• AmidFuror
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      306 months ago

      Exactly. And the other comments so far are pretty ignorant. All close elections are won by winning over independents AND people registered to the other party. Just because Republicans in Congress appear largely in lock-step with Trump doesn’t mean Republican voters are.

      It’s fair to speculate that many Trump haters left the Republican party in 2016 and more in 2020. But certainly not all of them. And beyond the Trump haters are a swathe of people uncertain or uncomfortable with Trump who can be won over.

      • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        356 months ago

        Not what I meant. Democrats will bend over backwards to try to appeal to Republicans before they ever consider appealing to alienated progressives.

        • AmidFuror
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          116 months ago

          Ah, too bad.

          Elections are won by appealing to the center, where the majority of the populace sits, while not alienating (too many) people on your flank.

          Two party politics is a lot of this problem. Ranked choice voting would help a lot. But even in parliamentary systems, coalitions have to gather support in the center without pissing off the edges too much.

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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            156 months ago

            while not alienating (too many) people on your flank.

            You don’t have to worry about that if you consistently blame that flank for your losses. They won’t have a choice.

          • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Elections are won by appealing to the center, where the majority of the populace sits

            Which center was Trump appealing to in 2016? Which extreme did Clinton try to win that same year?

            • Billiam
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              56 months ago

              And yet, she got more votes than Trump. She did appeal to more people, it’s that the system is broken that getting more votes doesn’t make you the winner.

              It’s almost like Trump appealed to the fucking shitheads whose votes count for more than the rest of us.

              • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                36 months ago

                She did appeal to more people, it’s that the system is broken that getting more votes doesn’t make you the winner.

                So you’re saying that moving to the center isn’t how elections are won, then.

                • @nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  16 months ago

                  Speaking to the center in swing states is important and Mrs. Clinton failed to bother with MI, PA, WI, or MN, because she thought he was an easy opponent.

            • AmidFuror
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              26 months ago

              The ignorant center. You need ignorant people to vote for you to win elections.

              • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                106 months ago

                You’re going to sit there and tell me that Trump ran to the center?

                Don’t waste my time with obvious lies.

                • AmidFuror
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                  46 months ago

                  Don’t accuse me of lies. Trump dog whistled to the far right and appealed to the ignorant center. The folks who thought he was a savvy business man who would run the country better than some lifelong politician. The ignorant center that somehow thought Trump would create jobs and restore the rust belt to it’s former glory.

          • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            226 months ago

            I love how progressives are simultaneously to blame for every loss and too insignificant to treat like a valuable constituency.

            • @timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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              86 months ago

              It’s because the bulk are flakes.

              Compare it to a party, or a social gathering. Bill is a bit racist and a loose cannon ® but he shows up every time. Kelly and Joe are cool and level headed and show up quite regularly. Then there is Scott who shows up maybe 10% of the time.

              Now, if I’m looking to invite people to the party and can only pick two, do I go for Kelly and Joe who are quite reliable or do I go with Scott and one of the other two knowing Scott says he’ll go but then doesn’t or just says flat out he isn’t gonna come?

              There are people whose whole jobs revolve around political campaigning and the data says progressives by and large will find one reason or another to not go vote. Or just vote for some esoteric third party therefore “wasting” the vote.

              Put simply, the Dem message can’t stretch far enough to cover both “centrist” voters and the way out there progressives. So a choice has to be made and the centrists come out to vote more often than progressives (at least for the Dems.) Or there are more of them compared to progressives coming out.

              So I’ll ask you too- what is the path forward to political viability for progressives? And I want a real honest to god plan and not just pie in the sky “well if we just abstain for the next few decades like we’ve been doing then they’ll see the light” crap.

              • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                46 months ago

                Compare it to a party, or a social gathering. Bill is a bit racist and a loose cannon ® but he shows up every time. Kelly and Joe are cool and level headed and show up quite regularly. Then there is Scott who shows up maybe 10% of the time.

                Now, if I’m looking to invite people to the party and can only pick two, do I go for Kelly and Joe who are quite reliable or do I go with Scott and one of the other two knowing Scott says he’ll go but then doesn’t or just says flat out he isn’t gonna come?

                Appealing to your best friend Bill isn’t going to get Kelly and Joe to show up any more reliably, and Scott is fed up with how you keep cozying up to Bill. But you always intended to blame Scott for no one coming to your “Let’s all be like Bill” party.

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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            156 months ago

            I’m a progressive who’s voted in every single election for the last 24 years.

            I am not taken seriously.

            • @timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              Then there really aren’t enough of you huh?

              If progressives were even half as popular and half as dedicated as they think themselves to be then they’d sweep elections across the country.

              Imagine more AOC hitting the pavement and voting in primaries and less whining and crying on the internet. I like AOC and progressive causes and such but it’s apparent that there is not enough there (either by apathy or lack of resonance with progressive ideas) to make progressivism a real popular cause.

              So I ask progressives- what is the path forward to political viability?

              Because I like to contrast this with the whackos on the right. The one thing to their credit is they vote every. single. time. And hence the Republican party has gone from right to off-the-rails right and dragged the country with them. They got it done somehow. How do progressives do the same but in reverse?

        • Lexi SneptaurOP
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          56 months ago

          It’s because progressives always vote blue anyway, when they do, and represent a small portion of the voter base. Most Americans are liberals

            • Lexi SneptaurOP
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              56 months ago

              I’m a progressive. Why would I do that? Most progressives live in states where voting for President has no effect anyway. The blue wall, + New York, + Illinois…

      • OBJECTION!
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        26 months ago

        All close elections are won by winning over independents

        Not true. It’s also possible to win by increasing your side’s turnout. And independents aren’t all centrists.

        Republicans already have a major party catering directly to their interests. Meanwhile a full third of the country doesn’t vote. Obviously it’s a better strategy to give non-voters a reason to be engaged rather than trying to win over people who hate you and everyone who looks like you.

    • @RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Joe Biden is courting an unexpected group of voters: the other half

      That’s basically the headline.

    • circuscritic
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      What are you talking about?

      This was definitely NOT a huge component of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

      It also definitely did NOT play into the Democrat’s delusion that any left leaning voters they lost by shifting to the right would be replaced by the GOP moderates it would attract.

      Oh, and Chuck Schummer also NEVER repeatedly made these claims in public, or during media appearances.

      So yeah, this is a bold and definitely BRAND NEW strategy.

      No way it goes tits up.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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      6 months ago

      “What are progressives going to do? Vote Republican?! HAHAHAHA!” - The DNC

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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          And if all the progressives in CA and NY and MA and WY and MT and UT vote for Biden and Trump still wins in the Electoral College all the liberals will blame them for the loss.

          Democrats don’t appeal to progressives because we all live in high density areas and low-density areas define the government. It’s just like PotatoMcWhiskey exploiting the Diplomatic Favor trade hack in Civ; they’re at least attempting to play the actual game that we’re playing.

          Also, I love the subtext of “Everyone should vote! [Democrat].” None of you would know that I just leave the ballot blank every year. Or if I did stupid write ins. But I voted, and that’s what’s important.

          • @disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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            You’re projecting. All liberals don’t blame progressives specifically for Republican wins.

            Some may wedge party divide, but most simply blame abstainers.

            A record 55% of registered Democrats voted in 2020 to barely secure the win.

            https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/

            Voting isn’t putting your name on every action of the elector. It’s simply the most effective way to push the nation in one direction versus the other. Sometimes you vote for an elector, sometimes you vote against one, but you should vote regardless.

        • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          66 months ago

          So how should the party treat them? Like valued constituents or like contemptible shit?

          Because they’re not being treated like valued constituents.

        • @olympicyes@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          They can be mad at Biden for Gaza. Meanwhile, Trump will green light a full annexation of the West Bank as a quid pro quo for Miriam Adelson’s support. This is the same reason he moved the embassy to Jerusalem to lock in her husband’s support for the 2016 election.

          Edit: run-on sentence

  • @anticolonialist@lemmy.cafe
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    316 months ago

    That’s not unexpected, since Clinton and his DLC, the modus operandi has been to court the right wing vote, and as they do, the entire party shifts to the right to accommodate them.

    • @Wogi@lemmy.world
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      166 months ago

      See one party is doing it’s best to run a country with a Conservative government. I disagree but at least it’s respectable.

      The other is doing it’s best to bring about a free market theocracy.

      The Democrats assume the other guys are operating in good faith, and so happily follow along as everyone moves to the right.

      We ask for healthcare and we give the biggest gift to the insurance companies in a century. We ask for student debt reform and we get a few handouts while millions of kids every year continue to sign up for predatory student loans. We ask that our children at least be safe in school, and crickets…

      I’m not saying this is one guy’s fault, this is the result of a trend that’s been going on for decades. But the Democrats are attempting to curry votes from a group that will never support them and leaving the passionate base behind. And after January 6th I’m just left wondering why the fuck they’re negotiating with terrorists?

      If nothing is getting done until you have a majority at least for the love of God, swing for the bleachers. Get people excited again.

      • @hypnoton@discuss.online
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        76 months ago

        And after January 6th I’m just left wondering why the fuck they’re negotiating with terrorists?

        Because most Dems like the status quo and despise populism.

      • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        56 months ago

        And after January 6th I’m just left wondering why the fuck they’re negotiating with terrorists?

        The alternative involves listening to progressives.

    • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      46 months ago

      Politicians accommodating what voters want? What do they think this is, a democracy?

      They wouldn’t have to shift so far right if the far left wasn’t too busy being angry that the politicians are doing what the voters want to go out and vote themselves.

  • @mydude@lemmy.world
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    286 months ago

    “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” -Chuck Schumer, 2016

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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      246 months ago

      More evidence the US is not a progressive country and anyone who thinks it is will be disappointed by election results for their entire lives.

      • Lexi SneptaurOP
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        26 months ago

        Right now the goal of electoral politics is to move back toward like… classic liberalism. As opposed to neoliberalism or worse, fascism

    • OBJECTION!
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      46 months ago

      The data [from Pew] suggests that the progressive vision of winning a presidential election simply by mobilizing strong support from Democratic constituencies simply did not materialize for Mr. Biden.

      Wtf did I just read? The idea is to mobilize strong support from Democratic constituencies by running a progressive candidate who supports progressive causes. Obviously, if you run a right-winger like Biden, he’ll draw more support from the right and fail to mobilize the left. Are they trying to pretend that Biden was a progressive or something? What an incredible take.

        • OBJECTION!
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          For that evidence they’d need to look to Congressional downballot races which are more fluid and open to experimentation. The evidence of progressive voter mobilization doesn’t show up there either.

          I disagree. This is from the 2020 election:

          Funny enough, the two Florida democrats who lost in blue districts also specifically distanced themselves from a ballot measure to raise the minimum wage on the basis that it was too progressive - both they and Biden lost in Florida while the ballot measure passed.

          Progressive policies are broadly popular. Running on things that are popular tend to get you more votes. People like it when you do stuff for them.

          The only evidence I’ve seen to the contrary is a NYT opinion piece that cites centrist think tanks and random people’s opinions. I didn’t see anything in there that looked reliable or compelling.

            • OBJECTION!
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              Thank you for filtering out the irrelevant information and editorializing in the opinion piece.

              I’ll concede that there is some evidence to support your position, but I would still argue against it. Much of the data used in these studies comes from a different political landscape than what we’re dealing with today. There are many studies that show increasing political polarization over time, and I would argue that that reduces the fluidity of voter choices. Republican voters now are less likely to vote for a Democrat now than they were in the 90’s, when, for example, Bill Clinton won Louisiana and Tennessee. I would also point out that this conventional wisdom failed to account for Trump’s 2016 victory and the fact that the Republican party remains strong despite becoming increasingly extremist.

              I don’t have time to read through all of your studies but I did read through the first. Something I found notable, which I expected, was that while the study found that extremism was correlated with general election losses in both parties, the effect was significantly more pronounced in the Republican party. This makes the successful rise of right-wing extremism even less coherent with your point of view. But from my perspective, it makes perfect sense - in the current polarized environment, mobilizing one’s own base is more effective than appealing to the center, so much so that even if you’re promoting broadly unpopular policies, it can still win against someone who has failed to adapt.

    • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)
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      176 months ago

      I think they will get a percentage of the “never Trump” section of the Republican party. The real question is what that percentage of the Republican party actually is, as admitting that currently can open people’s worlds to a deluge of toxicity/ostracizing.

    • @geoff@lemm.ee
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      I’m not so sure. I think it’s established that the percentage of Republicans who won’t vote for Trump is a lot higher than the percentage that will admit to it in front of their peers.

      All we need is a few %, low single digits.

      • @TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        166 months ago

        Your uncertainty doesn’t have bearing here. There is a preponderance of evidence showing that since 2016 (and before), there number of ‘swing’ voters has diminished to basically nothing.

        Neither Trump nor Biden are actually running against each other , because no voters are going to be converted from one side to the other.

        They are both running against “the couch”, in that whoever can convince enough of their voters that the election is worth showing up for, will win.

        Also, if you were a Republican, why wouldn’t you vote for Trump? He delivered, in one way or another, on all the major policy goals of the base. For the Republican agenda, he’s been the most effective president since Reagan.

        Bidens camp is in a fever dream with this strategy. And I agree with the article. it is their strategy.

        • Billiam
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          66 months ago

          They are both running against “the couch”, in that whoever can convince enough of their voters that the election is worth showing up for, will win.

          Yep, which is why we see a massive number of people around here who are actively trying to depress Democratic turnout by complaining about Biden and the Dems. A whole bunch of alleged leftists really don’t seem like they mind another Trump presidency since they aren’t, after all, trying to convince voters to vote against that.

          Bidens camp is in a fever dream with this strategy.

          Oh. Huh. Imagine that.

          Also, if you were a Republican, why wouldn’t you vote for Trump? He delivered, in one way or another, on all the major policy goals of the base.

          You fucking what? He got three SCOTUS justices and tax breaks for billionaires and…?

          He tanked the economy and killed over a million with his handling of COVID, the wall didn’t get built, Mexico didn’t pay for any of the repairs that did, Hillary has -34 felonies to her name, his trade war with China didn’t bring back manufacturing, Russia was emboldened by his term, American global superiority was damaged by his garbage foreign policy, fossil fuel usage is continuing to decline in favor of renewables…

          So other than showing bigoted racists that it’s okay to be a loudmouth bigoted racist in public (which I will admit is a Republican goal) what “major policy goals” did he actually achieve?

          For the Republican agenda, he’s been the most effective president since Reagan

          Yeah, I would argue that he’s the least effective GOP president since Regan.

          • @TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            76 months ago

            He tanked the economy and killed over a million with his handling of COVID, the wall didn’t get built, Mexico didn’t pay for any of the repairs that did, Hillary has -34 felonies to her name, his trade war with China didn’t bring back manufacturing, Russia was emboldened by his term, American global superiority was damaged by his garbage foreign policy, fossil fuel usage is continuing to decline in favor of renewables…

            I agree with all that. But you and I don’t live in the same world that Republican voters do. They litterally live in a completly different media and ‘story of history’ landscape. You obviously do, and should, despise all of the things that Trump did while he was president. But there is no denying that these were the things that Republican voters wanted him to do. And he gets to blame any failures on Democrats or the deep state or whatever other kookie bullshit they come up with.

            You can and should hate the Republican agenda, but you shouldn’t put blinders on to suggest that Trump didn’t pursue it aggressively, and actually accomplish much of it. He got tax cuts for billionaires. He got the Supreme Court, and thus Roe. He at least tried to do almost all of the things he said he would do. You should disagree with all of those things, but you are not a Republican voter. Neither am I. But we should be clear headed about what Republican voters want, especially considering how horrible it all is.

  • @zbyte64
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    136 months ago

    Has he tried sounding racist when pitching his immigration policy?

  • @halferect@lemmy.world
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    106 months ago

    Would be nice if he courted the existing left leaning part of the democratic party, but fuck it let’s try and please the party that tried to overthrow the government

    • Lexi SneptaurOP
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      26 months ago

      The left wing is gonna vote for him anyway, if they vote at all. Half of the leftists I talk to don’t even vote because they say democracy is a failure and nothing matters. To a liberal, a leftist is an extremist.

    • TheHiddenCatboy
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      16 months ago

      Well, let’s think about that. In 2023, only 27% of Americans identified as Democrats. This matched the number of people who identified as Republicans, while a massive 43% picked ‘independent’ as the party of choice. However, when you ask voters what political ideology they identify with, you get a more interesting numbers. 29% of people describe themselves as Socially Liberal or Very Liberal, and only 21% describe themselves as Fiscally Liberal or Very Liberal. This means that 71% of people do not see themselves as Socially Liberal in any way (and 38% see themselves as Socially Conservative to some degree!), and a stunning 79% do not see themselves as Fiscally Liberal in any way (with 44% seeing themselves as Fiscally Conservative to some degree!). So, is there some amount of wonder that Biden might try to tact in the direction where the majority of Americans are?

      44% of Americans lean in the direction of Fiscal Conservatism, and another 35% don’t see themselves as Conservative, but also don’t see themselves as Liberal. Biden’s got to reach out to this group of people, because he can’t win with 21% of the vote. So instead of bitching at him, maybe motivate more of that 79% who are Fiscally Moderate or Conservative but possibly Socially Liberal to embrace your policies, while turning out reliably for the leftest main stream party candidate between the Rs and the Ds until you can get RCV passed, then make sure to get your people to rank people from the left to the centre and not rank the right-wing candidates.

      • @halferect@lemmy.world
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        16 months ago

        You are doing some hard work for a Gallup poll that only represents people who have a landline or answer unknown numbers so basically absolutely worth nothing

  • @skozzii@lemmy.ca
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    96 months ago

    I think Republicans are finally waking up to the fact their party has been hijacked by MAGA and their own interests don’t align with Trump’s personal interests.

    I still can’t believe how willing they are to parrot Russian propaganda though given how things were a mere 20 years ago.