Should Harris have continued with her more Populist messaging?

[mpaer]

I don’t think Edwards or Carter were even populism lite, tbf.

I wasn’t alive, so I guess I could be wrong. Could you provide some examples of how they ran a populist campaign other than a single speech by Edwards? Well I guess I was alive for Edwards 08. Don’t remember anything about him though, I was 9.

John Edwards primary was folksy populsm "Deddy worked at the mill" ( I mean he might have been General MGr-I don't know) Once he became VP his handlers totally repurposed his message

 

[HintonJamesHeel]

Harris +8 in those making over $100k (Biden was +5)

Never go to a religious service (Harris +26)

No religion (Harris + 40)

College grads (+8 Harris)

Post-grad degrees (+24 Harris)

The party has become a college-educated, non-religious party. Debate whether that’s good or bad but that won’t connect with working people and especially not Hispanics, which is the largest growing population.

 

[rodoheel]

Harris +8 in those making over $100k (Biden was +5)

Never go to a religious service (Harris +26)

No religion (Harris + 40)

College grads (+8 Harris)

Post-grad degrees (+24 Harris)

The party has become a college-educated, non-religious party. Debate whether that’s good or bad but that won’t connect with working people and especially not Hispanics, which is the largest growing population.

Winning college educated voters and winning working class voters are not antithetical to each other. The party doesn't need to do worse with college-educated people to do better with working-class people.

 

[SnoopRob]

Authoritarian populism is waaaay easier to sell that economic populism (or any other kind).

Authoritarian populism isn't a distinct thing as a "type" of populism. Authoritarianism and populism aren't even on the same axis.

Populism is an ideology based on giving "the masses" what they want freed from trade-offs or from the costs of such moves.

Authoritarianism is a manner of ruling where power is placed into the hands of one person or one small group and those who oppose this person/group are categorized as enemies and marginalized/oppressed.

You can have a combination of authoritarianism and populism, but that can also include economic populism or social populism or whatever.

 

[superrific]

There is left wing thought that exists after the cultural turn you know. If it all boils down to racism and sexism, how has any workers solidarity movement or labor movement ever succeeded? How has any left wing project ever succeeded?

1. Well, to a first approximation, workers solidarity movements fare better in Europe where, until very recently, the population was largely homogenous and thus more receptive to solidarity; but also

2. Social media and the internet have flipped the script. It used to be that you had to hang out with the people you worked with, or lived around. As we know from decades of social science research (that was the impetus behind diversity initiatives), actual interactions with people of different races helps moderate racism. As you'd expect. [And that, of course, was one reason for segregation. ]

But you don't have to be at all interested in your neighbors any more. You can hang out with other people like you, no matter where you live. And then groupthink and affinity bias and racheting extremism takes over.

3. I know I'm being pessimistic as hell. You're trying to be optimistic. You're trying to see a future. I'm really struggling with that right now. In fact, I'm kind of struggling with a lot of things right now.

 

[superrific]

I think the way to combat that is a revitalization of workers solidarity across racial lines.

If you figure it out, let me know and I will join you. But the left has been trying this since the 60s and it just has not proved durable.

And these days, Fox News/conservative media + social media makes it even harder.

To some extent, we are victims of prosperity. What we do know is that people will pull together in a crisis. 08 Obama showed that. When the shit REALLY hits the fan, people can get together. Racism and exclusion can be costly. But most working class people in America are prosperous in absolute terms. Everyone has a mobile phone; most people have cars or trucks and often they are not cheap. We have computers and computer games, and cable TV with a million different channels and if you don't want cable, you can stream over the internet.

Americans are not economically stressed enough to put aside the racism. I don't mean that as a prescription or even a well-considered view. It's a gut reaction. But I don't think it's wholly wrong either.

 

[superrific]

I think plenty of Americans are economically stressed enough to put aside race and gender in order to confront the ruling class.

The issue is the class structure that exists under capitalism and how it functions in regards to people’s resistance to the boss.

We’re so far away from any kind of actual working class politics that it’s theoretical. The left needs to get back into the business of listening to and organizing the working class instead of assuming that workers are just idiots acting against their own class interest.

I think most working people are rational. If they’re behaving in a way we think is irrational, we should analyze and examine this behavior instead of just calling them racist troglodytes.

Are there idiots who are working class? Yes. But I think the majority, and definitely an electoral majority, are rational about their circumstances and want the left to listen to them rather than preach to them.

It was easier for me to believe all that before 2010.

I do not think working people are rational about politics. I think a lot of people are not rational about politics. The amount of crazy shit that happens in politics so dwarfs the crazy shit everywhere else.

I'd be happy to listen to them, but I can't when they are talking about Haitians eating pets.

 

[lightbluenc]

I don’t a majority of working class people, even those who voted for Trump, believe the Haitians eating pets stuff man.

Problem is saying this kind of thing for a lot of us would be disqualifying.

 

[aGDevil2k]

I don’t a majority of working class people, even those who voted for Trump, believe the Haitians eating pets stuff man.

They believe a lot of what he says.

They believe him over the news... That's been reinforced and stated by the people over and over

 

[rodoheel]

Well we know what Bernie thinks:



Honestly, while I’m generally a fan of Bernie, this pisses me off. Bernie knows full well that the reason we don’t have most of this stuff is Republicans, not Dems. I have zero problem with him criticizing the party for not doing enough to reach out to working class voters, but to do it without saying at the same time that Republicans are not offering those voters anything, either, and in fact have obstructed efforts at those things is irresponsible. Republicans will seize on this statement as great propaganda for them that further pushes working class voters their way.

 

[aGDevil2k]

Think you’re a bit off base here. Republicans aren’t going to seize on this statement for anything. Everyone who will read this statement from Bernie knows what the Republican Party is. But too many liberals refuse to accept what the Democratic Party is.

Yeah there is no seizing for a while

They are rolling and they know the Dems will be blowing it all up

Why has Harrison not stepped down yet?

 

[Icky Mettle]

Problem is saying this kind of thing for a lot of us would be disqualifying.

Yeah, that by itself should be a disqualifying statement. We truly are in an Idiocracy. And of course that’s not remotely the most disqualifying thing he’s done. But the fact that a person said that on national TV in a serious manner and got elected president is a sad, sad thing.

 

[Icky Mettle]

Well we know what Bernie thinks:



Honestly, while I’m generally a fan of Bernie, this pisses me off. Bernie knows full well that the reason we don’t have most of this stuff is Republicans, not Dems. I have zero problem with him criticizing the party for not doing enough to reach out to working class voters, but to do it without saying at the same time that Republicans are not offering those voters anything, either, and in fact have obstructed efforts at those things is irresponsible. Republicans will seize on this statement as great propaganda for them that further pushes working class voters their way.

I’m trying to figure out where Dems went wrong with the working class.

Was it supporting unions?

Was it wanting to minimize taxing (or not taxing) the working class?

Was it forgiving student loans for people who struggled to pay them and attempting to make higher education more affordable?

Was it supporting a strong public education?

Was it supporting affordable health care?

Was it supporting increases in minimum wage?

Was it an increase in job numbers among the working class under Biden?

I’m trying to figure out where the Dems have gone wrong in that department.

And what have pubs done in contrast?

 

[farce©]

. Democrats have almost universally been the party of economic populism until the Neoliberal Consensus Virus took hold. They missed their moment because of the aforementioned alignment with the donor class.

How would you suggest Democrats finance campaigns in the age of Citizens United?

 

[farce©]

Obviously will take some creativity. But Sanders was able to run a national campaign while eschewing corporate and PAC donations.

Bernie ran a primary campaign. He wasn’t running his primary campaign against PAC money. Apples and golf balls.

 

[1moretimeagain]

I’m trying to figure out where Dems went wrong with the working class.

Was it supporting unions?

Was it wanting to minimize taxing (or not taxing) the working class?

Was it forgiving student loans for people who struggled to pay them and attempting to make higher education more affordable?

Was it supporting a strong public education?

Was it supporting affordable health care?

Was it supporting increases in minimum wage?

Was it an increase in job numbers among the working class under Biden?

I’m trying to figure out where the Dems have gone wrong in that department.

And what have pubs done in contrast?

Meanwhile Trump praises a business owner for firing employees who wanted to strike and said he’d rather have someone else work than pay overtime wages.

 

[superrific]

Understand. Thought that caveat would be baked into the example.

The kabuki theater of the Democratic Party isn’t working anymore, so there aren’t many options.

I knew you would eventually come around to blaming the Democrats.

Look, Trump ran probably the most racist presidential campaign in the history of the country. At least the most racist post-Civil War. Even George Wallace wouldn't have done or said some of this shit. Up and down, up and down, racism, misogyny, bullshit. We also know that Trump supporters love racism. That's what makes them Trump supporters. The social science data on this point is overwhelming.

The causal connection seems clear enough to me: racists like racism, and they like to hear racism in public, and they have affinity for the man who makes it OK for them to be racist as hell. You are putting an intermediary in this causal chain called the Democratic Party, which is apparently the real problem even though the trip from racism to racist seems simple and not in need of further explication.

And where does Trump and the GOP run especially strong? In the Confederacy. Look at the map again. When did the Democrats abandon the working class in the South? Oh, they didn't? Oh, the South turned on Bill because they didn't like "lesbo" HRC? Again, you weren't there. The number of cracks and arguments and bullshit about HRC being lesbian was overwhelming in Bill's first term. They did not like that she did not want to bake cookies. That is far more responsible than abandonment of the working class.

This is the fact that the Bernie left just glosses over all the time. The GOP is the party of the Confederacy. The demarcation between blue and red is more or less the Civil War battle lines -- especially when you consider how many Indianans wanted to be part of the Confederacy. NoVa has turned Virginia blue for the time being, but out in the state itself, it's still the Confederacy.


[And no, the story of Bill was not NAFTA. I was there. The Pubs ran on the Contract On America in 1994. They were unabashedly pro-NAFTA]

 

[Mundial]

Probably? But honestly, I think the outcome would be the same and she would be getting criticized for not offering enough of a policy contrast with Trump.

I think the real answer is regardless of what message she had, this outcome was pretty well baked. Some people reconsidered briefly after the debate, but just as it did in 2016, his debate performance faded pretty quickly.

NYC what is your opinion as to why it was baked? Why was she not going to win?

 

[rodoheel]

Think you’re a bit off base here. Republicans aren’t going to seize on this statement for anything. Everyone who will read this statement from Bernie knows what the Republican Party is. But too many liberals refuse to accept what the Democratic Party is.

Anybody who thinks the primary people to blame for us not having Medicare 4 All and lower prescription drug prices and more robust paid family and medical leave is Democrats is an idiot. Tell me exactly when, during the last decade, Dems had the ability to unilaterally do that, or Republicans would have joined in supporting it. You want to blame people like Sinema and Manchin individually, fine; I have cursed their names many times. But to act like Biden or Harris didn't want those things and shot them down? Come on.

Progressives want us to believe that working class voters will immediately flock back to Dems if we just push these big ticket item, European-style policies. I want those policies. I think they're good policy. I'm not a neoliberal trying to protect capital or whatever you want to call me. But progressives just got all the evidence you could ever want that promising economic policy that will help workers is not what voting workers want. They just voted for tariffs and tax cuts and deportations. The vast majority of Trump voters said that Kamala fucking Harris, a mainline centrist Dem, was too liberal. No matter how many times you say it you can't simply wish away the overwhelming evidence that the current electorate is not going to vote for those policies right now. I'm not any happier than you are that the Harris campaign chose to feature endorsements from the freaking Cheneys, but this incessant insistence that Dem leadership is solely to blame for every lost election and that leftist ideas would win every election if the Dems just got out of the way is exhausting.

 

[Centerpiece]

Anybody who thinks the primary people to blame for us not having Medicare 4 All and lower prescription drug prices and more robust paid family and medical leave is Democrats is an idiot. Tell me exactly when, during the last decade, Dems had the ability to unilaterally do that, or Republicans would have joined in supporting it. You want to blame people like Sinema and Manchin individually, fine; I have cursed their names many times. But to act like Biden or Harris didn't want those things and shot them down? Come on.

Progressives want us to believe that working class voters will immediately flock back to Dems if we just push these big ticket item, European-style policies. I want those policies. I think they're good policy. I'm not a neoliberal trying to protect capital or whatever you want to call me. But progressives just got all the evidence you could ever want that promising economic policy that will help workers is not what voting workers want. They just voted for tariffs and tax cuts and deportations. The vast majority of Trump voters said that Kamala fucking Harris, a mainline centrist Dem, was too liberal. No matter how many times you say it you can't simply wish away the overwhelming evidence that the current electorate is not going to vote for those policies right now. I'm not any happier than you are that the Harris campaign chose to feature endorsements from the freaking Cheneys, but this incessant insistence that Dem leadership is solely to blame for every lost election and that leftist ideas would win every election if the Dems just got out of the way is exhausting.

That’s a bingo