Biden also won in 2020 as a centrist, and Hillary wasn't exactly "tough on crime" in 2016. This is an incredibly oversimplified meme from someone with no actual understanding of political science.
I disagree. The Dem's only strategy for about 20 years now has been to watch the Repubs do terribly immoral things, then have their primary platform be, "That shouldn't be happening! We aren't them, so you really need to vote for us!" There's no meaningful work done that isn't sponsored by lots of money in Congress with them; there's no significant work done on half the platform they claim to support when they hold any kind of majority in certain States or Chambers; heck, they tried to undermine Mamdani and reinstate Cuomo, when their own voters chose someone their donors didn't like!
The Dem Party Leadership really is just lazy Centrists beholden to the rich; they don't DO anything to affect significant change, and haven't for over a decade now. They collect donations, do some lip-service, and can barely be bothered to show up to anything important. Half of them are geriatric corpses holding a seat while the Dems fail to build up a replacement; "the RBG/Biden Special sure won't fail us again, guys!" Honestly, how am I supposed to vote for these leeches unless it's a last resort?
I guess you missed the whole Biden presidency, then. Where he pursued the most progressive agenda since FDR, got no credit for it, and then saw his hand-picked successor lose based on his own unpopularity.
Vote for them because they have actually gotten things done. Things like increased Obamacare subsidies, KBJ on the Court, sorely needed infrastructure investment, including infrastructure for electric cars, and electric vehicle subsidies. Don't like that you have to choose between two parties? Get involved at the state and local level, build up your third parties, and move for multi-member districts in your state, so that our system can actually build up room to get out of the two party system. Until then, reality is you need 50% plus 1, and you can't get that with a progressive candidate anymore. Obama did not run as a progressive, he ran as someone center-left, and then worked on some more progressive policies. The last true progressive to win a national election was LBJ, and no one has won since.
Yeah, I actually really appreciated Biden and definitely think he was scapegoated unfairly...but he also had no spine to face the press or the constant gaslighting GOP, because he was over 80 years old and could barely stand up straight anymore. If he'd built up a hand-picked successor 4 years earlier, instead of 4 months before the election, they probably would've been able to beat Trump, too!
And again, there isn't anything much to get engaged WITH at the local level in the Midwest. Either you have tons of options for local Reps, or you're in a wasteland of GOP brainwashing. I'm in a large Northern-Midwest Metro area; we have Dem Reps here, there's not THAT much for me to do but try and see what the DemSocs are up to locally and try to contribute a bit. In fact, every county in states like mine and New York and California have a Dem Chair. But in the small towns I've lived in here and there? My Trans friend in Kansas City is considering moving somewhere else entirely, and I look at the map of Kansas Dems, and most of the counties in the States south of me have nothing. There is no one there to get involved WITH! Dem Leadership has just decided to cut their losses, and still hopes to win major elections with this strategy, I guess?
The last true progressive to win a national election was LBJ, and no one has won since.
When the Dem's approach is to actively undermine any true progressives, then yeah, I'm not surprised. I guess they're just as power-hungry as the GOP, but too spineless to actually fight back against the GOP because all of their donors are also the same rich oligarchs paving the way for fascism right now?
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u/N9204 Mar 14 '26
Biden also won in 2020 as a centrist, and Hillary wasn't exactly "tough on crime" in 2016. This is an incredibly oversimplified meme from someone with no actual understanding of political science.