I'll definitely argue that Hillary was a terrible candidate in 2016, and I think the fact that she lost a race damn near anyone should've been able to win is evidence of that. I don't think anyone but Hillary could've lost to Trump. But that's not the point here, so I'll leave that for another time.

So, to get the most turnout among Democrats, educate people on why they should care more about their congresspeople than their president.

So change the people? I really think that is an incredibly optimistic take. People don't want to be educated. Look at how people use upvotes and downvotes here and on Reddit. The idea is to upvote valuable comments and downvote low quality whether or not you agree, but the reality is a lot of people use it as an agree/disagree button. So we can't even educate Lemmy users about how to vote and you suggest educating the electorate? I just don't think that's going to work out.

the presidential candidate choice is moot. It's a losing strategy to try to rally everyone behind that.

I feel like there is a couple hundred years of conclusive data that says you are wrong about this.

People are voting for "Not Trump" more than they're really voting for "Biden" so they're going to mark the (D) regardless of the name it's attached to. We just have to get them to the polls.

I agree with this, I just think it's very much not the whole picture.

I think you are looking at this from the perspective of a relatively politically interested person fairly aware of the issues, candidates, etm. I think you are missing the vast number of people that are barely politically aware and basically uninterested other than funny memes.

My wife shuts me down when I try to tell her about politics. She either doesn't care or the news is awful enough and she's already stressed enough about real shit in her life to worry about that shit as well.

Now she's voting Dem based on women's and queer rights, but there are a lot of people out there like her who just avoid thinking about politics as much as they can. A single candidate and a few soundbites are all they are willing/able to process. I just don't think your strategy reaches anyone outside the base who like you said are going to vote Dem regardless.

I appreciate (and upvoted) your thinking outside the box and enthusiasm, but I just don't know how much you've run into this abject apathy about politics, but it's a big part of the electorate and honestly I think those people have been the key to Trump's success. Sure, he has billionaires and racists and evangelicals, but I think what puts him over the top is people who vote based on memes. And I think if you make no attempt to even meet him on that level, it's a blowout Trump victory.