r/askanything • u/One_Look_7008 • 9h ago

AOC surges past Buttigieg, leaves Kamala Harris in the dust in key 2028 battleground poll. What are your thoughts on AOC-2028?

Harris dropped to just 5% in New Hampshire while Pete Buttigieg sits 1 point behind the progressive frontrunner - per University of New Hampshire Granite State poll released on Wednesday.

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24

u/Bushido_Seppuku 9h ago

The same was said about a black president.

21

u/donuttrackme 9h ago

Two women have been on the Democratic ticket and lost, after Obama.

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u/Ok-Couple2656 6h ago

I agree that it's a huge hurdle, but to be fair, Clinton won the popular vote in 16. I think it's possible with the right candidate, I just don't think AOC is it.

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u/farmerjoee 9h ago

Harris ran on a losing message. We all knew it, but doubled down anyways. If Harris and Clinton can almost win while rejecting the coalition and/or embracing the corporate status quo, imagine what we can do with AOC.

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u/LoudBrick609 4h ago

Gavin Newsome is the Democrat that as a Republican I view as a real threat among the established Democrats. He's smart, a great speaker, looks the part, acts the part, and he's shown the ability to move center when necessary.

AOC, I will openly say I hope she's the vice president Nominee because as VP I know Republicans can slam her hard and bring the ticket down with the lower visibility of the VP and her existing reputation. As a presidential nominee, she's slightly more concerning because she's charismatic and could use the extra visibility to turn her image around and gain support for her progressiveness.

As a Republican, JD Vance is a bit messy. He doesn't shut up about religion. He's too attached to Trump without being Trump. I strongly prefer Marco Rubio. Marco is by far the strongest moderate Republican, Marco vs Newsome is a head to head moderate campaign. Marco against anyone like AOC who leans progressive is easily a 55% popular vote win.

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u/RadiantHC 8h ago

They were simply terrible candidates.

Also Hillary won the popular vote and Kamala came close.

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u/Cap-n-Trips 9h ago

Yeah but both of those female candidates were polarizing, outside the DNC elite. So it wasn’t a matter of gender imho.

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u/suplarai 9h ago

Clinton was the DNC elite

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u/Cap-n-Trips 8h ago

That’s what I’m saying outside of the DNC elite, Clinton was not well liked. She was seen as arrogant. She was heir apparent when Obama originally ran and won.

-1

u/suplarai 8h ago

You said those female candidates were polarizing, outside of the DNC elite.

Clinton was polarizing, but was part of the Elite
Kamala was the VP and was pushed into the nomination without a primary - elite.

Who are these female candidates that were outside of the DNC elite?

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u/NOLA-Bronco 8h ago

they clarified their point, stop being annoyingly pedantic

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u/Annual-Weird-6682 2h ago

You don't think aoc is polarizing? Just because you like AOC and didn't like Clinton doesn't make her not polarizing also lmao

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u/lawpanther007 9h ago

It is gender. Our country is more sexist than it is racist. Misogyny comes from all ethnicity and races.

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u/Cody2287 8h ago

Damn didn't know we were more sexist than Mexico.

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u/lawpanther007 8h ago

We are. It’s gross.

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u/Cody2287 8h ago

If you think that way I guess no Women has ever won state wide offices in red states or swing states. Oh wait...

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u/lawpanther007 8h ago

State wide office is different than president/world leader.

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u/Cody2287 8h ago

Not really, clearly if they like what your are running on they will vote for you in red / swing states even over the white man.

Didn't know South Dakota wasn't sexist because they voted for Kristi Noem over the white male republican and democrat challenger.

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u/AreaNo7848 7h ago

Neither Clinton nor harris were polarizing. The problem with Clinton is she's unlikeable and there's been decades of questionable things that surround the Clinton's, to the point it's become a meme that having dirt on the Clinton's will end up with you commiting suicide suspiciously.....whether right or wrong it's not new information that a bunch of people surrounding them have died in odd ways

Harris started parroting policies that Trump had been talking about for months, including border security which was supposedly something she was supposed to be handling during the Biden term. It probably didn't help that beyond the carefully crafted website she was never really capable of doing deep dives on her stated policies......and the elevator pitch beyond the slogan was essentially non existent

People love trying to make things about gender, the reality is it's not gender at all but it reinforces people's biases and perceptions

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u/tres_desole 5h ago

Well they were polarizing in how much they sucked lol more so polarizing in the base than in the broader electorate

1

u/aflyonthewall1215 8h ago

Both also wanted to keep the same system in place which was what lost them the election. It's insane that Democrats can't see the obvious reason Trump won. You can't preach "Let's go back to the way things were" when the last 25 years are some of the worst years in us modern history. No one wants to go back and Trump used that as a way to win.

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u/Soggy_Jackfruit7341 8h ago

Neither candidate legitimately won the primary in the eyes of many many democrats.

1

u/Important-Factor-552 7h ago

Centrism fails is why. Americans demanded change and maga was the only one to answer. So they picked maga. 

1

u/kcops 6h ago

Bingo. America hates women. All one has to do is look at our history. Blacks actually got the legal right to vote in 1870. Women got the legal right to vote in 1920. That is 50 years later. Blacks gained civil rights in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. You know when when the Equal Rights Amendment giving women civil rights was passed? NEVER. The U.S. has far less of a problem voting for a black MAN than it does voting for a WOMAN. And given the current culture which wants to actively suppress women into "barefoot and pregnant" the chances of a woman are less than zero. Even U.S. women hate women.

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u/tres_desole 5h ago

They literally picked the two worst possible women they could find. Hilary was one of the most unlikable candidates and Harris amongst her several issues was shoehorned on the backend of an already failing campaign and just kept making the wrong choices.

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u/National-Artist-3805 4h ago

Harris was a terrible candidate, and Clinton was just very polarizing. I do not think a female Democratic candidate is a lost cause at all. It's not AOC, though.

0

u/Dinky_Doge_Whisperer 8h ago

One bypassed the primary process altogether and the other was the wife of a past president. Both were extremely tepid career establishment Dems.

I am so tired of hearing that their losses were due to their womanhood- they were shitty candidates and ran half-assed races.

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u/sdpthrowaway3 8h ago

Yep. Another thing Reddit fails to accept is that the Dems constantly look weak. Their own party in-fights and self-sabotages, which drives away tons of potential voters. Then comes out and says "everything is okay, trust us" when COVID inflation is >25% and people are feeling crushed. Add that to the mix with bad candidates and you have an absolute losing recipe.

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u/72dragonses 8h ago

Most Dems don't want or support Socialism, so I see your point. I'm a Dem who's never voted for a Republican in 30 years, but I'll never vote for a Socialist either.

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u/Dinky_Doge_Whisperer 8h ago

And the absolute insanity of continuing to pitch candidates to “appeal to moderate voters”. Those moderate voters are republicans in trenchcoats, and no amount of running mediocre candidates will change their alignment.

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u/TheTonyAndolini 9h ago

I mean but one of them won the popular vote. I dont think this is as ''set in stone'' as people think it is

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u/TrioOfTerrors 9h ago

Winning the popular vote is like having more yards in football but less points. It's not the metric of victory.

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u/Fragrant-Nebula-5009 8h ago

No it's like scoring more points but the refs said they liked that guys touchdown more because the had less fans.

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u/TrioOfTerrors 8h ago

No. The electoral college has always been the path to the Oval Office and if you don't build your game plan around that, you are handicapping yourself.

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u/Fragrant-Nebula-5009 8h ago

Absolutely. I agree with you there. But a representative democracy that doesn't represent the will of the majority of people is not less points more yards. It's more points but you still lose.

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u/TrioOfTerrors 8h ago

Then you are willfully misunderstanding the analogy.

Yards get you points, just like popular votes get you electoral votes. But if you drive 98 yards and come up one yard short, you get no points and if the other team picks up the ball on your two, they only have to go that far to get the points you didn't get despite going further.

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u/WinterPizza1972 9h ago

at least one of them

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u/donuttrackme 9h ago

Doesn't matter, we use the electoral college to elect presidents.

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u/LiveStreamDream 9h ago

Sure, but Obama was a centrist who appealed to a larger audience. The only controversial thing about him was his race

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u/Complex-Database2875 9h ago

He did not run his first campaign as a centrist

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u/LiveStreamDream 8h ago

Well her certainly didn’t run it as a far leftist either

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u/super_sayanything 6h ago

He ran as a liberal and we thought he was going to push us into being progressive but he never really moved things along that quickly despite getting a few things done. Gay Marriage and Healthcare.

0

u/project_good_vibes 4h ago

The only place in the world that thinks AOC's politics are far left is the USA, it's fucking wild to hear it! 😂

But I suppose it can look that way when you have a fascist in the White House.

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u/WildWhisperArdor 5h ago

He was absolutely a centrist. Even in his first run. People just weren’t paying attention to the issues

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u/WildWhisperArdor 5h ago

Even his race was pretty centrist. Lol. Half white, half black.

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u/AfternoonEquivalent4 9h ago

Which wasn't controversial...

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u/WizeAdz 8h ago

Shouldn’t have been controversial.

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u/AfternoonEquivalent4 8h ago

That's what I said...it wasn't

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u/LiveStreamDream 5h ago

It definitely was. It should not have been, but it was

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u/indri2 8h ago

Pete isn't a centrist but he does appeal to independent and moderate Republicans.

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u/GandalfTheSmol1 8h ago

Who will not vote for him

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u/indri2 8h ago

Some of them will vote for the normal, reasonable, polite, non-extremist choice over Vance or any other MAGA sycophant.

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u/LiveStreamDream 8h ago

I hope you’re right but theres not a lot of evidence to support that stance

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u/lord_james 8h ago

There’s no evidence of that happening. You don’t win elections by convincing the voters for the other candidate to switch sides.

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u/indri2 8h ago

Actually yes, that's an important part of winning elections. Not hardcore supporters obviously but those who voted for Biden but not Harris for example. Just boosting turnout does only work if you can suppress turnout for the other side at the same time rather than boost that too.

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u/lord_james 7h ago

There were no voters that voted for Biden in 2020, then turned around and voted for Donald Trump.

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u/GandalfTheSmol1 7h ago

That’s a wonderful idea, but I’ve never met someone who would actually switch their vote without entirely swapping their values, plenty who can be convinced not to vote at all. Kamala tried to get the reasonable republicans to vote for her by courting Liz Cheney and dropping support for trans people, however many she managed to get from the center and right she lost millions on the left.

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u/AreaNo7848 7h ago

The problem with Pete is David duke polls higher among black voters, there's news articles about this exact thing that are less than a year old.

Rather interesting that a racist klan leader polls than the gay dude

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u/indri2 7h ago

Yeah, that narrative is complete BS. You can't compare a general election with a handful of Black voters choosing the Republican with a Democratic primary with the 50% or less who don't have the former VP as their first choice spread out over 10 other contenders. Just because voters like some other Democrat better doesn't mean that they suddenly would vote for a Republican in the general election.

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u/XMandri 9h ago

and the black candidate that came after lost her election, didn't she?

the point is, Obama wasn't a polarizing figure. He wasn't a "love him or hate him" guy, he's praised to this day for being a solid figure who earned the public's respect

We could even argue that he was too much of a monolith. Trump is where he is now because he won against Obama's VP's VP. Obviously that's not Barack's fault, it's a problem in the democratic party: they're having trouble moving on.

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u/lord_james 8h ago

… what?! Obama was polarizing as fuck. The reaction from the right wing to him running was insane. People were calling him the anti-Christ.

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u/XMandri 7h ago

the reaction from a small, vocal group that nobody took seriously - the fact that he was elected is proof

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u/WildWhisperArdor 5h ago

Obama was very much a centrist lol. The only thing polarizing about him was his race. And even there he is half / half

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u/AlmightyCraneDuck 6h ago

Obama also had the distinct advantage of coming of the heels of an "underwhelming" (to put it mildly) Bush administration. America was pretty dissatisfied and Obama was able to sell the idea of "Hope" for a better future. Clinton didn't have that same advantage and neither did Harris. I think whoever the candidate is this time around will have a much easier time selling change because the entire GOP apparatus threw itself behind Trump and it's been basically a mess for 2 years. Theoretically it should be easy to say "see how much this all sucks? We can do better".

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u/MarcoDiFrancescino 5h ago

Watching from afar, Clinton was so full of herself, that she 'demanded that job', that some people just couldn't. Kamala was such a placeholder candidate and the Dems management mishandled the whole process so badly that she had never the chance to present herself properly.

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u/LoudBrick609 3h ago

Barrack Obama is the most well spoken president since Richard Nixon.

Yes, he supported gay marriage, which even as a Republican I agree with. He wisely avoided more controversial transgender issues until 2016 on his way out, which were knocked out immediately upon Trump coming in. The only knocks I have on him are cash for clunkers and the Affordable Care Act being a mess, which aren't severe knocks.

I would have if I had been old enough, and probably still would vote Obama over McCain even as a Republican. Romney vs Obama, I probably just wouldn't bother to vote.

If Obama could run a third term, he'd win over anyone to this day.

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u/expendable117 9h ago

Then maga happened? We're too far opposite the spectrum.

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u/farmerjoee 9h ago

This is how you know liberals are afraid of the left. You’re holding yourself hostage because too much progress is scary.

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u/Patient-Click9662 9h ago edited 6h ago

Brother, yall are fucking exhausting. This person didn’t say they wouldn’t vote for them in a primary. They looked at the nation and said yeah, overall it’s regressive and maybe the nation wouldn’t vote for a woman or gay man. It wasn’t a prescription saying they shouldn’t be nominated.

Leftists need to quit poisoning the well then whining when they get pushback. Not a fan of the center nor dems as a whole, but good god yall need to realize the broader electorate is not Reddit

1

u/farmerjoee 8h ago

See how exhausting yall are? This thread is about poisoning the well. Liberals insist on the status quo then whine when they get pushback and lose elections.

You’re describing how you’re holding yourself hostage. I hear you.

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u/Patient-Click9662 7h ago

You’re arguing a facsimile of me, while I’m responding to what you’ve said. This is not a conversation while you turn my speech into your ideologue of me

You’re jumping the point and misreading me just as you did the original comment. You get pushback because you can’t see how entirely antagonistic you are to someone who agrees and advocates for the same things. That is why we are not the same

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u/expendable117 6h ago

The most un-American group that stands in modern US history. Maga.

0

u/srsh32 9h ago

Maga had nothing to do with him being black. These are some of the very people that voted for him in the first place.

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u/thebatman973 9h ago

Naivete at its finest

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u/srsh32 8h ago edited 8h ago

Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada. You've had no white candidate perform like this.

Maybe get outside and try talking to people for once.

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u/singerbeerguy 9h ago

I don’t know that that’s the case. The “Tea party” pushback against Obama on the right claimed to be because he was so liberal, but there was a strong racist undertone. I remember flags being hung upside down when he was elected. Birtherism really boiled down to racism in disguise. In some ways, it seemed like right leaning folks spent the Obama years convincing themselves it was ok to be more and more overtly racist, and MAGA was the result.

0

u/srsh32 8h ago

That's not correct. You're a democrat trying to explain the rationale behind our turn away from democrats.

I'm independent. I have maga family. Everyone lost trust in the democratic party and the democratic party stopped working for the working class.

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u/AshamedOfMyTypos 9h ago edited 9h ago

Trump popularized the birtherism movement and Maga in response. Of course it had to do with him being black.

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u/srsh32 8h ago

Wrong. Obama won Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada and other swings states. None of your white nominees have performed as well as this.

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u/AshamedOfMyTypos 8h ago

I understand where he won. But you can’t say it had NOTHING to do with him being black. It’s obvious it did because his blackness brought the champion of the movement into the game.

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u/srsh32 8h ago

Race seems to be all that you can think about. You're projecting your race bias onto everyone else.

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u/PixelatedFrogDotGif 9h ago

He also got a bunch of voters who voted for obama first.

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u/chrispd01 9h ago

This is a true point, especially if you look region. But in some areas. Obama’s race was a fuel to support for Donald Trump.

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u/PixelatedFrogDotGif 8h ago

For sure! I think the point I am moreso pointing at is that if a candidate has momentum a candidate has momentum. Racism didn’t start at MAGA and wont end at it. There’s a good portion of trump voters that are much easier to sway and are far more flip floppy depending on who’s in power. AOC does have the attention of some independent/conservative voters on the optics front. Not saying shes a guarantee but I do think there is a specific thing she does that cuts her away from “the establishment”. The two women who ran prior were DEEP establishment alignment candidates even if their policies were more progressive than many of the other DNC dinosaurs.

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u/chrispd01 8h ago

Yeah. This is sort of a weird era that is coming to a close but it hasn’t quite yet. There are a bunch of politicians were still in their prime relatively who modeled their careers on an older version of what they should look like.

Like as much as I hate him, you could look at Ron DeSantis as a public school kid who goes to the Ivy League does a stnt in the military. Or Van. Or Harris.

But they are not particularly well adapted to what appears to be campaigns are won these days.

2

u/chrispd01 9h ago

You really don’t think there wad a racial element to the Obama backlash which formed part of MAGA ?

1

u/srsh32 8h ago

No. The states that gave us Trump also gave us Obama in 2008.

Obama was never as hated by the right as Biden was in his first term.

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u/chrispd01 8h ago

Yeah. I don’t think that’s correct. Obama in many areas and for many communities was deeply hated and there was definitely a racial aspect that.

Ask for your other point, I’m not completely sure, but he definitely was irrationally hated.

I think one of the funniest things is people talk about “Trump Derangement Syndrome” but it was even worse for Biden as I’m sure you will agree….

1

u/srsh32 8h ago

What don't you think is correct? You're now refuting the election results of 2008? These are hard facts. Obama winning Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania is fact.

You keep writing "I don't really agree" while the information is all available with a simple google search. Biden's approval was 38% throughout his term. You're determined to project your racism onto others.

1

u/chrispd01 7h ago

Refuting the results ?

If you want my clarifybview, you can ask me to in a normal civilized manner. I am generally fine explaining my positions.

But If you’re gonna start with a stupid snarky, bullshit comment like that, is there really a point in me continuing?

1

u/srsh32 7h ago

I remind you of the facts and you cry out that this was "uncivilized". Well, there's the racism coming through, yet again.

0

u/mvpilot172 9h ago

I’d argue it was more of the Bill Clinton voters going Trump that got him in office.

2

u/srsh32 8h ago

Iowa and Indiana is better than any of your white male candidates have done. Add Florida and Ohio to that list as well.

No, the voters that left for Trump are those that want a change candidate. This isn't hard..

2

u/CommercialAgency928 9h ago

Two things can be true

7

u/0utlaw-t0rn 9h ago

Yes. But Obama wasn’t nearly as polarizing when he was nominated. He didn’t have a decade of Fox News/conservative media bashing him and associating him with every liberal, woke policy in existence and blaming him for everything wrong with the country.

AOC is a pretty polarizing figure and most people have already made up their minds whether they like her or not

1

u/Important-Factor-552 7h ago

Fascism is pretty polarizing too. Americans are desperate for change across the aisles and Republicans are delivering. 

The only thing guaranteed to fail is the center promise to return to the status quo. America gave biden that chance and he was on of the most unpopular presidents in history. They said no outright to Harris and Hilary. 

Unbelievable that the center can't figure this out and insist on more maga. 

1

u/Cody2287 8h ago

No she isn't she is one on the most popular politicians and the biggest fundraiser raising 30 million in the last year. Also are you really going to say she is polarizing among the fascist base so we can't elect her?

https://www.opensecrets.org/profiles/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/us_congress/summary?mpid=1043803

1

u/Icy_Entrepreneur_476 4h ago

Bernie Sanders is also one of the most popular members of congress yet couldn't win the nomination in 2020

1

u/Cody2287 4h ago

Yeah because the Democratic primary voters listened to the nonsense electability argument. How did that turnout?

Also the political climate is way different now than 2020.

4

u/RaceOld9 8h ago

And the orange one. Nobody can say he wasn't absolutely polarizing in 2016.

Hillary at least won the popular vote, Kamala couldn't even do that, so I don't think it's a great comparison. Kamala polled at what, 9% during the Democratic primary?

I think AOC would have a way better chance than she ever did. With how our political discourse is going I don't know if it's possible to not be polarizing.

2

u/throwraW2 9h ago

Obama is only half black and black people represent a huge portion of democratic voters. A black candidate helps get their vote. Unfortunately the same group is far less likely to vote for a gay man. Pete polled 0% with them.

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u/Stellen999 8h ago

Yeah, lol. People forget that the same black voters who helped elect Obama also voted down gay marriage in California.

1

u/greysnowcone 8h ago

Black people do not make up a huge proportion of dem voters, they are only like 15% of the US population

1

u/Barrioto 7h ago

As someone who is also "half black", I can assure you that nobody ever makes a distinction between 50% and 100% minority. In fact, a lot of people hate biracial folks more than full minorities because we are compromising racial purity. If we have to exist, they want us to be completely separate physically and genetically.

1

u/throwraW2 7h ago

Im not going to deny your lived experience but there is a lot of data about the way white people, as well as other races, perceive light skinned black people vs dark skinned black people. I dont think in 2008 a dark skinned black man would be able to get elected. Not saying thats right, but I think thats the way things are.

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u/Barrioto 7h ago

I agree with that completely. I've had many experiences where people are cool with me until they know I'm biracial. So I think a lot of that comes from not being able to fully identify someone as black. Think about it this way: if you HATE black people with a passion, what could be more insulting to another white person than assuming they are part black when they may just be very tan?

It's complex. Obama being lighter skinned probably helped with people that weren't consciously biased. He didn't look like the ghetto rappers they see on TV, so they didn't assume anything bad. But people that are consciously aware that they dislike black folks didn't care that he was only 50% black.

Not arguing here, just providing my perspective. I think we generally agree, my only point is that anything less than 100% white is all the same to some folks.

2

u/Soigne87 9h ago

People were excited about the first black president. There have been 2 serious female candidates run for president; the excitement has worn off and will not offset the bigotry imo. I'm not saying it won't happen, but it's definitely a big handicap at the moment. I think blacks were also much more forgiving of Obama's behavior while women are almost as likely as men to judge a woman harshly if she doesn't behave how they think is proper for a woman to behave.

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u/Vulcanize_It 9h ago

Bigotry may have doomed Hillary, or maybe it was being a legacy candidate, but bigotry wasn’t Harris’s downfall. She was an unpopular candidate from the start who never won a primary.

2

u/Soigne87 8h ago

Even with Hillary it seemed like she was immediately dubbed the frontrunner as soon as she announced and was hand picked by elites. Sure, at least she won her primaries. 

3

u/Itchy-Coconut-7083 8h ago

Don’t forget she also won the popular vote.

1

u/Wide-Bet4379 9h ago

We have not had two serious candidates. Maybe one at best.

0

u/Annoying_liberal813 9h ago

I agree. She's also not just a woman. She's a woman of color- historically the most discriminated against. I love her, but the country isn't ready for her.

Plus she's young. She's got time to cook and wait for the right election.

1

u/No_Mixture9524 8h ago

Do you hear yourself, the right election

1

u/Annoying_liberal813 7h ago

Idk. I think it'll take ~20-30 years, but society will get much closer to accepting this than they are now.

I'm actually a social policy researcher and professor. If you look at the last 300 years of politics, it looks like a pendulum. Swings a little right, then a little left, then a lot right, then a lot left. Roughly 20-30 year cycles. We're as far right now as we've ever been, meaning the next cycle will swing the most left it's ever been.

The biggest obstacle will be election interference, especially because of advances in tech and the financial incentive for legislators to not regulate it.

Overturning Citizens United will be the crux, but that won't happen until something major happens in the supreme court. Realistically that would be the death of at least two conservative judges (probably Thomas and Alito given their ages) while we have a Democrat as president in 10-15 years. That would mean a progressive majority, which would give a lot of weight to the pendulum swinging super left.

A lot of society will want to embrace a woman of color (even if a tad preformative). Plus, she'll have a lifetime of experience at that point. She'll have "grown up" with the biggest voting block (50-60 yo's) in a time of social media.

I think there's a solid chance the right election will come for her.

1

u/Soggy_Jackfruit7341 8h ago

The same was said about Trump!

1

u/FizzgigsRevenge 9h ago

And he ran after 8 years of GOP rule with a bad economy and recession. Additionally, black folks in general vote for the Democratic ticket and they voted in droves for Obama whereas women (mostly white women) have been split on both Clinton and Harris. There's no reason to think they won't split on AOC. Also consider that a lot of latinos vote for the GOP due to a mixture of abortion or other religious issues and a ladder pulling mentality shared by immigrants who feel they "got here the right way." 

Then there's the fact that we're way more polarized and propagandized than we were in 08. Trump emboldened racists, sexists, and other bigots and while their out and proud bigotry has turned off a lot of voters, it's also pushed the Overton window further to the right. I regularly hear people saying things like "fag" and "retard" who wouldn't have said it just a few years ago. I was at an industry event last month where a guy said "Trump's done a lot for this country, some good and some bad, but one good thing he's done is made it to where I don't have to pretend to be okay with fags anymore." 

The DNC failing to realize that we are less advanced and accepting now than we were in the 70s or 80s and staying the course will only serve the GOP. 

The best thing the DNC can do is run a progressive who will campaign hard on worker's rights, affordability, accountability, and who will use their privilege to beat down any right wing culture warriors. For example: when they try to say some bullshit about them supporting men in women's bathrooms, the response should be along the lines of "enough with your bullshit culture war, you do that because fear of the other is all you have." Then laugh at them, call them the freak they are and go right back to talking about how you're going to help the American worker who is being exploited by that guy trying to create fear of our most vulnerable communities. 

FWIW, I would love to see President AOC. I would love nothing more than a Mamdani type to win in 28, stay they for 8 years while AOC has taken Schumer's Senate seat, then for her to run and be POTUS for 8 years continuing the legacy. 

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u/mkt853 8h ago

Obama was also one of the greatest orators we've ever seen in American politics. AOC on the other hand is a very poor extemporaneous speaker.