The problem with the Democratic party is not that it's too leftist or not leftist enough.

Riiiiight.

The Democratic Party has plenty of fighters, but not enough VOTERS!

No matter how much Dems accomplish to help peoples' lives and Biden accomplished a ton, the party has to seduce their own voters to show up and vote! Millions listen to leftist defeatist nonsense and treachery of life-long mountebank phonies like Bernie Sanders and stay home on election day or vote third-party! Why Democrats demand to be seduced to vote against guaranteed disaster and recessions heralded in with every Republican President, I'll never understand!

you are so wrong, OP

Between AOC (progressive) and buttigieg (moderate) we have visible and viable fighters who are young. The real issue is the 24/7 bullshit that the GOP spreads via all of its non-legacy media channels. Rogan for example. More listen to him than say, what buttigieg says on foxnet

The problem is understanding that just because a candidate doesn't make you wet or check off every single box is no reason not to show up every time to vote.

We’re exponentially concentrating wealth, but at the same time the wealthy aren’t having more babies than poor people. We may never see democratic ideas dominate again, because that’s just how American capitalism works. Individualism and worship of power is all we really know.

People who lean left are typically not as gullible and therefore not as susceptible to propaganda. It's not an easy fix.

The problem is the the Democratic Party is fighting for an establishment no one feels is working

Kamala could not win because she could not defend the Biden administration. No one could, people did not like it.

Biden did not win because people liked his establishment paternalism. He did not win because he represented the goodness of public service. He won because he was the alternative. He won because he was GENERIC DEMOCRAT and enough people were tired of Trump’s chaos. As such, he only had a slim victory. People did not LOVE him, he greatly misinterpreted his election as a mandate, it was not. People loathed what Biden represented, the ossified Beltway fixtures who surrounded themselves with likeminded technocrats like Anthony Blinken and Merrick Garland. All you need to know to understand how bad Biden was at being President is how loathed Merrick Garland is. Merrick Garland and Joe Biden are two sides of the same coin. If you are furious with Merrick Garland, you are furious with Joe Biden. And many Democrats refused to see it.

This election was not won by Trump, it was lost by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party that was too timid to take the car keys away from Grandpa.

The far left is just as toxic as the far right. The difference is that the Republicans are a unified party that supports one another and the far left eats its own, and rejects other Democrats who think for themselves.

We don’t have propoganda that lies to voters. It’s not in our nature.

There is no market for the truth.

We’re just fucked.

There’s some truth to what you’re saying OP., The American public doesn’t want an intelligent policy debate with facts; they want WWE or a Real Housewives reunion.

The reason people loved the Harris/Trump debate is because she aggressively shut his shit down with one liners and fun expressions. It is awful and pathetic but that’s what the public likes.

The Dems should hire Kenya Moore and Dorinda Medley as advisers.

The Democrats used to connect with the working class but that's gone now. It's the party of the educated which is good. But not if most of the country never went to college. It's going to be a tough problem to fix.

[quote]The Democrats used to connect with the working class but that's gone now.

The Democratic Party has never abandoned the working class. This was not a breakup initiated by the Democrats.

The Republicans know how to win elections. As we saw with Dubya, and Trump I, they do not know how to govern. Trump II will be no damn different, just more chaos and anarchy from a clown who loves and thrives on chaos and anarchy.

"The Democrats used to connect with the working class but that's gone now."

It's gone because the working class has been dumbed down for so long they're willing to be conned and duped by a carnival barker like Trump.

There is basically nothing wrong with the Democratic Party. Uneducated people want politics as entertainment and only one side is willing to sell them what they want. They want to feel angry and resentful and that a superhero will save them from hidden malevolent forces. We can’t play in that game. The best we can do is break away from the parts of the country that are poorly educated and gullible and let them have the government they want.

[quote] There is basically nothing wrong with the Democratic Party.

This is what’s wrong with the Democratic Party.

Bullshit. Empty words.

I’m not saying we have it exactly right on every policy, but we DID NOT abandon the working class.

The working class has been manipulated into supporting policies that are distractions at best and will hurt them at worst.

There is nothing wrong with believing in science and economics. People have been conditioned to distrust expertise and that is not the fault of the people who still believe in knowledge and reason.

Constant fault finders like R16 are what is wrong with the Democratic Party.

As if introspection self-criticism is a hallmark of the Republican Party.

[quote]There is nothing wrong with believing in science and economics.

Science: With some very rare exceptions caused by genetic abnormalities, there are only two genders which are determined by innate and unchangeable biological characteristics of the body.

Democrats: Trans Women ARE Women! Gender affirmation healthcare is necessary for children and the incarcerated!

Economics: A massive spending bill will cause inflation.

Democrats: MIGHTY JOE BIDEN!

Republicans: FAKE PATRIOTISM, FAKE RELGIOUS PIETY.

Republicans: CULT LIKE DEVOTION TO A LYING, STEALING, GRIFTING, PERVERTED CARNIVAL BARKER.

Republicans: RACIST, CLASSIST, XENOPHOBIC, HOMOPHOBIC MORONS WITH LITTLE INTEREST IN SCIENCE OR EDUCATION (SEE: REPUBLICAN REPONSE TO COVID 19).

LIES. HATE

R20 for someone who hates Republicans so much, you behave exactly like one

It’s shown that people who have extremely binary thinking tend to be conservatives

Sorry, OP, you're mistaken. Democrats have gone too far left on the border, on crime, on trans issues, and on critical race nonsense/DEI. We need to return to being a party that promotes equal opportunity, rewards based on hard work and merit, empirical truth (not activism masquerading as science), and enforcement of laws against those who break them, regardless of their demographic profile. We need to be a party of optimism and sideline the far-left grievance peddlers who rant about systemic inequities and the US being a "racist country". And we especially need to disavow the self-hating, Neo-Marxist cretins who are in the streets waving terrorist organizations' flags. We let too many dirtbag Bernie cult followers into positions of leadership and tried to appease them by taking absolutely batshit positions on these issues over the last 4 years, but they won't be appeased and they don't even like mainstream Democrats.

Voters aren't stupid, and they make (mostly) reasoned decisions, notwithstanding the efforts of many of my fellow liberals to self-soothe by dismissing all Trump voters as mush-brained, racist zombies. They can see. and hear what has been going on with the Democratic Party, because it's the same leftist social engineering bullshit they've been experiencing in their workplaces and schools. It's time we do some introspection and figure out how to be a proper center-left liberal party that can appeal to a wide cross-section of people again.

Voters ARE stupid. They have no business picking a President between two candidates with starkly different world and economic visions on the basis of how they feel about whether trans women should be allowed to participate in sports which is not a federal issue. That is simply astoundingly stupid.

[quote] The problem with the Democratic party is not that it's too leftist or not leftist enough. It's that it lacks fighters

Is this 2024’s The Lost Cause, to use revisionism to deny the decisive role the issues played in the election?

[quote] Voters ARE stupid.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the voters the party needs to woo know that Democrats feel that way about them. Understandably, that makes them less willing to vote for the Democrat.

R24 Bill Clinton told the Harris campaign they needed to get in front of this trans issue. He knew it was going to be a problem. They did not listen.

That’s not the fault of the voters.

Read the room

[quote] Democrats have gone too far left on the border...

Can someone who agrees with this please elaborate?

[quote] We don’t have propoganda that lies to voters. It’s not in our nature.

Deluded.

[quote] Unfortunately for Democrats, the voters the party needs to woo know that Democrats feel that way about them.

I’ve got news for them: The Republicans feel the same way. Especially their Führer.

Dem party is the party of the poor, not the working class. Poor people are a bottomless profit demographic. The working class are just the ones who fund the government. This is capitalism, the snake that devours its tail.

R7 Brilliant assessment.

What ever happened to that lil skinny Gen Zer who was riding hard for Kamala in the beginning. He seemed to disappear as the campaign progressed. He seemed smart and calling them weird seem to be effective.

I love how in these threads, it's always everybody's fault except the non-college-educated white voters who keep voting for this shit and what we all know to be against their own best interests. I will give the NCEWV's credit; they do get off their asses to vote. We also know what the NCEWVs all want, but we cloak it in "the economy" because everyone is too polite to say what it really is.

The Democratic Party is far, far from perfect, but Kamala Harris ran an excellent campaign. Sadly, her political career will end this way. These threads always boil down to the same thing. Democrats need to be mean assholes to people the people I don't like or understand, and they will win elections. If that's the party you're looking for, then vote MAGA. Education is not bad. Kindness is not bad. Diversity and Inclusion aren't bad. If you take those things away, then what do we stand for as a party?

[quote] Kamala Harris ran an excellent campaign.

She ran as good a campaign as she was able to. She was not able to convince the necessary voters that she would make a significant change from Biden’s status quo.

[quote]Education is not bad. Kindness is not bad. Diversity and Inclusion aren't bad. If you take those things away, then what do we stand for as a party?

Lights please.

[bold]Ten days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried, about themselves, their families, and their futures. The President said that he didn't understand that fear. He said, "Why, this country is a shining city on a hill." And the President is right. In many ways we are a shining city on a hill.

But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory. A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another city; there's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one; where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.

In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it. Even worse: There are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn't show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day. There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit in your shining city.

In fact, Mr. President, this is a nation -- Mr. President you ought to know that this nation is more a "Tale of Two Cities" than it is just a "Shining City on a Hill."

Maybe, maybe, Mr. President, if you visited some more places; maybe if you went to Appalachia where some people still live in sheds; maybe if you went to Lackawanna where thousands of unemployed steel workers wonder why we subsidized foreign steel. Maybe -- Maybe, Mr. President, if you stopped in at a shelter in Chicago and spoke to the homeless there; maybe, Mr. President, if you asked a woman who had been denied the help she needed to feed her children because you said you needed the money for a tax break for a millionaire or for a missile we couldn't afford to use.

Maybe -- Maybe, Mr. President. But I'm afraid not. Because the truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that this is how we were warned it would be. President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. "Government can't do everything," we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class.[/bold]

[bold] You know, the Republicans called it "trickle-down" when Hoover tried it. Now they call it "supply side." But it's the same shining city for those relative few who are lucky enough to live in its good neighborhoods. But for the people who are excluded, for the people who are locked out, all they can do is stare from a distance at that city's glimmering towers.

It's an old story. It's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans -- The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. "The strong" -- "The strong," they tell us, "will inherit the land."

We Democrats believe in something else. We democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact, and we have more than once. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt lifted himself from his wheelchair to lift this nation from its knees -- wagon train after wagon train -- to new frontiers of education, housing, peace; the whole family aboard, constantly reaching out to extend and enlarge that family; lifting them up into the wagon on the way; blacks and Hispanics, and people of every ethnic group, and native Americans -- all those struggling to build their families and claim some small share of America. For nearly 50 years we carried them all to new levels of comfort, and security, and dignity, even affluence. And remember this, some of us in this room today are here only because this nation had that kind of confidence. And it would be wrong to forget that.

So, here we are at this convention to remind ourselves where we come from and to claim the future for ourselves and for our children. Today our great Democratic Party, which has saved this nation from depression, from fascism, from racism, from corruption, is called upon to do it again -- this time to save the nation from confusion and division, from the threat of eventual fiscal disaster, and most of all from the fear of a nuclear holocaust.

That's not going to be easy. Mo Udall is exactly right -- it won't be easy. And in order to succeed, we must answer our opponent's polished and appealing rhetoric with a more telling reasonableness and rationality.

We must win this case on the merits. We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that sound good as with speeches that are good and sound; not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that will bring people to their senses. We must make -- We must make the American people hear our "Tale of Two Cities." We must convince them that we don't have to settle for two cities, that we can have one city, indivisible, shining for all of its people.[/bold]

Reagan used the metaphor to indicate that America represents something aspirational and to acknowledge American exceptionalism. To say that Reagan therefore must have believed that everyone in America is rich and no one is poor is beyond ludicrous.

And that is why we lose elections.

Because self-identified Democrats have become Reagan defenders.

“Diversity and inclusion” that results in candidates for jobs and university admissions being denied in favor of less qualified candidates with the “right” ethnicity is wrong, R34. Not only that, it’s illegal. In my industry (entertainment), it’s astounding to me how often people have come right out and said that white executives, white writers, white actors, etc. simply won’t be considered for jobs because they aren’t “diverse” enough. That shit is over, and it never should have started. “DEI” was the product of a moral panic that told people they were inherently racist and that racism was literally everywhere, even if it clearly wasn’t. It’s toxic pseudo religious nonsense that belongs in the dustbin of history. Black and brown people are more than capable of succeeding on an even playing field.

The failure of the democratic party was never more spelled out than when Michelle Obama uttered the phrase "when they go low, we go high". I knew then the party was doomed.

She would have been far more accurate if she had said "when they go low, we pussy out".

BTW, R34, Trump did better with Latino and black voters and worse with white voters than he did in either of the previous elections in which he ran. But that doesn’t fit with your narrative, I guess. In any case, “blaming” voters you don’t agree with for not doing their homework (which is an assumption you’re making, and quite an insulting one) and insisting that we do exactly what we’ve been doing because it’s the fault of people who don’t know better and are just racist is a great way to keep losing.

R41, you are not a Democrat. You are a racist who doesn't want to be called a racist. Because if you think going down to the corner store and hiring Da'Quan with a 5th-grade education over Ethan with a Harvard degree is what diversity and inclusion is about, and you want to blame all blacks and Hispanics for Trump 2, then just go down the street and buy your little red hat and join the others.

R42 The South Bronx, San Bernardino County, the black belt in North Carolina.

He will continue to fail upwards if we do not get real.

R42, you’re exactly the kind of condescending elitist I’m talking about. And not a very bright one. Thanks for proving my point.

Oh, and, “DaQuan”? And you’re calling me a racist?

You’re out of your depth, dear. Now retreat to the comfort of your “resister” echo chamber, secure in the knowledge that you’re the most virtuous and people who disagree with you are just evil and not worthy of speaking to. Bye.

R23, you are essentially describing a conservative party platform (certainly not MAGA, but those positions are on the political right). If the Democrats applied the platform you propose, what would be left wing about it?

Although I wouldn't use the language R42 uses, I do think they have a point that you are choosing to amplify fringe positions and right wing accusations that misrepresent what the left is trying to do, and are attempting to "fix" this by shifting to a conservative platform.

If you go to small town America and visit a gathering of Democrats, they are not fighting for pronouns, unfettered immigration or listing ways that American is racist. It still very much issues like health care, raising the minimum wage, worker protections, improvements in schools, environmental protection, wealth inequality. What X and Fox News tells you the Democrats believe and what they actually believe are different.

[quote]The Democratic Party is far, far from perfect, but Kamala Harris ran an excellent campaign.

It was a disastrously run campaign.

R45, what "fringe" positions have I amplified? The idea that people should succeed on merit? The idea that people who break laws should be punished? The idea that migrants shouldn't be allowed to cut the line while others respect our laws and work to immigrate legally? Those aren't "fringe" positions. A fringe position is that the federal government should pay for gender reassignment surgery for prisoners and detainees. Or that we should abolish the police. Or that the United States should take the side of Islamic jihadists and abandon its support for Israel. See the difference?

I support single-payer healthcare, making legal immigration simpler and more attainable, a strong social safety net, paid family leave, a living wage, strong unions, and more. Does that sound like a conservative platform to you?

If you can't admit that we've allowed some extreme ideas to seep into the Democratic Party's operating system, then I don't know what to tell you. Just the fact that you see ideas like "succeeding on merit" as conservative-coded is a problem. Most people see it as a very American idea. And they don't need to be lectured about what "their best interest" is either.

R28 I do not particularly believe Biden’s border policy was “far left” but much of its windowdressing was full of progressive buzzwords and immigration activist rhetoric.

The Biden administration wanted more immigrants. They felt in my opinion that the country had the opportunity under COVID to take in an enormous amount of people who could provide low wage labor. Again who does this really benefit. The agriculture industry, the construction industry, hospitality, healthcare. A huge influx of labor to keep the price of services low. I do not think that is a left wing goal.

The Biden administration correctly identified Trump as scapegoating Mexico and immigration for problems of globalism which is an inherent part of capitalism. However, the Biden administration’s decision to increase immigration especially from areas that already had been reputations like Venezuela simply increased xenophobia not only amongst the Trump base but among the Democratic bedrock- black and Hispanic working class voters.

If the working class is turning away from your party en masse because of your immigration policies, are the policies inherently left wing?

R47, these fringe positions:

[quote]Democrats have gone too far left on the border, on crime, on trans issues, and on critical race nonsense/DEI.

In addition, "defunding the police" (fringe position), trans surgeries for prisoners (fringe position), supporting jihadists (fringe position). You are doing a better job of undermining the Democratic party than Fox News - well done!

If you believe that when Democrats gather to discuss the issues that concern them they are championing open borders, excusing crime etc. you are wrong. These are issues that the right wing *think* the average Democrat does, when in reality they are far more focused on the issues I've already raised - wages, housing, the environment, inequality and so on.

[quote]The idea that people should succeed on merit?

This is the central tenet of conservatism. The idea that if you just work a bit harder or pull yourself up by your bootstraps then you can achieve anything. In reality, there are a huge range of issues limiting "merit" - poor schools, poor housing, income insecurity, food insecurity, poor infrastructure - all the things that Democrats do care about.

I'll take you at your word that you support left-leaning policies like strong unions and universal health care - but I really don't understand at all how you've fallen into the trap of thinking that the mainstream Democratic platform is radical.

Republicans assertively speak straight to their point

Democrats handwring while debating each other about what their point is.

^point.

R49, take it up with Kamala Harris, who supported trans surgeries for prisoners in 2019 when she was running for president. I didn't "amplify" that issue -- she did, by giving the answer she did to a major organization on a public policy questionnaire, and Donald Trump did, in a nationally televised debate. It's called opposition research, and every campaign does it and knows to expect it. Here is what she actually said:

[quote]That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained.

Kamala also said, in 2020, that "we have to redirect resources" from police to other areas of government.

"Redirect resources" sounds a bit like defunding, doesn't it?

And the fact is that illegal border crossings surged under Biden as a direct result of policy choices of the administration, reaching as high as 250,000 per month (!) in December of last year. I don't think it gets more "mainstream Democrat" than President Biden. And by the way, those are just the migrants who were intercepted and arrested by Border Patrol.

The administration changed tack in June of this year, and -- wouldn't you know it -- illegal crossings have gone way down. But politically speaking, the damage was already done.

This is to say nothing of the insanity that has been coming out of the Squad over the past 4 years which, like it or not, reflects on the Democratic Party because *they are Democrats*.

Maybe you're simply in denial about what "mainstream" Democrats have been saying and doing, or maybe you'd not like to acknowledge that there's a kernel of truth in some of the attacks that have been used against our party, even if -- holistically speaking -- they don't represent what mainline Democrats care about.

If we don't move back to common sense on a lot of these issues, we'll continue to lose. Instead of lashing out at those who raise inconvenient truths, contend with the political realities and forgodsake, diversify your information diet beyond MSNBC, Rawstory and Huffington Post. They aren't doing you any favors.

There is much more that we can do to make people's lives better, but we can't do any of that if we lose elections because our leaders are catering to fringe left groups and taking positions that make them look completely out of touch with the issues that people care about. That was the point of my original post.

[quote] I didn't "amplify" that issue -- she did

But you are continuing to amplify the issue needlessly. Did Harris actively campaign on this in 2024? Did any Democrats?

When Harris made the statement regarding trans prisoners that she did she was an underdog candidate in a primary campaign seeking to find a niche. It did not work for her at all, and - had we had an open primary - it would not have worked again - BECAUSE that is not a mainstream (or mainline) position. Of course Trump amplified it - and if you expect every Democrat in every situation to never say something open for amplification then your expectations will never be met.

Regardless, when Harris made that statement, it was already legal for trans prisoners to receive gender affirming care, so it's not like she was advocating for a position that didn't already exist. This was true during Trump's first presidency (a fact I see you have little interest in amplifying, which opens you up to accusations of hypocrisy).

[quote]"Redirect resources" sounds a bit like defunding, doesn't it?

No, it doesn't - unless you want to parse every situation where resources are reallocated from one area of the budget to another, which is phrasing that nobody uses outside of this instance. The "defund" position was absolutely fringe - only two of the so-called "Squad" advocated for it, and the vast majority of Democrats in Congress pushed back against it. So again, you insist on amplifying the minority and fail to amplify the fact that the vast majority did not support it AT ALL.

Regardless, "redirecting resources" is frequently the right thing to do to address crime (and many other issues). If the evidence tells us that redirecting funding from one area (say active policing) to another (say youth diversion programs) will reduce crime, are we supposed to ignore this because it opens the door to attacks? How do you expect to win over educated voters if you don't push for evidence-based policies?

Mistakes were certainly made with policies relating to the border, but left-leaning parties across the world have faced the same situation. Retrospective analysis fails to acknowledge that many left leaning people (both in the US and Europe) initially wanted humanitarian responses to immigration, and so their parties were reflecting that goodwill. It wasn't until the cost of living crisis that opposition to really ramped up. It is also not like conservative governments are faring better with immigration - people fail to acknowledge that immigration is a complex situation where push factors are just as impactful as pull factors.

I do not deny that some of the minority fringe positions pushed by some members of the Democratic Party have paved the way for effective attacks. But I also know that in this social media age, these fringe views will never go away, and the right wing will always have an arsenal to use. It is not at all helpful from people on our side to amplify these views because they will NEVER go away.

You are arguing to redefine a party that has been defined by its critics. This will not work. The better approach is to push back against the mischaracterization.

"Sweep it under the rug and hope no one brings it up again" isn't an effective strategy either, R53. Kamala tried that...and we all know how that turned out.

Strategically responding to the mischaracterization of the Democratic party by its nefarious critics is indeed necessary.

What is not necessary is Democrats reinforcing this mischaracterization to other Democrats.

It is also not necessary to amplifyi this mischaracterization by suggesting it accurately reflects the mainstream Democratic platform.

The Harris campaign was well run for democrats and some never Trumper republicans. It did little to nothing to win over regular republicans. And that's why she lost.

The democratic party is still a disaster at getting the message out. They have never learned how to fight fire with fire. They're so cautious about being seen as being petty or mean. Time was when republicans won elections for the democrats when they'd fuck things up so bad there was no alternative but to vote in the opposite direction when the time came. But I think those days are long gone for the most part. Too many voters seem to be perfectly happy voting against their own best interests because they're filled with hate that has been instilled in them by the messaging from the republican party. And that's the fault of the democratic party for doing little to nothing to properly counter that message.

Clearly the democrats trying to look like the adults in a room full of silly children is not working anymore. They'd better learn to kick some ass and take some names if they want to get any respect.

R53 given how the election turned out the better move for Harris would have been to say that if elected potus those in prision would not be getting tax payer funded gender reassignment surgery . A strong straight forward statement of non support.

Talk about a stupid issue to support and to talk about moving resources away from the police was beyond stupid.

Dems denying to themselves why they and the party are so unpopular with so many American voters is not the smart way to approach the future.

R23, not ONE god damned candidate ran on those things you tallied, you fucking fool!

Go eat shit along with the Foxnews hosts you clearly adore

[quote]Talk about a stupid issue to support and to talk about moving resources away from the police was beyond stupid

You're beyond help. I don't know how many times I can tell you that the mainstream Democratic voter/supporter/operative isn't out there demanding the police lose funding or that transing prisoners is our raison d-etre.

It's plain to see that everything you've learned about the Democratic party you've learned from Fox News or rabid X right-wingers, so here's some advice. Meet with your local Democratic groups. Listen to their views. Unless you're in an extremely liberal area, you are going to hear about health care, education, the environment and so on.

Honestly, at this point I think you're a Republican here to stir up shit.

R59 darling every dem that disagrees with you is a GOP trump supporting Boris.

Harris did say she supported using tax payer money to give prisoners gender changing surgery. The GOP did not make that up. And that was used against her.

You can deny that all you want.

The Democratic party appreciates your efforts to amplify the mischaracterizations of the right wing, R60. I'm sure they appreciate you telling them that they need to disavow themselves from positions the vast majority never adhered to in the first place.

R61 go ahead and just tell us that Harris never called for public funds to be used for gender surgery on prisoners who are currently in prison.. If she never said that just tell us. Maybe Harris is getting a bad wrap and never said that on the record?

glad I blocked her a while ago

The problem is not that she said it - it's the fact that you think a statement made by a primary candidate to the ALCU in 2019 somehow defines the entire Democratic party.

You are the one who is taking fringe examples and amplifying them to describe a party THAT DOES NOT EXIST.

JHC all I said was she should have addressed that statement that she had made in the past and say she does not support that. She should have made it clear that common sense would be applied not the tax payer supported surgical instruments..

Of course all Dems don’t think that way . It was the one named Harris who happened to be running for President who said it.

It was her statement , which we both agree she made, and it was up to her to correct it or ignore it.

R64

Bill Clinton, who last I saw was a Dem, warned her about how this was going to bite her in the ass, he said they did not listen,

I will refer you back to your first post at R23, which is the post I initially responded to, where you applied all of these fringe issues to the Democratic party and did not mention Harris' name once.

While it has been enjoyable watching you move the goal posts around, this conversation has reached its conclusion. I will redirect you to my post at R59, where I recommend you meet with Democrats in your local area to gain a fuller understanding of the issues that the party cares about, and not the ones Fox News has told you they care about.

I hope your day is filled with merit-based reward.

R64 friend you are not having a discussion with one person. Certainly more than one. And those you are talking with are not all saying the same thing. We do all have the same screen name though so it’s easy to become confused..

R66, this is R23. You are not responding to me anymore, but someone else entirely (and possibly more than one person). Perhaps you need to listen, instead of insisting that everyone who disagrees with you is brainwashed by Fox News. And by the way, I don’t watch cable news at all. Not any of it. As I said, I think it is you who likely needs to diversify your media diet.

You accuse others of “moving the goalposts,” yet you had the temerity to suggest that Harris’ position in favor of moving resources away from police was simply an ordinary budget discussion of the kind had about any number of issues, when in fact it was clearly a statement she made in the context of the “defund” movement, after George Floyd. And she expressed support for the movement on *multiple occasions*.

Here’s another tip: You can’t call something a “mischaracterization” of the party when the party’s chosen standard bearer ACTUALLY SAID IT.

You are clinging to some kind of No True Scotsman fallacy about what the “true” party believes despite numerous examples of prominent elected Democrats espousing positions and taking actions that, in your view, don’t reflect what the “real” party believes. And anyone who believes they support the things they said they support, in clear unequivocal language, is brainwashed by Fox News. Do I have that right?

Yes, I think this conversation truly has reached its conclusion. While you hold onto your soothing idea of what the “true” Democratic Party cares about, some of us will be working to rebuild a mainstream party that can win again.