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this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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The Dems absolutely ran a poor campaign, but not because voters like this are at all reachable. I know these people. I grew up with these people. There is no magic spell you can recite to get them 'on your side'.
These people are not just one or two good facts away from voting left. Their entire worldview is fucked; evidence does not lead to a conclusion, their conclusions lead them to evidence. In the Trump years, things were getting worse, but these same people praised Trump's shit to high heaven like it smelled of roses. When things get worse over the next four years, the conclusion will not be that Trump is bad; it will be that Trump has fought so hard for them.
Fuck's sake, I remember in the Obama years these same people praising the ACA and then sneering at Obamacare; when it was pointed out that they were one and the same, they would shrug and make some mealy-mouthed excuse about how Obamacare 'accidentally' benefitted them and then go right back to their double-fucking-think. Promising to improve or actually improving their lives does not matter to them.
It astounds me that people will condemn the Dems (rightly) for trying to appeal to mythical moderates, and then immediately claim that the left should be appealing to mythical moderates instead. The Dem campaign failed because they're incompetent and out of touch, and because of that, failed to motivate left-leaning voters. Not because swing voters turned against them, not because fence-sitters were driven off by their milquetoast bullshite, not because moderate conservatives could be reached with the appropriately phrased left-populist economic policy. Because the Dems failed their base. And while I have repeatedly said that this is no excuse for any of the twats that stayed home and let fascism win, it is a path and a strategy forward - for Dems (or another party, if we can hack it) to learn that caution doesn't mean jack-shit and elections are won by enthusiasm, not compromise.
I guess I thought a gun to the head was enough motivation, but alas, I was wrong. Ah well.
"What are you going to do, shoot us?" - Country about to be shot
Where on earth did you get the impression that I was talking appealling to moderates?
People who are watching half their buying power disappear over four years aren't moderates, they're people begging to be radicalized. They'll turn to wherever they are offered convincing solutions. A lot of these people voted for both Trump and AOC. They're angry, and they want to burn the whole fucking system down. They like Trump precisely because they think he's a molotov cocktail for them to hurl at Washington. There is nothing moderate about them.
I'm not talking about compromise, I'm talking about exactly the opposite. These people want a party that promises to fuck shit up. They're really not particular about how. Fascism, hardcore anti-capitalism, whatever. They'll take anything that promises to smash this status quo.
That's exactly the problem the Dems have right now. Outside of a few members who are trying to push for more extreme rhetoric, they're a party that basically doesn't know how to be anything but moderate, when what they really, really need to be, if they're going to capture the mood of the public at large, is angry.
Just look at the response to that CEO getting murdered. Across the spectrum, self-identified right and left, people are cheering, applauding, celebrating.
We are so far past moderate. We are literally at guillotines. If the Dems cannot recognize and harness that fact, they are doomed to be irrelevant.
The part where you talk about appealing to this voter, who hits every 'moderate' musical note that's been in play for the last twenty years?
Jesus Christ.
If you think this person is a "moderate" voter then you really, really haven't been paying attention to what they're actually saying.
And if you think this kind of person will embrace hardcore anti-capitalism because it's against the status quo, you haven't even done a cursory read of what they're actually saying.
This person is the mythical moderate. The person who isn't REALLY that dedicated, they just need to be given the right pretty words to vote for the other side. You know, exactly what you've been fucking saying. But any examination of the moderate voter reveals, as I mentioned, that such a concept, at least in electorally significant numbers, is mythical. These people absolutely have deeply-rooted beliefs and loyalties, those beliefs and loyalties are not pliable, as much as they pretend and loudly proclaim that they are and playing the Internationale isn't going to convert them just because they claim to be dissatisfied with the status quo.
Okay? This is not most of the working class though. They are reachable. They want someone to talk to them, as Trump just demonstrated.
True. Most of the working class is reachable. But they're not the ones talking like this, the subject of the meme, so I don't know why you think that's relevant.
Jesus Christ.
Hate the man, but he effectively messaged he would improve their lives. There is a difference between campaigning against someone and objectively identifying their strengths and weaknesses.