Agreed. But the topic isn’t about what a judge would rule if the issue was before them in a courtroom. In this hypothetical we’re not campaigning to be umpires. The qualification isn’t who has the best eyesight to call balls and strikes. We’re campaigning to be on the rules committee, to be the people that determine what the strike zone should be. This is about what Democrats running for office should say in terms of “this is what the law should be” rather than simply telling the voting public “this is what the law is”. If Democrats wanted to start taxing wealth, they could campaign on a platform of changing the law so that if would be legal to do so even if it currently isn’t. Same for any of those other things I mentioned. Democrats need to present their vision on how they would change the law to better serve the voting public, not merely sticking to making small adjustments within the current framework (or at least the framework as it stood during the last days of the Biden presidency).
Maybe some, or all, of those things I recommend Democrats campaign on would be losing positions at the ballot box, but they shouldn’t be afraid campaign on a platform of “the current laws no longer work, we need to change them”. If current laws no longer serve the people, then change the law rather than futzing around with how to keep the laws and making small adjustments with enforcement mechanisms. The law says we can’t tax wealth? Then campaign on changing that law so that we can. The law says we need some long drawn out process lasting years in order to legally admit an immigrant who wants to come here and build a better life for themselves? Then campaign on changing that law if that is no longer working. The law says we can only sentence the guy who just robbed his first bank, shot at the teller, but missed, to only two years with likely time off for good behavior? Then campaign on changing that law so the robber isn’t rewarded just because they have bad aim. The law says you have to lock up some hapless schmuck who just got busted for the third time for carrying two ounces of marijuana to a multi decade sentence? Then campaign on changing the law so that this person won’t even get arrested, because carrying a few ounces of pot is no longer illegal. Yes, this mainly applies to those running for legislative office rather than for POTUS, but this thread is for all elected offices, not just for POTUS.
You’ve merged two lines of discussion that arose from two criticisms I made of your original post.
In the first case, immigration, you argued:
to win future elections […] What, if anything, do Democrats need to change WRT their positions? […]
Immigration. […] Go back to the days of Ellis island where ordinary people who are coming here to make a better life for themselves and plan on contributing to their community can show up and be admitted legally. Yes, Republicans will complain, but at least they would no longer have the argument of “we’re just following the law”. Instead they would have to resort to explicitly racist arguments.
The argument I see is that if Democrats change their position on immigration and propose policies similar to late 19th/early 20th century U.S. immigration policy, Republicans would no longer be able to argue “we’re just following the law” and would have to resort to racist arguments. But the conclusion doesn’t follow. Even if Democrats change their position and propose more relaxed immigration policies, that does not change the actual immigration policy of the United States. Therefore Republicans can continue to say they are just following the law, and will not have to resort to racist arguments.
Now, there’s an argument to be made that if Democrats actually enact that sort of immigration reform, Republicans will have to change their argument. (Putting aside the objection that you’ve made a straw man.) But for that situation to arise, Democrats must have already won the elections.
Bottom line is that the bolded text does not support your main argument for Democrats to change their immigration policy position.
Plus, of course, the fact that the Republicans have shown zero interest in objective reality and are perfectly happy to bash the Democrats for things that the Democrats don’t actually do. Even if the Democrats were in the position to implement immigration policy, the Republicans would go after a totally imaginary one, not the one the Democrats actually enacted.
Why? You have not actually argued why a tax on wealth would be worth the effort of changing the law, besides implying a benefit for Democratic messaging, the nature of which is unclear anyways. As far as actual policy benefits you haven’t made an argument. It is not self-evident that having ultra-rich pay taxes on wealth is good or fair or likely to raise revenue. But it definitely takes a lot of political capital to make the necessary changes, and my point is that there is a significant opportunity cost involved.
Elizabeth Warren in particular has been a big (and loud) proponent of a wealth tax. But many Democrats - including President Biden - refused to jump on that bandwagon because, given the difficulty of enforcement (it’s hard to valuate billionaires’ wealth - ask Forbes) and the legal situation, they thought it wasn’t worth pursuing. Instead the Democrats pushed for a tax hike on capital gains, which was shut down by Joe Manchin - not a typical Democrat.
They have most of the money. It’s very clear that taking that wealth from them would be “good and fair and likely to raise revenue”, especially the latter. That’s where the money is.
This is the worst, most used line I head. “Oh, real incomes are up and real GDP is up a shit ton. The US economy is the envy of the entire world, true. But not everyone drives a lexus, ever think about that?!”
“Dump trans rights” sounds the same as “dump gay rights” after the '04 loss.
I don’t think it even matters - like it or not, Democrats are the trans rights party (at least when compared to Republicans). Nuance on the issue for sports or prisoners or whatever just isn’t going to matter, IMO. We’ll be the trans rights party regardless.
What worked after the '04 loss? Convincing Americans that gay people were good Americans and deserved rights. I see no reason why that shouldn’t work now for trans rights.
Actually it does matter, since dumping trans rights will further cement the reputation of the Democrats as being willing to betray their own supporters in futile attempts to pander to the Right. What it won’t do is attract more voters.
True. The problem is it was weaponized by the Rs much more effectively by raising the issue to a disproportionate visibility and being more brutally direct, thus as Der_Trihs just said, placing the Dems up against the wall to all-or-nothing renegue. In ‘04 at least the Cons still felt they needed the figleaf of arguing over a possible general rearranging of marriage law, rather than gayness itself — which in turn provided the alternative of debating the legal matter (marriage v. civ union v. nothing).
Should Democratic politicians stir up hatred against trans people? Of course not. But you don’t win an election by telling people that what they think is wrong. Instead you find humane beliefs people already have and agree with those. And you do not expect all Democratic politicians to take the same policy positions.
Which didn’t reduce in the slightest the hatred the Right had for him, while earning him the anger and hatred of many Democratic supporters. “Bush in blackface” I heard him called back then.
You win on issues by telling people they’re wrong, if indeed they are wrong. That’s how Civil Rights won (and it’s now being rolled back because Republicans have been at least partially successful on convincing some Americans that CR was wrong), that’s how gay rights won, and that’s how trans rights will win, in the long run. Throwing these allies under the bus won’t help in the short term and will only hurt on the long term.
It’s not enough. Get tougher on disorder and antisocial behaviour, because that effects quality of life. Make public transport safe to ride with kids, make the streets safe to walk at night, clamp down on shoplifting enough that criminals stop thinking they can simply get away with it. And for god’s sake prosecute people for carrying illegal guns if you are going to support tougher gun laws.
Millions and millions of people around the world want to come to America for a better life. Many or most Americans don’t want massive immigration that changes their country and community. You can’t really square this circle: skilled immigration, and immigration from countries that are more culturally similar is more accepted, but they are not the people you presumably want to help.
General focus: I don’t think specific policies of trans people in sports or whatever make much of a difference, but the “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” ad worked for a reason. The Dems spend a lot of energy on policies aimed at specific interest groups, and not so much on those aimed at making things better for all Americans. They need more pro-growth policies: more infrastructure, more clean power generation, allow more housing in popular areas etc. Aim to raise standards of living for all.
Reforming the medical industry would probably be popular too, and AFAIK the Dems are more trusted in this area.
They can probably also run on having a sane trade policy and a functioning government, since Trump’s tariffs and DOGE seem likely to have disastrous results in these areas.
This is the job of activists, not political parties. Part of the point of democracy is that policies should in some sense reflect the will of the people, not that of activist groups, wealthy multinationals, or big donors. If major parties refuse to give voters what they want, they will eventually turn to alternatives, as we’ve seen with the rise of the far-right in Europe.
IMO this is a problem with the left in general: they have become convinced they know what is morally right, and what is best for people better than those people themselves, yet no one knows someone else’s life better than them, or gets to decide for them what they value most. If you want to enforce your personal ideas of morality on everyone, you have to live in an autocracy, not a democracy.
Another broad area where mainstream Democrats have a possible advantage over both Republicans and crazy leftists is the issue of housing construction and building in general. Harris had good platform planks on this, but didn’t spend hardly any effort on calling attention to it. Get more apartments built. Like, ten million more per year. Get rid of all the stupid NIMBY bullshit like community input, environmental review, and zoning. Housing costs are an enormous issue right now especially for younger voters and being the party that can credibly claim to fix that is a game-changer.
If they could somehow also apply this to things like building subway tracks, that would be great too, though that will require some serious union-busting that Dems probably don’t have the stomach for.
There is no “argument” for extremist positions like “total self-identification in sports,” there’s just yelling at people that they are bigots who should shut up. Shockingly, that doesn’t work so well when you are out of power and can’t make them do so.
That’s I think the biggest issue here. The Democrats have basically staked out a moral position and are effectively telling people who don’t agree that they’re wrong for not agreeing.
When people come to disagreement via religious upbringing or strong cultural routes, that approach is not only not going to work, it’s going to alienate and antagonize a lot of people. The current controversy around transgender people is evidence of that- not everyone is convinced, and being told that they have to accept trans women in sports or else they’re morally wrong is a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow.
And the idea that the government is the biggest bully pulpit for societal change (not merely governance) is something that turns a lot of people off. It’s closely intertwined with the point above. People don’t like other people’s views being legislatively forced onto them- look at how antagonized we are now because the other side is basically pushing all this far-right religious nonsense upon us. Why wouldn’t it be different the other way around?
So the Democrats IMO, should back off on the moral position side of things, and go for more pragmatic approaches- champion stuff that’s both eminently pragmatic, AND progressive. And lose the stuff that is tilting at windmills- gun control, for example.
But the main thing would be communication. Too much of the messaging is kind of namby-pamby feel-good stuff- if you were to ask the stereotypical Democrat why “sanctuary cities” don’t prosecute illegal immigrants for their immigration status, they’d probably say something about unfair immigration laws, racism, community police interactions, etc… None of which plays well- the messaging ought to be about how local governments have limited resources, and enforcing Federal laws isn’t a good use of local resources- those resources can be better spent going after violent criminals, etc…
Like Mark Cuban said when he was interviewed after the Luka Doncic trade, “it’s not so much what you do, but how you communicate what you do,”
Neither @DemonTree nor @songsoflovetrouble actually addressed the substance of what I said, but rather mostly just repeated their previous points based on their own assumptions or preconceived notions, so I won’t bother responding.
Democrats shouldn’t throw trans people under the bus, both for moral reasons and for practical political reasons. Fantasy-based criticisms about men pretending to be women to dominate sports should be dismissed (harshly!) as the made up distractions they are.