You bring up Hillary Clinton who neglected to campaign enough in crucial swing states. And the strategy for successfully campaigning in those swing states (based on what people tell me) seem to be to appeal more to Rust Belt issues, not The South. She’s also from the same milieu as Trump, but somehow he managed to dissociate himself from being a New England liberal and managed to spin his relationship to her as “lock her up”. Meanwhile Clinton was busy calling Trump voters a basket of deplorables, getting celebrity endorsements, and then when she lost taking a self-indulgent yoga vacation or whatever.
So which is it? Basket of deplorables or appealing to the oh-so-unfairly powerful rural/Republican base? It’s fine to take some basket-of-deplorables stance but it seems to not harmonize with your premise.
Who was Clinton supposed to appeal to again? Not rural voters apparently, and not working class people. Certainly not on the issue of universal healthcare. And she spent more effort whining about leftists not supporting her than she did trying to appeal to them.
Maybe I would take your theory seriously if the Democrats were at all competent at counter-messaging. But the Republicans managed to assert that K. Harris and the rest were all-in on identity politics last election. Then Harris and the rest said no that’s not us and probably never even brought it up, but the imprint that they did still managed to linger. So what’s the lesson? That Americans can’t have <insert popular thing> because the Democrats are incapable of setting any kind of narrative themselves and instead have to merely react to what the Republicans say? It seems that way.
Well. A modified theory is that they have plenty of counter-messaging against the left. There are also plenty of things they are willing to “sacrifice” in order to have “bipartisanship” with the Right on—namely things that the Left want. Then things become structurally insormountable because of Founding Fathers etc. Funnily enough this defeatism is not followed up by courting the supposedly precious rural voters. It’s just to sigh and conclude that half the country (or half the voting population) are chronically racist. Oh well I guess a fascist dictatorship is inevitable, and [I would rather have that than compromise with leftists] | [there is nothing that any liberal or non-racist can do about it].
> It doesn't make sense if you assume the system is intended to be fair and equitable, and represent the will of the people.
I don’t assume that America, the Democrats, or you intend that.
You bring up Hillary Clinton who neglected to campaign enough in crucial swing states. And the strategy for successfully campaigning in those swing states (based on what people tell me) seem to be to appeal more to Rust Belt issues, not The South. She’s also from the same milieu as Trump, but somehow he managed to dissociate himself from being a New England liberal and managed to spin his relationship to her as “lock her up”. Meanwhile Clinton was busy calling Trump voters a basket of deplorables, getting celebrity endorsements, and then when she lost taking a self-indulgent yoga vacation or whatever.
So which is it? Basket of deplorables or appealing to the oh-so-unfairly powerful rural/Republican base? It’s fine to take some basket-of-deplorables stance but it seems to not harmonize with your premise.
Who was Clinton supposed to appeal to again? Not rural voters apparently, and not working class people. Certainly not on the issue of universal healthcare. And she spent more effort whining about leftists not supporting her than she did trying to appeal to them.
Maybe I would take your theory seriously if the Democrats were at all competent at counter-messaging. But the Republicans managed to assert that K. Harris and the rest were all-in on identity politics last election. Then Harris and the rest said no that’s not us and probably never even brought it up, but the imprint that they did still managed to linger. So what’s the lesson? That Americans can’t have <insert popular thing> because the Democrats are incapable of setting any kind of narrative themselves and instead have to merely react to what the Republicans say? It seems that way.
Well. A modified theory is that they have plenty of counter-messaging against the left. There are also plenty of things they are willing to “sacrifice” in order to have “bipartisanship” with the Right on—namely things that the Left want. Then things become structurally insormountable because of Founding Fathers etc. Funnily enough this defeatism is not followed up by courting the supposedly precious rural voters. It’s just to sigh and conclude that half the country (or half the voting population) are chronically racist. Oh well I guess a fascist dictatorship is inevitable, and [I would rather have that than compromise with leftists] | [there is nothing that any liberal or non-racist can do about it].
> It doesn't make sense if you assume the system is intended to be fair and equitable, and represent the will of the people.
I don’t assume that America, the Democrats, or you intend that.