• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    “We can’t have progressive candidates because we’d loose the swing voters”

    and

    “Its [Progressives] fault because they don’t show up”

    Are mutually exclusive arguments. Can’t have it both ways… and I’m pretty sure we’ve gone the rounds in the past over the latter.

    • PugJesus@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      How are they mutually exclusive arguments? The only alternative would be to assert the reverse - that any failure of a progressive candidate is the fault of centrists; but as centrists are the majority of the electorate, that’s a pretty silly argument.

      We’re in the minority here. A significant minority, but a minority. Our choices are to be part of a coalition, or hand victory to fascists.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        We’re in the minority here.

        not really. the people who vote for democrat candidates can be broadly lumped into two camps. The proggresive and the centrist. in the second link, the only ‘real’ centrists are the ‘democratic mainstays’. ‘Outsider left’ represents people like me who aren’t democrats, but vote progressive (and we’re progressive). the Establishment Liberals aren’t as progressive as outsider or the progressive left, coming in between the mainstays and the progressive left, but are still fairly progressive.

        in any case, the outsider left together with the progressive left make up 16% of the general public, equal to the mainstay democrats. establishment liberals represent another 13%.

        in terms of “the left”, and if we focus only on the liberal side of things, 16% of people who vote blue are outsiders, 12% are progressive- so 28% are progressives, and 28% mainstays. 23% are establishment liberals.

        if you exclude all of the very-progressive outsiders (aka VOTERS) then you’re correct, and the very-proggessive side is outnumbers. but if we’re talking about votes in general, proggressives are at least as large a voting block as centrists, if not, larger.

        • PugJesus@kbin.social
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          5 months ago

          I’d consider only the Progressives and Outsider Left as in our corner on this one.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            and they at least equal the dem mainstay. I assume the “establishment Liberals” are all on a spectrum- some are more centrist while others are more progressive; it’s why I mentioned them separately from the other three and only lumped the two together.

            The point I’m making is that it’s largely the mainstays saying “Vote blue no matter who”, but then they’re the ones not voting blue on progressive candidates as much as they accuse proggresives of not voting blue on centrist candidates.

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              5 months ago

              I assume the “establishment Liberals” are all on a spectrum- some are more centrist while others are more progressive; it’s why I mentioned them separately from the other three and only lumped the two together.

              I don’t know man, I feel like Establishment Liberals are just “Joe Biden without the GOP cockblocking him”, which, while good, is something I would still very much count as much more moderate than progressives.

              https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/establishment-liberals/

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        already voted in mine. (Vote by mail is wonderful).

        Too bad the DNC has a history of fucking over primaries. (and the RNC, too, lets be honest.). They should just announce their nominee and be honest about it.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        I’ve been voting in primaries for 24 years. When will it start working?

        Who am I kidding: I’m far too weird for the candidate I actually want to win. I should just resign myself to being permanentlly dissatisfied.

    • Econgrad@lemmings.world
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      5 months ago

      It’s true though progressives don’t show up look at what happened to Bernie the second time he ran and I donated a ton of money to him