K-DOT wrote:GONYK wrote:Food for thought...
Maybe things aren't as simple as they seem?
I think a lot of it comes down to messaging
When you take progressive concepts by themselves and don't give context to them, the country loves them. Universal healthcare has like a 70% approval rating when people aren't given a name, just the policy. Same reason why 15 an hour won overwhelmingly in Florida but Biden lost handily
A lot of the country don't see themselves as being "progressive," so when you say "this is a progressive position," their opinion of it changes. And the Republicans have done an amazing job over the years of convincing people that progressivism is terrible. So what the Dems (more specifically, progressives) need to do is find a way to break the people out of this mindset, which isn't an easy thing. The moderates are scared to endorse more progressive ideology because they're afraid they'll lose voters, but if we could normalize the ideas, it wouldn't lose them voters because people would no longer see them as "progressive" positions, but mainstream ones. Still left-leaning, but not as far left as they're portrayed now.
I don't disagree. I'm just seeing in the debate on this board that some argue that running an AOC in every district is the answer. I don't think the data supports that.
To push progressive ideas forward, it will be a district by district, state by state effort. You're going to elect a lot more Joe Bidens, who are shrouding progressive ideas in a centrist platform, than AOCs over the span of the country.
That's not capitulation or corporatism or whatever. That might just be straight up reality based strategy.
Like I posted yesterday, this is the battlefield progressives are working in:
