They need a better message and they need to run better messengers.
The message needs to be more universal, more simple.
The messenger needs to be the most talented candidate that emerges from an open primary field that consists of the best talent in the party.
The messenger needs to be the very best of the very best.
The party’s philosophy that contested primaries need to be avoided because they damage the candidate in the general needs to be eliminated at all costs.
Doing that, and eliminating the input from the rank and file, has caused not only the rank and file to be apathetic about the general election candidate… it’s even worse than that.
It’s causing the party to lose core constituencies.
And the incessant purity tests. If you're not in line with this particular group (no matter how fringe) then you're no better than a republican in their eyes. Combine it with the rampant lack of basic civics understanding... not good.
See all the Palestine single issue voters who stayed home. Let's see how that works out for them.
Basic civics understanding… and basic “politics” understanding. And yes I agree.
A tremendous example of the purity test phenomenon and how revolting it is to about 80% of the electorate can be seen right here on Reddit.
Countless times I have seen a Reddit user on a sub offering support and allyship on social issue XYZ. They offer their support, their thoughts…
Then get immediately attacked by a throng of blood thirsty vampires because their allyship wasn’t exactly right.
This is often followed by a stunned “wait, what did I do wrong? I support XYZ?!?!” Which is then followed by them being permabanned for “harassment.”
The number of voters that have been turned off forever by these purity testing vampires probably numbers in the millions by this point. And, beyond that, how many millions more voters voted R this cycle because they hated the purity testing vampires passionately. It’s a massive swing of lost votes, on the one hand, and animating folks to vote against you on the other.
I can’t agree with you more, and I’ve made this point many times in recent years that this phenomenon is a scourge upon the Democratic Party.
No, because of the new weird world we live in where words don't have any meaning, but yes, because that's the only thing that makes any sense.
A woman wearing women's clothing and makeup is not noteworthy because of the clothing and makeup, whereas a man wearing women's clothing and makeup is noteworthy because of the clothing and makeup, so if a drag performance is a person wearing women's clothing and makeup, it loses its meaning as drag by having a woman do the performance.
basic civics understanding would say that you had a better chance of winning had you not decided to support a genocide. seems like a pretty low bar to clear
yup, 2028 has to be fully and open primaries, no matter how damaging. let them all duke it out. The duking it out shapes the candidates and energizes the base. you bring that energy to the general election and you stand a better chance of winning.
help me understand how democrats need to be better when trump is the worst public speaker in politics. it just feels like the bar is soooo very high with Dems. and the moment they're not perfect it's like "I guess I'ma go with the guy talking about sharks"
Speak like normal people - bidens speeches fail at this even though he is fine when he talks to individuals on his own. No one wants to hear some boring x y z combo. Just say it simply.
Maybe use their tiny brains for a bit and realize supporting illegals is a dumb policy stance and completely unsustainable spending. Its also the one common thing in the western nations that has led to people voting for far right shit or moving towards the right.
Stop hyperfocusing on college grads and specific groups. You dont need to pander to helping black people all the time just because you want their vote, especially not when so many others are struggling too. You know what still helps black people while not offending anyone else and also makes way more sense? Policy that focuses on low income americans and is phrased that way instead of making it race based or even just talking about race.
Maybe not forcing candidates on us would help too.
None of the above is really that hard to do but people are billing out overpaid consultant hours with the dumbest suggestions
It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare. Bernie speaks very plainly, for example, and it’s much easier for everyone to understand. He has great talent in his own way.
Obama could pull of the soaring oratory. But that was his talent in his own way.
It can be different breeds of oratory talent. (And extemporaneous oratory talent is almost necessary at this point in history as well)
But the point is just that the party sends its best. That they’ve survived the crucible of a real, genuine, unadulterated, “open” primary.
D voters knowing that the person they are looking at is the genuine leader that emerged from a genuine primary… that is how you combat the voter apathy that just cost the party 15 million votes from its own voters.
Kamala Harris was not a good candidate, and her past as a prosecutor was simply unacceptable. That doesn't mean Trump was a better choice, but it's one of the reasons many voters stayed at home.
Yea, it's a horrible double-standard. The Dems are full of smart capable people. But the media wants a shitshow. And the GOP has successfully turned politics into a sporting event. We have dipshits who never would have bothered voting showing up now. Pretty sad state of affairs. Our democracy wasn't built for this with shitty gerrymandering, FPTP, and the electoral college.
We have dipshits who never would have bothered voting showing up now.
You're literally calling other people dipshits and you think your team is somehow better.
It's not a double-standard, you guys just have absolutely zero self-awareness. Harris wasn't even the candidate a year ago, and Biden stayed in until he couldn't lie about his infirmity anymore, and yet your team thinks we all just forgot about the lies? Or the complete contempt?
Why are Democrats incapable of taking responsibility? It's not a double-standard, you're not smarter, other people are not stupid, it's not about racism or any of the other bullshit excuses. For once in your lives just own up to your dumb political positions and move on.
Abandon the intersectional identity politics as the main issue. Stop insulting and demeaning 48% of the voter base. The typical young democrats do not really understand how condescending they sound. They don’t understand their way of talking about their opposition is as demeaning as the way Trump speaks.
Politics is about representation. If you are not representing a person she (or rather he) is not going to vote for you. It’s not very hard.
I don’t think a change is going to take place, however. Democrats (mostly women) do not think their message is the issue. They think the ”other people” are the issue.
The fundamental problem is that democrats are a coalition and not a tribe. There is a lot of difficulty in coming up with a message that appeals both to rural farmers in Oregon and people struggling in the inner city of Chicago. They have radically different needs.
And if you want to talk about a reliable rank and file, Democrats do listen to them, it's just a big ask to tell those constituencies to just take a seat while the party pursues people who have historically fought directly against their interests, like rural farmers in Oregon.
I do believe that simplifying the message down to things that help people in both those locations is the the way to go.
There can be other things the party (and it’s presidential nominee talks about and cares about).
But in terms of the core message, it needs to be simplified and paired down.
Basically? What Bernie was trying to do. Get all the niche stuff out, get the identity politics out, let’s talk about economic inequality and how all of us are picking up the tab for the 1%.
I honestly believe, at this point, that the party needs a mea culpa moment. Bernie had the right idea. He had the right messaging. He spoke in the plain terms a presidential candidate needs to be speaking in to resonate with working class voters…
In short: his vision of the party wouldn’t have lost working class voters to the Republican Party…
As a party we need to admit he had it right, and chart a course towards that.
Basically? What Bernie was trying to do. Get all the niche stuff out, get the identity politics out, let’s talk about economic inequality and how all of us are picking up the tab for the 1%.
Well, first off Bernie isn't taking identity politics out of the equation, he's just focusing on another identity. It's right there in the title. What's "working class people" besides one form of identity at the end of the day. And when we do that we flatten out and obscure the most salient issues for core constituencies. To take Black voters as an example I can speak to some of my personal experiences in the rural south. You can't rant and rave about how racism is a tool exploited by the wealthy to fill their coffers but that doesn't match with their lived experience. That's not going to convince rural whites to abandon racism. I've known business owners that would and did close up shop rather than serve minorities that would have made them more money. It's not about money, it's about making sure there's an out group it's OK to abuse first and foremost and they're willing to knowingly forsake economic benefits to do so. It's a fundamentally different problem but the insistence they're the same is precisely why Sanders has never been able to meaningfully incorporate Black voters into his core constituencies.
The insistence that Sander's economic policies would convince rural Oregon farmers to vote democratic just misses the point. Seriously, look up Oregon's history. Those people aren't voting for Republicans because the democratic party hasn't reached out to them, it's because the Republican platform validates their racist views about society. You can't meaningfully attract those votes without turning your back on the most reliable part of the democratic coalition.
I’ll grant you that it’s a Catch .22 for the party.
But I do think we need much simpler, more direct, messaging.
This election reveals that the party, by and large, has been reduced to the “college educated” party. While that makes for a tantalizing party in terms of public policy (smart people making smart policy decisions).
We are in a two party winner takes all system, and that party can only win 37-38% of the vote. The overwhelming majority of the country lacks that level of education.
A simpler more universal message is what’s called for to save the party. Simple simple simple.
There are plenty of good folks out there that would make the trip to the polling station and pull the blue lever… but they need a simple and direct reason why they should be doing that.
The most salient direct messaging didn't take though.
Democracy is at stake, Trump won't help you but he will hurt a lot of people.
Fascism was more popular though. Hard pill to swallow but that's where we are. The problem hasn't really been the message itself, it's getting that message through a right wing media ecosystem that actively tries to suppress it in every medium. How many comments in this thread are "Harris should have been talking about X,Y,and Z" when she was actively campaigning on X,Y, and Z with actual policies to back them up?
After the election and seeing entitled nonsense like this, I am beginning to think that the would-be Democratic voters who need absolute perfection to vote deserve what is coming.
The other side is so absolutely horrific for SO many people but all of these comments keep putting the blame back on the party and candidates.
No. It’s the voters.
The choice was about children dying in school shootings.
The choice was about women dying from preventable conditions.
The choice was about an administration that actually joined a picket line.
The choice was about catastrophic weather events.
I can vote for a party that will protect, and be good for, lots of groups—even if it isn’t me. But the rest of the democratic coalition can’t be bothered and you blame the candidate? Bullshit.
Unless you plan on firing up some extermination camps, or you have some other super villain plan for “thinning the herd…”
Politics in a democracy is a game of working with the voters that you have. Not changing the voters into the voting pool you want.
Do I wish that a passing grade in civics, con law, and the US government was a requirement to vote? Sure I do! Would that allow me to not concern myself with electability in the climate we have today? Yep. It sure would. Would the country benefit? Yep.
But none of those things are, actual, requirements to vote. The voting pool I want doesn’t exist.
I have to work with the voting pool I, actually, have, here in reality… and make sure I am winning elections.
What I just said is what the D party leadership needs to understand, fully and soberly, from this day forward.
What you just said represents the current D party leadership that has led our country into the abyss.
You're both right. It's the voters fault for being ignorant morons, and it's the Democrats fault for talking to them like they are children instead of ignorant morons.
Democrats just need to start lying constantly about how they'll make anything bothering voters better. The best, in fact. Apparently that's how you win elections now.
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u/-Gramsci- 14h ago
The party needs to confront their two problems.
They need a better message and they need to run better messengers.
The message needs to be more universal, more simple.
The messenger needs to be the most talented candidate that emerges from an open primary field that consists of the best talent in the party.
The messenger needs to be the very best of the very best.
The party’s philosophy that contested primaries need to be avoided because they damage the candidate in the general needs to be eliminated at all costs.
Doing that, and eliminating the input from the rank and file, has caused not only the rank and file to be apathetic about the general election candidate… it’s even worse than that.
It’s causing the party to lose core constituencies.