Okay, I'm really tired of this nonsense.

I've seen a bunch of progressives hyperfocusing on hypotheticals, in-person exit polls, and downplaying racism, and I've seen a bunch of Dems pretend like there was absolutely nothing wrong with how Biden ran his campaign.

How on earth do people expect us to actually iterate on this process and figure out what the best way to get people elected is if we're all wearing our ideology-driven blinders, ignoring evidence that contradicts viewpoints we already held?

Trump won more votes than he did in 2016.

Biden won more votes than Clinton did in 2016.

Biden will likely squeak a win.

This is who we are as a nation. We did not repudiate Trump. And Trumps supporters haven't been cowed into silence by Trump's failures.

Doubling down on any one perspective is folley.

Biden fucked up with Latinx/Hispanic communites.

Those communities also turned against Biden because of Trump's cries of "socialism". So I'm not sure how Bernie could have picked up those areas.

We also can't ignore the fact that white nationalism came out in force to defend Trump.

Continuing to beat the drum of "economic anxiety" will net us *more white nationalism*.

Pretending like Trump voters would suddenly jump ship if Dems offered free healthcare is nonsense.

You know why we know that's nonsense?

Because Trump explicitly ran on eliminating socialized healthcare in America.

Biden ran on expanding it.

Was it Medicare for All? Fuck no.

But thinking people would suddenly jump from "no more socialism" to "tons more socialism" is wat.

The problem here is how supremely partisan America has become. I'm not making a moral statement here, I think there's a right and wrong side

But it explains why the DSA had massive successes with their endorsements in already heavily-blue areas, but progressives saw losses in NY

I'm planning on analyzing the voting history of these DSA-backed areas, because gut feeling says they were already heavily blue leaning and/or backed already popular candidates.

So the correlation there might be weaker than some folks think.

The fact is, America was and always has been a white nationalist country.

Believing Republican exit polls when they say their biggest concern is the economy means you're trusting their economic illiteracy.

If economy means more than racial justice, you're a white supremacist.

And that's the issue where I think a Bernie platform would fall flat nationally: A shitload of people only want government help if it's for white people and excludes minorities.

The second that minorities become involved in any government assistance program, despite the fact that they are almost always not the primary benefactor of such a program, white people will fight to get rid of it.

TRUMP RAN ON ELIMINATING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE/MEDICAID.

So what does that leave us? Not anywhere clear cut.

People can't simultaneously decry polling and pretend like it was fundamentally flawed, and the point to polling as a reason why Dems should support certain policies.

Point to actual victories. Of which there are quite a few.

Turnout was already ridiculously high. Higher than in 2016 for both sides.

So the question then becomes: which policies do you think would win over someone who votes for Trump after 4 years of unabashed bigotry, mass COVID death, and economic ruin due to neglecting COVID?

Personally, I think the "economic anxiety" arguments in no way explain Trump's increased turnout.

Trump has been consistently *bad* for the economy, if for no other reason than uncertainty. But when you add in the shitty COVID response, the explanation dies on the vine.

Secondly, if you think that progressive policies would have won over Republican voters, why would third parties not absorb them? The Green Party was running on every progressive policy that the Dems rejected, so why are we seeing record low turnout for third parties?

I think if we continue to ignore right-wing radicalization, brainwashing by major media outlets, the increasingly partisan nature of American politics, deeply ingrained white supremacy and sexism, and the outright love of toxic masculinity and strongman politicians, we're fucked.

I think that running with "Bernie would have won" will leave us doubling down on the exact same issues that resulted in Bernie losing twice in a row.

I think that running with "Dems did nothing wrong" will leave us doubling down on stagnation, which Republicans can capitalize on

I think that rather than hyperfocus on electoralism, once Biden is in office, we need to work our *asses* off to deprogram every last Republican we can.

We need to break the spell of fascism at its roots: the conservative bubble.

If we can't do this, we are royally fucked.

And before someone takes that to mean "ignore idpol, convert on class reductionism":

NO. FUCK NO.

I'm talking *actually deprogram their bigotry*.

And that's a *damned* difficult task.

If we *ignore* idpol, or focus entirely on class, we'll continue to lose.

I'm not saying anything new in this thread.

BIPOC have pointed this out for decades if not centuries now.

White folks, even progressives, are for some reason convinced that the soul of America is fundamentally good.

But this election shows that this is absolutely not the case.

If we can't fix this, if we continue under the assumption that if we just adopt the right policies, suddenly bigotry won't matter and we'll all come together in harmony, we'll end up completely fucked by the very real undercurrent of bigotry that's run through American history.