Thom Tillis will not run for reelection in 2026

[Mulberry Heel]

I understand the pessimism, but if we agree we need to win these voters back, then we have to stop treating them like dumb rubes, even in private. That attitude shows up in our policies, our messaging, and the kinds of candidates we back. Voters feel it.

Trumpism feeds on feeling looked down on. If we want to break that cycle, we can’t keep reinforcing it. That starts with changing our posture, not just our talking points.

Given human nature, you're not going to convince many people who are terrified of MAGAs and who have lost their jobs and so on to stop lashing out at the people who are supporting their suffering and oppression by voting for Republicans. I don't think that is plausible. I see what you're saying, but as long as these rural MAGAs are calling Democrats names and threatening them and doing the things they're doing I don't think it's very realistic to expect Democrats and liberals to just turn the other cheek. Liberal voters feel things too, especially right now. And I can tell you that these people have always felt looked down on for at least as long as I've been alive - many of these rural areas have never gotten a huge amount of attention.

I mean, I agree with you about working to get back to the grassroots and go into rural counties and meet these people and try to win some of them back, and I agree that Democratic politicians and leaders should avoid that kind of talk, but if you really expect average Democratic voters to turn the other cheek and ignore insults and behavior from the other side I just don't see it happening and I think you're going to be disappointed, because what you're asking doesn't fit our current social media culture or human nature. I have no intention of getting into a long debate about this because it is a straightforward argument, and I see what you're saying perfectly, but I don't see the Democratic base in this environment not calling it like they see it regarding rural voters and Trump.

 

[Paine]

I agree with you about the problems with the us vs. them dynamic, but at some point any genuine message to rural and small communities has to account for the truth:

• Well-paying jobs in the agricultural sector are going to continue to fall, not rise, due to automation and competition
• We are never again going to have the volume of well-paying manufacturing jobs we did in the 50s-80s, due to automation and competition
• You cannot force everyone else in the country to want to live the lifestyle you did 30, 40, or 50 years ago, so many rural areas are going to continue to bleed population without modernization/reform that make those places look very different than they did when people were growing up while making them more attractive to younger people

The messaging rural Americans have most frequently responded to is messaging that lies to them about one or all of those three things. They want to be told that they can have 1950s jobs at 1950s wages and that we can just flick a switch and return good employers and jobs to these communities. In reality the way forward is with robust education and training for modern industries and careers, combined with New Deal-esque public works projects to build a better country for us all . But they don't want that. They have consistently rejected and voted against that. I know you are confident in there being a lane to craft working-class messaging that speaks to working-class Americans about a better future, but rural Americans with their love of "rugged individualism" have been consistently resistant to things like green energy, social safety net programs, socialized health care, or anything that could possibly be framed as for the collective good rather than individual free choice.

I will also add that there absolutely has always been a level of snootiness from urban/educated people towards "backward" rural communities. That dynamic has been around about as long as the USA has, and it isn't a uniquely American dynamic. But speaking on behalf of educated and urban Americans, I am really tired of being told (not by you, to be clear) that this urban/rural divide is mostly, if not entirely, the fault of urban, educated Americans and that we are the ones who bear most, if not all, if the burden to fix it. When in fact there is just as much ignorance among rural communities about the lives, careers, and communities of urban, educated Americans as the other way around. Trump's populist messaging for the last decade for the last decade has consistently featured as an element that cities are marxist hellscapes of hedonism and vice and the people who live there are corrupt, unpatriotic, unamerican, and flat-out enemies of America, and his rural supporters have lapped up every bit of that. A lot of that can be attributed to the fire hose of media misinformation that we talk about all the time, but at some point rural Americans are responsible for their own prejudices and ignorance. How do we fix that?

Yes, rural America has changed, and no, we’re not going back to 1950s manufacturing or agricultural jobs. That doesn’t mean the only option is a future of population decline, job loss, and crumbling towns. We’ve already seen that the government can create jobs, subsidize industries, and rebuild communities when it chooses to. It did it with the TVA. It did it with wartime manufacturing.

If rural voters aren’t responding to liberal proposals for “training” or “green energy,” maybe it’s because those proposals feel like thin gruel: abstract, impersonal, and detached from any serious vision of rebuilding what’s been lost. That’s just classic disillusionment. You say they’ve rejected social programs. I’d argue they’ve rejected Democrats offering them through consultant-driven ads and vague slogans, not institutions rooted in their communities.

You’re right that prejudice runs both ways. I’ve seen the anti-urban rhetoric too. But here’s the difference: rural Americans aren’t the ones with the cultural power. We still hold far more institutional power. Educated urban liberals shape the language, staffing, and agenda of the Democratic Party and adjacent institutions. That means we do set the tone. And when that tone is exhausted, patronizing, or self-congratulatory, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People hear it. And they turn elsewhere.

You asked: how do we fix that? My answer: show up. Speak plainly. Build trust. And start by dropping the posture that says “we tried, but they just don’t get it.”

 

[Paine]

Given human nature, you're not going to convince many people who are terrified of MAGAs and who have lost their jobs and so on to stop lashing out at the people who are supporting their suffering and oppression by voting for Republicans. I don't think that is plausible. I see what you're saying, but as long as these rural MAGAs are calling Democrats names and threatening them and doing the things they're doing I don't think it's very realistic to expect Democrats and liberals to just turn the other cheek. Liberal voters feel things too, especially right now. And I can tell you that these people have always felt looked down on for at least as long as I've been alive - many of these rural areas have never gotten a huge amount of attention.

I mean, I agree with you about working to get back to the grassroots and go into rural counties and meet these people and try to win some of them back, and I agree that Democratic politicians and leaders should avoid that kind of talk, but if you really expect average Democratic voters to turn the other cheek and ignore insults and behavior from the other side I just don't see it happening and I think you're going to be disappointed, because what you're asking doesn't fit our current social media culture or human nature. I have no intention of getting into a long debate about this because it is a straightforward argument, and I see what you're saying perfectly, but I don't see the Democratic base in this environment not calling it like they see it regarding rural voters and Trump.

This is exactly the trap I’m trying to name. If we throw up our hands and say “well, people are going to lash out, it’s just human nature,” then we’re not doing politics, we’re doing catharsis. That’s not a strategy.

Trump supporters in my own family have said plenty of dumb, even hurtful, things to me over the years. But that doesn’t make me hate them, and it sure as hell doesn’t make me write off all rural people or Trump voters. That’s the very grievance you’re complaining about.

If someone’s rude to you at a cookout, you don’t get to turn that into a worldview where entire communities are beyond redemption. You don’t get to sneer at millions of people because a few bruised your ego. Politics isn’t therapy. It’s not about getting your values affirmed, it’s about building the kind of power that can change lives.

You say we need to win them back. I agree. But we won’t get there if we act like contempt is inevitable and understanding is unrealistic. We should know by now that posture doesn’t beat Trump, it feeds him.

 

[superrific]

Now they’re told they’re backward, unproductive, and in the way.

By far the majority of this comes from the GOP. See, e.g., "fraud, waste and abuse."

 

[superrific]

I'm all for continuing to try to communicate but we need to address what is really driving these folks. There is just no evidence that talking to them about jobs and prosperity will move them. We already had Trump 1.0. What happened to employment or wages in rural NC? They didn't budge. And yet. . .

You cannot try to communicate with rural America without understanding that they are driven by racism and hostility toward LGBTQ. It's really astounding that you're still talking as if that doesn't matter given what we've already seen. What do they cheer? ICE brutality, anti-trans laws and an end to DEI. By far that's where their energy comes from.

Sure, they will turn to Dems in a crisis, like in 08 and probably in 26. But how to get them on board long term?

Now you've said before that we only need to recruit a few of them to flip some of our close battleground states. True. So how do we reach the persuadable ones? How do we identify them? Again, most of the population in Southern rural areas have demonstrated repeatedly that they issues they care about, in order, are: 1) racism; 2) anti-LGBTQ; 3) racism; 4) anti-LGBTQ; etc. They don't care about democracy. They apparently don't care about who delivers them the services they need -- here I'm not only talking about job training and the like, but also things like FEMA and emergency aid.

So while that isn't true of everyone, how do we identify the ones who we can reach. It ain't the ones who talk a good game, that's for sure.

 

[rodoheel]

Yes, rural America has changed, and no, we’re not going back to 1950s manufacturing or agricultural jobs. That doesn’t mean the only option is a future of population decline, job loss, and crumbling towns. We’ve already seen that the government can create jobs, subsidize industries, and rebuild communities when it chooses to. It did it with the TVA. It did it with wartime manufacturing.

If rural voters aren’t responding to liberal proposals for “training” or “green energy,” maybe it’s because those proposals feel like thin gruel: abstract, impersonal, and detached from any serious vision of rebuilding what’s been lost. That’s just classic disillusionment. You say they’ve rejected social programs. I’d argue they’ve rejected Democrats offering them through consultant-driven ads and vague slogans, not institutions rooted in their communities.

You’re right that prejudice runs both ways. I’ve seen the anti-urban rhetoric too. But here’s the difference: rural Americans aren’t the ones with the cultural power. We still hold far more institutional power. Educated urban liberals shape the language, staffing, and agenda of the Democratic Party and adjacent institutions. That means we do set the tone. And when that tone is exhausted, patronizing, or self-congratulatory, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People hear it. And they turn elsewhere.

You asked: how do we fix that? My answer: show up. Speak plainly. Build trust. And start by dropping the posture that says “we tried, but they just don’t get it.”

The TVA and wartime manufacturing were 70+ years ago. (And "wartime manufacturing" wasn't exactly voluntary.) They are hardly examples that in 2025, rural voters will respond to a platform of democratic socialism, no matter how you want to package it. it's one thing to be hopeful that the Democratic Party can do better among working class voters overall (the majority of them like in urban/suburban areas). That's something you and I generally agree with; we agree that recent Dem messaging has been bad, and probably on some, but not all of the things that should be done to fix it. But if you think something like the TVA - the government employing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to build massive public works projects - would poll well today among rural Americans, I think you're delusional.

With respect to the argument about cultural power: you've very well described why rural voters respond so well to culture war messaging; they see themselves as having lost control of American culture and they will respond to anyone who tells them they can take it back. But we also have to recognize that this perception does not necessarily match reality, in large part because rural Americans exercise political power that is far disproportionate to their share of the population. Their interests are already overrepresented and catered to, and because of that (among other reasons) the cultural power has already started to shift back in their direction.

Again, I don't disagree with you about messaging and tone when it comes to the Democratic Party and its "McKinesyfied" way of trying to craft messaging that usually results in overly manufactured, watered-down polispeak. I think, though, that focus future Democrat messaging on winning back rural Americans specifically would be a mistake. Dem messaging should focus on the fact that we're all in this together and all need to move forward together to create a better, more sustainable, and more durable country and world (messaging that, as I said, many rural voters are usually not going to respond well to). What it does not need to do is pander to small-town misperceptions about the dangers of cities and education and globalism. Even if that type of stuff is exactly the message that rural voters tend to respond to.

 

[superrific]

The TVA and wartime manufacturing were 70+ years ago. (And "wartime manufacturing" wasn't exactly voluntary.) They are hardly examples that in 2025, rural voters will respond to a platform of democratic socialism

Paine just doesn't incorporate racism into his analysis, and this is the result. Not only was the TVA 90 years ago, it was during a time when the Dems and the segregationists were one and the same.

It would be convenient if it wasn't the case. But there's no getting around the fact that several Southern states voted for Wallace in 68. Nixon won NC but Wallace finished second. The Dem came in last.

There's no getting around the fact that the political map of the US has barely changed since the Civil War. The identities of the parties changes, but overall southern states have been voting for whomever wears their disdain for minorities, and black people in particular, for 150 years. The South was solid in 1860, in 1932, 1968 and most elections since 1992.

 

[Paine]

The TVA and wartime manufacturing were 70+ years ago. (And "wartime manufacturing" wasn't exactly voluntary.) They are hardly examples that in 2025, rural voters will respond to a platform of democratic socialism, no matter how you want to package it. it's one thing to be hopeful that the Democratic Party can do better among working class voters overall (the majority of them like in urban/suburban areas). That's something you and I generally agree with; we agree that recent Dem messaging has been bad, and probably on some, but not all of the things that should be done to fix it. But if you think something like the TVA - the government employing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to build massive public works projects - would poll well today among rural Americans, I think you're delusional.

With respect to the argument about cultural power: you've very well described why rural voters respond so well to culture war messaging; they see themselves as having lost control of American culture and they will respond to anyone who tells them they can take it back. But we also have to recognize that this perception does not necessarily match reality, in large part because rural Americans exercise political power that is far disproportionate to their share of the population. Their interests are already overrepresented and catered to, and because of that (among other reasons) the cultural power has already started to shift back in their direction.

Again, I don't disagree with you about messaging and tone when it comes to the Democratic Party and its "McKinesyfied" way of trying to craft messaging that usually results in overly manufactured, watered-down polispeak. I think, though, that focus future Democrat messaging on winning back rural Americans specifically would be a mistake. Dem messaging should focus on the fact that we're all in this together and all need to move forward together to create a better, more sustainable, and more durable country and world (messaging that, as I said, many rural voters are usually not going to respond well to). What it does not need to do is pander to small-town misperceptions about the dangers of cities and education and globalism. Even if that type of stuff is exactly the message that rural voters tend to respond to.

Rodo, I’m going to be blunt here because I think your post reveals the exact mindset that’s kneecapped liberal strategy for decades.

You dismiss the TVA and wartime mobilization as ancient history. But those aren’t nostalgia plays, they’re precedents. They’re proof that the federal government can dramatically reshape regional economies and working-class life when it chooses to. If we did it before, we can do it again. The barrier isn’t that rural voters are allergic to investment. The barrier is that no one has credibly offered it in a generation, and when someone does, they get called “delusional.”

The irony is, you admit that rural voters respond to culture war messages that offer meaning, pride, and belonging. Then in the same breath, you write them off for responding to the only people willing to speak to them like they matter. If that’s not a failure of imagination and leadership, I don’t know what is.

As for the notion that rural America has “disproportionate political power” so we don’t need to organize them? That’s a dodge. Their structural power is exactly why we need to win some of them back. You don’t get to say “they matter too much already” and then shrug when we lose the Senate again.

You close by saying, basically: yes, rural voters might respond to a message about rebuilding what’s been lost, but we shouldn’t give it to them, because that would be “pandering.” That’s not universalism. That’s liberal parochialism. You want to talk about solidarity, but only on your terms. And if people don’t share your assumptions about cities, education, and globalization? Well then, they don’t count.

What you’re calling “misperceptions” are, for many people, lived experiences of institutional betrayal, by both parties and by the systems they were told to trust. It’s not that they fear cities; they resent being told their hometowns don’t matter. It’s not that they hate education; they’re skeptical of a credentialing system that demands debt and relocation just to get ahead. And when they hear “globalism,” they’re not thinking about an abstract economic model, they’re thinking about the factory that left and never came back.

Democrats won’t win back rural America until they actually want to. Not abstractly. Not with vibes. But with respect, investment, and a willingness to lead, even when it’s uncomfortable.

 

[Paine]

Paine just doesn't incorporate racism into his analysis, and this is the result.

This is flatly false and insulting. I’ve repeatedly acknowledged how racism and cultural resentment shape American politics. What I don’t do is treat racism as a totalizing explanation that erases class, geography, or institutional failure.

 

[superrific]

Rodo, I’m going to be blunt here because I think your post reveals the exact mindset that’s kneecapped liberal strategy for decades.

Democrats won’t win back rural America until they actually want to. Not abstractly. Not with vibes. But with respect, investment, and a willingness to lead, even when it’s uncomfortable.

The GOP never offers those things either. So why are they such heavy GOP leans?

Plus, investment . . . look at the IRA. Look at all the jobs that were being created under Biden. Trump is rolling it all back. We'll see how they vote next year, but the Dems were offering exactly what you say the rural folks want. And the rural folks said, fuck off and die, they/them.

I mean, I keep going back to that battery plant in Michigan. The state government fought hard to cobble together an attractive package for the factory construction. Then the locals killed it because "Chinese communist party." That's a revealed preference. At least in Upper Michigan, they don't care about jobs. Not really. Not as much as they care about hate.

 

[rodoheel]

If someone’s rude to you at a cookout, you don’t get to turn that into a worldview where entire communities are beyond redemption. You don’t get to sneer at millions of people because a few bruised your ego. Politics isn’t therapy. It’s not about getting your values affirmed, it’s about building the kind of power that can change lives.

Now turn this around and direct it at MAGA people, instead of liberals. That's the whole point . You're directing this at liberals as if that's the whole problem, or at least the biggest problem. When in fact it's the entire MAGA movement is based on grievance. The entire MAGA movement is based sneering at millions (billions) of people because their feelings got hurt. It's about getting back at the people who they think treated them poorly or got things they should have gotten instead. The point Mulberry is making isn't that he hates MAGA people (though he might at this point), it's that MAGA people hate him (and/or hate anyone who isn't like them).

I'm not saying everyone who voted for Trump is like that. I'm not even saying that most people who voted for Trump are like that. Many voters barely follow politics and don't think about their electoral choices much beyond "I don't like my own situation right now, so I'll vote for the opposition." But grievance is absolutely, positively, indisputably the motivating force behind MAGA and Trump. Trump is grievance in human form. That's the reason tens of millions of people, including many rural Americans, see a lying,, thin-skinned, egotistical, scamming, ivy League-educated, Manhattan billionaire as an avatar for themselves: because he seethes with grievance at the same "elite" political and cultural institutions they do. He literally launched his own political career because he was mad that Obama made fun of him at the WH correspondent's dinner. His whole current platform is based on transparently using the political power of the government to punish his political and cultural enemies. And you're here telling us that the problem is that liberals are too thin-skinned?

I won't dispute that Dems contributed by Trump's rise by first scoffing at him and not taking him seriously and then failing to come up with a compelling vision to combat Trump's grievance politics. But it is just bizarre to me that you think certain subsets of the Democratic coalition are too focused on grievance when there is a giant grievance-fueled political machine

 

[Paine]

The GOP never offers those things either. So why are they such heavy GOP leans?

Plus, investment . . . look at the IRA. Look at all the jobs that were being created under Biden. Trump is rolling it all back. We'll see how they vote next year, but the Dems were offering exactly what you say the rural folks want. And the rural folks said, fuck off and die, they/them.

I mean, I keep going back to that battery plant in Michigan. The state government fought hard to cobble together an attractive package for the factory construction. Then the locals killed it because "Chinese communist party." That's a revealed preference. At least in Upper Michigan, they don't care about jobs. Not really. Not as much as they care about hate.

You’re asking this like we haven’t had this discussion before. The fact that the GOP doesn’t offer real investment but still wins these voters should tell you something: politics isn’t just about policy menus. It’s about trust, recognition, and belonging. If Democrats offer jobs through tax credits, while signaling contempt for the people they’re supposedly helping, it doesn’t land.

Saying rural voters “don’t care about jobs” because they opposed one battery plant is the kind of sweeping, essentialist take that would get laughed out of the room if it were applied to any other demographic. People want dignity. They want a voice. If they don’t trust the offer, that’s not a “preference for hate.” It’s a reaction to how they’ve been treated.

If we want to win them back, we have to organize people, not sneer at them.

 

[superrific]

This is flatly false and insulting. I’ve repeatedly acknowledged how racism and cultural resentment shape American politics. What I don’t do is treat racism as a totalizing explanation that erases class, geography, or institutional failure.

Acknowledgement is not the same as incorporation. Yes, you acknowledge (as you must). But when you say that the Dems should get back to the New Deal rhetoric and policy, you are simply not taking account of the most important fact: they didn't have to choose between economic justice and subjugating black people. When the choice was presented to them, they very clearly chose preservation of white supremacy over everything else. That has been true for a very long time now.

And when you say, let's go promise them a TVA -- they don't want that anymore. They associate that with socialism, which they associate with the civil rights movement. Again, their material interests play second fiddle to their racial animus. Until you account for that in your prescriptions, they aren't going to be good ideas.

Find a way to target the good ones and I'll be on board. We've talked about religion as a possible avenue. Maybe we need to be in some churches more than we are -- but we have to choose carefully, because a lot of churches are not going to be fertile ground at all. In fact, there's more likely to be physical violence than conversions. Otherwise? I'm not from a rural area. My wife and her family are, but I met my wife relatively recently. For most of my life, I did not have much exposure to rural folks. So I don't know how to message and I don't pretend to. I just don't think beating around the bush when their main issues are cultural is going to be much help.

Look at someone like HY2012. He says he likes Dems at the state level but not the federal level. Gee, why do you think that is? He's never been able to explain it, because he's not willing to say the quiet part out loud. Which is a good choice on his part, I think. But it's why we aren't going to be able to reach him.

 

[Paine]

Now turn this around and direct it at MAGA people, instead of liberals. That's the whole point . You're directing this at liberals as if that's the whole problem, or at least the biggest problem. When in fact it's the entire MAGA movement is based on grievance. The entire MAGA movement is based sneering at millions (billions) of people because their feelings got hurt. It's about getting back at the people who they think treated them poorly or got things they should have gotten instead. The point Mulberry is making isn't that he hates MAGA people (though he might at this point), it's that MAGA people hate him (and/or hate anyone who isn't like them).

I'm not saying everyone who voted for Trump is like that. I'm not even saying that most people who voted for Trump are like that. Many voters barely follow politics and don't think about their electoral choices much beyond "I don't like my own situation right now, so I'll vote for the opposition." But grievance is absolutely, positively, indisputably the motivating force behind MAGA and Trump. Trump is grievance in human form. That's the reason tens of millions of people, including many rural Americans, see a lying,, thin-skinned, egotistical, scamming, ivy League-educated, Manhattan billionaire as an avatar for themselves: because he seethes with grievance at the same "elite" political and cultural institutions they do. He literally launched his own political career because he was mad that Obama made fun of him at the WH correspondent's dinner. His whole current platform is based on transparently using the political power of the government to punish his political and cultural enemies. And you're here telling us that the problem is that liberals are too thin-skinned?

I won't dispute that Dems contributed by Trump's rise by first scoffing at him and not taking him seriously and then failing to come up with a compelling vision to combat Trump's grievance politics. But it is just bizarre to me that you think certain subsets of the Democratic coalition are too focused on grievance when there is a giant grievance-fueled political machine

This is a largely liberal message board. And I consider myself a liberal in many ways, so that’s why I find it important to try to talk to y’all about this.

You’re not wrong about Trumpism being fueled by grievance. That’s obvious to all of us. My point is: so is a lot of liberal politics, and we have to be honest about that. If you respond to grievance politics by indulging your own version of it, you’re not offering an alternative. You’re just mirroring it.

Politics isn’t about deciding whose hurt feelings are more justified. It’s about building the kind of power that can actually win, and that requires discipline, not catharsis.

 

[superrific]

Now turn this around and direct it at MAGA people, instead of liberals. That's the whole point . You're directing this at liberals as if that's the whole problem, or at least the biggest problem. When in fact it's the entire MAGA movement is based on grievance. The entire MAGA movement is based sneering at millions (billions) of people because their feelings got hurt. It's about getting back at the people who they think treated them poorly or got things they should have gotten instead. The point Mulberry is making isn't that he hates MAGA people (though he might at this point), it's that MAGA people hate him (and/or hate anyone who isn't like them).

I'm not saying everyone who voted for Trump is like that. I'm not even saying that most people who voted for Trump are like that. Many voters barely follow politics and don't think about their electoral choices much beyond "I don't like my own situation right now, so I'll vote for the opposition." But grievance is absolutely, positively, indisputably the motivating force behind MAGA and Trump. Trump is grievance in human form. That's the reason tens of millions of people, including many rural Americans, see a lying,, thin-skinned, egotistical, scamming, ivy League-educated, Manhattan billionaire as an avatar for themselves: because he seethes with grievance at the same "elite" political and cultural institutions they do. He literally launched his own political career because he was mad that Obama made fun of him at the WH correspondent's dinner. His whole current platform is based on transparently using the political power of the government to punish his political and cultural enemies. And you're here telling us that the problem is that liberals are too thin-skinned?

I won't dispute that Dems contributed by Trump's rise by first scoffing at him and not taking him seriously and then failing to come up with a compelling vision to combat Trump's grievance politics. But it is just bizarre to me that you think certain subsets of the Democratic coalition are too focused on grievance when there is a giant grievance-fueled political machine

1. Leftists always blame Dems for everything. You know that. It's been that way since the 1960s, but especially since the 1990s.
2. In Paine's defense, he might very well be saying the same thing about urban areas if he was trying to drum up support for the GOP. He's right that it does no good to complain about rural voters being rude to us. So they think we're rude; we think they are rude; and the result is that they don't vote for the same people we do. That's the dynamic he wants to change. We all want to change.

The problem is that finding a way to communicate to the persuadables. For all you deride consultants, if it was my decision, I'd be out doing focus groups to try to understand what people would care about it if we sold it the right way, and how to sell it. "We're all in this together" is a message that has been fully repudiated by MAGA.

 

[Paine]

Acknowledgement is not the same as incorporation. Yes, you acknowledge (as you must). But when you say that the Dems should get back to the New Deal rhetoric and policy, you are simply not taking account of the most important fact: they didn't have to choose between economic justice and subjugating black people. When the choice was presented to them, they very clearly chose preservation of white supremacy over everything else. That has been true for a very long time now.

And when you say, let's go promise them a TVA -- they don't want that anymore. They associate that with socialism, which they associate with the civil rights movement. Again, their material interests play second fiddle to their racial animus. Until you account for that in your prescriptions, they aren't going to be good ideas.

Find a way to target the good ones and I'll be on board. We've talked about religion as a possible avenue. Maybe we need to be in some churches more than we are -- but we have to choose carefully, because a lot of churches are not going to be fertile ground at all. In fact, there's more likely to be physical violence than conversions. Otherwise? I'm not from a rural area. My wife and her family are, but I met my wife relatively recently. For most of my life, I did not have much exposure to rural folks. So I don't know how to message and I don't pretend to. I just don't think beating around the bush when their main issues are cultural is going to be much help.

Look at someone like HY2012. He says he likes Dems at the state level but not the federal level. Gee, why do you think that is? He's never been able to explain it, because he's not willing to say the quiet part out loud. Which is a good choice on his part, I think. But it's why we aren't going to be able to reach him.

You’re setting an impossible standard here. Unless I draw the exact same fatalist conclusion you’ve drawn, that large swaths of rural America are unreachable due to unshakable racism, then my argument doesn’t “incorporate” racism?

You’re right that the New Deal was racially exclusionary in many ways. I’ve acknowledged that. I’ve studied it more than you have. That’s why I know the lesson shouldn’t be “never try again,” it should be: do it better. Expand the promise, don’t abandon it. For someone who constantly appeals to expertise, you seem surprisingly uninterested in the historical and strategic depth of the argument I’m making.

You also seem awfully confident about what rural voters “don’t want” while also saying you don’t know how to message to them and didn’t grow up around them. That contradiction matters. The alternative to trying isn’t safety, it’s continued political collapse.

And I’ll just add: if you genuinely think most rural churches are likelier to beat you up than listen to you, that says more about your assumptions than about the people you’re writing off.

 

[DiehardHeelFan]

Is North Carolina’s Suddenly Open Senate Seat Lara Trump’s to Lose?​

With Thom Tillis’s abrupt retirement announcement, the Tar Heel State could either be Trump’s best chance to tighten his grip on the Senate—or Democrats’ best chance to break it.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/north-carolina-senate-seat-lara-trump

 

[superrific]

You’re setting an impossible standard here. Unless I draw the exact same fatalist conclusion you’ve drawn, that large swaths of rural America are unreachable due to unshakable racism, then my argument doesn’t “incorporate” racism?

You’re right that the New Deal was racially exclusionary in many ways. I’ve acknowledged that. I’ve studied it more than you have. That’s why I know the lesson shouldn’t be “never try again,” it should be: do it better. Expand the promise, don’t abandon it. For someone who constantly appeals to expertise, you seem surprisingly uninterested in the historical and strategic depth of the argument I’m making.

You also seem awfully confident about what rural voters “don’t want” while also saying you don’t know how to message to them and didn’t grow up around them. That contradiction matters. The alternative to trying isn’t safety, it’s continued political collapse.

And I’ll just add: if you genuinely think most rural churches are likelier to beat you up than listen to you, that says more about your assumptions than about the people you’re writing off.

As you've observed before, I'm a believer in revealed preferences. Don't ask me to construct a messaging campaign. But I can look at data, and I can see that the talk about economic anxiety simply does not comport with the actual election results. If you want to disagree, fine, but don't pretend I'm some idiot who has no understanding of the "historical and strategic depth."

The bit about rural churches was intentional hyperbole. I did have an extremely unpleasant encounter with a POS at a bible camp my wife's kids attended. it was the same camp she went to as a kid, in a free methodist congregation. Yeah, those people hated me. About three or four of them started spoiling for a fight because I use correct grammar -- specifically, I say "my wife and I did this" and not "me and my wife did this." I didn't correct anyone. They just heard it and started flipping out. It seemed so ridiculous that I took it as a joke. It was not a joke. It spiraled from there, with the most pathetic "city slicker" shit I've ever seen. We had to leave early and we've never gone back.

I won't generalize from one instance. That's why I said above my comment was intentional hyperbole. Nonetheless, it was pretty fucking far from a good experience, and I guarantee you it was worse than any liberal has ever given those folks.

 

[rodoheel]

You close by saying, basically: yes, rural voters might respond to a message about rebuilding what’s been lost, but we shouldn’t give it to them, because that would be “pandering.” That’s not universalism. That’s liberal parochialism. You want to talk about solidarity, but only on your terms. And if people don’t share your assumptions about cities, education, and globalization? Well then, they don’t count.

This is badly mischaracterizing what I said (or at least what I meant). I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's because I explained my point poorly.

Never once have I said that we shouldn't give rural communities "a message about rebuilding what’s been lost." What I have said is that the message we give can't be that what we're going to rebuild is going to look like what was lost. Because it would be a lie to say otherwise. Telling people that coal jobs will come back is a lie. Telling people that we are going to manufacture Iphones entirely in America - or that doing so would create lots of wonderful manufacturing jobs - is a lie. Telling people that we can build an economy in today's world where we have both cheap goods and high-paying manufacturing jobs is a lie. Those are the lies that have won the hearts and minds of rural voters for the last two decades. There is and should be a path forward for rural America. But it will not look like 1950s America. That is not "liberal parochialism" speaking. That is reality. The challenge is to craft a message that gives rural voters a vision of the future that doesn't look like the past - and to have them choose that over the lies they will get from the other side that they can have a future that looks like the past. And what I definitely do not think Democrats should do is run on a message that essentially promises to benefit rural Americans - who are, of course, a small minority of the people who live in this country - at the expense of everyone else. That is what I'm saying: Democrats' message to the nation cannot be focused on rural Americans. It has to be a vision that appeals to everyone. I'm hopeful that such a message can win some number of "persuadable" rural Americans, even if that isn't a very large number of people. But if there is a choice to be made about whether to tailor that message most precisely to rural Americans versus the urban and suburban working class, then the choice has to be the latter, every time , because there are simply way more of the latter, and a huge percentage of the former who are not going to respond well to any message about "universalism" or "solidarity" no matter how it is crafted. Again, reality.

Nor have I said that people "don't count." I will happily advocate for policies that benefit working-class rural Americans, even if it's at my personal expense. I think my share of the tax burden should go up while their share should go down. I want them to be able to go to college (not just four-year universities, but community colleges and trade schools and whatever kind of other school they want to go to) for free or reduced cost, without taking on debt or with the potential for such debt to be forgiven. I want them to have thriving, functioning rural hospitals where they can get health care for free or close to it whenever they need it. I want robust public works projects that put people to work and benefit everyone. (In case this isn't clear, I'd be ecstatic about a modern version of the TVA to revitalize America's aging infrastructure; my point is not that we shouldn't advocate for such things, but instead that rural Americans won't vote for them.) I want regulations and policies that allow their local businesses a fighting chance to compete against corporate behemoths.

I'm not asking for everyone to make the same assumptions as me; what I want is for everyone (including rural Americans) to stop relying on assumptions that are largely unfounded when it comes to people who live different lives in different places than they do. Something that I happen to think rural Americans are as guilty of as - or likely more guilty of than - anyone else, based on my personal experience. My position is not that rural people don't count; it's that they shouldn't count for more than everyone else, which (politically, at least) is the current situation we have, and is the vision that the right has sold to them and that they've voted for. Democrats should craft messaging that communicates to rural voters that they're as good and important as any city dweller or liberal arts college graduate. But Republicans haven't won by telling them they're as good as any city dweller or college graduate; they have told rural voters that they're better than those people. That's what they have voted for. That's what, in my opinion, Dems can't and shouldn't tell them.

 

[Paine]

As you've observed before, I'm a believer in revealed preferences. Don't ask me to construct a messaging campaign. But I can look at data, and I can see that the talk about economic anxiety simply does not comport with the actual election results. If you want to disagree, fine, but don't pretend I'm some idiot who has no understanding of the "historical and strategic depth."

The bit about rural churches was intentional hyperbole. I did have an extremely unpleasant encounter with a POS at a bible camp my wife's kids attended. it was the same camp she went to as a kid, in a free methodist congregation. Yeah, those people hated me. About three or four of them started spoiling for a fight because I use correct grammar -- specifically, I say "my wife and I did this" and not "me and my wife did this." I didn't correct anyone. They just heard it and started flipping out. It seemed so ridiculous that I took it as a joke. It was not a joke. It spiraled from there, with the most pathetic "city slicker" shit I've ever seen. We had to leave early and we've never gone back.

I won't generalize from one instance. That's why I said above my comment was intentional hyperbole. Nonetheless, it was pretty fucking far from a good experience, and I guarantee you it was worse than any liberal has ever given those folks.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that liberal politics has become its own version of grievance. You had a bad experience at a Bible camp, and I don’t doubt it. But when you turn that into a justification for dismissing millions of people as irredeemable, you’re not doing analysis, you’re doing therapy. The fact that you admit it was hyperbole doesn’t make it better. It makes it clearer: you’re still carrying a wound, and it’s coloring your politics.

I can’t say it enough: this isn’t about whether someone said something rude to you. It’s about whether we believe people can change, and whether politics is about building power or protecting our egos. If you don’t believe in the former, just say so. But don’t pretend that strategic pessimism built on personal pain is the same thing as analysis.