My apologies for misreading your comment – and not remembering your history of opposing Trump. My memory for names is bad enough – add usernames, I’m often at sea.
I think, however, you are misreading the OP’s strategy. (Or am I?) It may be rooted in disagreement with or even contempt for the ideas of Trumpists, but the OP was pretty explicit about how important it was not to alienate them and people who sympathize with any of their ideology. Like:
It seems to me that this is along the lines of your criticism. So I don’t get the hostility towards the OP, unless talking shit about Trump on a message board is enough to “bring the pain.”
Anyway, glad you despise Trump – hope you are committed to voting Democratic in 2020, because he’s unlikely to be removed from office before then. Power to the people!
My criticism is that the OP, at least as I read it, is supporting Clinton’s losing strategy of playing to the coasts and urban centers while ignoring “flyover country” and the South, and dragging the Dems to the extreme left.
Extreme left simply won’t fly in this country. For all the publicity surrounding AOC, she would not get elected dog catcher anywhere in the South or Midwest.
I’m largely irrelevant in national politics. I voted Libertarian in 2016 because Trump and Clinton are both horrible people who do not deserve to be POTUS. If whoever the Dems nominate supports gun control, they forfeit my vote. Trump will not get my vote. I’ll likely write myself in, or pick another 3rd Party.
The Trumpists today (as a subset of “conservatives”) remind me of a crowd of people busily stoning someone to death for being “the devil”. And while they do that, they moan, and complain that they are the ones suffering here, because all that stone-throwing is causing dust to float around, and someone got a bit of grit in their eye.
You can’t convince someone that your party will make their economic lives better when they know, KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a child-kidnapping devil who hates America and wants to destroy the county.
You can’t convince someone to vote for you when they have been told by the highest authority possible that you and your party actively want to kill newly born babies. They know this is true, because they have been told this. By the president. By the highest authority in the land, who they believe has been PERSONALLY chosen by GOD HIMSELF to lead.
These are the Trumpers. You can’t talk to them. They are beyond all hope or reason. And there are a LOT of them. Fox News is actively creating more of them as we sit here typing.
You said “Liberals need to get over this ridiculous notion that they are morally, intellectually, or otherwise superior to conservatives.”
So that’s millions of your fellow Americans, including me and many other Dopers, that you’re accusing of believing that we “are morally, intellectually, or otherwise superior to conservatives”. These are your words, and they’re a sweeping negative statement about millions of Americans, and I think such statements are worth criticizing.
Your exact words. If I’m interpreting them wrong, feel free to correct me. But when you use words like “liberals” without qualifiers, then it’s entirely reasonable to assume that you’re talking about the group of millions of Americans who identify as liberal. If I say “conservatives believe X”, then it’s entirely reasonable to believe that I’m saying that this group of millions of Americans believe X. That’s why I generally don’t use such sweeping statements, and try to only criticize the statements of individuals.
I feel basically the same way whenever I hear whining about how we need to make sure not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the angry white male. I think the reason is basically two fold.
Since we are still a majority white country, unlike the Republicans who can win with only whites, we can’t win without whites. So while they can offend all the groups you mentioned and still win so long as they win enough whites, we can’t offend all whites and still win.
As the party of multiculturalism, it is in our nature to view all different cultures as having value with the hope that if we all just understood each other we would have a kumbaya moment where we could all get along. So when there is a conflict we tend to blame ourselves for just not being understanding enough. For the Republicans if there is a conflict the solution is to hit back harder. Now as the Republicans, and Trump in particular, have become more and more vitriolic, our attitude has started to change. You can only turn the other cheek so much before you start striking back. But I think there still is the under current that its not the Republicans fault that they are the way they are, we just didn’t treat them right. This means that going to far on the attack might start hurting us with our base. Sort of like asking how come Democratic politicians can sleep with members of their own sex but Republican politicians can’t.
The trouble is, “extreme left” has changed definition in the past decade.
Extreme left now means:
someone who feels that it is a bad thing that the government deported almost 500 people, while keeping their children. And then such poor records were kept that the government does not even know where these children are. It’s “extreme left” to disagree with that.
Someone who thinks that it’s important to investigate whether or not Russia interfered with a national election. Putin is now our friend, and it’s “Extreme Leftism” to say anything otherwise.
-Someone who thinks that healthcare should be available to all citizens, and that one should not go bankrupt to fill the coffers of a for-profit healthcare system.
These things are now EXTREME LEFT.
You are certainly correct. Part of that is because she is EXTREME LEFT, and thinks that people deserve better. This is dangerous thinking. But there is ANOTHER reason why she would not be elected in many areas of the south or midwest. Can you think of what this would be? Hint- it does not reflect well on the moral integrity of the voters in these areas.
Medicare, medicaid and social security is morally superior to letting the people suffer without a safety net.
Abolition of child labor is morally superior to child labor
Abolition of slavery is morally superior to slavery
Feminism is morally superior to locking people into traditional gender roles
Treating LGBTQ with dignity and respect is morally superior to oppression of them
etc.
Liberals, generally, believe in protecting minority groups from the majority, and in protecting disadvantaged groups. That is morally superior to what the right wants to do which is at best, let them suffer and at worst, be the cause of their suffering.
Granted on the right they feel morally superior for their own reasons (usually abortion and religion).
But moral relativism is bullshit. Saying slavery, racism and oppression of gays is wrong is not an equal moral value with supporting slavery, racism and oppression of gays.
But I do not think it is possible for anyone with bold public policy ideas to reach people who reflexively dislike big government programs, no matter how tactfully presented. Fortunately I think anti-Trump sentiment combined with climate change and health care concerns overcomes this group, and delivers the bulk of the unaffiliated voters to the Democrat side. JMO.
Yeah. I only called it that to echo Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Really it is Trumpers and the rest of the R base that we are going to stop taking seriously. It doesn’t have anything to do with geography or other demographic factors, real or ad hominem. It is because some people’s ideas are so consistently and demonstrably crappy.
Right. Me, I’m not an “eat the rich” kind of guy. We need to look at revenues as well as expenditures and ask if we can bring them into better balance, and where the money can come from. To focus exclusively on cutting spending as the only deficit solution is a demonstrably misleading view and slated for indifference.
However, when it comes to discussing policy I would take wealthy republicans more seriously than maybe any of the rest. They’re the most likely to benefit from tax cuts, and so they aren’t either fooled or being paid by wealthy people to say they support that. And obviously all wealthy people aren’t republicans, or even nefarious. But this idea that tax cuts for the wealthy will increase revenues has been debunked by precedent three times now, each example farther down the wrong direction on the Laffer curve than the last, and only remains relevant because of propaganda. I predict a high degree of indifference to this defense of tax cuts this cycle.
I don’t mind exploring the idea that this Northern Strategy is actually a bad idea. That’s part of why I posted it. But, I am not approaching this as being “super nice”. I think of it as indifference. Trumpers especially and most republicans are simply not reachable voters. Have you noticed real-life conservatives talking about politics like they’re spam bots, spouting a lot of nonsense and dominating a conversation and not responding to or really even accepting demonstrably relevant and factual evidence? I have. People really do just repeat what the angry man on the TV says.
I don’t see the point in adopting their fallacious and abusive tactics (did you read those Mencken articles? Isn’t that guy a total asshole?). They have to do that, their platform is so shot that they are never going to win on policy and need demagoguery. Trump lies constantly (not to mention acting funny around Putin) and is mostly defended by the entire GOP caucus. I have to conclude that the GOP is not sincere, and therefore I am not going to take them seriously, nor am I going to waste my energy and good faith trying to win their votes. The discussion is with the D base and last election’s non-voters. (unless I change my mind, this thread is pretty new)
That probably won’t seem very nice. I think it will make some of them madder than an Alabama black guy during Nixon’s Southern Strategy campaign. But I promote indifference to that, and anyway messing with their feelings is not the point. Honesty is the point. Painting a realistic picture of the current situation, identifying problems and devising solutions is the point, not scoring everything on a left-right or conservative-liberal scale, or preemptively derailing everything by stressing the bare assertion that government is evil and hapless. Conservatives can listen if they want. I won’t care if people are poor, or Midwestern, or white or not, or country or urban, or even smart or not. I think there are common intellectual tools that just about anyone can use to separate fact from nonsense, yet conservatives seem committed to false and fallacious nonsense. So let 'em talk to each other, I’m not going to bother.
Ironically, I’m on their side more than the people they vote for, as I don’t want to take advantage of anyone through public policy.
I’m responding to your entire post, but picking out two parts specific to my reply. Are you advocating that in 2020, the Democratic Party should adopt a platform that 1) is anti-Trump, and 2) is pragmatic and centrist?
As a point of focus, let’s consider US/Mexico border security. The Trump/far-right position is to build Trump’s wall. Obviously, the Democrats are going to oppose that. I‘d consider a policy of going back to Bush II’s border strategy to be a right-leaning centrist position. Similarly, a policy of going back to Obama’s border strategy would be a left-leaning centrist position. I personally wouldn’t consider either of those positions particularly left-wing.
(I’m quite happy to leave it up to a left-wing Democrat to define what the left’s position is, and will defer to them.)
Anti-Trump? Well, yeah, but I would like to focus more on pro solutions and pro good government. But obviously the Dems are running against Trump.
Pragmatic? Yup, I am a pragmatist. Centrist? I wouldn’t say that. I’m pretty disenchanted with the idea that there is a specific part of the political spectrum where all the good policies are, and elsewhere lie bad policies. In fact, I think that notion has become a culturally poisonous mania over the past couple decades, especially the febrile obsession with “liberals”, to the exclusion of the details of any given issue. It is thought-terminating to the point that one can’t have a reasonable discussion with Trumpers at all, among other reasons. Every discussion gets derailed into “libruls bad” or “conservatives bad” under the influence of strong partisanship. I don’t think the wall is the best issue to illustrate this, so let’s look at guns instead.
I don’t like the thousands of gun deaths every year. Almost half a Vietnam War’s worth of casualties die in this country every year via shootings. Universal background checks seem like a pragmatic solution- you can catch criminals before they get their hands on a gun, and they aren’t supposed to have them anyway, so there is no real violation of rights with this policy IMHO. Red flag laws? Yeah, probably. People who get violent or make terroristic threats and so on are reasonably considered dangerous IMHO and there is no Constitutional crisis in taking their guns away on a short term basis. I think people would consider these “left” ideas.
Okay. What about assault rifles? They are scary and have been known to be used in mass shootings. How about we ban them? Um, I dunno. I want policies to solve a problem, and I’m not convinced banning assault rifles would significantly reduce shootings. Seems more like a symbolic, feel-good move for some that would royally skeeve off a lot of others, plus it raises 2nd Amendment issues. While we’re on the 2nd, that amendment is going NOWHERE as I see it (I don’t think even AOC thinks so), so a broader gun ban to really stop shootings just wouldn’t be legal. These would be considered “right” ideas.
Then there is the notion that the murder rate (in DC) is ~15 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the suicide/drug overdose death rate is ~45 per 100,000. People killing themselves is a bigger problem than people shooting each other, and may be lower hanging fruit to address. That’s pragmatic. Is it centrist or leftist or what? Who cares? Solve the problem!!
Also, Kansas elected a Democratic governor and Alabama elected a Democratic senator. I doubt either are “radical left”, but it isn’t what you’d expect.
Alabama was an unusual situation so I would consider Kansas to be the more significant victory. In other words, there may indeed be a shift toward the Democrats in Kansas but not likely in Alabama.
Oh I don’t know. Democrats are now favored over pedophiles by a 1% margin in Alabama. Used to be, NOTHING was worse than a Democrat. The times, they are a changin’
It’s a thought-provoking article. He suggests removing the word “deplorable” from the political vocabulary this cycle, spot on with part of the message of my OP. But I’d say the paragraph you quoted goes with the one I’m going to quote, at least in terms of the point I want to make.
Less about ideological purity, more about candidates’ personal qualities.
Let me talk about the fear inspired by this. Yeah, the Green New Deal, as presented, is pretty much DOA. Why is climate change being tied to Universal Basic Income again? Fine, point scored. Moving on to Medicare for all. It is going to be painted as a socialist takeover, and we’ll see how much the public really objects to it, but that one has become a fairly mainstream idea. Maybe it won’t carry the day, but it isn’t fringe anymore either, and attempts to paint it as such seem obvious. Taxing the wealthy? Again, maybe it won’t win, but that will be because maybe math can’t win in America, not because this is a fringe idea. Is 70 the right number? Maybe, maybe not. One shouldn’t gallop through the whole D agenda starting from the Green New Deal in an attempt to paint every point of it as loony fringe stuff.
The whole thrust of your quote, in the context of the pivot to candidates’ “personal qualities” instead of their positions or ideologies, seems like an effort to turn the Democrats’ primary deliberations into a concern for what Republicans will want or care about so as not to turn them away, pretty much the diametric opposite of the purpose of the Northern Strategy, which regards them as not reachable from the start. You can almost see the gears of the nefarious donor set turning, seeking a way to corrupt the Democratic platform into something that will benefit them instead of the public.
Is Emmanuel right? Well, if this message board is any indication (and who knows if it really is), the answer is no. I’ll cite my own recent interest in Tulsi Gabbard’s “personal qualities”. Yeah, she did seem to promote the right platform in my first impression of her. But what my impression was really about was her “star quality”. I found her to be the most charismatic candidate of them all, so far. She makes audience members cry, she hits notes of soldiering and selflessness and fighting for the minority, and she does it all with that special sauce quality… I’ve tried to make this case on this board over the last week, and it has been fully sincere, but dopers aren’t biting. They think she’s compromised, or untrustworthy. She has held bad positions in the past. One guy said he wished she’d get kicked out of the Democratic Party altogether, for being a homophobe, among other things.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe there are Democratic candidates who are compromised by the donor class or bad ideology or whatever and will betray the base if elected. I think Democrats and the public in general know what they want, and this time I don’t think they are going to want to temper their wishes to please a GOP minority. The point of the Northern Strategy is to more or less disregard the GOP on the grounds that, whatever the explanation, they are full of crap and can’t be reasoned with. IMHO nobody has better “personal qualities” than Tulsi Gabbard, and the Dems on this board are distinctly not interested. They don’t believe she will advance the agenda, “personal qualities” notwithstanding.
So, I attempt to refute your point thus. Good debate point though, thanks, it made me think.
No response from Wrenching Spanners. Anyone? We hear repeatedly that liberals presume high income earners are evil, but the claim strikes me as … exaggerated. Is it a FoxNews meme?
That’s a fair guess, inasmuch as the claim “liberals presume high income earners are evil” insults liberals. ‘Liberals are incapable of being fair’ and ‘liberals make foolish assumptions due to being stupid’ would be underlying assumptions that would be received by FoxNews viewers with gleeful agreement.
