this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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Weird.
I didn't think AOC was a presidential candidate until after the primaries.
Maybe we shouldn't be counting our chickens before they hatch.
Reminder that we live in a notably bigoted nation that has problems with women and people of color in positions of authority. Reminder that a lot of voters have issues with young and still relatively inexperienced politicians running for president. Not conservatives. They don't give a fuck who they run for president. But other voters want experience. Reminder that to win we need to get some independents on our side and they definitely aren't going to vote for a far left candidate if they vote left at all. Reminder that at this point, every time we lose, our democracy becomes much, much more threatened by the forces that want it gone.
I like AOC.. What I don't like is continuing to lose and watching our democracy erode.
Based on our bigoted nation, as far as my opinion is concerned, our current best bet to ACTUALLY WIN is Mark Kelly. He is male. He is white. He is more moderate. He has military service. He is a senator. He stood up to Trump in court and won. He is married to a politician who was shot in the head during an assassination attempt and survived. He has the experience and independents and bigots can vote for him without feeling like they're betraying their beliefs.
And despite my OPINION I'm not posting posts pretending to assume he's the chosen Democrat candidate for president years before the primaries even happen.
Prediction that you'll forget this when Harris runs again.
Running right-wing candidates hasn't been working, and these "far left" candidates have been very popular. Maybe they should try it for a change. (I don't see stuff like universal healthcare as "far left", but I'm aware the US political spectrum has been fucked by both parties.)
What do you think these losses are caused by? I thought it was moving to the right and alienating your base, but that seems to be what you want.
In no American reality is Mark Kelly right-wing. Neither was Kamala. The right in America has pulled so far right at this point that no Democrat candidate could be considered right wing.
Like Bernie Sanders, who lost the POPULAR VOTE in both primaries by a wide margin? Bernie was not as popular as the internet suggested, and I'd be willing to bet AOC isn't either. And she has nowhere near the experience, and I'd argue charisma, Bernie has. And, as I mentioned above, woman and not white. Sucks, but that's our trashcan nation.
Hey, I'm onboard. Most of America isn't though.
Not great candidates? An avalanche of propaganda unlike the world has ever seen? Dem's failure at effective messaging? The issue isn't that we aren't going far left enough. That's just going to drive a significant chunk of voters away in this country. Going ultra far works great for a bigot fear-based conservative voter base. Not gonna work for a more nuanced liberal/independent voter base.
The only widespread alienation I've witnessed is the Israel thing. That was a complicated geo-political situation that a bunch of people who fail at seeing the forest for the trees let drive a wedge between them and voting for what was best for our country. And now we have blatant fascism. Which I believe we will get more of if we keep gambling with super left candidates with other qualities that have been proven to be negative in this bigoted nation of ours.
The center right party in the Weimar Republic wasn't left winged just because they didn't endorse the Nazi party. If we're evaluating evaluation the democratic party under accepted geopolitical terms the vast majority would fall under the center right. Mm
Wh, the 2016 primaries were pretty close considering that the DNC was all but tipping the scales for Hillary.
Would be hard to tell, the DNC hasn't actually gone through a fair primary in quite a while.
That's just chasing after Republicans that are too ashamed to actually lable themselves as right winged. The "centrist" have already clearly signaled they'd rather have a fascist than pay a cent more in taxes. The only thing left to do is to galvanize young voters to the polls.
What long winded way to say that progressive voters don't want to vote for someone advocating for a genocide...... You are blaming voters for not showing up to the polls for baby killers.
Such a high bar...... Asking for a candidate that doesn't endorse the genocide of Palestinians, we ask too much!
Kamala Harris was just too woke for the American public! You know, the fucking cop....
We're not. We're evaluating it within the confines of the United States of America. And in the United States of America a party that supports creating and bolstering social support programs is on the left of the spectrum since the other side seeks to (and is) eliminating social support programs.
55% 34 states (Hillary) to 43% 23 states (Bernie). Personally I wouldn't consider that close. Could have been worse.
Not really. On a national scale far left candidates and 3rd parties get crushed to the point of irrelevancy. That's pretty solid proof that, while they might be popular in deep liberal regions, they aren't on a national level and can't win a national election. That's why I warn against thinking candidates like Bernie and AOC are popular because they're big on the internet. Reality has proven there's a big swath of America that is not represented by internet hype but show up at the polls.
There aren't just two types of voters in this country. There are a TON of independents. You will scare them away with far left candidates. AOC is a bridge too far for MANY voters. Just like Bernie was. Look at our country. Look where we are right now. We are deeply conservative. You can't just leap frog us to a far left scenario. That's wishful thinking and that's what children do.
Young voter turnout is always awful. Everyone really thought this last one would be different. It wasn't. They had bad turnout like they always do. A lot of people just don't vote until they get older and more invested.
Great. Cool. Genocide. Awesome. The word of the year. Let me restart my counter for how many minutes I've gone without hearing it. Regardless of genocide, there was a better and worse choice to make regarding OUR OWN nation. People let a situation on the other side of the planet drive them to make a poor decision regarding their own nation. You can say the word "genocide" until the day you die, nothing changes that. If you don't like ham are you going to starve or eat dogshit instead of just dealing with a ham sandwich? It's not like the other option was NOT genocide. It was a guy being clear he was 100% onboard with Israel no matter what. How dumb do you have to be to not vote or vote 3rd party to help that guy win if you give any shits at all about Palestinians?
My bar is not allowing an actual fascist from being placed in the highest office in our federal government which the Supreme Court gave almost unlimited powers to, and watching him systematically disassemble our federal government and violate our Constitutional rights. I do actually care more about preventing that than I do about a religious conflict taking place on the other side of the planet.
Oh no. A prosecutor (not cop) vs a felon rapist pedophile fascist or a 3rd party candidate with literally no path to victory, or not voting at all. Damn, this one is real hard. Better put my thinking cap on.
That just cedes control of the overton window to the right and solidifies the idea that anything moderately progressive is depicted as socialism. Definitions matter, there is a reason they are attempting to veil center left ideas as radical communism.
Again, that is without acknowledging the inside electioneering that the DNC got up to, including the rest of the moderate candidates bowing out at the last minute to not split the vote for Hilary.
And the last time there was a national election for a viable left winged candidate was.......? Oh yeah 2016.
Again, Bernie was broadly popular with Democrats and more popular in southern states than Hillary. Hillary won because she got the liberal strongholds, she lost to Sanders in the middle America you claim is critical of "the far left". Which is why a lot of studies over that election have summized that Bernie would have been a better candidate to run against Trump.
There are a ton of people who claim to be independent, in reality they just don't like to lable themselves as a conservative or liberal. Only 7-15% of self described independent voters aren't just leaners.
The American people don't really know what they want, they just want change. Which is why populist candidates have taken off on both sides of the isle. Most Americans are not politically educated enough to really define the difference between socialist, communist, liberal, conservative, libertarian, or fascist.
Because no party ever takes the time to reach out for their vote by offering them a significant reason to do so. The last time someone did decent outreach was 2008.
First of all, that's an incredibly selfish and blackhearted assessment to make about our country helping kill children. Secondly, you are still blaming the voter for the DNC forcing a bad candidate without running a primary.
When did I say I voted third party...... I said I blame the DNC for running a candidate that was out of touch with the voter basis.
And yet that is still too much to ask for the DNC, who would rather lose than run anyone who wasn't a centerist.
Yeah..... Your only go to is to measure against the worst person in the world. We were talking about the DNC picking a candidate, not about the general election. There were plenty of other option other than choosing a walking corpse till the very last second and then when it was already too late picking the cop.
MARK Kelly is pretty conservative by democratic standards, he admits to it. and he defends zionism as of recently tainting his potential of a future presidency.
kamala was a woman, and poc, its enough for men to not vote for her, and yes its due to sexism. her stances on "israel/gaza" is pretty secondary to most voters, and only useful for muslim populations, like in michigan.
To be clear, Mark Kelly isn't my favorite choice. Just the option I think is most likely to win as of right now. I'd love to join the far left bandwagon and scream AOC from the rooftops, but I've been around long enough to know she's extremely unlikely to win the big one.
nah, the problem is that when a woman runs her entire campaign is, "I'm a woman"
Obama wasn't like, "I deserve to win because it's my time! I'm black"; he was just a chill ass dude who happened to be black
If democrats would stop with the victim hood shit and just focus on the fact that they're generally good people who want to do good things, they'd win a lot more
That wasn't true for either Clinton or Harris, the only two women to run for President for a major party AFAIK. It also true for Palin, who was a Vice Presidential candidate (so next in line for President).
The fact that all you saw was a woman running may say something about your information sources?
“New and relatively inexperienced” come now, can we not do this nonsense?
Begging for useless, “safe” centrist candidates is why the US is the way that it is. Mamdani and Al-Sayed and the other progressives seeing support is happening in real-time, so take this weird-ass attitude and shove it.
You saying something is nonsense doesn't make it so. AOC would be the youngest president in U.S. history if elected. Her only experience is being a member of the House for 7 years. Only ONCE IN AMERICAN HISTORY (1880) has someone been elected president directly from the House. And I'm not going to accept the argument about Trump having no experience. Liberals are not conservatives. Conservatives openly support felon rapist pedophiles who regularly violate our Constitution and this is not the first time they've elected a TV personality to be president. There is no valuable comparison between us and them.
How is Mark Kelly useless? He has more experience than AOC and has qualities that connect him with a higher percentage of Americans. The internet doesn't represent reality. If it did Bernie Sanders would be president. Just because AOC is liked on Reddit/Lemmy doesn't mean she stands a better chance than Mark Kelly or makes him "useless".
Mark Kelly wants to abolish the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation. He wants to increase the minimum wage. He is pro choice. He wants to codify Roe v Wade. These are definitely left leaning beliefs.
Mamdani can never win a national election because he can never become president. He won an election in a DEEP blue area of our country. Al-Sayed has not won the governorship yet. And winning a governorship is a WHOLE DIFFERENT BALLGAME to winning a national election in which he'd have to get racist ass middle America to vote for him, or not vote against him, which simply wouldn't happen.
Nah kid. You need to stop allowing your EMOTIONS to dictate your beliefs and start accepting the reality you live in and work within that reality to get as close as possible to what you want. Because enough other people exist in this world that don't want what you want to keep you from having exactly what you want. And the fact that far left candidates and 3rd parties keep losing on a national scale should be enough proof for you. Because right now you don't seem to grasp the difference between a national, federal election and every other election.
Zohran Mamdani only had 4 years of experience before becoming a highly effective mayor of fucking New York City, are you high off your fucking balls?! Experience doesn’t mean jack shit if it’s just been decades of being terrible at your job. Being old doesn’t mean jack-shit unless you’re old and bitter that younger people are better than you at stuff.
I’m talking specifically about you walking in here feeling yourself up because you don’t have any fight left in you. Yes, I’m sure this Kelly fella wouldn’t be the end of the world but oh my god ya’ll are fucking cowards. Frankly, so are us Canadians for the exact same reasons. You lose because you’ve decided you’re gunna lose before anything has even started, and you lose because the only thoughts in your head are based on propaganda.
“I would vote for _____ but they might not win so…“ actually piss off to the bottom of the ocean.
Again. You fail to see the difference between a mayoral election in a deep blue city and a national election involving millions upon millions of bigots in the right geographical areas to win a national election.
We cannot have a meaningful interaction until you are able to discern between the two.
If you are an adult, you have to accept that different candidates have different qualities and those qualities can make them more or less electable based on the type of election they are in. If you vote for someone that doesn't have electable qualities within the system the election is taking place, you are wasting your vote.
You’re just shitting all over quality candidates because you’re terrified of losing. You have this backwards logic of “I will only support them when they get support” and, if you truly believe that, you expect others to follow it as well. But if everyone follows it, where does that leave you?
By not supporting someone, you are contributing to what people see as “electable qualities” and YOU are saying that something can’t be done. This is how centrists, who are really just conservatives, have become so fucking pervasive.
Newsom would absolutely smoke anything the Republicans put up.
Then he would fail to accomplish anything meaningful, continue unpopular policies and while quibbling about the “feasibility” of popular policies. Then the republicans take back the house and senate in the next mid term, and he looses the next presidential election to another wacko facist.
Any candidate democrats put up in the next election will probably win, the question is what happens after that. Real reform and energetic leadership is needed and that’s just not what newsome brings to the table.