Where do we go from here?

[Gmonet]

You, and so many others, have been manipulated into believing so many things that are simply not true by a party, aided and abetted by the liberal media, who desperately wanted to stay in power. After 4 more years of another Trump presidency have passed and none of the dire consequences the left has warned you about actually happen, you need to ask yourself why you were so easily manipulated and after doing so, maybe get a little pissed off about it.

Donald Trump colluded with Russia, Jussie Smollett was attacked by two Trump supporters, Trump called White Supremacists good people, Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation, Border Patrol was whipping migrants, the border is secure while millions of illegals walk across it and also while many more were being flown into cities all across this nation, Joe Biden is running circles around everybody behind the scenes....all lies. Were you convinced to believe any of it?

You want to know who is responsible for creating the vast majority of the division created over the last 8 years? The Democratic Party and the liberal media. The Democrats could have simply acknowledged that Trump beat Hillary, moved on and tried to find common ground. But no, they declared war on Trump and tried to win by any means necessary all the while trying to convince their supporters to hate Trump enough to play along. And in far too many cases it worked.

The nation has moved on from that BS. And if there are any people who still believe all the propaganda, spread across all the years, in an effort to convince you to hate Donald Trump....you are now in the minority. This election proves it.

I've hated Donald Trump since I first saw him interviewed. Larry King asked him what he thought of Tom Wolfe's new bestseller and he replied 'It's great, just read it' or something to that effect. King then asked something like, 'so do you agree with the condemnation of Wall Street excess in Bonfires of the Vanities?'. He had no clue what King was asking because he had no idea 'Bonfire of the Vanities' was the same thing as 'Tom Wolfe's new bestseller'. Because, of course, he's never read a fucking book in his life. His effortless ability to lie is staggering, and is without question his one true superpower. It is heartbreaking to me that so many people seem to either be unaware of this, or think it's a positive thing. And yes, everyone lies, politicians more than most, but he is several orders of magnitude worse/better at it than anyone I've ever seen.

 

[Paine]

Regarding #1, i just saw this

The posters here would hate Hasan, unfortunately.

 

[Peppers49]

I count myself among many on this board who grew up in rural towns, among rural whites.

I have 5 uncles and several cousins who are rural, blue collar folks—mechanics, farmers, volunteer firefighters, cops, etc.

All of them have been hardcore rightwingers for decades—the types who listened to Rush Limbaugh on AM radio back in the 80s/90s.

I went to HS in a rural white community, where most folks went to the same church.

My relatives and the folks in my community made fun of anyone who went to college. “Poindexters, liberals, and fags” go to college, they’d say. When I went to grad school for a grad degree in English, some of them snickered and muttered “***.” They still make homophobic jokes to this day—the fact that im a single 50-yr old guy, never married, no kids, is cause for their ire.

They called all the Hispanic immigrants who came through town for seasonal work on farms by the same name. “Jose’s” they’d call em. As in “Did ya see that truck full of Jose’s out yonder?”

They’d rail against black welfare queens and bitch and moan about the liberals taking god out of schools.

I see their seething hatred in every Trump rally. I hear it in the rants about childless cat women. I hear it cloaked in every interview with every white rural asshole who claims they really didn’t want to vote for Trump, but liberals forced them to because gas costs too much.

It has taken root over 40 years in rural communities. It’s the same as it ever was.

So you can miss me with this bullshit.

Yeah, what an absolutely ridiculous view by that poster. It’s not on the average Joe democratic voter to do some weird self reflection about how to better individually evangelize their cause with conservatives lol. The irony to say that liberals all project arrogance, when the entire premise of his post is arrogant and condescending, and simultaneously lets conservatives off the hook for having shitty views.

Also, plenty of republicans are arrogant twats themselves. I’ve seen countless of them come out of the woodwork with snarky gloating in the aftermath of their big Super Bowl win last night, including on this board.

 

[rodoheel]

The posters here would hate Hasan, unfortunately.

I sometimes agree with hasan. For example, I've seen this video before and very much agree with what he says about engaging young voters on new media platforms. I said something similar in my opening post in this thread.

I do not, however, agree with hasan that the Harris campaign lost the election because they would not be more aggressively pro-Gaza and anti-Israel.

 

[LosPollosHermanos]

Bullshit.

Dems consistently lay out plans to help rural WWC people. Kamala talked about going after price gougers, had plans for $25k subsidies for first-time homebuyers and tax breaks for construction companies. Liz Warren had myriad plans. Hillary noted the need to fund re-training programs and vo-tech programs for those in rural/depressed areas.

No rural white folks gave a fuck about any of those plans.

That’s why your whole idea rings false. They’re not looking for real solutions. They’re not interested in policy positions and in government officials who provide well-researched and informed answers to difficult problems.

They’re motivated by hate and rage. Racial, socioeconomic, gender-based hate and rage. And Trump is the human manifestation of all of that rage.

Yeah before you paint 75 million Trump voters with that broad of a brush you might wanna consider the fact that Joe Biden got 81 million votes 4 years ago and Kamala is sitting at 67 or so now. That means many millions of those Trump voters this year weren't motivated by "racial, socioeconomic, gender-based hate and rage" just a few years ago. And this is exactly what I've been saying over and over here. If you call them all idiots, you can be damn sure none of them come back. But nobody wants to ask what the hell did we do wrong to lose 14 million voters either to apathy or to a makeup wearing phony? Some of you really need to consider the possibility that you're blinded by the same visceral vitriol that many of the people you criticize on the other side are. Common sense dictates that there is a way to get a lot of these people back but most of this board would rather throw the baby out with the bathwater than admit there's a massive disconnect going on here.

 

[JCTarheel82]

The posters here would hate Hasan, unfortunately.

I have no idea who Hasan is nor do I know his politics, but what he says in that video is 100% accurate.

 

[Paine]

I sometimes agree with hasan. For example, I've seen this video before and very much agree with what he says about engaging young voters on new media platforms. I said something similar in my opening post in this thread.

I do not, however, agree with hasan that the Harris campaign lost the election because they would not be more aggressively pro-Gaza and anti-Israel.

Huh. I’ve not heard him say she lost the campaign because of that. He said today that he thought it contributed, but it was one item in a laundry list. Don’t think that’s controversial considering Trump won Dearborn.

 

[Paine]

I have no idea who Hasan is nor do I know his politics, but what he says in that video is 100% accurate.

Hasan Piker - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

He’s a Twitch streamer who talks leftist politics.

 

[LosPollosHermanos]

You are literally posting on a thread that is for us to "start thinking about what the fuck just happened" and not "pretending that 75 million people are all just raging foaming at the mouth lunatics." This is from the second part of my initial two-part post starting the thread:

"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."

Stop lecturing us like you're the only person here who knows a Republican and/or understands that Democrats have lost working class voters and need to appeal to them better. It is no more productive to say that the only reason working class people vote for Trump is that college-educated liberals talk down to them than it is to say that the only reason people vote for Trump is that they're "raging foaming at the mouth lunatics." Of course 75 million people aren't raging foaming at the mouth lunatics. But placing the lion's share of the blame for Trump's success on the idea that liberals refuse to talk to or try to understand Trump voters is asinine. For Christ's sake, between 2016 and now we must have had 15,000 versions of the New York Times article "I met with Trump voters in a small-town diner to talk with them and try to understand them better." Are Fox News and Tucker Carlson doing pieces like that to try to help their viewers understand where liberals and progressives are coming from? Hell no; it's a lot easier to just paint us all as trans commie soy boys who want to impose mandatory sensitivity training for anyone who doesn't live within five minutes of a Starbucks.

We definitely have a big problem in this country with voters from different backgrounds not knowing or understanding each other, but that's a problem that cuts across all demographics in all directions. I'm fairly confident that liberals have done more to try to understand MAGA voters than the other way around, even if most of us still haven't done enough.

The only people I am lecturing are the ones labeling every single Trump voter as unreachable and stupid. We cannot reach every one of them but we don't need to. I think there is a tendency on this board, and really from the entire demographic that makes up the majority of this board, to be very dismissive of anyone who doesn't despise Trump with every fiber of their being. I don't think that approach has any hope at all now.

 

[Healing]

The posters here would hate Hasan, unfortunately.

What? You posted videos of him weeks ago and several folks, myself included, responded positively. At least that's my distinct recollection.

 

[Paine]

What? You posted videos of him weeks ago and several folks, myself included, responded positively. At least that's my distinct recollection.

I’ve no doubt y’all would like some of the arguments he makes. I get plenty of likes on this platform from people who disagree with me on a litany of issues.

Specifically in the context of this thread, if y’all think my criticisms of the Democratic Party and the Harris campaign are off base, then I don’t think many of you would like Hasan’s commentary.

 

[heel17]

If we look back over the last three cycles from the rise of Trump until today, you can see a complete repudiation of both the country club and neocon conservatives that had dominated the GOP since Watergate. Sure, plenty of these groups have and will continue to support Rs due to many reasons both cultural and $$$ but they have largely been co-opted by MAGA as of 2024, with evangelicals along for the ride due to their own policy goals. The Bush's and Cheney's of the world are about as welcome in the modern GOP as Harris and Biden. How did Trump do this? He created a movement that shook up the existing coalition and brought in new blood to the party. Sure, some voters were lost, but many more (or at least enough in the right places) were added to make up for it.

Meanwhile, the dems have been losing the working class. First the WWC, and now minorities as well. You can say that it was a reaction to running a Black man or a woman (x2), but Obama and Biden both won in 2012 and 2020 with enough of those voters in key states. Clearly there are enough of those voters that are persuadable for the right candidate even during the rise of Trump's movement. On balance, however, these voters are buying more of what the newly MAGA GOP is selling than they are from the dems. Some are now fully MAGA but the secret to future dem success is winning back those that are not.

In my view, Biden was an exception in 2020 due to COVID and as an extension of Obama's popularity. Honestly, without COVID, I think Trump would have beaten Biden. Now I don't expect a second Obama to appear out of the ether, but clearly the dems need to put forward a candidate (and downballot candidates in alignment with them) with broader mass appeal to these voters.

Dems should focus on creating a *movement*, not just triangulate to specific policy goals. In my view this *doesn't* mean running as far left as Sanders, but he was on the right track. As others have discussed, I think Bernie would have gotten killed in the general - this country is too conservative for his policies today. But how many Obama -> Trump or Sanders -> Trump voters are out there? Enough to chase and enough to win an election, even if not going fully leftist. Charisma, confidence, and humor from a leader of a new movement will contrast, combat, and beat the fear, isolationism, and grievance of the MAGA movement. Persuadable voters have shown that they could give a rip about detailed policy plans and it's about making them feel that they are a part of something.

The challenge is finding someone who can actually inspire and create this. Politics is now so personality driven these days that a new movement is the only way to win voters for more than 1 or 2 cycles at a time. Running a bland, establishment dem, even if capable of winning a single election, won't shift the paradigm enough to stop the current bleeding in the long run.

These are just my initial thoughts. Plenty of time to think this through and debate as a party, but we must be ready and lay the groundwork today to regain power and stop this madness when the time is again right.

 

[LosPollosHermanos]

Doesn’t the fact that the problem is more disappearing Democratic voters than people flipping to Republicans indicate that leaning more into understanding the Republican base isn’t the solution ?

I think we have a big problem that requires way more than one solution. Apathy certainly needs to be addressed but understanding why people flip from D to someone as bad as Trump needs to be examined a lot. It concerns me more that so many who voted Biden 4 years ago and are not dyed in the wool MAGA types would flip to someone as vile as Trump.

 

[Duke Mu]

Trump has a Cult and is a Hollywood D-lister. He has grievances. His cult has grievances. Reagan's WH banned Trump from visits. Trump has very few traditional conservative views and was an HRC supporting Democrat in NYC. He tested the waters by jabbing Obama about Obama's birth certificate. Obama roasted Trump at the WH Correspondents dinner. While Trump ran in 2015 largely as a branding exercise, he used lockeroom.

While OG conservatism of the Buckley era focused on education, discipline, sound financial principles, free trade, world order, security, law & order, Trump shared as many political leanings with Bernie as Reagan. Trump was a spoiled brat who was another snotty draft dodger and self-centered. Daddy provide for him and he never really grew up emotionally. Trump wanted to be an elitist, and often saw himself.

When unions didn't protect working class jobs, even though lost jobs were more to automation than trade overseas, working class voters were looking for a populist. Bernie was their first pick. Trump recognized the opportunity to be a carpetbagger and share grievance against free trade, even if both Trump and Midwestern WC both misunderstood.

Southern whites were a piece of cake for Trump. Share grievances about blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, and women who ran companies that make sandwiches rather than making them at home.

When Trump was on trial, his body language said "grievance" at all times. Grievance + pretend feats of strength. The Circus is back in town and MAGA in full are visiting the carnies again.

 

[CRHeel94]

Trump has consistently been against free trade for decades. That’s one of his few political values that have been consistent across time.

 

[finesse]

Bernie can register as a Democrat to run for President the same way I registered as a Republican to vote in the Republican primary in Ohio in 2016. Bernie is not and never has been a dues-paying member of the Democratic Party. They are never and were never going to nominate him.

More importantly, he's not done a damned thing to grow the party. He just wants to cut in line and use it. Maybe he would be good. He still can't get elected in this political climate. If Hillary had won in 2016, we might have been at a point where that changed. She didn't and it hasn't.

 

[rodoheel]

Trump has consistently been against free trade for decades. That’s one of his few political values that have been consistent across time.

Yes, and it’s amusing that the guy who is a huge opponent of free trade just won an election railing against higher consumer prices. In MAGA land they believe it’s possible to both return tons of manufacturing jobs to the country AND keep everything at Wal-Mart the same price.

 

[dukeman92]

Yeah, I mean I may have grown up in the same town. And the people you describe no doubt exist and are common. I could go on about my experiences for ages and I will after I get my kids to bed and have a few nightcaps. But when you win a popular vote by 5 million, win every blue wall state, you're not just pulling from the raging rednecks. We've always known he is the pied piper of white trash, but his base is increasing into more normal seeming people. It's almost like a stage of Marxism is happening, but the white working class isn't just mad at the robber barons, they're fucking mad at everyone who isn't sweating the rent every month. And by God all we do is flame them about their plight and get them even more mad. Nobody is even trying to relate to them. The most we do to try and relate to them is pick an everyman VP whose net worth is only $300K. It's like the dems brushed them off and just said we don't need you, now go on about your business, losers. And it's not gonna work any more. There has to be a plan to reach the reasonable ones in there that might actually have a good reason to not like the libs so much and turn some of them around. We're fucking losing.

You do realize that four years ago 82 million Americans voted for a democrat, right?

 

[aGDevil2k]

Yeah before you paint 75 million Trump voters with that broad of a brush you might wanna consider the fact that Joe Biden got 81 million votes 4 years ago and Kamala is sitting at 67 or so now. That means many millions of those Trump voters this year weren't motivated by "racial, socioeconomic, gender-based hate and rage" just a few years ago. And this is exactly what I've been saying over and over here. If you call them all idiots, you can be damn sure none of them come back. But nobody wants to ask what the hell did we do wrong to lose 14 million voters either to apathy or to a makeup wearing phony? Some of you really need to consider the possibility that you're blinded by the same visceral vitriol that many of the people you criticize on the other side are. Common sense dictates that there is a way to get a lot of these people back but most of this board would rather throw the baby out with the bathwater than admit there's a massive disconnect going on here.

Oh I admit I am. I wish the country would split apart. I'm not the one to come to with solutions of how to reach trump voters

But I also think the solution to reach those 14 million is found with younger voters like previously mentioned. They don't have the wounds of years and decades of dealing with right wing hatred

But reaching them online and not in door knocks is key. And over the next two years tap in to how Trump isn't really helping them

Boil the messaging into a couple of words and not long explanations

 

[korgguy1971]

I believe he said he is an MD

This is correct - griff is a physician.