clovenhooves The Personal Is Political General Will Democrats learn anything?

Will Democrats learn anything?

Will Democrats learn anything?

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Clover
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Nov 8 2024, 12:49 PM
#1
I'll be honest, I did not expect a Republican sweep this election. I thought it would at least be close. Perhaps it was because I live in a liberal state, and the only social media I consume is Reddit (a liberal echo chamber that was worse than I remembered it after taking a long break from it), Ovarit (a woman/feminist-ish bubble), and radblr (Tumblr seems to be a very left/liberal bubble, or at least it seems I have curated it to be that way due to focusing on feminism). I don't use modern popular social media like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, which apparently some have claimed that those websites would show a more accurate prediction of the outcome of the election.

Nevertheless, what has happened happened. Now the question is will the Democrat party learn from this?

From what I have read, Trump has said that their most successful ad was not their economy ad, but their anti-trans ad. I mentioned in a comment on Ovarit that trans is the Democrat party's Achilles heel. So if what the Trump campaign is saying about their anti-trans ad being their most successful ad is true, then I think I am somewhat right in that gender woowoo was the Democrat party's Achilles heel. However, that statement is not entirely accurate, as it would imply the rest of the Democrat party was strong. It is not, and now I see a stark reality of how the Democrat party fails the American people in many regards.

Some have pointed out that Trump won based on the economy. Not because Trump has any decent plans for the economy, as economists say that his tariff plan is going to increase inflation while the Biden administration has been lowering it. The Democrats trying to claim that the economy is doing great under Biden was quite tonedeaf, as egghead statistics mean nothing to a family who sees their grocery bills soaring. It doesn't matter that inflation is a separate issue than corporate price gouging, people vote with their feelings for the president, and I'm sure Democrats touting that the economy is great left a horrible taste in their mouths when looking at their grocery bills and cost of living.

Overall, it looks like Democrats continue to show themselves a party of the neoliberal elites, they fail to acknowledge the struggles of the working class in a meaningful way. Transgenderism I can only assume is like the highest tier of ridiculous elitist issues. The focus on thinking that mentally ill people who promote sexist stereotypes are some vulnerable population that need taxpayer funding for their cosmetic hormones and surgeries was likely quite a spit in the face of the common working American folk.

Bernie Sanders on the results of the 2024 presidential election It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.

That being said, I do believe that Democrats are the "lesser of two evils", and I am deeply disturbed at the thought of many social programs possibly being cut due to the Trump administration and Republicans having control over all three branches of government. But, now that Democrats have lost, I think it's time to have some honest discussions about where they're failing people.

I will admit that I am doing well in life with my career and I don't struggle to pay for groceries. While I do think the prices of groceries are ridiculous, I have become numb to the high prices. I'm also lucky enough to have purchased a home (granted, it had to have been with the help of my partner, I would not have been able to afford it alone), so I don't need to think about rent increases. That is not the case for many American people out there. So for me, it was easy to only think from a narrow-minded view of transgenderism being the major issue, and ignore all the other signs. (I cringe at the idea of slowly becoming the "liberal elite" that I disdain.)

I keep wanting to say that if the Democrat party drops their whole gender woowoo pandering, they can have a chance in politics. But the issue is now I see that their pandering to transgenderism is part of an overall issue of them failing to resonate with the working class.

I see even in postmortem Democrat discussions on some liberal websites, when a user gently suggested that common people were concerned over transgenderism causing children to be on drugs and have cosmetic surgeries, neoliberals would shame and bully them into attempting to accept that transgenderism is valid and important and frothing at the mouth defending the practice of prescribing children off-label "puberty blockers" and cross-sex hormones, and surgeries like mastectomies in girls. They're claiming they want to figure out what went wrong, but when people try and point it out, they just immediately shut it down. Wow.

This post isn't very well organized, sorry about that. And I haven't even touched women's reproductive rights in this post... America is deeply sick in many ways. Misogyny, racism, classism.
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Clover
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Nov 8 2024, 12:49 PM #1

I'll be honest, I did not expect a Republican sweep this election. I thought it would at least be close. Perhaps it was because I live in a liberal state, and the only social media I consume is Reddit (a liberal echo chamber that was worse than I remembered it after taking a long break from it), Ovarit (a woman/feminist-ish bubble), and radblr (Tumblr seems to be a very left/liberal bubble, or at least it seems I have curated it to be that way due to focusing on feminism). I don't use modern popular social media like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, which apparently some have claimed that those websites would show a more accurate prediction of the outcome of the election.

Nevertheless, what has happened happened. Now the question is will the Democrat party learn from this?

From what I have read, Trump has said that their most successful ad was not their economy ad, but their anti-trans ad. I mentioned in a comment on Ovarit that trans is the Democrat party's Achilles heel. So if what the Trump campaign is saying about their anti-trans ad being their most successful ad is true, then I think I am somewhat right in that gender woowoo was the Democrat party's Achilles heel. However, that statement is not entirely accurate, as it would imply the rest of the Democrat party was strong. It is not, and now I see a stark reality of how the Democrat party fails the American people in many regards.

Some have pointed out that Trump won based on the economy. Not because Trump has any decent plans for the economy, as economists say that his tariff plan is going to increase inflation while the Biden administration has been lowering it. The Democrats trying to claim that the economy is doing great under Biden was quite tonedeaf, as egghead statistics mean nothing to a family who sees their grocery bills soaring. It doesn't matter that inflation is a separate issue than corporate price gouging, people vote with their feelings for the president, and I'm sure Democrats touting that the economy is great left a horrible taste in their mouths when looking at their grocery bills and cost of living.

Overall, it looks like Democrats continue to show themselves a party of the neoliberal elites, they fail to acknowledge the struggles of the working class in a meaningful way. Transgenderism I can only assume is like the highest tier of ridiculous elitist issues. The focus on thinking that mentally ill people who promote sexist stereotypes are some vulnerable population that need taxpayer funding for their cosmetic hormones and surgeries was likely quite a spit in the face of the common working American folk.

Bernie Sanders on the results of the 2024 presidential election It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.

That being said, I do believe that Democrats are the "lesser of two evils", and I am deeply disturbed at the thought of many social programs possibly being cut due to the Trump administration and Republicans having control over all three branches of government. But, now that Democrats have lost, I think it's time to have some honest discussions about where they're failing people.

I will admit that I am doing well in life with my career and I don't struggle to pay for groceries. While I do think the prices of groceries are ridiculous, I have become numb to the high prices. I'm also lucky enough to have purchased a home (granted, it had to have been with the help of my partner, I would not have been able to afford it alone), so I don't need to think about rent increases. That is not the case for many American people out there. So for me, it was easy to only think from a narrow-minded view of transgenderism being the major issue, and ignore all the other signs. (I cringe at the idea of slowly becoming the "liberal elite" that I disdain.)

I keep wanting to say that if the Democrat party drops their whole gender woowoo pandering, they can have a chance in politics. But the issue is now I see that their pandering to transgenderism is part of an overall issue of them failing to resonate with the working class.

I see even in postmortem Democrat discussions on some liberal websites, when a user gently suggested that common people were concerned over transgenderism causing children to be on drugs and have cosmetic surgeries, neoliberals would shame and bully them into attempting to accept that transgenderism is valid and important and frothing at the mouth defending the practice of prescribing children off-label "puberty blockers" and cross-sex hormones, and surgeries like mastectomies in girls. They're claiming they want to figure out what went wrong, but when people try and point it out, they just immediately shut it down. Wow.

This post isn't very well organized, sorry about that. And I haven't even touched women's reproductive rights in this post... America is deeply sick in many ways. Misogyny, racism, classism.

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periwinkle
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Nov 8 2024, 4:28 PM
#2
https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/383773/democrats-deliverism-biden-harris-trump

An article I read today that addresses this theory.

I don’t think it’s accurate to argue that the reason Democrats lost was because working class voters weren’t feeling the economic effects of what they had achieved. There isn’t as much evidence as we think to support to idea that good policy actually leads to voter support in the first place. People generally don’t understand things like how government policies affect them, what benefits they get, or who is actually responsible for them. Claiming credit for a particular good policy or framing a policy in away that voters can understand who is responsible also does not necessarily correlate with voter support.

This is a problem with a country that does not teach civics and the nature of policy-making. People don’t understand these things, and therefore have no way of figuring out which candidate and which party would actually be better for them, and therefore vote in unpredictable ways that don’t give them what they want. People have unrealistic expectations for what a president actually has the ability to do for them and don’t give good presidents the credit they deserve for policy achievements because they don’t know that they should.

There was little rational reason for Biden to be as unpopular as he was. The economy *was* doing well. Very well. Unemployment was on a record low, inflation was coming down. People blamed him for grocery prices and high costs of living that ultimately had little to do with his actual policies and that Kamala Harris was offering solutions to address. Bidenomics *was* working, but people had little understanding of how and why.

It *does* matter that inflation was a separate issue from corporate price gauging, because people claimed that issues around inflation were their primary reasons for voting for Trump, even though inflation wasn’t even the cause of their rising costs of living. Democrats making this case and offering ways to address the real issue, as they did in the campaign, didn’t affect voter support. Voters didn’t know enough about the issues that affected them to know what solutions would work to solve their actual problems. And so they had nothing to vote on *except* their gut feelings.

The Democrats had all the policies to address the things that voters claimed to care about most. Harris offered strategies that she would put in place to lower costs of living. And they still voted for Trump. There is something else driving the disconnect between Democrats and working class voters and it is unlikely to be policy alone.

Democrats don’t show themselves as a party of liberal elites. They continuously talk about how much they want to do for the working class and how important they think working-class voters are. Kamala Harris constantly emphasized her working-class background, every chance she got during her campaign. Whether people actually believe them is probably the bigger issue. And it is probably primarily Republican and conservative rhetoric that try to frame Democrats as elites, and for obvious reasons. The richest man in the world is staunchly in the Republican camp, but *Democrats* are the party of elites?

Democrats have a credibility issue, more than a policy issue. People aren’t falling for their rhetoric about fighting for the middle class (even though their actually policies *are* better for the middle class). But people *are* falling for Trump’s claims to be the “man of the people” despite absolutely no credible evidence that he is. Why is that?
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periwinkle
Nov 8 2024, 4:28 PM #2

https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/383773/democrats-deliverism-biden-harris-trump

An article I read today that addresses this theory.

I don’t think it’s accurate to argue that the reason Democrats lost was because working class voters weren’t feeling the economic effects of what they had achieved. There isn’t as much evidence as we think to support to idea that good policy actually leads to voter support in the first place. People generally don’t understand things like how government policies affect them, what benefits they get, or who is actually responsible for them. Claiming credit for a particular good policy or framing a policy in away that voters can understand who is responsible also does not necessarily correlate with voter support.

This is a problem with a country that does not teach civics and the nature of policy-making. People don’t understand these things, and therefore have no way of figuring out which candidate and which party would actually be better for them, and therefore vote in unpredictable ways that don’t give them what they want. People have unrealistic expectations for what a president actually has the ability to do for them and don’t give good presidents the credit they deserve for policy achievements because they don’t know that they should.

There was little rational reason for Biden to be as unpopular as he was. The economy *was* doing well. Very well. Unemployment was on a record low, inflation was coming down. People blamed him for grocery prices and high costs of living that ultimately had little to do with his actual policies and that Kamala Harris was offering solutions to address. Bidenomics *was* working, but people had little understanding of how and why.

It *does* matter that inflation was a separate issue from corporate price gauging, because people claimed that issues around inflation were their primary reasons for voting for Trump, even though inflation wasn’t even the cause of their rising costs of living. Democrats making this case and offering ways to address the real issue, as they did in the campaign, didn’t affect voter support. Voters didn’t know enough about the issues that affected them to know what solutions would work to solve their actual problems. And so they had nothing to vote on *except* their gut feelings.

The Democrats had all the policies to address the things that voters claimed to care about most. Harris offered strategies that she would put in place to lower costs of living. And they still voted for Trump. There is something else driving the disconnect between Democrats and working class voters and it is unlikely to be policy alone.

Democrats don’t show themselves as a party of liberal elites. They continuously talk about how much they want to do for the working class and how important they think working-class voters are. Kamala Harris constantly emphasized her working-class background, every chance she got during her campaign. Whether people actually believe them is probably the bigger issue. And it is probably primarily Republican and conservative rhetoric that try to frame Democrats as elites, and for obvious reasons. The richest man in the world is staunchly in the Republican camp, but *Democrats* are the party of elites?

Democrats have a credibility issue, more than a policy issue. People aren’t falling for their rhetoric about fighting for the middle class (even though their actually policies *are* better for the middle class). But people *are* falling for Trump’s claims to be the “man of the people” despite absolutely no credible evidence that he is. Why is that?

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Clover
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Nov 8 2024, 7:46 PM
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Quote:This is a problem with a country that does not teach civics and the nature of policy-making. People don’t understand these things, and therefore have no way of figuring out which candidate and which party would actually be better for them, and therefore vote in unpredictable ways that don’t give them what they want. People have unrealistic expectations for what a president actually has the ability to do for them and don’t give good presidents the credit they deserve for policy achievements because they don’t know that they should.

I definitely agree with this. I think we are witnessing the result of decades of defunding of public education. No Child Left Behind has been in effect for 23 years, and I think this is the outcome of that. Along with other forms of Republican destruction of public education that I am probably unaware of.

Quote:There was little rational reason for Biden to be as unpopular as he was. The economy *was* doing well. Very well. Unemployment was on a record low, inflation was coming down. People blamed him for grocery prices and high costs of living that ultimately had little to do with his actual policies and that Kamala Harris was offering solutions to address. Bidenomics *was* working, but people had little understanding of how and why.

Bidenomics was/is working on a macro-scale. Biden is handling a tough economy well. But this doesn't help the average American citizen who sees insane corporate price-gouging in their grocery stores. Of course, we can both agree that the corporate price-gouging is not related to the Biden administration's efforts to curb inflation and stabilize the economy. But like you pointed out earlier, the lack of respect for teaching civics in public education has a large part in the blame.

Quote:The Democrats had all the policies to address the things that voters claimed to care about most. Harris offered strategies that she would put in place to lower costs of living. And they still voted for Trump. There is something else driving the disconnect between Democrats and working class voters and it is unlikely to be policy alone.

Yeah, if voters cared about policy, then there would be no way Trump would win. But we are dealing with an uneducated electorate brainrotting on Fox News and/or far-right TikTok and YouTube algorithms.

Quote:Democrats don’t show themselves as a party of liberal elites. They continuously talk about how much they want to do for the working class and how important they think working-class voters are. Kamala Harris constantly emphasized her working-class background, every chance she got during her campaign.

In some ways, I can see what you mean. But I don't necessarily agree with the idea that a large portion of America doesn't view Democrats as liberal elites. I think the focus on transgenderism was the nail in the coffin on that front. The article Why America Chose Trump: Inflation, Immigration, and the Democratic Brand shows +25 for "Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class" among "All Swing Voters" and +28 among "Swing Voters Chose Trump." Overall, this statement was the third highest importance in voters' reasons to not choose Kamala Harris.

Truthfully, Harris seemed to have generally stayed away from transgenderism in her campaign, but I believe the damage was done from Biden's (and the Democrat party's) own gaffes on this matter. Harris is tied too closely to Biden, when she alluded to not changing much from the Biden campaign in some interviews, I could imagine this was tied to that. 

The Harris campaign getting celebrity endorsements is another example of what common folk would consider part of "liberal elites". Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Cardi B, Saturday Night Live, and so on did Harris and Democrats no favors. Perhaps all the time and money spent on razzle-dazzle shows could have been spent towards more "boots on the ground" canvassing. To be fair, I did think Democrats "had it in the bag", so this use of money didn't seem bizarre to me at the time. That is my fault for getting stuck in liberal echo chambers, I suppose.

Quote:And it is probably primarily Republican and conservative rhetoric that try to frame Democrats as elites, and for obvious reasons. The richest man in the world is staunchly in the Republican camp, but *Democrats* are the party of elites?

I view both major political parties as parties of the elites. They are both beholden to their own corporate sponsors and overlords. The Republican party is quite blatant about it and overwhelmingly so. There is not much to go over with them, it seems fairly obvious to anyone who vaguely understand politics and history to put 2 and 2 together there. The Democrat party on the other hand, is "big tent" and thus have leftists in their base, which they ignore in favor of neoliberal politics on a federal level. tuff_terfies on Ovarit has a few good posts/comments that point out the "big money" in the Democrat party. A major one she points out is transgenderism and "Big Pharma", the two of which are quite intertwined.

That is not to say I do not support/vote for the Democrat party when needed (which is pretty much all the time right now). I spent a decent amount of time on Ovarit near the end of my active phase trying to support/defend the Biden administration and Harris campaign, because I acknowledge there are more important things that matter than leftist political purity. (To no avail it seems, unfortunately...) And many other women did try as well.

Quote:But people *are* falling for Trump’s claims to be the “man of the people” despite absolutely no credible evidence that he is. Why is that?

Well, according to what Trump supporters say, it's because he "tells it like it is." Whatever that means. "Grocery prices too high!! I will fix it!!" (with his concept of a plan, I suppose). Who knows?

The state of democracy in the United States is shameful. People would rather be swindled by a failed business man than elect a woman with cohesive plans for our nation. My faith in humanity is at an all-time low right now.

(I have no good way to end this post. Mobilizing people to political activism just seems impossible to me right now, especially if we are going against decades of a lack of civic education...)
Edited Nov 8 2024, 7:48 PM by Clover. Edit Reason: typo
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Clover
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Nov 8 2024, 7:46 PM #3

Quote:This is a problem with a country that does not teach civics and the nature of policy-making. People don’t understand these things, and therefore have no way of figuring out which candidate and which party would actually be better for them, and therefore vote in unpredictable ways that don’t give them what they want. People have unrealistic expectations for what a president actually has the ability to do for them and don’t give good presidents the credit they deserve for policy achievements because they don’t know that they should.

I definitely agree with this. I think we are witnessing the result of decades of defunding of public education. No Child Left Behind has been in effect for 23 years, and I think this is the outcome of that. Along with other forms of Republican destruction of public education that I am probably unaware of.

Quote:There was little rational reason for Biden to be as unpopular as he was. The economy *was* doing well. Very well. Unemployment was on a record low, inflation was coming down. People blamed him for grocery prices and high costs of living that ultimately had little to do with his actual policies and that Kamala Harris was offering solutions to address. Bidenomics *was* working, but people had little understanding of how and why.

Bidenomics was/is working on a macro-scale. Biden is handling a tough economy well. But this doesn't help the average American citizen who sees insane corporate price-gouging in their grocery stores. Of course, we can both agree that the corporate price-gouging is not related to the Biden administration's efforts to curb inflation and stabilize the economy. But like you pointed out earlier, the lack of respect for teaching civics in public education has a large part in the blame.

Quote:The Democrats had all the policies to address the things that voters claimed to care about most. Harris offered strategies that she would put in place to lower costs of living. And they still voted for Trump. There is something else driving the disconnect between Democrats and working class voters and it is unlikely to be policy alone.

Yeah, if voters cared about policy, then there would be no way Trump would win. But we are dealing with an uneducated electorate brainrotting on Fox News and/or far-right TikTok and YouTube algorithms.

Quote:Democrats don’t show themselves as a party of liberal elites. They continuously talk about how much they want to do for the working class and how important they think working-class voters are. Kamala Harris constantly emphasized her working-class background, every chance she got during her campaign.

In some ways, I can see what you mean. But I don't necessarily agree with the idea that a large portion of America doesn't view Democrats as liberal elites. I think the focus on transgenderism was the nail in the coffin on that front. The article Why America Chose Trump: Inflation, Immigration, and the Democratic Brand shows +25 for "Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class" among "All Swing Voters" and +28 among "Swing Voters Chose Trump." Overall, this statement was the third highest importance in voters' reasons to not choose Kamala Harris.

Truthfully, Harris seemed to have generally stayed away from transgenderism in her campaign, but I believe the damage was done from Biden's (and the Democrat party's) own gaffes on this matter. Harris is tied too closely to Biden, when she alluded to not changing much from the Biden campaign in some interviews, I could imagine this was tied to that. 

The Harris campaign getting celebrity endorsements is another example of what common folk would consider part of "liberal elites". Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Cardi B, Saturday Night Live, and so on did Harris and Democrats no favors. Perhaps all the time and money spent on razzle-dazzle shows could have been spent towards more "boots on the ground" canvassing. To be fair, I did think Democrats "had it in the bag", so this use of money didn't seem bizarre to me at the time. That is my fault for getting stuck in liberal echo chambers, I suppose.

Quote:And it is probably primarily Republican and conservative rhetoric that try to frame Democrats as elites, and for obvious reasons. The richest man in the world is staunchly in the Republican camp, but *Democrats* are the party of elites?

I view both major political parties as parties of the elites. They are both beholden to their own corporate sponsors and overlords. The Republican party is quite blatant about it and overwhelmingly so. There is not much to go over with them, it seems fairly obvious to anyone who vaguely understand politics and history to put 2 and 2 together there. The Democrat party on the other hand, is "big tent" and thus have leftists in their base, which they ignore in favor of neoliberal politics on a federal level. tuff_terfies on Ovarit has a few good posts/comments that point out the "big money" in the Democrat party. A major one she points out is transgenderism and "Big Pharma", the two of which are quite intertwined.

That is not to say I do not support/vote for the Democrat party when needed (which is pretty much all the time right now). I spent a decent amount of time on Ovarit near the end of my active phase trying to support/defend the Biden administration and Harris campaign, because I acknowledge there are more important things that matter than leftist political purity. (To no avail it seems, unfortunately...) And many other women did try as well.

Quote:But people *are* falling for Trump’s claims to be the “man of the people” despite absolutely no credible evidence that he is. Why is that?

Well, according to what Trump supporters say, it's because he "tells it like it is." Whatever that means. "Grocery prices too high!! I will fix it!!" (with his concept of a plan, I suppose). Who knows?

The state of democracy in the United States is shameful. People would rather be swindled by a failed business man than elect a woman with cohesive plans for our nation. My faith in humanity is at an all-time low right now.

(I have no good way to end this post. Mobilizing people to political activism just seems impossible to me right now, especially if we are going against decades of a lack of civic education...)

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periwinkle
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Nov 9 2024, 9:43 PM
#4
Quote:I think we are witnessing the result of decades of defunding of public education. No Child Left Behind has been in effect for 23 years, and I think this is the outcome of that. Along with other forms of Republican destruction of public education that I am probably unaware of.

Yes. And it is more than just the gutting of public education as well. If we are talking specifically about the working/middle class, these are people who work all day, every weekday, probably more than 40 hours a week. Their wages have not kept up with inflation and their working hours have not kept up with productivity. Basically, these people are working harder for less money and less leisure time. They have other responsibilities outside of work, too. Aside from just basic daily chores, buying groceries, cleaning, etc., they probably have to deal with taking care of children, taking care of aging parents. Even if these people had been taught civics in school, and therefore had the capacity to understand these issues, they don’t have the time or energy they’d need to keep up with current political discourse.

Not only are people undereducated about policy, they have no time and no energy to learn the things they need to learn in order to make proper decisions for themselves and country. And then they are being told that the decisions they make are super important and could have potentially catastrophic consequences for the future of the country if they choose wrong.

This is unsustainable for a democracy and is an extremely dangerous place for the country to be in. This is a situation that creates room for demagogues, for people who can say “I know how complicated and overwhelming these issues might seem to you, but here I have all these simple solutions that will make your problems go away and you don’t have to do anything more except vote for me.”

I think that the ruling classes believe they will benefit from an uninformed public who are easy to manipulate, and so they don’t invest in civic education that might actually produce a public with the conceptual understanding to see through their political bullshit. But they also don’t realize that doing this comes with negative consequences for them too, because an uninformed public doesn’t understand what it actually takes to run a country and doesn’t understand what is reasonable for officials to accomplish. So they have all these unreasonable expectations, and punish officials for seemingly not meeting their expectations, because even if they are uninformed, the electorate still has the power to do that.

But, ok, regardless of the reasons for this, this is the reality we live in. The public who are expected to vote in our leaders are undereducated about politics and have no concept of what it actually takes to run a country like this. If the public has no concept for governance themselves, then the ability of political parties to manipulate the public’s understanding of what they are doing and what their opponents are doing becomes paramount. If you can’t manipulate the public to your liking, you won’t win, no matter what your policy or political achievements are. If you lose control of the political narrative, you are going to lose elections.

Quote:But I don't necessarily agree with the idea that a large portion of America doesn't view Democrats as liberal elites.

I never said that a large portion of the public didn’t view them that way. I was specifically disagreeing with your statement that “Democrats were showing themselves as a party of elites”. There’s an important difference here. Democrats do go out of their way to portray themselves as a “party of the working class”. It’s in all of their campaign rhetoric. It’s what Biden ran on 4 years ago. It’s what Harris tried to do this year, constantly. The problem is that no one is buying it. The public sees through their rhetoric easily, more easily, it seems, than they do with Donald Trump’s lies.

And why is that? You mentioned earlier that anti-trans campaign ad that the Trump campaign said was their most effective ad. Trump was able to use Harris’s own statements to make the argument that “Harris fights for they/them” while he “fights for you”. Harris, on the other hand, tried to make a similar argument of “Donald Trump fights for the wealthy and the elites” while she fought “for the people”. Her argument failed, his won. Why was his argument so much stronger than hers? Even more, his argument stuck in people’s mind so much that it influenced their perception of Harris on issues she barely talked about and didn’t even focus her campaign on. Harris almost never talked about trans issues in her campaign. She talked about the economy and helping the middle class far more. It was her entire message. And yet, no one heard her. But they heard this Donald Trump ad telling them that Harris cares more about trans issues than issues affecting the middle class. Why? And why did it stick with them so much?

One thing that struck me about this election was that it was Republican voters who were more worried about threats to democracy during the election, because they had been fed stories about the Big Lie and believed them. They really believed that the election had been stolen from Trump and that Democrats were the ones who posed a bigger threat to democracy. For Democratic voters on the other hand, democracy was important, but not as important as one might expect, given the way that the Harris campaign focused on all the ways Donald Trump threatened democratic principles and on the potential effects of Project 2025. For Democrats, the fear of the end of democracy simply wasn’t as motivating for them, regardless of the campaign’s intended message that it should be at the forefront of their concerns. Why is this? Why was Republican messaging on this issue so much more effective than Democratic messaging?

Quote:I view both major political parties as parties of the elites. They are both beholden to their own corporate sponsors and overlords.

Yes, of course they are. This keeps coming back to the point about the public being too uninformed about how policy and politics works. Because, if they understood these things, they would realize that political parties operating in electoral politics at the national level in a country as large as the US pretty much have to court corporate sponsors who can fund their operations. Normal people don’t donate. And when they do, they don’t donate as much as the wealthy or corporations owned by the wealthy do. And because we don’t have laws limiting how much an individual person can contribute to a campaign, wealthy corporations can contribute as much as they want. And because we don’t have laws limiting how much campaigns can raise/spend, not taking them up on that would be detrimental to any party’s prospects of being competitive on the national stage. It is, quite frankly, foolish to expect that a nation-wide party in this environment wouldn’t be beholden to corporate sponsors and even more foolish think it is worth voting against them on that count. This perception of the parties as elites is accurate and is the unfortunate result of electoral politics. It is also the reason why electoral politics probably isn’t as “democratic” as we like to think, but, well, that’s a whole other conversation.

But let’s put that idea aside for now. Somehow it is predominantly the Democrats who get punished for being “elites”. People seem to give Republicans a pass for it, in spite of the fact that they are so much more blatant about it. If a voter’s primary problem with the Democrats was that they are “liberal elites”, then how does that justify voting for Republicans, who are also elites? Why do Democrats consistently fail in their attempts to convince the public that they are the “champions of the working class”, while Republicans seem to get away with it (at least more often).

Democrats’ problem is not that they have made policy missteps or been out of touch with what the working class wants. It is messaging. It is how to get a palatable message through to an uninformed public that has been made hostile to them as a result of their opponent’s propaganda and misinformation. Their problem is that they have completely lost control of the political narrative and they need to find a way to get it back.

Republicans have a propaganda machine that is so effective that their presidential candidate for the last three elections can be a multi-millionaire convicted of fraud who has spent his life failing in business while somehow still successfully enriching himself, who has the political support of literally the richest man in the world, a multi-billionaire, and still people find it credible that this is a party that will have the backs of working people. Democrats have a propaganda machine that is so ineffectual that they can have presidents who have successfully managed difficult economies (ruined by Republicans, too), with policies that support actual working class interests and still, people hate them. Why is that?

I think these are the questions Democrats need to ask themselves going forward. How do they take control of the political narrative from Republicans? How do they create messaging campaigns that are actually effective and don’t scare new voters away? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions. I don’t even know if they can be answered or if Republicans have such a stranglehold on propaganda in certain parts of the country that it can’t be done. I don’t know. I do believe though that the main issue in the election was misinformation and propaganda more than it was anything the Democrats did or didn’t do.
Edited Nov 9 2024, 9:48 PM by periwinkle.
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periwinkle
Nov 9 2024, 9:43 PM #4

Quote:I think we are witnessing the result of decades of defunding of public education. No Child Left Behind has been in effect for 23 years, and I think this is the outcome of that. Along with other forms of Republican destruction of public education that I am probably unaware of.

Yes. And it is more than just the gutting of public education as well. If we are talking specifically about the working/middle class, these are people who work all day, every weekday, probably more than 40 hours a week. Their wages have not kept up with inflation and their working hours have not kept up with productivity. Basically, these people are working harder for less money and less leisure time. They have other responsibilities outside of work, too. Aside from just basic daily chores, buying groceries, cleaning, etc., they probably have to deal with taking care of children, taking care of aging parents. Even if these people had been taught civics in school, and therefore had the capacity to understand these issues, they don’t have the time or energy they’d need to keep up with current political discourse.

Not only are people undereducated about policy, they have no time and no energy to learn the things they need to learn in order to make proper decisions for themselves and country. And then they are being told that the decisions they make are super important and could have potentially catastrophic consequences for the future of the country if they choose wrong.

This is unsustainable for a democracy and is an extremely dangerous place for the country to be in. This is a situation that creates room for demagogues, for people who can say “I know how complicated and overwhelming these issues might seem to you, but here I have all these simple solutions that will make your problems go away and you don’t have to do anything more except vote for me.”

I think that the ruling classes believe they will benefit from an uninformed public who are easy to manipulate, and so they don’t invest in civic education that might actually produce a public with the conceptual understanding to see through their political bullshit. But they also don’t realize that doing this comes with negative consequences for them too, because an uninformed public doesn’t understand what it actually takes to run a country and doesn’t understand what is reasonable for officials to accomplish. So they have all these unreasonable expectations, and punish officials for seemingly not meeting their expectations, because even if they are uninformed, the electorate still has the power to do that.

But, ok, regardless of the reasons for this, this is the reality we live in. The public who are expected to vote in our leaders are undereducated about politics and have no concept of what it actually takes to run a country like this. If the public has no concept for governance themselves, then the ability of political parties to manipulate the public’s understanding of what they are doing and what their opponents are doing becomes paramount. If you can’t manipulate the public to your liking, you won’t win, no matter what your policy or political achievements are. If you lose control of the political narrative, you are going to lose elections.

Quote:But I don't necessarily agree with the idea that a large portion of America doesn't view Democrats as liberal elites.

I never said that a large portion of the public didn’t view them that way. I was specifically disagreeing with your statement that “Democrats were showing themselves as a party of elites”. There’s an important difference here. Democrats do go out of their way to portray themselves as a “party of the working class”. It’s in all of their campaign rhetoric. It’s what Biden ran on 4 years ago. It’s what Harris tried to do this year, constantly. The problem is that no one is buying it. The public sees through their rhetoric easily, more easily, it seems, than they do with Donald Trump’s lies.

And why is that? You mentioned earlier that anti-trans campaign ad that the Trump campaign said was their most effective ad. Trump was able to use Harris’s own statements to make the argument that “Harris fights for they/them” while he “fights for you”. Harris, on the other hand, tried to make a similar argument of “Donald Trump fights for the wealthy and the elites” while she fought “for the people”. Her argument failed, his won. Why was his argument so much stronger than hers? Even more, his argument stuck in people’s mind so much that it influenced their perception of Harris on issues she barely talked about and didn’t even focus her campaign on. Harris almost never talked about trans issues in her campaign. She talked about the economy and helping the middle class far more. It was her entire message. And yet, no one heard her. But they heard this Donald Trump ad telling them that Harris cares more about trans issues than issues affecting the middle class. Why? And why did it stick with them so much?

One thing that struck me about this election was that it was Republican voters who were more worried about threats to democracy during the election, because they had been fed stories about the Big Lie and believed them. They really believed that the election had been stolen from Trump and that Democrats were the ones who posed a bigger threat to democracy. For Democratic voters on the other hand, democracy was important, but not as important as one might expect, given the way that the Harris campaign focused on all the ways Donald Trump threatened democratic principles and on the potential effects of Project 2025. For Democrats, the fear of the end of democracy simply wasn’t as motivating for them, regardless of the campaign’s intended message that it should be at the forefront of their concerns. Why is this? Why was Republican messaging on this issue so much more effective than Democratic messaging?

Quote:I view both major political parties as parties of the elites. They are both beholden to their own corporate sponsors and overlords.

Yes, of course they are. This keeps coming back to the point about the public being too uninformed about how policy and politics works. Because, if they understood these things, they would realize that political parties operating in electoral politics at the national level in a country as large as the US pretty much have to court corporate sponsors who can fund their operations. Normal people don’t donate. And when they do, they don’t donate as much as the wealthy or corporations owned by the wealthy do. And because we don’t have laws limiting how much an individual person can contribute to a campaign, wealthy corporations can contribute as much as they want. And because we don’t have laws limiting how much campaigns can raise/spend, not taking them up on that would be detrimental to any party’s prospects of being competitive on the national stage. It is, quite frankly, foolish to expect that a nation-wide party in this environment wouldn’t be beholden to corporate sponsors and even more foolish think it is worth voting against them on that count. This perception of the parties as elites is accurate and is the unfortunate result of electoral politics. It is also the reason why electoral politics probably isn’t as “democratic” as we like to think, but, well, that’s a whole other conversation.

But let’s put that idea aside for now. Somehow it is predominantly the Democrats who get punished for being “elites”. People seem to give Republicans a pass for it, in spite of the fact that they are so much more blatant about it. If a voter’s primary problem with the Democrats was that they are “liberal elites”, then how does that justify voting for Republicans, who are also elites? Why do Democrats consistently fail in their attempts to convince the public that they are the “champions of the working class”, while Republicans seem to get away with it (at least more often).

Democrats’ problem is not that they have made policy missteps or been out of touch with what the working class wants. It is messaging. It is how to get a palatable message through to an uninformed public that has been made hostile to them as a result of their opponent’s propaganda and misinformation. Their problem is that they have completely lost control of the political narrative and they need to find a way to get it back.

Republicans have a propaganda machine that is so effective that their presidential candidate for the last three elections can be a multi-millionaire convicted of fraud who has spent his life failing in business while somehow still successfully enriching himself, who has the political support of literally the richest man in the world, a multi-billionaire, and still people find it credible that this is a party that will have the backs of working people. Democrats have a propaganda machine that is so ineffectual that they can have presidents who have successfully managed difficult economies (ruined by Republicans, too), with policies that support actual working class interests and still, people hate them. Why is that?

I think these are the questions Democrats need to ask themselves going forward. How do they take control of the political narrative from Republicans? How do they create messaging campaigns that are actually effective and don’t scare new voters away? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions. I don’t even know if they can be answered or if Republicans have such a stranglehold on propaganda in certain parts of the country that it can’t be done. I don’t know. I do believe though that the main issue in the election was misinformation and propaganda more than it was anything the Democrats did or didn’t do.

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