I don’t think this part is true. I agree with the part before this, but not this.
The republicans caused a surge in their hate. They appealed to the heartburn in their esophagus’s, not their hearts and minds.
I think the voter apathy is really what has them winning. The fact that people can recognize that the DNC seeks to do nothing, and somehow have been tricked into thinking this means their votes mean nothing, or that they can’t be changed.
We, on the other hand, have been hitting them over the head with their own racism and stupidity, ignoring the reasons they’re doing what they’re doing - and how we’re playing into Republican hands by doing this over and over.
I don’t think its this at all. In fact, when we stopped doing this is when their votes went up. People largely respond to democrats actually fighting for something instead of saying “at least we arent that other guy”.
The democrats currently, as a group, come across as “We’ll change nothing” and thats the problem. Its a problem that can be fixed though.
Now is the time to build the progressive party as a big tent - if you hold one progressive tenant, you’re a democrat, goddamn it - and start inviting voters into it, with solutions to their problems and acceptance of their ass-backward views until we can soften and change them.
This mentality I actually believe is part of the problem. This speaks as if we’re all a part of the DNC, and we’re not.
Our levers to control this are as I described. Slow change through primaries, state and local politics.
We would all love if tommorow the Democrats turned around and started talking like Mamdani about practical solutions, but they don’t want to do that due to their donors, and the fact a shit ton of the old guard are just rich conservatives.
All these “we need to do X” that start with the DNC magically changing their incentive structure are in similar fairy tale land to a revolution. They misunderstand where the actual roadblocks are, and treat the DNC as if it weren’t currently antagonistic to their goals.
Yes its complex to say that the DNC is antagonistic to your goals but you need to support the Democrats anyways with a full chest, but the world is complex, and this is the reality of a winner takes all/first past the post system. There are 2 major parties, eventually, always under these systems, and you pick the least bad one, and force it to change slowly.
We both agree the party has to be changed from within. We agree on basically everything. I do not hope everyone starts talking like Mamdani tomorrow. I’m in Arkansas, formerly blue and now red (like my home state of Iowa). Absolutely zero people here, within either the Dem party or the progressive coalitions working outside of it, would say “what works in NYC will work here.” People are not there yet. We have to meet them where they are so we can change their hearts and minds.
What will work here is the simple message “we know you’re at or beyond financial ruin, we have the only solution.”
What won’t work is "let’s divide ourselves as progressives vs. establishment, pro vs tepid trans support, split every hair and make ourselves look like the weak navel-gazers they paint us as. Stop dithering about who is “DNC” and who isn’t. That’s the problem right there. We are all DNC. We are all progressive. We are all one.
Unity. It’s what the Republicans started with the Southern strategy, which I know is real because I saw it flip two states, starting way back in the 80s when AM radio was quietly taken over. AM radio was in fact a brilliant way to reach the rural folks and start a populist campaign, which the bore fruit in the 90s and 00s as the party began evolving away from old ideals. They had one message - “those city folks want to destroy your good, wholesome, Christian way of life.” From there the party itself reinvented itself (multiple times over) not at the ballot box, but by powerful people within the party who knew how to crack whips and enact reform. We need to identify and empower these people within the Democratic party, and that might mean putting side differences to build the big tent coalition we need.
I do not hope everyone starts talking like Mamdani tomorrow.
Mamdani talked for NYC and its problems. My hypothetical Mamdani would just be quick witted, and talk about active solutions for the people, but on the federal scale. I by no means think people would magically agree to everything Mamdani is talking about. It was about a shift in messaging to being about pragmatic change for the people. not fighting progressives within the party etc.
What won’t work is "let’s divide ourselves as progressives vs. establishment, pro vs tepid trans support, split every hair and make ourselves look like the weak navel-gazers they paint us as. Stop dithering about **who is “DNC” and who isn’t. **
Im not sure I follow that last part. The DNC is a very real organization with very real leaders and goals. Its not something that is disputed, its a factual, existing organization.
We need to identify and empower these people within the Democratic party, and that might mean putting side differences to build the big tent coalition we need.
Part of the problem, is that you need a draw, and if you can’t use hate, you have to use appealing to the common person with change. The idea that its about a bigger tent, is something that needs change within the DNC/Old gaurd too.
They don’t seem to want to accept the progressive elements, and Im not talking about the people online who say nonsense about third parties or revolutions, I mean people like AOC, Bernie, Mamdani. They fight them tooth and nail, and thats part of the problem. Of course, as I mentioned, we can’t solve that though, as we’re not part of the DNC, hence the solution I recommend.
I don’t think this part is true. I agree with the part before this, but not this.
The republicans caused a surge in their hate. They appealed to the heartburn in their esophagus’s, not their hearts and minds.
I think the voter apathy is really what has them winning. The fact that people can recognize that the DNC seeks to do nothing, and somehow have been tricked into thinking this means their votes mean nothing, or that they can’t be changed.
I don’t think its this at all. In fact, when we stopped doing this is when their votes went up. People largely respond to democrats actually fighting for something instead of saying “at least we arent that other guy”.
The democrats currently, as a group, come across as “We’ll change nothing” and thats the problem. Its a problem that can be fixed though.
This mentality I actually believe is part of the problem. This speaks as if we’re all a part of the DNC, and we’re not.
Our levers to control this are as I described. Slow change through primaries, state and local politics.
We would all love if tommorow the Democrats turned around and started talking like Mamdani about practical solutions, but they don’t want to do that due to their donors, and the fact a shit ton of the old guard are just rich conservatives.
All these “we need to do X” that start with the DNC magically changing their incentive structure are in similar fairy tale land to a revolution. They misunderstand where the actual roadblocks are, and treat the DNC as if it weren’t currently antagonistic to their goals.
Yes its complex to say that the DNC is antagonistic to your goals but you need to support the Democrats anyways with a full chest, but the world is complex, and this is the reality of a winner takes all/first past the post system. There are 2 major parties, eventually, always under these systems, and you pick the least bad one, and force it to change slowly.
We both agree the party has to be changed from within. We agree on basically everything. I do not hope everyone starts talking like Mamdani tomorrow. I’m in Arkansas, formerly blue and now red (like my home state of Iowa). Absolutely zero people here, within either the Dem party or the progressive coalitions working outside of it, would say “what works in NYC will work here.” People are not there yet. We have to meet them where they are so we can change their hearts and minds.
What will work here is the simple message “we know you’re at or beyond financial ruin, we have the only solution.”
What won’t work is "let’s divide ourselves as progressives vs. establishment, pro vs tepid trans support, split every hair and make ourselves look like the weak navel-gazers they paint us as. Stop dithering about who is “DNC” and who isn’t. That’s the problem right there. We are all DNC. We are all progressive. We are all one.
Unity. It’s what the Republicans started with the Southern strategy, which I know is real because I saw it flip two states, starting way back in the 80s when AM radio was quietly taken over. AM radio was in fact a brilliant way to reach the rural folks and start a populist campaign, which the bore fruit in the 90s and 00s as the party began evolving away from old ideals. They had one message - “those city folks want to destroy your good, wholesome, Christian way of life.” From there the party itself reinvented itself (multiple times over) not at the ballot box, but by powerful people within the party who knew how to crack whips and enact reform. We need to identify and empower these people within the Democratic party, and that might mean putting side differences to build the big tent coalition we need.
Mamdani talked for NYC and its problems. My hypothetical Mamdani would just be quick witted, and talk about active solutions for the people, but on the federal scale. I by no means think people would magically agree to everything Mamdani is talking about. It was about a shift in messaging to being about pragmatic change for the people. not fighting progressives within the party etc.
Im not sure I follow that last part. The DNC is a very real organization with very real leaders and goals. Its not something that is disputed, its a factual, existing organization.
Part of the problem, is that you need a draw, and if you can’t use hate, you have to use appealing to the common person with change. The idea that its about a bigger tent, is something that needs change within the DNC/Old gaurd too.
They don’t seem to want to accept the progressive elements, and Im not talking about the people online who say nonsense about third parties or revolutions, I mean people like AOC, Bernie, Mamdani. They fight them tooth and nail, and thats part of the problem. Of course, as I mentioned, we can’t solve that though, as we’re not part of the DNC, hence the solution I recommend.