Agreed, there’s working the margins during election season and there is working on the underlying trendline. The former lasts about one cycle with caveats: Dem superiority is unlikely to last forever as much of the advantage was technological.
It’s hard to know what messaging is actually effective, though I find your story plausible. My hobbyhorses are the perniciousness of Fox News (along with the irony that they are supported more by non-viewers via affiliate fees than by advertising revenue), and the segment of Trump’s 40% base who really should know better. I expect 20% of the country to be nutty for various reasons. But the 39-40% floor is just too high for this felonious ignoramus.
The only people grabbing their smelling salts and heading to the fainting couch over this trivial non-issue are those who were already going to vote Republican for the rest of their lives. Nobody is going to remember this in 2026 or 2028 or even this summer. This isn’t making a mountain out of a molehill, it’s making a mountain out of nothing at all.
Quoted for truth! OP is grasping at straws and they are probably paper straws. Get him some smelling salts before the vapors overwhelm his sensitive sensibilities. Get him to his safe space pronto! Those evil Dems that don’t give everyone a standing D are absolute A-HOLES! @Culling_The_Herd Can we offer you a safe space so you can salve your wounds?
Dan Turrentine, Democratic lobbyist and co-host of “Morning Meeting” on 2Way: “I love my Party, but tonight was a new low. I get silence on this or that policy, and the raw politics of the base’s anger. But, for not a single D to stand to applaud a boy’s brave battle with cancer, or a man’s admission to West Point, was a classless disgrace.”
I’m going to take a wild guess that Fox News is covering this scandal 24/7, because nothing else notable happened in politics this week.
And while the secret service badge was kind of sweet, I’m thinking the kid would rather have a cure for his illness, but the US isn’t doing that anymore, because there’s nothing in it for Trump and the religious right.
It’s important to not get into a “No True Scotsman” mode with these issues. Many people are becoming disillusioned with the Democratic party. The Democrats should at least be trying to keep their supporters from being frustrated or leaving the party. No one expects the Republicans or Fox News to fawn over the Democrats actions, but even Colbert made fun of the signs:
Someone who didn’t watch the SotU but did watch the talk shows or saw this image on reddit or social media is going to come away with a negative impression of the Democratic party. That goes for people who are aligned with the Democrats already or people who are fluid or forming their political opinions. The Democrats need to stop doing embarrassing things that get widely mocked even outside of conservative outlets and start doing things that, at a minimum, their followers are proud of.
Yes. This is exactly where I am. I vote Democrat because it’s the realistic option, but I haven’t forgotten when Bill Clinton threw gay people under the bus with DoMA, so I’ve never identified as a Democrat. I of course can’t go Republican. But seeing the ineffectual responses these last six weeks make me think my options are as follows:
Continue voting Democrat even though they will do nothing.
Start voting Republican (I can’t see this happening)
Start voting third party: if I’m going to vote ineffectually, it might as well be for a real progressive.
Stop voting altogether, because my vote gets nothing done.
My mind will probably keep me in category #1, but my heart is already in #3 or #4. I can’t imagine that I’m alone in this.
No one cares. At least people who vote for Trump don’t care. Everyone has known who Donald Trump is since the 80s and the left has been banging that “corruption” gong since day 1. And whenever you point that out to people who follow Trump, they will provide one of the following retorts:
Why is the other side always attacking us as “deplorables”? (victimization)
Well I don’t trust media/politicians on either side (false equivalency)
Well look at what Fox News said so and so’s cousin’s son did (whataboutisms)
I don’t support everything he does (backpedaling)
At least he has a plan/ambition (general non-sequitur)
You’re just a woke snowflake (unreasoned anger)
The Democrats lose because they can’t compete with Trump’s skill for marketing and self-promotion. You constantly try and use logic and reason and moral superiority to try to appeal to the general public who are mostly selfish uninformed morons and then call them out on it when they don’t vote your way.
The largest voting bloc now identifies as Independent (with just 32% of those voting in the last election identifying as Democrat according to exit polling). The move away from the two parties suggests Independents don’t like what either party is selling, but in the largely binary system we operate in, they’re forced to choose one or not vote. Just because more of them voted Republican in the last election doesn’t mean they’re Republicans, or even Trump supporters.
Dems (and Reps) have a choice: Denigrate, disparage and vilify everyone who doesn’t support/believe everything they do and may have voted for the opposition, or expand their tent by making a sincere effort to better understand why the voters rejected their party and became Independents.
I’ve read a nearly infinite number of comments in the last 8-9 years that say some measure of:
Why is this that 100% of liberals cannot have a conversation without personal attacks?
Which always gets me thinking …
Have you paid any attention whatsoever to the horrible outright lies and straw man arguments that the right daily spews about the left?
Have you heard any of the innumerable ways the right paints the left as existential threats, bringing on nuclear war, bankrupting the country, turning the US socialist, stealing the election, harming the nation’s children?
Have you heard ANY of THAT?
If not, then you simply aren’t paying attention. I’ve been a registered Independent, but this stuff absolutely sickens me. It’s also …
[Stochastic terrorism: the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.]
And it creates very real harm.
But – as usual – the Democrats just need to ‘be better people.’
Just to clarify, are you saying poor behavior on one side justifies the same type of behavior by the other or that the Left doesn’t denigrate, disparage and vilify everyone who doesn’t support/believe everything they do and may have voted for the opposition?
