Democratic Party Rebuild

[the cac mamba]

i just found this account on twitter. which HL poster is this

 

[Hood Critic]

is anyone in here gonna vote for Kamala in the '28 primary? we all know goddamn well that none of us are. might be the ONE thing we all agree on

seeing how the election turned out, this is a total nonstory. i don't wanna hear from Kamala or Tampon Tim ever again and anyone who does is a fukkin fool

I know you're the president of the Shapiro fan club but the conversation was about him saying she was lying on him not any of this other weirdness you're posting about. So even you are in agreement that what she said is probably true.

 

[MAKAVELI25]

I know you're the president of the Shapiro fan club but the conversation was about him saying she was lying on him not any of this other weirdness you're posting about. So even you are in agreement that what she said is probably true.

Yeah, obviously we don't know either way, but I can't see what her motivation would have been to lie about that. No one can make the argument that she lost the election because she didn't pick him because she lost every single swing state, not just Pennsylvania.

I voted for Kamala, but I've never really been a big fan of hers. That being said, she operates very logically and cautiously (too cautiously). So what would have been her motivation to lie about this? What exactly would she have to gain?

 

[King Kreole]

I default to the ACA because Obamacare is the boogeyman of Dem policies. That all of these voters know for sure they hate until they find out it's what they actually are on and actually known as the ACA.

My point is I don't really think there is any way the Dems can "dumb down" or "mass slogan" that will break through with the people who always say they care about the policies. If the Dems pivoted to dumb down slogans then the media would pivot to Dems are trying to belittle the voters by speaking to them with paint by number messaging.

Not to mention as others will point out nothing the Dems can message hits better in the rust belt than that good ol cism

The point isn't to win every racist idiot in America, it's to win enough people to win the election and actually deliver on substantial, material change in everyone's lives. The idiots will be dragged along to a better world kicking and screaming. You can say there isn't any way the Dems can "dumb down" or "mass slogan" that will break through with the people, but the point is that they're not even trying. They purposefully avoid the simple, powerful narratives and policies that create mass change because they're a status quo party whose goal is to obfuscate the political landscape so people feel powerless to demand real change because it would come at the expense of the Democratic Party's oligarchic donor paymasters.

The Democratic Party doesn't work for your aunt with breast cancer, it works for the health insurance company trying to deny her coverage. So of course Kamala Harris isn't going to simply, powerfully say healthcare should be a free right granted to every person in the richest nation in history, she's going to say people should have the right to access affordable healthcare if they make x% of the poverty rate in a dual income household.

The Democratic Party doesn't work for your sister struggling with childcare, it works for the corporations that benefit from forcing her to work for them so she can afford childcare. So of course she's not going to simply, powerfully say every parent in the richest nation in history should have free childcare or a national paid family leave, she's going to say there should be a modest increase to the maximum amount of Child Tax Credit, provided your child meets all the eligibility requirements and your annual income does not exceed x amount when you file your taxes correctly.

Many such cases.

 

[MAKAVELI25]

The point isn't to win every racist idiot in America, it's to win enough people to win the election and actually deliver on substantial, material change in everyone's lives. The idiots will be dragged along to a better world kicking and screaming. You can say there isn't any way the Dems can "dumb down" or "mass slogan" that will break through with the people, but the point is that they're not even trying. They purposefully avoid the simple, powerful narratives and policies that create mass change because they're a status quo party whose goal is to obfuscate the political landscape so people feel powerless to demand real change because it would come at the expense of the Democratic Party's oligarchic donor paymasters.

The Democratic Party doesn't work for your aunt with breast cancer, it works for the health insurance company trying to deny her coverage. So of course Kamala Harris isn't going to simply, powerfully say healthcare should be a free right granted to every person in the richest nation in history, she's going to say people should have the right to access affordable healthcare if they make x% of the poverty rate in a dual income household.

The Democratic Party doesn't work for your sister struggling with childcare, it works for the corporations that benefit from forcing her to work for them so she can afford childcare. So of course she's not going to simply, powerfully say every parent in the richest nation in history should have free childcare or a national paid family leave, she's going to say there should be a modest increase to the maximum amount of Child Tax Credit, provided your child meets all the eligibility requirements and your annual income does not exceed x amount when you file your taxes correctly.

Many such cases.

I agree with your policy prescriptions overall. However, I’m somewhat skeptical that this policy agenda will be persuasive to the electorate. The primary disagreement voters have with the Democratic Party (and the left more broadly) isn’t economic — it’s cultural. For the most part, the public already seems aligned with your economic proposals.

My question is this: why are we seeing right-wing shifts even in countries with extensive social safety nets, such as France? And why have parties like the Sweden Democrats gained so much ground in recent years despite Sweden having universal healthcare and other strong welfare programs? Obviously it's not an apples to apples comparison, each locality (let alone) each country has it's own different context/dynamics.

 

[mastermind]

The point isn't to win every racist idiot in America, it's to win enough people to win the election and actually deliver on substantial, material change in everyone's lives. The idiots will be dragged along to a better world kicking and screaming. You can say there isn't any way the Dems can "dumb down" or "mass slogan" that will break through with the people, but the point is that they're not even trying. They purposefully avoid the simple, powerful narratives and policies that create mass change because they're a status quo party whose goal is to obfuscate the political landscape so people feel powerless to demand real change because it would come at the expense of the Democratic Party's oligarchic donor paymasters.

The Democratic Party doesn't work for your aunt with breast cancer, it works for the health insurance company trying to deny her coverage. So of course Kamala Harris isn't going to simply, powerfully say healthcare should be a free right granted to every person in the richest nation in history, she's going to say people should have the right to access affordable healthcare if they make x% of the poverty rate in a dual income household.

The Democratic Party doesn't work for your sister struggling with childcare, it works for the corporations that benefit from forcing her to work for them so she can afford childcare. So of course she's not going to simply, powerfully say every parent in the richest nation in history should have free childcare or a national paid family leave, she's going to say there should be a modest increase to the maximum amount of Child Tax Credit, provided your child meets all the eligibility requirements and your annual income does not exceed x amount when you file your taxes correctly.

Many such cases.

We know Americans aren't that aware, but they're not as stupid as a lot of people think. They know when something sounds like BS. Saying vague shyt like "affordability" or the means testing nonsense smells like BS and doesn't work.

 

[Loose]

We know Americans aren't that aware, but they're not as stupid as a lot of people think. They know when something sounds like BS. Saying vague shyt like "affordability" or the means testing nonsense smells like BS and doesn't work.

Comes off as elitist wealthy Harvard/yale tested bs, which is what most American voters see democrats as.

 

[MAKAVELI25]

We know Americans aren't that aware, but they're not as stupid as a lot of people think. They know when something sounds like BS. Saying vague shyt like "affordability" or the means testing nonsense smells like BS and doesn't work.

I mean, in the 2024 election, voters said their biggest concern was rising prices, yet they supported a candidate who had imposed tariffs in his first term and openly promised even more expansive tariffs in his second. They also chose a candidate who campaigned on prosecuting his political enemies—and now seem surprised that he’s spending so much time doing exactly that. And they’re shocked that a politician who promised mass deportations is, somehow, creating a system where even citizens are getting caught up in the dragnet.

There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of basic cause and effect. People who argue that voters are politically unsophisticated have, unfortunately, quite a bit of evidence to point to.

 

[mastermind]

My question is this: why are we seeing right-wing shifts even in countries with extensive social safety nets, such as France? And why have parties like the Sweden Democrats gained so much ground in recent years despite Sweden having universal healthcare and other strong welfare programs? Obviously it's not an apples to apples comparison, each locality (let alone) each country has it's own different context/dynamics.

Good question.

They all latched on to immigration, like in the US.

I think our challenges are different than Sweden in that they are way more homogenous. Also they’ve not had as strong economy in the last decade also.

I think a lot of the west is moving right due to the failure of liberalism.

 

[mastermind]

I mean, in the 2024 election, voters said their biggest concern was rising prices, yet they supported a candidate who had imposed tariffs in his first term and openly promised even more expansive tariffs in his second. They also chose a candidate who campaigned on prosecuting his political enemies—and now seem surprised that he’s spending so much time doing exactly that. And they’re shocked that a politician who promised mass deportations is, somehow, creating a system where even citizens are getting caught up in the dragnet.

There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of basic cause and effect. People who argue that voters are politically unsophisticated have, unfortunately, quite a bit of evidence to point to.

For sure

But what did Harris and the Democrats propose as a counter to rising prices?


Trump is an old carny but he knew to hammer home how expensive things had gotten and to blame it on Biden.

 

[King Kreole]

I agree with your policy prescriptions overall. However, I’m somewhat skeptical that this policy agenda will be persuasive to the electorate. The primary disagreement voters have with the Democratic Party (and the left more broadly) isn’t economic — it’s cultural. For the most part, the public already seems aligned with your economic proposals.

Right, I don't profess to have a magic ball and I'm not saying this would guarantee Democratic power in perpetuity. I just think it's a damn better shot than what they're taking right now. And it has the added bonus of being...you know...moral and good lol.

I think the voters are foregrounding their supposed cultural issues with the Democratic Party because they're not being given anything else to focus on. If the Democrats started adopting a robust, populist economic agenda it would be harder for the negative cultural stuff to flood the zone. And yes, according to polling the public is very deeply aligned with my economic proposals, the problem is that the Democratic Party is not, because they're more committed to oligopoly than democracy.

My question is this: why are we seeing right-wing shifts even in countries with extensive social safety nets, such as France? And why have parties like the Sweden Democrats gained so much ground in recent years despite Sweden having universal healthcare and other strong welfare programs? Obviously it's not an apples to apples comparison, each locality (let alone) each country has it's own different context/dynamics.

This is a very good question. Perhaps the fundamental question of our age. And agreeing with your caveat that each locality/country has its own specific context, my theory is that many of these countries with robust social safety nets but are still experiencing right-wing shifts have been adopting a stagnant "leftism" that has failed to keep up with the times. I think there is a deeply-rooted desire for activity and change in the Western mind, and the right are currently better at capturing that sentiment than the left, even in countries with deeper integration of leftist policies than the United States. In most of these countries, the left "won" the 20th century by being the more active force in the political arena. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, and in the wake of the ruination of Europe post-WW2 it was a genuinely revolutionary idea to institute national healthcare or other strong social safety net programs. The left - with its universalism and humanism - was the insurgent force coming out of the era of kings and queens. But now, after we've seen leftism integrate with neoliberalism in all of these countries to become the dominant political ideology, it is the right who appears to be the insurgent force. The answer for the left in these countries is to adopt a new, dynamic leftism that reframes the core values and principles of leftism to meet the current moment, not the old moment.

Immigration seems to be one of the primary issues driving the right-wing shift in the countries we're talking about. The right has been able to respond to migratory blowback from decades of Western foreign and ecological policy by activating latent demographic fears and neuroses in the minds of the public. The left can't respond to that with "...remember when we gave you healthcare 3 generations ago??" (America is a different story because the left can still use that as a weapon because they never enacted universal healthcare or the other basic European social policies), it has to adopt an aggressively pro-humanist, leftist politics that unites the dispossessed - migrant or native - in a fight against the actual root causes of the migration crisis: the multinational polluters and international military industrial complex. Because it's those same villains who are degrading life domestically in Europe and domestically in the places the migrants are coming from.

 

[MAKAVELI25]

For sure

But what did Harris and the Democrats propose as a counter to rising prices?


Trump is an old carny but he knew to hammer home how expensive things had gotten and to blame it on Biden.

That’s a fair response, but it still doesn’t address the core question: why would voters choose a candidate whose central economic promise was to implement policies that would raise their prices? It’s not enough to critique Democratic messaging—at some point we also have to hold the electorate accountable. If people vote for a candidate who openly guarantees policies that increase costs, and then complain about those increased costs, the problem isn’t just with the politicians. It reflects a deeper failure of political understanding among the voters themselves.

 

[Loose]

That’s a fair response, but it still doesn’t address the core question: why would voters choose a candidate whose central economic promise was to implement policies that would raise their prices? It’s not enough to critique Democratic messaging—at some point we also have to hold the electorate accountable. If people vote for a candidate who openly guarantees policies that increase costs, and then complain about those increased costs, the problem isn’t just with the politicians. It reflects a deeper failure of political understanding among the voters themselves.

Trumps argument ( I don't agree with it) was that tarrifs would bring back jobs from overseas and eliminate income taxes.

 

[King Kreole]

I mean, in the 2024 election, voters said their biggest concern was rising prices, yet they supported a candidate who had imposed tariffs in his first term and openly promised even more expansive tariffs in his second.

Trump's tariffs were at least an attempt to address this primary concern. We can argue that it was bad, stupid policy, but like his dumbass border wall at least it was an answer to the question. He appeared to have ideological vitality. I can't tell you what Kamala's primary counter was because the Democratic operatives were telling us everything was actually fine. She had no ideological/policy vitality.

Public: "Ah shyt, everything is too damn expensive!"

Trump: "Yeah you're right, and it's because the guy in charge sucks shyt! I'll put money in your pocket by extorting the world because we're the most powerful country and I am your powerful King!"

Democrats/Kamala: "Actually, if you look at this chart of historical inflation data, you'll see that the stats bear out that the Biden Administration presided over a relatively economically healthy period, and you're mistaken about your financial situation. You've actually been tricked into thinking that you're poor."

 

[King Kreole]

That’s a fair response, but it still doesn’t address the core question: why would voters choose a candidate whose central economic promise was to implement policies that would raise their prices? It’s not enough to critique Democratic messaging—at some point we also have to hold the electorate accountable. If people vote for a candidate who openly guarantees policies that increase costs, and then complain about those increased costs, the problem isn’t just with the politicians. It reflects a deeper failure of political understanding among the voters themselves.

Trump didn't campaign on tariffs increasing prices though, he campaigned on them reducing prices. Most voters didn't know a tariff from a turnip, so they weren't prepared to have erudite economic discussions about the historical effects of tariffs. They just knew it was a hammer that Trump said he was going to use to smash prices down. That's what effective messaging looks like. Democratic operatives are scared to pick up hammers because they don't want to be responsible for the power. Cucked party.

You can say it's a failure on the political understanding or education amongst the voters, but this is the world we have. And the Democratic Party isn't trying to make voters smarter, they're just as happy to play the dumb voter game because a smart electorate isn't going to tolerate the Democratic Party's bullshyt either.