I'm very much not a Democrat or a Republican, and in many ways I don't give a shit what the Democrats do. But in the vein of "competition is good" and believing that a moderately heathy Democratic party is valuable as a counterweight to oppose the GOP, here's what I'd suggest the Democrats do:
1. Run candidates who are likeable and more importantly, likeable by most Americans. No arrogant "smarter than thou", preachy, judgmental types. Run people who are intelligent and ethical, yes, but with a folksy, down-to-earth side.
2. Drop the radical anti-gun stance and embrace the 2nd Amendment as being just as important as every other part of the Bill of Rights.
3. Stop focusing so much on identity politics. Yes, sure, continue to stand for equality and inclusiveness. But don't make gender politics, trans-politics, race-politics, etc. your lynchpin issues.
4. Reclaim your historical "anti-war party" status.
5. Don't be so abstract. Bring things down to a level that can appeal to the "everyman". Ex: protecting the environment. Don't just talk about "protecting the environment" in the abstract, as though everybody universally values that (even if you believe they should). Instead, talk about protecting the lakes and creeks that people fish in, the gamelands they hunt in, the marshes and bays where so much of our seafood grows, etc.
6. Go more in the direction of the Blue Dog[1] Democrats in general.
Zero should be to make copious promises about fixing the economy, even if it's a stretch, to blue collar workers and the rest of the working classes and pinning the current economic woes on the other party, even if it's a stretch, as much as they can.
Democrats talk a big game about being on the side of the working classes but that hasn't been true for 20+ years and voters know it. The polls show they know it too.
I mean, republicans are even worst for the working class. So, I would argue that what is show is that your actual record on economy does not matter, only big claims do.
At least they talk about stuff that the post-industrial working class care about. Like, Trump may not succeed in bringing back manufacturing, but the Democrats never even talked about it (even though Biden did a bunch of good stuff there).
And fundamentally, the coastal states don't have enough votes for the Democrats to win a majority, so they need to start figuring out how to win in the rest of the country.
Personally, I'd have removed the filibuster in the Senate to fix gerrymandering, as that makes the elections much fairer and takes away the ability of state legislatures to make ridiculous boundaries that are always gonna vote for one party. Hilariously enough, it was the old school Republicans who started this, which has lead to them being replaced by MAGA loyalists.
> 3. Stop focusing so much on identity politics. Yes, sure, continue to stand for equality and inclusiveness. But don't make gender politics, trans-politics, race-politics, etc. your lynchpin issues.
Democrats didn't run on identity politics. Republicans ran on claiming that Democrats run on identity politics. Democrats aren't the ones spending millions of dollars on campaign ads about trans people or people of color. That's republicans.
That's the problem. No matter how hard democrats try to avoid even mentioning race or gender outside of "treat people respectfully", they are known as the party of "identity politics" solely because Republicans have spent the last two campaign cycles selling their opposition as the identity politics party.
> 2. Drop the radical anti-gun stance and embrace the 2nd Amendment as being just as important as every other part of the Bill of Rights.
Agreed. But I would reframe it as becoming the party of "gun safety" and "safe gun ownership". Respect the 2A and acknowledge there's no way to stop proliferation without punishing the people who actually need guns and reframe the conversation around education, risk mitigation, and safety.
7. Actually care about the working class. They're your core constituency, after all. Stop thinking of them as "a basket of deplorables". Instead, listen to them. Find out what they care about, what they want, what they value, and the represent that.
Are we still on the "basket of deplorables" thing?
You know that comment wasn't about the working class as a whole, it was about the bigots and neo-nazis that were taking over the Trumpist movement. And she was absolutely correct about it. Instead of uniting over a common manufactured trauma response because the scary lady said a mean thing the right should have cleaned its own house.
>Instead, listen to them. Find out what they care about, what they want, what they value, and the represent that.
So... become Republicans then?
Because they do, you know. The Democrats do all of that, but no one cares. No one even bothers to listen.
This is literally the only advice anyone ever seems to have. The left should abandon its principles, surrender to its enemies and give them everything they want, and then maybe apologize for the inconvenience.
The condescension is getting tiring, just send us to the camps already.
If "basket of deplorables" was a one-off, I might agree with you. But "clinging to guns and religion". There was another such comment this cycle, too, though I don't remember it. There has been a thread of contempt for the working class from Obama through Harris, and it keeps coming out of peoples' mouths.
If you claim to represent the working class, and your positions don't resonate with the working class, then you probably aren't representing them very well. If you claim to represent them but you hold most of them in contempt, then you almost certainly aren't going to represent them well.
You say they're all Republicans? Find out why. Find out why the Republicans are able to talk to those people - who are supposed to be your people - better than you can. Then figure out how to talk to them better than the Republicans can (hopefully with more truth and less nonsense).
I'm not asking you to let go of your principles. I'm asking you to live them. Your principles include caring about the working class, the lower class. Go live that out. Go be who you claim to be, who you've always supposed to have been.
If you think that's condescension, then I don't know what to tell you.
>There has been a thread of contempt for the working class from Obama through Harris, and it keeps coming out of peoples' mouths.
Obama, Biden, Harris, and even Hillary Clinton have stronger pro-labor and working class roots than Donald Trump, who has not only never worked an honest day in his life but has a history of abusing and failing to respect the working people he employs.
Tell me any Democrat doesn't represent working class principles when you can tell me anything about their actual platform. All I ever hear from Trumpists is memes and conspiracy theories, and far worse contempt for progressives, gays, trans people, women and immigrants than "guns and religion." That party declared empathy a sin and made "fuck your feelings" their motto, but it's the Democrats who are the assholes?
And you know, given Jan. 6th, the "guns and religion" thing doesn't even seem that unfair.
They did drop the anti-gun stance and nobody cared or believed them. Kamala was on stage during the debate telling the crowd that she and her running mate were both proud gun owners. Meanwhile Trump is fairly anti-gun.
This kind of illustrates the problem. Even if their party radically changes its stance on key issues, everyone is so locked into an ideological bubble that nobody bothers to update their perceptions.
Voters have no reason to believe their embrace of firearms ownership was sincere. The Democrats have been consistently attempting to introduce more restrictive gun regulations for decades. Maybe if the Democrats added an official party plank pledging not to introduce any more firearms legislation and worked with Republicans to repeal some of the more stupid ones introduced by Democrats, it might be believable.
The only way to win when facts don't matter is to lie to the electorate and appeal to their emotions. And why not? What recourse will they have once you're elected?
They did drop the anti-gun stance and nobody cared or believed them. Kamala was on stage during the debate telling the crowd that she and her running mate were both proud gun owners. Meanwhile Trump is fairly anti-gun.
You can't expect people's mindsets to change overnight though. Organizations develop a reputation of years, decades, or longer. It might take just as long to change that reputation. It takes consistency over time, not just one or two people getting on stage once and saying "I'm a gun owner."
This is true. But then again Trump was a staunch democrat who lived in a penthouse his whole life. Yet is able to just flip a switch on any topic and a whole voter base eats it up. So it's really hard to know what grounds to criticize them on when the opposition has just pure chaos magic on their side.
> 2. Drop the radical anti-gun stance and embrace the 2nd Amendment as being just as important as every other part of the Bill of Rights.
I agree, but also they mostly do and Republican voters still come out to the voting booth because they're sure—seriously, this is a real thing—that Biden's going to take their guns, and they mean literally, ban guns and try to round them all up.
> 6. Go more in the direction of the Blue Dog[1] Democrats in general.
Here, I cannot follow you. They need to go far more left-populist on the economy and taxation. They're badly out of sync with their own voters on that, in much the same way Republicans were before Trump came along and started campaigning on the exact same messages you'd hear talking to actual Republican voters in diners ("Why don't they just build a wall?", "NAFTA is unfair and we trade too much with China", "the whole world's taking advantage of us", et c.)
I think there's more stomach for it than you do, but do agree some large subset of the population thinks that e.g. they ought to oppose the so-called "death tax" because it'll apply to them or anyone they know (it won't).
There's also the issue of a large proportion of the population not even understanding how progressive income tax rates work.
Well to be fair, the Democrat's contortions on the SALT deductions certainly didn't help them (but if the only people you talk to are affluent coastal liberals then I could see why you'd support such a regressive policy).
Majority of Americans support stricter gun laws (radical anti-gun stance?). The gun nuts are a loud minority, and dems are unlikely to win elections where they have sway anyway.
I mean, Trump won twice. Down to earth nor ethical nor intelligent is NOT what wins the elections. And the primary focus on identity politics came from the right.
Also, gun control seems to be actually popular with Americans on average.
1. Run candidates who are likeable and more importantly, likeable by most Americans. No arrogant "smarter than thou", preachy, judgmental types. Run people who are intelligent and ethical, yes, but with a folksy, down-to-earth side.
2. Drop the radical anti-gun stance and embrace the 2nd Amendment as being just as important as every other part of the Bill of Rights.
3. Stop focusing so much on identity politics. Yes, sure, continue to stand for equality and inclusiveness. But don't make gender politics, trans-politics, race-politics, etc. your lynchpin issues.
4. Reclaim your historical "anti-war party" status.
5. Don't be so abstract. Bring things down to a level that can appeal to the "everyman". Ex: protecting the environment. Don't just talk about "protecting the environment" in the abstract, as though everybody universally values that (even if you believe they should). Instead, talk about protecting the lakes and creeks that people fish in, the gamelands they hunt in, the marshes and bays where so much of our seafood grows, etc.
6. Go more in the direction of the Blue Dog[1] Democrats in general.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition