Centrist Democrats are intentionally being obtuse about this because they work for the same billionaires the Republicans work for.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
168 points (98.3% liked)
politics
30711 readers
1059 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
When you take out the culture war aspect of politics it seems pretty accurate. Culture war doesn't really affect billionaires monetarily, so they don't give a shit. It's just there to distract the masses emotionally on both sides like any good marketing or propaganda.
To a certain extent I think you’re correct. However, the result being that there are now people who actually want my parents dead because they’re lesbians is a problem that we need to solve too.
Yeah the elite are happy to fan the culture war because it doesn’t effect them, but the fallout from them doing so is now ANOTHER problem that absolutely needs to be fixed
Culture war doesn’t really affect billionaires monetarily
It doesn't even affect them much personally. Imagine if Jeff Bezos was the most flamboyantly gay man on Earth. He could move to and live openly in Afghanistan with complete safety. He would have to buy off a lot of politicians. But every politician is always hurting for money. Most will happily look the other way in exchange for donations/bribes. It wasn't rich gay men getting arrested at Stonewall.
And Israel.
Imagine: having populist candidates trying to actually do something for the American people.
They can’t imagine it. That’s why they’re shitting their pants. these people didn’t get their jobs by actually governing, and now they don’t know how they’re going to keep them.
That gif goes hard.
This is such a wild article, it’s a monument to the arrogance and stupidity that lead to the DNC dropping every single wide open ball they have been thrown in my adult life
They're so busy collecting corporate checks that they forgot to represent their constituents. No idea why people might swing to someone who actually wants to preserve the population that actually buys things.
The massage should be clear to these "centrists": Get on board with the progressives or GTFO.
No more "good faith" or "reaching across the aisle". We need real goddamned opposition to these fascist traitors.
This is TERRIBLE news for US! The OBVIOUS solution is to FORGET the People VOTING for these Progressives and TRY to Entice the Death-Before-Dem MAGAS instead!
-Highly Paid Democratic Stragtegists!
Death-Before-Dem MAGAS
I was listening to the Professional Left podcast (I think it was on there) and they mentioned something about asking some farmers who are being destroyed by Donvict - "well, why did you vote for him, after the first term?"
Their answer: they had no choice.
I mean, what can you even do with this level of cult behavior? Seriously, what harm are the Democrats going to do to farmers? Is it really all just about trans and "men in women's sports"?
It literally is. You can't vote blue if you have stronge conservative values. I had a coworker (unsolicited) tell me that essentially he would support anything he considered conservative (non-woke) even if it meant burning everything down and starting over. Not sure why he felt a conversation about baseball at a company dinner I was paying for as a company event needed to be redirected to political beliefs. But there we all were sitting there all being very uncomfortable.
I've listened to Sarah Taber talk about running for a North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture and said she was able to get more Republican votes from rural areas than the suburbs.
The book "Dying of Whiteness" is fascinating and depressing look into this. Many people would rather personally suffer and die than let the out-group have something nice. They don't want healthcare for all because that means black people get it.
Hm, sounds interesting.
I remember the studies into what they called "last place aversion", which also might explain some of those that vote against their own interests...
I want more of it. Burn down their establishment politics and support for the billionaires.
Take over the party and help the people.
The AIPAC whores are pissed.
Wtf voting in primaries works??? I was told voting was a sham /s
There are a bunch of voters so wishy washy that they go from voting republican to voting democrat from election to election (even post 2016!), and centrists' solution is to be just as wishy washy to attract them?
These people shift with the god damn wind. Don't be a weather vane, be a fucking hurricane.
I remember people talking about the Obama/Trump voter, or the Bernie/Trump voter like they're this sage source of wisdom and balance.
No, they're just someone who's too stupid to understand the issues and responds to charisma.
Stupid yes but you still need to reckon with them. Comments like this make it sound like you think we should just pretend they don't exist.
I think the point is that they don't exist in an ideological sense. They exist in the "ooo shiny" sense.
There is no point trying to attract them with policy or ideas, because they don't give a fuck about that. They will vote for whoever makes them feel better when they talk.
OK I agree with you then. Because I do think if the left wants to win it needs to expand beyond its current base. One of the reasons Trump succeeded is that low information voters perceive him as moderate. So I think there is a possibility the left could pursue a similar strategy where you maintain serious left policies but adopt a sort of moderate posture.
I think Mamdani is sort of the closest thing we've seen to this strategy, although obviously NYC is unique enough that you can't just copy it directly.
I don't think people perceived trump as moderate, people perceived him as "one of us". That's not the same thing (though interesting psychological research shows that most trump supporters probably desperately want to see themselves as average and moderate).
Mamdani was unapologetic, leading to support from the left, but he's also charismatic. So he almost certainly captured the obama-trump vote by virtue of talking good and looking good.
I think you're right that there are multiple dimensions to attracting these fence-sitters. But it is also true that voters generally express a desire for a more "moderate" candidate, and that they perceived Trump to be more moderate than Harris, despite all evidence.
Of course what they mean when they say these things on surveys is open to interpretation.
I've never seen any source say people thought Trump was more moderate than Harris. There were some questionable focus groups about him and Clinton, but Trump campaign #3 wasn't really pretending anymore.
I tried to find the poll but I couldn't so either it was an outlier or I misremembered.
Sure sure, it’s a well known maxim that politics that works in New York works across the nation.
Not that we shouldn’t have progressive candidates and boot out corporate chuckleheads, because we absolutely should - just that a progressive candidate in Kansas or Florida or North Dakota has a different set of challenges.
I’m saying don’t buy too much into the ‘Democrats in disarray’ narrative the Ellison-Murdoch news machine would love you to buy.
I feel like the big experiment in this election is Platner in Maine. If Platner can win in Maine, it shows that progressive candidates can work in rural parts of the country.
I think when someone doesn't match their claimed ideology, they should be called Zombie Democrats.
... and there's plenty of Zombie Conservatives too.
Good.
Good
I wish it was enough. It’s 50+ years of right wing leadership from here on out.
Moderates of any given political flavor is going to have a bigger base than far-left or far-right politicians so even though they're getting through the primaries the generals might be a blood bath when the moderates realize their voice isn't going to be heard so they sit this election out.
Source: Trust me bro. Politics is a flat line and winning is about getting as far into your opponents territory as possible. That's why MAGA wins. They're so moderate. /s
MAGA wins because they’re unified not like the shit show that is the left and its purity testing nonsense.
I'm sorry, you just said moderates, left or right have a larger base of support, then ignored it when the right moderates lost to an extremist and complained about the people you call a "base" not voting. I think you need to give your poorly thought out theory another pass by reality.
Hint: Politics isn't a line. I put the /s tag there to make it obvious that's a dumb idea that's not true.
And maybe if you think the right wins because their moderates unify with an extremist you should stop fantasizing about the comeuppance where the left moderates do the disunity you say is the poison pill for Democrats. The template for success is right there.
The leftists are the problem because they couldn’t unify themselves out of a wet paper bag and they’ve spend years proving it.
Seems like they just did and you and yours are pissing yourselves over it.
Wait to gloat until the generals.
Broken down by party, 66 percent of Democrats, 20 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of independents surveyed said that the U.S. is backing Israel too much.
https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us06242026_ujrk36.pdf
Supporting genocide is no longer a moderate position.
There are way more Republicans that hate Israel. This poll has to be off.
Maybe when a Democrat is supporting it. 80% of Republicans supporting Trump's position regardless of what that is sounds about right.
You're the only one talking about supporting genocides right now.
I do agree with funding Ukraine to help prevent Russia's genocide of them and that seems to only be a moderate position these days.