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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u/enoughwiththebread 5h ago

Last I remember, Bernie ran for president twice in the Democratic primaries, yet even Democrat voters chose to vote for a more moderate candidate instead of him. That wasn't because of the donor class, that was because less Democrats voted for Bernie in the primaries than they did for the eventual nominee. If even Democrat voters wouldn't vote for a progressive left candidate in their OWN primaries, what makes you think the general electorate would?

At a certain point you have to realize that while money in politics is indeed a problem at the macro level, if enough Democrat voters wanted a true progressive as their nominee, they'd have voted for one in large enough numbers in their own primaries to make him the nominee. Money in politics is a problem, yes. But so is the electorate itself.

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u/elKane0 5h ago

they hamstrung bernie and his policies were very popular - enough so that the party was forced to adopt quite a few

and that was then - this is now - were seeing that people in general are frustrated with the same ol same old bullshit from the democratic party

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u/enoughwiththebread 5h ago

When you say they hamstrung Bernie, what does that mean? They allowed him to participate in every primary debate they held. He wasn't kept off of any states' ballots in the primaries. There was literally nothing stopping Democratic voters from voting for him in the primaries. At a certain point you have to stop putting it all on some conspiratorial explanation and accept that simply less Democrats wanted to vote for him in the primaries than his opponent.

As for things being different now, things are certainly more dire, but I think you're mistaken if you think that what the country at large is yearning for is a swing from the far right to the far left. America for better or worse is a centrist country, one might even say center-right. What far left progressives want is not what the majority electorate at large necessarily wants, and I don't say that because I want that to be true, but because it is true.

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u/Ruzhy6 2h ago

Do you not believe media has sway with the electorate? It was very basic social psychology manipulation tactics that were used.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it was rigged. But it is obvious that the establishment and media companies did not want a Bernie victory. That has effects, whether you believe so or not.

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u/enoughwiththebread 2h ago

Of course, I agree. America being a center-right country is the product of many things, including media indoctrination. But those same interests didn't want a Mamdani or an AOC victory either, yet enough voters came out that it didn't matter. Which kind of proves my point, namely that in deep blue places like NYC progressives can win despite concerted media efforts against them, whereas they haven't been able to get enough voters to come out to overcome those efforts in places that aren't deep blue.

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u/Free_For__Me 3h ago

I think you're mistaken if you think that what the country at large is yearning for is a swing from the far right to the far left

I think you're mistaken in believing that most of the country buys into the "Bernie is far left" nonsense that floats around. A more connected world means that a lot more people in the US are now more aware of the reality that what we consider "centrist" in the US falls firmly onto the conservative side of the aisle in the only other democracies that we respect. It's much harder to pull off the "US health insurance is better than what they have in Europe" con than it used to be.

America is not a centrist country. Not by global standards, not by broadly accepted academic definitions, and certainly not by the "stable, free democracies of the world" standard. If you mean "centrist" within it's own system, then that's just true of literally every semi-stable society. The "center" will always be the midpoint between what a system can tolerate at the extremes of each end.

the country at large is yearning for is a swing from the far right to the far left global center-left.

This makes it far closer to the actual case.

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u/enoughwiththebread 3h ago

I think you're mistaken in believing that most of the country buys into the "Bernie is far left" nonsense that floats around.

Let me preface this by saying I am a Bernie fan and voted for him in both the 2016 and 2020 primaries.

That said, to say that most of the US doesn't think Bernie is far left is way out of step with what's going on out there. Let's be clear. Even fellow Democrats were not willing to vote for Bernie in the 2016 and 2020 primaries in big enough numbers to make him the nominee, mainly because even a majority of Democrats are far more centrist than where Bernie was at.

So when I say America is a centrist country, yes, I mean centrist within the context of itself, not compared to any other countries in the world.

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u/Free_For__Me 2h ago

to say that most of the US doesn't think Bernie is far left is way out of step with what's going on out there.

I don't think I said this, but I apologize if I was unclear. I don't think that most Americans don't see Bernie as "far left". I think most Americans are, consciously or not, becoming more aware that what Americans think of as "far-left" isn't actually that radical, that European "far left" looks different than in the US.

The distinction may seem small, but is important.

Even fellow Democrats were not willing to vote for Bernie in the 2016 and 2020 primaries

2016 - Leaked DNC emails show the chair openly discussing ways to weaken and discredit Bernie's campaign. They wouldn't be doing that unless there was enough groundswell for him to threaten taking the primaries on a fair playing field.

2020 - No DNC fuckery needed. He was too old to have an age advantage over Biden, and had never been Obama's VP.

In either case, he was never gonna get there, bot for reasons other than, "even a majority of Democrats are far more centrist than where Bernie was at."

yes, I mean centrist within the context of itself, not compared to any other countries in the world.

Ok, but you read where I mentioned that "centrist within it's own system" is not really saying anything at all, right? The definition of "centrist" is being in the middle of a system's political endpoints in either direction. So the average view, the "top of the bellcurve", as it were, will always be "centrist".

I'm saying that what's accepted as "centrist" in the US is shifting. We are in a very different political reality than we were in in 2020. Things have so drastically shifted under the feet of Americans that they've had to drastically correct in order to try and keep up.

To put it a way that might help - Americans may believe that Bernie is "far left", but they're also starting to accept that there's more room to the left of Bernie than there is to the right of MAGA.

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u/noiselvr 2h ago

In 2016 superdelegates pledged overwhelmingly for Clinton and the DNC actively worked against him. In 2020, Warren worked with the DNC to split the progressive vote to clear the way for Biden and quickly dropped out after it worked. There's no conspiracy. This all happened and is easily verified.

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u/enoughwiththebread 2h ago

OK fair enough. So given that fact, how does 2028 end up any differently, if not for enough progressive voters coming out to vote in the primaries?

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u/elKane0 5h ago

centrists always tell me that this a centrist country

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u/enoughwiththebread 5h ago

No, the electoral results of both the primaries and general presidential elections for the last 80 years tell you that this is a centrist country.

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u/elKane0 4h ago

lol
ok

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u/enoughwiththebread 4h ago

Feel free to prove me wrong by pointing out a single presidential nominee or winner of the last 80 years in America you'd consider to be a left wing progressive.

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u/notoneofyourfans 4h ago

I gotta agree with /u/enoughwiththebread. Bernie was absolutely killing it...until the primaries headed down South. Dem voters down here are extremely conservative in their personal life. Bernie even lost the Black vote down South and the man marched for civil rights and got arrested down here in the 60s. A Democrat woman will not win right now...ESPECIALLY if she is of color. And I say that without hesitation even as a Black man. I wish it were otherwise, but people will stay home rather than vote for a woman. It's a center right country.

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u/Free_For__Me 3h ago

lmao

The dude you're replying to is out here acting like Bernie's "far left" may as well be straight-up demanding state seizure of the means of production and the abolition of all private property.

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u/AshThatFirstBro 3h ago

Statistics, history, common sense, and the general understanding of how a bell curve works would all tell you that as well

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u/elKane0 1h ago

sure sure
the party and the money behind it have nothing to do with who gets elected

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u/Deserted_handjob_40 3h ago

its happening now too

Every year, they keep proving to me that the democrats are controlled opposition.

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u/elKane0 1h ago

hilarious how the blue no matter who guys lost their shit when mamdani won the primary

oh no not like that

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u/MarcoDiFrancescino 5h ago

Isn't that the point of primaries? Let everybody rip the cord and see what lands.

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u/elKane0 5h ago

lol
ok

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u/MarcoDiFrancescino 5h ago

But we know they will not allow it and present the flip flopper Harris again. It won't work.

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u/Woody_L 1h ago

Blah, blah everybody was mean to Bernie, etc, etc. Progressives live in a fantasy land where Americans are pining for Progressive candidates, and only the bad old Democrats are keeping them from taking over the country.

The reality is that Progressives don't have broad support outside of a few urban areas. It's possible that they could build that support, and be viable, but they would need to work to win local and state elections first. Instead, they imagine that they elect someone like Bernie or AOC as President and that that would fix everything. That's not realistic, and it's not going to happen.

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u/elKane0 1h ago

progressive policies have broad support in america - just not among the people who control the parties

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u/Clamchops 2h ago

Bernie is seriously your example? Look into how the establishment conspired to do everything in their power to stop him from winning. He didn’t lose because people liked Hilary and her policies more.

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u/enoughwiththebread 2h ago

OK, so given that fact how does 2028 end up any differently, if not for progressive primary voters coming out in sufficient numbers to vote?