I hear you, but I don’t think the urgency around climate change, health care, racial tensions, voting rights, police violence, etc. are inventions of social media hysteria.
the problem is that there’s not enough anti-gun activists to slam the justice system in the media to the same extend that fox news is defending the shooter. no one in an elected position should be going to war with a state criminal court. this is not a case we should be hanging on national eDems. this is the effect of dem voters not showing up to state primaries and elections.
2 Likes
The voter rights stuff isn’t as pro dem as you think it is, I bet it helped R’s in VA.
I asked you what you meant by this last time and you never replied. What are you talking about?
The voting restrictions target low income minorities, especially blacks, which are a massive voting block for dems.
Voting restrictions target low income period. In Virginia, the Dems tend to be wealthier suburban whites.
In present day America I truly think actual policy matters zero. I honestly think Democrats could pass their entire mega popular agenda and still lose absent a new messaging strategy.
4 Likes
Indeed, but messaging is easier when you can actually point to a real thing you actually did to improve people’s lives. They can still fuck it up, but the more things they deliver on the more likely they are to land the message. Like if they eliminated student debt don’t you think they’d have some traction with the people that, you know, don’t have to pay student debt any more?
That is not really the problem. Problem is Rs don’t believe in helping people so they don’t have to spend anytime on it. Instead they can spend 100% of their time messaging how the Ds plans to help people were botched or inadequate in one way or another. Ds on other hand spend vast majority of their time trying to get plans together then have a small % available to message it, usually after the fact.
Even if the plan is as good as it can be, then Rs will just point out how it helps one group more than some other group and breed resentment. Like this summer, they created a story that got into the mainstream zeitgest about how unemployment benefits screwed the poor small business owners cuz he was no longer able to get workers for shit wages.
3 Likes
The reality is that the voters that decide elections vote on feels. There are an epic fuckton of uneducated white people who live on resentment. It’s cultural at this point, and hopeless for liberals. Their only chance is going full class warfare, but they obviously can’t do that as they’re corrupt assholes themselves.
1 Like
The effects of this policy on voting patterns are not clear (at least not to me). Educated people are mostly D, so forgiving their loans probably won’t change much. On the other hand the uneducated are mostly R, and if people they mostly consider libtards get a multi-thousand dollar handout, it’s going to really mash that grievance button for them. It may get them out to vote even more than the people who it helped.
Now there are other reasons you could support this policy, but suggesting that it would be +EV as far as elections are concerned is questionable.
3 Likes
Good thing that the house bill doesn’t increase the SALT deduction by a factor of 8 or something like that!
The Senate version sounds like it’s going to cap income at $400,000 - $550,000 per family for the increased deduction so it might not be as bad as everyone here is making it out to be. Certainly not a tax cut for the super wealthy if so.
so you’re saying they might lose virginia in elections this year?
cause that’s what they basically did, they passed a lot of that stuff and they still lost
including voting rights
but reality is for most people, inflation despite you saying it’s not, is actually a thing and they’re blaming democrats, gas prices are higher, they’re blaming democrats, children are behind in school, they’re blaming democrats.
yes they’d blame democrats for everything anyway I know, but it doesn’t help some of that is legit dems fault
Yes, that’s definitely true. I wasn’t suggesting that student debt relief was a guaranteed net winner, I was just getting at the point of why Dems fail at messaging. That is obviously a huge topic because they are all time world champs at failing at messaging. But I think it’s easier to message under this Scenario:
Target voters - we have a big problem!
Dem party - we have taken specific demonstrable actions that directly improve your day to day live by alleviating your big problem! A vote for us is a vote for the help you need.
Than it is to message under this scenario:
Target voters - we have a big problem!
Dem party - listen, we feel your pain. But you must understand, your problem is very complex. There are numerous technocratic considerations and several stakeholders must be consulted. We are having lunch with their lobbyists, I assure you. A vote for us is a vote for the smart people that can run things the best.
Sure, messaging doesn’t just become a breeze in Scenario 1 and the Rs will always lie, cheat, and steal anyway they can, but falling back on Scenario 2 doesn’t work. It actually feeds Republican grievance narratives.
I agree with your overall point but I am pretty confident that the eDems failures on messaging are very much related to their failures on policy. I’m not suggesting there are easy answers, but I don’t think it makes much sense to keep doubling down on failed electoral strategies.
2 Likes
All true, but Republicans don’t live in reality so they will do their divisive politics no matter what the Dems do. The Rs are winning on messaging right now with totally made up Critical Race Theory nonsense. Your suggestion is just another establishment Dem behavioral mistake that the make - don’t do X because it will cause Rs to do a thing, but the Rs are going to do that thing anyway.
This is the what I’m saying just with different words. “Class warfare” in action is policy. Dems can’t win by assailing millionaires and billionaires and then giving them tax cuts and giving regular people nothing. They have to actually follow through on the class warfare with policy.
I think I should be clear as well, my support for “policy” as an electoral tool is very much not the Hillary style “go read my website, there are numerous thoughtful white papers there!” approach. I am talking about simple messaging backed by transparent delivery. Even Donnie Dumb Dumb understands this, we all laughed at the obvious narcissism behind him wanting to put his name on checks to people but branding is just about the only thing he actually understands.
Sounds like a great idea to me. Or just implement a very of UBI, which would be the easiest way to tie transparent delivery of help to the threat that Rs are going to take it away.
Who here didn’t vote for Bernie? I mean, I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one besides maybe Iron, and it was only because my primary was after everything was over and I was pissed that a primary was being forced during a lockdown when the nomination was already locked up.
No, it’s spend more time and effort on messaging. Less time on egghead policy. Do a few simple things well and message the hell out of it.
4 Likes
Indeed. One of my numerous complaints about the Dems is they seem to view messaging as some crass activity that it below them.