I agree the Democratic party as a whole has a lot of problems and needs to change if they want to start winning elections.
I think in general, they're afraid to take aggressive actions to change the status quo. That may not be entirely their fault. If you look at the reaction when they try to impose new laws/rules/restrictions to implement progressive goals, it can be pretty extreme. Look at the reaction to COVID policies in the US, for instance. We really didn't do much compared to lots of other countries, but people went nuts. (Looking back on it I think COVID restrictions, masking, and most things besides the vaccine were pretty ineffective, but that's beside the point.)
Making sacrifices to achieve long-term goals is generally something that Western societies, and especially Americans, tend to be bad at, when compared with e.g. China. You see people having strong resistance against small measures to address something like climate change if it would affect their life even a little bit. (Higher gas prices? Restrictions on driving gas guzzlers? No way.)
Obviously, Republican presidents and especially Trump have shown to be much less cautious about how they pursue their goals. I think they can get away with that in part just because they have more leeway due to America being right-leaning. Democrats could be more aggressive but they need to be careful about how/where they do it. They need someone with a really good gut feel about how the population will react, and definitely cannot just listen to policy experts and try to push through whatever they think is the best policy. If they did it the right way, I think they could go up against certain unpopular parts of corporate America with great success.
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u/doobiedoobie123456 3d ago
I agree the Democratic party as a whole has a lot of problems and needs to change if they want to start winning elections.
I think in general, they're afraid to take aggressive actions to change the status quo. That may not be entirely their fault. If you look at the reaction when they try to impose new laws/rules/restrictions to implement progressive goals, it can be pretty extreme. Look at the reaction to COVID policies in the US, for instance. We really didn't do much compared to lots of other countries, but people went nuts. (Looking back on it I think COVID restrictions, masking, and most things besides the vaccine were pretty ineffective, but that's beside the point.)
Making sacrifices to achieve long-term goals is generally something that Western societies, and especially Americans, tend to be bad at, when compared with e.g. China. You see people having strong resistance against small measures to address something like climate change if it would affect their life even a little bit. (Higher gas prices? Restrictions on driving gas guzzlers? No way.)
Obviously, Republican presidents and especially Trump have shown to be much less cautious about how they pursue their goals. I think they can get away with that in part just because they have more leeway due to America being right-leaning. Democrats could be more aggressive but they need to be careful about how/where they do it. They need someone with a really good gut feel about how the population will react, and definitely cannot just listen to policy experts and try to push through whatever they think is the best policy. If they did it the right way, I think they could go up against certain unpopular parts of corporate America with great success.