Should Harris have continued with her more Populist messaging?

[superrific]

I thought you were leaving, EDIT

go fuck yourself. I was leaving. I'm trying to leave. The problem is that this place is both my support network in a way, and also the source of so much of my angst. Like, I have trouble quitting.

And did you really just call me [EDIT] [MOD NOTE — SPEAKING PERSONALLY, AS A CHILD I ONLY EVER HEARD THIS USED AS A SLUR. REMOVING ITS USE AND SCRUBBING THE BACK AND FORTH OTHERWISE TO CLEAN UP THIS THREAD]

Seriously? WTF is wrong with you?

 

[sunnyheel]

Maybe so. I just wish we could have a test case for economic populist running on the Democratic side. At least then there would be some data points to analyze rather than pure speculation about how people would or wouldn’t vote.

I largely agree with most of the points you and super make. I’m well aware of the political history of the country, probably more so than 99% of other posters on the board. I guess the difference is my knowledge of history reinforces my belief in materialist politics.

Dollars to donuts, that's what we'll see from Dems for the foreseeable future.

 

[sunnyheel]

***

See: Tar-Baby - Wikipedia.

I was referring to your argumentative style in which the interlocutor becomes entangled in ever-evolving "nuances" of a lost argument.

[Super’s response:

Yes I'm aware of the origin but if you think that phrase is acceptable I don't know what to say. This isn't political correctness. It's just about offensiveness. This is also a dictionary entry for Tar Baby.

tar baby - Quick search results | Oxford English Dictionary

www.oed.com

]


[EDIT - LEAVING THIS FOR REFERENCE BUT OTHERWISE CLEARING THIS DISPUTE OUT OF THE THREAD]

 

[altmin]

I guess the biggest hurdle in my eyes is how do you win back an uneducated and very religious group of disaffected white men that are angry at trans people playing sports? What do you tell them that they won't call communism?

I don't even know where to begin with that.

I guess you start by claiming the other side's weather machine will do more harm if they are not stopped.

 

[superrific]

Maybe so. I just wish we could have a test case for economic populist running on the Democratic side. At least then there would be some data points to analyze rather than pure speculation about how people would or wouldn’t vote.

I largely agree with most of the points you and super make. I’m well aware of the political history of the country, probably more so than 99% of other posters on the board. I guess the difference is my knowledge of history reinforces my belief in materialist politics.

John Edwards. Jimmy Carter to some extent.

But the absence of a test case for economic populism is information, don't you think? I mean, look, I want to win. I want to get rid of the fascists. I would vote for Bernie over any Republican. There's not a single Democrat I wouldn't vote for over their Republican peers as the parties stand now.

And Democrats also want to win campaigns. Badly. That Democrats almost never run these campaigns tells you something, doesn't it? The people who know the most, deem the strategy a waste of time. They can be wrong. The old GOP was wrong about Trumpism. But this pattern goes back a long ways. Before the Dems were courting corporate money (they started courting the corporate money because they got crushed in 1984 and 88).

You're right that it hasn't exactly been tested. But our transformative leaders have never been populist. Obama could have been, but he chose a different course and it worked.

Bill Clinton often takes a lot of shit for interrupting his campaign to oversee the execution of that black man. But he won. He won with the so-called Bubba vote. He understood the importance of race. Liberals never forgave him for it, but it was true. Jesse Jackson was an electoral disaster for the Democrats. He needed to show America that he was different, that he was one of their white folks and not one of Jesse's white folks.

 

[mynameisbond]

Harris should have done more to separate herself from Biden, IMO.
Acknowledge that the administration should have done more on border control and inflation and offer a plan to address them. Or, at least, "a concept of a plan."
Trump's message was simple: Kamala = Biden. Biden failed on these issues. I will fix them.
Throw in some crumbs like no tax on tips and overtime, lower prices on your gas and groceries, etc., and you have a winning recipe.

 

[He's Not Here]

They missed a massive messaging opportunity. From the very beginning, they should have challenged the narrative on the economy. Their standard reply/message about the economy should have been something to the effect of
“The American economy is great. The gdp is at all time highs. The stock market is at all time highs. Unemployment is at all time lows. Wages are up. Unfortunately, inflation is preventing some people from benefiting from the booming economy that Biden has created. Here’s what I plan to do to make sure everyone can benefit from this economy…..”

This would have done 2 things:
1. Not allowed Trump to set the narrative on the state of the economy.
2. Phrase it in such a way as to provide some separation from Biden.

 

[sunnyheel]

***

tar baby - Quick search results | Oxford English Dictionary

www.oed.com

Yeah, if you think John Edwards and Jimmy Carter are examples of left wing populists, I really don’t know what to say other than that’s an incredibly blinkered view of the range of political possibility.

Obama campaigned as a progressive populist in 2008 and was rewarded for it. He failed to deliver on change and governed from the center-right. Clinton is honestly the closest example we have to a left wing populist campaign in the style that I’m talking about.

His policies once in office were pretty bad from the perspective of a leftist, but he ran a populist campaign on economic issues.

I think that, and his aesthetic as a southern white guy, was much more responsible for his 1992 win than welfare reform or Sister Souljah.

I think you have a lot more faith in the modern Democratic Party’s ability to determine what wins elections and what doesn’t than I do. Not a great track record for them recently.

Don't get rope-a-doped […]. 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.

Political malpractice since Clinton.

 

[Batt Boy]

I guess the biggest hurdle in my eyes is how do you win back an uneducated and very religious group of disaffected white men that are angry at trans people playing sports? What do you tell them that they won't call communism?

I don't even know where to begin with that.

They aren't actually religious. Ask them to name any legislative effort they made or the Orange Turd made that was based upon the teachings of the leader their religion was founded on?

They use religion, but they aren't religious. Most can't tell you which Gospel doesn't contain a birth narrative.

 

[aGDevil2k]

2026 will definitely be a favorable environment for democrats (with good leadership)

 

[rodoheel]

Maybe so. I just wish we could have a test case for economic populist running on the Democratic side. At least then there would be some data points to analyze rather than pure speculation about how people would or wouldn’t vote.

I largely agree with most of the points you and super make. I’m well aware of the political history of the country, probably more so than 99% of other posters on the board. I guess the difference is my knowledge of history reinforces my belief in materialist politics.

I would certainly welcome, in the 2028 Dem primary, a candidate who delivers that message. It may well be that primary voters respond to it. I just have a hard time believing that either Dem leadership, or Dem voters, are going to conclude from 44% of voters saying that Harris was "too liberal" that we can win by moving left on economic issues. Even if you can convince them that the "too liberal" part had more to do with.

IMO whether the Democrats' 2026 and 2028 message on economic issues is going to be successful will have way more to do with what happens to the economy in the next 2-4 years than what Dems' specific message is.

 

[rodoheel]

Maybe so. I just wish we could have a test case for economic populist running on the Democratic side. At least then there would be some data points to analyze rather than pure speculation about how people would or wouldn’t vote.

I largely agree with most of the points you and super make. I’m well aware of the political history of the country, probably more so than 99% of other posters on the board. I guess the difference is my knowledge of history reinforces my belief in materialist politics.

I would certainly welcome, in the 2028 Dem primary, a candidate who delivers that message. It may well be that primary voters respond to it. I just have a hard time believing that either Dem leadership, or Dem voters, are going to conclude from 44% of voters saying that Harris was "too liberal" that we can win by moving left on economic issues. Even if you can convince them that the "too liberal" part had more to do with.

IMO whether the Democrats' 2026 and 2028 message on economic issues is going to be successful will have way more to do with what happens to the economy in the next 2-4 years than what Dems' specific message is.

Also, didn't we effectively see an economic populist candidacy from William Jennings Bryan in 1896? It didn't go great.

 

[superrific]

Don't get rope-a-doped ….

You're going on super-ignore.

[GOOD SOLUTION]

 

[rodoheel]

I also have a hard time believing the Dem leadership will think it’s the right thing to do. They’re already taking away the lesson that voters seeing her as “too liberal” means the party should run away from any semblance of left positions and just completely capitulate to right wing framing on a number of topics. Despite that not working time after time.

I don't think that's the answer. At least it's not my answer. I just think the electorate is so scrambled up by both malicious and uninformed misinformation that the only thing that's going to convince them that Republican economic policy is bad is to watch Republican policy fail. I really think the "too liberal" thing has way more to do with social issues than economic issues. I just don't think Dem economic proposals were the problem. I think highly negative (somewhat irrational) feelings about the economy were the problem. I simply don't think there was an economic policy message Harris could have delivered that would have made people change their minds about the economy being bad.

 

[superrific]

thing has way more to do with social issues than economic issues.

I don't know why it's so hard to see what it's so hard to see what is going on. Ever since Trump started running, his support has always come disproportionately from a) people with hostile racial attitudes; and b) people who live in areas going brown.

And what did he do this cycle? It was almost pure unadulterated racism and sexism. I mean, he couldn't really have been more explicit about it. He even stopped talking about "the border" for the most part. The message shifted into gangs invading America. He didn't talk about or tweet about "no taxes on tips" since early October, from what I've seen.

They made their closing argument at MSG, and it was the Bund That Won. I realize that it's a hard pill to swallow because it's a pessimistic view. We always want it to be something besides race, because we can change policy but we can't change racial attitudes. But it's not really about anything other than that. Race, gender, sexuality.

 

[superrific]

Yeah, if you think John Edwards and Jimmy Carter are examples of left wing populists, I really don’t know what to say other than that’s an incredibly blinkered view of the range of political possibility.

The point is that neither fared well. You're saying, "well, this populism light bombed but if we go big on populism, then we'll win." I mean, maybe, but do you think it's a persuasive position?

 

[aGDevil2k]

Jimmy Carter and Biden/Harris = Inflation killed them.

 

[336Heel]

There's nothing Harris could have done. The dems screwed the pooch by having the nominee be Harris. No way to distance her from Biden and his low numbers. Unfortunately there was also no way they could have not made her the nominee given she was the minority female sitting VP. There would have been no good optics for passing over her for a white male nominee.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

Messaging. Not policy.

She had no sound bites. Nothing you could latch onto, make meme's about, shout to your friends.

We're Not Going Back sounds good as a slogan, but didn't inspire people to go to the polls.

"When we fight, we wiiiiin." It might have worked but it sounded like a Grandmother when Harris said it and they played it over and over.

 

[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