One-question poll:
Do you want to keep arguing about the last election? Or try to win the next one?
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- AM in NC
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- Interesting Name Goes Here
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Steve in the ATL
I’m not done bitching about the 2000 election!
ETA: but OMFG those threads get so tedious
Jerry
NEXT ONE! NEXT ONE! NEXT ONE! NEXT ONE!
Peke Daddy
Ishiyama
I want to argue about 1972!
AM in NC
PLEASE can we stop re-litigating the past and move forward with every possible tactical maneuver? What works for one group might not work for another, so let’s try ALL the messages (healthcare AND Epstein AND authoritarian nightmare AND Trump is sundowning AND the billionaire class is eating us alive AND Inflation is up.
I’m sick of all the pissing inside the tent and the inability of too many of us to not have to feel like “I WAS RIGHT, DAMMIT, AND I’M GOING TO KEEP PUNCHING YOU UNTIL YOU ADMIT I WAS RIGHT”. It’s unproductive and demoralizing.
FastEdD
I don’t like arguing at all!
Old Man Shadow
“Don’t make me choose!!!!!”
FastEdD
Great taste! Less filling! Great taste! Less Filling!
Dave
What I want and I what I get are very rarely in the same room.
Old Man Shadow
@FastEdD: Yes, you do.
Percysowner
Well, I’m not giving my money to all sorts of Democratic PACs to lose the next one. I want to win it BIG.
My only real opinion on the last one came from a humor column which said “We analyzed why we lost the 2024 election and we know why. We didn’t send enough Texts! So we’ve decided to increase our efforts.” Lord knows I’m sure that was only sarcasm because they just never stop.
Old Man Shadow
@FastEdD: Rabbit season!
HopefullyNotCassandra
@AM in NC: agree, agree, agree!!
Interesting Name Goes Here
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Remember that the next time you feel a need to “send a message to Democrats” because it was the trendy thing to do.
Karen Gail
Water Girl; I know this isn’t open thread but wanted to keep promise to you about telling you about my shopping trip. No trump signs anywhere except for small one in window that has been there since 2016. But people in stores were cheerful and chatty, some were almost giddy; no clue why since it was totally unnerving. If someone dumped drugs in air and water in this part of Maine they missed me; no complaining but don’t remember last time I saw so many cheerful, happy and chatty people outside of wedding.
Jeffro
my answer is…yes
(kidding, kidding, of course I’d rather just win the next one)
speaking of the next election (as in, just next month!) I am kinda chuckling that El Trumpo can’t be bothered to tweet or otherwise support the VA GOP’s nominee for governor (a Black woman) or lt governor (a gay man) but HAS weighed in quite strenuously in support of its nominee for AG (a straight white man, and the only 100% pure trump loyalist of the three)
bbleh
Well what I want to know is, should we REALLY be asking questions like this? Should we be asking questions about asking questions at all??? Just WHAT is the hidden agenda here?!? And who’s behind it?!?!
bbleh
@Old Man Shadow: hey, did he pay for this argument?
Suzanne
@Percysowner:
LMAO.
lowtechcyclist
I am so sick and tired of people who keep bringing up their grievances over it. Doesn’t matter if it’s big stuff like Biden stepping aside (and anything related to that) or smaller stuff like whether Walz was told to cut out his use of ‘weird’ or other messaging issues, I just don’t want to hear it anymore.
It’s done. It’s over with. We’re stuck in this timeline, and we need to fight its battles, not battles that are already over.
PJ
Why is that certain people feel the need to continually blame other people (who are definitely not themselves – they themselves were absolutely right) when what they wanted to happen happened, but the end result was not what they wanted?
MobiusKlein
Two questions, not sure which I should answer.
Omnes Omnibus
There is a degree to which one must look at the past result to figure out why it happened. But we have to remember that there was a whisker thin vote differential last time and that the conditions on the the ground have changed drastically. I am not sure how much benefit will come from over analyzing 2024.
lowtechcyclist
@bbleh:
No he didn’t.
Craig
Win the next election for $400 please Alex.
hrprogressive
The problem is, unless/until people are willing to realize *why* they lost the last election, there is deep skepticism about winning the next one.
Nobody wants to admit “Vote Blue, No Matter Who!” and other hashtag-worthy demfluencer phrases aren’t good enough for convincing the broader, disengaged, public to do the right thing.
The Democratic Party needs a serious, modern, youthful overhaul.
But I don’t see nearly enough people admitting that truth.
So, unless/until the argument is about fixing what’s broken, it’s irrelevant, IMO, to relitigate the past, or pre-litigate the future.
Mr. Bemused Senior
The trees were a bad move. We never should have left the ocean
MikefromArlington
Argue up to the next election!
Harrison Wesley
What an unfair question! How are people supposed to bellyache and whine about an election they haven’t lost yet?
trollhattan
@Ishiyama:
I’m a 1968 man, myself. ’72 was a blowout while ’68 was a nailbiter that included on assassination and one George Wallace winning five fucking states as an independent. It was still close.
Doesn’t get more fraught than that, at least not until 2000 and SCOTUS saying “Fuck you, voters, we’ll handle this.”
As to 2024, there was no One Weird Trick that would have won it for us.
Baud
“No hablo ingles.” And then hang up.
mrmoshpotato
I vote for an Italian beef – dipped, with sweet and hot peppers.
rodwell
No matter what we said about 2024. It will not change things. We need to win going forward. This is the only time that I agree with the following statement. “We need to look forward and not back’. Once we win, we have to look back on all the corrupt and illegal things that that Trump and their henchpersons did? We need to punish them accordingly.
singfoom
I want to win the next one. I have grave concerns about the ability of the non fascist party to answer the call of the moment. I’m with those other commenters who said you have to understand the past to help map out the future.
I think the place right now to focus on is the defense of state voting systems and their integrity so that we can wallop the GOP in the midterms and start real investigations and start prosecuting all the lawbreakers in the admin from the ICE goons all the way up to Trump.
Unfortunately I don’t see that aggressive prosecution of the current admin in the future if the behavior of the Dem party in the past is any indicator. YMMV
cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
But conditions overall have deteriorated substantially. We warned the public that everything is on the table if Trump is reelected and that has turned out true.
I’m hoping that we can take the house and we are back but I think it will be a challenge because the feds are completely corrupted.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agree.
There’s also room to debate issues of the day regardless of elections. I would just hope that we keep RevRick’s wise words in mind about how to disagree well.
Interesting Name Goes Here
bsky.app/profile/charlesgaba.com/post/3m2mnwd45bc2q
Take a wild guess what this was in response to. Or click through.
Why do some things keep being relitigated? Because some dumb fucks refuse to fucking learn from it.
It’s the Circle of fucking Life.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Next one for sure. Saw that Trump and Co have a novel interpretation of the law passed in 2019 (signed by Trump) that guarantees furloughed federal employees back pay. So they’re threatening not to pay us for time not worked…nobody seems to have noticed that’s a major climb down from firing us all.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Steve in the ATL: Bush v. Gore is one of the most absurd Supreme Court decisions ever. Justice Scalia used the equal protection clause to install his choice in office. The same Justice Scalia who routinely attempted to write the 14th amendment right out of our constitution. There is no way the court decides Bush v Gore that way if the person wanting the counting stopped was Gore.
IMHO noting that decision sucks is not focusing on the past, so much as showcasing the direction the cons were headed. Right now, this court is set to decide another fictional case (like the baker who did not actually bake wedding cakes). Since the 6 cons lead with the outcome they want, we can assume they will find conversion (sadism grifting) therapy to be a-ok.
Pointing out the 6 cons ignore the facts of cases, make up facts that don’t exist, decide moot and unripe cases while rewriting the unambiguous Constitutional text is critically important.
The arguments do need to be crisper, cleaner and shorter than what I have spewed forth here.
Barbara
Every election is unique. Biden stepping aside, the Covid hangover, running a woman of color — and the results were still heartbreakingly close. Sure, assess which voters fell away, who didn’t show up and the rest. Or take my simple stupid view: misogyny is alive and well, especially when the candidate isn’t white. The point being that the main goal is looking forward./p>
They Call Me Noni
@Karen Gail: I just now listened to Cris Hayes podcast with Graham Platner and I think I understand the enthusiasm in Maine. All I know about him I learned in the last hour and don’t live in your state so please let me know if my initial impression is wrong.
Karen Gail
@Mr. Bemused Senior: It wasn’t the trees it was fire and sharp pointy things. An elderly lady me the worst mistake humans ever made was to allow males to have swords.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
So tired, so tired of discussing the 2024 election. At this point, it is an absolute waste of time. There’s no new information available. The same people are having the same arguments over and over again. Newsflash: if you haven’t changed anyone’s mind in all these months, you aren’t going to!
FastEdD
Light beer is an abomination to my Lord and Savior the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is also like having sex in a canoe.
randy khan
The people who want to argue about the last election would say the two options are one and the same.
Doug R
@Peke Daddy:
Sounds good.
Hildebrand
While still peeved that Bill Bradley lost the 2000 primary, yes, it’s time to move on to the next election cycle and win enough races to shove every last maga chud into a locker.
Belafon
Yes to both, obviously. /sarc
I understand the urge to analyze why we lost, but the only real evidence we have is that we ran a black woman for president, which gave a whole bunch of people an excuse not to vote for her. Everything else we argue here is based on feelings.
Harrison Wesley
Saw a headline that I didn’t have time to follow up claiming that Trump’s approval rating with white voters is back in positive territory. Maybe that National Guard stuff is a winner.
iKropoclast
Next one, but I want to see evidence Democrats learned something, which means also addressing the last one.
¿Por que no los dos
ETA: I’m likely to be taking notice of primaries outside my region in a big way next year. I’m very interested to see what choices D voters make next year in considering my own future voting habits.
Karen Gail
@They Call Me Noni: I have no clue what you are talking about.
Gravie
Next one. I’m out of patience with people who just want to rehash the last one.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
On the one hand, the saying goes that if we can’t learn from the past, we’re doomed to repeat it; on the other hand, it’s been less than a year, and we’re nowhere near a good position to decide what actually doomed us eleven months ago. Maybe in eleven years, someone will be able to figure it out.
We’re in defensive, reactive mode right now. And a lot of us are scared to the point of irrationality.
I vote to take on the fight before us, rather than get bogged down analyzing the fight we lost.
Cookie Monster
We as a nation are not yet not done with the election of 1860.
Hildebrand
@Barbara: I just wish that some folks in the Dem party apparatus and their attendant podcasters would acknowledge that misogyny and racism were factors.
Truly, I don’t want to litigate the last election, but, boy howdy do we need to get it through the heads of a whole lot of folks that misogyny and racism are real.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@randy khan: Of course, because the lessons they think they learned from the election are the ‘one true TM’ lessons. So everyone must be convinced to see the ‘one true TM’ light of their wisdom! But because different people bring in different perspectives and the voting public is complicated, that will never happen.
jimmiraybob
I’m not the puppet, you’re the puppet. You’re the puppet.
…..
………..
I’m sorry, what were we discussing?
Karen Gail
I find as I get older I agree more and more with the opinions of grandparents; in this case anyone who would be a good leader has to much sense to get involved in politics. Along with as long politicians are for sale they will do whatever it takes to please their “owners.”
stacib
@Karen Gail: On my drive home, there were so many trump flags, inflatables, yard signs, etc. for the past two years. Since the Epstein mess, all but one house has now disappeared them. I’m not reading anything into it other than ‘huh, interesting’.
hueyplong
I’m pretty sure this thread will eventually look a lot like the previous one.
cain
@hrprogressive:
We should analyze how the GOP has been doing things. They use the politics of resentment and it works because they have been gumming up the works through the years and govt has not been able to address them.
But Americans have become child like and no longer think critically as they did.
I don’t have a solution. But it seems that our strategy should include targeting the SoS in every state and buying up AM / FM radio stations to message rural voters.
H.E.Wolf
a) Next one.
b) I’m volunteering my time for that already. As in, I don’t comment here very often, because doing the thing is more interesting to me than commenting about the thing.
c) Happy Tuesday, all – I’m heading back to the pile of voter-related data entry waiting for me!
d) I recommend finding a small, concrete task, and doing it. It makes it possible to say “Happy Tuesday” with sincerity rather than sarcasm.
Karen Gail
@stacib: Me neither it was just strange; the only flags were either in front of business or US flags. It wouldn’t have unnerved me if the normal staid people I see in stores were all bright and cheerful.
Suzanne
@Hildebrand:
On same page here. Where I really start to struggle is with the implications of this statement. Like…. should we not nominate more Black candidates? More women? No LGBTQ+ candidates?
I have no answer to this question. Just sadness that I’m even having to ponder it.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@hrprogressive: I disagree. Right now the gop is giving us churn. That’s it. Chaos is not a governing strategy. Most people are not down in the weeds on any of this; yet, they are increasingly anxious about the churn. We cannot bicker our way into people’s brains. That bickering just sounds like more churn. It confuses the issue.
The republican party and this president both want to convert this country into every other absurd, corrupt, backwards backwater hellhole that ever existed. Let that be the storyline. It is undeniably accurate.
Layer8Problem
@Interesting Name Goes Here: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Ahh, no it isn’t.
WTFGhost
“Um, this sounds like there’s only one real answer, so it sounds like a complaint, not a poll. It seems it’s about behavior I’m pretty sure I haven’t engaged in to a huge extent, but, I recognize some would feel it was a hurtful “SHUT UP NOW!” command, unless they felt similarly free from guilt. I see your point, but, um… this is why pollsters hire professionals, so they don’t have to talk to people like me.”
lowtechcyclist
@hrprogressive:
It does seem to me that replacing Biden with Harris at the top of the ticket is what most of the 2024 rehash is about, and there’s absolutely nothing that further discussion of that will help prepare us for.
[Omnes @23, $#@! reply button]
Totally agree.
Hildebrand
@Suzanne: I’m right there with you – the bigotry of far too many in this country seriously harms our ability to do anything, let alone move forward.
WaterGirl
@Dave:
Boy, that should be a rotating tag!
WaterGirl
@Old Man Shadow:
This is argument and abuse! :-)
iKropoclast
@Suzanne: Like…. should we not nominate more Black candidates? More women? No LGBTQ+ candidates?
I think avoiding diverse slates of candidates would be a bad choice. Spoken as someone who doesn’t like cynical positioning and who thinks that despite their willingness to raise ethnic/racial minorities, women, and queer folk to some leadership roles relative to Republicans, that Ds might still be too beholden to white patriarchal ideals.
Layer8Problem
“I say we totally remove the Democratic Party and replace it with this emergency backup party which does all the right things correctly AND WHICH I JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE IN MY BACK POCKET!!!”
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Suzanne: What answer do you need that hasn’t already been given? 2016 and 2024 have proven that people will go all the way out of their way to avoid having to vote for minority candidates.
And before you “b-b-b-but 2008” me, remember that the economy crashed. And COVID was 2020. Have fun imagining what horrors are going to be necessary to make 2028 feasible.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@hrprogressive:
+1
Chief Oshkosh
Uh, your “one-question poll” has three questions.
1. Do you want to keep arguing about the last election? Yes. But I’ll be right and you’ll be wrong, so maybe you should just concede the field. ;)
2. Or try to win the next one? Yes, but we’d have to understand what happened in the last election that caused us to lose. See answer to #1 above.
3. If you were polled about this, what would your answer be? Definitely maybe.
p.a.
There’s lots of individual idiosyncrasies in every election, but one overarching thing I’ve seen for years and years: when liberal policies are accurately defined without partisan tags, they are popular. Not always overwhelmingly so, but not squeaking by 50%+1. But label the policies “liberal” or “Democratic”, and they’re negative or 50%+ a smidge.🤷🏻
planetjanet
@They Call Me Noni: He gives off Fetterman vibes. Wolf in sheep’s clothing.
WaterGirl
@Karen Gail: Huh.
Almost no signs. (good!)
Super cheery and chatty, almost giddy. (That seems… kind of odd?)
Okay, very odd! Thanks for the update.
Shakti
YES.
But also, I’m extremely frustrated by the way a lot of things are framed.
Ask yourself, and I’m asking myself:
What do you hope will happen if you get a positive election result? What do you expect to happen if you get a positive election result? And how positive does the result need to be in order to get your expected or hoped for thing(s)?
Old School
Do crimes that occurred earlier than a few months ago even exist?
iKropoclast
I’ve never a sheep wearing a shlubby hoodie. Or even a stylish one.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I noticed. It is movement in the correct direction. Nonetheless, this regime knows nothing but thuggery.
The law could not be clearer. It specifically applies to any employee furloughed during “any lapse in appropriations that begins on or after December 22, 2018.”
WaterGirl
@Jeffro:
My literal response?
no on the black woman. check.
no on the gay man. check
big yes on the straight white man. of course he did. snort!
FastEdD
Next one, but when we win, don’t “turn the page.” I’m still pissed about Nixon.
”
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Shakti: there’s the rub. We need to win so big it shakes the foundations.
Suzanne
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Things are always shifting. Maybe this is stubborn and emotional optimism, but I believe things stay the same until they don’t.
I want to be ready when they don’t.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Harrison Wesley: I see all kinds of headlines about polling says this or that – often headlines about polls saying completely contradictory things on the same news aggregator web page. But as far as the reputable polls go Trump’s approval rating seems to be on a slow steady decline. I’ve read that there is even some evidence his support among Republicans is slipping lately. So I’m skeptical anything is turning around for him but white people are pretty stupid when it comes to Trump (and I say that as a thoroughly white person) so anything is possible.
TheOtherHank
I’m so on board with winning the next one. In fact, I just got back from dropping my YES on 50 ballot in my local dropbox. Visual confirmation, if you need it.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@hrprogressive: I completely disagree. I think you are absolutely convinced that your way was the only way we would have won. I don’t see any strong evidence that is true. You aren’t the only one who thinks repeatedly saying the same thing is a magic bullet for winning the next election. Regardless, I just scroll past all those posts from you and the others still fighting over the same BS. So yeah, the arguments stopped having resonance months ago.
iKropoclast
Obviously AI generated…
cain
@Harrison Wesley: They are hurting the people that need hurting.
WaterGirl
@FastEdD: OT, but in my younger days I had sex in a canoe and I recall being quite pleased with it.
Karen Gail
At this point not sure if there will be another election or even 50 states; Miller and crew are doing everything they can to trigger insurrection and destroy what is left of democracy.
I am with Hildebrand until this country accepts just how racist and misogynic this country is nothing is going to change; we are seeing law enforcement slip back into what it was when founded slave catchers and protectors of wealthy.
Castor Canadensis
Look forward: lots of people will look over the stern of the boat, see we’d got off-course and correct that. They need to look over the bow, and dodge the big rock in our way (:-))
Karen Gail
@WaterGirl: Me too; a little tricky but lots of fun.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Interesting Name Goes Here: You have forgotten the blow out election of 2008. The margins were most excellent in 2012 too. Hillary Clinton won the most votes and our last election was a squeaker.
We can debate the next nominee based on who the nominees are when that time comes.
iKropoclast
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I will have to agree with at least one element of hrprogressive’s argument.
“Vote blue no matter who” drove me crazy as an argument even as I spent a couple decades doing just that. It’s the “don’t think just do what we say” of the whole thing. It takes a subtle truth most of us implicitly know and abide by (the static two party nature of our system) and turns it cynically as a weapon against dissent among the party’s own voters.
It isn’t convincing those who aren’t already convinced.
zhena gogolia
@WTFGhost: Right.
WTFGhost
Really? Why can’t you face the next election, as a fresh, brand new election, without digging through the last one? See, you said “we’d have to…” not “why shouldn’t we?”, and I’m questioning the necessity.
Is it impossible to come up with a brand new idea? Is every advance made in politicking a question of “what did we do wrong last time and how can we fix it?” or do we sometimes get more out of “wait, what if we did something different?”
It’s always good to look to the past for lessons. But it’s really bad to look to the past to rehash old grudges, refight old battles, and otherwise, fail to keep moving forward.
p.a.
What can we collectively do to crash the economy, as this seems the only way for the last few generations to get a Dem government, or at least the executive?
“Unconstitutionalism” worked on the public to unseat Nixon/Ford, but in our current degeneracy this current absolute fascist imposition is… ho hum, I’m not a target… yet.
p.a.
@WaterGirl: Hence the name???🫢
iKropoclast
I’m not. I’m just waiting to see if the donor class will continue to attempt to exercise veto authority over primary voters.
Guess I can’t know until some elections happen.
debit
Why don’t we have a “argue about the 2024 election” containment thread. People wanna argue and keep poking each other, do it over there. Have at until you’ve exhausted each other. God knows the rest of us are sick of it.
WaterGirl
@Karen Gail: A little less tricky with two women. :-)
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I did 2008 you. I apologize for not seeing that comment first.
That election was more than the economy crashing. I had folks, gop from birth, telling me how Barack Obama helped them believe we could solve anything. How he was calling us all to a barn raising for the country. The goodwill was real, it was deep and it still exists out there.
It is daunting until I recall the facts are on our side and most people do not like inflicting pain on others.
p.a.
@debit: I want to rehash how Hillary’s racist 2008 primary against Obama hurt her in ’16.
WaterGirl
@p.a.: Everything is better on the water.
Fireworks? LOVE THEM!
Fireworks overhead while you’re on the water? Even better!
JML
I’m unsurprisingly 100% on “win the next one”.
I will say, all the squabbling and anger and disappointment and dissatisfaction going on right now is…pretty normal for a party that’s completely shut out at the federal level. And until an election comes along, there’s not a lot of other places to put it. It feels worse because the current administration is uniquely awful for modern times (Nixon was awful and criminal and corrupt, but also a competent administrator and knew how to make government work), there’s been literally no honeymoon period where there’s been a sense of unity around the new administration or a “let’s try to make it work” attitude…because they’ve been a destructive clown show since day one, and things are happening that are so far out of the norms we’re used to that we’re all flailing.
And Democratic leadership doesn’t have an answer that will satisfy us, primarily because they don’t really have the power to stop it. They’re also not really built for this either; they’re legislative leaders who are in a minority, not national unifiers to lead the party. It always gets unpleasant for our own side when we’re shut out like this. It just also happens this is the worst possible time for Democrats to have zero power at the federal level.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@HopefullyNotCassandra: And I’m just saying that when the “Justice for American Idol” movement takes hold and demands that we send Dems a message by
electing J.D. Vance to be Trump’s figurehead for eight more years“voting your conscience”, at some point some of us who feel so strongly about moral positions need to take the moral position that those people are goddamn morons who shouldn’t be allowed out of bed without adult supervision.Of course, as I noted, that usually doesn’t happen until something else happens that is so horrific and so catastrophic these people can’t hide behind influencers and trends.
WaterGirl
@debit:
I have actually thought about that. (which in itself is very sad)
Either putting up a thread every day (like the all-day baseball threads!) for folks who want to rehash everything.
or
Keeping a rehashing thread in the sidebar so it’s always available for anyone who isn’t so so tired of doing that.
Karen Gail
@FastEdD: Not as pissed at Nixon as I am at Reagan. Yes, Nixon was all the bad things people said about him. I started “hating” him when I found out he beat Pat so badly she ended up in hospital, and the secret service did nothing.
But Reagan? he was not only bad at be a governor, bad at being a president but he was willing to sell out fellow actors to McCarthy so he got roles.
Karen Gail
@WaterGirl: Not in my experience; both male and female are equally tricky just in slightly different ways. Now three? doesn’t work in canoe.
Captain C
@stacib:
For a moment I had a horrified misinterpretation of what these were/are. It would not shock me to find out that such things exist and are marketed to MAGAts.
Ishiyama
I was hoping that this thread would be more lighthearted and upbeat about our opportunities for collective action. Lincoln had a lot of bad days during the Civil War, and he wasn’t viewed favorably by most of his own Party, let alone the allies of the Confederacy who held office in the North, up until his death. But he didn’t lose heart, he told jokes to lighten his mood.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@WaterGirl: Thats a great idea. It would make it easier to skip.
Suzanne
@Interesting Name Goes Here:
I have plenty of unspeakable personal feelings about idiots, well-meaning and otherwise. But holy cannoli…. do we want to win the next election?! That entails appealing to people. Persuading them. Shaming them might feel good, but it is absolutely a losing strategy.
Hoodie
All for winning the next one, which means listening to people to see what they want now, not 2 years ago. Shelf life for any issue these days seems to be about a few weeks, six months tops. Problem is, what they want is often pretty dumb (Stevenson wasn’t wrong). Dems have to find a way to navigate dumb for the greater good without resorting to the outright lying that the GOP has made normal.
Suzanne
@Captain C: I have shared here about a store near my house that sells a lot of concrete yard statuary. Eagles and wagon wheels and the like. In 2020, they had a whole array of Trump statues for your front yard. Just blew my mind.
iKropoclast
Check the labeling. May have been intended as outdoor urinals.
Karen Gail
Honestly, the person I distrust most is someone who is running for office. It takes a big ego to run for president, at this point in history don’t see much daylight between tyrannical rulers, kings, despots and who we are putting in Oval Office.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@iKropoclast: How did the donor class stop primary voters from voting for the candidate of their choice? Did they send in the National Guard or hack voting machines or arrest voters? No? They just donated to their favorite candidates? Huh. Ooooh kay.
Shakti
@Steve in the ATL: @HopefullyNotCassandra:
Three times in US history the Electoral College put the loser of the popular vote in the White House and two of those times happened in my lifetime and are the last two Republican Presidents and the only ones who are still living.
Most of the SCOTUS justices were appointed by those two men.
1.The first got their first term via rank nepotism.
Bush v. Gore: Justices who own their lifetime sinecure directly to the candidate’s father or the candidate’s father’s direct boss voted in favor of the interpretation of the popular vote count as determined by candidates brother to break a tie in an indirect body (the Electoral College) made to bypass using the popular vote directly.
These judges outnumbered the judges who owed their lifetime sinecure to the other candidates’ boss.
2. The second egged a mob on to attack the elected representatives counting the electoral college vote when he lost reelection. And when he garnered another term, he made a show of pardoning people in that mob, removing any fig leaf of doubt.
Any discussion of turnout, overcoming structural issues like gerrymandering, voter protection, etc has to account for how people are likely to behave if they lose.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Suzanne: So you want to lie to people.
OK. The people you need to lie to won’t believe you ever thanks to Fox News, and the people who trusted you are going to be a little heated about those lies. Like Black people, for example.
Karen Gail
@Hoodie: Part of what is needed is that a willingness to keep up with what is going on in technology. Right now some of the biggest voices are those of “tech bros” these are the latest in the wealthy that are buying politicians. Trump was “honest” he told people if you gave him X number of dollars he would support you and your ideas.
Influencers are a big voice and a big business; they are shaping the US, anyone who wants to win needs to pay attention to who the big voices are.
Suzanne
@Interesting Name Goes Here:
If you think efforts to listen, persuade, find common ground, build consensus, meet people where they are and try to change their minds — in short, do the direct work of politics — are lies…. then I truly don’t know what to tell you.
scav
Clown car of back seat drivers some days.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: I agree with you.
ExPatExDem
Don’t forget the High School football coach who was holding revival meetings on the 50 yard line at games that Justice Gorsuch retconned as “a quiet personal prayer”.
The dishonesty in that one offended Sotomayor so much that she actually put Photos of what the coach was really doing into her dissent.
p.a.
@Karen Gail: I know folks who tried. Good thing they could swim. Good thing they were already naked to swim. Too bad they weren’t sober enough to get home but passed out on the front lawn of the mayor of Central Falls, RI. (2 of 3)
Really you’d think the swim would have sobered them up.
iKropoclast
They didn’t, the votes were cast. Then, when the voting was over, donors decided as a group they didn’t like the candidate the voters chose and pressured the elected officials beholden to them and raised a bunch of media drama until a continued campaign by the selected candidate was literally not tenable.
The donor class needs to be reeled in in a major way. I will be looking for candidates who make campaign finance reform a priority and will flat out refuse any candidates opposed to reform, no matter what stage of the proceedings.
WaterGirl
@Ishiyama: I thought there was quite a bit of light-hearted banter.
Starting with comment #1, and with lots of Monty Python argument-abuse references.
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I have canvassed for hundreds of hours in my life. I have made thousands more phone calls, trying to get people to vote for Democratic candidates. Many of those efforts were targeting registered Republicans in the hopes that they’d “come on over”. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But that’s the work.
iKropoclast
Lies are one means of pursuing these goals, true. Another is showing kindness and empathy.
Emily B.
Oh, sure, I have THOUGHTS on the last election, but there’s no percentage in hashing them over now. Let’s get on with the next thing.
Karen Gail
Some days the election arguments here remind me of battle with mouse in the house; old house lathe and plaster plus not rodent tight. When moved in used live traps and peanut butter lead many a mouse to it’s death. But there is one, it lives in kitchen wall and checks out stove nightly; I have set live traps and it poops on the traps, same with kill traps. I make sure that there is no food out but it still checks top of stove every night and leaves me “gifts” to remind me still here. The only good thing, a silver lining as you will; when town flooded sewers backed up and I ended with cockroaches. I think the mouse ate them since the population dropped quicker than I could battle. So while I make sure that I’d don’t feed the mouse I gave up on traps.
That is what arguing about elections feels like to me, battling a mouse in the house.
bbleh
@Peke Daddy: btw this is the most sensible answer
Jackie
Just got back from running errands and I already know this has to be another thread to pass over – as was the morning post.
Beautiful photo, WaterGirl!
Professor Bigfoot
@Cookie Monster: Nor 1876.
Curiously, it’s the same ideology in all cases.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: could you reference rev ricks comment number for how to disagree well?
is it something that could be reprised as a front page post?
Professor Bigfoot
That, I think, has become the focus of the conservative movement since Obama: fight like hell to make sure white people are afraid of the Black and Jewish and female and LGBTQIA+ Democrats.
Making some white people ostensibly on our side ready to start throwing folks under the bus.
Obligatory #NotAllWhitePeople
Omnes Omnibus
@Gloria DryGarden: It was a front page post.
Professor Bigfoot
The Churn.
Amos Burton would have understood our time, probably better than we do. (#TheExpanse)
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden:
Guest Post from RevRick
Soprano2
QFT. Too many of us have bought into the R’s message that Democrats are woefully unpopular with everyone. I know what the polling says about that, but it rarely says why the answers are what they are. I suspect about half of the people who are unhappy with Democrats aren’t that way because they hate “woke”, but because they think Democrats should be more radical. At least, that’s what I get from what I read around the internet. These results are almost always presented in the press with the idea that “OMG all these voters hate Democrats, they must be unhappy with their positions, they need to throw everyone under the bus and become less harsh Republicans”. I don’t think that’s true at all.
I also think, unfortunately, that quite a bit of that has to do with us being the party that’s supportive of everyone who isn’t a white man.
Gloria DryGarden
WIN
Expanded answer: when I get caught up in anger and blame, -those were the only skills we had in my family- I’ve learned to ask what do I want, what is the desired outcome.
All study and dissecting of what went wrong is useful only for discovering how not to make the same mistakes, and how to approach things more effectively. In math, that was always simple: here’s how to solve problem #6, for those who got it wrong on the test.
In the world of politics, psychology, and pr/ marketing/messaging, it’s way more layered and complex.
But bitching and kvetching about stuff, and venting, by themselves, are not the same as aiming toward a desired outcome.
They Call Me Noni
@planetjanet: oooh, that’s definitely not good then. I have received a couple of long “send me money “ texts which I deleted.
Suzanne
@Gloria DryGarden: It was a front-page post on Saturday.
Here’s what I found most pertinent:
I am of the opinion that we can, and we should, criticize our leaders. Including Dems, if needed. They’re adults and they put themselves out there for this, and they enjoy a lot of our trust and our resources.
I also think it’s fine to disagree here at BJ. I would like to believe that we’re in alignment on the broadest-stroke outlines and a desire to win elections. But I’m doing my best to heed RevRick’s words and keep disagreements impersonal.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: Thank you. I appreciate this.
I think I missed Saturday, to attend to real world stuff, like painting my cellar door, and other outdoor fall tasks. (it was our last warm day of t-shirt weather, in the 80s. Now we’re in 50s and 60s, more conducive to online reading.)
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: thx
@WaterGirl: thx
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@iKropoclast: Ahh. Fair.
Ramalama
Next please.
I don’t think I’ve said much of anything about the election after the election because I just … But I will put a pin in it, in me, to stfu about that past in the coming days and months.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Professor Bigfoot: No doubt! We are fans of Amos Burton in this home.
Melancholy Jaques
@bbleh:
Well, I raised this question in the last Argument Thread, but I I didn’t get an answer. So I very much appreciate it being restated in a separate post because I really want to know.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Shakti: yes. This is another reason why we need to win so big it shakes the foundations.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Interesting Name Goes Here: we can make the moral arguments loudly and boldly. Boldness is more attractive than the two-step say nothing/diversion strategy. If there is one thing I wish democrats would do much more, it is stand firmly and proudly on the moral high ground.
We don’t have to wait for calamity to tell people human rights must be universal or they are no rights at all. IMHO
tam1MI
I have a feeling that the arguments will subside as November 2026 grows closer.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@HopefullyNotCassandra: We shouldn’t have to, but apparently certain people have to lose theirs or be threatened with losing them before they decide that maybe they’re worth fighting for. And even then, only theirs. Case in point – the uproar that popped up when Kimmel got put on vacation only to poof out of existence as soon as he came back.
iKropoclast
You mean when we have actual candidates to discuss? Stands to reason.
Though some (all?) of those candidates will have…a history…
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I think people do care. That is why the goypers lie about what they are doing to keep their voters confused while infuriating the rest of us. It is much more difficult to have any conversation when we begin furious. The only thing this modern gop does well is infuriating people into incoherence.
I also wish we would get Stephen Colbert back too. People notice when this president messes about with their laughter. There is no doubt about that.
chemiclord
I suppose someone could argue that we WON’T be able to win future elections reliably until we reckon with the divisions within.
randy khan
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
In general, my view is that you have to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is, as Wayne Gretzky once said. Some of that is informed by where things were at the last election, but not everything.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@chemiclord: As I said earlier, it’s the Circle of Life. People vote in assholes who break everything, then vote in people to fix it, then bring in more assholes when the people they voted in to fix it don’t move fast enough for their liking. Round and around we go. It would seem like it would be a good idea to break that fucking cycle before things happen that no one can fix, but listening to some people here makes me think that doing that isn’t appealing at all.
justsomeguy05
@hrprogressive: Thank You ! I agree 100%.
Unless we address the messaging, the media bias, and the educational system (among other things), focusing on a candidate and using the same consultants will be quite insufficient.
Decades/generations of FAKE positive memes about Republicans, and fake NEGATIVE memes about Democrats have been very successful. Gotta turn that around. And it should have begun 40+ years ago ! At this point, only a full blown Republican created disaster has any chance of saving us. Otherwise, the rubes will always be easily conned to vote for any Republicans that are running.
Lily
There will be plenty of opportunity to address the next election after it’s over.
LAC
@Professor Bigfoot: And hence why we are at this impasse. To be honest, I do not trust that our side has learned anything from this election other than find the nicest way to shelf some of us while pursuing the disaffected republican voters with “better messaging”. What this messaging will be, I dread to hear it.
I find my broody self these days going back to James Baldwin, as I see another thread going under :
“…we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country–to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world–and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or woman who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed.”
TXG1112
@chemiclord: Yes, I am willing to make that argument. Having said that, my taking of this position does not justify endless internet arguments about it that merely stoke divisions. There are various camps of “why the Democrats lost the last election” and I hope that different politicians can lead with their good faith conclusions to that question to see what gets traction. I think that most of us can agree that whatever they do next time, it should at least be different from what was tried the last time.
*My own pet theory which is mine is that small, but important groups of Democrats either defected to the GOP or sat out for a variety of reasons (that don’t always make sense) and in aggregate did so in just enough numbers to lose the election. Do with that what you will.
Lyrebird
@Peke Daddy:
Thank you!
RevRick
I, for one, believe that rehashing the last election is one of the most self-defeating, self-destructive exercises we could indulge in. The fact of the matter is that the loss was so narrow that the causes are overdetermined.
The result is that any reason we believe is the cause will, of course, be met with citations of others. And then we end up hurling increasingly acrimonious accusations of bad faith at each other. Pardon me if I don’t want any part of that.
Moreover , there’s a lot of evidence that all postmortem analyzes are worthless. After Romney lost to Obama, the GOP conducted an autopsy to figure out how to win. In 2015, Trump ignored all that advice and won in 2016. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of evidence that when it comes to Presidential elections exogenous factors are often more decisive. Hoover won in a landslide in 1928 and lost in a landslide in 1932.
As far as 2026 and 2028 are concerned, all we can do is do the work.
Jinchi
People argue about the last election, because they want to win the next one.
Kayla Rudbek
@HopefullyNotCassandra: yes, it almost makes me relieved that the Supine Court doesn’t hear that many IP cases, as they would probably do away with the principle that “fraud upon the Office” gets your patent or trademark cancelled (they tend to leave screwing up patent law to the Federal Circuit instead).