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If by safe you mean ignoring your constituents and only listening to your wealthy contemporaries. Then yes you were too safe.
If you read the article, that's EXACTLY what he means. They told him the reason for this is that they could avoid "Having any public gaffees"
The idea is that by just not being Trump they were "Ahead", and any public misstep would put Trump in the lead.
Walz now believes he and Harris were "never ahead" and it was arrogance that lead to them thinking they were the "Default Choice" for America
Democrat politicians should level with you all. Politicians need a tremendous amount of money to stay viable. They can only answer you their donors and they get donors only if they can accomplish their goals which they do with the support of their constituents. They don't just support their constituents out of feel good stuff. Republicans give them a free pass to do whatever they want. So they get lots of donors. The left groups do not do they don't get donors. We're fucked.
Look into how many call centers are around Washington. They're all call centers for the different politicians. They're calling donors 24/7 trying to get more funding. All the time. The Reason leftist do not get anywhere, we don't generate money
No shit. I didn't feel like I was voting for progressives. It left like I was voting for "not Trump." You could have put a piece of corn-bread at the podium and I would have voted for it instead of Trump. But still. I didn't vote for them because I just loved what they had to say... Because they weren't for changing anything. They wanted to keep the status quo where it was. They were only listening to their wealthy donors. It was sad to watch.
The DNC is pretty much always playing it too safe....
People really need to accept that the Democratic Party is the conservative party in the US. The Republican Party is the nationalist, authoritarian party. The US does not have a major progressive party.
The democratic party is a coalition. It has wings that range from progressive to conservative. The reason they play it safe is because candidates need to be palatable to enough of the constituents to pass their primaries. This is also why local democratic parties are much more likely to have more cohesion.
I understand they need to have a broad appeal to different groups, moreso than republicans do, but they could easily achieve that same broad appeal by actually fighting for the working class and not doing things like steamrolling Bernie. The out of touch nature of current leadership is effectively neutering the party.
It would be a good thing long term for progressives to finally split from dems IMHO, though I wish we would have a ranked choice type system in place beforehand, but either way it needs to happen.
The reason they play it safe
Hows that working out?
They represent who votes for them.
Wanna change? Vote in the primaries. Hell, run in the primaries.
Wanna change? Vote in the primaries. Hell, run in the primaries.
Oof, got some bad news about those primaries.....
What an absolute fucking champ-
While acknowledging his share of responsibility for the loss, Walz is returning to the national spotlight and didn't rule out a 2028 presidential run, saying, "I'm not saying no."
Both of those things are such music to my ears (although ofc we should all know that it was Harris’s brother-in-law Uber exec lawyer who muzzled Walz and deserves that blame that Walz is selflessly taking on here).
Sadly I’m not even sure the US will exist by 2028.
Part of the problem was not saying the word Fascist enough
Maybe they should have held primaries and let Americans choose who they wanted to be for the Democratic candidate. Harris was never going to win no matter how she campaigned.
IMO the problem is, they falsely assume everyone wants what the republicans are selling, and their biggest flaw is that they are pollarizing. That's why they always start introducing as much republican lite things into their policies.
They don't understand, that by doing that, they are effectively telling the american people that the republicans are right. IE say the republican party on immigration etc... is lock em up in the fastest way, forget about humanity and ship them out as fast as possible, fuck due process these people are dangerous and destroying everything.
Democrats: Well I can back you on making sure we get them out as soon as we can, but I think we can do it without human rights violations.
They don't realize... that effectively to the outside observer going off of both of those policies they are hearing "both parties agree these people are dangerous and ruining everything, one wants to get rid of them as fast as possible, the other wants to prioritize us not hurting them over preventing them from harming us".
They should have stuck with the "they're weird". And they definitely shouldn't have tried courting Republican voters. All that yielded was pushing away Dem voters and Republican voters aren't going to vote for Dems, they will just not show up for Trump. They shouldn't have constantly called them a danger and threat because we've been saying that for years, and at some point people stop listening. Instead, they should have leaned into the "they're weird" and the weird things they want to do. Making them sound like an existential threat, even if they are, just sounds like someone yelling the sky is falling, and people ignore it. But we've already seen how they can't handle being mocked. So mock them. Belittle them, make them out to be the buffoons they are.
They should have leaned left harder instead of engaging in a futile attempt to sway conservatives.
I agree, Walz, start being unsafe. Show us what we want to see in a candidate.
Or, ya know, actually BE what we what in a candidate.
I had high hopes for Walz. Then he gave his pussyshit performance.
My tinhat theory is the DNC told him “not to say anything stupid,” like feeding school kids or anything progressive. That left him up there only playing fact checker and regurgitating that he is, in fact, not trump.
Walz is great, just not what the Democratic Party was actually willing to put in play.
If they had focused their campaign on helping the middle class, helping the poor, and acknowledged that Palestinians are people too, they would have a chance.
If they focused on environmental issues and the rights of individuals they would have had a chance.
If they had called Trump a criminal, because he is, at every stop, they would have had a chance.
If they did all of those things, and meant it, they would have won!
Instead they tried to appeal to business owners, Republicans who don't like Trump, and people with money. That's not what Democrats want. That's not who Democrats are. That, is why they lost.
That’s not who Democrats are.
unfortunately, yes, it is
If they had focused their campaign on helping the middle class
I agree with most of that except this. They basically ONLY focused on the middle class. All the tax break incentives were great. But they never offered a damn thing for the working class. And that's who they SHOULD have focused on.
"the middle class" does not exist, they should focus on helping the homeless, jobless and working class.
Not only that, but they stuck to the corporate response on nearly every single question. They almost never went off script and it was just so fucking obvious and robotic. And for me, Tim's complete lack of consideration for truth and evidence on its face and in a vacuum was nothing less than trumpian. In RL, I lie about being an OIF Veteran. At first it was shame, guilt, and self destructive tendencies but I've been to a LOT of therapy and I'm living better. But during that time I realized that there were others who would speak a bit more "freely" about things they may have done. If they assume you know nothing about the military then they can say whatever they want. Hearing someone mince words about their service is fairly common and IMHO - innocuous. It's a nothing burger of exaggeration. Had Tim just admitted what was clearly on video and just said, "I was using more colorful language to affect the crowd, my bad." I would have honestly commended him.
Instead, they lied. About the most mundane shit imaginable.
This and/or healthcare for all, and it wouldnt have even been close, they would have won easily
Played it safe by not holding more in person events? What? They didn’t question the legitimacy of the winner when clearly there were outliers that needed to be investigated.
if he'd stuck to calling them weird and attacking them, maybe it wouldn't have been useless. but they dropped that, tried to buddy up with the fascists, and brought on insane endorsements like fucking liz cheney.
if they'd run sanders/walz, even late after biden convinced even party leadership that he couldn't win, they would have crushed that shit with historic numbers.
if they had let a palestinian talk, or given the most mild 'please tone down the genocide shit' they might've had a chance.
it was like they were trying to lose at every step. truly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Putting Liz Cheney on stage was a pretty risky move if you ask me.
It's the safe move when you consider they want to be republicans
Harris initially said she was going to "prosecute" the case against Traitorapist Trump but then never did anything like that. All she had to do to win was use way more aggressive rhetoric. She never used the phrase "Convicted Criminal Trump" or "Treason Trump" She never used the phrase "legally certified rapist Trump". She never pointed out that Trump hates the Free World and freedom and democracy. She never reminded voters that Trump had a 29% approval rating at the end of his term. She never pointed out that Trump is very disloyal to our longstanding core values. She never reminded people that Ted Cruz said that Trump "lies practically ever word that comes out of his mouth".
Dems NEED much more aggressive candidates. No more of that business as usual shit.
One problem the DNC has is that they keep throwing boring ass lawyers into a game that isn't about law. It's about being a face the country knows to run the government.
You need charisma, you need to appeal to people, and you need to be human. Obama did this perfectly. Bill Clinton had it in him. Biden at least had such a long record in politics he could wing it his first term. I don't know how he managed to win, but he did.
Clinton, while being a lawyer, had already been the governor of Arkansas. Meaning he had the experience being that executive. He could convince people to work beyond their own interests. Al Gore, we all know, won the 2000 presidential election, but the supreme court let everything get fucked up.
Kerry? Never stood a chance. Hilary? No chance. Kamala? As much as we needed her to win, she was unappealing to stupid people.
Lawyers, by nature of their career, have to read and understand the most boring ass shit and then convince others that the boring ass text supports their side of the case. That means a lot of them are boring people.
You wanna know why Walz is popular? He fucking loves football. He can connect to highschool students. IDK about you, but if you've ever met high schoolers, they aren't the brightest, and bored easily. He's progressive, but he won't shove it in someone's face to be more righteous. Not many people can do that.
To win an election, you have to excite people. Trump, despite his rhetoric clearly being terrifying, was, unfortunately, exciting.
I agree that they and the dems in general are way too safe. But i wonder how accepting dem voters would be with a more aggressive candidate. I'm sure Millennials to Gen Alpha would probably be fine with it but i wonder if a good portion of the voters would poo poo a someone moving more towards the a more extreme (in presentation) candidate.
What if they made a hard line decision on a topic and held firm. The whole fracking thing is a good example. They should have just picked a side and stood their ground. instead it was 100% pandering to whoever was the loudest. Personally I would have voted for someone with conviction rather than someone who was waffling but I am not sure every other liberal voter would do the same.
The optimist in me wants to believe that the only reason they see "loudest responses" is because they announce that 2+2=4 and Empathy=Good, and everyone with common sense agrees, but doesn't bother saying anything. Meanwhile we've gotten thousands of screaming matches from sorely misled (and at worst brainwashed) voters who have been told by Trump that 2+2=8 and Empathy=Bad.
It doesn't absolve them for "tactically" shifting stances. But I've tried to do my part by calling my reps when they take a hard action that I agree with.
But i wonder how accepting dem voters would be with a more aggressive candidate.
We've been living through passive, fearful, reactive, business-led, "nothing will fundamentally change" dem leadership for decades. Theres no need to fear change at this point because we literally cant lose any harder than we are now. We have been teetering on the edge of dissolution for so long that people are starting to fear risking changing what shitty circumstanbes we have now. We couldnt be more pathetic as a party.