And with Trump voters, promise them that Mexico will pay for the wall.
Trump won the working white class, and 53 % of the white female vote.
The Dems are 0-4 in these special elections, but the real story that under Obama’s Presidency, the Dem’s lost over 1,000 seats at the federal, and state levels. The trend continues, even with an unpopular president, according to the polls. More on these " polls " later.
The press, with their poor jouralism that has no proof and nonstop assault, is actually helping Trump, by firing up his base. Don’t believe the polling, they are out of touch with how people are voting and I suspect their sampling is not longer good within the margin o error.
Americans have a soft spot for those who are unfairly picked on and people get angry when they are treated unfairly. Trump’s base is already fired up for 2018, a midterm election where Dems historically have low turnouts.
If I had to guess 2018 will be a red sea rising in the Senate and beyond.
This, however, can change, but for that to happen the Dem’s need new leaders, and the press needs to start acting fairly.
Exactly.
Silver lining wrote: " Don’t believe the polling, they are out of touch with how people are voting and I suspect their sampling is not longer good within the margin o error."
I think people are lying to the pollsters just to fuck with them. (And so they can later derive great satisfaction by complaining that the polls are wrong.)
Is there any explanation as to why the party of a President, who is so deeply unpopular, according to the polls, keeps winning the elections? 
My personal prediction for 2018 is that by that time, Trump (if he’s not impeached by then, of course, which might happen any day now) will be so unpopular (according to the polls and the media) that in addition to the current 32 state legislatures that Republicans control, they’ll add a few more states, thus, being able to call a Constitutional convention, and start passing Constitutional amendments.
boyaren wrote: "My personal prediction for 2018 is that by that time, Trump (if he’s not impeached by then, of course, which might happen any day now) will be so unpopular (according to the polls and the media) that in addition to the current 32 state legislatures that Republicans control, they’ll add a few more states, thus, being able to call a Constitutional convention, and start passing Constitutional amendments. "
God help us.
This advantage is about to end and end fairly soon at that. I predict one, possibly two more Presidential races where this card can be played. By then the Western world will be deep into baby boomer retirement territory. No major political Party comes out of that mess unscathed, or in anything like the shape they are in now.
But they do focus on things that matter most to the bulk of the American people. It’s just that the Republicans put a lot of effort into the idea that the Democrats don’t, just like they put a lot of effort into pretending that the entire Democratic approach is “giving lazy people free stuff”.
The Democrats don’t need to lie per se, but they need to regain control of their own narrative and tell a better story. Because all this "The Democrats would win if only they would have policies that benefited more Americans " is nonsense when one considers that 1) they do, and 2) the Republicans are busy passing policies that are screwing vast numbers of Americans.
It used to be that way, but we won that argument way back in 1980 and it’s very difficult for Democrats to implement new programs. Just doing ACA cost them everything and in the end they might not even be able to keep that.
Of course, we won it with a simplistic argument of our own: “Government is the problem.”, but I guess simplistic arguments are what it takes to beat other simplistic arguments.
It never works that way ever. It’s not like there’s a special tax on working mothers which pays for child care. Or a special tax on “college graduates who are making more money with degrees than they would without” to pay for tuition subsidies.
I disagree. The argument has never been won, and “free stuff” continues to be a big selling point.
I live in a state that desperately competes for businesses by offering them massive tax breaks that work as subsidies: “Open your business with us,” they implicitly say, “And we’ll provide all the government services your business needs, and your employees need–water service, police protection, roads, schools for employee children, you name it–and not make you pay for it. Free stuff!”
Chances are, you live in a state that does the same thing, or else you don’t live in the US.
So yeah, the “free stuff” argument is a cornerstone of Republican governance.
I agree that those offers are foolish. I disagree that they have anything to do with Republican governance. Both Republicans and Democrats are equally guilty of that type of thing.
Republicans tend to favor low-tax business friendly policies as general principles. But offering negotiated breaks to lure specific big businesses to a state or local area is a bipartisan endeavor.
Pretty much agreed–although Dems seem likelier to put in caveats like “be sure you pay your workers enough money that they’re not on food stamps.” My point was to rebut your implication that it’s only Democrats who offer “free stuff”.
Fotheringay-Phipps wrote: “It never works that way ever. It’s not like there’s a special tax on working mothers which pays for child care. Or a special tax on “college graduates who are making more money with degrees than they would without” to pay for tuition subsidies.”
No, it’s not like there’s a “special tax” on working mothers, to use only the first example, unless you wish to consider all the taxes they pay working as opposed to not due lack of child care to be “special”.
The context of this discussion is whether the Democrats have an advantage in that their message is heavily based on “free stuff”. To the extent that there’s another type of “free stuff” being bandied by politicians of all stripes, with no correlation to either Republican or Democratic ideology, then it’s not relevant in this context.
Makes no difference. Bottom line is that when a politician is promising child care, it’s not going to be “paid for through increased revenue” as you suggested in post #319.
Free stuff can still be a popular idea, except that few believe it’s free anymore. That’s a good thing. And it’s not. Even when Democrats do something by “taxing the rich”, that’s only an introductory price. As the programs grow, they can only be supported by the broad middle class.
Then it’s in the party’s interest to promote a broad middle class through programs like, I don’t know, daycare and tuition subsidies.
I’m honestly at a loss why you think your post is contrary to anything I said in the post of mine that you quoted.
It was following on from your last non-asterisked sentence. I realize we are largely in agreement, some nuance aside. And some of that was also elaborating on other themes in this thread.
That would be true if the same people benefitting didn’t have to pay for it. There are no middle class subsidies possible without middle class taxation. There’s a reason SS and Medicare are paid for through payroll taxes, and most state and local infrastructure through sales and property taxes. Taxes on the rich are fine for limited government functions, but the welfare state can only be paid for by the middle class.