Respectfully, please consider removing "Hi, y’all" from your introduction. It does not come across very well and almost makes me not want to read the piece, which I am sure is quite good. I think, perhaps, it seems a bit disingenuous.
If we want to solve the nations problems, we need to run and elect better people to office. We are failing. How have we elected so many people that: 1) Don't understand or trust science and math, 2) ignore facts that contradict their opinions, 3) believe that the more money one has, the smarter they are, 4) are contemptuous of those who don't hold their beliefs, 5) believe that they don't need to be accountable for their actions or inactions, and 6) believe they must follow their leader even when they think the leader is wrong, (7) believe it is acceptable to take advantage of their government position for their financial gain, and (8) believe it is ok to lie to defend their position. Political parties are defined by the quality and character and ability to clearly communicate of the people they nominate. I don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils. The lesser of two evils is still evil. The least incompetent of two candidates is still incompetent.
Democrats need a Project 2029 to focus and document our proposals for the American public. Child care, Social Security, education, border policy, international relations, tax policy and goals for rebuilding our government after Trump. Rather than depending on personalities, it could illustrate the policies public surveys say the majority of Americans want but aren’t receiving.
Lauren, I'm a bit tired of the dumping on Democrats. We lost in 2024 and a great many pundits think we are in a death spiral. Political parties lose because the voters either don't vote or think the other party will serve their needs. Enough. the Dems made mistakes but piling on is a bigger mistake. The Dems will be back. Try supporting them rather than throwing rocks.
Oh, honestly--a link to a Pat McAfee story at The Bulwark? Shame on you. Nobody needs any further proof of how distorted and perverse the internet is, and heaven knows NO additional eyeballs need to be seared by the disgraceful spectacle of this idiot kicker.
First off, please be crystal clear that the new reality is that everything moving forward is anti-Trump. The Dems chose to make themselves neuter and irrelevant, we should just leave them to their useless fate; if they catch up later, fine. All that bleating about "ohhhh, we can't get through to people with negative messaging"? Stop. Just fucking STOP. The old formulations are so dead that they need not even be mentioned again. Sarah's right, listen to her. The Dem leadership is at fault for Trump, they had no business standing Biden back up for a last hurrah, that's over and we should never forgive them. Job One NOW is getting Trump to 34%. That's all there is. Do it. It's rat-fucking time.
Second off, the "liberal groups" throwing the shindig tomorrow (April 5, be there) are propelled by Indivisible, which is the 900 pound gorilla in resistance politics at the moment. Your sneery "liberal groups" shit really pisses me off, and I send you people plenty of scratch to, y'know, get the word out and all. I'm an apostate Republican, which is what YOU'RE supposed to be, I'll be looking for lots and lots of other dumpy, grey-hairs like me at the march making a shit-ton of noise. That's the ONLY thing that will save the country. Left and Right are long over, I'll fight with AOC about GND after we get our country back.
Get your heads out of your intellectual asses and sprint to the front of the parade because you're getting a little smug and we don't have the time to mess with helping you out.
Amen to you, brother, from a fellow dumpy grey-hair. I've been preaching just this to anybody who will listen, and emailing my Senators--Kelly and Gallego, who've bellied up to the trough to the tune of thousands of my personal dollars--with the message that there will be exactly ZERO more legal tender for them to pitch into the fire until they get the memo about "making a shit-ton of noise." From the fucking street--not from the well or on Twitter or wherever else.
As JVL said yesterday: We are the ones we've been waiting for. Nobody else is going to save us. LBJ called it "nut-cutting time," but I prefer your "rat-fucking time." Either way--The. Fight. Is. Here.
It's weird because I'm an economic progressive who has spent the last 1-2 railing against dem leadership, but as of this week I'm actually starting to feel a lot better about the direction things are going:
- Bernie and AOC on their anti-oligarchy tour bringing economic populism back to the party
- Crawford wiped her ass with Elon's $25M
- Booker raising pulses in the senate
- The worm is beginning to turn on Trump approval polls and we're not even out of the honeymoon phase yet
- GOP is scared to do town halls with their constituents
- Indexes are deep in the red on the back of insane tariff policy announcements
- Musk starting to get the cold shoulder within the WH
- Big protests across the country this Saturday
I don't know about the rest of y'all, but the pendulum seems to be shifting back in that other direction in my view, and it's happening earlier than expected.
I must be the only reader of your articles that suffer from stupidity. I never claim I know best, but your preference for noir, negative, and quasi-ironic thinking and writing leaves me bitter and hopeless. Is that what US voters need after the blunder of electing another Jim Jones? You write for people who need to hear or read what you wish to tell, but this circumscribes your work to those readers or auditors. You seem talented, but, likely due to my stupidity, I find your style to be the opposite of persuasive. I am not asking you to write to seek followers; I wish you would be willing to help, in a direct, transparent way, your readers to explore their thinking, political philosophy, or worldview.
I agree completely, PGR. The writer is smart and clever, I'm sure, but is setting up a false dichotomy. Dems can and are both disappointed in present leadership AND be feeling joy and hope after Tuesday. The Dems that I know are aware that our leadership is a work in progress - and that events of the last few days have shaken up the equation. Democrats are neither stupid nor delusional. Cory Booker so eloquently articulated the challenge: the ugly hate and resentment fueled talk of the right is lazy, easy and gets attention. Talking about concern for the greater good - or love as Booker put it - is harder and takes longer to get traction. Let's give each other a break.
exactly my first impressions...she's really helping! Not the content, but the style eludes me. The Dems are down, b/c they have yet to find an antidote to the messaging of MAGA and Trump/Musk, that of constant lying and misrepresenting facts. It appears the economy will only move voters.
Suppose you are right about the economy being the only mover of voters (not consumers' loss of purchasing power due to, for instance, inflation). In that case, one has to come closer to accepting that Marx's prophecy of the destiny of capitalism, as he knew it, was not far from being on target. Do you remember McLuhan's dictum that «the medium was the message?» Then, it may apply to Egan's article in her content, not her message, because her style is no less than the essential element of her message that, in your view, makes it effective. Her style is part of her «medium.» Am I misinterpreting you? Please, if so, correct me.
I can't even read an article that starts with "democratic voters hate their party". There's a big difference with disappointment or frustration, and hate. And so, I didn't read the article. Not worthy of my time. The party I hate is the republican party. They are solely responsible for Trump and Project 2025.
I am going to keep saying this until I get a big response. And among those who know more that I do, should I get this thought to Indivisible? Well I think I will anyway!
And let’s not forget to prepare for July 4 this year, the 250th anniversary of the founding of America. I can’t believe that he’s going to be the president during that event, but we need to show that we are having a new revolution!
Dems refuse to think long-term and fall back on MAGA backlash to kick them out of power. Taking the majority back means nothing if we can’t hold it longer than one cycle.
I’m a lifelong Dem and we are definitely wandering the wilderness right now. Our branding and messaging is the worst it’s been in decades. Schumer is NOT up for the job. He is a comms disaster.
"“The relief that you’re hearing from Democrats is that there’s an open-minded electorate still out there,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne told The Bulwark. “It can be easy to think, ‘Oh my gosh, have we lost the thread on how to talk to folks?’ But there’s an electorate that’s willing to be persuaded—and that’s implicitly a buoyant feeling.”" So is there an open-minded electorate out there or just fickle people grounded in nothing who are easily manipulable and taken away on whims? I can't decide how I feel about the voting public, when I listen to The Focus Group podcast or just listen to humans in my reality, I think the assumption that the American electorate is rational and reasonable is where the problem lies........
I’d like to finish with a point that is perhaps controversial and unoriginal but needs to be hammered home; it should now be crystal clear that Democrats are steadily alienating male voters – mostly white ones, but increasingly many who are nonwhite. This is dismissed as “misogyny” by many Democrats and there is certainly plenty of that. But when one gender and one race is singled out as the source of all that is evil and nothing that is good in a nation that they themselves were instrumental in building (to say the least), members of that group can become disheartened. No one wants to be a member of a party that considers him the enemy. I must say that I share this feeling (I have never oppressed anyone). For me, no amount of frustration with Democrats would ever make me vote for human beings as despicable as Donald Trump and his brownshirts. But clearly, tens of millions of men -- white, black and brown – overcame whatever distaste for Trump they might have had and did just that.
Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Democrats are actively alienating male voters. Men are absolutely struggling, falling behind in so many metrics, but I buy less into Democrats alienating them and more into there is a whole right wing media-sphere ready to exploit male insecurities for their gains. Men have real achievement gaps when it comes to education at the same time that women are having more and more successes in gaining in professional fields, the easiest to see big gap in the electorate is educated people voted Kamala. If you're not educated enough/don't value critical thinking skills, well the whole world of right wing media is right there to scoop you up into its loving arms of grievances.......
"But when one gender and one race is singled out as the source of all that is evil and nothing that is good in a nation that they themselves were instrumental in building (to say the least), members of that group can become disheartened. No one wants to be a member of a party that considers him the enemy."
Hyperbole much? Bullshit much?
The men (and women and young people) the Dems lost left because they fell for the rope-a-dope. They fell for the constant barage of lies (eating cats and dogs! libs hate men! trans women are threatening you and your kids! worse economy ever!) that's blasted at them constantly through the extremely well developed/well functioning right wing propaganda machine that's almost unavoidable.
The left has a messaging problem for sure. But in poll after poll if there is no party affiliation mentioned, the majority of the electorate supports the majority of the Dem platform. And while there is a growing number of young men who are flailing in their masculinity and while there are reasons for that, it's in large part due to the propaganda they're fed and led to by right wing extremists.
One more thing. The Dems ratings are so bad because the Republicans are out there every day saying how bad the dems are, they support transgender kids in sports, they support illegal immigrants. trump is out there every day saying what screw ups the Biden administration was. Same message from every Republican every day. It is the new call. Stick to the lie and say it every day in every way and pretty soon people will believe you. Dems have got to have a communications strategy that everyone MUST live with or they will keep losing.
The problem now is that the Dems will determine the strategy to attack Musk. But they are missing the boat. The strategy can't be about attacking Musk - Musk is doing a good job of canceling himself. The Dem strategy needs to be bigger -- pick 4 things and remind voters that the Dems did for them. Every Dem should be shouting the same 4 things in their districts. Op Eds, community meetings, Editorial meetings with local paper (essential), meeting with smaller groups of constituents, not just contributors (bigger groups tend to become mobs). Every Dem should be talking about the same 4 things - and then whatever is particularly important to them. The Reps are so focused, every interview they use same talking points, no matter who it is. Dems have got to be doing the same thing. The American public is tired of the fighting, name calling, chaos - even if they don't say it. The Dems need a communication strategy - not a battle cry. I've was a successful political consultant for 35 years, the one thing I know for sure is that name calling and fighting is out -- but communicating the things that the Dems have done for the people for the last few years is the key. Do a survey on that. Ask in the last 4 (or whatever) years can you name me 4 things that the Dems did for the American public? No one has a clue. The Biden Presidency was a good one in terms of doing for the people - the screw up was not announcing he wasn't running. But don't run away from the good that the administration did.
Respectfully, please consider removing "Hi, y’all" from your introduction. It does not come across very well and almost makes me not want to read the piece, which I am sure is quite good. I think, perhaps, it seems a bit disingenuous.
let's hope the momentum continues and we can elect Dem governors in NJ and VA
If we want to solve the nations problems, we need to run and elect better people to office. We are failing. How have we elected so many people that: 1) Don't understand or trust science and math, 2) ignore facts that contradict their opinions, 3) believe that the more money one has, the smarter they are, 4) are contemptuous of those who don't hold their beliefs, 5) believe that they don't need to be accountable for their actions or inactions, and 6) believe they must follow their leader even when they think the leader is wrong, (7) believe it is acceptable to take advantage of their government position for their financial gain, and (8) believe it is ok to lie to defend their position. Political parties are defined by the quality and character and ability to clearly communicate of the people they nominate. I don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils. The lesser of two evils is still evil. The least incompetent of two candidates is still incompetent.
Democrats need a Project 2029 to focus and document our proposals for the American public. Child care, Social Security, education, border policy, international relations, tax policy and goals for rebuilding our government after Trump. Rather than depending on personalities, it could illustrate the policies public surveys say the majority of Americans want but aren’t receiving.
Lauren, I'm a bit tired of the dumping on Democrats. We lost in 2024 and a great many pundits think we are in a death spiral. Political parties lose because the voters either don't vote or think the other party will serve their needs. Enough. the Dems made mistakes but piling on is a bigger mistake. The Dems will be back. Try supporting them rather than throwing rocks.
T. Matchette
Oh, honestly--a link to a Pat McAfee story at The Bulwark? Shame on you. Nobody needs any further proof of how distorted and perverse the internet is, and heaven knows NO additional eyeballs need to be seared by the disgraceful spectacle of this idiot kicker.
A few bones to pick here.
First off, please be crystal clear that the new reality is that everything moving forward is anti-Trump. The Dems chose to make themselves neuter and irrelevant, we should just leave them to their useless fate; if they catch up later, fine. All that bleating about "ohhhh, we can't get through to people with negative messaging"? Stop. Just fucking STOP. The old formulations are so dead that they need not even be mentioned again. Sarah's right, listen to her. The Dem leadership is at fault for Trump, they had no business standing Biden back up for a last hurrah, that's over and we should never forgive them. Job One NOW is getting Trump to 34%. That's all there is. Do it. It's rat-fucking time.
Second off, the "liberal groups" throwing the shindig tomorrow (April 5, be there) are propelled by Indivisible, which is the 900 pound gorilla in resistance politics at the moment. Your sneery "liberal groups" shit really pisses me off, and I send you people plenty of scratch to, y'know, get the word out and all. I'm an apostate Republican, which is what YOU'RE supposed to be, I'll be looking for lots and lots of other dumpy, grey-hairs like me at the march making a shit-ton of noise. That's the ONLY thing that will save the country. Left and Right are long over, I'll fight with AOC about GND after we get our country back.
Get your heads out of your intellectual asses and sprint to the front of the parade because you're getting a little smug and we don't have the time to mess with helping you out.
Amen to you, brother, from a fellow dumpy grey-hair. I've been preaching just this to anybody who will listen, and emailing my Senators--Kelly and Gallego, who've bellied up to the trough to the tune of thousands of my personal dollars--with the message that there will be exactly ZERO more legal tender for them to pitch into the fire until they get the memo about "making a shit-ton of noise." From the fucking street--not from the well or on Twitter or wherever else.
As JVL said yesterday: We are the ones we've been waiting for. Nobody else is going to save us. LBJ called it "nut-cutting time," but I prefer your "rat-fucking time." Either way--The. Fight. Is. Here.
Roger that. Gonna be wild, doncha know.
LOL. Doubt we'll be able to bank on any pardons, though. Rah.
Love your enthusiasm and directness. Hope it's contagious.
Correction: the shindig is the day after tomorrow, on Saturday the 5th. I'm so excited about it I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's weird because I'm an economic progressive who has spent the last 1-2 railing against dem leadership, but as of this week I'm actually starting to feel a lot better about the direction things are going:
- Bernie and AOC on their anti-oligarchy tour bringing economic populism back to the party
- Crawford wiped her ass with Elon's $25M
- Booker raising pulses in the senate
- The worm is beginning to turn on Trump approval polls and we're not even out of the honeymoon phase yet
- GOP is scared to do town halls with their constituents
- Indexes are deep in the red on the back of insane tariff policy announcements
- Musk starting to get the cold shoulder within the WH
- Big protests across the country this Saturday
I don't know about the rest of y'all, but the pendulum seems to be shifting back in that other direction in my view, and it's happening earlier than expected.
I must be the only reader of your articles that suffer from stupidity. I never claim I know best, but your preference for noir, negative, and quasi-ironic thinking and writing leaves me bitter and hopeless. Is that what US voters need after the blunder of electing another Jim Jones? You write for people who need to hear or read what you wish to tell, but this circumscribes your work to those readers or auditors. You seem talented, but, likely due to my stupidity, I find your style to be the opposite of persuasive. I am not asking you to write to seek followers; I wish you would be willing to help, in a direct, transparent way, your readers to explore their thinking, political philosophy, or worldview.
I agree completely, PGR. The writer is smart and clever, I'm sure, but is setting up a false dichotomy. Dems can and are both disappointed in present leadership AND be feeling joy and hope after Tuesday. The Dems that I know are aware that our leadership is a work in progress - and that events of the last few days have shaken up the equation. Democrats are neither stupid nor delusional. Cory Booker so eloquently articulated the challenge: the ugly hate and resentment fueled talk of the right is lazy, easy and gets attention. Talking about concern for the greater good - or love as Booker put it - is harder and takes longer to get traction. Let's give each other a break.
exactly my first impressions...she's really helping! Not the content, but the style eludes me. The Dems are down, b/c they have yet to find an antidote to the messaging of MAGA and Trump/Musk, that of constant lying and misrepresenting facts. It appears the economy will only move voters.
Suppose you are right about the economy being the only mover of voters (not consumers' loss of purchasing power due to, for instance, inflation). In that case, one has to come closer to accepting that Marx's prophecy of the destiny of capitalism, as he knew it, was not far from being on target. Do you remember McLuhan's dictum that «the medium was the message?» Then, it may apply to Egan's article in her content, not her message, because her style is no less than the essential element of her message that, in your view, makes it effective. Her style is part of her «medium.» Am I misinterpreting you? Please, if so, correct me.
I can't even read an article that starts with "democratic voters hate their party". There's a big difference with disappointment or frustration, and hate. And so, I didn't read the article. Not worthy of my time. The party I hate is the republican party. They are solely responsible for Trump and Project 2025.
I am going to keep saying this until I get a big response. And among those who know more that I do, should I get this thought to Indivisible? Well I think I will anyway!
And let’s not forget to prepare for July 4 this year, the 250th anniversary of the founding of America. I can’t believe that he’s going to be the president during that event, but we need to show that we are having a new revolution!
(correction: the 250th anniversary is next year)
Dems refuse to think long-term and fall back on MAGA backlash to kick them out of power. Taking the majority back means nothing if we can’t hold it longer than one cycle.
I’m a lifelong Dem and we are definitely wandering the wilderness right now. Our branding and messaging is the worst it’s been in decades. Schumer is NOT up for the job. He is a comms disaster.
We have a giant leadership vacuum to fill.
"“The relief that you’re hearing from Democrats is that there’s an open-minded electorate still out there,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne told The Bulwark. “It can be easy to think, ‘Oh my gosh, have we lost the thread on how to talk to folks?’ But there’s an electorate that’s willing to be persuaded—and that’s implicitly a buoyant feeling.”" So is there an open-minded electorate out there or just fickle people grounded in nothing who are easily manipulable and taken away on whims? I can't decide how I feel about the voting public, when I listen to The Focus Group podcast or just listen to humans in my reality, I think the assumption that the American electorate is rational and reasonable is where the problem lies........
This is a selection from my recent Substack post "Why Kamala Lost in 9 Simple Charts." I think Democrats should pay attention
https://charles72f.substack.com/p/why-kamela-lost-in-nine-simple-charts
I’d like to finish with a point that is perhaps controversial and unoriginal but needs to be hammered home; it should now be crystal clear that Democrats are steadily alienating male voters – mostly white ones, but increasingly many who are nonwhite. This is dismissed as “misogyny” by many Democrats and there is certainly plenty of that. But when one gender and one race is singled out as the source of all that is evil and nothing that is good in a nation that they themselves were instrumental in building (to say the least), members of that group can become disheartened. No one wants to be a member of a party that considers him the enemy. I must say that I share this feeling (I have never oppressed anyone). For me, no amount of frustration with Democrats would ever make me vote for human beings as despicable as Donald Trump and his brownshirts. But clearly, tens of millions of men -- white, black and brown – overcame whatever distaste for Trump they might have had and did just that.
Examples of this "alienating male voters", please.
Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Democrats are actively alienating male voters. Men are absolutely struggling, falling behind in so many metrics, but I buy less into Democrats alienating them and more into there is a whole right wing media-sphere ready to exploit male insecurities for their gains. Men have real achievement gaps when it comes to education at the same time that women are having more and more successes in gaining in professional fields, the easiest to see big gap in the electorate is educated people voted Kamala. If you're not educated enough/don't value critical thinking skills, well the whole world of right wing media is right there to scoop you up into its loving arms of grievances.......
"But when one gender and one race is singled out as the source of all that is evil and nothing that is good in a nation that they themselves were instrumental in building (to say the least), members of that group can become disheartened. No one wants to be a member of a party that considers him the enemy."
Hyperbole much? Bullshit much?
The men (and women and young people) the Dems lost left because they fell for the rope-a-dope. They fell for the constant barage of lies (eating cats and dogs! libs hate men! trans women are threatening you and your kids! worse economy ever!) that's blasted at them constantly through the extremely well developed/well functioning right wing propaganda machine that's almost unavoidable.
The left has a messaging problem for sure. But in poll after poll if there is no party affiliation mentioned, the majority of the electorate supports the majority of the Dem platform. And while there is a growing number of young men who are flailing in their masculinity and while there are reasons for that, it's in large part due to the propaganda they're fed and led to by right wing extremists.
One more thing. The Dems ratings are so bad because the Republicans are out there every day saying how bad the dems are, they support transgender kids in sports, they support illegal immigrants. trump is out there every day saying what screw ups the Biden administration was. Same message from every Republican every day. It is the new call. Stick to the lie and say it every day in every way and pretty soon people will believe you. Dems have got to have a communications strategy that everyone MUST live with or they will keep losing.
The problem now is that the Dems will determine the strategy to attack Musk. But they are missing the boat. The strategy can't be about attacking Musk - Musk is doing a good job of canceling himself. The Dem strategy needs to be bigger -- pick 4 things and remind voters that the Dems did for them. Every Dem should be shouting the same 4 things in their districts. Op Eds, community meetings, Editorial meetings with local paper (essential), meeting with smaller groups of constituents, not just contributors (bigger groups tend to become mobs). Every Dem should be talking about the same 4 things - and then whatever is particularly important to them. The Reps are so focused, every interview they use same talking points, no matter who it is. Dems have got to be doing the same thing. The American public is tired of the fighting, name calling, chaos - even if they don't say it. The Dems need a communication strategy - not a battle cry. I've was a successful political consultant for 35 years, the one thing I know for sure is that name calling and fighting is out -- but communicating the things that the Dems have done for the people for the last few years is the key. Do a survey on that. Ask in the last 4 (or whatever) years can you name me 4 things that the Dems did for the American public? No one has a clue. The Biden Presidency was a good one in terms of doing for the people - the screw up was not announcing he wasn't running. But don't run away from the good that the administration did.