TheDemonBuer

Democrats have a problem and it is the economy. According to this Pew Research study from May of this year, people did not feel great about the economy, and those feelings are strongly partisan. When Trump was president, Republicans thought the economy was great, when Biden was president, they thought it was terrible. A lot of this might have been driven by pandemic related lock downs, but regardless Republicans loved the economy under Trump but hated it under Biden.

Ok, so does that mean that Democrats thought the economy was terrible under Trump but great under Biden? No, not really. Democrats don't seem to be nearly as partisan in their opinions on the economy. 39% of Democrats rated the economy as good or excellent by the end of Trump's first term, and 37% rate it as good or excellent today. It seems that Republicans are much more about partisan vibes: things are great when our guy is in charge, terrible when their guy is in charge. Everyone else seems to be much more negative on the economy in general, regardless of which party is in power.

That is bad for the Democrats. America is divided, but we're not all divided in the same way. Republicans are remarkably unified. Everyone else is very fractured. There is no single block of non-Republican Americans that can rival and counter the Republican block. They are unified, the rest of us are not.

I see, that's interesting. I really didn't think progressives were a big part of either election outcome. And I should clarify, I am a leftist. I've been a member of a couple different socialist organizations, both DSA and the Socialist Party USA. I voted for Bernie in the 2016 and 2020 primaries. I just didn't think there were enough of us in critical swing states to be the determining factor in any election. I suppose maybe I was wrong.

I get that you didn't want to vote for Harris because she's a milquetoast liberal technocrat, capitalist imperialist who supports genocide, but so was Biden. That's Democrats, that's who they are. I'm sorry, but if you really thought Biden was going to move meaningfully left or commit to just being a one term president, you were kidding yourself. I mean, why wouldn't the Democrats think progressives were going to show up and vote for them in 2024, when the progressives showed up for them in 2020? I guess they know better now, but if you think the Democrats are going to learn from this election and decide to try to appeal more to progressives, again, you're kidding yourself. In fact, the opposite is likely to happen, the Democrats will probably move further to the right. The Democratic party is not a socialist or even a social democratic party, and they never will be. Not in my lifetime, anyway.

No, I get all that, I'm just asking why progressives did vote for Biden but didn't vote for Harris. Because all of this stuff applies just as much to Biden as it does to Harris, so why sit out the 2024 election but not the 2020 election? Was it the pandemic?

That article says that progressives almost unanimously voted for Biden in 2020. I guess you're saying Biden won in 2020 because progressives showed up and voted for him, and I suppose that means Harris lost because progressives didn't show up and vote for her in 2024? So, the question then is: why? Why did progressives show up for Biden but not for Harris?

It may need to be the EU. I know the EU isn't a nation, but as a block perhaps Europe has the power and influence to lead the effort. Maybe a new entity needs to be established, a global union of nations. Or maybe a union of continents. Maybe each continent should establish its own union of nations (I think every continent already has some kind of union of one type or another) and then have a global union of continents. I don't necessarily know the best course of action, all I know is the US cannot lead.

I'm very aware that other countries have been taking climate action, much more than the US, in many cases. I didn't say the rest of the world needed to start doing anything related to climate, as if they had been up until now doing nothing, I said they needed to take LEADERSHIP. And if you're going to claim that the world hasn't been looking to the US for leadership on climate action, you're either an idiot or a liar.

It's up to the rest of the world now. We can't put climate action on hold for four years in hopes that a new administration will take over in 2029 that will lead the world in the transition away from fossil fuels.

The world has gotten very used to US leadership since the end of WWII, but that era is over. Maybe it should have ended a long time ago, but now it must. The US can't lead anymore, we lack the competency, efficacy, and morality to lead the world. Someone else is going to have to captain the ship.

I think it's important that America's replacement not be just the next most powerful nation. I think it's time for democracy to go global. We need the nations working together, instead of a single nation dominating the world through military might and economic control. The violent hegemonic orders of the past must be replaced with a global democratic order, based on inclusion, cooperation, and the consent of the governed.

Edit: I realized that I need to explain what I mean when I say that someone other than the US needs to take the leadership role in the transition away from fossil fuels. Climate action in an individual country is a very good thing, and very necessary, but climate change is a global problem. It's great that countries are taking steps to reduce their own GHG emissions, but unless such action is taken everywhere it's not going to be sufficient. GHG emissions have to reach net zero everywhere, not just in a few, relatively wealthy European countries. That will require cooperation and collaboration between nations, and I think that will require leadership. The US cannot be relied upon to lead that effort, so someone else is going to have to.

Sanders is a populist, though

That's true, but he's not the right kind of populist for America.

I remember going to a Bernie rally in Salt Lake City in 2016, during the Democratic primaries. The line to get into the rally was so long it took us an hour and to get in. He got a lot of people excited, and I was one of them. To this day it was the only political rally I've ever been to.

But as popular as Bernie was, and still is, among a certain segment of America, he is equally hated and despised by other segments. Trump is the (faux) populist America chose. It's because he's an unapologetic capitalist. Americans would never vote for a socialist, even a populist one.

The Times reported Pelosi also took issue with Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders saying, after Harris' loss, that "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."

"Bernie Sanders has not won," she said. "With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don't respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families."

She's right, Bernie Sanders has not won, but neither did the liberal technocrats. American voters don't want social democracy, but they don't want liberal technocracy, either. They want populism, or at least the appearance of populism. She can piss and moan all she wants, but it doesn't change the fact that liberalism/neoliberalism is not popular, at least not popular enough.

The liberals will do what they always do: blame the American people. They love America, at least technically. They love the theory of America, the concept of America, the mechanisms, but they hate Americans. They can't stand the troglodytic unwashed, uncouth, irreverent, ignorant masses.

I'll always wonder if Biden would have won. I was against the Democrats switching candidates so late in the election, but I came around thinking Harris would get roughly the same support as Biden, maybe even more. I should have stuck with my first instinct. Yes, Biden had a terrible debate, and yes he is very old and showing signs of cognitive decline, but maybe he would have won regardless. Harris certainly didn't perform better than Biden did in 2020, and in fact she performed worse in many instances. Of course we'll never know, but, given Tuesday's result, I can't help but think the Democrats wouldn't have been better off taking their chances with Biden.