Ah, I missed that that was an old(er) post. Man, three weeks seems like a lifetime these days…
However, further worsening the reputation of the Democrats for betraying their own base in yet another doomed attempt to pander to people who’d never vote for them is not how to defeat MAGA. Or anything else. And it won’t just be the pro-trans voters who get driven off, it’ll be all the other people who simply don’t trust the Democrats to not throw them under the bus in order to pander to the fascists.
It’s the First Rule of Holes: When you are at the bottom of a hole, stop digging. And the Democrats have dug themselves into a deep hole with their own base. Just look at how many people in the last election who objectively should have voted for the Democrats didn’t out of fear, hate or distrust of them. They’ve clearly run out of rope on the “vote for us because the Republicans are worse” tactic.
Race issues — specifically, equal treatment under the law — were important in beating Goldwater.
Gallup Poll September 1964 (ignore misleading headline, please look at the numbers)
This points to something that the Democrats need to do when back in power — and to promise to do now. Reinstate the 1965 LBJ affirmative action and equal employment opportunity executive order, mandating federal hiring and contracting with no racial preference allowed, that Trump revoked.
I have no idea how the Dems could get this back. The US will have to show that it can be a dependable partner for a few decades, through presidents of both parties, before other countries will trust us again. Even if the next Dem president was the most statesman-like of all statesman, four years later the US could bring in another gibbering idiot who will violate trade agreements he himself negotiated and signed. How do you trust a country that changes its very nature every four years?
Yeah this is the only thing that gives me a little hope. After 4 (or 8 or 12) years of Trump and Musk driving America off a cliff, there is an chance that progressive policies will be genuinely widely popular election winning platforms, not just among the likes of us dopers, but among the wider Trump-voting population.
IMO the Democrats need to be laser focused on fixing the massive inequality problem that is the root cause of America’s problems (the fact that non-college educated males have seen their income drop while Americans as a whole saw their income double over the last few decades is alone enough to explain most of what we are seeing today). My main complaint of the Democrats over the years is they have not been focused on that, it’s just such a glaring problem with US society that was always going to cause problems (as well as being a terrible thing in its own right)
Universal healthcare is an obvious place to start but I wouldn’t stop there. I would not even rule out some form of universal basic income. Seriously I could see Musk and Trump finally putting to bed the old adage about the American poor seeing themselves as temporarily disadvantaged millionaires not a working class.
Of course the other side of that is for this to happen the economy (and American society as a whole) would have to be in such a bad state that it will probably take more than four years of progressive economic policies to fix it, or even make it noticeably better. Plus it would rely on the Democrats actually having the guts to risk appearing radical and left wing, which is not something to bet on historically 
I agree with pro-unionization policies, both because they are popular, and because industrial democracy AKA unions actually increase income equality.
Higher taxes on the rich? If it polls well, fine, but without strong unions, inequality will barely budge. That’s because companies will raise high-paid employee compensation to make up for taxes. I don’t have a link for that but recall old international research pointing that way.
Good, but it should be sold not just on having a healthier society, but also on making everyone to pay their fair share – rather that go uninsured with the cost of treating life-threatening illnesses, as today, socialized. Find ways to fairly accuse the Republicans as being the real socialists (although I personally find them more similar to historical communists).
Rule it out? No, but I thought that this was more favored by conservatives as an alternative to safety net programs.
It’s a bit depressing to me that even Trump 47 isn’t enough to show web Democrats that they have to, for now, give up some unpopular dreams to stop authoritarianism.
In the Trump era, Democrats have become the party of more reliable voters. Trump 47’s extreme policies will only further decrease the risk of the Democratic base staying home, or throwing away their votes on a left-wing third party. I’m not saying that your proposed policies are far left. They are not,. But the Democrats also have to show they are normie on identity issues. Equal opportunity, yes, But Democrats have to make it clear that they are against preferential treatment of traditionally marginalized groups. Just being silent there, as Harris was in her campaign, gave too much room for Trump to convince the majority that only he was on their side.
Exactly the wrong way to go about it.
Seriously.
This is what the middle-class (and those aspiring to be middle class) are more than willing to live under a corrupt dictator than vote for. For the great unwashed plus a surprising number of MAGAs (ie, the vast majority of Americans), any assistance given to those below them will 1) make “those people” have it as easy as they do (without working for it) and, 2) just encourage more of “those people” to populate those lower socioeconomic positions.
Neither of those are going to Make America Great (Again, or ever) in their minds. Remember, this is the vast majority of Americans, so you aren’t going to win any national election without them. The narrative that the things you are advocating will cause the decline of America has been woven for two decades. An entire generation.
No, while we DO need to implement universal health care, provide a minimum living standard, among other things, those have to be the things we don’t say out loud. If this is what is campaigned on, we will lose, again. Did Trump campaign on destroying America’s standing as a world leader in democracy? Did he campaign on elimination of any and all government services (particularly the ones his base depends on)? No. He campaigned on Democrats are evil, godless, elitist dictators who are destroying America. His message was if you want to be Strong, Proud, and Rich, vote for me.
I am fairly certain that by next spring, the US economy will be, at best, very lethargic. Inflation will be low only because the economy will not be hot enough to drive up prices. While the majority will get by, those at the bottom will see no way to advance and even those in the middle will be tired of both parents (perhaps even teenage children) working 60 hrs a week and still can’t afford a vacation. The party needs to spread the idea that a Great America is a Strong America and that means a Strong Government. One that will put an end to the monopolies and corruption and let the people, meaning average people – not billionaires, control the government.
How should the candidate reply when asked about “things we don’t say out loud” at the debate?
The typical response is to illuminate how badly things suck for regular people and find the ideal balance of equivocation on the matter of how to reduce the suck.
Right now, Trump’s immigration policies are unfortunately popular.
There is going to be Trump 47 inflation attributable to mass deportations and frightened hard working undocumented immigrants leaving the country. Once voters discover this (it will be harder to discover because of MAGA at the Bureau of Labor Statistics), Democrats can push for more legal immigration, and get needed legislation passed once back in power.
Successful societies welcome newcomers. All newcomers? Afraid not. But lots of newcomers, yes. That’s the message. Compassion for the downtrodden, not so much.
Ideally, the Democrats would institute changes to reduce corruption and to reduce the amount that people treat politics as part and parcel of their sports package.
Subsidize and/or hide campaign fund sources and exact quantities from candidates, go back to the voice vote, pass anti-gerrymandering laws, illegalize campaign “sharing” of raw materials to the public, implement a Condorcet condition to elect the presidential electors and give them freedom to vote as they will, etc.
That’s the key. Instead of saying we need to make sure everybody gets healthcare, even if they don’t work, or that you can depend on the government to feed you, they need to say that those thing are important, without a doubt, but what we need to concentrate on now is to see that America works. We need to allow businesses compete on quality, service, and ideas, not on who has the largest advertising budget.We need to make sure laws get passed to serve the needs of all Americans, not just the needs of the giant corporations.
That’s mutually contradictory. Equal opportunity isn’t “normie”, normie is “reduce women to male property; persecute, enslave or kill any man who isn’t a cishet white Christian”. That’s what got Trump elected, appealing to that hatred and cruelty.
There’s also the issue that continuing with authoritarian policies is not fighting authoritarianism.
And there’s also the issue that it means at best freezing in place the damage Trump has done. Leaving us stuck with a government and military leadership that has been purged of anyone not a rightwing cishet white male.
Good luck expecting the Democrats to achieve anything under those conditions, or even maintaining their present support. “We’re the kinder, gentler Nazis” isn’t going to appeal to much of anyone.
Agreed that’s has to be an important part of it IMO
Not as far as I know. Everything I’ve read from the right on the subject has been shrill screaming about how UBI is basically Communism
Absolutely not. This is an entirely losing strategy. It’s fighting the GOP on their own ground, there is absolutely nothing the Dems can say on this will stop them being portrayed as to the left of the Black Panthers on this subject. But it will alienate their base and seem like they are pandering to MAGA
Also remember we’ll have had (at least) four years of Trump’s white supremacy crushing America into the dirt. The Democrats should lump every single Trump policy together in a simple (and correct) message "this, all of this, is what is destroying America. This is why you don’t have a job. Why food is so expensive. Why you can’t get healthcare. Here is an alternative…’
No, it is not. Relentless pounding on economy bad, ceasless presence of Individual-ONE in the news cycle and Rs installed where they could fuck with the election system is what did it. A recent poll showed that Americans in general favor DEI more than they oppose it.
An important message is still lost to the Democratic Party. Trump won not only the election but the popular vote too, which is highly unusual for a Republican.
Now you can’t tell me that soo many people were enamored of Donald Trump that they wanted him for President. The more likely reason, my opinion, is that the vote was against many policies and not for Trump.
What is it that voters do not like so much that they voted this way? That is the question that needs to be addressed. Why were the majority of voters against you?
That is the issue. Not the media or any of the other common excuses for this loss, not picking a better candidate. What do the voters want that they are not getting and how will the Democratic party provide those things?
Yeah they should completely rework their policies just the GOP did when lost the popular vote by far more, in 2020 and 2016 
Individual-ONE is President because enough people were convinced that he was a reasonable alternative to sanity. The media maintained him in high profile for all of the four years he was out of office and failed to highlight the fetidness of the bullshit that he and the rest of the R party were spewing. And the Democrats continued to mention him repeatedly, which was a huge failing. It is really difficult for an opponent to surmount that much saturation. Ms Harris did not adequately define herself as something more than “not that guy”.
The Democrats have been dealt very tough cards the last two times we came into power. We inherited absolute catastrophes (2008 financial crash; 2020 pandemic) that were either the fault of Republicans or where the Republicans greatly contributed to the problem even in situations where they didn’t cause it.
So, Dems have had to come into office with a focus on fixing what they’ve inherited. And both times, they did the job.
But this next go round, regardless of what they inherit, they need to make sure they’re not just restoring us back to an old status quo. They need to not only fix the catastrophe they will surely inherit from Trump/Vance. They also need to be the party that makes government work good again…fix the post office…fix the IRS…fix whatever is seen as a problem…fix healthcare so that everyone is finally under a true UHC system…affordable housing…slashing regulations that make it harder for government to do a good job.
The Dems need to come into office in 2029 or 2033 with their own “Project” that will not be getting us back to “normal”, but pushing us into a new Great Society or a new New Deal, but one that’s meant for the 21st century.
My but aren’t you optimistic. This election was not a classic changing of the guard. This is a catastrophe. The Republicans are busily shredding the government to pieces. It is like flying on an airplane while a bunch of other passengers are stealing parts off the plane and selling them on ebay. There will be no orderly return to power for the Democrats, and trying to rebuild the wreckage of a stripped, crashed and broken airplane will be far beyond them. Breaking things is much easier than making things work, and the Republicans have been studiously breaking things for decades while the Democrats have mostly been keeping the broken thing from outright crashing in a fireball. They are in no position to make those kinds of repairs because they are one of the things that the Republicans have been breaking.