Judicial appointments, particularly the three conservative Supreme Court justices he nominated. Witness the apparent upcoming overturning of Roe v. Wade, something that the conservative base (including no small number of the smart ones) have longed for, for decades.
No. No one has to match the hatred of their messaging. A passionate, competence defense of American values in the face of what the Republicans are doing does not have to be hateful at all. It’s actually the most obvious, most ethical, most winning play here. And the democrats are completely failing to make that case.
Things are so far outside the norm that it’s ridiculous, and yet Americans are so desperate to convince themselves that everything is okay and normal that they decided a blatant, violent attempt at a coup was just normal politics.
Part of the reason for this is that the democrats themselves are basically treating it this way. Imagine if we had a great statesman who was available to lead the democratic party. They could make a great speech about how far the other side has gone, how America is on the brink, an inspiring speech that laid out a resistance plan to the loss our country. A call to action, a moment where the democrats decided they were going to stop rolling over and allowing the republicans to end our democracy.
Where’s that speech? Where’s that great leader? Where’s that savvy strategy? What did we actually get? Nancy Pelosi tore up Trump’s SOTU speech, which looked more petty than everything. Was that the big, defining moment of the opposition to the downfall of our democracy?
I’m going to blame Obama here, too, because he could be that statesman that does this. He’s too concerned about remaining apolitical for his legacy but he’s standing by watching this country go down the shitter, too, and he could make a difference.
I hear that speech from a dozen different democrats on a regular basis.
The people just shrug and continue on with their lives.
Where? Some snarky tweets?
Adam Schiff’s impeachment speech is the closest thing I can think of, and good for him. It was exactly the sort of thing we should have 200 of now. But I’m pretty in tune with political news and I haven’t seen anything like that. If, during the insurrection, Nancy Pelosi and the democratic leadership had asked all the networks to give them some time, I think they would have. They could’ve given a pivotal speech on the biggest stage where everyone knew it was important and serious and just didn’t. There has been nothing like that.
NBC, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, The AP, Reuters, Washington Post… and I suppose twitter to some extent as well.
And what good did that do, again? I do remember lots of people complaining that that speech was hyperbolic and partisan and all that crap. How many hearts and minds do you really think it moved?
I really have a problem of too many cites here, just putting in “Democrats speech on jan 6th”, returns pages of results of different Democrats on different media outlets all calling out the Republicans in different ways.
So I need you to narrow down what it is that you are looking for.
You mean during the insurrection, while they were hiding from the mob come to kill them, they should have called up Chuck Todd to give them some screen time?
There’s been plenty like that, just none that apparently made it either to your ears, or made it to your standards.
I think that’s his point: he doesn’t think Democratic politicians do enough to make sure that those speeches make it to the ears of him and every single one of his neighbors whether they agree or not.
Yeah, but no matter what a Democrat does, they are not going to get an in-context, unedited speech onto Fox News.
In the days afterwards.
If there have been plenty of speeches about that, and they haven’t reached me, someone who is more in tune with political news than 95% of Americans, then it would seem that’s still a completely failure of strategy and demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the democratic party.
I mean, we had a literal violent coup attempt by the president and his party supporting him. What has been the democratic response? No one is seriously getting punished nor will anyone seriously get punished. No one went on national TV and called upon the American public to recognize and resist what was going on. No one crafted a clever legal strategy to improve the situation. No one could even get some fucking messaging that would resonate with the public. Certainly no one has done anything that will hold anyone else accountable or start to fix this festering cancer still growing within us.
The coup is still ongoing. Election denial is basically the open, official policy of the republican party. The democrats - and our weak institutions like the justice department - have done absolutely nothing to make sure this won’t happen again. They’re so fucking terrified that punishing a coup attempt and defending against another will look “political” that they’ve basically handed the republicans an open invitation to keep trying until get they get it right.
Imagine, hypothetically, a competent political party and how they might respond to the absolute batshittery of Trump and the republican descent into madness and coups. Does the democratic party look anything like this hypothetical competent political party?
It feels like we’ve drifted at least somewhat from the OP. I understand how, and I understand the relationship, but it still feels like a drift.
The justice department is prosecuting those who participated in the coup. Prosecuting beyond that pretty much needs to wait on the Congressional investigation. And the Congressional investigation clearly decided to delay their big revelations to the midterms in hopes of using it to win seats. It’s a risky strategy, as it means that the investigation could be stopped if Republicans take control. But it seems better than what happened under Trump where we were constantly told of the issues and it became background noise.
It doesn’t help that the Ukraine situation keeps taking the wind out of their sails.
As for Roe v Wade: who do you think leaked it? The Republicans were doing the same sort of thing, trying to delay the decision to reduce the backlash. That’s why they’re in damage control mode, rather than crowing about their accomplishments (e.g. what they did when they stopped Trump from being convicted from his first impeachment). Dems got it out there early to try and motivate the base.
Do I think the Democrats could do a better job with advertising? Yes, very much so. But I don’t think it does any good to ignore the situation and act like they’re just incompetent.
Also, none of this has any reason to stop Pelosi. Direct congressional action is not relevant right now. Campaigning would be, but her seat is secure. And I honestly don’t think she can do much to help Democrats is swing districts, as she’s so easily vilified. Her direct endorsement could lose seats, not gain them.
That’s the thing. It isn’t. It’s you taking something that doesn’t actually matter and making it into something much bigger than it could ever be.
It’s perfectly legitimate to argue that the Dems aren’t doing enough on the messaging front. I fully agree with that. But getting this out of Pelosi going to Ukraine is too much. This is a non-event. A hypothetical Democratic party that was better at messaging would still have a trip like this.
Thank you, I was coming to this point in the thread ready to ask sure, but how the fuck does going to Kyiv for a day at this time prove any of that???
At the opposite end of the seriousness scale, I suppose if her grandchildren have birthdays or graduations it will also be a sign of letting the election slip if she takes half an afternoon for that?
So you’re saying the Democrats didn’t express their opposition to Trump forcefully enough WHILE THEY WERE IMPEACHING HIM?
Your point is well taken, it’s correct that going to Kyiv doesn’t do anything to specifically to impede them fixing their messaging. However, when you’re perceived to be doing nothing…and the one very public and very obvious thing you do happens to be on the other side of the world, spending a mountain of US dollars to help people who aren’t Americans. It makes the other shortcomings all the more glaring.
Yeah, screw those people!
Not really. I mean, what, some minor players who shit on the walls of congress get a few months in prison? Big deal. People need to lined up for firing squads or at least very severe prison sentences if you’re going to send the message that insurrection against the United States is unacceptable.
And the real perpetrators aren’t being prosecuted. You wouldn’t want to get political, right? So I guess any politically motivated crimes - like blatantly calling for and facilitating a violent insurrection - must be off limits. Wouldn’t want to look political after all.
Our response to the insurrection has been even more meager than the Beer Hall Putsch. We basically told the Republicans to keep doing it until they succeed, and they are.
Yes. They didn’t do a very good job of messaging why Trump was such a problem, and as a result, America continued to believe that everything that was happening was within the political norms. You can’t win against Trump by pretending that this is normal partisan bickering - people want to bury their head in the sand and believe it can’t happen here. They need to be shouting from the rooftops just how we’re losing our democracy. Their opposition has been utterly pathetic and futile and it doesn’t seem like they’re even trying.
They’re going out with a whimper. We’ve probably already lost even a semblance of a managed democracy in the US already and there was never any serious, competent opposition to it. Despite the most obvious encroaching fascism which lead to a violent coup supported by the president and his party, an official party line of election results denial, and STILL ADVANCING ACTIVE MEASURES towards a takeover of government, everyone still believes everything is fine and it can’t really happen here and this is all just normal.
The fact that people all think that is, in part, due to the fact that the democrats have not even made a real attempt to rally people or get them to acknowledge what’s happening. Their opposition is feeble, almost nonexistent.
When we look back in 20 or 30 years, and people wonder how the US fell into fascism, what is the heroic resistance that people are going to look back at? Nancy Pelosi tearing up a SOTU speech?
Then don’t tell people that can’t afford the high gas prices that the solution is to buy an electric car.
Nice job completely missing the point.
No, it doesn’t. The justice dept. is capable of investigating on its own. Garland had been derelict in his duties.
Of course Pelosi going to Ukraine doesn’t hurt the Democrats. Most Americans are rooting for Ukraine, but a lot of prominent Republicans are taking Russia’s side. Pelosi going to Ukraine, and no Republicans choosing to go, sets up pointing that out.