Since there are no rumoured potential candidates who identify with that label (nope, not even AOC).

B-b-b-but Politico says Dems are having a “hot insurgent summer” !!!

(Sounds kinda sexy to me…)

“ only 8% of those who identify as moderates actually prefer moderate policies- the vast majority prefer progressive policies, despite their ideological label.”

What does that actually mean then? If they are labeling themselves moderate but prefer progressive policy then they aren’t moderate, they are progressive and would call themselves that.

The last studies I read listed moderate and conservative democrats as about 40% of the party. Similar for republicans. Most people identify away from the extremes.

Political identity/label is distinct and separate from preferred policies, especially when those policies aren’t identified with a right/left label (not everyone is as familiar with the partisan origins of various policies as most DUers are)

For 40+ years, republicans worked diligently to transform to word liberal from a simple descriptive term into a pejorative epithet.

It worked, and the number of people willing to identify as liberal dropped sharply, but support for liberal policies did not.

Majorities of Americans, regardless of party registration or political identity, support the following progressive policies:

Reproductive rights

Medicare for all

Marriage equality

Sane gun laws and regulations

Tax hikes for billionaires

Collective bargaining rights

Minimum wage increase to $15-20/hr

Campaign finance reform

Regulations to ensure clean air and water

Laws to mitigate the effects of climate change

Restrictions on the conduct of ICE agents.

Now, the size of that majority support varies depending on how those issues are framed and phrased in the survey, but as long as they aren’t linked to a particular party, they get majority support. (IIRC, Pew research is a good source for this data, as is the Harvard survey - extremely large sample sizes with low MOE)

way is the only possible way, the only legitimate way for us to win' OPs and replies (and their inherent pot-shotting at anything to the left of a US Democratic politician who is called 'moderate' or centre-left in the US but who, in most all other core Western countries, would be often categorised as centre to ofttimes even centre-right).

Donald Fucking Trump would have been nowhere near the White House ONCE, let alone TWICE

the choice was a fucking rapist multi-felon seditionist con man manbaby OR A QUALIFIED WOMAN

"Most people identify away from the extremes..."

It does not follow.

As long as they vote for centerist policies and do as they are told when in Congress?

Assume that's what you mean by:

Labels are dividing - there's no need for them.
No need to call yourself anything but a Democrat and support progressive policies as policies of the Democratic Party.

I honestly don't think that's difficult to understand.

Progressives don't believe in corporate fundraising
Progressives don't believe in insider stock trading
Progressives don't believe in allowing corporations and special interests to be the majority of your fund raising.

All of these things are not only allowed in Congress by both parties but supported.

There is a fundamental difference. To pretend there isn't is crazy.

I am a Democrat but I am also a progressive that demands higher standards from my political representatives.

Would you not have those values if you just call yourself a Democrat?

Several, plain old "Democrats ' have those same values. No need for labels that divide the party that could just lose us the election.
.

But we can’t move left, left, left?

move even slightly left....one "left" is too far, apparently. Three is rght out.

Tongue in cheek admittedly, but, some seem to think that Republican Lite is the way to go.

That mindset assumes a level plane that rests on the Constitutional rule of law and institutions which have remained pretty much intact, until now.

That old model ignores the authoritarian dismantling of our Constitution and the institutions which support it.

The "conservative" right no longer exists on the 2-dimensional plane of government policies within that framework; today's Republican Party is deconstructing our system of government with the executive branch doing what it wants with funds allocated by Congress and openly subverting our system of justice in defiance of the courts with allies on the highest court.

America's 250 year experiment in democracy under Constitutional rule of law is in serious jeopardy of ending.

World history has shown that authoritarianism can rise up on the right or the left end of the spectrum. In the 21st century USA, it is happening entirely on the right.

Therefore, voters in the so-called center are no longer faced with a 2-dimensional choice of more or less government programs upon the foundation of Constitutional order.

They, and all voters, are faced with a decision whether to cast their ballot to maintain America's bedrock of Constitutional order, or abandon it to corrupt dictatorship and all the threats that entails.

The extent to which voters don't realize that's what they are faced with is a failure of the free press to properly inform people (largely due to control of media by billionaires) but also the 2-dimensional Left/Center/Right political mindset which is dangerously insufficient to address the current existential threat to our Constutional democracy.

We The People, and especially the Democratic Party with its candidates and messaging, must break out of a mindset that no longer applies, in order to save America from an authoritarian takeover that threatens us all.

And, in the process, implement government policies that truly represent and benefit all the people while maintaining the best aspects of private enterprise within a newly reinforced Constitutional rule of law.