What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think it has to do with the fact that the Democrats are hamstrung by having a tiny minority limiting what they can actually do (not that I have confidence they would be making huge waves with a larger majority but still) combined with having to own the current economic shitstorm resulting from war and pandemic.

The Democrats should be destroyed in this election. I think they will lose but because the country is so freaking gerrymandered and polarized I actually think the needle will move shockingly little. I could be wrong but that is my feeling.

And I kind of agree with Otto. Distancing yourself from your own base in a vain attempt to win over Republicans is a move likely to alienate key parts of the base while winning few Republicans. I kind of feel like the Democrats already played that game in the 1990s and early 2000s with little success.

This isn't scientific but a lot of people I talk with in my personal life who are kinda middling voters who mostly dislike Trump and the Republicans, but aren't enthusiastic Democrats, basically blame the Democrats for "not getting anything done" after winning in 2020. I actually tried to explain to some of them the severe limits they face due to the filibuster, and it was kinda like trying to speak in ancient Greek. Most people just don't care, they see that X party won, they want results. No results? Fuck that party. Doesn't matter that a lot of the reason there are no results is because we have a system where you can get dramatically more total votes for Senate and House, but have a thin House majority and a tied Senate that cannot pass any legislation due to the filibuster.

[Valmy]

1. "Democrats are out of touch with hardworking people like me", is a question Dems have done very badly on for quite a long while. I think to some degree the culture wars on tied up in this, but I also think this is part of the broader "messaging deficit." The Republicans don't have a good economic message for working class folk, but they do have a cultural message for them. Democrats don't seem to have any consistent message for them at all, which represents a fairly big messaging gap. The closest messaging Democrats seem to have for this is specific backing for wonky social welfare programs that are poorly understood and poorly explained, and America's working class have never been that easily bribed by straight hand outs.

I think this is insightful of the potential damage the Democrats can do by renouncing things their base cares about to chase other voters. By dumping the Unions and trying to move right on economics the Democrats ultimately alienated most of the workers. Sure it helped Clinton win a few elections but really cost the Democrats in the long term. I don't know if it is possible to reverse this at this point, but it should be a warning against any similar schemes.

[OttoVonBismarck]

1. "Democrats are out of touch with hardworking people like me", is a question Dems have done very badly on for quite a long while. I think to some degree the culture wars on tied up in this, but I also think this is part of the broader "messaging deficit." The Republicans don't have a good economic message for working class folk, but they do have a cultural message for them. Democrats don't seem to have any consistent message for them at all, which represents a fairly big messaging gap. The closest messaging Democrats seem to have for this is specific backing for wonky social welfare programs that are poorly understood and poorly explained, and America's working class have never been that easily bribed by straight hand outs.

I think this is insightful of the potential damage the Democrats can do by renouncing things their base cares about to chase other voters. By dumping the Unions and trying to move right on economics the Democrats ultimately alienated most of the workers. Sure it helped Clinton win a few elections but really cost the Democrats in the long term. I don't know if it is possible to reverse this at this point, but it should be a warning against any similar schemes.

Yeah, I mean a lot of politics is teambuilding. In the union era when Democrats were very "working class oriented" in their actual leadership and rhetoric, they were the "team" for working folk. Now that that has been gone for decades, other teams have been built. The Republicans have been diligently working on a "cultural team" that can appeal to working class people, and it works because honestly it's kind of the only team that is making solid pitches to working class values at all. Those tend to be toxic cultural values that may not even be a majority of the working class, but again, they're competing against a void. When your buddy at work flips red and you're not that politically engaged, it gets easy to get sucked into that team even if you aren't really on board with some of the things they say.

The core Democratic team now is the college educated, and that's a minority voting base in the United States, and a problem is the type of talk that appeals to that team doesn't resonate with working class folk whatsoever. I would tend to agree by fucking over working people to a degree in exchange for suburban middle class types concerned about taxes, Clinton won himself two terms in office but may have fucked the Democratic coalition for the foreseeable future.

Obama ran a kind of soft campaign that was able to appeal to a lot of those forgotten working class, but then he was derailed by Republicans in Congress, and that undermined Dems' ability to build on Obama's apparently singular ability in the modern party to speak to working class Americans.

A lot of this goes back to things I said a few weeks ago--the single biggest issue I see is the Democrats aren't fighting, if you don't fight you can't win. Building team oriented voting bases requires fighting, and it requires thinking like a fighter thinks. Democrats are captured by policy wonks and the educated elite and have no good hooks into the rest of society.

Frankly it's a huge gift the Republicans can't easily control their virulent white nationalism, because if not for that I think Dems would be losing the black vote and even more of the Hispanic vote. Both of those demographics are significantly more socially conservative than the Democrats white college base.

[DGuller]

I think while we talk about it a lot on here, you guys also dramatically overstate wokeness, sorry but I really do. I think wokeness hits a particular nerve with the early 2000s, late 1990s socially libertine but economically centrist/conservative bunch that has always been a little over-represented here on Languish, and it hits a particular nerve with the college educated middle aged white generation (regardless of their political affiliation.)

But a lot of polling gives a different picture.

32% of voters identify as woke, including 49% of Democrats and 30% of independents. Only 23% of Democrats and 21% of Independents answered "No" they aren't woke. There are larger percentage who "Don't know what woke means"--31% of all voters don't know what it means, 26% of Democrats and 32% of independents.

Between Dem / GOP / Independents, of the voters who know what woke means, more identify as woke than "No" or "Unsure" except in the GOP.

It is unlikely that the Democrats can peel off any significant number of self-identified Republican voters. Most people just don't switch parties, aside from the weird minority that change whom they support almost every election (i.e. mentally deficient idiots.) So a crusade of anti-wokeness is going to actually double down on a position that is less popular among both current Democrats and Independents, with no clear prospects for pulling significant votes in.

I also think because wokeness annoys most of you more than anything else the Dems do, you really want that to explain why Dems lose x voters, but the polling to me doesn't clearly show that to be true. The large % of voters who don't even know wtf you are talking about is indicative to me that the "very online" and "very political" people are a lot more familiar with "wokeness" than is the person who hardly pays attention to politics but does vote every 2 years. There's like 160-175m potential voters out there, and I think there is a tendency to dramatically overestimate how much some of these voters follow the controversies a lot of us online culture/political warriors are well immersed in.

People may not want to know who woke even means, but they know woke policies they don't like.  For example, there is definitely a perception out there that things have gotten less safe, and there is also a perception that it has gotten to be that way due to "defund the police" or just the general hostility to policing.  (I personally find the angst a little over the top and not justified statistically, but there is no denying that a lot of people see it very differently).

Now, we may quibble over the technocratic details about what has actually been defunded where, but I think it's hard to argue that quite a few on the woke side forgot that police, for all their faults, abuses, and impunity for such abuses, still do a function that make our lives much better than they would otherwise be.  Maybe some people don't know what woke is, but they know what feeling unsafe is, and they may be less likely to vote for the party associated with that.  In fact, I think the fact that they don't know what woke is may be worse for Democrats, because then Democrats by default own the woke whole.  What we think of as "woke" they think of as "Democrat".

[Sheilbh]

We deserve our coming doom if those numbers pan out.

The Latino vote has been trending that way for a while. I've heard lots of concern about it by Democrats but very few ideas or actions on how to respond.

In the article I posted on the other thread I think the Republicans targeted and have mobilised parents around what is being taught to their kids on social and cultural issues. Which is a really effective line of attack.

It's the striking thing with, say, David Shor that the reason he is saying what he's saying and taking that line is because he things the Democrats are doomed on demographics etc. So his criticism is coming from a place of very deep pessimism.

The core Democratic team now is the college educated, and that's a minority voting base in the United States, and a problem is the type of talk that appeals to that team doesn't resonate with working class folk whatsoever. I would tend to agree by fucking over working people to a degree in exchange for suburban middle class types concerned about taxes, Clinton won himself two terms in office but may have fucked the Democratic coalition for the foreseeable future.

Yes. And I think the college educated point links into the wokeness debate because I think what is most alienating is not wokeness itself but the language it's being proposed in which is alienating shibboleths of the college educated.

Ruben Gallego made this point on election night as results came in - most Latino people don't know the term Latinx, those who do don't like it (not least because it makes no sense as a word in Spanish - unlike the Spanish language equivalent, Latine), so stop using it. He was ignored on that.

I think this applies to all policy areas too - to much of the Democrats and people around them are talking in the language of seminars. The issue with identity politics, which applies to centrist Democrats too very often, is that the loudest identity being proclaimed is the "I've done some work on a post-grad" identity. Instead of listening, engaging and trying to be lead by the communities you're trying to fight for. It's only a matter of time before we end up with activists saying they're trying to "problematise voting Republican".

[garbon]

You have to file tax returns but until you hit a certain threshold in income, no tax is due.

So are all the people complaining about that just millionaires? How high is that threshold?

Issue for those living in a country without a tax treaty with the US or above the threshold which is something around over 1005k, goes up every few years.

[OttoVonBismarck]

FWIW if we're going to say things like defund police / being soft on crime, and education are part of the "woke" topic, it starts to sound like you're just using woke as a proxy for "every bad Democrat idea", at which point I think it loses most of its meaning. The way the people who cry the biggest tears about wokeism use the word--your Rogans and Mahers, it is primarily about "cancel culture" and "political correctness", and I do not think turning against political correctness is going to be a big net vote getter for Democrats based on polling.

I think part of the reason Democrats are trending badly with Hispanics and to a lesser degree blacks, is because of social conservative issues and the infamous "don't identify with working people like me" problem. Wokeism arguably is part of the issue with social conservatives, but I don't think one that is that important. I think the woke stuff is more of a way to get people who were never likely to leave the GOP to stick with the GOP, I don't think there's a ton of viable Democrat votes to mine with going anti-woke.

I think some examples of how the educated elite approach Hispanic and black politics in the 2010s and later highlight bigger structural problems:

- Democrats take something almost all of their voters agree with--that police unjustly abusing/killing people is bad and translate that to support for dialed back policing and even an overall soft on crime approach. The reality is there is a Nixonian silent majority when it comes to the black and Hispanic community. The median VOTER in those is a middle-aged, working-class person who has worked their ass off their entire life, and who has never been convicted of a felony. These people do not like criminals, they are not sympathetic to them, and they are much more likely to have to deal with them than the Democrats' college educated elites. They want strong policing, and they want their communities to be safe, and that is a much bigger issue to them than police and prison reform.

- The median voter in the black and Hispanic community is, again, someone who has likely worked hard their entire lives. They really don't like rhetoric that sounds like a free ride, they don't like rhetoric that makes them think the lazy people they know are going to get stuff. This is actually probably bigger than any other thing--because I think by not speaking to the working people in this demographic the Democrats are losing a lot of cultural identity. Working people want to believe that hard work is rewarded, they don't want to hear about free shit. They don't want to hear about forgiving college loans--they were working at the age the middle class were accumulating college loans, sometimes 2 and 3 jobs for poor pay.

- The way Democrats have massively assumed a dove position on immigration "sews up" Hispanics is extremely dumb. Hispanic voters are, by definition, Hispanic American citizens. They aren't here illegally, many of them lack sympathy for people trying to come here illegally. The Rio Grande counties in Texas, which are massively Hispanic (some are 80/20 or more Hispanic), they like the border crisis rhetoric because they agree it is a crisis. Many of their family members work in the Biden-maligned Border Patrol trying to secure the border.

The only real good news is the black vote is still massively tilted toward the Democrats, the Hispanic vote is likely still going to be more Democrat than Republican for the next few cycles--this at least means there is a window to try and fix these issues, but if that isn't done, you could see erosion continue to grow.

Of course, oddly enough the Hispanic thing may not matter that much unless Dems standing with them gets really, really bad. Around 45% of all American Hispanics live in California and Texas, so a lot of this demographic vote share is locked in States that are pretty tilted to one of the two parties, i.e. they "don't matter" that much in terms of Federal control. The thing that will continue to fuck Democrats is small town and rural whites, each one of those votes is much more valuable than probably 3 Hispanic votes--so even if Democrats weren't facing headwinds in the Hispanic community, it may not actually help them much. Democrats are in so much trouble because they can't reliably contest Ohio any longer, and are trending toward not being able to contest states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota--and even worse, not being able to contest as many House seats in those states. Now Biden won all of those States other than Ohio, and in all of them other than Ohio, the State Democratic party still has legs, but the trendlines are not good.

[DGuller]

The reason I put "soft on crime" into the woke category is because it's tied to social justice movement.  It's not the same crime issue that also devastated Democrats several decades ago, it's a new iteration that gained steam only a few years ago.  The simplest definition of woke issue that I can come up with is an issue that is in some way tied to identity politics, and woke policies as policies designed to right the wrongs  and the perceived injustices against some groups of identities.

At a high level, obviously there is nothing wrong with righting the wrongs against people.  This is why such discussions inevitably start getting filled with "if being against raping and killing babies is woke, then I'm proud of being woke", which surprisingly doesn't prove to be effective at connecting with the other side, as reduction in raping and killing of babies turns out to not be what they're taking issue with.  The problem is that there is no check on the expansion of the number issues where certain identities are oppressed, because it's englightened to find more and more and it's dangerous to challenge the additions.  Another problem is that the solutions to those injustices are not subjected to pragmatic debate, because again no one wants to be in the way of injustice being righted.

This is where we get the new iteration of "soft on crime" issue for Democrats.  The woke left has gotten so caught up with fixing the policing injustices against minorities that some started believing that nothing good comes from police, and hey, people lived once without police.  They kind of forgot that a lot of people put value on not being subjected to crime, and they vote as well.  Scared people are also less rational and more reactive, so someone who is not quite sure they'll get home from work safely may be less concerned with more esoteric issues such as "insurrection" or "danger to democracy".

[Berkut]

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/542108-poll-finds-only-18-percent-support-defund-the-police/

A new poll by Ipsos and USA Today shows that less than 20 percent of respondents support the "defund the police" movement, with 58 percent opposing it.

The poll also suggested low support among Democrats and Black Americans for the movement. 
Just 28 percent of Black respondents and 34 percent of Democrats backed the campaign, according to the poll.
Opposition to defund the police was higher among Republicans and whites, with 84 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of whites opposing the movement. 

Overall, only 18 percent said they supported the defund the police movement compared to 58 percent who said they opposed it.

Words matter. Messaging matters. 

Winning matters.

[Valmy]

Words matter. Messaging matters.

Winning matters.

Sure but that was hardly something driven by the Democratic powers that be. That was some grassroots thing by people the Democrats do not control. I agree it is disastrous politically which is exactly why no Democratic politician grabbed it as their cause.

I mean nobody actually defunded the police and even those that pretended to do it didn't do it.

[Berkut]

Words matter. Messaging matters.

Winning matters.

Sure but that was hardly something driven by the Democratic powers that be. That was some grassroots thing by people the Democrats do not control. I agree it is disastrous politically which is exactly why no Democratic politician grabbed it as their cause.

I mean nobody actually defunded the police and even those that pretended to do it didn't do it.

But we do control it. We can choose to accept that rhetoric, or we can challenge it. I choose to challenge it, and I am villified and called a bigot and everyone cheers. 

This is what is happening writ large. The dumbass left says dumbass things, and yeah, nobody is actually going to DO those things, because hey are self evidently absurd, but at the same time, nobody is willing to call them out as being absurd either. Because they know it can be turned on them just as easily.

This leaves all the room the right needs to step in and shape the narrative. Support for Dems is support for defunding the police. That is not true, of course, but it sells to a lot of people. And not just die hard Tea Party dumbasses who are never going to vote sanely anyway, it sells to enough of the politcally apathetic to change elections.

Further, the fact that the moderates don't want to touch that crap means that the radicals get to keep moving the discussion more and more. This is what the radical right did 20 years ago. They said crazy stuff, nobody in the GOP challenged them because they were useful, and challenging the stupid of "no new taxes" pledges was a sure fire way to get primaried. And the GOP slid further and further into crazy land, until eventually the crazies were actually running the show.

There is nothing magical about the left that makes them impervious to the same polarization. Or maybe there is? I don't know. But it is concerning.

Hell, maybe the very thing that makes it so hard for the Dems to win when they so clearly have better ideas is the same thing that insulates them from their crazies? An interesting thought....

[The Minsky Moment]

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/542108-poll-finds-only-18-percent-support-defund-the-police/
Words matter. Messaging matters.

Winning matters.

All true but defund the police was the big slogan in the 2020 election cycle and it did not prevent the Dems from capturing the Presidency and the Senate.

What is going on now must have different causes than that specific issue.

[DGuller]

All true but defund the police was the big slogan in the 2020 election cycle and it did not prevent the Dems from capturing the Presidency and the Senate.

What is going on now must have different causes than that specific issue.

It could've made them underperform the expectations badly, though, and left them with Manchin as the kingmaker.  What we had in 2020 was Trump on the ballot.  The fact that there were plenty of people voting for Biden but not other Democrats should've given them pause, during a year when they should've swept the elections and maybe even packed the court.

[Valmy]

All true but defund the police was the big slogan in the 2020 election cycle and it did not prevent the Dems from capturing the Presidency and the Senate.

What is going on now must have different causes than that specific issue.

It could've made them underperform the expectations badly, though, and left them with Manchin as the kingmaker.  What we had in 2020 was Trump on the ballot.  The fact that there were plenty of people voting for Biden but not other Democrats should've given them pause, during a year when they should've swept the elections and maybe even packed the court.

Maybe in the House. The double victory in Georgia was a miracle.

Was there any other race in the Senate the Democrats had a chance to win?

[Razgovory]

All true but defund the police was the big slogan in the 2020 election cycle and it did not prevent the Dems from capturing the Presidency and the Senate.

What is going on now must have different causes than that specific issue.

It could've made them underperform the expectations badly, though, and left them with Manchin as the kingmaker.  What we had in 2020 was Trump on the ballot.  The fact that there were plenty of people voting for Biden but not other Democrats should've given them pause, during a year when they should've swept the elections and maybe even packed the court.

 Those protests and riots really hurt us.