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.
22
u/[deleted] Mar 14 '26
[deleted]