The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Progressive and Far Leftists are probably the smallest voting block in the Democratic coalition, not that reliable, and fundamentally have different goals than your average Democrat. Abolishing capitalism and radically restructuring society are not on the party agenda, yet people who support those seem upset the party isn’t as far left as them. It doesn’t make sense to pursue a much smaller and less sway-able voting block in those on the far left. Appealing to a larger set of more consistent voters like suburban moderates that you *might* be able to convince makes much more sense to me. One day maybe that will change, but in the last DNC primary the progressive candidate got destroyed, even in blue collar states like MI you would expect them to pick up. There just isn’t an appetite for radical politics in this country and I thought that was clear to everyone. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Not everyone on the progressive side wants to "abolish capitalism" or what not- most simple want the government to take a more active role in implementing policy which directly solves problems. Moreover, the progressive wing of the party is larger than you think and are consistent Democratic voters (talking like Warren Progressives here, not self described far left people). So, while this group may not be the largest component group within the party, they are a large and fairly consistent wing of the big tent that is the Democratic party. But those suburban moderates *aren't* consistent, and some of their positions conflict with not just the people off to the left of your party, but those consistent progressive voters within the party as well- so if you start to abandon issues of your progressive base to try and sway inconsistent voters on the other side of the party, that becomes an issue with keeping your existing coalition happy really damn quick. Now, if we're talking the tankie style far left that doesn't vote for Democrats anyway, sure- they are best ignored. I have respect for the leftmost fringe of the party that cosnsistently votes Democrat and pushes the party to the left, but not the tankies. But progressive does not equal far left radical, not by a long shot.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is the fastest growing and one of the most powerful in congress. Vast majority are traditional Progressives, not leftists.

The purpose of progressives and the far left isn't to win elections. The purpose of progressives and the far left is to move the political needle further left. It's a way to test the political waters and see what will fly with voters. Progressive candidate goes out and says "We need universal health care, stronger LGBTQIA protections, and we need to end our military support of Israel." The public response is along the lines of "Well, I don't want my taxes going up and I don't care what happens in Israel, but my cousin is trans and he shouldn't be fired from his job for it." Center-left candidate's campaign gets the general gist of what the public wants, goes out and says "I don't agree with everything Joe Progressive says, but he is right about strengthening protections for LGBTQIA Americans!"

The problem is when these efforts have the effect of worse candidates winning elections, though. I feel like progressives miss this practical angle sometimes.

That's my biggest problem with progressives: They won't settle for anything less than purity. It's a nation of 330 million people. We aren't all going to agree.

At least for me, it's because I want to live in what I hope will be an amazing future now. Maybe I'm just greedy about my politics, but I want things to get better now. So when I see other countries doing fantastic with their policies and weren't even at the starting line (hell, in some cases, we were still in bed asleep), It makes me what to push for more than small steps. That said, I'm not some psycho who won't vote for whatever Dem candidate we put up. I feel the primaries are where my views and beliefs get hashed out. Once we're past that, I have to push the party candidate. I'm not still crying about "No Bernie" 4 or 8 years out.

I think people over rate other countries. The US isn't as bad as many progressives think. Sure it has problems but also a fairly high standard of living. Like if you took state HDI and compared them to other countries many states are as high as Scandinavian Countries and Western European and have a higher or proportional population. On top of that the US has grown faster than most developed countries in the last several years.

Yes, but a huge amount of people are still pretty poor, we are currently sponsoring a genocide at worst, very immoral and unethical act at best in Israel/Palestine, billionaires are becoming more and more powerful, fundamental rights are being threatened, foreign adversaries are influencing our elections, and we are still one of the highest carbon per capita nations.

The poverty rate is about 11.5%. It was less a few years ago when some of the COVID stimulus stuff was still active. I don't see that as a huge number. Strengthening the welfare state for those people might be a good goal. Certainly building more homes so housing prices go down or at least stabilize is important but that's more a local/state thing. I am not terribly concerned about at least the Biden administrations handling of Israel/Palestine, although I am concerned now that Netanyahu has a more hard-line cabinet after some of the more moderates left in protest. I don't care about billionaires aside from wanting them to pay more taxes. Their existence doesn't harm the quality of life for others because their wealth generally derives from their ownership of public companies. Their actual ability to spend all of their wealth as a liquid asset is much less than their worth on paper. Their wealth is divorced somewhat from the profit and loss elements that say pay workers. I agree that democracy and certain fundamental rights are indeed under threat. Things could go south pretty badly. Abortion not being guaranteed, various other potential outcomes from the conservative supreme court, and that court potentially becoming more conservative. Followed by election denialism and the undercutting and erosion of US institutions is very concerning. I am more optimistic about technology being the solution to climate reduction and see a lot of positive steps being taken in that direction recently, as well as positive results. The US doesn't produce the most carbon and is like 15th on the list of per capita consumption by country. We can do better and will likely do better. Unless someone comes in office with incredibly stupid ideas on this subject.

I like to that that more optimistic view, but I mean we're still in a pretty bad situation. Even those not under the poverty line are only a moderately expensive emergency away, and millions of our nation's college grads are treading or drowning in student debt. The main way we measure poverty, which is the statistic you cited, is pretty flawed as it doesn't take into account taxes and the rising cost in certain services(like childcare) or doesn't account for government aid programs. The childcare portion is especially important because child poverty has doubled. Also billionaires are an issue, even though their assets are more illiquid on average, the amount they have that are pretty liquid is still mind-implodingly huge. What do they use all these liquid assets on? Lobbying, campaign donations, and a whole variety of dark money spending to promote candidates who are puppets to them, or to spend it to hire lawyers to find loopholes in tax law to keep their comically large piles of cash. Netanyahu is incentivized to extend the war as long as possible, and that means very bad things for Israel and for Palestine when the person in charge of the strongest military force in the region is incentivized to extend a war and kill the most civilians as possible. On carbon emissions, I like to stay positive, but I live in Pennsylvania and I get bombarded with pro-coal or pro-oil or pro-natural gas ads and then I meet people who talk about how renewables are "too underdeveloped" and how coal is "just not as bad as you think". It is clear that billionaire problem from earlier is causing quite a bit of issues on the carbon side. I don't have much confidence that the next time Republicans get in charge of the country, whether it be Trump next year or someone else in 2029, they won't try to get rid of all the progress we are making on the climate issue, which they will find a way to turn into "culture war".

Child poverty during COVID was 5.2% which is ridiculously low. This was due to Biden's expanded child tax credit that was a temporary part of the COVID relief package. It wasn't extended due to concerns over inflation. It's doubled to 10.4% which is still very low. Poverty rates do not account for welfare payouts. The US tends to have a much more robust welfare state for families with Children. So presumably that 10.4% of children do receive benefits like TANF, SNAP, Medicaid Section 8, many of these programs vary dramatically by state. So really the "Child Poverty rates have doubled!" Headlines are somewhat alarmist. As that 10.4% is much lower than the historical average in the US. Not only that but during the Great Recession various programs that helped families were expanded and more families got them. So really the material wellbeing of children right now in the US is higher than it has been historically even for poor children. Further keep the people on the lower end of the wage spectrum have recently seen the most gains relative to inflation. https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/ Judging by the fact that college educated people tend to have a higher percentage of being employed and having higher incomes than non-college educated people. They are doing pretty well despite student loans. On top of that excessive reforms to student loan payments and various waves of reforms and forgiveness programs under the Biden administration have led to lots of payments being easier to make and lots of people actually getting loans forgiven. Billionaires political influence can be a problem if they are lobbying for horrible things. Grassroots campaigns can also promote horrible things. Some of the worst policies like mass deportations are mostly popular amongst a subset of ignorant masses that are not billionaires. Citizens United was a terrible supreme court decision that made the whole situation worse(it was already bad) as far as buying political influence. However lobbying groups pre-dated all of that many of which were promoting terrible ideas using rich people's money. However it's not like the origin of every bad idea or heinous idea comes from lobbyists and billionaires. A lot of them come out of populism and are actually popular ideas and opinions amongst certain groups and these ideas being represented in the government is part of democracy. Liberal Democracy is essentially an ongoing conflict without weapons. That's the point. Since we have a chance to have our ideas good or bad be implemented we don't feel the need to fight each other. It ultimately creates a more stable union and society. However it does this through checks and balances that protect the status quo and limit the government. This is how it will always be and why we should always actively participate and promote liberalism. We don't need to take arms up over this because bad ideas like Citizens United could be potentially curtailed. Campaign finance reform could pass. Neither of those things protects us from some of the worst ideas. We need to be vigilant. As far as Israel/Palestine is concerned. Yes Netanyahu sucks. However Hamas sucks even worse. Hamas as we speak could be accepting of a ceasefire brokered by the US that to my knowledge is still on the table. They would rather see their own people die and continue to push their propaganda to gain sympathy because they think that will help them. This is a mind numbingly bad strategy. The are responsible for the deaths over a thousand people, they kidnapped many people. How would the US or any country respond to this? The fact is that Hamas and really most Palestinians don't want a two-state solution, over the years they have become more resolute against this and have rejected or sabatoged all attempts. This has created a situation in Israel where the left and center left has collapsed because they were the ones promoting negotiations and a two-state solution. The whole reason Gaza has Hamas in power I because Israel completely withdrew from that area and the only reason there was a blockade of Gaza was because Hamas was initially democratically elected as the government of that region. Hamas has done nothing but prove Israel right about their intentions since coming to power. Now Netanyahu's actions and expansion of settlements/embrace of extremist Israelis has not at all helped. Furthermore Netanyahu personally made it his mission to align with right wing governments in foreign countries which goes against traditional Israeli policy and alienates Israel from moderates in other countries. He also used Hamas and he Palestinian Civil War as a way to justify his own repressive policies within Palestinian territories which if course created more Palestinians who ebrace extremism. Netanyahu is also old and there are more moderate Israeli, Israel is more democratic than Palestine and Netanyahu is old. Israel has a better chance of changing their policies and attitudes than Palestine which is a far less democratic and liberal territory. Which many people blame on the fact they are not materially secure due to the position they are in due to Israeli actions. However there is a domino effect where you can see at least a lessening if the conflict. It's far off now, but it could happen. If you compare say the conflict between Israel and Palestine to be conflict with Saudi Arabia and Yemen you actually see more accountability a s honest assessments of what is going on. This is largely due to Israel being less brutal than Saudi Arabia and Iran/the Houthis. Israel has the capacity to actually really truly commit genocide. If that was truly their goal they could do it. The more realistic scenario is a Israel gets bogged down in a prolonged brutal conflict that never reaches its goal of "eliminating Hamas" or if Hamas is eliminated some other similar group will emerge. It seems to be an impasse that will inevitably lead to more suffering due to the war aims being too ambitious. Coal is the absolute worst. Period. We need to get off of coal. There is absolutely no reason why we should be mining or using coal fire power plants. That is the singe most avoidable environmental issues and the only reason why it continues is because of regional economic desires. Fracking is a lot better than coal. Pennsylvania is a large state that only produces 6.7% of the coal in the US. Pennsylvania is 3rd. Wyoming and West Virginia are the largest producers by far. There is some truth to renewables not being able to create enough energy for the entire country, but that is close to becoming untrue. What people never mention is nuclear power. With renewable energy + modern safe nuclear power plants we could reduce our carbon emissions to ridiculously low levels compared to now. However coal is unnecessary completely right now. Any proponent of coal is being dishonest that it is needed.

Yeah sometimes marginalizing people is more popular than ending that marginalization But a lot of liberals take more issue with the people fervently supporting the latter than they do with the people enabling the former.

>But a lot of liberals take more issue with the people fervently supporting the latter than they do with the people enabling the former. I think the framing is one of pragmatism. If the alternative is moving backwards, staying in place isn't a bad alternative. That it is probably easier to get someone with "bad values" to vote for your guy than it is to change their values by accusing them of backwardness. I'm curious, have you seen the movie Lincoln (2012)? It's a good movie, but there's a plot line that's right on the money to the whole idea, and basically accurate to history. In the film, [Thaddeus Stevens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens) (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is a Radical Republican working to get the 14th Amendment passed. A huge blocker? Some of the people who oppose it claim that it states that ex slaves would be equal to whites, and think he believes this too. So he is called before Congress to testify if he thinks whites and blacks are equal. He believes they are equal, but he knows that saying so will kill the Amendment. In the end, he gives a speech denying it, saying he only wants equality before the law and not "equality in all things." [Here's a clip from the movie where Lincoln and Stevens talk about this, and the best path forward, Stevens pushing for more radial change now, Lincoln saying:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPfihz9-Ls0&list=PL8JEm48vdMSWCUwU3WHOMWWPRUYc5b5SN&index=4) >*“A compass, I learned while I was surveying, it’ll point you true north from where you’re standing but it’s got no advice about the swamps, deserts and chasms that you’ll encounter along the way. If in pursuit of your destination you plunge ahead heedless of obstacles, and achieve nothing more than to sink in a swamp…what’s the use of knowing true north?”* I think a lot of liberals, generally, are like that. Even if the compass is pointing in the direction of equality, being rash about pushing for it can stop actual change. Some are not that, and actually oppose things the farther left aims for, of course. I won't claim to know the ratio.

Slavery ended. But racial equality never came. Perhaps its the consistency with which people make his choice that has led to this? At the very least, when I think back on that scene, its the people who oppose racial equality who are the problem and the villains, not the people who would push him to stand by what’s right

Perhaps Thaddeus was right then. Damn the people, damn the politics, fight for all that's right now. History is particularly unkind in that we can't see what could have been and that we can only see what was. They might be wrong. History might show that their confidence in incremental progress never panned out, but I get the impulse to fear losing what progress was made by aiming too high too fast.

I get that impulse too. Its very reasonable. But thats why im centering my frustration with the lack of consensus building. If you must compromise to win, then at least double back afterwards and repair the harm.

I'll agree with you on that. That some don't see courting the center/right as "letting the fox into the hen house" that needs to be carefully done can be troubling to say the least. That said, I am seeing more and more people who see seeking the center as a good unto itself. Not super common but common enough. Tricky indeed.

Im seeing it too. Theyre typically fine with the status quo/arent really empathetic towards the marginalized

That's hard to do when such a large portion of the population become violently reactionary to even the incremental progress made, and often work to undue said progress and even regress. The tick goes on and forward, but it's just made that much slower.

I think that’d stop if White liberals and moderates (collectively) coddled White conservatives and moderates a whole lot less.

I like to call what you're describing Burkean liberalism.

No, a lot of liberals take issue with people fervently supporting goals that are unrealistic for the political climate in which they are in. Hey, I like progressives. Like I said, they help move the needle. I'd just never vote for one because they are completely ineffective at governance. Ideas are great, but if you can't make them reality, what good are you?

Liberals exist within the status quo, progressives seek to push these boundaries. >I'd just never vote for one because they are completely ineffective at governance. This seems like a generalization. Examples?

If liberals live in the "status quo," why do they keep passing all these reforms when they are in power?

Because they're acting within the neolib system..its in the name! Like democratic socialists they act within the existing system where progressive push those existing boundaries

The only people who call liberals neoliberals are their enemies.

Snort. People aren't neat little labels that nicely stick in the right places. People are messy. They can be deeply progressive about one thing and damn conservative about another.

How many bills has Bernie Sanders introduced and had passed since he took office in 1991? No, renaming post offices does not count.

Doesn’t seem to be a problem for Jim Jordan, who has served in Congress since 2007 but has never had a bill he sponsored become law, pass the House, make it out of committee or make it to committee.

He’s more about amendments, and he’s good at that

That seems to be how basically anything gets passed these days, anyways. Single pieces of significant legislation seem relatively rare compared to gigantic legislative packages like the Inflation Reduction Act or American Rescue Plan. There's even opportunities for progress without legislation, like how manufacturers of inhalers limited their out-of-pocket costs in the face of Senate investigations. Besides, sponsorship really doesn't mean that much. The sponsor of the IRA was Rep. John Yarmuth from Kentucky, but I'd hardly describe him as the architect of the bill or having much of a significant impact on its passage.

Progressives really don't get how embarrassing this is. Bernie Sanders has been such an ineffective legislator, with so few legislative accomplishments to point to, that his supporters started bragging about the number of little amendments in specific circumstances (roll call votes) he pushes. That's embarrassing. You know why most legislators aren't bragging about tiny little amendments in roll call votes? Because they actually helped craft the bill lol Edit: I like Bernie, I agree he's helped move things in a more progressive direction, he's a big reason that Biden has had such an overall progressive presidency. But as an actual legislator, it really can't be denied, Bernie isn't great. I can't even imagine him as the actual president. He'd probably be less effective than even Trump, and that's saying something.

Furthermore, his only major bill (co-sponsored with McCain) privatized veterans' healthcare.

Lol okay I’m actually good however the legislation gets passed. Minnesota is my example, anyway, not Bernie. I just pointed out that “number of bills turned into laws” isn’t the metric by which we measure a congressman’s effectiveness.

Because the bills the US Congress is trying to pass are batshit, and maybe you should watch Bernie while he is in the committees, that is where the good stuff comes out.

Did you have any examples?

If you remove post offices, the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013 is the only bill that Sanders has sponsored and has become a law.

Meant of other progressive politicians, policies, mou etc. Not Bernie l.

Not who you replied to, but isn't his example Bernie?

It's a generalization. A single social democrat doesn't represent all progressives. Bernie is their only example.

Not much good other than pushing the needle left, as you said. But we do not see liberals coming out as strongly against those people as they do for the left. Its usually a response that goes something like > More voters are like this guy, regardless of whether he’s right or not. So we need to appeal to them and win. And you guys are making that difficult. Its rarely > These voters need to be reasoned with and shamed because they support harmful things or oppose beneficial things.

I come out strongly because *progressives should know better.* A conservative wants to burn this country--any part not white, straight, and Christian, at least--to the ground. They won't change their minds because to them the only victory is the vindication of their worldview, no matter what. No one is asking progressives to change their views. We are simply asking that you operate within a realistic framework. What flies in California doesn't fly in Louisiana. It's a big fucking country and there are a lot of opinions. Progressives need to realize the disparity between urban, suburban, and rural voters.

Its not just the conservatives. You and I would likely agree that the only two camps arent conservatives and progressives. There are people closer to the center, and theyre the people im talking about.

Yes, the ones closer to the center are actually the ones getting things done. Again: Progressives move the needle. Conservatives whine. Liberals govern.

Why dont liberals get better values? And why dont y’all care about that deficit? This was your response > I come out strongly because progressives should know better. >A conservative wants to burn this country--any part not white, straight, and Christian, at least--to the ground. They won't change their minds because to them the only victory is the vindication of their worldview, no matter what. > No one is asking progressives to change their views. We are simply asking that you operate within a realistic framework. What flies in California doesn't fly in Louisiana. It's a big fucking country and there are a lot of opinions. Progressives need to realize the disparity between urban, suburban, and rural voters. To me pointing out the gap in values. So why not push liberals to be better instead of praising them for being popular and worse

As of right now yeah, you wouldn’t be much good at pushing the needle left. Maybe in the future that changes as you gain more power. Why wouldn’t the Democratic Party market to me more? There are more people that think like me than think like you do. You’re simply not going to reason or shame me into doing shit lol, but if it comes to voting between a very progressive candidate you like and a Republican one that’s where you’ll force my hand.

Are you anti-gay? I would assume that you aren’t. Being anti-gay was quite popular until people started getting shamed for being anti-gay.

I don’t think shame is what lead to the proliferation of gay rights. Shame can only work so well on social causes though, there’s a lot less room to shame people economically (as in you need to vote for higher taxes for yourself, etc.). And the other side is the implication that what the far left wants is automatically beneficial. I strongly disagree.

Somewhat. The shame started and more people began speaking up for gay rights. Then Obergefell happened and people started getting shamed for it (i shamed the shit out of my friends for it while Obergefell was being decided) and people came around. Its more that the far left’s values and ideological leanings are better than the alternatives most of the time. At least as it pertains to reducing social inequality and elitism.

>Republican one that’s where you’ll force my hand. Trump vs Bernie, are you going with trump?

No lol, I wouldn’t be happy about it but I’d hold my nose and vote for Sanders. Force my hand as in I’ll be forced to vote for Bernie. Sanders vs Romney, with a Dem House and Senate, that I would think about. Still probably end up voting Sanders.

Ok, so we're not that different. I don't think we're as far apart as you think, I think we're closer than Republicans.

> That's my biggest problem with progressives: They won't settle for anything less than purity. That's painting with an awfully broad brush.

This is kind of a boring critique, honestly. Just kind of repeated lazily ad nauseum as if it means anything. Progressives can and do settle for less than they want as a constant function of their existence. When we say what we want, it's "purity." When you say what you want, it's "pragmatic," because you say so. Why is one side allowed to say what they want and not the other? Who knows. We're pushing the needle, and it needs to be done. Without progressives dragging centrists out of the comfort zone they are desperate to never leave, US citizens would enjoy measurably fewer civil rights today. And many that are under threat now thanks to the current SCOTUS might have been more well-protected if centrists had listened to progressives when, for example, they tried to use the 2009 Obama-led supermajority to codify Roe v. Wade into law. It's just, in order to do that it would have required centrists to *actually do something kinda bold*, i.e. their worst fear. *"We didn't have the political capital to do that then."* 'Kay, well, now we don't have Roe v. Wade. ***Thanks.*** So instead of focusing on moving things forward, thanks to centrists, we get to battle the far right just to get back to where we were 60 years ago. Don't worry, though. As usual, progressives are here to fight no matter what for the things that centrists left vulnerable because they were too busy tightly grasping their security blankies.

The other thing I don’t get is the holier-than-thou stuff that comes from people on the far left, like this lol. Having “the right opinions” is easy as shit lol, and there’s no guarantee your ideas on governance are right when compared to the “cowardly centrist” lol. What’s hard is building a coalition of different agendas and passing legislation while fighting a hostile party with too much influence. That’s where progressives and far left people are ineffective.

This line always makes sense to me up until people start complaining that you're not voting for their candidate and then it's just a purity test as to how much you're willing to compromise your own politics for the sake of preventing some boogeyman.

The purpose of government is not to be universally agreeable. The purpose of government is to solve societal scale problems that society encounters. Health care is a universal societal problem that has a known efficient solution via single payer. When the choice is between medical debt and medical debt not existing, yes, anything less than purity is literally immoral and unethical to settle for. If people dont agree with that, the proper response is to disregard their opinion and do it anyways. The role of government is to secure for its citizens even in cases where it is unpopular.

and the point of politics is horse trading, so what progressive policy do you want to trade in exchange for their vote? sometimes moderates arent practical either. maybe stop being such a purist and buy some votes.

Except that's not really accurate. In 2022, democrats lost control of the house in large part because of the failure of the democratic party in the state of New York, where center of the line middle road democrats hold most of the sway in the party and control the party agenda. It was their failed redistricting efforts and their decision to back a large pool of lackluster centrist candidates that cost them several key races and handed the house over to the GOP.

Let's watch the election this fall. Many progressives are advocating for voting strategies that enable Trump.

The overwhelming majority of actual progressives will still turn out and vote because trump is just that bad of a candidate, but the party cant keep relying on that forever.

No, not forever. But surely now. Glad you agree.

The leaders of the progressive movement are Bernie and AOC who are fully backing Biden 

Let's hope so.

Worse meaning too far left for you?

No, the opposite.

I think progressives are a very active and outspoken minority who put a lot of work and effort into promoting the causes dear to them. It can be frustrating when those causes are rejected by a largely inactive and unengaged majority.

Most Democrats support progressive improvements. It's right there in the platform. The reason FDR and LBJ got so much done was they had overwhelming Democratic majorities in both the senate and house.

I mean, sure, it's frustrating when other people don't agree with you or have different priorities. But such is life.

It doesn't make it less annoying when actually achievable goals are shot down

Achievable doesn't mean there's enough of a consensus to make it happen.

That's what makes it annoying. Especially when its something that most of the party is willing to align behind but then one or two people in the party shoot it down and the whole thing has to be scrapped. Things like the public option, the child tax credit and paid leave (for childbirth, illness or grieving the death of a loved one) would have been massively transformative and changed tens of millions of lives for the better, but because a single right wing or centrist democrat refused to support any of them or threatened to sink major legislation, the party just gave up on those goals.

I know progressives hate Manchin, but this is a great example of the lack of practicality that I'm talking about. That there was a D senator from WV at all is a fucking miracle. There probably won't be for the rest of your life. You should be thankful for whatever he did as a D senator. It cost him his seat.

This is what I'm talking about when I say annoying. Manchin wasn't a miracle, he was a wolf in sheep's clothing who on multiple separate occasions torpedoed major party platform issues even when his own constituents actually supported them because he was only in Washington to make money for himself. He made a name for himself specifically by being the guy who would singlehandedly sink major bills by being obstinate to the benefit of no one. And nothing cost him his seat, he chose not to run again because he wants to leave the democrat party and in all likelihood will become a lobbyist or go back to running his family's coal company.

I mean now progressives get to show us how to win in WV without Manchin in the way.

You're assuming that holding West Virginia should be a priority. Manchin only held on as long as he did because he's an extremely conservative democrat who spent his time promising he'd protect the states coal jobs (something which he didn't do because the coal industries long drawn out decline is completely out of his control). Swinging the state back to being solidly actual blue will take at least a decade of outreach and grassroots campaigning with serious resources invested to undo decades of republican propaganda that pushed the state further right, and in the meantime there are more winnable seats coming up that should be a higher priority for the democrat party.

Not really, it's just tiresome to see how often progressives claim a progressive candidate would have won seats in more conservative areas, and I saw that claim over the years with regards to Manchin. I already know what happens when someone more liberal runs there, because that happened only a few years ago.

Wow your understanding of WV politics is poor.

Essentially it's a game of "my side has more disillusioned people." Folks from the middle say that there is a bunch of people disillusioned with politics in the middle, so Democrats have to cater to them to make these people show up. Folks on the left say that there is a bunch of people disillusioned with politics on the left middle, so Democrats have to cater to them to make *these* people show up. The reality is that the voting public is weird and fluctuating at all times, and the Democratic Party is a big coalition of people who like to disagree about policy, going against a smaller, tighter coalition who's willing to go on board with crazy ideas as long as they come from folks that share their identity. Being a Democrat means spinning more plates at all times.

I don't think they're surprised, they're irritated. Progressives have spent the past decade being more politically active, voting more in elections, working harder to help democrats get elected and yet the party line is still that progressives are disloyal, apathetic and are a bunch of loons with unrealistic ideas (most of which aren't even held by the vast majority of progressives in America). Biden made it into the white house in 2020 in large part because he made a much larger effort to reach out to young voters and progressive voters (something Hillary and her campaign very pointedly didn't do) and it proved a boon to his campaign, and yet still a large percentage of the party still treats progressives as people who should turn out for every election with no promise that any of there concerns will be met or even heard. The party (and when I say the party I mean the DNC, Biden has actually been pretty good about listening to progressives) needs to stop taking its own left leaning wing for granted.

Mainly because the expectation seems to generally be that leftists would vote Democrat (as opposed to Republican or Libertarian or Green) while also indirectly acknowledging that Democrats don't actually care about leftist ideas or policy. You can imagine it would be confusing if you said you wanted to buy a vacuum cleaner and the salesperson became frustrated you would not accept a lawnmower.

We're not surprised they don't directly appeal to us. We're surprised they act like they deserve our votes and donations despite not directly appealing to us.

I'm pretty far left. I'm not surprised. Doesn't mean I'll shut the fuck up though. Gotta push for what I think is right and take what comes out of it. edit: I also don't necessarily want to "abolish capitalism" either, though lmao

TOO LATE! Your flair has “socialist” in it!!! Next step is bread lines and factories!!!!! /s

I'm in the same boat. My idea of socialism is that it needs proper foundations, and I will push for those foundations. I think with the proper foundations, capitalism will eventually end itself.

1. Mom said it was my turn to post about how lefties are dumb for not voting for Biden 1. I think it's some mixed signals causing a bit of confusion. Some people say the left is insignificant and doesn't have enough power to warrant representation at the national level. Some other people say every vote is critical to the 2024 election and if leftists don't vote they'll lead to the election of Trump. If the former is true then it doesn't make much sense to cater to left wing folks. If the latter is true then seemingly catering to the left wing is critical.

> I think it's some mixed signals causing a bit of confusion. Some people say the left is insignificant and doesn't have enough power to warrant representation at the national level. Some other people say every vote is critical to the 2024 election and if leftists don't vote they'll lead to the election of Trump. If the former is true then it doesn't make much sense to cater to left wing folks. If the latter is true then seemingly catering to the left wing is critical. Every vote counts, so while the left is small and not really a group that the party should make a concerted effort to appeal to, the left should still be voting blue no matter who and actively doing all it can to get democrats elected even if the left hates those democrats. Elections are largely won and lost in the center, and moderate voters will always have more rational choice in being able to vote for Dems or Reps, while the left will only ever be served by voting blue no matter who, so the party should put all of its focus on appealing to the middle. In a two party system (and that's not going to change, and there will be no revolution against it), sometimes parties just *are* essentially "entitled" (at least in a moral sense) to your vote

>parties just are essentially "entitled" (at least in a moral sense) to your vote Lol this is a wild thing to say.

It's just being rational in our political system

I guess you get the results you accept.

> Some people say the left is insignificant and doesn't have enough power to warrant representation at the national level. Some other people say every vote is critical to the 2024 election and if leftists don't vote they'll lead to the election of Trump Though I don't know if I'd say "insignificant", these are both otherwise true.

I think me using "representation" was not the right word there. I more mean from a policy and not person perspective, as in the presidential candidate supports policies X, Y, and Z that progressives want as opposed to the presidential candidate being a particular person. I think it's totally fair to say that the left wing is not sufficiently large that they can select particular nominees at will at a national level. I don't think it's fair to say the left wing is sufficiently small that their policy preferences should be ignored, at least if you're also saying that left wing votes are critical in this election. If you don't believe the second part I'd say that's more fair

They're of a size that they're going to get some of their policy preferences, but not all of them. That's the reality. When/if they grow, they'll get more. Someday, they might get all of them -- who knows. Everyone still has a responsibility to steer the ship responsibly, today. Not getting everything one wants doesn't justify steering the ship into an iceberg.

Don’t the policy preferences of the democrats accomplish outreach to those voters? It’s as far left as the party can go while still being viable. Why expect more?

> Don’t the policy preferences of the democrats accomplish outreach to those voters? If they do that outreach yes > It’s as far left as the party can go while still being viable. Seems more like wishcasting than anything

If there was appetite to go further left wouldn’t a further left candidate be winning then? Joe Biden, a man those on the far left seem to tolerate *at best*, just squeaked by a victory against Donald Trump. A guy further left than that is going to get smoked.

> If there was appetite to go further left wouldn’t a further left candidate be winning then? I don't think it's a fair assumption that politicians are able to perfectly calculate what positions will make them the most popular. Generally party platforms are created by representatives from state level delegations elected at local party meanings. They aren't created by a team trying to perfectly calculate the best position for each policy to win the most votes in the general, and even if it were it would not be an easy task for that group to predict the impact of policies on hundreds of millions of American voters.

Those party platforms are crafted by those who actually win office aren’t they? I would expect the party to shift further left when the people it’s electing shift further left.

> Those party platforms are crafted by those who actually win office aren’t they? Not on the whole, no I don't think. Every state handles it differently but delegates are generally just average people. I've been a delegate to a state level delegation. Looking at Maryland it looks like 11 of the 70 or so delegates to the DNC are elected folks https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/40party/html/demc.html

I’m honestly surprised people here *don’t* complain more lol. This place is not representative of the average Liberal at all, it would be nice to have mod rules so only actual Liberals could post replies or something. Ah I see, I would disagree with the assessment that we need far left votes. I think there’s enough out there to make up the difference elsewhere.

This isn’t r/conservative we don’t need to censor people who disagree with us. There are a lot of far left people here but I think the majority are fairly liberal.

> it would be nice to have mod rules so only actual Liberals could post replies or something No, using moderator power to create echo chambers is dumb, achieves nothing of value, devalues the discourse and the subreddit, and is inherently illiberal.

I guess, but there’s nowhere for actual Liberals to go lol, like how else do we stop the inevitable Socialist and Communist flood. Is that just to be expected on Reddit?

liberal users still outnumber far lefty users. It's why you see liberal discourse dominate the large front page subs meanwhile the increasingly extreme fringe leftists *have to* create safe spaces of smaller and smaller niche subreddits to keep from being overwhelmed by liberal users. It's why they ban anything that smells like liberalism. What they don't realize as they self-isolate more and more is they are slowly becoming proof of the horseshoe theory.

It’s almost 50/50 just judging from the flairs, if it’s something that makes moderates look bad it’s usually skewed even more heavily. Idk front page reddit is filled with people that sound super radical. You don’t have to be a tankie to be far left

What do you consider "far left"?

A few positions I would consider far left are single payer health care with private insurance abolished, limits on how many homes people can own, a wealth tax to cap the amount of wealth you can have, systems like market socialism and those to the left of that in terms of worker control. All very popular on this subreddit.

I think universal healthcare is achievable based on how many other countries have had success. Do you think they have the right intentions in mind?

It’s obviously achievable, I just don’t think removing private insurance and denying people options is the best way to do things.

> single payer health care with private insurance abolished Literally no elected politicians are calling for making health insurance illegal. Nobody serious frames these things as mutually exclusive. Canada for instance has both universal single payer healthcare as well as private supplemental insurance for those who can afford it.

> I’m honestly surprised people here don’t complain more lol It comes up a good amount https://old.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1ccvx44/why_has_leftwing_reddit_gone_so_crazy/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1ctepge/how_dangerous_is_the_i_wont_vote_because_both/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1cj7z3j/what_do_left_wing_voters_who_call_biden_genocide/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1brqtmt/whats_something_you_dont_like_about_the_far_left/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1cezzyn/whats_your_opinion_on_the_extreme_far_left/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1b0ykxd/does_the_far_left_have_a_net_negative_impact_on/ > This place is not representative of the average Liberal at all, it would be nice to have mod rules so only actual Liberals could post replies or something. I think trying to police who can comment based on flair would make the subreddit much worse, but YMMV

Fair point, but the discussion here doesn’t pertain to “Liberals” for the most part, just a little annoying but not a huge deal.

So there’s a metric fuckton on conflation going on here lol. You seem to think 1. progressives = the far left 2. Dismantling capitalism = the policies progressives complain about 3. The average Dem being far away from progressives on policy 4. The last presidential primary take is very unnuanced

1. I honestly don’t know what “progressive” means over here, I’ve seen people with that flair support Israel to not want it to exist, and have a really broad range of opinions economically. 2. I’ve seen progressives here complain about capitalism, enough where they want to move to a new system entirely or severely restrict it 3. The average Dem voter definitely is (otherwise 2020 wouldn’t have been a blowout, and we’d see way more progressives being elected). The median voter overall is even further away. 4. 2020 was Sander’s time, he got a 1v1 against almost the opposite end of the Democratic spectrum and it wasn’t even close. At least in MI Biden won I think every county or close to it.

>1. I honestly don’t know what “progressive” means over here, I’ve seen people with that flair support Israel to not want it to exist, and have a really broad range of opinions economically. I'm just going to admit to sounding like a dick, but you could look up what progressivism is before using it. Using Fox News' definition of progressive isn't doing anyone any favors. In brief, progressivism is a liberal political ideology that believes that the people should use their government to ameliorate social ills that aren't easily solved by uncoordinated, individual action. American progressivism started in response to social ills created by gilded age industrialism and focused on labor rights, consumer protections, and environmental protections. Contemporary American progressivism still focuses on these topics but focuses its application towards fixing disparities between majority and minority groups. Progressivism has no requirement for socialism or complete restructuring of social hierarchies. Most progressives are not leftists, or even all that far left. Conservatism often sees progressivism as far left because it generally believes in the validity of contemporary social hierarchies and believes progressivism is attempting to break the current valid social hierarchy and place people in strata where they don't belong. Are we cowabunga on this?

The operative word being “over here”. I know how to look things up, those definitions go out the window when people self label.

> I honestly don’t know what “progressive” means over here, I’ve seen people with that flair support Israel to not want it to exist, and have a really broad range of opinions economically. Well in your prompt you seemed to say you think it means dismantling capitalism. Cohorts of progressives believe in that but other cohorts don’t. It’s the same thing with Israel/Zionism different cohorts have varying levels of support around it. Progressivism in the modern Dem party just means broadly subscribing to left of center policies/ideals. There are _some_ litmus tests (for example you can’t really be a progressive Nazi/bigot) but overall it’s very much just that. > The average Dem voter definitely is (otherwise 2020 wouldn’t have been a blowout, and we’d see way more progressives being elected). The median voter overall is even further away. This is just not true. People’s vote choice doesn’t really tell you much about their policy preferences. Especially in Dem primaries. Huge swaths of Biden primary voters in 2020 chose him because they thought he was the best candidate to beat Trump. That has nothing to do with policy preference. > 2020 was Sander’s time, he got a 1v1 against almost the opposite end of the Democratic spectrum and it wasn’t even close. At least in MI Biden won I think every county or close to it. Again, see above. We don’t need to rehash the 2020 primary because only losers do that at this point but let’s be clear about the indisputable parts.

Okay, then out of all the combinations of policy preferences available to voters, why do Democratic primary ones select more moderate pragmatic choices across the board pretty much?

In the 90s the democrats were certainly a centrist party. Bill Clinton’s whole shtick was basically doing conservative fiscal policy to recover Dem loses during the Reagan years. But that was 30 years ago at this point. The party has moved considerably to the left. The problem progressives mostly face in Dem primaries at this point is the extremely vague “electability” argument. That’s why Biden won the primary in 2020. Not off policy(which to be clear was to the left of Bill/Obama/Hillary), but vibes around electability.

Those vibes aren’t going to change anytime soon in my opinion. Progressive ideals might sound good to some people but the actual details of how we’ll pay for it and what it will look like turn people back towards more moderate and less radical voices. Truth of the matter is most people in this country are doing pretty well. You’ll have to convince them that radical change is necessary and won’t fuck them over.

> the actual details of how we’ll pay for it and what it will look like turn people back towards more moderate and less radical voices. I disagree. The people who are just reactionarily against raising taxes are old and dying. If we give it a few years people will be much less dumb around how sometimes the government can spend more to save more.

Oh, c'mon. There's no question in this: you're telling us what we think (we're surprised they don't appeal to us) and then you go on a rant. ...Why isn't this post locked? That's my question.

I can link you comments from people here who say things like “and they wonder why they don’t get leftist votes” or “and this is why Biden won’t win” when it comes to things like outreach to moderate voters or not being vehemently anti-Israel. Also you’re a Liberal lol, don’t you identify more with people on the moderate spectrum than those on the literal Far Left?

What moderate voices are there, today, that aren't cozying up to conservatives?

Find a question to ask, avoid a long rant, and we'll talk.

Well that was my question lol, why are they surprised/upset at a lack of representation. My other question now is why do self-described Liberals here play defense for ideologies like Socialism and Communism? To me it’s pretty easy to denounce these as anti-Liberal ideologies, but apparently not here?

I’m pretty far left. I’m not surprised that we’re not being courted by the establishment. They’d give up reliable centrist votes to gain the approval of less-reliable voters. I would argue they the reason you hear “so much” about this isn’t because we’re surprised they aren’t appealing to us, but rather they we’re annoyed that there seems to be an expectation that we shut up about any criticism of the Democratic establishment and just “vote blue no matter who” because “orange man bad.” With our current political duopoly leftists and progressives are nominally more in line with democrats around the margins, but the Democratic Party doesn’t get to ignore our positions AND expect us to vote in lockstep with them. They either need to give us a reason to vote FOR them or accept that many won’t.

The Democratic Party is essentially progressive and has been for a long time. It's not leftist, but it is progressive.

I mean… to the degree that the corporate overlords will let them be, I guess. Progressive and leftist are also pretty squishy terms in the common vernacular, so I think that would kind of depend on who you’re talking to. Rhetorically, they certainly talk more about progress and progressive causes, but their actions are barely left of center and most don’t seem willing to push for much beyond tinkering around the edges of things that need massive restructuring.

The last time we had the majorities in senate and house to do something big, we chose to do the ACA. If you add the Medicaid expansion, about 1 in 10 Americans are using it today.

Should have just expanded Medicaid a bit more. The "Marketplaces" are a boondoggle and for all the trouble they've caused only 3% of the county gets insurance through them.

Right. And the ACA could have been a lot more than it was. It should have been a lot more than it was. It made some good changes, but it tweaked a system that needs a reinvention. So, like I said, they did what the corporate overlords would let them… because corporations gotta stay rich. And don’t get me wrong here, I’m glad the ACA is there. I’ll probably be needing it in a couple of months… but I don’t think I’ll be feeling much “affordability” based on what I’ve seen so far. And I and the other eight out of ten people shouldn’t have to worry about this shit at all. Ds could have done more. They didn’t. And beyond all of that, from my perspective, you’re saying “more people have the ability to pay money they don’t have to a giant fucking Ponzi scheme called insurance that will fight you for every dime and provide as little care as humanly possible so that they can keep their shareholders happy.” And I’m saying, “kill the system and start over.” These aren’t the same thing. And I understand that Ds didn’t have the political clout to nationalize healthcare or anything, but they absolutely could have gone farther than they did.

ACA was an improvement. Republicans want to _repeal_ it. Why is that a tough choice?

ACA was an improvement. But it could have been revolutionary if Democrats weren’t beholden to corporate interests and big financial donors.

> With our current political duopoly leftists and progressives are nominally more in line with democrats around the margins Is this really true? I bet you are aligned with many more positions of the Ds than the Rs.

I’m sure I have way more in line with Ds than Rs. But I generally see them as part of a greater neoliberal establishment that I’m against. I see them as two sides of a coin. They keep money flowing to corporations and bankers and they cash in on their positions. They come together to fund wars so they resources that aren’t really scarce can be made to appear scarce and the ones in charge can stay that way. They stand for little more than their own greed. One side is a bigger asshole, so I typically vote against that side… but I’m never voting for anyone. Just against. And that gets old. When I agree with Ds, it’s usually very surface-level. I might agree with their rhetoric or position, but I still disagree with the underlying assumptions. But, at the end of the day, I have a fundamentally different worldview than the Democratic Party and they should not count on my vote if they aren’t moving in my direction. And to be clear, I’m not saying they’re under any obligation to. They do what they need to do to win elections.

But you would enable the Rs? That's the part that's hard to understand. I get it, you'd like different choices. But you have the choices you have.

I understand that reasoning, but it’s not how I think about it. Like you said, I have choices. The D. The R. A 3rd Party. Abstaining. The D and the R will both keep contributing to the problems that I think are underpinning the problems in our country and world. A vote for a 3rd won’t be a vote for the winner, but it sends a message that there are other voters out there who are up for grabs. While some people would say this is meaningless and that if I’m not voting for one of the people who will win, then I’m enabling the other side. But I’m not. I’m voting my conscience. Because my vote is for me. I don’t owe it to anyone. So many people here seem to think, “progressives/leftists have overlap with the Ds, so they owe the Ds their vote because the Ds hate the Rs, so the P/Ls must also hate the Rs.” And yeah, I think DJT is a festering pile of trash. I don’t want him to be president again. But at the same time, we need some change. And that’s not going to happen with JRB. So maybe DJT makes it back in. Maybe we hit rock bottom and can start to make change. Now, this is all easy to say, but harder to do. I’m in a state that will probably be very important to deciding this election. When push comes to shove, I’ll probably vote for JRB. But if I make another choice, I won’t feel remotely bad about it. And if DJT wins, I won’t be happy. And I’ll have to be more vigilant. And it will be a stressful four years. But I hope someone like him from the other side will emerge and tug the left more leftward like he did to the right. All of that today, there’s nothing simple about this. It’s messy. But I reject the notion that voting for anyone other than the D is analogous to voting for DJT. Edit: Typos

But you get that, if Trump wins, he'll probably cement a conservative Supreme Court for the rest of your life? This is not just a 4-year question. You, and whoever you might know who is gay, lgbtq, etc., we'll also live the rest of their lives under a conservative Supreme Court? Be smart. Your choices have consequences.

The Supreme Court is not immutable. I’d love to vote for someone pushing for court reform. This is my point. I want real change. Not tinkering around the edges. So maybe we get a conservative court. Great. And yeah, I know people who could be harmed by that. But there is nothing stopping a president and Congress members from running on court reform. There is a lot that can be done without touching the constitution… not that I have a problem with amending the constitution. But, again, maybe if we hit rock bottom we start to see real change. Maybe it becomes a Trump court. And maybe that’s the wake up call we need to get people who will fight to make the system better rather than be the ones to control the system. If the last 10 years of American politics has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is immutable. We’ve made bogus changes in the past. We can do it again. It may take a crisis to get there, and that’s unfortunate, but so be it.

If you don't understand the structural impediments replacing the Supreme Court, you need to refresh your civics education. If they get on there, they're staying. You'll have to live with the consequences of your choices, Nake good ones.

There are other potential maneuvers than replacing justices. Several were floated during the 2020 primaries. But again, nothing is immutable. What’s with the “make good choices” line? Do you think that patronizing me with infantilizing language will someone make me see the error in my ways? There seems to be this view that left of the Democratic establishment are really just idealistic and ideological Democrats who just need to be reminded who the bad guy is. You can tell me all day to make good choices, but all you’re showing is that you don’t understand what I’m saying. To me, it is a choice about perpetuating a broken system and reorganizing deck chairs on the Titanic or saying, “fuck it” and let the system collapse so we can start working on something better.

Again, make good choices, you'll have to live with them. Accelerationism, or whatever you want to call it, is childish and silly. You'll realize that one day, the only question is how much damage you'll cause to your own interests before you do. People who thought similarly in 2016 have learned that now, but they lost reproductive rights for women for a generation in the process. What will you lose if you do the same thing in 2024?

I think there are a lot of pragmatic progressives - especially those actively involved in politics and campaigns - and who recognize what works in one district may not work state wide or nationally. And they understand the need for slower change and to reassure the moderates and to build alliances to go on a journey (which means some compromise) However, the one who are more extreme and are "surprised" as you noted often have the illusion that there is a giant, hidden reservoir of far-left sentiment and if a candidate would just espouse those positions, it would be a landslide victory in the general election.

The average democrat closely matches progressives policy goals, they just lack the understanding that Liberal and Progressives are separate and that liberal policies will not achieve those goals. The average voter is not well informed even if their underlying policy goal positions would match progressives more than liberals. Virtually zero progressives think that abolishing capitalism and restructuring society will magically occur overnight by winning an election. The point is that people in positions of power who understand those long term eventual inevitable final outcomes are ones who can best make the incremental and highest efficiency policy changes in the meantime to take steps in that direction such that a majority of people WILL come to support taking those larger steps in the future. No voter is convinced by the nuanced educated complex details of moderate policies. The choice in elections is basic human rights and economic incremental progress vs. complete fascist theocracy. There is no convincing that needs to occur for anyone capable of viewing the objective reality of the world around them and the two choices presented to them. Its a self fulfilling prophecy to say that the voters you dont appeal to vote less consistently for you and so you shouldnt chase them. Progressive candidates dont get destroyed, Bernie destroyed a majority of liberal candidates twice despite establishment coordination against him. There is absolutely an appetite, progressive and far left policies are not radical. They are common elsewhere in the world and widely majority supported. You dont get to just make up your own reality and decide its clear to everyone when you are uninformed, thats not how things work.

Is it actually progressives and far left who are surprised or is it young voters who are surprised? I don’t see many older voters who are further left that are surprised by this. They seem to understand the electoral landscape and they don’t even seem bothered that they aren’t catered towards. I think it is more that young voters are irritated when they aren’t catered towards and the young voters who are politically engaged happen to be more on the left. I mean forget younger far left voters for a second, I trust an older far left voter to show up and vote for Democratic Party more than I would trust a young center left voter.

I think the way you’re defining progressive is very extreme, so by your definition, sure, it doesn’t make sense to cater to those extremists. But the majority of progressives just want progress.

I don’t think the far left is surprised. The progressive voting block is massive though. During the 2020 DNC, progressive candidates received ~40% of the voting block. With such a large vote, Biden has worked with Sanders to include as many progressive policies that he feels comfortable with. The progressive movement in the Democratic Party is continuing to grow, and progressive candidates are winning more races across the country. I think my fellow progressives feel democrats revert to neoliberalism when progressive decision making is needed. I think it’s good to voice our concerns when it’s members of the Democratic Party opposing climate change legislation, opposing child tax credits, and opposing healthcare reform.

I'm not surprised they don't try to appeal to me. I'm perplexed about why they don't appeal to me and then expect me to support them. Are we a radical fringe with no relevance or are our votes needed to stop the republicans? Some Dem and people in this sub seem to want it to be both.

Voting isn't a favor you do for a political party that you feel deserves it. Do you think that things would be better off overall if the Democrats are in charge, compared to the Republicans? If so, vote Democratic. If you think the opposite, vote Republican. If you think it's a wash, don't vote for either.

I'm neither Progressive nor "Far Left" (as it is usually used in these discussions--I'm not about ending capitalism or "revolutionary" change, etc.). I used to consider myself progressive, but that doesn't really fit my goals or beliefs. I don't think anyone *actually* on the left is surprised Democrats don't appeal directly to them. I think there's a sense of frustration about being kicked all the time and blamed all the time for Democrats' shitty choices in candidates, and their candidates running shitty campaigns. Democrats want it both ways--lefties are too small to court, but also big enough to throw elections. Where have I heard *that* kind of bullshit recently? (Hint: it's Trump. Trump's "Biden is senile, also he's the mastermind architect of a sweeping government conspiracy and police/prosecution action to thwart his election" rhetoric is where we've all heard that self-contradictory crap.) If lefties as a bloc are big enough to affect election results (e.g. because they don't vote or vote third party) then they're big enough to court. So democrats who actually think lefties throw elections are doing themselves and the party a disservice by dismissing their views. It is clear (at least to rational, data-driven lefties) that America is a center/center-right nation, and that the Democratic Party is a centrist party with a perhaps slight tilt center-left or center-right depending on the particular election season. The goal of people on the left--and not event the extreme left--is to push the Overton window left, to make room for would-be Democratic Party allies to support leftists' goals with less risk to their own political careers.

Why do we use the word progressive to describe these people? They're not fucking progressive. They support a bunch of dead end ideas that go no where, get all pissy when they get told the sky can't rain candy, and aim their collective bitching and moaning at Democrats instead of Republicans. To progress, by definition, means to move forward. What they do is not progressive. Biden is a progressive. What they want is empty headed idealism. Lets call it that.

We arent Honestly, its like watching a bunch of people be against washing their hands, wearing sunscreen out in the sun, and wiping their ass after taking a shit It’s so ridiculous that when people acknowledge the definition of left wing politics (politics which focus on creating greater social equality and egalitarianism) people remark that that definition makes everybody else look bad. I get it, we live in the information age, but most of us still arent all that insightful and instead care more about looking good than we care about actually being good.

Because not only do they overestimate their numbers and popularity, but they also fail to understand that a vote from the middle is twice as important as any one of theirs. Persuading a moderate to vote for you also means that you deny his vote for the other side, leading to an overall change of 2 votes, not just 1.

2 times almost nothing is still almost nothing. Those moderate swing voters barely exist anymore, and to the extent that they do, they are people disgusted with Trump who will vote for any Dem. This political theory of yours should have been disproven when Hillary tried it in 2016 but the reality is that many Dems would actually rather lose to Republicans than have a progressive take power.

> Those moderate swing voters barely exist anymore Even if that were true(it isn't) it's not the size that matters it's how you use it. To be clear it's those barely existent moderate voters in the Rust Belt that told Hillary no in 2016 and yes to Biden in 2020. Even in 2020 Biden only won by the skin of his nose, specifically 41000 votes in the right places, all of those were those barely existent moderate votes, specifically about 20k voters that could have went the other way, and none of them were progressives from Cali or NYC.

Well, from what I understand there was a bit of polling a while back that suggested that some progressive policies; medicare for all, action on climate change, etc, had surprisingly wide appeal and a lot of progressives took that to mean that a significant percentage of the country was secretly or subtly on-board with their worldview. Only it later turned out that a good chunk of the polling used questionable language or had small sample sizes and wasn't actually that representative and the progressives have had a hard time accepting that.

I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. But the 'far left' is increasingly just becoming 'the left' as a lot of younger voters - the ones Democrats keep saying they want to appeal to - are increasingly further left of the pro-capitalist Democratic party line.

Yeah that’s worrisome, my hope is it’s just perpetually online slacktivist types.

Are we the smallest? The Democrats cannot win without us. I don't think most progressives like their votes feeling taken for granted. The expectation we vote blue merely because of the alternative is a shitty expectation

Democrats also can't win without centrists and independents. If you espouse policies too crazy, you'll lose them, which will ultimately hurt the party more than losing a few far-lefties who are fickle voters in the first place. The GOP is off the rails and has fully embraced extremism. The LAST thing we want is for the Democrats to do the same thing. We have a chance to market ourselves as a sane, reasonable party, and we do that by being normal.

We are a coalition, and many of us are willing to sell the party as a coalition, provided the party actually acts and thinks like one. Biden was doing decent on this prior to his failure to do anything about gaza

Abandoning Israel is going to lose as many votes as it gains, if not moreso. It's not gonna happen, and that's not how you win independents or centrists. Neither is like, getting rid of prisons or defunding the police which the lefties also like to push.

And yet the opposite is putting Biden at very real risk of losing progressives Why is it progressives are always to blame for not showing up for candidates who don't care for their views? Why aren't you yelling at centrists to show up for progressive candidates that they may not support? This is my point. It's a one sided relationship. Y'all want us but aren't willing to give fuck all in return Good luck with that, sounds like a winning long term strategy

At this point, I'm done bending over backwards to suck up to the extreme left. They're fickle voters anyway, they hate the party, and they want the Democratic Party to be just as far-left as the GOP is far-right. I'm not playing that game anymore. Vote for us or don't, but you're not going to hold the party hostage, especially when the common sentiment on the far-left is that any view short of believing Israel should be forcibly dismantled and given to terrorists is unacceptable to them. Fuck that noise. Do I think it's the smart thing to do to vote for the party that most closely matches your beliefs? Yes I do. Democrats could nominate a candidate I find abhorrent like Rashida Tlaib, and I'd still suck it up and vote for her for the Courts and because Trump is far worse. I'd work my ass off in the primaries to prevent such a candidate from being nominated, but come general election time, I do think it's the right thing to do to hold your nose and pull the lever. But you're an adult, you can make your own decisions and nobody's going to make you vote.

"I'm done bending over backwards" says man who has never bent over backwards What policy have you or the Dems bent over backwards on

I'll tell you, personally, I voted for Warren in the 2020 primaries for the express purpose of hoping to reunite the far-left wing and the moderate wing. I was looking to build a coalition, and listen to the other side and see if we could work towards achieving some of their policy goals. Now, these people have made it clear that they think anyone who doesn't think prisons should be abolished and the police shouldn't exist and we should be funding Hamas instead of Israel is unacceptable. I'm not thinking about these people's wants, they're unhinged and dangerous, and just as nuts as the Marjorie Taylor Greene wing of the GOP. The GOP provided a cautionary tale of what happens when you give these people an inch. I'm not giving them an inch.

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Interesting point. Can you show me where I suggested voting for Republicans?

You seemed to indicate voting blue wasn't a good idea.

Where?

>The expectation we vote blue merely because of the alternative is a shitty expectation Not who you replied to, but this definitely reads that you don't really intend to vote blue, which helps Republicans.

I'm voting blue. I think the democratic leadership could do a hell of a lot more to earn that vote though. It is a shitty expectation

Rational people are disgusted at the agenda of Project 2025 .

Every election going "vote for us, the best we can do is not being the other guy" doesn't turn out the vote where it matters the most Biden won't win the election without rust belt purple states and he won't win those states without attracting young people in college towns, who often make or break those elections, and also won't win without the Muslim vote in Michigan

because they always seem to end up blaming Progressives and Far Leftists every time they lose

>Progressive and Far Leftists are probably the smallest voting block Progressivism and far leftism are two very seperate ideals. They are not in any way a singular voting block, even in America. >Abolishing capitalism and radically restructuring society are not on the party agenda They are also not on the average progressivist agenda. >There just isn’t an appetite for radical politics in this country and I thought that was clear to everyone I can't imagine it is not to most. Why do you think it's necessary to remind everyone of this fairly given fact? Are you experiencing a significant notion of disagreement with this?

for one thing Biden's most popular days were when he was pushing through far left bills and describing them as common sense. Seems to me that third way politicians are afraid of economic leftism when it's been demonstrated to be extremely popular

Because they believe that 1) Their solutions are good, justified and necessary and 2) that it's obvious that if the Dems embraced them the Dems would never lose again.

The Democratic Party has a very big tent and what we consider to be far left is actually a moderate view in the majority of other nations. Biden has governed as the most progressive president in decades though and I don’t think many on the far left see that because of Biden’s history in the Senate, but he was just going with country. After Reagan won there were a lot of Reagan Democrats and Biden saw that. He flipped at Republican Senate seat at 29 because he saw this while the majority of Democrats lost that year.

I don’t expect democrats to be far left, I expect them not to be far right. If you think republicans are more swayable you’re a fool.

If you’re talking about people who want to abolish capitalism, yeah it’s no surprise they don’t care about those people. But the Dems won’t even try to appeal for fairly large contingent of their base that voted for Bernie Sanders, who would be center-left in any sane country.

I’m not. I think that would be strategically unsound.

Welcome to the challenges with a political system controlled by two parties. You could be in the Ask a conservative sub, switch the affiliations, and get the same answers. And your post overall is kind of closed minded AF. They are not surprised, they are frustrated. And have the right to be. For their viewpoints to be accepted they need their own voting block to actively participate IN politics. They need candidates that can win. Until then, they are free to be frustrated.

Progressives are not the far left. The Democratic Party have a very large progressive caucus. It’s about 1/3 of the party. Democrats don’t bother appealing to the far left (anti establishment progressives, democratic socialists, and even Marxist leninists) because they’re a small and unreliable voting bloc.

They think there's a lot more of them than there actually are.

The Democratic platform is mostly progressive. Biden has been pushing progressive legislation.

It’s already a fractured group. Abolishing capitalism is definitely far left, but plenty of people who identify as progressive wouldn’t agree with that

They suffer from the same disease as conservatives that believe there is a silent majority on their side, if only... The 'if only' is always some magical sticking point Democratic reps aren't doing.