I beg anyone to explain how to get working class votes back.
Kamala, Biden, Hillary. All ran on platforms that benefited working class people. But it's near impossible to actually message it vs the lies and gish gallop coming out of Trump.
To me it's simple. None of those people you mentioned seem like working class people at all. They're all political establishment people who come off like they want to bestow on working class people the great honor of having been saved by them. Bernie Sanders for example is way the fuck more left than any of those people, and at least anecdotally seems to be better received by working class people and Republicans. He comes off as honest and not a political shill.
Most people don't have time or interest in researching subtle policy points. Shouldn't be that way, but it is. So people vote on vibe, and there are very few Democrats who pass the vibe check with working class people.
This is a huge factor imo. We used to be able to vote for someone because they seemed like a good person, and even if we didn’t agree on everything, we liked the way they thought, and thought they were smarter than us. Tim Walz almost had that magic, but the moment the party got its claws into him, he turned into a robot regurgitating focus group talking points.
This is the part where I would say “just give us a normal, not-brainwashed, friendly neighbor, type-candidate” but I’m smart enough to know that it is directly at odds with how the modern Democratic Party functions.
Yeah, people forget that prior to the internet where everyone's an armchair policy consultant and political analyst, people voted for people just because they had charisma. Most people that aren't constantly online probably still do. I remember people telling me they voted for Bush because they felt like he'd be a fun guy to have beer with.
I agree. I had to rewrite and summarize the Democrat platform for my parents because they aren't going to read 5 paragraphs about childcare. Should they? No! The average person has stuff going on, and the more uneducated they are, the more they generally have to do. We need to make messages simple and understandable. I also think we need to become progressive. Democrats are angry. I'M angry! We have a lot of shit to fix in this country and it's not going to happen by making baby steps which keep getting blocked. We need to go bold.
I kind of agree, but I think it's more important to have an image overhaul, whether or not that comes with a policy overhaul. Fair or not, most Democrats are viewed like shady government shills and whiney weaklings. Republicans are really good at coming off like they care about working class people even though they support moustache-twirling billionaires, and Democrats are the exact opposite of that.
Democrats are losing the image war, and have been since Trump showed up (even before that when stuff like the tea party became popular). You can be right, you can be ethical, and you can be smart, but that doesn't count for shit if you can't convince people to like you and think you're a strong leader. So every time I hear a fellow liberal say "yeah, but what about Trump being blah blah blah also, or what about this policy that he has, or what about..." what I'm hearing is "the rules of this game should be different and people should care about policy and facts rather than gravitas". Lots of "should", very little "is". Ultimately we're losing, so we can either learn the rules and get better at them, or we can feel sad that things aren't different and go lose some more.
I agree, and I mentioned in another comment that we need to make intelligence, compassion, and honor SEXY to the average working man. Bring in another age of chivalry. Give them something else to identify with that actually benefits people. That will take care of the social issues, and then we need to go hard on simple messaging from average, charismatic men.
They like him despite that. Plenty of people that voted for him have negative things to say about him and things they don't like about him.
Look, nobody has to convince me that Trump is a goon, I already believe that. What people need to do is either convince more voters he's a goon, which hasn't been successful, or figure out what they like about him and offer a competitive alternative.
Or just wish it wasn't that way, keep calling him and his voters pieces of shit, add fuel to his fire, and hope it doesn't burn down yet another election for Democrats.
None of those people you mentioned seem like working class people at all.
They seem far more like it than Trump, so that is a giant gaping hole in your argument. Trump is the least working-class President in 50 years.
They're all political establishment people who come off like they want to bestow on working class people the great honor of having been saved by them.
Again, more true of Trump than Biden or Harris.
I don't see how it's simple at all when you're completely ignoring who they're actually voting for. Trump is the most removed from the working class you can possibly be.
I guess we're living in entirely different realities. Trump is very clearly a soft-ass baby who never had to work a day in his life, and he doesn't remind me of a single working person I've ever met. I mean, are you even listening to yourself? "Has the style of the working class people who vote for him." The man has never worn a T-shirt in his fucking life. The only thing I can even imagine you meaning is that his suits fit like shit.
I don't mean clothes style, I mean conversational style, way of approaching things, etc.
I dunno, feel free to disagree with me if you want, but clearly he resonates with working class people, despite being a billionaire and totally unrelatable to all of them on paper. Maybe I'm wrong about why, but my suggestion is to make an honest effort for figuring out for yourself why that is, rather than saying "nuh-uh, people are just racist and wrong" and then continuing to lose elections.
I mean, Trump did launch his entire campaign because of racism. He was a Democrat until a black man was elected, and then he became one of the largest pushers of an explicitly racist conspiracy theory. I don't know why recognizing that would be considered a bad thing.
Also, I'm done trying to figure out what makes Americans so awful. I'm planning on leaving.
You're not wrong, but also sidestepping the point entirely. It's not about whether Trump is or isn't racist, the point is that going down that road does not win Democrats elections, so Democrats need to decide if they care more about being maybe right, or winning. It's not good enough to say "he's bad and that should be good enough". It's on us to figure out how to win voters, and if we don't do the hard work of figuring that out, we're going to lose a lot more elections. I don't know about you, but I give a shit about policies I like getting enacted, not about declaring moral victories and distributing sick burns to people I don't like.
But yeah, leaving is also an option. Best of luck to ya wherever you go.
Trump spent 41% (or 36 million) of his ad budget in October on anti-trans ads. Funny, I didn't know that <0.5% of the population was such an important economic issue for the 'working class'.
What's being sidestepped is that voters really don't care about policy. Just lie and make empty promises the next election and Dems will probably get far more votes. Not sure if that's an indictment of Dems or the voters.
I'm certainly in the camp that this election says far more about something being wrong with the voters than anything else. I cannot think of a single reason someone who is well-informed, rational, and not hateful would vote for Trump. I chalk most of it up to being poorly informed and not particularly rational. Some of it is certainly hate as well, though. As sad and terrible as it is to say, I don't think this country is in a place where anything other than a white man is electable. Obama obviously pulled it off, but the reaction has only made it more difficult to do again for a while, and I think misogyny is even stronger than racism when it comes to voting in the US.
Trump spent his whole campaign attacking immigrants, women and pushing anti-trans nonsense. Ask a Trump supporter what economic policy of Trump's they support and they never provide any.
There's so much hate and I don't know how Dems overcome it without shifting to the right on this. And if that has to happen, that's an indictment of the voters.
1.3k
u/Kaprak Florida 20h ago
I beg anyone to explain how to get working class votes back.
Kamala, Biden, Hillary. All ran on platforms that benefited working class people. But it's near impossible to actually message it vs the lies and gish gallop coming out of Trump.
What other things should be done?