Personality certainly matters. But it might be more useful, in terms of the actual stakes of a contest, to think about the presidential election as a race between competing coalitions of Americans. Different groups, and different communities, who want very different — sometimes mutually incompatible — things for the country.
The coalition behind Joe Biden wants what Democratic coalitions have wanted since at least the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt: government assistance for working people, federal support for the inclusion of more marginal Americans.
As for the coalition behind Trump? Beyond the insatiable desire for lower taxes on the nation’s monied interests, there appears to be an even deeper desire for a politics of domination. Trump speaks less about policy, in any sense, than he does about getting revenge on his critics. He’s only concerned with the mechanisms of government to the extent that they are tools for punishing his enemies.
If you’re an American, and you like what the Democratic coalition is after, then get involved, help with money if you can, and pay attention to downballot races too, not just the top.
Uh…
The Democrats of the 1930s and 1940s were racist, but FDR started work to help people who were marginalized economically. The modern coalition wants both that and support for those whose economic marginalization is a result of racism
The coalition doesn’t have politicians who agree with them regarding those who are economically marginalized.
It does, but not enough to pass legislation.
Yeah. Sure is funny how just enough Democrats always vote with the “other” coalition when it’s anything that might benefit the poor.
We don’t always get that - that’s how we got a child tax credit for a few years. It’s that enough Americans have been stampeded into “hate the other person, they have darker skin, a different religion, etc” that we don’t elect people who do want to benefit the general public instead of billionaires. Change how we vote, and policy can and will change to match.
Joe Manchin made sure it died. The only democrat whose vote actually matters doubled child poverty. Thank you for illustrating my point.
He did kill it — something like 48/50 Senate Democrats wanted to keep it, and every Republican wanted to get rid of it. That’s a reason to elect more and better Democrats, not to reject them entirely.
So you’re saying all the Republicans and just enough Democrats voted to double child poverty.
“All the Republicans and just enough Democrats” is the only actual coalition in DC.
They had that in 2020. And they did absolutely nothing. So while they SAY they want those things, it’s funny how when they had the opportunity they didn’t actually DO those things.
Neither Manchin nor Sinema was on board, and without them, there was no majority in the Senate to pass anything
It’s neat how the people who block everything that centrists want blocked aren’t expected to vote with the coalition.
Had it not been the 2 of them it would have been someone else. Democrats, FOR DECADES, have been the party of bark and no bite. Their goal has been to appear to stall our slide into fascism while continuing to serve their corporate sponsors. Which is why you see things like their constant appeal to “undecided voters” by shifting positions to the right. Isn’t it funny how Republicans never seem to worry about that?
How exactly do Democrats pass legislation when we elect people to block said legislation? They literally do not have the legislative power to pass the stuff you’re claiming they secretly oppose. The solution here is to get rid of the assholes. The majority of Democrats don’t fall in that category.
That’s exactly my point. If it wasn’t Manchin and Sinema it would have been someone else. You see stuff like this all the time in DC, where a party “supports” a bill but a couple defectors oppose it and it fails. It might have been those 2 this past time, but it will be another couple next time and we’ll say things like “oh, they’re in a purple state we have to just deal with it if we want to stay in power.” But what’s the point of “maintaining power” if dems don’t do anything with it? We KNEW an overturn of Roe was coming in 2020. What did Dems do? Nothing.
I’ve seen this exact play SO MANY TIMES that I know it when I see it. Hell, Biden WAS the Manchin in the Senate for a while, and now he’s supposedly a flaming liberal.
My point is, it’s often that there’s a group of people who will vote for a bill because of “optics”. Most people in the room know if a bill will succeed or fail before it comes up for a vote because it’s been decided behind closed doors before the vote is called.
Yes there are people in the party that don’t support progressive change. All I’m saying is get rid of those assholes. It seems like you’re saying the entire party falls in that bucket or that everyone is taking turns killing progressive legislation. I don’t see any evidence of that. They have not had the votes to do the things we want. Manchin/Sinema isn’t a surprise hurdle, we’ve known they weren’t going to vote to remove the filibuster. Moderates blocking stuff isn’t new, it’s been a hurdle with every single bit of progress we’ve ever achieved.
The solution is to get more seats filled with progressives and make it so we don’t need to rely on their votes (or any moderate Democrat). Your rhetoric seems to imply that project is pointless and drives people away from putting in the necessary groundwork to enact real change. That’s all I’m saying. If you have a better solution I’m all ears.