Universal healthcare, free education, loan forgiveness, a green economy, a higher minimum wage, all manners of increased social spending, electoral reform, civil rights expansions. The Democratic Party has, as an institution, spent decades trying to accomplish this. It has failed, largely due to the Republicans and splitters within it's own ranks. But the failure to accomplish it's goals is not the same as not having them or not saying they have them.

That's why all the criticism of the Democratic Party is so eye roll inducing. People accuse Democrats of just trying to maintain the status quo when they have a whole platform that would constitute major changes to our country.

[–] M1ch431@slrpnk.net 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Universal healthcare

What major figure in Democratic party has seriously fought for this?

electoral reform

No Democrat is seriously looking into real electoral reform that doesn't benefit their party. First-past-the-post will never be changed under their leadership. This voting system allows them to shift blame to voters to the left of them (that they alienate) for voting Green/et. al. They engage in more voter suppression activities than they spend time arguing for serious electoral reform.

https://www.carolinajournal.com/nc-democrats-forced-to-pay-green-party-for-frivolous-intervention

https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-jill-stein-harris-trump-lawsuit-405e8bae8ff9becfa81a1360708d59a0

https://arizonaglobe.com/legal/democrats-sue-to-block-green-candidate/

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/nevada-democrats-sue-to-block-green-party-from-2024-ballot

https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2024/aug/27/montana-dems-sue-to-keep-green-party-off-november-ballot/

It goes on and on and on and on if you look at lawsuits and complaints against other parties or look further into the past.

If Democrats had even 1% of the fight that they have against third parties and put that towards positive change and actual solutions, they would've been able to accomplish some of the things you listed.

[–] immutable@lemm.ee 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I think a lot of the things on this list are not actually goals of the Democratic Party.

Here’s their platform https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/FINAL-MASTER-PLATFORM.pdf

The term “universal healthcare” is not in there. Instead they want to continue a market based approach to increase access to healthcare and health insurance. (Page 19)

“Free education” is also not part of their platform, instead they want affordable education. (Page 26)

There is a pretty lengthy chapter (chapter 4) on the climate crisis and how they want to tackle that, so I’ll give you a green economy.

Page 13 does include a paragraph about raising the minimum wage.

Page 50 includes a (to me at least) very underwhelming fig leaf towards some minor electoral reform.

Chapter six talks about expanding civil rights to more people but not really materially increasing the scope of civil rights.

—

I would love for there to be a party aggressively pursuing the goals you are talking about, I think you and I would likely agree on the most important things for this country.

A couple real important ones you think the democrats are attempting to achieve don’t appear to be things the Democratic Party actually intends to do. Universal healthcare and free education being the big two that would really make a massive difference in the nation. And you don’t have to believe me, you can read their platform and see they don’t intend to deliver those things, not with any size majority.

Further, platforms are talk and talk is cheap. It’s one thing to say you want to raise the minimum wage, it’s another to do it. The minimum wage was last raised in 2009. That’s 16 years, and this isn’t even a cornerstone they run on because they know it would scare off their moneyed backers. This is why you see pictures of Bernie sanders or the squad fighting for $15 while the rank and file dem politician stays far away.

[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 1 points 41 minutes ago

This is bullshit. If they actually wanted these things we would have had them. When we almost start to achieve these, they vote against it. Seems to me they like to talk about it during election season, Then vote in past republican policies. That’s not a progressive platform.