Vote for the change you want to see.
The Republican party got remade because trumpists showed up and outvoted the party elites. No reason it can’t happen for the Left except for laziness and apathy.
If all the progressives furious about the state of affairs now had shown up for Sanders in 2016, I doubt we’d be in this hellish timeline. Sadly, he needed the young progressive vote to show up.
As a leftist who’s been voting in Democratic primaries for the last 24 years: Outside of some extreme enclaves in major cities there aren’t enough of us to make a difference that way.
But conveniently there are enough of you that being alienated and not wanting to vote for the Dems is enough of you to lose the entire election and it’s all your fault yadda yadda yadda.
Important enough to cost the election, yet not important enough to influence anything.
It makes sense that we can cost them the election and not have any power in the primary, considering we’re the minority
Look up Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority.
Jerry made the Evangelicals a huge power in the GOP by simply having his people show up at every single GOP organizing meeting.
If twenty people had picked the nominee for dog catcher last term, the Moral Majority would show up with 50. Those county clerks and sheriffs were soon followed by Mayors and Governors and Congress members…
Now that’s a smart strategy, we need to get organized on this level.
People need to stop focusing on how Hilary beat Bernie and look at how Obama beat Hilary.
We tried that. The result was Wilding vs DNC Services Corp.
You would vote in the Republic primaries…
Don’t try to stretch the Overton window. You need to move the right side of the window left.This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries, no matter who won the general election they were better off.
It’s basically ad hoc ranked choice and it prevents extremist candidates from winning.
This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries
The black voter enjoyed a heavy Republican bias for nearly a century, and suffered much of the same treatment (GOP treated them as a captured constituency, Dixiecrats suppressed their turnout with fraud, incarceration, and terrorism).
By Kennedy, the northern Dems were embracing civil rights not as an electoral strategy but a labor organizing strategy. The vote was largely split, with black voters biasing by party in individual regions rather than as a national block.
It wasn’t into Clinton - when Southern Strategy Repubs had fully purged their party of black voters - that the trend was fully reversed. That wasn’t a decision by the NAACP or the median black voter. It was a Nixonian gambit. Black voters were viewed as a handicap. Appealing to fascism was how you obtained a majority in American politics.
Reagan, the Bushs, and then Trump seemed to further this theory. You’ll get two white voters for every black voter you lose, by being the most racist candidate in the ticket.
Do all 3?
Bernie was doing well in 2016 until the DNC kneecapped him.
Get money out elections if you want change, but neither party is willing to. The oligarchy works for itself
Obama outperformed the establishment Democratic candidate in 2008 and became the candidate. It’s not impossible.
Oh to go back to a pre citizens united world! lol
I am once again asking to get money out of politics.
Get. Money. Out. Of. Politics.
Get money out of politics.
You just proved OP’s point.
Look at Obama. No one thought he could get past Hilary in 2008. He got his people motivated and hit the streets.
You want to get your candidate in? Organize!
That was before citizens united. This doesnt prove op’s left bashing. Like I said earlier GET MONEY OUT OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS
Sorry, there’s no magic genii going to pop up and reverse that decision.
You want change? Roll up your sleeves and get to work. And typing all caps doesn’t count as work.
I haven’t stopped since 2015 (edit: worked on sanders camp). Stop deflecting with nonsense
Did the DNC stop anyone from voting? There was nothing to stop us from outvoting the establishment. “Oh no, the moderators liked Clinton!” The RNC tried way harder with trump and failed.
Are we not as capable as goddamn republicans?
Funny how that comment is getting downvoted heavily.
You annoyed somebody
Do you understand how superdelegates work? they’re not assigned by vote.
As well, the Bernie campaign was blocked from accessing the voter rolls because they reported a bug to the DNC that allowed them to view stuff the clinton campaign was doing. They did not exploit it, they just reported it.
Also, did you read that hacked/leaked memo where the DNC chair admitted to intentionally sabotaging Bernie’s campaign? no one has ever contested the contents of that memo. in fact the DNC chair resigned over it. (and you’re an idiot if you think Hilary wasn’t pressuring the DNC chair to do just that. Hilary always has someone else to throw under her campaign bus.)
Maybe you don’t?
Sanders didn’t win a majority of the votes so whether the super delegates would’ve over-ridden the votes is fairly irrelevant.
You can argue it wasn’t a completely balanced playing field but there was nothing stopping us from winning the votes except for our refusal to show up rather than bitch online.
More young people voted in 2016 than ever before. We showed up. The boomers overwhelmed us.
Yup. Young votes don’t show up to the general or primaries at anywhere near the same rate as boomers. And sadly, democracy caters more to those who vote.
People like you are the reason Democrats can’t unite fyi, reducing problems of people who did exactly what you’re saying and got shat on once again
You do realize the super delegates never came into play right? I mean I’m sure they would have if they needed them to but it never got that far.
I watched the DNC do everything they could to throw the election to the worst candidate they have ever run, simply because their donors didn’t want to give everyone health care.
That election turned an entire generation into people who don’t bother voting because nothing will ever change.
We didn’t even fucking GET a primary this time. How can I vote in a primary that doesn’t even really exist? The Democrats end up with the candidate they want one way or another.
The stupid ass Russian propaganda that you people swallowed afterwards turned you into a generation of non voters.
Oh please. The russians had nothing to do with Hillary fucking over Bernie. That was all her.
But keep assuming that you can blame the democrats failings on Russia. If trump wasn’t running the dems would lose this election because they lost so many votes.
Look at them running to dick fucking cheney and his goon daughter instead of the Muslim vote that can actually win them a swing state.
You gonna say that the Muslims in Michigan are falling for Russian propaganda about a genocide too?
Yes they did actually, do you not know or remember what fucking happened??
This response is ironic considering your post.
Failure to acknowledge how the DNC and super delegates operated in 2016 is a great way to ensure the rightward ratchet.
The super delegates do not change the fact that Clinton got 3,5 million more votes in the primaries than Sanders did. Or, to put it another way, Sanders got 43% of the vote compared to Clinton’s 55%. Those are voters, not pledged delegates.
Blaming superdelegates is a great way to make sure we don’t change a damn thing. (Also, the DNC changed the role of super delegates afterwards to make them less powerful.)
Everything you listed here is putting the cart before the horse.
Bernie was doing well until the DNC put all of its backing into Clinton and even ran negative ads against Bernie.
Get money out of elections if you want change. If you’re just looking to bash people to the left, carry on as you are.
No, the cart always has to be voters. Actually showing up to the polls has to be the cart. Anything before that is nonsense. Leftist will never ever ever have any power in this nation unless they show the fuck up. A lot of leftists don’t want to show up they just want to sit back and complain.
This is nonsense. I worked on Bernie’s campaign in 2016. I saw what happened.
You saw what happened? You saw more votes go to the other candidate? Because that’s what happened.
And that most Democrats don’t support drastic changes and want tweaks.
remind me, what Primary did I get to vote in to pick against Harris?
That super cool one with Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson. But frankly there wasn’t really a ready pool of willing candidates, and there still isn’t.
The very public V.P. courtship process was sort of the de facto primary we got. Or the closest thing to it.
Maybe in bizzaro land, Harris wasn’t listed on my ballot in 2020
She was on the ballot in the primaries, which is entirely the point of the post.
So what, being VP guarantees you as the party nominee in the next election?
What on Earth are you trying to say?
Harris and Biden were on the ballot in 2020, as were more progressive candidates. As usual, more moderates and centrists did the boring grown up work of showing up and voting in the primaries and thus, Biden won.
Progressives actually had a huge showing in the 2020 primaries. That’s why Bernie won all almost all of the states leading up to Super Tuesday. But wouldn’t you know it, something AMAZING happened and ALL of the moderate Democrats dropped out of the race within a single 24 hour span and every single one of them endorsed Joe Biden as they dropped out. BUT another progressive candidate, Elizabeth Warren “decided” to stay in the race when everyone else was dropping out and she hadn’t won a single fucking contest. So the progressive vote was split between two candidates (heavily favoring Bernie), but ultimately giving Biden a number of victories on Super Tuesday thereby changing the entire outlook of the rest of the primary in favor of Biden.
But if you look at those vote counts, progressives ABSOLUTELY showed up, but the Spoiler Effect is very real. And it seems the DNC was up to their old tricks trying to shove a candidate down our throats that we didn’t want.
Also, don’t try to side-step the bullshit of this year’s primaries by acting like we got our choice back in 2020 because Biden & Harris were both in THOSE primaries. You know damn well that people were calling for an actual primary in THIS election, they were ignored, Biden became the candidate, and that obviously went completely perfectly. Then we had a fair amount of anxiety about what would happen, and the DNC just got to ordain another candidate of their choosing.
I sincerely hope it works out for us, but the DNC won’t have anyone to blame but themselves. Just kidding, they’ll definitely blame progressives if they lose again. They always will.
So, how many delegates did she get then?
Not the best argument in 2024 given the circumstance but yes, in 2020, the “we need someone to beat Trump” crowd scoffed on the idea of Warren (my pick) or Bernie. But with the current system it kind of makes less sense too since Biden mostly won support in states he had no shot winning, so by the time it was even CAs turn there was no hope.
At least in 2008 I felt like it worked. Obama was a thousand times better than Clinton.
They fucked Bernie and just substituted Harris for Biden on somebody’s whim.
Op: is this a democracy?
Bernie bros didn’t show up to vote and lost the nomination.
You: the system is rigged ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Electoral politics won’t work in favour of leftist goals. The system is rigged from the start.
Best you can do is vote for a lesser evil.
How are they rigged? Except for requiring a majority, which seems reasonable, If we can’t get a majority of the Left to agree with us, then what is your alternative? Force them to adopt your ideals?
Just look at how basically every left party in Europe has become a neoliberal painted in a different color. Germany has a coalition of “social democrats”, a green party and liberals and they still cut welfare, try to deport black/brown people (sorely needed on the job market) and screw up climate politics.
Every concession made in favour of the left has been reached through mass movements.
Maybe - and yeah this is fucking WILD but hear me out - maybe Leftism just isn’t as popular as you think it is?
Usually, leftist politics, like cutting taxes for wages and raising taxes for the rich is quite popular.
And sorry that I’m judging a party for not being leftist when its’ name is literally “social democrats”. /s
People are stupid. They like Leftist policies, but as soon as a Leftist says them, they hate it.
They voted for supposedly left-leaning parties (and a liberal one). 🙄
Money wins elections and nobody with money is going to help a leftist.
Multiple people have explained to you exactly how the primaries have been rigged.
And they’re making silly arguments.
At the end of the day, Sanders got 43% of the vote to Clinton’s 55%. That has nothing to do with Superdelegates. We just couldn’t get enough progressives to go vote. That’s it. That’s the entire issue.
I agree with the comic, just a kinda funny election year to post it.
Biden ran virtually unopposed in the primaries this year, despite his low approval numbers. And while you’d have to go back to the 19th century to find an incumbent denied the nomination, there have been serious challengers like Ted Kennedy to Jimmy Carter in more recent history. Seems the problem is also with lack of serious challengers, as well as lack of participation in the process from those looking for more significant change.
Yeah, odd without a primary. But think back to 2020. Bernie ran again and is strenuously opposed to what’s happening in Gaza. If we’d shown up to vote in the 2020 primaries, I wonder/pray/doubt we’d be inches away from a trump presidency.
💯
You underestimate the power of whining online.
MAGA is the result of decades of talk radio and pseudo-journalism aimed at curating a very specific way of seeing the world.
They refined a narrative that was persuasive, easy to upload into people, consistent in how it framed emergent issues, and instilled a sense of urgency that encouraged its adherents to spread the gospel and get politically active.
Obviously, we need to vote. But if you think victory is getting a Bernie 2.0 to 51% in a primary, you’re gonna be sorely disappointed by the general. It needs to be a slam dunk. We need a cultural win before we can have an electoral win.
Ah, but you see, the primaries are rigged! They’re rigged because, uh, um because the democrats are scared of change, yeah, and if we want real change we have to um. We have to uh.
Wait, no, because january 6 was bad,
lol did you actually follow the last democratic primaries? Because if you did and you don’t think that shit was rigged as fuck then you’re a fool or being disingenuous.
It’s a show. Has been since Raegan. Technically not a lie but never the truth. In some dimensions, it always was.
Yeah exactly.
LOL, the OP calls out people who complain about the democratic primaries without taking part in them, then you wave your hand so we all turn to look at you, and what do you say?
DUR THEY WERE RIGGED, I WASNT THERE, I DIDNT TAKE PART IN THEM, BUT I AM A GREAT POLITICAL MIND I READ ALL ABOUT IT IN MY PARENTS BASEMENT GOOBER GOOBER!!
So you’re going hard with the “I’m a fool” option I see.
What are you 14?
They’re rigged because, uh, um
Party Control of Party Primaries: Party Influence in Nominations for the US Senate
Using a simple and easily understood measure of party support, I show that candidates who are less connected to the party are less likely to win and also less likely to remain a candidate in the primary. I find that parties not only are effective in helping candidates win but also are influential in excluding certain electoral options from being presented to primary voters.
Unfortunately I cannot read that paper without paying money to a journal. Would you care to provide a summary of the methodology?
I am so torn between a trollish ‘no fuck you’ and a genuine ‘samesies’ and it’s left me emotionally vulnerable in a way I’m deeply uncomfortable with. Fuck you.
Bernie did better in caucus states [controlled directly by the Party] than he did in states with primaries.
Wonder how he would have done in California if the most populous wealthy state didn’t vote 47th.
Please stop thinking about Bernie and start thinking about Obama.
Obama had less time in the Senate and was way behind Hilary in every single poll when he started.
If Obama could do it, the next one can too.
That’s not being rigged, it’s a Democratic Party election. No shit someone from outside the party will have less influence.
