TheFeniX wrote:I hope Democrats ignore this because they don't need to "move right" on anything to pickup votes or to give the electorate the idea that Democrats fight for them. This is why I mentioned the economy (and probably why Trump did so much): public support for financial regulation is pretty high. Beating up on Wall Street would be easy money, yet neither party will take a crack at it. Americans have never been in favor of having jobs outsourced and not just due to "Murrica first." A BIG problem is they don't trust foreign business to keep their information private or protect their financial information. Same reason we don't want prisoners handling it. But also: why ship jobs overseas when we have so many unemployed here? Why isn't the American business banking on American workers?
The "move right" angle needs to stop. Democrats honestly need to consider a large shift left when it comes to certain economic positions. Because, let's just say, they go "We are now anti-abortion" or "we want to meet conservatives in the middle" on that issue accomplishes what? No Republican to whom THAT'S a sticking point is EVER going to swap to (D) when (R) is already in their pocket.
But you can get the Republicans who are like "whores should deal with the consequences.... but, I could REALLY use some fucking health care and deal with my bank not robbing me blind." Obama didn't pick up the people he did by focusing on social issues. He did it by saying: "your leaders are fucking you. I will not be fucking you."
If Democrats "moved right" anywhere it would be taking a harder stance against terrorism (which they already do) and beat up on illegal (which they do, except for Obama). So.... what's the point of moving right instead of just pushing the issues to the back until they build up some landslide support? Then they can push whatever "side-issues*" they want while American's are happy they are making money and not having it fleeced from them by the Too Big to Jail people.
* I don't consider these side-issues, but lets be fair here: these are still divisive issues where moderates find too much time is being dedicated to them while they struggle to keep their heads afloat financially.
Definitely not side issues, no.
I mostly agree with the above, actually. However, I'll point out a couple of things:
First, a lot of people now regard Obama as a disappointment. And I'm not talking about Right wingers who always hated him. I'm talking about people who view him as part of the same corrupt "establishment" (though I find that "establishment" is a somewhat vague, even meaningless buzzword, especially if millions of voters can contrive a definition where hereditary rich white male Trump is outside of it).
Moreover, Obama, I think, went as far as he did more on his personal charisma and political skill than on having a radically progressive platform. And of course, I also think the "anti-establishment" push on the Left is a lot stronger now than in 2008.
I also think sometimes people place too much weight on economic issues, as if those are the only issues anyone votes based on. They may be the single biggest concern to a lot of voters now, but we start falling silent on other issues and it
will cost votes. And I think that civil liberties and social justice are going to remain in the foreground as long as the current cabal in Washington is in power, because Trump and the Republicans are actively putting those issues under threat, for hundreds of millions of voters.
I worry not only about the Democrats failing to learn the lessons of last election, but about them learning those lessons too well, ignoring current crises while they focus on "preparing to fight the last war", so to speak.
Something like 46% of women are anti-abortion. And what have Democrats really DONE for minorities in the past... man even 16 years? Even Obama: he talked big about having a "talk" about racism, but what's been done? The DoJ released it's reports PROVING such liberal bastions as LA and New York have police departments that target minorities consistently. And what's been done to correct this?
Obama's Justice Department did investigate and prosecute corrupt and racist police forces on occasion. Not completely solving the problem is not the same as doing nothing.
Also, their is no denying that the Obama Administration is
by far the best for LGBT that ever existed.
Yes, Republicans are actively hostile towards these groups, but as 2016 kind of showed: they may not vote (R), but they might just decide to not vote at all.
These groups cannot be treated as homogenous blocks, obviously. Some will vote Republican and some will not vote, even if its against their self-interest.
However, many members of these groups
are loyal Democratic voters, in part because they know that Republicans have contempt for their very existence, and if the Democratic Party stops making at least some effort on their behalf, or worse, becomes actively unfriendly towards civil liberties and social justice, then three things are likely to happen: Some of these people will turn apathetic and not vote Democrat. Some of them will go third party, because at least its a pointless gesture they can believe in. And some of them will conclude that they have no recourse at all in America other than violence.
And this is just looking at it from a pragmatic, not a moral point of view.
I get it. You don't like the DNC, and you think they need to focus more on progressive economics. I agree.
But I also feel that their is a real danger of tunnel vision among progressives, thinking that the
only issues that matter are being "anti-establishment" and holding progressive views on economics, and that as a result, we're going to lose votes from women and minorities who do care about their civil rights.
Look at how many people still think Obama is a Muslim, then look at his election numbers. Look at ALL The shit Republicans (and certain Democrats) heaped on him, a black man, and then look at the 2008 election results. People came out of the wood-works for him.
The e-mails are the face to a larger issue with Clinton: she's THAT easy to bog down and rip through whatever approval ratings she had.
I think its mainly a combination of two things:
1. She already had a negative reputation with much of the electorate, built up over decades. The email scandal could be easily fit to that narrative, and brought all that animosity and distrust to the fore.
2. She lacked Obama's personal charisma and skill as a campaigner to compensate for that. People like Obama. In my experience, outside of her hard core fans, people don't generally like Hillary Clinton.
As to policy, I think that, in a nutshell, the Democratic Party needs to be both the Party of Social Justice and the Party of the Working Class. I don't think that their's a contradiction between those things at all, either. We should be the party of good jobs, health care, and education, and a fair political process, for all Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, beliefs, etc. That's the winning card.
Edited to clarify my closing argument.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
"
- PeZook
