Democrats spending millions to learn how to speak to 'American Men' and win back the working class

[EarlG]

71. Interesting

I wasn't alive during the Civil Rights era, but my understanding is that at the time a lot of people thought that standing up for the civil rights of Black Americans was political suicide.

I also recall hearing the exact same arguments made by people on this very website twenty years ago, when the GOP was kicking our ass winning elections because -- so the thinking went -- Democrats were too friendly to gay people. The argument was that we should back off crazy radical ideas like "gay marriage" because it was alienating voters. The best way to win was to stuff the gays back into the closet.

It took a lot of fight and pressure and political courage to make marriage equality a reality, and it was the right thing to do. And the result of that difficult fight was, according to you, the "peak ascension of left-leaning cultural issues."

But now it seems you would like to abandon any further efforts to secure civil rights for others, for the exact same reason that other people argued against securing your civil rights.

If we're going to have an honest conversation about reality, start with the reality that most of the time it's not Democrats who are pushing for "wacky shit" and "identity politics." Democrats are not running political campaigns saying that we should provide litter boxes in classrooms for furries. Democrats are not running political campaigns saying we should abolish the police entirely. Democrats are not running campaigns saying we should open up the country's borders to anyone who wants to come here.

But Republicans DO run on those issues. They run campaigns which just flat out lie about Democrats, saying we're going to do all of the above. In 2024 it was Republicans who ran on trans issues, and "DEI," and other social issues -- not Democrats. Democrats ran a campaign based on mainstream stuff like the economy, abortion, foreign policy, etc.

Meanwhile, I don't know if you've noticed, but over in the Republican Party they really are pushing for "wacky shit" and "identity politics" -- for example, they're deporting as many people of color as they possibly can, while rolling out the red carpet for white Afrikaners. That's not just me making up a BS claim for political reasons -- that is the actual policy they're enforcing, from the president on down.

So for me, the problem is not "Democrats need to stop doing all this wacky cultural shit." The problem is "It's way too easy for Republicans to convince voters that Democrats want to do all this wacky cultural shit."

That's a totally different problem, and it can't be solved by throwing marginalized people under the bus, because that is not going to stop Republicans lying about Democrats. Why would it? They'll just come up with some other BS to lie to people about.

The real problem is Citizens United, which allowed unrestricted dark money spending on US elections, and a social media ecosystem which has essentially become nothing more than a massive commercial propaganda machine which shovels incendiary garbage in front of people's faces 24/7 based on algorithms owned by billionaires.

How do we overcome that? Hell if I know -- it's not like Citizens United or social media are going anywhere anytime soon. Best I can come up with so far is that in 2028 we're going to need someone who is an extremely strong communicator with that magic teflon touch, who can play the social media game. I also think that a message of "freedom" vs. "big government ordering you around" could be effective for Democrats in 2026 and 2028.

But I'm not really down with the strategy of, "Let's win by treading on the people that Republicans want us to tread on," because if we have to turn into Republicans to win, we haven't won at all. We've just been assimilated.