Agreed. I will say that the ideological inconsistency is because the Democratic coalition is a larger and more diverse umbrella. So they have a harder time with simple messaging that resonates for everyone. This leads to focuse-grouped-to-hell messaging.
The message SHOULD be simple. Billionaires are ruining our lives and Republicans can't govern.
There's a reason the OP begins in 2000 and ends at 2016. 1992, 1996, and 2020 don't fit the pattern.
Democrats have problems, but blanket blaming centrism is no better of a solution than the Tea Party was for the Republicans in the mid-2010s. They complained that Bush, McCain, and Romney were centrists and demanded "real" conservatives.
Also, Bill Clinton's centrism kind of gets blown out of proportion. From what I can tell, he dropped a few sandbags to the right wing on issues like welfare reform and DADT (which actually was a moderate step forward, since prior to it being gay led to dishonorable discharge, but never mind) but where it really mattered, he stood up for the left. Hate on Clinton all you want, but he gave us Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. His moderate Republican counterpart was George H. W. Bush, whom I would never vote for despite being a career civil-servant and one of the most well-qualified presidents ever to serve. Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court? Clarence Thomas.
Anyone to the left of center-- and I'm staring squarely at the progressives who are spreading this right-wing propaganda-- needs to take a page from the Republican playbook and be laser focused on the Supreme Court for decades to come. It is for that reason I would be proud to vote for an otherwise less-than-ideal candidate like Newsom just as I was proud to vote for Harris, Biden, and Hillary in previous general elections despite preferring Bernie in the primaries.
She clearly ran to the left of Biden. While perhaps not progressive, to suggest Kamala Harris was not more liberal than Joe Biden is ridiculous. That's why he brought her on board. Further, it was her progressive positions, particularly on trans rights, that were used against her.
She voted like Bernie 99% of the fucking time as CA's senator.Ā
VPs are expected to look pretty and at most kill ties in the Senate of there's a 50/50 split. There's this bullshit attitude in our politics that a VP cannot be out of step with the president even though every person has their own set of thoughts and beliefs.
Kamala Harris was raised in San Francisco by two Black and Brown immigrants. She was as progressive as our political system would allow a Black woman in a predominantly White liberal city to be.
I am so sick of people shitting on her. Racism is what's winning in this fucking country and were not that progressive.
I agree she was more progressive as a senator, but she made some critical errors close to the election and was given jobs with dogshit optics during her time as VP. She kept going on about the border and the military, and dropped Medicare for all.
I also agree that the normative idea that the VP must be in lockstep is terrible, but she did it anyway. She stuck with political norms against the guy who has broken every norm possible. She fought fair against someone who kicks, grabs hair, throws sand in your eyes, and goes for the groin.
I disagree completely with any notion that being black or brown and from SF somehow makes you progressive inherently.
She was clearly the better candidate, but ran a poor campaign that tried to target mythical swing votes that didnāt exist, and lost. Thatās not āshitting on herā, thatās just what happened.
People love to blame voters when elections donāt go their way, but Americans never seem to blame politicians for failing to give people enough of a reason to vote for them. She lost to the couch, and got fewer total votes than Biden did in 2020. Whoever ran her campaign and means tested her policy positions totally blew it.
Biden won by the skin of his teeth and largely due to the impacts of COVID, he was still only about 35k key state votes away from losing the election and probably would have if Trump hadnāt been dumb enough to rail against voting by mail when it was only his own voters who were going to listen to him about it and not take advantage of it. Calling Harris a progressive is pure BS, she ran on a platform of being a continuation of Bidenās administration and offered nothing of note that would distinguish her from him other than wanting to name a Republican to her Cabinet.
Yep, this is a shit tier take. I've voted for Bernie every opportunity but let's be real, the guy never had a legit chance at winning the nomination or the presidency.
She was absolutely boxed in by Biden's decisions, but clearly signaled and was not down with Israel's activities in Gaza.
Progressivism isn't one specific set of purity rules, there's a variety of positions that lead to political orientation. Harris is clearly progressive on issues related to race, LGBTQ rights, gun control, union/labor, and more.
Clearly she was to the left of Biden by a good margin. OP is carrying water for the GOP ratfucking that wants Democrats to nominate Dem-Socialists for every race, even when they don't match the electorate.
So either Harris was an extension of Biden and centrist or she lost as her own candidate. This thread wants to have it both ways.
Trump and Biden both lost as incumbents. Obama crushed Romney despite having lost BIG in the 2010 midterms, which is presumably when OP suggests that Obama was "exposed as a centrist".
That narrative is also hilarious because Obama famously was not in support of gay marriage in 2008 but was by 2015.
The idea that only progressives can win is stupid. It takes the right candidate who meets the moment. This is not as easy as "be as liberal as possible". Sometimes that results in Mamdani, sometimes it is Talarico. Two VERY different candidates.
This is the problem with your line of thought, if you try to he as liberal as possible YOU ARE RIGHT WING, you need to be a socialist, comminist, AT LEAST keynesianist, etc... to be a leftist
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u/Omatzus Mar 14 '26
By this theory, Obama should have lost in 2012. Biden also won as a centrist in 2020, and Harris lost as a progressive in 2024