No one talks about the Republican Party in reverential terms either though. Most ‘right wing’ podcasts do a version of ‘look at the crazy left wing thing’ without specifically mentioning the Republican Party. Most people aren’t institutionalists. They don’t care about the parties themselves.
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Throughout the election I really had no idea what Harris stood for. What her policies were, etc. If there was a clear message, it didn’t come through to me. Didn’t matter though, because I was not voting for her. I was voting against Trump no matter who the Dems rolled out.
But just not being Donald Trump might not have been enough for everyone. With the Republicans, agree with them or not you know exactly what they stand for loud and clear.
Dems need to do likewise. Figure out exactly who they are, what they stand for, and begin shouting it from the rooftops with clear, simple, unapologetic messaging.
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I don’t think we’re disagreeing but what Trump did was not release any kind of real policy. How will tax free overtime affect the budget? No one knows. How will he do deportations? Who knows? No one even bothered putting pen to paper. Trump got to say anything and that allowed him to be anything to anyone.
Harris did try some of that with talking about corporate greed responsible for inflation but both the media and apparently her brother in law shut those down.
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I dunno. I hate myself so I listenened to 20 minutes or so of Ben Shapiro’s podcast on spotify today and it was loaded with praise for Daddy, Mike Johnson, even McConnell. Yes large parts of it were just ripping the Dems.
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Well I don’t mean expressly political podcasts. I mean what gets labeled as vaguely right wing podcasts. I would suggest a Democrat goes on Shapiro’s podcast as a lark, but don’t make an effort out of it. But do make an effort to go on bros sitting on couches talking about sports, weightlifting, gaming etc.
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That’s on her if she let her brother-in-law shut her down.
Policy explanation isn’t messaging. Messaging is a dumbed down catchy phrase that is memorable and which resonates. It’s basically branding & marketing.
And for all of Trump’s many faults, this is one thing that he’s an absolute genius at.
The problem with this is the Dems as bad as they are have a little nuance to their message. It’s not as simple as your life is a bit shitty because of those c&^%s. Not sure how that wins when most of the country deep down thinks there life would be better if it wasn’t for those c&^%s.
At least for cultural issues, it seems clear to me that Democrats have overstepped. People don’t like trans women in sports. They don’t like defund the police. They don’t like the vocabulary hectoring. Other than abortion rights, there’s not much Democrats are on the popular side of right now.
I know a lot of people hate to hear this, but imo there’s quite a lot of evidence that Democrats went too far left on cultural issues and need to move back toward the center. Downballot races seem to be confirming this.
Economic issues, I think, are a separate question. Hating billionaires and big corporations is still wildly popular. Workers’ rights are still popular. Paid family leave. Etc.
I’m not as familiar with UK politics, but your analogy to the Tories and National Front is really interesting and agreed that seems to be the path we’re on. But I’m not so sure it’s inevitable. It might be. But if Democrats had actually nominated Bernie, for example, would we still be on this path? I dunno. I could see a world where Democrats are the economic populists and Republicans are the social populists. I don’t know enough about history to know if there are examples of this setup or if it naturally trends away from that. Maybe it’s too late, but I still think that’s the way to go. Move left on economic issues, toward the center on social issues.
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Do you think Bernie isnt leftbound in the social policies?
Also, you cant be socialy populist when a contingent of your group wants to honest to god remove the amendment that allows women to vote
Well I don’t disagree with you on the nuance. But more than a decade later I can still remember Obama’s “Yes We Can.” I can still remember Bernie Sanders’ simple lists of policies.
Even where there is nuance to the message, it needs to be boiled down to something that distracted people overloaded with information can easily grasp onto and remember without effort.
That’s something the R’s have been doing far better than the D’s for quite a while now.
“MAGA”. It’s literally become a cult.
Good post. Bernie understood that you lead with the economic populism which leads to the cultural stuff, it does not work the other way around
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He is for sure. I’m not advocating for that and I’m not the biggest Bernie fan.
But when people think of him, what comes to mind is the economic populism. The ranting against billionaires and big corporations. And the pro worker message. That’s the popular stuff.
Take all that but stop pushing left on cultural issues imo.
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Can you go a bit further on this. Ok no trans people in sports, got it.
But there was no serious “defund the police” movement in this country. In every jurisdiction over the last 4 years police budgets have gone up.
So what else should the left not be pushing if I grant the first one? Are you honestly saying we lost a nationwide election over an issue that affects maybe 5000 people nationwide?
100% this
The other thing we have to end on the left is purity testing. It’s driving people away in droves.
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I would guess it means, in part, going after “defund the police” activists much harder. Their mere existence was a problem for some.
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The neocon ghoul endorsements just struck me as so funny all of a sudden
You mean they might have actually cost votes?? But the professionals decided it was good strat! Who cares that even GOP voters don’t give a fuck what Dick Cheney thinks. Well that’s not even true; tons of them had already thoughr for years that he was just a deep state con man
Listen, when a football coach makes a 4th down or end game decision, you just have to accept he knows what he’s doing and sees reality in a way that you can’t, because you’re a pony craving baby
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Now this makes sense. Not everyone has to agree with every component of the platform to caucus. I have no interest in pushing away the people who are anti-trans athletes, though I will be hopeful they will change their mind as the years go on.
