Submitted 6 days ago by corpse@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Asking as someone from the other side of the planet.
From the things I saw about the US election, the Dems were the side with plans for the economy - minimum wage adjustments, unions, taxing the rich, etc. The Republicans didn’t seem to have any concrete plans. At least, this is what I saw.
I don’t doubt Bernie Sanders though - he seems like a straight truth teller. But what am I missing?
I think what Bernie is saying is that for decades Dems have paid lip service to working class concerns while not actually doing much. In reality Dems have been much more beholden to corporate interests.
By the time these plans came out, too many working class folk were already disenfranchised. They saw a party that was vocal about social issues that frankly were not high on the list of priorities for most of them. They were more concerned that inflation was out of control and they could not afford basic expenses. Sure Trump was racist but at least prices were lower when he was in office, or so they would conclude. If he could bring prices down, they would go with him.
Basically Dems were just out of touch with the most important part of their base until it was too late.
The DNC does not have the peoples’ best interests in mind. Not to say they aren’t the same as the GOP (not by a wide margin), but they are the political extension of their corporate donors. This is the reason why they don’t push forward with universal healthcare, why they’re cowards regarding Israel, and why not much meaningful legislation makes it through the gamut that puts the populace first. This is what conservative voters are done with, and many Democrats are fed up with as well. The GOP, for all their evil faults, actually do execute on the issues that their base cares about, though those action tend to be reprehensible.
Any mainstream Democrat candidate will NOT put forth or affirmatively vote for legislation or policy that goes against their donors’ wishes. The GOP are the same way, but at least they’re up front about it. But it hasn’t been just this election cycle, they’ve been this way for a long time. This is why many call them spineless, but it’s not about that; they aren’t paid to represent the people, they paid to pretend to care while preserving the status quo (their corporate “donations” far outweigh their salaries for the “right” politicians). Everyone and their mom has been screaming corporate greed for the last four years, yet not a single political committee has put forth an honest effort to go after corporations for price gouging, because they’d lose their campaign donations, similar to how any candidate that goes against Israel would get financially throttled.
Basically Dems were just out of touch with the most important part of their base until it was too late.
Which is their consistent problem every election when the prior Republican admin hasn’t made a catastrophic fuck-up.
You can’t run on the “we’re pro labor” platform and expect the working class to show up for you when your pro labor stance hasn’t put money directly into working class pockets since the 1970s or 1980s.
Where are the big public works programs? Where’s the massive government spending that employed millions? That’s why labor showed up for Democrats in the 1900s, when there were huge govt contracts that employed organized labor, and it’s no surprise at all that when Democrats abandoned those policies labor stopped being reliable supporters.
You want to run a successful campaign? Talk about the massive public spending that employed hundreds of thousands during your prior admin. Talk jobs. Talk improved standard of living. Talk taxing corporations to pay for those things and voters will hand you a landslide. Democrats are so afraid of taxing corporations to pay for social spending that directly recruits voters that they’re seen as corporate stooges.
This is very much on point I have always seen America as as really having four parties masquerading as two. Progressives , corporate Left , Corporate Right, and zealots and bigots. The problem is the Corporate Left and corporate Right have been edging Progressives and the zealots and bigots on single issues but never following through as they wouldn’t have anything to campaign on. Trump was too stupid to realize this but when he killed roe. Not to be crass but he finely let the zealots and bigots cum and they fell in love. With Progressives that happened with Obama but he just kept edging us never truly giving what we need other than it could be worse.
I can understand being frustrated and angry with the Democrats for essentially being a status quo party that favors their corporate benefactors.
What boggles my mind is thinking that voting Republican would make any of that better, when in fact it seems pretty clear that it is going to make everything much, much worse.
Maybe so, but if it’s guaranteed shittiness vs. possible improvement, obviously people will make their own decisions about gambling.
I think it’s a bad gamble, but I understand it. And also, one major point is that many people think “it’s going to suck either way, fuck it, I’m staying home”.
The democrats plans for the working class are tweaks. a little tax credit here, a little minimum wage bump there.
But the working class in America have been experiencing long term systemic structural changes that permanently disadvantage them, globalization being one of them.
Between shipping manufacturing jobs elsewhere, and allowing in immigrants who do menial work, people at the low end of the economy are pretty pinched for work. People will say “Americans don’t want to pick fruit” and there’s some truth to that. But there definitely are Americans who want to mow lawns for a living and they’re constantly undercut on price by guys from Mexico who sleep 10 to a room so they can send a few dollars back to family in the old country.
Trump voters see his policy on tariffs and they don’t think “hm economists say this could lead to a drop in GDP.” They see a structural policy shift aimed at bringing manufacturing back to the US. However ill-conceived it might be doesn’t matter. It’s big, it’s bold. It is a fundamental reordering. Economists flap their hands and Trump voters say “good - run scared, you Wall Street pimps.”
If I sound like I’m defending Trump voters, I’m not. But I absolutely believe that the Democrats have to offer more than tweaks and handouts to address the working class.
America spends huge amounts of money to project power abroad. We’re the richest nation by far. Why isn’t that benefitting the working class? These are real questions. Trump has all the wrong answers, but Democrats don’t have any answers. And frankly they are a bunch of moneyed elites, and I don’t throw that term around much. Look at the personal net worth and residential addresses of top Democrats and you’ll see rich people. They have a lot to lose in Bernie’s revolution and they don’t believe in it.
Why isn’t that benefitting the working class? These are real questions. Trump has all the wrong answers
The existance of people like Trump and Musk are the answer.
They are part of the problem, but not the answer. An answer would be how we can ensure that everyone supporting their enterprises shares in their wild wealth and success. There could be many answers to that. And Democrats need to pick one and drive it.
It should be said that Musk is manufacturing cars in the US, which is more than a lot of manufactured goods companies can say.
Between shipping manufacturing jobs elsewhere, and allowing in immigrants who do menial work, people at the low end of the economy are pretty pinched for work.
Isn’t the unemployment rate close to record low? I mean, a lot of people work 2 and more full-time jobs to make ends meet, but that seems like a different issue.
Unemployment is typically measured by people seeking unemployment benefits, not by volume of people out of work.
Similarly job creation is usually measured by job offerings and not positions filled.
As a result you can get what has been happening: low unemployment and high job creation where people aren’t getting jobs and jobs aren’t being filled.
They have different lists for different things. Real unemployment is closer to 30% than 3.
One particular thing I noticed, is on the one hand was the rhetoric that Biden was the saviour of the economy and the working class, the antithesis to corporate greed, and all problems are from COVID and leftovers from Trump; and on the other hand, that prices are rising, people are poorer, while corporations post record profits.
If I were an American, that dissonance would give me a little skepticism about all the pro-democratic rhetoric I’ve been hearing.
Again, not that that really answers the questions, but it does shift the impressions one gets.
Good reply. I’d also note that the working class sadly tends to have less education, which is very useful because it has made common people easier to control and lie to since the dawn of time.
What you’re missing is that all those plans you mentioned, while correct, were (a) just ‘plans’ with no follow-through to back them up and (b) too little, too late even if they were implemented.
Excellent write up, I donated to Feed the Children in your name.
The “fight for $15” (minimum wage increase) has been going on for so long with zero [Federal] success that, due to inflation, it ought to be renamed “fight for $30” by now.
And the side that won has been fighting the minimum wage hike for “so long”. Who’s the enemy of the working class again?
The lip service given in supporting unions was belied by how Biden fucked over the railroad workers.
This is a lie that has been repeated time and time again. He fast followed the end of the strike with helping the workers get exactly what they wanted. He aided their negotiations AND got our supply lines back on line.
Inequality (the gap between the working class and the 1%) is continuing to spiral out of control and the Democrats had very little to say about stopping it. It’s important to remember that “tax the rich” was only supported by the progressive subset of the Democratic Party.
Again, which party is it giving the mega wealthy tax breaks? Who is appointing billionaires to run the government? Who controlled the House and prevented tax reform from going through?
We need zoning reform coupled with switching from property tax to land-value tax, to stop enabling the hoarding of underdeveloped property by protecting it from market forces (i.e. real reforms to make housing affordable again).
That is state level reform. Obviously.
We also need things like vigorous enforcement of anti-trust law and consumer protection laws, so that the public feels (and is) less exploited by corporations.
No argument there, but which party is constantly eroding our current regulations that protect consumers and workers?
The lip service given in supporting unions was belied by how Biden fucked over the railroad workers.
This is a lie that has been repeated time and time again. He fast followed the end of the strike with helping the workers get exactly what they wanted. He aided their negotiations AND got our supply lines back on line.
Nope, I did my homework on that one before posting it. From en.wikipedia.org/…/2022_United_States_railroad_la… :
Early on September 15, Biden announced a deal had been reached to prevent a strike, including an immediate 14% wage increase, but only one day of paid leave per year rather than the 15 days of paid sick leave unions wanted. … On December 1, the Senate passed the tentative agreement with only 1 day of sick leave. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law on December 2. The Biden administration’s intervention in the dispute was condemned by over 500 labor historians in an open letter to Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh.
Again, which party is it giving the mega wealthy tax breaks?
But that’s rather the point here, isn’t it? So much Democrat rhetoric and support comes across as, “they’re worse so you have to like us.” Not exactly inspiring to people whose livelihoods are struggling.
Democrats didn’t campaign on their economic plans. They dove deep into MURICAN PRIDE, fighting against dictators and drug cartels, and continuing the work of the Biden Administration. They played advertisements like THIS on TV in September. They campaigned in states that they lost in by trying to appeal to Republicans.
Less democrats total voted this year than 2020.
In their defense you would think just being against fascism might be enough. Turns out it isn’t.
That’s been the case since '16. Things need to change at the DNC because maga sure as shit aren’t going away.
“We are against the big bad fsscist guy! But we still like to do fascism abroad, do not worry guys!” It’s not a particularly powerful statement to the antifascist, nor to the fascists
And the rightwards pivot chasing the “regretful Trump voter” and that stellar Cheney endorsement.
Republicans voted GOP just like they always did. People who wanted anything resembling change stayed home. Unfortunately they’re going to get that change…
I voted Harris, but the Democrats need to abandon neo liberalism and embrace economic populism. People need affordable housing, healthcare, affordable healthy food, and a plan for the climate that doesn’t involve mass extinction.
That being said, these people won’t live long enough to see the worst of it. I hope that I don’t. I don’t have children, but I imagine that if you’re under 35 right now, you’re going to live long enough to see the water wars.
I voted Harris, but the Democrats need to abandon neo liberalism and embrace economic populism. People need affordable housing, healthcare, affordable healthy food, and a plan for the climate that doesn’t involve mass extinction.
She did do this. It didn’t resonate. Who knows what will get through in 4 years. Because who knows where this train is going. They need the house and congress to make real moves.
They’ve taken the side of corporations over unions and dangle popular policies like Medicare for all until the general election where they abandon it.
But mostly it’s vibes. The Dems don’t say “it’s hard we’ll fix it” they say “it’s actually going really well we already fixed it”
This is going to sound awful coming from a person who voted for Kamala. But when Trump wanted something, he pushed forward and gave zero fucks who he burned. Trump wanted a wall, and then there’s a wall. Granted, it’s shitty, it’s expensive and an eyesore, and it does absolutely nothing and no Democrats voted for it (that I’m aware of).
Democrats fight for a policy, and then carve it over and over to appease corporations, billionaires, conservatives, and anybody who might feel threatened by it. So yeah, I can see why people would shrug at giving a vote for Kamala.
Again, I voted for her. But in reality, I want a candidate who will go, “Listen motherfuckers. All kids in America will get fed. Suck my dick if you hate it. Every single kid will get a sandwich and if you speak again, will destroy you.”
LBJ was a monster. He sexually harassed and assaulted everyone. He killed so many people in Vietnam. He was pretty fucking racist. And I swear to shit we need more democrats who act like him in leadership (outside those aspects). He’d say slurs against people if it got them more civil rights. The Buck stopped there and he’d make shit happen. I swear, I’d kill for a democrat who could get republicans to vote for queer rights even if that requires them to call us every slur in the book. We need a great society. A country that can stand up for us working folks and for us minorities. An America of higher ideals forged by those attempting to live up to them.
We need that or an FDR, someone who can offer up a new deal, a fairer and kinder America paid for by the prosperity it creates. Instead we’re getting a whole lot of Andrew Johnson at best and Hindenburg at worst.
If you are asked where you differ from a whildly unpopular president in a time where all normal Americans are hurting bad, and you answer “nowhere”.
And your points on the economy are essentially, the economy is booming…
You disqualify yourself, as we saw.
People did not want more of the same or small incremental change. And apparently the worry some have about fascism taking over is not believed by many… politicians say a lot… but they won’t do that.
Time will tell.
I didn’t want to bother making another account to like this comment twice so I’m just writing this to say, ‘This’.
They are now saying, we got the mandate, we gotta do it. I even heard a rep senator say that they will go after companies employing illegals because then they will go home.
Get ready, because this will cripple agriculture and other sectors.
Also, the IRS knows who employs illegals… easily. They know how much revenues companies make per employee from massive datasets, they can easily point out the companies that over earn compared to their employee numbers in a specific sector. Same as they can easily determine someone’s income from their yacht, house or jet size.
where you differ from a whildly unpopular president… and you answer “nowhere”.
I watched the beginning of the Trump-Harris debate. When Harris was asked why she and Biden kept Trump’s trade tariffs (after just saying how bad new ones would be), she gave no answer and went back to bashing Trump.
And your points on the economy are essentially, the economy is booming…
I felt a lot of disconnect between the “Biden is the greatest” and “America is suffering” rhetoric in the lead up to the election.
the worry some have about fascism taking over is not believed by many… politicians say a lot…
Not American here, but I still have much hope that the fate of America is in the hands of her people. My biggest fear at Trump’s election is if it inspires more of the nation to hate and anger - because the president is your leader in that way.
But you see, Trump won because a lot of people voted for him. If the American people can find a new love for the poor, for fairness between worker and manager, for people who look and act differently: then I have great hope for the nation’s recovery.
The dems gaslit the public on inflation. They abandoned the working class decades ago. The economy only got better for the out to brunch professional managerial class liberals while the rest of us suffered.
Most importantly, the democrats haven’t run a competitive primary since 2008, they anointed Harris as their candidate without a single vote being cast for her and then they’re shocked pikachu face when she lost. The fact that democrat operatives make so much money despite being so utterly incompetent that one wonders if it’s malicious it blows the mind.
Well Controlled Opposition is a lucrative field, friend. You just won’t find it on Indeed.
Plans are not actions. Sanders is talking about what the Democratic party has done, not what they promised to do.
Think of this from his perspective: the Democrats put their faith in the idea that money wins elections, and if you can out-raise your opponent the votes will follow. Twice they conspired against Bernie in the primaries because of his platform: tackling wealth inequality, progressive tax reform, and overturning Citizens United v. FEC. They chose corporate interests over the working class because they valued money more than votes.
What is the incentive for the democratic party to ever chase votes rather than money?
If you get voted into power, lobbyists give you even more money.
It’s hard to explain. A lot of it is about vibes and focus over the last several years.
Bernie’s being a bit harsh in saying Dems didn’t try. Republicans blocked their efforts. But there’s also a feeling that they didn’t care all that much. At the end of the day, they’re career politicians, padding their pockets with corporate donations while demanding starving citizens vote for them because the other guy would be somewhat less palatable. And I guess Trump’s honesty about being apathetic and money-grubbing is more appealing than Dems’ feigned innocence and solidarity.
It’s not hard to explain. It’s not about vibes. The DNC is pro-corporate, which means they’re anti-worker. They push few policies that benefit the average person.
Take the housing plan, for example. Raise the limit on the tax break for first-time home owners. Is that good? Sure it’s better than nothing, but if a home that used to cost $200K now costs $800K, an extra $30K won’t make it affordable. But more money might help the banks a little bit. Or take the federal minimum wage. It should be $25, but it’s not, because the DNC just doesn’t care, and they never will.
It’s not just the US, it’s been happening for years in other countries like the UK as well.
Traditionally there has been one party that is for working people and another for capital and the owner class.
The right has been getting further and further into far right authoritarianism. That posed a problem for the Dems going back to the Clinton Presidency: do they stick with being the party of working people or do they try to have their cake and eat it by tacking to the center and assuming that the working class will continue to vote for them no matter what?
It largely worked for a time and gave Obama two terms but ever since then they have been susceptible to criticism that they’re out of touch, elitists, entitled, and that they look down their nose at working people whilst still assuming that they will get their vote, which opened the door to Republicans.
You can’t serve two masters for very long, you can’t be the party of working people while being run by upper middle class graduates. You can’t claim to care about the people with the least while cozying up to CEOs and megadonors. Sooner or later it all falls apart, as it did with Hillary Clinton’s run, where working people disliked her elitism and she didn’t have enough support from elsewhere to make up the shortfall. That should’ve been a warning. Instead they doubled down.
The problem in the US is that there are only two viable parties. The Dems won’t go back to being the party of working people because they wouldn’t know how to do that even if they wanted to. What happens when the Trump Presidency turns out to be a disaster?
Neither side has been willing to change, or even talk about, the shift of wealth that has left most people barely able to get by. Working people get less and less reward for their efforts and the difference all goes to the owners. I think that is at least one aspect of Bernie’s complaint about the Democrats.
From the things I saw about the US election, the Dems were the side with plans for the economy - minimum wage adjustments, unions, taxing the rich, etc
The dems are in power now, they didn’t do those things, so nobody believed they’d actually do it if they were elected again.
Additionally, parading around endorsements from Dick and Liz Cheney, and promising to build a border wall, tax breaks for small businesses, and other republican policies from 2016 didn’t help the perception that the dems weren’t going to help people.
look at how Biden talked about the economy.
After stabilizing from COVID, it took him 2 or 3 years to figure out and even acknowledge that inflation is killing people’s financial outlook.
The first mention of that at all was at the NATO thing right before he dropped out.
Sure, he was handed an absolute shit show by Trump; but the messaging was incredibly tone deaf about it.
Same tone deaf manner as the “we’re going to be okay” comment earlier. We don’t all have millions and 246k pension, free health care and 24/7 protection. We’re not okay now, and it’s not going to be fine.
That’s probably the perception. Democrats have been in power for 4 years, things didn’t get better for a lot of people and then they say to vote for them for more of the same. Surprisingly that doesn’t help with voter enthusiasm. They’ll have more chance next time with messaging things won’t get worse with them after Trump mishandled stuff.
Ah, but didn’t Biden throw the train union under the bus? I think he did. And neither Biden nor Obama pushed to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and also to key it to the cost of living.
Even though Biden’s regulators did take some positive action, a lot of that was this calendar year. Why did he wait so long? A cynic would say he didn’t believe in what he was doing, but even a non-cynic would say that it was a bad way to campaign, because you can’t erase 3 years of incompetence with 1 year of regulation.
There are two components to this question. Did many in the working class feel that Democrats had abandoned them? And is Trump’s economic policy actually better for the working class than Harris’s? I think the answers are “yes” and “probably no”. However, voters don’t listen to economists. If they’re not happy with the status quo, they vote for disrupting the status quo even if experts tell them that that’s a bad idea.
I suppose Sanders thinks that the working class would have supported a Democratic candidate who proposed a leftward (as opposed to Trump’s rightward) disruption. My guess is that that isn’t true and socialism is still a dirty word in America, but who knows?
However, voters don’t listen to economists. If they’re not happy with the status quo, they vote for disrupting the status quo even if experts tell them that that’s a bad idea.
Also see: Brexit.
Sadly it does not stop them whining about the consequences of their poor decision-making.
If you ask Americans about socialist policies without mentioning parties or ideology, then they overwhelmingly support them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How is this true?
No, it’s not true. The liberals never had the working class’ backs.
Liberalism fetishizes capitalism, remember?
I don’t doubt Bernie Sanders though - he seems like a straight truth teller.
He’s not consciously lying - Bernie, like all liberals, actually believes you can (somehow) represent both the interests of the working class while also representing the interests of the capitalist class that is parasitizing off their labor. As any leftist will tell you, this is pure delusion.
I’m very intrigued by your definition of Liberalism. It doesn’t correlate with liberalism across the world.
It doesn’t correlate with liberalism across the world.
Really? Find me an anti-capitalist liberal. that should be very easy if this…
It doesn’t correlate with liberalism across the world.
…was the truth.
Of course you didn’t provide your own. That’s typical, sadly enough. We all know there are varying definitions, and if you’re going to undercut someone else’s, which may be a reasonable thing to do, why not bring yours to the table? … But only if you care to continue the conversation.
As most of politics, it’s sadly less about actual plans than it is about messaging through catchy soundbites - something the Rs definitely do better. (none that they’d act on any of it) Ds have spent a whole lot of time appealing to constituencies that aren’t the working class, with messaging that doesn’t work for them.
But it’s not just that: Ds have materially failed the working class. They can screech all the want about “the economy” having gotten better under Biden, they’re talking about the stock market, which is entirely immaterial to people who can’t even save. What is material to them is “non-core” inflation (aka food and gas - it really takes an economist to come up with such a stupid label), which has gone up real bad. And many still remember Obama as having betrayed them by bailing out the banks on their backs, and working hard to save all that rot as status quo.
Yes, D policy would very obviously be better (long term), but a whole lot of working class voters don’t trust that to be the case.
Identity politics, gun control, immigration, lagging economic recovery for labor, inflation and a distinct lack of ability to formulate a simple message. Sank Dems with the working class.
Policies are nice but most Americans don’t have a clue and don’t research anything.
Kamala spouted a bunch of policies and no message of hope. Trump had a bunch of headline grabbing antics and one liners. Guess which one wins with most Americans.
Identity politics? That’s a republican issue. They bring it up. The most democrats do is block, but all the punches are thrown by the right in campaigns. I didn’t even hear a gun control proposal this round.
Did you happen to visit Kamala’s website during the election. She listed who she represented…. Black males, Latino Males, no mention of working class white peoples.
That is identity politics. If you wonder why white women voted for Trump, they did it for their sons who aren’t mentioned at all.
Both Kamala and Biden championed another assault weapons ban.
I think of Sanders as like a well-meaning version of Trump. He tells people simple, good-sounding things they want to hear. I trust that he truly cares about the working class, but his ideas are probably too big and vague for there to be a path to actually implement them in any Congress of this era. He’s aware of his recent popularity and maybe a little bitter that he hasn’t gotten much out of it. He’s only a Democrat himself to the extent he can gain more from calling himself that than an independent, so with little to lose at this point in his career he’s lashing out while he can win points kicking the Democrats.
Simple, good-sounding things they want to hear is what wins elections these days.
Sadly, it only works if you’re selling hate and fear.
Tramort@programming.dev 6 days ago
I understood him to mean that Democrats were more interested in appealing to Liz Cheney as Republican lite, rather than advocating vigorously for the working class. They take money from corporate interests, and then pretend they don’t protect them. They didn’t do enough to address the problem of inflation, and American workers were angry.
Jordan117@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I see this claim so much, and it’s bullshit. Harris didn’t make a single policy concession to get Cheney on board. And why would she? The entire point of having her endorse was to send the message of “Trump is so dangerous that even people who disagree with me are choosing to support me.”
B1naryB0t@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days ago
Harris needed to get progressives and instead they put their efforts into winning over moderate conservatives. Even if she didn’t make concessions, putting time and effort into promoting that meant she didn’t have time or effort to put into the progressive voter base
Tramort@programming.dev 6 days ago
She and Biden had four years to demonstrate policies that help the working class. They did so little that the working class supported trump.
That’s the concession: the built in support for corporate agendas, since that’s where Democratic money comes from. You don’t need to put it in your platform when it’s obvious from your actions that “the economy”, to you, means the board room.