Remedial voter education. Tell people who you are and what you really stand for, over and over and over. Do not allow the other guys to define you. I use the useful shorthand term “Democrat Party”, you know the guys who want to take away your guns and give them to Gay Muslims. Tell people who you are and what you REALLY stand for, every damn day if necessary. Because, as Susan Ivanova said, if you don’t others will do it for you.
Oftentimes the problem isn’t being defined by one’s opponent - it’s being defined by one’s embarrassing allies within one’s own ranks.
Here are a couple of points I haven’t seen yet made in this thread.
First, it doesn’t much matter what Democrats are doing, because corporate media isn’t covering it anyway. If there was a Democratic leader out there carrying a message, would you even hear it?
A couple of examples: When Congress was in recess while the health care debate was raging and Republican Congress persons decided to avoid town hall meetings in their jurisdictions, Democrats attended those town hall meetings instead. They made good inroads in explaining their support of Obamacare. Did you hear about it? (I thought this was a brilliant strategy, by the way.)
Democrats are organizing hard behind the scenes, drafting many new faces at all levels of government from the school boards on up. The number of new filings for Democrats making a serious bid for House of Representative seats in 2018 is jaw dropping. Have you heard about that?
Second, there’s something to be said for staying out of the line of fire while your opponents engage in a circular firing squad, as Republicans are presently doing. It gives Dems a lot of room to regroup and plan their strategies.
Third, I think Dems are hesitant because they’re afraid of jumping in the wrong direction. What happened in 2016 was a singular event. We don’t really know to what extent Russian interference played a role. We know voters were manipulated through false media. We don’t know if voting machines were tampered with, despite assertions they were not. We only have the administration’s word for it. We know people hated Hillary, and Bernie still plays a significant role… will they damage their own brand more by co-opting Bernie or marginalizing him? Who knows the answers to these questions?
The only thing they know for sure is that most Dems despise Trump with the heat of a thousand suns. Who best to carry their message? Someone white and old school, like Joe Biden? Someone new and fresh, like Kamala Harris? Someone middle of the road, like Sherrod Brown? Beats me.
My guess is Dems will focus on what’s in front of them for now. Namely, the mid-terms. See how those go, and then hopefully the mood of Democrats will make itself better known for their taste in presidential candidates. One thing Dems are sure of: They can’t afford to fuck up.
Also you can’t define yourself if no one believes you. Democrats have major credibility problems on certain issues, such as fossil fuels(for coal and oil state Dems), trade, and social issues(for red state Dems).
Seems to me that authenticity is pretty easy to figure out. Sanders and Biden have it. Clinton did not. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which candidates appear to be creatures of their handlers and strategists and which candidates are comfortable in their own skin.
It’s not the message, it’s the messenger(s). Dems don’t have anybody with the charismatic appeal to rally people around a message and to get out the vote. Motivating people to “Resist” is easy. Getting them off the couch to vote Dem is much much harder.
If progressives can’t get Michelle Obama to run (…and why would she?), can we at least get Gavin Newsom?
Charisma can get you an electoral win, doesn’t actually make change happen though. If you’re only goal is to beat Donald Trump and then lose everything again 4-8 years later after being obstructed the whole time, charisma will get you that.
That’s a problem that both parties have. I was referring to the unique problem of the Democrats in that they have a virtual industry devoted to trashing them (talk radio). Also, sometime during the Clinton administration the right realized that they could sell books, based, shall we say, on somewhat dubious scholarship, devoted to trashing the Clintons and make googobs of money doing so. The whole “Swift Boat” endeavor proved that it wasn’t a Clinton-specific thing and would work for any Democrat. And will continue to do so until people “wise up”.
Huh.
Something I hadn’t really thought through, before, but I’m curious: Barack Obama clearly had ‘it’. Like, whatever it was Hillary Clinton didn’t have, he had it.
And so, when the Democrats put somebody up against Trump in 2020 – well, I’m guessing that folks would love to see Obama get up there and speechify about what needs to be done. “Now, uh, let me be clear,” he’ll say, and break into a broad grin while telling everyone about how it’s not too late to do what’s best for ourselves and our communities and maybe even the whole world, if we’ll just listen to each other and get to work on some common-sense solutions with a new president.
You can picture that, right? I can picture the hell out of that. I figure he’d be a great asset to have campaigning for the candidate running against Trump. If you could get him stumping for you day and night, I figure you’d accept in a hurry.
So what I’m wondering is: would you want Hillary Clinton doing that for you?
In my time, American society has largely progressed during Democratic leadership and stagnated during Republican leadership.
The pendulum swings. Voters are fickle and poorly informed. GOP obstructs. Nothing new under the sun.
I don’t expect a charismatic and effective Dem leader to change this trend. I just expect him/her to continue to drag this nation forward while the GOP kicks, screams and obstructs.
Oh, hell no.
The future of the Democratic Party. Dare we hope?
Ideally disassociating themselves from Schumer, Clinton, and DWS and focusing more on bread and butter issues as well as doing their best to help unions regain strength, and reaching out to non-racist working class people.
Also, actually proposing ideas which help people of color would be a good thing. If a large scale community reinvestment program was started to help poorer neighborhoods, underfunded and undermanned schools, and other such blighted areas, it would help both people of color and poor whites. Maybe, just maybe, it would stop the drift of the latter to the GOP.
The Party doesn’t really know who it is the party of. Is it Clinton and his Third Wayism? Obama and his centrist compromise? Roosevelt and Liberalism?
They have a sort of brand identity crisis going on.
I’ve got nothing against Gillebrand and Harris and I think they definitely have a place in the democratic party. However, if they become the true faces of the democratic party, it would also possibly be viewed as doubling down on coastal cosmopolitan elitism, which is hurting the Democrats. The Democrats are running deeper and deeper into the cities when they need to be venturing out more into the hill country and bad lands. I’m not against elevating the profile of Gillebrand, Harris, and Booker, but there are still some Democrats who are surviving in Trump country and the party needs to give them some love, too.
In a certain sense, Democrats need to find a way to tell people what to do without being perceived as telling people what to do. Because many Democratic plans/proposals need society to behave or act a certain way, yet there is an innate human nature to rebel against being told what to do.
Perez said the Democrats should welcome anti-choice activists into the party. Pelosi said we should quit criticizing Trump. So in other words, they want to be Republicans.
I don’t have someone who claims to be anti-choice but makes certain exceptions, which used to be a mainstream Republican position and one that was a lot less offensive than what’s in their platform now. That a democrat goes against the grain on one single issue should NOT be a pass/fail political litmus test.
As for Trump, I disagree that we should stop criticizing him but the danger that the far left faces is falling into a trap in which all we end up doing is criticizing him and offering nothing in terms of policy or strategy. Just bashing Trump doesn’t make Democrats more attractive to voters. This is what Newt Gingrich understood very well as a minority whip in 1994. He went after the Clintons but he also developed the Contract with America, which was a simple platform of policies they intended to push for once they took over. I’m not sure what the Democrats have on their agenda but they’d better start huddling and figuring it out.
Pelosi did not say that Democrats should “should quit criticizing Trump”. She’s done plenty of criticizing of Trump herself. She said they should stop criticizing him personally. And Perez didn’t say the Democrats should welcome pro-life activists into the party. In fact, he said:
*
“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said in a statement. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”*
Harris and Gillibrand also have other problems. Harris was an uberpolitical AG and not very much of a straight talker, and Gillibrand was a Blue Dog as a representative and a liberal as a Senator. Who is the real Kristen Gillibrand? Presumably whatever is needed to win the Presidency, which as we now know, won’t win her the Presidency because voters see right through that shit now.
Biden and Sanders might be old, but they are authentic. Unless one of the young guns emerges as a real political force rather than just an attractive person on the cover of Time Magazinin who speaks 99% in platitudes and gobbledygook, the Democrats will find a way to lose to Trump. Or any other Republican for that matter.
Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. (I’ve been on vacation the past week.)
I really like the slogan “Fight for fairness” asahi Sure beats anything the Dems have come up with. Could mean whatever anyone wanted it to mean - fairness on economic or social matters.
Sorry to baffle you, septiomus. You cite what Dems proposed during the elections, but how well did those work out for them? And how long ago were the elections? Yeah, I know the incumbent party has the “bully pulpit.” I guess I’m just somewhat dismayed at what I perceive as a lack of voice for a minority position/proposals.
I also guess I’m expecting something our political/media systems are not suited to provide. To considerable practical extent, nothing matters until some set period prior to an election. I have often heard about Dems being slated at all levels, but haven’t really perceived any impact of that. Likely won’t until any elections. Haven’t heard of any Dem gains in any of the few elections since last November, tho.
I guess I’m wishing ta\hat in addition to battling Trump/Repubs (a huge job indeed), the Dems could present some reasonable, practical policy actions, rather than vague, problematic general platitudes.
And why have the Obamas been so silent these past many months? Is there any greater role they COULD have been playing?
Like I said, tho, I imagine a good portion of Americans are satisfied to simply ignore politics until the din of an upcoming election. And even then, too many will be content with spun aphorisms and platitudes. No reason to frustrate myself hoping for more.