I got a hail of down votes just two weeks ago for saying Democrats are appealing to the Republicans 10-20 years ago, and now here we are.
Couldn’t the campaign be about championing progressive change on popular issues rather than capitulating to Republican narratives on immigration and crime, and being “honored” by the endorsement of war criminals?
And who is writing shit like “most lethal fighting force” into her convention acceptance speech, while Trump is out there on the road saying no more wars. I don’t believe him, but plenty of moms and dads of soldiers will.
We need to do more grassroots work first, to further expand the popularity of the progressive platform. Whether we like it or not, progressives are not yet anywhere near a majority in the country. Otherwise Bernie’s grassroots campaign would have robustly defeated either Hilary or Biden in the dem primaries, which are primaries of the more progressive party.
I know a lot of people like to pin the blame for Bernie’s defeat on the DNC, but at the end of the day, the energy and popularity of a campaign doesn’t rely on and isn’t controlled by the mass media.
And Bernie is the very best we’ve got. Until we can address this, we need the independents, and they aren’t very progressive. If we can flip some repubs too, all the better.
One thing I’ve noticed among friends and family, who lean quite left compared to the general public and would be generally supportive of progressive policies, is that there’s a belief that progressive policies are unpopular outside of our circle and therefore in the primary they must vote for a candidate who triangulates in order appeal to the majority in the general election. Because a centrist from the Democratic Party is better than anything we can hope for from the Republican Party.
I try to show them statistics that progressive policies are broadly popular across both parties as long as they are not presented with labels of “socialism” or “progressivism” but the reality that we all need to contend with is that we cannot easily escape the unfair baggage that these labels carry in our society where the big media cartel controls the narrative.
I think if we got rid of FPTP and got rid of primaries we’d see an enormous swing in favor progressive candidates. In my mind that electoral reform is the key thing to pursue. Well that and literally anything related to mitigating the climate crisis because that one really can’t wait.
I agree. I also think it’s important to start to fight not just for individual progressive policies, but the progressive platform, identity and overarching philosophy.
Everyone can love every single progressive policy proposal at 100% support, but if they then dislike progressives and progressive philosophy, we still lose. The gop is really good at leveraging this, and we’re really bad at it, likely due to our greater average education. We’re detail oriented, and we need to cut that out with our messaging.
Well… at least two. :)
I got a hail of down votes just two weeks ago for saying Democrats are appealing to the Republicans 10-20 years ago, and now here we are.
Couldn’t the campaign be about championing progressive change on popular issues rather than capitulating to Republican narratives on immigration and crime, and being “honored” by the endorsement of war criminals?
And who is writing shit like “most lethal fighting force” into her convention acceptance speech, while Trump is out there on the road saying no more wars. I don’t believe him, but plenty of moms and dads of soldiers will.
We need to do more grassroots work first, to further expand the popularity of the progressive platform. Whether we like it or not, progressives are not yet anywhere near a majority in the country. Otherwise Bernie’s grassroots campaign would have robustly defeated either Hilary or Biden in the dem primaries, which are primaries of the more progressive party.
I know a lot of people like to pin the blame for Bernie’s defeat on the DNC, but at the end of the day, the energy and popularity of a campaign doesn’t rely on and isn’t controlled by the mass media.
And Bernie is the very best we’ve got. Until we can address this, we need the independents, and they aren’t very progressive. If we can flip some repubs too, all the better.
One thing I’ve noticed among friends and family, who lean quite left compared to the general public and would be generally supportive of progressive policies, is that there’s a belief that progressive policies are unpopular outside of our circle and therefore in the primary they must vote for a candidate who triangulates in order appeal to the majority in the general election. Because a centrist from the Democratic Party is better than anything we can hope for from the Republican Party.
I try to show them statistics that progressive policies are broadly popular across both parties as long as they are not presented with labels of “socialism” or “progressivism” but the reality that we all need to contend with is that we cannot easily escape the unfair baggage that these labels carry in our society where the big media cartel controls the narrative.
I think if we got rid of FPTP and got rid of primaries we’d see an enormous swing in favor progressive candidates. In my mind that electoral reform is the key thing to pursue. Well that and literally anything related to mitigating the climate crisis because that one really can’t wait.
I agree. I also think it’s important to start to fight not just for individual progressive policies, but the progressive platform, identity and overarching philosophy.
Everyone can love every single progressive policy proposal at 100% support, but if they then dislike progressives and progressive philosophy, we still lose. The gop is really good at leveraging this, and we’re really bad at it, likely due to our greater average education. We’re detail oriented, and we need to cut that out with our messaging.
And guess what? His daughter is a paleoconservative with near-identical policy positions. Including with regards to torture.