I don't think that Dems should try to win over right-wing voters in any scale because I think it's largely a fool's errand...those voters aren't up for grabs unless the Democratic Party is willing to start trading in bigotry and marginalization of minorities. I see very little to suggest that Dems could successfully court these voters without giving up the soul of the party by essentially abandoning the minority groups that currently make up the core of Dem support. While I think these voters are motivated by economic concerns, I don't think they're (a) open to realistic economic solutions and (b) willing to prioritize realistic economic solutions over oppressing minorities. I'm all for expanding the potential voter base for the Dems, but I don't think you get there by reaching out to right-wing voters. These voters have made it clear what they prioritize and it is anathema to my view of America.
If Dems are to expand the potential voter baser for the party, it almost certainly has to come from disengaged folks who don't vote but who can be convinced to do so because they believe that Dems offer a solution for the problems we're facing. I don't see a future in trying to convince folks who want to go back to the 1950s (or 1850s) that the Dems have anything to offer them.
I have not shifted what I mean by "connection", because until my last post I had not defined it. You read connection as "a deep, emotional, two-way bond" because that's what you desire from a politican, not becuase of anything I said. Vance doesn't connect with voters because he doesn't motivate them to actually support him or to go to the polls. The most he can offer them is to tell them what they want to hear and they like it...but that's as far as it goes. Trump has connection with the base because he can motivate them to act...he gets them to rallies, he gets them to the polls, and he gets them purchase all sorts of stupid shit.
Again, I've made essentially no statement on how Dems should go about rebuilding as a party into one that can win elections at the national level (POTUS + Congressional majorities) as it's not a discussion I'm interested in at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should learn the wrong lessons from Pubs and end up chasing voter blocks and messages that benefit neither the party nor the country.
You say you had not defined what you meant by “connection” until your last post, as if that frees you from the entire frame this conversation has been operating in. But come on. The discussion around Newsom was clearly centered on the emotional and affective connection candidates have, or fail to have, with voters. It was about how someone like Newsom comes across to disaffected people, not simply how many people show up to vote for him or buy his merch.
If you were not talking about emotional connection, then why enter a conversation where that was the central focus and only now, several posts in, claim you meant something else entirely? That is not clarifying.
Your earlier comments clearly relied on an implied definition: mocking Vance for being inauthentic, calling him a muppet, and saying that “connection implies a two-way relationship.” That wasn’t nothing. You were drawing on a moral and emotional framework, the same one I was engaging in good faith. But now that I’ve pushed you to clarify and defend it, you’ve retreated to a totally different definition: connection as mere voter turnout. That shift allows you to dismiss Vance as disconnected while preserving Trump as a kind of outlier, without grappling with the emotional mechanisms that fuel both of them. It’s not that you haven’t defined connection, it’s that you’re switching definitions when the conversation gets inconvenient.
You also try to reframe my argument as being about what I personally desire from a politician. But this is not just some private preference I made up. Emotional connection, the ability to tell a story, to resonate, to build symbolic trust, has always been central to modern politics. Reagan had it. Trump has it. Obama had it, though in a very different register. The issue with Newsom is that he lacks it. He does not seem like he has lived the things he is talking about. And in today’s environment, how a politician makes people feel is not a minor concern. It becomes a signal for whose side they are actually on.
At any rate, your new definition of connection as “gets people to the polls” is a shallow and reductive way of understanding political appeal. It is not even internally consistent. You say Vance does not connect, yet he won a statewide race in Ohio. He did that while running on populist aesthetics and cultural grievance. You admit that Trump motivates people to act, but then pretend that this is not because of emotional connection. Of course it is. People buy into Trump because they feel, whether rightly or wrongly, that he understands them, that he shares their enemies, that he speaks from the gut. That is not just a turnout operation. That is myth-making.
You can’t have it both ways. The moment you say Democrats shouldn’t try to reach certain voters, you’re offering a strategy. You say we should not try to reach out to right-wing or working-class voters in any way that might challenge the current liberal moral framework. That is a strategy. It is a strategy based on exclusion. It assumes that large parts of the electorate, including former Democrats, are beyond redemption. If you are going to argue for that position, then at least own it. Do not pretend you are simply observing from the sidelines.
You’re trying to strip the whole concept of “connection” of any meaning by shifting between affective, symbolic, and mechanical models of “connection” while accusing me of muddying the waters. Then you turn around and declare that we should not bother with voters who are alienated from the Democratic Party unless they already accept the entire moral framing of professional-class liberalism. This is the same rhetorical move you made last night. You cloud the terms of the debate, redefine the topic, then claim that the other side is just confused.
Truth is, millions of Americans are politically homeless. They are alienated from both parties. Not all of them are unreachable racists. Many are disillusioned, cynical, struggling, and desperate for something real. If Democrats want to win again, especially in the places where they have been bleeding support for years, they need candidates who come across as genuine. Not because we are abandoning our values, but because we are showing people that we actually believe in them. That requires emotional trust, not just a policy menu or a polished speech. Without that, there is no connection at all.
