Not that I think there’s ever a real plan in place when it comes to the Democrats, but with the lack of consequences, is the general strategy to keep Trump around as the next nominee and count on him being kryptonite to too many people for him to get elected again?
Like I could see this at least be the thinking, like “ok if we somehow get him on anything then he’s totally out of the picture, but then virtual guarantee we get rolled by DeSantis in '24. But if we keep him in the news with constant reminders of him being a corrupt POS, and then let him bully his way back into the nomination, we can hopefully count on 80 million people utterly hating his guts enough to turn out again?”
“Orange Man Bad” has been the main party platform since 2016 and if we pretend they’re incredibly stupid they seem to think it worked in 2018 and 2020 when what actually won those elections was the promise that they were going to pass popular legislation.
basic politics is charismatic figure with a slogan, without that you gotta go other side is worse
everything else people think works doesn’t
dems are gonna lose anyway cause opposite party is always more motivated but inflation and supply chains outweigh everything that you all think they should be doing, nobody cares about climate when energy prices go up
“Orange man bad” is what unifies the progressive, establishment liberal, and centrist wings of the party. These factions disagree on what is both popular and a good idea. So, an anti-Trump message has to be a strong part of keeping the party unified.
Democrats are at a disadvantage versus Republicans because they have a much more diverse coalition to manage. Dems are never going to be able to elect a slate of candidates who are anywhere as near as ideologically fungible as Republicans.
I don’t think this is true. Republicans are just willing to horse trade among constituents. Ruthless profit maximizing corporate types and evangelical Christians have basically nothing in common, but they will trade abortion bans and gay marriage bans for tax cuts and deregulation. Democrats don’t do this. They just argue about progress vs. But How Are We Gonna Pay For It and volley insults back and forth about being too extreme vs. being impure.
Ponied, tldr; what mosdef said but in more detail.
You give the centrist politicians way too much credit for good faith. The centrist voters view themselves as rational and responsible moderates, stewarding the country forward through their endless good sense. They believe what they are told on CNN and by “responsible” moderate politicians. But those centrist politicians are almost all bought and paid for corporate shills.
If they weren’t bought and paid for, they could at least support halfway decent positions on healthcare and climate, and then the party would be pretty united.
No they don’t. The Republican coalition ranges from qAnon lunatics to Mitt Romney style Republicans. They aren’t able to unify because they are similar in views, they are able to unify by making transactional deals. The evangelicals get pro life judges for voting against their financial interests, the lunatics get anti-vaxx friendly policy and a tacit acceptance of conspiracy theories for voting against their financial interests, and the wealthy get lower taxes for tolerating all of that.
Democrats could much more easily do the same thing if not for the moderates being bought and paid for. They could do a public option with minimal subsidies to keep the left on board, but not oppose deregulation or significant tax increases. They could do some climate stuff but increase police budgets. Or the inverse, fight police but ignore climate. Transactional deals could be made to keep the party together, in theory.
The reason it doesn’t happen is that the centrists aren’t operating in good faith, they’re bought and paid for by corporate America, and anything that would make the left wing of the party happy they have to oppose.
Republicans are unified by a general small-government philosophy (except for the military). Dems are generally pro-government, but there’s a much wider range of what they consider the appropriate size of government and what they believe is possible.
And Dems have traded being more corporate-friendly in exchange for greater support on race, abortion, and gays instead of trading compromises on social issues in exchange for a more progressive economic program.
Republicans have a much more compact space when it comes to narratives about how the world works. They have a unified belief in standard myths about capitalism. There aren’t Republicans who are diehard modern monetary theorists who think “but what about abortion?”
Democrats have to bring together a coalition of anti-Republicans who range from belief on neoliberal free-market capitalism to support for managed capitalism or a mixed economy to a desire for straight-up socialism.
What transactions do you want Dems to make? It seems like the current coalitions are partly because Democrats decided they didn’t want to compromise on racism. We are seeing the effects of a decades-long drift of uneducated whites away from the Democratic Party due to civil rights legislation. Do you want to undo that?
Because when it’s time to put the knives in a democratic socialist candidate, they are suddenly very competent strategically, thus proving that they aren’t politically inept.
Single payer, or at least a public option. Actual fights on minimum wage. Go back to being pro-union. Give the moderates the pen in terms of how we pay for it, regulatory policy, and foreign policy.
But it’s all pie in the sky when the establishment is bought and paid for.
Moderates also ask for being able to control policy and messaging on law enforcement issues, maintaining the status quo on trans rights with no push for any advancement but no decline, and some corporate-friendly concessions on climate change.
I’ll give tax friendly concessions on climate, but they’ve got to create US-based jobs to realize the credits. No concessions on climate results.
I’d accept the status quo in the other areas for now, and hope that making gains on other issues will get us better numbers to win the fight for social issues in four years. Decent chance that’s the fastest path to success there anyway.
