Dems Rebuild

[Danny Bateman]

10 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

It's hard because if people with more education tend to vote Democrat, they're less likely to like hearing a bunch of bulls#!t even if it's about a politician they don't like. I personally don't like made up s#!t when the truth is bad enough.

 

Yeah I mean I'm biased but it certainly seems asymmetrical. D attacks on Rs seem to be largely fact-based and Rs tend to just make sh#t up or take it out of context more often - obviously exceptions can happen.

 

But, like, should Ds just start making plays for less educated people and dare the more educated to not vote for them? It could obviously backfire pretty badly but I'm not sure how else to expand the tent in some of these red states.

It's a bit of catch-22. You can't reform an archaic system that arbitrarily screws you out of power without winning the Senate. But that system makes it hard to win the Senate and certainly makes any substantial majority borderline impossible.

[Jason Sitoke]

6 hours ago, RedDenver said:

Wow. I'm not even sure what to take away from this.

 

Apparently that an orange man is still more trustworthy than the white man. 

[knapplc]

Some post-mortem on the Dems' under-performance down ballot of Biden.

 

 

 

Here's the whole thread, unwrapped:

 

 

Quote

 

There are folks running around on TV blaming progressivism for Dem underperformance.

I was curious, so I decided to open the hood on struggling campaigns of candidates who are blaming progressives for their problems.

Almost all had awful execution on digital. DURING A PANDEMIC.

Underinvestment across the board. Some campaigns spent $0 on digital the week before the election. Others who spent did so in very poor ways.

If I spent only $12k on TV the week before an election & then blamed others after, you’d ask questions. That’s how it looks seeing this.

Ideology + messaging are the spicy convos a lot of people jump to but sometimes it’s about execution and technical capacity.

Digital execution was not good, polls were off, ironically DCCC banned the firms who are the best in the country at Facebook bc they work w progressives!

Also, the decision to stop knocking doors is one people need to grapple with and analyze.

@IlhanMN and @RashidaTlaib never stopped and may very well have helped delivered a Biden Presidency bc of it washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

There are swing seat Dem incumbents who cosponsored the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, etc and if I’m not mistaken every single one won re-election.

So the whole “progressivism is bad” argument just doesn’t have any compelling evidence that I’ve seen.

When it comes to “Defund” & “Socialism” attacks, people need to realize these are racial resentment attacks. You’re not gonna make that go away. You can make it less effective.

How do you make it less effective? Invest in year-round deep canvassing. Data shows that this kind of work helps blunt the force of racial resentment at the polls.

If you’re always running away from convos about race, then the only ppl owning it are GOP. You’ll lose.

And on this hand-wringing about slight POC increases for GOP in some areas - this is also an area w answers.

But honestly when it comes to Latinos the party’s just never seriously made an effort. Mexicans, Central Am, Caribbean, Chicanos - Cubans are not the only impt community

By the way if white communities are getting more comfortable w overt racism or “cultural resentment” (if that’s what they’re rebranding it now) it’s only gonna get harder for POC turnout to save everyone.

Real organizing & strategy is needed that disarms bigotry, not avoids it.

You can’t just tell the Black, Brown, & youth organizers riding in to save us every election to be quiet or not have their reps champion them when they need us. Or wonder why they don’t show up for midterms when they’re scolded for existing. Esp when they’re delivering victories.

And btw I’m happy to cede ground on things that aren’t working in some areas! But finger pointing is not gonna help. There’s real workable & productive paths here if the party is open to us.

(After all, I got here by beating a Dem who outspent me 10-1 who I knew had bad polling)

 

 

 

[Moiraine]

9 minutes ago, knapplc said:

Some post-mortem on the Dems' under-performance down ballot of Biden.

 

 

 

Here's the whole thread, unwrapped:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If this is all true and I believe it is, the DNC are more clueless than I thought. No offense to any old farts over 60 but they are stopping the DNC from being what it should be and it needs to change now.

[knapplc]

Just now, Moiraine said:

If this is all true and I believe it is, the DNC are more clueless than I thought. No offense to any old farts over 60 but they are stopping the DNC from being what it should be.

 

Totally agree. The Old Guard in the Democratic Party need to step down.

 

Pelosi is an 80s politician. This isn't the 1980s, and we don't need people in power who run a party that way. 

[RedDenver]

2 hours ago, knapplc said:

Some post-mortem on the Dems' under-performance down ballot of Biden.

 

 

 

Here's the whole thread, unwrapped:

 

 

 

 

This one in particular caught my eye:

 

I think the popular opinion and talking points will be about the Repubs being divided post-trump, but I think it'll be the Dems that end up divided without an external threat like Trump for the establishment to use against progressives.

[RedDenver]

 

[RedDenver]

To go along with the above:

 

[RedDenver]

I think we're also going to be talking about whether the Lincoln Project actually did anything useful:

 

[RedDenver]

 

[RedDenver]

[RedDenver]

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

On 11/6/2020 at 6:18 AM, knapplc said:

 

Totally agree. The Old Guard in the Democratic Party need to step down.

 

Pelosi is an 80s politician. This isn't the 1980s, and we don't need people in power who run a party that way. 

 

That would be the party where they break out the new Phil Collins CD and wonder why you're not dancing. 

[Danny Bateman]

I'm sure we're gonna be having ideological discussions about the best future for the party to actually be competitive A LOT moving forward.

 

Here's an alternative: It was a highly partisan election. Trump's base turned out massively. Biden's base turned out more massively.

 

But look at this graph. Part of the reason Dems had a bad night didn't have anything to do with ideology. They just didn't win where Biden didn't win. The only Senate seats we picked up were in states Biden won. We lost all the ones in states where he lost and one in Maine where he won because Collins just had too much crossover support there.

 

It's not the solution but I thought it was an interesting observation. No matter how good a fit one is for their state, they can't escape gross partisanship in a presidential election year.

 

In order to win something like the Senate, Ds are going to have to figure out how to appeal in red states moving forward. Probably means some structural changes need to happen. These numbers show utter inability to peel off people who didn't like the top of the ticket.

 

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

23 hours ago, RedDenver said:

I think we're also going to be talking about whether the Lincoln Project actually did anything useful:

 

 

If Steve Schmidt and friends come sniffing around Biden, looking for their payoff from Democrats, I'd recommend using their messaging skills to inform Americans about the disinformation campaigns run against Democrats and Democratic policies by past Republican operatives including (looks at notes)....Steve Schmidt and friends.