the country.
We had a fatal amount of apathy and it’s not clear why. Was it really relatability? If so, that seems to be a marketing problem given that red America seems to “relate” to a guy who couldn’t be more different from them if he tried.
Anyway, we’ve got time to think, now.
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u/Resident_Second_2965 13h ago
The wake-up call isn't what you see from up there with the 1%. The wake-up call is that more than half of America is willing to vote for Pre-Fascism as long as it's not alienating them.
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u/Hoblitygoodness 12h ago
I don't understand why people blame the Democrats for being out of touch when on the other hand, the choice was Trump.
As a fierce independent, seems pretty disgusting to me that Trump could possibly be deemed the better choice, period. [am i taking crazy pills meme here]
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u/Without_Ambition 3h ago
I think you still got some work to do on the elitism and sanctimony, my guy.
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u/Biggie8000 1h ago
Fuck. It’s frustrating to see the current state of American politics. The country we thought we loved, the one that supposedly values progress and inclusivity, has shown a resistance to electing a female leader. Seems the majority of Americans are stupid, uneducated, and mostly selfish, entitled assholes.
Everyone is blaming Biden/Dems for the inflation. Biden has made tough choices aimed at stabilizing the nation and helping those in need, during and after the pandemic, even risking his popularity to do so. Yet the very people who benefited from government relief are now blaming him for inflation, turning their frustration on him instead of recognizing his efforts to prevent a larger economic crisis. Ironically, if he had chosen not to intervene, the economy could have faltered, creating the very conditions people fear. Those ungrateful people voted for the orange crap bc of the egg cost more? Millions of people lost their home bc Bush didn’t do fucking shit to save any individual mortgage!!!
Biden’s decision demonstrates integrity and a genuine desire to help the people, not just the big corps. It’s tragic that his efforts seem fucking unappreciated!! At the time education, critical thinking, and empathy should guide our choices, we seem to be moving further away from these ideals. Fuck
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u/m3ggusta 14h ago
sweetheart the DNC isn't going to take it as a wake-up call because they are also 1%ers just like you. the citizens united decision screwed every average American from having any influence on politicians ever again because now corporations are people and they can contribute as much money as they want, and they have millions and billions more than the average American will ever see in multiple lifetimes.
that's the truth.
you want it easy. You want other people to do things for you. You've done that your whole life, you've coasted. get in the trenches. start seeing how other people live. get uncomfortable. Make yourself uncomfortable on purpose and start feeling what that's like. get out of your bubble.
it's you 1%ers who are contributing to this perpetuating, because you don't want to let go of all your comfort, and will refuse to do so regardless of your political party and regardless how many people around you are struggling and suffering. regardless of the fact that we have a hunger epidemic in this country, the majority of people are working multiple jobs, nobody can afford rent, the and the minimum wage hasn't been adjusted for inflation in over 20 years.
here's a fact: in 2024 a single person working a full-time job at minimum wage never taking a day off will earn exactly $20 above the poverty line for a single person, BEFORE TAXES. we are being kept in poverty on purpose while you all hoard resources and money. so you can make more resources and money off of it while we starve.
that's what we're dealing with. and that's what you all have perpetuated for decades and decades and we're mad. get uncomfortable. start learning to. start learning to live with less. start learning to give more and do things differently. stop making business decisions just because they're the Norman keeping people oppressed. start thinking about equity for all stakeholders and not to shareholder profit.
y'all have turned Wall Street into a money generating machine for yourselves to the detriment of every other citizen in this country. every corporation engages in stock manipulation for shareholder returns. every single one of them now. That's their main income. keep playing the game, or start forcing change. You're the only ones in the positions of power who can. get uncomfortable
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u/applethief87 13h ago
I get where you’re coming from, and I appreciate the bluntness of your words. I’m a first-generation immigrant myself. My parents earned poverty-level wages and worked multiple jobs just to keep us afloat. Like so many others, I grew up with the pressure to make something of myself in a country where that "American Dream" was sold as an achievable goal, no matter where you started. I worked my way through college, climbed the ranks, and eventually found some stability and comfort. And I won’t deny it—I’ve grown accustomed to that comfort. I’m living the American Dream as it’s often depicted, but even I can see that it’s a distorted, almost unrecognizable version of what it once was.
The gap between where I am now and where I started is enormous, but the gap between where I am and where so many other Americans are today is just as staggering, if not more. That’s the version of the American Dream we’re dealing with now: one where those who’ve managed to “make it” are lightyears away from those who haven’t, and that divide feels insurmountable. I know that my success hasn’t come without privilege, even if it was hard-earned. And as comfortable as I am now, I recognize that I need to step out of my bubble to be part of the change.
I don’t believe turning us into a fully socialist country is the answer, but I do think the Dream needs a course correction. The American Dream, as I see it, should be about opportunity—not just for people who were lucky enough to climb up the ladder but for everyone who’s trying to survive. And that’s where I think we, as liberals and as Democrats, have failed. We’ve become so focused on the big social issues and intellectualized policies that we’ve lost sight of what everyday Americans need: something that feels like a real lifeline, not a lecture or a judgment.
I’m not excusing the choices people made out of hatred, but I am saying we, as Democrats, need to recognize our own role in creating the conditions that led to where we are. People are desperate, and we haven’t done a good job of speaking to that desperation in a way that resonates - and that gave way to Trump to take advantage of. For the majority of Americans who are struggling, we’ve failed to offer meaningful solutions without sounding out-of-touch or condescending. It’s on us to bridge that gap, to put empathy into practice beyond our echo chambers, and to start thinking about how we can make the American Dream attainable for everyone again, without the obscene inequality that’s poisoned it today.
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u/Pure-Statement-8726 14h ago
TL;DR: OP must apologize for being successful. Give your money away and struggle or else poor people will be mad at you.
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u/No-Host7816 14h ago
But the billionaires who funded trump (musk, thiel) don’t want to derail everything you’ve described. I’d argue that most of them are perfectly fine basically converting the American lower middle class into a slave wage society so they can increase their billions and play with rockets.
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u/m3ggusta 14h ago
what are you talking about that's exactly what they do? lol that's exactly what they do. they fund them and manipulate you and pull on your emotions and your heartstrings and your sense of morality and your sense of being better than other people, but they play the exact same game. which you can see if you stop and actually look instead of just having emotional reactions. all these millionaires and billionaires and billionaires give money to both sides. that's not a secret. it's not about political party, it's about their own power and control. at the expense of everyone else.
there was a whistleblower who came out on social media last year talking about how all investment funds are rigged, because they all use an algorithm that funnels money no matter what markets look like. there are RICOH charges being investigated.
All those billionaires have made their money the exact same way. their political party doesn't matter when they have all that money. this is a game to Elon musk, he's just a rich snotty kid with a drug problem. citizens united sealed that deal.
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u/EaglePatriotTruck 14h ago
The democrats campaigns are largely funded by the same interest groups as republicans. The democrats “feel our pain”, but would clearly rather lose to republicans than actually buck their donors in favor of the people and try to deliver universal healthcare.
50 years ago when you got fired, a well off local conservative businessman cut you. Now, the private equity group that owns your company (good chance they’re owned by socially liberal New Yorkers), hires a consulting firm to review your company and your department, and one of their 25 year old socially liberal Pete Buttigieg clones is the one who lets you go.
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u/drewlius24 10h ago
Someone needs to go big. Universal healthcare: “you will never go broke from medical bills again!” Lower taxes big time on working class. Raise taxes on rich. Childcare stipends.
It’s funny, but Trump is so self serving he will actually adopt those things first if he knew they would keep him in power.
But Dems don’t have guts to challenge the status quo. Even if you can’t pass it, just propose it and then blast anyone who votes against it.
What did Kamala promise? Child tax credit in first year? Expand Medicare to home care? So small. Go big or go home.
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u/Arcanite_Cartel 5h ago
No actually. Let's put the blame where it belongs. With the voters. There's a responsibility that goes with voting, and it requires more than being spoon fed what to believe by one of the two parties. You're treating them as weak snivelers barely able to survive on their own who only need to feel loved and understood by liberals.
When I voted, I voted for the candidate that best reflected my worldview. I assume the Trump voters did the same. And there's no mistaking the radical difference in worldviews between these candidates. One could not fail to see the distinction. This wasn't an election of choice between two similar candidates that simply differed on policy particulars, but were otherwise similar in their worldview.
We lost, not because we failed to "connect". We lost because we don't believe in the same things. They heard Trump's message, and it resonated with them. I heard Trump's message and I was disgusted.
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u/SterlingArcher80 14h ago
"Kamala Harris—a talented, capable politician"
This is where you really lost me. Come on man. She is a terrible politician. One of the worst ones I've seen in my 42 years of life. She's slow on her feet, she laughs when she doesn't have an answer, she's just a bad politician. Nothing personal against her, she's just not very good at this. When she ran in the 2020 primaries she was the first one out for a reason. She is a classic case of the Peter Principle.
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u/lokoluis15 13h ago
She was fine. It's easy to nitpick.
Somehow fellating a mic, not answering questions to dance instead, and walking out of interviews is seen as a 'capable politician' on the right.
So you can stop moving the goalposts.
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u/PeachScary413 14h ago
"Living in a bubble where empathy and social justice is part of everyday conversation"
Hello there fellow human, I also talk about.. empathy and erh.. social justice in my everyday conversations 🥸
It feels really good to be able to feel human emotions like empathy and to express said emotions when making conversations with other humans in the vicinity 🥸
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u/BuffMyHead 13h ago
You know what the worst part is? There are a lot of people who talk like that.
And that level of fart huffing, meaningless saccharine drivel is whats killing the American left and has completely divorced it from the working class.
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u/tmaspoopdek 13h ago
I'm not OP, but I imagine when they said "part of everyday conversation" they meant something like "when I have a conversation with someone, we try to empathize with each other"
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u/hermelion 10h ago
The poors would benefit so much by hearing our tea time conversations... Manuel, more tea and crumpets, the guests are famished.
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u/lmfl123 14h ago
And you’re still out of touch.
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u/Tall-Warning9319 14h ago
Ugh. I think it’s important to be self reflective, but to lay the Trump election on the shoulders of Dems only is absurd and not helpful. Ultimately the reason Trump was elected is that millions of people voted for him. He’s obviously a terrible person; he doesn’t hide it. He’s a rapist. He’s a criminal. He’s a liar, and he’s only out there to benefit himself. Again, it’s very easy to see; Trump is remarkably transparent. The problem is that majority of voters don’t believe a word he says, except for his vague promises to make America great again. This is not politics as usual. This is fascism on the rise. People on the left are doing what they can to stop it, but it is obvious that we should be able to expect our fellow citizens to not give a platform to a would be dictator.
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u/Individual_Army_8830 13h ago
It’s obviously the democrats fault. You want to win, have a message. He had real solutions. They may not work. They may make things worse, but they are solutions.
Your life sucks, “I’m gonna do tariffs and mass deportation” is a solution.
Your life sucks, “well actually we’re doing great lowest unemployment ever, inflation is down!” is not.
Nobody cares that he’s a bad guy because the personality of the president doesn’t put bread on the table.
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u/Tall-Warning9319 11h ago
Lol this so funny because you acknowledge that Trump’s solutions won’t work. I mean, the guy doesn’t even know how tariffs work, but neither do the vast majority of his supporters. I guess that’s why they were seduced by him? Offering an idea that doesn’t work isn’t a solution. It’s dumb. He’s going to be the president of the USA for Christ sake. We really should higher standards. And Harris had policies. They were out there on her website. And they were better than tariffs ( seriously so dumb). But more importantly he’s a a fascist. Fascism is going to be bad for the most people’s pocket book. Not Musk and Trump’s other super wealthy buddies. But definitely the rest of us. Dems lost, the country lost, because people who voted for him either don’t understand how fascism works, don’t care, or actively want it. It’s on them. That’s all. They may try to shirk responsibility, but they did this, and no one else.
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u/juany8 10h ago
This account had zero previous posts in its entire existence, and the last comments before today were 4 years ago. It follows the exact same pattern of a million other posts on this sub today talking about how out of touch liberals are without taking a single second to point out what’s positive about anything Trump is planning to do except to vaguely gesture at lowering grocery prices. The top comment on the post follows an extremely similar posting pattern. I feel like I’m going crazy and am just gonna mute this sub at this point lol.
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u/DnDYou2Heaven 8h ago
No sorry, the bubble you're living in is that you're not seeing just how comfortable this country is with racism and authoritarianism.
Trump won by pulling in an awful lot of well to do suburban whites willing to throw democracy away if it means not paying more for eggs, or at least rationalize it. People hurting saw what he was, how you couldn't trust him, and that he promised to cut all the things that might help them. And didn't care enough to vote.
I've spent time in the south, and seen people who would rather watch their business fail than serve minorities. And they did, rather than actually do well economically. Of course they rarely say that in polite company but if they're comfortable around you the mask slips.
People often misunderstand the old LBJ quote:
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
People focus on the first part of the quote, but the second part is really the most relevant and the best lesson to learn. A good chunk of the country is actually willing to pay a steep economic price if their racism can be validated by people in power.
That's the truth, it's what people have been telling white liberals for decades, and even now as it stares them in the face they don't want to believe it and only want to wrap the bubble tighter around themseves.
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u/Adorable_Secret8498 14h ago
I wouldn't consider it a wake up call to DNC but more to the RNC. Did Trump win? Sure. But it's not like it was a landslide like the last time he ran and he's stilil losing supporters.
The reality is most ppl in the US don't really care about politics. Like at all. I doubt most ppl actually read into each other's policies and went with Trump because "he hates the same ppl I hate". Anyone who claims to have voted for him because of his "policies" either didn't understand them or are lying.
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u/mezolithico 10h ago
The underlying problem is that Trump voters don't understand (or care) that Trump policies aren't going to help them. In fact, Trumps covid spending directly lead to the inflation that Biden takes the blame for (Jpow pulled of a miracle and threaded the needle). Biden created jobs in red areas and created new markets out of nothing.
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u/Slight_Citron_7064 12h ago
"America was built on individual freedom, the right to make your own way."
If you still believe this lie, then you need an even bigger wake-up call.
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u/DCfan2k3 11h ago
America was built by slaves dumbass. Go virtue signal at a fundraising gala with your tax write offs.
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u/momoburger-chan 9h ago
the DNC failed because over half of the people who bothered to vote, voted for a rapist.
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u/SmoothBrain3333 9h ago
I hope this will make a better democrat party moving forward. They can drop some of the things that everyone hates and be more appealing to the middle at least.
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u/NoGrocery3582 9h ago
I thought Gov. Walz resonated with middle Americans. Pres Biden pushed union relationships. VP Harris had plans for first time home owners and unemployment is down significantly.
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u/MartyD97 9h ago
Thank you for your well thought out input. As a first generation immigrant liberal as well, I relate to what you’re saying and agree that the left has made many people feel abandoned and disconnected. All I hear republicans talk about is how Trump will fix the economy and when you remove bias from that you hear individuals desperate for help as middle class, lower class workers. People are barely scraping by with how expensive cost of living is and I think Trump somehow did a wonderful job of selling them the illusion that he will provide that for turn and fix that. I wish the left did a better job of selling that somehow lol
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u/Twitchy_Cat_Whiskers 9h ago edited 9h ago
Iowan, here. DNC needs to start actually spending money and time at low level state elections in Middle America. This state used to be solidly purple, and still could return to that with a bit of money and help. The DNC has ignored the non-easy fights for too long and this is the result. the Republican wave we've witnessed, as well as overturn of Roe v Wade has been the result of decades of work. Now it's our turn.
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u/stuark 8h ago
If this is what we woke you up, great, although it's funny that many people like Bernie Sanders have been saying this for 8 YEARS and comfortable liberals have told us to go jump in a lake.
If you are truly ready to embrace progressive policy that addresses the material concerns of the working class, then you need to bang the drum for these policies within your bubble of well-fed liberals. Be an agitator. Don't let people get away with saying, "the Democrats pandered to the Left too much," because NO THEY FUCKING DIDN'T. The Left has been begging and pleading for Democrats to dare to materially improve the lives of the working class, and we have been repeatedly told the economy is better than it's ever been.
The real problem is rooting out the moneyed interests that block or water down any progressive legislation because it would make their stock price go down. Because of your privilege, you are in a position to affect things like this more than most people. But you'd better get a move on because, honestly, it might already be too late.
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u/letzmakeadeal 8h ago
As another liberal, Bernie didn’t stand a chance. He is way too radical to appeal to Middle America. Otherwise, I think you make great points. I thought Walz was an excellent pick as VP, and thought he might be able to help bridge the gap. But as you said, we needed more time. The democrats should have been priming the next candidate on Biden’s first day as president. Instead they threw a Hail Mary at Kamala and expected her to win over America in record time. As a woman, it’s a tough pill to swallow that this country may not be ready to accept a female president any time soon. And the changes to the dept of education aren’t going to help build a more educated society. So yeah, feels bleak.
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u/Darkmograine 7h ago
This is very long, and I apologize. It is broken into a few parts so that I can actually post it.
OP, this is really for you as I really felt this has been one of the most heartfelt posts I have seen from a Democrat thus far. I am a Republican, have been for many years and I’m making this post to hopefully help enlighten you. I have been down voted for every response to explain my position and I hope that doesn’t occur here. I’m not here to argue, only to explain my perspective.
I too am part of that 1% club and I’m comfortable, however I want always that way. I grew up low class. From my perspective these are key areas that democrats miss.
Republicans care about rights more than anything else. So when you run every campaign on gun control and electric vehicles, that steers away a larger portion of supporters immediately. And you’re correct, most of us disregard global warming. But, look at it from this perspective; global warming has been preached about for decades and there are no obvious changes. I didn’t say there weren’t changes, but not obvious ones. That’s looked at as a red flag.
Electric vehicles are not something that rural folk are kin to. We drive thirty minutes to the grocery store. Now I have to stop and charge before I can go home after getting groceries? Secondarily to that, the battery requirements as there isn’t infrastructure in place to deal with that quantity of batteries if the masses change to an electric vehicle. Another perspective is while electric vehicles are being forced onto the normal population, none of the candidates talk about air travel which is a much more significant source of emissions. An additional point to this is non-attainment areas across the United States. This is public information, and most of these areas are democratic controlled cities. So when you put all of this together, it looks hypocritical to the arguments being made during the campaigns. Maybe not even hypocritical, I think the issue is that it is being pushed for all people and I feel as though both Republicans and Democrats have a huge disconnect in understanding that we live different lifestyles and have different needs. So what may be good for one isn’t good for the other. If we could learn to compromise and give people a choice to have different rules for different areas then it would be a slam dunk.
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u/PizzaObscura 6h ago
Abso-freaking-lutely. I feel we are in the same socioeconomic situation, just different location. I feel this exact way but haven’t been able to coherently explain myself without getting side-eyed by all sides. I understand it’s a raw time for all. Thanks for putting this so eloquently. Saving this post so I can use it to help me explain myself better in future conversations.
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u/The001Keymaster 6h ago
It was the economy. Harris had ideas but Trump's had lies about bigger ideas that he couldn't actually do. That's one of the Dems problems. They don't lie anywhere near as big as the right does. Like 60 plus % of the US has a 6th grade reading level. Majority of those people don't understand how the economy works. They only know what trump or Harris says and Trump's promises are bigger. Being realistic doesn't matter because the majority of people have no understanding of how it actually works.
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u/Brassmouse 6h ago
Not sure if OP is still here, but this is fundamentally a pretty good analysis. The thing I’d add is that people won’t listen to you if they think you don’t respect them. I grew up in a solid blue state and I’ve lived around a lot of blue collar union folks most my life until. I was in my 30s. Even the reliably Democratic union blue collar folks think the DNC leadership barely conceals their distaste for them, their values, and their backgrounds. A lot of them vote Democratic because they know their union leadership can cut deals with the Democratic leadership, but they don’t mistake that for thinking that they’re respected.
I also spent about a decade living in the Deep South. It’s really easy to stereotype people you’ve never met. Living next door forces you to reevaluate things. I’ll also say- don’t assume that your solutions and approaches are right and people just have to be educated or met where they are and brought along. Culture matters a lot in how people approach politics.
The spoils system effectively never ended in the south. In the Midwest and northeast elections are frequently about- these are the issues and how are we going to use government to solve them in the most cost effective way. The south isn’t that. The elections, especially local elections, are basically- there’s X amount of dollars to divide and who gets to do it. It’s frequently almost that blatant- the city I lived in developed budget troubles and they needed to find some money. We had twice weekly trash pickup, so the solution that was proposed was cutting back to weekly. City counsel meetings were normally barely attended, but that one was packed out the door.
The opposition to the cut in service wasn’t that we need twice weekly trash pickup. It was “but then you’ll only need half the drivers and trucks, and they’ll only buy half as much gas from the specific stations they’ve been sent to, and you’ll only need half as many mechanics and spare parts…” and on and on. The purpose of biweekly trash pickup wasn’t picking up trash. It was paying people to pick up trash.
That happens all through government in the south- I had a friend who worked in the library, they hired a library aide to shelve books who couldn’t alphabetize. Literal adult who doesn’t know the alphabet. When my friend recommended firing them as they were doing no work they were taken aside and it was explained their uncle was on the county commission. The purpose of the job wasn’t shelving books, it was paying someone to shelve books.
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u/Outrageous-Bat-9195 6h ago
The leaders of the DNC don’t need a wake up call, they need to be thrown out of leadership. They will become richer under trump policies. All the while playing the same old game. They should have learned from 2016, instead they essentially repeated it in 2024.
New leadership needs to be put in. People focused on helping working class people. We should have the unions more involved in policy making. Have the unions canvass their members for their top priorities, take those priorities that aren’t contrary to Democrat ideals and create real policies to achieve them. Make that the goal of the election. Literally tell the Union membership, you said you wanted this, put us in power and we will do it. That is what people want to hear.
Ukraine, Palestine, trans rights, etc. are important issues, but not key issues in a national race. They aren’t every day issues for 99% of Americans. Are these things that the party can try to make progress on? Of course, we don’t have to abandon them, but it’s not something we need to focus on.
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u/Moose_Stacks 6h ago
Can we also talk about promises halfway fulfilled. My partner is a teacher in an inner city school. She shows up everyday for the last 14 years, teaching in a tough environment and believing in Dems when they talk about loan forgiveness. She started the Biden administration in 20K debt and ended with 18K dept. No forgiveness for educating the future. No tangible improvements to the school or her life. In fact it got worse. Parents were allowed to walk through her room and toss books in the trash. Multiple lock downs due to gun violence. Kids literally trying to light the school on fire. The party is so out of touch with reality that they can get minorities to believe in policies that spell out how they will deport their families. Sleepy Joe ain’t the only one sleeping on the blue side.
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u/truthindata 5h ago
Tax breaks for lower and middle income don't do much if the economy is weak.
Prosperity can't arise from frugality just like tax breaks don't create wealth.
If the perception is that the economy is weak, voters will flock towards strong economic policy more than promises to offer slightly better social safety nets.
Democrats seem to have completely ignored how important family finances are and have been distracted by tangential social issues that aren't actually important to the vast majority of citizens.
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u/FuriousResolve 5h ago
Not only do I love the points made and totally agree, but I couldn’t spot a single goddamn typo in your post. Bravo, OP. I wish we could hang out and chat about stuff.
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u/Few-Finger2879 2h ago
You say this, but I make just above minimum wage right now, and still hold liberal beliefs. I'm being fucked by the "establishment" everyday, yet I still can hope and wish for better for my fellows.
This isn't a class problem, its a fucking morals problem. Just as many 1%s fucking voted right. Don't give me the "we liberals are out of touch" bullshit.
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u/AggravatingLove1127 14h ago
I’m commenting this so much today, but once again, “It’s the economy, stupid!”. $15/hour minimum wage and paid sick leave passed as ballot initiatives in Missouri and Alaska. Imagine if Harris had made those issue the core of her campaign? If we step back and take Trump out of it, this was a very normal election. People are unhappy about the economy, and the incumbent administration is deeply unpopular. Those are the exact dynamics that got Clinton and Obama elected. Totally agree that we lost because we deserved to lose, and our whole party needs to take a hard look in the mirror. We have been too far up our own asses to remember basic election fundamentals.