Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities

[Lando]

Remember when people used to claim that Democrats should just drop the abortion thing because then there wouldn't be anything to animate Republican culture warriors and Democrats would dominate? How's that going?

 

[rodoheel]

We’ve tried having this conversation on the board and most posters don’t want to hear it or have it. I fear they are representative of the party as a whole, unfortunately. The DNC chair race shows that the party isn’t interested in taking a hard look in the mirror.

Huh? We have had this conversation plenty. We have had long discussions on this topic. Does everyone's memory only go back like two weeks?

 

[BillOfRights]

Gift link

Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities

A poll from The New York Times and Ipsos found that Americans believe abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. issues and climate change concern Democrats more than the cost of living.

www.nytimes.com

Many Americans say they do not believe the Democratic Party is focused on the economic issues that matter most to them and is instead placing too much emphasis on social issues that they consider less urgent.

Asked to identify the Democratic Party’s most important priorities, Americans most often listed abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and climate change, according to a poll from The New York Times and Ipsos conducted from Jan. 2 to 10.

The issues that people cited as most important to them personally were the economy and inflation, health care and immigration, the poll found. The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years ranked much lower.

As Democrats gather in Washington this weekend to elect the next chairman of their party, and debate how to most effectively counter the Trump administration, the latest public opinion surveys contain worrisome signs for them.

The country remains deeply divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership, with roughly equal shares of people saying that his second term is cause for celebration or concern.

But the poll suggests that people do not view the Democratic Party as an appealing alternative.

In a broad sense, the poll, which surveyed a representative sample of 2,128 adults nationwide, found that Americans think the Republican Party is more in sync with the mood of the country. The issues that people said mattered most to Republicans were also, for the most part, the issues that mattered to them: immigration, the economy, inflation and taxes.

People are often uninformed and/or misinformed, and people are also liars, too.

"The issues that people cited as most important to them personally were the economy and inflation, health care and immigration, the poll found. The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years ranked much lower."

The economy consistently performs better with Democratic Presidents, and even better for those not in the top 1%, although the top 1% often does better with Democratic administrations. Democrats clearly and consistently have better healthcare policies with more insurance coverage and lower prices, and the Biden administration helped create the most effective bipartisan immigration legislation in decades. People, when not told which party supports certain policies, almost always choose policies backed by Democrats.

 

[CFordUNC]

You are talking about a gym where they have about 100 blaring indicators that the people in there are, in fact, MAGA. And yet your conclusion is that these are the reachable moderates, not the MAGA guys? The reachable moderates are not the people with "back the blue" flags, the Gadsden flag, and a TV playing Fox News constantly in the gym.

I'm not going to defend many things about the Democratic party strategically, and it's absolutely true that Dems need to "get a whole lot better at talking to average, non-college-educated Jimmy's and Joe's about how their economic policies are significantly better for the lower and middle classes and blue collar workers," but the idea that Dems are going to be getting back the Gadsden Flag guys hanging out in a local gym just by talking more about unions and the rising price of healthcare is not realistic, IMO.

You might be right, but my point is that I have enjoyable conversations with every single one of those guys when we could easily just not talk to one another knowing that we are on different political teams. I don't think guys like this are unreachable. I think more than anything else they care about the same things most average people care about: paying the bills, paying the mortgage, buying groceries, and providing for their families and children. For whatever reason- and my guess is that it is predominately due to a lack of exposure to higher education as well as to right wing media bullshit- these fellas think that Democrats spend all of their time advocating for sex changes on prisoners and no time at all on trying to make government work, and life more affordable, for the everyday person. They have no idea that when Democrats are in power, their economic lives are much, much better, and when Republicans are in power, their lives get a hell of a lot more expensive. If and when Democrats figure out a way to talk to these guys about the stuff they care about the economic issues they care about the most, I don't think they're unreachable. I don't think most people are unreachable, as a matter of fact. And I certainly don't think that just because they work out at a gym with Back the Blue and Don't Tread On Me flags that they should just be surrendered to the Republican Party forever.

 

[CFordUNC]

Out of curiosity, what’s the racial breakdown of this gym?

Mostly white, to be sure, but there are a handful of Black men and women, and at least a couple of Latino women, who I see there as regulars.

 

[superrific]

I think the message board mode of communication doesn’t lend itself well towards complex understandings of a particular person’s political philosophy and ideology. I’m not that interested in trying to communicate it via this method either.

At least part of this has been because of poor communication on my part, but I think there is also a segment of posters who assume things about me because of the labels I use. Weirdly, it tends to be liberals who don’t give me the benefit of the doubt.

I’ve criticized Sanders on this message board for his use of democratic socialist. He ran an unserious campaign in 2016 in part because he thought he’d just be a message candidate. He’s idealistic, like me, and put his commitment to his ideology over political practice in praising Ortega and Castro.

Again, it’s hard to discuss this on this medium for me. Loosely, my politics derive from my belief in universal human rights. This is a belief borne out of liberalism. I came to socialism through this belief in liberalism, which confuses a lot of liberals due to the longtime association of socialism with Stalinism and Maoism.

I don’t take Marxism as some kind of orthodoxy than we can’t stray from or some kind of religious text. I especially don’t believe this when it comes to the politics of Western democracies. Nor do I think that culture is irrelevant. The mistake you make is in having not examined the evolution of Marxist thought, which has incorporated the cultural turn and can exist alongside the revelations there.

Hope that helps position my thought more clearly, though I doubt it will.

1. I must have missed the part where you have characterized Bernie as unserious. I'm not saying it's not there. I've just not seen it. I have seen you laud Bernie's messaging skills and talk about how he would have won in 2016 (which is weird given your characterization of that campaign as unserious, but you might mean 2020, not 2016). If you agree that no Dem should ever speak well of Castro or any other "scary leftist" (a category that includes some real scary leftists, like Maduro, and some not-so-scary leftists that will get lumped into that category by a population that has trouble identifying any countries on a map), that's good. I'm not sure where to draw the "scary leftist" line. I think Lula is on the right side of that line.

2. Yes, it is a bit weird to see someone attracted to socialism or Marxism as a result of commitment to human rights, but I have to be fair: it's 2025, not 1975. Being "marxist" today is not to be Stalinist or Maoist. There's a separate question as to whether Marxism can actually get you where you want to go, but that's not for this thread.

3. Trust me, I've examined the evolution of Marxist thought. I've been reading Frankfurt School since before you were born. Gramsci is old hat. I lived through the Marxist culture wars of the 1990s.

In assessing your views, I have been drawing on statements you made about yourself. If those statements haven't been perfectly accurate, or if I read too much into them, OK. I rarely hold one's past disavowed positions against a person for several reasons. First, who cares what they believed if they don't any more (this isn't always true, but usually). Second, it leads to useless fights about what that person did believe, and/or who is responsible for the miscommunication or misunderstanding. Third, it quickly becomes self-parody, like Life of Brian.

So if I've been misunderstanding your position on culture and politics, thank you for clarifying. I don't care if I misunderstood or you miscommunicated or both or neither. Please keep in mind that I'm twice your age, which means I don't remember stuff quite as well as I used to, especially given how many posters there are here. It's hard for me to keep everyone straight. I know, it will shock you, but I've never been a people person. A people-caring person, 100%. But my brain is more organized around ideas than sociality.

Point is, if in the future, I've misstated your views, just say that. "Didn't we have this discussion before." And then try not to be too judgmental or impart to me allegations of bad faith. I do my best. Of all the things one might accuse me of, bad faith fits least. And I should also note that I'm probably the most frequently mischaracterized or misunderstood poster here.

4. Liberals don't give always leftists the benefit of the doubt, because we've been scarred. We see them as unreliable allies, which frequently they are. See, e.g., Rashida Tlaib and "uncommitted." You don't have to answer for the Naderites, given that you were an infant. But I would hope young people could at least respect that old-timers have PTSD about lefitsts wrecking what we've been trying to do, which is pretty much defeating the ignorance and hate machine that has been the GOP for some time.

5. Also recognize that the financial crisis of 2008 was a defining event for many older people. When I started teaching, the financial crisis was front and center in everyone's minds. When I was finishing teaching, most of my students generally had an idea of what it was and why it was bad (and typically wanted to know more about it), but it wasn't formative for them. It's been almost 20 years now. The average law student was maybe 10 when it went down.

And there was a LOT of scarring there, because the left fucking went berserk about TARP. Yes, it sucked. Dems followed it up with Dodd-Frank, which was supposed to make future TARP's unnecessary. But TARP was needed to prevent the world from spiraling into a Great Depression. (Technically TARP was a Bush production but Dems voted for it in Congress and Obama continued the approach). And the housing crisis was not actually Dems' fault. It actually had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall. Liberals were trying to save the world, while leftists were singing songs in tents near Wall Street.

Then the left spiraled into the "TPP is TERRIBLE even though none of us can tell you anything about it" mode, and that hurt HRC in 2016, and it was all so frustrating because the young leftists were barely more informed on the issue than the MAGAs.

You don't have to answer for any of that, but we lived it and to some extent still are. And we're going to view the world according to our experiences. We don't trust the left. That's a reality and it's incumbent upon the left to at least participate in bridge-building, which they have not been doing so well. There are exceptions (e.g. AOC) but there's still too much antagonism on our left flank.

 

[MendotoManteo]

You might be right, but my point is that I have enjoyable conversations with every single one of those guys when we could easily just not talk to one another knowing that we are on different political teams. I don't think guys like this are unreachable. I think more than anything else they care about the same things most average people care about: paying the bills, paying the mortgage, buying groceries, and providing for their families and children. For whatever reason- and my guess is that it is predominately due to a lack of exposure to higher education as well as to right wing media bullshit- these fellas think that Democrats spend all of their time advocating for sex changes on prisoners and no time at all on trying to make government work, and life more affordable, for the everyday person. They have no idea that when Democrats are in power, their economic lives are much, much better, and when Republicans are in power, their lives get a hell of a lot more expensive. If and when Democrats figure out a way to talk to these guys about the stuff they care about the economic issues they care about the most, I don't think they're unreachable. I don't think most people are unreachable, as a matter of fact. And I certainly don't think that just because they work out at a gym with Back the Blue and Don't Tread On Me flags that they should just be surrendered to the Republican Party forever.

While I agree with Rodo, I see your point. I've often wondered the same when going back home and visiting with family and my best friend (big MAGA). They're not evil people, obviously. Just people. But they will not be changed, by and large. The only feasible path is if you could somehow extract them from that environment (the broader culture, not the gym) for a sufficient amount of time. Unfortunately, this will not happen.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

I agree with pretty much all of this, but I do think Dems have had a hard time handling the tech bro migration to the Pubs because Dems have been so all in on Silicon Valley for so long, even after it became clear unregulated social media and the consolidation of wealth among tech billionaires is extremely damaging to the country. Biden was really the first mainstream Dem to push back hard on those alliances. The tech bros responded by seeing if Trump was an easier mark, and of course he was. And that happened so fast and was so impactful to this last election that Dems are still struggling to figure out how to respond.

The techbro overlap with incels is also an issue.

 

[Paine]

1. I must have missed the part where you have characterized Bernie as unserious. I'm not saying it's not there. I've just not seen it. I have seen you laud Bernie's messaging skills and talk about how he would have won in 2016 (which is weird given your characterization of that campaign as unserious, but you might mean 2020, not 2016). If you agree that no Dem should ever speak well of Castro or any other "scary leftist" (a category that includes some real scary leftists, like Maduro, and some not-so-scary leftists that will get lumped into that category by a population that has trouble identifying any countries on a map), that's good. I'm not sure where to draw the "scary leftist" line. I think Lula is on the right side of that line.

2. Yes, it is a bit weird to see someone attracted to socialism or Marxism as a result of commitment to human rights, but I have to be fair: it's 2025, not 1975. Being "marxist" today is not to be Stalinist or Maoist. There's a separate question as to whether Marxism can actually get you where you want to go, but that's not for this thread.

3. Trust me, I've examined the evolution of Marxist thought. I've been reading Frankfurt School since before you were born. Gramsci is old hat. I lived through the Marxist culture wars of the 1990s.

In assessing your views, I have been drawing on statements you made about yourself. If those statements haven't been perfectly accurate, or if I read too much into them, OK. I rarely hold one's past disavowed positions against a person for several reasons. First, who cares what they believed if they don't any more (this isn't always true, but usually). Second, it leads to useless fights about what that person did believe, and/or who is responsible for the miscommunication or misunderstanding. Third, it quickly becomes self-parody, like Life of Brian.

So if I've been misunderstanding your position on culture and politics, thank you for clarifying. I don't care if I misunderstood or you miscommunicated or both or neither. Please keep in mind that I'm twice your age, which means I don't remember stuff quite as well as I used to, especially given how many posters there are here. It's hard for me to keep everyone straight. I know, it will shock you, but I've never been a people person. A people-caring person, 100%. But my brain is more organized around ideas than sociality.

Point is, if in the future, you've misstated my views, just say that. "Didn't we have this discussion before." And then try not to be too judgmental or impart to me allegations of bad faith. I do my best. Of all the things one might accuse me of, bad faith fits least. And I should also note that I'm probably the most frequently mischaracterized or misunderstood poster here.

4. Liberals don't give always leftists the benefit of the doubt, because we've been scarred. We see them as unreliable allies, which frequently they are. See, e.g., Rashida Tlaib and "uncommitted." You don't have to answer for the Naderites, given that you were an infant. But I would hope young people could at least respect that old-timers have PTSD about lefitsts wrecking what we've been trying to do, which is pretty much defeating the ignorance and hate machine that has been the GOP for some time.

5. Also recognize that the financial crisis of 2008 was a defining event for many older people. When I started teaching, the financial crisis was front and center in everyone's minds. When I was finishing teaching, most of my students generally had an idea of what it was and why it was bad (and typically wanted to know more about it), but it wasn't formative for them. It's been almost 20 years now. The average law student was maybe 10 when it went down.

And there was a LOT of scarring there, because the left fucking went berserk about TARP. Yes, it sucked. Dems followed it up with Dodd-Frank, which was supposed to make future TARP's unnecessary. But TARP was needed to prevent the world from spiraling into a Great Depression. (Technically TARP was a Bush production but Dems voted for it in Congress and Obama continued the approach). And the housing crisis was not actually Dems' fault. It actually had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall. Liberals were trying to save the world, while leftists were singing songs in tents near Wall Street.

Then the left spiraled into the "TPP is TERRIBLE even though none of us can tell you anything about it" mode, and that hurt HRC in 2016, and it was all so frustrating because the young leftists were barely more informed on the issue than the MAGAs.

You don't have to answer for any of that, but we lived it and to some extent still are. And we're going to view the world according to our experiences. We don't trust the left. That's a reality and it's incumbent upon the left to at least participate in bridge-building, which they have not been doing so well. There are exceptions (e.g. AOC) but there's still too much antagonism on our left flank.

I appreciate your continued thoughtful engagement with me. Understanding goes a long way. I’m trying to be less antagonistic and more understanding towards liberal Democrats. Likewise, I think it would be useful for board liberals to understand that young people are not as scared of the word socialism as older people. I don’t think that fear of that word is going to drive reactionaries (and some liberals) as hard as it has for the last 70 years.

Take that in context with everything I’ve said about socialism up to this point.

 

[heelinhell]

If many Americans have the economy as their top priority, then the Democratic Party shares their priority.

If many Americans have hating minority groups as their top priority, then yes indeed, the Democratic Party does not share their priority.

 

[MendotoManteo]

I appreciate your continued thoughtful engagement with me. Understanding goes a long way. I’m trying to be less antagonistic and more understanding towards liberal Democrats. Likewise, I think it would be useful for board liberals to understand that young people are not as scared of the word socialism as older people. I don’t think that fear of that word is going to drive reactionaries (and some liberals) as hard as it has for the last 70 years.

Take that in context with everything I’ve said about socialism up to this point.

Don't want to derail the thread with what would belong better in the Socialism thread, but as an aside: we'll never have universal healthcare in this country. I have become convinced of this because, unlike most every other developed country when implemented (Canada, UK, and France somewhat exceptions but still whiter than us), we are so racially and culturally diverse the oligarchs will always use that against us. They'll always be able to convince just enough white people that everyone else is trying to steal from them that it will never garner the momentum necessary for implementation. Most other universal healthcare nations never had this to compete with, although as they grow more diverse, we will likely see more weakening of their safety nets. Certainly has been the case in the UK.

 

[rodoheel]

You might be right, but my point is that I have enjoyable conversations with every single one of those guys when we could easily just not talk to one another knowing that we are on different political teams. I don't think guys like this are unreachable. I think more than anything else they care about the same things most average people care about: paying the bills, paying the mortgage, buying groceries, and providing for their families and children. For whatever reason- and my guess is that it is predominately due to a lack of exposure to higher education as well as to right wing media bullshit- these fellas think that Democrats spend all of their time advocating for sex changes on prisoners and no time at all on trying to make government work, and life more affordable, for the everyday person. They have no idea that when Democrats are in power, their economic lives are much, much better, and when Republicans are in power, their lives get a hell of a lot more expensive. If and when Democrats figure out a way to talk to these guys about the stuff they care about the economic issues they care about the most, I don't think they're unreachable. I don't think most people are unreachable, as a matter of fact. And I certainly don't think that just because they work out at a gym with Back the Blue and Don't Tread On Me flags that they should just be surrendered to the Republican Party forever.

You said in your previous post:

"Mind you, we aren't going to gain back many MAGAs. And we don't need to. We need to gain back people like the guys whom I'm talking about." I'm just saying that if you don't think those guys you're talking about are the MAGAs we're not going to win back, then who is? Those guys ARE the MAGA people. They're not the moderates.

I have had plenty of enjoyable conversations with MAGA people too. I know MAGA people who have observed being kind, compassionate people in their everyday interactions. My point is not necessarily that these people are unreachable and should be written off forever (after all, political coalitions tend to slowly change over time) just that the type of people you're referencing are not necessarily in the category of people who are most persuadable politically just because you can have a pleasant conversation with them. The type of people who fly the Gadsden Flag are openly saying that they do not like government, period. They don't want government to work, they just want less government, period. It's not going to be easy to convince them that the government can be a force for good in their lives.

I have watched Dems try to message on exactly the stuff people say we should message about. "Kitchen table" issues. Often very badly; I don't think anyone is disputing that Dem economic messaging can and should be better. But the people who consistently vote Republican do not respond to kitchen table messaging. They respond to culture war BS. Over and over again. That is why culture war BS works. Over and over again. When they say they want more economic messaging, they are lying or, more likely, so profoundly affected by cognitive dissonance that they don't even really understand how their own brains work.

 

[Paine]

Don't want to derail the thread with what would belong better in the Socialism thread, but as an aside: we'll never have universal healthcare in this country. I have become convinced of this because, unlike most every other developed country when implemented (Canada, UK, and France somewhat exceptions but still whiter than us), we are so racially and culturally diverse the oligarchs will always use that against us. They'll always be able to convince just enough white people that everyone else is trying to steal from them that it will never garner the momentum necessary for implementation. Most other universal healthcare nations never had this to compete with, although as they grow more diverse, we will likely see more weakening of their safety nets. Certainly has been the case in the UK.

Possibly. I can’t bring myself to say that we’d never have one. People need to be convinced that they have more in common than they don’t. That’s why I think it’s pure folly for the left to focus on identity politics over other things. The natural conclusion of that type of thinking is tribalism.

 

[CFordUNC]

You said in your previous post:

"Mind you, we aren't going to gain back many MAGAs. And we don't need to. We need to gain back people like the guys whom I'm talking about." I'm just saying that if you don't think those guys you're talking about are the MAGAs we're not going to win back, then who is? Those guys ARE the MAGA people. They're not the moderates.

I have had plenty of enjoyable conversations with MAGA people too. I know MAGA people who have observed being kind, compassionate people in their everyday interactions. My point is not necessarily that these people are unreachable and should be written off forever (after all, political coalitions tend to slowly change over time) just that the type of people you're referencing are not necessarily in the category of people who are most persuadable politically just because you can have a pleasant conversation with them. The type of people who fly the Gadsden Flag are openly saying that they do not like government, period. They don't want government to work, they just want less government, period. It's not going to be easy to convince them that the government can be a force for good in their lives.

I have watched Dems try to message on exactly the stuff people say we should message about. "Kitchen table" issues. Often very badly; I don't think anyone is disputing that Dem economic messaging can and should be better. But the people who consistently vote Republican do not respond to kitchen table messaging. They respond to culture war BS. Over and over again. That is why culture war BS works. Over and over again. When they say they want more economic messaging, they are lying or, more likely, so profoundly affected by cognitive dissonance that they don't even really understand how their own brains work.

Ahh I gotcha. I see what you mean now. You may well be right.

 

[MendotoManteo]

Possibly. I can’t bring myself to say that we’d never have one. People need to be convinced that they have more in common than they don’t. That’s why I think it’s pure folly for the left to focus on identity politics over other things. The natural conclusion of that type of thinking is tribalism.

We'll see, but I just don't think so. It's the reason why the antebellum South system worked so effectively despite most whites not enjoying any of the spoils and, in fact, having miserable lives. For as long as there's some "strange people" around, you can manipulate enough of the rest.

 

[sringwal]

The state of the political landscapes is going to be so altered four years from now that it is difficult to conceptualize what the country will want from its political parties at that point.

 

[Yosef]

Republicans: Republicans great, Democrats are the lying, horrible party. We do everything right they are destroying our country.

Democrats: Democrats great, Republicans are the lying, horrible party. We do everything right they are destroying our country.

Rinse repeat for every time elections are held. Never again shall the two meet in the middle again.

 

[superrific]

Possibly. I can’t bring myself to say that we’d never have one. People need to be convinced that they have more in common than they don’t. That’s why I think it’s pure folly for the left to focus on identity politics over other things. The natural conclusion of that type of thinking is tribalism.

Whose fault is that tribalism? Do you think that if the left didn't focus on identity politics, the GOP would let go of race-baiting and white identity politics?

I said it on a thread a few days ago (don't remember which one now) and I'll say it again: the problem with the New Deal ALWAYS was it was racially exclusionary. The New Deal's base was in the solid south.

So when people say they want to return to New Deal politics, is that possible? My intuition says that the New Deal only worked because it existed alongside Jim Crow. The New Deal coalitions and racial equality are politically incompatible in the US.

 

[rodoheel]

Possibly. I can’t bring myself to say that we’d never have one. People need to be convinced that they have more in common than they don’t. That’s why I think it’s pure folly for the left to focus on identity politics over other things. The natural conclusion of that type of thinking is tribalism.

So, I absolutely agree with you on the first point. I think it's critical to not let cynicism overtake us and to cede political battlefields forever just because they presently look unwinnable. It's very hard to do in practice sometimes, especially right now when we look all around us and see the constant advance of right-wing extremism and authoritarianism, and the way the right wing manipulates people with culture-war wedges, and can't see the political path forward to universal health care. But giving up on real progressive political ambitions like that just because they are politically unrealistic sort of allows the Overton window to be shifted against us.

I do disagree if you believe the recent history of Dems is "focusing on identity politics over other things." I'm not saying Dems haven't made mistakes in that regard but I don't think that's the story of the 2024 election in particular. Pubs led with identity politics far more than Dems and it won them the election. If there's anything the Dems miscalculated in going too hard on in 2024, personally I think it's the "threat to Democracy" stuff, which was important to lawyers like me but not to many other people, for whom it was simply too abstract. It's not that the fears weren't legitimate - the last two weeks have made that abundantly clear - but that the message simply wasn't working for voters in the way the Dems thought it would.

 

[superrific]

Republicans: Republicans great, Democrats are the lying, horrible party. We do everything right they are destroying our country.

Democrats: Democrats great, Republicans are the lying, horrible party. We do everything right they are destroying our country.

That liars ape truth-tellers is not surprising. It speaks poorly of you that you cannot evaluate the competing claims to truth.

I mean, Trump has tried his absolute best to signal to people that he's a liar. He's probably devoted himself to the cause of untruth more than any other person in this nation's history. And the GOP picks up on it, which is why everything they say is mendacious and wrong. Fuck, JD Vance even admitted on national TV that he was making up shit about Springfield Ohio.

So wake the fuck up. And I'm not convinced you can't see the difference. I just think you can't deal with the cognitive dissonance of knowing that you support despicable people because they hate the same folks you do.