Progressive snaps at GOP talking point spewing former Democratic Senator; the reason we lose

Heidi Heitkamp, former North Dakota Senator is a classic example of the attacks every progressive must endure, a reason for many losses.

Progressive challenges GOP-talking-points sympathizer

Heidi Heitkamp appeared on This Week to discuss the election. It is clear that some Democrats still don’t get it. The following interchange occurred on progressive policies.

“I’m going to give you a proof point to where — what Matt’s just saying,” Heidi Heitkamp said. “Sixty-five percent of the people in North Dakota think climate change is a problem. We’re a big fossil state. We’re a conservative state. But yet they see climate change as a problem. They get concerned when they see radical ideas being introduced to completely upend the energy system because that creates angst in their mind, both economically and in terms of the cost of energy. There is a place that you can go in solving these problems that speak to all sides and do not radicalize important issues in this country. We saw that with the pandemic, which was incredible, how masks got radicalized and politicized. We need to stop doing that and we need to come together, and both sides have to address the concerns that the other side has on solutions for this country. You know, the unity that we have is really unity about what the problems are. It’s bringing together solutions that can bring everybody together so that we can walk together.”

“Yeah, well, she just said “radical” three times,” Yvette Simpson said. “You just called the base of the Democratic Party progressives radical. That is not — I mean, that’s a Republican talking point. Progressives want everyone to breathe clean air, even people in North and South Dakota. We want everyone to have health care, even people in rural areas and even people in working-class white America. We want everyone to have a chance at the American dream. We’re not saying — we’re not saying leave people out. We’re saying bring people in. But if parts of our party, when we bring home the bacon as we did just yesterday, call us “radical” like Republicans did, that’s not the starting place of a good family conversation.”

Maybe Heidi should consider reading Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s interview in the New York Times.

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

So I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy. And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy. This isn’t even just about winning an argument. It’s that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they’re just setting up their own obsolescence.