Democrats would probably never lose again if they publicly dropped support for abortion.
You simply can't convince the public that your party doesn't stand for things your members care deeply about.
From a pro-life perspective, "well they didn't make it easier to murder babies or bring it up much" is not compelling.
Maybe Democrats would never vote for this, but that's kind of the problem.
Anyone saying this in 2026-2028 is going to be eviscerated by democrats. The bridge was long burned and now they are throwing citizens into the burning wreck. You don't "bridge the aisle" with people who threaten your life.
Also, anyone who wants to protect kids but isn't pushing the Epstein files to be released spoke wide and loud on what they really care about. So many motte and baileys out there.
I'm curious: Where does your line of thought actually end? Do you agree that they should perhaps meet Republicans in the center around vaccine issues and dismantle vaccine requirements? What about issues of climate change? Corruption?
It might sound unsavory to say that they should drop <issue you think is important>, like climate change, but if that were genuinely the reason they're losing then of course they should drop it. The alternative is you just have a party of ideologues with no power. They can still do good things without doing <important thing>.
I just don't think any issue is as contentious as abortion, or having as much of an effect, because you can hold your nose about a lot of things, but not about 'murdering babies'. Again, this is a moral hard line that a lot of people have. They seriously think that Democrats are ontologically evil because of this; it's far beyond the political. I don't think they need to drop those things you listed from the platform because I don't think it would help them win.
From talking with Republican or centrist or ex-democrat peers and family, some of them would vote Democrat "if they stop killing babies", and others would "if they stopped the racial shit". I've never heard anyone say such a thing about anything you listed.
The notion that they should compromise with people whose ideals align with literally killing people or taking away rights is a notion I reject. I will never, ever vote for a democrat that compromises in the way you suggest so they can choose which side they want to try and get votes from.
In such a world, the Dems have no power, because they get 30% of the vote at most. They should stop fighting ICE so that they can at least do something on their agenda. The choice is between passing some good legislation unrelated to ICE, or never being able to pass any legislation. Obviously the former is better.
At the end of the day it's a democracy. The people vote for what they want, and then get it. The people originate the ideas that are available to be implemented. The notion of a democratic representative refusing to do what is needed to get votes is meaningless. It's the notion of a political idea that is refusing to be believed in, so must become irrelevant.
Anyway, your whole train of thought presupposes correctness and righteousness and that change to certain things is not on the table. If somehow the Democrats shrunk to the size of the Libertarian party because they held onto all that, you could keep voting for them, but real politics continues without you. I am suggesting they change before that shrinkage occurs, not after or never.
i.e. Abortion is generally supported by 63% of the overall population, 85% of Democrats and 67% of moderate/liberal Republicans. I don't see how you'd ever convince Democrats to drop it to cater primarily to conservative republicans.
Similar story for lots of other unpopular issues, like the Civil Rights act.
Congressional Republicans simply refused to confirm a legally appointed justice, allowing a conservative justice to be appointed in their place after the next POTUS was elected. Then, another liberal justice passed away creating another vacancy which was again filled by a conservative. If either or both of those things hadn't happened, Roe v. Wade would not have been overturned.
And sure, you can say it was the will of the people that a conservative was in office at the time, and appointed the justices, but that's not the same as voting for or against federal abortion rights.
"Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that ... will happen automatically in my opinion because I am putting pro-life justices on the court" https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trumps-justices-dec...
Wait no. That's not what has happened.
Further, democratic voters are democrats because they support the policies that the democratic policy supports. Democrats suddenly being down with a federal ban on abortion isn't going to exactly get pro choice dems (the huge majority of their voting population) to run to the polls.
Dems tried the "actually we are right wing too" approach on immigration. Do people who hate illegal immigrants vote dem now? No.
you see how moral absolutes (don't) work?
well you saying this shows just how ignorant people are on pregnancy. I guess that's by design to pitch to people that "Abortion kills babies".
Paying lip service but not addressing that friction was a significant part of what killed the Harris campaign, IMO.
She had a bad hand needing to start out 6 months into an election cycle, and she played it poorly to boot. That's why this "we need to appeal to moderates/right wing" narrative is so frustrating. That's exactly what Harris did by trying to downplay Palestine/defend Israel and refusing to talk about the tensions in the job market. She established herself as "more of the same". That doesn't win votes in increasingly bad times.
Instead we have cartoon supervillains trying to pick fights with our allies in the open, and police openly shooting citizens. Pretty hard to defend that.