America is a progressive nation, albeit slow to adjust , and the Democrats have once again missed this point. To listen to senior party leaders, leftist policies are to blame for the dearth of decisive victories in this year’s election. All while Joe Biden, the perennial milquetoast centrist, is (laughably) being attacked by Republicans for being a communist in sheep’s clothing. But this reveals the critical line of attack that the DNC should focus on: progressivism wins at the polls, not the Democratic party identity, and Republicans are woefully unprepared to directly attack most progressive policies due to their overwhelming public support.
When a staggering majority of voters in consistently conservative states voted to legalize marijuana for medical or even recreational uses, they sided with Democrats, despite incredible pushback from the establishment GOP and conservative media, they have shown us a thread upon which we could pull.
While 51.2% of Florida voters voted for Donald Trump, 61% also approved a Amendment 2, a ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026. They sent an important message: they were willing to cross party lines to embrace the pro-labor policies of progressives when the specific policy is in their own interest. That ballot initiative passed in spite of it being opposed by the Florida Republican party, and the delta between votes for Trump and votes for a higher minimum wage show that a considerable swath of Trump voters were swayed. In Florida, Democrats were shown a thread on which they should pull.
In every single swing state’s race, House Democrats who supported Medicare for All won reelection. Those who clung to the deeply flawed, increasingly unpopular for-profit system were rebuked, and lost their races. The country is overwhelmingly willing to support a progressive solution to healthcare. Bernie Sanders nearly got a standing ovation in support of universal healthcare while in the Fox News studios during a town hall, the belly of the beast. Here, Democrats were shown a thread upon which they must pull.
When progressive policies are widely popular amongst a bipartisan swath of voters, Democratic leadership is seemingly trying to pivot farther to center, towards the sort of ineffectual incrementalism that has done nothing but cede territory to Republicans.
I’m glad the country has chosen sanity this election cycle, but please, demand that they push past the safety of the status quo and towards progressive policies. They’re popular, and they are winning at the ballot box.
