Democratic (Party) Direction

i'm also not convinced about some of those salary numbers -- how is he defining "household"? and is he giving salaries in cities like new york and san francisco equal weight to ones in poor rural regions? how does income tax figure in? it's kinda vague.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the salary numbers either -- plenty of households still struggle on an income of $60,000 a year. The article gets it right that those people don't receive any government assistance, but that's just where the problem lies -- they end up too well off to get assistance but still unable to afford their debt and medical bills.

or hollywood actor

the article suggested that the dividing line between affluent and poor was $50K per household, but for a married couple where both spouses work that only comes out to $25K per person, which isn't much once you figure in the high cost of living in america. plus, the article doesn't say who in these salary ranges pay for their own insurance and retirement funds.

read: "we won't send your existing jobs to india."

it could happen, provided the elected politicians don't have any vested corporate interests. and monkeys might fly etc.

hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
hohohohoHOHOHOHOHOHOOH
heheheheheHEHEHEHEEEHEHEEEHEEHAHAHAHAHAHASNORTSNORTSNORT!

sorry

Er wait, am I talking about Americans, or ILXors?

it is funny how many "affluent" "property owners" are up to their necks in mortgages and high-interest loans. it's like that commercial where the rich white suburban lawnmower dude says "i'm in debt up to my eyeballs!"

In the vast swaths of country between the megapolises there are people raising families of 5 on $57,000 a year and doing it relatively painlessly. And yeah, economic issues don't mean a goddamned thing to them.

Wow, what an incredible insight. Very novel!

"Environics found social values moving away from the authority end of the scale, with its emphasis on responsibility, duty, and tradition, to a more atomized, rage-filled outlook that values consumption, sexual permissiveness, and xenophobia. The trend was toward values in the individuality quadrant."

I've long thought that if the Democratic party would focus their message on individualism (and the resulting freedom it implies) that they might get somewhere.

Today’s average American “worker” is, in short, very much on his or her own -- too prosperous to be eligible for most government assistance programs and, because of job laws that date back three quarters of a century, unable to unionize. Such isolation and atomization have not led to a new wave of social solidarity and economic populism, however. Instead, these changes have bred resentment toward those who do have outside aid, whether from government or from unions, and an escalating ethos of every man for himself. Against that ethos, voters have increasingly flocked to politicians who recognize that the combination of relative affluence and relative isolation has created an opening for cultural appeals.

"Every man for himself" has been an American credo for hundreds of years. It's the essence of competition, of capitalism, of industry. There's a bridge somewhere between individualism and community--is the Democratic party forcing people over a bridge or seeking one?

American voters have taken shelter under the various wings of conservative traditionalism because there has been no one on the Democratic side in recent years to defend traditional, sensible middle-class values against the onslaught of the new nihilistic, macho, libertarian lawlessness unleashed by an economy that pits every man against his fellows.

Maybe they're taking shelter because they don't think it's an economy that's pitting man against man, it's shelter from the resulting culture war. What are "traditional, sensible middle-class values" anyway? The only hint we get from this article is that candidates should talk about religion and that will mitigate their stance on the death penalty (in Virginia.)

I am happy to see the wasteland that is the Democratic Party looking inward. The Republicans wouldn't dare stare into their own dark abyss.

As for the "average American household" that makes $60K a year, it would have been more informative to see the median income, because the average is skewed upwards by those at the top of the scale - ie., less than 50% of Americans make the "average" income.

Lakoff's extensively written about the need for Democratic candidates and progressives in general to start explicitly talking about values. Also, for campaigns to work at creating more of an overall narrative for a candidate than just a laundry list of policies. It's only his work on the framing aspect that's received attention lately, not so much his work on defining the values systems that right/left folks tend to hold(e.g. "maintaining authority" vs "care & responsibility").

He's offered up Schwarzneggar's campaign as an example of a guy who ran entirely on narrative & perceived identity, and expressively refused to offer up any policy suggestions. Most folks don't have the time/energy/inclination to get into policy specifics, but if they trust your guy, they're trust him to take care of the details.

As he says,

"The pollsters didn’t understand it because they thought that people voted on the issues and on self-interest. Well, sometimes they do. But mostly they vote on their identity -- on persons that they trust to be like them, or to be like people they admire"

which connects to that aspirational bit that the article mentions.

Jim Wallis has talked about several of these same issues over the last year as well, especially with on the whole "onslaught of the new nihilistic, macho, libertarian lawlessness unleashed by an economy that pits every man against his fellows" bit.

Wallis has written about conversations his group has had with Frank Luntz and some other Repub pollsters who were quite open about their m.o. being to get voters so caught in such intense issues that they vote against their economic interest.

As other folks have pointed out, the Republicans have been better that bring the polls to them(gay marriage is the biggest thing you care about) vs the Democrats moving to where the polls now seem to be(well i guess we need to move rightward on gay marriage).

That's the thing, innit? If you build up an entire apparatus to both promote & reinforce certain narratives, people will believe them even if they have no basis in fact. George W. Bush is steadfast & strong, Kerry's a weak-willed flip-flopper, Republicans are all about a smaller government, supply-side economics works, etc

oh fuck yeah this is a major bit of it, too. But since when did we start promoting self-reflection and critical thought?

For real despair, look at how Sen. Rodham Clinton is pandering to libs and righties on alternate days. "Congress run like a plantation," "I'd bomb Iran," etc.

xpost

Please God, take Hilary quietly so she won't fuck up the party with a presidential campaign. WORST POSSIBLE CANDIDATE EVER.

Huh? He's only been going this stuff in the press for about two years. Second, there are plenty of other folks who have made the connection, but have gotten shit for coverage(not fitting in with "religious = rightwing conservative" media narrative?), even when they got arrested for it on the Capitol steps.

For real despair, look at how Sen. Rodham Clinton is pandering to libs and righties on alternate days. "Congress run like a plantation," "I'd bomb Iran," etc.

DLC-candidate-in-centrist-message shocker

very much otm. The change will come from the outside.

Re the direction of the party, past actions indicate the party will be quicker to line up behind someone with Clinton's politics as opposed to Tasini's. I'm not too hopeful when it comes to the future of the Dems.

do you think it's necessary for dems to use the religious right's language ("morals" and "values")? would a less-loaded word like "ethics" skew too liberal?

my question is, when do they not? unless a voter has completely descended into some cynical nihilism, of course.

i mean, yeah, "values" has come to signify a very specific set of values, which just goes to further show that democratic types do need to start talking about theirs.

I 'umbly suggest we act as if the rule of law is what we say it is, like conservatives do.

Sorry, sic, maybe you should link me to that. I recall we were talking with youn and you apologized.

If there is some old beef you are reviving let's sort it out before it gets ugly.

But I disagree that the Democratic Party is an immovable institution. Especially right now. It's a doddering shell.

A couple of political scientists published a book a few months ago called The Hollow Parties. Here is a good summary:

It is, essentially, a historical narrative of American politics as told through its parties, using the techniques of social science. Schlozman and Rosenfeld argue that American parties historically had been highly successful at organizing political choices and political conflict, and providing a way of organizing collective action toward collective goals.

But in recent decades, they assert, both the Republican and Democratic parties have become hollow: unable to organize themselves internally (in terms of making party decisions) or externally (in terms of shaping conflict in the broader political arena). They have lost critical core functions — including voter mobilization, fundraising, ideological advocacy, and agenda setting — to para-party organizations that Schlozman and Rosenfeld term “the party blob.” So even as political polarization has in many ways reinforced Americans’ partisan identities and strengthened party leaders’ command over rank-and-file legislators, the parties have become less and less capable of fulfilling their proper functions.

So, the parties are hollow insofar as a lot of what drives them is not emerging from within the parties themselves; it's from advocacy groups, think tanks, and media organizations that do not actually have any formal affiliation with the parties. Which is not to say that the influence of those groups is easy to cast off -- the term "blobs" suggests a vague stranglehold, after all. But it seems like there may be room from within the Democratic Party itself to reconfigure its priorities, because there is no fixed set of ideologies it must adhere to.

Enlightenment-era authors of the Declaration/Constitution spoke and wrote in multiple languages (one of my ancestors studied Law at Columbia when it was still King’s College and he was down for English, French, Greek, and Latin plus Aramaic and some Hebrew and Arabic) and as a result of their scholarship many considered themselves Deists with no attachment to any particular sect.

when you told me in 2020

Are you referring to this?

Democratic (Party) Direction

If so I thought we had resolved it.

a lot of what drives them is not emerging from within the parties themselves

In theory I could be one of the people speaking to the priorities of the actual people in the Democratic party but in practice we have no input because of party bosses who hold all the power and don't permit engagement except by their rules (mostly $$ and judge appointments afaict).

https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/10/24/frank-seddio-broojklyn-democratic-party-board-elections/

I think things are different when it comes to local party politics.

The party chair won't even call meetings of the general body. We meet once every 2 years which is the absolute minimum for the county Democratic party unit to even exist, and it's a completely managed circus with no democratic representation at all. We have no vehicle to advocate for our districts or represent the concerns of our neighbors. It's my third term and I'll keep doing it but I'm not sure what the path is to change.

xp .......if the party structure was working/less "hollow," wouldn't the local voices be influencing the national party direction? I thought that was rather the point.

I'm agreeing with your post!

Still wondering who sic may have meant by his post.

I wasn't even posting much in 2020. I did one on perfume, one on "write a story one sentence at a time."

Just my magical powers of getting in people's heads, I guess. ;)

But it seems like there may be room from within the Democratic Party itself to reconfigure its priorities, because there is no fixed set of ideologies it must adhere to.

Yeah, that's more or less what I was pushing at. I'm not saying left/progressive interest groups currently have leverage to set and enforce a progressive party agenda. But I think they have the capability to both seek and gain that leverage. I know that it's hard, it's always been hard to advance progressive causes.

And per io's post, some of that work absolutely is at the local party levels. Other parts of it aren't in the party at all, it's organizing and building power outside the party that can be brought to bear on the party. Going back to the NRA, the way they enforced their agenda is they beat Republicans in primaries. You don't even have to do that too many times to get people's attention — but you do have to be able to do it sometimes.

Astra Taylor:

"When Democrats insist that Trump had no ground game, they ignore the right wing’s investment and presence in spaces that are not purely electoral and that engage people year-round ... The party’s much ballyhooed ground game failed because it was engineered to facilitate one-off conversations that stick to a script instead of supporting local organizations and campaigns that engage ordinary people around issues they care about."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/nov/25/democrats-organizing-get-out-the-vote

“(and I had been waiting four years to see if you would say it to anyone else)”

.. really? this is totally normal!

lol sorry

Well the point was I never said thise words, and I did not say them 4 years ago.

It was an oddly specific claim that had the ring of truth.

I linked to the conversation I think sic was referring to. sic did not respond.

I am curious whay being a lawyer has to do with it too. I have referred to thay frequently over 20+ years.

I am open to clearing this up, but it's very strange

I have no quarrel with sic or brimstead but it's an oddly recursive and repetitive conversation that started, ironically, with sic embedding an old Kamala Harris tweet into this very thread, 2 years ago (not 4).

Apologies for the last post, I hadn’t noticed the year on that tweet, which makes my reply exceptionally dickish.

I had/have no idea about any aspect of youn’s irl identity, though, and was previously sincerely suggesting that perceived criticisms of the democratic party direction itt might be related to said direction, in a similar flat observational tone to (my reading of) youn’s own post.

Always appreciate a call-out, though.

― Vance Vance Devolution (sic), Monday, July 4, 2022 7:32 PM bookmarkflaglink

Appreciate that, sic. Now you know.

― felicity, Monday, July 4, 2022 8:30 PM bookmarkflaglink

I honestly think Twitter embeds make threads stupider, but people seem addicted.

Rahm Emanuel interviewed by two different NYT columnists (Ezra Klein, Bret Stephens) this week. 😬

Personally, I'm rooting for Ben Wikler in the DNC chair race.

This made the rounds today: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-party-civic-life-local-membership/

Today? I posted it three weeks ago. But good article.

Sorry! I didn't see it. A couple of my usual joints made a big deal about it today.

I didn’t know who Ben Winkler was until a former roommate reminded me he once had dinner at our 12 person vegan coop in Dorchester. I don’t remember too much as he came across like anyone who would have dinner at our coop. I don’t know anything about his politics other than what I’ve read in the paper but I’m tentatively excited that someone that operates (or operated) in that space has a genuine chance of winning.

Thanks for the Nation article link!

Democrats should do disaster relief, take on homeless-shelter shifts, cook food when members have a baby, welcome new immigrants to town, and host block parties throughout the year. Effective and inspiring community engagement should be celebrated statewide—and turned into multi-chapter efforts. This is especially important in red districts: Trust is earned not through perfectly targeted messaging in the short run but through in-person care over the long run.

I talk about this ALLLLLL THE TIME with people. There are lots of kinds of organizing; labor organizers are famously conflict-seeking and create high-confrontation/high-risk situations to test their strategies and take the fight to the bosses, but in "community organizing" writ large, it is MAKING THE PHONE CALLS and listening to people talk about their problems and then trying to solve them together. And cooking meals, and having childcare, and being around; being place-based in a very tangible way.

Where I go ehhh is thinking it's 2004 or whenever the book cited was published and people want to meet in Elk halls and such, not when technology has changed.

I agree that for white legacy institutions like the Elks and Moose lodges and the Shriners and etc, their time is probably past, but people still have real physical needs that they need to have met!

Groceries are FAMOUSLY expensive and will get worse, childcare costs like a million dollars, people are sad and looking for connection right now, especially post-election, with very real fears about how we're all going to be affected very soon! NOW IS THE TIME to invite your friends & neighbors over and have a legal expert talk about your right to refuse entry to ICE or police, about people's rights in the workplace, and...just everything.

otm

I just listened to a podcast about rural organizing in Idaho to accept the Medicaid expansion in 2018, and one of the guys who did that campaign said that some time later the state had an important vote about charter schools, and during the public comment time lots of rural people called in to speak against charters because they understood how that would harm their very small public school systems, and it was the same people who had gotten organized, gotten activated, during the Medicaid campaign!

Once people feel that power, all fights are connected and the skills transfer. Community building is the same; once you have the relationships, they can be turned toward anything you need later and make it look easy, because the work has been done already.

Where I go ehhh is thinking it's 2004 or whenever the book cited was published and people want to meet in Elk halls and such, not when technology has changed.

I agree that for white legacy institutions like the Elks and Moose lodges and the Shriners and etc, their time is probably past, but people still have real physical needs that they need to have met!

fwiw I work for one of the "mass-membership organizations" mentioned in that Nation piece (not the Elks), and while it's true that membership as a whole is gradually declining in the U.S., many chapters are thriving within their communities and passionately engage in volunteer service projects that improve people's lives. that said, the organization has always defined itself as apolitical (even when it advocates for things that many Americans consider political, like diversity and environmentalism). so I do think there is room to harness some of that energy toward explicitly political ends.

anti corporate and pro national healthcare might be things to look at

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4k6dakv7cskxttdvfpzadq7e/bafkreifwuakkqf7r4gdfqehaywxyxuvkhumzmliewy42dgdjvrwm2d6lf4@jpeg

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-will-keep-losing-until-they-stop-serving-corporate-interests-opinion-1996236

Democrats are missing something that is arguably a prerequisite for ideological messaging to have any effect whatsoever: a media apparatus that can get these messages in front of swing voters. The content of the message doesn’t matter if voters never hear it. An obvious place to start would be to build up straightforward reporting operations in news deserts in critical states, and to stop making traditional election broadcast ads the core focus of campaign spending.

...

A recent study by Paul Farhi and John Volk at Northwestern found an even more stark gap in the worst-off counties. Trump won 91 percent of “news desert” counties—where there is no local coverage of any kind—by an average of 54 percentage points. Notably, several of these are heavily Latino counties on the southern Texas border, which saw enormous swings toward Trump.

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-12-democrats-lost-propaganda-war/

Notably, several of these are heavily Latino counties on the southern Texas border, which saw enormous swings toward Trump.

I would suggest that one of the reasons for this which isn’t mentioned at all is _jobs_; one of the main employers along this area is law enforcement and border patrol, which can be some of the best gigs you can get in some areas that have been deindustrialized or never built up.

Also, Cooper’s article only gets at half the problem; you can have a fully functioning media and messaging system all you want but that doesn’t help much when you don’t have much to offer and haven’t built up any legitimacy amongst the audience you’re trying to reach.

I've heard since the election from several sources about libs and leftists proffering counter-programming to FOX, OAN, talk radio, and the like, but libs and conservatives absorb news differently. We're not pliant.

what i would do if i were a liberal billionaire is buy up a ton of local newspapers/sites start them in places where they dont exist and do solid reporting with an anti corruption/corporate angle and run liberal editorials, the big problem with the whole situation is there are no liberal billionaires

I've heard since the election from several sources about libs and leftists proffering counter-programming to FOX, OAN, talk radio, and the like, but libs and conservatives absorb news differently. We're not pliant.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, December 12, 2024 10:35 AM bookmarkflaglink

yea, lefty political junkies often take a break to do other things outside of consuming political media, but conservative media addicts seem to base their entire lives around consuming conservative media, like it is their entertainment. they aren't activists but they kind of bathe in red state red meat all day

New reporting suggests the Harris campaign squandered a lot of the $1 billion it took in. A lot of people lined their pockets, raising the question: How much of the Harris campaign was essentially a scam that took the money of desperate anti-Trump voters? https://t.co/d8v97Eona1 pic.twitter.com/edVrrTNTmF

— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) December 11, 2024

the level of profligate campaign chicanery then more grifting cycle during a Dem campaign is insanely out of control, actually it legitimately can be called a scam!

the dem party is mostly a make work program for georgetown grads

wow -- I'm gonna read a story with a Robinson byline.

I ain't got a clue about the guy tbh, alf

still a bit that really jarred awkwardly was campaigners in a predominantly neighbourhood in a swing state working from public parks and parking lots while Oprah Winfrey's production company pocketed a million. Couldn't make that shit up or maybe he did!

*predominantly black neighbourhood*

Two of our union leaders wrote this piece and I think it's spot on:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-economy-election-working-class/

Ryan Cooper seems half-right to me, in the sense that he's identified a massive media imbalance. I think he's wrong on specifics — I love local journalism, I run a local journalism operation, but buying or starting NEWSPAPERS anywhere in the country is not the answer I don't think. I mean, those places need local newspapers for all the reasons everyone needs local news, but that particular vehicle is just not where most people get their information these days and is not a very effective way to shape the broader political conversation imo. Looking to media, is correct, but it needs to be in other forms and formats.

But he's right that liberal funders ought to be funneling money to actually liberal media — a case I'm going to be making a lot myself to some of those funders in the coming year! I hope they're receptive.

Two of our union leaders wrote this piece and I think it's spot on:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-economy-election-working-class/

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Thursday, December 12, 2024 1:14 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

good piece

The Clintonian love affair with globalism, job retraining for workers whose jobs were shipped to low-wage nations, and bootstrapping through taking out student loans to secure post-secondary degrees has never been anything but a slow-burning trash fire for the millions of academically mediocre high school graduates or dropouts.

Democrats can side with corporate interests, or they can win elections. But they cannot do both.

This seems otm. At one time you could Obama your way out of this paradox but those days look gone for good

Kathy Hochul is holding a therapy session with 175 corporate reps,CEOs to "calm the nerves of the NYC business elite" in wake of Brian Thompson killing; promising state assistance for corporate security to combat "domestic terrorism."

"Demonization of corporate executives is… pic.twitter.com/XNZsAHGLXl

— Luke Goldstein (@lukewgoldstein) December 13, 2024

I love that California gives high school grads the ability to go to community college essentially for free and realize they are not cut out for post-secondary degrees.

Then again, many colleges have basically had to significantly water down expectations due to so many diploma-earning teens being functionally illiterate and unable to perform basic mathematical calculations without aids