Democrats are Surrounded by Low Hanging Fruit: Get To It
Yesterday my colleague Kate Riga noted a trap Senate Democrats keep falling...
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Yesterday my colleague Kate Riga noted a trap Senate Democrats keep falling into: in an effort to court Republican defectors they temper their criticism of the various Trump nominees. But since there are and will be no defectors they lose on both sides of the equation, gaining no defectors and making their critiques tepid and forgettable. This is unquestionably true. But we can go a step further still. Far from courting potential defectors, they should be attacking them.
If trying to court Republican defectors is a futile effort, who should the Democrats be trying to court? This article seems deliberately vague on that point. The article implies that the Democrats should make less tepid, less forgettable critiques of Trump nominees, that they should attack them, even, but for what reason? Seemingly, it's to court people other than Republican defectors, but who would that be? Relatively moderate, neoliberal technocrats? Do any still exist?
who should the Democrats be trying to court?
Solid Democrat voters who are disappointed with the DNC and therefore don't vote. The Democrats' noncommittality makes them unappealing to everyone.
People who want change, but see no chance of that coming from the Democrats. The biggest pool of votes that can be harvested are discouraged voters. But they'll need to see something besides empty talk.
Billionaire fascists and allied fanatics have seized power by illegitimate means. Tinkering around the margins isn't going to stop them. We need to break the power of the billionaires, which will probably mean capping maximum wealth and forcing them to sell off assets until nobody has more than 5% market share in anything. We need to get influence-peddiling out of politics, and to purge the courts of corrupt stooge judges. And we need to re-establish the rule of law for all people in this country, regardless of their wealth, connections or what office they hold. The people need to see that nobody is above the law.
The biggest pool of votes that can be harvested are discouraged voters. But they’ll need to see something besides empty talk.
Democrats spent the last administration breaking campaign promises and moving right, to the point where they were enabling genocide, running anti-trans hate in their own ads, adopting republican border policy, and touting the endorsement of Dick Cheney.
I'd say that Democrats were actively trying to ruin their credibility, but these are Democrats and they never actively try to do anything.
I think you're targeting people that have become apathetic and disengaged from the political process because they don't see anyone actually fighting for them. Someone willing to attack the existing power structure on your behalf is a very appealing proposition to most people in our political climate.
Well we know Democrats aren't up to the task
Silence, nonvoter
Hey what's it feel like seeing Trump come down on Israel and end the genocide you spent the last year telling folks like me to shut up and accept?
Get back to me in a few months
In a few months, Joe Biden will still be complicit in Israel's child-killing operation and we'll all still be mocking the people who defended or ignored it for the cowards they are.
This happened sooner than I expected: https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1883347960421118348
JUST IN Trump says he is pressing Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians from Gaza, floats plan to "just clean out" territory — AP
Good thing I didn't vote for him...
You didn't vote for anyone. If you actually cared about not supporting genocide, you could've voted third party.
Anyways, my point was that Trump isn't going to be any better for Palestine. And yet, you're accusing Harris voters of supporting genocide, when they just wanted to prevent the other atrocities Trump is committing elsewhere.
Your election logic is ridiculous and you need to get over yourself. It's clear that you don't care about genocide at all, but you care whether someone votes for a third party or not at all? THAT'S your priority?
Listen to yourself 😂😂😂 Do you lick your windowsill or something? Did you put a Q-tip in there a little too deep?
Most people never defended or ignored it. They simply believed Trump to be a worse choice, and not voting to be equivalent to not caring which choice is chosen.
Most people never defended or ignored it. They simply believed Trump to be a worse choice
"No your honor, I was not beating that person, I was merely moving my arm up and down in a beating sort of motion. If that resulted in that person being beaten, thats simply not my fault"
Come on now @feathercrown, There needs to be a reconning with the Dem leadership having funded a genocide in order for things to move forward. Or we can continue marching toward our own extinction. You're trying to win elections here, that means swaying large groups of people-- not pointing fingers on social media posts.
And as to your other assertion:
not voting to be equivalent to not caring which choice is chosen
OR, people wouldnt actively participate in immorality of that magnitude. Both candidates obviously broke major laws and so are criminals who belong behind bars, at minimum. We should all be insisting our laws be followed rather than simply gaming for the criminal wearing our parties colors to win. This isnt football. But hey, keep following your plan, its working so well.
A people are a nation. I thought we had agreed that we are a nation of laws?
I wrote a very long response but it appears to have vanished into the ether when I sent it so I'll summarize here: Don't assume how I vote, and voting is a relative choice, not a wholehearted personal endorsement. I legitimately believe Trump to be a bigger threat on the whole than Harris would be, to Palestine, Ukraine, and the US itself. Not voting isn't choosing "none of the above", and makes you complicit in the result that everyone else has chosen, since you have not reduced the chance of either candidate winning. The only legitimate protest against two equally bad options is voting third party. That's all the points with none of the arguments, so if you disagree, I can explain in more detail.
Like so.
They should be courting the public by making it really clear how awful Trump's nominees and policies are.
The article implies that the Democrats should make less tepid, less forgettable critiques of Trump nominees, that they should attack them, even, but for what reason?
Because they are objectively awful choices, several of which are severe national security threats in and of themselves?
The defectors the article is talking about are Republican senators. The author links to the piece about the trap:
When I followed up, asking whether Republican senators had voiced any qualms about Patel, he said they had “at first” but that he hadn’t followed up because he’s being “very careful” in a “delicate period of time.”
This is the trap Democrats keep falling into. They don’t want to come out against a Trump nominee too aggressively, out of fear of alienating Republican fence-sitters. But in the same breath, they’ll tell you that Republicans aren’t actually open to listening to what they say, as they’re determined to pass Trump’s fealty tests. So Democrats land in a place where they can neither mount an aggressive campaign, perhaps at least incurring some cost to the Republicans senators and the Trump administration, nor have any hope of swaying their GOP colleagues to their side.
Instead of worrying about the sensitivities of their colleagues, go all out against the nominee so they think confirming the nominee is an electoral risk. It's a play to their voters.
who should the Democrats be trying to court?
If they bothered to have a platform at all anymore itd be pretty obvious who to court. But they dont stand for issues anymore-- they stand for a smug low performing sort of centrism as if that was in itself a goal.
who should the Democrats be trying to court?
Discouraged voters who didn't vote in the last election. Getting 10% of them to vote Dem would swing a lot of races, and that's far more likely to be achievable than swinging part of the Republican vote like the Dems tried to do last time. Voters want decisiveness, not feel-good policy-free vote-grubbing.