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AOC is gearing up early for a 2028 run. It’s obvious how the Democratic Party can increase its appeal to young men. Stop trying to overthink it.
When will the Dems learn? Coastal elites lose elections.
America only has 2 swingable regions that matter:
Includes Mich, Wisc & Eastern PA. All 3 states have swung together for decades.
This includes Arizona & Nevada. Both states are growing rapidly and have a massive (30+%) swingable Latino population. The tiny black population means that an alienated white populace + unenthusiastic Latino population will certainly lose you both states. They tend to swing together too. Both went Blue-senate, red-presidency this year.
AOC would be horrible for both these regions. AOC is young. No reason to force it. Show your wider appeal by becoming NY Governor. That's America's 4th most powerful elected position after President, CA Governor & Texas Governor. Big improvements to NY state should give her enough visibility and time to become a Presidential candidate.
But for the next decade, the democratic candidate must identify with one of the above 2 regions.
The 3 nationally recognized candidates from this region are:
Well, look at that. They are also the 3 most liked active democrats.
I am biased towards Pete because he's charismatic, doesn't treat republicans like idiots (has a solid fox news relationship) and is a pro-transit YIMBY. He is also Gay in a lowkey, pro-family way. I don't much about Whitmer. Kelly's dedicated husband + Top gun + Astronaut story is an incredible sell. If only he wasn't bald.
It's still very early, but among those who are more tuned in, how do people around you perceive these 3 politicians ?
Random insane stat:
In the last 50 years, every Republican president has been a coastal elite (Trump, Reagan, Bushes) and no Democratic president has been both coastal and elite (Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden).
That loses too much of the crucial black and Latino vote.
I would bet more on Whitmer. They really want a female president, it’s pretty clear. They’re itching for it.
Wouldn’t Obama count as coastal due to his Hawaiian roots?
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A nickname like "Momala" attached to AOC will take on a whole different sheen with Zoomers men, that's for sure.
Being hot worked for Trudeau.
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Yeah they’re gonna run in 2028 on “man isn’t all this culture war shit about abortion and god and deporting random Mexicans kind of lame and cringe and try hard? Why not just, like, be chill, live and let live maaan”…and it’s going to work. The public has a short memory.
I’m okay with the DNC pivoting to “no step on snek,” but I’m not holding my breath.
We’re getting Newsom 2028 and we’re going to like it.
Dems must really be counting on Trump crashing the economy to go with Newsom
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I guess I'm not a political consultant, so I might be very wrong (then again, so are the consultants sometimes), but my visceral feeling here is that politicians that have previously staked out now-seen-as-extreme positions won't be able to just sweep history under the rug. Harris tried, and while it wasn't the only argument against, plenty of Trump campaign hay was reaped from her stated 2020 policy positions and Senate votes. I can't see AOC winning without a huge vibe shift back to 2016-2020 Democrats' values (not impossible if the next term goes very poorly, I suppose) or explicitly talking about why crying in front of border fences was good then but doesn't conflict with an immigration stance that isn't "open borders" now.
But of her generation of left-leaning politicians, I don't find her the worst.
Honestly, the immigration thing is the easiest issue on which to thread that needle. The people crossing the border are mostly normal people in really desperate situations who hope they can have a better life in the US. While there are practical reasons why we can't let everyone in, Trump and the Republicans lack any sense of compassion whatsoever and have dehumanized them almost completely, giving them license to enact whatever brutal policies they can dream up. His political career literally rests on his belief that the vast majority of illegals are rapists and fentanyl traffickers who are only here so they can commit crimes. Her earlier positions were merely a reaction to Trump's policies at the time, and she was also young and idealistic. Ten years in politics has taught her the practical realities of governance, but we at least need to acknowledge that we're dealing with real people here and not faceless monsters.
Some of her other positions are going to be harder to backtrack from, but she has the advantage of coming into office young enough that she both gets a pass for her earlier positions and develops into a shrewd politician by the time she needs to.
This is the type of hyperbole that makes me find it completely impossible to hang out in online forums dominated by lefties for very long. Like, have you ever talked to a Republican? In person?
I dont think that was supposed to be Rov_scam's voice; rather, they were telling the hypothetical story of how AOC would sell the position shift.
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Lol, I hang out with Republicans all the time. I watched election returns with people actively rooting for a Trump victory, and I watched the Pens game last night with a guy I often get into arguments with (though we didn't talk politics at all last night). By "Trump and the Republicans" I was referring to the habit of politicians to assign the attributes of the most visible leader to the party as a whole. There could be some media bubble where Fox News et al are repeatedly expressing compassion for migrants and the mainstream media simply isn't reporting on it, but to my knowledge, if any such rhetoric does exist, it's drowned out by statements about migrants all being criminals.
Does the guy you watched the Pens game with last night lack any sense of compassion whatsoever and dehumanize immigrants almost completely?
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If AOC had been running this year, she could have threaded the needle between "we don't need to enforce our borders" and "Trump's border enforcement was nothing to cry about" by asserting that Trump just did it badly. Harp on things like kids unable to be reunified with families because they didn't collect enough data when separating them.
How well that plays in four years will depend on how badly Trump's border policy is carried out over his second term, but since the worst case for her is "Trump's Executive Orders don't make any big photogenic mistakes and the civil service who has to carry out his orders also don't make any big photogenic mistakes", I'm betting she still ends up with some swing-voter-friendly territory to stake out.
On the other hand, the "I'll do what you want but I won't screw it up" card works in any player's hand. Even if Trump does end up taking the blame for any big problems, he won't be the one running in 2028, and it'll be easy enough for any Republican (except Vance) to simply say "well, he had good goals, and I'll be the one to achieve them, without any mistakes this time."
It was a pretty good argument against. "My values have not changed" probably sounded like a tough focus-group-approved thing to memorize out of context, but without some explanation for Harris' changing positions it was just an obvious attempt to weasel out of an incredibly important question when she was asked about the changes. When someone is obviously trying to mislead you, the only safe thing to believe is that an honest answer would be the one you didn't want to hear, so it wasn't too crazy that many moderates and progressives concluded that Harris wasn't to be trusted.
Se my comment above, but AOC will have it a lot easier than Kamala, if only because it's a lot easier to backtrack from a position you took a decade earlier as an idealistic 29-year-old who was new to public office than from a position you took in the last election cycle as a 55-year-old sitting US Senator who had been in politics for 15 years by that point.
I mean, the "my values haven't changed" schtick wasn't good, but I can't imagine her saying anything that would have played better. California is an oil-producing state so she couldn't use ignorance as an excuse. The technology was old enough by 2019 that most of the specific arguments in favor of its environmental benefits had been made. There was no new information that came out between 2020 and 2024. If she'd been against fracking in 2012 and changed course in 2019 it would have been easy to give her a pass, but there's really no good explanation. The real explanation is probably that she's against a fracking ban now for the same reason she was in favor of one in 2019 — because that's the position her advisors told her would give her the best chance of winning, which leads one to wonder what her actual thoughts on the matter are.
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No. The worst case is that the left makes mistakes and punches itself out trying to stop deportations of the wrong sorts (they love a lost cause) and blow all their powder.
Then Trump's deportations proceed and go even further, the numbers drop compared to Biden and the Overton Window is shifted because people feel deportation wasn't so bad. Maybe let little Elio stay but still.
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