Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[Tonitrus]

For sure it is too late for any of those folks to weigh-in and get vocal. They had their chance and did nothing with it. Honestly, I am beyond sick and tired of this seeming obsession with running a Moderate or trying to reach across the aisle. It has failed time and time again and left us in the situation we are in now. I think Obama's betrayal of "Hope" and "Change" is a major reason why youth turned away from believing in Democrats and in neo-liberal concepts over socialism. There are far more votes, support, and playing toward the future by going Left rather than continuing the failed moderation and reaching out to the Right that we've seen for decades. We need radical change and course correction if we're to have any chance at all of saving things. Those won't be accomplished by a Moderate or a typical Dem Party type.

Even beyond that, that was 8 years ago and a loooooot has happened since. I doubt Bernie would be the candidate to run anymore and while the number of possible moderates has declined due to death via old age and what not, the number of much more radical aligned young voters continues to grow.

That may be true...but I bet they're also concentrated in places that are already "safe" for Democrats (such as NYC) where padding the numbers doesn't help as much.  I strongly doubt it is true in most of the country, and dispersed in such a way where raw numbers won't matter.  To win through the Electoral College, I think some moderation will be required.

One of things I am seeing a lot with "buyers remorse" Trump voters is that even if they regretted voting for Trump, they would not have voted for Harris, and just stayed home/not voted.  That might help the voting margin a little, but not as much as pulling the vote away.  And these small margins can make the difference.

[Sheilbh]

Thing that strikes my most about those Harris remarks is the point made by Luke Tryl about just how much I think they indicate how mainstream politics are struggling to adapt to the new environment and opponents. Playing it safe is a bad option, people can sniff out the focus grouped option because it's been the dominant style of politics for the last 30-40 years which they are reacting against. They are rewarding risk-taking, doing what you think is right or what is - at least - the authentic choice.

Which leads to a weird uncanny valley - like Walz - where you end up picking the facsimile of what what you think the average voter wants. Which just doesn't work. It doesn't address risk and it doesn't boost campaign. Whereas you look at Trump, Mamdani (in the UK, Farage and Polanski) and they're not de-risking or talking in the way of media trained politicians of old. In part, I think, because they get that we're now in an attention economy and de-risking actually just means ceding attention.

[Tonitrus]

On Walz, it can very hard to gauge his overall impact/potential appeal, because he was a VP candidate...they don't really get much measurement in US politics.

Vance probably got a little more...but I think that is just secondary to the overall exposure that Trump had.  We've complained about it before...Trump gets way more media coverage than almost anyone else, because he is a giant, brilliant flame to moth-like media.

[Josquius]

Thing that strikes my most about those Harris remarks is the point made by Luke Tryl about just how much I think they indicate how mainstream politics are struggling to adapt to the new environment and opponents. Playing it safe is a bad option, people can sniff out the focus grouped option because it's been the dominant style of politics for the last 30-40 years which they are reacting against. They are rewarding risk-taking, doing what you think is right or what is - at least - the authentic choice.

Which leads to a weird uncanny valley - like Walz - where you end up picking the facsimile of what what you think the average voter wants. Which just doesn't work. It doesn't address risk and it doesn't boost campaign. Whereas you look at Trump, Mamdani (in the UK, Farage and Polanski) and they're not de-risking or talking in the way of media trained politicians of old. In part, I think, because they get that we're now in an attention economy and de-risking actually just means ceding attention.

I'm not sure Walz didn't work.
I've heard the argument he was working. The whole maga are weird, it's American values to not get in other people's business, etc... Was a great way to neuter culture war attacks and it was apparently working.
Working too well perhaps. Walz was then put in a box for the rest of the campaign and they walked back on the weird maga stuff.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe - and I didn't mean it so much as a criticism of Walz but the process that ends up with Walz.

You might well be right, but I'd like to see some polling on it. My read - from afar - was that as I say Walz seemed in that uncanny valley and there was something a little Lincoln Project (or in UK, Led by Donkeys) about him which I'm not sure has persuaded so much as one (1) person who was not already fully on board.

[Tonitrus]

I'm not sure Walz didn't work.
I've heard the argument he was working. The whole maga are weird, it's American values to not get in other people's business, etc... Was a great way to neuter culture war attacks and it was apparently working.
Working too well perhaps. Walz was then put in a box for the rest of the campaign and they walked back on the weird maga stuff.

The "they're just weird" thing got good play in/with the Democratic base and those who already hated MAGA, but I think outside of that and with swing voters, it was completely ineffective.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't think the problem was Walz was anything about him per se, it's that he was part of campaign that embodied the kind of managed messaging sheilbh is criticizing.

Thinking about Charlie Kirk - in substance there was very little there, but he got a huge following because he was enthusiastic, created a carnival atmosphere, and visibly enjoyed what he was doing. He made politics seem fun and people positively reacted to that.  That's also part of the attraction of MAGA - the circus atmosphere of the rallies and Trump just talking out his ass.

I think the Harris campaign saw the attraction of politics-as-fun but they tried to bottle it into a formula. "Our theme is joy." They made joy seem joyless. It's the emotional equivalent of Bush saying "Message: we care"  Walz could have worked as part of campaign that tossed over the messaging gurus and just let it rip but that would also have required buy in from Harris and she wasn't ever going to be comfortable going there.

[Tonitrus]

Mostly agree...and I think Obama's campaign/ability to address crowds was another side of that same coin.  I don't think Harris had that skill...she was too much in the traditional politician mode.

Trump's messages were almost always terrible, but his great skill was to speak/ramble with enough coherency to entertain his base.  And you can always tell when Trump switches to a prepared speech...he becomes instantly uncomfortable, ineloquent, and monotonous...it's like night and day.

Obama was never quite off-the-cuff as Trump...but he is smart and eloquent enough to make even a prepared speech look good.  My worry is I am not sure the leading Democrat contenders can match that...Shapiro/Pritzker and Newsom all feel pretty traditional. The good thing is, Vance doesn't have it either.

[DGuller]

Another problem with Democrats going for their own radicals is they tend to discredit their brand.  Big cities have seen the quality of life go way down, and that was in no small part due to radical left having an impact on the local level, and voters definitely haven't failed to give them credit for that.  It's understandable to want to change things wholesale because what you tried doesn't seem to work, but the problem with what you haven't tried is that it may have failed a whole lot worse, it was just such an obviously bad option that people didn't give it a chance to predictably fail. 

I agree with the notion that what keeps Democrats back is the failure to understand that we're in the age of authenticity.  Democrats just can't comprehend how to be that, and even if they start getting it, it comes across as "our focus group analysis concluded that we need to say three authentic things today for maximum effect, let's decide as a committee what the safest three authentic statements should be about".

[Sophie Scholl]

"Big cities have seen the quality of life go way down"? Um... where did you get that idea? Especially it being tied to more Left proposals and efforts? Living in a city, the biggest issues tend to be due to Right and Center efforts yielding increases in the unhouses population and rent skyrocketing. Everyone is against trying any type of Left style efforts, but they basically have never been tried in the US without being undercut by "allies".

[mongers]

"Big cities have seen the quality of life go way down"? Um... where did you get that idea? Especially it being tied to more Left proposals and efforts? Living in a city, the biggest issues tend to be due to Right and Center efforts yielding increases in the unhouses population and rent skyrocketing. Everyone is against trying any type of Left style efforts, but they basically have never been tried in the US without being undercut by "allies".

I think it's a Dino*saur view, the world's going to hell in a handcart and someone needs to be blamed.




* Democrat In Name Only.

[DGuller]

"Big cities have seen the quality of life go way down"? Um... where did you get that idea? Especially it being tied to more Left proposals and efforts? Living in a city, the biggest issues tend to be due to Right and Center efforts yielding increases in the unhouses population and rent skyrocketing. Everyone is against trying any type of Left style efforts, but they basically have never been tried in the US without being undercut by "allies".

Bail reform which in practice make minor crimes unenforceable, refusal to prosecute minor crimes, essentially decriminalization of shoplifting leading to many stores putting a lot of their merchandise behind glass doors other stores going out of business, vast increase in numbers of aggressive homeless people one has to encounter daily. 

Some of these efforts have now started to be rolled back, but you're much better off not engaging in predictable disasters to begin with than struggle to roll them back.  Every day you take a subway with an aggressive homeless person, silently praying to not attract their attention, every day you go to the drug store and wait five minutes for someone to unlock the case, is a day you remember the less progressive days where such things were much less of a thing.

[Razgovory]

"Big cities have seen the quality of life go way down"? Um... where did you get that idea? Especially it being tied to more Left proposals and efforts? Living in a city, the biggest issues tend to be due to Right and Center efforts yielding increases in the unhouses population and rent skyrocketing. Everyone is against trying any type of Left style efforts, but they basically have never been tried in the US without being undercut by "allies".

One of the odd things about politics is that places that are the most left-wing also have the greatest levels of inequality.

[HVC]

Poor people aggregate to cities. Always have. Hard to be homeless in rural Nebraska. That's assuming you even survive the first winter.

[frunk]

Poor people aggregate to cities. Always have. Hard to be homeless in rural Nebraska. That's assuming you even survive the first winter.

I think it's the reverse.  The poor are everywhere but it's tough to advance many careers in rural areas so you end up getting pulled into suburban and urban areas to become wealthier.