numbers. What she is saying is that it’s too bad most Democrats are in the Democratic Party.

endorse more liberal policies.

in the most broad conceptualizations.

It's easy to get people to agree that everyone should have health coverage, poor people should be paid more, or DEOs make too much money. However, the second the socialists plans are put to light, support for them plummets.

that is the crux.

My view. The country leans leftish but is clinging to the center. It overall is afraid of too right or too left policy proposals unless a candidate hooks onto a populist message that takes root among ignorance, like Trump's argument that immigrants are taking jobs when in fact robots and AI are taking jobs. What we need to do is lead the country away from clinging to the center by putting up sustained results and holding power for long periods, that means we all must vote strategically. Once the general public get a good taste of the power of sustained progressive policy, it will want more, as is always the case through history. FDR won four terms because the country got better for most Americans under him, so people were comfortable with reelecting him three times).

he pushed the New Deal, Social Security, and he was the right man in the right place at the right time for WWII.

Arguably, one of our best presidents in the nation's history.

As he did Native Americans. He didn't do the bold racial equality moves of Truman (integrated the armed forces), or LBJ (pushed through civil rights legistlation knowing that would alienate some Whites).

thus, there is not much left over to get new policies put in place. It is a constant cycle and it needs to be broken.

I argue that Bush would not have been elected had Nader and naderites not virulently attacked democrats in 2000 and instead had said that people need to vote for Gore, that while not perfect, he was far superior to the alternative, the same could be said about supporting Hillary in the 2016 General. Hell, I will go back even farther, if after Ted Kennedy failed in the primary of President Carter in 1980, those backing him had said President Carter was clearly the best choice in the 1980 General and voted that way, we likely wouldn't have gotten Reagan and the clusterfuck of decline that he launched (which we are suffering worse from each year after).

My point is that people that claim to be progressive must pull in their outrage when their choice is not nominated by democratic voters and instead act and vote to prevent a larger evil like the election of Trump, or Bush II, or Reagan. Those republicans created messes that incoming democratic Presidents had to spend precious resources cleaning up instead of moving steps higher on progressive policies.

BTW, President Obama didn't govern as a centrist when he had Cingressional majorities. It was not until he lost that in 2010 that he started trying to work with republicans to get stuff done. But who caused him to lose the House in 2010? It was the very people that panned him for moderating, the people that felt the bold first time legistlation that got passed in 2009-2010 was not "progressive enough", ignoring that much of the legistlation simply had not been passed before, despite many attempts.

didn't vote for who they should have? Circular reasoning.

The same types of people gave us Reagan, Bush II and Trump. Those assholes created, or in Trump's case is creating, the very messes that democratic Presidents come into office having to clean up before they can inact the type of policy that leads to lasting progressive change. It is about time that those that call themselves progressives and refused to back democrats at critical times own up to their complicity in enabling republican fuckups, or sit down and stfu while more mature people vote to prevent any more republican clusterfucks from happening to begin with.

our contitution allows everyone to vote. which appears to be a great disappointment to you. By the way, you do know that independents are the largest voting block, but by all means tell the to sit down and STFU.

We simply can't have people that claim to be for what we are for working their ass off to cripple our Fall campaign nominee. That leads to republican victories and the very messes that we have spent periods of the 40 years cleaning up.

Would not have been elected if the Rhenquist Court had not jumped in with a one time decision!

Rehnquist started his career in Texas knocking blacks off the voting rolls, ended making the 20 year drunk President.

So true.

realize if we have more than 2 parties, it will hurt the Democratic party, just as if Bernie had run as an independent, we would have another 4 years of Trump.

then we are going to have another 4 years of the Mango Menace.

To win, we need a majority of Independents, who are by far, center to center left, and BS is a far left socialist, he's not even a Dem, he's using the label to further his ambitions.

He won KY, so what?

I'm talking the GE, which is the only one that counts.

who voted against Hillary as they did in West Virginia. Bernie was carried by Russians/Republicans and they will likely try to do the same this time against Biden.

"To win, we need a majority of Independents, who are by far, center to center left"

if BS were to win the nomination, again, unlikely, then I would hold my nose and vote for him, because as it stands, a ham sandwich would be better than what's in the WH right now.

What the?? When was that primary? This is 2020!

Geez! Get a grip.

...good inventory control - last in, first out. None of our loyal Democrats are trying to revamp the rules.

With more than a two party system!

They also forget that Obama was a centrist to the core. He won because he didn't come up with trillion dollar plan after trillion dollar plan.

I also view Biden as mostly a liberal. But they both know how to deal with actual centrists, like Doug Jones and Joe Manchin.

properly identified Manchin and Jones as centrists. Too many folks demonize Manchin but he's as left as you can get in modern day West Virginia.

as opposed to R's who vote with us about 15% of the time.

So I strongly appreciate D's like Manchin and Jones.

than a tent so small that it's constantly blocked by the other party.

The problem is that AOC and the squad don't want comprise, with them it's my way or the highway.

First by endorsing Warren, my Senator. Then just look at her impressive accomplishments her first year.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287410433#top

Welcome to DU, dware. I have read your posts and like them.

get with the program and start supporting not just those that they are ideologically aligned with, but also those that have a different point of view, they are young and bright and I would hate to see them burn out so quickly or become pariahs in the Party.

Thank you for the kind words. sheshe2.

I was actually with DU in it's origin on 2001 but due to life problems, I had to take a hiatus in 2005 to deal with them, now that I'm my own boss, I decided to rejoin the DU family, and what a difference 15 years makes.

We will always be welcoming.

Glad you are your own boss, solved your life problems and are back.

You are very welcome.

Not sure what you all are upset about. And who is calling her a member of the squad? Are you adopting Donald Trump's and Sean Hannity's derogatory phrase aimed at liberal women of color and actually using against her? Shame on you

According to Pressley, she and Ocasio-Cortez had met before Freshman Orientation Week for the 116th United States Congress. During that event a week after Election Day, on November 12, 2018, all four members of the Squad participated in a livestreamed interview with Jodi Jacobson from Rewire.News, organized by VoteRunLead, and took a group picture. Ocasio-Cortez published the picture on Instagram, labeling it "Squad"; Pressley published the photo on her Instagram story the same day.

Squad lately.

She should consider that she will be running for office again soon, I think. She could win. She could lose. The voters in her district will decide. Me? I'm not in her district. My House representative is Betty McCollum. She is not a freshman. She will definitely be returning in 2021. Don't know her? I do.

What has OAC accomplished since she was elected?

All the fake publicity in the world in the Internet age means nothing if you do not get bills passed that help people.

https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/O000172-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/bills-sponsored/116

along with spending a lot of time of time in the company of Berners has not provided her with the opportunity to make her less well-thought-out statements out of the limelight. Wish she could hear some of the takes here, if she could do so with a receptive spirit.

She'd be well-advised to get out and about more and do more listening to others who are patient with young people's tendencies to pure idealism not well-tempered by broad experience.

I wonder why the tweet grouped liberal and socialist together.

That seems high to me

a house election is a very hopefully blue area..

disadvantage of the Democratic Party. This has been going on for a long time and has undoubtedly cost us many elections.

Asking people to they identify moderate OR liberal is intrinsically extremely dishonest. They know it's going to result in many who are liberal by disposition and politics, but who -- ever since the Republicans redefined that in the 1990s to mean irresponsible LW radical whackjobs -- think that category's full of the kind of irritating LWers they don't agree with and avoid at parties. Makes moderate sound appropriate for moderate liberals.

Yes, polls that have questions to determine ideology are far more expensive. But they're using categories that virtually require many liberals who consider themselves moderate within the party to misidentify as "not-liberal."

WHY? When the result is to strongly deny support for liberalism and imply far greater leaning toward conservatism among Democrats than exists. What's the goal, remembering that polls like this caused campaigners in 2010 and 2014 to hide genuine liberal progressive aspirations under the mistaken belief that Democratic voters didn't want that, a misrepresentation of an entire party that continued until widespread enthusiasm for Elizabeth Warren's actions blasted it to pieces.

And yet, here it is, being reconstructed in this and many other polls.

Think about it. Out of the 235 of the Blue Wave, our voters sent:
* 27 conservative Blue Dogs to congress,
* an uncounted handful of what they labeled "democratic socialists" and
* all the rest, around 200, almost all provably liberal, ranging from mild to very strong, by ideology and practice.

voted to impeach Trump. That's good enough for me.

the avowedly conservative Blue Dogs mostly came down, though.

Blue Dogs are not all alike, of course. A couple are as much Kevin McCarthy members as if they were Republicans. Most are more moderate and do a balancing act, though, one way and the other, apparently mostly what their voters want, but also responding to pressure from power on both sides. Can't be fun. I don't know enough to guess when they're overall going to swing heavily Republican and when heavily Democrat. But I was grateful for those who stood for protecting our democracy, and the planet.

and not make up shite to put themselves holier than thou we'll Fire #45IMPEACHED

Of course the answer is "no".

What's your beef with AOC? I think she is the future and I look forward to it.

We will need votes from all over the political spectrum. Of course we should not abandon our core principles while seeking those votes.

get out of this center-right party because moderates and blue dogs are the only people who matter.

Got it.

We Got OUR BLUE WAVE MIDTERM with a BIG TENT.

I'm NOT listening to her.

advising to run on Health Care.. ACA.

what changed? trump

it worked.