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Sanders Takes Oligarchy Fight to Appalachia With Standing-Room-Only Crowd in West Virginia
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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Unfortunately it's kinda hard to get too excited at this point for a lot of us.
Live in a state where the state overwhelmingly votes for things like keeping abortion legal, requiring paid sick leave, removal of gerrymandering, or even getting rid of fucking puppy mills, but then also overwhelmingly votes for the party who keeps overturning the bills passed by voters over and over and over again and you stop believing that people will actually wake the fuck up and instead continue to vote for that big R next to the name like idiots.
People will vote for whoever can persuade them that their interests will be protected. That's why Trump has his populist schtick even if it's a load of horseshit. There is no intention of ever doing anything he has promised poor people, because you don't make (enough) money doing things that actually help poor people.
He will make the claim though, and then follow through on his promise to hurt scapegoats. That alone is enough to keep just enough people on his hook.
Meanwhile, recycling middle of the road Democrats who are way too willing to compromise their party's (supposed) values bc they're afraid of stepping on wealthy people's toes, only gives fuel to the argument that both sides are the same. The right knows this, and they very successfully use this argument (which is partially true) to create disinformation fueled voter apathy and control the narrative.
Using this strategy, the right doesn't even have to worry about actually winning over voters from the middle or left bc they can always fall back on the base who is motivated by a scapegoat. They don't even need a "good" candidate, they just need someone who can be persuasive enough.
It's like the saying " I don't have to have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."
Frankly, if the Democrats actually support the values they claim, they should understand that in 2025, wealthy people need to have their toes stepped on. We are not supposed to have one America where the wealthy profit from exploitation, and another America where everyone else to get exploited. Acknowledging that fact, is the very persuasive elephant in the room that would actually go very far in persuading people the both sides argument isn't true. Except neither side is willing to address it.
Republicans won't address it bc keeping that elephant invisible is the entire reason they care about running this country. They need power and control in order to protect their own interests.
I would like to believe that the reason Democrats won't address it, is bc they have mistakenly convinced themselves that throwing endless piles of money into a campaign (via their wealthy donors) will help them create the most marketable candidate who can pull voters from the center and right. In other words, they're too focused on outrunning the bear rather than their opponent.
The trouble is I work around these people... there's way more thought put in to this than what I deal with.
"I ain't gonna vote for no gun grabbin democrat"
That's all it is. Nevermind Trump was pushing more gun grabbing than any of our last, they found a catchy slogan and that's it.
If it's not about gun grabbing, it's about abortion, if it's not about abortion it's because it's the "christian party", if it's not about that it's "for America."
There is no thought to it, it's they know the R is all they need to check and all will be good. When it's not good they get upset, they freak out, they scream, they yell, then go right back in and check the R again.
I'm not arguing with you that there are people that will pathologically vote Republican. Those aren't the people that anyone should be worried about changing/trying to convince to switch sides. Doing so would be a losing strategy, and trying to outrun the bear.
There are way more people throughout the entire U.S. that fall into the voter apathy/"didn't bother bc I've accepted both sides are essentially the same" camp. Those are the people that could be won over by Democrats not selecting an establishment candidate. This would be focusing on outrunning the opponent instead of the bear.
Why do you think so many people voted Clinton/Gore in 1992? When he first ran, Bill Clinton was just a smooth talking young guy from Arkansas, who seemed like he genuinely cared about people. Compared to Bush, he seemed like an outsider and a breath of fresh air.
This is a fuck ton of blue (including West Virginia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_presidential_election
Look at all the blue on that 1992 map, and compare it to all the red on this map when Dukakis ran against Bush in 1988: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_United_States_presidential_election
Flashback: When Bill Clinton Was A Populist
For the first half I thought you were in favour of puppy mills
Lol, if I were then I'd have a chance at being a Missouri Senator.