If someone here called you a “condescending hack with nothing new to say” and then added, “hey, others are thinking it too,” would you feel like that was a good-faith move?
You say I’ve invalidated your experience. I haven’t. I’ve challenged your conclusions. That’s not the same thing. If that feels threatening, I’d suggest that says more about the level of insulation in many liberal spaces than about my tone.
You tell me I’m repeating myself, but what I’m saying resonates with many readers, both in public replies and quiet DMs. The thread is still going because the questions I’m raising clearly tap into something unresolved. You might be tired of the conversation, but again, your fatigue is not an argument.
As for your historical points: I know about the Great Society. And yes, it was a high point for universalist messaging. But Democrats didn’t lose because they passed Medicare. They lost because they failed to sustain the emotional and institutional ground needed to hold that coalition together, especially when the right countered with culture war, racial division, and a narrative of resentment. That’s exactly the terrain I’m saying Democrats still haven’t learned to navigate.
You asked me to show curiosity about your experience. Fair enough. But maybe extend a little in return. I don’t need an introduction to the Great Society: I’m asking why Democrats haven’t built anything like it since. And why, when that legacy is invoked, it’s often to shut down critique rather than to rekindle its spirit.
And that’s the point: I’m not claiming what I’m proposing has never been imagined. I’m saying the party hasn’t consistently fought for it; not with coherence, not with emotional resonance, not with strategic clarity. Not in a generation.
I know the problem isn’t simple. I’ve said repeatedly that bias, cultural grievance, and fear of inclusion are real barriers. But naming those barriers is not the same as accepting them as immovable. You conclude that solidarity failed because people didn’t want it. I conclude that the attempt was real but incomplete, and that the only alternative to trying again is accepting permanent minority rule.
If you’ve truly given up on reaching disaffected voters, just say so. But don’t attack others for refusing to do the same.
1. You haven't really accepted that they are conclusions rather than biases. That's the problem. When you use language like, "just slap a label on them and be done with it," that is disrespectful. It just is. It's a caricature and it's based on nothing. I have no issues being challenged. It's not as if I've avoided these discussions with you. What I hear, time and again, is a slightly longer version of "you're just out of touch." Or, as you're putting it in this post, just giving up. Caricature is not respectful.
I try very hard not to caricature you, and to argue against what you're actually saying. I might not be perfect in that regard, but I think I'm pretty good. you might note how often I defend your positions against critiques that, in my view, miss the mark. Because ultimately we want the same things, including a commitment to truth. That's not the same as a commitment to agreeing on everything. That's not required. The distortions and caricatures are simply unnecessary.
2. I wouldn't have thought you needed an introduction to the Great Society, but you've been saying repeatedly that you want to do something the Dems have never done before. Those were your words, not mine. I didn't make you write that. Take responsibility for what you write. It's OK if you were sloppy but acknowledge it instead of continuing to double, triple, quintuple down. I can't tell you how many times I've read that exact thought from you: "Dems have never tried this, the closest they came was Bernie."
3. You are wrong that the party didn't fight for it. That was the 1970s politics in a nutshell -- that and inflation/gas prices. We abandoned it because we got our clocks cleaned throughout the 1980s (a period of time for which you theories struggle to explain). Jimmy Carter appointed more black judges in his one term, I think, than all Republicans have appointed in the entire history of their party. There are so many court cases from the 1970s about busing and affirmative action. And note: a lot of the most contentious legal fights were about integrating labor unions.
The reality is that segregation and racism fucked up our country to the point where measures like busing and affirmative action were necessary for desegregation to be meaningful. Courts didn't want to order busing, but it was the only way to combat the bullshit school district rezoning that was going on everywhere to avoid integration. The busing was extremely unpopular; most of it was ended; and that was a catalyst for the right. But what would you have us do? Let them get around Brown v Board by drawing school district lines?
If you can't grapple with that history, then your prescriptions don't mean much. I have seen little evidence that you have reckoned with that problem. Now maybe the 1970s was a bad time to do complete desegregation and today there would be more interracial cooperation. It's not impossible. If you want to make that your project, go for it. I'm supportive. I'd donate to the cause. Just don't tell me that we've never tried it. Just don't tell me that we gave up on it because donor class. It was an agenda that died on the vine because it was extremely unpopular, because material interests have never been the only or even the primary story of American history.
4. I'm not given up on reaching disaffected voters. You should know that. Who else is providing creative thoughts like media shows or reintroducing religion Warnock-style. You've embraced some of those things. The closing to Warnock's DNC speech was exactly what you're talking about. It was a universalist message of solidarity. That's what made it so resonant for me -- I've watched it a dozen times and I still get goosebumps.
But nobody else has been talking about it -- not at the time and not now. That's part of your point, and it's valid (you might also note how frequently I give credit where it's due, even in argumentative discussions).
At the same time, discretion is the better part of valor. You seem to want to fight old battles, at least to some extent. Battles that we lost. And fine, maybe we can fight them again. Maybe we could win this time. I'm open to all of that -- but you will fail if you don't learn the lessons from the past. If you can't understand why the Democrats became the DNC, then you will be about as successful as the Democrats were in the 1980s. It wasn't donors. They came later. It was the 1980 election, 1984 and especially 1988. Those weren't Trump "blowouts." They were real blowouts. We got our asses kicked up and down, every which way. There was a need for reinvention, and the DNC was the way to go.
This also gets to some of the criticisms of Bill Clinton by younger progressives. Sure, Clinton's presidency didn't live up to its potential for a number of reasons. Let's assume for argument that those flaws were perfectly evident in 1992. So why did people like me go with it? BECAUSE WE WERE TIRED OF LOSING. You've never lived through a losing streak like that. You think Trump-Biden-Trump is bad? What about Reagan-Reagan-Bush-almost Bush again until the conventions that year?
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