I think Kansas will be to the left of Florida by the end of the decade, unless something strange happens to cause the Cuban vote to shift back to Dems.
Hint: distancing ourselves from people who call themselves socialists in ANY form. Yes a lot of people my generation and younger associate that term with western and Northern Europe. That doesn’t change however that to most Latino it is associated with Cuba and Venezuela.
I have never fathomed why certain American leftists insist on calling themselves "Democratic Socialists" rather than "Social Democrats". The first term is toxic to huge swathes of voters, the second much less so if at all.
Because too many of them buy into the argument that the only people who care are die hard Republicans who will NEVER vote Democratic. And/or the argument that "Democrats are going to be called "socialists" no matter what so they might as well just be socialists." Forgetting the fact that to the majority of Americans even in 2024, socialism is still considering to be THE gateway drug to communism.
Quite an electoral dilemma. The best possible way to appeal to the working-class voters we've lost is a left populism that the opposition has to discovered to be so easy to successfully brand as socialism.
The fact that the Democrats have breathlessly advocated for a lax immigration policy to intentionally grow the ranks of the very people most sensitive to concerns about "socialism" represents the truly Shakespearean nature of the party's self-immolation.
And why is it easily branded as socialism? Because the biggest advocates of it are people who insist and insist and insist in calling themselves "socialists." No matter how many times some of us correctly point out that the majority of Americans are to put it diplomatically uncomfortable with politicians who call themselves socialists in ANY form. Bernie Sanders can put the word democratic in front of the word socialist/socialism ALL he wants. It's not going to change the fact that to the majority of Americans, socialism = communism.
Yes, the lax immigration policy has hurt. But so has the embracement of the word socialist from SOME on the left. No getting around that fact.
I’m an Elisabeth Warren leftist. Let’s hear it for "Well-regulated Capitalism"!
The great irony is that Bernie Sanders is NOT a socialist. I have never heard him propose legislation for, nor argue for, government ownership of the means of production and distribution.
He calls himself a socialist though. That's the problem. BTW he DID actually call for those things in the 1970s when he was a fringe candidate running for various statewide offices. He reinvented himself when he ran for Mayor of Burlington in 1981, winning by TWELVE votes and from there slowly climbed the ladder of Vermont politics.
I think Kansas will be to the left of Florida by the end of the decade, unless something strange happens to cause the Cuban vote to shift back to Dems.
Hint: distancing ourselves from people who call themselves socialists in ANY form. Yes a lot of people my generation and younger associate that term with western and Northern Europe. That doesn’t change however that to most Latino it is associated with Cuba and Venezuela.
I have never fathomed why certain American leftists insist on calling themselves "Democratic Socialists" rather than "Social Democrats". The first term is toxic to huge swathes of voters, the second much less so if at all.
Because too many of them buy into the argument that the only people who care are die hard Republicans who will NEVER vote Democratic. And/or the argument that "Democrats are going to be called "socialists" no matter what so they might as well just be socialists." Forgetting the fact that to the majority of Americans even in 2024, socialism is still considering to be THE gateway drug to communism.
Quite an electoral dilemma. The best possible way to appeal to the working-class voters we've lost is a left populism that the opposition has to discovered to be so easy to successfully brand as socialism.
The fact that the Democrats have breathlessly advocated for a lax immigration policy to intentionally grow the ranks of the very people most sensitive to concerns about "socialism" represents the truly Shakespearean nature of the party's self-immolation.
And why is it easily branded as socialism? Because the biggest advocates of it are people who insist and insist and insist in calling themselves "socialists." No matter how many times some of us correctly point out that the majority of Americans are to put it diplomatically uncomfortable with politicians who call themselves socialists in ANY form. Bernie Sanders can put the word democratic in front of the word socialist/socialism ALL he wants. It's not going to change the fact that to the majority of Americans, socialism = communism.
Yes, the lax immigration policy has hurt. But so has the embracement of the word socialist from SOME on the left. No getting around that fact.
I’m an Elisabeth Warren leftist. Let’s hear it for "Well-regulated Capitalism"!
The great irony is that Bernie Sanders is NOT a socialist. I have never heard him propose legislation for, nor argue for, government ownership of the means of production and distribution.
He calls himself a socialist though. That's the problem. BTW he DID actually call for those things in the 1970s when he was a fringe candidate running for various statewide offices. He reinvented himself when he ran for Mayor of Burlington in 1981, winning by TWELVE votes and from there slowly climbed the ladder of Vermont politics.