Two historians have said that the Democratic Party was wrong to overlook Bernie Sanders' policies for working class people.

Summary

Historians suggest Democrats might have fared better against Donald Trump by embracing the economic issues championed by Senator Bernie Sanders, who has long pushed for a focus on “bread-and-butter” concerns for working-class voters.

Despite Kamala Harris’s progressive policies, polls showed Trump was favored on economic issues, particularly among working-class and Hispanic voters.

Historian Leah Wright Rigueur argued that Sanders’ messaging on economic struggles could be key for future Democratic strategies.

Sanders himself criticized the party for “abandoning” the working class, which he said has led to a loss of support across racial lines.

  • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
    118·
    15 days ago

    Imo, you’ve got all the prices. However, I would put them in a different order.

    Short answer: Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.

    There’s a small group of king-makers in the US and the candidate who offers them the most becomes president. Recently, the people who decide who gets to be president has started to include social media companies and amazon, who hosts half the Internet. Trump also cozied up to the American owner of the company the owns tiktok. Thats how he won. Trumps also great for social media engagement and news channel views.

    Even candidates who happen to be better than the republican candidate, no democratic hopeful worth being of “the left” will ever be given enough money to become the president of America. Even if they started from a position that would appeal to them, they would have to compromise on everything that made them that in order to be allowed anywhere near the Whitehouse by the American ultra wealthy.

    What you’re seeing isn’t the failure of the Democrats to correctly triangulate but the strength of the American ultra wealthy consent manufacturing machine.

    • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
      131·
      15 days ago

      I don’t disagree those factors are at play, but they’re not as important as you seem to think in this day and age.

      Bernie had real grassroots support and the dems stomped it out. The key is populist rhetoric and speaking about change, the DNC has basically been running on “not Trump” and “well things are bad but they would be worse under Trump.” while that is true, that’s not a winning message, give people something real to fight for and you’ll win support.

      • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
        21·
        15 days ago

        On the contrary, they’re more important now than they’ve ever been. There also hasn’t been an election where the highest spender didn’t win. Its THE determining factor.

        The same people who fund presidential campaigns for Republicans also spend lots of money on influencing democratic nominee choices. The whole things been captured.

        Its like you all can’t see the woods for the trees, in the politest way possible. You see the state of trump and all the things that make him an aweful candidate and you say “how could the dems not beat that” instead of “what on earth could exert so much influence that even being that terrible couldn’t stop him?”

        There’s no amount of “the dems not having a strong enough message” that overcomes the divide in the candidates, without huge influence. Their campaign wasn’t great but no where close enough to lose to someone like trump, in a fair fight. It would’ve had to have been utterly shocking from start to finish and, as bad as it was, it wasn’t that bad.

        • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
          9·
          14 days ago

          You really think Trump outspent Harris? You’d be wrong, go look at the data, trump just went on spaces “normal” people listen, such as podcasts, where Harris didn’t.

          He spoke about how America is broken, he gave incorrect reasons why, and is lying about helping people with his policies, but he didn’t lie and tell people everything is fine like the dems

          • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
            1·
            14 days ago

            Then this would be the first time in modern American history that this has happened. If so, then thats a huge thing and most likely, it’ll be the social media owners now being more disproportionally ppowerful. That would be more in line with everything that’s happened before.

            Youre also relying on accurate self reporting from musk, the republicans and trump there.

            I’m basing what I’ve said on whats happened before. Election spending won’t be reliably verifiable this quickly.

    • shadowfax13@lemmy.mlEnglish
      22·
      13 days ago

      Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.

      you do know that in all last 3 elections dnc outspent gop by more than 50% ? last time we raised less than gop was with bush in 2004. harris raised more than 1.6 billion while trump raised about a billion. 600 million extra money they get is for not having a candidate with anti-rich anti-establishment anti-israel policies. hillary was similar story yet we barely saw her campaigning compared to trump. where does all this money go ?

      compare that to jill stein who raised 2 million. dnc probably spent 10 times that money on just smearing her.