This is a really important point. We should remember that convincing us white men to vote for our candidate is not the only way to go, not the only (or even main) goal to have. We have to get women, minorities, and the greater (i.e., not just white) working class excited about voting for people. The way to do that is representation.
Edited to own up to how i am classified (race) and identify (gender) as it seems important in this discussion.
Yep. Seriously- these folks who want to tell me how their candidate is THE ONLY ONE make me not trust their guy. Messiah complexes and power are an unfortunate combination.
They hurt their candidate with the people they need to convince- and it’s clear they don’t have the votes at this point in time - so why would they take this approach?
Weird
I would love if the mainstream of the democratic party would give up on the idea of trying to sway the hard right into their camp by continuing to trend to the right, and instead address the intersection of issues that could excite people who have given up on voting (about half of the eligible voters don’t vote). that’s precisely what Abrams did, and although she lost, she was close for GA. She didn’t do that by trying to appeal to white men who wouldn’t vote for a black woman… she did it by going county to county and talking on real issues to the people who have lost hope.
I think it’s not the only way though. I do think issues and policies matter and that will win the day. I’d love to see a black woman representing us to the world, though. But if that black woman is Condeleezza Rice… no thanks… I’m not going to vote just for race and gender, but it’s a nice bonus…
You’re absolutely right. I should have specified both identity and policy representation, i.e. policies that will help the people who are usually ignored and (ideally) someone who’s background implies that their policies aren’t just words.
Kamala Harris is disliked by trans people and Black Lives Matter. Both groups view her as an opponent to their civil rights. Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
Warren/Booker seems like the most electable combination to me (of the ones you picked). It isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t fill me with dread about the possibility of another four years of Trump.
The big problem with this argument is that the Democrats have been moving steadily to the Right for fifty years. They are now significantly to the Right of Reagan on every economic, foreign, and in many cases social policy issue.
We used to be told that our concerns would get some traction but not until after the first 100 days then after the midterms then after the next Presidential election and then, well, it was too late. Meanwhile the Party has always managed to “triangulate” and “no air-space on the Right” and “moved to the (non-existent) Center” to the point where they no longer pretend. The Anointed One, Uncle Joe, is up front about serving the billionaire class. Dole Care didn’t save our healthcare system. The “free trade” deals de-industrialized us, destroyed Labor, holed our balance of payments below the waterline, and ended up serving nobody but the multinationals while giving Trump a bigly yuge campaign issue. The derivatives traders and robosigners were completely protected. So on. So forth.
About all the Democrats have to run on now is
And that’s why the Democrats have gone from running the country top to bottom to only being able to grab Congress during Republican Presidents’ midterms and ceding the Legislatures, local government and all the rest to the Greedy Old Pedos.
For the love of Fewk give us something to vote FOR once in a while, not just fear that things will get worse a little faster.
More every day as Jew-hatred without even the figleaf of “anti-Zionism” becomes mainstream across the political spectrum and as things straight out of the 1974 Republican Platform are decried as “Socialist”
trust me, was in no way an endorsement.
You seem to have a problem with electoral democracy. Protip: shut up, and vote correctly isn’t how it’s done.
When it ends with Democrats practically damn near electing people like Donald Trump? Damn right I do. The PC police is not the way to get Trump out of office.
And let’s not forget that unlike Clinton, Warren doesn’t have a history of shilling racist, anti-poor, anti-woman, and militarist policies.
Not disagreeing but do the big-I Ideas matter at this point? The bar for competent representation has sunk so low you will need the team from The Core to go find it.
Sadly I think the best we can hope for is bringing in a populist who’s simply Not Trump to reboot the machinery. From there - the next guy or gal in 2024 has a platform to stand on versus a hole to crawl from.
To little and too slow. Of course Ideas matter.
It needs to pounded and pounded again (apparently): Clinton won the popular vote. (she may’ve even won even more than that but for hackery) The problem, of course, is the @#$ electoral college, and yet Obama survived that. Run someone who will look at least as good a Clinton in some debate against trump (which isn’t hard - he has no ability to focus, go the distance, or understand any detailed topic) and dammit get some proven electoral college strategy going like Obama did, (which Clinton unaccountably was lacking). For my money, you could go with a Klobuchar/Inslee ticket (not quite as progressive as i’d like, but there does have to be some compromise) - but other combinations are winnable too (sez i)
When people say the Democrats can’t figure out how to win over voters in the general election I like to remind them that NO first-term Republican President has won the popular vote since 1988.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the greatest existential threats to the GOP, wasn’t even born yet the last time that happened.
Nope. When you have people from different cultures living together, they pick up things from one another’s culture. Labeling all of this “cultural appropriation” suggests this all nefarious (as opposed to normal human cultural development).
when o’rourke ran against ted cruz for u.s. senator from texas i voted for him because he was, by far, closer to my views than cruz. similarly, if o’rourke were to run against john cornyn for u.s. senator from texas i would, again, vote for beto in a heartbeat because, again, he is vastly closer to my views than cornyn. as a nominee for the democratic candidate for president of the united states given the current field of candidates running–no, hell no, a thousand times no. he is easily to the left of either cornyn or cruz, even joe manchin is easily to the left of cornyn or cruz. but o’rourke is far to the right of anyone else running for the nomination.
context is everything.
Now lets look at Book Publishers…and see what other books they publish and support…like Ann Coulter. Or Animal Killing Cook Books and boycott all the authors that get published by them. Or even sell them…Like Amazon.
Were does the purity test stop? Not the pocketbook that’s for sure.
