I don't know what you think is true, but both Obama and Biden moved things in a positive direction overall. Yes, they weren't brave enough or ambitious enough on many issues, but they were miles better than the alternative. Regarding left-bashing, I'm with you there. Now is the time to fight for ..
... progressive policies to be adopted. It doesn't matter if the centrists they scream and curse at you, now is the time to fight and move the platform. But when it's general election time and the candidates have all been chosen? Then it's time to grit one's teeth and vote for sanity, not fascism!
Because centrists definitely aren't the same as fascists. They are incomparably better. And, with them, progressives get to fight another day.
And the way you win them over is by showing you have principles (which is a thing they like), frame your issues as benefitting everyone (which they like), and pulling hard on the Overton Window (which they follow). You don't win them over by compromising preemptively with MAGA.
The only people who actually like the Republican Lite act are anti-Trump Republicans, and we already have all of them on our side. There's no more of them to win. Moderates don't, in fact, like it when Democrats make an effort to be the same as Republicans. They just think "both sides" and tune out
For instance, AOC is actually quite popular with independent voters. Miles and miles ahead of all the "mainline Democrats"
I completely agree with all this. I think AOC is amazing. I must have expressed myself clumsily if you thought I disagree with any of this. My point was narrow: once we are in the general election, then there is no choice anymore. We either vote for the Dem option, or fascism will keep winning.
It was probably a little ambiguous that I wasn't trying to be oppositional here either. I was just trying to emphasize how critical it is that we stop humoring politicians who think they can chase the Overton Window instead of pulling on it.
Completely agree.
Positive or less bad? Trump could not be doing what he's doing without Obama's massive expansion of the 'national security' state. Biden did some decent things I guess (ya know besides a genocide that broke the UN), but still too little too late. Biden also put us on this path as a senator.
Some positive, some less bad. I think positive on balance, unless you happen to be an accelerationist. Unquestionably better than the alternative though!
I don't know that we ever did anything but accelerate towards another Trump term. Once you unleash the fash, it's hard to put that genie back in the bottle. Like we removed university professors for their research because they criticized the state for doing a genocide.
Again, there were some decent, albeit wonkish moments, but it's not like we remember Von Hindenberg for his military reforms.
Fash is vastly overused as a label and, in my opinion, that has really hurt the progressive cause. People just stop taking you seriously if you trigger a five alarm fire at every opportunity, and the word gets normalised as a result, so now when we really have fascism it's easy to dismiss concerns.
I also think that dismissing the positive progress that was made during Dem administrations as irrelevant is counterproductive. It's always easy to find more that needs to be done, but if the politicians are only ever praised by the braying mob for doing horrible things then you can see how ...
... the incentives go in the wrong direction. I used to be a radical, but after the last decade of global regression towards far right, I've turned into a radical gradualist – any progress in the positive direction should be celebrated and encouraged, because natural trend is ruin at the moment.
Obama is my primary example of how Democrats *should* be campaigning but generally aren't. People are desperate for hope. Enthusiasm does in fact drive turnout among our core voter demographics. You have to tell people better things are possible, not make a list of rights you're willing to abandon
I couldn't agree more.
100%. And right now the person who seems to be doing this best is Mamdani, the candidate Democratic leadership refuses to endorse or embrace.
Yes. Also, Obama was a shitty President whose hopeful campaign was fundamentally at odds with how he governed. We’re all hoping Zohran will be a substantial improvement over that dismal baseline that some point to as a model.
Well yeah, as a leftist I'm not exactly a fan of Obama's actions as president. But despite that he knew how to win a critical election, and then repeat the feat despite people beginning to get disillusioned with him.
The key to having an electable "hold your nose" candidate is that they represent society getting better slower than you'd want, not getting worse by less And supporters who talk about the making things better part instead of nagging all the people who want things to stop getting worse.
We are not in a “hold your nose” moment and we should absolutely fight to avoid any candidate like that.
I 100% agree. I'm just telling the people who support "hold your nose" messaging that their strategy relies on being a Hopey Changey type candidate, not a self-proclaimed lesser evil.
I don’t want Obama anymore, I want Eugene Debs. Not “hope” as a marketing message followed by status quo, I want “bodies on the gears” and make this country actually serve the people.
I'm speaking purely on a practical level to the people who see working within the system and winning the election as the core to their strategy. In particular how they need to stop being content with lecturing their base to manage its expectations, if they want to achieve their own stated goals.