The federal budget definitely needed pruning, and the Democrats knew this as well. While the Democrats are letting the Republicans walk themselves into losing the Midterms, I am not sure the Democrats have any vision to offer for working class Americans. The American working class would benefit from more social programs like those in Nordic states, but it’s hard to do that when the national debt is already at eye-watering levels. It might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think aggressively cutting spending is a bad idea given that it will help you quickly identify core components or people who need to brought back, or who need to stay. If the US will ever be a anti-fragile democracy it’s via implementation of Nordic states-like social programs, but the unnecessary components of the federal budget first need to be identified and cut away.
The Democrats are floundering because they cannot offer a competing vision of a brighter future. They are the party of "business as usual, for the most part", and their sales pitch has devolved into "elect us or the Republicans will break everything".
Now that the Republicans are busily breaking everything, what are the Democrats going to propose? You can't sell "let's go back to the way things were" to a country whose people generally agree - to the degree they can agree on anything - that the way things were basically sucked.
There is a huge problem of cognitive dissonance among liberals in the USA, and the decompensation is finally reaching a critical stage.
Most liberals seem to think the Democratic Party is theirs, the natural opponent of the conservative Republicans, and the chief obstacle to the victory of their obviously correct policies is the collection of ninnies, twits, cowards and sellouts in their own ranks.
Liberals have to realize there is one conservative party, the Democrats, and one corporate party, the Republicans, an ersatz synthetic entity Frankenstein'd from the corpse of the GOP in the late 1960s.
We used to have two largely conservative parties with significant liberal wings, because the parties were mostly regional rather than driven by ideology.
Then Democratic President Johnson went way off the reservation and got historic civil rights legislation passed with the help of a bipartisan liberal coalition in Congress.
By 1968 a lot of racist southern Democrats thought POC needed to be put back in their place, and Republican nominee Nixon more or less openly invited them to join with him. And thus one of the most unpopular politicians in American history got elected president.
This left POC and civil rights supporters with nowhere to go but the Democratic party.
The key to understanding the present moment is that the Democratic leadership has always resented having to fake empathy for their liberal wing. They'd rather go back to open conservativism, but they know they have no chance of winning elections without liberal votes and money.
Liberals also have no chance to win elections on their own because the USA is essentially a conservative country. There is no natural liberal majority or coalition here. Every election of a Democratic president in the last 50 years has been due to exogenous circumstances.
If liberals want to make progress in the USA, they have to start setting realistic goals. Stop kowtowing to the conservative Democratic leadership. Start developing alternative funding streams like AOC has done. Instead of aiming for congressional majorities and the White House, focus on being spoilers in Congress, like the Greens do sometimes in Europe.
The unconscious cognitive dissonance among liberals makes them look weak and hypocritical, and has earned them the contempt even of potential allies. They need to face reality and build a new coalition from scratch by setting achievable goals and delivering on them.
This reads like one of those "why aren't they yelling like I am and here is why" stories. Most of the "why" here seems like weirdly spun talking points that I don't think are relevant to anything, some just BS.
If Democrats need anything these days it is SOMETHING to sell people on. I'm no fan of Trump, but having just "Trump sucks" as your selling point is going nowhere.
There is nothing the Democrats have to sell that is anywhere near as exciting as what Trump is offering.
Biden gave out a ton of student debt relief, for example. You'd think people would be thrilled. Instead they just shrugged.
What Democrats offer is basic good governance. That comes with incremental improvements.
Suppose that the Democrats had offered something really off-the-wall to appeal to its left wing, like completely ditching support for Israel over Gaza. How many votes do you think that would get them? And how many would they lose?
The closest the Democrats get is Obama, who offered a nebulously positive "Hope". That got a lot of enthusiasm, but very little got done. "Hope" consisted of bending over backwards to try to get Republicans to work with him. What he got was the opposite of that.
At this point, if somebody wants Trump -- or just doesn't care -- having been very clear about what he will do, I don't think there's anything to be done. The voters know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard.
> If Democrats need anything these days it is SOMETHING to sell people on. I'm no fan of Trump, but having just "Trump sucks" as your selling point is going nowhere.
YES. They are selling nothing currently. They may need to embrace some populism if they want any chance at being in power again. I'm not even a fan of Bernie really, but he managed to capture a spark of that on the left.
> To watch Trump yank Netanyahu to the ceasefire table was so enraging because Biden could have done that any time.
This is disingenuous and not at all what happened. Netanyahu specifically refused a ceasefire before the election because he didn't want to give Biden a win. He wanted Trump to win, because Trump will gladly let Netanyahu have whatever he wants in the long run.
There was no "yanking" going on. It was all calculated to hurt Biden and help Trump.
It is true. And yes, Biden was also ineffective. I am not a defender of Biden, I've been incredibly angry at him. This is not the gotcha you think it is.
The federal budget definitely needed pruning, and the Democrats knew this as well. While the Democrats are letting the Republicans walk themselves into losing the Midterms, I am not sure the Democrats have any vision to offer for working class Americans. The American working class would benefit from more social programs like those in Nordic states, but it’s hard to do that when the national debt is already at eye-watering levels. It might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think aggressively cutting spending is a bad idea given that it will help you quickly identify core components or people who need to brought back, or who need to stay. If the US will ever be a anti-fragile democracy it’s via implementation of Nordic states-like social programs, but the unnecessary components of the federal budget first need to be identified and cut away.
The Democrats are floundering because they cannot offer a competing vision of a brighter future. They are the party of "business as usual, for the most part", and their sales pitch has devolved into "elect us or the Republicans will break everything".
Now that the Republicans are busily breaking everything, what are the Democrats going to propose? You can't sell "let's go back to the way things were" to a country whose people generally agree - to the degree they can agree on anything - that the way things were basically sucked.
There is a huge problem of cognitive dissonance among liberals in the USA, and the decompensation is finally reaching a critical stage.
Most liberals seem to think the Democratic Party is theirs, the natural opponent of the conservative Republicans, and the chief obstacle to the victory of their obviously correct policies is the collection of ninnies, twits, cowards and sellouts in their own ranks.
Liberals have to realize there is one conservative party, the Democrats, and one corporate party, the Republicans, an ersatz synthetic entity Frankenstein'd from the corpse of the GOP in the late 1960s.
We used to have two largely conservative parties with significant liberal wings, because the parties were mostly regional rather than driven by ideology.
Then Democratic President Johnson went way off the reservation and got historic civil rights legislation passed with the help of a bipartisan liberal coalition in Congress.
By 1968 a lot of racist southern Democrats thought POC needed to be put back in their place, and Republican nominee Nixon more or less openly invited them to join with him. And thus one of the most unpopular politicians in American history got elected president.
This left POC and civil rights supporters with nowhere to go but the Democratic party.
The key to understanding the present moment is that the Democratic leadership has always resented having to fake empathy for their liberal wing. They'd rather go back to open conservativism, but they know they have no chance of winning elections without liberal votes and money.
Liberals also have no chance to win elections on their own because the USA is essentially a conservative country. There is no natural liberal majority or coalition here. Every election of a Democratic president in the last 50 years has been due to exogenous circumstances.
If liberals want to make progress in the USA, they have to start setting realistic goals. Stop kowtowing to the conservative Democratic leadership. Start developing alternative funding streams like AOC has done. Instead of aiming for congressional majorities and the White House, focus on being spoilers in Congress, like the Greens do sometimes in Europe.
The unconscious cognitive dissonance among liberals makes them look weak and hypocritical, and has earned them the contempt even of potential allies. They need to face reality and build a new coalition from scratch by setting achievable goals and delivering on them.
This reads like one of those "why aren't they yelling like I am and here is why" stories. Most of the "why" here seems like weirdly spun talking points that I don't think are relevant to anything, some just BS.
If Democrats need anything these days it is SOMETHING to sell people on. I'm no fan of Trump, but having just "Trump sucks" as your selling point is going nowhere.
There is nothing the Democrats have to sell that is anywhere near as exciting as what Trump is offering.
Biden gave out a ton of student debt relief, for example. You'd think people would be thrilled. Instead they just shrugged.
What Democrats offer is basic good governance. That comes with incremental improvements.
Suppose that the Democrats had offered something really off-the-wall to appeal to its left wing, like completely ditching support for Israel over Gaza. How many votes do you think that would get them? And how many would they lose?
The closest the Democrats get is Obama, who offered a nebulously positive "Hope". That got a lot of enthusiasm, but very little got done. "Hope" consisted of bending over backwards to try to get Republicans to work with him. What he got was the opposite of that.
At this point, if somebody wants Trump -- or just doesn't care -- having been very clear about what he will do, I don't think there's anything to be done. The voters know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard.
I don’t think they tried selling anything… last round.
Harris didn’t seem to have a message.
Personally I thought "I'm not a convicted felon" was a pretty good message. Apparently people wanted the other thing.
Another year or two, and "basic good governance" could look pretty good...
I thought it looked pretty good last year, so it shows what I know.
> If Democrats need anything these days it is SOMETHING to sell people on. I'm no fan of Trump, but having just "Trump sucks" as your selling point is going nowhere.
YES. They are selling nothing currently. They may need to embrace some populism if they want any chance at being in power again. I'm not even a fan of Bernie really, but he managed to capture a spark of that on the left.
Bernie's mannerism / rally temperament was surprisingly Trump like.
Reporter's at his rallies noted how his fans loved him and seemed happy, even if Bernie seemed mad throughout his speech.
> To watch Trump yank Netanyahu to the ceasefire table was so enraging because Biden could have done that any time.
This is disingenuous and not at all what happened. Netanyahu specifically refused a ceasefire before the election because he didn't want to give Biden a win. He wanted Trump to win, because Trump will gladly let Netanyahu have whatever he wants in the long run.
There was no "yanking" going on. It was all calculated to hurt Biden and help Trump.
[flagged]
Is there a president who could have stopped Israel before they were done?
I doubt it.
It is true. And yes, Biden was also ineffective. I am not a defender of Biden, I've been incredibly angry at him. This is not the gotcha you think it is.