# Realistic Strategies for the Democrat Party to Rebuild.



## RI 360 (Nov 21, 2016)

After a thorough trouncing this past election cycle, democrats are struggling to understand where they went wrong, find new leadership and a new direction to take their party. It's likely voters will return to the party reflectively should Republican leadership fail to deliver on some overreaching campaign promises, but biding time until the rivals fail is a bit lazy. What are some realistic strategies for liberals to gain back a foothold? What ideas need to be let go, and which picked up? Is the momentum from Bernie Sanders great enough to carry the party in a new direction?


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## ICametoLurk (Nov 21, 2016)

Realistically they're gonna shit their pants and do nothing and get owned even more next time.


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## Ti-99/4A (Nov 21, 2016)

Realizing that the US is more than the Northeast, the West Coast and sometimes Florida, Ohio and Michigan would be a start.


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## pozilei (Nov 21, 2016)

Disclaimer: I'm gonna be talking about the left in general more than just US liberals. 

One big thing is forgetting their 'roots'. The left should be championing the working classes (regardless of whether they're white, black, latino, male, female). They haven't even bothered to fake an interest in that recently. They thought they had the whole thing in the bag and they got arrogant. The whole identity politics thing kinda ties into that: if you're out to find the most oppressed minority, leaving everyone else who might have legit grievances with the way the country runs by the wayside, isn't going to get you votes.

Anyway, what I think the left can do now is:

clear plans on how to create and ensure jobs that pay a living wage
health care and a 'welfare' system that picks up people who are truly in need
sensible taxation (i.e. giving tax cuts to companies that employ local labor and are environmentally friendly)
a reasonable approach when it comes to immigration (who is in need of refuge? how many people can you actually provide with proper care? how much can the local population take?)
I neglected rights to an education because I think that's not under threat right now.


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## Some JERK (Nov 21, 2016)

1.) Don't field the most repellent candidate you have.
2.) Don't get caught with your thumb on the scale during the primary.
3.) Pull the analytics cock out of your mouth and go talk to real people on the ground more. (ie: stop telling people what you think they want to hear, and actually go find out what they want to hear.)


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## Bassomatic (Nov 21, 2016)

The problem they have is they ran so far from the right (and it's fringe sides) to instead of having left leaning thoughts jumped as hard as they could as a party, well as far as their bankers friends let them. 

The entire image needs to change, and they have a long history in the US, with tons of "name drop" power to use. Someone like JimWebb who is quite centerist over all and mostly liked by everyone (aside people in gov) is the face they need. Pull a card and go back to JFK, what can we do as a country if we work together mind set not what we will give you if you vote for us. It's insulting to those whom are left leaning and normal people with people like Sanders saying white's don't know being poor (ironic from a multi millionaire white guy himself oh but his wife hides the money so he's poor and allowed to speak for them) . It's never a smart idea to insult the same groups you are targeting. 

The freak shows you let come to rallies and support on protests aren't a big group of voters. Drop them, let them throw tantrums not being welcome. My city hosted the DNC this year, I can't tell you how unsettling a lot of these people are to be around. I'm not trying to be humorous. If I leaned to the left and wanted to hear/see/interact with these people I wouldn't have went. After this election it's clear those fringe groups don't vote and don't matter, they are nothing but a black eye. Drop them. 

The right may overly push it but focus on the family unit. Support and stand up for those dealing with non traditional family units but don't go so far where you shame the nuclear family. Give up on the free colleges, it ain't gonna happen or work in the US and I'll spare my economics backround sperg for it. Focus on the public school system that's grossly failing. Spin it into both fixing that and a cost thing, fixing the schools here and being #1st in the world again is going to make smarter happier wealthier people. It's an investment into the future and better suiting people for college and the real world while re doing the system will give us a new market to tap into.

I think by default because it's a "right" thing to deal with abortion and gun control they are locked into that debate just to counter point. Time and again Gun control has failed, cost elections etc. Don't give it up though. Tone back, while personally I'm in the "if you come for my guns I'll fucking kill you and your family camp" the smartest way to attack our right... I mean, deal with the issues is deal with the small stuff and don't fucking lie your face off. Aim for mild things, magazine size caps, import bans (because the faggot NRA helps these too because all their cash comes from US makers) etc, not banning a style of weapon etc.

Abortion, elect to kick the ball, let the Christian section of the right go after it, skirt the entire thing, push for state to state rulings. Depending how healthcare shapes up under trump you may want to play ball and fight to shoot planned parenthood down if it's going to all be covered under healthcare. Then you will be seen as willing to play ball, and adapt, claim you won the fight to get those services for all and now dropping dead weight. 

Right now with how bad the party looks, a smart move would be clean house, not just in it's in need of a new face but dox everyone. Find the rats find the snakes and shake them out. I think both sides are seriously sick of the career gov employees on the top. A party that is willing to hang their own would be adored by all. Fresh blood will be welcomed by all. 

Another thing they would need to do, is don't keep pushing for wars, seriously Obama blew up more shit than W by a long shot and somehow he gets a peace medal? I know the mil economy is granted "good" reasons in a lot of senators pockets to go but, become a party that doesn't want to nuke all the brown people. Hillary was chomping at the bit to go after Russia and that kind of conflict would be a blood bath. 

Granted because the parties are so ass backwards and short sighted since they aren't held accountable for their actions, they will probably try to run a tranny or something against trump and get 34 votes.


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## HG 400 (Nov 21, 2016)

They should shame all the trump voters for being so racist and run Chelsea Clinton in 2020.


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## KingGeedorah (Nov 21, 2016)

Dynastia said:


> They should shame all the trump voters for being so racist and run Chelsea Clinton in 2020.


Her time!


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## Euphues Evenlede (Nov 21, 2016)

They should reorganize as a pro-White Dixiecratic party.


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## Pikonic (Nov 21, 2016)

Either don't have primaries, or actually back the guy the people wanted, penis or not.
Don't give people the illusion of choice because they'll be pretty mad when they find our the truth.


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## Joan Nyan (Nov 22, 2016)

Stop calling 77% of the electorate bad people because of their skin color.


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## *Asterisk* (Nov 22, 2016)

Occupy the Book Tower.
Buy windowless vans.
Abduct Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, John Podesta, and Harry Reid.
Drive to Michigain.
Begin prayer.
Reach the summit of Book Tower
Enact the ISIS treatment while begging forgiveness from the vengeful ghosts of FDR, LBJ, and Christopher Hitchens.
Repeat the process until our ancestors spirits can find peace.
In tribute to @Oglooger, I call it "the Aztec Solution."


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## Grog (Nov 22, 2016)

Realize that millions of illegals in California and other blue states voting for you doesn't mean that you will win as the electoral college exists.


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## IV 445 (Nov 22, 2016)

Dynastia said:


> They should shame all the trump voters for being so racist and run Chelsea Clinton in 2020.


Or Michelle Obama, since a law degree is all you ever needed (before this election tho)


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## QI 541 (Nov 22, 2016)

They should do the exact same thing as they did this time, but spread their votes out in the correct states so they can win the electoral college too.


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## Stereotypical Badger (Nov 22, 2016)

entropyseekswork said:


> What are some realistic strategies for liberals to gain back a foothold?



What liberals need to do is make thousands of snarky late night comedy sketches mocking Donald Trump's hair and comparing him to Hitler. I have a feeling that will really wake up middle America.


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## *Asterisk* (Nov 22, 2016)

Hortator said:


> Or Michelle Obama, since a law degree is all you ever needed (before this election tho)


She still would've done better than Clinton. Michelle has babies come out of her vagina rather than eggs.


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## Very Honest Content (Nov 22, 2016)

Run Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama as your ticket to mobilize the base in 2020.

That's all I can come up with right now.  Really though, run somebody smart enough not to break the first rule of politics and they probably flip this last result so sticking to that plan might do the trick in '20 anyway regardless who they run.


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## Grog (Nov 22, 2016)

*Asterisk* said:


> She still would've done better than Clinton. Michelle has babies come out of her vagina rather than eggs.


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## Chefbot (Nov 22, 2016)

Kokorengo said:


>


Ben "Arab Annihilator" Garrison knew what's up,


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## Shokew (Nov 22, 2016)

Kokorengo said:


>



P-eeeeeeen! 
Yeah... Good luck with that.
Can't wait for 2017 to wipe this shit away, too.


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## Jaimas (Nov 23, 2016)

Repair the fucking base. 

Social Justice and the authoritarian left have chased off the existing voterbase, and given them nowhere to fucking go. You have no idea how many Dems were sick of the "YOU NEED TO VOTE FOR HILLARY OR YOU ARE RACIST" shit we got fed for months, or the "IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT ISIS THAT MEANS YOU ARE AN ISLAMOPHOBE" bullshit we've all fucking seen by now. Throw in open racism (it's fine to advocate the deaths of police, but if white people object to being called racist-by-default this is somehow evidence of their racism), and the fact that this same group has absolute fucking _contempt_ for anyone that won't move in lockstep with them (disagree and prepare to be called Alt-Right), and you have a recipe for why a fuckton of dems voted for Trump this cycle, just to spite these faggots.

Key to this is the fact that the same groups dominate almost every legitimately left-leaning platform and Social Media as well. With the bulk of the "old dems" now essentially expats, getting them to come back to the table is priority one - and that shit isn't going to happen unless there's some serious changes. Right now, the same Regressives that cost the left the election are still in control of the platforms. Their stranglehold needs to be broken and the only way to do that is to create our own from scratch. Considering that Twitter is dying and people are calling out for alternatives, the time is ripe.


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## AnOminous (Nov 23, 2016)

Banish all Clintons, forever.


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## *Asterisk* (Nov 23, 2016)

There's even less chance of this happening than the Aztec Solution, but it's time to abolish the superdelegates.

It should be obvious to all but the dumbest of Shillbots and the cuck'ist of betas that the Dems "safeguard" against unelectable outsiders like Sanders and McGovern is a tool of repression which merely replaces popular "unelectable" candidates with reviled "electable" crooks like The Bitch who hold up like tissues in a hurricane the second someone with any kind of popular support behind them doesn't have to worry about the Jackasses designated voter cockblockers throttling their campaign.

At least against Nixon in '72, the Dems lost while backing a candidate with actual principles. This year, the party sold out everything in the name of squashing Trump, and they failed anyway. That's like getting expelled for peeking at the answers to a history final in a math class.

Fuck Laci Green and Lena Dunham in the eye, and fuck in the other eye ev'ryone else stupid or cynical enough to swallow the Lizard Queen's Kool-aid and blaming this entirely preventable loss on sexism, white supremacy and the patriarchy.


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## Very Honest Content (Nov 23, 2016)

Do we have an agreed upon reliable explanation where the electoral college was lost yet to work from though?

I personally am chalking this up to low 'millennial' (read 18-29 age range) turnout in the vote, which was not a problem for the current President in his two elections but had the bottom fall out for this one to replace him for his team.  I remember Obama specifically making the case to his crowds that he could only win if he had enough voters actually turn out to elect him in both his general elections, Clinton never made that her stump point, it was all 'making history, shatter the glass,' which while it sounds nice to those salivating for it, doesn't actually implore you to vote for the candidate much less give you actionable reasons why you should do so from a self interest perspective if that isn't resonating with you as a voter.  The messaging was a mess with this campaign, if you could even say there was a message trying to be delivered to the voters, it became a referendum on a celebrity's popularity with the populace in the lack of it becoming a comparison of who had the best resume for the job.  Add in Bill getting laughed at for making an argument to go after votes that put him in office twice within the campaign inner-circle and it's enough to want to hand out enough bitch-slaps to go around the airplane several times over.

The super-delegates supported who won the most delegates in the primary in '08 and '16.  I don't think that's _the_ reason why the electoral college went the other way this time, although I'm willing to consider it a potentially strong contributing factor.  Obama/Clinton drawing out their primary made the current President a better campaigner IMO but Hillary didn't have the vigor left to go the distance this time, that's on her I'd say, not the way the candidate is elected.



*Asterisk* said:


> Fuck Laci Green and Lena Dunham in the eye, and fuck in the other eye ev'ryone else stupid or cynical enough to swallow the Lizard Queen's Kool-aid and blaming this entirely preventable loss on sexism, white supremacy and the patriarchy.



Way to keep that thirst-posting out of Laci's thread, but how am I supposed to miss that giant gaping maw?


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## 76LD910 (Nov 23, 2016)

The fact that Keith Ellison is the front-runner for the next formal leader of the DNC is quite worrying. 

He might be able to get blacks to the voter booths again but i don't think that will compensate for the fact that his being a muslim will turn Trump voters even further away from the party.


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## Assorted Nuts (Nov 23, 2016)

To be honest I'd prefer the Democrat party be burned to the ground and get replaced by a more sensible, less authoritarian party. Something to clash with the craziness of certain sects of the Republicans without turning into the same old bunch of sneering American "liberals."


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## JU 199 (Nov 23, 2016)

1) "Reality has a well know liberal bias" needs to go. It started out as a joke but it's turned into a real psychological knot for american liberals. Nothing is inevitable in politics. You cant just chuck graphs at people, tell them to fuck off and expect to win.

2) drop neo-liberalism. It's a poison chalice the liberals were stupid enough to end holding this cycle. Dumping it would free up mental space to deal with immigration, trade and maintain and build on liberal's precious social programs.  Let the GOP be the party of finance and money.

3) Find new democrats. The current lot suck. You cant say this election was absolutely must win and then lose. Select smart, competent people from inside and outside the base to replace them.


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## Jaimas (Nov 23, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> 1) "Reality has a well know liberal bias" needs to go. It started out as a joke but it's turned into a real psychological knot for american liberals. Nothing is inevitable in politics. You cant just chuck graphs at people, tell them to fuck off and expect to win.



I remember when that was a thing. It came into vogue because the Repubs of the era were going through the same crisis the Democrats are now and sorting their shit out. There was a lot of crazy on the right you could point to and laugh at, and it first originated because certain insane commentators on the right declared that various things were due to "liberal bias" (for example, people liking Social Security). Eventually it got to the point where several on the right were willing to deny reality _itself_ in order to push an angle, leading to the running meme.

Regressives killed that one pretty quick, and when they got to the point where they, in turn, were willing to deny reality itself, they began _fucking its corpse_.



Ass Manager 3000 said:


> 2) drop neo-liberalism. It's a poison chalice the liberals were stupid enough to end holding this cycle. Dumping it would free up mental space to deal with immigration, trade and maintain and build on liberal's precious social programs.  Let the GOP be the party of finance and money.



Preach, brother. Neoliberalism brought us the Democratic Leadership Council, which thus far has a big, bad zero presidential elections won since its inception. That really should say everything right there, but to put it slightly differently, _nobody will vote for Republican light claiming to be a Democrat_. If people want a Republican moderate they will vote an actual Republican moderate.


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## JU 199 (Nov 23, 2016)

Jaimas said:


> I remember when that was a thing. It came into vogue because the Repubs of the era were going through the same crisis the Democrats are now and sorting their shit out. There was a lot of crazy on the right you could point to and laugh at, and it first originated because certain insane commentators on the right declared that various things were due to "liberal bias" (for example, people liking Social Security). Eventually it got to the point where several on the right were willing to deny reality _itself_ in order to push an angle, leading to the running meme.
> 
> Regressives killed that one pretty quick, and when they got to the point where they, in turn, were willing to deny reality itself, they began _fucking its corpse_.



Fucked that meme right into the ground didn't they? where can they go from here with it? they haven't been this absent from govenment since the 1920's.


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## Grog (Nov 24, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> Fucked that meme right into the ground didn't they? where can they go from here with it? they haven't been this absent from govenment since the 1920's.



Yeah, now the meme is on their park and it is "facts are racist/sexist/whatever bad word"


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## Heimdallr (Nov 25, 2016)

They can't. They are incapable of rebuilding.

In order to rebuild they would have to acknowledge fault which they cannot do. The party leadership hates white christian males and will not try to appeal to them at all.


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## Lorento (Nov 25, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> 1) "Reality has a well know liberal bias" needs to go. It started out as a joke but it's turned into a real psychological knot for american liberals. Nothing is inevitable in politics. You cant just chuck graphs at people, tell them to fuck off and expect to win.



This has always been my main issue. There are people I know, good people, who truly believe that history and politics will follow an inevitable course and that people against their 'future' are stupid idiots.

I always disengage from an argument if it comes down to that, you can't win with someone convinced that one way is inevitable. If you believe in this way, then go ahead and FIGHT for that future, but never forget that there's probably another, alternative way that others will subscribe to.


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## JU 199 (Nov 25, 2016)

4) Identity politics has been a failure. Drop it and focus on economics. For the past 30 years the GOP has owned this issue when there's a good case to argue that they don't. The base has to stop reeeeeeeing about trannies and focus on economics again.


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## Shokew (Nov 25, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> 4) Identity politics has been a failure. Drop it and focus on economics. For the past 30 years the GOP has owned this issue when there's a good case to argue that they don't. The base has to stop reeeeeeeing about trannies and focus on economics again.



With the GOP is setting up to wreck the economy further going into 2017, this needs to be top priority - as in, RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. Otherwise, we can get used to majority party rule being a thing, which is not something anyone should even want nor consider.


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## Pickle Inspector (Nov 25, 2016)

I'd say not pander to the hard left (As what happened to UK's Labour party) and focus on the working class and struggling middle class of all races and genders.

And have some news grabbing gimmick like legalising weed nationwide or a big NASA or science project.


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## Cheap Sandals (Nov 25, 2016)

Pickle Inspector said:


> I'd say not pander to the hard left (As what happened to UK's Labour party) and focus on the working class and struggling middle class of all races and genders.
> 
> And have some news grabbing gimmick like legalising weed nationwide or a big NASA or science project.



This is important. If the Dems had had a Big Shiny Project to promote more voters would have showed.

Democrats have forgotten about rational self interest.


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## AnOminous (Nov 25, 2016)

Lorento said:


> This has always been my main issue. There are people I know, good people, who truly believe that history and politics will follow an inevitable course and that people against their 'future' are stupid idiots.



The only thing inevitable in the universe is heat death and entropy and everything dying.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 25, 2016)

Cheap Sandals said:


> This is important. If the Dems had had a Big Shiny Project to promote more voters would have showed.
> 
> Democrats have forgotten about rational self interest.



They really have reached the point where anyone who considers what THEY want as a voter is a sexist racist bigoted traitor.  

You were expected this election to forget about your economic security, your children's future, the country's security,  and prove you're progressive at heart by electing a woman, for no other reason than she's a woman, so you can pass someone else's ideological purity check.....

What groups of those people WANTED, let a lone individuals, didn't even rate.


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## Jan_Hus (Nov 28, 2016)

Well... considering the left is still clinging to identity politics, we're fucked as an affiliation. Seriously. Why push identity politics in a country where the groups this poison is being sold too are minorities?! The majority can see this happening, and they too can vote based on their identity regardless of what some self aggrandizing, flagellating white leftie thinks.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 29, 2016)

It really is amazing, the depths of false consciousness they're going to to explain why the poor oppressed POC masses didn't vote for the progressive candidate.... it's unfathomable that anyone could have looked at the facts and came to a different conclusion, let alone one decided by something other than their own skin color.  How can brown people not vote for someone who promises to not hurt them? Don't they care about their race? They've internalized those nasty white person vibes! We can't reach them! We can't save them! All is doom!!!


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## AnOminous (Nov 29, 2016)

TowinKarz said:


> It really is amazing, the depths of false consciousness they're going to to explain why the poor oppressed POC masses didn't vote for the progressive candidate....



That "progressive" candidate was living in the White House when the disproportionately black prison population exploded under the previous Clinton Administration.  Maybe some of them remember these things.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 8, 2016)

AnOminous said:


> That "progressive" candidate was living in the White House when the disproportionately black prison population exploded under the previous Clinton Administration.  Maybe some of them remember these things.



It'd take some serious mental gymnastics to spin "brought to heel" into "get to the polling place!"


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## John Titor (Dec 12, 2016)

A-logging your opponent is not a viable long-term strategy.

I seriously don't remember what Hillary's platform even was outside of A-logging Trump.

On top of that, quit trying  so hard to act "cool" and "with it": Trump memes happened naturally because he said hilariously dumb shit, he wasn't trying to coax the young Internet-using crowd with dank pepe memes; at least not intentionally. Clinton is a political Milhouse.


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## Pikimon (Dec 12, 2016)

Pay attention to blue-collared workers more. Put candidates forward that aren't the DNC equivalent of Romney.

Done.


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## Holdek (Dec 12, 2016)

entropyseekswork said:


> After a thorough trouncing this past election cycle, democrats are struggling to understand where they went wrong, find new leadership and a new direction to take their party. It's likely voters will return to the party reflectively should Republican leadership fail to deliver on some overreaching campaign promises, but biding time until the rivals fail is a bit lazy. What are some realistic strategies for liberals to gain back a foothold? What ideas need to be let go, and which picked up? Is the momentum from Bernie Sanders great enough to carry the party in a new direction?


OP if you were serious you wouldn't refer to it as the "Democrat Party."


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Dec 15, 2016)

Democrats became the party of "We're Smarter than You" under Obama because that was the first time since fucking _1960_ they presented a candidate who could actually make the country free like he was listening to them.  Carter was a joke who only got the office because after nearly ten years of Nixon and Ford, America was willing to elect anyone with a "D" next to their name.  Bill only won because proto-Ron Paul stole enough of H.W's voter base.  

Problem is this angle isn't sustainable at all, because turns out people hate it when someone who disagrees with them calls them a "deplorable" or a "bitter clinger".  Christ, Hillary's slogan was "I'm With Her": one of the most self-serving political mantras in the history of American elections.  Like it's your fucking _privilege_ to vote for this lady.  And her voters did nothing to help either.  Waxing poetic about lived experiences and listen and believe tires people out, especially since their fucking white male status means they're not allowed to ever question these asinine concepts.  Enter Trump, whose main message was Americans didn't have to behold themselves to this new wave of identity politics fascism.  

If the Dems want to start winning again, they need to go back to the days of JFK; the last Democrat worth his salt to ever hold the White House.  They need to become the party of "Ask what you can do for your country" again, not the party of "Demand what your country should do for you".


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 15, 2016)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Democrats became the party of "We're Smarter than You" under Obama because that was the first time since fucking _1960_ they presented a candidate who could actually make the country free like he was listening to them.  Carter was a joke who only got the office because after nearly ten years of Nixon and Ford, America was willing to elect anyone with a "D" next to their name.  Bill only won because proto-Ron Paul stole enough of H.W's voter base.
> 
> Problem is this angle isn't sustainable at all, because turns out people hate it when someone who disagrees with them calls them a "deplorable" or a "bitter clinger".  Christ, Hillary's slogan was "I'm With Her": one of the most self-serving political mantras in the history of American elections.  Like it's your fucking _privilege_ to vote for this lady.  And her voters did nothing to help either.  Waxing poetic about lived experiences and listen and believe tires people out, especially since their fucking white male status means they're not allowed to ever question these asinine concepts.  Enter Trump, whose main message was Americans didn't have to behold themselves to this new wave of identity politics fascism.
> 
> If the Dems want to start winning again, they need to go back to the days of JFK; the last Democrat worth his salt to ever hold the White House.  They need to become the party of "Ask what you can do for your country" again, not the party of "Demand what your country should do for you".



I think Johnson (minus his Vietnam handling) and Carter were alright myself--but that's just my opinion. I'll be the first to admit that Carter's success had very much to do with Ford's involvement with the Watergate aftermath and the general dislike for anyone tied to it at the time. While I don't know if I'd say anyone with a D would get the nod, I would say that it'd have been a hell of a lot harder if you had had an R. Carter's outsider status did benefit him in the 1976 election. (Comically, Carter had warned Clinton to watch out for the same phenomenon with Trump and, to a lesser extent, Sanders many months before the election.)

Slick Willie managed to pull the rug out from under Bush, but his success was limited to the White House. Congress was quite red during his tenure.

Gore was a vapid candidate who did not inspire his troops--so much so that he lost shitloads of Democrats when it counted. (For those who try to blame Nader for Gore's loss in Florida, remember that for each Democrat Nader picked up, Bush grabbed a remarkable 13.) Kerry was similar to Gore--perhaps worse.

Obama's presidency has been an embarrassment. Moving beyond the fact that identity politics and racism (...and maybe Palin in 200 were crucial to his successful election bids, his accomplishments in 8 years' time have not been meaningful. Chief among this is the economy. The job situation has not improved in any readily visible way since he took office and he had 8 years to do something about that. People may try blaming the Republicans for blocking him or whatever they choose to say, but the truth is that if Obama did not succeed and _that_ is what will be remembered.

Clinton's entitlement complex was extremely evident--as you point out with her campaign. The Clinton supporters also tended to be very derisive even towards those who they apparently wished to court. Clinton's defeat was simply the result of hubris. She figured she had it in the bag when she poked Trump over acceptance of the election results. When November 8th rolled around, a surprise came a-knocking.

I still think Clinton was probably having another collapsing fit that night when they sent Podesta out to dismiss the Hillary voters. Heatstroke is a hell of a thing to come down with on a 53 degree New York night...


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Dec 15, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> The Clinton supporters also tended to be very derisive even towards those who they apparently wished to court.



This right here is why I'm skeptical the Democrats are going to rebuild any time soon.  Normally, after a defeat in a presidential election, the losers stoop to think on what they did wrong. But that's not what 2016 Democrats did.  When Hillary lost, they didn't think "maybe we're out of touch", or "we shouldn't have fielded an arrogant criminal".  They just thought " America is even more bigoted and horrible than we ever could have thought".  It's petulance, plain and simple.  And until the nation's liberals can just get over themselves, they're gonna keep handing the GOP victories for the foreseeable future.  



> I think Johnson and Carter were alright myself--but that's just my opinion. I'll be the first to admit that Carter's success had very much to do with Ford's involvement with the Watergate aftermath and the general dislike for anyone tied to it at the time. While I don't know if I'd say anyone with a D would get the nod, I would say that it'd have been a hell of a lot harder if you had had an R. Carter's outsider status did benefit him in the 1976 election. (Comically, Carter had warned Clinton to watch out for the same phenomenon with Trump and, to a lesser extent, Sanders many months before the election.)





Spoiler



Johnson was a principled man but he sent us into Vietnam, one of the darkest chapters in American history.  Carter was a dope who completely fucked up the hostage situation.  Among basically everything else.  You don't lose in a 49 state landslide unless you're really incompetent.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 15, 2016)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> Johnson was a principled man but he sent us into Vietnam, one of the darkest chapters in American history.  Carter was a dope who completely fucked up the hostage situation.  Among basically everything else.  You don't lose in a 49 state landslide unless you're really incompetent.



You probably were working on the post while I made my edit, so nothing wrong there--I did put in a note on Johnson regarding Vietnam. While the US had sent men to Vietnam before Johnson's time, it was up to Johnson to make the decision to pull out those were there/send more/etc. The unfortuate reality is that when it came time for him to make the crucial decision on that issue he made a wrong turn. I think LBJ was an alright president--but I cannot excuse that catastrophic error either.

As far as Carter went, he was no debater. Against Reagan, I don't think there was ever a chance of things going pretty for Carter. The hostage situation was simply the most visible thing Reagan could beat him over the head with. (There's the talk of this, though in light of the above sentence, whether it's true or not isn't really relevant. A Reagan win in 1980 was--to my eye anyway--likely imminent no matter how things went for Carter.)

Edit: For the record, looking into it, 1980 ended 44 - 6 + DC, not 49 - 1. Hardly a photo finish, but might as well take the record down correctly.


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## HarryHowler (Dec 15, 2016)

It was Carter's VP, Walter Mondale who lost 49-1 in the 1984 election, and came within just a few thousand votes of losing every single state.

In any case, right now the situation shouldn't be too bad _in theory_ for the Dems, as Trump wasn't exactly a universally beloved candidate, and it's now pretty obvious what errors in their strategy need to be shored up. Though granted, they'll probably need to find another fresh face in the mould of Obama or Bill Clinton. If they just put up Biden, Tim Kaine or even give Hillary another shot, they'll likely get totally slaughtered by Trump at the next election, unless he flops spectacularly in the White House.

To be honest though, I think it'll be 2018 or 2019 before it becomes obvious what they need to do at the next election, as the country's situation could be completely different by then. After the 2004 election many were claiming the Democrats would never get near power again because they were too soft on terrorism, yet by 2008 Bush II's military interventions had turned into such a massive shitstorm that most of the country wanted a _less_ aggressive President (though the financial crisis would likely have buried McCain regardless).


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## Absolutego (Dec 15, 2016)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> This right here is why I'm skeptical the Democrats are going to rebuild any time soon.  Normally, after a defeat in a presidential election, the losers stoop to think on what they did wrong. But that's not what 2016 Democrats did.  When Hillary lost, they didn't think "maybe we're out of touch", or "we shouldn't have fielded an arrogant criminal".  They just thought " America is even more bigoted and horrible than we ever could have thought".  It's petulance, plain and simple.  And until the nation's liberals can just get over themselves, they're gonna keep handing the GOP victories for the foreseeable future.



It's still way too soon to tell. We haven't even officially elected Trump. It took Berniecrats until after he was mathematically eliminated to do their version of rebuilding, and even that didn't start picking up speed until Comey refused to indict Clinton and the convention was over, when no one but the wing-nuttiest of wingnuts thought Bernie had a path to victory.

Clintonites are going to keep throwing a tantrum for the next 3 days until the electoral college finally votes, and the diehards will probably focus on getting Trump impeached over actually making things any better. I wouldn't start making serious predictions about the likelihood of the DNC rebuilding until two weeks or so after Trump's been inaugurated and is working on his first 100 days. That's the lead-up to the DNC leadership election in late February, and that's when we'll be able to see if the Clinton camp can maintain control of the party. 

That said, Dean already dropping out of the DNC race is a good sign, though Thomas Perez replacing him as the Clintonites' chosen candidate is almost as bad.


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## Brandobaris (Dec 15, 2016)

People say the Democrats were blown out due to the election.  But I don't think the Republicans fared much better.  Both parties are funded with big money, and both parties have no allegiance to the voters aside from pandering during the campaign trail. I mean think during Obama's election campaign, half of the stuff he talked about during his campaign, were similar things Trump talked about; being suspicious of voting machines, talking about economic policies, helping out the eroding middle class, being mindful of the MSM... etc etc... these were ideas and concepts people got behind, because they made sense, and because it reflected their personal experiences.

But people got pissed, because Obama either didn't do what he said he'd do, or he did the exact opposite.  And if the current appointments happening in the Trump camp are any indication, its going to be a repeat.  The problem is no-one really wants to talk about confidence in both parties being at an all time low because you are choosing between either champagne socialist captialists, or old fashioned regular champagne capitalists.  They'd much rather focus their rage at one Presidential Candidate that has done or said things you've probably done at some point in your life, but it's Trump so he's literally Hitler.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 15, 2016)

Brandobaris said:


> People say the Democrats were blown out due to the election.  But I don't think the Republicans fared much better.  Both parties are funded with big money, and both parties have no allegiance to the voters aside from pandering during the campaign trail. I mean think during Obama's election campaign, half of the stuff he talked about during his campaign, were similar things Trump talked about; being suspicious of voting machines, talking about economic policies, helping out the eroding middle class, being mindful of the MSM... etc etc... these were ideas and concepts people got behind, because they made sense, and because it reflected their personal experiences.
> 
> But people got pissed, because Obama either didn't do what he said he'd do, or he did the exact opposite.  And if the current appointments happening in the Trump camp are any indication, its going to be a repeat.  The problem is no-one really wants to talk about confidence in both parties being at an all time low because you are choosing between either champagne socialist captialists, or old fashioned regular champagne capitalists.  They'd much rather focus their rage at one Presidential Candidate that has done or said things you've probably done at some point in your life, but it's Trump so he's literally Hitler.



I remember telling Hillary supporters to enjoy the honeymoon that the campaign season afforded them. For a little while, they were given a sworn enemy to hate strictly because he opposed their girl. They could blame him for all of the perceived ills in the world. I told them that once the election was through they'd have to look for a new thing to throw their complaints onto.

As it turns out, I wasn't entirely correct. They refuse to come back to reality and they're pushing for overtime on their honeymoon.

They can moan and gripe all they wish, but flailing one's arms like that rarely accomplishes much.


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## Pikimon (Dec 16, 2016)

Absolutego said:


> It's still way too soon to tell. We haven't even officially elected Trump. It took Berniecrats until after he was mathematically eliminated to do their version of rebuilding, and even that didn't start picking up speed until Comey refused to indict Clinton and the convention was over, when no one but the wing-nuttiest of wingnuts thought Bernie had a path to victory.
> 
> Clintonites are going to keep throwing a tantrum for the next 3 days until the electoral college finally votes, and the diehards will probably focus on getting Trump impeached over actually making things any better. I wouldn't start making serious predictions about the likelihood of the DNC rebuilding until two weeks or so after Trump's been inaugurated and is working on his first 100 days. That's the lead-up to the DNC leadership election in late February, and that's when we'll be able to see if the Clinton camp can maintain control of the party.
> 
> That said, Dean already dropping out of the DNC race is a good sign, though Thomas Perez replacing him as the Clintonites' chosen candidate is almost as bad.



The Republicans may be the ones to try to impeach Trump if Trump begins to prove to be uncontrollable towards the GOP's policy goals, Pence is a diehard establishment Republican in the same league as Cheney, and the GOP would have no qualms to impeach Trump under the false veneer of being "principled" and going "country over party".

Furthermore Trump's and the GOP's chances are heavily tied in with his campaign promises he made throughout the campaign trail (of which there are many) many of which are either not feasible or too unethical to realistically put forward. 

If he can't deliver, his mainstream supporters will dump him like a sack of hot diapers, some of them are already somewhat (and I use this in the most generous of terms) disappointed in some of Trump cabinet picks (particularly the Wells Fargo, Goldmann Sachs and ExxonMobil executives) .


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## Lefty's Revenge (Dec 16, 2016)

Maybe not realistic but theres gotta be a serious blood letting. You need all the fucking Clintonites gone. Theyre still living in the 90s in many ways and really shit the bed this election with the emails shit, working against Sanders, etc.

Democratic governors and mayors and the few congress members left have to come out strong against Trump. But manage a delicate balance between Obama era obstruction and sticking to their principles. You dont want to be known as the guys who just jammed up everything while the republicans were in office. But you dont want to be like the late obama republicans who blocked everything and shut down the government.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 16, 2016)

Lefty's Revenge said:


> Maybe not realistic but theres gotta be a serious blood letting. You need all the fucking Clintonites gone. Theyre still living in the 90s in many ways and really shit the bed this election with the emails shit, working against Sanders, etc.
> 
> Democratic governors and mayors and the few congress members left have to come out strong against Trump. *But manage a delicate balance between Obama era obstruction* and sticking to their principles. You dont want to be known as the guys who just jammed up everything while the republicans were in office. But you dont want to be like the late obama republicans who blocked everything and shut down the government.



As far as I am aware, the Democrats flat out haven't got the numbers to manage any sort of meaningful obstruction efforts.

They do not have the votes to stop Trump, so if they truly disagree with him, it's harmless for them to take a stand against him. There is no excuse for them to not resist if that's what they wish to do.

We'll find out if they're all talk on opposing Trump or if they're actually gonna do it.

My money's on them proving all talk and supporting most of what he puts to them.


----------



## HarryHowler (Dec 16, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> As far as I am aware, the Democrats flat out haven't got the numbers to manage any sort of meaningful obstruction efforts.



Not in the House, but the Senate is a different matter; the Republicans only barely have a majority there. If Trump tries to push any extreme legislation, all it'd take is a couple of moderate Republican senators to break ranks in order to kill it. And that's before you get to filibusters, or the possibility of the GOP losing control of the Senate in the midterms.


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## TiggerNits (Dec 16, 2016)

Drown everyone with a tumblr


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## Elwood P. Dowd (Dec 16, 2016)

Jaimas said:


> Preach, brother. Neoliberalism brought us the Democratic Leadership Council, which thus far has a big, bad zero presidential elections won since its inception. That really should say everything right there, but to put it slightly differently, _nobody will vote for Republican light claiming to be a Democrat_. If people want a Republican moderate they will vote an actual Republican moderate.



Bill Clinton was chairman of the Democrat Leadership Council at one point, so I'd strongly suggest that Clinton's wins in 1992 and 1996 were a direct result of DLC influence. He was clearly their candidate.


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## Elwood P. Dowd (Dec 16, 2016)

A crazy idea for the next fourteen years: Figure out what it would take to win the state of West Virginia and go do that nationwide.  They're almost a mirror image of California since 1988, going redder not bluer: Dukakis, Clinton*, Clinton, Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney, Trump. This is insane. West Virginia should still be where it has historically been: in the Democrat's wheelhouse.

(* = Perot did get 15% of the vote in 1992, and to take an arguable position if all of that had gone to Bush '41 Bush would have won.)

I said fourteen years, because by the 2030 census I expect Florida to be fully blue, ditto North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Dems will have a lock on 270 EC votes Repubs will find impossible to break, and the Dems simply won't need to listen to voters in West Virginia any longer, nor for the larger group of white working class voters I'm having the state stand proxy for.

The mistake the Dems made in 2016 in running a Hillary or a Bernie and not (say) a Jim Webb, is not that they ran them, but that they ran them too soon.


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## Absolutego (Dec 16, 2016)

The demographics argument you're making is a mistake, and it's the same mistake that's causing the Democratic party to fall apart. The party only had WV as a historical stronghold because they represented the working class, not any particular racial group. When, in the post-Civil Rights era, everyone could vote and incomes remained largely stratified by race, people assumed that minority groups voted blue because of the party's racial politics instead of general socioeconomic concerns. This caused the party to start abandoning working class issues after losing to Nixon in 1972 and fully embrace identity politics and curry the favor of socially liberal big money after losing to Reagan in 1980.

But as minorities are more and more represented in the middle and upper classes, and as both parties completely fail to substantially improve the lot of the working class, more and more minority voters are "defecting" to the Republicans or simply checking out of the political process altogether. Like we saw with Trump (who won a larger percentage of the minority vote than any Republican since desegregation), poor minorities will vote Republican out of spite if all they get out of Democrats is empty promises every 4 years and the occasional press shoot crying crocodile tears in front of a drive-by or gang shooting. Combining that with deliberately alienating white people and embracing extremist rhetoric and no one but guilt-ridden college students/professional 'activists' and people in the ghetto will consistently vote for Democrats.


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## Unseemly and Feral (Dec 16, 2016)

Elwood P. Dowd said:


> demographics



Your assumption is resting on the fallacy that politics and coalitions are static or moving in a consistently favorable direction. That assumption is exactly why the Democrats lost.

Because Obama handily won in the rust belt twice, Democrats gave Hillary the same chances of winning them as Obama did, and they assumed the political conditions there were static. If they had taken a closer look, they would have noticed that Scott Walker had gone against the powerful labor unions in WI and won a recall election, then Republicans got into Michigan, Pennsylvania, even Minnesota, but the Democrats didn't notice. The signs were there, but they didn't pay attention.

Think about how this changes the EC battlefield if Democrats permanently gain Virginia and Florida but lose all of the midwest except Illinois. Shifts like these, wear some states turn into swing states before becoming comfortably red or blue, have happened numerous times before, and most states have gone through this process at least once. The shifts might slightly favor one side or the other at times, but this tiny advantage is easily overridden if a victory isn't followed up on.


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## Dragoonism (Dec 16, 2016)

They need to embrace socialism, it's the only way.

Being a bit more serious, in the next election they need a more modern person than a 50+ male or female, someone who is more into what people of today wants, time to let the new guard in.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 17, 2016)

Absolutego said:


> The demographics argument you're making is a mistake, and it's the same mistake that's causing the Democratic party to fall apart. The party only had WV as a historical stronghold because they represented the working class, not any particular racial group. When, in the post-Civil Rights era, everyone could vote and incomes remained largely stratified by race, people assumed that minority groups voted blue because of the party's racial politics instead of general socioeconomic concerns. This caused the party to start abandoning working class issues after losing to Nixon in 1972 and fully embrace identity politics and curry the favor of socially liberal big money after losing to Reagan in 1980.
> 
> But as minorities are more and more represented in the middle and upper classes, and as both parties completely fail to substantially improve the lot of the working class, more and more minority voters are "defecting" to the Republicans or simply checking out of the political process altogether. Like we saw with Trump (who won a larger percentage of the minority vote than any Republican since desegregation), poor minorities will vote Republican out of spite if all they get out of Democrats is empty promises every 4 years and the occasional press shoot crying crocodile tears in front of a drive-by or gang shooting. Combining that with deliberately alienating white people and embracing extremist rhetoric and no one but guilt-ridden college students/professional 'activists' and people in the ghetto will consistently vote for Democrats.



The Democrats' nasty habits of doing nothing for the working class and doing fuckall for years on end definitely contributed to their historic defeat this cycle.

Trump had it right went he pointed out the latter tendency. I am glad that voters sent the Democrats the message that such conduct will not be tolerated because it shouldn't be.


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## The Great Chandler (Dec 19, 2016)

Somehow Obama said something sensible for once regarding the party. He suggested the party should "open up to red states". If the Democrats decided to stop playing the autistic kid who doesn't socialize with others, maybe they'll have a shot again.


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## Jaimas (Dec 19, 2016)

The Great Chandler said:


> Somehow Obama said something sensible for once regarding the party. He suggested the party should "open up to red states". If the Democrats decided to stop playing the autistic kid who doesn't socialize with others, maybe they'll have a shot again.



That's not going to happen while the SJWs hold the reins of the party's political sites online and Social Media.

So long as their hold there is unbroken, it will be years before anything changes.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 19, 2016)

The Great Chandler said:


> Somehow Obama said something sensible for once regarding the party. He suggested the party should "open up to red states". If the Democrats decided to stop playing the autistic kid who doesn't socialize with others, maybe they'll have a shot again.



Eh, I'd regard anything Obama says as things to be "taken with a grain of salt" to put it mildly. Beyond his election and reelection efforts, he has not presided over any major and successful electoral strategy.

As far as the Red states go, I think the Democrats would have more success if they'd simply stop trying to guilt the people the wish to court into voting for them. There are plenty of Republican voters who can be swayed to vote Democratic if adequately persuaded and vice versa. Rather than deriding people as deplorable, the Democrats should be telling them about the laws or programs you want to establish and how such things could benefit them. (Mind you, telling them "_check out my website!_" is not a sufficient answer either.) 

You're not going to win everyone over, but then you never were going to do that. The important figure is that you will have likely won some over. Further, the chances are good that you will have persuaded more with the latter strategy than the former.



Jaimas said:


> That's not going to happen while the SJWs hold the reins of the party's political sites online and Social Media.
> 
> So long as their hold there is unbroken, it will be years before anything changes.



The political costs incurred to the Democrats by many things SJWs have rallied behind have mounted over the years. I imagine the whole bathroom bit didn't help them this cycle. Ignoring the major issues affecting the working class in favor of these gestures toward small pockets of the electorate is not an avenue to success--as we have just seen.

Until the Democrats come to terms with that and address matters accordingly, we can expect more of what we have seen.


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## Jaimas (Dec 20, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> Eh, I'd regard anything Obama says as things to be "taken with a grain of salt" to put it mildly. Beyond his election and reelection efforts, he has not presided over any major and successful electoral strategy.
> 
> As far as the Red states go, I think the Democrats would have more success if they'd simply stop trying to guilt the people the wish to court into voting for them. There are plenty of Republican voters who can be swayed to vote Democratic if adequately persuaded and vice versa. Rather than deriding people as deplorable, the Democrats should be telling them about the laws or programs you want to establish and how such things could benefit them. (Mind you, telling them "_check out my website!_" is not a sufficient answer either.)
> 
> ...



In Kiwi speak, the Democrats need a _halal_ thread the likes of which has never been seen before.


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## JU 199 (Dec 20, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> As far as the Red states go, I think the Democrats would have more success if they'd simply stop trying to guilt the people the wish to court into voting for them. There are plenty of Republican voters who can be swayed to vote Democratic if adequately persuaded and vice versa. Rather than deriding people as deplorable, the Democrats should be telling them about the laws or programs you want to establish and how such things could benefit them. (Mind you, telling them "_check out my website!_" is not a sufficient answer either.)



Trying to corral people into voting for you is another strategy the left needs to jettison. It doesn't work. Putting up a candidate people consider to be slightly less unfavorable and implying the voters have no choice but pick the lesser evil rarely works. In retrospect for the past 4 cycles its only worked once in 2012. That has more to do with Obama then said strategy being viable.

Being the outrage party doesn't work. I get that the republicans want to gut social programs that work and it sucks but you can't operate on a platform of the blow-back party-_ 'Angry that the GOP wants to gut Medicare? Vote for us! That'll show em!'_. It doesn't work in the long run. The dems always operate on the assumption that at some point the GOP will do something that'll finally make people turn on them. Its a lazy assumption that's never going to happen.

The dems need to give people a reason to vote for them in the long run. They need to eat humble pie and admit they suck at politics. They need to fucking deal with the speds on social media who won't stop hyperventilating about gender. The road ahead is long and I'm not sure they have the stamina and the endurance to cope anymore.


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## DuskEngine (Dec 20, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> Beyond his election and reelection efforts, he has not presided over any major and successful electoral strategy.



So what you're saying is that he didn't win anything besides the two major elections he won


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## JU 199 (Dec 20, 2016)

DuskEngine said:


> So what you're saying is that he didn't win anything besides the two major elections he won



In politics you have the long game and a short game. Sure, in the short game Obama got elected twice, but in the long game its not going to matter because the mistakes made accumulated into the GOP controlling all branches of government and a meme for president. His policy 'achievements' are gonna have a hatchet taken to them.

I'd say @IwegalBadnik is right.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 20, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> Trying to corral people into voting for you is another strategy the left needs to jettison. It doesn't work. Putting up a candidate people consider to be slightly less unfavorable and implying the voters have no choice but pick the lesser evil rarely works. In retrospect for the past 4 cycles its only worked once in 2012. That has more to do with Obama then said strategy being viable.
> 
> Also being the outrage party doesn't work. I get that the republicans want to gut social programs that work and it sucks but you can't operate on a platform of the blow-back party-_ 'Angry that the GOP wants to gut Medicare? Vote for us! That'll show em!'_. It doesn't work in the long run. The dems always operate on the assumption that at some point the GOP will do something that'll finally make people turn on them. Its a lazy assumption that's never going to happen.
> 
> The dems need to give people a reason to vote for them in the long run. They need to eat humble pie and admit that they suck at politics. They need to fucking deal with the speds on social media who won't stop hyperventilating about gender. The road ahead is long and I'm not sure they have the stamina and the endurance to cope anymore.



My meaning was that Democrats should have something fairly long term to persuade people to back them, in line with your sentiments.

Something like that could probably gain support from traditionally Republican voters who wouldn't otherwise vote for Democrats.



DuskEngine said:


> So what you're saying is that he didn't win anything besides the two major elections he won



Few people (particularly in 2012) rode his coattails into a position in Congress. The Democrats' clout has declined under Obama; he has not presided over a successful electoral strategy--absent perhaps for himself.

Obama's 2008 win has many credits to it, including Palin, Bush and racism. The 2012 win owes in part to Obama's incumbency and the 47% video clips.

Edit: Obama's 2008 campaign was under Howard Dean's fifty state strategy; Obama benefited from it, but after his election he opted to abandon it in favor of Debbie Wasserman Schultz' strategies. Losses have ensued ever since. Even after the strategies' failures in 2010, 2012 and 2014 they still relied on DWS' ideas into 2016.

In all honesty and in retrospect, the election results probably shouldn't have come as a surprise given what had been going on for years beforehand.


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## JU 199 (Dec 20, 2016)

Another thing the dems should do is dismantle the DNC and rebuild it with completely new people. Its behavior in the primaries and performance in general elections is abysmal.

The dems need new blood in general. For the party with am expansive youth wing few of them engage with actually running the party. It doesn't help that they're cloistered in cities either.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 20, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> Another thing the dems should do is dismantle the DNC and rebuild it with completely new people. Its behavior in the primaries and performance in general elections in abysmal.
> 
> The dems need new blood in general. For the party with am expansive youth wing few of them engage with actually running the party. It doesn't help that they're cloistered in cities either.



Considering that Hillary suffered more defectors than Trump did at the Electoral College today, cutting out as much dead wood as possible is probably a wise move--one that has come too late for the Democrats this cycle.


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## JU 199 (Dec 20, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> Considering that Hillary suffered more defectors than Trump did at the Electoral College today, cutting out as much dead wood as possible is probably a wise move--one that has come too late for the Democrats this cycle.


To do that they need to know there's dead wood to begin with. I'm not sure they can differentiate anymore. The fact that they've been pushing recounts and that stupid shit with the EC shows us that they'd prefer the problems lie elsewhere.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 20, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> To do that they need to know there's dead wood to begin with. I'm not sure they can differentiate anymore. The fact that they've been pushing recounts and that stupid shit with the EC shows us that they'd prefer the problems lie elsewhere.



I tend to think they'll need to be smacked around by another one or two cycles of loss before they'll admit "_there might be a problem_" with how they do things. The recounts were--as another person once said--simply pissing in the wind. They were never going to accomplish anything meaningful this cycle. Trump won, Hillary lost. That's it.

As it is, I've seen plenty of racist and sexist comments out of Hillary supporters blaming whites and men--and with much vitriol, white men--for the 2016 situation. Rather than look at how the Democrats may have gone wrong, they choose to simply scream at those who (they believe) didn't vote for them, angry that those people did not fall in line. They do not respect people as people or individuals, they merely get angry that they didn't get their votes.

It's not a strategy to success in the future, but it's where they're at at the moment.


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## JU 199 (Dec 20, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> As it is, I've seen plenty of racist and sexist comments out of Hillary supporters blaming whites and men--and with much vitriol, white men--for the 2016 situation. Rather than look at how the Democrats may have gone wrong, they choose to simply scream over those who didn't vote for them not falling in line.



Yeah im sure that'll work (not)

Trump is barely president. He's down by 2.8M votes now. In the rust belt he effectively won by about 80k  votes. That's all. Its not suggesting that he shouldn't be president as much as its illuminating how slim his victory was.

The logic behind screaming racist and sexist at everyone and condemning America doesn't make any sense when you look at the results. It sure is _easy_ though...


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 20, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> Yeah im sure that'll work (not)
> 
> Trump is barely president. He's down by 2.8M votes now. In the rust belt he effectively won by about 80k  votes. That's all. Its not suggesting that he shouldn't be president as much as its illuminating how slim his victory was.
> 
> The logic behind screaming racist and sexist at everyone and condemning America doesn't make any sense when you look at the nu results  It's sure _easy_ though...



The comments do provide good entertainment value if nothing else. One I reposted here comes to mind, and I'd regard it as both sexist and comically hypocritical.


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## JU 199 (Dec 20, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> The comments do provide good entertainment value if nothing else.



Of course. The level of salt has completely exceeded my expectations.


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## Pikimon (Dec 20, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> Yeah im sure that'll work (not)
> 
> Trump is barely president. He's down by 2.8M votes now. In the rust belt he effectively won by about 80k  votes. That's all. Its not suggesting that he shouldn't be president as much as its illuminating how slim his victory was.
> 
> The logic behind screaming racist and sexist at everyone and condemning America doesn't make any sense when you look at the results  It's sure _easy_ though...



Trump has a high bar to pass too, he has built himself a list of expectations that are really unattainable or unconstitutional. If he can't accomplish any of his goals in a substantial way, his base can and will abandon him.

He can't even blame the Dems, they have little power to prevent anything at the Federal level.

Not that he'd care mind you he could crash the economy, incite an international incident, blow up the environment and instigate a civil war and still claim success and admiration.


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## Electric Eye (Dec 20, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Pay attention to blue-collared workers more. Put candidates forward that aren't the DNC equivalent of Romney.
> 
> Done.



This is basically it. Hillary lost areas that originally voted Obama twice and the reason for that isn't just because those counties suddenly decided they liked Republican policies more.


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## TowinKarz (Dec 20, 2016)

They for sure need to get all the yelling and screaming of "Racist!" "Sexist!" "Bigot!"  out of their system right now, and then forever stop their culture-shaming attack plan, quit it cold turkey, and not get pulled back in by the professional activists and full-time student protestors who will howl the same stuff at them for abandoning them. 

The attempt to frame progressivism as more important than the actual hard numbers of just how well everyone is doing is doomed to keep them losing if they don't.  It's hard to do that after spending a good 15 years building the narrative that you are the party of the future because you CARE more, while doing fuck all to actually care except in the most useless and topical window dressing exercises.   

You need to REALLY care about conditions lots of regular people are finding themselves in, and not say "yeah, that's awful, but imagine how bad it would be if you were trans too and couldn't use your preferred bathroom!"    That's just the left's version of what right-wing idiots do when they eat at a restaurant and instead of leaving a tip, they leave the waitress a religious pamphlet that says "God is more important than money"   Nice that you care about her spiritual welfare, but God ain't paying her electric bill, and for that matter, $50 doesn't materialize in her bank account every time someone goes on hormone therapy.    That's why the populace got sick of you.   Not because they're hateful,  but because they're tired of waiting for relief. 

People who are socially disenfranchised aren't known for their patience when you ignore it in favor of louder, trendier, upper-class "victims". 

But, but, that's IMPORTANT!  They say.  Well, is it? I guess it kinda is.  After all, they won't write a glowing op ed piece about you in the _Washington Post_ for making sure Joe Blow from Muskogee, Oklahoma stays gainfully employed so he can support his two kids and wife, that's a sexist  narrative!!!!     The media pushing narrative over story for the last decade is exactly why nobody trusts them anymore and their powers of persuasion have never failed more obviously or gloriously than this election where they all but declared Empress Clinton capable of curing sickness by mere touch.   Well, look where devotion to building up that praise got you, your followers LOVE you on Facebook, but there weren't enough ballots in the ol' box, now where there? 




 I know I'm just rehashing what's been said before, but it needs to be said enough for the message to get through.


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## PW2002 (Dec 20, 2016)

Kick the fucking Baby Boomers out of leadership roles. The party has become a gerontocracy, while the RNC actually develops younger talent.


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## Pikimon (Dec 20, 2016)

PW2002 said:


> Kick the fucking Baby Boomers out of leadership roles. The party has become a gerontocracy, while the RNC actually develops younger talent.



The GOP too


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## DuskEngine (Dec 21, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> The GOP too



A 70-year old and a 75-year old would not be my first picks for political insurgents.


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## Brandobaris (Dec 21, 2016)

TowinKarz said:


> They for sure need to get all the yelling and screaming of "Racist!" "Sexist!" "Bigot!"  out of their system right now, and then forever stop their culture-shaming attack plan, quit it cold turkey, and not get pulled back in by the professional activists and full-time student protestors who will howl the same stuff at them for abandoning them.



I dunno really think the Red vs Blue, Black vs White, Red Sox vs Yankees, mentality is cultivated because otherwise the establishment would be held more accountable.  As things are, people are too busy either telling everyone Nazis are taking over America, or having any topic or information you bring up as tainted by being part of the "other team".   Conversation doesn't move forward, because people are doing the kind of political and drama point scoring you'd do if you were part of a hardcore sports team, you laugh at the others misfortunes or scandals, and then when it happens to "your team" you minimize and deflect as much as possible.

The reason media political discourse is as it is, is because the wedge driving the two teams apart are now so extreme meaning they will believe whatever their team  sources tell them, despite counter arguments or even evidence existing demonstrating the opposite.

I don't see this trend reversing.  Are we going to have "Radicalized Democrats" and "Radicalized Republicans" now?


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## TowinKarz (Dec 21, 2016)

I agree that nothing gets done when people retreat to these mutual unresolvable positions.  But I'm not quite cynical enough to believe that someone is doing that out of some conspiracy to keep the masses placated while they get their real agenda accomplished. 



Nothing bad ever comes from excising whackjobs.  It's just that the left is more in bed with theirs right now than the right is with it's hardcore Jesus and guns crowd.   We saw very little of them with Trump, which is another reason why he was able to pull the upset, he didn't pander to the bible-thumpers or the "Obama's after muh gunz!" crowd directly.  He took stances that aligned with them mostly, but never went as far as saying the dreaded phrase "christian values"  or "gun grab"  and I hope the Right was paying attention, but I sadly believe that they'll convince themselves they've got the moral imperative now and dial up the good old-fashioned values rhetoric and piss away their gains.


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## Brandobaris (Dec 21, 2016)

TowinKarz said:


> I agree that nothing gets done when people retreat to these mutual unresolvable positions.  But I'm not quite cynical enough to believe that someone is doing that out of some conspiracy to keep the masses placated while they get their real agenda accomplished.



Some would call it a conspiracy, but I think the conspiracy is just to make as much money as possible.  Having Red vs Blue means you buy the season tickets and the jerseys and go to all the games and buy the mug with the logo on it for your morning coffee.  If everyone wanted to actually improve the country and make concessions and the media narrative actually switched debating social and economic policys on merit instead down party lines?  Theres no fundraising or merchandising or ad space money there.

People don't have time for that, they don't want to have to think that hard, they want to pick their team buy their little flag and boo and jeer at the other team from the sidelines.


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## Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Dec 23, 2016)

Democrats need to focus more on economics. Trump told the rust belt that their jobs would not go to Mexico under his watch. Hillary told them they'd have to get trained for new jobs.

People will vote for their own economic interest, even if that candidate is a crazy psychopath.


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## Mariposa Electrique (Dec 23, 2016)

Hollywood Hulk Hogan said:


> People will vote for their own economic interest, even if that candidate is a crazy psychopath.


No, ugly tranny/scammer Greata probably voted on his own economic self-interests. What got Trump elected and the UK brexited was tribalism. Economic self-interest is just a small piece of the picture. People are tired of people that are not themselves getting benefits they should not be receiving. Such as housing, access to a women's restroom, welfare money, good jobs, and being violated by gross, ugly foreign people.


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## Shokew (Dec 24, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> The GOP too



Unfortunately, the GOP is much worse in pandering to old people (while selling out to corporate interests more noticeably as well, sadly)  that don't need pandering to, save for having a strong safety net for retirement/healthcare benefits, which the GOP clearly keep saying they want to get rid of, honestly. 

It's not just Dems that need to change (as evidenced by their economical and foreign affairs neglect...) - they just need to change a hell of a lot more.


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## Pikimon (Dec 24, 2016)

Hollywood Hulk Hogan said:


> Democrats need to focus more on economics. Trump told the rust belt that their jobs would not go to Mexico under his watch. Hillary told them they'd have to get trained for new jobs.
> 
> People will vote for their own economic interest, even if that candidate is a crazy psychopath.



Most of the rustbelt jobs are being replaced by automation. You can't feasibly prevent automation from happening, just look what happened to all those artisans who would handmake clothes and shoes and lost their livelihoods in the face of the Industrial Revolution's superior ability to produce quality goods at cheaper prices.

You have to push people towards the economies and industries of the future, but unfortunately people don't like change and will dig their heels in the ground.


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## Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Dec 24, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Most of the rustbelt jobs are being replaced by automation. You can't feasibly prevent automation from happening, just look what happened to all those artisans who would handmake clothes and shoes and lost their livelihoods in the face of the Industrial Revolution's superior ability to produce quality goods at cheaper prices.
> 
> You have to push people towards the economies and industries of the future, but unfortunately people don't like change and will dig their heels in the ground.



I agree, but people don't like to hear that.


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## Lorento (Dec 24, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Most of the rustbelt jobs are being replaced by automation. You can't feasibly prevent automation from happening, just look what happened to all those artisans who would handmake clothes and shoes and lost their livelihoods in the face of the Industrial Revolution's superior ability to produce quality goods at cheaper prices.
> 
> You have to push people towards the economies and industries of the future, but unfortunately people don't like change and will dig their heels in the ground.



In my (Extremely ill educated) opinion, I feel as though we must find a middle ground between inevitable automation and protecting people's livelihoods. One of the major issues of the Industrial Revolution was the pace. The people that poured into the cities led to slums being created that took 200 years to clear from London alone. Heck, some places in the UK STILL haven't recovered from the Revolution. 

So yes, we MUST accept the reality of the New Industrial Revolution, but we have to protect the people who will lose their jobs, or they will elect someone, ANYONE who says that they can give them the jobs back. It's quite simple, and if a party could harness this middle ground without the corruption that is often associated with this path, I think they could certainly win an election or two.


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## Malodorous Merkin (Dec 24, 2016)

Rebuild the DNC?

Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.


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## Sperglord Dante (Dec 24, 2016)

Lorento said:


> So yes, we MUST accept the reality of the New Industrial Revolution, but we have to protect the people who will lose their jobs, or they will elect someone, ANYONE who says that they can give them the jobs back. It's quite simple, and if a party could harness this middle ground without the corruption that is often associated with this path, I think they could certainly win an election or two.


The middle ground is embracing automatization as the cure for outsourcing and establishing a universal income, but neither party wants to do that. Democrats don't want to give up their welfare state and Republicans will never support giving people "free money".


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## Pikimon (Dec 24, 2016)

Sperglord Dante said:


> The middle ground is embracing automatization as the cure for outsourcing and establishing a universal income, but neither party wants to do that. Democrats don't want to give up their welfare state and Republicans will never support giving people "free money".



Isn't a universal income the very definition of a "welfare state"

There are several roadblocks for people in rural areas from attaining the meaningful employment they used to have from the late 40s up until the mid 1970s.

*Many of the people hit hardest by this don't want to admit that they need to learn a new job and get into a new line of work*. That's extremely difficult, probably involves losing income in at least the short run, and would require raising taxes (or major deficits) in order to pay for the retraining. They have no reason to vote for that when there are loud angry politicians telling them it's the fault of immigrants and China. The argument that _other people_ are responsible via some sinister plot and that other people need to bear all the pain and suffering is always going to be seductive; the idea that the job you've spent your entire life doing and learning to do is mostly just obsolete is deeply-humiliating, no matter how much it's not your fault. Nobody (especially not older people) likes to be told they're obsolete. 


*It's harder for older people to learn new tasks. It's harder for old people to get new jobs*. Many of the people who are angriest about this are, unsurprisingly, part of the older generation. If you're in you're 60's and haven't made enough to retire because of the recession, it's (most of the time) simply not realistic for you to retrain into a new job. Especially if you have a family to support or the like.


*Relocating workers only sounds good on paper*. In practice, many people want to stay where they are - especially, again, older Americans (I keep focusing on this because they're the voting group that is most heavily voting against what we'd assume to be their interest here, so we have to understand why they're so eager to believe that this is all because of evil Chinese and a strongman with a hard fist can fix everything.) Remember, for a long time, there were people who have refused to leave Picher, OK, a town that is literally filled with rolling clouds of toxic gas. "Ok, everyone, the mine and the factory are never opening back up, time to move to San Francisco" is not going to convince people, _especially_ not when there's a loud shouty strongman telling them that they should stay right where they are because this is all the fault of the Chinese and the Mexicans.


*Technology does create some new jobs, but there's no magic law of economics that states that there will always be employment for everyone who wants it which could reasonably pay enough for them to live the standard of living they expect*. Supply and demand will eventually find a price for everyone in theory, but nothing stops that price from being below a living wadge; and even just a bit below where they are now is going to make some people utterly flip and refuse to accept this as long as there are politicians offering them another explanation. And, again: Even if they're being 100% totally-rational, it's entirely possible that there is simply not enough work to be done for them to earn a living wage off of it. The government could maybe step in here with incentives to create jobs, but at a certain point this is broken windows economics, with the government deliberately trying to create pointless busywork just to prop up a system of labor that no longer makes sense.


*Now, here's the point where I'm sure some people are thinking of universal basic income, and that would definitely be enough to help keep people from starving* - but given our current economic situation and political will, even if we could pass it, it would be _extremely_ low, far lower than what many of these people are making now. Again, they wouldn't accept it as long as they have loud shouty politicians spinning them a fantasy where something else is possible. This _could_ possibly be addressed if we were willing to massively restructure our economy (which would require, basically, a heavy, serious redistribution of wealth where the top 1% gives up a lot of the power they have now in favor of supporting a huge number of people who will probably never do serious paying work).

What all of the above adds up to is that many of the people who are most affected by this are also the ones least willing to accept it and least willing to vote for it. The upper classes (whose entire involvement in politics is to avoid that redistribution at any cost) will eagerly support any candidate who tells the people hit hardest by this that it's the fault of immigrants and Chinese and whatever. Older workers, in particular, looking at the bleak logic above, will be eager to accept a satisfying fantasy in which they're a wronged American hero rather than a a depressing reality as an obsolete old man in a dead-end job facing a world that is unlikely to ever value them the way they were valued before these changed happened.

*Then there are the cultural factors.* This essay is a bit out of date (written for the 2004 election), but I think it holds up well today. The basic fact is that to a liberal, coastal family, while losing your job and retraining to another industry is hard, it doesn't hit you as much on a cultural level - it's just an economic problem to be weathered. 

To older, more conservative families, where the father is expected to be a patriarch and where being _the man_ of the house is a big part of their identity? It hits them a lot harder. Losing control of your children, moving away from your relatives, these are things that are normal to coastal-types or big-city types, but which threaten to destroy the cultural worlds of many more conservative families. As that essay explains, if you divide the country up into blue and red "cultures", it immediately becomes obvious that the blue culture is _much_ more able to adapt and thrive in a rapidly-changing global economy. This is part of the reason why we see this almost apocalyptic cultural panic on the right even when, from the perspective of people outside that culture, the changes (and the things they're fixated on) don't seem _that_ big. 

One of the defining features of this election was Trump's almost apocalyptic rhetoric (met by befuddlement by many on the left who felt that, yeah, while the country has problems it's doing better than it has in a while.) This isn't just about jobs. It's about an (entirely accurate) feeling by many on the right that globalization threatens their entire culture and way of life; and many of the things I outlined above would only increase that pressure.

Sure, we can alleviate the economic problems by relocating people or retraining people... but that means, for many older conservative white people, watching their sons move to San Francisco, getting a boyfriend, going vegan and no longer being under their thumb. It means seeing their daughter going off to college and coming back as an atheist or a feminist or discovering she's a boy. It means not having your kids there to support you the way you expected. It means losing the life you expected to have and were taught you would have growing up. What they want isn't to adapt themselves to a new and different world; what they want is a strongman who claims he can force the world back into the shape they believe it ought to have.

I don't feel there is a solution to this. They have to adapt or die, and the basic structure of the problem means that they will never be willing to accept that they need to adapt. Given that most the political force behind this is, again, from the older generation, I suspect the answer is that they'll slowly die off, increasingy-frantically voting for one loud angry strongman after another who makes them ridiculous promises that can't possibly be kept until enough of them have died off that they won't be able to control our politics. I expect this sense of older white _desperation_ to become louder and louder in our politics until one day it just... fades away, as the generation that gives it its political power dies off, still frantic and terrified and angry about a changing world they can't bring themselves to understand.

Also they're gonna totally do massive damage to our own futures as they desperately attempt to avoid looking the harsh reality of what's happening in the face. So that'll be fun.


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## Sperglord Dante (Dec 24, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Isn't a universal income the very definition of a "welfare state"


*Their* welfare state. Meaning something Democrats can claim as their own and a tool the can use against Republicans. If we ever see any major support for UI in America in th near future it'll probably come from independent grassroots movements.


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## Lorento (Dec 24, 2016)

Sperglord Dante said:


> *Their* welfare state. Meaning something Democrats can claim as their own and a tool the can use against Republicans. If we ever see any major support for UI in America in th near future it'll probably come from independent grassroots movements.



And that's the problem. If the Democrats didn't come across as a party cynically using people's insecurities and fears for their own benefit, they would probably win. Granted, this also applies to the Republicans.


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## JU 199 (Dec 24, 2016)

Lorento said:


> And that's the problem. If the Democrats didn't come across as a party cynically using people's insecurities and fears for their own benefit, they would probably win. Granted, this also applies to the Republicans.



They're significantly worse at it then republicans. Democrats are very short game  oriented and cant see past the next election. Republicans are good at planning ahead. This needs to change.



Pikimon said:


> *Then there are the cultural factors.* This essay is a bit out of date (written for the 2004 election), but I think it holds up well today. The basic fact is that to a liberal, coastal family, while losing your job and retraining to another industry is hard, it doesn't hit you as much on a cultural level - it's just an economic problem to be weathered.
> 
> To older, more conservative families, where the father is expected to be a patriarch and where being _the man_ of the house is a big part of their identity? It hits them a lot harder. Losing control of your children, moving away from your relatives, these are things that are normal to coastal-types or big-city types, but which threaten to destroy the cultural worlds of many more conservative families. As that essay explains, if you divide the country up into blue and red "cultures", it immediately becomes obvious that the blue culture is _much_ more able to adapt and thrive in a rapidly-changing global economy. This is part of the reason why we see this almost apocalyptic cultural panic on the right even when, from the perspective of people outside that culture, the changes (and the things they're fixated on) don't seem _that_ big.
> 
> ...



If the dems were smart they would focus on drawing attention to that. Conservatives in general latching onto the aloof, coastal liberal elite is only half true because it doesn't include _them_. They've been right there pushing the same polices that would fuck up middle america. They have as much blame as the liberals, maybe more so because conservatives really pushed neo-liberal economics  in the 80's and 9o's, Democrats were the suckers that got caught holding the ball at the wrong time.

The left in general needs to get real with itself. They're losing horribly everywhere now. It's undeniable. The party leadership on both sides of the Atlantic has been a complete failure offering stagnation or the past (Corbyn). They need to go back to basics and make a new platform for themselves. I think the party should start by formally apologizing to america for trying to force Clinton on them. That would be a start.

Another action they should take is a brand new economic platform that can deal with people's concerns with immigration and trade. Also work to get healthy employment back in middle america. I think finding new democrats who live there and people know would be the best acolytes.

They also need to get a coherent story together about what happened to america over the past 30 years instead of reeeeeeeeeeeing at the republicans 24/7. We know, they're terrible but america will elect them time and again if the dems don't get a grip and sort themselves out.


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## Pikimon (Dec 24, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> They're significantly worse at it then republicans. Democrats are very short game  oriented and cant see past the next election. Republicans are good at planning ahead. This needs to change.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh trust me if any Dem ever brought up anything I just wrote Middle America would REEEEEEEEEE itself deeper into the GOP. The only place the Dems have been making meaningful gains is in the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada) where they managed to break into a traditionally Republican strongholds and turn it Democratic (Orange County is the best example).

Which means shit since the West Coast is already Democratic enough as it is.


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## Lorento (Dec 24, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Oh trust me if any Dem ever brought up anything I just wrote Middle America would REEEEEEEEEE itself deeper into the GOP. The only place the Dems have been making meaningful gains is in the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada) where they managed to break into a traditionally Republican strongholds and turn it Democratic (Orange County is the best example).
> 
> Which means shit since the West Coast is already Democratic enough as it is.



Well, I'd say its worth a try. At this point, any meaningful change to their policies couldn't possibly fuck them harder..


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## JU 199 (Dec 24, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Which means shit since the West Coast is already Democratic enough as it is.



There's another problem. America is getting more geographically polarized.



Pikimon said:


> h trust me if any Dem ever brought up anything I just wrote Middle America would REEEEEEEEEE itself deeper into the GOP. The only place the Dems have been making meaningful gains is in the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada) where they managed to break into a traditionally Republican strongholds and turn it Democratic (Orange County is the best example).



I don't know about that. Regardless they'll have to figure out something or they'll be stuck with electoral college losses forever.


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## Pikimon (Dec 24, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> There's another problem. America is getting more geographically polarized.



I'm actually really curious to see how much an effect the "brain drain" of rural areas had on demographic shifts. Like I've mentioned before a lot of these rural areas are declining a lot because of their youth population simply moving on to metropolitan areas. For example here in Los Angeles a significant amount of transplants are either from the Midwest or the South.


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## HarryHowler (Dec 24, 2016)

I think the Democrats need to experience another loss along the lines of the complete annihilation suffered by Walter Mondale back in '84 before they really look at themselves and start thinking about reform. Their last three losses (2000, 2004 and this year) have all been relatively close, so they've not had any reason to do that so far.


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## DuskEngine (Dec 24, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> Another action they should take is a brand new economic platform that can deal with people's concerns with immigration and trade. Also work to get healthy employment back in middle america. I think finding new democrats who live there and people know would be the best acolytes.



What would this entail, exactly? I've always felt that one of the main problems that the mainstream Western Left has is its inability to propose an economic vision that isn't either neoliberalism or soft Marxism.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 26, 2016)

HarryHowler said:


> I think the Democrats need to experience another loss along the lines of the complete annihilation suffered by Walter Mondale back in '84 before they really look at themselves and start thinking about reform. Their last three losses (2000, 2004 and this year) have all been relatively close, so they've not had any reason to do that so far.



Eh, I don't think they should have to experience a loss of that magnitude to appreciate that something is amiss.

They shouldn't--but they probably will have to.


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## JU 199 (Dec 26, 2016)

DuskEngine said:


> What would this entail, exactly? I've always felt that one of the main problems that the mainstream Western Left has is its inability to propose an economic vision that isn't either neoliberalism or soft Marxism.



I'm not sure myself, but it needs to comprehensively address everything. It would help if the base was focused on shoving that problem but they're too distracted.


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## IwegalBadnik (Dec 26, 2016)

DuskEngine said:


> What would this entail, exactly? I've always felt that one of the main problems that the mainstream Western Left has is its inability to propose an economic vision that isn't either neoliberalism or soft Marxism.



Something at least vaguely reminiscent of the New Deal would likely be far more compelling to far more people than what the Democrats have put forward in recent years. Public work efforts employing many people to modernize infrastructure such as highways would be one avenue, as was done under Eisenhower's watch. (Such an effort would also be a welcome address to the US' problematically old infrastructure in the bargain.)

Making the banking system more modular (as Glass-Steagall did) is also another aspect of economic policy Democrats need to work on. What that legislation did was serve, in layman's terms, as a bulkhead for finance. It separated off various aspects so if one sank the damage did not immediately rush into other areas as well.

Bill Clinton signed off on the repeal of Glass-Stegall in 1999, which was followed by the banking catastrophes of the late 2000s not 10 years later. While I doubt that any significant number of people are familiar with the legislation on that sort of level, I think the legacy of Bill Clinton probably hurt Hillary--with GS perhaps being a part of that.


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## sogdiananhero (Dec 26, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Trump has a high bar to pass too, he has built himself a list of expectations that are really unattainable or unconstitutional. If he can't accomplish any of his goals in a substantial way, his base can and will abandon him.
> 
> He can't even blame the Dems, they have little power to prevent anything at the Federal level.
> 
> Not that he'd care mind you he could crash the economy, incite an international incident, blow up the environment and instigate a civil war and still claim success and admiration.



he should blame other republicans for not being able to accomplish some of his campaign promises, nearly everyone within the republican party will still be working against him because he isn't a true blue open-borders, small government conservative, and is much more of an old-fashioned eisenhower-style republican. Republican politicians tend to be just as bad as their democrat counterparts, the only difference being that they are lighter, younger, and hate medicare.


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## sogdiananhero (Dec 26, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> I'm actually really curious to see how much an effect the "brain drain" of rural areas had on demographic shifts. Like I've mentioned before a lot of these rural areas are declining a lot because of their youth population simply moving on to metropolitan areas. For example here in Los Angeles a significant amount of transplants are either from the Midwest or the South.


it's good for rural communities that their degenerate youth are moving to the cities. Making the whole world into LA is basically what liberals in North America and Europe envision for the future of humanity, people that are opposed to that vision stay in rural areas, while those in favor move to the cities, deepening the urban-rural divide.

The democrats were aware of this and countered it by importing democrat voters from the third world, with the help of local farmers and businesses who wanted cheap labor, they could fill rural communities with welfare loving brown peasants, it was a brilliant strategy to make sure everyone voted democrat, but as long as this plan is stalled and reversed, the democrat party will never be able to rebuild.


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## Pikimon (Dec 26, 2016)

sogdiananhero said:


> it's good for rural communities that their degenerate youth are moving to the cities. Making the whole world into LA is basically what liberals in North America and Europe envision for the future of humanity, people that are opposed to that vision stay in rural areas, while those in favor move to the cities, deepening the urban-rural divide.



When young people move away from rural areas and to cities, rural areas lose population which loses tax revenue which leads to a stagnation in social services that are necessary for small communities to survive. The rural areas are not benefiting in any way from the depopulation of their communities.

Not that I blame these young people, why stay in a community where everything is falling apart and opportunities are dwindling when you can move to somewhere with more people, more job opportunities, and more things to do.


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