Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities

[HeelYeah2012]

I understand that. I don’t think it’s politically useful for Democrats to associate theirselves with socialism for that reason. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to call myself what I am on this message board. I’d think people are smart enough to divorce my particular political philosophy with the pure politics that I think Democrats need to embrace to win.

To reject what I’m saying out of hand because I identified myself as a Marxist or socialist on a thread discussing socialism and political theory is stupid. I won’t judge voters for this but I will judge educated message board posters.

It’s amazing how so many are getting confused by the separation between a) your personal beliefs, and b) your takes on what broader strategy for the Democratic Party should be.

 

[mynameisbond]

I agree with pretty much all of this, but I do think Dems have had a hard time handling the tech bro migration to the Pubs because Dems have been so all in on Silicon Valley for so long, even after it became clear unregulated social media and the consolidation of wealth among tech billionaires is extremely damaging to the country. Biden was really the first mainstream Dem to push back hard on those alliances. The tech bros responded by seeing if Trump was an easier mark, and of course he was. And that happened so fast and was so impactful to this last election that Dems are still struggling to figure out how to respond.

Broligarchs are fickle creatures. They will align with either party as circumstances dictate. When Trump’s policies start damaging the economy and making their wallets lighter, they’ll come back again.

 

[Paine]

It’s amazing how so many are getting confused by the separation between a) your personal beliefs, and b) your takes on what broader strategy for the Democratic Party should be.

Baffles me as well. I think it’s pure bad faith in some circumstances. Not sure how to explain it otherwise.

 

[CFordUNC]

Multiple things can be true here.

1. Dems are not good communicators right now. And Biden was one of the worst communicators we’ve seen in a LOOONG time. Political communication in this age is about volume and speed more than substance. Trump has mastered that, and with his buyout of Silicon Valley, his advantage there will only increase. Dems MUST figure out how to counter this, and they realistically need to get that done in the next six months or so.

2. Pubs will almost certainly be their own worst enemies now that they have unchecked power. I suspect we’ll soon see historically low approval ratings not just for Trump, but for the whole GOP.

3. Social issues are much more politically effective when you’re using them to attack than when you’re playing defense. It’s not like this is a new playbook for American conservatives. The people railing against trans rights and inclusion now are from the same segment of the political spectrum as those railing against the Civil Rights movement in 1965 and the gay rights movement in the 1990s. I’d pretty much guarantee you that the 2055 versions of HeelYeah, Calltoroy and Zen won’t give trans inclusion even a second of attention because it will be so widely accepted. Maybe not Ramrouser — there are still people who oppose the CRM even today, after all. But the point is that conservatism will always have a bogey man to hang around liberals’ necks. It’s part of the identity of the movement, and it has been for a long time. So it’s not like Dems can ignore it, but we also shouldn’t be wringing our hands about it. It’s not the Dems who will have grandkids embarrassed that their recent ancestors opposed basic human rights.

Agree with all of this. Short of actually not losing the election to Donald Trump, the next best thing that could have happened occurred: Republicans completely control the federal government. Everything from here on out is theirs. I think we are finally going to have a chance for people to get exactly what they think they wanted, and now the ball will be in their court moving forward to determine whether getting pronouns removed from email signatures matters all that much to them when their retirement age gets pushed back, their Walmart grocery bill goes up by 30%, and their gas price goes up by a dollar a gallon.

 

[superrific]

I understand that. I don’t think it’s politically useful for Democrats to associate theirselves with socialism for that reason. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to call myself what I am on this message board. I’d think people are smart enough to divorce my particular political philosophy with the pure politics that I think Democrats need to embrace to win.

To reject what I’m saying out of hand because I identified myself as a Marxist or socialist on a thread discussing socialism and political theory is stupid. I won’t judge voters for this but I will judge educated message board posters.

1. So why do you defend Bernie Sanders when people criticize him for associating themselves with socialism? This is the first time I've seen recognition from you that questioning capitalism is politically bad. Or at least the first time I can remember. Which is good progress.

2. I'm not rejecting anything you're saying out of hand and neither is anyone else. But it's not so simple as "the truth is the truth." In politics, everything is about framing. And when the leftists want to frame everything as "we need radical change because Americans are really unhappy and they are rejecting our institutions and they hate liberalism" when the reality might be closer to "America got scammed by a con artist," -- how are you helping? And I don't know about the cause and effect, but the fact that you want to organize politics around class struggle and your Marxist beliefs go together.

3. In the past, you've said things like, "of course I see the world as materialist struggles between classes. I'm a Marxist," as if that answers everything. On multiple occasions, you've said that your ideas are framed by your ideology. That's not what you're saying now. You want us to treat your Marxism as epiphenomenal to your views on politics, and I don't see why we should given that you don't seem to see it that way yourself.

Maybe I'm wrong and you can clarify, but from my point of view, I think your youthful attachment to this semi-academic radicalism is not merely a preference like wearing autumn colors in summer. It's a part of your approach to politics and it's fair game to question.

Just like it's fair game for you to question my perspective. Maybe I'm hopelessly ivory tower -- but it's also true that I admit it to a certain extent. You won't find me talking about how to communicate with ordinary Americans. I don't know how to do that. If I did, I would be a lot happier.

 

[lawtig02]

Broligarchs are fickle creatures. They will align with either party as circumstances dictate. When Trump’s policies start damaging the economy and making their wallets lighter, they’ll come back again.

Maybe. I’m skeptical for two reasons. First, as super pointed out, the tech bros are making a huge play for crypto now, and I don’t think Dems will ever facilitate that like the anarchists in the GOP will. Second, as the damaging effects of unregulated social media become more and more clear, I’m not sure the tech bros will ever be ok with what Dems should, and I think will, be pushing for in terms of reasonable regulation.

I certainly agree the tech bros are motivated by self-interest and not by principle, so they may not be reliable members of the GOP’s deplorable coalition. But I’m not sure they’d be welcomed back into what I hope the Dems will become. And I’m personally skeptical they should be.

 

[superrific]

Baffles me as well. I think it’s pure bad faith in some circumstances. Not sure how to explain it otherwise.

1. How is it that you, a self-proclaimed Marxist, are complaining about reductionism? Literally your whole idea is that peoples' views are determined by their class interests, regardless of what they say or what ideas they express. I mean, that is literally what Marxism is all about, and you've embraced that idea here multiple times.

2. I won't speak for anyone else. Nothing I say here is in bad faith. I spend too much time on explainer posts to be a troll or mendacious.

If a MAGA tries to tell me how bad DEI is, I will take his MAGA-ness into account when evaluating the ideas. So would you. If a Marxist tries to tell me that culture wars don't matter and everything is materialist -- which again, you've said more than once -- then I will take account of the Marxism. And you should take my background into account too. I taught corporate law and corporate finance. I'm no apologist for corporate America but I'm also much less likely to rail against multinational corporations given that background. I happen to think that background is helpful for a liberal, but I have no trouble with recognizing that my experience can bias me.

 

[Paine]

1. So why do you defend Bernie Sanders when people criticize him for associating themselves with socialism? This is the first time I've seen recognition from you that questioning capitalism is politically bad. Or at least the first time I can remember. Which is good progress.

2. I'm not rejecting anything you're saying out of hand and neither is anyone else. But it's not so simple as "the truth is the truth." In politics, everything is about framing. And when the leftists want to frame everything as "we need radical change because Americans are really unhappy and they are rejecting our institutions and they hate liberalism" when the reality might be closer to "America got scammed by a con artist," -- how are you helping? And I don't know about the cause and effect, but the fact that you want to organize politics around class struggle and your Marxist beliefs go together.

3. In the past, you've said things like, "of course I see the world as materialist struggles between classes. I'm a Marxist," as if that answers everything. On multiple occasions, you've said that your ideas are framed by your ideology. That's not what you're saying now. You want us to treat your Marxism as epiphenomenal to your views on politics, and I don't see why we should given that you don't seem to see it that way yourself.

Maybe I'm wrong and you can clarify, but from my point of view, I think your youthful attachment to this semi-academic radicalism is not merely a preference like wearing autumn colors in summer. It's a part of your approach to politics and it's fair game to question.

Just like it's fair game for you to question my perspective. Maybe I'm hopelessly ivory tower -- but it's also true that I admit it to a certain extent. You won't find me talking about how to communicate with ordinary Americans. I don't know how to do that. If I did, I would be a lot happier.

I think the message board mode of communication doesn’t lend itself well towards complex understandings of a particular person’s political philosophy and ideology. I’m not that interested in trying to communicate it via this method either.

At least part of this has been because of poor communication on my part, but I think there is also a segment of posters who assume things about me because of the labels I use. Weirdly, it tends to be liberals who don’t give me the benefit of the doubt.

I’ve criticized Sanders on this message board for his use of democratic socialist. He ran an unserious campaign in 2016 in part because he thought he’d just be a message candidate. He’s idealistic, like me, and put his commitment to his ideology over political practice in praising Ortega and Castro.

Again, it’s hard to discuss this on this medium for me. Loosely, my politics derive from my belief in universal human rights. This is a belief borne out of liberalism. I came to socialism through this belief in liberalism, which confuses a lot of liberals due to the longtime association of socialism with Stalinism and Maoism.

I don’t take Marxism as some kind of orthodoxy than we can’t stray from or some kind of religious text. I especially don’t believe this when it comes to the politics of Western democracies. Nor do I think that culture is irrelevant. The mistake you make is in having not examined the evolution of Marxist thought, which has incorporated the cultural turn and can exist alongside the revelations there.

Hope that helps position my thought more clearly, though I doubt it will.

 

[finesse]

It's less that I have something against socialism and more that I think even a link to the term is a poison pill in politics for about 75% of the country.

Actually, if I had to predict the future, I'd predict a predominantly socialist society for about 95% of the populace in the next hundred years. The rest will live in an effectively different society of privilege.

 

[Paine]

It's less that I have something against socialism and more that I think even a link to the term is a poison pill in politics for about 75% of the country.

Actually, if I had to predict the future, I'd predict a predominately socialist society for about 95% of the populace in the next hundred years. The rest will live in an effectively different society of privilege.

I agree, though I’d put the number at lower than 75%. Whatever the percentage, I think it’s clear that using the label distracts from what one is proposing more than anything. It’s unfortunate for me obviously. It makes communicating political ideas outside of liberalism quite difficult.

 

[CFordUNC]

This is purely anecdotal. I live in what is a pretty solidly red suburb of Birmingham, AL. I work out at a local mom-and-pop (i.e., not a chain) gym that is owned by a guy who is a local pastor and former Marine and police officer. As soon as you walk into the gym, on the walls you see the "Back the Blue" and "Back the Red (Firefighters)" versions of the American flag. There's the "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden flag, the POW/MIA flag, and flags representing every branch of service. The lone TV in there is almost always on Fox News. I've gotten to know a lot of the guys whom I work out around- majority of them are local PD and FD and look and talk exactly like you'd imagine a bunch of good ol' boys from Alabama would look and talk.

We've gotten to know one another well enough to have a general understanding of one another's politics. It's not that we specifically talk politics a lot per se, but it's pretty clear that we know which way one another votes. Put it this way, I am almost certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm the only non-Trump voter in there. And it doesn't matter We have great, friendly, cordial conversations. In talking to a lot of those guys, it's clear to me that a lot of what animates their votes are the social issues, but that they aren't unreachable by any means. I really do think that if the Democrats forego the culture war battles, drop the perceived faculty lounge elitism, and get a whole lot better at talking to average, non-college-educated Jimmy's and Joe's about how their economic policies are significantly better for the lower and middle classes and blue collar workers, there is an opportunity to gain back a lot of what has been lost to Trumpism. Mind you, we aren't going to gain back many MAGAs. And we don't need to. We need to gain back people like the guys whom I'm talking about.

 

[MendotoManteo]

I'm sure someone has already pointed this out (and we've discussed it elsewhere since the election), but - despite what Americans say or think - they overwhelmingly support Democratic policies. The catch, of course, is that they do so only when they don't know to associate them with Democrats or liberals. Once those terms are ascribed, Americans no longer support those policies.

In truth, Americans are largely dumbasses. But pointing out the fact won't change anything.

What Democrats need is a competitive media ecosystem. They're at least a decade behind conservatives in this regard and, frankly, I don't see this ever changing given the financial incentives of opposing liberalism.

 

[rodoheel]

*This* is the conversation I’ve been wanting to see on this board in the aftermath of Trump winning every competitive state and making gains in every demographic. I’ve got my popcorn ready!

This conversation has been had constantly since the election, and even before. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention?

In any event all this really demonstrates is how gullible people continue to be. Republicans spend way more time talking about social issues than Democrats. The Republican president who just got elected has been doing way more to fight "DEI" and "woke" than in fixing the economy, and in fact is likely harming the economy right now. But people will continue to eat up the culture war BS, so Pubs keep doing it.

 

[rodoheel]

This is purely anecdotal. I live in what is a pretty solidly red suburb of Birmingham, AL. I work out at a local mom-and-pop (i.e., not a chain) gym that is owned by a guy who is a local pastor and former Marine and police officer. As soon as you walk into the gym, on the walls you see the "Back the Blue" and "Back the Red (Firefighters)" versions of the American flag. There's the "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden flag, the POW/MIA flag, and flags representing every branch of service. The lone TV in there is almost always on Fox News. I've gotten to know a lot of the guys whom I work out around- majority of them are local PD and FD and look and talk exactly like you'd imagine a bunch of good ol' boys from Alabama would look and talk.

We've gotten to know one another well enough to have a general understanding of one another's politics. It's not that we specifically talk politics a lot per se, but it's pretty clear that we know which way one another votes. Put it this way, I am almost certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm the only non-Trump voter in there. And it doesn't matter We have great, friendly, cordial conversations. In talking to a lot of those guys, it's clear to me that a lot of what animates their votes are the social issues, but that they aren't unreachable by any means. I really do think that if the Democrats forego the culture war battles, drop the perceived faculty lounge elitism, and get a whole lot better at talking to average, non-college-educated Jimmy's and Joe's about how their economic policies are significantly better for the lower and middle classes and blue collar workers, there is an opportunity to gain back a lot of what has been lost to Trumpism. Mind you, we aren't going to gain back many MAGAs. And we don't need to. We need to gain back people like the guys whom I'm talking about.

You are talking about a gym where they have about 100 blaring indicators that the people in there are, in fact, MAGA. And yet your conclusion is that these are the reachable moderates, not the MAGA guys? The reachable moderates are not the people with "back the blue" flags, the Gadsden flag, and a TV playing Fox News constantly in the gym.

I'm not going to defend many things about the Democratic party strategically, and it's absolutely true that Dems need to "get a whole lot better at talking to average, non-college-educated Jimmy's and Joe's about how their economic policies are significantly better for the lower and middle classes and blue collar workers," but the idea that Dems are going to be getting back the Gadsden Flag guys hanging out in a local gym just by talking more about unions and the rising price of healthcare is not realistic, IMO.

 

[Zoo_View]

This is purely anecdotal. I live in what is a pretty solidly red suburb of Birmingham, AL. I work out at a local mom-and-pop (i.e., not a chain) gym that is owned by a guy who is a local pastor and former Marine and police officer. As soon as you walk into the gym, on the walls you see the "Back the Blue" and "Back the Red (Firefighters)" versions of the American flag. There's the "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden flag, the POW/MIA flag, and flags representing every branch of service. The lone TV in there is almost always on Fox News. I've gotten to know a lot of the guys whom I work out around- majority of them are local PD and FD and look and talk exactly like you'd imagine a bunch of good ol' boys from Alabama would look and talk.

We've gotten to know one another well enough to have a general understanding of one another's politics. It's not that we specifically talk politics a lot per se, but it's pretty clear that we know which way one another votes. Put it this way, I am almost certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm the only non-Trump voter in there. And it doesn't matter We have great, friendly, cordial conversations. In talking to a lot of those guys, it's clear to me that a lot of what animates their votes are the social issues, but that they aren't unreachable by any means. I really do think that if the Democrats forego the culture war battles, drop the perceived faculty lounge elitism, and get a whole lot better at talking to average, non-college-educated Jimmy's and Joe's about how their economic policies are significantly better for the lower and middle classes and blue collar workers, there is an opportunity to gain back a lot of what has been lost to Trumpism. Mind you, we aren't going to gain back many MAGAs. And we don't need to. We need to gain back people like the guys whom I'm talking about.

Out of curiosity, what’s the racial breakdown of this gym?

 

[rodoheel]

We’ve tried having this conversation on the board and most posters don’t want to hear it or have it. I fear they are representative of the party as a whole, unfortunately. The DNC chair race shows that the party isn’t interested in taking a hard look in the mirror.

Huh? We have had this conversation plenty. We have had long discussions on this topic. Does everyone's memory only go back like two weeks?

 

[BillOfRights]

Gift link

Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities

A poll from The New York Times and Ipsos found that Americans believe abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. issues and climate change concern Democrats more than the cost of living.

www.nytimes.com

Many Americans say they do not believe the Democratic Party is focused on the economic issues that matter most to them and is instead placing too much emphasis on social issues that they consider less urgent.

Asked to identify the Democratic Party’s most important priorities, Americans most often listed abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and climate change, according to a poll from The New York Times and Ipsos conducted from Jan. 2 to 10.

The issues that people cited as most important to them personally were the economy and inflation, health care and immigration, the poll found. The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years ranked much lower.

As Democrats gather in Washington this weekend to elect the next chairman of their party, and debate how to most effectively counter the Trump administration, the latest public opinion surveys contain worrisome signs for them.

The country remains deeply divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership, with roughly equal shares of people saying that his second term is cause for celebration or concern.

But the poll suggests that people do not view the Democratic Party as an appealing alternative.

In a broad sense, the poll, which surveyed a representative sample of 2,128 adults nationwide, found that Americans think the Republican Party is more in sync with the mood of the country. The issues that people said mattered most to Republicans were also, for the most part, the issues that mattered to them: immigration, the economy, inflation and taxes.

People are often uninformed and/or misinformed, and people are also liars, too.

"The issues that people cited as most important to them personally were the economy and inflation, health care and immigration, the poll found. The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years ranked much lower."

The economy consistently performs better with Democratic Presidents, and even better for those not in the top 1%, although the top 1% often does better with Democratic administrations. Democrats clearly and consistently have better healthcare policies with more insurance coverage and lower prices, and the Biden administration helped create the most effective bipartisan immigration legislation in decades. People, when not told which party supports certain policies, almost always choose policies backed by Democrats.

 

[CFordUNC]

You are talking about a gym where they have about 100 blaring indicators that the people in there are, in fact, MAGA. And yet your conclusion is that these are the reachable moderates, not the MAGA guys? The reachable moderates are not the people with "back the blue" flags, the Gadsden flag, and a TV playing Fox News constantly in the gym.

I'm not going to defend many things about the Democratic party strategically, and it's absolutely true that Dems need to "get a whole lot better at talking to average, non-college-educated Jimmy's and Joe's about how their economic policies are significantly better for the lower and middle classes and blue collar workers," but the idea that Dems are going to be getting back the Gadsden Flag guys hanging out in a local gym just by talking more about unions and the rising price of healthcare is not realistic, IMO.

You might be right, but my point is that I have enjoyable conversations with every single one of those guys when we could easily just not talk to one another knowing that we are on different political teams. I don't think guys like this are unreachable. I think more than anything else they care about the same things most average people care about: paying the bills, paying the mortgage, buying groceries, and providing for their families and children. For whatever reason- and my guess is that it is predominately due to a lack of exposure to higher education as well as to right wing media bullshit- these fellas think that Democrats spend all of their time advocating for sex changes on prisoners and no time at all on trying to make government work, and life more affordable, for the everyday person. They have no idea that when Democrats are in power, their economic lives are much, much better, and when Republicans are in power, their lives get a hell of a lot more expensive. If and when Democrats figure out a way to talk to these guys about the stuff they care about the economic issues they care about the most, I don't think they're unreachable. I don't think most people are unreachable, as a matter of fact. And I certainly don't think that just because they work out at a gym with Back the Blue and Don't Tread On Me flags that they should just be surrendered to the Republican Party forever.

 

[CFordUNC]

Out of curiosity, what’s the racial breakdown of this gym?

Mostly white, to be sure, but there are a handful of Black men and women, and at least a couple of Latino women, who I see there as regulars.

 

[superrific]

I think the message board mode of communication doesn’t lend itself well towards complex understandings of a particular person’s political philosophy and ideology. I’m not that interested in trying to communicate it via this method either.

At least part of this has been because of poor communication on my part, but I think there is also a segment of posters who assume things about me because of the labels I use. Weirdly, it tends to be liberals who don’t give me the benefit of the doubt.

I’ve criticized Sanders on this message board for his use of democratic socialist. He ran an unserious campaign in 2016 in part because he thought he’d just be a message candidate. He’s idealistic, like me, and put his commitment to his ideology over political practice in praising Ortega and Castro.

Again, it’s hard to discuss this on this medium for me. Loosely, my politics derive from my belief in universal human rights. This is a belief borne out of liberalism. I came to socialism through this belief in liberalism, which confuses a lot of liberals due to the longtime association of socialism with Stalinism and Maoism.

I don’t take Marxism as some kind of orthodoxy than we can’t stray from or some kind of religious text. I especially don’t believe this when it comes to the politics of Western democracies. Nor do I think that culture is irrelevant. The mistake you make is in having not examined the evolution of Marxist thought, which has incorporated the cultural turn and can exist alongside the revelations there.

Hope that helps position my thought more clearly, though I doubt it will.

1. I must have missed the part where you have characterized Bernie as unserious. I'm not saying it's not there. I've just not seen it. I have seen you laud Bernie's messaging skills and talk about how he would have won in 2016 (which is weird given your characterization of that campaign as unserious, but you might mean 2020, not 2016). If you agree that no Dem should ever speak well of Castro or any other "scary leftist" (a category that includes some real scary leftists, like Maduro, and some not-so-scary leftists that will get lumped into that category by a population that has trouble identifying any countries on a map), that's good. I'm not sure where to draw the "scary leftist" line. I think Lula is on the right side of that line.

2. Yes, it is a bit weird to see someone attracted to socialism or Marxism as a result of commitment to human rights, but I have to be fair: it's 2025, not 1975. Being "marxist" today is not to be Stalinist or Maoist. There's a separate question as to whether Marxism can actually get you where you want to go, but that's not for this thread.

3. Trust me, I've examined the evolution of Marxist thought. I've been reading Frankfurt School since before you were born. Gramsci is old hat. I lived through the Marxist culture wars of the 1990s.

In assessing your views, I have been drawing on statements you made about yourself. If those statements haven't been perfectly accurate, or if I read too much into them, OK. I rarely hold one's past disavowed positions against a person for several reasons. First, who cares what they believed if they don't any more (this isn't always true, but usually). Second, it leads to useless fights about what that person did believe, and/or who is responsible for the miscommunication or misunderstanding. Third, it quickly becomes self-parody, like Life of Brian.

So if I've been misunderstanding your position on culture and politics, thank you for clarifying. I don't care if I misunderstood or you miscommunicated or both or neither. Please keep in mind that I'm twice your age, which means I don't remember stuff quite as well as I used to, especially given how many posters there are here. It's hard for me to keep everyone straight. I know, it will shock you, but I've never been a people person. A people-caring person, 100%. But my brain is more organized around ideas than sociality.

Point is, if in the future, I've misstated your views, just say that. "Didn't we have this discussion before." And then try not to be too judgmental or impart to me allegations of bad faith. I do my best. Of all the things one might accuse me of, bad faith fits least. And I should also note that I'm probably the most frequently mischaracterized or misunderstood poster here.

4. Liberals don't give always leftists the benefit of the doubt, because we've been scarred. We see them as unreliable allies, which frequently they are. See, e.g., Rashida Tlaib and "uncommitted." You don't have to answer for the Naderites, given that you were an infant. But I would hope young people could at least respect that old-timers have PTSD about lefitsts wrecking what we've been trying to do, which is pretty much defeating the ignorance and hate machine that has been the GOP for some time.

5. Also recognize that the financial crisis of 2008 was a defining event for many older people. When I started teaching, the financial crisis was front and center in everyone's minds. When I was finishing teaching, most of my students generally had an idea of what it was and why it was bad (and typically wanted to know more about it), but it wasn't formative for them. It's been almost 20 years now. The average law student was maybe 10 when it went down.

And there was a LOT of scarring there, because the left fucking went berserk about TARP. Yes, it sucked. Dems followed it up with Dodd-Frank, which was supposed to make future TARP's unnecessary. But TARP was needed to prevent the world from spiraling into a Great Depression. (Technically TARP was a Bush production but Dems voted for it in Congress and Obama continued the approach). And the housing crisis was not actually Dems' fault. It actually had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall. Liberals were trying to save the world, while leftists were singing songs in tents near Wall Street.

Then the left spiraled into the "TPP is TERRIBLE even though none of us can tell you anything about it" mode, and that hurt HRC in 2016, and it was all so frustrating because the young leftists were barely more informed on the issue than the MAGAs.

You don't have to answer for any of that, but we lived it and to some extent still are. And we're going to view the world according to our experiences. We don't trust the left. That's a reality and it's incumbent upon the left to at least participate in bridge-building, which they have not been doing so well. There are exceptions (e.g. AOC) but there's still too much antagonism on our left flank.