This doesn’t seem to me like a very fair restatement of the OP’s argument.
I’m not sure where you get “is being read as representative of the Democratic party as a whole”. I think a more accurate description would be “certain types of statements made in podcasts and tweets play into and reinforce ideas about how the left, in general, thinks and acts – beliefs which, particularly due to an incessant drumbeat of misrepresentation from the right, are viewed as offensive by some number of white (particularly male) voters”.
And I think it’s clear that this does in fact happen. I think the key questions, which are very difficult to answer, are:
(1) How many votes are actually swayed (either from D to R, or from D-to-non-voter or non-voter-to-R) by this type of language (it’s possible that it’s negligible, that all the people complaining about it were already lost causes, hard to say)
(2) What if anything could be done
and
(3) What would be the cost, both in terms of principles and in terms of other electoral side effects, or doing anything
A lot of the argument in this thread are about whether it makes any sense for people to be offended by such statements, whether the statements have any validity, etc. Which is somewhat irrelevant. If 10,000 voters in Michigan had their minds changed by this sort of messaging, we’re certainly not going to change their minds back by having a multi-page back-and-forth about White Privilege.
I agree and think the lesson for the next Democrat who runs is to focus on turning out the folks who didn’t vote in 2016. Trying to appeal to those who couldn’t smell the dumpster fire that is Trump sounds good in theory, but there is only so much we can say and do to reach those people if they already have in their head that you’re evil incarnate. This is what killed Hillary Clinton. The best the Dems can do is find someone who not so brazenly vulnerable to such denigration.
Research needs to go into figuring out why non-voters sat things out, so a smarter marketing strategy that addresses this population can be developed. It’s a hunch, but I think it’s unlikely the apathetic and politically detached go to rallies or read or listen speeches or listen to what the pundits say. I think they tend to vote if something makes it harder for physical inertia to win and they feel like their vote will make a difference. The latter didn’t happen in 2016 because there was too much confidence Trump would lose.
I think that’s already been done. Obama won because black people turned out to vote for him. Hillary lost because they didn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
Years ago (between 2000 and 2004, I think) a friend and fellow political junkie coined a memorable aphorism: “trying to win by turning out nonvoters is the mating cry of the political loser”. One might counter that Obama disproved this notion, but I’d submit that he probably won with the 2004 electorate anyway, and my friend was not talking about the unique case of the first black nominee getting formerly apathetic blacks out to vote. So I still think it holds in most cases. I assume nearly all of us agree that many of the people who voted for Trump have a shallow, reality TV perspective on politics. Dig into that terrain of nonvoters, and even if you somehow get them to turn out, those tendencies are only going to be worse.
No one commented all weekend about my little creative writing exercise? The one with “@snarkygrrl1”, “@snarkygrrl2”, “@whiteboyteen”, and “@bigtentdem”? I’m disappointed: I put some thought into that, and thought it came out pretty good! 
You guys say the GOP is not “surging” in the generic ballot. Maybe that’s not the best word, but when I look closely at this graph, I don’t see much sign of that red line being as high as it is now at any previous point in the last eleven months: Generic ballot Polls | FiveThirtyEight
Anyhow: digging through the posts from the weekend, I see a lot of comments that are still in the vein of “if people can’t see how bad Republicans are, that it is morally bankrupt to support them, why should I be nice to them?” (Alternatively: “Being nice to them won’t get through anyway.”). First of all, I’m talking about trying to divert people who have maybe never voted, and aren’t sure where they stand. But okay: if they aren’t sure where they stand, given GOP awfulness, these are some pretty shitty white dudes. Maybe so! But if we have enough voters out there who are morally decent and sane enough to see how indefensible it is to vote Republican, how do they control the whole national government and most state governments as well? We’re going to have to face the reality that we need to not only get the decent and sane people out to vote, but also sway some not-so-great people to support us, and probably not telling them they’re not-so-great will help in that regard.
And some people link up with political parties in the mode of seeking a pack, or a social club, something like that. They don’t think deeply at all about policy, so if you convey the idea that “white dudes are at best tolerated here” and the other group is like “welcome, we love you”, that’s going to be enough right there, as much as we might bemoan the fact. We should be trying to sell the idea that being a Democrat is the cool, hip, alternative, youthful style for white guys, and that being Republican is “basic” for a white dude, that it’s joining up with the “olds”. I can imagine a marketing campaign along this line that would reference little to no actual policy. Kind of like those Apple ads that personified Mac and PC. Remember those? They even admitted PC was good at some number-crunching stuff, but oh how unhip! Genius.
I agree with you on both points. And I think Democrats understand this on some level, at least the insiders do. It’s a cynical effort to say “never mind what the law actually is, we’re going to pretend it’s not illegal to break immigration laws by skirting border controls or overstaying a visa”. That said, I’m a cynical person myself, and if I were persuaded that we win or hold more Hispanic votes by using this terminology than we lose from whites, which feels to me like might be possible, then I’m fine with continuing to use it.
By contrast, no matter how many times Andy and others insist otherwise, I don’t believe we are going to lose nonwhite voters by sticking up for a basic idea of “you shouldn’t criticize white people as a group, because people can’t help if they are born white, and white people can be progressive too–give them a chance to be before you dismiss them”.
I wouldn’t call that "racism inherent in the system’. I could imagine something like that happening in a way that would be consistent with that characterization if it were some oblivious bureaucrat making an adjustment that seemed neutral from their point of view, but the obliviousness came from their privilege (which, BTW, I consider to attach not to race but to those who grow up in affluence and have significantly above average incomes as adults as well). In this case, it looks a lot more to me like political patronage targeted at GOP voters. I actually think Democrats should do a lot more of this for our voters (like next time we’re in power, let’s stop this nonsense where red states get more benefits from the federal government than they pay in federal taxes).
I like Drum in general, and it’s a good piece, even if he takes a shot at some of my peeps:
I do think this would be fruitful terrain for Sam Harris and others to explore, and I hope they do.
I have new respect for Bernie Goldberg, after listening to that clip. As someone who once got O’Reilly to read one of my missives (and angrily respond to it–it was also about a racially oriented issue to an extent, as it happens), I would have been curious to hear the clip extend a bit longer to hear his response.
So here’s the thing. What Drum wrote about, what Goldberg and other conservatives are cited there talking about? It may be germane to where the thread is drifted, and that’s fine. But I want to be clear: it is in no way connected to the argument in my OP, the last two paragraphs of which read as follows:
I didn’t include “conservatives” or “Republicans” on that list, but I’m happy to do so. If you want to tweet “the GOP is a racist party”, go for it. I’m not going to object to that.
All I’m complaining about is the broad-brush snark about white people, especially white men, and most especially straight white cisgender men. I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it many more times before I’m done: those are all traits a person is born with and can’t help. That is not true about being a Mormon, a Southern Baptist, a Muslim, a conservative, a Republican, a Wall Street trader, etc. To me, that makes all the difference in the world, and I don’t understand why it doesn’t for everyone.
Ugh. As noted above, it’s disconcerting to me to see the basic thesis I’m arguing for get shifted in this way, to a complaint about sneering at people for their politics or cultural preferences. Those are not immutable!
Relatedly, I do not endorse post 837, from Grrr! The pinheads and douchebags who voted for Trump and still support him deserve all the mocking and derision they are getting, and more.
Unfortunate though this fact certainly is, some people don’t vote on policy–in fact, they probably don’t really know what policies the respective parties support. But they still get to vote–and in close elections, they decide the outcome! The people who know policy details are almost all partisans who will not change sides, almost no matter what (I thought Trump would be the exception, but I was disappointed). Yet elections do swing, so it’s the most ignorant voters that clearly swing them.
Okay! Lots more posts to get to, but let’s put this out for a start.
I think you don’t mean to make a straw man of my position, but at the least you have lost the plot. For the umpteenth time, my objection is to tweets or podcast comments (or movie reviews, or entertainment interviews) that dis people solely because they are not POC or at least women. Things they cannot control, and despite the fact that they may be perfectly progressive. So you have an NPR host criticizing a white male former comedian and filmmaker for making a show about a white male comedian, and grilling him (in an entertainment interview!) about whether he has done enough to organize against Trump (which it sounds like he has). You have liberal Amy Schumer defensively apologizing on “The View” because she is not a POC. You have podcasters and countless people on Twitter snidely referencing “mediocre white men” and making other disparaging remarks about white men in general. Not disparaging remarks about Trump, or even about Trump voters, either of which I am fine with. Just about white men as an undifferentiated mass of suckitude. This might lead a young white male, exploring the political landscape, to conclude “it won’t matter if I join them, and even take up for all their causes: they are still going to consider me ‘problematic’ simply because of how I was born”.
Rinse, repeat. There’s nothing wrong with slamming the right. I’m talking about slamming all white men, without caring that some of them might be on your side or at least open to the idea.
(1) If it’s “thought police” to call someone out for a statement that disparages all those who share an immutable characteristic they are born with and cannot change, what is it to criticize microagressions, or even macroaggressions? This is absurd.
(2) You are, again, sliding back to that whole discussion of downscale Trump voters in rural areas or failing Rust Belt cities. Maybe there’s some hope to reclaim them. I actually very much doubt it. My project ought, it seems to me, be much more focused and achievable: don’t paint all white guys with the same broad brush, and call out those who do. And the people I’m trying to influence are not unemployed coal miners or rural white teenagers who like guns and country music. It’s teenage white boys in well-off families, who are likely to go to college and ultimately earn above-average incomes in white collar jobs (depending on how automation turns out, but that’s another topic). That’s just a really different group of people, and I sure wish we could talk about them rather than just making this thread #3,438,644 about the “less educated white man who is falling farther and farther out of middle class”. That’s a thread I would not be interested in participating in, frankly.
It’s certainly not fair. I expected Trump to lose in a landslide, and it still boggles my mind that we didn’t take time out from politics as usual to make him the biggest loser in American history before going back to our regular political fights. So while I’m still mystified by this, I don’t think relitigating the 2016 election makes a lot of sense. We may (or may not) have to face Trump one more time, this time as an incumbent. It’s hard to imagine that in our lifetimes we’ll have to face anyone like him as a candidate after that. (Who would that be?) So my concern is more about the broader political environment, with the assumption that before long we’ll be back to something that looks like 2012-2014 era status. And while we at last had Obama then, Congress and state legislatures were already a problem.
Indeed not, thanks–and in fact, I believe I even said I thought high-ranking Democrats in office and at the DNC would be more likely to agree with me and the few on my side than with the majority in this thread. But they don’t control how a teenage boy is going to encounter politics online and in podcasts, much as they might wish otherwise.
Unlike you with the face, this does look like a purposeful straw man. In any case, it is nowhere close to what I’ve posited.
Preach! And you raise fair caveats. In order:
(1) I started the thread with a poll showing a degradation in D support from young white men. I’ve also showed from other polls that the gender gap among millennials is gigantic, far higher than it is in other generations. But even if it is so negligible that it can’t influence even very close races (doubtful), your other two points are spot-on:
(2) My exhortation is to simply do what I suggested in my narrative, which I’ll repost since it got such a disappointing “crickets” non-reaction the first time:
I’d love to know how this kind of interjection/intervention makes “@bigtentprogressive” the thought police! I mean, seriously, people?
(3) I don’t see how there is any cost/downside. Andy says doing stuff like this will turn off young voters of color. Do you really mean that, Andy, or did you misunderstand and think I was talking about actually changing the policy agenda, or some kind of anti-POC messaging?
I actually think that’s fair in many cases involving Trump because he says things that are so patently absurd. But the person you were responding to used abortion as their example, and that’s about the worst case possible for “if they can’t accept that at least…”. Until technology changes things dramatically enough to make the debate moot, there will always be intractable disagreement between people who believe it’s about a woman’s right to control her own body and between those who believe it is about protecting tiny babies from being murdered. And there is a continuum: one side looks unreasonable and oppressive when we’re talking about a few dividing cells, while the other side looks ghoulish when it’s the third trimester of a healthy pregnancy.
This should be the real problem we’re trying to solve. If these people were even remotely educated about issues, knew how to think critically, and had a good grasp on history, then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. They can’t take responsibility for their own voting behavior because they lack a rational defense for it, and so they do the next best thing: blame others for it. We shouldn’t be enabling this immaturity. We should challenge it.
Trump voter: “I’m not a fan of Trump, but these damn liberals ain’t making it easy for me to not vote for him in 2020 with all their talk about racism that and racist this.”
Us: “Dude, don’t tell me you’re basing your vote on what random nobodies say. That’s fucking lame. Trump needs to go. Even if you don’t think he’s racist, he’s an conniving embarrassment, come on. You won’t have anyone else to blame if you vote for him again.”
This needs to be the single overriding communication objective when dealing with these kind of folks.
I love your sudden concern for whether people’s opinions are being represented accurately, and look forward to your extending this concern throughout this thread!
Which doesn’t happen. Nobody chooses to get an abortion in the third trimester of a healthy pregnancy. “Partial-birth abortion” as some kind of choice is a right-wing, anti-choice lie. If there’s a third-trimester abortion happening, it’s because the fetus has died already but not been expelled, the fetus is untreatably fatally ill, or the pregnancy is likely to kill the mother before birth.
(1) People have been saying this for years: “We need better civics education in this country, so we have better informed voters!” But (a) that would be nice, but it’s not going to do much in the short or even semi-medium term, even if it were to happen–which, in the environment that is obsessed with math and reading scores, thereby sidelining social studies, is unlikely; and (b) we have to admit that not all our partisans are so well-informed either. Democrats rule among those with graduate degrees and those with no college at all. Republicans do best with “some college” and those with bachelor’s degrees only (though their purchase on the latter group is, thankfully, eroding due to Trump). We’re not bothered if poor black folks vote straight ticket Democratic despite not knowing anything about the Iran or Paris deals, or who is Secretary of State.
(2) The second half of your post, starting with “Trump voter:” is very Trump-oriented. As I said upthread, Trump is a temporary aberration and (knock on wood) normal politics will resume at some point fairly soon. The fact that no one, not even conservatives, should ever have any excuse for Trump is not going to help us when he’s not on the ballot. And the people I’ve voiced concern about in this thread (14 year old white boys) have never voted for (or against) Trump and will never have the opportunity to vote for (or against) him.
I’m usually concerned for whether my opinions are being represented accurately. Generally, I leave it up to other people to speak up if they’re concerned about the way their opinions are being represented, although occasionally, and in a completely haphazard fashion, I’ll chime in when I see a particularly egregious misstatement of someone else’s views too.
I really don’t want this thread to get hijacked into being all about abortion, although that is a thread I’d participate in. So I’ll respond in a spoiler box:
Abortion is a great example of where certain partisans (on both sides) try to drag their respective parties into electoral buzzsaws. The balance is maintained mainly because this happens on both sides, since the clear majority (roughly 60%) believes abortion should be legal in “some circumstances”. 20% believe it should always be legal, and 20% that it should always be illegal.
Abortion | Gallup Historical Trends
As for third trimester abortion, the same Gallup link shows responses on legality/illegality in different trimesters. Going back to the '90s, the percentage who say third trimester abortion should always be legal has ranged between 8 and 14 percent, “it depends” between 2 and 4 percent, and “always illegal” between 80 and 86 percent.
So although I’m sure you are quite convinced that your 2-4 percent is righteous, and I might agree with you, it is not a baseline “well, if we can’t agree on that much at least…” issue. Nor is it a good issue to win elections with. And if we don’t win the elections, we risk losing abortion rights for the vast majority that don’t do it in the third trimester. Pragmatism!
The big difference between the parties on abortion is that one side wants to impose its position as a matter of law and the other is for allowing people the option one way or the other. If the Dems were for mandatory abortion, things would be different.
Sounds like the inverse of the gun debate.
No, [spoiler] this is a ludicrous argument and I cringe every time I see it. Leaving religious views and “ensoulment” aside, most people (including me) believe that during pregnancy, the blastocyst/embryo/fetus slowly develops from a clump of cells with no sentience to a sentient human being–and that it is the latter while still inside the womb. The vast majority believe that third trimester abortion is essentially infanticide (and I agree).
But abortions are only done in the third trimester to save the mother’s life, or because the baby is not viable! some protest. Well, I’m not convinced that’s always true, but let’s take it as a given. What about the last day of the second trimester? What about the day before that?
Point being that we’ve got a continuum here, where most reasonable people agree that on one end of the spectrum lies something like getting a mole removed, and on the other lies infanticide. No one can point to a bright line separating the two.
So getting back to the argument you and many others make, from the infanticide perspective this is like saying “don’t kill your kids if you don’t want to, but don’t tell me whether I can kill my kids”. For you to object that abortion is nothing like infanticide is begging the question.[/spoiler]
I think a big difference is nobody is invoking religious beliefs in the gun debate.
That wasn’t the “big difference” E-DUB saw:
ETA: but yes, certainly there are various differences and similarities between those two hotly-contested topics.
Well, while you’re reading the OP to see if it was misstated, maybe some of that haphazard magic will sparkleshine on the content of the OP itself!
Sorry, not many of us watch My Little Pony so you might have to explain your meaning here.
The personhood, or lack thereof, of those being killed by the guns in not a subject of dispute.