Non-binary.
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Ah!
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I too have suspected that the effect of such activities is more to make those doing them feel good about doing something than to change all that many people’s minds.
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I know that the five emails + five text messages begging for money was getting extremely tiresome, and I’m a registered Democrat. I could see how this may have backfired for some who are registered Independents.
We gave once and we gave what we could afford. Not going to skip saving for retirement in order to contribute to multiple times and toward every Democratic race in 2024. Forget about telling me to skip the luxuries like going to the movies, eating out. We haven’t been to a theater since 2014, we don’t stream, and we can’t afford to eat out. We have almost zero disposable income and it goes to savings.
The Democratic Party really needs to rethink this strategy for future elections.
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Indeed, and I’m sorry to hear about your tight situation. I think the party needs to do and say more about daily money matters faced by people in your situation and worse. Thingsms that have more visibility than stuff like lowering credit card late fees or making airlines refund the cost of canceled flights, or loudly proclaiming concern for “thr middle class,” and rarely for the working class. The rising tide that was Biden’s “booming economy” might have lifted such people’s boats eventually, but in the meantime, things like Tromp’s $1400 checks made a lot of people feel (however falsely) like he cared about their financial pain.
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Perhaps the ‘left’ in general (though I always struggle to think of the Democratic Party being of the left) needs to do that, globally. This piece today was thought-provoking in that respect:
I find it interestingly coincidental that these words from the article below, rather sum up the article above, to a large extent:
Trump’s victory last week shows what happens when the left first abandons its natural supporters and then tells them what to think and [how to] behave.
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“Natural supporters”? As opposed to whom?
Also, that sounds a lot like saying that expressing disagreement is also a way of telling others “what to think and how to behave.” The right often equates disagreement with “being censored” or silenced…
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Yeah, it’s a load of crap. What “woke” policies was Harris advocating exactly? She mentioned trans people like one time the entire campaign. No trans person spoke at the DNC. A lot of Democratic candidates like Allred and Brown actively threw trans people under the bus, AND THEY LOST! The actual trans woman who was running for Congress won! I am so fucking tired of hearing this absolute fucking bullshit nonsense that the Democrats have moved to far to the left, or that “radical leftists” have taken over the party. God, how I wish that were true, but it’s clearly not.
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Questions from listeners, though I’m not sure if there is new material here…
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I only posted the article(s) as perhaps offering views worth thinking about. I think Bernie Sanders’ interview several posts upthread was clear on ‘as opposed to, whom’ - he was talking about the working class not seeing from Dems the things they needed to see. (I paraphrase badly, no doubt.)
I don’t think the point being made in those pieces was ‘disagreeing means telling others what to think etc’ it was more this (but it is difficult to find a short pithy extract from the Harris article to show this):
Around the world, in fact, the left looks to many voters like a coherent bloc that goes from people who lie in the road and shut down universities to would-be presidents and prime ministers – the only difference between them, as some see it, is that radical activists are honest about their ideas, whereas the people who stand for office try to cover them up.
What the US election result shows is that, when told to make a choice, millions of people will draw on those ideas, and ally themselves with the other political side. Many of them, of course, have arrived at that conclusion thanks to outright bigotry. But given the remarkable spread of votes for Trump – into Latino and black parts of the electorate, and states considered loyal Democratic heartlands, from California to New Jersey – that hardly explains the entirety of his win. What it highlights is something that many American, British and European people have known for the past 15 years, at least: that the left is now alienating huge chunks of its old base of support.**
My emphasis in the last sentence there. And whether we agree with why others are alienated by large parts of ‘the left’ or not, it remains the case that many people (e.g. those working class voters who appear to vote against their best interests) are turned off by it. Should they be pandered to? I do not think so. But it does seem to be a significant part of the problem that needs solving somehow.
(Maybe my permanent footer needs to be: Education, education, education.)
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This is where I call bullshit. People have forgotten how lukewarm support for Biden was. He overperformed expectations as president. Meanwhile, since the 2020 election, T**** led a failed insurrection against the US government and was convicted of 34 counts of felony fraud. He was going to get support from the MAGA crowd but he lost a lot of traditional Republicans on those two points. That’s not hypothetical; it’s fact.
There was a lot more enthusiasm for Harris than there was for Biden in 2020. These numbers don’t match empirical reality.
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Been saying this for a while now. We need non-authoritarian / anti-MAGA news sources / information channels. If we cannot offer people a reliable alternative (in multiple languages), they will continue tuning in to the manipulative sources that tell them exactly what they want to hear. The question is, which outlets haven’t been compromised and are willing to rise to the challenge of serving as the places to go for factual reporting?
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Okay, if there was shenanigans, then there will be evidence of said shenanigans… It could be true. But we also live in a racist, misogynistic country. That’s just the truth of it. We never did the work to end the cultural roots of racism and misogyny in this country, and Trump benefited from that.
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Here’s an interesting take on how he appeals to listeners who respond to his promises:
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There will be evidence. But are the right people looking for it right now? Because it does no good for it to come to light even 45 days from now. That’s too late. Given the speed that authorities went after T**** last time, it might already be too late.
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Respectfully, I haven’t seen the Trumpists demonstrate the kind of competence that would be required to pull off a multi-state election conspiracy affecting millions of votes.
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I don’t know… I don’t want to dismiss it out of hand, but as I’ve said before, actual conspiracies are often impossible to hide from the public, even if the conspiracists get into power. Even in places like Nazi Germany or the GDR, shit got out at the time…
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