this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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Not even close to correct. Who are the most popular politicians in this country? Every poll I've seen in the past 10 years has AOC and Bernie at the top, and the only politician who can even compete with their approval ratings is Mamdani.
Liberals make up a plurality of the news media and the wealthy Democratic donors. They aren't plurality of the people. A recent poll has 62% of self identified Democrats saying they want new Democratic leadership, and only 24% saying they like the leadership they have. People are fed up, and they are not looking for more "centrist" Democrats.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/656636/democrats-favor-party-moderation-past.aspx
Polling using the word "liberal" is pretty pointless. Leftists and centrists have completely different opposing definitions of what it means, and most Americans don't have a clue.
Polling on specific issues or particular politicians is the only way to get an accurate picture, and Americans, especially Democrats, are far more left than they self identity.
That would seem much more to point towards polling using the word 'liberal' being more useful than trying to apply leftist definitions, since most Americans don't have a clue about the distinction.
Funny that polling on specific issues and particular politicians rarely if ever translates into actual voting patterns, even in ballot initiatives. Almost like "Do you like GOOD THING?" gets positive responses until someone points out, rightly or wrongly, that there are other effects, like universal healthcare requiring minor tax rises.
Likewise, having a positive view of a politician is not the same as voting for them, or Bernie wouldn't have lost two fucking primaries due to the more left-leaning of the two parties rejecting him by double-digit percentages in favor of neoliberal ghouls.
"THE COUNTRY IS SECRETLY LEFT-WING" is just as blinkered and fucking idiotic as "THE SILENT MAJORITY IS WITH US" from the GOP.
Who's trying to apply leftist definitions? There is nothing in any definition of "liberal" that aligns it with leftism. It gets misused constantly in multiple ways, not to mention being confused with neoliberalism.
Tell that to Andrew Cuomo, or Joe Crowley.
Not true. Republicans (and some Democrats) are working hard at removing ballot initiatives because they work so well for the left.
Why would you assume Bernie being left is why he lost? Clinton had way more large money donations than Bernie, and she had corporate media in her pocket. Bernie wasn't even making a serious run until he started doing far better than he thought he would. Half way through he completely reorganized his campaign to be a real candidate instead of an issue candidate. The fact that he was able to make that a race against someone with Hillary's name recognition and the party blessing shows just how powerful left messaging can be.
The issue against Biden wasn't that left politics was unpopular, it was that left politics was perceived to be unpopular. The number one issue for Democratic voters in 2020 was beating Trump. Voters thought a centrist candidate had a better chance, even though Bernie and Biden pulled almost identically against Trump. The media kept pounding on the electability argument against Bernie, and it stuck. Polling on the candidates showed voters preferred Bernie's policies, but they didn't know if he could win.
Oh, fuck you, that's not at all what I said.
"I'm not trying to apply leftist definitions, I'm just completely ignoring the common usage of 'liberal' in US politics that both the deeply-involved and the apolitical recognize"
Okay.
What does that have to do with what I said?
Of those listed ballot measures, voting rights was the only one that was an unpopular issue at the time, and it had distinctly mixed results, as Jacobin noted.
I said
Okay? How does that at all contradict my point about how people vote?
Yet he still didn't win, again, even in the more left-leaning of the two parties, and much of his support was gained from anti-Hillary sentiment rather than pro-leftist sentiment - as seen in West Virginia, itself a very conservative state that went for Bernie in the 2016 primary, but overwhelmingly for right-wing candidates in the 2008 and 2020 primaries.
The point of this is not "BERNIE BAD". Bernie is fantastic, I voted and volunteered for him twice. The point is that the country is not as fucking left as you think it is just because Bernie's favorability is high. I lived in a deeply conservative area in 2016, plenty of conservative folks (both in the GOP and Blue Dog/'Moderate' sense) quite openly were positive about Bernie - but would never have voted Bernie in a thousand fucking years. They liked him, but that's not the same as being willing to vote for him, or agreeing with him.
Except every time a poll comes up and actually asks in-depth questions about left policies that include any of their downsides, like "Would you support universal healthcare if it includes raising taxes, even slightly?", support for left policies drop. "Do you want [GOOD THING]?" polls well, because of fucking course it does. The moment attack ads show up pointing out the issue has any potential downsides, those numbers fucking crater in terms of how they're actually voted on.
You know what? You're absolutely right. The country is overwhelmingly left-wing, and we've just rejected every leftist candidate in the primaries for the past 37 years because of some convenient mishap every fucking presidential election cycle, and the last time we did embrace a 'leftist' (or at least unabashedly liberal) candidate, we got fucking stomped.
The country is really left-wing though, we're just all suffering from mirror Shy Tory syndrome.
I sometimes wonder if any of you have ever even fucking talked to moderate Dems. Or, for that matter, conservatives, who often have the same pattern of "Oh yes that sounds very good ^.^" but wouldn't support left issues in a million fucking years.
"The country is openly left-wing" is even more insane, and you're certainly arguing for one of the two. Your entire argument is predicated on the idea that left-wing policies are immensely popular. So which of the two is it?