And the weird Electoral College system we use.
And overall media literacy and critical thinking skills in the population as a whole.
And the mass media’s weirdly selective coverage, along with the near-death of investigative journalism.
And Citizens United.
And general misogyny and racism in the culture.
There are so many problems, that anyone who is looking for a single problem is missing about twelve.
Barney Frank is probably bang-on correct for 1996. I see no evidence that he is for 2026.
The problem is the voters. They think the president controls the economy and inflation. Unless the president does something completely boneheaded like impose tariffs or start wars in the Middle East, there isn’t a lot the president can unilaterally do to impact inflation. Yet every president crows when the unemployment rate is down as if he had something to do with it. Pollsters ask voters how they feel about the president’s handling of “the economy”. How many times in 2024 did we hear "I just don’t know enough about what Kamala Harris would do about [start whiny voice] the economy [end whiny voice]. If the party in power doesn’t do stupid things, the economy buzzes right along independent of what government does.
Probably more to the point is the fact that in US elections, the taller candidate has a distinct advantage on average. If that isn’t proof that voters are superficial, lacking in critical thought, and generally intellectually impaired, I don’t know what is.
I suppose the trick is how to achieve good governance and yet respect the whole “consent of the governed” aspect of universal democracy. Clearly nobody’s really figured it out yet.
Sometimes I wonder if maybe universal democracy isn’t the way to go, but I can’t come up with anything better.
A democracy relies on a level-playing field. It relies on everyone acting in good faith.
But all of that has eroded. The old-school GOP and the old-school establishment Dems had “gentlemen’s agreements” to largely “follow the rules”.
But from the Tea Party onwards, that started to collapse. Then Trump taught the GOP a very simple lesson: those “rules” aren’t real rules. You can say and do whatever the fuck you like.
This is the MAGA playbook. But the Dem establishment are still largely playing by the old rules.
And that means the playing field is more “off-kilter” than it ever has been before. From gerrymandering to blatant voter suppression to decisions made by the supremes. MAGA and the alt-right worldwide are making it harder and harder for individual votes to matter.
You can’t “blame it on the voters” when the voters are now pushed into an area where their vote no longer matters. When voting involves spending money they don’t have to get ID they can’t travel to get. When voting involves standing in line for hours where giving them food and water is an arrestable offence, and they have to walk past a line of brownshirts in order to do it.
You can’t “blame it on the voters” when both parties have blurred the moral boundaries. Where while MAGA is objectively orders-of-magnitude worse, the establishment Dems are also 100% behind tougher immigration, appalling policies in the Middle East, almost silent on trans rights, in favour of “funding the police”, happy to continue to support the industrial prison complex, have practically given up on combating voter suppression, and are not giving voters much to vote for except “we are better than Trump”.
And while many will argue that “we are better then Trump” is all the messaging you need, a reminder that the Dems have lost the house and the senate and the executive and the supremes for a generation.
There is an arrogance on display here. The idea that “we deserve your votes and we don’t have to fight for them.”
But that gives the Dems licence to be evil. And in a two-party system that gives them even more licence. They get insular. Don’t listen to criticism. Won’t engage in debate. Any opposition can be dismissed as “purity tests” or “virtue signalling”.
This isn’t on the voters. It’s a fundamentally corrupt system that has been co-opted by the rich and powerful. They are the ones who have stacked the deck.
If the Dems want people’s votes, they have to fight for them. They have to give people something to vote for. That has always been the case. They aren’t “owed” votes.
So what?
I don’t get this line of reasoning at all. Some people don’t know the ins and outs of the intricacies of how government works. Is that a requirement now? Do you think it should be?
This ties in quite nicely with this.
It’s the idea that the establishment Dems think that “they are the smart ones” and that “what their base wants doesn’t matter because they are all superficial, lacking in critical thought, and generally intellectually impaired anyway”.
I think that’s a problematic way to approach winning elections. I think the very least the base deserves is to be respected and listened to. Because if the party isn’t serving the base, then who exactly are they serving?
I think it is a problem that people think that the government controls inflation and that they willingly vote for cretins just because they claim to have the answers. Okay, affordability is a political issue. Name me something that the government can do to address it. It sure as hell isn’t lowering taxes, as then there would be more after tax dollars chasing the same amount of goods. We’ve done some stupid things, like open the treasury up and giving scads of money to people who don’t need it in response to covid. Government can and does do stupid things to aggravate inflation, but can’t do squat to relieve it. Shame on politicians for acting like they can do something about it and shame on the public for being so ignorant as to fall for it.
Did I miss it, or has no one pointed out the obvious?
In the 2024 Presidential election, the Democrats went silent on trans issues. Harris refused to say anything. Waltz said one thing, and then never again. They instead tried to pull in people from the right.
I didn’t say anything specific, but I have pointed out that abandoning their base in order to suck up to the Right is standard procedure for the Democrats, and that it never works.
I agree that the Democratic “establishment” has made a lot of mistakes, and is influenced by and beholden to a lot of bad actors. And I agree that progressives are certainly not to blame for the elections of Trump.
But the blame for Trump isn’t with other Democrats - even the establishment. The blame for Trump is the politicians who supported and enabled him (and continue to), and ultimately, the voters who voted for him. America saw Trump’s campaign and voted for him. Then, after one term, rejected him. And then they voted for him again. America wanted Trump back in power, and got Trump back in power. Harris did the best she could, even if she made mistakes. The Democrats should learn from those mistakes, and hopefully they will. But ultimately, even in a system that’s highly tilted and unfair, the voters could have chosen Harris over Trump, and didn’t. That really is on the voters. We’re getting what we voted for, as a country. I hope we learn from our mistakes.
Yes; if a very large portion of the electorate wasn’t horrible then the election wouldn’t have even been close. Trump is a living parody of awfulness that if he wasn’t real anyone who described a hypothetical President like him would be mocked for making an impossible strawman.
The fact that Trump had even a chance, much less won demonstrate how contemptible much of the American electorate is. And I’ve no idea how to fix that even assuming it’s possible (which I doubt).
But if anything that just shows how pointless and immoral the attempts by the Democrats to pander to the Right actually are. Trump is how you pander to the Right.
I think the mistake you’re making here is conflating the “Right” side of the political spectrum with anything to the right of the extreme views of the far Left/Progressives.
I’d go so far as to say that in a national sense, a lot of the Progressive/far Left stuff is pretty extreme, and more than likely repels quite a few voters who are otherwise aligned with the right side of the Democratic party (which overall is still left of center).
How exactly are you reaching out to those folks who are white, live in “middle America”, aren’t hateful, aren’t necessarily militant Evangelicals but who are regular church-goers, and who are made deeply uncomfortable by all the trans talk and who are really struggling economically? I’m sure that telling them the way they believe/think/feel is wrong and immoral is going to work wonders to convince them to vote for you. So does a lot of the other stuff that’s fairly extreme that doesn’t apply to them- all this immigrant stuff, all the trans/LGBT stuff, all the DEI stuff, and pretty much anything that doesn’t address what matters to them. They’re going to vote for the side that promises to help them in their struggles and with what matters to them. And they’re not going to vote for the one who tells them they’re wrong for thinking a certain way or not being 100% on board with stuff that makes them uncomfortable.
That’s the thing- it strikes me that it’s much like the old joke about being married- “You can be right, or you can be happy.”, except in this case, it’s “You can be right, or you can be elected.”
What is your evidence that any of the pandering you appear to be suggesting would work? I think it would fail - in the voters’ eyes, the party positions are already set on these issues… any pandering would be obvious and transparently bullshit. Better, IMO, is to meet voters where they are, as best we can - in particular, validate their anger (the system really is rigged and working against most Americans’ interests), and focus it on the right targets - factually, morally, and politically: the ultra rich, corporate interests, and their enablers. Bring on the rhetorical guillotines. Insult and attack anyone who asks bullshit questions about distractions like sports and trans athletes.
First, this is the US; the “extreme left” barely exists here and is politically basically irrelevant. Second, those people you are describing are hateful, you just listed out multiple forms of bigotry on their part. Third, what matters to them is hurting people, not money; that’s why they consistent vote agaisnt their own self interest in favor of politicians who promise to hurt the people they hate. Fourth, the Democrats have spent decades trying to help them, and they never even notice much less care.
And I don’t want to convince them to vote for the Democrats, because that just means the Democrats turn into fascists. That’s exactly how the parties exchanged position on civil rights in the first place. They are implacable enemies to be overcome, not reasonable people to be persuaded. They are effectively at war with the majority of America, and will be for the rest of their lives. Persuading them doesn’t work. It never does.
…the ‘blame’ for Trump belongs with a lot of people. And no, the establishment Dems don’t get a pass.
I think it’s perfectly valid to blame Trump and those that voted for him. But if you hope to defeat MAGA in the future, especially after the mood of the backlash wears off, I think it’s also perfectly valid to interrogate what went wrong. Because you can’t change MAGA. It would be a complete waste of my time arguing with them.
And I don’t think Harris and the campaign did the best they could. I think that they could have and should have won. I think that Walz had MAGA on the ropes. I think they had tapped into something and they should have gone all in.
Instead, they pulled back. And I thought Harris was uninspiring and just couldn’t get away from the talking points.
I think the larger issue was hiding just how sick Biden was and then panicking once that got revealed. This wasn’t just a “mistake”. It’s emblematic of the disdain the establishment had for their voters. They thought they could get away with it. It was a gamble, and they lost big time.
And no, I don’t think you are going to learn from your mistakes because some people in this thread think that it would be hard to convince folks who are white, live in “middle America”, aren’t hateful, and aren’t necessarily militant Evangelicals but who are regular churchgoers that trans people are just people and aren’t going to hurt them.
I think it would be much easier than you think. I sure wouldn’t be telling them that the way they believe/think/feel is wrong and immoral. I’d just say…“meet my friend Sarah.”
And the issue here is that people that have these views, that don’t want to offend the “white, middle America regular churchgoers”, are the people that are running the party. That is why the most Harris said in defence of trans people at the last election was little more than “We will follow the law.” Its why the word “trans” was only ever mentioned once at the Convention.
The thing is, you can do something about that. People who want to defend trans rights can actually make a positive change with the Democrats. That’s why I’m talking about it.
We are facing the very same issues where I live. Except we don’t have a “two-party” system. and I can vote for the party that is in line with my political views and they’ve got a chance of actually having an influence on government.
You don’t have that luxury. And I think the establishment Dems, if there is no pushback, will happily throw trans people under the bus to try and win votes. I’ll again point to the UK just to show how bad it can get. The Labour Party, the “spiritual” equivalent of the Dems, is now running as an actively anti-trans party. That could happen to the Dems.
You seem to have a low opinion of white Middle Americans who are regular churchgoers. Why are you assuming they would be bigots?
Why would I do that? Trans people are just people.
You mean like how America was built on immigration? Like how every single white person in America is a product of immigration? They are scared of themselves?
What’s extreme about people living their lives?
What’s extreme about Black people living their lives?
Do you not think its possible for the Dems to do multiple things at once?
I really don’t care what they think as long as they are willing to let other people just live their lives. But if the mere existence of trans people make them uncomfortable I don’t know why we should pander to that.
About that.
The Dems lost the house, the senate, the executive and the supremes for a generation. I haven’t seen you address that yet. But if “not talking about trans people” is such a winning strategy, tell me why the Dems failed so spectacularly following that plan.
We appear to agree on pushing back on establishment Dems and on other questions of strategy going forward… the disagreements are about the past and blame and those don’t really matter, so I’ll leave them alone.
I support trans rights because trans rights are women’s rights. A society that allows trans people to prosper also allows cis women to do so.
This is similar to the civil rights campaigns on the 60s. There were a lot of Jews working for Black rights. And that wasn’t purely altruistic. Because Black rights were Jewish rights.
My first insurance job was a company that used to have a rule against hiring Jews. (And Catholics, and… They only hired WASPs ) They dropped it because of the civil rights laws, aimed at helping Black people.
The war against trans is just part of the war against women. If sports is the wedge issue against trans women, “trans issues” is the wedge issue against women. See it for what it is.