If a leftist ran for president, would liberals support him?
If a leftist ran for president, would liberals support him?
For example, let’s say Bernie Sanders was the nominee in 2024 against Trump. A lot of people on the internet seem to like him, even some conservatives. But would liberals fall in line and vote for him enough to beat Trump?
Bernie’s supporters always seem to attack the Democrats liberal base, do you think they’d sit home if Bernie or any leftist was the nominee.
They totally would, until they disagreed with a single one of his policies.
Would liberals support him? Sure.
Would liberals support her? No.
This is the real answer.
Too many white and hispanic men feel too insecure to vote for a woman.
Yup. And not just those voters. It’s an issue in most groups.
There are even plenty of women that won’t vote for a woman.
Nobody agrees on what those words mean so it's a confusing question. Clearly he would have had a better chance of winning.
Most people have no idea a leftist isn't just a weirdo way of saying liberal
No. They would be morons and vote against socialism even if it's good for them.
If they'd shut the fuck up moaning about liberals all the time yeah
That’s the problem
No. And they've said as much.
"Clinton would not pledge to support Sanders if he won the 2020 Democratic nomination."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-sen-bernie-sanders-likes/story?id=68424746
“However – I do reject socialism as a economic system. If people have that view, that’s their view. That is not the view of the Democratic Party.” - Pelosi
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/15/politics/nancy-pelosi-socialism/index.html
Your link is Clinton saying she won't say before the primary is over whether she would support Sanders. It's not even her saying she wouldn't do it, let alone all liberals saying it.
The amount of disinformation spread here is amazing.
I'm not sure how much these endorsements actually matter... Lord knows Liz Cheney's endorsing Kamala didn't tip the scales.
Would establishment libs support a leftist? Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that voters would necessarily follow suit.
That's a fair point.
It's so sad to see this, especially knowing that while you can like or dislike Clinton and Pelosi, I doubt they are unware that Sanders is not proposing socialism. Socialism and social democracy are two very, vastly different things. And they for sure know this very well.
I sincerely hope that Sanders will found a new party soon, it will have 4 years to gain momentum. Will it win in the next election cycle? No, but it might actually get enough votes to win in 8 or 12 years. Just do it.
Does Sanders have enough life left in him to develop a far-left party? How will it differ from the existing left-leaning third-parties? How would the party stand out and "matter?" Relevant XKCD
I ask these things as a perennially disappointed minarchist classical liberal.
The DNC will never let a leftist get past the primaries. They'd sooner lose, as they've shown us for the last 3 elections.
A lot of people don't know the difference between establishment Democrats and liberals.
I know there is a difference, but......if the purpose of a system is it's end result then is there a difference?
Maybe, but that's not the question.
No. Liberals have always been closer to fascists than socialists. Look which way liberals in Weimar Germany went.
The word "liberals" means something else in Germany than in the US. The closes analogy would be Democrats=SPD and Republicans=CDU, which are the two biggest parties. When Hitler took over, the CDU fell in line while the SPD resisted. The SPD then was also a lot more leftist than it is now. It's pretty much centrist now and only slightly more to the left than the conservative CDU.
Back then, the SPD had politicians with a backbone made of steel! Hitler tried to intimidate the members of parliament by having the SS and SA surround the building (Krolloper), and for the most part, this tactic worked. However, Otto Wels and the SPD stood firm and voted against the 'Ermächtigungsgesetz' (Enabling Act). In his famous speech, Wels declared: 'You can take away our freedom and our lives, but not our honor.' Many SPD members paid the ultimate price for their courage, and Otto Wels himself died in exile in France in 1939.
My headcanon:
Leftist: One who supports the general ideas of the Democratic party and supports the people at the head and their usual goings-on, voted Harris, enjoy the color blue.
Liberal: A Leftist, but they don't think their party speaks for them enough, or aren't extreme enough on certain issues they don't think are represented enough, so they think the party has abandoned or doesn't speak for them. These can be anyone from lgbtq+ activists to worker unions to Bernie Sanders. The idea that the left has left you, or whatever you stand for, and you are the liberal left.
Liberal(2nd definition): Someone who's into traditionalist communist ideals, Lemmy calls them "tankies". These tend to... not be what most people are talking about when they say liberal, despite arguments to the contrary.
Correct me if I'm wrong, this is in the context of the USA.
Lol wut?
I agree, that didn't make sense on its surface. By definition, liberalism and fascism are at odds. According to Wikipedia,
Liberalism: A political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.
Fascism: A far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Now, if I had to guess at what OP meant, perhaps it's that America's Liberals are more closely aligned with its Conservatives (who are not all fascists yet but are rapidly embracing fascism over the past decade, probably longer) than they would be with pure leftists (as in full-on Socialists/Communists, which Bernie, a Social Democrat, is not). Best recent evidence I can think of for this is the DNC actively colluding against Sanders in the primaries of 2016 and 2020 and consciously omitting leftist policy from their platform in 2024, instead replacing it with moderate Republican policies.
In short, I believe mainstream Democrats would endorse Republicans if it meant keeping a true leftist from power.
Yes, but that's keeping in mind that, contrary to popular belief among the types that go on Lemmy, most people aren't ideological. They don't care that Democrat A is this and Democrat B is that, they care about who they think will help their lives, ideology be damned. So, a lot of the people that socialists would call "libs" would vote for Bernie, BUT, most of those people think of Sanders primarily as "more liberal."
People who are actively aware of the difference between neoliberalism and social democracy, I'm not sure. But I honestly think they're a rounding error in US politics.
Socialists are very, very aware that the oppressed masses of people that don't know what words mean love socialist policies when they don't know they're socialist.
Let me put it this way... Here's the 2020 DNC primary donations:
You know when conservatives post pictures of counties being all one color thus showing significant voting support most people speak up about how land doesn't vote and explain why those maps are kind of useless. Just food for thought.
my thought immediately when seeing this. interesting to see the geographic spread but misleading to frame it as more area = more popular
man where's yang
We know the answer to that from how Bernie was treated
Assuming Bernie could get on the ticket, I absolutely believe people would have voted for him.
The problem is of course getting him on the ticket.
You think liberals would vote for him?
I think if he made the democratic nomination in 2016 he'd be finishing his second term right now.
I think democrats would, for the most part. Perhaps less enthusiastically, but since they hate Trump, I think it would not be a major issue.
The question is, how would low-information unaffiliated voters respond to having a socialist in the ballot? This is a difficult question to answer. Traditionally socialism is a bad word in US politics, albeit less so with younger voters.
Personally I don’t really buy the “Bernie would have won” stuff but there’s really only one way to find out.
I sincerely have no idea.
The narrative that a leftist couldn't win is repeated so predictably and so often and by so many people that the whole idea has become sort of detached from reality, and there's no telling what would happen if it was actually a possibility.
And particularly since the one thing I'd pretty much guarantee is that the concerted efforts on the part of the ruling class to prevent a leftist from running would be as nothing compared to what they'd do and say in order to prevent one from winning.
I read somewhere on Lemmy, the idea of running as a 'Radical Republican' and push leftist policies. Just focus on working class issues and nepo-wealth corruption in the business world. That might help win over the same disenfranchised that helped trump win.
Yes. Democrats voted for Obama in 2008 and he presented himself as more progressive than Hilary.
Probably. People tend to vote for their team - regardless of the actual underlying policy
No promises, though.
the haters, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, the gun fondlers, the diesel fume huffers, and the bible thumpers vote repulbican every. single. time.
too many democrats jump ship and stay home, vote for the no chance party, or republican if a candidate doesn't support every little policy and issue they want or who supports something they don't. even if the fate of the nation and democracy is at stake, they'll abandon reason.
Yup. Idiots incapable of compromise, so they get nothing.
I don’t know, we should do this and find out.
If they had believable policies, and realistic paths to achieve them, absolutely I would.
No question.
No. When you leave social media echo chambers like Lemmy, you hear liberals and others right of center talking about how Kamala was too liberal.
That's just the dishonest pundets though.. and the people ratcheting the Dems right. Kamala ran on a Y2K republican program and got annihilated because Y2K republicans are now maga and there are no moderate republicans.
Sanders? Probably.
Someone else? Depends on their policies and what you mean by "liberals". If you mean general center-left / Democrat base types, probably they vote for the DNC nominee. If you mean people devoted to Enlightenment Liberalism, it depends on how authoritarian the the candidate is.
I think it's fair to say that ~80% of voters will just follow whatever their party's media outlets say they should vote for. If a proper leftist and actually got the DNC nomination, I don't think many classic liberals would think twice about voting for them.
No, they'd side with the corporations cause they luv them
So he’d lose?
Yes
I mean, at least for me, the question is "Who?"
In more ways than one. It's quite evident to me now that a candidate needs to be charismatic, not just have some good ideas, to motivate voters to take their side. But "leftism" and "leftist" are still pretty vague labels. Just personally, some of the left-wing figures in the US today would earn my vote and some would not. More broadly, and I think there'd be a big difference between voters-at-large's willingness to accept Bernie-esque proposals and some of the more out-there stuff I've seen.
It doesn't matter who decides to run for president .... it's all dependent on who gets the most marketing / advertising and promotional campaign - which all requires money. So it means whoever has the most money or whoever can influence the most money can run for president.
It isn't the message that matters ... it doesn't matter if its left, right, up or down .. whoever gets to achieve the most influence over the wealthiest individuals gets to run for president.
Absolutely not. Type "Lamont Lieberman" (without the quotes) into a search engine for more info. Also "Clinton puma". In the opposite direction, Kamala Harris lost a lot of Biden voters. Biden was considered relatively left of center (though nowhere near as leftist as Sanders) back in the day.
I don't even think Biden is left of the US center. Who the hell thinks Biden is left of center?
Left of the US Senate center, or maybe the Senate Democrat center. Not the whole US. And I mean in the 1980s, not now. Even today though, I'd consider him leftward of Kamala Harris.
Biden is certainly left of the US center.
In terms of what he got done, he's easily the most left wing President since LBJ. Perhaps FDR. Whether or not that is defined as left-wing/leftist/liberal is a matter of opinion.
Left of global center? No. Left of USA center? Probably.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx
More Americans identify as conservative than liberal. It's not something we have to like, and certain policies may be quite different individually, but in order to win nationally, Democrats have to defeat voters' own self-identification. Obviously it happens, so this isn't some insurmountable challenge, but the deck is stacked.
Oh yeah, completely forgot that.
I mean that's how Obama won his first term so probably yes.
I would have voted for him... In 2016, 20, 24
But DNC and their owners won't do that. So fuck them.
Would Bernie have paid off the electoral college members like the felon rapist did?
that's not how the electoral college works tho. in most states, an elector not voting in accordance with the state's popular vote is against the law. trump only gained 3 votes with faithless electors in 2016, and that was a record (not counting the time 63 electors switched because their pledged candidate died); no faithless elector votes counted in 2020 nor 2024.