Ugh, I hate this. Because every debate about what the Democratic party should or should not do ignores that the problem is NOT the policies, it's the voters.
For three elections now, we've had the same problem. 'We have to moderate our positions to win middle America!' And while covid dragged Biden over the finish line, the reality is that When Harris and Clinton did exactly that, Trump won. Why? Because liberals did not come out for them.
The Newsom and Emanuel position looks like this: 'liberals have nowhere to go. They have to either choose between us or republicans, so we can do whatever we want and they'll have to vote for us.'
Except no, they won't. As we've seen, several times now, liberals do not come out to vote for candidates who do not want to represent them. We can say 'we need to win white america or blue collar America' but if you win those places and you lose liberals, you still won't win.
So the core problem is that the Democratic party's voters are a separate breed from the Democratic party writ large. This isn't that unlike what happened to the GOP that let the tea party and then Trump take over. One should remember that the Tea party left the GOP in the wilderness for six years, basically.
So you CAN tell Democratic voters no, but that is an interesting approach when you also need their votes. This is the truth of the Democratic party; why did Biden get the nod in 2020? Because he won South Carolina. Why did winning there matter? Because he won black voters. Why does that matter? Because no Democrat can win nationwide if you don't carry black voters, full stop.
If the GOP is a monolith, the Democratic party is different groups that all hate each other. Even so, there are three groups that you must win: Southern black voters, educated white professionals, union labor. You must win all three. If you lose any of them, the GOP wins, full stop.
And the problem is, those educated white professionals are VERY liberal. They tend to be the ones voting for Sanders and Warren. Black voters are more conservative socially, but more economically liberal. And union labor are conservative economically and liberally compared to the others.
So yeah, Newsom may want to fight wokeness and throw trans people under the bus to win those blue color white voters. But congrats, you lose educated professionals, and that means you lose.
Also, it's worth noting that the last party to be told that they needed to reverse course was the GOP after Romney, they doubled down, and won. So perhaps the strategy isn't to throw your own voters under the bus but to instead galvanize them with some outside force? It's now worked for MAGA for three elections, not counting Trump's handling of covid, which apparently wasn't a dealbreaker to make him president again for most voters.
In any case, mathematically and conceptually, the Newsom and Emanuel strategy is a failure on its face. There's a reason why one of them got sent to Japan so that no one had to see him or talk to him anymore.
I like your comment but I feel like it is missing some of what is happening. You identify what was traditionally the 3 most important groups in the Dem party and that you need all 3 but they do not have equal weight anymore and I think the educated professional group is bifurcating. The Dems started losing the working class when Clinton sold them out to "triangulate" with Reagan's agenda. The pro-wall street wing of the Dems, which were the educated professionals have been ascendant since. More recently a lot of educated youths have come in and they are the very liberal ones, though still technically educated professionals.
It seems to me that at this point a large contingent of the working class believes neither party will help them but at least the Republicans hate the people in the Dem coalition that annoy them so they go Republican. If those people truly aren't bigoted assholes they might ignore the bigotry baiting of the Republicans in favor of policies that truly help the working class but they'll have to actually believe it is more than just pandering with pithy slogans. That would require the dominant faction of the Dem party to make some changes on economic issues and they don't like it.
The wall street Dems' alternative proposal is to hope they can staunch the bleeding with the working class by giving up on liberal social "policies" (more on that below) and replace the younger educated professionals with RINO, anti-Trump Republicans who share their economic views. You point out the first flaw in that reasoning. They assume the younger educated professionals will stay and do all the donating, volunteering, and voting they have done in the past despite being completely rejected. History shows that not enough necessarily will even if the alternative is Trump. But beyond that, over the last 3 elections the RINO's haven't shown up in large enough numbers to replace the losses and the working class people haven't been enticed when they are only offered the lite version of conservative social policies and nothing else. That makes sense because the full calorie version is right there in the form of Trump. Further, the Dem social agenda is already almost non-existant beyond pandering with language and candidate choice. Even Mr. Hope and Change himself, Obama, did not really have a social agenda. Gay marriage became a thing because of activists and the courts, not because of Dem legislators. Therefore, the social "policies" the conservatives hate are just the fact that there are people they don't like in the Dem coalition who they might need to compromise with. That isn't going to change unless the Dems fully disown and possibly even attack the people Republicans deem to be undesirables. Problem is the old-school Dems will completely lose the moral high ground at that point and the large amount of young educated professionals they're banking on voting Dem for no other reason than as an anti-Trump/pro-democracy vote will disappear en masse, not just a few pro-Palestine suburbs in Minnesota. Yet the wall-street Dems have been in charge for 30 years so they still assume everyone will just fall in line with their whims even though they havent for 2 of the last 3 cycles and barely did in the 3rd when everything was tilted in the Dem's favor. I think they're gearing up to make the same mistake again unless there is a bloodbath in the primaries next year.
"That isn't going to change unless the Dems fully disown and possibly even attack the people Republicans deem to be undesirables."
BINGO! That is what the next Democratic president is going to have to do, while also being a straight, white man. Otherwise, there will most likely not be another Democratic president in the next decade.
I think this is all less complicated than that. The message is this simple. The Democratic Party is for the working class. Who are the working class? Pretty much all of us. Anyone who has to get up every morning and earn a paycheck to make their world go round is working class. ThatтАЩs white men and women. ThatтАЩs black men and women, thatтАЩs Latino men and women and itтАЩs Asian men and women, itтАЩs college-educated men and women, itтАЩs high-school educated men and women, itтАЩs gay men and women, etc., etc., etc. ItтАЩs also farmers. We are in a battle of the working class vs the billionaire class. The billionaire class wants to own and control everything, EVERYTHING! And, the Republicans are their whores. Our democracy was created to protect the people from tyrants. TodayтАЩs tyrants are the billionaires. If you argue that first тАФ and make the case that we are all in this together тАФ race gender, sexual orientation doesnтАЩt matter, you will start winning elections. And at that point voters are more open to transgender rights and immigration rights. BTW тАФ immigrants? TheyтАЩre the working class.
For five decades the Democrats were "the party of the working man". It worked pretty well. The problem is that practically speaking, there no longer is ANY party of the working man - because half the labor class abandoned the Democrats because they could no longer be in the "party of blacks, or gays, or illegals, or hippies, or feminists, or war protestors, or "Other"'. Lower class Americans have been voting against their economic self-interest for cultural reasons for over 50 years. You think you can just flip a switch and start talking about kitchen table issues and "oligarchs", and magically change that behavior?
Right now, "the privileged" are fighting back HARD to hold onto their privilege. They have the money and all the power. At best, you're going to have to sneak up on them if you are going to get more crumbs for the working class - and that starts by being less "icky" in the culture wars.
I donтАЩt disagree with any of this. The answer is no, the Dems canтАЩt change it overnight but they needed to start changing their messaging (and more importantly actions) yesterday. And yes they canтАЩt waste precious time fighting over transgender rights right now. You donтАЩt abandon those people but you have to go on fucking offense and quit reacting to all the transgender bait the right wing keeps putting out there.
This is exactly it! Anyone who earns a paycheck that is signed by someone else is тАЬworking class.тАЭ You might be working class at a high level, earning $500 thousand per year, but if you can be summarily fired without cause, and your paycheck disappears, you are working class.
There is a very small sliver of people who do not fit this criterion, who can survive / thrive on their investment / business income. But the rest of us are all working class and the sooner we all realize that, the better off we will all be.
There aren't enough liberals to elect a president. I'd bet liberal turnout in 2024 was as high or higher than any other group (after all, who hates Trump and MAGA more, and who is getting hurt worse by them?). There aren't enough blue states anymore. To win the presidency, you need to win more purple states, and you do that by throwing your "vulnerable" groups under the bus, at least rhetorically. And, you can't pussy-foot it or fake it. You can't just shut-up about it, and hope that will be OK. You need to say it our loud and demonstrate it with policy positions. Moderates and Indies who are squeamish about MAGA won't vote for Democrats who they hate/fear even more, just because they aren't MAGA.
You have to do what Bill Clinton did: 1) You have to make the voters you want to vote for you think that you like and respect them, and ; 2) You have to repudiate the things that keep those voters from voting for you. Bill Clinton had a Sister Soulja moment. He campaigned on "the era of big government is over". He said we shouldn't ask or tell. He said he was going to cut taxes (that was a lie, but it worked). He was a semi-genuine southern bubba, who hobnobbed not with the coastal elites and minorities, but with the same donors that the Bushes were hanging with. And a lot of the Reagan Democrats came home.
THAT is what you need to do to cure the brand. Doubling down on woke is not going to work. So far, I am seeing total denial and absolutely no evidence that the national Democrats are up for it. Instead, they celebrate AOC and Bernie touring red states and entertaining basically all the Democrats in a state, and a bunch of accident gawkers who are never going to vote for them. Yee-Haw!
In 2028, for the first time in a decade, you won't have Trump to run against. Republicans like me will probably go home to a far less offensive GOP candidate, basically anybody but Trump. That just makes your job that much harder. I guarantee you woke won't win in 2028. It's your choice whether you run on something else, or not.
The GOP has proven it is the party of Trump. Mitt RomneyтАЩs reticence and cowardice underlines that. There is no going back. Believe me, I hope I am wrong. But when Republicans wonтАЩt even stand up for due process, it is a dark day indeed.
I wouldnтАЩt be so sure that you wonтАЩt have Trump on the ticket in 2028. (And yes, I know that sounds alarmist and fantastical, but I believe the odds of it happening, while not greater than 50%, are not zero either.)
He may try to stay president by some other means (though I doubt it), but he won't be the GOP nominee. Even he admits that the Constitution says you can't be elected to more than two terms.
My answer to this is very simple: if Democrats canтАЩt make a play to the center without losing the left, then weтАЩre dead. There are not enough left wing voters to win national elections by themselves, and if theyтАЩre going to hunt heretics rather than accept friends in the center, then we canтАЩt win. There are not enough deep blue states to hold the Senate without some Testers and Manchins and Doug Joneses, and while the House is somewhat more gettable, we need the Senate. There is not a тАЬno true ScotsmanтАЭ theory that gets an AOC-adjacent Dem nominee to win a statewide election in Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Missouri, Georgia, the Dakotas, Alabama, or West Virginia. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden were able to either win these states or had senators who could win them. They did not win them from the left, they won them from the center.
Yep, that's the reality like it or not. And the sooner Dems start planning their moves on that basis, the better. Because 2026 is approaching fast. Does this risk alienating the Bernie/AOC wing such that they pull a 2024 style temper tantrum and stay home watching reruns on voting day? Yes. But where is the larger coalition going to exist? Numbers mean something.
Yes, weтАЩre going to either be a coalition or weтАЩre not. If we truly want to end Trumpism, we need to not only accept the left and the center, we need to start unsorting the Democratic-Republican dialectic altogether and make nice with sane Republicans who arenтАЩt down with the Donald. We need a tent big enough to fit AOC, Bernie, Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney underneath it and not have any pies thrown. Now, ten to twenty years ago I wouldnтАЩt necessarily have figured IтАЩd be bedfellows with Liz Cheney eitherтАж but IтАЩd MUCH rather have the business logic of governance be a relatively friendly conversation with her about the proper level of taxation or oil extraction than one with MAGA about how many people we should liquidate to a concentration camp in El Salvador without due process. I donтАЩt actually expect IтАЩll agree with Cheney on much of substance, but we at least agree on the rules of how we should have that conversation and what happens when one of us gets outvoted. We can do business with this person. That is a VAST improvement over all things Donald Trump.
But eric, literally that is what Harris did and she lost. That isnтАЩt enough to win elections as seen by Harris.
Look I donтАЩt have an answer but I have a feeling the most important feature of both republicans and democrats is donтАЩt be in charge. Incumbency was what killed Harris. Same for Trump in 2020 and Hillary in 2016. The issue, from my perspective, is people want change, good or bad, but once you are elected they hate whatever change you try to effectuate. It has been happening now in every election since 2006 (with one exception, Obama).
Trump is basically doing everything he said he would do and yet after 2 months, his popularity has collapsed. It lasted like 6 months for Biden and 9 months for Trump 1.
We want change but the moment someone tries to do something, anything, we hate it. The problem is us, the voters.
You know what is worse? This is true of almost every voter in every developed economy in the world
Harris attempted to do what I described: she tried to get Cheney and Kinzinger into the tent without any pies being thrown.
I would submit that there are quite a few lefties who are simultaneously insisting that this is why she lost while trying to be as subtle as possible in scrubbing whipped cream off their hands.
In shortтАж we have not successfully made that coalition. The lefties arenтАЩt accepting them, and the center-righties know it. This very site takes incoming from liberal subscribers all the time for the fact that theyтАЩre pretty openly former Republicans.
But that is never ever going to happen. That isnтАЩt even reasonable to ask for. What prominent person didnтАЩt come out for Harris from the leftтАжor center in 2024? I canтАЩt think of anyone who was against herтАжthat is prominent. IтАЩm not talking about the BS on twitter or some other chat room. Obama got criticized from the left (drone strikes) and the center (Obamacare and Syria).
This isnтАЩt the issue. The issue is, incumbency, from my perspective.
If Dems elect AOC IтАЩll vote for her and support her. I would also vote for Liz Cheney against any republican. I probably agree with neither candidateтАЩs views on many things.
What policy did Harris push that you feel lost her the election that you agreed with? Too many people think that what they want is popular and a winning message (sarah does this ALL the time). Centrism isnтАЩt popular because it requires compromise and more importantly itтАЩs BORING.
as a liberal, I don't see why other liberals aren't understanding that principles don't have to do with numbers, fringeness or popularity contests, *those* are the ideologies that already went out of style... if there were 1 single black person in America being treated as a slave, it would still be wrong -- likewise, based on the principle of fairness, in general, trans-women shouldn't participate in women's sports. And, Democrats are going to keep losing on this issue until they understand the principle.
Exactly! The Dems are not the ones who keep flogging this issue that affects an infinitesimally small part of the population. The GOP does it because it sows doubt in the minds of people whose overall priorities are better served by democratic policies.
Transwomen are women. Full stop. Transwomen are not men. There are ten (10) Trans athletes in the NCAA, out of 500,000! After two years of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Transwomen lose muscle strength and bone density equal to that of cis-gender females. Transwomen aren't winning medals or harming cis-gender women in any way. It's just a ploy to call Transwomen "men." From 2007 - 2022 the Olympics allowed Trans people to participate. You know how many medalled? Exactly 0. The Republicans chose the most marginalized group of people to be their "boogeyman" in 2015 and have repeated lies about Trans people over and over and you bought into it. In 2024 the Trump campaign spent $200M on an anti-Trans ads (remember the Super Bowl?). Trans rights don't take away any rights from cis-gender women. Educated people like myself do not agree with you, Frau Katze.
That aside, I am not someone who gives a rat's ass if trans athletes compete against women. And bring 'em on if they want to compete against men. It is an infinitesimally small number, anyway. What the issue really does for the GOP is highlight something what was just a few years ago considered weird and perverse.
It is one thing to sanction public homosexual behavior. That has been at least marginally acceptable since the 1970's. But trans was always a bridge too far for almost everybody, even some homosexuals. Being force-fed it these days, and told people had to accept it as an equivalent lifestyle, made for a powerful backlash in 2024, and the gift that keeps on giving so long as Democrats won't backtrack on it.
Good ol Reagan style bigotry right here. "Force fed" to recognizing that a group of people exist and have existed since our earliest recorded history...you poor baby.
"Trans women" are gay men who have been scientifically altered. Period. Biology is finite, poor baby, and America isn't taking this force-feeding any longer.
You nailed it; spent initially $65 million running ads to тАЬraise up the Dems against transтАЭ and do a lot of other damage. Then added millions more as it created a anti-dem rally cry. I read they only cared that this тАЬworkedтАЭ against Dems. And they will drag out this tool when needed. A GOP political strategic ploy.
Thats obviously and factually wrong. There are dozens of permutations of chromosomes beyond XX and XY.
And, of course, you can be born XY but with female genetalia. And of course, there are men with XX chromosomes.
So, then, is your assertion that we need to do a chromosome test on everyone before we call them a woman or a man? And, then, what do we call people with XXY chromosomes?
This is a stupid thing for the public to be discussing, because its private medical information.
JVL said it really well last month: If trans women start ruining competitive in women's sports, we should start thinking about policy responses. But if no-one is getting hurt (and, lets face it, at this point, no one is getting hurt if a trans woman is the 2nd or 3rd best player on the 5th or 6th best team in the 8th or 9th best conference...) then why not just let that one girl run cross country in Maine?
Gender is genetically more complicated than 8th grade biology. Beyond the different chromosome pairings, there are different epigenetic manifestations from genes that exist on chromosomes that aren't on the 23rd pair (i.e., the "sex chromosomes"). Some of these are pretty well understood, like the XY folks with Swyer syndrome who develop a uterus, fallopian tubes, vagina, etc.) and other aspects aren't yet fully understood, like XY folks who develop a penis but psychologically flourish with super low levels of testosterone (which in cis-gender men is generally psychologically debilitating).
Hang on. IтАЩm not a cis-gendered woman. IтАЩm a woman. That the language that throws people off. I donтАЩt have any problem with trans people, but dot label me.
You are definitely cis-gendered. That's not labeling you any more than saying that you're homo sapiens sapiens is labeling you. It's a scientific description of what you are.
So here's the problem with that line of thinking: it's a lie. Trans people make up 0.5% of the population. There are less than 100 trans athletes currently in sports at the college level, and none at the professional level. But even more than that, we just need to look at how the right actually uses that issue.
For example, the Algerian boxer, who IS a woman. She's intersex, but legally a woman, and the right wing theocratic dictatorship of Algeria is not a woke pro-trans place. Yet the right made her the poster of their anti-trans agenda.
This past week, they made that one female fencer the focus of their anti-trans argument, except the rules haven't been changed since the 1970s, and also it's intergender.
The problem with the argument of 'keeping men out of women's sports' is that there are no men in women's sports. Trans women are not winning championships in the WNBA, they're not taking over softball, they're not defeating women in soccer or any other sport. Even in the most high profile case of that one swimmer, the trans person didn't win! They lost to a woman!
But also, there's no argument that trans men are threatening to men's sports like say, men's gymnastics. Because they would be, if this was an issue. Why? Because there are events that men physically can't do that women can, due to flexibility differences. But again, no one cares about that.
Which is that MEN come into women's bathrooms and demand proof of your sex because you must now fit a specific profile to be considered woman enough.
The problem you have is that you've taken a thing which is barely happening, and you've used it to ensnare yourself and lots of women into a system which now treats their sex as something to be inspected by any man who deems them to be unfeminine.
So forgive me, but I don't believe you care about women. I think you care about what the definition of women is, and who counts. Those are different things.
IтАЩm very familiar with this topic. Trans are 1% of the population. Look it up (I just did).
The Algerian boxer is believed to be like Caster Semenya, who is XY with an inborn hormone irregularity called 5-ARD. These people are all XY but the hormone problem causes them to be born with internal male testes and are this mistaken for girls. But when the child reaches puberty he/she develops male strength.
They are more sympathetic than someone like Lia Thomas (an ordinary XY) but should still not be competing against XXs.
This discussion is all well and good, but there is NO WAY it could break through to the average voter. The bottom line is that Democrats need to agree to a simple message on this issue.
No, they donтАЩt, and they shouldnтАЩt. What happened to Dems needing to be authentic? Now weтАЩre saying they all need to pretend to agree on a stupid niche issue that the majority of voters never stand to encounter or be impacted by in their entire lives?
They can bring perspective to the conversation, and if they canтАЩt learn how to make their case and communicate it effectively, they deserve to fail, and frankly so does the American experiment. I hate this argument that democrats must be the reactionary party simply because theyтАЩre atrocious at messaging and communicating their ideas. ThatтАЩs the damn job. A politician who is incapable of persuading people needs to find a new line of work.
ItтАЩs not that hard. The government should not be legislating the type of issues that are uncommon enough to be handled with sensitivity and dignity on a case by case basis. I thought republicans used to be against the nanny state, or at least they pretended to be.
These issues are instigated by the right to divide and us up and distract us from their failures. Trans people arenтАЩt the reason Americans arenтАЩt prospering, the billionaire class is. The unprecedented level of corruption from the Trump regime on behalf of the billionaire class has only made life worse for all Americans. We can disagree on certain cultural and social norms, as we always have and always will in a free society, but we cannot continue to ignore the corruption, greed, and self-enrichment of the ultra wealthy at the expense of those who work for a living.
The same way Elon Musk and his goons kept hypnotically repeating the phrase тАЬwaste, fraud, and abuseтАЭ to the point where MAGA was repeating it in exactly that order like brainwashed lemmings, democrats should be banging the drum on corruption, greed, and self-enrichment. They need to take control of the narrative that this is normal. ItтАЩs not normal. As soon as voters start to feel the pain of his incompetence and reckless, destructive actions, they will have a much harder time accepting that the level of corruption is the same. Trans issues might work to rile people up during prosperous times, but when people are losing their jobs, 401ks, homes, health insurance, and savings, they wonтАЩt have the mental capacity to care that somewhere in America, a 12 year old with a Y chromosome got to play soccer on the girlтАЩs team.
Believed by who, exactly? There is absolutely no proof that Imane Khelif is biologically male and the rumor that she was could have gotten her killed in her home country. You might think youтАЩre standing up for women, but all youтАЩve managed to do is set us up for тАЬbathroom checksтАЭ by men if we donтАЩt happen to be sufficiently feminine. No woman should face harassment because of what someone тАЬbelievesтАЭ she is. The commenter above you already dropped multiple links proving that this is indeed the consequence.
You are citing a source whose entire platform is a self-serving crusade about тАЬgender ideologyтАЭ and is not arguing in good faith. Again, there is NO PROOF that Khelif is a man. None. This is disinformation and right wing propaganda.
Go look at a photo of Khelif. ThatтАЩs one muscular looking woman. And no, thereтАЩs no proof because Khelif refused genetic testing. Why would that be, I wonder? Something to hide?
So now we are policing how women are supposed to look? Yikes.
There is no proof for the same reason there is no proof of gender for any other boxing athlete: itтАЩs none of your business, and she isnтАЩt obligated to meet your approval. The IOC has stated she met the criteria for participation.
Do you not know muscular women? Try going to a gym where women box...every single one of them looks like Khelif.
But that goes to the heart of the anti-trans argument: The same assumptions you are making about a persons most private information are base entirely on you not thinking she looks 'feminine' enough.
She's also lost dozens of bouts. So even if she was trans (she's not) then she doesn't appear to have any meaningful advantage over her competition that regularly beats her.
God I wish I could bookmark this comment. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. itтАЩs so infuriating to see women being duped into believing this nonsense. Any time a bunch of republican men show up to say theyтАЩre there to protect women, we should all be more than skeptical.
Newsom and Emanuel: both unpalatable, insufferably conceited and clearly unelectable on a national level, however they attempt to tack to the middle. And you are 100% correct about the groups dems must win- Southern blacks, educated white professionals and union labor. The problem in this moment remains the typical democratic identity crisis, but also a shattering, PTSD level of loss to Trump, plus a complete leadership vacuum. The Democratic Big Tent feels impossibly large to try to fill with allies able to row together towards any wins.
How well do you know his record? I live in CA, and while he is pugnacious towards Trump when he is trying to advance his career, he doesn't really seem to believe in anything, and has decided that his time as governor is well spend hosting podcasts featuring conversations with far right personalities.
Yes, I HATED that!!!! It might have worked if heтАЩd been confrontational with them, debated them; but the chumminess was a dealbreaker for me. Newsom is too obviously ambitious & тАЬslick.тАЭ He doesnтАЩt come across as genuine, heтАЩs playing to the camera.
Elisa Slotkin makes me sick with her constant references to Reagan, holding him up as some kind of saint. That MFer gave the Heritage Foundation at least 40% of their wish list & began the destruction of the middle class & the working poor.
Some of you pundits keep telling the Democrats to tack to the center to try & win over that ephemeral soft Republican & that has not worked; youтАЩre chasing a ghost.
We want BIG BOLD policies promised, & then we want to see them actually work their asses off to get them done. Do they need to make transgender kids the front & center issue? No, but you cannot abandon them either.
They need to stop kowtowing to big money interests & accepting their massive donations; that crap makes them untrustworthy & just adds to the voters feelings that it doesnтАЩt really matter who we vote for because both sides are equally corrupt. The Democrats must regain our trust. The have to actually get shit done, that internet they promised?? Still not even started because of all of the technical тАЬrulesтАЭ they built into it. The base unwavering Dem voter like myself are still really angry. We want CHANGE. Kamala lost because Joe shackled her to his policies & she refused to break from him on the economy, the border, & Gaza.
It's not so much an identity crisis as it is a changing in dynamics and demographics. The reality is that the Democrats have always been a 'not GOP' party since around Nixon. The reality was that for a long time, the GOP vote was concentrated in a way that it is not now. Which means that it's monolith approach is far more effective than the big tent Democratic approach.
The thing was, and people don't want to talk about this, this goes back decades. Clinton was a candidate who won because people were exhausted of 12 years of the GOP. Obama was a candidate who was elected because of the twin crisis of wars and financial crisis. Biden got elected because of the crisis of covid.
Ultimately, no one in the Democratic party has managed to actually pull together a coalition of Democrats in a NOT disaster setting since Carter, and even then he only lasted one term.
Outside of a crisis, no one thing is capable of uniting the party.
****[N]o one in the Democratic party has actually managed to pull together a coalition of Democrats in a not disaster setting since Carter, and even then he only lasted one term.*****
.
Seems to me Obama did exactly what you say no Democrat has done.
By your own reckoning, Obama and Biden both won on account of the crisis that prevailed when they first ran. You seem to suggest that Biden-then-Harris lost because the 2024 Democratic standard bearer was not rising to save the country from a crisis.
That is also true of Obama in 2012, and he won.
Perhaps you mean your analysis to apply in the scenario of non-incumbency and you reached back to Carter in 1976 as the only Democratic candidate to accomplish the feat of prevailing as a first-timet in a non-disaster scenario.
How then do we explain Clinton in 1992? Oh, I know -- Ross Perot.
Seems to me there is little utility in the kind of pattern or rule you suggest. Each race has its own peculiarities and dynamics.
Seems to me Dems have had the crises handed to them on a silver (gold?) platter. The plundering of our democracy to line the pockets of the corporate and techno wealthy.
"Also, it's worth noting that the last party to be told that they needed to reverse course was the GOP after Romney, they doubled down, and won."
The Trump-era GOP has been perceived as more *moderate* than the Romney-era GOP, actually. Why? It was seen as less economically right-wing (more skeptical of free trade, and Trump explicitly promised to not cut Social Security and Medicare, something that sank Bush in his 2nd term as well as McCain/Romney), less hawkish in foreign policy, and less religious-coded.
What it was тАЬseen asтАЭ has definitely not turned out to be what it actually IS. Trump is not economically conservative (blowing up the debt/deficit, huge tariffs) heтАЩs not less hawkish, heтАЩs more (belligerent, threatening) & he is hugely religious-coded!! Trump himself isnтАЩt religious at all, but heтАЩs great at pretending, & now we have rabid ChristoFascists running our lives.
"Trump is not economically conservative" - That's his entire appeal! The only part that's unpopular is the tariffs, and that only because of the price increases.
"heтАЩs not less hawkish" - He didn't talk about Canada and Greenland during the campaign, so at the time of the election, he was seen as less hawkish as compared to the Dems, who according to median voters got the US "involved in 2 wars" (Ukraine and Gaza).
"he is hugely religious-coded" - Lol, no. Not even most of his own supporters actually believe he's religious. The evangelicals vote for him because "evangelical" is a political identity, not a religious one, and they have no God separate from MAGA (this is not the case for, say, mainline Protestants, Catholics, or even Mormons, even if many of those voted for him as well). He hardly ever talks about LGB people, and loudly repudiated the extremist pro-lifers when he refused to support a national abortion ban and vowed to leave abortion to the states. Everyone, including his own supporters, knows he's a womanizer. In fact, that actually helps him - nobody believes that he'll ban something that he personally benefited from.
Oh, they know he's a liar. It actually helps him. They (median voters, not the hardcore MAGA base) assume that he won't do what he says he's going to do, which is how they rationalize voting for him. I hear a lot of "oh, he'd never do that, it's just a bluff/negotiating tactic/a joke/exaggerating to make a point", but they think he's "directionally correct", in the sense that they want things to move more in his direction, under the assumption that it won't go too far because Trump always lies and exaggerates. And his first term basically cemented that image, as he didn't fulfill most of his most outlandish promises. People vote for him more because they're dissatisfied with things under the Dems and want to send a message to them. As for the democracy stuff? Again, so outlandish voters don't believe it, and since elections proceeded as normal last time...
Well, those тАЬOh heтАЩll never do thatтАЭ voters are in the find out stage now!!
Oh, heтАЩs not going to deport my tia, or my wife, sheтАЩs been here 20 yrs, she works, & pays taxes; heтАЩs only going to deport the bad ones, the criminals. I sure hope they see how very wrong they were.
Believe me, I know about trump voters, my entire family are them!! Except for 1 nephew & his wife. ItтАЩs almost impossible for me to talk to them, because I just want to scream.
I don't like, or use, the word "moderate." The MAGA cult is certainly less conservative than the GOP of old, in terms of economics, defense and law-and-order. But it is unabashedly *authoritarian*. Many voters want just that, and many others don't know or care what MAGA stands for as long as it "owns the libs."
I don't know that this is true. It's more that Trump is someone who voters impose their preferences on. So he himself appears to be whatever they want him to be. But the party is not less radical. It's more. It just has a standard bearer who lots of voters place their ideas on.
It's more radical in the sense that Trump is more willing to break democracy and institutional norms, but Trump isn't coded as particularly radical in terms of *policies*.
"Deporting US Citizens" - never mentioned in the campaign
"Appointing judges to overturn Roe v Wade" - ...followed by loud, repeated denunciations of a national abortion ban and a promise to keep abortion a state issue.
"Abandoning Ukraine" - not particularly radical according to voters, and not salient.
"Corporate tax cuts" - Not terrible policy, actually. The previous rate was too high.
"Muslim ban" - Not mentioned in the campaign this time, and was reasonably popular back when it was mentioned.
He codes as socially moderate because of his own womanizing and his lack of religiosity (you rarely see him mention LGB people, and his stances on trans people are popular), and the public is outright hostile to immigration at this point, so all the hardcore anti-immigrant stuff isn't particularly considered radical.
Corporate tax cuts are horrible policy!! It was started in the Reagan admin & his asinine trickle down economics & the middle class has been gutted ever since. This country thrived & grew the middle class when corporate & wealthy tax rates were 50% or higher, & we didnтАЩt have these massive monopolies with a chokehold on all of us. NO, no more tax cuts for the wealthy, increasing the tax rate on them is hugely popular except among the 900 or so of those super wealthy. Now we have corruption in govt equal to Russia.
Ugh, I hate this. Because every debate about what the Democratic party should or should not do ignores that the problem is NOT the policies, it's the voters.
For three elections now, we've had the same problem. 'We have to moderate our positions to win middle America!' And while covid dragged Biden over the finish line, the reality is that When Harris and Clinton did exactly that, Trump won. Why? Because liberals did not come out for them.
The Newsom and Emanuel position looks like this: 'liberals have nowhere to go. They have to either choose between us or republicans, so we can do whatever we want and they'll have to vote for us.'
Except no, they won't. As we've seen, several times now, liberals do not come out to vote for candidates who do not want to represent them. We can say 'we need to win white america or blue collar America' but if you win those places and you lose liberals, you still won't win.
So the core problem is that the Democratic party's voters are a separate breed from the Democratic party writ large. This isn't that unlike what happened to the GOP that let the tea party and then Trump take over. One should remember that the Tea party left the GOP in the wilderness for six years, basically.
So you CAN tell Democratic voters no, but that is an interesting approach when you also need their votes. This is the truth of the Democratic party; why did Biden get the nod in 2020? Because he won South Carolina. Why did winning there matter? Because he won black voters. Why does that matter? Because no Democrat can win nationwide if you don't carry black voters, full stop.
If the GOP is a monolith, the Democratic party is different groups that all hate each other. Even so, there are three groups that you must win: Southern black voters, educated white professionals, union labor. You must win all three. If you lose any of them, the GOP wins, full stop.
And the problem is, those educated white professionals are VERY liberal. They tend to be the ones voting for Sanders and Warren. Black voters are more conservative socially, but more economically liberal. And union labor are conservative economically and liberally compared to the others.
So yeah, Newsom may want to fight wokeness and throw trans people under the bus to win those blue color white voters. But congrats, you lose educated professionals, and that means you lose.
Also, it's worth noting that the last party to be told that they needed to reverse course was the GOP after Romney, they doubled down, and won. So perhaps the strategy isn't to throw your own voters under the bus but to instead galvanize them with some outside force? It's now worked for MAGA for three elections, not counting Trump's handling of covid, which apparently wasn't a dealbreaker to make him president again for most voters.
In any case, mathematically and conceptually, the Newsom and Emanuel strategy is a failure on its face. There's a reason why one of them got sent to Japan so that no one had to see him or talk to him anymore.
I like your comment but I feel like it is missing some of what is happening. You identify what was traditionally the 3 most important groups in the Dem party and that you need all 3 but they do not have equal weight anymore and I think the educated professional group is bifurcating. The Dems started losing the working class when Clinton sold them out to "triangulate" with Reagan's agenda. The pro-wall street wing of the Dems, which were the educated professionals have been ascendant since. More recently a lot of educated youths have come in and they are the very liberal ones, though still technically educated professionals.
It seems to me that at this point a large contingent of the working class believes neither party will help them but at least the Republicans hate the people in the Dem coalition that annoy them so they go Republican. If those people truly aren't bigoted assholes they might ignore the bigotry baiting of the Republicans in favor of policies that truly help the working class but they'll have to actually believe it is more than just pandering with pithy slogans. That would require the dominant faction of the Dem party to make some changes on economic issues and they don't like it.
The wall street Dems' alternative proposal is to hope they can staunch the bleeding with the working class by giving up on liberal social "policies" (more on that below) and replace the younger educated professionals with RINO, anti-Trump Republicans who share their economic views. You point out the first flaw in that reasoning. They assume the younger educated professionals will stay and do all the donating, volunteering, and voting they have done in the past despite being completely rejected. History shows that not enough necessarily will even if the alternative is Trump. But beyond that, over the last 3 elections the RINO's haven't shown up in large enough numbers to replace the losses and the working class people haven't been enticed when they are only offered the lite version of conservative social policies and nothing else. That makes sense because the full calorie version is right there in the form of Trump. Further, the Dem social agenda is already almost non-existant beyond pandering with language and candidate choice. Even Mr. Hope and Change himself, Obama, did not really have a social agenda. Gay marriage became a thing because of activists and the courts, not because of Dem legislators. Therefore, the social "policies" the conservatives hate are just the fact that there are people they don't like in the Dem coalition who they might need to compromise with. That isn't going to change unless the Dems fully disown and possibly even attack the people Republicans deem to be undesirables. Problem is the old-school Dems will completely lose the moral high ground at that point and the large amount of young educated professionals they're banking on voting Dem for no other reason than as an anti-Trump/pro-democracy vote will disappear en masse, not just a few pro-Palestine suburbs in Minnesota. Yet the wall-street Dems have been in charge for 30 years so they still assume everyone will just fall in line with their whims even though they havent for 2 of the last 3 cycles and barely did in the 3rd when everything was tilted in the Dem's favor. I think they're gearing up to make the same mistake again unless there is a bloodbath in the primaries next year.
"That isn't going to change unless the Dems fully disown and possibly even attack the people Republicans deem to be undesirables."
BINGO! That is what the next Democratic president is going to have to do, while also being a straight, white man. Otherwise, there will most likely not be another Democratic president in the next decade.
I think this is all less complicated than that. The message is this simple. The Democratic Party is for the working class. Who are the working class? Pretty much all of us. Anyone who has to get up every morning and earn a paycheck to make their world go round is working class. ThatтАЩs white men and women. ThatтАЩs black men and women, thatтАЩs Latino men and women and itтАЩs Asian men and women, itтАЩs college-educated men and women, itтАЩs high-school educated men and women, itтАЩs gay men and women, etc., etc., etc. ItтАЩs also farmers. We are in a battle of the working class vs the billionaire class. The billionaire class wants to own and control everything, EVERYTHING! And, the Republicans are their whores. Our democracy was created to protect the people from tyrants. TodayтАЩs tyrants are the billionaires. If you argue that first тАФ and make the case that we are all in this together тАФ race gender, sexual orientation doesnтАЩt matter, you will start winning elections. And at that point voters are more open to transgender rights and immigration rights. BTW тАФ immigrants? TheyтАЩre the working class.
On point.
тАЬAnd the Republicans are their whoresтАЭ Truer words have never spoken.
For five decades the Democrats were "the party of the working man". It worked pretty well. The problem is that practically speaking, there no longer is ANY party of the working man - because half the labor class abandoned the Democrats because they could no longer be in the "party of blacks, or gays, or illegals, or hippies, or feminists, or war protestors, or "Other"'. Lower class Americans have been voting against their economic self-interest for cultural reasons for over 50 years. You think you can just flip a switch and start talking about kitchen table issues and "oligarchs", and magically change that behavior?
Right now, "the privileged" are fighting back HARD to hold onto their privilege. They have the money and all the power. At best, you're going to have to sneak up on them if you are going to get more crumbs for the working class - and that starts by being less "icky" in the culture wars.
I donтАЩt disagree with any of this. The answer is no, the Dems canтАЩt change it overnight but they needed to start changing their messaging (and more importantly actions) yesterday. And yes they canтАЩt waste precious time fighting over transgender rights right now. You donтАЩt abandon those people but you have to go on fucking offense and quit reacting to all the transgender bait the right wing keeps putting out there.
This is exactly it! Anyone who earns a paycheck that is signed by someone else is тАЬworking class.тАЭ You might be working class at a high level, earning $500 thousand per year, but if you can be summarily fired without cause, and your paycheck disappears, you are working class.
There is a very small sliver of people who do not fit this criterion, who can survive / thrive on their investment / business income. But the rest of us are all working class and the sooner we all realize that, the better off we will all be.
Thank you. For once, someone deals with the actual coalition of the Democratic Party and what they want and how they differ from each other.
There aren't enough liberals to elect a president. I'd bet liberal turnout in 2024 was as high or higher than any other group (after all, who hates Trump and MAGA more, and who is getting hurt worse by them?). There aren't enough blue states anymore. To win the presidency, you need to win more purple states, and you do that by throwing your "vulnerable" groups under the bus, at least rhetorically. And, you can't pussy-foot it or fake it. You can't just shut-up about it, and hope that will be OK. You need to say it our loud and demonstrate it with policy positions. Moderates and Indies who are squeamish about MAGA won't vote for Democrats who they hate/fear even more, just because they aren't MAGA.
You have to do what Bill Clinton did: 1) You have to make the voters you want to vote for you think that you like and respect them, and ; 2) You have to repudiate the things that keep those voters from voting for you. Bill Clinton had a Sister Soulja moment. He campaigned on "the era of big government is over". He said we shouldn't ask or tell. He said he was going to cut taxes (that was a lie, but it worked). He was a semi-genuine southern bubba, who hobnobbed not with the coastal elites and minorities, but with the same donors that the Bushes were hanging with. And a lot of the Reagan Democrats came home.
THAT is what you need to do to cure the brand. Doubling down on woke is not going to work. So far, I am seeing total denial and absolutely no evidence that the national Democrats are up for it. Instead, they celebrate AOC and Bernie touring red states and entertaining basically all the Democrats in a state, and a bunch of accident gawkers who are never going to vote for them. Yee-Haw!
In 2028, for the first time in a decade, you won't have Trump to run against. Republicans like me will probably go home to a far less offensive GOP candidate, basically anybody but Trump. That just makes your job that much harder. I guarantee you woke won't win in 2028. It's your choice whether you run on something else, or not.
The GOP has proven it is the party of Trump. Mitt RomneyтАЩs reticence and cowardice underlines that. There is no going back. Believe me, I hope I am wrong. But when Republicans wonтАЩt even stand up for due process, it is a dark day indeed.
I wouldnтАЩt be so sure that you wonтАЩt have Trump on the ticket in 2028. (And yes, I know that sounds alarmist and fantastical, but I believe the odds of it happening, while not greater than 50%, are not zero either.)
He may try to stay president by some other means (though I doubt it), but he won't be the GOP nominee. Even he admits that the Constitution says you can't be elected to more than two terms.
My answer to this is very simple: if Democrats canтАЩt make a play to the center without losing the left, then weтАЩre dead. There are not enough left wing voters to win national elections by themselves, and if theyтАЩre going to hunt heretics rather than accept friends in the center, then we canтАЩt win. There are not enough deep blue states to hold the Senate without some Testers and Manchins and Doug Joneses, and while the House is somewhat more gettable, we need the Senate. There is not a тАЬno true ScotsmanтАЭ theory that gets an AOC-adjacent Dem nominee to win a statewide election in Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Missouri, Georgia, the Dakotas, Alabama, or West Virginia. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden were able to either win these states or had senators who could win them. They did not win them from the left, they won them from the center.
Yep, that's the reality like it or not. And the sooner Dems start planning their moves on that basis, the better. Because 2026 is approaching fast. Does this risk alienating the Bernie/AOC wing such that they pull a 2024 style temper tantrum and stay home watching reruns on voting day? Yes. But where is the larger coalition going to exist? Numbers mean something.
True. And there are not enough center left voters to win an election either.
Yes, weтАЩre going to either be a coalition or weтАЩre not. If we truly want to end Trumpism, we need to not only accept the left and the center, we need to start unsorting the Democratic-Republican dialectic altogether and make nice with sane Republicans who arenтАЩt down with the Donald. We need a tent big enough to fit AOC, Bernie, Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney underneath it and not have any pies thrown. Now, ten to twenty years ago I wouldnтАЩt necessarily have figured IтАЩd be bedfellows with Liz Cheney eitherтАж but IтАЩd MUCH rather have the business logic of governance be a relatively friendly conversation with her about the proper level of taxation or oil extraction than one with MAGA about how many people we should liquidate to a concentration camp in El Salvador without due process. I donтАЩt actually expect IтАЩll agree with Cheney on much of substance, but we at least agree on the rules of how we should have that conversation and what happens when one of us gets outvoted. We can do business with this person. That is a VAST improvement over all things Donald Trump.
But eric, literally that is what Harris did and she lost. That isnтАЩt enough to win elections as seen by Harris.
Look I donтАЩt have an answer but I have a feeling the most important feature of both republicans and democrats is donтАЩt be in charge. Incumbency was what killed Harris. Same for Trump in 2020 and Hillary in 2016. The issue, from my perspective, is people want change, good or bad, but once you are elected they hate whatever change you try to effectuate. It has been happening now in every election since 2006 (with one exception, Obama).
Trump is basically doing everything he said he would do and yet after 2 months, his popularity has collapsed. It lasted like 6 months for Biden and 9 months for Trump 1.
We want change but the moment someone tries to do something, anything, we hate it. The problem is us, the voters.
You know what is worse? This is true of almost every voter in every developed economy in the world
Harris attempted to do what I described: she tried to get Cheney and Kinzinger into the tent without any pies being thrown.
I would submit that there are quite a few lefties who are simultaneously insisting that this is why she lost while trying to be as subtle as possible in scrubbing whipped cream off their hands.
In shortтАж we have not successfully made that coalition. The lefties arenтАЩt accepting them, and the center-righties know it. This very site takes incoming from liberal subscribers all the time for the fact that theyтАЩre pretty openly former Republicans.
But that is never ever going to happen. That isnтАЩt even reasonable to ask for. What prominent person didnтАЩt come out for Harris from the leftтАжor center in 2024? I canтАЩt think of anyone who was against herтАжthat is prominent. IтАЩm not talking about the BS on twitter or some other chat room. Obama got criticized from the left (drone strikes) and the center (Obamacare and Syria).
This isnтАЩt the issue. The issue is, incumbency, from my perspective.
If Dems elect AOC IтАЩll vote for her and support her. I would also vote for Liz Cheney against any republican. I probably agree with neither candidateтАЩs views on many things.
What policy did Harris push that you feel lost her the election that you agreed with? Too many people think that what they want is popular and a winning message (sarah does this ALL the time). Centrism isnтАЩt popular because it requires compromise and more importantly itтАЩs BORING.
There are many educated people who do not think itтАЩs fair to WOMEN to permit males to compete in their sports events.
This is a prime example of a fringe issue. ItтАЩs going out of style too, because it interferes with WOMENтАЩs rights.
as a liberal, I don't see why other liberals aren't understanding that principles don't have to do with numbers, fringeness or popularity contests, *those* are the ideologies that already went out of style... if there were 1 single black person in America being treated as a slave, it would still be wrong -- likewise, based on the principle of fairness, in general, trans-women shouldn't participate in women's sports. And, Democrats are going to keep losing on this issue until they understand the principle.
Yes itтАЩs a matter of principle and fairness.
How many trans women do you personally know playing sports?
Exactly! The Dems are not the ones who keep flogging this issue that affects an infinitesimally small part of the population. The GOP does it because it sows doubt in the minds of people whose overall priorities are better served by democratic policies.
Transwomen are women. Full stop. Transwomen are not men. There are ten (10) Trans athletes in the NCAA, out of 500,000! After two years of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Transwomen lose muscle strength and bone density equal to that of cis-gender females. Transwomen aren't winning medals or harming cis-gender women in any way. It's just a ploy to call Transwomen "men." From 2007 - 2022 the Olympics allowed Trans people to participate. You know how many medalled? Exactly 0. The Republicans chose the most marginalized group of people to be their "boogeyman" in 2015 and have repeated lies about Trans people over and over and you bought into it. In 2024 the Trump campaign spent $200M on an anti-Trans ads (remember the Super Bowl?). Trans rights don't take away any rights from cis-gender women. Educated people like myself do not agree with you, Frau Katze.
We must protect all vulnerable people from being targeted. We protect the dignity of human beings.
Well, they were born men, so,...
That aside, I am not someone who gives a rat's ass if trans athletes compete against women. And bring 'em on if they want to compete against men. It is an infinitesimally small number, anyway. What the issue really does for the GOP is highlight something what was just a few years ago considered weird and perverse.
It is one thing to sanction public homosexual behavior. That has been at least marginally acceptable since the 1970's. But trans was always a bridge too far for almost everybody, even some homosexuals. Being force-fed it these days, and told people had to accept it as an equivalent lifestyle, made for a powerful backlash in 2024, and the gift that keeps on giving so long as Democrats won't backtrack on it.
Good ol Reagan style bigotry right here. "Force fed" to recognizing that a group of people exist and have existed since our earliest recorded history...you poor baby.
I know this is old, but I just saw it.
"Trans women" are gay men who have been scientifically altered. Period. Biology is finite, poor baby, and America isn't taking this force-feeding any longer.
I mean, you can say that and follow it up with "period," but that doesn't make your bigoted ass correct.
This thread is going way too deep into the weeds. That turns off many average voters.
Average voters are not reading the comments section of The Bulwark so I think we are ok.
You nailed it; spent initially $65 million running ads to тАЬraise up the Dems against transтАЭ and do a lot of other damage. Then added millions more as it created a anti-dem rally cry. I read they only cared that this тАЬworkedтАЭ against Dems. And they will drag out this tool when needed. A GOP political strategic ploy.
Trans women are XY, males. That cannot be changed.
Thats obviously and factually wrong. There are dozens of permutations of chromosomes beyond XX and XY.
And, of course, you can be born XY but with female genetalia. And of course, there are men with XX chromosomes.
So, then, is your assertion that we need to do a chromosome test on everyone before we call them a woman or a man? And, then, what do we call people with XXY chromosomes?
This is a stupid thing for the public to be discussing, because its private medical information.
JVL said it really well last month: If trans women start ruining competitive in women's sports, we should start thinking about policy responses. But if no-one is getting hurt (and, lets face it, at this point, no one is getting hurt if a trans woman is the 2nd or 3rd best player on the 5th or 6th best team in the 8th or 9th best conference...) then why not just let that one girl run cross country in Maine?
If you have a Y chromosome youтАЩre male.
Males should not be permitted to compete in the female category.
Progress is being made. Lia Thomas was not permitted to compete in last yearтАЩs Olympics.
This is a classic losing issue for Dems.
Gender is genetically more complicated than 8th grade biology. Beyond the different chromosome pairings, there are different epigenetic manifestations from genes that exist on chromosomes that aren't on the 23rd pair (i.e., the "sex chromosomes"). Some of these are pretty well understood, like the XY folks with Swyer syndrome who develop a uterus, fallopian tubes, vagina, etc.) and other aspects aren't yet fully understood, like XY folks who develop a penis but psychologically flourish with super low levels of testosterone (which in cis-gender men is generally psychologically debilitating).
Hang on. IтАЩm not a cis-gendered woman. IтАЩm a woman. That the language that throws people off. I donтАЩt have any problem with trans people, but dot label me.
You are definitely cis-gendered. That's not labeling you any more than saying that you're homo sapiens sapiens is labeling you. It's a scientific description of what you are.
So here's the problem with that line of thinking: it's a lie. Trans people make up 0.5% of the population. There are less than 100 trans athletes currently in sports at the college level, and none at the professional level. But even more than that, we just need to look at how the right actually uses that issue.
For example, the Algerian boxer, who IS a woman. She's intersex, but legally a woman, and the right wing theocratic dictatorship of Algeria is not a woke pro-trans place. Yet the right made her the poster of their anti-trans agenda.
This past week, they made that one female fencer the focus of their anti-trans argument, except the rules haven't been changed since the 1970s, and also it's intergender.
The problem with the argument of 'keeping men out of women's sports' is that there are no men in women's sports. Trans women are not winning championships in the WNBA, they're not taking over softball, they're not defeating women in soccer or any other sport. Even in the most high profile case of that one swimmer, the trans person didn't win! They lost to a woman!
But also, there's no argument that trans men are threatening to men's sports like say, men's gymnastics. Because they would be, if this was an issue. Why? Because there are events that men physically can't do that women can, due to flexibility differences. But again, no one cares about that.
But what it DOES do is enable stuff like this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trans-transgender-public-bathrooms-gender-identity-nonbinary_n_67bde68de4b0659288fe1966/amp
and this:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/07/metro/woman-accused-of-being-man-in-womens-bathroom-boston-hotel/
Which is that MEN come into women's bathrooms and demand proof of your sex because you must now fit a specific profile to be considered woman enough.
The problem you have is that you've taken a thing which is barely happening, and you've used it to ensnare yourself and lots of women into a system which now treats their sex as something to be inspected by any man who deems them to be unfeminine.
So forgive me, but I don't believe you care about women. I think you care about what the definition of women is, and who counts. Those are different things.
IтАЩm very familiar with this topic. Trans are 1% of the population. Look it up (I just did).
The Algerian boxer is believed to be like Caster Semenya, who is XY with an inborn hormone irregularity called 5-ARD. These people are all XY but the hormone problem causes them to be born with internal male testes and are this mistaken for girls. But when the child reaches puberty he/she develops male strength.
They are more sympathetic than someone like Lia Thomas (an ordinary XY) but should still not be competing against XXs.
ItтАЩs not fair to women.
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/fact-vs-fiction-olympic-boxer-imane
This discussion is all well and good, but there is NO WAY it could break through to the average voter. The bottom line is that Democrats need to agree to a simple message on this issue.
No, they donтАЩt, and they shouldnтАЩt. What happened to Dems needing to be authentic? Now weтАЩre saying they all need to pretend to agree on a stupid niche issue that the majority of voters never stand to encounter or be impacted by in their entire lives?
They can bring perspective to the conversation, and if they canтАЩt learn how to make their case and communicate it effectively, they deserve to fail, and frankly so does the American experiment. I hate this argument that democrats must be the reactionary party simply because theyтАЩre atrocious at messaging and communicating their ideas. ThatтАЩs the damn job. A politician who is incapable of persuading people needs to find a new line of work.
ItтАЩs not that hard. The government should not be legislating the type of issues that are uncommon enough to be handled with sensitivity and dignity on a case by case basis. I thought republicans used to be against the nanny state, or at least they pretended to be.
These issues are instigated by the right to divide and us up and distract us from their failures. Trans people arenтАЩt the reason Americans arenтАЩt prospering, the billionaire class is. The unprecedented level of corruption from the Trump regime on behalf of the billionaire class has only made life worse for all Americans. We can disagree on certain cultural and social norms, as we always have and always will in a free society, but we cannot continue to ignore the corruption, greed, and self-enrichment of the ultra wealthy at the expense of those who work for a living.
The same way Elon Musk and his goons kept hypnotically repeating the phrase тАЬwaste, fraud, and abuseтАЭ to the point where MAGA was repeating it in exactly that order like brainwashed lemmings, democrats should be banging the drum on corruption, greed, and self-enrichment. They need to take control of the narrative that this is normal. ItтАЩs not normal. As soon as voters start to feel the pain of his incompetence and reckless, destructive actions, they will have a much harder time accepting that the level of corruption is the same. Trans issues might work to rile people up during prosperous times, but when people are losing their jobs, 401ks, homes, health insurance, and savings, they wonтАЩt have the mental capacity to care that somewhere in America, a 12 year old with a Y chromosome got to play soccer on the girlтАЩs team.
And the simple message is: no men in womenтАЩs sports. At least not obvious ones like Lia Thomas.
Believed by who, exactly? There is absolutely no proof that Imane Khelif is biologically male and the rumor that she was could have gotten her killed in her home country. You might think youтАЩre standing up for women, but all youтАЩve managed to do is set us up for тАЬbathroom checksтАЭ by men if we donтАЩt happen to be sufficiently feminine. No woman should face harassment because of what someone тАЬbelievesтАЭ she is. The commenter above you already dropped multiple links proving that this is indeed the consequence.
You are citing a source whose entire platform is a self-serving crusade about тАЬgender ideologyтАЭ and is not arguing in good faith. Again, there is NO PROOF that Khelif is a man. None. This is disinformation and right wing propaganda.
Go look at a photo of Khelif. ThatтАЩs one muscular looking woman. And no, thereтАЩs no proof because Khelif refused genetic testing. Why would that be, I wonder? Something to hide?
This is like saying Ronda Rousey is a man because she has a well defined musculature.
So now we are policing how women are supposed to look? Yikes.
There is no proof for the same reason there is no proof of gender for any other boxing athlete: itтАЩs none of your business, and she isnтАЩt obligated to meet your approval. The IOC has stated she met the criteria for participation.
Do you not know muscular women? Try going to a gym where women box...every single one of them looks like Khelif.
But that goes to the heart of the anti-trans argument: The same assumptions you are making about a persons most private information are base entirely on you not thinking she looks 'feminine' enough.
She's also lost dozens of bouts. So even if she was trans (she's not) then she doesn't appear to have any meaningful advantage over her competition that regularly beats her.
God I wish I could bookmark this comment. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. itтАЩs so infuriating to see women being duped into believing this nonsense. Any time a bunch of republican men show up to say theyтАЩre there to protect women, we should all be more than skeptical.
Read my response to Silver Symposium. I have not been duped at all.
To the contrary, your replies have confirmed you have been duped.
Keep banging on this losing issue, keep losing elections.
This!
Read my response to Silver Symposium. He (?) is wrong about me.
Newsom and Emanuel: both unpalatable, insufferably conceited and clearly unelectable on a national level, however they attempt to tack to the middle. And you are 100% correct about the groups dems must win- Southern blacks, educated white professionals and union labor. The problem in this moment remains the typical democratic identity crisis, but also a shattering, PTSD level of loss to Trump, plus a complete leadership vacuum. The Democratic Big Tent feels impossibly large to try to fill with allies able to row together towards any wins.
I like Newsome
How well do you know his record? I live in CA, and while he is pugnacious towards Trump when he is trying to advance his career, he doesn't really seem to believe in anything, and has decided that his time as governor is well spend hosting podcasts featuring conversations with far right personalities.
The Clintons certainly didn't believe in anything, and Democrats voted for them, as did enough other Americans to win elections.
Yes, I HATED that!!!! It might have worked if heтАЩd been confrontational with them, debated them; but the chumminess was a dealbreaker for me. Newsom is too obviously ambitious & тАЬslick.тАЭ He doesnтАЩt come across as genuine, heтАЩs playing to the camera.
Elisa Slotkin makes me sick with her constant references to Reagan, holding him up as some kind of saint. That MFer gave the Heritage Foundation at least 40% of their wish list & began the destruction of the middle class & the working poor.
Some of you pundits keep telling the Democrats to tack to the center to try & win over that ephemeral soft Republican & that has not worked; youтАЩre chasing a ghost.
We want BIG BOLD policies promised, & then we want to see them actually work their asses off to get them done. Do they need to make transgender kids the front & center issue? No, but you cannot abandon them either.
They need to stop kowtowing to big money interests & accepting their massive donations; that crap makes them untrustworthy & just adds to the voters feelings that it doesnтАЩt really matter who we vote for because both sides are equally corrupt. The Democrats must regain our trust. The have to actually get shit done, that internet they promised?? Still not even started because of all of the technical тАЬrulesтАЭ they built into it. The base unwavering Dem voter like myself are still really angry. We want CHANGE. Kamala lost because Joe shackled her to his policies & she refused to break from him on the economy, the border, & Gaza.
I totally agree.
It's not so much an identity crisis as it is a changing in dynamics and demographics. The reality is that the Democrats have always been a 'not GOP' party since around Nixon. The reality was that for a long time, the GOP vote was concentrated in a way that it is not now. Which means that it's monolith approach is far more effective than the big tent Democratic approach.
The thing was, and people don't want to talk about this, this goes back decades. Clinton was a candidate who won because people were exhausted of 12 years of the GOP. Obama was a candidate who was elected because of the twin crisis of wars and financial crisis. Biden got elected because of the crisis of covid.
Ultimately, no one in the Democratic party has managed to actually pull together a coalition of Democrats in a NOT disaster setting since Carter, and even then he only lasted one term.
Outside of a crisis, no one thing is capable of uniting the party.
This is right, except for the last sentence- Carter was elected in the wake of Watergate.
YesтАФexactly! The last time was LBJ тАж and you could even argue that JFKтАЩs assassination was the тАЬcrisisтАЭ that he benefitted from.
And since the Republicans can always be counted upon to tank the economy and/or mismanage a crisis, the formula has worked rather well, hasn't it? /s
Silver Symposium, you said:
****[N]o one in the Democratic party has actually managed to pull together a coalition of Democrats in a not disaster setting since Carter, and even then he only lasted one term.*****
.
Seems to me Obama did exactly what you say no Democrat has done.
By your own reckoning, Obama and Biden both won on account of the crisis that prevailed when they first ran. You seem to suggest that Biden-then-Harris lost because the 2024 Democratic standard bearer was not rising to save the country from a crisis.
That is also true of Obama in 2012, and he won.
Perhaps you mean your analysis to apply in the scenario of non-incumbency and you reached back to Carter in 1976 as the only Democratic candidate to accomplish the feat of prevailing as a first-timet in a non-disaster scenario.
How then do we explain Clinton in 1992? Oh, I know -- Ross Perot.
Seems to me there is little utility in the kind of pattern or rule you suggest. Each race has its own peculiarities and dynamics.
And your solution is?
Seems to me Dems have had the crises handed to them on a silver (gold?) platter. The plundering of our democracy to line the pockets of the corporate and techno wealthy.
"Also, it's worth noting that the last party to be told that they needed to reverse course was the GOP after Romney, they doubled down, and won."
The Trump-era GOP has been perceived as more *moderate* than the Romney-era GOP, actually. Why? It was seen as less economically right-wing (more skeptical of free trade, and Trump explicitly promised to not cut Social Security and Medicare, something that sank Bush in his 2nd term as well as McCain/Romney), less hawkish in foreign policy, and less religious-coded.
But it doubled down on racism, sexism, xenophobia, and all-around dickishness. And theyтАЩre corrupt as f*ck.
What it was тАЬseen asтАЭ has definitely not turned out to be what it actually IS. Trump is not economically conservative (blowing up the debt/deficit, huge tariffs) heтАЩs not less hawkish, heтАЩs more (belligerent, threatening) & he is hugely religious-coded!! Trump himself isnтАЩt religious at all, but heтАЩs great at pretending, & now we have rabid ChristoFascists running our lives.
"Trump is not economically conservative" - That's his entire appeal! The only part that's unpopular is the tariffs, and that only because of the price increases.
"heтАЩs not less hawkish" - He didn't talk about Canada and Greenland during the campaign, so at the time of the election, he was seen as less hawkish as compared to the Dems, who according to median voters got the US "involved in 2 wars" (Ukraine and Gaza).
"he is hugely religious-coded" - Lol, no. Not even most of his own supporters actually believe he's religious. The evangelicals vote for him because "evangelical" is a political identity, not a religious one, and they have no God separate from MAGA (this is not the case for, say, mainline Protestants, Catholics, or even Mormons, even if many of those voted for him as well). He hardly ever talks about LGB people, and loudly repudiated the extremist pro-lifers when he refused to support a national abortion ban and vowed to leave abortion to the states. Everyone, including his own supporters, knows he's a womanizer. In fact, that actually helps him - nobody believes that he'll ban something that he personally benefited from.
So basically heтАЩs a liar, & they donтАЩt care that heтАЩs a liar, heтАЩs also the most corrupt president in modern history.
Oh, they know he's a liar. It actually helps him. They (median voters, not the hardcore MAGA base) assume that he won't do what he says he's going to do, which is how they rationalize voting for him. I hear a lot of "oh, he'd never do that, it's just a bluff/negotiating tactic/a joke/exaggerating to make a point", but they think he's "directionally correct", in the sense that they want things to move more in his direction, under the assumption that it won't go too far because Trump always lies and exaggerates. And his first term basically cemented that image, as he didn't fulfill most of his most outlandish promises. People vote for him more because they're dissatisfied with things under the Dems and want to send a message to them. As for the democracy stuff? Again, so outlandish voters don't believe it, and since elections proceeded as normal last time...
Well, those тАЬOh heтАЩll never do thatтАЭ voters are in the find out stage now!!
Oh, heтАЩs not going to deport my tia, or my wife, sheтАЩs been here 20 yrs, she works, & pays taxes; heтАЩs only going to deport the bad ones, the criminals. I sure hope they see how very wrong they were.
Believe me, I know about trump voters, my entire family are them!! Except for 1 nephew & his wife. ItтАЩs almost impossible for me to talk to them, because I just want to scream.
I don't like, or use, the word "moderate." The MAGA cult is certainly less conservative than the GOP of old, in terms of economics, defense and law-and-order. But it is unabashedly *authoritarian*. Many voters want just that, and many others don't know or care what MAGA stands for as long as it "owns the libs."
People heard what they wanted to hear when they listened to Trump. There wasn't anything moderate about Trump in 2016, 2020 or 2024.
I don't know that this is true. It's more that Trump is someone who voters impose their preferences on. So he himself appears to be whatever they want him to be. But the party is not less radical. It's more. It just has a standard bearer who lots of voters place their ideas on.
It's more radical in the sense that Trump is more willing to break democracy and institutional norms, but Trump isn't coded as particularly radical in terms of *policies*.
Deporting US Citizens? Corporate tax cuts? Appointing judges to overturn Roe v Wade? Remember the Muslim ban? Abandoning Ukraine?
It's not as if his policy objectives have been 'moderate'. As others have pointed out, voters believe what they want to believe about his policies.
"Deporting US Citizens" - never mentioned in the campaign
"Appointing judges to overturn Roe v Wade" - ...followed by loud, repeated denunciations of a national abortion ban and a promise to keep abortion a state issue.
"Abandoning Ukraine" - not particularly radical according to voters, and not salient.
"Corporate tax cuts" - Not terrible policy, actually. The previous rate was too high.
"Muslim ban" - Not mentioned in the campaign this time, and was reasonably popular back when it was mentioned.
He codes as socially moderate because of his own womanizing and his lack of religiosity (you rarely see him mention LGB people, and his stances on trans people are popular), and the public is outright hostile to immigration at this point, so all the hardcore anti-immigrant stuff isn't particularly considered radical.
Corporate tax cuts are horrible policy!! It was started in the Reagan admin & his asinine trickle down economics & the middle class has been gutted ever since. This country thrived & grew the middle class when corporate & wealthy tax rates were 50% or higher, & we didnтАЩt have these massive monopolies with a chokehold on all of us. NO, no more tax cuts for the wealthy, increasing the tax rate on them is hugely popular except among the 900 or so of those super wealthy. Now we have corruption in govt equal to Russia.