• acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I think that’s more of a symptom than a root cause. republicans’ goal since the 70’s has been to pull the lower and middle classes to them with wedge identity issues like abortion. the whole “elitism” thing is a part of that too. So now the parties are competing on those wedge issues and identity more than economic progress, as they were in FDR’s time.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Like, you understand that if the Dem party wanted to, they could still be that economically progressive, right?

      And that in doing so it mitigate Republicans lying?

      The Dem party becoming more economically conservative is solely the fault of the people choosing to do what donors want over what Dem voters want…

      Both parties focusing on the “wedge issues” is by design, that way the wealthy who donate to both parties always win…

      The only people who control the Dem.platform is Dem party leadership, them choosing wealthy donors over voters is literally no one’s fault except the people running the party who keep repeatedly making that choice.

      I get wanting to blame Republicans, but we can’t on this one.

      It’s literally as easy as Kamala deciding to do so at this point, it’s a month from election and she’s the candidate. But she’s not, instead she keeps moving to the right economically the closer we get to the election.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        The Dem party becoming more economically conservative is solely the fault of the people choosing to do what donors want over what Dem voters want…

        Do not make the mistake of thinking nerds on the Internet represent the Democratic Party rank and file. They like neoliberal economics.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          They like neoliberal economics

          Then why did 08 Obama carry the party and flip red states when all those neo liberals voted R due to the PUMA movement?

          The neo liberals are not a majority of voters, they just still have a death grip on party leadership positions at the DNC

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Fortunately both Biden and Harris support an unrealized capital gains tax, which would be an absolutely huge move. If we can acquire both houses of Congress and thus the ability to pass laws, we may actually achieve it.

        Also, have dems cut taxes or regulation on the wealthy at any point that you can remember?

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        the point is there would be more of a political mandate for economic change if our demographics looked more like this today. that map is never going to happen today no matter how progressive dems go on the economy, because of the work republicans have done to divide us over the last 50 years.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          The point is there’s been a political mandate for economic change for over a century…

          The reason the Dems don’t have the numbers to accomplish it, is them giving up on progressive economics.

          Think of it like a restaurant. One that used to serve food people wanted and was always busy. Then the restaurant got kick backs from a differemt food supplier. One whose food was worse, and thus unpopular.

          The restaurant loses business because the food gets worse, it takes a while because people only go out to eat every four years, and the only other restaurant serves shit sandwiches exclusively.

          People won’t still go out to eat and pick the shit sandwich, they’ll just stop going out to eat. The patrons of the shit sandwich restaurant will eat anything, they’ll keep showing up.

          In this analogy, that explains the decrease in Dem voters while Republicans stay steady.

          We can bitch and moan when the shit sandwich restaurant is the most popular, but bullying people to still patronize the restaurant that’s a shadow of it’s former self isn’t going to work as well as that restaurant just serving the food customers want.

          But they won’t do that, because they make more serving cheap shitty food even if they get less customers

          It’s really as easy as running a Dem candidate that is as progressive as Dem voters.

          Hell, Pennsylvania is an important battleground state where close to 60% of voters want to ban fracking…

          If Kamala gave voters what they want on just that one single issue it would likely hand her the presidency. But she’s not.

          For some reason we only hear “this is what voters want” from the Dem.party when it’s used to rationalize being more conservative. When the voters are more liberal than the party, the voters are told their views don’t matter, and that depresses turnout which is why we don’t have “the mandate” we used to.

          I hope that makes sense.

          • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            People won’t still go out to eat and pick the shit sandwich, they’ll just stop going out to eat. The patrons of the shit sandwich restaurant will eat anything, they’ll keep showing up.

            continuing with your analogy, people have NOT stopped going out to eat. a significant portion have absolutely gone over to the shit sandwich shop.

            a greater percentage of voting-age people voted in 2020 compared to 1932. In 1932 they were much more unified under FDR, today we are more evenly split between R and D.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              If the two restaurants both serve shitty food, there’s not as much judgement for eating a shit sandwich. Because everyone eating at a restaurant is eating ahitry food. It becomes normalized.

              The “good” restaurant becoming ahittier doesn’t steal customers from Shit Sandwiches, it just makes people think that shit sandwiches isn’t as crazy as it seems because both restaurants serv shit.

              Which still fits.

              Dems moving to the right year after year and adopting things like fracking and a border wall when a decade ago we said only a racist idiot would want those things… Makes the average American question if other “conservative” ideas are really as bad as Dems say they are, or if 5 years both parties would want them.

              It only hurts the left and helps the right

              • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                I agree it absolutely hurts the left and helps the right, but we disagree on the cause. Remember in your analogy the food quality is not the only thing that diners care about. They are being lured to the shitty restaurant by stuff that has nothing to do with food at all.

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Yep.

                  So making the “good” restaurants food shitty only hurts their business, and their the only ones with the power to set their menu.

                  We can protest, leave bad reviews, stop going to the restaurant, anything to communicate that we would eat there more if they had better food.

                  But at the end of the day it’s up to the handful of people running the restaurant/party what they serve up.

                  • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    So making the “good” restaurants food shitty only hurts their business

                    not if the customers they’re losing don’t care about food. I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree here.

      • Wiz@midwest.social
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        2 months ago

        instead she keeps moving to the right economically

        It’s not all “Move to the right.” Just this week she suggested expanding Medicare for in-home care.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Just this week she suggested expanding Medicare for in-home care

          Which is like the most widely abused part of Medicare…

          Not by people, by predatory providers who max out benefits while going months without even calling their “patients”.

          Jon Oliver just did an episode on it this season even, was just like a month ago I think.

          As long as someone makes a profit on healthcare, it’s going to be absurd by overcharging and undeserving.

          We need a nationalized system lol kentge VA where there’s no insurance middleman, Medicare gives us one middle man which just doesn’t solve the root problem.

          It’s been 112 years since universal healthcare was part of a presidential platform, that being “too extreme” for today’s candidat is making my point, not disputing it.

          You need to look at the longer timeframe.