The Democrats lost because a significant number of Latinos and a smaller number of African American men defected to Trump. From everything I've seen, very liberal people showed up for Harris. Maybe liberal and very liberal people should think about how to win people back rather than fight each other.
Yep, yet no matter how obvious the data is on this, Democrats refuse to acknowledge it. Harris didn’t lose Arizona and Nevada because of Gaza. The outright loss of the Latino vote in Michigan sealed her fate more than “uncommitted.”
Rereading this brought back a relevant memory: MANY years ago now, when my parents could still force me to go to church, the shitty evangelical Church* we went to went through a huge drama cycle because tithes were down to the point that the church had to lay off a few people. Tithes were down because, shockingly, there weren't any new people joining to reverse the inevitable losses to old age and people just moving on to different churches.
There was a HUGE membership meeting that I got dragged to where anyone who cared was invited to come in and be a part of the conversation about How We Should Fix This.
My autistic ass was still naive enough to think that the people involved were acting in good faith and I asked a few people in the informal huddle before the meeting properly started "Well...what are we offering people? What are we doing that other churches aren't? There's got to be a need or a niche that we could fill."
Every single person I asked (one of my parents included) stared at me like I'd asked them to divide by zero. The concept of "we need to make ourselves attractive to people in order to attract people" just did not compute.
The rest of the meeting turned into a couple tedious hours of "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!"
A key part of getting others to want to join you is to make your “club” one that seems worth joining. If your side is the one that seems to enjoy itself and each other, that seems willing to welcome new converts, that seems to have a message of “you’re good, and we care about what you care about”—well, that can be very inviting! It’s how a lot of proselytizing religions are successful too.
We do ourselves no favors when we seem to be scolding and correcting one another (let alone those who aren’t even on our team!) and fighting over what each other should care about. We’d go much farther if we approached this like a religion looking for converts, rather than an exclusive secret society putting new entrants through hazing and regularly expelling members.
And as for “purity tests” that has it exactly backwards. We stand for something—broadly speaking, it can be “we want to improve everyone’s lives, ensure everyone gets a fair shake, and look out for the vulnerable as well”—and welcome anyone into our fold no matter how much of it they agree with. We’re not “changing what we stand for” to appeal to them, we are selling what we stand for to make our best pitch and it’s up to them to buy our product if we did our job right.
If you think successful religions haven’t done this, you’re not paying attention.
I am so tired of being blamed, directly or indirectly, for Donald Trump. It’s bad enough he is president. Now Cory Booker (and others; it’s a pervasive refrain) tells us it’s our own fault? We who knocked on doors and wrote letters and urged our friends to vote?
As a senator, Booker could have spoken up sooner about Biden’s unfitness to run in 2024, but I don’t recall him doing that.
But I’m not here to blame any Democrat for Trump. The people at fault are the people who voted for him and gave him money. The rest of us deserve compassion for getting through this dark time. If we do get through it.
So, is Booker's message that we all just have to suck it up and vote for every Democrat in every election, otherwise we are simply purity ponies who are responsible for allowing the worst administration in my long lifetime to prevail?
Are progressives (like myself), who keep pushing for a Democratic Party to act on its supposed principles and to fight consistently for positive social and environmental change, somehow failing the party? I would argue that it is Democratic politicians who fail us, not we who fail the party.
I suppose Booker's churchy background has led him to treat politics like a Sunday sermon, but it strikes me as a bit too manufactured, and a bit too condemnatory. I will never understand why politicians don't simply advocate for the benefits that good politics can provide the average person, and give them simple examples of exactly how they will be helped. Give us a reason to get out of bed to support and vote for honest, consistent, and principled leadership and I'm all in.
I continue to believe Trump won the presidency twice because in fact, hundreds of millions of Americans are just like him. They look at Trump and see themselves.
An ignorant and decadent population will elect ignorant and decadent leaders. Ignorance and decadence are Trump's defining features. Maybe enough people will stop wallowing in their decadence to elect some better people, but that's what it will take.
"Anyone who voted for Trump but has now soured on him can’t be trusted unless they accept the damage they’ve willingly inflicted on everyone."
I mean...yeah. I don't trust them. Trust, like respect, is *earned.*
I don't trust people who took an entire decade of his public existence AND his first term because
A: they're Republicans and Republicans lie like they breathe,
B: Talk is fucking cheap. After he posted that picture of him as Jesus magically healing the guy who looked eerily like Epstein plenty of MAGA talking heads grumbled, but a few of them were honest enough to admit they'd vote for him again because the alternative was recognizing that trans people exist or something. And,
C: Decent odds they're rats fleeing what they see as a sinking ship. They might (emphasis on might) be ostensibly on the same side, but the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
I'll work with them because there's no other viable choice, but until they've actually put in the fucking work to prove they're trustworthy I'm not going to turn my back to them.
I'll take their vote, but I'm not going to join hands and sing "Kumbaya" with former MAGA. Nor do I trust their regret. Nor would I count them as converts to decency.
And I'm not going to pretend their "change" isn't motivated mostly by their own faces getting eaten by the leopard they released.
They voted to destroy America in the name of white supremacy and cruelty. And as soon as a Democratic administration takes power, they'll turn on it when it doesn't magically and immediately fix all the damage they caused.
They insist everyone will support universal health care once they are “saved.”
I feel seen here and that's fine. Everyone (or a very large majority) does support social programs once they are in place. I know we are at a crazy time right now but normally, social security and medicare are untouchable because they are so popular. Imagine giving everyone healthcare and then trying to take it away.
A political party is not a house of worship.
No, they are not. And as such, we will use critical thinking about our right to cast a vote for the people we believe in. Booker can fuck off.
"He’s voted to confirm some of his nominees, including Marco Rubio."
TBF, this is where we have to 'grade on the curve'...EVERY SINGLE democratic Senator (inc. Warren and Sanders for context) voted for Rubio (pffft)...Only a handful of dem Senators ONLY voted for Rubio. Tim Kaine's record is abysmal
I'm not ready to call it yet....The November elections are are going to determine a LOT of things. I've seen a steadily growing progressive caucus over the last 10 years and a HEGE change in the rhetoric of how we talk about shit. Progressivism seems to be on the ascendent and the old school neolib dems are catching more shit than ever. The progressive caucus has a fire in their belly, the neocons, not so much...I know who I'm betting on for the win in general. I mean we're FINALLY FUCKING talking about Israel/ Gaza the way we SHOULD be...That's a MAJOR change in the narrative
Well lots of Democratic voters like that. They want "fight" and many of them don't check the receipts. This is one of many reasons why I'm resigned to dying prematurely in this shithole country. 'cause a majority of Americans are also easily persuaded that ethnic cleansing will make everything cheaper for them and make it so there's not crime or something.
Nah those were cover reasons, they wanted the ethnic cleansing.
Ah well can't wait for the pundits that will demand another "Sister Souljah moment" out of whatever hapless sacrificial lamb gets the most votes in a Democratic primary.
You're not alone there. Honestly the way I expect my future to look is: work for some indeterminate amount of time, hoping to not get into some kind of medical emergency that makes me incapable of working. Then, when I finally do end up with an injury or illness that would force me out of the working world, exercise my second amendment rights if you catch my drift.
Fundamentalism is a cancer on religion and on politics. No one is perfect, which is probably why Jesus told his followers to take out of the branch from their eye before removing a speck from someone else's eye.
That's one way of looking at it. I obviously see it differently - ignoring the issue he raised has been damaging to us and our candidates. I always remember the old saying "Democrats fall in love, Repulbicans fiall in line". We need to do more falling in line until/unless we fix the mess we made.
I don't fall in love with candidates. Not Clinton, Obama, Biden, or Harris. I don't need to have a beer with them. I DO expect Democrats to stop acting like "Republican Lite." I'd say more but this conversation is already old.
Fall in line? With genocide? With more for the rich and the boot for the rest of us? Corporate greed taking over our resources? Nah, I'm not falling in line.
Meh. I agree with the theory but not the execution. Lecturing people never works, and often has the opposite effect. I do not disagree w/Booker but presenting that argument as the reason why people need to vote the way he wants them to is a sure loser.
The Democrats lost because a significant number of Latinos and a smaller number of African American men defected to Trump. From everything I've seen, very liberal people showed up for Harris. Maybe liberal and very liberal people should think about how to win people back rather than fight each other.
Yep, yet no matter how obvious the data is on this, Democrats refuse to acknowledge it. Harris didn’t lose Arizona and Nevada because of Gaza. The outright loss of the Latino vote in Michigan sealed her fate more than “uncommitted.”
Rereading this brought back a relevant memory: MANY years ago now, when my parents could still force me to go to church, the shitty evangelical Church* we went to went through a huge drama cycle because tithes were down to the point that the church had to lay off a few people. Tithes were down because, shockingly, there weren't any new people joining to reverse the inevitable losses to old age and people just moving on to different churches.
There was a HUGE membership meeting that I got dragged to where anyone who cared was invited to come in and be a part of the conversation about How We Should Fix This.
My autistic ass was still naive enough to think that the people involved were acting in good faith and I asked a few people in the informal huddle before the meeting properly started "Well...what are we offering people? What are we doing that other churches aren't? There's got to be a need or a niche that we could fill."
Every single person I asked (one of my parents included) stared at me like I'd asked them to divide by zero. The concept of "we need to make ourselves attractive to people in order to attract people" just did not compute.
The rest of the meeting turned into a couple tedious hours of "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!"
*Yes, I know there's no other kind
A key part of getting others to want to join you is to make your “club” one that seems worth joining. If your side is the one that seems to enjoy itself and each other, that seems willing to welcome new converts, that seems to have a message of “you’re good, and we care about what you care about”—well, that can be very inviting! It’s how a lot of proselytizing religions are successful too.
We do ourselves no favors when we seem to be scolding and correcting one another (let alone those who aren’t even on our team!) and fighting over what each other should care about. We’d go much farther if we approached this like a religion looking for converts, rather than an exclusive secret society putting new entrants through hazing and regularly expelling members.
And as for “purity tests” that has it exactly backwards. We stand for something—broadly speaking, it can be “we want to improve everyone’s lives, ensure everyone gets a fair shake, and look out for the vulnerable as well”—and welcome anyone into our fold no matter how much of it they agree with. We’re not “changing what we stand for” to appeal to them, we are selling what we stand for to make our best pitch and it’s up to them to buy our product if we did our job right.
If you think successful religions haven’t done this, you’re not paying attention.
I am so tired of being blamed, directly or indirectly, for Donald Trump. It’s bad enough he is president. Now Cory Booker (and others; it’s a pervasive refrain) tells us it’s our own fault? We who knocked on doors and wrote letters and urged our friends to vote?
As a senator, Booker could have spoken up sooner about Biden’s unfitness to run in 2024, but I don’t recall him doing that.
But I’m not here to blame any Democrat for Trump. The people at fault are the people who voted for him and gave him money. The rest of us deserve compassion for getting through this dark time. If we do get through it.
So, is Booker's message that we all just have to suck it up and vote for every Democrat in every election, otherwise we are simply purity ponies who are responsible for allowing the worst administration in my long lifetime to prevail?
Are progressives (like myself), who keep pushing for a Democratic Party to act on its supposed principles and to fight consistently for positive social and environmental change, somehow failing the party? I would argue that it is Democratic politicians who fail us, not we who fail the party.
I suppose Booker's churchy background has led him to treat politics like a Sunday sermon, but it strikes me as a bit too manufactured, and a bit too condemnatory. I will never understand why politicians don't simply advocate for the benefits that good politics can provide the average person, and give them simple examples of exactly how they will be helped. Give us a reason to get out of bed to support and vote for honest, consistent, and principled leadership and I'm all in.
I continue to believe Trump won the presidency twice because in fact, hundreds of millions of Americans are just like him. They look at Trump and see themselves.
An ignorant and decadent population will elect ignorant and decadent leaders. Ignorance and decadence are Trump's defining features. Maybe enough people will stop wallowing in their decadence to elect some better people, but that's what it will take.
My $0.02.
"Anyone who voted for Trump but has now soured on him can’t be trusted unless they accept the damage they’ve willingly inflicted on everyone."
I mean...yeah. I don't trust them. Trust, like respect, is *earned.*
I don't trust people who took an entire decade of his public existence AND his first term because
A: they're Republicans and Republicans lie like they breathe,
B: Talk is fucking cheap. After he posted that picture of him as Jesus magically healing the guy who looked eerily like Epstein plenty of MAGA talking heads grumbled, but a few of them were honest enough to admit they'd vote for him again because the alternative was recognizing that trans people exist or something. And,
C: Decent odds they're rats fleeing what they see as a sinking ship. They might (emphasis on might) be ostensibly on the same side, but the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
I'll work with them because there's no other viable choice, but until they've actually put in the fucking work to prove they're trustworthy I'm not going to turn my back to them.
I'll take their vote, but I'm not going to join hands and sing "Kumbaya" with former MAGA. Nor do I trust their regret. Nor would I count them as converts to decency.
And I'm not going to pretend their "change" isn't motivated mostly by their own faces getting eaten by the leopard they released.
They voted to destroy America in the name of white supremacy and cruelty. And as soon as a Democratic administration takes power, they'll turn on it when it doesn't magically and immediately fix all the damage they caused.
YES. EXACTLY.
It is in their 'best MATERIAL interests' to vote for democrats. They don't get a cookie for for voting for their OWN INTERESTS
They insist everyone will support universal health care once they are “saved.”
I feel seen here and that's fine. Everyone (or a very large majority) does support social programs once they are in place. I know we are at a crazy time right now but normally, social security and medicare are untouchable because they are so popular. Imagine giving everyone healthcare and then trying to take it away.
A political party is not a house of worship.
No, they are not. And as such, we will use critical thinking about our right to cast a vote for the people we believe in. Booker can fuck off.
"He’s voted to confirm some of his nominees, including Marco Rubio."
TBF, this is where we have to 'grade on the curve'...EVERY SINGLE democratic Senator (inc. Warren and Sanders for context) voted for Rubio (pffft)...Only a handful of dem Senators ONLY voted for Rubio. Tim Kaine's record is abysmal
I really, really hope you are right.
The "party" is cooked.
I'm not ready to call it yet....The November elections are are going to determine a LOT of things. I've seen a steadily growing progressive caucus over the last 10 years and a HEGE change in the rhetoric of how we talk about shit. Progressivism seems to be on the ascendent and the old school neolib dems are catching more shit than ever. The progressive caucus has a fire in their belly, the neocons, not so much...I know who I'm betting on for the win in general. I mean we're FINALLY FUCKING talking about Israel/ Gaza the way we SHOULD be...That's a MAJOR change in the narrative
(:
"Parker Molloy at The Present Age explored Booker’s sentiments and explained why it wasn’t a compelling political message."
I think we have learned by now that Booker is all performance and no substance
Well lots of Democratic voters like that. They want "fight" and many of them don't check the receipts. This is one of many reasons why I'm resigned to dying prematurely in this shithole country. 'cause a majority of Americans are also easily persuaded that ethnic cleansing will make everything cheaper for them and make it so there's not crime or something.
Nah those were cover reasons, they wanted the ethnic cleansing.
Ah well can't wait for the pundits that will demand another "Sister Souljah moment" out of whatever hapless sacrificial lamb gets the most votes in a Democratic primary.
Unless it's fetterman, manchin, or maybe mitt Romney or something. The pundit class would love them.
"This is one of many reasons why I'm resigned to dying prematurely in this shithole country."
So it ain't just me then?
sigh
You're not alone there. Honestly the way I expect my future to look is: work for some indeterminate amount of time, hoping to not get into some kind of medical emergency that makes me incapable of working. Then, when I finally do end up with an injury or illness that would force me out of the working world, exercise my second amendment rights if you catch my drift.
Fundamentalism is a cancer on religion and on politics. No one is perfect, which is probably why Jesus told his followers to take out of the branch from their eye before removing a speck from someone else's eye.
Sorry, but I agree with Cory on this, and I think a "come to Jesus" moment is just what the "she/he's not perfect" voters need.
How is it needed? How would it work? It’s like vinyl having a “come to Jesus” moment about CDs
I still listen to wax cylinders so I have no idea what you're talking about
(:
That's one way of looking at it. I obviously see it differently - ignoring the issue he raised has been damaging to us and our candidates. I always remember the old saying "Democrats fall in love, Repulbicans fiall in line". We need to do more falling in line until/unless we fix the mess we made.
I don't fall in love with candidates. Not Clinton, Obama, Biden, or Harris. I don't need to have a beer with them. I DO expect Democrats to stop acting like "Republican Lite." I'd say more but this conversation is already old.
Fall in line? With genocide? With more for the rich and the boot for the rest of us? Corporate greed taking over our resources? Nah, I'm not falling in line.
Oh, you must be a "progressive".
I’m a citizen with the same right to vote that you have.
No one said you weren't. It's laughable that that's what you read.
Meh. I agree with the theory but not the execution. Lecturing people never works, and often has the opposite effect. I do not disagree w/Booker but presenting that argument as the reason why people need to vote the way he wants them to is a sure loser.