Will anyone present any evidence that the current dominant ideology of mainstream Democratic Party leaders is working when it comes to their
one job of gaining power to accomplish their policy goals?
Will anyone present any evidence that the notion of left/center/right pundits and party leaders often use somehow perfectly maps onto how citizens think of left/center/right? That never seems to get established in these discussions, and seems like a pretty important step!
A rich reality tv show star just won an election pandering to white nationalism and talking about how terrible trade deals are, claiming to be a voice of the people, and bragging about not being bought off like other politicians. Maybe the common wisdom of "we must stay in the center to win elections!" doesn't always apply?
And of course this isn't even getting into the tons of people who don't vote at all, and apparently don't find anything appealing in either the Democratic or the Republican parties. So maybe the "reasonable center" is actually further left than we think it is, and is one possible reason why so many people don't participate in the political system at all?
Or maybe the reasonable center is further right! But considering that the right-wing space actually does get national media attention, and right-wing framing constantly dominates our political discussions, that seems less likely. The left-wing seems like a more likely "blue ocean" so to speak to look for political ideas.
Of course, this isn't a guarantee that moving left
in and of itself, is a solution to every single election, or that it's a simple thing that can be done in one election cycle. Elections involve more than just throwing out a policy platform by itself, and the mood of the country and other external factors can affect people's acceptance of various political views. But the resistance to the idea of it I've noticed sometimes (even after the so-called "reasonable and pragmatic" candidates have been losing for years now) is strange. Sure, a lot of "Berniecrats" lost, as you've noted in other threads. But so did a lot of mainstream Democrats, including
the most mainstream Democrat! I find it interesting that when people further left lose, it's always damning evidence of their ideology, but mainstream Democrats losing for the past 6 years, even with all the institutional and systemic advantages they have, is no reflection on their ideology at all. Mainstream Democrats get the benefit of "our messaging was bad, but our ideology is basically fine" but for leftists, it's obviously just an ideological problem.
"Haha, you couldn't instantly overturn 40 years of rightward ideological drift in all of our political and media institutions in 1 year, losers!"