I currently volunteer for an organization that helps elect Democrats. Every day I come in I get about 2-3 calls from “life-long Democrats”, often older retired voters, that either tell me they’re leaving the party in protest, or numerous acquaintances of theirs are thinking about it. Not to an independent, like switching affiliations to Republican and voting Trump. And it’s always out of fear of either the opioid crisis (apparently Democrats encourage addiction??), or Bernie’s “Socialism”. They really think Bernie is a full-blown Communist.
I voted for Bernie in 2016 and plan to do so again, but I can’t believe how much hate from those “life-long Democrats” he’s getting (along with AOC and the like). Of course, the people calling in are going to be those with the strongest opinions and I’m not using them to generalize the party too much.
BUT, is there a chance the Democrats really are losing the more centrist, Clinton voter, block of voters? I don’t think nominating someone like Beto would do any good based on what I read and the calls I get.
It might be worth noting I live in an R-leaning state, but I’ve had people call across state lines, for reasons unclear.
Why Bernie and AOC ever decided to use the S word is beyond me. Too many millennial strategists I guess. Don’t they know how that word plays to most Americans? The worst part is that they aren’t even real socialists so they have all the stigma for no reason. Stupid.
I had to double-check to make sure this wasn’t a zombie thread. It’s not like anyone just now realized Sanders has been labeled a socialist. And it’s awfully early in the campaign season to decide Bernie’s got the nomination sewed up. Why would someone who’s a “lifelong Democrat” and who apparently voted for HC in 2016 switch to Trump NOW?
I think you’re getting calls from wing-nutty Trumpites claiming to be Democrats.
This is a good point I hadn’t thought of. I wouldn’t know or be able to check if they were actually registered Democrats.
Either way, I don’t doubt there are Democrats honestly turned off by “socialism”. Bernie isn’t even a real socialist anyway, and he does a horrible job explaining that.
To be clear, the suspicion is because “Democrats are leaving the party in droves” astroturfing is all the rage these days. See “WalkAway” and “Jexodus”.
The point is to convince party apparatchiks that “socialism” is poisonous to their voter bases, in order to encourage them not to support anything that could potentially be labeled socialism.
There are plenty of people who genuinely identify as life-long Democrats and are registered Democrats in states with closed primaries, but who haven’t voted for actual Democratic candidates for a long time. Sometimes they get called “ancestral Democrats.”
May I ask which organization this is, but more importantly–why are these people calling you?
Do people just wake up one morning and decide to pick up the phone and announce to a total stranger their political motives?
If so, it sounds like trolling, or those irritating posts on Facebook…but done in person on the telephone, instead of online.That would explain why so many of them are elderly, perhaps. Still, I wonder who they are, and how they know you.
[on edit]: I just read the above post, and had to google the term astroturfing. I hadn’t heard it before. But it seems that it’s a one-word description of my entire post.Sorry .
I’m glad you wrote out your post. It’s exactly what I was thinking as well. I know what astroturfing means, but your post describes the whole process. Who would spend their time calling someone to tell them something that doesn’t do anything?
ETA: I read the title of the thread from the front page. It left out the word ‘socialism’. I knew that was the last word of the title without even looking.
No, they’re not. Because the Republicans are not going to nominate a centrist. They’re going to nominate a right wing conservative; the same as they have for over thirty years.
These people you’re describing are not centrist independents. They’re people who like to think of themselves as centrist independents while always finding a reason to vote for the right wing Republican candidate.
My father called himself a “liberal” for his entire life, and I think the last Democrat he voted for in any office was Carter. See, he would vote for Democrats, except they were all sinners. And the greater sins committed by Republicans were OK, because they were forgiven.
