politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I still feel like we haven't had really strong candidates for some elections now.
2016:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/
2020:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/us/politics/polls-trump-biden.html
2024:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/25/politics/biden-trump-unpopular-president-election-2024/index.html
We had a strong candidate in 2016 and the DNC literally committed fraud to deny him a nomination.
Yep. Thanks for mentioning it. Wasserman Schultz and her cronies gave old Sanders the shaft after HRC paid off the DNC debt.
"Democracy."
Plutocracy
I'd also like to add gerontocracy, oligarchy, and corptocrasy
Imagine if Bernie had broken with the party. There's a good chance he could've attracted a lot of otherwise disillusioned people and formed a real, viable third party candidate.
Nope. Would have been overall worse with 2 parties splitting dnc votes.
Yeah but then enlightened centrists would have blamed him for Clinton's loss, and used it to push the party further right.
Oh wait, they did that anyway.
Regretfully, our system is designed against us, and has been further corrupted over the years. So, no, there wouldn't have been any positive outcome from that type of action.
Check that polling again. "Socialist" is not the slur it used to be.
They accuse middle-right Biden of being a socialist constantly, for a huge part of America it’s the worst slur you can be called.
Probably no worse than "Democrat". Anyways, you said it yourself, they even call Biden a socialist. Exactly how far right to you think a Democrat has to go to get those votes? Anyways, Bernie knows how to reach red state Republican voters. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-health-election-2020-184f4519c756479c3bf082108e7ea17e
Wow, your comment is a mess.
Have a nice night.
Hopefully you’ll understand what I’m saying in the morning.
I think maybe you might be the one who gets it in the morning. You've internalized the framing sold to you by establishment media and can't seem to see past it. You have no understanding of how a socialist can do better than a centrist in red states, so you reject what polling tells us is true.
Most of the ire directed at "socialists" comes from the association of Socialists and Democrats with elitism. Actual Socialists are not elitist and can speak to the actual needs of voters in a way that centrists do not.
Maybe people are more complicated than something that can be measured across a single dimension?
Socialist concepts actually sell a whole lot better in red states than blue, even as the word itself doesn't. Farmers co-ops are extremely common. VFW halls in rural areas are often busy social centers. Poorer areas like those around abandoned coal mines are totally dependent on federal aid. Such areas care a hell of a lot more about issues than labels.
Take a look on YouTube for some old videos of Bernie doing town halls in the deep south. That will tell you a lot more than I could.
As long as the focus is on blaming voters instead of figuring out how to reach voters, all you are doing is virtue signaling. Blaming voters is a defeatist mentality.
The issue is also not about people voting GOP. Democrats who chase GOP voters lose in almost every case, with rare exception for oddballs like Manchin. Winning elections is all about turnout for Democrats. When there is high turnout, Democrats win, which is why Republicans focus their efforts on suppressing turnout.
People who don't think either side is working in their best interest and addressing their problems don't show up to vote. They don't even show up in conversations on lemmy. They have decided that politics is just a scam they want nothing to do with. That is a direct result of rampant legalized corruption in the Democratic party, and no amount of fear mongering about Trump or Republicans is going to change that.
I'm not telling you that you are wrong, I'm telling you that being right doesn't win elections. Convincing potential voters that you are in their corner does, and that takes a long time to happen once trust is broken.
Bernie couldn’t even win the primary, how was he supposed to win presidency?
There was a reason Trump was pushing to run against Bernie in 2020.
What was the reason that most voters gave in exit polls for voting for Biden instead of Bernie? Do you know? It was about perceived electability. Bernie and Biden polled nearly identically against Trump, but the media constantly harped on the same false claims you are making here. Beating Trump was Democratic voter's top priority, and the media relentlessly claimed that Biden was the "safe" candidate, with zero evidence to base it on except for opinions within the establishment bubble. (The same bubble that thought Hillary was a shoe-in.) That is not something that would have been a factor in the general election at all. When voters were asked who's policies they preferred, Bernie was the clear favorite.
Trump and his campaign were constantly sending mixed messages about whom he would rather face. There is no clear indication of what they really thought. More than anything, Trump wanted division among Democrats. As always, the Republican strategy was to suppress the vote.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3679139/Thanks-NOT-indicting-Clinton-says-Trump-face-Bernie.html
https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/trump-sanders-2020-election/
I was taking about how Clinton beat Bernie in the primaries, I forgot that Biden beat him too.
Thanks for the reminder.
Yes they did. Sure worked out well when Clinton won the primary. Now we get to see the consequences of choosing Biden/Harris. I really hope Trump is disqualified, cause it's looking like it will be a worse trounce than 2016.
You seem to be missing 2020 in your analysis.
I did speak to 2020 and the myth of Biden's special electability status. You, on the other hand, seem to be missing analysis in your analysis. All you have done is make bald assertions and snide digs, while I have offered explanations and at least some minimal evidence.
If there are specifics you want further support on, I am happy to do the legwork, but that doesn't seem to be something you are interested in. The polling isn't that hard to find, but I don't see any reason to bother.
Polling is really hit and miss these days.
Biden will have to work for it but he’ll win.
I was referring to polls from back in 2020, including exit polls. I agree that polls are generally pretty useless this far out, but current polls are so bad that they should at least be causing some concern.
Biden calling a panicked press conference to insist he doesn't have memory lapses, then having memory lapses in the conference is disconcerting. I do think Trump will have a conviction or two by election time, which would help. Unfortunately, Democrats are amazing in their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - see Fani Willis.
The strength of Bernie in the general election remains an unproven hypothesis. But I agree that the DNC behaved inappropriately. The nature of primaries as “private” elections controlled by the party makes this type of behavior fairly inevitable.
Though the RNC also tried to stop Trump, they just failed at it, so parties don’t necessarily have complete control over the outcome.
He was polling ahead of Trump, Clinton was polling behind. We don't know if that would've continued to the actual election but we do know that Clinton lost.
I largely agree with this. I think there are good reasons to think the race would tighten—Bernie was never subjected to republican attack ads, and I think he also benefited from Clinton’s unpopularity, an effect that might fade once she was out of the race. But you’re right that we’ll never know for sure what would have happened.
Idk, I feel like Republican attack ads on Bernie would have done what Democratic attack ads on Trump did: electrify his base. "HE WANTS EVERYONE TO HAVE EDUCATION FOR FREE!!!" damn, well, sign me up!
I know there would have been calls of "communist" ad nauseam, but idk that it has the horrible effect it once had - if anything it might have energized youth vote..
Idk
No they didn't. You can complain about how they ran it, or that they showed a preference for Clinton, but she absolutely destroyed him and this "they committed fraud against him!" is equally as empty as the Trump supporters who claim the same. And, FTR, I voted for sanders in 2016.