For example, let’s say Bernie Sanders was the nominee in 2024 against Trump. A lot of people on the internet seem to like him, even some conservatives. But would liberals fall in line and vote for him enough to beat Trump?
Bernie’s supporters always seem to attack the Democrats liberal base, do you think they’d sit home if Bernie or any leftist was the nominee.
Yes, but that’s keeping in mind that, contrary to popular belief among the types that go on Lemmy, most people aren’t ideological. They don’t care that Democrat A is this and Democrat B is that, they care about who they think will help their lives, ideology be damned. So, a lot of the people that socialists would call “libs” would vote for Bernie, BUT, most of those people think of Sanders primarily as “more liberal.”
People who are actively aware of the difference between neoliberalism and social democracy, I’m not sure. But I honestly think they’re a rounding error in US politics.
Socialists are very, very aware that the oppressed masses of people that don’t know what words mean love socialist policies when they don’t know they’re socialist.
I think democrats would, for the most part. Perhaps less enthusiastically, but since they hate Trump, I think it would not be a major issue.
The question is, how would low-information unaffiliated voters respond to having a socialist in the ballot? This is a difficult question to answer. Traditionally socialism is a bad word in US politics, albeit less so with younger voters.
Personally I don’t really buy the “Bernie would have won” stuff but there’s really only one way to find out.
I don’t think a Demo candidate can afford to have low enthusiasm amongst liberals, that’s their biggest base.
Except all the liberals insisted they would vote for Biden’s corpse before letting Trump win. What does it say about them if an actual progressive is the real dealbreaker?
No, they’d side with the corporations cause they luv them
So he’d lose?
Yes
Absolutely not. Type “Lamont Lieberman” (without the quotes) into a search engine for more info. Also “Clinton puma”. In the opposite direction, Kamala Harris lost a lot of Biden voters. Biden was considered relatively left of center (though nowhere near as leftist as Sanders) back in the day.
I don’t even think Biden is left of the US center. Who the hell thinks Biden is left of center?
In terms of what he got done, he’s easily the most left wing President since LBJ. Perhaps FDR. Whether or not that is defined as left-wing/leftist/liberal is a matter of opinion.
Left of the US Senate center, or maybe the Senate Democrat center. Not the whole US. And I mean in the 1980s, not now. Even today though, I’d consider him leftward of Kamala Harris.
Biden is certainly left of the US center.
Left of global center? No. Left of USA center? Probably.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx
More Americans identify as conservative than liberal. It’s not something we have to like, and certain policies may be quite different individually, but in order to win nationally, Democrats have to defeat voters’ own self-identification. Obviously it happens, so this isn’t some insurmountable challenge, but the deck is stacked.
Most people have no idea a leftist isn’t just a weirdo way of saying liberal
Liberals already tried to get Bernie on the ticket in 2016, but the DNC fucked us on that.
And 2020.
I think Liberals kept him off the ticket.
Liberal voters wanted Bernie. The DNC did not.
People are using liberal in two different ways here. Most Americans call anything to the left of Republican liberal. Most of Lemmy considers liberal to be center-right and leftist to be Bernie style liberal.
In this case, they were saying that the Democratic elites (liberals) didn’t want Bernie to win, while the true progressive left (leftists) did.
Thanks for explaining to dude. It’s so frustrating talking about anything with politics here in the US. A big part of that is we don’t have shared definitions of what terms mean. That’s not even taking account of the just pure, willful ignorance of a good percentage of the population.
I don’t know, we should do this and find out.
the haters, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, the gun fondlers, the diesel fume huffers, and the bible thumpers vote repulbican every. single. time.
too many democrats jump ship and stay home, vote for the no chance party, or republican if a candidate doesn’t support every little policy and issue they want or who supports something they don’t. even if the fate of the nation and democracy is at stake, they’ll abandon reason.
Yup. Idiots incapable of compromise, so they get nothing.
No. They would be morons and vote against socialism even if it’s good for them.
I mean, at least for me, the question is “Who?”
In more ways than one. It’s quite evident to me now that a candidate needs to be charismatic, not just have some good ideas, to motivate voters to take their side. But “leftism” and “leftist” are still pretty vague labels. Just personally, some of the left-wing figures in the US today would earn my vote and some would not. More broadly, and I think there’d be a big difference between voters-at-large’s willingness to accept Bernie-esque proposals and some of the more out-there stuff I’ve seen.
We know the answer to that from how Bernie was treated
Probably. People tend to vote for their team - regardless of the actual underlying policy
No promises, though.
No. And they’ve said as much.
“Clinton would not pledge to support Sanders if he won the 2020 Democratic nomination.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-sen-bernie-sanders-likes/story?id=68424746
“However – I do reject socialism as a economic system. If people have that view, that’s their view. That is not the view of the Democratic Party.” - Pelosi
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/15/politics/nancy-pelosi-socialism/index.html
I’m not sure how much these endorsements actually matter… Lord knows Liz Cheney’s endorsing Kamala didn’t tip the scales.
Would establishment libs support a leftist? Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean that voters would necessarily follow suit.
It’s so sad to see this, especially knowing that while you can like or dislike Clinton and Pelosi, I doubt they are unware that Sanders is not proposing socialism. Socialism and social democracy are two very, vastly different things. And they for sure know this very well.
I sincerely hope that Sanders will found a new party soon, it will have 4 years to gain momentum. Will it win in the next election cycle? No, but it might actually get enough votes to win in 8 or 12 years. Just do it.
Does Sanders have enough life left in him to develop a far-left party? How will it differ from the existing left-leaning third-parties? How would the party stand out and “matter?” Relevant XKCD
I ask these things as a perennially disappointed minarchist classical liberal.
Your link is Clinton saying she won’t say before the primary is over whether she would support Sanders. It’s not even her saying she wouldn’t do it, let alone all liberals saying it.
The amount of disinformation spread here is amazing.
The DNC will never let a leftist get past the primaries. They’d sooner lose, as they’ve shown us for the last 3 elections.
Maybe, but that’s not the question.
A lot of people don’t know the difference between establishment Democrats and liberals.
I know there is a difference, but…if the purpose of a system is it’s end result then is there a difference?
Assuming Bernie could get on the ticket, I absolutely believe people would have voted for him.
The problem is of course getting him on the ticket.
You think liberals would vote for him?
I think if he made the democratic nomination in 2016 he’d be finishing his second term right now.
