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.
Nah. Americans are temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
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.
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.
Fair enough.
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.
Very good point.
Her tweet has 23 million views though.
There's a clip of an American woman eating fish 'n' chips with her fingers that has 30 million views.
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.
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.
