One thing I’ve noticed among friends and family, who lean quite left compared to the general public and would be generally supportive of progressive policies, is that there’s a belief that progressive policies are unpopular outside of our circle and therefore in the primary they must vote for a candidate who triangulates in order appeal to the majority in the general election. Because a centrist from the Democratic Party is better than anything we can hope for from the Republican Party.
I try to show them statistics that progressive policies are broadly popular across both parties as long as they are not presented with labels of “socialism” or “progressivism” but the reality that we all need to contend with is that we cannot easily escape the unfair baggage that these labels carry in our society where the big media cartel controls the narrative.
I think if we got rid of FPTP and got rid of primaries we’d see an enormous swing in favor progressive candidates. In my mind that electoral reform is the key thing to pursue. Well that and literally anything related to mitigating the climate crisis because that one really can’t wait.
I agree. I also think it’s important to start to fight not just for individual progressive policies, but the progressive platform, identity and overarching philosophy.
Everyone can love every single progressive policy proposal at 100% support, but if they then dislike progressives and progressive philosophy, we still lose. The gop is really good at leveraging this, and we’re really bad at it, likely due to our greater average education. We’re detail oriented, and we need to cut that out with our messaging.
One thing I’ve noticed among friends and family, who lean quite left compared to the general public and would be generally supportive of progressive policies, is that there’s a belief that progressive policies are unpopular outside of our circle and therefore in the primary they must vote for a candidate who triangulates in order appeal to the majority in the general election. Because a centrist from the Democratic Party is better than anything we can hope for from the Republican Party.
I try to show them statistics that progressive policies are broadly popular across both parties as long as they are not presented with labels of “socialism” or “progressivism” but the reality that we all need to contend with is that we cannot easily escape the unfair baggage that these labels carry in our society where the big media cartel controls the narrative.
I think if we got rid of FPTP and got rid of primaries we’d see an enormous swing in favor progressive candidates. In my mind that electoral reform is the key thing to pursue. Well that and literally anything related to mitigating the climate crisis because that one really can’t wait.
I agree. I also think it’s important to start to fight not just for individual progressive policies, but the progressive platform, identity and overarching philosophy.
Everyone can love every single progressive policy proposal at 100% support, but if they then dislike progressives and progressive philosophy, we still lose. The gop is really good at leveraging this, and we’re really bad at it, likely due to our greater average education. We’re detail oriented, and we need to cut that out with our messaging.