this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025

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More Democrats want a more moderate party, poll says. (www.thecentersquare.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/uspolitics

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Data from a new Gallup survey suggests that close to half of Democrats want their party to move more toward the middle, while more than 40% of Republicans are happy with their party.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Being more moderate would mean moving leftward.

[+] Majorllama -20 points 5 days ago (2 children)

...only on Lemmy lol.

In the real world America the left has gone so far left they have lost their own moderates and now they call those people righty centrists.

Every time I try to tell y'all that the average American finds your stances way too left you guys double down and insist that you actually need to go more left.

[–] jordanlund 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If you look at the issues people support, like universal health care, a living wage, meals for kids, yes, the average American does support moving left.

The problem is the media pushing the lies that a corporate centrist Democratic party is already too far left when that isn't the case.

[+] Majorllama -10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

See that's interesting because I feel the mainstream media has long been pushing the far left agenda for a long time now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That likely means that you've been consuming further right media that paints anything left of hunting homeless people for sport as "far left."

[–] Majorllama -2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's uh... An interesting example to give lol.

No I am very careful about my news consumption. Around friends and family its all very left leaning news. I am constantly inundated with left leaning news actually. My mom constantly sends me left leaning articles and video clips that I have to show her are just blatant incorrectly at times.

Anytime I read an article or watch a video I am careful to note the biases of the presenter and take that into account as they talk about things. When reading news articles from sources I don't recognize I make a lazy attempt at figuring out who pays their bills and might have sway over what they are saying.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You use terms only right wing news sites use, such as "far left." The "far left" in the US is limited to smaller, unrepresented people, for example: anarchist groups in places like Portland and Seattle. The mainstream media is corporate and capitalist. It can't push "far left" perspectives because it has none. It pushes at best centrist ideas like "women should have some amount of say in their health care," but they're even milquetoast about that. "Far left" is black bloc protesters milkshaking Andy Ngo. Let me know when the mainstream media endorses that.

[–] Majorllama -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah and nobody on the right refers to themselves as "the far right" either. What's your point exactly?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My point is that what you're calling far left isn't far or even left. You're applying an Overton window dominated by right wing perspectives. It's not left when NBC interviews someone from Planned Parenthood or talks about equitable housing initiatives. It's definitely not left when mainstream news organizations use soft language to describe corruption and crimes committed by Republicans. Right wingers love to use CNN as an example of "far left" media, when it's far closer to Newsmax than to the Daily Worker. Corporate media can't be leftist by its very nature.

And I have spoken to plenty of people on the right that call themselves far right. They just prefer their dog whistles and euphemisms in official publications such as "Patriot" or "Real American."

[–] Majorllama -2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I don't know a single person on the right that would ever refer to themselves as a "patriot" or "real American" unless they were doing it to make fun of what the liberals think they would call themselves unironically.

For fun I just messaged the most far right Trump guy I know asked him what he would call himself and he just said "normal" lol. So clearly he's delusional.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Asking one person isn't a good sample size. Read accounts from January 6th convicts who claim to be patriots and real Americans. Have you not heard of Patriot Prayer, which put on events that the Proud Boys attended? It seems like you're engaging in an anecdotal fallacy where you think your limited experience is definitive.

[–] Majorllama -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No obviously I am aware that some far right weirdos would refer to themselves that way, but it certainly isn't common among the right leaning folk. I talk to many of them quite often. The only time I have ever heard them use "patriot" is when they were doing so mockingly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

You're moving the goal posts and using a no true Scotsman now. First it was nobody, now it's some, but it's not common.

Your point isn't even really relevant to the discussion. The point was that you're using right wing terminology and framing and pretending it's normal, which is what you admit right wingers do. "Far left agenda" isn't a term that an educated or knowledgeable analyst would even remotely pretend is applicable to the content of the mainstream media.

It seems like you identify as a centrist but you speak from a right wing perspective and don't seem to know what left wing even means. The liberals you probably talk to for context are centrists, not leftists.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

That's actually not completely true. If you present the Bernie Sanders stuff to about 80% of American voters, without identifying the source, they go wild with approval, and they tell you that's the whole thing they've been saying this whole time.

There's a little bit of an issue that the average American is roughly on par with Nixon politics-compass-wise, but mostly the issue is that they've been so addled by poisonous corporate media that they don't know up from down, and they think the Republicans are the party of small government and honor, and the Democrats are the party of transgender-queer-ism and corporate corruption.

So you're right in terms of what political parties they support, but not in terms of what political stances they support. The one has just been divorced from the other by careful engineering. And then also, yes, some Nixon things like "immigrants are all dangerous rapists and the left is letting them do it" and other such things, they have absorbed.

[–] Remember_the_tooth 5 points 5 days ago

It's a two-party system. If they move toward the middle, the whole thing shifts right. It's very precisely adapted to mitigate any kind of meaningful, moderate, centrist position. If, instead, we're talking about comparing the US system to that of other countries, the idea that the Democrats are leftists is hilariously misinformed.

[–] maxwellfire 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It's a pet peeve of mine when reporters phrase things like this. I assume this means that < 50% of democrats want to move toward the middle and that >50% of Republicans are unhappy with their party (and thus want it to move somewhere?). If that's the case then wouldn't it imply that republicans are actually more unhappy with their party's position than democrats are? Or it would if the things they were discussing were comparable. Wanting to move right probably isn't the same stat as 'happy with their party'

Less than of 7 in 8 democrats reported liking facts, while more than 20% of republicans love them!

[–] Hayduke 2 points 5 days ago

Well that would be stupid to continue that migration; so I am sure that's what they will choose to do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I dunno. Honestly there are things which seem to have mass appeal but the biden administration got a lot of that done when it was tough and his VP lost so I have no idea what people want. Would I rather have had universal healthcare than no surprise billing, yes, do I want trump instead who likely may actually tople obamacare. no.