sringwal
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This is an interesting statement. I think you may be on to something, but I’m not sure what yet. Go on.
Where do we go from here?
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But sir, the shoes are bespoke. They are literally custom made to your specifications. They fit perfectly.
sringwal
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It won’t matter. Once Trump’s mental state declines enough that it is clear he is no longer fit for office, Vance will come in and “save” America. He is going to cement himself as “the voice of reason in the room” in the coming months. And in four years pubs will have had it spun on social media to them enough that they will believe that they always supported him.
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
LeoBloom
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I have not posted in a while as I have been attempting to process what happened. I have been reading the analyses others have posted and what media figures have said.
I think the focus on the Dems being out of touch because they are too elite (whatever the hell that means) or too focused on fringe issues (trans rights) is treating symptoms.
There is much fretting about how the Democrats need to reach the white working class. Then there is also much fretting about how the Democrats lost so many Hispanic voters. Etc.
That's all well and good but too many of the media are wanting to play the "I told you so" game. "I told you focusing on fringe issues would hurt you..."
The Democrats are hurt by minutia. They are hurt by details. Voters respond to simple, clear ideas. They respond to simple slogans.
The first thing the Democrats need to do is to come up with simple core values. "We believe all people should be treated with respect..." for example (and that may not should be one, but it is just an example). You come up with something that simple and direct and then when others argue with you, you can play the fallacy game just like they do. "Oh, so you don't think people should be treated with respect? Wow, you really look down on people." Build your messaging around that.
There needs to be a basic core, an easily explainable core, of this is who we are. Yes, personally, I believe that the core should be liberal, that's me. But regardless, without a clear, easily digestible core, the infinite minutia will take over.
Just some random thoughts of mine.
I think the focus on the Dems being out of touch because they are too elite (whatever the hell that means) or too focused on fringe issues (trans rights) is treating symptoms.
There is much fretting about how the Democrats need to reach the white working class. Then there is also much fretting about how the Democrats lost so many Hispanic voters. Etc.
That's all well and good but too many of the media are wanting to play the "I told you so" game. "I told you focusing on fringe issues would hurt you..."
The Democrats are hurt by minutia. They are hurt by details. Voters respond to simple, clear ideas. They respond to simple slogans.
The first thing the Democrats need to do is to come up with simple core values. "We believe all people should be treated with respect..." for example (and that may not should be one, but it is just an example). You come up with something that simple and direct and then when others argue with you, you can play the fallacy game just like they do. "Oh, so you don't think people should be treated with respect? Wow, you really look down on people." Build your messaging around that.
There needs to be a basic core, an easily explainable core, of this is who we are. Yes, personally, I believe that the core should be liberal, that's me. But regardless, without a clear, easily digestible core, the infinite minutia will take over.
Just some random thoughts of mine.
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I agree with you that Dem messaging has been too sophisticated for the average voter. Dems need to develop the skill of KISS( keep it simple stupid )
If you cannot explain how you are going to help the voters in one sentence and limit the number of issues to emphasize to three, then they will get lost in the details and tune you out
lawtig02
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I was thinking a little about this last night, as well as super's thread from a few days ago about Dems reclaiming the religion high ground. I wonder if the "He Gets Us" campaign is a potential exemplar. I know the origins and funding of that organization are somewhat suspect, but the ads are really moving, and to your point, they're about as KISS as it can get.
I know a lot of people here will not want the Dems to center their messaging around religious concepts, but if the goal is to get some of the working class reinvested, that's probably going to be necessary.
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"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
unknown but popularly attributed to Sinclair Lewis
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My family was discussing this
The party needs to focus on getting elected. Once elected they can address any issue they need. If it means dropping some of the more fringe issues from the core beliefs, then so be it.
Religious is fine but we really need to examine the favorability at all levels to Christians. They need to be treated as no more than equals. Society hasn't done that since 1800.
superrific
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The most successful social justice campaigns in history have been either explicitly religious (Gandhi, MLK) or religion-tinged (South Africa). That's likely because most modern religions put concepts of justice front and center. Indeed, concepts like Hell and undesirable reincarnation (e.g. in Hinduism, a person who acts badly in life will be reincarnated into something terrible) are essentially efforts to believe that there will be justice for evildoers in some capacity.
I don't want to scare away atheists. We want a big tent. But atheists and liberal Christians (or Jews or Muslims) need not be rivals. We just all need to realize that the world is complex because there are so many people and thus a diversity of views. Like, I think Dems should talk more about God. That shouldn't be a threat to atheists; it's not as if Dems are suddenly going to turn into Christian nationalists because we quote MLK or sing "Amazing Grace" at funerals. And it should be OK also to express our goals in terms of purely secular values too. Right now, I think the vast majority of committed atheists support Dems, so we don't need to firm up that side of our coalition.
There are some atheists, including atheists on this board, who basically freak out at any mention of religion. I don't know if that's why liberals don't talk about God too much any more. Guys, get over it. Religion is not in fact the worst thing in the world or the cause of our problems. You can live next to tolerant religious folks and your lives will not be worse for it.
superrific
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This is why I was thinking about religion. Let's think about the problems with KISS -- namely, it's really hard to do without being reductionist, vapid and caricature-level simplistic. The amount of content that can be crammed into a sentence is quite small, and it's not nearly enough to capture complexity. That's why KISS is the natural approach of right-wingers. There's a famous Onion piece contrasting the messaging of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan: "Let's all save energy by wearing sweaters" versus "kill the bastards."
But KISS becomes more effective when the single sentence explanation hearkens to a much larger and complex set of principles that people have come to intuitively understand through experience. Religion isn't the only one of them, but it's a main one. So what if we had an animating principle like:
Trumpism is not the way of God.
There's a lot more content there than meets the eye, because understanding the sentence requires an understanding of the "way of God," and that is a complex idea that encapsulates many different values. It's a way to sneak books and books of content into a single sentence.
By no means is religion the only language that can accomplish this, but it might be the most accessible for a non-college educated population.
I think that whether as part of the Democratic party or ,by my preference, on their own, the more mainstream Christians need to strongly and openly reject the Christian Nationalists and sympathizers on the right.
Fwiw, I want them to do it on their own because the more religion and politics mix, the worse they both become. Won't the Thirty Years War about the entanglements of state and religion in large part? Thought enough blood had been shed over this.
Fwiw, I want them to do it on their own because the more religion and politics mix, the worse they both become. Won't the Thirty Years War about the entanglements of state and religion in large part? Thought enough blood had been shed over this.
lawtig02
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Lololol under $360,000 huh? Going to be a whole lot of middle class Trump voters with this face:
Don't worry, Billy Bob from Tuscaloosa! It's all about to start trickling down!!!
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Lololol under $360,000 huh? Going to be a whole lot of middle class Trump voters with this face:
I've made a variation of this post (what follows below) half a dozen times now.
Everything unpopular will be blamed on the Dems/not-MAGA folks by right-wing media. They are the critical part of keeping this all going and - coupled with their already baked-in cultish denialism of non-MAGA reality - you can bet the farm the Trump supporters will eat that shit up. For the foreseeable future. The analogy I've used is the Oceania/Eurasia narrative pushed in 1984.
And sincerely, I would love to be wrong here and hope I am, but I don't think I will be.
