Millions of people believe this message is more appealing to other voters they imagined in their head than "healthcare and higher education shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg"
Well, I don't know that they're wrong. This message does seem to appeal best to actual present & consistent voters, as opposed to the Self-Conscious Worker who we've all imagined in our heads as a meaningful voting block.
Yeah, they're not entirely wrong, but the maddening thing is they've made that situation for themselves. Democratic partisans combine their belief that they and the party want center-left policy with one-to-two of the following: 1) that running on a center-left message in unsafe seats will scare away imaginary moderates and make them lose and/or 2) they can run on a center-left message in safe seats, but if implementing it as a party requires breaking the "rules" (filibuster, Supreme Court, etc.), then they can't do it because it will scare off the imagined moderate voters in unsafe seats. Openly centrist Dems will usually just pick the first, and they could consider almost seat unsafe. The more "left" ones will pick both. Most Dem voters fall in this category.
They constantly oscillate between these two arguments depending on the situation. If there's a Bernie-type primary challenger, they pick the first to argue the candidate could never possibly win their general election and so the moderate has to be supported. If there's a Manchin-type incumbent who won't support a given center-left policy, they pick the second to argue the Dems can't achieve anything without more seats. You can almost always claim left primary challengers are off the table because of the first argument. You can always claim the Dems just need more seats because of the second argument. "You can't primary Joe Manchin for supporting the filibuster, it's a red state, the Dems would lose the seat and we'd be even worse off!"
It's this self reinforcing logical dead end, all to protect the illusion that Democratic politicians want center-left policy just like they do, they just haven't won enough. The only way out of the logical loop they've set up is to :vote: more, either to win 60 seats outright or win just enough to get rid of the filibuster, and that is why it is their answer to everything. Openly centrist ones can support the filibuster and say the Dems need to get 60, while the rest can nominally oppose it but claim a bigger majority is needed to overturn it, so go vote more Dems in! Either way, winning more necessarily means they have to run for competitive seats, often in red states, and so even if they succeed, they will always just end up with more Manchins and Sinemas because of the unassailable truism that they could never win with someone more left (or just consistently loyal). The center-left policies will never pass and the answer to that can always be :vote:
Millions of people believe this message is more appealing to other voters they imagined in their head than "healthcare and higher education shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg"
This party is so fucked
Well, I don't know that they're wrong. This message does seem to appeal best to actual present & consistent voters, as opposed to the Self-Conscious Worker who we've all imagined in our heads as a meaningful voting block.
Yeah, they're not entirely wrong, but the maddening thing is they've made that situation for themselves. Democratic partisans combine their belief that they and the party want center-left policy with one-to-two of the following: 1) that running on a center-left message in unsafe seats will scare away imaginary moderates and make them lose and/or 2) they can run on a center-left message in safe seats, but if implementing it as a party requires breaking the "rules" (filibuster, Supreme Court, etc.), then they can't do it because it will scare off the imagined moderate voters in unsafe seats. Openly centrist Dems will usually just pick the first, and they could consider almost seat unsafe. The more "left" ones will pick both. Most Dem voters fall in this category.
They constantly oscillate between these two arguments depending on the situation. If there's a Bernie-type primary challenger, they pick the first to argue the candidate could never possibly win their general election and so the moderate has to be supported. If there's a Manchin-type incumbent who won't support a given center-left policy, they pick the second to argue the Dems can't achieve anything without more seats. You can almost always claim left primary challengers are off the table because of the first argument. You can always claim the Dems just need more seats because of the second argument. "You can't primary Joe Manchin for supporting the filibuster, it's a red state, the Dems would lose the seat and we'd be even worse off!"
It's this self reinforcing logical dead end, all to protect the illusion that Democratic politicians want center-left policy just like they do, they just haven't won enough. The only way out of the logical loop they've set up is to :vote: more, either to win 60 seats outright or win just enough to get rid of the filibuster, and that is why it is their answer to everything. Openly centrist ones can support the filibuster and say the Dems need to get 60, while the rest can nominally oppose it but claim a bigger majority is needed to overturn it, so go vote more Dems in! Either way, winning more necessarily means they have to run for competitive seats, often in red states, and so even if they succeed, they will always just end up with more Manchins and Sinemas because of the unassailable truism that they could never win with someone more left (or just consistently loyal). The center-left policies will never pass and the answer to that can always be :vote: