this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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politics

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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by MicroWave to c/politics
 

Summary

Democrats must reclaim their identity as the party of the working class to regain electoral strength.

Despite pro-labor policies under Biden, working-class voters feel disconnected, seeing Democrats as defenders of a failing system.

The party’s decline traces back to NAFTA and neoliberal economic policies that favored corporations over workers.

A generational effort to prioritize labor rights, fair wages, and economic security while addressing working-class frustrations are needed.

Without serious reform, Democrats will continue losing ground to populist alternatives.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ignorant Dutchman here:

What's stopping anyone from starting a new Workers' party in the US? A multi party system seems more favorable than its current state.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

first-past-the-post voting is the most common system in the States (and most prominent in presidential elections) which generally means additional parties rising to prominence will almost assuredly split the vote with the closest party so a new worker’s party will have to magically eclipse and obliterate the Democratic party overnight or they will both lose to the Republicans indefinitely.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

So if I understand it correctly, there is literally nothing stopping anyone in the US to start such a party and participate. The only thing is that the party might not accumulate enough votes to be of relevance. It might be worth a shot if there is sufficient momentum (which currently there seems to be from my arm chair point of view).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Can't be the party of wall st and the party of workers, at best you can pay lip service to one or the other, its no wonder which they would choose

[–] BlameTheAntifa 16 points 1 day ago

That would require removing mega-rich conservatives from party leadership. I don’t see that happening.

[–] FahrenheitGhost 28 points 1 day ago

So long as they have corporate donors and insider trading, they will never be the workers' party.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Nobody is coming to save us. The working class needs to organize to save itself.

The good news is that if it works, we'll be in a much better place than where we were a decade ago. It's going to take a lot of hard work, and we all need to pitch in a little to make it happen. It might not work, but there's nothing to lose in trying except our chains.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

General Strike. Shut the country down, they'll get violent. They will use the police and the national guard to attempt to break the strike. But hold firm, because then they'll beg.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

They can break up a picket line, but they can't stop you all going home in response to it. The end result is the strike continues. Or as it's a general strike just move somewhere else.

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

Which is why I have always contended the first place to strike is against the police, government, and churches.

Not healthcare CEOs, and business… as long as your local police department, legislature building, and local church are undisturbed nothing will change.

[–] chaogomu 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You have to admit that healthcare CEOs make for a great target.

A better target is the Healthcare Group board of directors.

The CEO is just hired management. The directors...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Cops are a lot more available and plentiful so people can hone their skills. Plus it’s just all around good for humanity

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Yup. The Democrats as we've known them need to die or completely metamorphose. I don't want my political party to be friends with CEO's and billionaires, I want my political party to get the American people's fair share. I want my party to look upon trillion dollar companies and billion dollar families with the same disgust and ire I have. There's no such thing as a good billionaire, a good person could never take that much.

Let's bust some monopolies, let's tax the fuck outta tycoons. Stop giving billions of government dollars to privately owned and traded companies. Let's invest in infrastructure projects that make our country better. Who gives a fucking shit about GDP, it doesn't make my life better.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Joe Biden was extremely left leaning for the average American. He did so many pro union things. He held an EV summit and didn't invite Tesla, because they didn't have a union. First president to cross a picket line. https://uwua.net/2023/10/president-bidens-union-record/ Democrat platforms have always been in the direction of higher taxes on the rich to fund more social safety nets. People just don't like them because they aren't good enough. When the alternative is explicitly anti-worker, anti-union, tax cuts for the rich, destroy social safety nets. This narrative needs to die. It's not a failure of democrat policies or platform it's just a failure of the media environment. It is purely a media problem. Democrats just need to start shitting out more tik toks and get more sycophantic youtubers like trump has, to jerk them off so the vibes shift.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

People just don’t like them because they aren’t good enough.

It's more that they're still all in on incrementalism, while the problems people face are worsening by leaps and bounds, and they're actively hostile to members of their own party who advocate for advancing the sort of large-scale, structural changes needed to actually resolve the various crises bearing down on the working class. They're also at odds with their base on major issues, such as healthcare reform, a robust social safety net that isn't means-tested to death, and their obsession with supporting Israel, because they've been captured by the purse strings of their major donors. It certainly doesn't help peoples' opinion of them as embodying the out of touch elites who are deaf to the plight of the working class when party leadership comes out against [https://www.businessinsider.com/we-are-free-market-economy-pelosi-rejects-stock-ban-congress-2021-12?op=1](Congressional insider trading) that our representatives are notorious for exploiting to enrich themselves via privileged knowledge they gain through their positions.

If they didn't dump millions of dollars into primary challenges to progressive candidates that represent a challenge to the prevailing neoliberal order the Dem leadership so dearly loves, even when it means ultimately losing the race to a Republican, I doubt people would be so hostile to them, and the party would probably be in a better place. When party leadership won't resolve their issues in a satisfactory manner, won't listen to and incorporate criticism from their base, and actively fight their efforts to get elected officials who more accurately represent their views and values, it shouldn't be a surprise that people decide to go elsewhere.

You can't publish enough TikToks and youtube videos to media manage your way out of a hostile, out of touch group having a death grip on the party and refusing to admit that, perhaps, the present situation is vastly different today than it was 3-4 decades ago when they were first elected.

There are plenty of people, both politically engaged and those who only show up to vote every 4 years, who are legitimately dissatisfied with the Democratic Party's deafness to the problems facing the average voter, and as long as the Democrats and their supporters continue to stick their heads in the sand and pretend it's all down to a hostile media environment, the further down the path to complete irrelevance they'll find themselves.

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[–] Boddhisatva 142 points 2 days ago (53 children)

No shit. Now convince the democratic party leadership that winning elections is more important that kissing donor ass.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Now convince the democratic party leadership that serving their constituents is more important that kissing donor ass.

Convince them of that, and the winning elections thing will solve itself.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Their goal is never to win elections. Their only goal is to prevent leftist movements and organization from gaining positions of power. To defend these status quo.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Best they can do is embrace fascism.

[–] pyre 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

yeah the party of insider trading will definitely be the workers' party if you wish it hard enough.

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[–] TheDemonBuer 43 points 2 days ago (10 children)

That'll be the day.

The Democrat party is not a democratic party, they are a neoliberal, technocratic party. They don't want the people to rule, they want neoliberal technocrats to rule. I don't see that changing, anytime soon.

A workers' party would have to be a majoritarian, democratic party, because the workers are the vast majority of the population.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Democrats should be doing a lot of things instead of waiting around for those "good" billionaires to show up. Both parties need to split and take huge chunks of resources with them to form a party that actually does represent the majority. This has happened before in American history but, at this point, it's just wishful thinking I guess.

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