Surely the path to victory is to tack further right again. Surely, more Republicans will all of a sudden come to their senses...
/s
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
604 points (99.3% liked)
politics
30845 readers
2264 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Surely, more Republicans will all of a sudden come to their senses…
Most of the time a Republican wins, it's on a platform of Ending The Wars and Protecting the Entitlements and Creating The Jobs with government policy.
Sort of the joke in all this. Guys like Bush, Trump, and Reagan all campaigned far to the left of how they actually governed. They'd take office, their popularity would tank, they'd go into the next election cycle with underwater approval, and Democrats would campaign to the right of the Republicans on the grounds that Reagan / Bush / Trump were incredibly popular.
Periodically, a Democrat will win a primary to the left of the favorite for the office. But they'll immediately tack to the right again during the general for fear of looking to radical in the national media.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The "centrist"/right-leaning/neo-liberal democrats would rather rip the party in half than to use this swell of popular support for leftist ideals to win elections and make real change. The old Dems will flail and writhe and hurt themselves in confusion as the old guard dies and change happens whether they like it or not. They'll try to kick leftists out, jump ship themselves (going independent, forming a new third party, merging with libertarians, or maybe going all the way to going Republican), and bomb the entire party with infighting, fixing nominations with anti-democratic party tricks, and intentionally letting republicans win rather than supporting a socialist candidate. Can't wait for this cluster fuck.
They've been doing half of what you listed, for decades.
I'm holding on to the hope that DSA candidates winning more elections in the face of centrist nonsense will make moderates realize they're being self defeating by doing this kind of crap. A real working coalition of socialists and liberals could be a political juggernaut that could also create some good policies together.
I think what people forget is that moderates are just fighting for what they believe in, just like progressives do. The problem is they do not want the same thing. Moderates and progressives have fundamentally different motivations. Democratic moderates are not simply progressives that have pragmatically decided to pursue centrism to win the most gains they can. They're not progressives willing to settle for a moderate option. Moderation is their actual desired goal. They themselves are mostly wealthy coastal elites. They're quite comfortable in their lives, and their main goal is to protect the status quo. They fundamentally do not have the same goal of crafting meaningful legislation that progressives do.
For Democratic centrists, eeking out a single seat majority in the Senate is mission accomplished. Progressives need to push for greater gains, as they want 60 votes to pass major reforms. Conservatives need 60 votes, as they want to implement Christian Nationalism. But Centrists? Neither party ever getting more than 55 votes in the Senate is their ideal outcome. Such a government will be able to pass modest bipartisan bills that don't rock the boat, but no real change to either the right or the left will be possible.
Liberals ultimately have little desire to create a "political juggernaut," as a juggernaut is only useful if you want to force through real change.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot of normie liberals get radicalized by watching Democrats approve Trump's nominees, pass his legislation, and cave on their own government shutdowns. Turns out, if you pitch yourselves as the only opposition to fascism, people expect you to actually oppose fascism.
"We DO opposite fascism. We sent a letter about it and everything!"
- Jeffries, probably
A-fucking-men!
Cnn trying to stoke fear
If this is their attempt at stoking fear, they should do it more
Well as per usual they are giant failures because they are only managing to stoke hope.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Only a third so far have realized that what is now being called “democratic socialism” is what they have always supported. Mainly: using the tax dollars (we already pay) for programs and services that benefit society. As opposed to the Republican plan of using that money to line the pockets of the Trump-Epstein class.
That percentage will only grow.
Exactly. When people find out what being a Democratic Socialist/ Progressive really means, most support it.
We have a choice between Democratic Socialism that helps the Citizens, or MAGA Socialism that helps only the Wealthy. Frame it that way, and the choice becomes easy, for most people.
I wish there was an option for Social Democrat, because that's what fits me. Bernie made Democratic Socialism famous but I don't think most people who define themselves this way understand the difference.
I mean, Americans can just look at Europe. It's basically entirely social democracy. I don't understand why entire America is pretending social democracy is some sort of socialist boogeyman...
It prevents money from being taken by the people who want to take your money. They pay a lot to keep the working class from thinking that's bad. Thus the boogeyman-ing.
load more comments
(10 replies)
This sounds like the same kind of splitting hairs that results in fighting between “leftists” and “liberals”. As long as we continue to bicker and come up with all of these ridiculous purity tests then we’re never going to defeat the right.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The function of the DSA, although they may seem extremist to you, is to pull the Overton window back to the left, where it was before virulent McCarthyism. Watch and learn.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Completely relate to this. The reality too is that Bernie Sanders much more closely represent Social Democratic principles.
Not sure what combination it is that people don't understand the difference or have a tendency to gravitate to more absolutist ideologies, but I feel this.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(17 replies)
MAGA successfully took over a major political party. It's our turn now!
MAGA has a president. DSA has a mayor...
MAGA went directly from nothing to the presidency.
Its better if the movement is decentralized, Trump will croak some day and MAGA will have to pivot or collapse.
Those in the 2000s saw the Tea party as the start of this fascist bullshit.
Listen, I’m a pretty nuanced guy here in left wing politics. I believe in. Regulating capitalism, not destroying it, I don’t believe in throwing marginalized people under the bus to appeal to conservatives who never vote blue and I think we need to make sure wages go up before prices go down, iykyk.
All that said, even I’m telling you to give these DSA people a try. Will the succeed in their agenda? Probably not, you have to flip actual Republican seats to do so. But dammit they’re gonna try.
Also not a quote from this article
“Are more positive toward the Democratic Party. They are more likely to hold favorable views of the Democratic Party (68% to 60%) and its congressional leaders, and more likely to have negative views of the Republican Party and its congressional leaders”
The DSA are literally more favorable to the Democratic project than the so called “moderates”.
Will the succeed in their agenda? Probably not, you have to flip actual Republican seats to do so. But dammit they’re gonna try.
I find this attitude defeatist. A not insignificant number of people who perennially vote for Republicans are in favor of a lot of Democratic socialist ideas. The problem to surmount is the decades of propaganda making the word socialism somehow demonic and evil. There is also the unholy marriage of the Christian church and republicans. Glued mostly together by the continual fight over abortion.
Conservatives do love to whip out the word "communist/socialist" whenever they can. Here in Missouri they're trying to get rid of income tax and drastically raise sales tax. They saw it was losing steam fast with how they were initially pitching it so they're now framing it as "Socialists like Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie always want your tax money!! Don't give it to them so help us end income tax!!!"
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(12 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
A THIRD of our Base Identifies as THAT! OBVIOUSLY the Path to VICTORY is to WIN over ~~them!~~ the ZERO Percent of our Base who are MAGA!
-The DNC!
load more comments
(9 replies)
That's good news.
I do have one "BUT," though: Let's hope the Democrats don't follow in the footsteps of many (at least in name) left-wing political groups and split apart. Nothing could be better for the Republicans than to face two parties whose voter bases are each too small to defeat them in the election.
I think something interesting about DSA is that it has an internal constellation of caucuses, which are largely ideologically based. There's a reformist caucus, and anarchist caucus, a Marxist Leninist Caucus, multiple Trotskyist Caucuses, a Maoist Caucus, etc.
So the various mergers and splits that leftist orgs have been doing for decades now essentially get to do them in the sandbox of DSA.
load more comments
(3 replies)
What needs to happen is for people to vote in primaries so democratic socialist candidates have a shot at winning the nomination (for whatever office they're running for).
load more comments
(3 replies)
The neo-Renaissance awakening is almost upon us. America's last chance power drive for grift and glory is almost over.
I would bet that has always been the case but those feelings were suppressed.
Good.
The DNC wont acknowledge the dem socialists. They would rather lose. So they will lose and the voters will choose between the Republicans and the DSA, which will probably then replace the democratic party. It all hinges on whether the DSA continues to try to reform the Dems from within, which has been tried many times previously and always fails. If the DSA go their own way theres a path to the people being represented and Democratic policies sprouting anew. Otherwise fascism wins and US democracy ends. The DNC will allow democracy to end too, just very slightly slower.
It all becomes pretty clear and consistent if you look at the arc of the democratic party's history. They have always been a sheepdog party and the voters keep pouring our hopes and dreams into them and let that define who we think they are.
load more comments
(4 replies)
I think a lot of people didn't even think this was an option.
This is an excellent outcome.
Dont forget to remind everyone that the trump government decision to buy equity stakes in the private sector is literal socialism by definition. The government owns the means of production instead of private.
So when Republicans start moaning about socialism, feel free to educate them on their president who is implementing socialist policy
Government owning the means of production is only socialism if the working class controls the government, which is demonstrably not true in the slightest. Instead we have capitalists controlling the government, and when the capitalist class exerts its power over the government to directly seize more ownership of the means of production, that is fascism (or at least often a hallmark of fascism).
load more comments
(4 replies)
So you're telling me that a third of democrats now support open borders and public control of large corporations?
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›