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It's a Bad Idea for Harris to Abandon Progressive Policies
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this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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Yes true. But if she wants to downplay it to get the vote of the centrist and mildly conservative rubes then so be it.
It might be a balancing act as it’s important to keep the base energized and actually hit the polls too.
It makes more sense to adopt policies that are broadly popular than it is to play to "centrists". (Whoever those are. I've met very few people who don't want healthcare, are against jobs, etc. And the ones I have met are already firmly in the Trump camp, and there's nothing Harris could do to change that.)
Centrists like the thought of a fair and equitable society but aren’t eager to have their taxes raised to accomplish it. That’s the attitude that’s ‘broadly popular’. Appeal to them, get elected, then try to get more progressive policy through congress.
Centrists can F OFF. Grow a spine.
Even if that's broadly popular among people who vote in elections. (Which I doubt but lets assume it is). It would be a lot better strategy to push for things that are a bit more radical and actually help people. That's how you go after the biggest block of disaffected voters who stopped voting or have never voted cause both parties don't do anything to really help the people.
Progressives always say this, and they are unfortunately always wrong. Face it, if you are progressive you won’t sit this election out. If you are centrist you might (or you’ll vote Trump).
We really averted disaster electing Hillary Clinton in 2016, didn't we? It would have been terrible if Trump won, but luckily she dove to the center and it was, as always, a foolproof strategy.
The point is that progressives voted for her. The narrative that Bernie-bros stayed home has been debunked several times. Relative to Biden in 2020, she was indeed missing the votes of centrists.
Hillary got buttery maled and blue walled.
She was exceptionally equipped and would have made for a fine president, after all, she was the one who advocated for Obamacare back in the 90s, (which you may know, was actually a republican plan first, back when republicans used to win New England states).
All that is to say, people like to think Hillary wouldn’t have moved the country to the left, but she most certainly would have. Her public perception may not have been as left as Bernie, and perception absolutely matters (see Joe B). However, like Biden, I think she had such control of the political machinery that she would have been much more effective at putting those plans to action.
The reason I say all of this is, some our most left leaning policies have been enacted by presidents who were elected from the center (Johnson, Clinton, Biden).