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Gen Z want a radical. Far left or far right doesn't seem to matter. I can't blame them for that. Most of them will still say they supported Bernie - at least the podcasters they worship do. There is room for them on the left. Dems have to start by leaving the centrist DNC bullshit behind.
US mentality is weird. Most countries we understand that a "party" stands for certain principles, and so if you don't like the party, you vote for a different one. It makes no sense to demand that the party change to accommodate the voter, that's not the role of a party. The role of a party is to try and change the minds of the population to support the principles of the party. A party exists to convince the masses to accommodate them, not for the masses to accommodate the party.
But Americans always vote for the same parties and always insist that the parties should violate their principles that they are very explicit about and openly declare all the time in order to accommodate the people. When the party inevitably does not do this but instead tries to explore new strategies to win over the population while adhering to their principles, Americans act surprised that the party isn't bending to their will, but then vote for the same party again anyways.
I see this all throughout bizarre American commentary, where American leftists like Hasan will constantly call the Democrat party "stupid" for not abandoning their principles and running on an entirely different platform. But this, again, misses the whole point of a party. They are not "stupid." They have a set of principles and want those principles to win, and it defeats the whole purpose of the party of they entirely abandoned their principles.
I mean, let's say you live in a very racist country but have an anti-racist party, and then the anti-racist party decides to become racist to win the election. Did you really "win"? At the end of the day, the racist party still won, because you would have abandoned your principles to win, so it defeats the whole point of "winning."
Democrats have a set of principles and want those principles to win, so naturally, as rational actors, they will not run candidates who oppose those principles while also try to push out people who infiltrate the party with ideas that oppose their principles. In any normal country, this is no problem because people understand that it just means you need to vote for a different party with different principles.
What's even weirder is the Americans who delude themselves into believing the Democrats hold principles they literally do not. They are very open about being a neoliberal nationalist party, but I have encountered weird Americans who tell me things like Democrats all support universal healthcare / "Medicare for All" and they will argue until the cow's come home that this is true and all evidence to the contrary is Russian propaganda.
Even here on Lemmy, criticizing Democrats by pointing out how they are right-wing can get you downvotes from weirdo Americans who are convinced they are a truly left-wing party. There is a huge delusion among Americans that Democrats are all secret far-left socialists who are just so incompetent that they constantly fumble the ball and mess up getting their policies across and so that's why they never achieve the working class utopia. If you point out that there is no evidence that the overwhelming majority of Democrats even want these left-wing policies in the first place and they openly say they want the opposite, they will get very defensive and upset with you.
You're apply logic and rules from completely different nation's systems and calling the US's version "weird" because it doesn't match how other countries do it?
Perhaps in your country it isn't, but in the US, it is. During the convention of the party, the party chooses its "planks" for its platform. These are chosen within the party itself, and they absolutely change. You can see the 2024 Democratic party platform here if you want to. Here's the 2020 version.. As you can see there are some large differences. The GOP used to do this same process before it was consumed by the cult of trump.
In your system perhaps. Not in the US system. It doesn't make the US system "wrong". Does it have shortcomings? Absolutely, all systems do. Are these various shortcomings equal to each other? That's subjective. I personally would like more aspects of European-style politcal parties, but not everything that I see with parties there. We, as humanity, have yet to find the objectively "best" system.
I'm losing faith in your arguments because you're painting a picture that all members of a party share the same beliefs. Again, maybe that's an ideal from your own country's party system, but it isn't in the USA. I would be surprised even in your own party if you have universal agreement on all policy positions.
There are individual Democrats that support Medicare for All. Here's one example:
collapsed inline media
Hilary Clinton, as First Lady at the time, lead the creation of the Clinton Healthcare plan of 1993. This was absolutely a universal national healthcare plan:
"The task force was created in January 1993, but its own processes were somewhat controversial and drew litigation. Its goal was to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration's first-term agenda."
Does this mean that every Democrat believes in universal healthcare? Of course not. But to claim that none do, as you are, is equally untrue.
You're going to have to be more specific with an example post, because most of the downvoted posts I see close to this are "both sides are the same!" garbage. Also, I don't believe many believe the US Democratic Party is "truly left-wing" as would be defined in, lets say, Europe.
Because y'all demand people support the entire party. "Vote blue no matter who." Canada does not have ranked-choice voting. They don't even do that proportional voting thing where they hand out seats based on proportion of who votes for what party. There is a third party because people just vote for that third party.
The US doesn't have a system that prevents this, it's just a myth used to prop up the Democrats. If you do like a very specific Democrat, that doesn't negate voting for a third party in places where the Democrat is awful. There is nothing built-in the USA's system that would prevent it from getting seats to a third-party, and Canada is proof of that. It's just a myth perpetuated to rally people into "voting blue no matter who" even when the Democrat clearly does not represent your values.
You're conveniently ignoring the entire primary voting process. During the primary you vote for the specific candidate among all running for the position in the party. Policy positions, experience, temperament do vary between the candidates. This is the chance to vote for, among many, that closest resembles your own choices. After the primary however, nearly any Democratic candidate would be preferable to a GOP one to most Democratic voters. So if your own preferred primary candidate doesn't win the ticket to the general election, it is highly probable that the one that did win would be a closer fit than the GOP candidate. The "vote blue no matter who" isn't dogma, its usually pragmatic advice. I doubt many left leaning voters that voted trump or withheld their vote feel their assistance in getting trump into office is helping their own policy positions.
A perfect example of the primary system working pretty well is the recent New York Mayor's race. A legacy previously elected Democratic governor ran and lost to the proudly open farthest left-leaning Democratic Socialist. That Democratic Socialist when on to win the general election for mayor of New York City.
Third parties in the USA have historically fielded pretty weak candidates. For the 2024 Presidential election, the next most leftist candidate on the general election ballot was Jill Stein. Prior the run for President of the United States Steins highest held elected office was in 2005 she successfully won the election for one of the 7 Lexington Town Meeting seats (a small municipal office). If third party candidates want to be seriously considered, then I would recommend they start with smaller office positions to actually build a party that demonstrates is can govern.