Contrary to what left-wing optimists had hoped, Democratic nonvoters in 2024 appear to have been less progressive than Democrats who voted. For instance, Democratic nonvoters were 14 points less likely to support banning assault rifles, 20 points less likely to support sending aid to Gaza, 17 points less likely to report believing that slavery and discrimination make it hard for Black Americans, 17 points more likely to support building a border wall with Mexico, 20 points more likely to support the expansion of fossil fuel production, and, sadly for economic populists, 16 points less likely to support corporate tax hikes (though this group still favored corporate tax hikes by a three to one margin). Overall, nonvoting Democrats were 18 points less likely to self-identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Here is a point for the centrists.
After spending months blaming actual leftists, it turns out it was just regular Democrats that were okay with giving Trump the presidency.
“Because people are, by and large, spectacularly awful” is a terrible message for getting people to vote for you, and you can tell a lot of actually awful people in the Democratic party believe it based on the stupid shit they campaign on (for example - nobody is going to buy it when you say you want a lethal military, your party likes treaties and peace and UN hearings, you’re just pretending to be a Republican because you think we’re all stupid).
Maybe if we run on what we actually believe and stopped trying to bullshit people they’d stop being so spectacularly cynical about their country.
They won’t vote for me anyway because I’m a progressive.