this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
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The reason why the rachet turns further to the right each election cycle is because non-conservatives in the US have an abysmal voter turnout.
Neoliberalism is the product of leftists deciding not to vote because there's no "good" option, and leftists will perpetuate this cycle by refusing to acknowledge incremental progress as a good thing.
If only there was a way to increase voter turnout, like giving voters what they want... nah, that'd make too much sense. The democrats are too smart to give people what they want.
Democrats do that. They appeal to centrists because those are the people who turn out to vote.
Leftists don't get representation, the ratchet turns right. Funny how that works
Or maybe the centrists turn out because they're the ones that democrats appeal to. Obama ran on a progressive campaign and won big in 2008, so it's clear that it works. The problem is that he then immediately turned around and instituted centrist policy as usual.
Same thing with Biden. Ran on $10,000 of student debt relief for everyone, improving the climate, and not being Trump. People figured they could push him left, that was the argument. Now he's been a lot better than I thought he would be admittedly. But still, the student debt relief has been extremely targeted, he made foreign electric cars more expensive, and he's materially supporting a genocide while yelling at the protests against it. If they can't push him left in 4 years, then the theory was proven wrong, candidates can't be pushed left, and it's right for leftists not to vote for them. Democrats don't feel they have to move left because leftists have no other choice about who to vote for, so I get the calculus on their parts, but it's becoming dangerous.
It also depends on how much supporting a current genocide is a red line for someone. That seems to be the biggest difference I see in these posts. Some people can't bring themselves to vote for someone who does that no matter what. Others seem to be more malleable and forgiving about it. I know which one I am, but honestly, no judgment on either. I waffle between them myself. I don't feel nearly as much pressure as others,though, because I don't live in a swing state, so my vote doesn't matter.
God. It's fascinating how little self-proclaimed leftists remember 2008.
Which part am I wrong about? Obama ran on affordable healthcare, abortion rights, being anti-bailout for too-big-to-fail entities, and being anti-war. He won a supermajority. Then he scaled back his healthcare plan, said abortion rights "aren't a top priority", continued bush's bailouts and added more, and invaded/bombed more countries during his term.
Obama passed the best affordable healthcare plan he could.
On abortion rights, he was no more left than Hillary. On the bailouts, he was openly in support of the Bush bailout plan even before the election. On war, Obama was openly in favor of the continuation of the war in Afghanistan and harder military policy against several countries, some of which even McCain wasn't onboard on.
But hey, whatever helps fuel your delusional "If only candidates were more left, then they would DEFINITELY win in a landslide!" outlook.
The democrats are all moderate republicans, which in itself is an oxymoron. Don't believe me, here is Obama saying just that (about himself); https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJIlZxHfclc Now imagine you somehow get total control of all braches, and to top it off 3 weeks filibuster proof. You can do anything, but you don't really want change. What do you do? Well implement RomneyCare, call it ObamaCare and leave out the public option, which will ensure it be a giveaway to big pharma. Seems good at first glance, but leaving out the public option really killed it, as they intended.
Regarding roe...
The first thing I'll do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdrOrwmk78Y
Im pro choice https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nmzdkAbu8dY
Not my highest priority https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxiDZejZFjg
parody... No https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1z4uhxpOnN0
Obama had full control of both houses and the White House, they could have passed whatever they wanted.
Instead we still didn’t get single payer healthcare.
Fucking lmao.
Oh I’m sorry, where did the ACA come from?
Three months of Obama's negotiations with a Senate whose supermajority was built on Blue-Dog Democrats from highly conservative areas, and of whom every single one was necessary.
What, do you think Obama comes in like a Roman Emperor, proposes legislation to the Senate, and then has a vote that same day? Do you not know anything about the functioning of the modern US Congress? Jesus Christ.
If Obama couldn’t get his team to fall in line when they had everything going for them, then he did not do his job well enough.
"His team"
The Senate wasn't hand-picked by Obama. Fuck, many of them had been in the Senate longer than Obama had been in politics, repeatedly re-elected by their constituents to represent interests which were not necessarily in-line with Obama's plans. "He should have just done it better!" is a ridiculous position.
His team is the Democratic Party, by his own choice
His team is the Democratic Party because there are two major parties in this country. And one of them spent years calling him racial slurs, so their support was doubtful.
What were Obama's other choices, in this scenario?
We fight according to the situation as it is, not the situation as we want it to be.
Bull moose party managed it
An incredibly popular president returning after having already been elected once split off during a contested convention at the Republican Party, which was initially the venue through which their candidate was going to run and managed to lose the ensuing election, accomplishing nothing except the election of a rival.
And that was the best third-party showing in US presidential history.
Obama was really good at letting people project what they wanted on to him politically, while still broadly holding to the neoliberal agenda, and lots of people were insanely naïve at the time. I mean, you had people who claimed to actually expect the election of Obama to usher in a post-racial epoch in the USA, as though all the racists were going to say, "Aw, shucks, the black guy won? Well, hang it up boys, we have to face reality and accept we've been wrong all along."
He also benefitted from pretty excellent political cover from criticism, where, like many vocal Biden supporters are doing right now, any criticism of him would be associated with outright support of the vilest opinions espoused by the GOP at the time. If you said "You know, this Obama guy isn't as great as he's being made out to be," you'd have people assuming you were some nutjob that thought he was secretly Kenyan, or whatever other crazy conspiracies the Tea Party folks trotted out. I don't think it was purely malicious or cynical attempts to discredit people all the time, but there was a big chunk of people who wanted to believe in their conception of Obama, which couldn't admit that he wasn't the savior sent from on high to resolve all the country's problems in exactly the manner they had hoped he would.
Good god. You win elections from the center. A center vote that switches from R to D is worth double because the R loses one vote and D gains one. You literally win from the center.
If you want the center to move, then make the Dems win overwhelmingly and consistently in President, house of reps, and senators.
So do you think republicans are catering to centrists with their full dive into fascism or do you think only democrats need to appeal to "centrists" for some reason?
Trump won by appealing to the manufacturing jobs sector, and because of the protest Hillary vote. As much as I want to believe people were/are informed about his fascism, they really aren't.
And now, because Trump won one election, the whole Overton window moved right. You know, because he won an election. You want to move the Overton window? Vote.
Biden won an election more recently than him. Weird how the Overton window moves when Republicans win an election but not when Democrats do. Wonder if there's a reason for that.
Hell, Bernie (and Warren) moved the widow more by running in a primary than they did by winning.
The reason is because Dems have to actually do things like pass legislation. Which more often than not requires all 3 of house, senate, and president. All the GOP has to do is block things and yell immigrants. Progress takes, you know, actual work. Stagnation or regression takes next to nothing.
Funny enough, giving voters what they want is inevitably decried by Very Serious Online Leftists
Neoliberalism exists for many reasons. But blaming leftists is strange. We would be a lot better off if voting was not so hard for black and brown people, for instance. We can at least agree on that.
Yeah, I'm on board with making voting easier for everyone. Voter turnout is ultimately the only way short of violent revolution to fix shit in this country.
Voting is difficult enough for people who don't vote conservative, which is why when leftists refuse to vote out of principle because their perfect candidates aren't a choice, they're figuratively stepping on the rake.
Totally agree about voting and its need for ease. But I can tell you more leftists vote than don't, I can promise you that. Systemically that's not the biggest problem. And I certainly plan to vote and I won't be helping Trump with it.
I hope you're right, but I'll say that I've definitely seen more people in this election cycle say there's no point in picking between two fascists than any other cycle I've been a part of. Especially here on lemmy
Yeah totally. Social media is bashing and circlejerking, even in the open source spaces. Not the best lens into reality.
No one will vote for our shitty candidates.
Should we run better ones?
No blame the people for us not having a good candidate
Great, so you're going to overhaul the system and get us better candidates?
No?