This is what Centrism has ended up with us...
Upvoters11
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Plus no matter how much you're a centrist, Republicans are going to call you socialist, communist, for open borders, soft on crime etc.
This is crucial to understand. There is no harm in running a progressive because they can never be a bigger boogyman than whoever the right wing media is focused on. You may even get the benefit of free airtime for provocative populist soundbites. Use the Trump glitch again...
And if they are a centrist, I don’t want to vote for them because that’s just a republican who gives lip service to women.
Damn it's almost as if they should stop accepting the framing the Republicans set on every issue. "This is a real bad look for your cause" says the guy who hates you and your cause.
they would never let a true economical leftist get far. capitalists run the country.
Of course. What they call left wing isn't in the grand scheme of things. The economy is going to shit because they are rigging the existing capitalist system to benefit specific people. And benefit is a relative term. It's actually bad in the long run, but the people see it ...
That’s why everyone needs to vote in primaries!
Citizens United put wealth in charge. Wealth corrupts every party. Our choice now is whether the rule of law matters: fascism or plutocracy.
To be fair, Al Gore won once all was said and done. He just conceded before the dust settled in Florida in the name of "unity".
He didn’t. :( In the recount standard he was asking for in court he would have lost. He would have only won under the broadest recount which no one was asking for.
Biden also won in 2020 as a centrist, and Hillary wasn't exactly "tough on crime" in 2016. This is an incredibly oversimplified meme from someone with no actual understanding of political science.
Would have been a lot more clear cut if it wasn't so close. A lot of leftists views 3rd party in that election.
I saw an interesting vid once with AOC talking about the establishment dem strategy of reaching out to “swing voters”. She pointed out that there are comparatively few people who swing from voting for one party or another, but way more who swing from whether or not to vote at...
The Dems keep trying to appeal to moderate Republicans hoping to get their vote despite how most moderate Republicans will never vote for anyone but a Republican while completely ignoring everyone slightly to the left of liberals when if they were to try and appeal to them the...
About 40% of the population doesn't vote. That is a way larger percentage than either the Dems or GOP control since they basically split the other 60% in half. Win over that 40% and you win every vote every time. Where does that 40% mostly lie? In the Progressive camp. R...
I also think it's partially that people instinctively dislike people they see as disingenuous, which establishment dems appear as when they carefully pick policy and campaign promises to appeal to those mythical cross party swing voters.
Mamdani won as a progressive and is making good on campaign promises. He is a shining example of what this country could be if the right people step up
All politics have to start local. Mamdani ran a brilliant campaign for the people of new york to be the mayor of NYC. He didnt run it as "i want to be your democrat mayor." He ran it as "i want to be your mayor." The real test for the next national democrat or independent wh...
...and he won despite the "blue-no-matter-who" crowd refusing to endorse him or did so at the 11th hour. I'm sure Schumer was just looking out for the Bailey's interests... When establishment Democrats refuse to endorse one of their own you know that candidate actually wants ...
I absolutely agree, but he also won in the most multi-cultural area in the country, and one that voted for Harris in 2024 by around 40 points.
American centrism is pretty right wing anyway, any of our "centrists" here in Europe would be called Communists over there
Y’all have way more democratic electoral systems vs. our federal elections
Our "centrists" are very precisely centered. They're centered exactly in the middle of the Republican party and its ideology. Now and then they'll bend on social issues, but never in a million years will they bend on taking anything away from our corporatocracy.
Our Republicans from the 50's would be called pinko commies here today.
All it takes to get my vote is a genuine attack on wealthy capitalists. The rest of your platform is a distant second. Hell, you could even skip the rest of your platform, and you'd likely still get my vote. Wealth hoarding is a cancer. Workers are what make America great, no...
The only thing needed to earn my vote is comprehensive anti corruption legislation. But that won't happen because it's synonymous with an attack on wealthy capitalists.
> All it takes to get my vote is a genuine attack on wealthy capitalists. Luigi 2028
Capitalism is incompatible with human life.
Nah, their strategy is working as intended: they can keep hovering up donations and block any attempts at thwarting the Kleptocracy. What we need to get rid of is the Democratic Party itself.
I'd say the bigger problem is the left blaming the left instead of the people responsible for 99% of our problems.
Or should it be taken over the way Republicans got with the MAGA movement?
They can keep the Democratic Party We also need a Labor Party, a People Party, and the Green Party to not be complete with sell-outs
This is a rewriting of what happened with Obama.
Facts. Obama spent all the political capital he had with the filibuster-proof Senate to just get the ACA passed. Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus were the Dems that took a Medicare for All or public option off the table, so the ACA is what we got. Then the right wing billionaires...
It’s also ignoring the fact that progressives can’t even win a primary but assumes they can win the general. Bernie would have lost too. Progressives are bad at politics.
This is rewriting Al Gore as well. An absolutely major point of his campaign was climate change. Don't know much about the rest of his campaign, but that point alone, presented as an absolutely major point of his political agenda (in 2000!), kind of makes him progressive, IMO.
By this theory, Obama should have lost in 2012. Biden also won as a centrist in 2020, and Harris lost as a progressive in 2024
Biden won by the skin of his teeth and largely due to the impacts of COVID, he was still only about 35k key state votes away from losing the election and probably would have if Trump hadn’t been dumb enough to rail against voting by mail when it was only his own voters who wer...
Thank you, this post is so false it’s basically propaganda.
Harris was not progressive. She literally promised to be just like Biden and was his VP.
There were candidates to the left of these people in every primary. I voted for all of them. They all lost. 2000? Bill Bradley (lost 76%-20%) 2004? Howard Dean got 5.5% of the vote, Kerry got over 60% 2008? Obama and Hillary were pretty close, but Hillary was slightly more...
And it’s always “the DNC”, or “the Democrats”, or “they” who forced us to only have these options to cote for. If you want progressive candidates in the general, then you need to vote for them in the primaries, end of story.
A lot of that is due to how the primaries work. As a Democratic candidate, you basically have to win the Southern primaries in order to get the nomination. But the South is basically irrelevant in the general election because it always goes Republican (with a couple exception...
And progressives needed to get their heads out of their asses and still vote in the general for the candidate closest to their perspective. I know too many progressive voters that were sacks of lard during 2016 and 2024. Dems in general are weak when it comes to party unity
what and abandon the Clintons?!
Bill Clinton won because he was perceived as the more progressive candidate in the primary.
Gore didn’t lose as a centrist, he refused to defend his democratic win as a centrist…
Well that and Bush v. Gore effectively ended any legal avenues for Gore.
Clinton won as a centrist (shit, may almost legit be called slightly conservative if anything). Biden won as a centrist. The original tweet there conveniently leaves them out. Not saying the thesis of the tweet is wrong, just they cherry picked data points to match them, and...
Gore's proposed recount method would have resulted in a Bush win.
The democratic party would rather pander to the 10% of republican "centrists" voters than the 100% of progressives
I feel like this is more a product of gerrymandering/electoral college though. Al Gore won the popular vote (even if slimly), John Kerry still secured a solid portion of the vote despite facing an incumbent, Obama won in a near landslide, and Hilary Clinton won the popular vot...
>The democratic party would rather pander to the 10% of republican "centrists" voters **who 90% won't vote for them** than the 100% of progressive **voters who 90% will vote for them** Edited that a little.
Yes because 100% of progressives is still less people than 10% of centrists, moron
As a non american person. I always laugh at republicans when they call dems crazy leftist , dems is a center right party, like every freaking liberal party on earth... Republicans are more aligned with authoritarians, while dems are more aligned with libertarians and both of ...
As an American who understands how far to the right the Overton Window is shifted here compared to the rest of the world I agree. Our furthest left politicians, like AOC and Bernie, are called "radical leftists" and "communists" and things when compared to the rest of the worl...
Obama postured as a centerist. His entire campaign was about getting white people (in both parties) to take a deep breath and chill. Every moment of his campaign was centerist in nature.
Also Biden was a centrist and Kamala was progressive. This post is conveniently positioning things to make a false point.
I ask this in the most sincere way possible as I'd like to know why people feel a certain way: Why is the notion of getting white people in both parties to chill out a centrist view, and therefore based on sentiment I'm seeing around the idea, a bad thing? I know that's just a...
Al gore and clinton were not centrist by any metric..and if all these centrist are losing votes to extremeist and ending up were we are today then maybe trying a centrist isnt the worst idea
Truth has no place in the Reddit echo chamber. These posts look for affirmation that their polarized views are actually mainstream, and the only reason their party lost in a general election was because the policies were not extreme enough instead of acknowledging that the can...
Leftists dont vote tho. They just post on reddit how pissed they are
Yup, and half of them aren’t of age anyway.
Yep. Democrats will win again when they're prepared to cut the dead weight from the party. If your subgroup doesn't have a high voter turn out then do something about it
We do until our leftist reps get removed by the dems later into polls
Oversimplifying often leads to the wrong conclusion
Gore was more progressive than Obama. Whoever wrote this clearly isn't old enough to have been around for all these elections.
Gore also didn't lose Claiming the 2004 election was a loss because Kerry wasn't progressive enough is insane. The entire country was in the middle of war fever, no democrat was going to win.
Bernie lost in 2016 and 2020.
Easy to come to that conclusion if you don’t actually look inside the box
Ever wonder why?
Superdelegates.
Al Gore won but had it stolen by the republican supreme court. John Kerry lost because Bush rode post-911 incumbency "let him finish the job" sentiment. Obama won 2 terms comfortably ? wtf does that even mean? Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million votes but lost due to ...
Spot on dude
BINGO
>John Kerry lost because Bush rode post-911 incumbency "let him finish the job" sentiment. As well, what most don't seem to know/remember, is that [a video](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Osama_bin_Laden_video) was released of Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility fo...
Updated to include Kamala, who ran as an ultra-centrist, and lost to someone criminally unqualified.
If somehow someone was able to get "medicare for all" entrenched, I don't believe it would ever leave. Therefore, it would be nice for the next president and congress to make that happen. Obamacare was a noble idea, but the details were mis-handled.
SCOTUS gutted the central component that made it a pathway to universal care. In an absurd decision, 2012.
Al Gore lost because of the electoral college. John Kerry lost because the propaganda machine was able to portray him as a flip-flopper and not fit to lead. Obama lost support because he was black and the racists lost their minds. Hillary lost because she was a woman, and...
> Obama lost support because he was black > Hillary lost because she was a woman They both simply sucked.
But you see they were all democrats and democrats are bad
For what it's worth, they didn't say They lost "because" they were centrist (and Obama continued to win after losing congress). They lost "as" centrists and I think that's fair to say. Obama's change and hope campaign built a ton of momentum but a reflection of his presidency ...
Fucking hilarious seeing the Democratic wins being excused like this. Obama ran as a centrist and on a bipartisan platform. Keep rewriting history. No mention of Biden at all, of course.
famously leftist joe biden
Obama didnt lose shit by being exposed as anything.... Dems tried to push healthcare reform, got the best they realistically could with the numbers they had, and everyone straight up abandoned them over them drastically improving healthcare greatly. Most because they were rac...
Biden was a centrist and the only one to defeat a Maga candidate
He also stomped the shit out of Bernie in the primary without even really putting much effort in. Some progressive ideas have a bit of traction on a national level. They go down in popularity when those ideas are connected to Bernie, AOC, and other progressive groups. The sa...
Controlled opposition
Obama did not posture as a progressive... Progressives just forgave him because he was black and having a black POTUS was progressive enough. Politically he was as centrist as they come. Biden had to semi-force him on stuff like LGBT rights all the time.
Biden barely won in ~~2024~~ 2020 against one of the worst human beings to run for president in my lifetime. He ran as a centrist. This is why they are so adamant on their anyone but Trump campaigns. They have nothing else to offer.
Bill Clinton was pretty centrist too and he won 2 terms.
...what did Biden win in 2024?
Why would they abandon the thing that gets them exactly what they want? The thing that gets them elected and gives them power. Not the power to help you but to help themselves. If you think electoralism will save us and want the Democratic party to change then stop voting f...
Biden won 2020 as a centrist, Harris lost '24 because she was a progressive and posing as a centrist too transparently.
You could say they all won their primaries as centrists, but I agree
They are going to lean into being right wing even harder. Like they have each election
Trump won in 2016 as a fcking lunatic, Trump won again in 2024 as a even more crazy fcking lunatic. Maybe the American voters need to have a tiny bit of accountability.
Al Gore didn't actually lose, though
I’m about 73% convinced twitter, fb, instagram, whatever whatever posts are inorganic and only serve the purpose of dividing the “left” of the us. Is the democratic party flawless or perfect? Of course they fucking aren’t. Still miles ahead of what the conservative party is ...
What a stupid fucking post.
They'll read that and go further right.
More people voted for Al Gore, Obama, and Hilary then their competitor. The electoral college is the problem. Plus they could be less corporatist and more worker obviously.
Stop trying to make a centrist party into a progressive party. Make a new party, caucus with the Dems until you don’t have to.
First past the post voting means that a party to the left of the Dems will ensure that Republicans win almost every single election in the country.
You would think that if they're branding yourself as the more "electable" option, they wouldn't have lost 2 out of 3 to a guy that thinks windmills cause cancer...
Im Argentine and the fact Usains seem oblivious to the fact they have a Far Right Party (Reps) and a Right Party (Dems) and keep on saying stuff like "Centrist" or "Left Wingers" is insane to me. USA doesnt have a Left Party. Never did and never will.
Kamala lost as a progressive and Biden won as a moderate so not sure how helpful this is in current state
Y'all are bots, this is the 4th time i see THE EXACT SAME MESSAGE being posted here, even though Buden was WAY MORE to the left of Kamala
Gore won the popular vote? Clinton won the popular vote? Was Obama not exposed as a centrist by 2012? Did Biden not beat Bernie in the primary and win the general against an incumbent?
Again blaming the Democrats for not trying hard enough. As if it wasn't your neighbors being idiots and voting for the brick through the window option.
Democrats held to the highest standards ever. Republicans get to eat poopy and make things worse.
Recognizing a pattern without recognizing THE pattern.
Biden won as a centrist, Kamala lost as a progressive. Are we just going to omit the two most recent examples for convenience?
The mythical moderate Republican is just that. mythical. Republicans vote Republican, not Democrat. Trying to be Diet GOP doesn't win Dems more votes, it just loses them people who would vote Dem if they went more left, but won't vote for anyone because no one is actually true...
I'm a leftist. And I can not get over how fucking whiny the rest of you are, Jesus Christ. This isn't hard, campaign, show up to the primaries, vote in the primaries, then vote for the Democrat in the general so the Republicans don't win. But don't fucking whine, it's pathetic
It's all according to plan. The Democratic establishment would rather a centrist lose than a populist leftist win.
#anyone else notice the BothSidesBad rhetoric ramping up as soon as Trump's approval ratings dive into the toilet in an election year? #I'm sure it's only coincidental. #"don't vote for DemonRats, *fellow leftists!*"
It's hard being a Democrat centrist..the corporate money pull is too strong at that point. You got a bunch of poor people that MAY vote for you or guaranteed corporate donations. What are you going to choose? Similar situation if you're a centrist Republican. Corporate money ...
They had a terrible stance on the issues. Biden only won because of the pandemic imo. Biden/ Kamala were trying to run on abortion, joy, and twerking. Not that these things don’t mean anything to anyone, it’s just that they were running for president and that was their best at...
If the Dems actually cared about winning, they would. But they don’t, not as a party in any case.
"centrism", when in reality bernie is much more center than all those republican lites edit to add to the trend: biden ran on progressive ideas, then referendum after he was exposed as a centrist zionist, and then harris runs as legit republican lite.
Biden was a progressive? Obama also ran on keeping gay marriage illegal and had a record number of deportations? Obama would be on the right by today's standards when he ran.
You need to understand the difference between economic and social progressivism
biden?
This is what the Democratic Party is, and will continue to be. The real solution is not to expect the party to change its stance, but to create a new party with more progressive and further left goals. However, then you run into the problem of funding such a party with enough ...
I could smell the centrism on Obama in 2008. His slogans sounded progressive, but they had no substance.
The GOP abandoned centrism long ago and they're more powerful than ever. The GOP is never expected to "run to the center" after a primary and never has to accept the framing or policies of democrats.
So Obama in 2012 and Biden in 2020 are proof of what? Both were obviously centrist candidates.
This seems pretty reductive to me, and I say that as someone who despises centrists. Using simple explanations for complex topics is not a good way to understand politics, or history more broadly for that matter. Let me be very clear that I voted for Bernie Sanders in both p...
Pandering to those who would never ditch their own ideals would never get you far.
 Hillary didn’t lose because of her moderate politics, Obama didn’t lose house because he was moderate, this is loose correlation not causation.
President Obama was not a centrist. That man did an awesome job as our best right wing president ever. He was so good that all criticism of him had to come from the left and all the right could get him with was his choice of food and the color of his clothes.
Yes, Republicans got whipped into a fervor that led to them electing a man accusing Obama being a Muslim from Kenya because Obama was a "centrist". His centrism was the main issue they had with him.
Mark Carney here in Canada is pretty centrist and...mostly everyone loves how he's been working so far. There are some issues for sure, but we're definitely glad we have him
Obama did not pose as progressive for his first term. And it wasn't his exposure as a centrist that lost Congress. It's 1) normal for the non-presidential party to do better and 2) a big reaction to the ACA.
Liberals get selective memory about this especially with Obama, I was also disappointed about him but you know he got what he wanted
The entirety of the right (politicans, media, etc) portrays them as far left though. So are they losing as centrists, or are they losing because less politically savvy centrist/independent voters think they are far left?
Saying Obama lost the houses of congress “after being exposed as a centrist” is an absolutely wild take imho.
Obama lost both houses of Congress after passing the biggest healthcare reform since LBJ with zero Republican votes.
When constantly capitulating is described as "centrism" lol
Hillary was not a fucking centrist. What the fuck are you talking about.
Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 as a centrist. W Bush won the electoral college in 2000 and 2004 as a centrist. Obama won in 2008 and 2012 as a centrist. Obama didn't lost the midterms because of his centrism. He lost because Dem voters thought politics was over after Ob...
Biden won as a centrist. Harris lost as a whatever the fuck she even was and Clinton won after a generation of democratic losses by being a centrist.
Problem is that Biden won as a centrist, even though he is pretty conservative, and Kamela ran as a "classical conservative". But yes progressive messages are appealing cause they favor the masses and "conservative" policies are being pushed cause it favors the people in/with...
Dems centrism is comfortably right of the centre in Europe and similair more decent countries
Obama won reelection after "losing the house". Biden won as a centrist. As usual, absolute statements contain a fair amount of BS. Progressive politics can only save us if they aren't coming from liars like the GOP, or cowards like mainstream Democrats.
Why don’t you all make your own party and stop crying that Democrats aren’t purity testing leftists? Obama being considered a progressive is laughable.