With enough inspiration from you and yours, anything is possible.
Ezra Klein agrees with Yglesias and goes a step further: The Democratic Party is in crisis:
Greg Sargent endorses that view as well:
Both were triggered by this Rory Cooper tweet:
Any hard evidence that doesn’t make us write this off as “correlation, not causation”?
I’ve got an easy explanation. Rage drives people to the polls. And every stupid asshole driven into seething hatred of Obama and liberals in general by the liars in RW media show up to vote every chance they get.
Many of those voting “R” think that Obama is pushing climate change legislation to literally destroy our economy. That he all but murdered the men at Benghazi, that he had the IRS target conservative groups, that the ACA is a “government takeover” of medicine, that Jade Helm was gonna take Texas, that Obama’s commin’ fer der gunnnnzzzzz!!1, that there are FEMA camps waiting to inter conservatives, and a million other stupid things that are shoved down their gullible throats by the RW media.
Of course people who believe that are pissed. Of course they’re showing up to vote. The RW media has created a situation where a lot of Americans think we’re on the brink of civil war and totalitarian take-over. They think that the vote is the last step before grabbing their guns and shouting, “WOLVERINES!”
Let us take that definition of ‘crisis’ and look at the implosion of the Republican primary primaries.
On the flip side… hell, I just voted for a Republican for mayor, but I’ll vote Democrat for house and senate. At the national level and the local level, very different things are at stake. Locally, I want an unimaginative bean counter. We don’t need a lot of innovation or social progress in garbage collection, and Republicans are great for that. But nationally, I want social progress, and republicans are always going to be the opposite of that.
If that was what most people were thinking, Democrats would control Congress. The President is more “bean counter” than social progress warrior. That’s Congress’ job.
This really seems more to me like the Democratic Party is catering to a base that doesn’t come out except for Presidential elections.
I agree with Yglesias; the Democrats are in serious trouble and don’t seem to realize it.
Part of it is overestimating Hillary’s chances in the general election; there appears to this delusional belief that she an overwhelming favorite whereas the evidence suggests that it’s even at best.
Part of it is overestimating the importance of the Presidency in general ; yes it’s the single most important post but cumulatively , state legislatures, governorships, and Congress are more important and the Republicans have a solid grip on them.
The emergence of Rubio as the front-runner is bad news for Democrats; he is going to be a formidable candidate in the general election and the possible combination of President Rubio and Speaker Ryan will be the most formidable that Republicans have had in generations.
A somber reflection or your fondest dreams?
Very much agreed that the Democratic Party needs to embrace an issue that can win back some of rural America … while not diminishing their strength in urban (and increasingly suburban as well) America in the process.
The advantage they have in Presidential elections is substantial but no lock but more so the GOP will continue to dominate Congress and state governments until they do.
I believe that income/wealth inequality and the hollowing out of the middle class are the issues to embrace most of all. Rural regions are having increasing poverty rates more than metro areas. And it plays out differently for those who have been that poor for generations and those who are experiencng a loss of status with decreasing hope of climbing back out.
Now mind you there has been some recent reversal in some regions due to the energy boom. But only some few areas and no one expects that to be a lasting solution.
Rural suicide rates are increasing.
Obama’s administration has taken steps to address rural issues but they have certainly not publicized it well.
For now the GOP has harnessed the discontent that those circumstances engender and directed it against the government (never mind that many of those angry benefit from a variety of government programs).
The Democratic Party has to offer them a more positive vision and path. One that is based on fairness, not on handouts, and that builds lasting pathways to better economic futures. They have to reintroduce and better fight for Rural Veterans Health Improvement Acts, such as this one introduced by Udall (D NM) and this one by Franken (D MN).
There are issues that the Democratic Party can rally behind, define as theirs, and work to force through Congress as best they can, that will resonate in rural districts. It has to be made a priority.
Has anyone linked to this Vox article yet? It offers a detailed and sobering analysis of why “Democrats really are in big trouble for the foreseeable future.”
John Judis has another post about how demographics aren’t actually likely to help Democrats. The most interesting stat was this one:
This is not completely surprising-the Hispanics eventually will go the way of the Irish and Italians even if the GOP’s current nativist tendencies may retard the process.
Especially since they many tend to identify as white. Liberals are being very helpful in this process by labelling George Zimmerman, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz as “white”. If they are white, the majority of Latinos are white and we’ll gladly take their votes.
They are white. What does that have to do with the question of whether they’re Hispanic?
Historically, marginalized groups have voted Democrat. When groups identify closer with the majority, which eventually happened with Irish and Italians, their voting behavior tends to become indistinguishable from the majority. If society regards light-skinned Latinos as white, and they regard themselves as white, then the fact that they also regard themselves as Latino will make about as much difference to their voting behavior as it does for Italian and Irish voters.
And I’d note that Cruz and Rubio are not all that light-skinned. If they are the current definition of white, then white voters will remain the vast majority heading into the next century. Which means Democrats better figure out how to win whites or else.
That’s completely untrue. Presidents have bean counters to work for them. But a President has to be about the “vision thing”–in a way that Congress, structurally, isn’t designed to be. A President can set an agenda, submit a budget, and create a coherent plan for the federal government. Congress has too many contradictory voices to do that very often.
The President is not a mere clerk.
Now, that said, coming from a part of the country where the Republicans can be weird ideologues, I don’t think the GOP is good at “unimaginative bean-counting,” either. For that, I’d put in a Democrat. But it may be different in other states, or in cities with strong mayor systems, or maybe HMS Irruncible is posting from somewhen in the last century.