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Should Dems move to the Right of Biden?

Should Dems move to the Right of Biden?


  • Total voters
    71
Hillary Clinton may have been the most knowledgeable. But her problem was she came across as an aloof, elitist, know it all with a fake smile. I usually refer to 2016 as obnoxious, rude, uncouth vs the aloof, elitist know it all. At least this is how many swing voters saw the two candidates which independents went to Trump 46-42 with 12% voting third party against both. How many independents stayed home due to their dislike or distaste of both major party candidates, we’ll never know.

https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/national/president

Those two candidates hold the record for the lowest favorable and highest unfavorable of any presidential candidate going back to Eisenhower. Trump at 36% favorable/60% unfavorable, Clinton at 38% favorable/56% unfavorable. The list.

Highest to lowest favorable/unfavorable ratings of each major party presidential candidate.

Favorable/unfavorable

1956 Eisenhower 84/12%

1964 LBJ 81/13%

1976 Carter 81/16%

1960 JFK 80/14%

1960 Nixon 79/16%

1968 Nixon 79/22%

1976 Ford 79/20%

1972 Nixon 76/21%

1968 Humphrey 72/28%

1984 Reagan 70/30%

1980 Carter 60/32%

1984 Mondale 66/34%

1980 Reagan 64/31%

1992 Bill Clinton 64/33%

2008 Obama 62/35%

2012 Obama 62/37%

1956 Stevenson 61/31%

2004 G.W. Bush 61/39%

2008 McCain 60/35%

1992 G.H.W. Bush 59/40%

2000 G.W. Bush 58/38%

2004 Kerry 57/40%

1996 Bill Clinton 56/42%

1988 G.H.W. Bush 56/39%

2000 Gore 55/43%

2012 Romney 55/43%

1972 McGovern 55/41%

1996 Dole 54/45%

1988 Dukakis 53/42%

2020 Biden 49/45%

2024 Harris 46/50%

1964 Goldwater 43/47%

2024 Trump 44/54%

2020 Trump 43/56%

2016 Hillary Clinton 38/56%

2016 Donald Trump 36/60%

As for a woman winning the presidency, two women is too small a sample for me to say Americans won’t elect a woman as president. Both women were democrats and liberals. Clinton actually won the popular vote and Harris came within 1.5 points of doing so. The earth, moon, sun, the planets, stars and even galaxies had to a line perfectly for Trump to win in 2016. Harris had a sitting president with an overall job approval of 39% to hold her back. No sitting president has won reelection nor his replacement won the election when the sitting presidents overall job approval was below 50%. Not only was Harris fighting Trump, but history also. I find it amazing Harris came as close as she did which I think says much more about Trump than Harris, Biden or the Democrats. The GOP should have won in a landslide if one goes by history. That didn’t happen thanks to the GOP nominating and sticking with Trump.
Hillary came across as aloof during her campaign, but I have watched several interviews/podcasts where she was very likeable and funny. It is a shame
she couldn't get that side of her to come out on the campaign trail. Maybe she thought she had to be serious to be taken seriously.
 
You literally didn't vote for the Democrat or Republican.

Right. Not because I wasn't a gettable voter, but because I have certain standards that Dems refused to meet. They rejected many progressives and moved to the loser middle. But at least they got the Cheney swing voter, all three of them.
 
It needs to be said: Independents aren't centrist, they aren't where the two parties converge, they don't share the same opinions, and they are not the epitome of pragmatic compromise. Some are to the left of me, some are to the right or Trump. Some are just contrarians. These are not people that should be catered to because it's impossible mission.

I remember people saying, "I'm not voting for Dems or Republicans, I'm voting for RFK Jr."

Because they're freakin' weirdos, not serious people.
I wouldn’t go that far. But you’re correct, they’re not centrist for the most part. You’ll find most independents will support the democrats on some issues and oppose them on others. The same for the republicans, they’ll support them on some issues and oppose them on others. They’re about as far away from a monolithic block as one can get. An example of a independent would be someone who is both pro-Choice and pro-2nd Amendment at the same time.
 
I think if Democrats want to win, they should embrace a moderate, third-way, Bill Clinton form of liberalism. If they went to the right on immigration, transgenderism, and guns, they would gain a lot of support. I think someone like former Virginia Senator Jim Webb is the ideal Democrat; that being said, I don't think they need to completely abandon the entire Democratic platform like your post suggests—they can keep the liberal stance on most other issues like civil rights and abortion and still win.
 
Hillary came across as aloof during her campaign, but I have watched several interviews/podcasts where she was very likeable and funny. It is a shame
she couldn't get that side of her to come out on the campaign trail. Maybe she thought she had to be serious to be taken seriously.
I don’t know. But 2016 was one of those elections where both major party candidates disgusted me. So I ended up voting against both by casting a ballot for Gary Johnson. I wanted my vote officially registered as being against both. Considering that 6% of all who voted did vote third party against both major party candidates, including 12% of independents, I was far from alone. I started out supporting Jim Webb, but when he didn’t campaign, I switched to John Kasich who lost out to Trump. The rest is history as they say.
 
Yeah, because in the span of a decade, Democrats moved from "Adults should be allowed to marry whoever they want" to "Little boys should be able to take puberty blockers if they think they're girls." You're right, it's too much. The fringe left couldn't take yes for an answer on same-sex marriage, so all the sane people went home and now the fringe left is reduced to upping the ante on increasingly ridiculous trans policies.


Maybe the hard reality for you to deal with is that America doesn't like to elect people who openly hate them.
I have yet to find a single leftist with the ability to admit that they were not proponents of this same radical trans ideology 10 years ago.

That leaves just two possibilities. They are either liars or they are so lacking in self-awareness that they should hardly even be considered sentient.
 
You missed the point, which is athletes face risks of injury all the time, and the tiny number of trans kids that are physically intimidating isn't worth worrying about when you routinely have big differences in size and strength at that age within the same genders.
a male bantamweight boxer would easily beat a female middleweight boxer? Never mind if they were the same weight.
 
That's all dogmatic drivel to cover for the stupid positions of the Far Left Dems. You don't know anything about the "detriment of the people," only about the detriment of your side.

Describe some positions of these "far-left Dems."
 
a male bantamweight boxer would easily beat a female middleweight boxer? Never mind if they were the same weight.

They don't care if the women get hurt. They have no problem sacrificing individuals for what they believe is good for the group.
 
Describe some positions of these "far-left Dems."
Those who think men should be competing against women in sports and think that children much younger than the age of consent should have their genitals altered.
 
They don't care if the women get hurt. They have no problem sacrificing individuals for what they believe is good for the group.
Everyone thinks they are right about everything. You can disagree with someone without thinking they are evil.
 
They don't care if the women get hurt. They have no problem sacrificing individuals for what they believe is good for the group.
They only care about their ability to project their virtue to others who share their same brainwashed sociopathy.
 
Everyone thinks they are right about everything. You can disagree with someone without thinking they are evil.

I didn't say they were evil, you are assuming collectivism is evil. They do not assume that.
 
like voting for an ineffectual candidate that allowed Don to become POTUS.

2024 wasn't the year to take a principled stand, I agree. But I understand the complaint, and it's valid. The Dem establishment sure isn't making it easy to support them on their own merits. Right now, they are just the "not-trumps."

The problem is that there is almost never a good opportunity to take a principled stand, because every Republican nominee has been so odious, or their platform so lousy, or both. So I guess they are going to have to figure out how to fix themselves on the fly.
 
2024 wasn't the year to take a principled stand, I agree. But I understand the complaint, and it's valid. The Dem establishment sure isn't making it easy to support them on their own merits. Right now, they are just the "not-trumps."

The problem is that there is almost never a good opportunity to take a principled stand, because every Republican nominee has been so odious, or their platform so lousy, or both. So I guess they are going to have to figure out how to fix themselves on the fly.
But you know your vote didn't sway anything one way or the other. right?
 
Those who think men should be competing against women in sports and think that children much younger than the age of consent should have their genitals altered.

That's your framing. Nobody wants to see men competing against women in sports, and it rarely happens anyway. You guys see trans-hulk athletes everywhere you look, or you think you do. We see a tiny number of kids who deserve the same rights and opportunities as all the other kids, and that includes participating in HS sports if they so choose.

As for kids getting treatment, Dems think that parents and doctors should be making those decisions, while you think that the government should make those decisions. Your "age of consent" argument is crap, though. Does that also apply to cochlear implants? Glasses? Vaccinations? Or does it just apply to those procedures that you, with your zero expertise, consider icky?

Like most conservative positions on wedge issues, ignorance is the basis of your beliefs. You are ignorant of the tiny number of trans athletes, you are ignorant of their tiny effects on HS sports (both negative and positive), and you are ignorant of what is in the minds and the pants of kids who may very well benefit from treatment, not all of which is surgical.

There is a significant number of kids who don't fall into the two rigid traditional gender categories. There always has been. And nobody is more aware of it than the kids themselves. It's their issue to deal with, not yours, and not the government's. Your position is far closer to that of some countries we consider backwards, where homosexuality is still illegal and women are routinely mutilated.

Finally, you have defined "far left" by wedge issues created by your Republican politicians, and not by "far left" policy issues, like universal healthcare and support for organized labor. Congratulations, you have been duped for your vote.
 
But you know your vote didn't sway anything one way or the other. right?

What does that even mean? One single vote seldom swings an election. But votes, collectively, do make a statement.
 
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