cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22407219
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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What do you suggest they do?
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public, and they should certainly be telling the public loudly and clearly prior to a transition into lunacy.
If you think things aren't going to be okay, get on national TV and say that. Tell people what you think is going to go wrong so that they can prepare. Give them a heads up.
They have been…
A few have. But then there's these...
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/15/centrist-democrats-chair-dnc-00189933
...who think that becoming essentially Republicans Lite is the path forward. It's not about doing what's best for people, it's about retaining power and keeping people placated so they don't gaze upward. Like I said above, they're not the same as Republicans, but if they're gonna keep chasing these right-wing votes and adopting their policies, that "still a better option than them" margin will be vanishingly small to the point of irrelevance.
I see that same sentiment on lemmy.ml a lot. Where they repeat Russian talking points about Ukraine.
I don't share their ideology. They tend to be a bit more hyperbolic, calling Democrats and Republicans the same, which they aren't. I would much rather have a Democrat in charge right now, because that's a much safer environment from which to enact the sort of progressive change I personally want. Plus, Ukraine would stand an obviously better chance.
But my critique still stands. Some Democrats would rather become Conservative than do the work to convince people to join them on the left. They're gonna chase a vanishingly small number of people and just expect the rest of us to fall in line, and this last election very clearly demonstrated that that's not a viable strategy, despite everyone I know voting for them.
I am usually an optimist, but I do not have faith that people will come to their senses and realize that voting for the least-objectionable candidate is in their best interest. If Democrats don't start running progressive populists, they're gonna continue to lose, and Republicans are going to continue gerrymandering and changing the rules to the point that Democrats' efforts become just for show.
I would also like our politicians to be more progressive but I can understand why politicians try to be moderate. I live in a blue part of a red state and everyone I know has a mixed ideology. A progressive politician wouldn’t stand a chance of winning in my part of the country.
Also, with all the money that is now in politics because of citizens united it becomes much more difficult for someone to win when they are open about fixing income inequality. For that reason, I don’t think Bernie would stand a chance. I think a Trojan horse approach would work better.
I’m not an optimist but I’m confident that Trump won because of the inflation experienced during Biden’s term as a result of the pandemic. I’m hoping Trumps tariffs make things worse or there’s another crisis like the pandemic and it causes more people to vote blue next election the same way the pandemic got Biden elected.
I think in practice they need to have some moderation (because there's a lot of different kinds of people they would govern), but that's not how they should run their campaigns. People want change, they know things are broken, and they voted upon that vibe which gave Republicans a three branch majority. Republicans promised that giving them the reigns will provide the antidote to people's anxieties, and since the Democrats were mainly only running on the idea of, "Vote for us, because Trump is going to be terrible," people had the choice between "change" and "more of the same."
People don't realize that more of the same is the better choice in this case, but that's the fault of Democrats for not conveying to the public why people should want that over "change" ~~that's definitely not going to exacerbate the wealth divide~~.
In the context of the 2024 election, the change voters wanted was cheaper cost of living.
I see this sentiment a lot on lemmy also and it isn’t my experience irl. Democrats campaigned on taxing billionaires, addressing cost of living for the working class and rescheduling marijuana to name a few things.
Unfortunately all the inflation happened under Bidens term so it was easy to convince voters that progressive policies from Democrats were to blame for inflation. And that is still what a lot of voters think.
That’s not a message anyone would use during a campaign because it can easily be spun against them by the opposition. I don’t fault democrats for not sending that message. That just seems like common sense.
Sorry, I should have clarified that what Democrats were running on in reality versus the zeitgeist weren't the same. That's my bad.
The problem with their actual campaign promises is they weren't always self-evident to the average person why they were the things they'd want, which you touched on. "How does taxing billionaires deal with greedflation? I don't smoke weed—why should I care about that? Why are my groceries so damn expensive, now‽ I remember when gas was cheap. What were the promises, again?"
Meanwhile, Trump stayed on message. He brought out the pitchforks and torches for minorities, and he promised to deal with "government weaponization" (by weaponizing the government and which has that useful quality of meaning different things for different people), he promised to fix inflation by applying tariffs to every blessed thing (which we all know is a truly unhinged plan). Most importantly, he made the headlines.
Democrats can't play it safe the next time. They're playing ball with a cult leader, and if they want to stand any chance at midterms, they need to realize they're up against an adversary who is more than happy to twist and shape the rules to favor them.
I agree that the issue they had is their campaign promises weren’t self evident to the average person. It seems they had to choose to either A) give all of America an economics lesson so they understand their goals, or B) lie like the GOP does and make up a scapegoat to blame inflation on. A) isn’t feasible and B) makes them look untrustworthy to anyone who understands the situation enough to see they are scapegoating.
I think the real problem the Democratic Party faces is beating the GOP without becoming the GOP. There’s a lot of voices online pushing for Biden to execute Trump and do things that we would only expect Trump/GOP to do. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out those voices are bad actors trying to normalize Trumps behavior.
That’s not how national tv works at the moment, but I’d like to see it do that.
and i am sure there'd be hundreds like you...
Why would it ever in a profit-driven world? Especially since I'm sure the scant funding for PBS that still exists will be eliminated within the next two years.
A fair question.
you want to address people who can't understand why to wear mask during pandemic and lot of the jobs are just beyond the intellectual horizon of most of these people. even if it were, it still doesn't change the fact that orange cheeto will put some incompetent rapist in the director chair of every institution he saw on tv. so maybe the best defense is to stay off the tv, then the idiot is probably not going to know they exist 😂
i am pretty sure that professionals below any cheeto appointee will offer as much resistance as humanly possible, and... unless they are willing to murder someone, that is all they can do 🤷♂️
No he doesn't. Why do you assume he wants to address idiot MAGAs, as opposed to disillusioned non-voters? They're two totally separate groups.
Dude, millions of federal workers voted for Trump despite the fact that they plan on eliminating all of them (I don't have exact numbers, but I'm certain this is true). They voted to eliminate their own positions.
Even many of the people doing the job itself are dumb enough to vote directly against their interests. And you expect, what, everyone else to understand or give a shit?
Personally I think Biden should drone strike Mar-a-Lago into a smoking crater.
He should just invite Trump over and shoot him in the face. The SC said he could.
Holy shit and you guys are the anti fascists LMAO 🤣
Yeah. Death to fascists. Purge them dead. If you dont play by the rules, noone has to with you.
Ah, but drone strikes could rid us of a bunch of his cronies as well if you time them to coincide with big meetings.
For next time (if there is one) or before the transition?
are you bitching about democrats four years in the future, or are you just avoiding the answer?
Neither. I'm asking a very specific clarifying question. I'm not avoiding anything. You're the one taking umbrage at an earnest question, which I posed to avoid talking about something you didn't ask.
You said:
I said:
To which timeframe are you referring?
let my try it again.
WERE YOU BITCHING ABOUT DEMOCRATS FROM THE FUTURE?
No. That's silly. Why would you think that?
because you presented silly dichotomy in order to avoid answering my question.
Bruh, are you seriously getting bent out of shape because I asked a clarifying question?
If you ask, "Which ice cream do you want?" and someone replies, "Which ice cream flavors are there?", do you also get upset and accuse them of avoiding the question? Because that's the same sort of scenario over which you're casting aspersions.
If you say, "What do you propose they do?" it matters whether you are asking, "What do you propose they do in the current time up to Jan 20, 2025," versus, "What do you propose they do in 2026/2028."
But since you're being so combative over an earnest question, I don't think you really care and are just claiming I'm not answering, because you don't actually understand what I'm asking, don't like my critique of the Democrats, and don't want to actually engage in a real conversation.
you are seriously getting bent out of shape to avoid answering. this thread is full of answers that are not very smart, but their edgy teenage authors all understood the question. if you don't understand the question even after getting multiple hints, you don't really look as smug as you think.
I wasn't talking to them. I was talking to you, and I even further clarified my question; you still haven't told me which question you were referring to, either.
Which leads me to believe you aren't here to have a conversation, you're here, because you think your quippy question was some kind of dunk, and you erroneously believe it's self-evident what you meant.
So congratulations. You had two choices, and you chose to sniff your own farts instead of presume I was asking in good faith.
multiple people in this thread understood and didn't seem to have a problem with it, except for you. so you are either troll, or not really equipped for a discussion anyway.
of course you were. bye, sea-lion.
Yes. Which is why I asked a clarifying question. When you don't know something, you ask.
Says the person who refused to answer a basic, clarifying, and reasonable question. Multiple times.
It must be very hard for you to see trolls and bad actors everywhere. Maybe touch grass for a while.
Okey, maybe I was unnecessarily confrontational. This whole thread is about transition, I have hard time imagining how my comment could have not been clear, but if I misread your intent, I apologize.
Advocate for popular policy (like stop funding genocide)
Use the blanket immunity the SCOTUS handed to the president to stop it from happening for a fucking start. What an easy question to answer lmao
the problem is, unless you are dealing with really easy problem, the "easy" solution is usually the wrong one.
No, the wrong one is to do nothing.
But whatever I guess optics and decorum are more important than protecting citizens and the integrity of our democracy....
Insert padme meme here
This is the mantra of someone obsessed with keeping the status quo.
yeah, while complaining about something and not having a suggestion for alternative course of action is soooo revolutionary and world changing 😂
Systematic change is so simple all you have to do is suggest something!
Problem. Solved.