I’m in my late 40’s. 2 years ago, i had the same knee jerk attitude. Since then I’ve been scanning the current political climate, started watching MSM with a more critical eye, and have tried to consume opinions from independent media across the left wing spectrum (i.e pod save america vs. Hasan Piker). Gaza and Iran have changed things. As far as i can tell, a majority of democrats are on gaza’s side, hate the Iranian conflict and have become disillusioned with Israel. Yet, the party leaders, and their talking heads, appear to be to the right of the constituents on these issues. MSM treats the majority left wing opinions as radical, obviously pushing centrist/corporate/aipac talking points. This has devalued MSM opinion generally. Now, when Jake Tapper implies a brown politician that calls gaza a genocide is antisemitic, more and more people are just devaluing the MSM opinions generally. Look at national media talking points regarding the cureent wave of left flank candidates. Unelectable, unreasonable, unrealistic, antisemitic, etc… a majority of the left ain’t listening anymore.
Stop treating politics like it’s still 2008…it ain’t. Vote for the best policy, not for the one CNN tells you is better.
Stop treating politics like it’s still 2008…it ain’t. Vote for the best policy, not for the one CNN tells you is better.
Centrists are insane. Literally definitionally insane.
A definition for madness is “trying the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result.”
We nominate corporate centrists election after election, and they lose again and again. Yet somehow these losers always get portrayed as reasonable and electable. Biden only squeaked out a win in 2020 because of covid. Even with a million Americans dead and in the ground, in large part due to Trump’s mismanagement, corporate dems were so unpopular that Biden was only able to barely get over the finish line.
Stop treating politics like it’s still 2008…it ain’t. Vote for the best policy, not for the one CNN tells you is better.
This is the core of it. Some people form their opinions on what electability looks like in one era and then blindly carry that assessment forward for the rest of their lives. In the 90s and 2000s, being centrist was electable. Pre-2008, things were going pretty well in America. We were still riding the post-Cold War high and the long-term effects of neoliberal economics hadn’t really come home to roost yet. The social compact was still reasonably intact. Not for all, but for most. If you played along with the system - get an education, work hard, get married, buy a house, avoid drugs and other destructive behaviors - your life was most likely going to be fine. Racism still existed. People still had their lives derailed by medical emergencies. But for enough of the population, things were well enough that “don’t rock the boat” was a viable political platform. Some folks still protested of course. But most folks were comfortable enough to simply focus on their own lives.
We are no longer in that world. “Go along with the system and live a private life” is no longer a reliable path to a life of stability and dignity. It hasn’t been that way since the Millennial generation came out of college. And elder millennials are in their early 40s right now. We’re reaching a point where the majority of the electorate has had to live their entire adult lives in a condition of economic precarity. Neo-liberalism is toxic because more and more of the electorate has had to grow up under its effects.
This has completely transformed what an “electable candidate” even is.
I’m in my late 40’s. 2 years ago, i had the same knee jerk attitude. Since then I’ve been scanning the current political climate, started watching MSM with a more critical eye, and have tried to consume opinions from independent media across the left wing spectrum (i.e pod save america vs. Hasan Piker). Gaza and Iran have changed things. As far as i can tell, a majority of democrats are on gaza’s side, hate the Iranian conflict and have become disillusioned with Israel. Yet, the party leaders, and their talking heads, appear to be to the right of the constituents on these issues. MSM treats the majority left wing opinions as radical, obviously pushing centrist/corporate/aipac talking points. This has devalued MSM opinion generally. Now, when Jake Tapper implies a brown politician that calls gaza a genocide is antisemitic, more and more people are just devaluing the MSM opinions generally. Look at national media talking points regarding the cureent wave of left flank candidates. Unelectable, unreasonable, unrealistic, antisemitic, etc… a majority of the left ain’t listening anymore.
Stop treating politics like it’s still 2008…it ain’t. Vote for the best policy, not for the one CNN tells you is better.
Centrists are insane. Literally definitionally insane.
A definition for madness is “trying the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result.”
We nominate corporate centrists election after election, and they lose again and again. Yet somehow these losers always get portrayed as reasonable and electable. Biden only squeaked out a win in 2020 because of covid. Even with a million Americans dead and in the ground, in large part due to Trump’s mismanagement, corporate dems were so unpopular that Biden was only able to barely get over the finish line.
This is the core of it. Some people form their opinions on what electability looks like in one era and then blindly carry that assessment forward for the rest of their lives. In the 90s and 2000s, being centrist was electable. Pre-2008, things were going pretty well in America. We were still riding the post-Cold War high and the long-term effects of neoliberal economics hadn’t really come home to roost yet. The social compact was still reasonably intact. Not for all, but for most. If you played along with the system - get an education, work hard, get married, buy a house, avoid drugs and other destructive behaviors - your life was most likely going to be fine. Racism still existed. People still had their lives derailed by medical emergencies. But for enough of the population, things were well enough that “don’t rock the boat” was a viable political platform. Some folks still protested of course. But most folks were comfortable enough to simply focus on their own lives.
We are no longer in that world. “Go along with the system and live a private life” is no longer a reliable path to a life of stability and dignity. It hasn’t been that way since the Millennial generation came out of college. And elder millennials are in their early 40s right now. We’re reaching a point where the majority of the electorate has had to live their entire adult lives in a condition of economic precarity. Neo-liberalism is toxic because more and more of the electorate has had to grow up under its effects.
This has completely transformed what an “electable candidate” even is.