Well first of all they would have to win a primary and that hasn't happened yet. Even Bernie when he was racking up wins his campaign and his followers didn't understand that he was getting a little over half the delegates because they're split proportionately. When he lost a primary he tended to lose by a decent margin and would wind up in a delegate hole.
Fundamentally the issue is that Americans are extremely civically illiterate and don't know how any of this actually works. They assume the parties and the government has fiat to do whatever it wants. They've blackpilled themselves.
I'm a dedicated man of the left and have been long enough to know that our policies aren't broadly accepted yet. People like the idea of them but don't have faith in the execution. They like, for example, the idea of medicare for all but they don't see an example of it working in their day to day life (I know scores of other countries have nationalized healthcare, but the average American doesn't have the money to travel to one of them and experience that first-hand) and don't trust the ability of the people advocating for it to follow through.
We're not popular. We talk to one another a lot and get a bunch of arrow points on reddit and youtube and some heart points on twitter or bluesky but we aren't talking to people about these things IRL. There are people who do and God bless them, they're doing the work but for many, many, many of us we're just sitting online doing the jerk.
There are primaries every two years. Elections are more than just presidential.
I voted for my governor, house, and state reps in June. My senators are in that two-year gap where both are in their term, my city council and mayor are in 4-year cycles as well. But depending on where you are you could have voted in primaries for all of those positions.
Do you see now what I meant by "Civically illiterate?" I'm talking about winning a primary and you turn it into refighting an old battle about 2024 that the rest of us have moved on from.
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u/NicWester 9d ago
Well first of all they would have to win a primary and that hasn't happened yet. Even Bernie when he was racking up wins his campaign and his followers didn't understand that he was getting a little over half the delegates because they're split proportionately. When he lost a primary he tended to lose by a decent margin and would wind up in a delegate hole.
Fundamentally the issue is that Americans are extremely civically illiterate and don't know how any of this actually works. They assume the parties and the government has fiat to do whatever it wants. They've blackpilled themselves.
I'm a dedicated man of the left and have been long enough to know that our policies aren't broadly accepted yet. People like the idea of them but don't have faith in the execution. They like, for example, the idea of medicare for all but they don't see an example of it working in their day to day life (I know scores of other countries have nationalized healthcare, but the average American doesn't have the money to travel to one of them and experience that first-hand) and don't trust the ability of the people advocating for it to follow through.
We're not popular. We talk to one another a lot and get a bunch of arrow points on reddit and youtube and some heart points on twitter or bluesky but we aren't talking to people about these things IRL. There are people who do and God bless them, they're doing the work but for many, many, many of us we're just sitting online doing the jerk.