Even if you are a “I can read it faster than I can watch it or listen to it person”, I hope you’ll make an exception and watch this video.
It’s less than 3 minutes long.
Then maybe we can talk about what we agree with, anything we might not agree with, and maybe use this as a jumping off point to talk about other ideas we might have about how we win.
While I wait 3 minutes for you all to finishing watching the video :-) can I just say that Betty Cracker has had some seriously kick-ass posts here in the morning lately.
Open thread.
J. Arthur Crank
I hereby give you permission to say this, as well as write it.
zhena gogolia
I did listen to the whole video. Thank you for promoting something potentially positive. I am distressed that he never mentioned racism or LGBTQ rights.
have to go now. Will read the thread later bye
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Thank you for listening to the whole thing.
Suzanne
I mean, I find what he says unobjectionable, but — and I say this as someone who fundamentally wants to know how stuff works — what does he think is the strategy for coming together?
Y’all know I read some terrible people, and one of them, Sohrab Ahmari, wrote something today that I found intriguing:
This might be some of that strategy for coming together, that incredibly loose framework that we can share.
chemiclord
Sure? There is a lot of truth to this… but there’s also a lot of problems with this stance.
Something I like to say about Democrats is that we aren’t particularly a majority in a traditional political sense. We are a majority of minority interests. And yes, there is a degree that Democrats must have a very big tent to have the numbers in order to enact anything. Yes, such a coalition is going to have a very broad swath of interests, and more than a handful are going to wind up mutually exclusive of others.
(See also: the Gaza and Israel conflict; even in completely good faith, that is a fault line in which what one side wants frequently requires you to outright dismiss the wants of the other.)
But…
There are some groups that some of our caucus want to bring in that have not been shy about what they want from the Democratic coalition, and frankly, what they want should be an utter dealbreaker, even if it means we don’t have the numbers to win elections.
Case in point, every time a politician says we need to court “the white working class?” Fuck that shit. The “white working class” hasn’t exactly been secret about what they want. Sure, they make mouth noises about how they could accept “Democratic Socialism,” but you better not be giving anything to those “people who don’t deserve it,” ya know… like black people, or trans people, or gay people, or unmarried women, etc.
Or when a politician talks about “courting moderates.” Yeah, we’ve already fucking done that. The right flank of the Democratic Party are people who would be conservatives if it wasn’t for the outright vile bigotry and deplorable vileness of the current GOP. Anybody worth poaching from the center right has already been fucking poached. You’re looking at a rounding error number of voters at this point.
A lot of the times when I hear talking heads mumble about “expanding the coalition” what I hear is, “I would rather waste my time looking for some mythical silent majority of secret socialists or secret liberals than try to work with the people already in the tent.”
AM in NC
I agree that we must win, and we win by enlarging the coalition, but he also says “so we can enact our agenda” like this is a decided thing.
Joe Rogan and the bros actively seem to want to strip rights form women and gay people and immigrants, so that’s a problem. I mean, yes, let’s welcome them on the economic stuff we might have a chance with; let’s welcome them on the foreign policy stuff we might have a chance with. BUT I am not ok with throwing women or gay people or trans people or immigrants under the bus. It is a real problem with the Democrats needing to build a diverse coalition in order to beat the Republicans – who are much more demographically homogeneous. THAT’S the tough nut to crack.
Chief Oshkosh
The message of the video is fine. I have no objection to someone who decides, for whatever reason, to stop voting for the worst of the worst. They are welcome to come along for the ride. But…
Election after election proves that we cannot appeal to them. They are the mythical unicorn voter. We lose more of our broader base than we ever gain by actively pursuing the relative handful of people who will actually change their voting habits.
We win when we get the base out. Time after time. We lose when we back off.
Now, I don’t mean that we should not run in every race in every place. I argue the opposite. But we should run as aggressive Democrats, even in Bugtussle, OK or Ding Dong, TX.
Suzanne
@chemiclord:
This is what I hear when I hear or read people asserting that there is a huge mass of people who don’t vote because neither party serves them well and they’re up for grabs. I don’t know why there’s a belief that these people are paying attention or they’re secret liberals. Most of the people who are paying attention already vote, and if these people who are not voting did vote, I would bet that they’re “politically incoherent” and thus would be just as likely to vote for the GOP. Maybe even moreso.
bbleh
Oh noes, not pragmatism! I thought we exiled the Pragmatist faction long ago, for insufficient something-or-other, which I personally found offensive.
If they’re so pragmatic, they should join ME, and then we can all do what obviously is Right and Good. For me to accept anything else might mean I would have to [shudder] compromise, and what could possibly be worse than that? /s
(And just to avoid unnecessary explosions, I’ll add that of course that doesn’t mean making NO judgments or accepting ANY POV no matter how horrendous. The ranting bigots are welcome to stay outside the tent, thank you. But it DOES mean focusing on commonalities rather than differences, letting the smaller things slide for now, and working those out after we’ve won.)
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: That is worth sharing. Thank you.
Check back with you all later.
Scout211
I have been adding comments here and there that say (in fewer words than Cohen) what he is saying. I have hope that we can get there by the mid term elections.
OTOH, I do understand why there is so much infighting and divisiveness in the Democratic Party (and here in the comments). Many Democratic voters are still grieving this horrendous loss and every day we see in the news more horror and more losses. One of the elements of grief is searching for answers and attempting to assign blame for the loss. It’s a tough stage to get over because it makes us (temporarily) feel less helpless in our grief. It can even feel addicting to sit in judgement and blame people or groups or anything for the loss instead of feeling so helpless.
I feel like we can join together as a solid coalition and get back the House majority next year. But getting through the grief and moving to a big tent coalition may take some time. I am just hoping that we can do this in time.
chemiclord
@AM in NC: At the end of the day, we’ve tried to court them on economic and foreign policy. The problem is, come time to actually make the mark on their ballot… they always go back to what really matters to them, and they vote accordingly.
Their social and racial status. They value their whiteness and their place in the social hierarchy more than anything else. And that’s where we get it wrong. They are voting in their interests. The problem is that their interests aren’t what we think it should be.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
He didn’t mention racism and LGTBQ+ stuff because he’s essentially an abundance bro and comes at this from the center and center-right and they’ve made it clear that Dem focus on LGTBQ+ (and other civil rights) issues was an electoral loser and that Dems should abandon it…and unions and all that other supposedly core Democratic stuff.
The implication in what he says is what was said at Abundance Coachella a few weeks back: all you in the left of the Party (and this isn’t a reference to the horseshoe left for those who always want to disingenuously reframe the issue as being all about that unreachable group), stfu and go along with us because doubling down on the crap we’ve been preaching for years, and losing over, is the only way forward. That’s in essence what he means by “coming together”.
This all highlights how fractured we are. One the one hand, you have people like the woman who’s gonna tilt at a massive windmill and primary Hick here in CO, who preaches an AOC-esque, left populist agenda that echoes FDR and other bread and butter liberal issues (alluded to above by the 4 campaign points proposed by the rwnj). One the other hand, the in-control proponents of urban, cosmopolitan business “liberalism” that’s marginalized the working poor, bled us working class support across *all* ethnic demographics and would have us give up core moral values that help define us as Democrats.
The result is a widely held perception that Dems don’t actually stand for anything, rightly or wrongly, and we’re not doing much to mitigate that perception. We don’t fight, we react.
bbleh
@chemiclord: I agree there are such people — I’ve lived among them — and I’m inclined to write them off entirely. But imo most people aren’t quite that one-dimensional, and there are other ways to bring them into the fold. I think the success of the Civil Rights Movement is exhibit A for that, but there are others as well.
Unfortunately, in some cases, it takes a real pinch to get them to pay attention to other matters, economics being a major example. There’s no question in my mind that the Biden Boom worked against Democrats in some ways, in that some people were comfortable enough just to tune out, or to focus instead on comparatively trivial matters. One doesn’t WISH for a deep recession and the suffering it causes, but I think one would certainly make a lot of those voters more receptive to Dems’ economic policy arguments.
munira
I agree with Cohen 100%. We don’t have time for purity nonsense these days. We have a democracy to save.
Hunter Gathers
I am tired, absolutely tired, of these freakin’ hipsters continually braying on how we need to ‘court’ Joe Rogan and influencers in general.
Rogan’s entire act is being an ignorant dumbass who says ‘that’s wild’ to anything, from vaccines are effective to dragons exist.
The entire influencer thing, podcast bros included, is nothing but a high dollar grift.
RaflW
MN StarTribune has new state polling. This is incredibly grim, but also I think shows why the MN GOP keeps loosing statewide races (from a subscriber email newletter, so no link)
The death cult vibe isn’t just at the leader level. It’s permeating their horrible base.
chemiclord
@Scout211: Honestly? It has less to do with defeat, and more to do with just simply being a consequence of needing such a large and varied tent to have the majority needed to win.
The nature of such a coalition is going to lead to most of us being largely unsatisfied with the end result of all the jockeying and pandering and compromise. The problem is rather than accept that, a critical mass of us would rather embrace conspiracy theories and that a minority of the party has somehow managed to seize the levers and are using it solely for their gain at the expense of everyone else in the coalition.
And it’s not just “one side” that does this, either. There is just as much centrist bellyaching when a “progressive wins” (just listen to some of the whining in the aftermath of this NYC mayoral primary… or how AOC deviously uprooted an establishment Dem by… (checks notes)… actually interacting with constituents of her district and earning their trust ) as there is when leftists insist that “centrist Dems” like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders twice with the nefarious scheme of… (checks notes)… getting millions more primary votes than Bernie Sanders.
@RaflW: Their horrible base is why the leadership is the way it is. We want to believe that astroturfing and Fox News and Rush Limbaugh made reactionary voters they way there are. It’s not true. They’ve always been like this. The only thing right wing media and people like Trump have done is told them it’s okay, and gave them the permission slip they needed to be their worst selves.
gene108
What’s the Democratic agenda he refers to that will keep people engaged beyond two, at most, election cycles?
I’m hard pressed to think of what Democrats can do to keep a loose coalition of Joe Rogan, “confused” Trump voters, and others he talks about bringing to our side engaged beyond an initial anger induced backlash to Republican fuckery.
The power of right-wing propaganda to frame the public discourse is something most people do not fully appreciate. It’s probably the biggest reason Trump maintained public support despite everything he did.
Josie
We need to concentrate on what is right in front of people every day–gas prices, groceries prices, lack of opportunity for home ownership, etc. Having a plan for attacking those things will appeal to normies who don’t pay attention to politics. I think that is partially why Mamdani was successful.
NotMax
How Democrats Win.
By raking in more votes.
How? One size does not fit all. Methodology must be elastic enough to accommodate differing states and differing districts. What is gangbusters in Massachusetts will not be the same as in Idaho.
/duh!
Royko
I watched it! (Would have rather read it.) I agree in general, particularly that if formerly pro-Trump people turn on Trump, we shouldn’t spurn them because they were wrong before. We need more people on our side.
A few thoughts:
SW
If you think that 35 to 40% of the population actually supports the MAGA agenda that leaves 55 to 60% of the population up for grabs. The dilemma is that if you embrace all of them there are so many conflicting agendas that if you do manage to gain power you will likely be unable to get behind anything other than a watered down milquetoast lowest common denominator underwhelming dud of a program. Think Sinema and that turd from West Virginia. So the impulse is to have some standards to avoid that situation. But we are learning the hard way that there is something worse than having your agenda stymied. That is to be completely locked out of power while a ruthless minority wrecks havoc without regard to the rule of law. Give me gridlock any day.
H.E.Wolf
Everyone who says we’re a big, diverse group with diverse perspectives and priorities – is correct.
I think of myself as a John Lewis Democrat, which means a lot of things to me, not least the lifting-up of the most vulnerable among us.
NotMax
@Hunter Gathers
“You go with the ‘influencers’ you have, not the ones you wish you had.”
– AI Rumsfeld
//
Josie
@Josie: I missed the edit window. I did watch the video and found it interesting, but he wasn’t very specific about how he would phrase his appeal to voters.
Josie
@SW:
Excellent point.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Hunter Gathers:
Ding! Ding! Ding!
And that particularly extends to Never Trumper podcasts.
Hoodie
Seems like people are way too eager to read a bunch of stuff into a guy winning a Dem primary in NYC.
Steve LaBonne
@Hoodie: A lot of people, in all corners of the party, are actually more concerned about being right than winning elections. Not a knock on Mamdani- I like him and hope he succeeds (against the odds, I fear) in bringing real change to the city.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@bbleh: David Brooks and Bill Crystal got their heads of out of their ass, so it’s not impossible to get through to them.
The hilarious thing is Trump is inflicting so much pain on the right you can see them starting to question things.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
A post so full of truth it must be reposted. Also, let us note how Bill Burr is a regular on Rogan now that Rogan’s ratings tanked after he endorsed Trump
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl — you’re kind to say so, thanks!
@Suzanne: You could be right about the political incoherence of theoretical nonvoters who might otherwise be lured to the polls. More to the point, I suspect political incoherence infects the sliver of swing voters that both parties chase to eke out wins too.
As we’ve discussed here before, lots of people don’t really vote on policy, or if they do, it’s idiosyncratic/personal bullshit, like the laid-off national parks service employee featured in a Trump voter regrets article who thought Trump was going to pay for her IVF.
It seems like it’s all vibes and bullshit razzle-dazzle for a significant portion of swing voters. I don’t think that’s necessarily at odds with Cohen’s formula as outlined in the video, but it has implications for how to communicate with that slice of the electorate.
Scout211
Good point. It’s all just big ideas until the rubber hits the road. In the meantime, the disagreements continue and will because the Democratic Party believes in free speech and I am glad for that. But getting to a big tent coalition needed to defeat the Republican majority will be fraught with disagreements. Added: but I am still hopeful it can happen.
FastEdD
That’s what Eric Swalwell told us at our town hall last week in Young Kim’s district. “Just win, baby.” Of course that’s an Oakland Raiders NorCal thing, and we are SoCal.
Suzanne
@SW:
The downstream effect of this is really bad, though, which is that the disappointment degrades into a complete lack of belief that government can be a positive force in people’s lives.
The younger generation is much looser in their party alignment.
Captain C
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
At least with regard to Brooks, I’ll believe it when he writes a month-long series about how he spent over 2 decades sanewashing the worst conservative impulses which led to the current situation, and explains in detail not only how he was wrong to do so but what a milquetoast asshole he was and probably still is.
Kristol seems more willing to attack today’s GOP (whereas Brooks seems to just wish they would keep quiet about their BS), so I give him at least a partial pass that I won’t give to Brooks.
Geminid
@chemiclord: Regarding politicians “courting moderates”:
I think you are greatly underestimating the number of Moderates in the Democratic coalition. They’re not “a rounding error.” Moderates are half of Democratic voters at least. This has been shown repeatedly by polling where voters are asked to self-identify ideologically
Ed. And I would say more generally, I do not see Democratic politicians advocate wooing White working class people, or courting moderates. That’s pundit talk…
Steve LaBonne
@Betty Cracker: Trump won in 2016 because he activated previous non-voters, and he has held on to them. He is living refutation of the assumption that expanding turnout necessarily benefits Democrats.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: I agree with you.
We’re going on nearly a year since July of last year. Everyone grieves at their own pace, but we also don’t have the luxury of wallowing in our grief.
We need to get it together well before the midterms. It can’t be that we just hope to get it together in time. The future of democracy depends on us getting it together.
I continue to marvel at how quickly and well the people of Ukraine got it together. They went from no war to WAR in about a minute and within days they were learning to make molotov cocktails and within weeks schoolteachers were joining the fighting.
I think they are made of sterner stuff than we are, but we need to get there in a hurry.
catclub
In Evan Osnos’ book on the super rich, the second chapter is on their fear of the system breaking down and needing a retreat spot in New Zealand (or name your safe place).
But he does bring up that the last time there were too many and too rich people, those rich people gave away a LOT to build society – libraries and universities in particular spring to mind. He mentions that some of those super rich DO realize the way to not have a crackup is to build up society, in education and culture.
Not really an answer to your question, but it seemed relevant.
Kirk
First, I think a quote is worth keeping in mind:
That noted, my opinion is that I’m tired of fishing in the small pool of the 3-5% in the middle.
I want to try fishing in the ocean of non-voters, the 1/3 of the US population that didn’t vote.
Why didn’t they vote?
I don’t know but I’ll tell you two responses I’ve gotten. I’ll also tell you I have not asked to find out more. I have not answered the “why” to their responses. I’ve notdrilled to find out how many reasons there are in any systematic fashion. And since that’s what I do at work for safety issues, maybe I and a few others like me should start doing so.
The responses? Both start with Why Bother:
a) I’m just one vote
b) They’re just the same.
So here’s what I personally promise to do. I give myself permission starting after July 15 (because reasons) to start the process by seeing if someone is gathering and tabulating the “why didn’t you vote” responses. I’ll decide step two after that, but my end goal is that I have a set of counters to “Why bother…” that I can share with those who face the question. And if I find experts already doing these things I’ll piggyback while sharing their names and their work.
Because the “didn’t vote” ocean is at least 6 times the alleged size of the “haven’t decided” pond. (After all, where does pond end and damp mud hiding decided voters begin?).
sorry about stretching that analogy, it just worked
eta – I see Suzanne pre-countered while I wrote this. My response is we don’t know. Refusing to look because they might be for the other side is, well, it’s pre-surrendering.
catclub
umm, when Biden won in 2020 there were millions more voters than in 2024. So contracting turnout certainly did not work for Democrats.
Steve LaBonne
@catclub: Our billionaires are mostly a lot stupider than the Gilded Age ones. Their fortunes consist almost entirely of bytes in computer servers- stocks, crypto, etc.- yet they imagine that they can go on indefinitely testing to destruction the complex society needed to keep those rackets going.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I do not think that there is a silent cohort of any significant size of would-be-reliable left-side-of-the-aisle voters.
I do think there’s an aspect of vibes that isn’t bullshit. I think that positivity, cognitive empathy, genuine communication skills, and an ability to meaningfully connect with people and give voice to their aspirations….. are really critical political skills. I don’t think that’s bullshit.
Bullshit fills in the gap when those things are not present.
Steve LaBonne
@catclub: Non sequitur. Our people staying home is a very different problem from discovering that a lot of habitual non-voters are attracted to fascism.
catclub
Where does “They did not have vote by mail like in 2020, come up?”
Kirk
@catclub: I don’t know – I don’t think anyone does – and that’s the point.
Kirk
@Suzanne: What I seem to be hearing is “they didn’t vote so they won’t vote, and even if they do they might vote for the other side.”
If that’s what you’re saying, I think that the number of polls that show population as a whole leaning in favor our positions argues that more would vote for us than against us – /if/ we can get them ones who agree to the polls.
Suzanne
@catclub:
As I will be attending an event at one of the Carnegie Music Halls this evening, I could not agree more.
I will also note, in the postwar period…. we also built a lot, and for the growing young middle class. Houses, highways, schools, airports.
gene108
@Hunter Gathers:
Rogan’s “act” especially in the early days of his podcast was him and some buddies talking about stuff. He’s also into UFC. MMA fans were among is first listeners.
It was a lot like a few guys talking about stuff over a few drinks, with someone eventually sharing a very whacky belief and everyone debating its merits.
It’s only when he got more famous that he’s been able to shift to do interviews.
His appeal is to men interested in things like MMA, boxing, and went to other topics.
At some point there has to be room for folks into martial arts, or pro wrestling, or motor sports, etc. to find a place among Democratic aligned podcaster or social media personality, like Brian.
Another Scott
I’ll have to watch later.
It’s good we’re talking about ways to win – whether it’s build the pie higher or crush our enemies or stretch the tent or whatever.
At the moment, subject to change, I think we have to tailor our message to each race. Fix the Damn Roads or Keep your foul hands off of Social Security or The Rent is Too Damn High or Those Guys are Weird or whatever. I don’t care. Just win. We need to get the majority.
And we need compelling candidates – politics is personal.
Once we win and get the majority, then people of good will can argue about what to change and the pace of change and fighting the institutional barriers (gerrymandering, voter suppression, monsters on the courts, and all the rest).
Just win, baby!
Looking forward to reading more of the comments.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Geminid
@Geminid: I spaced out and missed the edit window. To finish:
…I do not see Democratic politicians speak of wooing the White Working Class, or courting Moderates. That’s pundit talk, and some pundit pronouncing on electoral strategy doesn’t represent the Democratic Party any more than you or I or anyone else here does.
Suzanne
@Kirk:
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. People have liked liberal positions forever, but they like liberals a lot less. So color me skeptical that the non-voting masses are going to be the key to our victory.
I will note that I believe that voting is a positive act in and of itself, and thus it’s moral and correct to get as many people to vote as possible, regardless of how they vote. But I don’t think this necessarily implicates a winning strategy for us.
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the pundits.
chemiclord
@Geminid:
On the contrary, I’m well aware how many there are. The idea that I’m railing against is that there are terribly more we can get from the current GOP coalition. That well, in my opinion, is nigh entirely tapped out.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’m gonna quote something Matt McIrvin posted here earlier in the year about “why people vote”. It doesn’t answer the basic question WG posed at the top but is pertinent to how the discussion has drifted:
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: Many people like liberal positions in the abstract but balk as soon as they learn details that would upset the status quo. Health insurance for all, yay! Wait, I might have to give up MY private insurance? Boo! I may have to pay a little more tax (liberals claim this will be more than offset by not paying premiums, but why should I trust that?) double boo! I wish people would stop paying attention to issue polls, they are meaningless and also easily manipulated by framing the questions. Actual candidate elections are where we find out what voters actually care about.
YY_Sima Qian
I think there is a mixing of concepts here. There are “coalitions” for winning elections, many elements of which tend to be fleeting. Indeed these are not really coalitions, but groups of co-belligerents in a war, & every new election is a new war. Then there are coalitions for governing, & they have to be durable. There is substantial overlap between the two types of “coalitions”, but they are not the same.
We should welcome any co-belligerent against a common enemy in time of war, as anyone would in any war. That does not mean we should welcome those co-belligerents into our governing coalitions. Liz Cheney, Bill Crystal, David Brooks, even Joe Rogan, if any of them want to train their fire at Trump, we can all take aim together. They should not influence the policy platform or agenda of the Dem Party, or even the larger anti-Fascist coalition. In governing, our coalition can form temporary partnerships w/ elements outside of it to turn specific parts of our agenda into reality, that’s it. Partnerships of convenience, not committed alliances.
We can grow the governing coalition by getting large parts of our agenda enacted, & prove that they improve the lives of the vast majority. What that set of agendas is, that can make our governing coalition durable & grow & improve the lives of the vast majority, is contested, & should be contested & sorted out, not brushed under the rug in the name of “unity”. Especially during primaries & between elections.
Politics can’t be just about winning power, & it can’t be just about benefiting one’s coalition at the expense of (or even punishing) those outside of it. Travel down that path & we end up in a different kind of horseshoe w/ the reactionaries.
Omnes Omnibus
We have to get more voters to win. Cool. We can’t be too picky over the past votes of people who come over to our side. Okay. We can’t get too hung up on details while trying to appeal to a broader group. That’s where he starts to lose me. The details are people’s lives. Medicare, medicaid, reproductive freedom, trans rights, immigration, active bigotry, etc.; we are talking about people dying or have their lives ruined.
AM in NC
@chemiclord: Yep. And that’s why we have a much harder lift than Republicans do. I’m not willing to embrace or ignore the racism/xenaphobia/sexism that it would take to win those people over to our side.
BUT, I think we don’t have to fall into the GOP trap of letting THEM define the cultural wedge du jour each and every election. We need to jujitsu them – “I’m not going to throw trans people under the bus, but is the few dozen/hundred trans athletes playing sports really more important to you than your healthcare or your Social Security or housing costs going through the roof? Please, we all know it isn’t, so WHY do Republicans keep trying to tell you it is? They don’t want you looking at their failed record of demolishing the middle class so the richest people in the history of the human race can have yet ANOTHER multi-trillion-dollar tax giveaway.”
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: The trouble is that our political institutions- starting with the Senate and the Supreme Court- are purpose-built to block the progress needed to firm up support for any Democratic governing coalition. That’s why we have had this ugly cycle in which Democrats get two years to try to clean up Republican messes before the voters get impatient and boot them out again. This problem is very, very hard to address in a meaningful way short of things, like a new constitution, that aren’t going to happen.
Captain C
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The answer to that is, “So it’s all about you, then? What kind of [bullshit*] socialist makes it all about them?”
*To be avoided if they’re convertable. If they insist on voting as consumer choice/personal brand, they deserve to feel bad about themselves.
Captain C
@YY_Sima Qian:
Biden, his administration, and their narrow majority in Congress got that done in ’21-’23, and voters told him to fuck off, even while enjoying the fruits of his efforts.
Steve LaBonne
@Captain C: America is so far gone in hyper-individualism that even people who call themselves socialists don’t really know how to prioritize the needs of society as a whole.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: When we talk about non-voters, I always think back to the SNL sketch.
“We have some veeeeery important questions! When is the election?!”
Steve LaBonne
@Captain C: Yup. More accomplishments than I would have imagined possible, but voters decided all their problems had to be solved in 2 years or else.
JML
@RaflW: I can’t say I’m surprised at this polling. Part of the disconnect with GOP voters these days is how they’ll say they support cutting funding like this…because they think it means for everyone else but them. So, sure they support cutting federal research funding, because it’s not real to them. They don’t think about Medicaid keeping their rural hospital in business or paying for Grandma’s nursing home care; they think it’s only paying for poor people (and when they think “poor” they think brown and black people) to get medical care. They’ve managed to convince themselves that Medicare and Social Security aren’t really government programs.
These polls do a terrible job illustrating the consequences of program cuts with any specificity and let people hide in their bubbles and presume that it’ll happen only to other people, not them. Which is reinforced by their GOP representatives, who blame immigrants & unions and Democrats when the rural hospital closes.
tobie
@RaflW: It’s amazing to me that we’ve become a nation that hates science. Best I can tell, Republicans and rightwing media personalities did this through a QAnon strategy. Claim that scientists are owned by BigPharma or global elites and they’re doing what they can to hoodwink ‘real Americans’™.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@YY_Sima Qian:
Thanks you for this, I’ve saved it and will undoubtedly trot out parts of it for later use. ;)
The major rub is that entire “should not influence the policy platform or agenda” bit. They, and nominal Dems (that would have been Moderate Republicans years ago) like the ones I typically list here, influence Party policy to a large degree and anybody who disagrees with that is labeled “purity pony”, etc., when, in fact, we’re pushing back for core Democratic values that have been pissed away bit by bit over the last 40 years.
I’ve said this before but we have far too many people who define their “liberalness” by the fact they support abortion rights and voted for Obama. Peel away those layers of the onion and in way too many cases it’s the same “socially liberal, fiscally conservative, racially tone-deaf” types I knew oh-too-well in the 80s and 90s.
If they vote Dem, great. But if they want to basically turn the political spectrum into Moderate Republican vs Nazi, expect push back.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Fair point!
Steve LaBonne
@tobie: Remember how Americans used to sagely opine that such and such a society was not ready for democracy? Turns out we should have been looking in the mirror.
YY_Sima Qian
@Captain C: They got a lot done, but they did not get all of it done, far from it, hampered by not having large enough majorities. Obama got a lot done, but was also hampered by the very fleeting window of having 60 votes (more than a few unreliable) in the Senate. However, failing once is not reason to stop trying. A lot was still left on the table that could be enacted w/ bigger majorities, & it wasn’t as if Biden’s program was flawless and fully comprehensive,
What is the alternative? That the majority of Americans are either evil or checked out, all of them unreachable?
If that is the answer, then prepare to emigrate, or prepare for civil war.
tobie
@Captain C: Amen. We ran away from an astonishing economic record rather than embracing it and fighting the Republican disinformation machine.
Jackie
O/T, but is this even possible? Mamdani IS an American…
This is ludicrous; yet it’s very telling how much Mamdani scares republicans.
tobie
@Steve LaBonne: Yikes. My stomach’s already twisted in knots. We really are the dopes we decried as being too susceptible to propaganda to sustain a democracy.
Hunter Gathers
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The fraternity that a lot of comedians of both genders call home is really, really wierd.
They go on Rogan because he’s their ‘brother’ and need the exposure for their latest stand-up special or unfunny limited series.
They all pretty much forgave Louis CK for strokin’ his little pig wang in front of some younger women, because he’s their ‘brother’.
They all lean on each other for connections and hope that not rocking the boat will get them a gig on The Mandalorian or game show.
JBWoodford
@tobie: I personally blame the 1960s-70s-era Republicans (especially Reagan) who brought white evangelical Christians into the party. When a significant fraction of your base thinks the world is 6000 years old, science is already most of the way out the window.
Doug R
@chemiclord:
That’s not strictly true – the problem being is that both sides are currently being led by bad faith actors.
Both reasonable sides agree on a two state solution.
Captain C
@YY_Sima Qian:
Except they didn’t get those bigger majorities. The voters rewarded them by giving the House to Republicans instead of increasing their majority, which would have helped with the obstructionism of Sinemanchin (as their votes wouldn’t have been needed with a bigger Senate majority–yes I know that other Senators would have been using them for cover, but the point is that there wouldn’t be that cover anymore).
Hopefully enough are reachable, but many of them are in fact evil, checked out, or both. Trying to get the checked out ones to care enough to actually vote for good things is one of the main problems Democrats have.
Steve LaBonne
@JBWoodford: Pretty much. And they are another classic example of people who were doing the country a favor when they used to not vote.
YY_Sima Qian
@catclub: Back during the 1st Gilded Age (as we live in another now), angry mobs armed w/ pitch forks & muskets raiding the properties of the plutocrats was a real threat, if not in the US then certainly examples abounded elsewhere. Not so much these days.
Hoodie
Lately I’ve been feeling that we’re too hung up on coming up with the right policy messages and not thinking structurally about power and the turf on which the political battle is played. This Cowen narrative kind of suggests that, but it seems hung up on tactics more than an overall strategy. Historically, the forte of Dems is legislative action. Yes, we had FDR, but the Dems had a very strong congressional leadership for decades irrespective of who was in the White House. So the first job may be to get the playing field switched there, which might mean we might want to limit our requirements for a national consensus at this point to reducing the power of the imperial presidency. Trump and the congressional GOP are constantly giving people reasons to join that type of loose coalition. The presidency needs to be neutered, not taken over. I thought we might be heading that way with Biden, but Joe seemed to lose focus on that mission, which may be why Pelosi eventually felt she had to intervene. And for all those people who think Biden was solely responsible for the achievements of his early presidency, don’t lose sight of the fact that Pelosi did a lot if not most of the heavy lifting. If you can restore the power of Congress, then you can figure out what kind of policy coalitions you can build in Congress.
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: The US plutocrats were never really worried. “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half” as Jay Gould famously said.
YY_Sima Qian
@Captain C: We take advantage of the co-belligerents to win greater majorities, & then enact as much of the agenda of our governing coalition as possible. May be our success (presuming our program is well designed & well implemented) convert some of those co-belligerents into coalition partners, maybe not.
Isn’t that how FDR did it? Such opportunities don’t come around often, generally only after huge calamities, so we should not become despondent when they fail to materialize, but we have to seize them when they do come. Trump 2.0 is fertilizing the soil for another such opportunity to rise, & a realignment is already in progress.
Jeffro
great clip, WG!
ok, ok, I’m in: no more carping from me to MAGA morons about how right I am, or how awful they are (but I’m gonna keep THINKING it, ok? =)
Suzanne
@Doug R: There’s a big gap in how the sides want to see America flexing its power, though. And count me as one who didn’t think Biden was effective w/r/t Gaza and gave far too much latitude to Netanyahu. I’d never withhold a vote from a Dem over it, but this is a massive fault line in our coalition.
Jeffg166
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
Will Rogers
Still true.
YY_Sima Qian
@Steve LaBonne: Were it not for the Progressive Era or the New Deal, the US could have turned either Communist or Fascist. Lots of rich people would have been consumed in the fires of such cataclysm.
Steve LaBonne
@Jeffg166: People forget too easily that the Democratic Party has always been an unwieldy coalition. For much of the 20th Century it consisted of Notheastern immigrants, Midwest populists, and Southern white supremacists in a very rickety cohabitation. Even in the New Deal, the Southerners were able to make sure that people of color got almost none of the goodies. And yet I presume we all agree that the New Deal was a good thing despite its many imperfections.
They Call Me Noni
I watched the whole video, haven’t read all the comments.
I’m all for a big tent, but too much kumbaya with people whose principles align with ours on a very slim slice of a vin diagram I don’t think gains us much because in the end I don’t think they will vote with us.
They have been given every opportunity and reason to change their priorities but if your priority is strictly you and yours then what do you do with that? The only thing that changes their mind is for them to be brought to their knees and their senses by the very thing they voted for.
I desperately wish it weren’t so and hope that I am wrong.
Jeffg166
Déjà vu all over again .
REMARKS OF SENATOR JOHN F. KENNEDY AT THE JEFFERSON-JACKSON DINNER, PAWTUXET, RHODE ISLAND, APRIL 26, 1953
When Will Rogers said – “I am not a member of any organized political party – I am a Democrat” he was not speaking of Rhode Island.
We are met tonight in the aftermath of a great defeat. What made this defeat especially difficult for all of us to sustain was that through it we were denied the services as chief executive of the former Governor of Illinois, our candidate for president, Adlai Stevenson.
But the defeat that we suffered – our removal from positions of direct responsibility, must not be regarded as an unmitigated disaster. The Democrats had been in power for 20 years. Although the personnel and the stream of force had changed somewhat, nevertheless that is a long time to bear the burdens of administrative authority. Defeat is not, as Governor Stevenson has so well pointed out, a shot in the arm, but it does give us an opportunity to regain perspective, to renew our energies and to find out where we are going. What course should we now follow? It is still too early to say. It must be obvious that while the Democratic Party must not be an extremist party, it has no real future on the other hand as a conservative or states rights party. The Republicans have a monopoly on that course of action that they will not lose and if we swing to the right we would become atrophied and die as did the Whigs in the 1850’s.
We have been welded together by a philosophy of progress which is emphasized by the young people that we see here tonight. Whether they be young in spirit like Senator Green, or young in age, the members of the Democratic Party must never lose that youthful zest for new ideas and for a better world, which has made us great. Particularly here in Providence does the Democratic Party need to be the youthful, vigorous party with progressive ideas that can attract all groups in the population.
For all of it:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/pawtuxet-ri-19530426
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: And yet, fat lot of gratitude they felt for that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve LaBonne: Looking for gratitude from people you saved is a mug’s game. You are just as likely to get resentment.
hells littlest angel
Getting more votes than the other guys, what a concept!
/not being sarcastic tag
Geminid
@chemiclord: Sorry, I misread your comment. You are right about that being a very polarized party, and that we’re not going to peel many more of the remaining moderates or moderate-conservatives off.
There are swing voters among Independents though. We saw evidence of that last year in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan, when Ruben Gallego, Jackie Rozen, Tammy Baldwin and Elissa Slotkin won in states that Trump carried. These were only small, single-digit swings, but they were more than a rounding error.
In my Congressional district, VA07, there are probably more Independents than Republicans or Democrats. At least, Rep. Abigail Spanberger must thought so in 2022. She talked enough about “bipartisaship” and “reaching across the aisle” I expect some Democratic heads were exploding.
If Spanberger had lost, people would still be dunking her. She’s be held up as the poster child for feckless bipartisan messaging.
But you know what? Spanberger won. And I think one reason she won is that Indies bite on that kind of stuff, and she could reel them in.
On policy, Spanberger had voted down the line for every one of Joe Biden’s initiatives. She did not meet the Indies halfway on policy, but she did meet them halfway in her messaging.
This raises two questions in my mind. One is, how many times do people dunk on Democrats for their moderate messaging when they lose tough districts, while ignoring Democrats who win tough districts using similar messaging?
The other question is more general. Do we spend to much time talking about and analyzing our failures, and too little time analyzing our successes?
tobie
I’m so glad I’m not a politician whose every utterance is public. Someone said on this blog that in politics you can’t blame voters. That’s likely true. But how do you reach people who get a thrill out of what ICE is doing? I guess you just accept that there are some people you can’t reach and leave it at that.
Maxim
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I know people who think this way. It’s the ultimate self-indulgent purity pony syndrome. The only thing that matters is how they feel about how they voted. Zero consideration for how the outcomes affect real people’s lives.
@YY_Sima Qian: Well said.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes.
Eduardo
@chemiclord: “The right flank of the Democratic Party are people who would be conservatives if it wasn’t for the outright vile bigotry and deplorable vileness of the current GOP”
That and also the state of our democracy and climate change of course. I am one of those moderates and also a partisan Democrat given the alternative. I think that “minimal” common denominator is huge and that the coalition has to include them (us). I have a physical disgust reaction every time I see Bernie Sander. No matter, we need him.
zhena gogolia
@Captain C: Truth.
rikyrah
@AM in NC:
Neither am I
zhena gogolia
@tobie: I am hearing anecdata that Trump voters who actually witness one of these ICE kidnappings are very shaken by it. And I’m shaking my head. No imagination I guess.
Maxim
@Geminid:
From what I can tell, a lot of centrist voters (and some non-centrist ones), regardless of how they identify, feel strongly that politics should be as congenial as possible. Elected officials should act like grownups and work together to solve problems; and voters, importantly, should not have to pay much attention to what they’re up to.
Of course, that’s difficult (read: impossible) to achieve in our current political environment, especially on the national level. But this sort of messaging does seem to appeal to a broad swath of voters.
laura
Coalitions are how Dems win, but a large slice of the party has repeatedly taken their ball and walked off the field because their candidate did not prevail in a primary, or their non- Democrat candidate was denied the opportunity to use the Dem party as a vehicle for their electoral aspirations. If that doesn’t get fixed, we’re in shitter’s ditch. Fall in love in the primaries and fall in line and stay the fuck in line in the general.
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus: “Why does that man hate me? I never lent him money.” – J. P. Morgan
WTFGhost
I agree with much of what was said – in the end, it’s about winning, and about power. This is not the time to shame people who want to move along.
There is one thing to keep in mind, of course. There will be Republicans saying that they’d vote the bums out, but, the Democrats are *sew meen* even if 99% of all democrats/liberals/progressives say nothing more than “welcome.”
Keep in mind, anyone who is an actual adult can say “I made a mistake; I learned better,” and carry that to a voting booth, but, non-adults do need more coddling.
rikyrah
If messaging on Medicaid is breaking through, I do think the Dems need to point this out, over and over
The largest percentage of Medicaid Dollars GOES TO NURSING HOMES
Look directly into the camera
This needs to be asked over and over and over.
The thought that Grandma or Grandpa would now be living IN YOUR HOUSE?
Makes shyt get very real very quick
Geminid
@Hoodie: I would add that in addition to the heavy lifting Pelosi did during Biden’s first term, Schumer did a lot of heavy lifting too.
And I give a lot of credit to the members of their respective caucuses. Diverse groups of Democratic Senators and Representatives demonstrated responsibility and cohesion in working towards common goals. That was a strong team effort from top to bottom.
Belafon
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: In 2028, as Republicans in states like Texas start passing laws resegregating schools after the Supreme Court “returns school decision making to the states” and Democrats point that out and start demanding laws to make it all equal again, will we see complaints about Democrats spending too much time on those issues?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
On this we agree. Pelosi’s done a ton of heavy lifting over the years. Whatever domestic, legislative success we give to Obama would have never been done w/o her.
Schumer was very well suited for his role during Biden’s first two years, no complaints, great job herding cats and getting the two massive bills passed. But he’s definitely not suited for this role at this time with this executive. Requires an entirely different skill set.
Steve LaBonne
@Eduardo: I don’t often have a chance to talk to intelligent moderates. I would love to hear you explain why, at a time of unprecedented wealth inequality and a climate crisis that threatens to destroy civilization within decades, and with actual fascists in power, there is a tenable moderate position.
lowtechcyclist
Late to the discussion. I listened to the whole thing, and I kept hearing a hollowness at its core. “Let’s do whatever we can to get more votes to enact our agenda.” OK, great. But what’s our agenda? That’s where the arguments start. And what are our underlying values that help us determine what our agenda needs to be in this era (or any other)? What distinguishes standing up for a core value from being a purity pony?
Without at least some provisional answers to these questions, how do we know what we’re fighting for?
tobie
@zhena gogolia: Interesting. I just wish they’d care about how traumatized kids are whose parents are hauled away at elementary school graduations. Or workers who are afraid to pick up a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts on the way to work. Life trying to be invisible is so harrowing. I know I’m preaching to the choir here. I just feel like we’re approaching Anne Frank territory.
chemiclord
@Steve LaBonne:
If I had to take a stab at it, a moderate position would be that while yes, there IS a problem, extreme solutions have historically NOT solved that problem, and have often made that problem WORSE.
The issue is that “extreme solutions” is a moving target that often translates into “anything that might inconvenience me in some undetermined way.”
Steve LaBonne
@chemiclord: Ay, there’s the rub. Status quo maintenance cannot work when the status quo is destructive and unsustainable.
Steve LaBonne
@tobie: It has been pointed out many times that lack of any capacity for empathy is a defining characteristic of conservatives.
Ishiyama
Oh, I know how the Democrats lost so much ground since my childhood, but I won’t say it.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Ishiyama: I’ll say it [just as LBJ predicted]: the Civil Rights Act
[ETA it pains me to write this.]
Another Scott
@Suzanne: The number one thing about politicians is – they want to win.
If the electorate is bigger and more diverse or more slanted to favor one team over the other, politicians will shape their messages and policies to try to find a way to win.
And that’s as it should be.
If the fairly demonstrated majority wants – for whatever reasons – to go slower on social progress, or shrink the commonweal, then that’s probably what should happen. Because that’s what self-government is about. (Subject to future fair majorities being able to revise those decisions, of course. No one-way ratchets when the other guys get power.)
We can and should argue for faster progress, but if we don’t have the votes for it, then… An awful lot of life is disappointment – sometime bitterly and tragically so.
So, as you say, more people fairly voting is not an automatic win for our party. But it’s a win for democracy and that’s important.
So, yes, DC statehood. PR statehood (if they want it). Expand the House. Do all the things to increase democracy in the USA. And let the politicians figure out what that means so that the good guys and gals can win in the new environment.
My $0.02.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
That’s pundit talk used to tell voters that Democrats pander to special interest groups, which means everyone but white men. See, somehow, white men aren’t an “interest group”, they’re just “voters”. I’ve come to believe that a lot of the public’s perception of Democrats is shaped by this conscious or unconscious idea that white men are the “real, average voter” and everyone else is a member of some “interest group”. Women are over half of the electorate, yet we’re seen by pundits as a special interest group! Women’s concerns are seen as “niche” by these people, rather than being something that affects pretty much everyone in some way. It’s a big problem, and I don’t know what politicians can do about it. Pundits seem to be tightly wedded to this narrative even if they aren’t aware of it.
brantl
as far as voters school we should welcome all voters who are willing to vote for somebody decent. As far as people like Tucker Carlson you don’t have to act like he’s a good guy in order to use them against Trump. You can say Trump is so shitty even Tucker Carlson hates his ass. What’s so hard about this? Seriously. How was this tough?
and when they’re talking about cording white blue collar labor, we can court white blue collar labor while recording all labor. You can show that you’re not given anybody an unfair shake, and that you’re willing to get everybody a fair shake, all colors included.
Temp Decloaked Lurker
@rikyrah:
Exactly. Directly hits home.
rikyrah
@chemiclord:
TELL IT
TELL IT
TELL IT
They cling to THE WHITENESS
NOT ECONOMIC ANXIETY or whatever other nonsense the MSM wants to come up with to avoid admitting that
IT’S ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACY, DEAR.
And, this includes the non-Whites too.
Because, they are chasing WHITE ADJACENCY.
But, alas, you’ll never be White, Dear.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: This assumes that most voters have some kind of coherent idea of what they want. The evidence for that is very lacking.
JML
@Mr. Bemused Senior: well, I prefer to blame fucking Ronald Reagan, who put a kind face on all kind of horrible policy, turned over the government to a bunch of greedy corporatist bastards, sold the judiciary to the religious right, inflamed racial hatreds, demonized poor people and the government, and engendered a cult-like following that bred an additional generation of acolytes that just kept making everything worse.
You can quite literally draw a direct line to almost every disastrous policy and GOP perfidy to that evil old bastard Ronald Reagan. (who actually had cognitive defects during his second term that were covered up by his team) He was beyond awful, and it makes me so, so angry see him treated as if he was one of the top 10 in history.
lou
@AM in NC: And isn’t that how a Democrat successfully defeated a popular Republican mayor in Omaha? You know, the one where he says, I’ll look after roads while she looks under bathroom stalls.
And that begs the question: Why can’t Democrats learn from Republicans to take an issue that might be considered a strength and turn it into a weakness. I see that *starting* to happen with immigration, but more efforts like that Dem in Omaha, please. Also, come to think, the successful trans legislator in Virginia focused on bread and butter issues.
RevRick
@AM in NC: And it’s a nut we need to deal with since the so-called Blue Wall , which Trump shattered twice is no longer sufficient to win a Presidential election. White folks are still 70% of the electorate, and if we can only manage to get 40% of that 70, we’re going to have to crank up the margins in the remaining 30% to even have a prayer of being competitive. Because 40% of 70 is only 28, and squeezing 24% out of the 30 means needing 80% margins in the nonwhite pool to be even barely competitive (to compensate for structural biases in the Electoral College).
Like it or not, we need to pursue some more whites we may not like and have views that drive us nuts.
Citizen Alan
@tobie: That was an actual plot point in the ’80s tv series V, in which cleverly disguised lizard aliens invade the Earth. At first, the Visitors pretend to be friendly and offer us advanced technology. But they fabricate evidence of some “vast conspiracy” of evil scientists deliberately withholding things like cold fusion and cancer cures to turn the public against them because only people with a scientific background might have a chance of coming up with a defense to the aliens. And in the end, it’s a bunch of scientists in the Underground who fashion a biological weapon that forces the Visitors to leave Earth.
At the time, even as a teenager, I thought it was a particularly ham-fisted allegory about Nazis using anti-Semitism to win people over. I never dreamed that there would be an actual campaign of bigotry towards “scientists” as a demographic group.
Citizen Alan
@Captain C: I’ve come to the horrified conclusion that there are three kinds of voters in this country.
a. There are Democrats,
b. There are literal fucking Nazis, and
c. There are people too dumb and insulated and self-centered to pay attention to what’s happening right in front of them.
I’m afraid to even speculate as to the percentages of those three groups because it’s too depressing.
RevRick
@JML: It’s easy to blame Reagan, but there had to be combustible fuel in the electorate for him to succeed. Part of that was the exhaustion of the New Deal coalition which had become an establishment defending policies that were on shaky ground. Part of that was the soaring crime rates, which always put people in a sour, fearful, lock-em-up mood. And part of it was the inability to solve the quandarys of stagflation and deindustrialization.
Citizen Alan
@YY_Sima Qian: I’m half convinced that we’re in this situation because AI and robotics have finally advanced to the point that the oligarchs think they can keep us in line with killer drones instead of relying on human soldiers who might turn on them.
...now I try to be amused
@lou:
Danica Roem ran on the roads in Manassas Park while her opponent ran on Roem’s gender. Turned out more voters care about the former than the latter.
Nettoyeur
@zhena gogolia: The hard truth is that over the top promotion of minority and esp. LGBTQ+ rights is one of the main reasons the Dems keep losing elections. I don’t defend that, but it is reality. Seems to me we ought to concentrate on democracy vs oligarchic fascism as a uniting principle.
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: That’s my analysis as well.
zhena gogolia
@Nettoyeur: “over the top”? You mean equality?
Steve LaBonne
@Nettoyeur: You might want to gain a clearer picture of who the most reliable Democratic voters are.
taumaturgo
The reality is the Democrats abandoned the working folks beginning in the late 60s in order to stop the bleeding of loosing middle class workers who happily fled to the suburbs and joint the punching down at minorities Republicans.
The party has been drifting right up to this day when 128 democrats – in the minority – joint MAGA in defeating a resolution of one of their own to impeach the felon for violating the constitution by bombing Iran w/o Congress authorization. I’m guessing they’re signaling we are warmongers too, so what of the constitution? Jeffries and Schumer bought by AIPAC continue their unyielding support for Netanyahu and his genocide of the Palestinian people. Yet neither one of them mustered the courage to support and endorse Zohran. God forbid the donors rebel for their association with a socialist and a Muslim to boot.
Lots of talk about messaging, but silence about holding this out of touch centrist leadership accountable for continuing to prop up the status quo. Carry on.
Steve LaBonne
@…now I try to be amused: In the early 20th Century that was called “sewer socialism”, and it had some success in a number of cities.
Citizen Alan
@Steve LaBonne: It depends on how you define “moderate.” I went into law school thinking I was a moderate Democrat. Then, on the first day of Con Law, the professor had everyone in class to sit from right to left according to where they thought they stood on the political spectrum. So I took a seat just left of center … while 2/3 of the class crammed themselves as far as they could to the right. By the end of that semester, I realized that I should have taken a seat as far as I could on the left. And I don’t think my views changed. It’s just that opinions I had which I thought were common-sense and perfectly reasonable were actually considered liberal positions when graphed out from right to left in a classroom in Mississippi.
Steve LaBonne
@Citizen Alan: Too many “centrists” have no principles beyond trying to find the midpoint between left and right, so as the right turns fascist they chase after it.
Citizen Alan
@RevRick: Reagan presented himself as the Avatar of White Supremacy. He mastered the art of saying blatantly racist things without using the N-word and in language that appealed to people who were quietly racist even as they deplored the KKK. When he gave his “states rights” speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi just 15 years after Chaney, Goodman, and Schwermer were murdered there, it should have been fucking obvious what he was all about. But all the Press could see was “the Happy Warrior.”
When I’m depressed about the state of America, one of the things I do to cheer myself up is to visualize Reagan being tortured in Hell.
Citizen Alan
@Nettoyeur: Kindly define “over the top promotion of minority and esp. LGBTQ+ rights.” What specifically do you mean by that? Provide examples. Show your damned work.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Schumer got four major bills through Congress. The first was the $1.9 trillion American Recovery Act in February, 2021. The fourth was the IRA in August, 2022. Both were passed under reconciliation, with all 50 Democrats and VP Harris’s vote.
The $1.4 Trillion Infrastructure Bill passed in November, 2021 and CHIPS+ Act passed in July, 2022 advanced with Republican votes. So did a fifth critical piece of legislation in June, 2023 when Congress raised the Debt Ceiling.
Schumer did more than herd cats. He managed the Senate calender efficiently, and used his tactical parliamentary skills to prevent McConnell from jamming Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and judicial nominations.
Now that he’s the 117th Congress, Schumer is back where he was in the 114th Congress that met 2019-2020; that is, the Doghouse. The last time Schumer was Minority Leader, many Democrats ridiculed him as Hapless Charlie Schumer, whiffing at footballs as Lucy McConnell pulls out of reach.
Then Georgia Democrats did their heavy lift by electing Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to the 115th Congress. With a razor-thin majority, Hapless Charlie became Clever Chuck, and played a key role in advancing major legislation and confirming judges. But he was the same Chuck Schumer as he was the Congress before.
So now in the 117th Congress, this is still the same Schumer he was last year. It’s Democrats who have changed. Many are demoralized; they need direction and– to be blunt– they need emotional support, and they’re not getting that from Schumer or other Democratic leaders. “Grow a spine!” they shout.
Now I will be blunter still. It seems to me the solution here is for these demoralized Democrats is to grow spines themselves, and stop looking to Congressional leaders for emotional support. They still have jobs to do that must be done, and there are no replacements available that could do those jobs materially better.
And even if they were to switch out leaders, chances are that a few months in the new leaders would be resented just much as the old ones. The objective, material conditions would not have changed, and neither would have the subjective and emotional conditions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nettoyeur: Do you mean that when the GOP said that LGBT+ were evil, Dem said no?
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus: You also might want to ask the troll just what it means by calling itself a “cleanser”.
Geminid
@Soprano2: You may have noticed that most of these pundits are men. The people I see discussing them and debating them seem to be mostly men also. I might attribute this to the fact that men are more talkers while women are more doers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: Legislative leadership is chosen for their ability to do things in the legislature. They are doing that right now with the Murder Bill. They are unlikely to be firebrands and inspirational leaders of the resistance. We see governors and backbenchers stepping into those roles. Schumer is good at what he is good at. Being pissed at him for not being something he isn’t is rather pointless.
stinger
I think there’s a risk that some of us seem to want Joe Rogan and Bill Kristol and the like to become permanent Democrats who agree with every Democratic policy position. If they want to vote for us, great! We welcome their vote. But we’re not underbussing women or trans folks or anyone else. Republicans in power don’t give them everything they want; we don’t have to either.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve LaBonne: They are not a troll. They have been commenting here for years. They are simply “wrong on the internet”.
PatD
@Geminid: I think the relevant criticism of Schumer is that he doesn’t do politics well. He’s been good in the past, as you laid out, with getting legislation done and bills passed.
But people want him to be good at the political communication stuff at a moment where Dems are on the defensive and he’s just not capable of that.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
THEE ENTIRE PHUCK!!!
stinger
@YY_Sima Qian:
I wrote my comment at @149 before seeing this. Agree!
JML
@Citizen Alan: YES.
Fuck Reagan. The worst of the worst.
One of the reasons the “new Deal Coalition” collapsed was fuckers like Reagan overtly telling white dudes that black people were to blame for all their problems.
hells bells the kind of deregulation that has allowed for media consolidation and Big Tech supremacy is rooted in Reagan.
stinger
@Jeffg166:
Excellent find.
stinger
@Nettoyeur:
How to say “I’m a straight white male” without saying you’re a straight white male.
Geminid
@PatD: I understand the criticism. Schumer’s not that bad at communication to the public, but he’s not that good at it either.
But Schumer’s biggest challenge is the Republicans’ 3(?) seat majority, and a better communicator– Chris Murphy for instance– could not change that. A Murphy might improve matters on the morale side, but only for a while unless Democrats take responsiblity for their own morale.
Last November’s defeat and the events since floored a lot of Democrats, and and I thinknI see a lot of them still lying there griping. They can’t wait for political leaders to pull them off the floor; they and their peers have to help themselves and each other get on their feet again.
stinger
@Citizen Alan:
Interesting!
Martin
@Suzanne: So, this is a point I’ve been trying (very unsuccessfully, which I put on me) to get across.
The issue with purity tests is that they fundamentally involve applying a label to the person who fails the test. That’s ultimately the point of the test. I’ve tried here a few times to knock down the pattern of language of calling Republicans ‘evil’ because there are two potential dangers in doing that – one is that if they don’t see themselves as evil (and some people do see themselves as evil, not many), but you successfully apply that label to them, some people will live up to that label. They will see that social rejection and say ‘oh, you thought I hated women, I will make it my mission to shit on women in the class that applied that label’. But the bigger danger is that the people who applied that label cannot see beyond that label. And these labels are absolute. Sociologist know from countless research that most people who express racist sentiments can be worked out of that position. But someone who carries the ‘racist’ label is identified as being racist in their nature.
An analogy here might be the trans/enby community and pronouns. If someone shows up and says ‘I don’t see myself as a she/her, but as a he/him’, we don’t say ‘fuck you, I’m going to apply this label around the characteristics that I choose. You don’t have a mans frame or a deep voice, so I’m going to label you as a ‘he/him’. We don’t do that. But we will take someone who says something racist (and who here hasn’t – I sure as shit have) maybe out of ignorance or because we are all part of a racist culture and internalize some degree of that in our speech and thought and that comes out because we didn’t stop to think about it – and if we label that person ‘racist’ and they don’t see themselves as racist (and some people definitely label themselves as ‘racist’) then you have pushed them into a category where the answer to ‘I didn’t realize, what did I say wrong?’ Is ‘fuck you racist’. They may see themselves as potentially being part of your team, and they have work to do (who among us doesn’t) but we say ‘no, you cannot be redeemed’. Not all labels work this way, but quite a few do.
My point on ‘evil’ is that it is an expression of a persons true nature. An evil person cannot become un-evil. That’s now how evil works. Evil is irredeemable. They aren’t merely wrong, or misguided, or angry and lashing out (see all these other words we can use instead?) – things that can be worked on – they are irreparable. Race is a label that works this way. A black person can’t work really hard and become a non-black person. That label is for life whether they like it or not.
Part of the problem here all around is that I think we have a stereotype for a trump voter as established by the full array of media and editorial decisions serving as a lens through which we see them, and vice-versa. We advance stories of the republicans holding up the ‘mass deportation now’ signs but not the ones that say ‘we’re okay with immigration, but folks that are undocumented to some degree live outside the entire structure that we have for maintaining social order – not just citizenship but crime and fraud and so on. And those Republicans aren’t wrong. In fact, that’s a feature of why a lot of Republicans like undocumented immigration, because if you hire them, they are outside of the worker protection system. You now have a worker you don’t need to give breaks to, don’t have to pay overtime, don’t need to give safe working conditions, and so on’. It is why California has the view on undocumented immigrants that we do, because we figured out the motives of the farm owners and seek to deny them the thing they want – CA can more safely inspect workplaces because we aren’t going to report them to ICE, and that’s a benefit to the documented workers there as well. We are in agreement with that person that this system of holding people outside of legal status is bad, we are not in agreement as to who is at fault for this system or what to do about it, but we’re also now at a state where there is no dialogue possible on that issue. With no dialog this will increasingly move toward conflict, eventually violent conflict.
Now the problem here is that both parties need to be on board with this, and no, you’re not going to get Stephen Miller to come to the table in good faith. But Biden to Trump voters aren’t Stephen Miller. In fact, most Trump to Trump voters aren’t Stephen Miller. But we can push them toward Stephen Miller by calling them evil or racist or by saying ‘fuck you, you got what you wanted’ when we have no clue really what they wanted because we either aren’t willing to listen to that, or aren’t willing to believe them when they tell us (this is why I think the Trump/AOC voters are so interesting – they reveal something to us). And we can pull them toward our position by saying ‘let’s share how we view this and maybe you can come to our position’. That’s a choice we get to make. I think we should pull. A lot of folks here think we should push. Don’t get me wrong, emotionally I want to push. I’m angry. Like, I get it. But that’s not the helpful thing.
Steve LaBonne
@Martin: Which Democratic politicians are doing that? And no, commenters on blogs read by a few thousand people don’t count.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: You have been getting push back on your don’t call them evil campaign because that word is perfectly descriptive of people like Miller and Noem. Most of us aren’t saying all Republicans are irredeemably evil. What term should we use for someone like Miller? Mistaken? Economically anxious? I don’t think so. He is a fucking ghoul, and I have no hesitation about calling him evil.
Martin
@Citizen Alan: I have a new theory of what it is to be ‘moderate’. I may be all wrong on this, so I’m open to criticism.
The default view of society is that it is hierarchical. This is what the ‘Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.’ is saying. There’s a hierarchy with some groups at the top and others at the bottom. Historically I think the difference between Democrats and Republicans was that while they agreed that society was hierarchical, they disagreed on who deserved to be at the top and who deserved to be at the bottom. Because they agreed on the shape, there was room to compromise and work together. They also disagreed on how steep the gradient from the top to the bottom was. The 19th century abolitionists didn’t necessarily believe that whites weren’t superior to blacks, they just believed that blacks were, you know, people and not property and deserved to be in the hierarchy, but probably at the bottom. They were better, without, in a modern context, being good. Here there was a fundamental disagreement about the nature of the hierarchy, and compromise wasn’t possible, and we fought that one out the hard way.
The left, progressives, etc. more strongly embrace the aspiration of ‘all men are created equal’ egalitarianism which picked up a lot of steam under Obama. Sure there will be rich people and powerful people, but there is a responsibility that comes with that wealth and power – a noblesse oblige, at the very least, and those people are not inherently better and should not be treated as such. They aspire to a non-hierarchical society, at least based on intrinsic properties. Wokeism is a process by which we tried to manifest the idea into the real world. You can reject the process without rejecting the aspiration. But we’re back again to increasing disagreement as to the nature of the hierarchy. Republicans are trying to ‘compromise’ by saying ‘can we agree that whites belong ahead of blacks, but we’ll concede on issues like sexual orientation or income or whatever’ and Democrats are responding with ‘there is no hierarchy, this whole exercise is immoral’ (which I agree with, btw). We are at tire rims and anthrax style negotiating.
Anyway, the moderate is the person who holds onto the idea that society is hierarchical (though not necessarily based on inherent characteristics like race and sex), but supports the process ideas of making society more egalitarian, or who is willing to entertain preserving some degree of hierarchy in order to allow dialogue to take place. They may be willing to cede territory in order to end hostilities, even though they would rather not. Differing philosophies of politics. Moderates can take different forms, but fundamentally they are staking out either an ideological or pragmatic middle ground between egalitarianism and a strictly ordered hierarchical society. That is an increasingly untenable bit of land to stand on, which is why they are a dying breed. We seem to be pretty much determined to pick a path on the nature of society. The biggest cracks, IMO, are around class, and the space that I think Democrats should exploit.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: He is a proud white nationalist. Call him that.
This is a basic issue with communication, both in terms of what you say and what gets heard. If a less engaged voter hears Miller say ‘we should deport criminals’ and you say ‘he’s evil’ what if the voter to make of that? Evil is such a nebulous term apart from telling us that this person cannot be reasoned with. But whether or not to deport criminals is something that can be reasoned with. You look like the lunatic in this situation to the voter. If you instead call Stephen Miller a white nationalist who wants to ethnically cleanse the country of all non-whites, and deporting criminals is just a cover to that action, you’ve at least left something for that voter to engage with. They may not side with you, but calling him evil by default causes them to side with Miller.
This is why Godwin’s law is a thing, because the invocation of Hitler is intended to end dialogue, because it forces someone to defend the Hitler reference, which is impossible. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of shooting your debate opponent in the head. That’s what pulling out the ‘evil’ card is. It’s a cop out – a refusal to engage with what is really happening. I’m not defending Miller or his actions, but those actions and motives deserve to be stated and explained and not waved away because you’re in too much of a hurry or don’t want to form a line of argument that is able to be interrogated.
Does a criminal defendant who is given the label of ‘evil’ deserve any rights? No. That’s a fucking nightmare of a hole to jump down and I will forever warn us against jumping down it because it undermines our arguments. It makes us look weak and hateful. And it really bothers me when you say it because I think of you as a person who is better than most at being able to put a really solid argument together, and then you just give up trying. And the really, really bad people deserve more than others to have their bad ideas and bad motives described and taken apart because most people (like fucking Joe Rogan and his gazillion listeners) cannot walk down their path – they need a guide. You can be that guide, but you choose not to. One reason a lot of us like Mayor Pete is he’s really good at walking people down that path and not resorting to the lazy out.
Omnes Omnibus
I am probably the wrong person to ask that question of to make the point you are trying to make. Of course that person has rights. The same rights as the most angelic person who ever lived.
We disagree. I think that soft pedaling the nature of some of these people is dangerous. Fin.
Martin
@Steve LaBonne: My guy, I’m not sure you understand what a democracy is or how political parties work. How many Dem politicians have avoided certain networks or certain podcasts because a bunch of people on a bunch of blogs and social media sites were going to lose their shit over it? Harris didn’t need to gatekeep those opportunities, we were a part of that (for good and bad).
If you think that people power works, that the fantastic fundraising and organizing that watergirl and others do works, then yes, a bunch of people on blogs does count, because if it doesn’t then those efforts are pointless.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t say does that person have rights. I said ‘does that person deserve rights’. If they are evil, they are irredeemable. They cannot be rehabilitated. They are nothing but a liability to society. Why should they deserve rights, deserve the benefit of the doubt, deserve to explain they have good intentions? They are evil – fundamentally immoral – they are incapable of having good intentions, so why even give them the opportunity to defend their intent?
Consider this in the context of why this administration does not believe that some/many/most people don’t deserve due process. They may not think you deserve rights. Do we want to meet them down that path?
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Again, I am the wrong person at whom to trot out that argument. That person has rights and deserves them. And those rights are worth defending. They have rights or no one does.
At the same time, I am probably not one of the people you want to have trying to talk people into switching sides. And I am sorry that I make you sad.
Another Scott
So, I finally am able to listen to the video.
It sounds too top-down to me. Although he says things similar to what I’ve been arguing – the importance of finding ways to win, above everything else – I hope my argument doesn’t come across the way his did to me.
When I hear “join our coalition”, I hear “we’re a diverse group that has figured out (unstated) A, B, C, …X (that we can tell you all about in great detail because we’ve figured it all out) and we’d like you to be on our side, in the audience, to provide your support so we can do what we want”. I think that’s the wrong approach. It’s putting the platform before picking the candidates and building the movement.
And it kinda reminds me of (my impression of) the politics of the 1970s. Basically, the national politicians figured out their roles and played them and not to much ever changed in dramatic ways. Democrats were for the social safety net and would vote every year for Social Security increases (before COLAs became automatic). Republicans were the party of high defense spending and whittling away at taxes on businesses and wealth. Both were mainly anti-Communist (to various degrees), for a strong NATO, but wary of land wars in Asia while also worried about being painted with “you lost China” brushes. There wasn’t much consideration about building problems like damage to the atmosphere, the consequences of mountains of arms going everywhere, what America’s place in the world would be as economic and political and military power became (slightly) more evenly shared.
And then the oil embargoes happened and stagflation and Reagan…
The Reagan Revolution didn’t happen because he slowly and incrementally built a bigger “coalition”. It happened because enough people got fed up and wanted a change and were willing to try something different that was sold by a particular guy. And once he was in office and Congress saw the way the wind was blowing, then his first big economic bills became runaway trains of tax cuts and pet projects because everyone saw that it was going to pass and wanted their piece of the pie. No matter the costs…
We don’t have everything figured out right now. We have lots of different ideas about lots of things. We know where we want to go, but we don’t really know the details of how to get there. We don’t know how much needs Quick Big Structural Change, and how much needs to be incrementalism to build long-term support and long term changes in attitudes. We don’t know how much can be done just by taxing the rich more, and how much needs to be more fundamental changes in things like workers rights, minority rights, women’s rights, and individual rights in general. How far ahead of “traditional” American views should we be aiming to be to push for progress? How much should we be willing to push science and evidence ahead of public opinion? How much should we roll back the Roberts’ Court trump card of “sincerely held religious beliefs”? I don’t think we have a uniform position on these things.
Yes, Democrats believe and try to implement a set of things that are pretty well defined and pretty widely shared. In principle. But…
The lesson, I think, is to figure out ways to connect to voters. Have them be willing to give you a chance. Have a compelling story that is big and inspiring that makes people want to buy in and be involved. And be at the right place at the right time to be able to run to the front of the parade. Don’t figure out and publish the platform too early.
While the monsters have a pretty strong hand now, idealism has always had a big place in America. People here want to believe that this is a special place, that we’re special people, and that we have done and can do great things. I think that’s still true. Not too many people actually like being pissed off and angry and scared all the time, if there’s a sensible alternative.
How do we do that?
Beats me.
It’s not going to be easy, or it would have been done already.
But the leader and the movement probably has to come before the selling of the “coalition”. And it’s not going to be a one-and-done thing. We have to keep fighting to keep the monsters out of power.
Maybe Mamdani’s approach can be generalized, but I think we need to remember that he only got 43.5% in the first round. That’s great for a multi-candidate race, but not so good for a two-party contest.
tl;dr – Don’t play up a grand “coalition”, just win, baby!
My $0.02, FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Martin:
I would consider that evil. Potato, potato?
@Martin:
Uh…Isn’t the whole point of our justice system (in theory) to give at least a bare minimum of rights and due process even to people who have done unspeakable things and would be widely considered evil?
You’re making the jump from “I consider these people evil,” to “I don’t think these people should have rights.” I for one would call Miller evil and would love for him to have due process as he’s tried for what he’s inflicted on this country and others.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: I don’t like to use the label “evil”, even for Nazis, because it avoids confronting the fact that capacity for “evil” is in fact very human, & not some divine force. Every human being, every groups of human beings, & every human society, are capable of doing evil things. Labeling any of them “evil”, then the only solution is to vanquish them (society, groups, down to the individual). However, the victors of WW II did not kill/jail every supporter of the Nazi regime (which would have been the majority of Germans), they reformed the German polity and reintegrated former Nazi supporters back to society. They could have done a more thorough job of de-Nazification at the government & military level, though.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: Formulating a policy agenda can happen in parallel with building a movement, they are intrinsically linked. People need to have some idea of what you stand for, if you want to attract them to your cause.
You can attract them w/ buzz words (“down w/ the oligarchs”, “social justice”, “equal opportunities”) & specific hooks (“free public busses”). However, to convert co-belligerents into partners in the governing coalition, & make the coalition durable, you have to be ready to govern once you win an election. To do that there has to be agreement on the problem definition (inequality before law, unequal opportunities, widespread scarcity/precarity, hardening of class structure) & on the fundamental dynamics (discrimination based on race/sexual orientation/religion, structural advantage of capital over labor, pervasive oligopolies, financialization resulting in excessive rent seeking), & then a policy platform/agenda that addresses the problems & the fundamental dynamics (protection of minorities, labor rights, subsidizing development of human capital, anti-trust, de-financialization). All of these are contested right now, at least in terms of relative priority, so that needs to be hashed out, or at least a modus vivendi reached.
The policy platform is especially important on foreign policy. Due to information asymmetry, popular opinions on matters of foreign policy tend to follow elite opinions (there are exceptions, of course, when FP failures because far too obvious to obfuscate). Here, it is even more critical to lead popular sentiments toward less destructive directions: no to primacy, no to militarism, no to securitization of relationships & interactions, yes to a truly rules based international order, yes to broad based development (rather than defending & consolidating the current hierarchy in global division of labor).
Martin
Indeed. And much of the rational for that system is because that person might not be evil. They might be innocent. They might have psychological problems. The whole foundation on which the death penalty in this country rest is that the person being executed is beyond redemption and must be removed from society. And as we all know here, despite being identified as being evil and needing to be executed, all too often those people are innocent.
Democrats should not be supporting that system. In fact they shouldn’t even dip their toe in that water, as we are doing here. Nothing good comes from it. We have countless evidence for that.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: Good points.
I think it’s both and.
For example, the folklore (as I remember it) about Obama’s first convention speech was that he was a great orator and had a great line about (roughly) “there is no red America or blue America, there is the United States of America”. I don’t think that there’s much other memory about any specific policy proposal.
Some people (like me) really want to hear specifics about what someone wants to do. I thought Harris’s proposals about Medicare covering more home health care costs was great and important. Similarly her proposals to help first-time people buy homes.
Others take proposals like that as pandering and spending money that (they think) we don’t have. And sometimes it is pandering! :-/
I think as a baseline most people have to feel that they can somehow relate to their leaders and have trust in them. Once that threshold has been crossed, many people won’t decide differently – Nixon still had 24% approval (with 10% undecided!) as he was getting on that helicopter the last time. It takes a lot for people to pull the other lever… My liking Harris’s proposals was built on my liking and trusting her as a person.
As always, reality gets a vote, and what elected officials actually have to work on can be very different from what they campaigned on (sudden pandemic or economic crash or …). (Normal) People need to believe that they aren’t being hoodwinked, because they don’t have the time or inclination to keep track of the details of politics every day.
Party platforms are written by the contest winners. Yeah, rightfully, there’s a baseline set of party beliefs. But the candidate decides what to emphasize and how to flesh out those beliefs and what to down-play.
The candidate (mostly) comes first, not the “coalition”. The candidate builds the coalition.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: Thanks for the reply, but I think it is the reverse. The coalition has to formed, undergirded at least by a common understanding of the problem definition & fundamental dynamics, if not the relative priority & corrective actions. Then, if the coalition is broad enough, the talented will come to the fore.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Probably a dead thread… You have the wrong end of the stick. The criminal justice system is based on whether or not someone has committed a crime that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It is not supposed to be based on the content of their character. You can be a horrible person without violating any laws or be a good person who commits a terrible crime.