Gavin Newsom addresses the nation

Paine said:
That wasn’t just callousness. That was a failure of emotional and political connection. People weren’t shown why this fight was their fight.
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1. I was there. You weren't.
2. Perception alone is a poor substitute for expertise. Our interpretation of events is not terribly reliable as a guide to actual reality.
3. Perception + memory is even worse. This was 30 years ago, and I don't think about it often. Could I have taken special note of a few interactions while letting the more anodyne ones fade? I'd say it's almost 100% that I have/did.
4. But still, let me have my anecdote, please? I'm never going to use anecdata to form my thoughts. I frequently use anecdotes to illustrate my points (incidentally, I do it precisely to reach people where they are, and I've found over the years that I'm quite good at it. If you need someone to organize law students or law professors, I'm definitely your guy. General public? Not so much). I don't need you to accept the message I'm trying to communicate with the anecdote; in fact, I don't want you to accept the message on that basis. It's poor grounds for truth claims.

But still, it's my anecdote and it's alienating to be told by someone who wasn't even alive that it wasn't X but it was Y. I thought it was X. I still think it was X. Don't invalidate my experience. Correct me on bad logic? Please do. Point out contradictions? Absolutely. Tell me that what I lived through was actually not happened? I mean, there are times when secondary perspectives are more accurate than primary ones. Maybe that's even the norm. So I don't necessarily have a problem with, let's say, a historian of Missouri telling me that I was seeing only a tiny sliver of the reality, or that I was misinterpreting what I saw. That might carry weight. But that's not you. Not yet anyway.
 
superrific said:
1. I was there. You weren't.
2. Perception alone is a poor substitute for expertise. Our interpretation of events is not terribly reliable as a guide to actual reality.
3. Perception + memory is even worse. This was 30 years ago, and I don't think about it often. Could I have taken special note of a few interactions while letting the more anodyne ones fade? I'd say it's almost 100% that I have/did.
4. But still, let me have my anecdote, please? I'm never going to use anecdata to form my thoughts. I frequently use anecdotes to illustrate my points (incidentally, I do it precisely to reach people where they are, and I've found over the years that I'm quite good at it. If you need someone to organize law students or law professors, I'm definitely your guy. General public? Not so much). I don't need you to accept the message I'm trying to communicate with the anecdote; in fact, I don't want you to accept the message on that basis. It's poor grounds for truth claims.
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I hear you, and I am not trying to dismiss your experience. I actually appreciate the detail and the context; it adds depth to this conversation. You are right that memory can be selective, but that does not mean it is not valuable. What I was trying to do was not to invalidate your anecdote but to offer a broader interpretation of what it might represent in the larger political landscape.

The fact that you encountered so many people saying “our healthcare is good, why change anything” reinforces the point I have been making. That sentiment did not come from nowhere. It came from a lack of political groundwork and emotional connection. It was not just stubbornness or selfishness; it was a gap in storytelling. If people do not feel that a policy touches their life or reflects their struggle, they will tune it out or resist it, even if the policy could help them. That is not a moral failing on their part. It is a failure of political communication.

I agree that anecdotes should not bear the whole weight of truth claims. I’m just saying I think it is fair for people who were not there to analyze the record, the messaging, and the outcomes, and to ask what we can learn from them. My point is not that your experience was wrong, but that the forces at work in that moment were bigger than any one conversation or interaction. And that what happened in the Clinton years, and later with Obamacare, should not make us more cautious, but more serious about how we marry bold policy to emotional clarity and movement-building.

I know we’re not going to agree on everything, but I’m trying to get at how we avoid the traps that keep repeating. One trap is overpromising without doing the work to build the support and trust needed to deliver. The other is playing it safe: offering only what feels manageable within the system, never fully engaging people’s real frustrations or hopes. Both leave people cold. The challenge is to build something that’s honest, ambitious, and emotionally resonant enough to break through.
 
donbosco said:
What if we as a nation are what the numbers say we are?
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I think about that too. There’s a real fear that maybe we are what the “numbers” say, and maybe the country doesn’t want what I hope it does.

But if that’s true, then resignation becomes the only option. I’m not ready to go there yet. I think history shows people can be moved. Not all, not always, but enough to matter. Maybe that’s naive, but giving up feels worse.
 
Paine said:
You’ve now repeated some version of this several times: that Democrats should not bother with right-leaning working-class voters specifically because they are too far gone; too bigoted, too irrational, too addicted to comforting lies. You hedge it with phrases like “shouldn’t give them special outreach” or “don’t exclude anyone at a philosophical level,” but the logic is clear: if someone doesn’t already fit within the moral parameters of the current Democratic coalition, they’re not worth investing in. That’s a strategy, whether you own it or not.

I think that’s a dangerous misread of where this country is politically and emotionally. Not because bigotry doesn’t exist, it obviously does, but because the real dividing line isn’t between “good people” and “bad people,” it’s between those who still feel seen by any political party and those who don’t. You’ve turned disconnection into a diagnosis of moral failure. But that gets it backwards. People don’t disconnect because they’re immoral. They disconnect because they no longer believe anyone in power gives a damn about them. And in that vacuum, yes, lies and scapegoating thrive.

The question is whether we leave that vacuum in place, or whether we offer something more powerful and real to take its place.

You say we should offer policies that improve people’s lives, good. I agree. But you then insist we shouldn’t reach out in ways that might actually persuade those people to believe that Democrats have their back. That’s a contradiction. Policies don’t sell themselves. People need to feel that the person offering help is on their side. That’s the basis of emotional trust, and, in politics, that trust is forged through stories, symbolism, presence, and yes, affective connection.

This goes deeper than one election cycle or one personality. The Democratic Party used to be the party of working people. Black and white, rural and urban, union and unemployed. It had its faults, but it spoke to people where they lived. It offered them a story about their lives that made sense. That connection has frayed, not just among the white working class, but among working people in general. If we don’t reckon with that loss and fight to rebuild it, then the only people left in the room will be the already converted, talking to each other while the country burns.

If the right can tell people a lie that feels emotionally true, the left has to learn to tell the truth in a way that feels just as powerful. Otherwise, we’re not serious about winning nor change.
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The truth is never as powerful as lies. It never has been nor will it ever be so. Once a person lapses into the willingness to accept comfortable lies as opposed to uncomfortable truths, they truly are beyond being reached. This has, at least, been my personal experience.
 
wmheel1287 said:
The truth is never as powerful as lies. It never has been nor will it ever be so. Once a person lapses into the willingness to accept comfortable lies as opposed to uncomfortable truths, they truly are beyond being reached. This has, at least, been my personal experience.
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I hear that. And honestly, I feel the pull of that despair too sometimes. It can feel like we’re living in a country that doesn’t want the truth.

But I don’t think the answer is to give up. Not on the idea that people can be moved, or that solidarity is still possible. Because if we believe they’re truly unreachable, then what’s left?

The truth might not be louder than the lies, but it can still be more durable. Especially when it’s tied to people’s real material lives: jobs, health, family, dignity. That’s what gives it weight and makes it stick.

Maybe we don’t reach everyone. But if we can reach some, enough to shift the story and build power, then it’s worth trying.
 
Paine said:
The fact that you encountered so many people saying “our healthcare is good, why change anything” reinforces the point I have been making. That sentiment did not come from nowhere. It came from a lack of political groundwork and emotional connection. It was not just stubbornness or selfishness; it was a gap in storytelling.
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Or racism and drained pool politics. Or selfishness.

You've been saying the same thing for the last 10 posts and I'm not adding all that much either. Kinda beat into the ground for now.
 
Paine said:
You’re still thinking about this in terms of surface-level messaging: “Did she say the words?” But emotional connection doesn’t work that way. It’s not about whether a candidate mentions working families, it’s about whether people feel that the message comes from a place of conviction, not calculation.

A convention speech isn’t enough. Most voters don’t even watch them. They build impressions over time through tone, body language, who you surround yourself with, and what fights you pick. Emotional connection is about resonance, not resume.

When Bernie said “the system is rigged,” it landed because people believed he believed it. It felt authentic. When most establishment Democrats say similar things, it feels like polling-driven ventriloquism. That doesn’t make them bad people, but it does mean the message doesn’t stick.

You’re asking: “Why didn’t these voters hear it?” The better question is: Why didn’t it land? The answer isn’t always prejudice. Sometimes people just don’t believe the messenger. That’s not their failure, it’s the political class’s failure to earn back trust.
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I stopped reading after your first paragraph. You’re comparing Harris to Trump. Give me a fucking break.
 
Zoo_View said:
Bernie was and is an AGED US Senator from a TINY state who has become a millionaire as a Congressman and Senator. Has he authored or enacted any major legislation in his career?

I lived in Vermont when he was an impoverished mayor.

Amazing how rich he’s become.
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And he is a shitty Senator. I worked for an ESOP in Vermont for 12 years. Bernie claims to be a big proponent of employee ownership, but he and his staff never came close to the offices of Patrick Leahy or Peter Welch (both of whom visited our factory) in offering support and advice on dealing with the specific technical issues faced by ESOPs. Bernie was always absent and his staff never returned calls. He is a fraud.
 
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