“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said.
“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders asked.
“Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”
There was never really that much risk of Dems losing voters to the Repubs (at least as long as Trump was the R candidate). The real damage came from Dems losing enthusiasm.
This. I just had a very long argument with someone else that completely and utterly failed to grasp this simple concept. Trump ran as the most conservative conservative ever and his base loved him for it. Harris ran as the most conservative liberal ever and her base gritted their teeth and grudgingly trudged to the polls. And then the DNC is shocked and flabbergasted that they didn’t get a better turnout.
Centrists will never understand that when you run to the right, the right doesn’t buy it and the left believes you.
The thing that has driven me crazy for so long is this is the situation in America.
There are 70M Americans that will vote Republican and nothing will ever change their minds
There are 70M Americans that will vote Democrat and nothing will ever change their minds
There are a couple million independent undecided voters that everyone goes after
Then there are 100M+ people that sit out the election and no one seems to try to understand what would make them vote. It’s so crazy that we have just decided that there are red states and blue states and that’s how it is. A party that could retain some of either party while activating half the people that sit out would be a force to reckon with.
As the Democratic Party has tried to find some way to win again they have gone after which group? The handful of independents and the 70M republicans that aren’t going to vote for them ever. And the people sitting it out probably aren’t looking for them to shift right, if so they would be republicans.
I think this is a bit naive. Both partys will have done their homework and have a fairly good idea what it is those disenfranchised voters want. The problem is is what they want is at odds with what the party’s big donors want.
Naive is the Democratic party’s current position of favoring those donors over voters.
I understand that they’ve done a cynical calculus and decided to leave those voters on the sidelines. It is a failing strategy that successfully got them billions of dollars and lost the election.
It is not that I do not understand the deeper reason, it is that I reject it as a failure.
The deeper reason is that they believe in a highly hierarachical society in which they have earned the right to be in the top strata. That’s why they chase the big donors. That’s why their calculations will always put themselves and their grip on power above: the basic needs of impoverished Americans; or the lives of innocent civilians getting bombed out of existance; or future generations that will inherit our strung out eco system; and about countless other maladies and evils that beset our tettering civilisation.
They are not leftwing, they are the corporate bulwark against leftwing ideas. They are not big tent, they promulgate a very narrow reading of reality to the benefit of their paymasters.
In this we agree.
The democrats are just the blue colored boot of the oligarchs.
You mean to say that Dick Cheney’s endorsement didn’t excite the base?