If you vote for the guy that calls me “the enemy within,” don’t bitch when I return the feeling.
Yep, exactly.
You can bitch and moan as much as you want about how Average Joe is an uneducated idiot who voted against his own interests. (I’m sure that will help us beat the “party of the Coastal Elites” allegations).
But the fact is, we have the electorate we have, and we must find ways to communicate with that electorate, or we will continue to lose every election to people like Trump.
The problem is it is easy for republicans to spread lies. The rebuttal is usually complex, technical and lengthy to get through which may require an education in several different areas to fully understand. That discussion will put most Americans to sleep.
I didn’t.
Rebuttal isn’t the answer. That’s precisely the problem with Kamala’s campaign. “We are not going back” - ok, stop telling me about what we aren’t doing, what ARE we doing?
Republicans don’t waste time arguing when we say that their policies are racist; they just repeat what they claim their policies will accomplish. We need to do the same thing. Run on specific, affirmative policies that will accomplish things people want. Not on explaining why the Republicans want things that are bad and their claims about us are wrong, actually.
Yep.
A strategy of “Republicans are evil racists!!!” is not only inaccurate, but is a losing strategy.
You mean like:
“I’m going to end price gouging”
“I’m going to help first-time home buyers”
“I’m going to combat people who pollute your community’s air and water”
“I’m going to cut taxes on the middle class”
Those sorts of things? Because those were in the list of things constantly blasted at me several times per day by every TV station, radio station, and streaming service over the past several months. It didn’t do any good. People associated Biden with things going bad, he had a 40% approval rating, and Kamala didn’t run on changing Biden’s policies, she praised them. That hurt her. With just about everyone, apparently.
You are making my point for me. And you even explain why:
The Average Joe is better off, and certainly a lot better than they would be under the Democrats. But inflation did happen – again, through no fault of the Democrats and which would have been far worse under Trump – and getting them to understand is at best boring and at most flying in the face of outright delusion.
One doesn’t have to be a “MAGA fanatic” to have fully bought into the right’s bullshit. There’s a reason the word “vibecession” is a thing.
You’re blaming the Democrats for not being better at dealing with a 24/7 Gish Gallop of misinformation when the major of media sources were actively working against those messages. Yes, that’s a problem they have to deal with, but that doesn’t mean they did anything wrong or belittled the electorate.
It’s both accurate and all that’s ever worked, which is why there’s a constant drumbeat to not do it.
You mean the party that has been spreading the same sort of vicious propaganda against Latino immigrants that the Nazis used against the Jews, and who right now are planning to round millions of them up into deportation camps? I don’t think “evil racists” is far off the mark.
But yes, asking Nazis to please stop being Nazis isn’t a winning strategy.
That’s not what @Gyrate said and not what I’m saying either.
My position is that Trump voters were horribly misinformed. Voting in most cases based on outright falsehoods, and against their own personal interest.
Democrats very clearly didn’t get the messaging right. But I don’t believe the answer is to go run after whatever imaginary squirrel the right wing invents.
And I don’t think the solution is to concede “Yes, the economy is in crisis” when it’s doing objectively better than it was under Trump, even giving him a mulligan for his last year.
Or, let’s put it another way: if the lesson to be learned here is to be more like Republicans, then the answer is to never concede anything is bad on your watch. Because there were a lot more “ordinary people struggling” under Trump.
Not to mention lie, cheat, steal, threaten, rave incoherently, spout bigotry and ignorance…
Were the Democrats supposed to tell those black men that white people are all Satan worshipers who wanted to eat their pets?
Average Joe does not feel that way. Young people see no promising path to their future.
Dems tell them they are wrong cuz reasons.
How do you think that plays out at the polls?
“KILL! KILL! KILL!”, apparently.
Yeah, because the reality is that the 24/7 gish gallop you’re describing isn’t new. It’s been the strategy for ages now. If we don’t counter it, that’s on us.
I’d say that not dealing with the problem means they DID do something wrong. Obviously, since they lost.
They told those black men that white people are crazy racists who think that black people eat cats and dogs, and that clearly didn’t work.
Well, what’s important here is that we can blame the Democrats for the destruction the Republicans are wreaking on the country.
It’s standard comic-book villain logic: “It’s your fault for not stopping me!”
They pointed out what the Republicans said, not “white people”. And that’s not actually an answer.
All this was more true under Trump.
False. As I say, most of the messaging was a delicate “we feel your pain” coupled with specific policy proposals. I just don’t see how the lesson from this election was that Dems should have bought more into the narrative.
They weren’t totally responsible, so that means they aren’t responsible at all? 