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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Clinton was not a move to the left! The Clinton wing is the right wing of the Democrats. Both Clintons, are the prime example of the Democrats being the Republican party of 8 years ago. And Gore would have been a continuation of Bill. Trump being the other candidate is the only reason she isn't seen as a right wing candidate. A lot of her liabilities, particularly with battleground states, in 2016 was her being the champion of every right wing policy an appreciable amount of Democrats signed on to.
Ok let's go through this chronologically.
Bill Clinton: When you run against an incumbent (Bush senior) you run from the center. You have to run center when running against an incumbent, so that's what he did.
Gore: After the population hopefully warmed up with Bill Clinton, he stuck his head out left with climate change. And bam he lost the election. Thanks 3rd party protest voters!
Obama: So guess what Obama learned from Gore? Don't stick your head out. He ran on vague "hope", hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush's disastrous wars. And he won.
Hillary Clinton: After the population hopefully warmed up with Obama, she stuck her head out just a tiny itty little bit with the Map Room to fight climate change. And guess what happened? Bam she lost. Thanks protest non-voters!
On to Biden. Just like Obama learned from Gore, Biden learned from Hillary that you don't stick your head out left. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. He's actually been governing more from the left, but he ran center.
And you're amazed that they don't run an extreme left platform? Every time they stick their head out a little itsy bitsy tiny bit left they lose. And the next guy learns to go to the center to win.
So how do you get them to move left? By giving them victories. Consistent and overwhelming victories. Because when they lose, like they've lost 20 years out of the last 24 years, they will go to the centre to find votes.
Those are extremely simplistic takes for why Gore and Clinton lost. If memory serves me right climate change didn't have much to do with either and it had more to do with people feeling they were out-of-touch wonks. Bush was "the guy you could have a beer with" even though he didn't drink.
And they run to the center because there are actually voters there. The left is noisy online but there's not enough of us spread out far enough to move the needle. America is not a progressive country, and we need to get used to that.
Simplistic because I'm not going to bother to write more. From what I know Gore was a decent step left, not just climate change. By 2016 there was enough attention on climate change that was the step left.
This is what I say ad nauseum. But I think there are enough left ~~voters~~ people to move the needle. The problem is they don't vote in protest, or they vote 3rd party in protest. They're waiting to fall in love with a big left candidate, and I'm saying that's not going to magically appear, you need baby steps (which they don't like so they protest).
This is the whole "Dems fall in love, Republicans fall in line". Those Republicans show up every time and they move the needle because of that.
I've given up believing there's enough that can move the needle, because even if they all voted for decades they're crammed into high population states and districts so their power is diluted to ineffectiveness.
Unless we get a mass migration to low population states of lefties this is going to be how our politics works.
Of course when I bring this up the reaction is "But there's nothing to do there!"
The Nader vote showed this is significant. Obama had a super majority. This can be done.
I'm not gonna hold my breath. America is too consistently disappointing.
Don't hold your breath, but vote. *For Dems.
It's not like I have a choice...