Summary

Democrats must reclaim their identity as the party of the working class to regain electoral strength.

Despite pro-labor policies under Biden, working-class voters feel disconnected, seeing Democrats as defenders of a failing system.

The party’s decline traces back to NAFTA and neoliberal economic policies that favored corporations over workers.

A generational effort to prioritize labor rights, fair wages, and economic security while addressing working-class frustrations are needed.

Without serious reform, Democrats will continue losing ground to populist alternatives.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    No shit. Now convince the democratic party leadership that winning elections is more important that kissing donor ass.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      Now convince the democratic party leadership that serving their constituents is more important that kissing donor ass.

      Convince them of that, and the winning elections thing will solve itself.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      Don’t convince national Democratic leadership of anything. They’re too disconnected and don’t care about any state they don’t live in. Run for, and take control of state Democratic parties. Start telling national leadership your terms for your state supporting or working with them.

      If enough people do that. They will change or become irrelevant.

            • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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              The state party has some resources here on volunteering and when the state committee meets for elections and whatnot.

              You can go here and look at your county party website as well, they’ll have more info on how to get involved/run there. I looked at a few, most of them had a way of singing up to be a committee person.

              Best of luck!

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        The problem is that they see donations as the end goal and no longer give a shit if they lose.

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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        They don’t have to be. Present the people with policies that they want and the public will do all the work themselves.

          • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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            And guess what the innovation in advertising this last cycle was? Cheap, to voters, text messages asking for funding. Sounds like a great time to dump the dead-weight corpos and win some elections

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      Here I thought “providing the better option in a binary race” would be enough; but snowflake voters need individual attention?

      “Here. We’ll keep a traitorous felon out of office because that’s the choice” and people still preferred the felon.

      I think we need to start by apologizing to the Democrats for being stupid. Not just “oops I voted wrong” stupid, but “oops I voted for the Russian agent who’s raped everything he touches and sold every secret he probably touched too, and is now oddly hellbent on destroying a country as a favour to Russia” stupid.

      That’s a lotta stupid.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        “We’re second worst and you will be voting for us no matter what we do” was going to fail eventually, and you were fools to keep doing it.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    That’ll be the day.

    The Democrat party is not a democratic party, they are a neoliberal, technocratic party. They don’t want the people to rule, they want neoliberal technocrats to rule. I don’t see that changing, anytime soon.

    A workers’ party would have to be a majoritarian, democratic party, because the workers are the vast majority of the population.

    • Caffeinated_Sloth@lemmy.world
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      MAGA took over the GOP in just a few years. I think the same thing can happen to the DNC. Just need a little propaganda, some charismatic leadership, and people willing to slander the establishment.

      • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        MAGA had a lot of money pushed at it. The Koch Bros independently funded the Tea Party movement until Trump was created, then Russian money began to flow.

        There is no such money faucet for leftist groups. In fact, a massive lack of funding has been one of the chief struggles these groups have had for decades.

      • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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        It won’t happen because Anyone left of center is too fucking worried about supporting a candidate that isn’t completely perfect in their eyes than they are about making actual progress.

      • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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        This took decades. They started in the 1970s. If you think this happened over a few years you are either young or paying attention to the wrong things

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          Eh, this particular movement started in the 1990s. Then they got focused in the 2010s.

          There’s a lot of stuff that also started in the 70s, but the MAGA stuff is way more recent and beyond what they had dreamed would be possible in the 70s. They really, really didnt count on their voters largely giving up on any semblence - claimed or real - of principles. Which was a huge win for them.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    Yes, AND it’s worth bearing in mind that some democratic strategists apparently think the path to being the “worker’s party” is to embrace social conservatism. Trans people aren’t the reason I will never retire, they aren’t the reason I’ll never be able to take my kids on a real vacation, or why we’re one “get fucked lmao” from being bankrupted by health insurance. The assholes in this party who have a vision of trying to capture moderate Republicans need to show themselves the door. Bernie and Trump both show that you’ll get the votes when you promise big changes to this busted ass system AND people believe that you’ll actually do it. Stop trying to be yesteryear republicans; start promising shit that hurts the big donors’ feelings and meaning it.

  • meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz
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    Biden’s pro-union moves are historic, but voters need more than symbolism. Effectively outlines the problem and proposes actionable solutions.

    🐱🐱🐱🐱

  • Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world
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    There needs to be a worker’s party. It doesn’t have to be the Democrats.

    That there are only going to be two viable parties in this country is a mathematical inevitability of how our voting system works, but there’s no reason why the Democrats have to remain one of those parties. If what they’re doing right now is the best they’ve got then they shouldn’t be difficult to replace. A damp sandwich could do a better job.

  • LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world
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    Theres a massive problem with propaganda in this country to the point where Unions, public school Educators, Farmers, Poor folk just barely managing to survive until their next paycheck would all rather vote for the guy who wants to make unionizing Illegal, who wants to dismantle the Department of Education and public schools, who wants to take away farmer subsidies so that small time farmers collapse in on themselves, and who wants to take away the very federal programs that help poor Americans survive. As opposed to a candidate who wanted to support more unionization across the country and support workers right to strike, who wanted the department of Education to remain in existence and had a teacher as her VP who talked about how teachers needed raises, who talked about going after big time corporations who also happen to be massive farmers and force the small time farmers to sell to them so that the small timers now make no or actually lose money while the corporation gets their subsidy, and who talked about raising the minimum wage to 15 an hour “at least” and supported legislation that would allow for said poor folk to get more benefits and be lifted out of poverty.

    Democrats are and were pro worker, even if not perfect. But the workers abandoned them because at least the Republicans say they’ll fix everything right away. And hey if they don’t, these things take time. But if a Democrat is elected and says they’ll fix everything right away, that they’ll change the country and they don’t do it immediately, well that’s just because Democrats are incompetent.

    Many many workers are voting for Republicans knowing it’s against their interests because of hatred and bigotry. The Democrats need to do better, the need to be reshaped into a more progressive party, and they need better messaging and marketing, but to say they aren’t already the pro worker party is fucking disingenuous at best and outright spreading far right propaganda at worst.

  • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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    I think that is one of those “far left” ideas that the DNC said they need to run away from.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    I don’t know why these articles keep coming up, because the party at large already was. One or two turds in the punchbowl do kind of ruin ones appetite I suppose, but when you’re up against a fascist ideology completely based on lies and bullshit social posturing as issues, you can’t rely on something like being the “worker party” to combat.

    Democrats need to fucking smarter and more nimble at turning the tables on lies and misinformation. That’s what we need. They’re fucking failing at that right now.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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      The problem with the DNCs version of being the “worker’s party” is that the left leaning policies they do pass tend to be things that feel intangible to most workers. They pass infrastructure bills that in theory create jobs, but in reality usually take way too long to actually implement and are killed or watered down by the opposition. Even before they are watered down, they tend to largely be hand outs to large corporations who capitalize the lions share of the funding before anything trickles down to actual workers.

      Workers want to see a political party that aren’t afraid of taking direct action, they want to see tangible benefits.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        A agree with this in general, but when you’re talking about an entire party, you have dig deeper into local affiliated reps, not the national reps. They aren’t paying much attention to incra crews scamming the system and taking twice as long to patch roads and whatnot.

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          you have dig deeper into local affiliated reps, not the national reps

          The problem with that is that the national party is the one who funds/endorses a lot of the campaigns for local elections, especially in battleground districts. In a lot of cases the local DNC chapters are even more entrenched in centre-right/Third-way politics than the national leadership.

          That’s how you get something like New York City who votes overwhelmingly DNC get Mayor like Eric Adams. Oftentimes it’s even easier for local institutions to be captured by organizations with capital.

    • Murvel@lemm.ee
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      Are you so blind to the fact that a bipartisan system cannot possibly represent the people. The Democrats haven’t driven politics for the working man for a long fucking while…

  • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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    They can’t. Middle class oil workers, workers in the gasoline auto-sector will not vote for Democrats. The same goes for many who are contractors; plumbers, electricians, HVAC.

    Those working for Amazon might be able to unionize, same with Walmart. Hopefully they can get better pay, and hours. But they are not fighting the same fight as climate activists.

    Trump might break teacher unions soon with school vouchers.

    Democrats need to start with hyper-local issues, and organize around those.

  • PearOfDees@lemmy.world
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    A two party system isn’t it and this can be the best time to start a new party, one that focuses on the worker’s not to say this party would completely destroy help for the wealthy but make them do what’s fair for living and operating in this country.