3mo ago

Reaching across the aisle

Democratic political strategy

111 comments

Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.

"Why isn't anybody voting for us"
- I think the question they ask is more like "why are people voting for the other side?" ...leading to "we need to be more like them"
  
  The problem is theres nothing on our side. Our choices are right of center and so far right they fell off the graph.
  
  They only look at the votes that were cast not voters who stayed home

The rightward shift of the GOP and the tendency of the seemingly infinite number of spineless Dem careerist politicians to seek compromise is very real, but please remember the 90s and 2000s, everyone. They were not as rosy and left-wing as you remember; while not nearly enough, the Dems are notably more left than they were then.
- In the larger picture the rightward trend is kind of true on economic fronts.
  But yeah, since the 90s we've slowly moved left.
  
  Can you please explain what you mean exactly by "economic fronts?" Do you mean there are specific things they're further right on than before, or that they're further right on the economy as a whole? If the latter: what issues are you accounting for, and how are you turning their stances into a clean metric?
  
  Since the 90s we've moved left economically as well. The 90s were where the Dems had their massive neoliberal shift, after all. Not hard to be more left than THAT.

Always reach across the isle and punch nazis.

The Overton Window is set in an abandoned lot. The house burned down a long time ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_effect
- not saying i disagree, but people always link this article as though it even has a section on partisan politics. it doesn’t, or really even pose any evidence that suggests the effect applies to the overton window. would be curious if there are any sources that pose evidence.
  
  i just read it and don't think it applies here. the effect seems to apply to situations where the movement in one direction perpetuates itself, due to cyclic nature or outside influences.
  if the democratic party wanted to, they could totally pull the overton window to the left. it's not like there's a perpetual demanded for the democratic party to move to the right; they just want to do it.

This fails to recognize that for a very long time things trended left. I remember talking to someone in the 90s and we went down a list of major issues and the left had essentially won on all of them. Roe vs Wade EPA Gay Marriage Welfare Reform and Child Tax Credits
My hope for the Democratic party is that they go to a single issue for the next National election, and that issue should be Anti-trust/Breaking up monopolies
- That's an important issue, but if Democrats ever see power again, it'll be important to focus on re-enfranchisement (RCV, instant runoff, or anything fairer than FPTP; NPVIC; national mail voting; mandatory voting), on judicial reform to undo the corruption and incompetence that has been packed there. Without those, keeping any gains will be impossible.
  Then, triaging existential threats is critical, which will mean fighting climate change, investing in public transport (trains), and breaking up trusts will have to be pursued simultaneously. Stopping any support for genocide needs to happen as soon as possible.
  There will be plenty more structural changes to fix beyond that: Protecting whistleblowers and protesters, improving FOIA, replacing norms with laws (Emoluments Clause enforcement, financial records disclosure, no insider trading for Congressmembers, &c), and all manner of civil rights protections and police reform.
  After all that, it'll be time for the stuff I've been hoping for: nationalizing healthcare and Internet access, and copyright reform.
  
  Sadly, support for genocide won't be an issue by the midterms.
  
  NPVIC ain't going to happen. Not for at least another 40 years or so.
  It was a great idea, but this (so-called) Supreme Court would absolutely shut it down in no time flat. The balance of this court isn't likely to shift for a very, very long time.
  The only solution to get rid of EC before then will be a massive movement that results in a constitutional amendment.
  Tl/Dr: start pre-lubing your assholes now, they ain't gonna help you there.
  ETA: the funny thing about having to codify "norms" into law was that the expectation would be that government would be transparent enough, and press would be free enough, that lawmakers wouldn't even think about shit like insider trading, because the risk of getting found out and the hit your reputation and career would take wouldnt be worth it.
  Instead, ass hats celebrated it.
- Things should be progressing no? that's the whole point of being the "progressive party"
- You'd need to explain how this helps the average person.
  Bearing in mind that these employers have hundreds of thousands of people working for them, you would need to somehow ensure that people aren't voting for a spike in unemployment.
  FWIW I don't disagree at all, but how would this be implemented in practice, and how would it be framed as a good thing for those employed by those companies?

just playin' the long game. won't be long now and it will loop around to the far left.
- So, everyone's hoping for the bit overflow
  
  The reverse Ghandi.
- Yup, we just need to accelerate and we totally won't end up in a fascist dystopia
- Ah, so they are doing horseshoe theory in real life?
- I always knew the political quadrant was, topologically speaking, shaped like a pacman game

This could mean that there’s room on the left for a brand new party.
- Only if America will implement proportional representation
- It could if we weren't locked into a two party system.
  
  I mean, if there ever was a time for a grass roots growing of a third party, it would be NOW, not a year before the election with Putin-stooge Jill Stein.
- There are plenty of people trying but it is clearly not working

/genuine question, asides from the obvious of republicans adopting left policy, what would have to happen for another party switch to occur?
like, i know it happened once. wondering what circumstances and context brought that about and if that’s even a realistic framing to think about today’s world?
- There is also the Whig party for reference. They were one of the two parties until they refused to take a meaningful stance on slavery. They were the 'bipartisanship states rights solves it' party versus the 'pro-slavery' party.
  There is no longer a Whig party and the slavery party went to war over a decade or so after the anti slavery parry formed.
  So there's that alternative to Party switch.
  
  I agree. I think we're at the stage where the Democrats are the Whig party. They aren't going to change, they need to be replaced with a true progressive party.
  Assuming that we continue to be as much of a democracy as we were, now might be the time for that replacement to happen.
- Knowing Better has a good video about the Party Switch, although I'm not sure it's applicable to today

Frankly the people are the ones moving further to the right because the state does not educate them and regulate corporate power, transforming the public into a myopic panicked herd.
- That's actually false. When it comes to policy preferences, the actual electorate swings pretty far left compared to the right wing and far right parties they can choose between. Universal health care, parental leave, paid sick leave, higher minimum wage all enjoy broad and firm popular support, and neither party is even talking about this.
  
  !! yea
  always important to remember that the electorate’s preference in policy has only a loose relationship to who they vote for. this air gap is where most elections are fought, where strong messaging tightens the gap and messaging failures loosen it. the 2024 presidential election had a hella loose connection between party and people.
  
  If you read this study, it mentions people are prone to affective polarization, that is a state of mind that is in itself extreme and it's related to people being myopic, that is governed by strong emotions such as panic instead of choosing rationally.

If there's so much appetite for a progressive/socialist party in the USA, how come there isn't one that gets a significant amount of financing and votes?
- Because that wouldn't be in the interest of the billionaire class so it's actively suppressed. I mean, the government killed Malcolm X and MLK Jr. There's no telling how many more. Look at the response to BLM or the pro-Palestinian protest in comparison to the Jan 6 traitors. The left are painted as radicals for wanting equality and healthcare, while the right gets a free pass on being pedophiles, con men, and foreign assets.
  
  I'm talking about a party with a platform, doing an actual campaign to get people elected, not a protest movement.
  Look at how much money Harris managed to get from regular people, you would believe the left would be able to organize more than just protests, that there would be the Republicans, the Democrats AND the Progressives (or whatever the name it would have)...

That's a slope, not an aisle

ultimately its the voters. we have primaries as well as general and remember congress is what can really change things. The last election shows voters felt we were not right enough at all levels.
- I think thats an over simplification.
  Disinformation is part of it. Also leftist voters feel disempowered (they shouldn't, but they are). And voters often don't understand the politics behind good policy.
  Its been shown that if dem policy were presented, then voters would overwhelmingly support it.
  Maybe voters are more left than dems, but don't like dems fundamentally, because they have no backbone.
  
  Sure there is disinformation but it does not nullify information. The voters can't say they did not know what trump was like or what the republicans have become. There was the four years previous and everything they actually say. If folks voted for it, its what they want. If folks did not its still what they wanted. What else would someone expect the results to be. What have the results been in elections before. We all know we have first past the post. We all know its a two party system. We can get that changed but its going to have to be a the primaries and working at every level. I hope the majority make better decisions in two years if they have that chance.

When they don't have all 3 (house of reps Senate and presidency) they are forced to reach across the aisle. And they've had all 3 for, drumroll please, 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 fucking years. Don't want them to reach across the aisle? Then give them consistent and overwhelming victories.

I know posts like those feel good, but the objective fact is that the political conversation and (much more importantly) public policy has moved drastically leftward in both shorter terms (the last decade) as well as more medium-term measurements (the last fifty years).
- Universal health care used to be something that was at least mentioned during campaigns, now not so anymore. Fracking, inhumane border policies to keep those crazed illegal immigrants out, explicit support for genocide; these are far right policies, and the dems are falling over themselves to support it. Every cycle they move further right.
  
  The Affordable Care Act passed, and addressed some of the most glaring, campaigning worthy issues. It's only been 14 years, and already support for the ACA is rising, and opposition is falling off.
  Support for more fracking has risen slightly in the last 4 years, but it lags behind the growth in support for solar, wind, and even nuclear. I suspect (caveat emptor) that as renewables bring energy costs back into check, support for fracking will follow the drop in support of coal production. It should not be a surprise that any shelter is popular in a storm.
  Both parties used to be strongly against illegal immigration, now one campaigns against it, but did most of the things they were allowed to do to encourage and allow it, including publicly declaring their support for illegal immigrants, and passing sanctuary city laws.
  I don't have a strong grounding in how much open support there is for genocide, but I think the American population is more aware of it happening than they were in the past. Hopefully that means we care more now.
- That makes sense only if identity politics is the entire political discourse to you.

Remember back in the past, when Democrats were communists and Republicans were social Democrats? Oh wait, that never happened, this graph is nonsense
- This is recent history, not all history, and FYI it is a meme not a scientific study.

How cute, you guys are trying to rewrite it in your favor. Too bad the science says otherwise.
- These stats are about the policy preferences of the electorate, while OP is about the politicians. But your picture is a fantastic illustration as to why the democrats lost the election. It's because they keep moving further right (look for example at their recent pro-fracking, pro-border wall, pro-genocide presidential candidate).
  
  "Pro border wall" the chart above would indicate that overall sentiment would be the opposite, less border wall more movement.
- "You guys" Bro the only us and them are billionaires and everyone else. Stop being distracted and focus on the problem, the fuckers siphoning any and all value away from honest hard working people and then blaming other less fortunate honest hard working people for it.
- This just highlights how out of touch the DNC is from its own voter base. Those lines shifting left are the democratic voters, not their politicians. The democratic party has been constantly trying to pivot to the center and finding nothing but corporate donors.
- Too bad the science says otherwise.
  Graphs say exactly what they say. Nothing more, nothing less. These graphs don't say otherwise.
  "Look, it goes left". No, it goes up, graphs were just rotated. These graphs don't say otherwise.

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