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www.politico.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22077561

“I’m not interested in anyone who is moving further away from the center,” said Cindy Bass, a Pennsylvania committee member from Philadelphia. “The center is where we have to be.”

They’re not going to change a thing unless people make them.

Find your local state delegate and personally tell them how you feel a centrist is only going to guarantee another Republican victory. They are listed here: https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_National_Committee

Bernie Sanders is working behind the scenes to get a progressive in there but he can’t do it alone.

  • Arcka@midwest.socialEnglish
    3·
    14 hours ago

    Respectfully, when you wrote

    They’ve moved so far towards neoliberal policy positions that they no longer have an economic message to give their working-class base. In the absence of a coherent economic vision for the party, they keep doubling down on, “identity politics,”

    It seems like you agree with

    some Democratic National Committee members are concluding that the party is too “woke,” too focused on identity politics and too out of touch with broad stretches of America

    I also think that if the Dems want to win, they need to simplify their platform and messaging to focus on what will help working-class people the most. I agree that abandoning people is not the answer, but the messaging and focus needs to be more universal.

    • pjwestin@lemmy.world
      5·
      12 hours ago

      You’re right, but the nuance you’re discussing is not what’s being discussed here. Listen to this bit:

      “The progressive wing of the party has to recognize — we all have to recognize — the country’s not progressive, and not to the far left or the far right. They’re in the middle,” said Joseph Paolino Jr., DNC committeeman for Rhode Island. “I’m going to look for a chair who’s going to be talking to the center and who’s going to be for the guy who drives a truck back home at the end of the day.”

      Or as one DNC member from Florida put it: “I don’t want to be the freak show party, like they have branded us. You know, when you’re a mom with three kids, and you live in middle America and you’re just not really into politics, and you see these ads that scare the bejesus out of you, you’re like, ‘I know Trump’s weird or whatever, but I would rather his weirdness that doesn’t affect my kids.’”

      These speakers aren’t distinguishing between socially left and economically left, and reading between the lines, it is very clear that the member from Florida is talking about dropping support for trans people (in a thinly veiled and very offensive way, I might add). They lost the working class because they don’t have a working class message, but they’re blaming the social policies for their loss.

      There is an argument to be made that the way they are approaching socially progressive issues is hurting them. Kamala Harris telling the ACLU that she supports transition surgery for migrant detainees painted a very large target on her back for a policy that would have effected a very, very small number of people. That probably should have been a, “pick your battles,” moment for her.

      If the argument was, “We’re not going to focus on trans people in sports for now, because a lot of people still don’t support that, but we’re going to talk about how Medicare for All helps everyone, and we’ll make sure that gender affirming care is covered,” OK, there’s a case to be made for that. But what they’re actually saying is, “Well, the economic policy is set by the donors, so there’s nothing we can do about that, but the trans stuff seems to be costing us more votes than it’s winning us, let’s drop that.” They’re trying to jettison the progressive groups they think aren’t helping them instead of building an agenda for progressives to rally behind.