Political parties are not nearly as strong as many Americans, even some who are paid to observe the political process, realize. They cannot control the actions of every person who is elected to office under their banner. Hell, even party leadership in Congress can't really control their own caucus these days (certainly not like they used to). So as a preface to the following, realize that there is no centralized authority that can make this happen. It's a mindset that needs to be adopted, not a policy change that can be made.
There is little doubt that Democratic candidates are benefiting from the work of highly enthusiastic activists and supporters in the era of Trump. This is not entirely surprising; logically, if you can't get people fired up with the current status quo then you might as well throw in the towel and disband as a political party.
Unfortunately the Democratic Party has a long track record since 1980 of failing to deliver much of what its activist base wants. We get a lot of reaching across the aisle, bipartisan overtures, Triangulation, and incrementalism, but not much in the way of strong, forceful leadership on policy. And it's one of the major reasons it was so hard for Hillary Clinton, for example, to fire up turnout. Too many potential voters have picked up on the pattern of big promises and very minimal results.
Obama half-delivered (the ACA is both a great political success and a half-assed attempt to cover everyone while still appeasing insurance companies) and it probably clinched his second term. Rightly (to her critics) or wrongly (to her supporters), Hillary Clinton was seen by too many people as the kind of New Democrat centrist who would get elected and not really push hard for anything progressive. Let's not argue whether or not that's true – at this point it doesn't matter. It's about the perception.
Some of it is unfair. The Democratic Party can indeed point to things it has done while in power.
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Some of it is fair, though. What do you expect LGBT people to think about your likelihood of fighting for them when it takes you 20 years in public life to come out and support gay marriage (once it is sufficiently popular)? What are black and hispanic voters going to think when the party speaks forcefully to them during elections and then…kinda tends to ignore things that they want thereafter? Misinformation doesn't help, but the perception is based at least somewhat on past experience. That is the first thing Democrats need to do a better job of: Stop making excuses (Russian bots! Fox News! Bernie Bros! Jill Stein!) even if those things really did hurt them in the past. Look at your own actions and ask sincerely, "How did WE fuck up? What can WE do better?"
This is a long way of saying that the wave of activism that pushed through recent Democratic successes is not likely to last long if the people elected revert to the old Let's Be Centrist ways. That's not someone coming from the outside and screwing the Democrats. That is a self-inflicted wound, pure and simple.
In Virginia, the newly-minted Democratic Governor gave a truly insane interview to the WaPo in which he claims that what voters really want is bipartisanship (at a time when the opposing party is not only totally uninterested in cooperating productively but is becoming a quasi-white nationalist movement pushing salted-Earth economic policies) and that he is worried about costs so he may not get behind Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion is, for the record, overwhelmingly popular in the general public and virtually unopposed among liberals.
You can excuse people who worked their asses off to push a very underwhelming Northam campaign over the finish line reading this and thinking, why did I bother? The obvious answer is that he's better than the Republican. This is undoubtedly true. But if Democrats haven't figured out yet that "This guy's an empty vessel, but the Republican is worse!" is not enough to fire up the people it needs to come out and vote for them, then they're never going to figure it out.
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I don't mean to belabor the point or be unfair to Northam (who always was a moderate, so this isn't a turn for him) but just imagine how delusional you have to be as a politician to have lived through the last two years and think that the right response is to try harder to play nice with the right.
Doug Jones, for his part, started by stating that the sexual harassment claims against Donald Trump don't merit any more discussion. I get the whole "It's Alabama, he can't go full liberal on them" argument, and I understand it. But Donald Trump is as popular as the flu right now. Taking shots at Trump counts as kicking someone while they're down. Talk about a simple play – say "Yes, we need some answers on that" and you've committed to nothing but at least created the impression that you're serious about it – and Jones fumbled it. What is he trying to do? Signal that he's not interested in doing anything to irritate a deeply unpopular, failing demagogue of a president?
Parties are coalitions. Democrats rely very, very heavily on women, African-American and Hispanic voters, the young, and combinations thereof. And if you can't occasionally deliver for your key constituents – Republicans are flawless at this – then they are going to lose interest in working to get you elected. They won't turn on you and vote Republican necessarily; but they won't work their asses off for you when they expect that after the election you won't even pretend like you're serious about the things they care about.
The modern GOP, for all its awfulness, just understands governing and politics so much better than the Democratic Party that it's kind of embarrassing. Get elected, ram through some things that reward the people who got you elected, and then ask them to do it again next time by promising to deliver more. Try it sometime and you might be surprised how well it works, folks. Instead we get soft centrists telling us that if they act enough like Republicans they may win back some of the White Working Class. Oh boy!
It's too early to hit the panic button on any of the recently elected Democrats, but I know for absolute certain that "bipartisanship" is not what any voter wants. Voters want to win. They want to win elections and win something tangible in terms of policy as a result. Especially given the state of the contemporary GOP, nobody is going to be pleased by playing nice except David Brooks and Chuck Todd.
I don't advocate turning Democratic Primaries into purity tests, nor in intra-party squabbling throughout general elections. Objective one is absolutely: Get these bastards out. But that objective will be more difficult to accomplish the longer the party's office holders demur on taking off the gloves and showing a willingness to fight back. How can you expect the voters to fight hard for candidates who don't show a willingness to do the same?
NickT says:
Hard to say which party is dumber at this point. Northam and Jones really are as thick as pig-shit if they think that the base which carried to them victory wants to go back to the old Clintonian approach of sniveling corrupt compromise which ultimately led the Dems to being as popular as a cup of cold sick.
die already says:
in before an anti-semite baby boomer tells us how we owe the democrats our labor!
jcdenton says:
Hahaha… I was going to write this all out as a comment, but Ed beat me to it by writing a far better post.
Like clockwork we elect corporate Dems and like clockwork those Dems fold like wet blankets at the first sign that they may have to challenge capital in any way, shape or form.
If anyone thinks that these kinds of class traitors are the way to go forward against far more politically savvy fascists like Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, get ready to watch the country disintegrate.
P.S. Voting for Jones was still the right thing to do, but the next time you get a choice between someone like Jones and anyone else who actually gives a shit about improving the material conditions of Americans… vote for the latter person.
Juko says:
@die already
What in the ever loving fuck are you even talking about? If you're gonna toss off accusations how about making an actual complete sentence to explain what this even means?
Oh I get it. Because Bernie didn't get elected by the DNC they're all anti-semites now. G-d help us with allies like you.
bobbyp says:
Primary every corporate Dem. If you lose, don't whine, vote for them in the general because the GOP is a criminal enterprise, and primary their ass again at the next opportunity. Push always. Never stop.
geoff says:
The Dems have been "getting rolled" so long that I no longer believe they really "care" about their supposed constituency of the working class. But maybe I've just been watching too much Jimmy Dore.
Davis X. Machina says:
You just did, for about 900 words…
Dean says:
With incisive analysis like this:
"It's a mindset that needs to be adopted, not a policy change that can be made."
…who needs opponents? Or this:
"Taking shots at Trump counts as kicking someone while they're down."
You've already given everything away when you accept that the opposition "just understands governing and politics…" and you prohibit "taking shots" at the moron in chief and you prefer "mindsets" to "policy changes."
What bullshit.
Aurora S says:
@ demo & Katydid—
I brought some popcorn for y’all to munch on while we wait for the forthcoming relitigation of the 2016 DNC Pie Fight.
kemibe says:
@ Dean
Quoting you (because " and ' are exhausted)…
You've already given everything away when you accept that the opposition "just understands governing and politics…" and you prohibit "taking shots" at the moron in chief and you prefer "mindsets" to "policy changes."
Ed was mocking Jones' apparent stance (don't kick Trump while he's down), not validating it.
He also doesn't imply that mindsets are preferable to policy changes, only that when the latter is not an option, the former must be emphasized all the more strongly.
democommie says:
Ed, Nick T., Jcdenton and others who have not yet tossed a comment in:
Who are the candidates that are strong enough, right now, to challenge the democrats currently in office in the primaries–without simply losing my larger margins in the general election? All I hear is, "T'row da bumz out!", WHO will replace them? Who? Tick-tock, tick-tock…
@ die already:
?
A Juko through Dean:
Am I the only person who wonders who the progressive anti-clintonistas might be and how the hell they're going to come from whatever clove-scented smokefilled room into political prominence in the next 6 months?
@ Aurora S:
I think that I will first have to get through the 3/4 pound chocolate chip cookie I made in a 6" springform pan, yesterday. I won't be ready for popcorn until then, so give me an hour or two.
jcdenton says:
@democommie
Yeah, there is some ramp up time for new people. However, the assumption that socialists will always lose by larger margins than wet blankets may not be entirely accurate. At least all solidly-blue states should be socialist (and the dozen or so small Dem Socs/WFPs/Justice Dems that won over the last year prove that they can be).
The reality is that you have to start somewhere. Dems aren't going to change if they don't get primaryied. Let's think: what would have been the cost to Jones to throw in some policies that pushed for higher min wages (instead of that cursed idea "retraining"), single payer and say college debt forgiveness? None. PoC voters would have supported him just as much, if not more. White voters were just as unlikely to come out for Moore, since that dynamic had less to do with Jones' economic policies than the whole rape and pedophilia bit. Jones could have had a progressive platform and still won. He chose to worship bipartisanship instead.
In all fairness to Jones, he is at least planning to support the unions in AL (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/16/alabama-unions-see-doug-joness-win-as-a-victory-for-organized-labor), but his overtures about working with the other wolves are kind of insane.
So, I guess your choices are: win on empty platforms now, lose on disappointed voters later or try to win on substantive platforms now, maybe actually improve people's material conditions, maybe keep winning later.
P.S. Jones winning was still a good thing. Moore needed to be defeated. I'm going to keep repeating this message because Dems seem to conflate criticism of corporate Dems with a desire to immediately surrender to Trump, because apparently that's how nuance works these days.
Safety Man! says:
I think the simplest solution is to run Elizabeth Warren, since there is at least the perception that she cares and tries. Also, to take a page from the right-wing handbook, the corporatists and Limbaugites despise her, so extra points.
I dunno, what do you guys think? Demo, Katydid, Major, JC?
Tim H. says:
From my un-exalted point of view, candidates who might excite the Democratic base upset the donors, who I suspect have heard scary stories about evil wealth-grabbing Roosevelts for generations. We are left with "Corporate Democrats" because the donors won't easily surrender their leverage and media won't easily surrender all that money from campaign commercials.
Don't get me wrong, moderate looks really good in contrast with the current denizen of The White House, but it won't be an easy sell when the GOP candidates will be able to throw an astounding amount of red meat to their base.
jcdenton says:
Warren would be a good start.
She probably mollifies enough Clintonites that we won't be engaged in another war of:
"Kamala Harris is a powerful PoC woman, why do you oppose her? (you racist)"
"Yes, but Harris supports prison labor and made her career supporting the carcerial state (you fascist)"
etc…
She also seems to be an actual social democrat, which may be the best we'll get out of a President at this time.
Dean says:
@kemibe: Thanks, yes, I now see how Ed is imputing "Taking shots…" to Jones, rather than aiming it against him. The "But…" that kicked off the prior sentence suggested to me that Ed's voice had reemerged.
As for the mindset vs. policy remark, I don't see how acknowledging that a political party isn't as strong as one would like means there is *no* central authority worth engaging.
Mo says:
Meanwhile, there the Emotional Leash … far more important than mere policy proposals, about which nobody really cares, merely using them for a frosting of rationalization.
Bot Wars
Katydid says:
@Aurora S; passing you and democommie the tequila to go with the popcorn, but I'm not going to get involved in the 2016 debate again. It's about as productive as talking to the wall.
Lars Macomb says:
My main comment about Jones is this:
The man not only has no feeling whatsoever about the current zeitgeist (for crissakes, the #metoo movement Time's person of the year), he forgot how he got to be an Alabama Democratic senator. His argument about "moving on" is precisely the argument Moore and his allies made since the revelations began weeks ago.
What a maroon.
But, yeah, he's better than 1) Roy Moore and 2) every other Dixie senator currently serving.
MS says:
Jones is obviously going to be a not-even-one-term Senator. First thing you do is say "fuck you" to every person who voted for you? Okay. Nice knowing you, and whoever the Republicans nominate in 2020 (including Roy Moore!) will win easily.
It's lesson one in politics: serve your base. And Democrats have no concept about it at all.
It's a shame because it doesn't have to happen. Jones could have gone out and pushed for good things for a broad base of people, including those that voted for him. Could have but won't.
NickT says:
Truly amazing that anyone is defending the idiocy of the recent utterances by Jones and Northam. If you've got nothing useful to say after being elected by a fired up base, at least have the good sense to shut the fuck up. This isn't really difficult to understand.
The most obvious fact in American politics right now is the yawning divide between the official party structures and what their bases want. Neither party has anything to offer at the official level and both are ripe for the slaughter if a credible alternative can be developed.
Sixth Column says:
A recent survey by SSN indicated that American politicians don't even know what their constituents want. Well, that and/or they feel their actual constituents are the money-guys that finance their pitches to the voters.
http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/politicians-think-american-voters-are-more-conservative-they-really-are(http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/politicians-think-american-voters-are-more-conservative-they-really-are)
Dave Dell says:
@sixth – An interesting link.
I get the impression that here in a deep red state a good third to 40% of those who vote are liberal/progressive. I've seen a study or two about how a lot of liberal/progressive voters don't bother to vote 'cause it's a deep red state and there's no winning to be found.
This leads me to conclude that while a state senator's entire constituency might be more liberal/progressive than they think, their idea of representing their constituency is to represent that part that voted for them. An attitude of, "Why should I look out for their interests if they didn't vote for me?"
democommie says:
@ jcdenton:
Primary the shit out of them. They will not be losing to people with little or no organization/money. If you manage to beat them in the primaries do you seriously think that the people you (as always, not "YOU", you,) characterize as spineless, feckless, obsequious toadies are going to do anything to help you in the general. If they are the scumbags that they are seen as being by a lot of folks who like BernJilGar why would they do a fucking thing for anybody who ISN'T going to give them their 30 pieces of silver for selling out their constituents.
For 40+ years the democrats have been absolutely fucking the rank and file of, well everything that is sacred and holy and YET we still have all kinds of shit that the RefucKKKliKKKlansmen are feverishly attempting to eliminate. How can that even be possible?
40+ years of successive waves of young people laughing at the idiots in D.C. and the yokels in the south with their gunz, GOD and 'ligion. 40+ years of low level/non-participation in politics has brought us to this. The democratic party is a mirror that the people who have not bothered to participate do not want to look into.
Molehill says:
It's not necessarily a question of corporate vs non-corporate, or even moderate vs liberal.
There just doesn't seem to be awareness among Democrats that their strongest supporters sent them to congress to fight, damn you, fight! "You are expected to cut deals where absolutely necessary. You are not expected to mollify anyone."
This contributes to a sense of weakness that I think contributes to the intuitive perception by Republicans that Democrats are weak on defense. How can Democrats be expected to stand up to America's external enemies when they can't even stand up to Republicans?
HoosierPoli says:
I remember reading the Audacity of Hope and seeing chapter after chapter of Barack Obama saying, "Here's the Republican position on things, here's where we have some obvious common ground, why can't we work together on these issues?" I remember thinking that he was asking a rhetorical question: since the Republicans WON'T work together where we have common ground, they must not actually believe any of the things they claim to believe, therefore they're arguing in bad faith and we should steamroll them to get our agenda passed instead of trying to work with them. My engagement for Obama, my donations to him, were predicated on my belief that he was the first Democrat to actually understand the nature of the opposition.
Boy was I in for an UNPLEASANT surprise.
jcdenton says:
@Molehill
"It's not necessarily a question of corporate vs non-corporate, or even moderate vs liberal.
There just doesn't seem to be awareness among Democrats that their strongest supporters sent them to congress to fight, damn you, fight! "You are expected to cut deals where absolutely necessary. You are not expected to mollify anyone.""
At least a few studies have show that the wealthy cannot actually be sympathetic or empathetic to the causes of the poor. They literally have no idea how the poor live or what their needs all.
Above and beyond that, at least one major study has shown that politicians of both sides respond primarily to the policy needs of their wealthy donors.
These are recent studies, but let's be honest, they all follow a classical socialist analysis of the capitalist state. Capitalism will expand into and commodify every aspect of existence. Capitalism has no interest in playing "fairly" and it has enough money to purchase pretty much anyone it sees as a threat. Politicians being beholden to capital isn't a bug, it's a feature of the system that's designed to perpetuate capital. They will never be responsive to your needs because you don't have the money to matter.
@democommie
It's almost as if some Dems in the past used to be social democrats and actually had programs for the GOP to kill.
I think your analysis is kinda shallow here though. Voter disengagement is certainly a factor, but so is voter suppression and gerrymandering (both of which Dems ignored until after Nov. 8th 2016). A large portion of the Dem base is poor to lower middle class. They're not going to be able to do much if their voting stations are closed and voter ID laws are used to add additional hurdles to voting.
Voter apathy also plays a serious part. When you have guys like Jones and Northam, are you really going to come out to vote again? You and I will because we're in it for the long haul, but I can see someone who was promised Medicare expansion not really giving a fuck about electing lying Democrats for a long time. Ultimately what you want is impossible. You want voter engagement, but you want people to vote for wet blanket compromisers that won't deliver on what they promised. You want people to keep electing politicians because they will do an unspecified *something* without actually conceding that those politicians were elected to materially improve the lives of their constituents, and that is something they are unable to do because of how capitalism works.
I would also put some of the blame on our ostensibly "liberal" media. NYT, CNN, MSNBC are all in many ways intrinsically opposed to populism and real social change. Most of the time they advocate inaction or action that is favourable to corporate interests. Apathy is built into the political, social, and cultural fabric of America.
P.S. I think you should run for something in 2018. In fact, anyone here with some charisma and some honesty should run. Local races are often uncontested, incredibly important (for things like voter suppression and gerrymandering) and are relatively cheap (<$10K for municipal, $30-50K for state offices). I can also help out on the tech end of things (for free).
Emerson Dameron says:
There's some research that shows that both Republican and Democratic representatives believe their districts are more conservative than they actually are.
That's why Republicans think The People love conservative policies and Won't Be Fooled, while liberals think they have to sneak their atrociously unpopular liberal policies in under cover of nightfall.
These sorts of condescending wonks have created an alliance with genuinely middle-of-the-road, lobbyist-pleasing Centrists, and have dedicated their party machinery to Clearing The Field for the center-right politicians they think are Electable.
I suspect the Democrats will have to hit rock bottom – losing to Trump again and getting redistricted nearly out of existence in 2020 – before they take a risk on a dangerous radical progressive like, oh, Kirsten Gillibrand.
Emerson Dameron says:
@jcdenton:
A few influential Aaron Sorkin liberals think the biggest problem with the GOP isn't that it's plunging millions of people into generations' worth of poverty, but that it's not nice and its leader is kind of a jerk.
jcdenton says:
@Emerson Dameron
See also: class traitors, useful idiots, fifth columnists.
Fetishizing The Discourse™ over actual material gain is going to be the death of this damn country.
jcdenton says:
@Ed
Speaking of the tech end of things… can I ask you to please create a mobile version of this site (or let me do it)?
The vast majority of web consumption happens on mobile devices these days (50-60%) and this site looks terrible on my phone. :p
Mo says:
jc – can you recommend a quick-and-dirty online tutorial or two on how to mod for mobile devices?
Because I'm too lazy to go YouTubeing all on my own…I always seem to get stuck in some eddy and overturned.
jcdenton says:
@Mo
Here is a place to start: https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_rwd_intro.asp
Particularly the section on media queries.
Basically, use breakpoints to change the format and layout of the screen based on pixel size. Don't forget to use the viewport meta tag to rescale text on mobile devices. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Mobile/Viewport_meta_tag
mary s says:
"The modern GOP, for all its awfulness, just understands governing and politics so much better than the Democratic Party that it's kind of embarrassing. Get elected, ram through some things that reward the people who got you elected, and then ask them to do it again next time by promising to deliver more."
The current batch of Republicans has no interest in governing. This gives them a huge advantage, at least in the short term. I won't go into what they *are* interested in, since Yglesias has done it already:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/19/16786006/looting-of-america
You guys who think moderation is bad should run for office. I know I'm not willing to do that — my experience as the treasurer of a nascent union years ago put me off any kind of electoral politics for life. It's not as easy as it might look, in other words.
jcdenton says:
@mary s
Compromise/moderation works with people who are:
1. Willing to compromise
2. Share some values that you would like to compromise over
GOP is not really willing to compromise, and nothing that they support (white supremacist capitalism) is anything we should be compromising over.
kemibe says:
@ Dean:
"Thanks, yes, I now see how Ed is imputing 'Taking shots…' to Jones, rather than aiming it against him. The 'But…' that kicked off the prior sentence suggested to me that Ed's voice had reemerged."
I was thrown at first too.
"As for the mindset vs. policy remark, I don't see how acknowledging that a political party isn't as strong as one would like means there is *no* central authority worth engaging."
Yeah, I have no cogent answer to that one, maybe because I've spent years supporting a party with wonderful ideals that never seems to actually coalesce around strong policy. Maybe I wouldn't even recognize it if I saw it.
MS says:
It's not a few Aaron Sorkin liberals. All of the Democratic leadership largely believes in the GOP economic plan.
If the Democrats, today, acquired complete and total control of the Presidency, House and Senate…. I mean complete control, all 535 Congress members are Democrats… they would not repeal the GOP's tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. Maybe they'd repeal 10% as a symbolic gesture.
The party leaders do not believe anything different than the GOP does. Sure, some of the rank and file disagree. But they aren't running anything, and the current leadership is successfully maintaining a death grip on the levers of power in the party.
You have to come to terms with that truth to understand anything or achieve anything in US politics.
Go on, ask Pelosi and Schumer and Feinstein if they commit to repealing 100% of the GOP plan. Ask Tom Perez. Ask them. You won't be pleased with the answer; they won't even lie to you and say "yes". They'll hem and haw. Schumer was on twitter complaining that he didn't get to add tax breaks for HIS billionaires to the law.
And people like Perez and Northam should be understood NOT as symbols of an external war against the Republicans; they're symbols of a much more important internal war against progressive insurgents in the Democratic Party. Northam beating Perriello, Perez beating Ellison, these are the conservative establishment beating down progressives in the party. As long as the conservatives continue to win those primary battles, the Democratic Party will continue to be led by people who support Trump's economic plan.
jcdenton says:
@MS
Dead on.
defineandredefine says:
As I read through the comments, I feel like I keep reading argument upon argument for publicly-financed elections.
Hey, a man can dream, right?
todde says:
there is no white working class, only the working class
democommie says:
"their strongest supporters sent them to congress to fight, damn you, fight! "
Fuck it. I think I'm done.
I am sick of having people half my age or less or people who have never taken any interest in politics beyond election day tell me what democrats are, what they do or why they can't just be co-opted and shoved over a cliff.
Fuck it.
You guys want to do this shit that you think will make the world a better place while you dismiss the people who actually have worked at that for over a century? Knock yourselves out.
MS says:
Following up on my own post: we know there's almost zero difference between Democratic leadership and Republicans on economic issues. There IS a difference between the parties on social issues, however that difference isn't very large either. The latest example is the Democrats refusing to fight for DACA or for CHIP. These are both social rather than economic issues and you'd think that Democratic leadership would be on the right side of them, but no.
Democommie: grow up. The simple fact is that the leadership of the Democrats isn't interested in fighting for the vast majority of what the Democratic base wants. No matter how hard you fight to put them in power, change won't happen because they don't want it to happen. Democratic leadership has an average age of well over 70 years old, and an average net worth in the hundreds of millions, and an average whiteness of "very white indeed". Is that representative of the rank and file? Dianne Feinstein is 84 and running again! The US population was just getting electricity when she was born; still riding horses. She has met people who fought in the Civil War. Are you kidding me?
Pointing that out isn't attacking you; it's observing reality. And without observing reality, you can't figure out what is going wrong and how to fix it. Your perception of political reality – that Democrats apparently MUST be wet blankets for some stupid reason, or else the boogie man will get them – is about 30 years out of date. Half the electorate are polarized progressives waiting for someone, anyone, to step up to the plate. And the septuagenarian leadership is busy crushing any possibility of that.
democommie says:
"Half the electorate are polarized progressives waiting for someone, anyone, to step up to the plate. And the septuagenarian leadership is busy crushing any possibility of that."
Lots of heat–not a glimmer of light.
Thanks!
Pat says:
Precisely right:
"And if you can't occasionally deliver for your key constituents – Republicans are flawless at this – then they are going to lose interest in working to get you elected. They won't turn on you and vote Republican necessarily; but they won't work their asses off for you when they expect that after the election you won't even pretend like you're serious about the things they care about."
I will just note the Monkey Cage's data showing that the two biggest demographic changes between 2012 and '16 voter behavior was the steep drop-off in black turnout in the states of Michigan (-12.4%) and Wisconsin (-12.3%). Pennsylvania and Ohio are also on the list.
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania… I feel like I remember people mentioning those for some reason….
Barry says:
bobbyp Says:
December 17th, 2017 at 9:55 pm
Primary every corporate Dem. If you lose, don't whine, vote for them in the general because the GOP is a criminal enterprise, and primary their ass again at the next opportunity. Push always. Never stop.
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
This is what the Tea Party did, and they moved the GOP over quite a bit in less than 8 years.
RGHicks says:
@mary s
There is no way to "compromise" with a political party that is bent on looting the country. If you decided to run for office in order to make America a better place for the masses, you know full well that bipartisanship will not work with this band of actors.
Most are not entering politics for the purposes of bettering anyone's lot but their own. Both parties cast aside any desire for actually representing the "people" a long way back. They are feathering their own nests and aren't even much concerned with winning elections. Who cares if they win or lose when there is a cushy lobbying job waiting for you should you lose.
The corruption may be far worse on the republican side, but it is very advanced on the democratic side as well.