GOP Secretly Admits Socialist Will be Harder to Beat Than Moderate Democrats

I just want to compliment you. I've read pieces where you've talked to Trump what where they the reporters talked to Trump voters and say she's very affable. They kind of like what you have to say. Um it's going to be an interesting race. >> No, your ears are not deceiving you. You just heard a Fox News host compliment Francesca Hong, a Democratic Socialist who's the frontrunner in Wisconsin's Democratic primary for governor. And I am honestly pretty surprised to see a Fox News host say something that Republicans would only admit privately because even though they're pretending like it's foolish for Democrats to nominate supposedly unelectable socialists, their dirty little secret is that they actually know popular socialists are much harder to beat than unpopular moderates. And when it comes to Francesca Hong in particular, she's had them [ __ ] their pants for a while. Journalist Ken Klippenstein shared details from a leaked memo written by GOP consultants that was published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel back in April. And said Republican consultants correctly predicted her dominance in the Democratic primary and they warned that she'd be tougher to face off against in the general because her combination of grassroots momentum, unapologetically progressive ideology, and a platform centered on high turnout makes her uniquely dangerous in the general election. They also argued that Hong's platform was broadly popular and difficult to counter seeing as how her agenda quote is built around kitchen table issues that pull strongly with independents, working families, and even some rural voters. And they conclude more moderate and establishment Democratic alternatives would likely produce lower base motivation and depressed turnout. But publicly, they're singing a completely different tune. They're going on cable TV warning Democrats that if they start nominating socialists, they're going to get their asses kicked in general elections. And I don't know why, but this always seems to resonate with Democrats because I I they never really stopped to question whether or not their enemies were offering them this advice in good faith. Like, why wouldn't you trust your ops? Said every Democrat ever, apparently. Like, in fact, establishment Democrats eat it up every time, and they cite warnings from Republicans as evidence that corporate Democrats are in fact more electable without ever questioning whether or not they're playing right into the GOP's hands. Case in point, >> The the Republican in this race, he said, "Oh, my opponent's going to make it easier for him to win." Well, I don't plan on making anything easier for these guys. >> Well, the Republican said that Abdul El-Sayed is going to be easier to beat in Michigan, so it must be true. It's not like Republicans would ever lie to hand an electability argument to the opponent that they'd actually prefer to run against, right? Like, it's amazing how gullible so many Democrats are. Although, to be fair, the reason why corporate Democrats like Haley Stevens in particular run on electability is because they literally have nothing else to offer voters. It is their only pitch. They're not offering policies that'll improve their lives. They're saying, "Hey, you have to vote for me even if you hate me because if you don't vote for me, the Republican's going to win, and even though I'm not going to do anything to make your life better, I'm at least not going to make it as bad as the Republican will. So, um vote for me if you want to stop the Republican from winning." But, the moderate electability myth has been proven to be false, which is why it behooves Republicans to promote it while it's currently dying because, unlike establishment Democrats, Republicans actually know neither party is going to win elections without exciting their own base. Even Trump knows this. At least, he did before his brain turned into mashed potatoes. As Common Dreams reported, in leaked audio, Trump actually expressed concern that he would lose to Hillary Clinton if she picked Bernie Sanders as her running mate back in 2016. And I just want to play some audio from their conversation because it's always fascinating to me to hear what Republicans say when they think nobody is listening. >> They they rigged it. Bernie Bernie would have beat Hillary in the election. >> She He had >> I would have been tougher. >> Yeah. >> I agree. >> Cuz there was no hatred. >> Right. You're right. There was no hatred. >> The millennials >> The millennials were right. >> I mean, she but she As great as he was, half my motivation working was not like her. >> Right. >> And that's that's why I think a big part of our >> If he had picked a vice president, it would have been tougher. >> Yeah. Bernie Yeah. Kaine was with >> But I think Bernie, you know, because all those people that hated her so much who voted for me. You know, I got 20% of Bernie >> Those are people who are really left. >> So because of trade. >> Cuz he's a big trade guy. You know, he's basically says we're getting screwed on trade. And he's right. >> I'm worse than he is. >> But and we can do something about it. I don't know if he could have. Um >> Had she picked Bernie Sanders, it would have been tougher? >> Mhm. >> Cuz the only one I didn't want her to pick >> So publicly they puff out their chests and pretend like they can't wait to face off against the crazy far left, even though behind closed doors, the so-called far left is actually the ones who scare them the most. But the Democratic establishment, they've been able to suppress the momentum of the left all this time by telling voters that they have no choice but to settle for uninspiring moderate Democrats because even if they might agree more with the policies offered by leftist candidates, they simply cannot win against Republicans in general elections because they're just too extreme. But I mean, after seeing this strategy blow up in their faces so many [ __ ] times, most people started to realize, at least in the Democratic Party's base, that the people telling us this, they don't know what the [ __ ] they're talking about. See, Republicans learned a long, long time ago that we live in a hyper-polarized country where the only path to victory is to super serve your own base. It's why Republicans have shifted so far to the right over the last two decades, not worrying about who they're going to leave out in the middle because they know that they're not going to win elections by courting moderate Democrats. They have to make sure that their own voters are fired up to even have a shot. But, Democrats have adopted the opposite strategy. They insist that the base has to remain in a perpetual state of disillusionment because, quoting moderate Republicans, is more important than turning out their own base. But, I mean, we've all seen how that's played out time and time again. Courting moderate Republicans by doing campaign events with Liz Cheney cost Kamala Harris support with progressives and Muslim Americans. Yet, talking heads concluded that Harris actually didn't shift far enough to the right to win over more Republicans. You know, maybe if she went full Republican and I guess supported trickle-down economics and became even more xenophobic and genocidal, then she would have won over some moderate Republicans, these mythical moderate Republicans we hear so much about. But, this isn't really unique to American liberals in particular because data from Europe shows that it's counterproductive for center-left politicians to adopt right-wing policies because they don't actually win over right-wing voters and they only end up alienating their own base. So, the fact of the matter is that Democrats have to embrace progressive policies that their base wants because being anti-Trump isn't enough. You actually have to offer a viable alternative to win. And, like it or not, the base increasingly wants democratic socialism. A new Ipsos poll found that nearly two in five Democratic voters already prefer candidates who identify as Democratic Socialist over regular Democrats. Keep in mind, we're just talking about self-identification, mind you. This doesn't factor in left-leaning candidates like Abdul El-Sayed who don't actually identify as socialist. Someone like him might actually be favored by the 57% of Democrats who prefer non-socialists. But, when you break it down by demographic, that's where you see where this is going. It's evident that democratic socialism is the future of the Democratic Party because younger people prefer socialists to standard Democrats, whereas people who are over 55, they prefer standard Democrats to socialists. So, the trajectory that the party has to go in to stay relevant in the future is obvious and quite frankly it is astonishing to see so much support for socialists already when they only really started to get real visibility this year and this trend is only going to continue in that same direction if socialists continue to deliver after they're elected. I say that because if you look at polling from New York City, Mondaire is one of the few politicians in America who's actually managed to get more popular after getting elected and even a quarter of Republicans say that they approve of his performance which means it's not impossible to win Republicans. You just have to basically do it by not larping as a Republican because they're going to see through that. You just have to improve people's material conditions in tangible ways and they'll vote for you. Shocker, right? But even though Democratic Socialists are reviving the corpse that is the Democratic Party by exciting the base perhaps for the first time since Obama's candidacy in 2008, if you ask Democratic Party gatekeepers they're pretending like Democratic Socialists are actually going to lead to the demise of this dying party. >> My vote is in play. I'm not voting for anyone who thinks the wrong side won the Cold War or cheers for the Intifada like it's the World Cup. It's so ironic from the people who obsess about colonization. You know what's being colonized now? The Democratic Party. I would vote for Sarah Palin before this [ __ ] >> If our party ever becomes and just make it official as the the anti-Israel party, you know, that's when I would leave. >> I am not going to be in the same party with Usama bin Laden. I can tell you that right now. If he becomes a force in the Democratic Party, I'm out of here. I have no intention of ever being in the same political party with that guy. >> These people are too hard-headed to know that they're not popular. >> Believe it or not, these insufferable rich [ __ ] are actually narcissistic enough to think that the party is going to be weaker without them, when the opposite is true. The party needs to purge these types of genocide supporting neoliberals as quickly as possible, and they will get stronger. In fact, I wish that they would leave, and not only that, join the Republican Party. It's time for Republicans to be the ones to move to the center, because rather than allowing Bush-era neocons and Republican rejects to infiltrate our party, why shouldn't we force our rejects to move over to the Republican Party and infiltrate them and water down their ideology? Why should Democrats be the ones who have to moderate? Republicans should be moderating, and people like James Carville and Jon Ossoff leaving the Democratic Party and moving to the Republican will facilitate a more moderate approach. That is, if their voters follow them, but I mean, they don't really have much support, so it's probably not going to do that, but there should at least be an attempt to water down their ideology, make them have a big tent instead of us. Like, why do we have to suffer because these [ __ ] don't feel at home in the Democratic Party? And listen, if you oppose socialists more than fascists, then I think it's an obvious conclusion, you belong in the fascist party, period. But ask yourself why these people feel so much more comfortable with fascists than socialists. Well, class solidarity is the answer. It's because socialists actually threaten the status quo, which they want to uphold. But these people are all living proof that we don't actually live in a meritocracy. Like, you can say the dumbest [ __ ] imaginable, and mainstream media will still parade you around as if you're some sort of [ __ ] oracle of wisdom. Like, James Carville is widely regarded as a savvy political strategist, when in actuality, almost everything he says is deeply [ __ ] stupid. He actually said that socialists don't know how unpopular they are with a straight face, when the exact thing is true for his wing of the Democratic Party. Like, they are consistently unpopular in poll after poll, and a CNN poll from a year ago actually found that their approval was at its lowest it's been in decades. And leadership is as unpopular as ever. And I'm assuming that this is all because the leadership of the party is just completely feckless and their resistance to Trump. And another issue is that the party has largely been complicit with Israel's genocide of Palestine. But if Democrats stop supporting the modern day Nazi state carrying out a holocaust in Gaza, well, the problem is that John Fetterman is going to leave. So they have to keep supporting it to what keep John Fetterman happy. It's just outrageous. Like these people think they are the most important individuals to ever walk the planet. But David Hogg explained really well why Democratic voters are so appalled by their party's support for Israel. >> One of the first things that I was told when I got here was do not talk about AIPAC. Do not mention them. Do not think about them. Don't dare go against them. And the thing that was striking to me about that was how eerily similar that sounded to what I remember hearing about the NRA after Parkland. Where people said to me, you know, they're too powerful. You guys are just a bunch of kids. You know, what happened at your high school is horrible, but you don't understand. This is the NRA. Nobody's ever going to take them on. But we did and we won. And we made that organization go from standing for the National Rifle Association to standing for not relevant anymore. >> Yeah, I think a lot of people watching this to hear you a Parkland survivor uh talk about AIPAC uh in the same breath as NRA will be surprising. >> It shouldn't be. Both are getting kids killed. And I don't draw a line between whether it's kids in Parkland, kids on any street in America, in any community, or if it's kids in Palestine. It's not okay. >> Very well said. And that's why leftists keep obsessing over the Israel issue. It was a turning point in American politics. Democratic voters had the collective realization that everything Democrats said about Republicans and the NRA was completely disingenuous and opportunistic because they too were willing to be complicit with the deaths of children and if a particular lobby paid them to be. And hypocrisy aside, it's also just a matter of basic morality. Genocide is the easiest moral test of all time and so many Democrats failed it. And if they're not going to stand up against the genocide, we shouldn't expect them to take a stand on any other issue of importance because as Ta-Nehisi Coates put it, >> We are in a moment right now where people are asking themselves, why can't the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy? However you take that the state of democracy in America to be. And I would submit to you that if you can't draw the line at genocide, you probably can't draw the line at at democracy. >> And he's right. So, the genocide was a true mask-off moment for corporate Democrats. Their own base simply couldn't unsee what so many politicians supported both politically and materially. But we're supposed to believe that if the party better aligned itself with its base on policies as well as morality, well, they're somehow going to be less electable. That makes no sense. The reason why Republicans are saying this is because they know it's not true. They're not going on cable TV talking about how unelectable socialists are because they're genuinely concerned about the Democratic Party's electability. They're obviously feeding Democrats bad advice because they want to beat the Democrats. Now, that doesn't mean that the Democratic Party is suddenly going to become unstoppable overnight if socialists take over because we live in a capitalist country that reinforces itself through endless propaganda. Not to mention, there's a plethora of other factors aside from policy. You know, there's money, there's the candidates themselves individually. But, one thing that I know for sure is that Democrats are only going to get stronger overall in the long term if they actually do embrace socialism. And I am confident that this is the case because we already tried the James Carville strategy, the Bill Maher strategy. We did what they demanded and the fascists won. They took over our entire [ __ ] country. And doubling down on the same milk-toast neoliberalism that got us here isn't going to save us from fascism. The only chance Democrats have at forming a permanent political majority is to embrace socialist policies and actually deliver for working people. Republicans know that this is how Democrats win and it's time Democrats wake up and realize it, too.