To some degree, I do agree that the spinelessness of Dems works against them.
But on the other hand, Dems have a VERY different demographic than the GOP does. And the Dems have spent the past 30 years building the ‘adult in the room’ narrative which traditionally plays well to the actively voting segment of that demographic, and going for “Fuck the rules, we no longer believe in them” would likely not energize much of the base, and disillusion them the same way many left-wing voters were disillusioned in 2024 by the Harris campaign’s unwillingness to trumpet any firm ideological position.
Ultimately, I think Dem strategy, or lack thereof, is a contributor to this whole debacle - but the fundamental problem is that there’s not really a ‘winning coalition’ that’s evident at this point in American politics. Chasing swing voters by vibes instead of ever-increasingly-milquetoast policy might be marginally more electorally successful (though massively better for the country’s policy), but as unlikely to be the desired silver bullet any more than mainstream Dem attempts at shit like ‘country over party’ or ‘return to normality’ at changing the overall result of elections.
Our electorate is fucked, ideologically incoherent, low-information, and infected with deep, cultural-level maliciousness and tribalism. God knows how we dig ourselves out of this one, but however it might occur, I’m almost certain that it will happen at the grassroots, changing the electorate first and the strategy second (changing the electorate’s outlook, resulting in winning elections and being able to implement rational and useful policy), rather than vice-versa (winning elections and then changing the electorate via implementation of rational and useful policy).
Makes sense, but I have a question though. Wouldn’t the tribalism work in the favor of the “fuck it” approach? Since it would be targeted at Trump and his cronies. Dem voters tend to be all in on locking up Trump. And also, thinking towards more radical things Biden did, like pulling out of Afghanistan and strengthening the NLRB — those would technically be outside the typical Dem comfort zone, but I haven’t seen many Dem voters take issue with that.
Where I’m going with this: I don’t think voters really want this visionless triangulation approach Dems keep doing. I think the DNC wants that. The consultant class, the “it’s his/her/their turn” types. Jim Carville types and other Clinton era fossils who are afraid to call Republicans weird because they value bipartisanship above all else. Not to mention literal controlled opposition rotating villain types like “Manchinema” and now Fetterman. Those guys want compromise, but I actually think voters want a fight. I think they can see plainly that Republicans are going low and don’t actually want Dems to go high like Michelle Obama famously said — they want Dems to go lower and beat the GOP at their own game.
Again, all the tribalism and spite and brianrot, those are very conducive to a more aggressive approach rather than this “let them discredit themselves” crap. The latest polls favoring AOC, the Fight Oligarchy crowd sizes, the dismal disapproval of the Democratic Party as a whole, all these show that people are aware that the “adult jn the room” days are over and it’s a fight for survival. I’ll give you that once things hopefully get back to normal, they’ll start their finger wagging again, but right now? I kinda doubt it. If anything, the less vocal hashtag resistance is more a sign of people being tired, disappointed, and resigning themselves to the idea that nobody is fighting for them anymore and they just have to make do and keep their heads low because that’s how you survive fascism.
Disclaimer: not American, I’m from across the pond but I follow US politics closely because it affects us as well.
Makes sense, but I have a question though. Wouldn’t the tribalism work in the favor of the “fuck it” approach?
We’re back at the “GOP and Dems have a different core demographic”. There’s not a massive as-of-yet-untapped tribalist voting bloc waiting for the DNC to ratchet up their rhetoric.
Where I’m going with this: I don’t think voters really want this visionless triangulation approach Dems keep doing. I think the DNC wants that. The consultant class, the “it’s his/her/their turn” types. Jim Carville types and other Clinton era fossils who are afraid to call Republicans weird because they value bipartisanship above all else. Not to mention literal controlled opposition rotating villain types like “Manchinema” and now Fetterman. Those guys want compromise, but I actually think voters want a fight. I think they can see plainly that Republicans are going low and don’t actually want Dems to go high like Michelle Obama famously said — they want Dems to go lower and beat the GOP at their own game.
I agree entirely. Like I said, the strategy, or lack thereof, of the Dems is a contributor to this entire debacle.
Again, all the tribalism and spite and brianrot, those are very conducive to a more aggressive approach rather than this “let them discredit themselves” crap. The latest polls favoring AOC, the Fight Oligarchy crowd sizes, the dismal disapproval of the Democratic Party as a whole, all these show that people are aware that the “adult jn the room” days are over and it’s a fight for survival. I’ll give you that once things hopefully get back to normal, they’ll start their finger wagging again, but right now? I kinda doubt it. If anything, the less vocal hashtag resistance is more a sign of people being tired, disappointed, and resigning themselves to the idea that nobody is fighting for them anymore and they just have to make do and keep their heads low because that’s how you survive fascism.
I think you vastly overestimate the appetite and appeal of conflict for most American voters at this point in time. We run in extremely left-leaning circles here in Lemmy, but while there’s general dissatisfaction with the Dem party, a majority of voters want it to stay the course or become more moderate rather than radicalize. And while that’s pig-fucking stupidity, it’s… well, we play the hand we’re dealt, not the one we want.
My point about abandoning the long-standing pandering to suburban professionals and other unplugged moderates who crave civility politics wasn’t an endorsement of the Dems continuing the ‘adult in the room’ strategy, only suggesting that there are definite and serious electoral costs to changing the strategy, and that prior experience does not engender confidence in harnessing the ‘anger’ of other Dem demographics as a means of increasing electoral success.
Changing the strategy means telling the Dems, as a whole, ‘the party doesn’t need the support of the suburban middle class; progressives will make up the difference’.
And while I agree that attempting to further shore up the suburban middle class is clearly not a winning fucking strategy, progressives - even for progressive darlings like Sanders - simply do not command the votes necessary to change the electoral balance in this country, as things currently stand. It goes back to the core point I made - that the fundamental problem is we lack a clear ‘winning coalition’ more than that we lack a winning strategy (though we do also, clearly, lack a winning strategy as well). There’s no strategic silver bullet that the DNC is just ‘missing’, or too corrupt to adopt. We’re in a bad fucking position, and changing the electorate is probably more useful than changing strategy (though there’s nothing stopping us from agitating for both, I feel it’s important to emphasize that changing strategy alone is not going to be anything but kicking the can down the road - I remember the triumphalism of the successful strategy of the Obama years and how that fucking panned out)
To some degree, I do agree that the spinelessness of Dems works against them.
But on the other hand, Dems have a VERY different demographic than the GOP does. And the Dems have spent the past 30 years building the ‘adult in the room’ narrative which traditionally plays well to the actively voting segment of that demographic, and going for “Fuck the rules, we no longer believe in them” would likely not energize much of the base, and disillusion them the same way many left-wing voters were disillusioned in 2024 by the Harris campaign’s unwillingness to trumpet any firm ideological position.
Ultimately, I think Dem strategy, or lack thereof, is a contributor to this whole debacle - but the fundamental problem is that there’s not really a ‘winning coalition’ that’s evident at this point in American politics. Chasing swing voters by vibes instead of ever-increasingly-milquetoast policy might be marginally more electorally successful (though massively better for the country’s policy), but as unlikely to be the desired silver bullet any more than mainstream Dem attempts at shit like ‘country over party’ or ‘return to normality’ at changing the overall result of elections.
Our electorate is fucked, ideologically incoherent, low-information, and infected with deep, cultural-level maliciousness and tribalism. God knows how we dig ourselves out of this one, but however it might occur, I’m almost certain that it will happen at the grassroots, changing the electorate first and the strategy second (changing the electorate’s outlook, resulting in winning elections and being able to implement rational and useful policy), rather than vice-versa (winning elections and then changing the electorate via implementation of rational and useful policy).
Makes sense, but I have a question though. Wouldn’t the tribalism work in the favor of the “fuck it” approach? Since it would be targeted at Trump and his cronies. Dem voters tend to be all in on locking up Trump. And also, thinking towards more radical things Biden did, like pulling out of Afghanistan and strengthening the NLRB — those would technically be outside the typical Dem comfort zone, but I haven’t seen many Dem voters take issue with that.
Where I’m going with this: I don’t think voters really want this visionless triangulation approach Dems keep doing. I think the DNC wants that. The consultant class, the “it’s his/her/their turn” types. Jim Carville types and other Clinton era fossils who are afraid to call Republicans weird because they value bipartisanship above all else. Not to mention literal controlled opposition rotating villain types like “Manchinema” and now Fetterman. Those guys want compromise, but I actually think voters want a fight. I think they can see plainly that Republicans are going low and don’t actually want Dems to go high like Michelle Obama famously said — they want Dems to go lower and beat the GOP at their own game.
Again, all the tribalism and spite and brianrot, those are very conducive to a more aggressive approach rather than this “let them discredit themselves” crap. The latest polls favoring AOC, the Fight Oligarchy crowd sizes, the dismal disapproval of the Democratic Party as a whole, all these show that people are aware that the “adult jn the room” days are over and it’s a fight for survival. I’ll give you that once things hopefully get back to normal, they’ll start their finger wagging again, but right now? I kinda doubt it. If anything, the less vocal hashtag resistance is more a sign of people being tired, disappointed, and resigning themselves to the idea that nobody is fighting for them anymore and they just have to make do and keep their heads low because that’s how you survive fascism.
Disclaimer: not American, I’m from across the pond but I follow US politics closely because it affects us as well.
We’re back at the “GOP and Dems have a different core demographic”. There’s not a massive as-of-yet-untapped tribalist voting bloc waiting for the DNC to ratchet up their rhetoric.
I agree entirely. Like I said, the strategy, or lack thereof, of the Dems is a contributor to this entire debacle.
I think you vastly overestimate the appetite and appeal of conflict for most American voters at this point in time. We run in extremely left-leaning circles here in Lemmy, but while there’s general dissatisfaction with the Dem party, a majority of voters want it to stay the course or become more moderate rather than radicalize. And while that’s pig-fucking stupidity, it’s… well, we play the hand we’re dealt, not the one we want.
My point about abandoning the long-standing pandering to suburban professionals and other unplugged moderates who crave civility politics wasn’t an endorsement of the Dems continuing the ‘adult in the room’ strategy, only suggesting that there are definite and serious electoral costs to changing the strategy, and that prior experience does not engender confidence in harnessing the ‘anger’ of other Dem demographics as a means of increasing electoral success.
Changing the strategy means telling the Dems, as a whole, ‘the party doesn’t need the support of the suburban middle class; progressives will make up the difference’.
And while I agree that attempting to further shore up the suburban middle class is clearly not a winning fucking strategy, progressives - even for progressive darlings like Sanders - simply do not command the votes necessary to change the electoral balance in this country, as things currently stand. It goes back to the core point I made - that the fundamental problem is we lack a clear ‘winning coalition’ more than that we lack a winning strategy (though we do also, clearly, lack a winning strategy as well). There’s no strategic silver bullet that the DNC is just ‘missing’, or too corrupt to adopt. We’re in a bad fucking position, and changing the electorate is probably more useful than changing strategy (though there’s nothing stopping us from agitating for both, I feel it’s important to emphasize that changing strategy alone is not going to be anything but kicking the can down the road - I remember the triumphalism of the successful strategy of the Obama years and how that fucking panned out)