Voters must show up in the primary season rather than only the general election. Avoiding primaries and offering corporate-backed candidates ensures electoral defeat. The only path to victory is engaging in primaries and providing yourselves with genuinely supportable candidates you’d be enthusiastic to vote for in the general election. Otherwise, elections will remain unappealing choices between corporate Democrats and falsely populist Republicans. If you continue bypassing the primaries only to show up in the general election you will continue to lose.
Blue maga believes a corporate Democrat can win. Red Maga believes their guy is an authentic economic populist. I personally don’t live in the framework of red versus blue or left versus right. The real correct frame is corporatism versus populism.
The belief in corporate Democrats’ viability is a damaging delusion. The true divide is between corporatism and populism. Democrats rightly criticize Republicans’ democratic shortcomings, but they have their own. The lack of a competitive 2024 primary and undemocratic selection of a weak candidate exemplifies this.
The country rejects corporate politicians. Democrats must stop nominating them and expecting different results. The establishment’s scapegoating of voters, bigotry, and demographics ignores their complicity in protecting corporatism.
Democrats are often seen as the lesser evil, but corporate Democrats have shown apathy towards social issues and personal freedoms. Regardless of who’s in power, rights are eroded. Democrats have failed to protect gay marriage, privacy, and personal autonomy. They’ve also neglected voting rights and democracy.
Democrats correctly label Republicans as anti-freedom, but they themselves seem uninterested in autonomy. To win, Democrats must offer a genuine alternative, engaging in primaries and supporting candidates who will fight for the people, not just corporations.
In short, I don’t see a path to victory in populism over corporatism unless more voters vote in the primaries for the purpose of giving ourselves someone we’d be excited to vote for rather than continuing the same failed path of only showing up for the general election to vote against the greater of two evils.