Clearouts
My lukewarm take is that I think stereotypical “Berniebros” are extremely stupid on principle for wanting to run under the label of any kind of socialism in the United States, but I think that the stereotypical liberal focus on “identity politics” is electorally terrible even though identity is an essential way of understanding society. That makes sense right? Like, my stance boils down to “America is unequivocally racist but calling people racist doesn’t make them vote for you because you alienate the racists, who’ll never vote Democrat anyways, AND the squishy moderates who think that racism is bad but conflict is even worse.” Democrats simply don’t have the numbers nationwide where we can afford to alienate all or even some of those squishy moderates.
My friend is RIGHT.
Republicans when a mass shooting happens: But what about the shooter’s mental health???
Republicans when it’s time to vote for a health care bill with comprehensive mental health coverage: 🦗🦗🦗
My Twitter mutual pointed out that while voters see Republicans as strongman extremists, they see Democrats as extremely preachy weaklings, and as human nature dictates, they’ll pick strongman extremists over preachy weaklings every time. Democrats don’t have to act like Republicans, but for lack of better term, we need to grow a backbone, one way or another.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was on CNN denying the GOP’s complicity in propagating “white replacement” theory and I’m begging the media to call up some Democratic senators who aren’t Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Manchin for input. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is right there!! Democrats DO need a mainstream center-left media apparatus since literally everybody else is actively working against us, including and especially the far left!!!
Democrats also need to accept the reality is that Hillary lost in 2016 because white people in the Midwest saw Trump as more moderate than her, especially after she was pushed left by Bernie in the primary, and the country paid the price for it. The whole BIF/BBB fiasco was just evidence of this like House Progressives NEVER had any leverage over Joe Manchin, and holding up the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, constantly trashing it on social media before and after it passed, and in the case of the Squad™️, voting against it, was extreme political malpractice.
This sounds weird but I feel like thinking about things too much is Democrats’ downfall like we just look stupid. Like when the House GOP is demanding of random Democratic witnesses if men can get pregnant because it stokes their bullshit culture war, we really don’t have to take the bait lol. The witness could just be like, “In theory, trans men get pregnant but the overwhelming majority of those who get pregnant in reality are cis women and that’s who you’re harming with your insane abortion bans,” but they don’t do that! Instead, the left ends up debating random semantics about word choice and messaging while Republicans neatly decimate civil rights and liberties for everybody that’s not a straight white man.
I just really don’t get why abortion advocates and orgs maintain that poor women of color and trans men are going to worst impacted by abortion bans while rich white cishet women aren’t. If their goal is to keep abortion safe, legal, and accessible, they need to acknowledge that people are going to care more about an issue if it impacts people they deem worthy of suffering and sympathy and we all know America is racist and otherwise bigoted. None of this is rocket science but we on the left have really lost the plot when it comes to enacting and maintaining progress and meanwhile the right is achieving their goal of 50 years thanks to their voting in every local, state, and federal election that entire time, and all we can do now is damage control.