What did Democrats do wrong?

[mumblethrax]

Current efforts to corrupt national elections notwithstanding, the feds should definitely take over running elections, at least as far as is constitutionally permissible. It's bizarre that we still leave that to the states after the experience of Jim Crow.

 

[ahhell]

The advantage is that it makes a lot harder to actually corrupt. For the most part its not even the states that run elections, its counties. Theres's thousands of counties. I think it's a feature not a bug, good idea to have the feds as more independent watchdogs than running the elections.

 

[mumblethrax]

The advantage is that it makes a lot harder to actually corrupt.

I think it's tough to defend that view in light of the way states have corrupted elections throughout our history. Even today, as soon as the Supreme Court invalidates some portion of the Voting Rights Act with we're-not-getting-wet-so-why-the-umbrella logic, those states are ready to jump on the opportunity to corrupt their elections.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sure lets just do away with our right to associate in groups we choose, and have the feds take over running elections.

That's an interesting jump. I don't think I suggested you can't associate in groups as you choose. But there are some definite drawbacks to political parties - they tend to flatten complex topics and to force-team things that a lot of people don't necessarily want to have lumped together. Independents have been a growing cohort over time, and the more flattened the Dems and Reps get, the more Indys there are. I'm far from alone on this - there are some topics that I think Reps have a better take on, some I think Dems have a better take on, and a whole lot of topics where I think they both have their heads up their backsides.

How exactly would elections look if there were no political parties? Ranked choice election for President with thousands of candidates to choose from?

Or phased runoffs. I'm sure we can come up with a hypothetical solution, we're all smart people. Well, okay, most of us are smart people.

 

[mumblethrax]

That's an interesting jump. I don't think I suggested you can't associate in groups as you choose.

If you're suggesting we ban political parties, you are going to run into freedom of association problems, because parties are fundamentally groups of people organized to some political end. It's notable that California's blanket primaries were invalidated by the Supreme Court back in 2000 because they could force parties to accept someone who wasn't a member (in any sense) as their candidate. If that doesn't fly, you can be confident that banning parties altogether won't, either.

 

[lobosrul5]

That's an interesting jump. I don't think I suggested you can't associate in groups as you choose. But there are some definite drawbacks to political parties - they tend to flatten complex topics and to force-team things that a lot of people don't necessarily want to have lumped together. Independents have been a growing cohort over time, and the more flattened the Dems and Reps get, the more Indys there are. I'm far from alone on this - there are some topics that I think Reps have a better take on, some I think Dems have a better take on, and a whole lot of topics where I think they both have their heads up their backsides.

Its not a jump at all. You stated: "I'd go a step further and just get rid of parties". A political party is an association of people who come together to further their collective political aims. The only way to "get rid of them", would be to make them illegal.

Or phased runoffs. I'm sure we can come up with a hypothetical solution, we're all smart people. Well, okay, most of us are smart people.

OK, hypothetically, Congress passes a bill completely banning political parties, and Trump signs it into law. The SCOTUS, for some reason, upholds the new law. How should the 2028 election be organized in your opinion?

Ohh, and please do note that I've been a registered independent since 2008, and that I do believe the primary system we have has caused increasingly worse candidates in recent years. But, thats because most people do not pay attention to them. Ergo, inattention and apathy by the public are why we keep getting two candidates that don't appeal to the mainstream and we are left with choosing the lesser of two evils in most elections.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

How about we try to make it easy to exercise your right to vote?
Public holiday, loads more polling places, more time to count, harsh penalties for deceptive campaigning or voter disenfranchisement.
Gerrymandering based on maximizing voter power instead of minimizing it.

Maybe the system works if you let it work instead of kneecap it at every opportunity?

 

[Emily's Cat]

If you're suggesting we ban political parties, you are going to run into freedom of association problems, because parties are fundamentally groups of people organized to some political end. It's notable that California's blanket primaries were invalidated by the Supreme Court back in 2000 because they could force parties to accept someone who wasn't a member (in any sense) as their candidate. If that doesn't fly, you can be confident that banning parties altogether won't, either.

Its not a jump at all. You stated: "I'd go a step further and just get rid of parties". A political party is an association of people who come together to further their collective political aims. The only way to "get rid of them", would be to make them illegal.



OK, hypothetically, Congress passes a bill completely banning political parties, and Trump signs it into law. The SCOTUS, for some reason, upholds the new law. How should the 2028 election be organized in your opinion?

Ohh, and please do note that I've been a registered independent since 2008, and that I do believe the primary system we have has caused increasingly worse candidates in recent years. But, thats because most people do not pay attention to them. Ergo, inattention and apathy by the public are why we keep getting two candidates that don't appeal to the mainstream and we are left with choosing the lesser of two evils in most elections.

I get what you're saying, and you're probably right in terms of free speech impacts. That wasn't really my intent. Right now I think parties are a problem - not the concept, but the effect.

I'm very frustrated, because I'm not partisan and I've always been independent. I can't vote in primaries because I'm not registered with a party. In pretty much every cycle I can remember, there were candidates from each party that I thought would be good leaders, but they didn't make it through primaries. The reality is that a fairly large portion of Americans are politically homeless, and neither of the dominant parties are fielding candidates that meet the needs of normal citizens very well.

I think the system of political parties, and the way in which they're run and organized, is a barrier and a problem. I don't care if people associate, but I really dislike the closed off nature of parties, and the way in which they end up forcing people we don't like as the only choices.

FPTP is a HUGE part of that problem. Closed primaries is also a big part of the problem. I don't have a perfect solution, I just know that this isn't working very well.

 

[mumblethrax]

I'm very frustrated, because I'm not partisan and I've always been independent. I can't vote in primaries because I'm not registered with a party. In pretty much every cycle I can remember, there were candidates from each party that I thought would be good leaders, but they didn't make it through primaries. The reality is that a fairly large portion of Americans are politically homeless, and neither of the dominant parties are fielding candidates that meet the needs of normal citizens very well.

I agree that's a problem, but I'd say that moving to a multi-party system is preferable to trying to eliminate parties altogether. That would give people a political home, and eliminate the threat of being "primaried", which exacerbates the current era of polarization.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I get what you're saying, and you're probably right in terms of free speech impacts. That wasn't really my intent. Right now I think parties are a problem - not the concept, but the effect.

I'm very frustrated, because I'm not partisan and I've always been independent. I can't vote in primaries because I'm not registered with a party. In pretty much every cycle I can remember, there were candidates from each party that I thought would be good leaders, but they didn't make it through primaries. The reality is that a fairly large portion of Americans are politically homeless, and neither of the dominant parties are fielding candidates that meet the needs of normal citizens very well.

I think the system of political parties, and the way in which they're run and organized, is a barrier and a problem. I don't care if people associate, but I really dislike the closed off nature of parties, and the way in which they end up forcing people we don't like as the only choices.

FPTP is a HUGE part of that problem. Closed primaries is also a big part of the problem. I don't have a perfect solution, I just know that this isn't working very well.

My 'perfect world' system, would be to make political manifestos binding on the election winner and hold the election itself by all parties submitting their manifestos which would be collated and published to the electorate with all party references removed. The electorate would then vote on the manifesto they wanted rather than the party name. Obviously it would never happen, but it would require voters to at least look at what they're voting for.

 

[ZiprHead]

Closed primaries is also a big part of the problem.

That's just wanting to choose who runs a club you are not a member of.

 

[Emily's Cat]

My 'perfect world' system, would be to make political manifestos binding on the election winner and hold the election itself by all parties submitting their manifestos which would be collated and published to the electorate with all party references removed. The electorate would then vote on the manifesto they wanted rather than the party name. Obviously it would never happen, but it would require voters to at least look at what they're voting for.

That would probably help some.

I'm still a bit screwed by the US system, I want some parts from one side and other parts from the other side. FPTP will inevitably cause two parties to dominate, and will cause those parties to take oppositional positions on more and more topics, you end up with a schism. It flattens the options and creates a strong pressure toward ideological conformity.

Which sucks when both sides have lunatic policies on some things.

The only way out is for at least one of the parties to be replaced or upturned. At some point, one party will end up with enough policies that are considered nutty by a majority of normal people, that they'll shrink to small enough that it can be changed and moved back to a more widely acceptable position on those items. It can happen by internal change, or it can happen by a different, non-dominant party picking up their lost members and growing to supplant them.

 

[Emily's Cat]

That's just wanting to choose who runs a club you are not a member of.

It's wanting to have a say in who runs the country I live in.

I'm not a member of either "club". I have policy disagreements with both of them. And the result of that ends up being that I have no voice in the character of who runs the country and massively affects my life.

Open primaries still leaves a lot in the hands of the parties. They still limit the available candidates to members of that party. I'm sure to some degree, they even have the power to put forth or back members of the party who hold certain views and commit to furthering certain policies. The party still controls the short list for president.

I want a say in who becomes the finalist.

 

[Tero]

Just heard a few MAGA people on social media and boy are they stupid. No policy issue ever gets thru. Yet the lies Trump tells are occasionally policy. Like tariffs. But nothing can sway these 30 million losers.

 

[Tero]

My blog entry from 2018:
(title was the hatred of government)

The Trump era brought in the first president that represents the libertarian voters. (Though Reagan certainly started it.) All the talk of ”too much regulation” is aimed at these haters of the ”nanny state.”

The so called white working class has come to respect authority, people you meet face to face. Government leaders to them are just doing ”useless unproductive work.”

We have not come that far from our hunter gatherer days. In those times there were small tribes. There was a pecking order among the males, whereas experience probably ranked the women from leader to follower and novice. The elders were needed in things like childbirth. The men had to adjust to their role in the tribe. There may have been a leader you had to submit to, but the rest of the men of your generation were of equal standing. Some took roles as specialist: tool maker, shaman. If you had no special skills, strength mattered.

In today’s world all that breaks down. You take orders from your boss. Your community has leaders you may know somewhat. You vote based on how you want local taxes spent. Above that level things become less meaningful for the average person.

The concept of a national government in a country of 300 million leads to distrust of this government far away. All interactions with no personal touch are alien to our tribal heritage.

The libertarian is angered by dealing with faceless bureaucrats at any level. He starts thinking everything can be handled by the private sector, supply and demand!

In today’s high tech world the private sector gets doctors, engineers and scientists trained by partly tax money. There is no going back. even the science and technology is pushed ahead by government involvement. Either as basic research of funding.

There are of course people that know full well how all this works, but in public express the same views as Trump voters. They are able to personally profit from things the government does. (An example of this is weather forecasting, Accuweather as a business).

 

[dann]

Gerrymandering based on maximizing voter power instead of minimizing it.

There's a pretty easy and simple way to avoid gerrymandering altogether:

Levelling seats (Wikipedia)
Leveling seats (Danish: tillægsmandat, Swedish: utjämningsmandat, Norwegian: utjevningsmandater, Icelandic: jöfnunarsæti, German: Ausgleichsmandat), commonly known also as adjustment seats, are an election mechanism employed for many years by all Nordic countries (except Finland) in elections for its national legislatures. Germany also used national leveling seats for its legislature's lower chamber, the Bundestag, from 2013 to 2023. Leveling seats are seats of additional members elected to supplement the members directly elected by each constituency. The purpose of the additional seats is to ensure that each party's share of the total seats is roughly proportional to the party's overall shares of votes at the national level.

Since 1915, this principle* has been in use in Denmark:

All parties that achieve at least 2% of the national votes are granted as many leveling seats as required to achieve proportional representation at the national level.

It secures 'representation' at the national level proportional to the number of votes (but it doesn't get rid of the most basic flaw (actually: feature) of representative democracy).


* ETA: All the 'representatives' who fear that they won't make the cut without gerrymandering will obviously be opposed to this principle.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

That would require more reform of the US system than just specifying that competitiveness must be part of all redistricting.
The key problem of US voting has been that most Seats are safe for one Party or the other, leading to most Voters being ignored if they are not in Swing Districts/States, and Primaries selecting for the most radical nutjobs of their Parties when safely Blue or Red.

 

[dann]

I know!
I just said that "there's a pretty easy and simple way to avoid gerrymandering altogether."
I didn't say that, even though it's an easy and simple way, it's a way that the political establishment of the USA has any interest in implementing.

 

[dann]

Interactive Polls on X, Oct 8, 2026
Tim Walz says the Harris campaign chased the wrong voters — Dick Cheney Republicans: (Lever)
“It’s pretty hard to deny that one of our base was fractured — the American Jewish community and the Muslim community, over Gaza and the intolerable assault. In retrospect, we should have spent time there — not courting a nebulous group of Wyoming Republicans who weren’t going to vote for us.”
He is arguing the Cheney swing was a dead end — and the split over Gaza was the real problem.
The rest of the postmortem is just as blunt. Harris never broke from Biden — the DNC autopsy said the White House never positioned her to run her own race. Walz’s early “they’re weird” line got benched for a big tent with Cheney, Bernie, and Taylor Swift. And the party’s own report skipped Gaza and Biden’s age — the two fights that actually split the ticket.
Did they lose the base trying to rent Liz Cheney’s?

The Lever on X, Oct 8, 2026
.@GovTimWalz says Democrats’ 2024 strategy of campaigning with @Liz_Cheney risked losing sight of their own base.
Asked whether @KamalaHarris’ appearances with Cheney misread who the real swing voter was, Walz said yes.

Short clip (2 min.) from an interview with Tim Walz.

 

[dann]

Democrats listened to the donor class instead of to people.
That's what Democrats did wrong!

Bernie Sanders Shocks Even 'Moderate' Democrats With New Poll On What Americans Want| Midterms (Project America News on YouTube, Oct 3, 2026 – 5:25 min.)
Bernie Sanders pushes back against the idea that progressive policies are outside the American mainstream, pointing to polling figures he says show broad support for several core proposals. In the speech, Sanders cites support for Medicare for All, a $20 federal minimum wage, a billionaire wealth tax, a pause on AI development, a moratorium on data-center construction and raising the Social Security payroll tax cap. He also discusses foreign policy, housing, child care and U.S. military aid to Israel. Sanders argues that Americans are frustrated with status quo politics and calls on progressives to organize, win elections and challenge policies he describes as harmful to working people.

0:56–> 59% of the American people support Medicare for all.
1:30–> 57% of Americans support a $20 an hour minimum wage.
2:05–> 61% of Americans support a billionaire wealth tax.
2:34–> 63% of Americans want a pause on AI development.
2:53–> 62% ... support a moratorium on data center construction.
3:32–> 66% of the American people want to make the very wealthy pay their fair share into Social Security.
3:43–> 58% of Americans want to end US military aid to Israel.

4:05–> So what does all of this mean?
What all of this means is that the American people are angry. They are tired of status quo politics and status quo policies. They want real change. They want the United States Congress to have the guts to stand up to big money interests and pass legislation that will improve their lives and their kids' lives.

So when anyone tells you that the progressive agenda is way out there, it's fringy, communistic or whatever it may be, you go back and you say:
"Yeah, on almost every major issue that we as progressives are fighting for, that's exactly where the American people are."

This Bernie Sanders Speech Is Scaring Both Billionaires And Moderate Democrats: Watch Why| Midterms (Project America News on YouTube, Oct 9, 2026 – 31:33 min.)
Bernie Sanders has criticised the concentration of wealth and political power among America’s billionaires, taking aim at Donald Trump’s tax cuts and their potential impact on working families and healthcare. Speaking in support of California’s Proposition 40, Sanders argued that the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes as millions struggle with rising living costs and healthcare expenses. He also accused billionaires of using their financial influence to shape elections and oppose the proposed wealth tax. Sanders called for a national 5% wealth tax on billionaires, saying the revenue could help fund healthcare, affordable housing, childcare and public education.