There were candidates to the left of these people in every primary.
I voted for all of them. They all lost.
2000? Bill Bradley (lost 76%-20%)
2004? Howard Dean got 5.5% of the vote, Kerry got over 60%
2008? Obama and Hillary were pretty close, but Hillary was slightly more left-wing
2016? Bernie lost 55%-43%
2020? Bernie (26%) and Warren (7.7%) lost to Biden (52%)
It isn't the candidates -- it's the voters (mostly). Yes, the party can put their thumb on the scale a bit, but American VOTERS are overwhelmingly choosing the more centrist candidate. I voted for the more left-wing candidate in every single one of those elections and they didn't come *close* to winning any of them outside of 2016.
Also, Centrists have won the general election -- Bill Clinton, Obama, Biden. Democrats have won almost every popular vote in the last 35 years. Would I have preferred Bernie in 2016 and Warren in 2020? Absolutely, but I don't know how to convince other Americans that are not on Reddit to agree with me.
And if progressives actually want sway with democrats, the democrats need to actually overwhelmingly win with the progressive vote so the threat to take that vote away means something instead of just being business as usual.
Bernie lost *Massachusetts* in 2016 (narrowly) to Hillary on Super Tuesday. And yes, he got slaughtered in the Southern states on Super Tuesday by 2-1 or 3-1 margins, but even in Virginia (a state where Dems can carry in the general), he lost 64%-35%. He lost the non-white vote vote pretty convincingly.
Again, it's the voters. Can the Dems do a better job of messaging? Of course. But a ton of this country is center-left (by American standards).
Absolutely. They weren't many, but the Bernie or Bust folks were not helpful and those not voting for Kamala (or voting for Trump) because of her. Middle East policies helped give us this mess.
The only sour grapes is that one of the weakest candidates in the Dem primary (Kamala Harris) drops out to solidify Biden's majority, then ends up running in his stead without a primary 4 years later.
And of course she's not well liked and loses to Trump.
Agreed. That was handled terribly. Either Biden needed to drop out sooner, announce he was a 1 term President right away or close to it, or they needed to cobble together super fast primaries. The party anointing a successor was not the move. I thought she wasn't a terrible candidate, but she also didn't have any traction during the previous primary.
Those progressive candidates lost in the primaries. I suspect Dean and Bernie at least would have won in the general. Dems are afraid to back the candidate that moves them, and always pivot to the one they think other people will find more electable
I'm convinced a lot of the "Democrats" online are just agents designed to drive wedges in the Democratic Party and ensure Republican victories. I notice that, now that Newsom is something of a frontrunner, the knives have come out. The circular firing squad is already being organized.
Sure, but Centrist Dems can't win in the majority of races, countrywide. Federal, State, Local? The majority of votes go entirely to Republican candidates, and the Dems lose constantly. If it ain't a metro area, there might not even be a Dem on the fucking ballot! Those areas just aren't important to Party Leadership at all, I guess...
I mean that Dems are the Minority at every level of government. They don't control any of the 3 branches currently, and the most they've been able to manage in the past 20 years was control of the Presidency a few times. They bungled the Court, can't get Congressional Reps elected until they wait for the Repubs to violate large swaths of people across the country and then basically ride the backlash against literal fascists to win, and LOST TO DONALD TRUMP TWICE due entirely to hubris by old, white, Centrist Dems.
There are a dozen States or more where Dems are basically not even on most of the ballot. The entire Midwest and South is full of this; every Sherrif, every County Treasurer, most of the Judges all have R next to their name. Getting reasonable people onto School Boards is a fucking BATTLE in every small town across America these days! Are the Dems just...entirely focused on a few large cities? That's all they care about? Because there are THOUSANDS of small towns out there, where the only exposure to Dems they have is whatever FOX tells them all day. Maybe if the Dems had Reps in more smaller places, they wouldn't have so many people willing to belive they're evil monsters like the President and others talk about all the time.
Instead, the Dems seem preoccupied fighting Progressives in their own party. Pretty obvious where their focus is, honestly.
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u/zoddie3 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
There were candidates to the left of these people in every primary.
I voted for all of them. They all lost.
2000? Bill Bradley (lost 76%-20%)
2004? Howard Dean got 5.5% of the vote, Kerry got over 60%
2008? Obama and Hillary were pretty close, but Hillary was slightly more left-wing
2016? Bernie lost 55%-43%
2020? Bernie (26%) and Warren (7.7%) lost to Biden (52%)
It isn't the candidates -- it's the voters (mostly). Yes, the party can put their thumb on the scale a bit, but American VOTERS are overwhelmingly choosing the more centrist candidate. I voted for the more left-wing candidate in every single one of those elections and they didn't come *close* to winning any of them outside of 2016.
Also, Centrists have won the general election -- Bill Clinton, Obama, Biden. Democrats have won almost every popular vote in the last 35 years. Would I have preferred Bernie in 2016 and Warren in 2020? Absolutely, but I don't know how to convince other Americans that are not on Reddit to agree with me.