• pjwestin@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      A) Poll numbers are all hypothetical. Non-hypothetical poll numbers are called election results. In every poll, Sanders was beating Trump by more points than any of the Democratic nominees. We’ll never know for sure if Sanders would have won, but our best evidence showed he would have performed better than the Democratic nominee.

      B) Yes, a coordinated effort by the Democratic party blocked Sanders in 2016 and 2020. He couldn’t overcome this institutional opposition, so the Democrats’ preferred candidates won the primaries. One of those candidates lost in 2016, while the other won in 2020 but imploded before 2024. We are currently living with the results of the Democrats’ attempts to select a, “centre-left winger who actually has a chance of winning,” and it turns out those results are almost entirely losses.

          • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            Obama has never been considered far left unless you are a conservative fear monger.

            Look at his voting history he’s always been a firm liberal.

            • mwguy@infosec.exchange
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              59 minutes ago

              @SatansMaggotyCumFart He was pretty far left for 2008. Support for Gay Rights/Marriage, Universal Health Care, a proto-energy New Deal, lobbyist refore (pre SuperPac Era), military pullout from Iraq were all on the left side of the 2008 Dem party and he ran hard on all those; especially in the primary.

                • mwguy@infosec.exchange
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                  2 minutes ago

                  @SatansMaggotyCumFart Harris was also widely unpopular even among Democrats. When she ran for President in 2020 she received less than 1,000 votes nationally. She was on the ballot in California our home state and we couldn’t get her over 1,000 votes.

                  She’s just not a good electoral candidate. Had Biden dropped out late 2023 and the Dems held a primary with debates and such; she never would have been chosen as the candidate.

                  Harris could have had a any stance(s) she wanted, she was doomed to fail from the beginning.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          In 2008. Barack Obama beat Clinton by running an extremely progressive campaign, which included homeowner bailouts, universal healthcare, and ending our foreign wars. He then abandoned all of those promises and governed as a centrist.

          It’s also worth noting that, despite being a centrist, Biden’s platform was very progressive. In fact, Bernie Sanders helped write it. Unfortunately, centrists like Manchin and Sinema killed that legislation, even though it was very popular.

          A better question is how many times has a purely centrist message won? Because I’m struggling to think of an example besides Bill Clinton.

          • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            Are you actually using Obama as an example of a far left candidate and you think Biden was progressive yet Harris was centrist?

            This is why I lean more and more liberal because leftists spend more time defeating themselves instead of building a movement.

            • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              I am saying that Democrats perform better with a progressive message than a centrist one. If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to look up the party platforms and stump speeches from these years and compare which candidates were pushing leftist platforms and which were centrist. You can compare Biden’s BBB plan, which contains child tax credit extensions, universal pre-k, ACA subsidies, affordable housing, and dozens of other progressive programs to the, “economic opportunity,” platform of business loans and first-time homebuyer’s credits that Harris ran on. You can look up Obama’s stump speeches regarding homeowner bailouts and compare them to the HAMP program he actually put in place.

              The evidence is pretty clear; voters go to Democrats when they offer a strong, progressive vision for the country, and they abandon them when they pursue centrist policies. Yet liberals like Harris and Clinton both lost by courting, “moderate,” Republicans. They’ve convinced themselves to ignore the facts and follow the, “common sense,” idea that they need to move further towards the center. Even you have dismissed every piece of information I’ve presented you and instead continue to insist, without evidence, that being is a liberal centrist is the best strategy. This is why liberals continue to defeat themselves.

              • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                Clinton and Harris lost because leftist voters are fickle and listen to republican propaganda.

                Also there’s an element of democratic voters who are sexist and racist that didn’t turn out to vote.

                • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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                  1 hour ago

                  This is conjecture, not evidence, but if leftists really are that powerful of a voting block, that seems like further proof that the Democrats should adopt leftist policies.