In terms of total votes Hillary didn’t do that much worse than Obama and trump didn’t do that much better than Romney. We’ve got to remember to get the votes in the “right” places or come the morning after we will, once again, be asking ourselves “what the F happened”.
It’s that pesky Electoral College. And while I’m on that subject, just a brief aside. The EC is, at its core, based on the fundamental assumption that the votes of some of the people are, and ought to be, of greater value than the votes of others of the people. Now that’s a perfectly defensible position to take, but you don’t get to take it and call anybody else an “elitest” ever again.
Since this is a discussion of election strategy, I think it’s not a hijack to discuss the demonisation of the wealthy, and to disagree with it. When I think of the wealthy elite, I think of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett; Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and the guys who founded Google; Michael Bloomberg, Jamie Dimon, Marianne Lake, and Robert Iger; and for that matter, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Peter Jackson. I think it’s bizarre to demonise high achievers solely because they’ve pursued and achieved wealth, especially if they’ve created products or driven investments towards industries that have improved society. And I’m fairly sure that noone I’ve listed came from a billionaire family.
It’s legitimate to expect high income earners to pay a high amount of taxes. However, to presume that high income earners are evil, simply because they succeed in the current capitalist system is ridiculous. Suppose the Straight Dope had turned into some incredible combination of Quora, Reddit and Wikipedia. Would you be condemning the billionaire Ed Zotti on his Internet success?
First off let’s clarify that what is effective as an election strategy does not have to be what is “right” … but let us assume we are not quite that cynical and want to not only win but to do it while also being right and fair.
An economic populist us v them does not need to demonize the group. It need to make the argument that their extreme and increasing disproportionate wealth and power is a problem. It should be noted that some of the extremely wealthy personally believe that as a group, as a class, they are being allowed to keep too much. Warren Buffet for example makes that case over and over again. Soros too.
The argument does not necessarily demonize the very wealthy as individuals or argue that they should not be generously rewarded by society, albeit not to the obscene degree that is the current state; it argues that* the system* which is rigged such that the very wealthy are becoming the black holes for wealth in our society, sucking it all in past its event horizon and leaving less and less wealth (and power) for everyone else, is a problem that must be addressed. Wealthy individuals are invited to agree out of informed self-interest for the good of the society overall. Many will so long as all other extremely wealthy individuals are also paying their fair shares without being allowed to cheat. Clearly not all will and those who actively fight against it are the ones who get demonized.
Mind you I think many of those who run the economic populist play DO demonize the wealthy as it is easier to do in a sound bite.
The Republican Party has become, as far as I can tell, the American Fascism Party. They are not any more amenable to civic discourse than any other fascists.
Coincidentally, there was a feel-good article in the BBC website about two billionaires.
The two men are Australian, so their story isn’t relevant to US elections, but it did remind me that there are similar stories throughout the US. One parallel success story is Dan Gilbert.
There are similar stories of successful start-ups throughout the American Midwest. Here’s a sample from Forbes.
I don’t know the politics of anyone mentioned, but the Democratic party should try to get these people, and their employees, onside, not shut them out with anti-rich or anti-business platforms.
I don’t want the thread to be some kind of trap where people get labelled as villains for this and that. I know when I was younger I was a lot more interested in questions like “I am smarter than this guy” or am I better at this or that. Now I am just not insecure much anymore and don’t feel the need to pounce on every weakness as proof of my betterness.
Now, I think Trumpers really are misinformed about some important things. There has been what might as well be a misinformation campaign going back decades, and people who are steeped in it can’t seem to see past it. This whole conspiracy theory about “liberals” to blame for every problem- how many people are really motivated by “liberalism”? C’mon. Liberals are just a handy catch all boogeyman and rhetorical device that makes it easy to skirt around the substance of any question. Liberals are to blame and always the answer. Simple.
That people are susceptible to this Could be viewed as evidence of inferiority, but what is the point? They may be misled but I don’t think they are entirely to blame for that. There is a very good team of think tanks and so on that regularly update the bs they are fed. If we’re looking for someone to denigrate and villainize, how about the people who spread all the bs? They are the ones taking advantage of people’s ignorance and getting them all excited about imaginary enemies and distracting them from more concrete concerns… for the sake of tax cuts for the wealthy that will eventually cost all of us our Social Security and Medicare benefits. You want a villain? Look there.
This. This tendency by the left to vilify those who have achieved economic success is one of my biggest issues with the Democratic Party and (more commonly) my fellow members of said party and D politicians running for office. I 100% agree that those with high income should pay a higher amount of taxes. Although I am nowhere near rich or wealthy, by most measures we are within the top 5% when using our combined household income. Neither my wife nor I come from wealthy backgrounds. I consider myself a success story, I came from nothing and have done okay for myself and my family. First to get a college education (lots of loans), first to own a home, etc. I acknowledge I had opportunity that perhaps others do not. I also had the deck stacked against me and I think most people with a similar background do not achieve the same results. I am comfortable with the amount of taxes we pay as it is our obligation to society and I would not begrudge a reasonable increase in my taxes if necessary.
This rhetoric that those who have achieved success are evil, that they are immoral, etc., just turns me off in a very big way. I have a lot of friends from earlier in my life as well as current family who are still to this day Republican/Conservative and let me tell you they hear this rhetoric loud and clear. “Democrats hate people who achieve the American dream” is the message they take away. Whomever gets the D nomination this year had better have an economic populist message that can reach these people that can be reached (the former Obama voters in the rust belt?). If they fall back to the same old-same old then I fear we’ll be subject to another term of President Trump.
Requires a constitutional amendment, which means it is dead in the water. The big hurdle is getting 38 states to sign on and that is just not ever likely to be feasible. Not in our lifetime and probably not in your grandkid’s.
Your other proposals are either possible( if very difficult )or just strategy, which I don’t entirely agree with, but certainly doable. But you’re going to have to let the electoral college thing go because it is just not going to happen. Or don’t and continue to agitate for change - just realize you’re fighting for posterity and not something that will actually be implementable in your lifetime.
There is an alternative, although considering how hard it has been just to get it to where it is, it probably won’t get to the point where it is viable either.
I’ve got no problem with folks being rich. I wish more people were rich. I think this would be a far better country if for every billionaire you had a thousand millionaires instead. But hey, paper your bathroom with hundred dollar bills. Fill a storage facility with every car you’ve ever wanted. Jump stark naked into a vat full of Roosevelt dimes. But when you start using your money to manipulate the political process to facilitate you making more money, I do have a problem with that and so should we all. And it doesn’t help their cause when some of these folks are majorly Bondvillainesque.
I recognize that economic growth is not a zero-sum game but these days, thanks to the kind of behavior that I’ve described above, it sure seems like one.
The gop is hostile to non whites, immigrants, non Christians, feminists, democrats, liberals, the non rich, etc.
They still get 60-65 million votes.
Why does our side have to be super nice? Will that actually matter?
Not all Trump voters are a lost cause. But most are. However the people on the fence can be brought over hopefully.
We don’t need to win whites without college. We just need to lose them by smaller margins. If we can lose them by 30 points instead of 39 points, we will be much more competitive in the Midwest.
This is a recipe for disaster. It’s basically the same strategy Hillary used, and it cost her the election. Liberals need to get over this ridiculous notion that they are morally, intellectually, or otherwise superior to conservatives. You’re not, never have been, and never will be. People that disagree with you are not evil, stupid, or corrupt. They just disagree with you. You are not the sole arbiters of all that is right and just. This kind of smarmy, condescending crap is why your candidate lost in 2016. Repeat it, and Trump will get re-elected in 2020.
For many of us, this argument is akin to an abusive partner saying “why do you make me do this?”
I realize this may sound like an exaggeration or hyperbole. It’s not. It’s a decent representation of how I feel, and an even better representation of how more vulnerable people than me feel.
Since you, Oakminster, are asking for empathy and recognition for your point of view, I thought I would return the favor. We who view Trump as an extreme danger don’t think we’re stupid, or hysterical, or whatever. Many of us view opposition to Trump as, at least in part, basic self-preservation. And telling us that complaining will lead to (what we see as) more abuse is the opposite of a convincing argument To us, it just proves the point.
So if you want respect, give it – please.
So when you made a sweeping negative statement about millions of Americans who identify as liberal, that’s fine and dandy… But a single criticism of your post (and a TV blowhard and political committee), that’s over the line?
I did nothing of the kind. Re-read my first post. I said you are not morally, intellectually, or otherwise superior to conservatives–this thread is full of assertions to the contrary. Also said that people that disagree with you are not evil, stupid, or corrupt. And I said that this sort of smarmy condescending crap lost the 2016 election, and may lose the 2020 election.
You implied that this is something liberals, as a group, believe. If you only meant some non zero amount of liberals, then okay, but that’s such a trivial and meaningless statement that it could apply to any group.