I’m advocating for the Democrats finally wising up and arming themselves with GOP style tactics yes. They work insanely well, and us refusing to touch them out of principal has cost the country dearly. Telling me to go join the Republicans because I advocated for that is massively out of line.
Look where this idealistic Democratic messaging has gotten us. In 2016 the GOP had the House, the Senate, AND the WH without even winning the popular vote. If that’s not getting crushed I don’t know what is. Most of the posters here are in full blown WAAF mode, but I suggest that maybe just maybe we play the game instead of just letting the other side tactically destroy us and I’m a Republican apparently.
And I don’t really agree about Trolly. If someone can link me a few posts of his that have substance I’ll be interested. He’s funny sometimes, but he’s not a good poster on substance. This latest exchange would be exhibit A for that… and there are plenty more.
I’m with bored here. All he is saying is the other side fights dirty, we should too and stop pretending that because we belief we are fair it gives us something other than a sense of self-righteousness.
I mean the first time someone does something they played dirty… and then the refs call it or they don’t. If the refs don’t call it it’s the new meta and the next opportunity you get to do that you do it. We’ve been letting them invent advantages for themselves year by year my whole life.
I’m not saying we should go innovate new dirty tricks, but seriously anything they can do and get away with we have to copy asap and do back to them.
I think we should start by adopting their strategy of having messaging and substance be kinda far apart. Not that we won’t do the big stuff we use for messaging if we win big, but we worry a little bit less about dumb shit like ‘how will we pay for it’ and just promise the working class a fair America.
Actually that’s a pretty good dog whistle/slogan ‘Let’s make America fair’. Appeals to everyone because nobody thinks they are getting treated fairly. Make sure some of the people you use as examples are poor/middle class whites who are legit not being treated fairly and you’ve got a play. Obviously black people know that the Democrats making America fair is going to be craaazy advantageous to them.
This may be the part of your thought process that is causing us to diverge. I’d attribute the failures of the current Democratic party more to them forcing corporatist shills down the throats of America rather than the promotion of messages of diversity and inclusion. More specifically, I do not think we need to abandon messages of diversity and inclusion to effectively adopt policies that will appeal to white americans too, and I think making the decision to drop those messages for the explicit purpose of appealing to racists is a morally bad thing to do. I am not convinced that hiding these messages behind dog whistles would be effective.
Look at AOC–she is able to hammer home messages of diversity and inclusion AND working class solidarity. She is the example the party should be following.
And maybe explicitly call out racism for what it is. Tell poor white people that racism is a tool to keep THEM down. That racisms purpose is to stop them from forming a voting block with their fellow poor people and actually changing how the economic system works.
And I 100% agree about the shills. But I think the shills are the ones advocating for putting ‘diversity and inclusion’ messages at the core of the platform. Much better for them if we talk about LGBTQ rights instead of how we treat the poor. And if we’re going to talk about racism let’s make sure we demonize poor/middle class racists instead of empathizing with them and offering them a way out that doesn’t involve them losing their ‘white privilege’.
AOC is god tier at messaging. She relentlessly keeps the focus on the rich and powerful and how they rig the system in their favor. Let’s be clear: racism is a tool they use to keep the working class divided. That’s what needs to be explained to most white racists, not painting them as bad people (even though some of them obviously are).
I think that part of what’s going on there is that small administrative type issues can be automated so that they can cut staff but still send out system generated letters to pester people about $10 here, $20 there. To actually collect from rich people requires way more of an investment - you’ve got to spend a few million dollars in dedicated and skilled auditors to get anything. It would work - as noted there is untold millions in uncollected taxes out there. But it’s easier to cut and call that reduction in expense a win.
Yes, 100% this, and I agree with just about all of this post. The current combination of messaging is fucking terrible. I just think adding an appeal to the working class is a much better strategy than subtracting appeal to social justice.
The Democratic Party cannot credibly pitch an anti-elite message, as currently comprised and led. The assholes in charge hate Bernie, they hate AOC, it’s obvious to anyone paying even a little bit of attention they are every bit as bought and paid for as the GOP. Maybe not as depraved and shameless, but definitely wholly uninterested in any actual meaningful change.
What the fuck is Chuck Schumer even for, exactly? He’s a Wall Street stooge who socializes with GOP donors and rubs elbows with Jarvanka. An absolute disgrace. Memo to Democrats: you’re not fooling anyone.
Rust belt racist idiots are pretty stupid, but even they are able to see that GOPete types ain’t gonna do shit to make their lives better. Give them a dose of Bernie, though, and they’re often intrigued.
Seriously how condescending is it for some politician who grew up at least upper middle class, went to an ivy league school, and earned more money than the typical working class person will make in the last (best paid) 5 years of their lives right out of school, to talk about white privilege. They talk about white privilege because they don’t want to talk about class privilege, which is WAY bigger than just the color of your skin. Yes being black, even rich and black, sucks. I’m not arguing that. But being rich is >>>>>>>>>>>>>> than being any form of poor. The rich never ever want to talk about that. Ever.
So Democratic politicians pick small minority groups electorally that have it worse because of something (anything!) other than class that they can spotlight… and they get to work trying to shame the larger population because they, in a vacuum, have it better than those people. Like this is a recipe for losing, which sounds like a huge failure until you realize that the goal isn’t to win it’s to preserve the status quo.
One part of this ongoing thread that I find a bit concerning is that there seems to be an implication that advertising that you will help black people or trans people has an upside that is limited to those subsets of the population. I don’t think that’s true. I am as white and cis and possible, but I want to hear from my political candidates that they will help lift up disadvantaged populations.
I understand the need to be a little cold and analytical with respect to targeting persuadable voters, but I think the calculus is more complicated than just saying Group X is just Y% of the population so screw 'em. Proposing to help group X with also be appealing to some other Group A, as well as unappealing to some other Group B. So helping X doesn’t just net you X - B, it nets you X + A - B.
This is all true. And the rust belt people are ‘idiots’ because their public schools teach them propaganda, and the free news sources do as well. They get treated like livestock and used at every stage of their life.
They make up the majority of the armed forces. They make up the majority of the people who got scammed by the for profit schools in the 2000’s. They work jobs that pay <20 bucks an hour with shitty benefits and no retirement package at all for their entire lives usually. All to give away 60-70% of the value they produce to their corporate overlords.
I’m sorry, but these people need empathy and rescue not scorn. If you seriously believe in free will in 2020 you haven’t been paying attention to the science. These people can be helped and they’ll be grateful/loyal… but it’s very important to the establishment of this country that they stay right where they are.
And they KNOW they are livestock. They are dying of despair in record epic numbers. And when they don’t cooperate with the system it locks them in a cage forever… so it’s not like they have a lot of choice in the matter. That’s why so many of them are opting out by eating a gun, shooting fentanyl, or standing on a street corner holding a sign.
I don’t think this is exactly right. I would say that many Dems are interested in actual meaningful change, but subject to the condition that they themselves will not surrender even an iota of their privilege. That’s the problem - as you note you can’t lead an uprising from the top, so their attitude severely curtails their ability to get anything meaningful done.
So I wouldn’t say that they don’t want meaningful change, it’s more that they live in a bubble and think meaningful change can be attained by going to a gala for climate change instead of a gala for the oil industry. You need AOC types to point out that the problem is the galas.
I’m imagining that even if they do get audited, their army of accountants and lawyers drag out the process until the government gives up and settles for a fraction of what they should be getting.
(At least, that’s what I would do if I were super-wealthy and completely without morals)
From the same article, 39% of 2018’s audits were just checking on people who claimed the EITC. Gotta make sure those filthy poors aren’t grifting the government for $6,557 max.