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Official post-2020 Democrats Thread - Dems in Disarray! Hot takes welcome here!

WFFaithful said:
If the Democrats can temper their message perfectly, then they might have a tiny chance of beating the fascist racists Republicans.

Swell country we have.
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One of the problems is that Republicans have been writing the messages for the Democrats, and not in a good way. Democrats need to be able to present the core of an idea in a 9 word. 8 second sound bite. Then put it on repeat.
 
Last summer, I met up with an old friend in St. Louis. We talked about the election and the Democrats' lack of a cohesive message. We talked about everything we could get a large number of Democrats to agree on. Pro-choice, against locking up immigrant kids in cages, some form of universal health care, racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights. All of it comes down to one theme that Democrats could own: Basic fucking human rights.

Pete was on to this in attempting to reclaim terms like liberty and freedom.

“The real challenge for the Democratic Party, and its presidential candidates in particular, is to figure out how to reverse the Right’s stranglehold on our political vocabulary,” he wrote. “I don’t have a quick solution handy, but I’m pretty sure that if the Dems don’t act fast to reclaim our language, they risk losing the word battle before they realize they’re fighting it.”

He wrote that in 2003. We’ve lost the word battle by now.

https://newrepublic.com/article/155533/pete-buttigieg-still-fighting-last-war

Democrats need to find the next battle and go ahead and win it.
 
PhDeac said:
Last summer, I met up with an old friend in St. Louis. We talked about the election and the Democrats' lack of a cohesive message. We talked about everything we could get a large number of Democrats to agree on. Pro-choice, against locking up immigrant kids in cages, some form of universal health care, racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights. All of it comes down to one theme that Democrats could own: Basic fucking human rights.

Pete was on to this in attempting to reclaim terms like liberty and freedom.

“The real challenge for the Democratic Party, and its presidential candidates in particular, is to figure out how to reverse the Right’s stranglehold on our political vocabulary,” he wrote. “I don’t have a quick solution handy, but I’m pretty sure that if the Dems don’t act fast to reclaim our language, they risk losing the word battle before they realize they’re fighting it.”

He wrote that in 2003. We’ve lost the word battle by now.

https://newrepublic.com/article/155533/pete-buttigieg-still-fighting-last-war

Democrats need to find the next battle and go ahead and win it.
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Democrats have been good at turning a phrase only to their own detriment - ones like the "basket of deplorables" or "malaise in America."

The above that Democrats are for basic human rights is correct, but it doesn't make for vivid image wording. And sometimes the wording chosen isn't quite proper for the concept.

One reason why the "universal health care" message doesn't move people is that Americans generally can get health care. They go to ER's, get treated, and then get billed, which ruins credit etc. but they get "health care." Hospitals are obligated to care for patients whether they can pay or not.

The current argument under "universal health care" is really about some form of health insurance for all. With health insurance, people are more likely to go to a doctor to get things treated before they get too serious. Every discussion I've heard about this "universal health care" the Affordable Care Act, "Medicare for all" just comes down to money. It is how about much it costs and who pays how much. People have seen that the health insurance game has cost them a favorite doctor. The doc who was "in" their plan last year is "out" this year, so they need to find a new doc. That makes it difficult to sell some health insurance as a good thing for the people hit that way.

It's really hard to make discussion about who pays for what into a pithy, memorable sound bite message. And that is true about many of the things that would fall under "basic human rights." However, Democrats need to find a way to break the grand "basic human rights" into smaller parts such that each can be covered in a sound bite message, figure out what those messages are, and put on repeat ad nauseum. The hardest part will be to get the various factions of the party to agree on the messages and to repeat them. Republicans are very good at both.
 
Good posts, blue. The biggest problem with Democrats is that we have a lot of ideas and we will fight about them all day because nobody can brand and market those ideas in a convincing way. Meanwhile Republicans can just shit on everybody’s ideas and just tell everyone government doesn’t work.
 
PhDeac said:
Good posts, blue. The biggest problem with Democrats is that we have a lot of ideas and we will fight about them all day because nobody can brand and market those ideas in a convincing way. Meanwhile Republicans can just shit on everybody’s ideas and just tell everyone government doesn’t work.
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Yep—assuming “lie about” is part of “shit on”.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
sorry, you can't have healthcare for ten more years because we need to be tempered in our progress
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You're not going to have Medicare for all in the next 10 years cuz you're never going to build a governing Coalition in the u.s. system to pass it. You're tempered with your progress because you actually want to have a governing coalition to pass things that move policy in a more progressive fashion at all.

Progressives like getting mad at centrists for pointing out the reality to them instead of the reality itself.
 
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For God’s sake, Dems need to figure out how to overcome the lie that Republicans are “better” for the economy.
 
ConnorEl said:
For God’s sake, Dems need to figure out how to overcome the lie that Republicans are “better” for the economy.
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Especially since the economy does better with Democrats.
 
ChrisL68 said:
You're not going to have Medicare for all in the next 10 years cuz you're never going to build a governing Coalition in the u.s. system to pass it. You're tempered with your progress because you actually want to have a governing coalition to pass things that move policy in a more progressive fashion at all.

Progressives like getting mad at centrists for pointing out the reality to them instead of the reality itself.
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I wish the electorate was more receptive to a massive government public insurance plan but you're kidding yourself if you think that's a reality.
 
looks kind of like MHB posted some polling data that suggests otherwise
 
TenaciousKory said:
looks kind of like MHB posted some polling data that suggests otherwise
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And we've been over how these poll results are entirely dependent on phrasing and variables. It doesn't look like the electorate to me is yearning for more government involvement in healthcare. I wish they were
 
TenaciousKory said:
looks kind of like MHB posted some polling data that suggests otherwise
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They like M4A but they don’t vote for politicians who could make it happen. That’s the reality with the electorate.
 
ChrisL68 said:
And we've been over how these poll results are entirely dependent on phrasing and variables. It doesn't look like the electorate to me is yearning for more government involvement in healthcare. I wish they were
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There is a big slice of the public that still believes in less government doing things. That group will be hard to convince that government run health care and insurance is a good idea.
 
PhDeac said:
They like M4A but they don’t vote for politicians who could make it happen. That’s the reality with the electorate.
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And instead of realizing that there are a lot of progressives who freak out and pretend like Centrist Dems are conspiring to keep public Healthcare from being proposed even though many of the same people supported Hillary Clinton pushing for this almost 30 years ago.
 
Deaconblue said:
There is a big slice of the public that still believes in less government doing things. That group will be hard to convince that government run health care and insurance is a good idea.
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Right. We can’t even build consensus around a government run pandemic response. GOP assholes could care less about people dying and they probably don’t even know about the long term implications of COVID. It’s frustrating to live in a country in which half the electorate could give a shit whether people live or die.

Die by pandemic? Don’t care.
Die by climate change? Don’t care.
Die by poverty? Don’t care.
Die by lack of health care? Don’t care.
Die by cop? They fucking cheer.
Die by random white guy with a gun? They make him a hero.

It’s a party of sociopaths. There’s no defense for this. I don’t care what lies they believe about Democrats. There’s no excuse for this.
 
Not to mention the last two times that Democrats have pushed public health care we ended up with half measures because that's all we can get through and we paid a huge electoral price. The first time was the genesis of Newt Gingrich's contract with America and the last time was the birth of all these tea party idiots.

So until I can see some evidence that this policy would actually drive people to the polls in numbers where we would need to win elections I remain skeptical.
 
PhDeac said:
Right. We can’t even build consensus around a government run pandemic response. GOP assholes could care less about people dying and they probably don’t even know about the long term implications of COVID. It’s frustrating to live in a country in which half the electorate could give a shit whether people live or die.

Die by pandemic? Don’t care.
Die by climate change? Don’t care.
Die by poverty? Don’t care.
Die by lack of health care? Don’t care.
Die by cop? They fucking cheer.
Die by random white guy with a gun? They make him a hero.

It’s a party of sociopaths. There’s no defense for this. I don’t care what lies they believe about Democrats. There’s no excuse for this.
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Your pro life party everybody!
 
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