…Aren’t you the person who said this?
If the Democrats focused on reminding Democrats that voting in elections is a good idea, that would be useful.
Well first off Trump has zero chance of making America great again. If anything the people who supported him are going to be worse off. He will also be the “stay the course” candidate vs the change Democrat. Another difference is that the angry vs disillusioned sides will also be switched. What they need to do is run a campaign about what they are going to do for the voter instead of how awful the other guy is.
Yes I am but I also believe in retribution. Millions of people are going to lose their health insurance, unfortunately many of them voted for Hillary. Tens if not hundreds of thousands are going to die in needless wars with neocons in ascendancy. People will have to feel the pain of the consequences of their votes in order to learn how to vote in their own self interest.
Replicating the GOP’s strategy of obstructionism won’t work by itself. It doesn’t motivate Democratic voters the same way it does with Republicans.
It’s going to take patience. Voters have to find out for themselves that Trump hasn’t made their lives better. But it will also take inspiring candidates who motivate voters and have convincing plans for bringing jobs back. It’s less about demographics than it is about offering voters a sweeter-smelling alternative to the stink coming from the White House swamp.
Someone who storms in as a no-holds-barred reformer, promising to attack corruption at its roots, may attract some broader support (I hope)…
If they remember they lost the white working class some elections ago it might be a start.
They’ve been had, haven’t they? The good jobs aren’t coming back, for the most part. And if they do, they will offered by people who’s notion of a balance between labor and management is a boss who says “Here it is, take it or go fuck yourself, we don’t care, we don’t have to.”
When their brother calls to beg money for medicine for their niece, with the pre-existing condition, they’ll catch on. And when they have to say “No” because they have no choice. When the standard of living in the richest country in the world sucks ass compared to a second-tier “socialist hellhole”, because they take care of their own, and we don’t.
With luck, it may not get that far. It would require that Pestilence-elect Trump make his administration the most despised in history. They’re working on that, plus they are greedy and stupid. So, help where you can, help who you can, and hold fast. Life is change, how it differs from the rocks…
Honestly, the most important thing for Dems to do is not over-interpret the results. This was a grievous loss, but it was not a blowout, given Clinton’s clear popular-vote victory and razor-thin margins in several swing states. I think the main lesson is not to take for granted the so-called “blue wall,” which turned out to be pretty porous after all. The campaign completely neglected WI and under-campaigned in PA and MI; even with the Comey bombshell, the races in these states were tight. More attention there and less in Arizona and what not, and HRC might well have pulled it out.
By all means, let’s review our tactics to make sure we’re more effectively communicating to those who could benefit from (and be receptive to) our ideas. But the soul-searching is going way overboard.
What the Democrats need to do is to try and bully and shame anybody who doesn’t agree with their agenda. Call them stupid, sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, nationalistic, and out of touch with the modern world. Whenever possible use as many media people as possible to make fun of the blue collar voters beliefs. Nothing makes an out of work person want to vote for someone than a rich movie star telling them to. If there is a controversial issue, ALWAYS take the side that would have turned the average grandparents stomach 20 years ago. The Democratic candidate should also make sure that he or she subtlely lets it be known that they are smarter than the average voter. Be sure to get the news media to back this up. The recipe for success.
What should the Dems plan of attack be for 2020?
Run a candidate who has not spent the last 24 years continually doing things that erode the public’s trust in him/her. Seriously, I supported HRC unconditionally, but I think it’s time to stop acting like the Dems lost for reasons that were any bigger than her. There’s not going to be a Never Warren/Booker/Klobuchar/Gillibrand/etc. movement in 2020.
Calling racists, homophobes and bigots what they are is not the problem. The fact that they are bigoted racist and homophobic is. We don’t have to pretend some things have two equal and valid view points just to spare the feelings of racists bigots and homophobes.
Although I suppose next time it might be good strategy to not create the narrative of a particular candidate being the frontrunner so early on that they can still clinch the nomination despite being caught in a major scandal nearly a year before the 2020 primaries begin.
Indeed. Both parties would have been better served to have each others’ rules. Republicans could have used superdelegates, Democrats would have been better off without them. In 2020, I don’t see anyone clearing the field before the race like Hillary did this time.
I’m thinking that by 2020, the situation will have changed so much, very little of what we’re thinking now is going to be relevant. How much, how loudly, and how often will Trump bugger the chihuahua? That’s the determining factor of our impending politics.
Exactly, and this post 2000 trend where the nominee is almost always the runner up in their party’s last primary always seems to backfire. It resulted in the GOP running a Bush clone in 2008, when there was a huge Bush backlash, it ended up with them running an GOP establishment 1 percenter in 2012, when the political climate reflected a great deal of dissatisfaction with the status quo, coupled with economic anxiety among the poor and working class, and now it caused the Dems to nominate a candidate with too much baggage to defeat a racist lunatic.
Agreed: No “predestined” “safe bet” candidate. That has got to stop. None of the succesful Democrat candidates for President for a generation started out the “predestined” one nor as the “safe bet”.
Do an evaluation of the DNC and factional-movement apparats and ask the people in there: are you here to elect Democrats, or are you here to make others bend to you, or to prove a point about how you were right all along and everyone else was full of it?
And both organization and personal candidates: run to win. Don’t run Not To Lose. You do NOT start having already won, you can’t beat something with nothing even if the “something” is really daft… and running on “we’re not these terrible persons” is running on nothing. If the policy that fixes some Trum Admin f**k-up is “Liberal” then so be it.
Do NOT despair of the upper midwest WWC, you needed to offer them something worth going out to vote for, not against, and you did not: you can get back in their good grace. But, HOWEVER at the same time do not turn your back at where you are growing: it is *not *wrong to pay attention to the millenials and the urbanites and the minorities, you cannot take them for granted.
It is possible to do both, it used to happen all the time.
Yes DO push for an overtly partisan Democrat/Liberal mediasphere. But for cryin’ out loud one that is interesting and entertaining, not didactic. Get yourselves some bored Albanian sysadmins to create trending clickbait if you have to.
indeed. The state-level strategy has to start in 2018. With many state chambers running on 2-year terms it also gives you time to make adjustments and corrections for 2020.
IIRC that was one of the big problems coming up to the 2010 election, the Democrats in conservative states/districts were vulnerable and a lot of them tried all they could to back away from the Democrat platform, some were major contributors in watering down the ACA into the half-baked good-for-insurers form we finally got. And it did not do them a damn bit of good and they got nuked anyway. FWIW, even moderate and “old conservative” Republicans got slammed in their primaries at the same time.
However, absent a certain presence at POTUS, can red state democrats actually gain respect (and maybe even votes) by *being *a proper opposition, as opposed to either cravenly rolling over or throwing tantrums? It’s a fascinating point to ponder.
They’ve done that and they’ve even manipulated the system to attempt to increase turnout. A better strategy might be appealing to the electorate that actually exists.
I’d run Mark Cuban.
A bit fuzzy here, on what exactly “…manipulated the system to attempt to increase turnout…” means.