I think it’s the exact opposite. There’s the “what’s in it for me?” factor.
If someone hates gays, lesbians, Muslims, Jews, black people or Hispanics, what does he get out of being nice to them? Nothing. There’s no particular reason - to him - why he should be nice, no matter how progressives may tell him he ought to.
On the other hand, if progressives make a strong convincing argument, “Hey, if you vote for us and get us elected, our policies may very well end up saving you $4,000 per year directly and indirectly - or boost your wages by a similar figure,” that gives the hater a real “what’s in it for me” incentive. Progressives need to run elections with the assumption that selfishness (or even honest respectable desire for gain) is one of the strongest natural human motivators, and appeal to it accordingly instead of appealing to altruism, which is mighty difficult.
Electorally the thing that really hurt the Dems was that they went through this very messy legislative process on Obamacare but they had the provisions kick in after 2010 (and for most of the big ones, after 2012), meanwhile the economy still sucked and healthcare still sucked by the time the 2010 elections came along. There was no tangible benefit that voters could see from the legislation, plus they didn’t have to be wrong about any negative thing they thought would happen. Not to mention if the economy sucks people are going to be more pessimistic in general.
The other thing was that in 2006 and 2008 the Republicans were so unpopular that actual Republicans voted Democrat. Once Bush was in the rearview those voters went back to voting Republican.
Right. 2010 was a rout of “moderate Dems” in seats that had relatively recently been “swing”. And to make it worse in the long term by 2010 many “moderate GOP” contenders in those states/districts had been displaced in primaries by Tea Partiers. (Remember them? MAGAs almost make them look like statesmen. Almost.).
(Also the 2010 and 2014 elections led to the observation that any coat-tail effect Obama might have, existed only when HE was on the ballot. Which is unfair since as we’ve seen, people tend to just pass on the Midterms no matter who’s up.)
Sadly true. Even the average politician seems to have a pretty shaky grasp. And even economists don’t know how to avoid recessions and/or stagnation to get a successful and growing economy.
Agreed. If you want people to vote for you, you need to tell them how you’re going to make their lives better.
in the 1970s, about 81% of Americans identified as white christians. The other 19% of Americans were either white non-christians, or POC.
In 2025, its closer to 40% of Americans who are white christians. About 1/3 of whites aren’t christian, and about 40% of America is POC.
Among Gen Z, only 27% identify as white christians.
White christians are full of rage that they aren’t the default american anymore, and they want revenge on out-groups, and they want to reestablish themselves at the default Americans.
White christians are now a minority group, but because of their higher voter turnout, they still have meaningful power in politics.
Also white christians are terrified that now that they are the mirnority, they will be treated the same way they treat minorities. They’re scared they’ll be treated the way they treat feminists, gays, POC, immigrants, etc.
When you understand that, modern politics makes more sense.
The Democratic party started as the party of the common, blue collar worker and is meant to be the one that’s championing unions, socialist projects, etc.
The leadership of the party, however, is comprised of largely affluent dweebs and hippies living off inherited money. They don’t understand and probably wouldn’t like most of the people who have voted Democratic for the last 50 years.
Getting to know and understand the average Democrat, and fight for them, would require forming a connection to them. The ability to be the Great White Savior quickly falls apart when you go to meet the people you’re saving and find that, 1) they’re largely white, and 2) more closely aligned to MAGA than to you. And, ergo, the average Democratic champion avoids ever doing just that thing and just hopes that if they throw enough money in that general direction that the issue will resolve itself.
First, if that was true then the Democrats would be incapable of winning a single election since the majority of their base would just vote Republican. And then kill the remainder.
And second, if that’s true we might as well give up, since if most of the population are bigoted fascists there’s no way non-fascists will ever be in office again.
Of course, in actuality it started as the Southern White Racist party, which only changed when the Southern Democrats switched to being Republicans instead.
If you start with the assumption that helping the “common” man must be at odds with helping POC, etc then you’ll always arrive back at MAGA. Whenever you see "blue collar " or “common” or "real Americans " you need to preface it with White blue collar to understand who they want to fight for.
An insightful conservative poster here once posted:
They see it as a zero sum game and by definition, minorities are NOT the “common man” they are of course the abberant “other” who must be controlled not helped.
Only because in the US phrases like “common man” or “working class” are almost always dog whistles for “white male Christian racists”. And of course helping white male Christian racists is by nature going to be at odds with helping anyone else.
But today, about two-thirds of adults are Christians.6 The change in America’s religious composition is largely the result of large numbers of adults switching out of the religion in which they were raised to become religiously unaffiliated.
That is a mighty wide brush you are tarring with. Only 25% or so of Americans are evangelicals, slightly less than half of all white protestants. Most American Christians arent bigots. I would guess that maybe less 25% of SDMBers are atheists or similars- so is it okay if I assume they all are?
Most White evangelicals (72%) say they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president. White nonevangelical Protestants and White Catholics are much more divided, with 51% in each group approving of the job Trump is doing.
This goes both ways. In most cases, bread and butter economic issues make more difference to POC and other minorities than measures specifically targeted at them like DEI, which only help a small number of people. Almost all the issues that affect blue collar whites also affect blue collar POCs, and both groups are more conservative than the college educated elite who largely control the Democratic party. That’s why MAGA was able to appeal to a large number of Hispanic and Asian voters, and Trump increased his vote share in these groups. Dems need to remember that they are more similar than different, and likely to become more so in the future.
In your zeal to blame DEI for everything, you missed the point. You can’t sell bread and butter economic policies like the Democrats want because they don’t exclude non-whites. Republicans aren’t selling feasible bread and butter economic policies for a good reason.
As we’ve seen, “DEI” means “treating anyone but right wing white Christian males as citizens”. Doing anything other than ensuring that “POC and other minorities” stay poor and powerless is “DEI”. Those non-white male people who voted for Trump and the Republicans were voting for their own persecution, whatever lies they told themselves.
I think this is a great point. Some rich kid who attended Oberlin or Berkeley and was surrounded by 80% liberal peers in college is going to have very, very little in common with an oil worker in North Dakota or a steel-mill worker in Pennsylvania. But the rich kid is likely to have much more influence within the Democratic Party, now and in the future.