Where do we go from here?

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rodoheel

rodoheel

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So, a couple things first:

--I don't want this to be a blame thread. There are plenty of threads for that. I'd like to focus the conversation on at least semi-constructive, forward-looking dialogue.

--I don't want this to be a "fear of what the Trump admin will do" thread. There are also plenty of threads about that.

OK, with that out of the way, what do you guys think is the way to get the country back on the right track? We've now had about a decade of reactionary backlash against what had been steady, if not perfect, progress on many social and economic issues. We have a Supreme Court that will soon have 1-2 more young conservative appointees and an untouchable conservative majority for 20 years, barring court expansion. We have a gerrymandered congressional landscape where Republicans hold a major advantage in numerous states, which matters at both the state level and federal level. We have a something like half the population that has made clear that it's OK with at least a little bit of old-fashioned authoritarianism if they think it means lower taxes and/or more money for them.

So how do liberals get the train back on the track? By which I mean continue to strengthen (or repair, if it's dismantled) the social safety net; resuming progress on climate change and the environment that is going to be rolled back by Republican de-regulation; and maintaining and continuing progress on social issues (gay marriage, trans marriage, abortion/gender equality, racial equality), and generally reversing the slow but deliberate drift of the country towards authoritarianism (and really this has been happening throughout the world).

Here are my big-picture thoughts:

  1. Find a new approach/paradigm for mainstream media. This election made clear to me, once and for all, that traditional media is dead and beyond saving. I'm not interested in debating the reasons or pointing fingers, but the old model of journalism has become economically infeasible and has proven completely ineffective at combating the rise of social media, and "new" media more broadly. Major newspapers are almost all gone, and the ones that are left either have zero reach/influence whatsoever with the working class (NYT) or have become so watered-down in content, due to economic pressures and/or the pursuit of "both sidesing" (USA Today, for example) that they are effectively useless. Cable networks are falling victim to the same pressures and are increasingly incentivized to offer "infotainment" over straight news. The major news networks are somewhere in the middle, but generally so bland on news coverage that they're no one's first choice and have basically become irrelevant. There is no Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite that the country flocks to. And into the role these media entities once filled have stepped social media and new media, companies that have now captured bigger market shares and a more direct line to people's eyeballs and brains. If you asked a random sample of Americans who they trust more to deliver accurate news, a majority of Americans would likely choose Joe Rogan over any traditional network you can think of. Not only career media people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, but also people with no journalistic background like Theo Von and Alex Cooper, are becoming trusted news sources for many Americans. This is reality, and we're not going back. The internet has made media sources too diverse for there to be any broad cultural consensus about objective facts. So how do we deal with that? How do we deal with a media environment that disincentivizes careful research and sober reflection and instead incentivizes chaos, misinformation, and extremism? Outside of the wonky Pod Save American, mainstream liberal journalists have largely stayed out of the fray, but I don't think that's an option anymore. How do you do journalism - real journalism with discretion and judgment and researching and writing - in the next 20 years? Or is it simply not possible? The phrase that comes to my mind about the current online media atmosphere is "water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." We are drowning in information in today's society, able to find information more easily and quickly than ever before, but the vast majority of that information is useless, and it will only get worse because disinformation is winning everywhere, not just in the US. I mean for pete's sake, we found out weeks out that several influential conservative streamers were directly or indirectly being paid to spread Russian propaganda, and it did nothing to shake their influence or popularity. Because the reporting on it was coming from the government and mainstream media, and the people who like those conservative streamers are already conditioned to disbelieve everything that comes from those sources.
    1. I don't have a lot of answers here, but we have to find some way to (i) build another social network that can rival and ultimately eclipse Musk's Twitter, and (ii) reach young males with messages less toxic and insidious than the ones they currently get. Make Social Media Fun Again, or Make Social Media Healthy Again, or something.
[continued in part 2]
 
[part 2]

2. Conservatives have unequivocally won politics in the last two decades, whether through genius (gerrymandering) or by dumb luck. Our population is increasingly college educated, increasingly diverse, and increasingly less religious, and they have consistently focused in their campaigns on grievance politics directed against colleges and college-educated people, against minorities and diversity, and in favor of the most religious people. On paper this should have been catastrophic, but it has instead been massively successful. There are probably many reasons for that, but whatever the case, the Obama-era reassurances that "the demographics are going to win it for us" have now been absolutely shattered for good. Despite being an increasingly small minority, white evangelicals are ascendant; working-class minorities are streaming to Republicans in droves; and while Democrats dominate among college-educated voters, it simply isn't enough with every other part of the coalition crumbling. Dems have no path forward unless they can rebuild their relationship with working-class populations. Messaging has to be crafted to appeal to them. We have to meet them where they are. They want messaging that appeals to them emotionally, not rationally. Not just economic messaging, but cultural messaging. Too many of them were convinced by the Pied Pipers of Trump, Fox News, et al that liberals hate them and look down on them, and in our frustration about them fleeing to Trump we made that easy to believe. And we can't just blame racism or culture-war grievances, because working-class minorities fled to Trump too. How do we message to them in a way that is coherent without alienating the more progressive parts of the liberal coalition? Not a dilemma I'd want to solve.

3. The great evil many of us have been warning about is the steady undermining of key governmental institutions by decades of conservative underfunding and messaging about de-regulation, the "deep state," and supposed government waste. Conservatives are now positioned to drive a stake into all these things they've openly fantasized about destroying and dismantling for years - the welfare state, the department of education, the "deep state," the administrative state, etc. No more slow and steady undermining; spectacular public executions. And you know what? The best thing might be to let them, assuming they win the House too. They're the dog that caught the car now. They have campaigned for ten straight years of relentless grievance politics about being the outsiders and the underdogs and the ones who can fix everything. Alright then. Go for it. Let's see the Republican legislative agenda. In fact, I think it's probably better if they have the House, because then they might actually do more of it legislatively than through executive fiat. Heck, I hope they abolish the filibuster to do it (though I don't think they're stupid enough for that). What I expect will happen is what happened in the UK - people will get a real look at what 10 straight years of right-wing rule looks like and realize it looks like absolute shit. And honestly, the quicker and more violently it happens, the better. The quicker working-class people see, without a doubt, that a reactionary conservative government serves the wealthy and screws the working class, the better. I hope they're dumb enough to do the tariffs Trump proposed (though candidly I doubt it). I can't wish for mass deportations in the same way, because it will impose so much pain on so many families, but I think it would be political suicide to try it. Sure, they'll use all the same misinformation to try to tell everyone it's working great. They're probably outright dismantle the government departments that create the statistics that would prove otherwise. But they won't be able to disguise the impact on the working class. Prices will go up. If they abolish the department of education, schools will run out of money and no amount of for-profit, overnight private schools will be able to make up for it. If they abolish Obamacare, people will lose their health insurance and everyone else's will get more expensive. Stuff that has always worked, and that people have taken for granted, will break. But candidly, a temporary economic disaster may be our only way to shake people out of this path we're on. I'd rather them stab us in the face then die from 1,000 paper cuts. Candidly I suspect that the people around Trump will be smart enough to not break everything all at once; to only do enough on tariffs, deportations, and governmental cuts to give lip service to what he campaigned on. But honestly, it's probably better if they just try to go full Project 2025 on us so the veil can be lifted.

4. No matter how cynical or disingenuous it was, Republican messaging about "woke" was successful. Republicans convinced many voters that Democrats cared more about niche social issues (trans in women's sports, gender pronouns, DEI, "critical race theory," etc) than they did about the safety and welfare of the country. It was BS, but it worked (not just on working-class whites, but also on working-class minorities) and Dems gave them plenty of ammunition. There is no point in blaming the voters for not understanding and trying new messaging; Dems simply cannot afford to focus on these issues at the national level in the next couple election cycles. I'm not saying to give in to Republican attacks on vulnerable communities - we can and should donate to and work with the people protecting them - but we cannot afford to let these be made into wedge issues again. Those battles have to be fought in the private sphere, not the political sphere, for years. I just don't see any other way.
 
As for foreign policy: the idea that we can simply withdraw from the rest of the world and let it burn around us is insane. Trump campaigned on keeping us out of WWIII, but removing the US from the global scene is what is going to be most likely to start WWIII. We have been the chief deterrent to the world's authoritarians for 80 years. When Putin and Xi and others get the message that we won't intervene against their territorial expansions, heaven help the rest of the world. I hope nothing drastic happens in the next four years, and still think that's somewhat unlikely. But we have to make the American people realize that we can't ensure peace by simply letting authoritarianism run unchecked elsewhere. No matter how much Trump preaches about "America First," there is no way to put the US in a position where it is unaffected by what happens in the rest of the world.
 
I don't wanna live here no more, I don't wanna stay
Ain't gonna spend the rest of my life, Quietly fading away
 
rodoheel said:
[part 2]

2. Conservatives have unequivocally won politics in the last two decades, whether through genius (gerrymandering) or by dumb luck. Our population is increasingly college educated, increasingly diverse, and increasingly less religious, and they have consistently focused in their campaigns on grievance politics directed against colleges and college-educated people, against minorities and diversity, and in favor of the most religious people. On paper this should have been catastrophic, but it has instead been massively successful. There are probably many reasons for that, but whatever the case, the Obama-era reassurances that "the demographics are going to win it for us" have now been absolutely shattered for good. Despite being an increasingly small minority, white evangelicals are ascendant; working-class minorities are streaming to Republicans in droves; and while Democrats dominate among college-educated voters, it simply isn't enough with every other part of the coalition crumbling. Dems have no path forward unless they can rebuild their relationship with working-class populations. Messaging has to be crafted to appeal to them. We have to meet them where they are. They want messaging that appeals to them emotionally, not rationally. Not just economic messaging, but cultural messaging. Too many of them were convinced by the Pied Pipers of Trump, Fox News, et al that liberals hate them and look down on them, and in our frustration about them fleeing to Trump we made that easy to believe. And we can't just blame racism or culture-war grievances, because working-class minorities fled to Trump too. How do we message to them in a way that is coherent without alienating the more progressive parts of the liberal coalition? Not a dilemma I'd want to solve.

3. The great evil many of us have been warning about is the steady undermining of key governmental institutions by decades of conservative underfunding and messaging about de-regulation, the "deep state," and supposed government waste. Conservatives are now positioned to drive a stake into all these things they've openly fantasized about destroying and dismantling for years - the welfare state, the department of education, the "deep state," the administrative state, etc. No more slow and steady undermining; spectacular public executions. And you know what? The best thing might be to let them, assuming they win the House too. They're the dog that caught the car now. They have campaigned for ten straight years of relentless grievance politics about being the outsiders and the underdogs and the ones who can fix everything. Alright then. Go for it. Let's see the Republican legislative agenda. In fact, I think it's probably better if they have the House, because then they might actually do more of it legislatively than through executive fiat. Heck, I hope they abolish the filibuster to do it (though I don't think they're stupid enough for that). What I expect will happen is what happened in the UK - people will get a real look at what 10 straight years of right-wing rule looks like and realize it looks like absolute shit. And honestly, the quicker and more violently it happens, the better. The quicker working-class people see, without a doubt, that a reactionary conservative government serves the wealthy and screws the working class, the better. I hope they're dumb enough to do the tariffs Trump proposed (though candidly I doubt it). I can't wish for mass deportations in the same way, because it will impose so much pain on so many families, but I think it would be political suicide to try it. Sure, they'll use all the same misinformation to try to tell everyone it's working great. They're probably outright dismantle the government departments that create the statistics that would prove otherwise. But they won't be able to disguise the impact on the working class. Prices will go up. If they abolish the department of education, schools will run out of money and no amount of for-profit, overnight private schools will be able to make up for it. If they abolish Obamacare, people will lose their health insurance and everyone else's will get more expensive. Stuff that has always worked, and that people have taken for granted, will break. But candidly, a temporary economic disaster may be our only way to shake people out of this path we're on. I'd rather them stab us in the face then die from 1,000 paper cuts. Candidly I suspect that the people around Trump will be smart enough to not break everything all at once; to only do enough on tariffs, deportations, and governmental cuts to give lip service to what he campaigned on. But honestly, it's probably better if they just try to go full Project 2025 on us so the veil can be lifted.

4. No matter how cynical or disingenuous it was, Republican messaging about "woke" was successful. Republicans convinced many voters that Democrats cared more about niche social issues (trans in women's sports, gender pronouns, DEI, "critical race theory," etc) than they did about the safety and welfare of the country. It was BS, but it worked (not just on working-class whites, but also on working-class minorities) and Dems gave them plenty of ammunition. There is no point in blaming the voters for not understanding and trying new messaging; Dems simply cannot afford to focus on these issues at the national level in the next couple election cycles. I'm not saying to give in to Republican attacks on vulnerable communities - we can and should donate to and work with the people protecting them - but we cannot afford to let these be made into wedge issues again. Those battles have to be fought in the private sphere, not the political sphere, for years. I just don't see any other way.
Click to expand...
100% on point three
 
Also, I can't shake the feeling that Trump losing in 2020 really screwed all of us. If Trump had won in 2020 Dems probably cruise in 2024. Oh well.
IncognitoJones said:
let it burn
Click to expand...
My position isn't quite let it burn. It's "let's have things sort of collapse immediately so they don't all the way collapse 20 years from now." A lot of harm from the hollowing out Republicans could continue to do over time won't show up immediately. For example, RFK and his ilk rolling back vaccine mandates and increasing distrust in doctors and public health officials won't kill us immediately, but if they do it for 20 years without any real consequence we'll be screwed when the next pandemic hits. We need something that immediately and quickly shows them to be the corrupt disaster they are, which will discredit the entire platform and message.
 
Dems have to reconvene and start to message to blue collar black and brown folks. Get away from the spotlight on progressive causes - college grads are voting for you anyhow.

And starting next year, absolutely blast the GOP for high rent and housing prices. They wont fix it...those prices arent coming down (they never do without a crash) and when they are fully in power Trump and the GOP should be blamed. That is the messaging that works. That's how you win in 2 years.
 
rodoheel said:
. We need something that immediately and quickly shows them to be the corrupt disaster they are, which will discredit the entire platform and message.
Click to expand...
You mean, like if they cause a massive financial panic that shuts down the credit markets and necessitates a trillion dollar bailout for big banks?

There will be nothing that will immediately or quickly show them anything. They are going to have to learn it over years and years of hardship. Most of them will never change and we will have to wait for them to die.
 
aGDevil2k said:
Dems have to reconvene and start to message to blue collar black and brown folks. Get away from the spotlight on progressive causes - college grads are voting for you anyhow.
Click to expand...
There is no messaging to these people. This is what they want. They are bullies. They were bullies when they were 10 years old, when they were 20 and they are still bullies. And what bullies do is gather in numbers and take out their frustrations and their lust for power on the weaker.

Trump ran a completely substance free campaign. How did he message to working class people? Put Elon Musk in charge of everything and have RJK Jr take their vaccines and public health? What was he offering? America is a garbage can. Everything he says is a lie.

There are a lot of really smart people in the Democratic brain trust. They all have ideas how to message. The idea that we haven't thought about how to reach these folks is crazy. There just isn't any reaching them, at least not with logic or reason.

The lesson from this election is to not campaign on reality at all. What is our version of they are eating the dogs, eating the cats? That's what we need. But that's not who we are. And if we were, the media would fact check us while sane-washing the other side.
 
rodoheel said:
Also, I can't shake the feeling that Trump losing in 2020 really screwed all of us. If Trump had won in 2020 Dems probably cruise in 2024. Oh well.

My position isn't quite let it burn. It's "let's have things sort of collapse immediately so they don't all the way collapse 20 years from now." A lot of harm from the hollowing out Republicans could continue to do over time won't show up immediately. For example, RFK and his ilk rolling back vaccine mandates and increasing distrust in doctors and public health officials won't kill us immediately, but if they do it for 20 years without any real consequence we'll be screwed when the next pandemic hits. We need something that immediately and quickly shows them to be the corrupt disaster they are, which will discredit the entire platform and message.
Click to expand...
I think where we really got screwed, in terms of recent history, was Bush II winning a second term in 2004, or perhaps Gore losing in 2000 (and therefore not having an opportunity to get re-elected). It would have changed the composition of the Supreme Court and made me feel a little bit better about being protected from the lunacy of the executive and legislative branches we will have beginning in 2021.
 
At this point it's pretty clear in my mind that I live in a bubble and that this board is a super-bubble. As a group we are completely out of touch with the average American. I'm as guilty as anyone of this (actually moreso) but the condescension to conservatives isn't working. Liberals as a group have what I would call a "bad case of better than". This con man is likely going to win the popular vote and unfortunately just proclaiming that every single person that voted for him is an idiot is not a practical way of looking at it.

How good is the economy really? It's damn good if you have an IRA and a good job. It sucks if you live in a small town, have the same job you always had, and the extra $300 you had left over every month after paying all your monthly bills is now eaten up by the price of groceries. We're just out of touch. Not all the people who cast these votes are bad people but a lot of them are straight up "fuck you" votes. We all need to step back and take a look at ourselves. When I see a Trumper struggling my thought has typically been "he's struggling because he's not that bright to begin with and wants someone to blame other than himself for his predicament." And unfortunately many of us project that kind of arrogance which makes a lot of people hate us even more than we hate Trump.

I don't have time to write a novel right now. Maybe tonight when I'm drinking this off I'll come back and vent. But I'm pretty humbled by this and those are my initial thoughts.
 
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LosPollosHermanos said:
At this point it's pretty clear in my mind that I live in a bubble and that this board is a super-bubble. As a group we are completely out of touch with the average American. I'm as guilty as anyone of this (actually moreso) but the condescention to conservatives isn't working. Liberals as a group have what I would call a "bad case of better than". This con man is likely going to win the popular vote and unfortunately just proclaiming that every single person that voted for him is an idiot is not a practical way of looking at it.

How good is the economy really? It's damn good if you have an IRA and a good job. It sucks if you live in a small town, have the same job you always had, and the extra $300 you had left over every month after paying all your monthly bills is now eaten up by the price of groceries. We're just out of touch. Not all the people who cast these votes are bad people but a lot of them are straight up "fuck you" votes. We all need to step back and take a look at ourselves. When I see a Trumper struggling my thought has typically been "he's struggling because he's not that bright to begin with and wants someone to blame other than himself for his predicament." And unfortunately many of us project that kind of arrogance which makes a lot of people hate us even more than we hate Trump.

I don't have time to write a novel right now. Maybe tonight when I'm drinking this off I'll come back and vent. But I'm pretty humbled by this and those are my initial thoughts.
Click to expand...
You have the causality wrong. Stop blaming the doctors when the inmates are running the asylum. Look at the UK. How did Brexit work out for them?

And I'm tried of this bullshit about how we are always supposed to be in touch with them. How about they get in touch with us? The relationship between liberals and conservatives is like intimate partner violence. They go on a rampage against us, and then we're supposed to go back and ask them how we can do better for them?

I have never thought that about a Trumper who is struggling. I have never failed to reach out and help. Those days are over.

Arrogance is people who don't know shit pretending that they do. The arrogance comes from them.
 
LosPollosHermanos said:
How good is the economy really? It's damn good if you have an IRA and a good job. It sucks if you live in a small town, have the same job you always had, and the extra $300 you had left over every month after paying all your monthly bills is now eaten up by the price of groceries.
Click to expand...
The vast majority of this board realizes this. What I would love for anyone conservative to explain to me is how Democrats caused it or how Republicans are gonna fix it. You can't force people to want to move back to rural, dead-end towns. You can't force the entire country and economy backward just so jobs that were viable in 1980 can also be viable in 2025. We can't bring back a world where you can earn a middle class to upper middle class income running a mom and pop hardware store or record store on Main Street, unless you want to dismantle the entire internet economy. We can't bring back a world where 20% of the population can earn a middle class to upper middle class income working a low-skill job tat doesn't require a college education, unless you are OK with workers getting crushed to death in machines and/or consumer prices tripling. We don't need the proportion of mechanics or plumbers or appliance repair men we used to need because cars and pipes and appliances are made better and don't break as often as they used to. We're not bringing back coal mining jobs any more than we can bring back the jobs of chimney sweeps, milk men, or gas pump attendants. We don't need people to unload boxes or dig ditches or build car engines or bale hay; we need people to build and service the machines that can do all of those things more safely and cheaply.

What you can do is try to prepare these folks to move int a career that IS viable, with re-education, vocational, training, etc. Send them to community college and college cheaply and without debt so that they can do the jobs of the next two decades, not the jobs of the last two decades. But they don't freaking want it. They hate the Democrats who try to help them by proposing it. What they want is a world that no longer exists. And they want to drag everyone back there with them.

Republicans have won these voters by lying to them. Plain and simple. They lie to them about bringing back an America that doesn't exist. The lie to them about everything being the fault of immigrants or snooty liberals rather than the rich fucking tycoons that manipulate the poor for fractional tax cuts. They prey on their fears and insecurities with grievance politics that give them someone to blame. Now we can watch a unified conservative government completely fail to deliver jack shit for these people they've lied to for decades. They won't get more money or economic help for their small towns or better health care or anything else that might help them, but at least they owned the fucking libs.
 
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