What moves swing voters

[Razgovory]

I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.

He's not making an argument about whether or not the left should care about race, racism, and what to do about it.

I know, my post was just a comment on the impasse.

Mine was a copy and paste.

I don't know where mine was going.

[DGuller]

I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.

I know a good way to definitely not fix them any time soon:  have Republicans elected.  Politics is the art of getting the best deal possible; sometimes the best you can do is merely stay in place for the moment, and every other option will lead you to going backwards.  Sometimes it's even worse than that, and the best that you can achieve is to go backwards slowly.  Such situations are bad, but you still have to make sure you have less ground to make up for when your choice of options improves.

[Berkut]

I'm not necessarily concvinced that talk of a "swing voter" as some idealised median voter is right because I feel like swing voters will be different in different elections depending on what the parties strategies are. So I suspect what the "swing voter" is change in each election.

I think one thing that the Dems need to do a LOT better is being the ones to determine what the narrative will be for a given cycle.

Trump did this - remember when the wall was just about the most important thing to talk about for like....two years?

[Sheilbh]

I think one thing that the Dems need to do a LOT better is being the ones to determine what the narrative will be for a given cycle.

Trump did this - remember when the wall was just about the most important thing to talk about for like....two years?

Absolutely - every time I've seen an interview by a political campaign people, or successful politicians they talk about how important it is to have a story and not just a string of policy announcements or ideas: where are we, how did we get here and how are you going to fix it. I think that's often dismissed as the insubstantial fripperies of politics - but I think that's totally wrong. The story is your strategy - it's your analysis as a leader, it gives direction and a "why" to the various things your proposing. That is what makes a political party an agent for change and exercising power, rather than just a think tank.

Trump was very good at that - and hammering it home because most people, sensibly, ignore politics and get on with their lives. Biden also had a story. I couldn't tell you what Clinton's story was - I don't recall the "why" for her campaign.

[Admiral Yi]

Hillary's was "I'm a woman, I'm Bill Clinton's wife, I've had some cool jobs, and I really want to be president."

Joe's was "Make America Sane Again."

[Berkut]

I am thinking more about driving an overall narrative about what people should be thinking about.

The GOP making this entire thing about immigration was always kind of impressive, since literally none of our problems that actually mattered had much of anything to do with immigration, illegal or otherwise. Trump just played off of that.

[Sheilbh]

The GOP making this entire thing about immigration was always kind of impressive, since literally none of our problems that actually mattered had much of anything to do with immigration, illegal or otherwise. Trump just played off of that.

I disagree because I don't think that's how politics works in general but on that particular example I don't think that's right. The GOP felt they needed/should shift on immigration to capture more voters after 2012. The "establishment" GOP was working on immigration reform though obviously there were rebels. All of the mainstream candidates were running in the primaries on relatively pro-immigration stances - Trump didn't play off that he was a disruptive candidate on immigration who forced the GOP right.

I think that was part of Trump's message - and success. It wasn't riffing off what the GOP had been saying, but exploiting the gap of the things they weren't saying or weren't willing to say. A bit like when he stood on the stage in South Carolina and said "Bush didn't make us safe - 9/11 happened and then we invadeed Iraq which was a disaster". You had all of these people saying it was going to be a disaster for his polling numbers and it wasn't because the only people in 2016 who couldn't say that Iraq was a mistake and a disaster were politicians in the GOP.

And of course that in itself played into Trump's story of American carnage that he alone could solve.

[Eddie Teach]

Cash in unmarked envelopes.

[The Minsky Moment]

Hillary's was "I'm a woman, I'm Bill Clinton's wife, I've had some cool jobs, and I really want to be president."

Also:  I'm not the asshole in this election.  Really.

No, really.

[ulmont]

Hillary's was "I'm a woman, I'm Bill Clinton's wife, I've had some cool jobs, and I really want to be president."

Also:  I'm not the asshole in this election.  Really.

No, really.

...and she was Not Wrong.

[Eddie Teach]

That's never been a winning message though.

[ulmont]

Berkut, you may appreciate this series:

https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/everyone-hates-the-educated-left

And
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/why-everyone-hates-the-educated-left

[Berkut]

Berkut, you may appreciate this series:

https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/everyone-hates-the-educated-left

And
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/why-everyone-hates-the-educated-left

That is some good stuff.

The resistance to this *data* on the left is rather telling.

[DGuller]

I saw a couple of such articles over the last week.  Hopefully it's a sign of a much-needed backlash against the woke liberalism.  Hopefully the sane liberals will realize that they really are the silent majority in the liberal camp, and that they shouldn't be bullied into self-censorship by the woke cult.

[Josquius]

Berkut, you may appreciate this series:

https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/everyone-hates-the-educated-left

And
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/why-everyone-hates-the-educated-left

OK I'm confused. How is this twix non-ad a blow for or against transgender rights?
It's pretty common for young boys to like dressing up. Doesn't mean they're trans.
I would be half tempted here to think it's somebody normal having a shot at conservative " comedy" where the lack of a joke is claimed to be the joke.

Anyway. Overall yes. The left have to stop falling into the identity politics culture war traps the Conservatives want.
It's easier said than done though. When the Conservatives are ranting about how trans people are all scum bag rapists and need to be shot out of a cannon into the sun, the left can't not say "no" without betraying its core beliefs of equality and freedom for all.
It's a tricky situation in that the left has to stand up for the vulnerable whilst at the same time avoiding letting the right pretend that the left are the ones obsessed with trans rights and other such fringe issues.