Tuesday Open Thread

5 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. "Fool me once, Shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

   Log in to Reply

2. Supermajoritarian Thinking. Josh Marhall at TPM.

   Trump won with 49% of the vote. Harris had 48%.

   Most people support the Democratic Party policies, if our arguments can reach them. I really believe it is the medium (fox), not the message that gets in the way. However:

   • Democrats need to be able to communicate and engage non-college voters better than they do today. They need to be, in a word, bilingual… in the political languages different parts of the electorate speak in. I use this metaphor because lots of the suggestions and strategies I’ve heard from Democrats in the last two weeks don’t take enough cognizance of the fact that the ways of talking and thinking politically that have non-college voters tuning out are in many cases precisely the ones that have more educated voters tuning in. So it’s really not as simple as “stop talking in the dumb bad way” or “stop being in the liberal bubble.” It’s not as simple as that. And in any case, that’s a sneering and denigrating way of talking about many current Democrats. But it takes some understanding that different groups think and speak in different ways, have different ways of approaching what is important to them about politics. To a great degree I think the failing for Democrats is to think they can speak in that single language and make up the difference with other communities just by supporting programs that are in those people’s interests — or what they perceive to be in their interests. But that’s never going to quite work.
   • This is one of the reasons why I think a lot of the right/left discussions of what Democrats need to do misses the point. The biggest challenges don’t really fall on any kind of obvious left/right spectrum or, to put it more specifically, within any framework of moving to the left or the center. It’s more these things that are actually kind of complicated — engaging different portions of the electorate in different ways, finding some ways to meet both groups where they are, making sure those different ways aren’t too much of a channel conflict.

   Log in to Reply

   1. @PH: Dems definitely need better and more thoroughly vetted messaging. Case in point: a valid concern for trans-gender kids; admittedly a pretty small minority of youth; turned into allowing boys into girls' sports and into girls' locker rooms. DEI makes some sense, especially regarding getting kids into the outdoors. Dems had no asnwer when the far right mangled the message. Remember what happened with Bud Lite sales? Instead, progressive pundits like Ibram Kendi doubled down on the same failing messsge. Off the culture issues, Biden created a strong economy. Again, Dems had no coherent response when the far right kept saying the economy was "terrible." Hopefully you see the point.

      Log in to Reply

   2. It's fear. Fear is in the way. None of us are willing to rethink our view of the world when we're afraid.

      It is impossible for me to believe that all 74 million Trump voters are hateful, racist, misogynistic, transphobes. So what would cause someone like me, who is none of those things, to vote for Trump? The only other reasons I can come up with are ignorance and fear.

      The vast majority of us are pretty ignorant about macroeconomics and immigration policy. I know I am. In order to address our ignorance, which could allow us to be better educated to come up with actual solutions to make sure our economy and immigration policies work well for everyone, we need to be willing to admit ignorance.

      None of us are going to admit ignorance, nevertheless address it, if we're afraid.

      Republicans have done an excellent job in the past few years of building their own echo chambers and reinforcing the edges of those echo chambers with fear.

      We need to alleviate those fears to get decent people to stop aligning with Trump and MAGA and be willing to address their ignorance.

      All of us (especially people who voted for Trump) need to ask ourselves "If a stranger is telling me to be afraid, what do they gain by doing this?" and maybe that question can help us not be so willing to feel fear and make us more willing to address our ignorance and discuss things.

      Trump is a selfish asshole. He is whole-heartedy embraced by mediocre people whose insecurity drives them to harm and demean others (white nationalists, christian nationalists, misogynists, transphobes, etc.).

      I think what the Harris campaign was trying to do was to point out how Trump is embraced by those groups and separate Trump from the people who were going to vote for him out of fear and ignorance. Essentially saying "We know you're afraid, but we know you're not like THAT! You're decent people and Trump's an asshole. Vote for us." but that fell on deaf ears because if we're leaning towards voting for Trump out of fear and ignorance and that fear is being amplified, we're not even gonna listen to that Harris person!

      Anyway, if we can alleviate the fears of decent people who voted for Trump then we have a chance to be heard and to win elections.

      The alternative is to fear them more until we're all so afraid that we all stop seeing each other as humans.

      Log in to Reply

      1. Maybe not all 74 million Chickenheed but I would guess there is a hefty chunk that have racism and mysogyny at the top of their voting priorities.

         Log in to Reply