Am I the only one occasionally thinking of “Macbeth” bits when it comes to Dunce Inane?
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I didn’t vote for Obama in 2012, but I did vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2020, I will vote for whomever the Democrats put up.
Why people vote the way they do is complicated and silly at the same time. There’s a lot of lesser-of-two-evils stuff, a lot of petty grievances, and absolutely insane amounts of low-information voting. Low-information voters are still voters. Also, most voters are low-information, even if we think we aren’t.
There are. I had always been taught that racism was basically a problem we had in the 60s, but it automagically went away during the Civil Rights Era. If that were true, then the same people would be around 20-30 years later when I was in school, and presumably they’d be very butthurt about civil rights, so they’d be more racist, not less. Plus, Reagan was insanely racist, but was elected in 1980 with 489 electoral college votes and re-elected with 525 (every state but Minnesota) in 1984. Then in the 1990s there was what was curiously termed “political correctness”, and which was commonly interpreted to mean “be as racist as you want, just don’t say the wrong words” 
In the Obama Era, about 90% of the criticism toward Obama was race-based. There were the Third Party weirdoes like me criticizing his policies, but very few. All of the Obama Derangement Syndrome stuff was based on race. Add that to Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and you get President Trump.
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I was thinking last night that part of the reason Trump’s support is so durable is that people have been wishing for, yet never daring to imagine, an “outsider” president for their entire lives. Washington is an impenetrable fortress of lies and corruption, and the problem, they suppose, is that there’s been no way for a “common man” to get in there and straighten things out.
We all understand that Trump is a well-connected billionaire whose interests are divergent from those of his supporters, but he is a bona fide racist grandpa who legitimately shares his supporters’ lowbrow taste and narcissism. We can fault them for identifying with that, but they do, and for them the 2016 election was an event of millennial proportions.
It’s unrealistic to expect them to give that up in six months, or four years. If the common man sucks at being president, then his supporters must actually be the ignorant yokels they’ve always been taken for. If he’s not the common man, and they’ve been conned, then…they’re the ignorant yokels they’ve always been taken for.
There’s no easy way for them to resolve that cognitive dissonance.
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Democrats are unveiling a new economic program, but will anyone notice?
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Or will anyone believe it.
An insider like Schumer is not in a position to rebrand the Democratic Party.
We already know what it, and he, stand for: More of the same, only less.
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Indeed. If there is a rebranding coming, that’s great, but it won’t be him. Maybe Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren could do something, though.
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“For the middle class”
Fucking hell.
The white middle class are overwhelmingly and irretrievably Trumpified.
Meanwhile, the working class are almost completely unrepresented, despite outnumbering the well-off and being the only economic group that didn’t support Trump.
Schumer is pushing nothing but an empty slogan, and he can’t even get that right.
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Not all of us
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I’ve always assumed that “middle class” is just how most people like to think of themselves. If they can’t get by, then that’s evidence that the middle class is “under stress.” “Poor,” “lower-middle,” “low income,” and “working class” are street corner weirdos and trailer park meth-heads, so when politicians say that they want to help the “middle class,” what they really mean is “help you because you’re not really poor. You just, you know, have any money.”
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OMFG. That speech at the Boyscout Jamboree, folks. If someone wants to provide a link… I am about to start driving, but… OMFG.
That man ain’t right.
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They were really kind to that old man, listening to his stories.
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Please don’t Trump and drive.
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Giving employers a tax break for job training is not exactly a bold, democratic socialist, 21st century move. It’s not exactly what people are clamoring for.
I want to see the party commit to single-payer.
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Yes, upper working class folks tend to describe themselves as middle class when surveyed. Partly through aspiration, partly through embarrassment. The extent to which they describe themselves as middle class is not the same as the extent to which they believe themselves to be middle class.
Meanwhile, at the other end, the petty aristocracy of the USA like to define middle class as anything below a million a year. I’ve seen recent posts describing people who own multiple houses as “lower middle class”.
There are ways around the issue. Try “ordinary Americans”. Try “working Americans”. Try “the American people”.
But they need to stop pretending that the working class don’t exist and that this ambiguously defined “middle class” are the sole deserving beneficiaries of all political largesse.
Median household income in the USA is about $55,000. Households vary, but that’s probably an average of about $35,000 per adult once you account for single parent households and 3+ adult houses.
Half of America makes less than that.
If you’re pitching your policies at people who can reliably afford to buy houses, you’re missing most of the people.
The reason why centre-right “liberal” parties like to pitch for the middle class isn’t because everyone identifies as middle class. It’s because they know that the working class have nowhere else to go when there isn’t a genuine left alternative. A far right vote is suicidal for workers, and most of them know that.
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Also, we donate.
I’m not sure about that. Part of the problem is they don’t recognise “far right” as a category. It seems to me still very much “First they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew…”
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Not all, but most.
The problem with a “the workers have no choice but to vote for us” strategy is that eventually they push it too far. Once it gets to the point that a vote for either party is suicidal, the workers stay home. Especially when that factor is amplified by disenfranchisement and voter suppression.
The major change in working class votes in the last election wasn’t a surge of workers coming out for Trump. It was a mass of poor Obama voters who stayed at home.
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My co-worker’s son was there. He called home as soon as he got back to his troop’s area, and he was very upset.
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I don’t understand the table. Could you post a link to the actual article (not doubting your conclusion, just don’t understand…)
No. The Democrats have spectacularly failed by losing to a terrible candidate when their own party was incumbent. They have resolved that every day Americans will not have a say in the direction of the country, and have sold out to monied interests. They systemically ignored the rising support on the left, and stuck to their centrist ideals. So No. You’ve had your chance and you failed. The only move I will embrace by the Democrats is to get the fuck out of the way. Leadership - step down. Incumbents - tow the new liberal left line, or face primary challenges. Face the likelihood that you will keep losing to a crappy dying Republican party. You are not going to starve us out. I am not coming back to a Centrist Democratic party - it is as much the enemy as the GOP.
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