Sorry To Say, But America Does Not Want To Be Left Of Center

[SoCalDavidS]

They really don't want our agenda.

They're not into women having power. Even a ton of women aren't into having women in power. One would think someone charismatic like Kamala would walk away with the women vote. This whole Roevember thing was a joke. Kamala should have dominated in the black women, brown women, white women, purple, green and yellow women vote.

Americans say they want abortion rights, but have ZERO problem voting for leaders that could not be more against abortion. We're not even talking moderates, 90%+ of them are hard core, let the woman die, let the woman bear a baby caused by rape or incest, kind of people.

Supposedly they want stricter gun laws and more gun control, but vote for people who are Employees who work for the NRA, gun companies, and value guns more than perhaps their own lives. I mean, if all the people who wanted sensible gun laws voted Democratic, the repubs would either have to make an effort on the issue, or lose every election.

I could go on to more issues, but it's the same end result. Compassion, caring for others, decency, LOGIC, sincerity, are all seen as weak character traits by the majority of Americans.

Instead of trying to determine what was/is wrong with our message, perhaps we should realize what is right with it, and conclude that it's just not what people want. And I've begun to believe that as more rights vanish, and the country becomes a harsher place to live, most will just accept it as the new normal. "We're Not Going Back?" More like, "We're Never Going Forward." It never really was our country to begin with. We've just been fighting the reality that this is who the majority of us are. Present company excluded, of course.

[LiberalArkie]

1. Really bad when Center is now to the right of Ronald Reagan.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. The majority of Americans support most left of Center policies

When they aren’t connected to any party or candidate.

[Ninga]

5. Talk is cheap. I would tell those Americans to

put their money where their mouth is by voting.

[Fiendish Thingy]

14. They don't vote for policies, they vote their political identity. Nt

[wryter2000]

30. Bingo

People want Bernie Sanders policies but vote Ronald Reagan. Too many have been convinced that Democrats are evil and unchristian. Many think Democrats give everything to “them.” They’d be rich if the government stopped taking their money in taxes to give to lazy people. You know what colors the lazy people are.

[rurallib]

7. that is the way I understand it. Also, I doubt most Americans

would even have a clue what "left of center" even means.
I, frankly, have no idea what it means and I am deep into politics.

I do know that most Americans are just regurgitating what they hear on TV -- and what they hear on TV is almost 100% extreme right wing propaganda.

ETA - and that is why the rich and extremist RW have put so much money and time into owning the media.

[dansolo]

20. They support it when it benefits them

Unfortunately, Americans are mostly selfish. They are in favor of programs that they will benefit from, but they will oppose plans that other people can benefit from. A lot of these morons can't reconcile the two, and end up hurting themselves over and over.

[kentuck]

3. Or even the center.

They want to be on the crazy right.

[Scrivener7]

4. This had nothing to do with agendas or policies.

In order to avoid a black woman President, America was willing to be so far right of center as to be batshit crazy.

But the important thing to them was that they didn't elect a black woman.

If a white man was pushing our agenda, they would love it.

[tritsofme]

16. That Biden would have done much worse than Harris, is a bit inconvenient to this argument.

Incumbents don’t win in environments like this, we’ve seen it all over the world. It’s really not that complicated.

[Scrivener7]

19. OK. Add middle-aged.

[Ocelot II]

6. What is this "America" that doesn't want these things?

It looks like about half of us do want them.

[Think. Again.]

12. More than half, if we listen to what people say they want.

[Marigold]

8. Spot On

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Even if democrats were to moderate, will we ever have a chance again to have an election? If Roe v Wade had happened right before this election, the outcome may have been different. Two years to get used to the new restrictions, and not enough women dying yet, buffered the outrage. Guns in this country have more rights than people and it is sacrilege to suggest they be regulated.

And it is like the boiling frog metaphor. People get used to anything. Look at the demoralized people of Russia. I think apathy will set in no matter how harsh the consequences. I am almost there myself. I am not sure what to fight for anymore. The assault is on so many fronts and everywhere. I think "we're not going back" means we're not going back to a democracy.

[Ping Tung]

9. Here's why.

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbeck

[Blue Full Moon]

22. They might be the next billionaire

They expect to be rewarded by the billionaires.

[ratchiweenie]

10. I personally don't think people realized what they were voting for and will come to regret it.

[Think. Again.]

11. I think you're confusing what Americans DO want...

...with how elections turn out, which are obviously 2 different things.

And no, I can't explain why that is (without being flamed for being a "conspiracy theorist", anyway.)

[BannonsLiver]

17. Could not agree more.

Meat and potatoes from here on out.

[WarGamer]

33. +100 nt

[Ilikepurple]

40. Yes, let's cut loose the unpopular cultural issues on the national level?

That’s worked so well for us historically. I’d prefer to continue to support the civil rights of marginalized people on a national level. I’m curious what economic issues that haven’t already been highlighted you see as winners.

[thatdemguy]

15. I think most people just want to live their lives.

I think the center just says leave me alone and I will leave you alone. They dont want anything shoved down their throat, be it church or be it abortion. I think the center think abortion does not effect me because I dont need one. And if I really needed one for a medical reason I could get one ( wither they can or can not ).

The center does not think about gun control, because they have their old 22 in the closet and they would never use it harm anyone but would not want to lose it. But I do think they think about church being shoved down their throats, but rely on the 1st amendment to prevent it. I think they worry about illegal searches, but know the 4th is there to protect it.

Again for the most part the middle is just a live, let live group. If it does not hurt them and their happiness they dont care about it. Then they see what it costs to live and that effects how they live and their happiness. Most people live thinking about the next 24 hours to a year, not 5 or 10 years away. They care they cant buy a house now, but not how it could be better in a few years. Or how much eggs cost now, not how more money later could make it easier to buy eggs later. Simply put a lot are short sighted and will vote for the now.

[Deminpenn]

39. Liberal-libertarians is what Americans are

They want government that works and helps make their lives better, not no government or dysfunctional government.

Your post does a good job explaining these Iiberal-libertarian Americans.

[GoreWon2000]

18. Reproductive rights a bi-partisan issue

I think it's very easy for someone who'll never have to fear dying because of a pregnancy gone wrong to take your position. Reproductive rights are issues that effect all women regardless of political views. I guess that more white women will have to die from miscarriages because they can't get the medical help that they need to wake more white women up. I will also point out that state ballot measures to protect women's reproductive rights did win in states that voted for Trump as in Montana, Nevada and 2 years ago in Ohio just to name a few so your claim isn't so accurate. Reproductive rights is also an economic issue. Forcing middle and low income families to bring children into the world that they can't afford because birth control has been outlawed will be financially ruinous. Husbands having to raise already born children alone on 1 income because their wives died from a miscarriage because dead fetus's are now more valuable than 1/2 of our population will be another financially ruinous situation for middle and low income families.
In Arizona, Ruben Gallego ran hard on reproductive rights using Kari Lake's own extremist words on reproductive rights against her and won. Also in AZ., the state ballot initiative to protect reproductive rights also won big which means that there was a sizeable group of repugs in AZ. who voted to protect reproductive rights. There is a sizeable group of people in AZ. who voted to protect reproductive rights. voted for Ruben Gallego and then voted for Trump. This pretty much throws your theory of dems supporting women's rights costing them the election out the window. In addition, in North Carolina, voters voted for dems for Governor and Attorney general and defeated enough maga state legislators to get rid of the veto proof North Carolina state legislature. There are countless additional examples. This is further proof of how wrong your theory is.

[LiberaBlueDem]

21. America is very left

We love lots of socialist things

But the media hides socialism so most people are clueless as to all the socialism that we love.

[milestogo]

23. Not my America.

[Blue Full Moon]

24. Most people are left of center.

When you talk to them. They are just automatically against the Democratic Party. The years of programming. My brother in law was like that for awhile before he switched parties. I kept telling him that he was 180 degrees out of phase. He finally figured it out.

[Meowmee]

25. The misogyny is deep here

It is one of the few major democracies that has never had a woman top leader.

[Music Man]

26. As others have pointed out, I'm not sure this is the correct analysis.

Americans have frequently voted for left-leaning policies at the state and local level. Abortion rights, minimum wage increases, paid leave, pensions, and so on. When party identity comes into play (or when certain narratives are pushed in national elections), we have often lost.

Not to mention the regional differences in elections.

America fucked this election up. But at least 48% of Americans chose the right person. We can't give up.

[RockRaven]

27. Nah, America is clueless about what it wants or where center is.

Poll people about an issue using the talking point phrasing of the media/political class and you get one result. Poll the same people about all of the specific details and you get a very different result. Americans are terribly ignorant/misinformed about almost everything which are supposedly political/voting issues.

[DSandra]

28. It could be that they say "yes" because it's more PC, but when push comes to shove, they don't care about them

Many people probably don't want to look "bad" in front of others so they say yes.

[question everything]

29. Since when is supporting abortion rights. equal treatments of all, decent jobs and pay is "left of center?"

There is nothing wrong with center. Left of center wants to defund the police, demands lean treatment of criminals, including juveniles, destroying federal property, establishing a separate city - or whatever they had in Seattle and attaching labels to anyone disagreeing with their “My way.”

Read how Californians passed a new ballot measure that classified crimes as crimes.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/104036320

[LearnedHand]

36. Please don't echo right wing framing of what "left of center" means

Because what you recited is completely a Republican framework, not the truth. I'm FAR left of center and what you wrote is nothing close to the social policies I and my far-left compatriots espouse. Think FDR populism that works for the good of all Americans, basic healthcare for all, and strong laws that reign in corporations and gazillionaires. Please lose the hateful "defund the police" and the rest of the republican-framed extremist language about the left. And you also are mistaken and how many of the party are
center, especially with young people. Finally, take a look at what you yourself mean by the center, because the Republicans have shoved the Overton Window so far rightward that the KKK now anchors the center. Just saying.

[BigMin28]

31. Clearly

America doesn't know it's ass from its elbow! We have been fed lies all of our lives about this country. Such as the constitution is sacred, we are a nation of laws, all men are created equal, there is no class in America, or that anyone an make a better life for themselves if they work hard. Beautiful sentiments, and pretty words, but all lies. When you believe in the lies, and the boogeyman about communism, and socialism, and believe unfettered capitalism isn't harmful to our society, you end up with people that vote in ways that are harmful to all of us. But as long as they are intellectually lazy, I don't have much hope.

[Ndp5]

32. Defeatist and ignores a ton of counter evidence

There was a poll conducted in the run-up to the election in which policies were stripped of their candidates and presented to voters on a level playing field. And Harris’s policies were drastically more popular than Trump’s.

Economic elites have spent decades and a lot of money redirecting populist anger from the top 1% to cultural elites, such as academics, TV pundits and other celebrities. And those cultural elites have helped them do it by being in many cases genuinely elitist, snotty and out-of-touch. Democrats are undeniably the party of the cultural elites. And people who are hurting economically distrust them for it.

Democrats also have failed to truly take on wealthy special interests in our society, and now they’re paying the price for it.

I’ve known enough low-information or brainwashed voters to know that the defeatism you’re spouting would warm the cold hearts of their manipulators: Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others like them, who are now feathering their own nests off the successful leveraging of half the country’s civic disengagement and impotent anger.

Giving in to autocracy is not only the easy way out. It is the blinkered way out, because it ignores all the information about how this happened and the possible remedies that flow from it.

[walkingman]

34. Those darn liberals....conservatives define "liberal" as anyone who is not their idea of conservative.

I define liberal like this: “Government ought to help people. You got a problem with that?”

The GOP has used fear, resentment, prejudice, and grievance and played to extremist forces so the party could win elections.
Why?
Because about 1/2 of America blames the federal government for all of their problems while giving their draconian State governments a pass, when it reality it all originates at the local level.

[In It to Win It]

35. I think people want to be left of center. They don't want to be Democrats. They vote for left-of-center policy, when

it's not attached to the Party.

People will gladly vote for minimum wage increases, ending gerrymandering, and abortion rights on ballot initiatives, but they don't vote for the politician that would actually make that stuff law because they have a (D) next to their name.

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

37. Umm, who exactly is there who is left of center in U.S. elections?

America's curse is that we have two major parties of the right, one right wing and one far right, and a bunch of inconsequential rightist and centrist "third parties" whose influence is precisely fuckall. The left here, which if you were to average it out by Congressional District can be counted on the toes of one of Majorie Taylor Green's feet with toes left over, is negligible. They don't participate in elections, thinking them pointless. From the evidence presented by the past four years, that might be correct. You usually refer to them by the generic category "anarchist," though that term is probably both imprecise and misleading given the baggage it carries - not to mention some of the idiots (like libertarians) who have usurped the term for various reasons (see "The Anarchists" on HBO/Max for one example).

The reason for the establishment of the two party system (and the New Deal) was to eliminate the perceived "threat" posed by the Socialist Party of America, once an ACTUAL party of the left, which officially disbanded in 1972. They drifted rightward after the death of Eugene V. Debs, then lost all credibility in the 1960s when they wouldn't support the anti-war movement (among other things). Some of the remnants of the SPA allied with Michael Harrington moved further rightward and formed the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and entered the Democratic Party as a faction. As it stands, and as if it mattered, the DSA is BARELY center-left. In the last election, they lost two of their representatives in primaries and disowned two more of their candidates over Israel/Palestine. Notice please that Bernie Sanders ISN'T DSA, though he IS a parliamentary socialist.

Discussions outside the very narrow two-party system aren't really permitted in "mainstream" political discourse, or on the news media. You really have to seek out the left if you want information on it. They probably won't talk to you. They tend to get dismissed as "utopian" or "crazy" anytime they try to engage rightists and centrists, so they mostly don't. It's not that America does not want to be left of center, it's that America has no idea what it means, other than "we hear it's bad." Not that it matters now.

[Voltaire2]

38. Sorry to say this but there is no center left major party. Nt.