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Miguel Parreno's avatar

NYT gonna NYT but these "strategists" really should retire already. It's their policies and strategies that have gotten us into this mess. People WANT New Deal politics, whether they understand it or not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/opinion/democratic-party-future.html

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DivergentAxis(DA)'s avatar

These are Clintonian shills. I am not some far left guy but we killed the centre-right party of Bill Clinton in 2016 whether these corporate shills like it or not. We haven't lost 5 out of the last 6 elections like 1992 anyways. This election was 90 percent about the economy, inflation and border not the culture or taxing the rich.

David Shor, these guys, James Carville, all of them want to turn 2028 in 1992 and prop up someone like Shapiro or Fetterman.

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PollJunkie's avatar

NYT is playing into their audience. Only 10 percent of democrats identify as conservative and most of them lurk in the NYT comments section with usernames like "Frustrated democrat" and "CentristDem" who keep ranting about woke and trans on all non Trump related posts. They say that both parties have gone insane and Democrats will win 2028 but not because they have something to offer.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Someone should ask these 4 messiah's about what would happen if Ross Perot didn't enter the race. Clinton was literally elected by leftists but governed like Republican lite.

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Paleo's avatar

Someone should ask them who had solid control of congress in 1992 and who had control in 1995.

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Burt Kloner's avatar

Clinton would have lost to Bush.

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michaelflutist's avatar

Your basis for that claim?

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Kevin H.'s avatar

Hogwash, Clinton had that in the bag with or without Perot

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michaelflutist's avatar

If Perot hadn't run, Clinton would have won a majority. That's what would have happened. Bush would not have won.

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Brad Warren's avatar

Yeah, I'm tired of the "Perot elected Clinton" canard. Strong third-party candidacies are a sign of dissatisfaction *with the incumbent!*

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Paleo's avatar

I think Clinton would have won narrowly.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

You could argue Perot cost Bush a Montana or a Colorado but that's about it, Clinton would have won easily.

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

Georgia & Nevada maybe too but yeah don't see Bush digging all the way out.

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sacman701's avatar

The only poll I remember seeing showed that Perot voters were split 38-38 between Bush and Clinton. There's an argument that Perot scrambling the race by getting in and dropping out helped Clinton, but I have to think that Clinton likely would have won anyway even if Perot had never gotten in.

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Kildere53's avatar

Correct. Perot voters would've split roughly evenly between Clinton and Bush, meaning that Clinton would still have won easily.

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Tigercourse's avatar

I don't agree that Clinton governed Republican lite.

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Zero Cool's avatar

Clinton as POTUS seemed to me to be similar to how Jerry Brown governed California in the eight years before Newsom took office.

And both Clinton and Brown raised taxes on the super wealthy.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Jerry Brown was and is a bitter rival of Clinton and opposed him from the left in the primaries.

Raised Taxes, deregulated various sectors, media and banking too, and made deep cuts to welfare and child support programs (austerity "end welfare as we know it") only to see the surplus blown away in the Iraq war and birth rates fall.

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Zero Cool's avatar

Before the 1995 midterms, Clinton governed from the left. Hillary Clinton pushed a universal healthcare agenda that got to be unpopular thanks to Bill Kristol’s agenda. After this, yes, Clinton moved away from the left with welfare reform, Glass Steagall Repeal, etc.

Point being is that both Brown and Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and balanced the budget, resulting in a significant budget surplus. Neither Biden nor Obama were able to do this at any point in their presidency.

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Paleo's avatar

“The era of ‘big government’ is over.”

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Paleo's avatar

Oh Christ. I don’t even want read it. The folks who brought you a Republican congress and Trump say, let’s do it again.

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PollJunkie's avatar

These were the guys due to whose lobbying we got a small and ineffective stimulus leading to the Team party and who got all elite bankers get away! Enough of them.

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James Trout's avatar

Fine. Then expect some "punching down" of minorities. Left populism is NEVER successful electorally in the USA unless at minimum "social norms" are upheld.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

Obama is the most successful presidential candidate of this century and while he wasn't a Sanders or Warren style populist he definitely relied on populism to get in — it was a lot of his counter to the establishment of HRC in the 2008 primary. And it should go without saying that his campaign was the antithesis of "punching down of minorities."

A lot of things come down to how you package them. Obama was a left but not far left populist and while I wish there was more demand for far left populism I agree that it's not necessarily a winning pathway nationally. But more center-left populist options are definitely plausible and have lots of stuff that could work well. Things like the free school lunches, legalizing weed, raising the minimum wage, anti-corporate language (electorally I doubt it even matters what the policy is, just something that enables constantly stated hate on corporations)...

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

I'm personally in favor of messaging that attacks Big Business. Republicans constantly want to "run government like a business" but what business is that? ask people if they've ever been let go by an employer while they gave themselves raises and stock buybacks. Republicans love to give people a minority to hate so let's do the same with one deserving of it: Billionaires and their businesses.

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dragonfire5004's avatar

Messaging faux pas imo, because if we say we’re anti big business, Republicans can easily turn that around to attack us. Corporations, no one likes, so voters would be far more receptive to that messaging and the GOP can’t attack us without sounding out of touch or admitting to the reality that the party is bought and paid for by billionaires and corporations.

Otherwise I can imagine any average small business owner going “wait, if I achieve success and make my business grow, you’re going to be against me?”. You’ve gotta create separation, no small business owner thinks they’re a corporation and they also don’t like the big guys kicking the little guys. Win-win.

Don’t mention being anti-business in anyway, that’s terrible even with stipulations, because voters will only hear “anti-business”. Keep it simple: We’re fighting against the corporations who make your life harder and more expensive. KISS, voters are not smart or tuned to politics.

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James Trout's avatar

Indeed. Lest we forget that "small businesses" go beyond just "mom and pop" changes. By legal definition, a "small business" has fewer than 500 employees. Technically the nonprofit that I work for qualifies as a "small business" under said definition.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

It's especially easy to make as an attack line. Even people that are content to use services of major corporations generally dislike them. Everyone hates Amazon or Walmart even if they keep shopping at both. Major health insurance companies and banks might be less popular than the plague. I have never, in my entire life, heard anyone say something even remotely positive about Comcast.

A smart candidate can phrase this stuff better than I ever could but the needle can be threaded on attacking the businesses in a broadly populist way while also being on the side of most of the workers at them.

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James Trout's avatar

Wrong. He won because the War in Iraq and George W Bush were both grossly unpopular in 2008. And while he did run on "change", his candidacy was never as left wing as so called "progressives" claim it was. Lest we forget he ran to the RIGHT of Clinton on health care and immigration reform. He also opposed marriage equality, so yes he was indeed "punching down." He was for upholding "social norms."

BTW most Democrats are in fact running on those issues that you claim to be populist. Heck, here in Virginia Abigail Spanberger who is a center left to centrist Democrat is running for Governor on raising the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour. Not to mention very strong union support, which says a lot in this so called "right to work" state.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

It's like you didn't really read my comment at all.

I specifically pointed out that Obama was not a far left populist, pointing towards the goal being center-left. Saying I must be wrong because he wasn't as far left as some people say is completely missing the point.

Likewise, on policies I started off the whole thing by saying "A lot of things come down to how you package them" — that means it isn't just down to the policies but how it's pitched to voters.

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James Trout's avatar

It also depends on timing. FDR runs for President in 1928 using the same campaign he ran in 1932, he gets crushed electorally. It took the 1929 Wall Street Crash for the majority of Americans to be willing to go for basic federal social programs. Presuming Orange Slob is grossly unpopular in 2028 and/or we are in at minimum a recession, we have a MAJOR edge that year. Presuming of course that our nominee is not too far ahead of public option.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

The NYT is trash now. I don't give them the time of day. They love getting hate-clicks from the left. Their thumb is too blatantly on the scale.

There's a reason there's so much ammo for the NYT Pitch Bot to run with... https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social

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