The Democrats often have noble and genuinely needed long term legislative goals like funding infrastructure and climate change mitigation, and aiding counties like Ukraine or disease burdened people in Africa. These all bring America net gains in the long term.
But they seemingly obliviously prioritize these in campaigns when they are pla…
The Democrats often have noble and genuinely needed long term legislative goals like funding infrastructure and climate change mitigation, and aiding counties like Ukraine or disease burdened people in Africa. These all bring America net gains in the long term.
But they seemingly obliviously prioritize these in campaigns when they are playing a game with short terms and frequent election cycles. Each party has a solid chunk of locked in voters, but the elusive swing voters and will they/won't they show up to the polls voters simply kneejerk back and forth from one party to the other as they blame the incumbent for any and all things they currently don't like.
They aren't nerding out like us on long think pieces about policy and rule of law ethics. They aren't reading or watching legacy newspapers and cable TV. They aren't listening to NPR or reading political blogs. They get all their info in passing on social media, from acquaintances, and their own wallet. They often decide the week of the election who they are voting for based on vibes. The giant legislative win for new roads and bridges you won in July? They don't even know about it.
That quote there summarizing the focus groups just hits the nail on the head. Hopefully the party actually thinks about that this next time.
The Democratic party needs to realize that while yes very important, having the luxury in life to care about what the country or planet looks like 10 years to decades from now is not a luxury most Americans have when they aren't able to afford necessities, rent, homes, food for themselves and children, healthcare, cars, etc. If the vote is marketed to them by both parties as a choice between Party Which Will Maybe Make Climate Change Less Bad in 2100 and Magic Man Who Will Make Everything Cheap and Great, they will mostly vote for the Magic Man. Because people are desperate, and often frankly stupid and uneducated. Only stupidly naive people would vote for a guy who tried to steal the country a few years ago, other than legit right wing fascists who want that. Every single regretful swing Trump voter quote I see is a picture of a totally clueless moron who actually really did think he was gonna rewind grocery prices back to 2017. How, dumbass? If it was that easy, wouldn't Biden have just done it? I digress.
If you have the financial and personal freedom to make climate change or the longterm condition of roads and bridges your number one concern, you are comfortable and doing better than most. That includes people like me. People with immediate pressing issues like those above cannot and will not prioritize those long term topics when voting. They will do silly desperate shit like vote as if the President has a magic lever controlling each commodity price in the oval office and they are just one election day away from New Guy magically lowering all prices. They view the US President as the mastermind behind everything down to stuff controlled only by their local city or county politics and elections. Again, because they're stupid and don't know how their own country works. Democrats need to remember they are attempting to reach true idiots here who would get a 12 out of 100 on a 6th grade civics test. While at the same time, not letting it be known that they think these stupid people are stupid (they are and the gop knows it but is better at talking to them as if they are all brilliant).
You see the same thing of putting the cart before the horse on trans issues. We can mostly all agree here that this is the morally the proper stance to take. These people do exist, and do need civil rights. It's the right thing to do. But the ham fisted way they attempted to ram these very large changes to people's established notions of what genders and sexes are, and how they fit into the world at large, was just yet again overplaying a hand they didn't have the cards to play. It's like trying to ram through gay marriage equality in 1982 - it may be right, but the public opinion isn't there yet to get that win yet. You need to get a majority of them on board first before making it a central policy in a platform. Those HURRRR KAMALA USED TAX MONEY ON PRISONER SEX CHANGES BRO ads sold more votes for Trump than I'd wager all of the Dems frequent self glazing about their infrastructure bill did for them.
The Democrats are very good at messaging to the people who will already be voting for them - well off or at least financially comfortable white college graduates who shop at Whole Foods, and select minority groups (though even this time Trump took some of them rightward too). long term projects just don't move the needle against a fascist fire hose of propaganda and pot stirring about hot button, more readily seen problems like grocery prices and home affordability, even when the rest of us all know the Republican Party isn't going to a damn thing about after they win (because they can't undo a pandemic worth of global inflation either). Voters will get more hot and bothered about like 8 trans kids in high school sports than they will about the highway bridge in town being about to collapse.
They have to find a way to harp more on these kinds of immediate problems as a means of selling the other items further down the list with them. No one paying $2000 a month in rent while making $40k a year is going to base a vote on climate change effects 60 to 80 years from now. It's not a luxury they have. Only people who have everything else figured out and stable in life can make a choice like that. Sorry. You have to tell them they are right and the economy is bad and you're gonna work to make it more affordable and THEN move on to those bigger picture projects.
They spent the entire last election cycle telling voters who perceive the economy to be bad because everything is more nominally expensive than it was a decade earlier, that no, it's actually good! Stock market great! High wages! Low unemployment! While all true, it's useless when the voters don't see it that way. You have to tell them what they want to hear a little, when the only thing the opponent is doing is telling big lies and never telling them no or they're wrong about a single thing. Like just read the fucking room.
You give them too much credit. The white working class didn't vote for Trump because they think he is some economic genius (although it wasn't hard to contrast Trump's pre-Covid economy with Biden's high prices/9% inflation and 7.5% interest rates). They don't really care about economics, no matter what they tell pollsters and focus groups.
They care about "Other". Period. They see the Democrats as centering blacks, gays, feminists, hippies, illegals, and the like over them. If you held out your hand to offer them a $100 bill, they'd spit on it if they believed you'd also try to take their privilege and give it to "those people".
The Democrats often have noble and genuinely needed long term legislative goals like funding infrastructure and climate change mitigation, and aiding counties like Ukraine or disease burdened people in Africa. These all bring America net gains in the long term.
But they seemingly obliviously prioritize these in campaigns when they are playing a game with short terms and frequent election cycles. Each party has a solid chunk of locked in voters, but the elusive swing voters and will they/won't they show up to the polls voters simply kneejerk back and forth from one party to the other as they blame the incumbent for any and all things they currently don't like.
They aren't nerding out like us on long think pieces about policy and rule of law ethics. They aren't reading or watching legacy newspapers and cable TV. They aren't listening to NPR or reading political blogs. They get all their info in passing on social media, from acquaintances, and their own wallet. They often decide the week of the election who they are voting for based on vibes. The giant legislative win for new roads and bridges you won in July? They don't even know about it.
That quote there summarizing the focus groups just hits the nail on the head. Hopefully the party actually thinks about that this next time.
The Democratic party needs to realize that while yes very important, having the luxury in life to care about what the country or planet looks like 10 years to decades from now is not a luxury most Americans have when they aren't able to afford necessities, rent, homes, food for themselves and children, healthcare, cars, etc. If the vote is marketed to them by both parties as a choice between Party Which Will Maybe Make Climate Change Less Bad in 2100 and Magic Man Who Will Make Everything Cheap and Great, they will mostly vote for the Magic Man. Because people are desperate, and often frankly stupid and uneducated. Only stupidly naive people would vote for a guy who tried to steal the country a few years ago, other than legit right wing fascists who want that. Every single regretful swing Trump voter quote I see is a picture of a totally clueless moron who actually really did think he was gonna rewind grocery prices back to 2017. How, dumbass? If it was that easy, wouldn't Biden have just done it? I digress.
If you have the financial and personal freedom to make climate change or the longterm condition of roads and bridges your number one concern, you are comfortable and doing better than most. That includes people like me. People with immediate pressing issues like those above cannot and will not prioritize those long term topics when voting. They will do silly desperate shit like vote as if the President has a magic lever controlling each commodity price in the oval office and they are just one election day away from New Guy magically lowering all prices. They view the US President as the mastermind behind everything down to stuff controlled only by their local city or county politics and elections. Again, because they're stupid and don't know how their own country works. Democrats need to remember they are attempting to reach true idiots here who would get a 12 out of 100 on a 6th grade civics test. While at the same time, not letting it be known that they think these stupid people are stupid (they are and the gop knows it but is better at talking to them as if they are all brilliant).
You see the same thing of putting the cart before the horse on trans issues. We can mostly all agree here that this is the morally the proper stance to take. These people do exist, and do need civil rights. It's the right thing to do. But the ham fisted way they attempted to ram these very large changes to people's established notions of what genders and sexes are, and how they fit into the world at large, was just yet again overplaying a hand they didn't have the cards to play. It's like trying to ram through gay marriage equality in 1982 - it may be right, but the public opinion isn't there yet to get that win yet. You need to get a majority of them on board first before making it a central policy in a platform. Those HURRRR KAMALA USED TAX MONEY ON PRISONER SEX CHANGES BRO ads sold more votes for Trump than I'd wager all of the Dems frequent self glazing about their infrastructure bill did for them.
The Democrats are very good at messaging to the people who will already be voting for them - well off or at least financially comfortable white college graduates who shop at Whole Foods, and select minority groups (though even this time Trump took some of them rightward too). long term projects just don't move the needle against a fascist fire hose of propaganda and pot stirring about hot button, more readily seen problems like grocery prices and home affordability, even when the rest of us all know the Republican Party isn't going to a damn thing about after they win (because they can't undo a pandemic worth of global inflation either). Voters will get more hot and bothered about like 8 trans kids in high school sports than they will about the highway bridge in town being about to collapse.
They have to find a way to harp more on these kinds of immediate problems as a means of selling the other items further down the list with them. No one paying $2000 a month in rent while making $40k a year is going to base a vote on climate change effects 60 to 80 years from now. It's not a luxury they have. Only people who have everything else figured out and stable in life can make a choice like that. Sorry. You have to tell them they are right and the economy is bad and you're gonna work to make it more affordable and THEN move on to those bigger picture projects.
They spent the entire last election cycle telling voters who perceive the economy to be bad because everything is more nominally expensive than it was a decade earlier, that no, it's actually good! Stock market great! High wages! Low unemployment! While all true, it's useless when the voters don't see it that way. You have to tell them what they want to hear a little, when the only thing the opponent is doing is telling big lies and never telling them no or they're wrong about a single thing. Like just read the fucking room.
You give them too much credit. The white working class didn't vote for Trump because they think he is some economic genius (although it wasn't hard to contrast Trump's pre-Covid economy with Biden's high prices/9% inflation and 7.5% interest rates). They don't really care about economics, no matter what they tell pollsters and focus groups.
They care about "Other". Period. They see the Democrats as centering blacks, gays, feminists, hippies, illegals, and the like over them. If you held out your hand to offer them a $100 bill, they'd spit on it if they believed you'd also try to take their privilege and give it to "those people".