Democrats Face Identity Crisis

chanson78 said:

This is a really good article.

The Book That Predicted Trump’s Rise Offers the Left a Roadmap for Defeating Him

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That is a decent enough article.


I can give Left some GREAT advice on just plain winning.....

1) Drop the now fifty years old nonsense that you lose elections because of the other side "appealed to racism." They're rejecting what you're selling, not buying into the notion we're going back to Jim Crow or any other derivative of that stupid argument.

2) Actually come out and say what you're for.

SAY it. Take God out of the party platform as was suggested in 2012. Come right out and say you favor REALLY, REALLY high taxes and single payer health care. Most of the rest of the stuff can be finessed.

4Q Basket Case said:

Mrs. Basket Case and I were discussing this very issue in the context of American thought processes vs. those of the Scandinavian countries.

Long story short, we concluded that it came down to one idea...they have faith that their politicians will be generally good stewards of their taxes. Maybe not perfect, but good enough.

As a result, they're OK with high tax rates.

As has been proven time and again, at all levels of government (municipal, county, state and federal), all parties, all skin colors, personal plumbing -- whatever characteristic you choose -- Ameican politicians have proven wholly untrustworthy of anything beyond......well.....I can't think of anything I'd trust them with.

That is at the core of why Europeans in general, and Scandinavians in particular, will never agree with Americans on the role of government.

How did we ever end up with such an abysmal group of elected officials?

** Heavy sigh **

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I would also add that our government has a track record of being horrible managers of funds. They throw money at some of the most foolish things and pay way to much for it.

Let me be clear (and Charmin has said this awhile back) - no, I DO NOT think the Democratic Party is a group of socialists any more than the GOP is a group of fascists. Yes, there are some who either ARE socialists (geez, Bernie Sanders is one) or have those tendencies, true.

However - just come right out and say what you're for. Don't hedge. Here's what's funny - if you remember the humorless technocrat Mike Dukakis (the 88 nominee), you know he was a disaster of a candidate. But the guy made the BEST framing of argument I've ever heard from the pro-choice side on abortion.

"....isn't the real question that we have to answer not how many exceptions we make, because the vice president himself is prepared to make exceptions. It's who makes the decision, who makes this very difficult, very wrenching decision? And I think it has to be the woman, in the exercise of her own conscience and religious beliefs, that makes that decision. Who are we to say, well, under certain circumstances, it's all right, but under other circumstances it isn't? That's a decision that only a woman can make, after consulting her conscience and consulting her religious principles. And I would hope that we would give to women in this country the right to make that decision, and to make it in the exercise of their conscience and religious beliefs."

=========

That's a far cry from the current argument that is basically, "Well, you want to turn back the clock to where women were second class citizens blah blah blah."



I only cite abortion because it's the most volatile and yet least important in terms of who wins.

Now, if the party actually DOES believe "we should revoke the tax exempt status of any church that calls homosexuality a sin," they should come right out and say it. Be transparent.


Obamacare is a perfect metaphor for what the Ds have become. This so-called "great" program was delayed for FOUR years so they could make sure it wasn't an issue in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 elections (during which the Democrats lost both the House and the Senate while Obama kept his job).....and then the high premiums came due in October 2016.

If your program is so great you have to:
a) exclude the 1,300 groups that make up a large contingent of your voters from the 'mandate'
b) wait until well after elections in hopes of not paying the price for it


then your program isn't very great at all.


Come right out and say what you're for rather than hiding it and then springing it real quick after the election.

Trump said he was for an Obamacare repeal and a big wall Mexico pays for. Sure, it was unreality - but it was more persuasive that he was 'for' those things than that Hillary was for anything other than getting elected.

I look back at the winners I've seen - Obama was quite clear of his basic outline; Bush not so much in 2000 (which is why it was a tie); Clinton in 92, Bush >>>Dukakis in 88, Reagan most certainly in 80.

Transparency - real or at least perceived - wins.

That's why McCain blew his feet off in 2008 when he made that stupid "fundamentals of the economy" comment. Up until that moment, he was seen as a straight talker. At that moment, he became worthless Republican hack in the eyes of the sensible center. Hillary was not hurt by the FBI investigation into the emails but by what those represented - her desire to hide information from people and be devious and act like rules were something for "other people" but not her. Seriously - if the Gore who conceded on the night of 12/13/00 had been the one who ran, I'd have voted for him. But he LOOKED slick just like Romney did (I've since seen Romney in a calm setting, and he was one of the most likable guys I've ever seen).

LOOK! SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!!!

The demonrats have their answer, and it is called "Win The Future". Or, ***, for short. (No, I am not making this up, just because I first read about it at TrumpBart.)

So, here is the link to the original story:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017...is-everything-thats-wrong-with-silicon-valley

(Not because so many of you are annoyed by TrumpBart, but because the original version is actually funnier.)

Nor is it clear what needs W.T.F. is designed to address. Pincus told Recode that he believes the Democratic Party is “already moving too far to the left,” and wants to position his group as “pro-social, pro-planet, and pro-business.”

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Really? Like in most cases: "you have 3 options, from which you can pick 2, and only 2." (Something the idiots who think they can run 1/7 of the economy from, sitting in the bubble of "Santa's Village" failed to grasp. Never mind they couldn't anyway. They just thought we were dumb enough to believe we can have all 3 options. Just because they were.)

But while the Democratic Party may be in need of reform, the Silicon Valley vision for a millennial-friendly upgrade seems fatally flawed. At a time when the culture seems fed up with Silicon Valley navel-gazing, Win the Future brings to the table the worst aspects of the tech industry: the arrogance to think that politics can be “hacked”; the hubris to think that they are the one to overhaul it; and a total misunderstanding of the system they’re trying to disrupt.

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They said it, not me. I second the motion. ("Masters of the Universe" syndrome. I see it a lot, in my part of the tech world.)

Progressive activists were similarly skeptical. “I am not sure the creators of the lamest and the most annoying social-media experiences are the exact people who should be rewiring the philosophical core of the Democratic Party as they say they want to,” Alex Lawson, the executive director of Social Security Works, told The Huffington Post. Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, noted that Silicon Valley tends to have a blind spot when it comes to understanding most voters. “The rich people’s social milieu is to think that the swing voter is kind of like them, which is to say progressive on social issues and regressive on corporate power, and that’s not actually where the bulk of median swing voters in America are.”

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Not sure those guys get it, either. Yes, while they are right that tech elitists think everyone is just like them, the radical kook regressive activists think everyone is just as crazy as they are.

Tell that to Joe SixPack, and the rest of the blue-collar "working class". They don't share your mindless desire for collectivism.

The Democrats need to become a real progressive left wing party or one needs to materialize somehow. Nobody is really happy with the modern Democratic Party. Centrists are not winning to keep their socially progressive, fiscal conservative goals intact. Progressives feel like they're getting played by a party that wants to parade women, LGBTQs, and minorities around as if that solves most of the systemic problems in this country.

The Democratic Party is a failure because monied interests have co-opted them to be a palatable to wealth foil to the GOP. Until a real party emerges and not just one for upper-middle-to-upper class white collars to feel good about themselves while stomping all over poor people out of their eye's view, the DNC will be doomed to be impotent.

rgw said:

The Democrats need to become a real progressive left wing party or one needs to materialize somehow.

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Obama and the lemmings ran right over the cliff on health care, but Barack had magic powers and escaped with his office intact.

rgw said:

Nobody is really happy with the modern Democratic Party. Centrists are not winning to keep their socially progressive, fiscal conservative goals intact. Progressives feel like they're getting played by a party that wants to parade women, LGBTQs, and minorities around as if that solves most of the systemic problems in this country.

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Well, I can give you three real good reasons why your first statement is one of the truest things ever said on Tide fans:
1) Conservatives are obviously unhappy with the 'liberal' party
2) Moderates see a group that kowtows to identity politics
3) Liberals in general are miserable people looking for the next cause to be miserable about (government activism mandates whining)

In general terms, folks who are actual liberals as opposed to moderates are miserable people. These are the clowns that when I took education courses could whine about what was wrong with all of the different grading systems but never come up with one they thought was good. Most are humorless to the point they can't even take a simple joke.

Now......to what degree we have REAL liberals here, I'm not sure because I don't know what everyone believes about every single thing. Some folks are liberal on this issue, conservative on that one (and I think that whole labeling is wrong, I just use it for convenience sake). I mean, 92tide has one of the best senses of humor on this board, but I don't know for sure how 'liberal' he is, how he would be categorized. (I think some of his comments are made in caricature and light-hearted, but I also know that he and I share troubled musings on some of the same issues and don't see them in black and white terms). jthomas66 is another one that is clearly liberal on some things but I don't find him a radical, either (and also a good sense of humor).

rgw said:

The Democratic Party is a failure because monied interests have co-opted them to be a palatable to wealth foil to the GOP. Until a real party emerges and not just one for upper-middle-to-upper class white collars to feel good about themselves while stomping all over poor people out of their eye's view, the DNC will be doomed to be impotent.

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Well, it's true that we now have a choice between this corporate bought or that corporate bought entity.

And remember.....it's the DEMOCRATS (not the GOP) who is promising with a straight face (while taking donations from rich corporations) that by gawd they're going to make them rich corporations (who gave them money) pay out the wazzu to make the outcome fair.

Sure they are. Ralph Nader's assessment that in reality there isn't a dime's worth of difference in the two parties (this phrase stolen from George Wallace's 1968 campaign) is accurate.

To be fair, both parties used to have folks from all across the spectrum. Success spoiled both parties. The Democrats held the White House from 1932-1968 with the sole exception of Eisenhower (and he wasn't exactly a real Republican), and while it's good that they moved blacks and women into public positions as delegates, going quota they way they did was NOT the way to stay on the good side of the union folks and religious folks who had been part of their backbone for a couple of generations. ("Oh, I realize you've been to every convention and served the party for 30 years in your delegate slot, but you're the wrong race/color/sex, so get lost" - they did, and many of them found a home in the GOP).

The Republicans then turned around and did the same type of party purging post-Reagan, actually believing that the elections of Reagan twice and Bush were proof that conservatism was now the same kind of ideological litmus test the left used to have. (Remember, Bush lost in 1992 because he wasn't conservative enough - or so went the claims at the time from the radical right).

The wiping out of folks like Richard Lugar and Eric Cantor and Senator Bennett in Utah would NEVER have happened 30-40 years ago. The GOP as a minority understood that they needed every seat they could get. Remember - it was conservatives who ran off Newt Gingrich as Speaker for Pete's sake!!!!

Most folks are not straight right or left down the board. The spokespersons for each party don't seem to realize this.

Defections by blue-collar voters cost Democrat Hillary Clinton the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which went to President Trump. It was the first time since 1988 that a GOP presidential candidate had won Michigan or Pennsylvania, and the first time since 1984 in Wisconsin.

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Yet the liberal Sociologist from Berkley Arlie Hochschild went to Louisiana to better understand whats wrong with all these backwoods deplorable illiterates who obviously voted against their own self interest.

The development of party political tactics really does depend on the Electoral College, a necessary evil and yet a problem.

Go back and look at the electoral map from, say, 1940.


The media myth goes something like "the country was really liberal blah blah blah." Not "really" because the Democrats of 1940 (nationally) would never recognize the largely pacifist group running things now. (The Republican isolationists would recognize that particular segment of today's GOP, but still.....)

Look closely:
the South is SOLIDLY Democratic...FDR carried 95% of the vote in MS and 85% in AL, where blacks couldn't even vote.
The Republican wins Vermont - VERMONT - by nearly ten points and Maine as well.
And AZ and NM are Democratic.

Go to 1944 and you see - literally - the exact same outcome except three three states flip - WI and OH go Rep while MI goes Democrat.


(You can observe this same basic concept when the Republicans pretty much were assured the White House in almost every election from 1868-1932).

The Democrats had an Electoral College lock. And further proof comes in 1948, the infamous "Dewey Beats Truman" headline. Why did the Chicago paper think that? Well, Strom Thurmond ran as an avowed racist heading the States Rights party and Strom took 39 electoral votes that Truman would have gotten otherwise. Truman finished second in MS and LA despite his executive order ending segregation in the Armed Forces during the 1948 campaign. He wins those Southern states otherwise.


Now go look at 1952 - Eisenhower shatters the Solid South (so much for the revisionist myth of the so-called Southern strategy) by snagging Virginia and Tennessee while barely losing KY and SC. But look a little closer - the Rust Belt of the time from NY/NJ to Minnesota had 246 EVs, and if you count western Massachusetts at the time, you have 262 EVs when you only needed 266 to win.....and Texas was solid Democrat, too.

The Democrats literally had the election pretty much locked up before it ever got started (just as the GOP did for that 70 year span following the Civil War). It had NOTHING to do with 'liberalism' or 'battles of ideas,' it was a tactical battle to get 266 EVs. Back then we were a union heavy country in the Rust Belt and the South was still angry about Republicans over the Civil War.

Despite the carping, what happened was NOT the myth we're sold. Just go look at what happened with the EV totals, that's all you have to do, comparing the last dominant Democratic era (LBJ was an outlier in 64) and the end of the so-called Reagan realignment

STATES EV TOTALS 1948 (1988)
New York 47 (36)
PA 35 (25)
Florida 8 (21)
Texas 23 (29)
CA 25 (47)

So Truman wins three and gets 56 EVs while Dewey wins 82 because he carries his home state of NY by less than one point (the Dems win this if Dewey isn't the nominee) and PA.

In the forty years afterwards, families from the cold Rust Belt migrate to Texas, Florida, and California in search of both opportunity and warmer weather. So in 1988, Bush wins FOUR of those states and pockets 122 EVs while losing only 36. Consider this: Dukakis carried ten states and won 112 EVs (one faithless elector selected Bentsen as Prez fwiw); a Democrat carrying nine of the same states in 1948 (Hawaii was not yet in the Union) would have 126 EVs, and since HI is part of the Dem base let's give them those three.

1948: 129
1988: 112

17 electoral votes is HUGE in elections like 2000, 2004, and 2016. (OK, it's YUGE in the latter one). That's three of the last five elections and going back to 1960 we've had four total wipeouts, SIX close elections (60-68-76-00-04-16) and five 'could have gone either way' elections. And 92 could easily have gone the other way (a switch of 300,000 votes strategically in ten states re-elects Bush, which is why the Perot myth is not totally untrue.....just almost totally untrue).

What keeps the Democrats alive right now is the fact that several states like Illinois, California, Michigan, and New Jersey, all of which were Republican states for so long, are now solidly Democratic states.

From 1968-1988, it was not "racism" that won the White House for the GOP. Once again, just to look at the electoral vote. Nixon gets 40 for his home state of CA that Truman won in 48 but only got 25 votes. Nixon did NOT win because of "the racist Southern strategy" - he lost SIX of the 11 Southern states (not including Florida, which isn't considered Southern nor Texas, which Humphrey won). Wallace got 46 EVs; had he not been running, Humphrey gets AT LEAST 27 of those and probably 34 (Arkansas was virtually a tie between Nixon and H3 for second place).

Humphrey didn't lose because of a racist NIXON vote; one could argue he lost because of a racist Wallace vote, true. But then again.......go look at the reliable Democratic base in the Rust Belt. Nixon snagged NJ, OH, IN, IL, and WI from that area of the country. In 1960, JFK carried IL and NJ, which was 43 EVs that Humphrey lost in 68.....and he lost the election by 55 (you have to divide the total by two). If Hubert had carried the reliable Democratic base then he's within striking distance despite the Vietnam War and riots in the streets. (On another insane note - Humphrey did not run a single commercial in that campaign until October 24, for an election to be held on November 5 - this according to reporter Teddy White, who wrote the campaign book in early 1969).


Of course I've meandered but that's the point - part of the reason is TACTICS and strategy are what win the Presidential election, NOT really ideas. This explains quite easily how you can show me a poll where 58% of the public defines themselves as pro-choice and yet a hard-right pro-life candidate like Reagan can not only win, he can win a colossal landslide. Uh, two landslides.

Most discussion among the great washed about so-called election realignment is hogwash. It reaffirms their prejudices that left is good/right is evil (it's always amusing to me how many political scientists/reporters can actually SEE this when they're looking at the Religious Right's moral views on elections but don't realize it in their own stupid analyses; they're more fundamentalist than the fundamentalists).

States (for better or worse) have declared their allegiance to particular teams. Everyone knows right now today that in the 2020 election - even if the Democrats nominated Satan (like they did in 2016, ha ha) and the Republicans nominated Hitler/Stalin/Qaddafi/Hussein........the Republican is going to win both Kansas and Utah and the Democrat is going to win California without ever setting foot in the state except for fund-raisers. The battle is over states where both parties have a chance. Let's be honest: Hillary picked Tim Kaine for ONE reason and ONE reason only........he put Virginia in her hip pocket and its EVs. As much as I despise the woman, this was nothing new and happens virtually every election (Pence is the rare anomaly because he got chosen both as a sop to the social conservatives and because Kasich didn't want any part of Trump). Obama didn't pick Biden, though, for those three votes in Delaware, he picked him because Biden was not Hillary, had some stature, had good press relations, and was capable of acting like an adult (with occasional lapses that were hilarious). But note that the VP selection is almost always from a swing state:

2012 - Ryan (WI)
2008 - Palin (chosen because of women angry that Hillary lost and a mistake)
2004 - Edwards (put NC in play)
2000 - Cheney was actually chosen for the same reason as Biden
1996 - Kemp (NY)
1992 - Gore (chosen to show that Clinton was more of a Southern Democrat than a Northern liberal)
1988 - Bentsen (they hoped to win TX; they wanted Glenn, which is who the GOP feared would get it); Quayle was chosen, allegedly, because he schmoozed Bush's rear end all the time on Capitol Hill
1984 - Ferraro (NY), lost the state but it was more in play than it would have been
1980 - Bush (TX) - people forget TX was once a Democratic and then a swing state


The point is that the parties are into 'winning' and 'winning' requires winning tactics. If that screws the voters, to hell with them is the mantra backstage.

I just really think the only way the Democratic Party can go and be relevant at all is actual left-wing politics. Not this mealy-mouthed third way centrism that accomplishes nothing but a further drift to the right each successive decade in this country. Our American politics are a game of tug o' war and if you want centrism then you accomplish it with an actual left-wing foil not a centrist party. The Clinton DNC has been the worst thing to happen to actual centrism in my lifetime. By staking their claim in the center, they assure that the right wing pull drifts us more authoritarian right over time.

The New Democrats (Clinton era and forward) are centrist by any practical, modern measure unless you sit upon the right pole from which everything appears left-wing. Mixed economies with social welfare programs is the accepted middle ground approach of the 20th century into today. People who want Jeffersonian egalitarianism today are on the political equivelent of a crack pipe.

CajunCrimson said:

Bill Clinton, ok. But Obama and Hill are not centrists. Look at Obama's court appointments. That alone should show you that. Socialism is still left of center, at least for now.

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Obama had some New Deal democrat values but he was closer to the center of the right centered American politics. Our mainstream democrats are right centered compared to European politics, and our mainstream republicans aren't that far right of our mainstream democrats. I tend to think the average conservative and liberal voters want to do away with the Reagan neo liberalism and want to go back to the Kennedy- Nixon type parties.

The last true liberal in our politics to hold power was Carter. If you compare Carter to Obama it's a night and day difference. Reagan won mostly because he went slightly to the right of Carter in a very bad year for Carter but farther to the left of your Nixon Republican. Reagan would be closer to a democrat today than your average Republican. Republicans have changed little since Nixon but the Democrats have changed a lot since Carter. I will say Obama went more left than Clinton but he is nowhere near Warren or Sanders at being left of the current party. Sanders and Warren are closer to Carter.

rgw said:

Mixed economies with social welfare programs is the accepted middle ground approach of the 20th century into today.

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Maybe to you. (Yes, the republicants accept it, because the fact is, they love big gubbament as much as the demonrats. It is all about power. Too bad the people who get conned into electing them haven't caught on yet, and keep voting for them.)

Anyone who doesn't think there has been a marked leftward drift lives in an alternate state of reality.