Democrats Are Already “Moderate.” It’s Not Working.
Democrats Are Already “Moderate.” It’s Not Working.
jacobin.com
Democrats Are Already “Moderate.” It’s Not Working.
153 comments
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Get disgruntled voters to vote again, drive up turnout, maybe the Dems will win.
Try to convert brainwashed fascists to fasc-lite: absolute recipe for continued failure.
The DNC wants the Dems to be the Washington Generals.
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Well, democracts mostly act like the other side of the coin of republican. And it's not hard to understand why when you see PACs and millionaires funding both.
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Every potential convert you were ever going to turn happened election day 2020.
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That’s why it isn’t working.
We don’t want moderates. Moderates aren’t the ones that will get Civil Rights, campaign reform, rein in monopolies, get rid of Citizens United, health care for all, etc. Moderates just half-ass “solutions” that keep stuffing more money in the already wealthy’s pockets while ineffectively trying to get bakeries to make wedding cakes for gay couples. We need actual liberals and progressives, not Republican-lite.
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Fuck, so many signs, so many failures for so many years...
Say what you want for Republicans but they plan and play long term and they play it well. So many small losses, but every hundred losses, another quiet, hidden step forward to eroding democracy... Fox news, the Republican state TV channel, winning a lawsuit enabling them to call themselves a news organization while lying, hell, since Reagan...
The US has been sliding in this direction for 4-5 decades now, look where you've gotten yourself, it's embarrassing...
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I think this is simplifying and twisting narratives. Republicans didn't plan for Trump, but the evangelicals and extremists rolled with it (just like progressives and antifa would've rolled with someone like Bernie). Besides an authoritarian take over of elections, the republicans don't seem to be putting anyone electable up on a podium lately.
I doubt any of us are privy to what the Democrats plan and play long term, if anything they've been more effective at controlling their party if we're looking at them through the lens of being moderates. If you think they're "failing".... it's in the eyes of a citizen and not what their donor's interests are which is the priority of the party.
I am interested to learn about how the rest of the world is handling the "news" issue though, I see a lot of media coming from other countries (like UK and Australia) which follow the same format of fox so figured we were all fucked when it comes to actually vetting what can be labeled as a news source.
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Democrats now are where Republicans were in the 80s
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TBF the parties swapped in the 1960s and finished polarizing in the 90s so in the 1980s some rebublicans were pro immigrant and pro union.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed by the 99th United States Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986. The Immigration Reform and Control Act legalized most undocumented immigrants who had arrived in the country prior to January 1, 1982.
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This is correct. They've "moderated" their views so many times over the years that they are only distinguishable from Reagan Republicans because of their stance on abortion.
And people are even calling for Dems to be more "pro-life" in order to further appeal to "moderates." It's absurd.
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There's no such thing as meeting Nazis in the middle. That's called "becoming a Nazi".
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Democrats Are Already “Moderate.”
I'd say quite a few of them are conservative bordering on reactionary. You just can't see it for all the MSNBC talking heads that insist Henry Cuellar is the far left of the political spectrum and anyone beyond that is a Tankie posting from a North Korean IP address.
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The whole moderate thing was an attempt to appeal to Republican voters. They live in a personality cult echo chamber now, it would serve no purpose except catering to ghost. The fact that they are still thinking within a system that has been fundamentally corrupted is why they are doomed to failure.
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whelp, time to shave your head.
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In the UK, our politics are currently similar. Our centre-left party is Labour, who are in government, but they're losing popularity. Keir Starmer, the leader of Labour, has made Labour more moderate. They've lost some voters to the Reform party (populist right) but they've lost even more voters to parties that are left of Labour (Lib Dems and Greens).
There's a left-wing Labour politician called Andy Burnham who has criticised Labour's direction, and he said something which I think can apply to the US too:
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Our centre-left party is Labour
I'll spot you that Corbyn was centre-left back in 2015. The current Starmer government is indistinguishable from the Tories (in no small part because a bunch of the New Labour Starmerites are literally just Tory transplants) who occasionally stake out positions to the right of Farage's fascist Reform platform.
But hey, at least you've got "Your Party" now. As soon as they stop suing each other, anyway.
never pandering to them, but put big ideas on the table.
Part of the problem with modern politics is that its so tied up in the News/Social Media cycle that running on "the same old idea that was as good then as it is now" is seen as bad politics. You can't just come out and day "We should hire more doctors for the NHS and pay their lowest level staff better wages" or "We need strong labor unions in the country again in order to claw back surplus value from the employer class" because that's old boring socialist slop. You can't even have a Mamdani-esque "We're going to have government run grocery stores that trade basic staples at cost of production to fight inflation" without being heckled as a radical marxist who flunked economics.
None of that gets the national media jazzed up. The only way to get people (in national media) excited is to talk about the latest Tech-Thingy and insist New Tech is going to be the panacea for all your problems. And then, every time a New Tech thing comes out, you pivot to that and insist its going to bring about the cost cutting (ie, lower wages and higher capital costs) reform everyone secretly desires.
That's the only thing that qualifies as a "Big Idea" in the eyes of national media reporters. So that's the tail our political dogs are told to chase. Forever. Nevermind that it never seems to fucking work, save to enrich a few special interests in the tech industry.
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Yeah I get depressed when I see the news or politicians mention AI, as if it will solve every problem. I think LLMs can genuinely be useful but we should be realistic about them.
You mentioned Mamdani. I think what's interesting about him is that he is polling well - he could win the election, even with his big ideas. So maybe there is an appetite for big ideas from the left. Which I guess is why there have been quite a few people interested in Your Party (but yes, whether they can stop bickering and function together is yet to be seen).
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Bill Clinton tried triangulation (read: being more right wing) and the republicans tried to impeach him. Obama was right of Reagan and the republicans…tried to impeach him. If the GOP is going to fuck with democrats no matter what, let’s just elect some truly revolutionary people. I mean people who make Bernie Sanders look like Mitt Romney. People who make Cornel West look like Paul Ryan. We should be running people who start at “if your net worth is over $100 million you get to line up against the wall” and need to be negotiated down from there.
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Exactly. The next president should be very progressive - free health care for all, expand public services, get the 800 billionaires, millionaires and corporations to start paying taxes, increase teachers salary and minimum wage, make associate degrees free, no more bailing out industries/companies, get rid of monopolies, make paid pto mandatory of minimal 3 weeks. Call it project 2029 and create the manual for it now so that it’s actualized on day 1. I can dream can’t I? Maybe in 40 years this will be possible….
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I voted for Obama in 2008 for exactly this reason, that was his platform. Then I watched from my hospital bed in 2010 (partial colonectomy due to diverticulitis) while they (the House and Senate) voted it down. I don't know if he/they was/were corrupted by pharma money after the fact, or if he/they ever intended to follow through to begin with.
In the book Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, he quotes Obama where he makes the excuse that having Medicare for All would leave 3 million insurance workers out of a job. That would be like stifling the proliferation of electric lighting because of the impact it would have on the whaling industry.
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Amen! I want Democrats to do all the things that Republicans accuse them of doing. I want them to do this because being reasonable is not winning brownie points with these people. The next president should tell America to get ready for a new national flag; we're adding 3 more stars for Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington DC!
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We can dream
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We can do more than that.
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No fucking shit, everyone knows this, even the democrats know this, most of them are just bought and paid for
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I remember having mad respect for Biden for announcing his intention before 2020 of being a one term president.
It sickens me how much the Democrats dropped the ball.
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Exactly.
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US Democrats are very conservative under their thin coat of identity politics. They would be considered way to the right of most European conservative parties.
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They're even shedding that after loosing in 2024. Slowly was doing it during the election but then once lost immediately threw trans people and minorities under the bus for the dems incompetence
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I don’t think this is actually true. Perhaps on some very specific issues but as a whole I’d say no. They are certainly to the right of left wing parties but many conservatives in Europe have also shifted right in recent years.
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I've seen leftist Americans say that Bernie Sanders would be considered a right wing conservative in Europe. These people have no idea what the political landscape actually looks like in Europe. Some still believe Europe is a soc-dem Valhalla, because we have healthcare here. But many centrist parties have shifted right in Europe even in the Nordics. For example the center left Danish Social Democrats have implemented hardline asylum policies.
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Correct. Most people who say this are focused on healthcare and other social safety net issues. When you look at LGBTQ+ rights, or racial discrimination, or even abortion, Democrats are further to the left of lots of European parties. It can be a slog to get a European to admit they even have racial issues at all.
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I don't view Democrat leadership as moderate at all. "Centrist", just means Republican policies that boil the frog.
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Moderates? Maybe 30 years ago. As they shift the Overton window they stay in lockstep with Republicans as they shift to the right, filling the void left by Republicans. Policy wise they sit somewhere between GW Bush and first term Trump
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Well things change, I guess supporting genocide is moderate these days.
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"Modest"?
No, we have better language to use
Useless
Disingenuous
Paid actors
Servants to the ruling class
Inside traders
Purposefully weak
Blatantly dishonest
And the list could go on and on...
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Controlled opposition.
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There are only two parties in that stupid place, what the hell would they think being diet right would do?
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Conventional wisdom among dems since the 90s has been triangulation; all voters vote for the candidate closest to their ideology, so if you can get the republican to move as far right as possible, say Hitler, then triangulate your positions to be one iota left of the republican, say 99% Hitler, then everyone left of 99.5% Hitler has to vote for you.
In practice, this only wins elections if the republican is more incompetent than Donald Trump. But democrats who believe this get tons of money from donors, and its apoealimg to the sort of class position who can afford to become congressional staffers.
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Make them money
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Tell that to the NYT.
"Clever people say that once you become exactly like your opponent you will win elections!"
And even that wouldn't work because this opponent would likely just move further right. Not sure there's anywhere to go anymore, but they'd try.
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The Nazis only got as far right as they could because they were stopped. It's musical chairs for outgroups, everyone gets a turn being vermin eventually.
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Status quo has got to go.
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Hey hey ho ho
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Democrats and Republicans are two halves of the one party state in America
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The "leadership" of the Democrat party sits to the right of several disparate further left factions. Because they don't embrace any specific leftward direction, they are juggling half baked compromises instead of leading anywhere. Bold policies that would be approved of by one further left group are opposed by others, so they can't go left without losing support somewhere. Staying where they are makes them moderately disagreeable for every one of the factions that can support and vote for them, so they are unpopular across the board. They are all but trapped not far enough to the right to contend for Republican votes, and not far enough left to propose anything truly different.
I see the candidacy of further left individuals (mostly at the local level for now, but this will move fast if the "leadership" collapses further) as the first serious mechanism to break this stalemate. Popular figures from city or state government aim for national positions frequently, so expect anyone standing out with how well they run things at the local level to make that pivot.
A similar thing is at play on the right. Christian fundamentalists, war hawk neoconservatives, the alt right, the would-be fascists, select business interests, nationalists, libertarians, and others are constantly battling over policy. At this moment about 70% of them are trying to ride Trump's popularity and apparent effectiveness at making changes to get whatever is most important to them done before it's too late. If the Republicans gain seats in 2026, that surface level unity will become even more significant, but once Trump is out of the picture, infighting is all but certain to resume on the right, and we'll see weaker, "keep everyone happy" politicians take center stage again.
If both those processes play out with the right timing, we may get a true leftist running against a Jeb tier Republican in 2028 or 2032.
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Quite an editorial about-face for Jacobin isn't it.
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...no?
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Democrats are the furthest thing from "moderate", they are on the extreme center. The idea that liberal centrism can't be extremist is damaging. Supporting endless proxy warfare in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza and austerity at home are all irrational, extremist positions that the Democrats (and most liberal parties in other countries) believe in.
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Get out of here with that Russian propaganda crap. Only 1 country is using Ukraine for a war and it’s Russia.
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thank you for identifying this guy. His response to you clinched it.
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Supporting peace isn't "Russian propaganda", 78% of Ukranians want a negotiated end to the war. If you want to keep fighting Russia then send your own damn troops and quit forcing Ukranians to die over an inter-imperial pissing match that's killed almost their entire fighting age male population.
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Democrats are not moderates. They propose removing money from politics, taxing the rich, paying for everybody's healthcare including dental, and enshrining bodily autonomy rights in law.
What is moderate is only having 48 or less DNC for over a decade and counting. If people don't like the moderacy then get out there and remove every single fucking Republican from office. Volunteer for the DNC.
There are clear and even somewhat extreme partisan splits on every major issue.
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They propose removing money from politics, taxing the rich, paying for everybody’s healthcare including dental, and enshrining bodily autonomy rights in law.
some of them propose some of that some of the time.
- Removing money from politics is not a party goal.
- The party was never behind m4a, just some individuals
- they've never attempted to enshrine bodily autonomy rights in law even when they were in power. They just campaign on it then forget as soon as the election ends.
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FYI that user is incapable of seeing any of the obvious flaws in the dnc. Especially if it is related to any of the times dems have compromised with gop on terrible bills or policies
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Performative acts, like biden on the voting rights bill, they tried to introduce it and the senate filibustered and biden said aw shucks. No fight on any issues, no threatening federal monies to be rearranged to encourage support, no digging dirt and disgracing some of tje worst.
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- When they say "reverse citizens united" that means removing money from politics. It would also gut AIPAC at the same time. It's absolutely a core policy stance.
- Every single DNC in 2010 voted for the Single Payer healthcare, but Independent Joe Lieberman was the final vote needed to bypass the Republican Filibuster because every single Republican voted no. Joe had us water the bill down. We don't even need to test the DNC on this, we literally already have and they all passed.
- You can't even read the comment you're arguing against? DNC had 48 for over a decade, they literally could not at any point pass a constitutional amendment which would effectively empower the GOP's two biggest boogiemen: trans people and abortions.
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Did you read the article? Or even pay attention to the democratic platform since fdr?
The 2024 record is straightforward: frontline Democrats campaigned largely as moderates. Border and police funding, fentanyl crackdowns, oil drilling permits, law-enforcement endorsements, bipartisan validators.
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Not a single one of those Democrats confronted any of the business interests cheating us and violating antitrust laws, from drug companies and health insurance all the way to meat packing companies and other agribusiness.
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Did you read the article? Or even pay attention to the democratic platform since fdr?
No they won't, you can't expect them to read things their mind disagrees with.
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And those are all fair points about the language they used and constructive about what can be changed, but it doesn't change the fact that the DNC are not, and have not been for decades, moderates. It's all just optics.
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Democrats are moderate in the sense that if republicans did not exist it would quickly split into a more classically conservative party and a moderately progressive party.
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That's fair, I can see that.
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Let's be honest. The majority of the U.S. is not progressive. If you pit a far left candidate against are far right on the national stage then right will win every time.
Vote as far as you can in your local and state elections because your vote has a much larger impact in those races. When it comes to the Federal races, please just vote for who has a solid chance even if it's a moderate because let's be honest... Anything is better than what we have now.
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I actually think this is the opposite of the situation. You’re probably right that the majority of the US would not identify as progressive, but I’m confident the majority of the US would vote for progressive candidates if we had elections that weren’t predetermined by gerrymandering. If our elections were also free from corporate interests, the US would be a fully progressive democratic socialist country, and I’m sure most people would be happy with what that means for them and their families.
The US is obsessed with labels. If a candidate runs on practical progressive policies without calling them progressive, they can often do really well. It’s not a fluke that right wingers have been showing up in support of Bernie and AOC.
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Post-election polls say Bernie would've won if he was the candidate against Trump in 2016. America would definitely vote for a progressive. I mean, hell, Obama ran as a progressive and destroyed the Republican candidate.
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If the DNC wants to win, they know how. They've won before by talking about social polices, rebuilding American infrastructure, talking about removing debt from the citizens, improving healthcare, abortion rights...
They copied the Republican playbook from 2016 for 2024, while saying The economy is doing good, don't complain! like Trump is doing now with his Tariff bullshit. It's actually your fault you can't pay rent and eat food at the same time, pleb!
Remember when we were going to get monthly $1000 checks to help with COVID? Cancel student debt for all Americans? Codify Roe v. Wade? Arrest Trump?
But we're the bad guys for having the memory of Democrat voters instead of Republican shitheads.
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The majority of the US are brainwashed by corporate propaganda to vote against their own best interests and dont even know what "progressive" means.
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Those moderates and their ratchet effect has contributed to our current conditions.
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People want to vote for somebody popular, call them what you will. Somebody that's fighting for them.
Absolutely nobody likes the Democrats, the last presidential elections have shit shows with the most unpopular possible candidates running is the status quo, there are no challenges for house leadership, or Senate leadership, no criticism in the party.
Maybe you should question those people telling you that that is what is electable and not those popular things like not getting ass fucked by the rich without your consent.
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153 comments
The vast majority of Democrats are center-right. That's not moderate.