“This is a collapse of the Democratic Party.” Consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader comments on the reelection of Donald Trump and the failures of the Democratic challenge against him.
Despite attempts by left-wing segments of the Democratic base to shift the party’s messaging toward populist, anti-corporate and progressive policies, says Nader, Democrats “didn’t listen.” Under Trump, continues Nader, “We’re in for huge turmoil.”
Move on from the Democrats. It’s over. They had their chance with Bernie.
To be fair, before Trump took over the party, the Republicans were generally considered to be in a death spiral.
The prevailing idea was that the party just didn’t have a future. Their brand was this basically an unappealing mix of boring religious people and self-professed ‘sensible’, common-sense stewards of the status quo. Looking at demographic trends at the time, they were trending towards irrelevance.
Then Trump took over and brought back the enthusiasm. They also started to court minority votes (Hispanics, Blacks) which tend to be very socially conservative. At the same time, the democrats slipped into the ‘boring status quo protectors’ role.
Hopefully the Dems wake up, but it might take a while.
After this term Trump cannot be reelected. What will the democratic message be then? Who will be the new boogie man?
The Democratic Party will never change on its own. It is run by neoliberals. Neoliberals are moderate conservatives. They will always shift a little right before shifting a little left.
If the Party is not overtaken by progressives, we will repeat all this bullshit again and again until only far right people remain.
The party needs to be taken over by leftists not progressives. It needs leadership who isn’t afraid of being titled left, those who reject the right as an outward identity.
My concern is numbers. The party needs to appeal to enough people to be successful. The public understands “progress” and “progressive”. The public requires quite a bit of education on “leftist” to be sold. I think this would be the difference between success and failed obscurity.
Unless the R’s hold their constitutional convention and crown Trump Emperor
Eh, even if they do, because I do believe it’s 100% possible they’ll try to end democracy in all but name this cycle, I don’t think Trump will even live out his full term in the next 4 years. The man looks older every rally and photo op. He can’t even open doors.
Vance sucks in all the same ways every neocon sucks, so I don’t think he’ll be a totalitarian aberration like Trump if he’s elected. He doesn’t seem to have that something Trump has. I think he’ll be more like Reagan or Bush. Which is awful, but I think it’s something we can push through at least.
They’ll devour each other competing for the seat of cult leader when he dies.
He’s going to dive into dementia live on TV. No way that man’s ego lets him be hidden away as his brain continues to melt.
By 2028, Republicans will have gone all-in on explicit voter suppression and fully political election boards, they’ll let the corporate overlords for media know they can take the mask off or suffer their wrath, and they’ll have a Supreme Court and federal government to back them up. They don’t need to hide anymore. They made the fascistic push this time and they won, now is time to wield that power.
Acting like there will be an election (e.g. organizing and building political coalitions) will put us in a better position to deal with whatever else happens
Exactly, we need to prepare for a hearts and minds conflict with the concept of fascism and those enacting it. Ideally this will wind up a free election in two years where we make the fascists incapable of legislating. But it may require other forms of resistance.
They would need 6 more states to agree to that. I don’t think we need to worry about that anytime soon unless they just completely abandon law and procedure. At which point it’s a civil war anyways.
You sure about that?
Everyone needs to take their anger straight to their local DNC office. Get involved and stop letting the centrist status-quo motherfuckers steer the party from the local levels. I’m also a member of my nearest DSA group but, until there’s a viable option for third parties to complete in general elections, we need to hold our noses and trojan horse the Democrats to change them from within.