First point, this is not an instance to simply give up working with Democrats. That one bad experience shows that what you need to do is be consistent and when democrats withdraw from their views and moderate that you need to the primary them and show them that if they do those things they will be kicked out of office. You don’t elect people once and then expect everything to always work out. You go and continue holding their feet to the fire. The article you linked is interested only in trying to show that working towards leftist politics in mainstream parties is a dead end because it’s not taking the lesson of the experience to the logical conclusion of voting again to kick out the Democrats that moderated. But I’m not surprised since it also seems to think a third party will ever take root which will never happen and only removes any power we have as individuals.

Second. I totally agree just medicaid isn’t enough, I mentioned that. I think the system of for profit insurance needs to go but I was talking to someone who said Democrats don’t ever do anything and that was my point. They do shit all the time even if it’s not as good as it should be, that just means more work needs to be done. Which is always a normal thing in any form of government, persistence is how things change and keep changing, not voting once and thinking everything will magically be fixed like what many did in 08 with Obama.

Third. I also agree that FDR saved capitalism but we as communists still had power back then through our voting bloc that was massively voting for the Democratic party. The communists back then supported FDR because they understood that we need to have a seat at the table and that to do that we need to vote for leftist Democrats. They did that and then had a seat at the table pushing for more socialist policies. Again, Communists, particularly during the war when FDR used a communist like structure of a federal government directed economy to great success, the people like Browder knew that we can be communists and have a seat at the table only when we vote for Democrats, that running our own people for the presidency and often for federal offices in general is a fools errand and that we need to invest in changing the democratic party because that’s how the two party system works. Then they were cast out post FDR death at direct instruction by the authoritarian piece of shit Stalin.

A third party is a lovely idea until you remember that that’s not how the American system works. First past the post, the different voting restrictions, all the other shit, these keep third parties from being able to impact anything but local politics. But until many of those things change third parties are wasting your vote. Federal funding does fuck all when it means you lead to fascists wanting to put queer people in camps and wanting to create trump Gaza into power. Federal funding also won’t fix any of the systems that keep third parties out of power. A third party can’t simultaneously take power and change the system while also not be capable of taking power and changing the system. It’s running around in circles pretending you’re moving towards a brighter future when it’s be better to just remake the democratic party who already has the infrastructure and funding and who many will just always vote for and who doesn’t have the system literally making it impossible for them to take power.

Edit: I’ve helped some of my local communists and socialists impact our local area but being in a deep red state most of what everyone does is outreach and organizing as opposed to actual governmental stuff. I’m also disabled and trans and have my own shit going on working to getting out of my red state so that I’m in a much more blue area where I will be more comfortable working with my fellow communists and socialists.

Democrats have definitely not done enough and done some shitty things. They also passed the first infrastructure bill in 15(?) or so years under Bidens first 2 years. They passed a bill fucking saving the economy during both Obama’s and Bidens first 2 years, providing stimulus and saving a collapsing economy. They passed the Dodd Frank act in Obama’s first 2 years that regulated Wall Street even if it wasn’t enough, it still significantly helped shit. They passed the the ACA which, while not perfect, mandated insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions which got healthcare for tens of millions. It expanded Medicaid which, despite being refused by red states, in the states that accepted the funds it provided relatively cheap healthcare to tens of millions. They passed the first bill that has ever had any climate change initiatives in it during Bidens first 2 years and Harris campaigned on doing more. They introduced the EV tax credits that have got people to buy non gas producing cars at massive rates, even if not enough. They increased the minimum wage in 2009 and tried to again in 2021. That only failed because they simply didn’t have the votes. They could have gotten rid of the parliamentarian if they wanted but then it still wouldn’t have had the votes even for a simple majority so it wouldn’t have mattered. They invested in expanding trains across the country but because of trump being elected last year that’ll probably be cut.

They have passed plenty of really progressive legislation that died in the Senate because of the filibuster and Republicans refusing to vote for even the most basic things. They could have tried to get rid of the filibuster but to do that they need a majority of the Senate to vote for that rule package and 2 Democrat senators refused to because they’re assholes. They could have fixed much of that if they had been given by the voters a larger majority in the Senate so they could have tanked those 2 senators votes.

Democrats should have done more. They should be doing more when they have power. They have run on progressive policies time and time again, however, and even though they’re not as progressive as they should be and still have some shit policies, that doesn’t mean they do nothing.

If not for the ACA I wouldn’t have healthcare, I have a preexisting condition and that law mandates insurance companies to keep me on. I also happen to live in a state with expanded Medicaid which has given healthcare to tons of people I know when they could only afford the cheap stuff. Should there have been a public option? Absolutely, health insurance shouldn’t be a for profit industry.

But to say they did “nothing” is to directly say you either, refuse to acknowledge anything positive they have done because it wasn’t perfect or because they also did shitty things, or that you simply aren’t paying attention enough to know they did positive things.

Listen, you’re a .ml user. That makes me assume you’re a communist, which is completely okay in my book. Ya know the only time in American history that communists have had any amount of influence in American society? It was under FDR because they went out every primary and every year to vote for progressive and leftist Democrats to have representation in government just as much as non communists. Earl Browder was the leader of the party at the time and he pushed for supporting Democrats and it worked. They didn’t run candidates during the election years because FDR was their candidate. Browder correctly realized and stated that American parties are coalitions. If communists, of which I am one too, want to get a seat at the table, want to be able to actually influence policy instead of just twiddling our thumbs and yelling at fucking walls without getting anywhere, we have to vote in the primaries for progressive leftist Democrats and change the party. We have to be consistent voters. There will never be a third party that takes root, it will never happen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a seat at the table and work towards moving the Overton window back left by voting in primaries and voting out establishment Democrats in favor of people with better views who will do more. This is how we as leftists had power under FDR, its how we helped introduce more socialist policies. We had a seat at the table and were able to influence shit. We need to be able to recognize that that was a time when we had the most power, acknowledge why we had any, and do what we can to get back there.

Democrats have done a shit ton in the 4 years of the last 30 that they’ve had majorities in both houses and the presidency. But sure let’s just ignore all that and play into the literally right wing propaganda that “Democrats don’t do anything when they have power”.

Also, it’s really frustrating that I see so many people both being upset Democrats are only doing political theatre stuff because they want them to do something with a minority that has next to no power, but also see people say that Democrats need to do more political Theatre. Often I see this from the same people.

Two of these guys are much more complicated. Most people have already pointed out Lincoln but Teddy is more complicated than how he viewed Native Americans. He was out first Trust Buster as President. The robber barons thought they had bought him but once he was in office, after the death of McKinley, he went after them. He broke up Standard Oil. He went after those fuckers with his big stick and helped a lot of people because of it. He also created National Parks, which is complicated but still more positive than the destruction of the land that was happening.

Of course he was also racist, but there are presidents who are complicated and manage to do both terrible and actually very positive things at the same time. Teddy wasn’t perfect and he was often an asshole, but he did good things too.

They’ve increased taxes in 2009 in response to the crash, they’ve done investment in infrastructure. They’ve passed the first climate change legislation ever in this country. They increased the minimum wage in 2009 and tried to again. They did actual shit for the 4 years of the last 2 decades they’ve had full power to do anything. But then voters vote them out because they don’t do everything they intended to.

They need do more, but they need full power to do that. Whenever they get that they do shit. But it’s impossible to do shit when Republicans control one house of Congress kneecapping everything they want to do.

Also they are incredibly different. One of them wants to increase the minimum wage, the other wants to get rid of it. One of them wants to make sure queer folk are allowed to exist in public and have rights, the other wants to put us in prison and take away our right to exist at all. One of them wants to bust monopolies and the other wants more monopolies. One of them wants to increase social safety net benefits, the other wants to get rid of it. One of them wants to tax the rich, the other wants no federal income tax at all. One of them believes that voting should be easy and the other wants to make voting impossible.

They’ve passed plenty of bills that end up dying because of Republicans, you’re blaming Democrats for Republicans being the problem and saying they’re the same. You’re being reductive because they happen to both be capitalist parties, which sucks ass but there’s a lot of space in the capitalist spectrum.

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with wanting Democrats to do better. But it’s BS to say they haven’t done anything positive in the last 20 years. 20 years where they only actually had full power for 4 of those years and 2 of those years only barely had a majority in the Senate.

Edit: also most of what I said Harris campaigned on has not been promised for 2 decades. She campaigned on policies that the party hadn’t supported on the presidential level before. The only democratic presidential nominee to campaign on legalizing weed was Harris. The only one to campaign on a unrealized gains tax was Harris. The only one to campaign on the down payment assistance was Harris. Biden talked about increasing the minimum wage too but that was 4 years ago so not over the last 20 years.

Right? All they had to do was promise to Legalize weed, increase the minimum wage, put caps on rent increases, go after shrinkflation, make it easier to vote, say that healthcare is a human right, fight for unions, promise to help support people who currently can’t afford to buy homes to be able to buy homes, and tax the rich and corporations more.

Oh wait, Harris did all of those things. Democrats have had progressive policy, but voters keep voting against it. Because Democrats have to be perfect and cant also happen to have a couple shit policies. The moment they have a couple shitty policies, or don’t have all the progressive policies people want. those are all that matter and that means Democrats are just the same as Republicans.

Are they unprepared though? Because every time they get full power they get shit done. Not as much as would be ideal but they still do stuff. And they also would have passed multiple more things in 21-22 if they had been given more seats in the Senate, having a 50-50 Senate made it only possible to get some things done not everything, they could have played dirty and gotten more done. For instance they weren’t able to pass their Voting reform bill that had passed the House and would drastically have changed and improved how we vote. But it’s still BS to say they don’t get anything done. That’s literally far right propaganda that has become so pervasive it convinces people on both sides that the Democrats are useless and never do anything.

That said, about Project 2025. It was put together by the Heritage Foundation. A think tank that does its work and puts it out for free. They’re backed by right wing billionaires. So the Republican party didn’t make it, despite it being their platform. Also wouldn’t it be Project 2029 for theirs since 2027 is a midterm and the whole point for that is to obstruct and do oversight on trump and his administration by having any power again. That said again. They don’t have the massive far right billionaires driving the equivalent of a Project 2025 and democratic voters also frequently argue against Billionaires driving something like that. Project 2025 is successful because all the work was done by Heritage.

Also also, I 100% agree that it’s insane they keep playing nice. They have to play dirty and that means breaking some rules which they seem unwilling to do.

But they are put into power by the Voters and then punished by the Voters despite doing significant legislation and improving the country when they get full power. So them not being able to take power for as much time as republicans has to do with the voters and the Republicans cheating with gerrymandering and voter suppression. And general Republican propaganda destroying the system.

But even this last Election Harris wanted to increase the minimum wage, wanted to put caps on rent increases, wanted to give first time home buyers 25,000 down payment assistance, wanted to legalize weed, wanted to introduce an Unrealized gains tax on people who have stock portfolios bigger than 100 million, increasing the corporate tax rate, talking about actually trying to punish companies who engage in shrinkflation. She had progressive policies on her platform, but instead of Democrats going out and voting and the progressive legislation driving people to the polls, everyone summarized her as only ever being not-Tump and them being the same and some saying she even had no policies. Democrats have things they campaign on, but the Voters say no. Mainly because the left doesn’t vote, or split their vote, and the right ALWAYS votes.

Personally, I’m not saying the Democrats can’t or shouldn’t be better, I think the party needs to be drastically reformed and we need to primary and kick out the older generation and we need more progressives who can talk more like real people. But I’m also trying to be fair about how things actually happen when they are in power.

Well a major influence on that is because people keep voting for Republicans even when Democrats have progressive policies on their platforms. Republicans winning the House in 2010 kneecapped every single thing the Democrats had been striving for. 2010 had the lowest turn out for a midterm in decades. Often because of people on the left blaming Obama for not fixing everything right away, or because there is a depressingly large population of the country that don’t even know midterms exist.

Republicans fuck everything over, and people keep voting for them. Democrats don’t fix everything right away, and people refuse to vote for them. Such is the stupidity of the American public.

Oh and the Dodd-Frank act regulating Wallstreet. And saving the economy from the massive financial crash with the Recovery Act. And an act that extended how long after being fired someone can file for unemployment. And new tax legislation that had tax increases to help pay for the investment in the economy with the recovery act. And around 50 other pieces of legislation.

Plus the “shitty health care” you mentioned mandated insurance companies have to cover people with pre-existing conditions giving insurance to tens of millions of people. And extended Medicaid to tens of millions of people providing relatively cheap medical care by comparison to before. Free? No. But many went from having bills of multiple hundreds a month to just 50. Again, perfect? No. But a massive fucking improvement.

All that in the 2 years he had both houses. Not his entire first term. Much of it was incredibly influential even if not perfect. To say we got nothing out of it is misrepresenting both what we got and what we had before.

Edit: and increasing the minimum wage.

And that was all laid out in project 2025. But people kept insisting that saying they would do that was just fear mongering. Like how saying they’d overturn Roe v Wade was. This shit is what they’re planning and people need to finally fucking acknowledge that it’s not fear mongering when you’re talking about they’re literal plan.

Harris wanted to raise taxes on those making 400,000 just like biden, it didn’t disappear at all. She also talked about introducing an unrealized gains tax on those with gains worth more than 100 million. You can’t say she didn’t want to increase taxes on the rich unless you ignore her policy proposals.

I had UHC for one year and they denied my long standing MS med that I had been on for 9 years because “we don’t know if you need to be on it” despite my doctors insisting I do. Because of that I was off my meds for a year and a half and ended up changing medication. The company who made the original med I was on, Novartis, also just ignored all my phone calls so that’s why I wasn’t allowed to get back on my med even with it being denied. Usually the company has a program that helps but with them not responding I was fucked.

And UHC refused to do anything to help.

Fuck UHC.

Ah yes, because we all know someone worth at least 30 million is a “working person.”

Fair. We really need compulsory voting. No one should not be voting. Obviously it has to come with a bunch of other voting reforms but still.

I never said it was low turnout. I said that if more people voted, particularly people who voted in 2020, then it wouldn’t have been as close in those states. Millions of democratic voters sat out the election this time and that is undeniable. And many because they didn’t think it mattered or didnt think the candidate was perfect. If they had voted because of whatever would have gotten them to vote then things wouldn’t been as close in those solidly blue states.

There were definitely people that defected but that doesn’t negate my point. 2024 was high turnout but it was particularly and mainly high for the republican party and that’s a key reason things were closer with the solidly blue states that you are claiming are swing states. And most defectors had a single issue for why, mainly things like inflation and housing costs, and also because they were simply rebelling against the incumbents as others have been doing around the world.

If more people voted in those states then things wouldn’t have been as close and calling them swing states is disingenuous. That’s all I’m saying.

It’s not really expanding the swing state map when the reasons those states were closer was because of the people who didn’t go out to vote. They’re still solidly blue when people actually vote.

Oh 100%, they don’t want minorities to benefit from it so they’d rather fuck themselves over than allow everyone to have a better standard of living.

This is something I see a lot with the houses that have Trump signs in my area. They always have a multitude of run down cars, a house that is falling apart, a bunch of stuff in their yard that are not lawn ornaments, and occasionally are fenced in. It’s pretty consistent and they always have Trump signs and flags even though voting for Harris would likely help them afford to fix up their cars or house.

I know right? They totally aren’t actively supporting ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments in a multitude of states that they do and don’t have a trifecta in that would protect abortion access. And there certainly haven’t been laws passed in Michigan, California, Minnesota, Colarado, Massachusetts, New York and several other states that protect access for abortion seekers and protect abortion providers. Democrats also totally haven’t talked about passing a right to an abortion into law if they get a trifecta in November and Biden definitely hasn’t signed an executive order that aims to help protect abortion seekers and providers on federal lands. Democrats just don’t care about abortion rights.

Hmmmm. Maybe, since all stores are doing this, we should just institute price fixing on certain goods? Oh but I forgot, that’d be bad for the corporation and their profits, and that’s obviously more important than citizens being able to afford groceries at a reasonable price.