Pretty much sums it up. I still cant beleive they made that orange sack of shit president again, but it says something about how desperate the average american is for change. As Bernie said, the dems have failed the working class for decades and the "centrist" part of the Democratic party are ruthless capitalists just like GOP, they just sweeten the pill by pretending to care about social issues like racism and womens rights
2024 U.S. Elections | Thread Closed
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Pretty much sums it up. I still cant beleive they made that orange sack of shit president again, but it says something about how desperate the average american is for change. As Bernie said, the dems have failed the working class for decades and the "centrist" part of the Democratic party are ruthless capitalists just like GOP, they just sweeten the pill by pretending to care about social issues like racism and womens rights
Bernie's Policies are popular on paper, but it means raising taxes, and that's an automatic no for just about everyone.
They basically need to lie about how to implement them and who pays for them, like Trump does with his policies, you can't sell tax raises in this day and age, and it's been a long time since one could.
They basically need to lie about how to implement them and who pays for them, like Trump does with his policies, you can't sell tax raises in this day and age, and it's been a long time since one could.
Maybe stick to "we'll tax the rich"? If working class people resent economic inequality then maybe they're receptive to a message of "we'll make the rich pay their fair share".
Im not sure that would stick with a wide enough audience. There are way too many people who still believe trickle down works, even Dems. And they also believe that you shouldn't punish anyone for their "hard work" because "they deserve it". One example is some reactions I saw in response to the 1% gaining billions of dollars in net worth upon the Trump re election news. You d figure many would think: wait a second..there is something fishy there - but no instead I saw people criticizing the news because we shouldn't call out people for just making money.
Unlike Europeans, we still have a huge portion of this population that sees themselves in these "self-made" billionaires regardless of whether they are well off or poorer than dirt. Because hey - hard works pays off and it could be me one day. That's also why flaunting wealth is much more acceptable here. I remember watching a documentary about the secret rich in Germany bemoaning the fact that they have to be normal in a way there - and how much they appreciate America for just glorifying wealth instead.
Nah. Americans are temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
I think if you're gonna have any kind of anti-inequality rhetoric you've actually gotta look back to look forward.
Tax the bankers, tax the vulture capitalists, tax the predatory lenders, tax the monopolists. Get real about the classes of scum that you want to smash. Don't just say the rich. Everyone wants to be rich at the end of the day. But they want to have a fair chance at doing it based on their sweat and effort. Not playing against a stacked deck.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, I must admit to my surprise, that my raw feeling is that I’m mostly just angry at the democrats. When the defeat is so resounding, and voter turnout is so significantly reduced, you have to ask yourself what you’ve done wrong.
The Dems, and left wing political parties in general, have cataclysmically failed at delivering their message. And the more I reflect on it, I can completely understand why to some it might come across as elitist and protentious and lecturing.
I lean left, always will. It’s my values. But, I am increasingly worried with how those values are currently being perceived by current left wing political parties.
The Dems, and left wing political parties in general, have cataclysmically failed at delivering their message. And the more I reflect on it, I can completely understand why to some it might come across as elitist and protentious and lecturing.
I lean left, always will. It’s my values. But, I am increasingly worried with how those values are currently being perceived by current left wing political parties.
Would you say the Obama administration was too soft on bankers in the years after the 2008 crisis? Many people felt that the banks got off easy.
Of course they were. Because the Dems are as captured by corporate interests as anyone.
I think it's too quick to say that the Dems were punished for some elitist lecturing reason. Most likely their loss fits in the worldwide trend of incumbent parties struggling post-pandemic. Yes, anti-woke is probably one of the factors that's hurting the Dems but did that decide the election for Trump? Unlikely.
Ultimately they did. But it would not have been easy to prosecute the bankers, from a purely legal perspective.
It's not a key key reason but if it had such large impact in majority Arab-American places it likely had a less noticeable but still existing impact elsewhere. Time will tell.
Main point Kim is making is that there's a really deep-seated disgust with politicians & politics in general and Trump (even after one term) was still seen as different from the status quo.
I have no idea if that’s why they lost. Nor do I really purport to say it was. I am pretty sure in mind it was due to the economy.
But, I was more reflecting on how I was / am feeling. And that I could understand if others felt that way too.
Fair enough.
I don't doubt the misogyny. But i think we are saying the same thing, a factor, but in my opinion, way down the list.
Had the Biden economy been great for all, then she would have won.
For the average American the Democrats are the party of the elites and they look down in disdain on the working class. The reaction to this election proves this is a major issue for the party, I've seen loads of clips of talk shows, reporters and democrats belittling the working classes.
One of the worst was a rather stuck up woman on what I think was The View refering to white women, uneducated white women when she corrected herself with total disgust.
Imagine thinking a college degree makes you better by default. Yet this is exactly how the left see themselves, not just in the US but around the world.
Yet they're not smart enough to understand why so many cannot stand them?
One of the worst was a rather stuck up woman on what I think was The View refering to white women, uneducated white women when she corrected herself with total disgust.
Imagine thinking a college degree makes you better by default. Yet this is exactly how the left see themselves, not just in the US but around the world.
Yet they're not smart enough to understand why so many cannot stand them?
I think so many on the left have forgotten that class solidarity, empathy and understanding is supposed to be the left's defining feature, not internecine warfare between different racial, ethnic and social groups.
Thanks for your response, really clarified things. I agree that number 2 is more desirable and has its place. In politics though it inevitably will be simplified to number 1 by one or both sides unfortunately.I've cut down your post to the things that I think we can have a better discussion on.
I think there is a lot more nuance in whether a candidate is chosen for the diverse expreinces, perspectives, etc. that they bring. There are two main ways that "diversity" candidates are considered:
Number 1 is the way that I think that conservative media and as you say, centrist Americans, are being messaged to. This way also works with progressives that don't want to think too long and hard about things. Number 2 is the way that I would want all candidates to be considered through. This takes more effort, and honestly, not everyone has the time/capacity to put in this kind of effort, leading to Number 1 being the shorthand that more would adopt. My critique of this would be that Number 2 is desirable (e.g. Trump choosing Vance, partly because Vance is originally from a working-class background and aids Trump's narrative), but Number 1 has been used, to totally ineffective and harmful effect, by both Democrats (thus fumbling) and Republicans (by attacking).
- Someone is chosen because of their identity, and that alone. Disregard all other attributes/qualities associated with the identity.
- Someone is chosen because of their identity, because that bring with it qualities that are associated with the identity.
You would certainly know more about crime than me. I live in the PNW, so there's crime here too but a different scale to in SoCal. I don't want to derail too far into the policing debate, but I do want to just dip my toes in so far as saying, policing is hard. Some PDs are heavily understaffed. Some local policies mean that some crimes are "let off the hook". On the other hand, some LEOs are abusing their power in public ways (e.g. any reports of police brutality). Trust in law enforcement also suffers when understaffing leads to triaging in call responses. I think there is genuine need to reform police culture, for the sake of community safety and community trust. We likely disagree on this also, but I don't think the answer is as simple as "more hardline policing". Side-note: I do find it ironic and a real case of cognitive dissonance that a convicted felon beat a DA/AG on the issue of crime. Dems can soul-search for how they ran this campaign, as well as the American public can also soul-search for what this means for the evolution of American values.
That last comment from me also somewhat responds to your last paragraph. If centrists or undecided voters are willing to dismiss Trump's continued rhetoric as locker-room talk, then centrists and undecided voters need to consider whether they want to stay in the same locker room as this guy. It's a nasty way to think about people, talk about people, and treat people. Another poster put it well - Trump's actions being given a pass like this signals the death of civility.
Things were bad and needed a change - who ever said that change needed to come from outside? Give the Democrats a chance to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps for a change
And yet Biden is probably the most pro-labor president in decades, and the Harris/Walz ticket got the endorsement of most of the major unions, if I'm not mistaken. They also advocated for policies that will actually help working people, which Trump certainly did not (although policy matters little). It's more a problem of appearance. Harris appears like a technocrat elite, whereas Trump somehow manages to connect with people with his bluster and simple messaging.
It makes one more educated, by definition. I think you don't actually understand politics in America. Anyone attempting to paint the Democrats as looking down with disdain on the working class is either completely unaware, trolling, or both.
The Democratic Party needs to rein in these people. There is a complete mismatch between actual policy and what Dem-affiliated people say in public.
I've never heard of this person. She's already a nobody.
One thing that the Republicans did a great job of was convincing the average voter, who could not pass a high school economics course if their life depended on it, that the material conditions created by late-stage capitalism were somehow the fault of only one of our two right-wing parties.
It takes a special kind of naivety to believe that a billionaire has any intention of correcting the problems that were created by billionaires to begin with.
Very good point.
Her tweet has 23 million views though.
I don't doubt that and when you have Harris attacking corporations, you would think it was an easy choice for the working class.
It was an easy choice of course, but not in the democrats favour. Which is why they need to ask themselves why. If they have the policies then where did they go wrong? I thinks it's obvious but I don't think they have the slightest idea.
There's a clip of an American woman eating fish 'n' chips with her fingers that has 30 million views.
Are people seriously saying to prosecute the bankers in 2008?
For what? Making shit buys on derivative contracts on failing mortgages and having shit risk management isn't a crime.
For what? Making shit buys on derivative contracts on failing mortgages and having shit risk management isn't a crime.
I'm not trying to paint them as anything. They're perfectly capable of that themselves and the fact millions upon millions of Americas working class view then in that way suggests they're doing something wrong.
They don't need to convince me otherwise. It's those millions of voters that they need to change the minds of.
And in this instance, more educated is being used to suggest more intelligent and quite often staying they are more educated is followed by calling those who haven't been to college stupid, or idiots. Let's not pretend otherwise.
I think that this is correct. Democratic (and in my view left wing parties in general) messaging is awful. They can’t communicate in simple terms without sounding like lecturing. I do strongly believe that.
The single biggest issue Harris lost on was inflation, which is not something that the Biden/Harris administration could feasibly control.
I disagree. It’s not about that facts. It’s about how it appears. In my view it’s quite easy to see how your average person might feel like they’re being talked down to by the dems. As I said, it’s not about the facts. It’s about how they’ve poorly messaged it.
Exactly what I am getting at.
So basically it's republicans that have their feelings hurt?
More educated is more intelligent. The problem is the republicans think their ignorance should be weighted equally with someone else's degree/certifcation/qualifications. It's the people doing "research" on YouTube disagreeing with doctors, and so on. People who vote against their own self-interest are stupid, and idiots. People who don't understand economics and vote for someone who promises economic ruin, are by definition, stupid, and probably idiots as well.
On the other hand, Biden admin has done good things for unions, and on state level, some states like Michigan, dems repealed right to work-laws
They have problem with messaging, but at the same time, is it really wrong to call these people ungrateful? Because i think they are, and not sure the Dems paths to victory goes through unions anymore ever since they bought whatever Trump was selling them.
Might have been shared already but hard not to conclude this is extremely telling.
Have you thought about going for the Democratic nomination in 2028?
It is telling. Inflation is a bitch.
Have you thought about graduating high school and maybe attending community college, at least?
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