I’ve been arguing that debating the GND on the basis that it unrealistically utopian is missing the point. Progressive Democrats finally seem to have broken through to the realization that people want hope for a better future. Merely serving up fear 24/7 worked for a while but the progressives think - and I agree - that hope is a better long term strategy.
I guess we’ll see whether that’s a good argument.
Republicans Hope to Sway Voters With Labels That Demonize Democrats
Yay, American values.
Loss aversion: Loss aversion - Wikipedia
The fear of loss is a much more powerful motivation than the desire for gain. But yes, relentlessly beating the drum of fear and gloom takes a toll on voters and every now and then they want that ray of light. But, again, one side’s ray of hope is the other side’s laser beam of tragedy and mayhem.
GND? Isn’t that a wiring thing?
Huh?
Can anyone decode?
Green New Deal
You could say that Obama ran a campaign of hope, but we have to remember that the economy was crashing, and a good deal of “hope” was simply the fear that things would get worse if the Republicans got four more years.
Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were supposedly candidates of hope, but a lot of their support came from voters’ disillusionment from the previous four years.
And there’s no voter disillusionment from these four years? :smack:
The point is that many of our right-wing posters keep insisting that hope is a bad strategy. The alternative? Apparently that’s fear, which is perfectly all right as an election strategy because that can’t turn any voters off at all.
Excuse me while I smilie again.
:smack:
“People want hope for a better future”. Indeed they do. And now many people, maybe most, are hoping for something very different than a GND, something very simple.
They hope that Trump will not win in 2020 and a Democrat will be the next president.
As a bonus, it’s far more likely to actually happen than any green new deal.
It won’t happen if Trump once again boosts turnout from people who are crazed with fear about the socialists and MS 13 and millions of illegals voting. Are you suggesting that Democrats don’t need to do anything to counter that?
“Are you suggesting that Democrats don’t need to do anything to counter that?”
Not at all. Just saying that the Dems don’t have to go so far to give hope.
In fact, I think there’s a real risk in going too far ‘left’ or ‘green’ or whatever you want to call it. The fundamental and unriskable goal - and the hope - is ridding the White House of Trump and the Republican bund.
The democrats can’t sell us on hope. They are far too disorganized and plutocratic for that.
Seriously. What hope are they selling? Another incomplete band aid like the ACA? Allowing the bankers to get away with fraud? Empty speeches about ‘America being the greatest nation on earth’ while people can’t afford health care and the climate falls apart?
I’m not one of those ‘both parties are the same’ types. THe democrats are light years better than republicans.
But true hope requires declaring war on the oligarchs and plutocrats. The democratic party, as a whole, has 0 interest in doing that. So they’ll give pretty speeches and pass token reform or nibble around the edges of what is wrong with America without doing anything meaningful to address health care, climate change, income inequality, regulatory capture, the fragile banking system, etc.
Meanwhile more and more people will be sucked into identity politics because they don’t feel the government provides them with any meaningful, material benefits.
And people claim the GND is unrealistic! :smack:
When the democrats had supermajorities in both the house and senate, they could barely get enough votes for the ACA which protected the oligarchs from competition.
I don’t see them getting enough votes for a GND, Medicare for all, meaningful tax hikes on the rich, laws to rebuild unions, etc.
We need to shoot for The Land Beyond Beyond. Then it won’t be an issue anymore.
Sadly, I agree with this. Hating Trump doesn’t mean you love the Democratic party. And preferring the Democratic party doesn’t mean you think it’s right even most of the time or even competent, it’s just less awful than the alternative.
I’m not sure what you mean. When ACA passed, the Dems had less than 59% of the lower House but needed only 51%. The Senate passed ACA by a vote of 60-40 which under the McConnell rule was the absolute minimum margin. Every single Democratic Senator voted for ACA; there were Zero exceptions. Both the Independent Senators voted for ACA. Every single voting Republican Senator voted against ACA; there were Zero GOP votes in favor. Despite that ACA had wide support, e.g. from the American Medical Association, Susan Collins, supposedly moderate GOP Senator, voted against ACA. John McCain voted against ACA. (All this despite that the key provisions of ACA had originated with Republicans. Recall moreover that Republican malice had delayed the Seating of Al Franken for six months, denying the Dems their supermajority.)
Who is saying hope is a bad strategy?
Posters in the How much would a green new deal actually cost? thread, for one.
You could possibly argue that the GNP is a false hope and so doesn’t count as a hope, but I can’t buy that. All hope strategies are at least somewhat unrealistic and unachievable. That doesn’t make them any less valuable as campaign strategies. As I somehow have to keep repeating, Trump fed his supporters a shit-ton of outright lies and they cheered him into office. Why not take his shit and turn it into gold?
If the Republicans wanted to put up a more realistic hope strategy they could make the attempt. But they won’t. They opted for fear.
It’s telling that our conservatives are telling progressives how to appeal to Democratic voters. Did I say telling? I meant laughable.
Yeah thats my point. They got 60 votes and it was for a bill that wasn’t bad, but didn’t address what is truly wrong with our healthcare system. So the democrats can’t really run on hope because even when they have supermajorities in congress, they can only pass tepid, pro corporate half measures.
Americans vote their pocketbooks. All politics is local. Forgetting these two things is how the mighty Newt lost his job in Dunwoody. In the LONG run, issue-related/policy-laden discourse eclipses *utopia here we come *and they’re coming to get you every time.