The US Democratic Party - The Road to 2026 and 2028

[FrankDrebin]

 

[WI_Red]

They are not a serious opposition party. Better than this shitshow? Absolutely. Fit for purpose? Not even close. The sooner the old guard dies and half the new ones get primaried from the left the better.

 

[berbatrick]

They are not a serious opposition party. Better than this shitshow? Absolutely. Fit for purpose? Not even close. The sooner the old guard dies and half the new ones get primaried from the left the better.

age is a problem, and was biden's biggest problem, but i'm not sure, for example, that replacing pelosi with jeffries wasn't a downgrade (as hostile as she was to the left, she was at least competent in whipping the votes she cared about). same for the eventual replacement of sanders (potential broad base, shallow party voters support, no party insider support) with AOC (narrow base, shallow party voters support, some party insider support)

 

[WI_Red]

age is a problem, and was biden's biggest problem, but i'm not sure, for example, that replacing pelosi with jeffries wasn't a downgrade (as hostile as she was to the left, she was at least competent in whipping the votes she cared about). same for the eventual replacement of sanders (potential broad base, shallow party voters support, no party insider support) with AOC (narrow base, shallow party voters support, some party insider support)

No arguments from me. Pelosi is a problem because she is old as shit and even “stepping back” she looms over the party. Jeffries is nothing but a hollow shell who wields no real power or substance.

I had hopes for AOC, but she is slowly falling into line and will be a hollow shell in time. They all may start of caring for us, but soon they all sell their soul for power and money.

 

[Drainy]

The US needs a new party. Can't carry on trying to shame people into voting for this and hope that is enough to scrape a win.

Splitting the vote sounds smart

 

[WI_Red]

Splitting the vote sounds smart

feck it, does it really matter at this point?

 

[Drainy]

feck it, does it really matter at this point?

You want more Republican presidents?

 

[Bert_]

Splitting the vote sounds smart

Someone needs to take over the democratic party the same way trump took over the GOP then if there is no alternative to the two party system.

 

[WI_Red]

You want more Republican presidents?

The Democratic Party is so incompetent right now that is a given.

 

[Drainy]

Someone needs to take over the democratic party the same way trump took over the GOP then if there is no alternative to the two party system.

Who is going to do that? Oprah? The Rock?

Trump was some meme presidential candidate there for self promotion a long time before he gained any real momentum and it's an incredible set of circumstances that led to him being pushed as viable.

 

[Drainy]

The Democratic Party is so incompetent right now that is a given.

Do the Republicans look competent?

It's funny though, Labour in the UK probably used everything about the Dems that was scaring off voters as a model of what not to do in this current era of politics.

 

[WI_Red]

Do the Republicans look competent?

It's funny though, Labour in the UK probably used everything about the Dems that was scaring off voters as a model of what not to do in this current era of politics.

As if that matters. If you don’t have a MAGA in your life you wouldn’t understand, but in have a decent number and they would vote Republican even if the candidates platform was “if elected I will kill you and rape your wife. But I will also do the same to those brown people.’

 

[Bert_]

Who is going to do that? Oprah? The Rock?

Trump was some meme presidential candidate there for self promotion a long time before he gained any real momentum and it's an incredible set of circumstances that led to him being pushed as viable.

I don't know who, but there needs to be a revolution within the dem establishment, or a third party taking their place. They are done as a viable alternative.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Who is going to do that? Oprah? The Rock?

Trump was some meme presidential candidate there for self promotion a long time before he gained any real momentum and it's an incredible set of circumstances that led to him being pushed as viable.

AOC? She seems to speak a lot of sense and has some charisma from the little I’ve seen

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

Do the Republicans look competent?

It's funny though, Labour in the UK probably used everything about the Dems that was scaring off voters as a model of what not to do in this current era of politics.

They are much more competent at getting elected. Trump is a better media manipulator than any elected Democrat. They are far more competent at marketing in a digital age. And they are more competent at pushing the Overton Window further and further right. The Democrats now are bringing a butter knife to a shooting range.

 

[Drainy]

AOC? She seems to speak a lot of sense and has some charisma from the little I’ve seen

It would take a paradigm shift for her politics to be appealing to a majority outside of Cali and New York.

 

[That_Bloke]

Wouldn't the Dems be happy to see Trump burn it all down though so that they'll be vindicated for their warnings?

"Don't interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake" and all that stuff?

If they just want to win Internet points before getting slapped again in 2028, that would be the way to go.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Has Sleepy Joe been seen or heard from since the inauguration? For someone convinced he could lead the country another four years, he really isn't making a lot of noise, considering what is actually happening in the US right now.

 

[FrankDrebin]

Sshh, you wake him up.

 

[Morty_]

With the UAW backing Trump now, due to tariff policies, its difficult to see democrats getting the unions back.

I mean, dems could always embrace stupid politics by proposing even higher tariffs than Trump, but is it worth it?
Explaining to them that tariffs are taxes, and has some major downsides, don't appeal to these people, they don't want to hear it.

 

[Adisa]

Someone needs to get a grip of this party.

 

[The United]

Has Sleepy Joe been seen or heard from since the inauguration? For someone convinced he could lead the country another four years, he really isn't making a lot of noise, considering what is actually happening in the US right now.

From his perspective, it seems like everyone, including his own party, fcked him. So why would he speak up now? Besides, it's not as if the county sees this as something new or terrible—most voters elected the person carrying it out for some of those policies anyway.

 

[Insanity]

They are not going to do anything. They are morons who do not understand the current climate and think anti-incumbency will set-in to catapult them back to power again soon. They are in for a rude fecking shock. The game has completely changed and the right knows how to harness the power of social and other forms of traditional media better than anytime in history. They have captured a people's imagination through divisiveness and by othering. It would be foolish to think that those folks will see the light and come back into their fold while they sit and rest on their laurels (which aren't many, anyway).

 

[Mike Smalling]

They are not going to do anything. They are morons who do not understand the current climate and think anti-incumbency will set-in to catapult them back to power again soon. They are in for a rude fecking shock. The game has completely changed and the right knows how to harness the power of social and other forms of traditional media better than anytime in history. They have captured a people's imagination through divisiveness and by othering. It would be foolish to think that those folks will see the light and come back into their fold while they sit and rest on their laurels (which aren't many, anyway).

Agree, and just as crucially they have nothing to guide them. The Republicans as a party may have internal disagreements on a bunch of different things, but they are 100% galvanized behind Trump and his agenda, and are using that to gain power. Meanwhile the Democrats don't believe in anything (with a few notable exceptions), and they have no leader. They are torn between being centrist neoliberals (essentially just pro-choice Republicans with better manners) and the more left leaning element of the party, with the former seemingly intent on destroying the latter. It doesn't make for a coherent strategy or an appealing proposition to voters.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

Agree, and just as crucially they have nothing to guide them. The Republicans as a party may have internal disagreements on a bunch of different things, but they are 100% galvanized behind Trump and his agenda, and are using that to gain power. Meanwhile the Democrats don't believe in anything (with a few notable exceptions), and they have no leader. They are torn between being centrist neoliberals (essentially just pro-choice Republicans with better manners) and the more left leaning element of the party, with the former seemingly intent on destroying the latter. It doesn't make for a coherent strategy or an appealing proposition to voters.

There are much greater differences between Trump-Musk people now than just being pro-choice with better manners. That view might have depicted their difference from the old Romney type GOP but this is a whole new era.

• Trump's neo-mercantilism is a massive macroeconomic difference from centrist neo-liberal democrats and the old GOP. High tariffs, threatening natural resource grabs like Greenland, Panama Canal, even Canada this stuff isn't just about memes, it's truly a very stark economic 180 from the last 100 years of established economic theory and policy.
• Treatment of other authoritarian regimes and attacking democratic allies is a massive geopolitical difference, just look at the massive difference in Biden's Ukraine stance and Trump's pro-Russia stance.
• Climate change, while Biden might have been less effective than we wanted, there is still a massive difference between the centrist neo-liberal policies on climate change and Trump's outright climate denialism calling it a scam.
• Stripping away the rights of minorities and the most vulnerable. We saw it with the aggressive DEI deletions, Trump already weaponizing it to criticize tragedies as the fault of DEI hires, and its coming to be codified in things like his medicaid cuts which will hurt many vulnerable families.
• Christian nationalism, while Trump hasn't touched these socially regressive policies yet (my guess is the social conservative stuff will start in his 2nd year) he's fully embraced radical Christian nationalists from heritage and project 2025 that want to go so far as to ban pornography - which is a massive departure from free market centrist neoliberals and old school free market libertarians.
• Total embrace of anti-democracy theorists and the "dark enlightenment" that literally wants to end the US as a democratic republic and turn it into corporate monarchy, the first steps of which are things like stripping the Federal government and replacing it entirely with radical right idealogues and de-powering the institutions that put checks and balances on potential authoritarians.

Those are just some highlights. So while I agree there are many criticisms we can lay at the centrist neoliberal Democrats, there are drastic and fundamental differences between this Trump admin and any centrist neo-liberal democrat. Failure to recognize what a big departure this Trump admin is only going to further reinforce this very scary turn to the radical right.