The “leadership” of the Democrat party sits to the right of several disparate further left factions. Because they don’t embrace any specific leftward direction, they are juggling half baked compromises instead of leading anywhere. Bold policies that would be approved of by one further left group are opposed by others, so they can’t go left without losing support somewhere. Staying where they are makes them moderately disagreeable for every one of the factions that can support and vote for them, so they are unpopular across the board. They are all but trapped not far enough to the right to contend for Republican votes, and not far enough left to propose anything truly different.
I see the candidacy of further left individuals (mostly at the local level for now, but this will move fast if the “leadership” collapses further) as the first serious mechanism to break this stalemate. Popular figures from city or state government aim for national positions frequently, so expect anyone standing out with how well they run things at the local level to make that pivot.
A similar thing is at play on the right. Christian fundamentalists, war hawk neoconservatives, the alt right, the would-be fascists, select business interests, nationalists, libertarians, and others are constantly battling over policy. At this moment about 70% of them are trying to ride Trump’s popularity and apparent effectiveness at making changes to get whatever is most important to them done before it’s too late. If the Republicans gain seats in 2026, that surface level unity will become even more significant, but once Trump is out of the picture, infighting is all but certain to resume on the right, and we’ll see weaker, “keep everyone happy” politicians take center stage again.
If both those processes play out with the right timing, we may get a true leftist running against a Jeb tier Republican in 2028 or 2032.
I don’t view Democrat leadership as moderate at all. “Centrist”, just means Republican policies that boil the frog.
They aren’t moderate they are where the far right was in 2000
There are only two parties in that stupid place, what the hell would they think being diet right would do?
Make them money
Bill Clinton tried triangulation (read: being more right wing) and the republicans tried to impeach him. Obama was right of Reagan and the republicans…tried to impeach him. If the GOP is going to fuck with democrats no matter what, let’s just elect some truly revolutionary people. I mean people who make Bernie Sanders look like Mitt Romney. People who make Cornel West look like Paul Ryan. We should be running people who start at “if your net worth is over $100 million you get to line up against the wall” and need to be negotiated down from there.
Amen! I want Democrats to do all the things that Republicans accuse them of doing. I want them to do this because being reasonable is not winning brownie points with these people. The next president should tell America to get ready for a new national flag; we’re adding 3 more stars for Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington DC!
Exactly. The next president should be very progressive - free health care for all, expand public services, get the 800 billionaires, millionaires and corporations to start paying taxes, increase teachers salary and minimum wage, make associate degrees free, no more bailing out industries/companies, get rid of monopolies, make paid pto mandatory of minimal 3 weeks. Call it project 2029 and create the manual for it now so that it’s actualized on day 1. I can dream can’t I? Maybe in 40 years this will be possible….
No fucking shit, everyone knows this, even the democrats know this, most of them are just bought and paid for
Exactly.
US Democrats are very conservative under their thin coat of identity politics. They would be considered way to the right of most European conservative parties.
They’re even shedding that after loosing in 2024. Slowly was doing it during the election but then once lost immediately threw trans people and minorities under the bus for the dems incompetence
I don’t think this is actually true. Perhaps on some very specific issues but as a whole I’d say no. They are certainly to the right of left wing parties but many conservatives in Europe have also shifted right in recent years.
Correct. Most people who say this are focused on healthcare and other social safety net issues. When you look at LGBTQ+ rights, or racial discrimination, or even abortion, Democrats are further to the left of lots of European parties. It can be a slog to get a European to admit they even have racial issues at all.
Name a country in Europe where abortion, being gay are illegal or racial discrimination is so bad they have to overcorrect it with laws?
I disagree look at actual laws and policies, the rural and less educated areas might be loud but they don’t hold any power. Stares at Roe v Wade in the US.
Moderates? Maybe 30 years ago. As they shift the Overton window they stay in lockstep with Republicans as they shift to the right, filling the void left by Republicans. Policy wise they sit somewhere between GW Bush and first term Trump
Well things change, I guess supporting genocide is moderate these days.
“Modest”?
No, we have better language to use
Useless
Disingenuous
Paid actors
Servants to the ruling class
Inside traders
Purposefully weak
Blatantly dishonest
And the list could go on and on…
Controlled opposition.
Democrats and Republicans are two halves of the one party state in America
Status quo has got to go.
Hey hey ho ho
Tell that to the NYT.
“Clever people say that once you become exactly like your opponent you will win elections!”
And even that wouldn’t work because this opponent would likely just move further right. Not sure there’s anywhere to go anymore, but they’d try.
Quite an editorial about-face for Jacobin isn’t it.
…no?
Democrats are the furthest thing from “moderate”, they are on the extreme center. The idea that liberal centrism can’t be extremist is damaging. Supporting endless proxy warfare in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza and austerity at home are all irrational, extremist positions that the Democrats (and most liberal parties in other countries) believe in.
Get out of here with that Russian propaganda crap. Only 1 country is using Ukraine for a war and it’s Russia.
thank you for identifying this guy. His response to you clinched it.
Supporting peace isn’t “Russian propaganda”, 78% of Ukranians want a negotiated end to the war. If you want to keep fighting Russia then send your own damn troops and quit forcing Ukranians to die over an inter-imperial pissing match that’s killed almost their entire fighting age male population.
Democrats are not moderates. They propose removing money from politics, taxing the rich, paying for everybody’s healthcare including dental, and enshrining bodily autonomy rights in law.
What is moderate is only having 48 or less DNC for over a decade and counting. If people don’t like the moderacy then get out there and remove every single fucking Republican from office. Volunteer for the DNC.
There are clear and even somewhat extreme partisan splits on every major issue.
Name a candidate who is actually pro anything you said.
Hillary Clinton.
Yeah I don’t need to talk to you anymore.
Democrats are moderate in the sense that if republicans did not exist it would quickly split into a more classically conservative party and a moderately progressive party.
That’s fair, I can see that.
They propose removing money from politics, taxing the rich, paying for everybody’s healthcare including dental, and enshrining bodily autonomy rights in law.
some of them propose some of that some of the time.
- Removing money from politics is not a party goal.
- The party was never behind m4a, just some individuals
- they’ve never attempted to enshrine bodily autonomy rights in law even when they were in power. They just campaign on it then forget as soon as the election ends.
Performative acts, like biden on the voting rights bill, they tried to introduce it and the senate filibustered and biden said aw shucks. No fight on any issues, no threatening federal monies to be rearranged to encourage support, no digging dirt and disgracing some of tje worst.
FYI that user is incapable of seeing any of the obvious flaws in the dnc. Especially if it is related to any of the times dems have compromised with gop on terrible bills or policies
He’s actually for the horrid GOP bills when Democrats sign off on it. Or they wrote it because the same lobbyists pay for both parties. But horrid bills are good when Dems do it.
According to the dems never put out bad bills, only gop introduces bad things 🙃
Never ever, just don’t ask who wrote and voted in KOSA, censoring American internet “to protect the kids”.
Or voted for the patriot act, or Iraq war or more recently to not renew child tax credits
And they still don’t understand ACA was rebranding of Romneycare
There wouldn’t be terrible GOP bills if we could get people to support the DNC and remove those GOP from office.
There’s been multiple times the dems have capitulated in negotiations before the negotiations have started.
If there was no gop we’d still get terrible bills from the right democrats
DNC haven’t had more than 48 senators in ten years and haven’t had supermajority since a 60 day period after 2010 only if you count independent caucus otherwise not since 1979. Right now they have 45.
The DNC haven’t capitulated, they’ve wrung minor victories like blood from a fucking stone while not having the power to actually do anything aside from filibuster the worst of it all.
It’s amazing how the only period you ever reference is when with a short super majority only managed to implement Romneycare.
Biden was a moderate, Obama started leaning progressive but quickly ran to be a moderate, both Clinton’s more on the right than moderate, etc.
You think expanding healthcare to another 50 Million People, outlawing refusal of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, is right wing? AND THAT WAS WATERED DOWN VERSION WE NEEDED TO GET THE INDEPENDENTS ON BOARD. You’ve lost your damn mind.
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When they say “reverse citizens united” that means removing money from politics. It would also gut AIPAC at the same time. It’s absolutely a core policy stance.
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Every single DNC in 2010 voted for the Single Payer healthcare, but Independent Joe Lieberman was the final vote needed to bypass the Republican Filibuster because every single Republican voted no. Joe had us water the bill down. We don’t even need to test the DNC on this, we literally already have and they all passed.
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You can’t even read the comment you’re arguing against? DNC had 48 for over a decade, they literally could not at any point pass a constitutional amendment which would effectively empower the GOP’s two biggest boogiemen: trans people and abortions.
2010 was 15 years ago, They haven’t done or said shit Since then on healthcare, and what they ended up producing was a fucking handjob to the insurance companies. They refuse to confront drug companies, Healthcare companies, or trusts operating in every sector of the economy.
2010 was the last time they had power, they’ve had 48 or less senate seats for over a decade.
Blame Joe Lieberman for the handjob but at least we got the preexisting conditions protections that has had those companies seething and malding ever since.
- Show me in their platform where it says that. https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2024-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf
- Show me in their platform where it says they still support that. Show me any recent serious party wide efforts. Show me in kamala harris’ 2024 platform.
- You don’t have to pass constitutional amendments to pass laws. They could introduce bills even if they don’t pass and campaign on them.
They do the bare minimum to trick people like you into thinking they give a single fuck about you. I’m sorry, but that don’t. The Democrat party is owned by wealthy interests that unlike the Republicans are smart enough to give the working class enough crumbs to keep society from collapsing, but that’s not enough to energize people to vote anymore because life just keeps getting harder and harder for the average American even when they’re in charge.
All that isn’t to say that people shouldn’t vote for a corporate dem when it’s that or a republican, but you’re completely blind if you can’t see that there are real problems with the party that are contributing to their losses.
- Page 48
Democrats will also fight to strengthen public financing with small-dollar matching for all federal candidates and crack down on foreign nationals who try to influence elections. We will keep super PACs wholly independent of campaigns and parties and pass a constitutional amendment that will ban all private financing from federal elections. Democrats will end “dark money” by requiring full disclosure of contributors and ban 501©(4) organizations from spending on elections. And, to curb the influence of special interests in our elections, Democrats will prohibit corporate PACs and lobbyists from donating to anyone they lobby.
It’s also been a stated goal during campaigns for literally every DNC I’ve ever seen, and it’s been a constant political battle for over 15 years with bills being constantly introduced.
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YOU DON’T BELIEVE THEY WANTED TO PASS THE THING WHICH THEY VOTED TO PASS?!
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They do introduce bills like that, all the time. A recent one was 119th Congress “H. R. 12 - To protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide abortion services” which is mainly about women’s right to choose but it also explicitly mentions the rights if LGBTQ healthcare as one of the casualties of the reversal of Roe V. Wade by Republican stacked SCOTUS. It was never called to vote by the Republican Speaker of the House. Link Here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/12/text
The problem with arguing with you people is it’s easier for you to ask these questions and make random shit up than it is for me to provide this evidence. I hope you left this conversation more informed than you entered it because otherwise it’s just been a waste of time.
All that isn’t to say that people shouldn’t vote for a corporate dem when it’s that or a republican, but you’re completely blind if you can’t see that there are real problems with the party that are contributing to their losses.
People, including YOU, are contributing to the problems we face by coming in here with no other purpose than to shit “constructive criticism” all over the Democrats. The next election won’t be decided by whose policies are the best or worst, it won’t be decided by those of us who want to make the party better and are taking actions towards that goal, what will decide the election is whether or not people are energized and excited to vote for the DNC like they were in 2020 and in 2008.
You can fix a minority party all you like, but what we need right now is to remove the GOP at any cost.
- Touche, though passing a constitutional amendment as the method is a pipe dream, and you’ll have to forgive me for not really believing they mean it given how many of them are completely governed by special interests.
- They don’t get credit for something they did 15 years ago and have completely backed off on.
- Ok why didn’t that do that when they controlled the house? Oh yeah because it’s something they only do to drive engagement and never act on when they can.
- Bodily autonomy was a protected right by the 14th Amendment as of the Roe V. Wade decision until in June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned it. After it was overturned the DNC had control of the house until the 2022 midterm election but only narrowly held a 50:50 Senate WITH HELP OF CAUCUSING IND. Since abortion is a core policy stance for Republicans they would fillibuster it at ever opportunity and last I checked the 48 seats they had, the most they have held in over a decade, is less than 60 needed to bypass fillibuster. The DNC could change senate rules to remove fillibuster, but then the GOP still held more seats and the fact that Independents Manchin and Sinema are both the real moderates while Angus King does his own libertarian thing means they might have sided with the GOP on key legislatures, putting us in an even worse position than we are right now.
Abortion rights (and everything else that was a constant campaign point for both the rs and ds) were hanging by a thread on supreme court decisions for years and years. They had decades to actually legislate them.
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Did you read the article? Or even pay attention to the democratic platform since fdr?
The 2024 record is straightforward: frontline Democrats campaigned largely as moderates. Border and police funding, fentanyl crackdowns, oil drilling permits, law-enforcement endorsements, bipartisan validators.
Not a single one of those Democrats confronted any of the business interests cheating us and violating antitrust laws, from drug companies and health insurance all the way to meat packing companies and other agribusiness.
Did you read the article? Or even pay attention to the democratic platform since fdr?
No they won’t, you can’t expect them to read things their mind disagrees with.
And those are all fair points about the language they used and constructive about what can be changed, but it doesn’t change the fact that the DNC are not, and have not been for decades, moderates. It’s all just optics.
They’ve been moderates the entire time
