politics

Nobody is saying that another outcome isn’t possible,

I mean, the person i'm responding to is. And we're not talking about this election cycle.

But since you asked in good faith, I'll at least respond to how I think things might shape up going forwards. Its going to take a minute so I put up a quick response and will @ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com here so you get it when I'm finished.

So in 2016 Bernie Sanders broke through a barrier as an independent who suddenly, a crotchety old white guy from a very white state, almost single handedly swooped in to scoop up the Democratic nod from, perhaps the most insider of party insiders, Hillary Clinton. He did so with a rag tag coalition of black, brown, lgbtq+, anti-war, and primarily progressive voters. Bernie Sanders showed that there was a viable path, where by focusing on groups not serviced by mainstream parties, you could build a coalition of voters and represent a very material electoral threat to a party structure that up until that time had proven to be unassailable. Bernie Sanders did this with an almost laser guided focus on polices which addressed the criticisms of the post-2008 era, who felt jaded and misabused by the faux economic populist/ actually corporatism politics of Obama.

At the same time, we saw a similar story play out on the Republican side of the coin. However, unlike Democrats, Republicans were not so competent in their ability to "manage" their party process internally (read: in-spite of all efforts, they couldn't steal it from Trump the way D's stole it from Bernie). The result was that the nationalist populist won the nomination, and would go on to win the election.

Between here and there, we had covid. So that was a bit of a zinger. Threw quite the unpredictable wrench in things. 2020 election cycle rolled in and we had basically a similar match up as we did in 2016. And again it looked like Bernard was going to be the nominee; until super Tuesday (the weekend before which 3 nominees all simultaneously 'dropped' out to endorse Biden). Stolen again. But this time would be different. While Biden got the nod, Bernie got the platform. Instead of burning the bridges like Hillary before him, Biden built a bridge to the now-self-evident progressive populist wing of the party. And he basically gave them control of the platform, which ended up being one of the most progressive platforms in the history of American electoral politics. And it worked! The coalition defeated Trump, even if it performed worse than perhaps polling indicated.

So now we're in 2024. Harris makes her first move to the left with a couple announcements and the Waltz pickup. Her polling is like, mooning. Her early august number seriously looked like she could get into the 55's by election day. During the convention, she makes a rightward pivot, and continues that through the convention and then, in-spite of declining poll numbers, keeps leaning to the right. We'll see Tuesday how all that turns out, but with these things in mind we can make a couple of conclusions.

First, the American people are desperate for a change, an basically have been needing to scream with no mouth to do so since 2008. Trump in 2016 was a brick through the window of a two party system which simply isn't interested in the opinions of its voters. Its clear to many voter that since almost 2008 (next Presidential election will represent 20 years), the voters of the Democratic party have either had their will suppressed or have been outright ignored.

This election cycle, had Biden not stepped down, and if West and Stein had been able to resolve their issues, I think we could have seen the greens making a legitimate stab at taking the presidency. That being said, I don't think the greens are a particularity good party, but I do understand for strategic reasons why you just shoot for an office like the presidency when you have limited resources. The key here is that the American electorate is still looking for that better option and have been since the year 2008 when so many people in the US saw their lives turned upside down, to have never really recovered since. This is what opens up that lane. Its the grievance politics of the left, and one dismisses it at their peril. I think Talib and Omar, and maybe Porter; any Democrats that have been ratfucked by the party: becoming Independents may represent the most viable path forwards.

So this got a bit shaggy and rambly, and I haven't really slept in days. But long and short of it, the Democrats leave a lane open because there are legitimate grievances left unaddressed by the existing party structure. I would put very, very good money that this lane gets taken (if we still have elections) in 2026/ 2028.