The Presidency of the Joes, part II: lol documents

That’s a reasonable view. I’m just clarifying. So, you’re saying the Hillary strategy wasn’t correct then, but is correct now? And Hillary’s error is that she could accurately see what Trump actually was when no one else could.

Hilary spent too much time focusing on Trump and not enough on saying that all Republicans are bad and that Trump wasn’t an outlier.

Well, that’s a new one I never heard before.

Any admission that there is such a thing as a good Republican is a massive fail.

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Nah plenty of people saw how bad Trump was, but most regular voters didn’t. And honestly he was much worse than even most of us thought he would be.

And honestly dems won’t have done shit so it’s the only strategy. Plus partisanship is WAY UP since 2016.

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Everyone knew Trump was bad, it was the only news story for a year. They didn’t know what the Dems were going to do to help them. Trump’s possibly not even running in 2024, gl with an Orange Man Bad campaign if that happens.

I honestly think an Orange Man Bad campaign is defensible.

You have to remember that any time Democrats try to talk about helping people they instantly get a wave of HOW YOU GONNA PAY FOR IT bullshit. Do people not remember the media going all-in to tank Bernie?

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Just tell them you’re going to pay for it by taxing Bezos, easiest game ever. And persuadable voters liked Bernie’s schtick! Even in Ohio people were like “yeah that crazy old guy is okay.” You listen to Bernie’s campaign speeches and he was all about rapid-fire policy stuff nonstop.

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Bernie’s policy stuff is also direct and honest. He says “I know you need X, I know you need Y, I know you need Z. You don’t have X, Y, and Z because of millionaires and billionaires. I will give you X, Y, and Z”. The reason that Hillary’s policy stuff didn’t have traction was that is was a bunch of technocratic mumbo jumbo that is several degrees of separation from actually helping voters. Look at this summary from Wikipedia:

Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a “clawback” which would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an “exit tax” on companies that move their headquarters out of America in order to pay a lower tax rate overseas.

Be sure to head on over to the website for 4 hours of homework to figure out how any of that helps you.

Contrast that with Bernie.

What we have seen is that while the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, we have seen a huge increase in income and wealth inequality, which is now reaching obscene levels. … This is a rigged economy, which works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans … You know, this country just does not belong to a handful of billionaires.

You’re god damned right!

Sanders supported repeal of some tax deductions that benefit hedge funds and corporations, and would have raised taxes on capital gains and the wealthiest two percent of Americans, using some of the added revenues to lower the taxes of the middle and lower classes.

Sounds good to me!

Sanders was a staunch supporter of a universal health care, and said, “if you are serious about real healthcare reform, the only way to go is single‑payer”. He advocated lowering the cost of drugs that are high because they remain under patent for years; some drugs that cost thousands of dollars per year in the U.S. are available for hundreds, or less, in countries where they can be obtained as generics.

That sounds good, I don’t want to pay a lot of money for prescription drugs!

Democrat policies are popular and political winners, as long as you a) sincerely want to implement them and b) don’t obscure them all with a ton of gobbledy gook cooked up by bureaucrats in DC to put in PowerPoint presentations.

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Republicans run on negative partisanship and it works pretty damn well. It would be really nice if Dems also got a lot of good shit done but obviously they aren’t going too, so negative partisanship is the best strategy and I think it’ll work pretty well. Trump is the most disliked president of all time. He started with 48% approval right when he started and now he’s like 35% tops so no, he is way more disliked now.

Also negative partisanship isn’t just orange man bad. It’s also tying them to being anti vaxxers, anti mask etc. 71%+ of the country is vaccinated now, I’m sure a huge chunk are pissed people are dragging out the pandemic, so push that.

Just hammer the Republican party. What fucked us in the first place was their strategy of " Trump bad, Republican party great! "

"But wait a minute.

I might be Besoz one day! Then youll tax 90% of my money and Ill have less than I have now!"

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Trump actually ran on policy and giving stuff to his supporters. A giant free wall, kicking out the Muslims, jobs for coal miners, etc. Republicans can run on culture war stuff because the base wants that.

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Come on dude, they weren’t voting for policy, they were voting for racism and owning the libs. Jesus Christ.

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Not sure these are separate. They like the stupid policies that own the libs. Build The Wall was a policy they supported, because they know it pisses off sane people.

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You guys are absolutely mental if you think the 2016 playbook is going to ever work. Everyone knows Trump is bad, no one knows why they should vote for Dems.

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I’m skeptical negative partisanship is the way to drive up D turnout… Democrats love nothing more than to show that they are trying to work with republicans. They have a West Wing view of politics where disliking someone because of their party affiliation is no different than disliking someone because of their race. Jamie Raskin is putting Liz Cheney in the same box as Barbara Lee in terms of defending the constitution.

And, oh by the way, a lot of Dems (both voters and officials) kinda sorta like a lot of GOP policies, (see: immigration).

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Also, it’s a bit of a false choice to pretend that Dems have to choose one approach and stick to it. Just tell everyone what they want to hear and ignore the contradictions. If called on it just laugh at Republicans tell them to fuck off.

Dems are going to lose because of their choice to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. It’s a choice to treat Republican complaints with any seriousness. It’s a choice to tell voters life is complicated and they can’t have everything they want.

No one actually likes this, why do you think they keep losing to gameshow hosts?

Mostly because we run Republican-lite candidates and have zero intention of helping people, ever.

The media in this country is corporate propaganda and has infected otherwise good intentioned people with strange notions such that a Maddow viewer will not think twice about spending months trying to organize a commission to investigate insurrectionists who violently interfered with an election and also spending months trying to get the insurrectionists to help write a voting rights bill.

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In more mundane evil news:

https://twitter.com/equalityalec/status/1439972179421147138?s=21

She lost in the Orleans DA race last year to a “progressive prosecutor” so Joe is making her US attorney instead.

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