Where do we go from here?

[finesse]

Just fwiw, only about a sixth of the middle class in the US is rural. When you say it disappeared, you were right but it was more completely than just for one party. I have no idea how that 17% split but it's not a large segment for any party.

 

[farce©]

Ain’t you special…Don’t worry snowflake it will be okay…

Because your post on the thread was on topic?

 

[farce©]

Even though Osborn didn’t win last night, I think the Democrats need to examine his candidacy closely. If we can pick up some seats in these prairie states by running populist working class candidates, things start to get a lot more interesting in the Senate.

Osborn outperformed Harris and the Democrat running in the other Nebraska Senate race by about ten points. There’s something to that.

It’s easier for independent candidates like Osborn to do this in places where the Democratic brand is in the garbage, but I could also see Democrats running this kind of campaign now that they are out of power.

That is who Jon Tester was for years. Didn't work out this time.

 

[Icky Mettle]

If I had to distill down why Trump is going to be president again, it’s simply the internet. People are naturally reactive, they get constantly bombarded with a bunch of dumbed down content about grocery prices and inflation, and that’s all it takes.

Thanks, Al Gore.

 

[Paine]

That is who Jon Tester was for years. Didn't work out this time.

Right. Part of Tester’s issue was being tied to the Democratic brand and being an incumbent for years, IMO. I’m also not sure how populist of a campaign Tester ran. I can’t speak on it really.

 

[HeelInTheOzarks]

Everything I read here is the same arrogance I'm talking about. It's 100% their fault and 0% our fault. Every single one of the people who voted for Trump is a stupid simple minded rube. But that curb stomping last night suggests otherwise. Whether you like it or not there are are a lot of small town folks who bake cakes for strangers and never utter a political word mixed in there too. There is a massive disconnect between dems and rural whites. The entire demographic is gone. And frankly it doesn't matter if they are all dimwitted sheep. You have to find a way to reach them and acting all better than is not it. Liberals have a massive PR problem and I'm not seeing much hope on this board of fixing it.

Seeing Alex Wagner on MSNBC do a focus group at some Michigan (I think) union hall was pretty stark. All white guys (and a few women) - all the old heads were pro Harris and all the young ones were Trump or "I don't know/I need to research/but immigration is the top problem." The folks that are doing blue collar jobs used to be the backbone of the party because the contrast was "Party of the Working Man" vs. "Party of Big Business." Now it's been totally flipped and the blue collar folks are not mad at the business owners, they're just mad at the people who get a college degree and don't get their hands dirty, I guess.

There has to be a way to meet some of these people where they are. I'm not talking about the red hats who actually go to the rallies, but there's at least a few percentage points of people who are convinced the republicans offer them better economic prospects right now. And obviously a shitload of Dem friendly voters that just totally sat it out.

Just like people said "demographics is destiny" 10+ years ago, it's also destiny to keep the GOP in charge if we can't crack the code. The entire Rust Belt is slipping and the New South is not moving fast enough to do a straight trade.

 

[LosPollosHermanos]

Just fwiw, only about a sixth of the middle class in the US is rural. When you say it disappeared, you were right but it was more completely than just for one party. I have no idea how that 17% split but it's not a large segment for any party.

I mean I'm sure it comes down to how "rural" is defined. Are Harnett, Johnston, Franklin counties rural or do they not count because they border the most populous county in the state? I don't know, but it doesn't particularly matter because we've lost that demographic no matter where they live.

 

[farce©]

Seeing Alex Wagner on MSNBC do a focus group at some Michigan (I think) union hall was pretty stark. All white guys (and a few women) - all the old heads were pro Harris and all the young ones were Trump or "I don't know/I need to research/but immigration is the top problem." The folks that are doing blue collar jobs used to be the backbone of the party because the contrast was "Party of the Working Man" vs. "Party of Big Business." Now it's been totally flipped and the blue collar folks are not mad at the business owners, they're just mad at the people who get a college degree and don't get their hands dirty, I guess.

It isn't about "not getting their hands dirty." The anti-college sentiment among blue collar workers is resentment toward the countless MBAs that come to their factory floors and tell them how they should be doing things. It is all the Six Sigma kaizen warriors with their MBAs who are deployed by their companies to shave fractions of a cent off the end product and reduce the direct labor cost. They go back to their bosses showing minuscule savings while making the job of the guy on the shop floor a lot more difficult. MBAs don't have to live with the lasting results of their cost savings adventures, the blue collar workers do.

 

[LosPollosHermanos]

Seeing Alex Wagner on MSNBC do a focus group at some Michigan (I think) union hall was pretty stark. All white guys (and a few women) - all the old heads were pro Harris and all the young ones were Trump or "I don't know/I need to research/but immigration is the top problem." The folks that are doing blue collar jobs used to be the backbone of the party because the contrast was "Party of the Working Man" vs. "Party of Big Business." Now it's been totally flipped and the blue collar folks are not mad at the business owners, they're just mad at the people who get a college degree and don't get their hands dirty, I guess.

I grew up in shit town, NC and of all the people in my high school I would consider smart, only two of them are still there. And they both inherited family businesses. The smart people get the hell out as fast as they can and the ones who are left indoctrinate each other with bullshit.

ETA: And the post above makes a lot of sense too. The smart people who move to these areas to become the boss are not making too many friends with the regular Joes.

 

[finesse]

I mean I'm sure it comes down to how "rural" is defined. Are Harnett, Johnston, Franklin counties rural or do they not count because they border the most populous county in the state? I don't know, but it doesn't particularly matter because we've lost that demographic no matter where they live.

We lost the rural middle class when agribusiness moved in. They mostly ended small farms, hurt local farm and equipment dealers because they were bulk buying direct and reduced things to more off a worker/owner society. There are niches for some but they won't last, imo, without doing something like specialty farming and the like.

 

[rodoheel]

Everything I read here is the same arrogance I'm talking about. It's 100% their fault and 0% our fault. Every single one of the people who voted for Trump is a stupid simple minded rube. But that curb stomping last night suggests otherwise. Whether you like it or not there are are a lot of small town folks who bake cakes for strangers and never utter a political word mixed in there too. There is a massive disconnect between dems and rural whites. The entire demographic is gone. And frankly it doesn't matter if they are all dimwitted sheep. You have to find a way to reach them and acting all better than is not it. Liberals have a massive PR problem and I'm not seeing much hope on this board of fixing it.

Communication with "rural whites" is not the problem for liberals. Rural whites have been a strong conservative constituuency for decades. Rural people in general have been reliably politically conservative since approximately the French Revolution, or whatever you want to flag as the beginning of a popular political identity. And in any event rural whites don't want to have anything more to do with urban liberals than the other way around. The actual messaging problem is with working class people everywhere, of all different races.

But back to the main issue - I'm not going to deny that liberal arrogance exists, or that it exists on this board. (The best example people have been throwing around of that actively harming Democrats is the promulgation and use of "Latinx," a term that the Hispanic population clearly did not want that was foisted upon them by well-meaning but out-of-touch academics.) But it's silly to act like this is some unique, unilateral problem for liberals, that they look down on others and that's why they're losing. Again, bullshit. Conservatives look down on us, and that arrogance didn't just stop them from winning an election. Donald Trump is the most arrogant fucking person on the planet, and he spent his whole campaign talking shit about almost every group of people possible, saying that everything is 100% their fault and 0% his voters' fault. Conservative voters love arrogance when it's directed on their behalf and not against them. The idea that the reason working class people are fleeing liberals because of "liberal arrogance" just doesn't hold water. Working class people just increasingly don't like liberals, and it's only partially because of anything liberals have done. The bonds that bound working-class people and liberals together - like unions - have faded, and working class people don't even really like those anymore, and vote for the people who kill unions. They vote for the people who lie to them and say they can fix it. If what you really mean by "liberal arrogance" is that liberals won't lie to working class people like Republicans will, then I would agree with that.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

That is who Jon Tester was for years. Didn't work out this time.

And Sherrod Brown. He’s about as everyday, working man type as you can find in congress. And he’s genuine and has a track record to back up what he preaches.

 

[rodoheel]

We can't wait for them to die. It's not just the boomers.

The two things I never wanted to hear from liberals/leftists again, that we said in 2010 and 2012 but have been proven to be absolute fool's gold:

"The electorate is going to become more liberal as old conservatives die off and young liberals move in"

"Demographic shifts are going to make it impossible for Republicans to win overall/win in the Sun Belt without reaching out to minorities"

 

[BlooVooDoo]

The two things I never wanted to hear from liberals/leftists again, that we said in 2010 and 2012 but have been proven to be absolute fool's gold:

"The electorate is going to become more liberal as old conservatives die off and young liberals move in"

"Demographic shifts are going to make it impossible for Republicans to win overall/win in the Sun Belt without reaching out to minorities"

Fair. I’ve said some variation of both of those, but in my defense I actually thought Americans were largely decent people. I’ve been thoroughly disabused of that notion.

 

[aGDevil2k]

The two things I never wanted to hear from liberals/leftists again, that we said in 2010 and 2012 but have been proven to be absolute fool's gold:

"The electorate is going to become more liberal as old conservatives die off and young liberals move in"

"Demographic shifts are going to make it impossible for Republicans to win overall/win in the Sun Belt without reaching out to minorities"

To win you have to win back hispanics and working class white people. Not majorities of the latter, but at least 10-20% more

 

[superrific]

It isn't about "not getting their hands dirty." The anti-college sentiment among blue collar workers is resentment toward the countless MBAs that come to their factory floors and tell them how they should be doing things.

Is that why Wayne LaPierre said that the enemies of the American people are journalists and academics?

What accounts for the hostility on this board of our conservative posters who detest people of learning? They hate MBAs too? I am not going to say that what you're saying is wrong, but rather it's incomplete.

 

[Zoo_View]

Bingo. Arrogance isn't a doctor telling people to take a vaccine. It's some fucking idiot who googled for thirty minutes and thinks he knows better than the doctor.

30 minutes?

That’s a LONG attention span.

 

[superrific]

You have to find a way to reach them and acting all better than is not it. Liberals have a massive PR problem and I'm not seeing much hope on this board of fixing it.

1. It's the day after the election. Maybe it's too soon to have fixes?
2. You're right that we have to find a way to reach them, but I don't know how. None of these ideas seem like they will work very well. Today's America is defined by hatred. The candidates who project hate to the majority of the population will win.

I have come to loathe rural white people. I admit it. There is real hate there. I'm not immune. I try not to, but it's so hard.

In my experience, it's the rural folks who always start the hate cycle. They are so goddamned insecure about who they are.

 

[Zoo_View]

Democrats are going to need to move to low-population red states to flip the senate. Absent some demographical changes, it will be difficult for democrats to ever regain the senate again. I propose that we set up remote communes of 100k young democrats in each of the Dakotas, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming and Alaska. They can all work remotely except for the ones manning the coffee shops.

Edit -- and we can get George Soros to fund it. We just need to make cold weather seem cool on Instagram.

Add in Down East and Inland Maine to garner that one electoral vote.

 

[aGDevil2k]

It's not our job to be the messengers.

But when you are the party that relies on black and brown voters, it should be very clear now that especially there, you are getting a lot of misogyny with a woman nominee. And then cut the margins with white men and women by 10% in 2028. That's the goal. Do that and you win again.

Get someone who can speak to NC and speak to Georgia. Those states are the future of the party. The dems MUST move NC and GA towards Virginia status faster. Like go ALL IN on it.