Agreed that Sanders succeeded in cementing Clinton as antithetical to “change” and that Trump was a much of a change as one could get … albeit no one really knew what that change would be.
So now Trump is what is in place and change is not-Trump. A D cannot let Trump place himself as a change agent after being in office for nearly a term. He’s made his changes and this is what they are: the swamp is deeper and stinkier; discord and division are the order of the day; farmers are only staying afloat on government handouts as Trump’s incompetence has destroyed the trade they require; our long time alliances are fracturing; our water, air, and food are not as safe; healthcare is at risk for more and more; the richest are hoarding more more of the wealth and the power.
Trumpism is the government norm now and it has delivered the above. The Democrat runs to change from that. To deliver this change: a government that tries to be the government of us all and that helps us all have each others’ backs with decency not reality TV snark, one that actually gets shit done for the good of us all.
I am not so sure that progressive or center-left is the dimension that captures being able to make that argument well. It requires being believed as someone who says what they mean, who is felt to be a decent person, who can make those of diverse identities feel that they care and understand them and their issues, and is a clear contrast to Trump. Biden can make that argument. But if he proves in the debates that he does not have the campaigning skill to do it, I think Warren can too. Sanders too one-note to pull it off. Others? Maybe.
I assume part of the appeal was that Trump pretended he’d bring their jobs back. Also Trump’s dog whistles about making white America great again probably appealed to them. Plus Clinton probably reminded them of NAFTA.
I’m hoping this time around it’ll be different, but the reality is the democrats don’t offer much economically to people. Democrats are scared to make the rich angry, so they focus on social issues rather than economic ones. Bernie would do well with the union crowd I would assume.
Biden could win. If the progressive vote is split between Warren and Sanders, then Biden could soak up all the moderate and centrist democrat votes.
The % of democrats who identify as liberal keeps growing, its now at about 50%. But liberals are more politically engaged, so they may make up 55%+ of primary voters. However if their vote is split between multiple candidates while all the other <45% of the vote goes to one candidate, that one candidate wins.
My thoughts:
As others have already said, the key to winning is to win the enthusiasm metric. People aghast at Trump are already motivated to vote against them, but the path to victory comes from giving them something inspiring to vote for, as well.
So:
Focus on ideas and policies that are intended to help Americans - be the party/candidate of “getting things done” for the American people (it’s one of the reasons that I favor Warren so much - it is impossible to listen to her talk about plans and not come away thinking that she wants to make changes that benefit the average person and has specific ideas on how to get those changes accomplished).
Never mention the opponent - When you need to talk about the last 4 years, refer to the “vacuum of leadership” or the “lack of a leader” in America, but try to avoid saying Trump’s name or talking about what he has done. The message is what you want to do going forward, with that emphasis on taking action.
Make your positive advertising similarly optimistic and oriented to programs and ideas that make the average person feel like there are things to be done to make their lives better.
When you run attack ads, make them montages of Trump’s statements and behavior as President (I’d especially like to see a string of expletives and insults). While you will be on the ad saying that you ‘approve of the message’, that’s as far as you need to go to be involved. These ads are all you’ll need to remind the average decent person how despicable the leadership has been.
…
Generally, I think people want to vote for a candidate who they think cares about them. Discussing Trump and his failings doesn’t get to this desire. So, make the campaign about the ideas and plans you have for the People. Trump, instead, wants to make it a mud slinging contest with people voting for their “side” instead of for improvements and expectations about everyday lives. That’s why you don’t go to his level; he’ll whine and complain about you, distorting your message and calling it a socialist giveaway. You won’t win by directly rebutting that nonsense but instead staying above it all. You want the average person to see that Trump is in the mud all by himself while the real adults talk about moving on.
If our country has any decency, and I still think it does, I think that would be enough: The stark choice between the candidate that cares enough to govern versus the reality show shock value that we are enduring.
If you engage with Trump, the risk is letting people conclude that everybody is just a character in the reality show, and since there’s nothing that you can do about it you might as well vote for the entertainment value.
Hillary already did this in 2016. I don’t think it achieved anything. The majority of Americans of all political orientations use expletives and insults when they’re discussing people they don’t like behind closed doors. The fact that Trump talked like normal average people and not like a politician was a big part of his appeal.
You are mistaken if you think that no self-identified liberals likely to vote in the D primaries would vote for Biden. It isn’t his strongest segment but in, for example, the most recent YouGov (7/14 to 16) he is tied for second with Sanders in that group at 16% (with Warren leading at 21%). Harris is next at 14%. Yes, as many liberals prefer Biden as prefer Sanders.
Imagining the highly improbable of Sanders dropping out that support would not all go to Warren. Morning Consult in fact finds that Biden leads as second choice among Sanders’ supporters by a significant margin.
Still the basic concept of your point is valid. Biden is ahead because he is more widely preferred by Democrats who self-describe as moderate (and even a few as conservative).
It is interesting to see the actual views of those who self-describe as each label, and the Gallup poll that is usually cited as the source for the increase in liberal self-ID has some data on that. There is pretty good agreement between “liberal” and “moderate” Ds and even those who call themselves “conservative” on many items. All
There is slightly more divergence on doctor-assisted suicide, on whether abortion should be legal under any circumstance, embryonic stem cell research, and government-run healthcare> Some others too but more in magnitude of support than directionality (e.g.a narrow majority of moderates believe that same sex marriages should be legally valid while the majority is more sizable among those who call themselves liberal.
Gallup’s take goes on
These are issues that can drive turnout within the party across ideologies and happen to be winning issues to appeal to the swingable as well. Gallup posits that government run healthcare would suppress moderate voters but I don’t think Medicare for All as an issue would be that or do that. I also don’t think Medicare for All who want it as a position would suppress the progressive turnout side.
Other than that on issues where do the significant progressive and those more center Left candidates really differ much? They differ in degree that they want to aim for on a few items maybe … but in terms of what could get done, even with a Senate majority? At all?
I still haven’t seen anyone I believe can deal with the tsunami of bullshit that will be showered on them by DJT and the GOP. Staying on message about change and how to bring it about will be difficult while responding to the BS.
No matter who wins the presidency next year, McConnell will remain Senate Majority Leader. Any dem president would get absolutely nothing done, and even if Ginsburg & Breyer dropped dead during the next hypothetical Presidential term, their seats would remain vacant until a Republican names their replacements.
The Dems would of course lose the House in 2022 in this scenario, as nothing will get accomplished and Democratic voters will be demoralized and stay home on election day. There will more likely then not be a recession by that time too, and voters are piss-stupid so they will blame it on whoever is in the White House. They’d lose even more seats in the Senate, as is tradition for all first-term presidents not named Trump. Then we get another Republican president in 2024- maybe Trump will even decide to run for a non-consecutive 2nd term.
This all could’ve been avoided if Democrats understood power and how to wield it. After the 2008 blue tsunami, they could have made lasting changes like pushing through Puerto Rican & DC statehood, passing vote-by mail reforms in every state possible, and implementing a healthcare public option that excited the base instead of the disastrous ACA that everyone hated on all sides.
But Democrats are cowards and losers. They are banking on identity politics to save them, but it won’t. Whining about racism and sexism sounds like nails on a chalkboard to anyone who isn’t an urbane liberal Twitter user. I live in a mostly Latino working class neighborhood in Chicago, and the only MAGA hats I’ve ever seen in real life were on the heads of Hispanic guys. Think about that.
Just let Trump win. The inevitable recession in his next term will finish him off, and maybe we’ll get another blue tsunami in 2022 or 2024. Hopefully by then the Democratic party will grow a spine (lol yeah right).
I don’t know if Trump is in a position to really expand the vote much, but one assumption that is probably safe is that, unless the economy collapses or we get sucked into some foreign policy disaster, it’s going to be a tight election, EC-wise. I think it’ll be more challenging to defeat Trump than people now assume. The advantage an incumbent with a 2-year term limit has is he can tell voters: Why fix things if they’re not broken now? And if you’re worried they’ll break later, well, hey, I’ll be gone then. Voters - and in this case, white centrist voters - have to be convinced that the country is about to go down the toilet for them to be scared enough to vote Trump out of office.
The electoral map doesn’t look good for Trump, but one thing I would be caution about is automatically applying the 2016 map to 2020. Democrats can’t just look at the 2020 map and say “We’re gonna flip WI, MI, and PA - game over.” It’s entirely possible that Trump could lose Wisconsin, and pick up another state like Minnesota, which he lost by less than 3% if I recall correctly. New Hampshire was close. Nevada was close. Trump could expand his map even if the Dems expand theirs.
People are wondering about the best candidate to beat Trump from the currently most viable contenders, and I see vulnerabilities in each one - even Biden. As much of a long-shot as he is to win the Democratic nomination, I would like to see more attention given to Steve Bullock. He has positions that are probably similar to Biden’s, but he’s younger and he has won elections in Trump Land.
Sad but true. The democrats could’ve appointed SC judges up until 2014, but I don’t think Ginsberg was willing to retire. Now everyone is terrified she will die and we will get a GOP judge.
But yes, the democrats do not know how to govern. They are terrified of everything and everyone (except their own voters) and don’t want to use the power given to them.
For the most part, democrats didn’t even start supporting voter rights or women’s rights until the GOP attacked them.
Trump winning re-election won’t be so bad if democrats control congress. If we control the senate and can block judges, that’d be great (but sadly people like Manchin would probably vote for the GOP judges).
I’m not sure that McConnell will be Majority Leader or even Senator after 2020. Here’s a possible map. Collins is as good as gone, her schtick of “I’m pretty sure that the Republican that I’m going to approve for the Supreme Court isn’t going to overturn Roe” is getting pretty old. Ernst is vulnerable in Iowa, Donald’s tariffs have hurt the farm belt too hard. McSally in AZ has already lost an election for Senate. I don’t think McConnell is invulnerable.
I don’t think it’s that Democrats can’t govern, it’s that they were not ready for the thermonuclear version of the Republicans. It is clear that no Democrat will ever get a Supreme Court justice as long as McConnell is where he’s at. And should Democrats win the presidency and the majority in the Senate in 2020, if Ginsburg died on New Year’s Eve 2020, they’d have a successor nominated and confirmed before the new Congress convenes Jan 3, 2021.
Health care is the key. The best argument Democrats have is what affects everyone, will they have health care? Drop the Medicare for all, Biden’s approach to strengthen and expand the ACA makes the most sense. Nominate Joe and run on health care.
Agree, Bob, that healthcare has to be a major campaign theme, which I think it will be. They also need to attack wage and wealth disparities as well. Class warfare can work, and I don’t think it’s an accident that we’re seeing racial warfare in response. Race wars have always been started by the wealthy to fend off and break up a united working class and working poor.
Attacking wealth (and power) inequality can be a cogent issue without class warfare as the approach. Othering and demonizing is always an easy go-to, but not always the best one.
I think they can’t govern. The democrats are reactive, not-proactive. The GOP are proactive. The GOP proactively tries to destroy unions, voter rights, democracy. The democrats just respond after the fact. After the GOP assaults women’s rights, the democrats respond. After the GOP assaults voter rights the democrats respond. The democrats don’t lead either, they wait for their voters to pass a bunch of ballot initiatives, and then they start passing the same thing legislatively. The GOP try to destroy unions, but when the democrats have power they don’t try to expand unions.
Also the democrats aren’t going to pass health reform sadly. I’d love it if they did, but there is no path to genuine health reform that doesn’t anger and enrage very powerful business interests like pharma, insurance companies, hospitals, etc. Connecticut talked about health reform, and gave up without a fight because wealthy interests like the insurance companies, pharma, etc fought back. Even Bidens plan (which honestly isn’t a bad plan, I’m glad we’re at the point in our politics where a plan like Biden’s is considered the moderate choice) won’t be passed. The democrats aren’t going to make the rich angry. I’m perfectly fine with incremental health reform, but the democrats won’t pass ‘any’ reform unless it doesn’t make the rich angry. And there is no path to genuine health reform that can avoid this. The only true health reform will come from ballot initiative.
Democrats aren’t willing to fight for their voters or principles. If we are lucky (very lucky) we will get an updated version of ACA. But even that is questionable. It’ll probably just be increased subsidies so people can buy junk insurance in a broken health care system. True reform (a strong public option, reimportation of drugs, government negotiation of drugs, single payer, etc) will have to come from ballot initiatives. I doubt even blue states will enact these.
I’d love to be wrong. But when Connecticut was discussing health reform I said ‘I bet the democrats give up without a fight when the rich get mad at them, I’d love to be wrong’ and I wasn’t.
I’ve lived in Connecticut for two decades now. Other than creating a health insurance exchange under the ACA, I’m not aware of any health care reform that Connecticut has so much as talked about.
The actual answer to the question could never happen because the Democratic electorate does not have its eye on the ball and is too eager to rush a progressive agenda to just stop and take a moment to get the clear and present danger out of the White House first and then maybe look at some of that stuff later.
It would involve nominating a boring and relatively moderate purple state governor who is not pushing for any radical policies, but simply promising to protect and improve Obamacare and to return the country to normalcy.
But since that is a pipe dream, I would settle for Democrats recognizing that nominating Elizabeth Warren is a super bad idea, as is nominating someone over 75, or someone under 40 who is the mayor of a small city and admits he failed to address racial problems.
There are seven or eight candidates who would make good nominees—but of those, only Kamala Harris is polling above 3%. As long as that is the case, I am backing her strongly.
All of the remaining candidates have vulnerabilities, but if there’s one candidate who strikes me as having the mental toughness and the political savvy of being able to go toe-to-toe with Trump, I think it’s Harris. Yes, I thought Harris played dirty with Biden in the debate, but that’s politics. I’m more disappointed and alarmed that Joe Biden wasn’t prepared for the attack than I was that Harris launched it. I also kinda, sorta believe that when push comes to shove, Harris will pivot away from racial politics – at least I hope so. Harris is clearly a razor sharp smart woman, and I think she knows how to play tactically in the short term and strategically over time.
I’ve lived in Connecticut for two decades now. Other than creating a health insurance exchange under the ACA, I’m not aware of any health care reform that Connecticut has so much as talked about.