Robert Hubbell is a popular and insightful blogger who has been an inspiration during the campaign. In this post, he takes issue with the pundits who blame Democrats for Trump’s victory, specifically, those who say that Democrats abandoned the working class.
Hubbell wrote:
People continue to be in shock. Many readers report that they have withdrawn from cable news and legacy media outlets. Understandably so. Those outlets are falling over themselves to explain “why” the 2024 presidential election unfolded as it did. The only statement we can make with certainty is that whatever the political commentariat tells us in the short term will be wrong. Spectacularly so.
Don’t believe me? See Jon Stewart’s review of post-election analyses by pundits over the last two decades. See Jon Stewart’s Election Night Takeaway. Watch the entire three minutes. It will help you endure the onslaught of “hot takes” that purport to explain the election—mainly by blaming Democrats.
Before turning to the growing chorus of Democrats blaming Democrats for the loss, let’s acknowledge some good news. Voters in seven states approved state constitutional amendments to protect reproductive liberty: Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York. Newcomer Elissa Slotkin was elected as a US Senator from Michigan. US Senator Jacky Rosen was reelected in Nevada. Other races (Ruben Gallego, Bob Casey) are still open or awaiting ballot curing (more about that below).
In North Carolina, Democrats captured the offices of Governor (Josh Stein), Lieutenant Governor (Rachel Hunt), Attorney General (Jeff Jackson), and top schools official (Mo Greene). In addition, Democrats broke the GOP supermajority in the state house! (For those of you who participated in The States Project, breaking the supermajority in NC was a top priority.)
In Wisconsin, Democrats flipped ten seats in the state Assembly after the state supreme court approved new legislative district lines—setting up Democrats to take control of the state Assembly in 2026.
Blaming Democrats for losses in 2024 is not helpful, fair, or accurate
I spent much of the day drafting responses to readers who forwarded articles / posts claiming that Democratic losses in 2024 were due to the fact that they had “lost touch” or “alienated” or “failed to listen to” working class voters or male voters. I won’t link to those articles / posts. They are ubiquitous.
The notion that Democrats “failed to listen to” or “lost touch” with the middle and working classes is demonstrably wrong. Virtually every policy promoted by VP Harris was designed to help the middle class, blue-collar workers, and the working poor:
Childcare tax credits, earned income credits for the working poor, lower prescription drug prices, protecting affordable healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, protecting unions and workers’ rights, providing for in-home care for elderly and homebound, subsidizing first-time homebuyers, building affordable housing, student loan forgiveness, prosecuting price gouging, and a middle-class tax cut.
To the extent that the Democrats speak through policies, virtually all Democratic policies seek to improve the lives of the middle class, working class, and working poor. On a policy level, the assertion Democrats “forgot” or “abandoned” the working class is wrong and corrosive.
What, then, is the source of the false notion that Democrats have “forgotten” the working class? I don’t know for certain, but I have a guess. (I invite others to weigh in; I was an English major and a securities litigation lawyer. I claim no expertise in political analysis.)
Many (not all) in the middle and working classes disagree with Democratic support for women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, equal voting rights for Black citizens, and the fight against human-caused climate change. To the extent that Democrats have parted ways with the cultural and social views of many in the working class and middle class, those groups feel “alienated” and “ignored.”
But it is no answer to those feelings of abandonment and alienation to abandon the struggle for full equality for women, LGBTQ rights, voting rights for Black citizens, and protection of the environment.
So, yes, there is a growing gap between Democratic policies on social issues and many (not all) in the middle and working classes, especially males.
Case in point: Despite unprecedented support for unions by Biden and Harris, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters refused to endorse Kamala Harris. The only rational course of action for unions is to support Kamala Harris. Why, then, did the Teamsters refuse to do so?
My belief: A majority of Teamsters—largely male working-class voters—disagreed with Kamala Harris and Democrats on social issues, like women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, Black voting rights, and efforts to fight human-caused climate change.
So, the fiction that Democrats have “ignored” the working and middle classes is wrong on the merits. It is only on social issues at the core of the Democratic Party’s commitment to social justice that there has been a divergence of opinion.
The answer to the above conundrum is not to abandon the social justice values that are at the core of the Democratic Party but to expand the voting base that is the backbone of the party.
If anyone tells you that Democrats lost in 2024 because they “abandoned” the working class, ask them specifically how Democrats did so. Be prepared to list Kamala Harris’s policies designed to improve the lives of the working class. Ask them how extending the GOP tax cut for millionaires and corporations will benefit the working class. Ask them how the GOP plan to kill Obamacare will help the working class. Or how imposing a 10% tariff on all imported goods will help the working class.
The fiction that Democrats “abandoned” the working class is designed to set Democrats against one another. It is beginning to gain traction because gullible media is willingly spreading the lie. Don’t be seduced by the fiction. Democrats must remain loyal to their roots of social justice and dignity for all. It is the right thing to do. It is the only thing to do. Political victory without justice for all would be hollow and bitter. We are better than that.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I too am depressed, but NOT giving up.
We need to heed Hubbell’s last paragraph:
“The fiction that Democrats “abandoned” the working class is designed to set Democrats against one another. It is beginning to gain traction because gullible media is willingly spreading the lie. Don’t be seduced by the fiction. Democrats must remain loyal to their roots of social justice and dignity for all. It is the right thing to do. It is the only thing to do. Political victory without justice for all would be hollow and bitter. We are better than that.“
I would like to add that:
PUBLIC SCHOOLS MATTER…in so many ways…for DEMOCRACY and CRITICAL THINKING.
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I responded to a post that featured Nancy Pelosi’s and Bernie Sanders” whining by asking that they shut up. As far as I am concerned they embarrassed themselves.
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Massive immigration of low-income people who receive public benefits (e.g. NYC) was a major factor in Trump’s win, although this blog will never admit that reality.
Speaking of immigration, I was at Barnes & Nobles this weekend and asked the cashier if they had Donald Trump’s new book on how to deport illegal immigrants.
She glared at me and said “get the hell outta here and don’t come back”.
I said “Yes, that’s the one, do you have it in paperback?”
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Haha. A friend sent that line as a joke.
If too many immigrants were coming in, why did Republicans vote against the tough bipartisan border control bill?
Is it reasonable to kick out 10-15 million people, most of whom lead productive lives and pay taxes? Who will replace them in the fields, factories, slaughterhouses, and tourist industry?
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To the best of my recollection, Kamala brought up it45’s bipartisan immigration bill killing only once (in the debate). It should have been brought up again, & again & again, at every rally, by both Harris & Walz & by all their surrogates & everyone who was campaigning for them. The passage of that bill (& it’s blockage, showing the complete & utter selfishness & vanity of it 45 AND the Groveling Old Psychophants*) would have changed the immigration landscape as it was ultimately presented, as a negative for the Biden-Harris Administration, EXACTLY as it45 wanted. &–as for the economy–the high price of eggs~bird flu; food prices~remains of the pandemic effect (& started w/the mishandling of the Covid crisis during it45’s term). Also, climate change’s deletrious effects on farming, & what has G.O.P. ever done about that but deny it? Many facts should have been brought up time & again. &, sadly, I think the war in Israel (NOT the fault of the Biden Administration; {although I know I’ll get some backlash for that here} just wait & see what it45 does w/NetanYahoo) put the death knell on the youth vote & some Gaza sympathizers who voted 3rd party.
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I heard Kamala say on many occasions, many speeches that Trump killed the bipartisan border bill so he could have the problem to beat Dems
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It wasn’t bipartisan
It let in thousands of illegal aliens before any action was triggered.
Enforcement was deferred by years
etc. It was a shit show which is why she didn’t want to talk about it very thoroughly.
I wish Trump had laid out the details of the bill because the democrats were lying, as usual.
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It wasn’t bipartisan
It let in thousands of illegal aliens before any action was triggered.
Enforcement was deferred by years
etc. It was a shit show which is why she didn’t want to talk about it very thoroughly.
I wish Trump had laid out the details of the bill because the democrats were lying, as usual.
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I had to laugh at your response (really good), not that I understand your thinking that Trump knows anything about immigration. I seem to remember he quietly fired all his illegal immigrant workers at his N.J. golf course during his first run for president. Another on of those quietly forgotten stories. There are plenty of real immigration experts out there with ideas on how to solve the problem. The bipartisan bill that Trump killed was a start, but announcing you plan to deport 1,000,000 “illegal” aliens is so much more eye catching. It caught your eye.
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Trump tower was built by illegal Polish immigrants
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It wasn’t a bipartisan bill. Deportations must happen if future lawbreakers are to take our laws seriously. The democrat party likes a broken immigration system; they broke it.
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Jackie,
You say that Dems like a broken immigration system. As I recall, the Senate negotiated a tough border control bill last summer. It had bipartisan support. Sen James Lankford, a conservative Republican, chaired the committee that wrote the bill. It contained everything Republicans wanted.
Trump said, “Kill it! I need the issue to run on.”
So they killed it.
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There is no question in my mind that the massive influx of migrants in recent years, housed in midtown Manhattan hotels at the cost of billions and shouldered largely by the city and state, was a huge reason why Trump got about 45% of the vote in NY state.
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And 2 years before when Democrats lost 4-5 house seats in the Cities suburbs . I know that was crime. Even though it was lower than when Bloomberg was in office.
But in those suburbs your neighbors dog pooping on your lawn was the biggest increase in crime. Perhaps some Cow tipping in Rockland.
You can’t make this sh-t up .
https://abc7ny.com/post/safest-counties-study-nassau-westchester-rockland-bergen-putnam-counties-rank-safest-us/15181560/
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Joel,
It’s always something, right?
Didn’t NY Dems already flip 2 House seats to blue?
If, when all votes are counted, Trump did much better than before, (or Dems did worse) I suspect it has more to do with Gaza than migrants.
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“*Many (not all) in the middle and working classes disagree with Democratic support for women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, equal voting rights for Black citizens, and the fight against human-caused climate change” – Just doubling down on *Basket of Deplorables mindset.
As Doug Henwood points out: “More than one in five voters, 22%, said inflation had caused them “severe hardship” over the last year; they went for Trump by 50 points. More than half, 53%, said inflation had caused them “moderate hardship”; they went for Trump by 6 points.”
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That’s fair enough. But 22% would be experiencing hardship in any economy . 70 % told Pew back in the spring they ‘personally’ were doing okay to good. Near 30% are always in or close to poverty as defined by less than 2xs the poverty wage of their state.
Half had incomes adjusted for inflation that were higher than inflation. And higher than their inflation adjusted wage before the Pandemic , Q4 2019. The bulk of those wage increases going to the bottom 80% of workers. That does not mean they were doing well in 2019 .
Classical economic theory would say that as prices rise strapped consumers would purchase less and sales and margins will fall. It would seem that sales increased and corporate America piled on with increased profits margins.
Of course if wages rise at the same time the consumer is not strapped .
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
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it’s hard to know where to begin here. In the first place the abandonment by the Democratic Party of the working class did not begin in 2024. It began with Bill Clinton and the party has been talking out of both sides of its mouth since then secondly well, Harris did have some good policy ideas to help with peoples material conditions the Biden ministration did two major things wrong in this regard that did much to undermine Harris credibility in that. First, Biden spent a lot of time trumpeting about how great the economy was because of the undeniable improvement over what Trump had left, except in the case of 20% on average increase in prices, which is arguably one of the main reasons why voters turned against the Democrats. This left the 60% or so of Americans, who are having a very tough time of it economically feeling like the Democrats were completely out of touch. Secondly, Biden could’ve done a lot about that and did not do anything really significant nor even go after profit companies rhetorically. If Democrats are going to have any prayer of being relevant politically on the national level, they had better completely reject any such analysis as this. Ps. It is certainly true that many in the working class, especially white men, but certainly not excluding white women have views on Democrats cultural positions, which I support completely, which made them very ripe for red pilling from the GOP. But as Bernie Sanders has pointed out, if the Democrats Had focused on making sure peoples material conditions were sound, that would’ve left white people less vulnerable to such messaging. The other thing that the author misses Is the impact of the extremely hostile and one-sided coverage of the media during this campaign and the utter failure of the Democrats to deal with that. The choice of campaigning to the center once again – Harris is number one campaign partner was Lynn Cheney of all people, Is simply more evidence of the tone deafness of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party.
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Biden, the first president to participate in a picket line.
Joe Biden joined members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union on the picket line in Michigan, a first for a sitting US president.
Strange way to abandon the working class.
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Yes, Joe. Again, this, too, should have been emphasized.
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Maybe, maybe not. I suspect a pretty small percentage of the people that we put in the category of “working class” actually have positive feelings about unions.
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Yeah…I don’t disagree with that, Flerp.
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These discussions about the “working class” get so muddled
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empty gesture. Recall how he forced RR workers back to works without a settlement?
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achillesmjb
I believe you are clueless about that contract. They got a 24% raise retroactive to 2020 signing bonuses and wound up with the sick days they had been asking for . Had they gone on strike before Christmas and the Rail Carriers would have held out the Nation would be furious. A Republican Congress would have imposed a draconian deal on Jan 2 or 3 .
No union leader in his right mind would gone on strike with the razor thin margin the Engineers voted. No less drag the other 10 out of 13(?) who voted yes down with them .
The dissident faction who I agreed with wanted staffing levels restored . The members did not give a Rats … about bringing those other workers back . They wanted the best of both worlds all the overtime they could tolerate and sick days .
They wound up pretty much with both. Further contract negotiations for the 2025 contract are now happening. For the first time in 60 years the Carriers are split.
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
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Here is the agreement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_railroad_labor_dispute#:~:text=Rail%20companies%20and%20unions%20had,December%202%2C%20averting%20a%20strike.
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Quote from the article I posted about the contract;
On December 1, the Senate passed the tentative agreement with only 1 day of sick leave.[21] President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law on December 2.[4] The Biden administration’s intervention in the dispute was condemned by over 500 labor historians in an open letter to Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh.[22]
Biden signed with only 1 day of paid sick leave, not the 15 members wanted. Please avoid clueless statements.
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This may be a repost as I don’t see it above when I tried earlier. Biden sign off on 1 paid sick day per year, not the 15 members were asking for. Here is what many thought of Biden’s act:
On December 1, the Senate passed the tentative agreement with only 1 day of sick leave.[21] President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law on December 2.[4] The Biden administration’s intervention in the dispute was condemned by over 500 labor historians in an open letter to Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh.[22]
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retiredbutmissthekids
It most certainly was, every other word in the DNC was Union !!!! Every other word out of Kamala’s mouth was union . In the early days of the campaign .
Let just be honest with ourselves we are who we feared we are. A solid 40 % of Americans are despicable another 10% ignorant . Like Union workers voting for the guy whose every appointment was anti Union . Voting for the billionaire and his vile anti union side kick who laugh about firing striking workers…. Or the undocumented immigrant of the 80s granted amnesty telling you all the immigrants today are “CRIMINALS” except for her undocumented relatives who are good people and wont be deported .
But what ever you do don’t say that snowflake. Because those poor people in fly over country who for over 3 decades have been voting on owning the Libs as their existence gets more and more dismal, may have their feelings hurt . Of course the only thing out of their Orange Jesus’s mouth was hate .
In Michigan for the first time in 25 years( or so) Democrats had total control of Government, they repealed Right to Work . RTW is truly the tip of the iceberg. It attacks funding but it gets combined with other Union busting tactics to break Unions and keep them broken . The state senate is now back in control of Republicans
Hate is a great motivator which is why Bernie had some appeal. It wasn’t his “SOCIALIST ” policies that attracted working class voters. They reject those policies that I love from Bernie . He focused their anger on the “one percent. ” Of course one has to ask what they are really angry about . Are they angry about what they have voted for decade after decade.
Next chapter .
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achillesmjb
The Biden administration secured those sick days for 63% percent of those workers after the contract was imposed .
But this was right from the Union in November of 2022. Not Wikipedia
https://ble-t.org/news/split-decision-unions-for-railroad-engineers-and-conductors-take-different-routes-in-freight-rail-contract-ratification-vote/
“50.87% of train and engine service members represented by SMART-TD voted to reject the TA, while 62.48% of SMART-TD represented Yardmasters voted to ratify.”
Then ask what percentage did not bother to vote which you would have to add to the ratify column. If you can’t be bothered to vote you certainly can’t be bothered to stand on a picket line in the winter or be happy about losing salary. A union leader with that small a margin who takes his membership out, should have his head examined . I am certain those Union leaders were happy Biden signed the Congressional imposed Settlement. And probably told him so.
Like I said it was a 12 member coalition of Unions , 3 turned it down.
But the issue of sick days only came up when the carriers went to “Precision Scheduling in 2016 ” laid off 25% of the work force making it such that if a worker was out there was no crew for the train . It says a whole lot that there was no mention of the real problem. Except the dissidents who will be the first to tell you that a strike in November or December was a loser.
The answer was “Chaos”the time for that when negotiations stalled 2 years before .
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it’s hard to know where to begin here. In the first place the abandonment by the Democratic Party of the working class did not begin in 2024. It began with Bill Clinton and the party has been talking out of both sides of its mouth since then. secondly while Harris did have some good policy ideas to help with peoples material conditions the Biden administration did two major things wrong in this regard that did much to undermine Harris credibility in that. First, Biden spent a lot of time trumpeting about how great the economy was because of the undeniable improvement over what Trump had left, except in the case of 20% on average increase in prices, which is arguably one of the main reasons why voters turned against the Democrats. This left the 60% or so of Americans, who are having a very tough time of it economically feeling like the Democrats were completely out of touch. Secondly, Biden could’ve done a lot about that and did not do anything really significant nor even go after profit companies rhetorically. If Democrats are going to have any prayer of being relevant politically on the national level, they had better completely reject any such analysis as this.
Ps. It is certainly true that many in the working class, especially white men, but certainly not excluding white women have views on Democrats cultural positions, which I support completely, which made them very ripe for red pilling from the GOP. But as Bernie Sanders has pointed out, if the Democrats Had focused on making sure peoples material conditions were sound, that would’ve left white people less vulnerable to such messaging. The other thing that the author misses Is the impact of the extremely hostile and one-sided coverage of the media during this campaign and the utter failure of the Democrats to deal with that. The choice of campaigning to the center once again – Harris is number one campaign partner was Lynn Cheney of all people, Is simply more evidence of the tone deafness of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. Finally, at least for now, one of the main reasons Harris was put in a terrible position was Biden’s failure to honor his campaign promise from 2000 that he was going to be a transitional candidate toward a new generation. His decision to bow out of the race under duress just months before, the elections deprived the Democrats of an opportunity for a primary.
I’d strongly recommend rather than reading the author referenced above to read Ross Barkin on this matter.
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“This left the 60% or so of Americans, who are having a very tough time of it economically feeling like the Democrats were completely out of touch.”
Except for this
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
And this
“But it also had another effect for some Americans: Wages for low-paid workers surged at their fastest rate in 40 years, interrupting a decades-long period of stagnation. Between 2019 and 2022, the lowest-paid saw their real income grow 9%, according to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.Mar 23, 2023” To explain; that is 9% higher than Inflation.
Updated . And with a break down by deciles . Up to the 90th percentile where the average is .9% higher
https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/
Understand that 28% of Americans will always be left behind and only one party gives a damn at all about them.
Further doing marginally better than 2019 does not mean you are doing well.
Lets end with you explaining this.
“Dig a little deeper into public sentiment and there’s a striking dichotomy — the vast majority of Americans (72 percent) say their personal finances are all right, but only 22 percent think the national economy is in decent shape, according to a chart the Federal Reserve recently released.May 29, 2024″
Those 78% must be doing a lot of traveling or Hermann and Chomsky are still very relevant .
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Hubbell is confusing policy with reputation. What alienates the “working class” (for lack of a better term) is not so much specific policy issues—the fact that so many voted for Trump, whose policies are gibberish and often downright hostile to working people—but the general culture that they associate with Democrats. Every time someone says “Latinx,” these voters recognize that as a “Democrat” kind of thing. Every time someone scolds someone about “whiteness” or “white supremacy” and is not talking about actual white supremacists. Every time someone talks about transphobia and every time they see a tweet showing drag queens reading stories to small children. Every time someone says racism is in the DNA of America. They associate all these things with the culture of “the left,” of Democrats, and they conclude these are not their kind of people. This is tribal and is much bigger and more diffuse than policy.
When the working classes turn on the tv and see an argument like this, which person do you think they think is “the Democrat”?
https://x.com/thomaschattwill/status/1855252627996488082?s=46&t=vV_4bJ7GuABaalzetJofQA
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You make some good points. When Democrats support equality, their message sometimes get distorted by “cultural purists,” particularly young people, in the party. The worst example I can think of is “defund the police,” which came from Black Lives Matter. It never came from mainstream Democrats. However, that perception got pick up by the right and hung around the necks of Democratic politicians despite their protestations. I can remember Biden saying that he did not want to defund the police, but it didn’t matter. The right was already blasting their dysinformation everywhere. Democrats need better, more forceful messaging. Maybe we could use more liberal podcasters?
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I takes a long time to change reputations and that applies to political parties too. My own view is that the people and politicians who engage in this kind of talk should be marginalized. Don’t invite them on panels. Don’t put their pet issues in platforms. Don’t adopt their talking points. And don’t be afraid to rebuke them. (What used to be called a “Sister Souljah moment.”)
There probably are some liberal podcasters—Marc Maron is one who comes to mind. But Dem pols shouldn’t steer clear of people like Rogan, either. Go on and loosen up and have some laughs. Don’t be afraid that someone will say the “wrong thing.” There are big audiences, mainly male, that Dems are not reaching.
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The difficulty if not impossibility of changing the “party reputation” that is built by and aimed at educated professionals is evident in that video clip I pasted in. People highly invested in these things (anti-racism, DEI, trans issues, etc) will always object that anyone who does not want the party to be associated with these concepts is promoting “hate” and should themselves be marginalized. It’s basically hopeless in the near term. Things have to fall apart and realign, which is basically what’s happening now in real-time. It could take 50 years.
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Diane, YES, you are correct re: “NCLB wiped out civics, shrank history.”
And here we are. 🤢
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And don’t forget anti-racism’s high priest, Ibram X. Kendi, and critical race theory, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. The nature of the blowback that would come was easy to discern. Good intentions and holding the moral high ground had no chance, and really didn’t matter.
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I am NOT black and I am NOT a man, but I read some blogs written by right leaning, black men so that I can understand “why” they vote “R”. When Oprah and Michelle Obama (very wealthy women!) stood up and told everyone that they shouldn’t vote for billionaires, “R” black men started throwing out the word “hypocrisy”. When a black female recording artist pseudo-threatened withholding sex in retaliation for the Roe decision, black men started throwing around the word “misandry”.
I will never understand why people choose not to listen to or take into account those who have a different point of view. I knew what the outcome of this election was going to be when I went to bed on Election night.
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I did too, LisaM, it I went to bed at 2:30 am, when PA was lost
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When Barack Obama and Charlamagne Tha God and Fat Joe (very wealthy men!) stood up and told everyone that they shouldn’t vote for billionaires, “R” black men started throwing out the word “hypocrisy”?? Or did they not mention all the prominent and wealthy Black men?
How odd to make this about Black “women”. Sounds like whichever “right leaning men” whose blogs inform your opinion might be expressing misogyny.
I find it revealing that you actually believe that Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey told Black men not to vote for Trump because he is a billionaire.
Do you honestly believe that the best argument those two women could make to convince folks not to vote for a racist, xenophobic, insurrectionist who encourages hate and violence and spurns the Constitution and promises to mete retribution on Americans who criticize him was that Trump is a billionaire, they shouldn’t vote for him?
This is why Dems lose. I have no idea how to combat this misinformation that apparently some folks readily embrace.
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Good morning, Diane.
Hubbell’s comments are spot-on. I, too, am sick of the plethora of blame-games bombarding internet sights and the media – all aimed at the Democrats. Each wanna-be pundit claims to have THE answers to why? One question which is never asked is why so many voters ignored trump’s grotesque lack of character. One reason is that the media chose not to make it an important talking point. A person of bad character ought to disqualify in the minds of voters such a person to run the country. How can a serial liar be trusted to care for his voters much less deliver their wants?
Finally, let’s be honest. American education has failed many students for years. History – gonzo. Civics – gonzo. Debates – gonzo. In the era of digital devices one-on-one conversation is less frequent and reading in leisure time is diminished. Reading skills have suffered.
Amen.
Warmest regards,
Dimitri
>
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Dimitri,
I agree. I won’t read any more analyses of Kamala list because…
Some say her appearance on “The View” was the decisive moment because she didn’t trash Biden. That would have been a disaster.
If she had won, the same pundits would have a different tune.
20/20 hindsight. Monday morning quarterbacks.
I thought she ran a damn fine campaign.
Maybe she lost because a majority of voters hate drag queens, trans people and LGBT. Trump spent more on ads against trans people than the immigrant “invasion.”
Every demagogue must have a helpless minority to attack.
Ads showing kids getting a sex change surgery in the school nurse’s office.
Propaganda works. Lies work. Hate works.
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Sadly the smile was a problem. Of course had she not delivered attacks followed by the smile she would have been called an angry woman.
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Her smile bothered you, Joel?! How about Trump’s demented bullfrog look?
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speduktr
I liked her , I voted for her, read the whole comment. The problem with the smile was; you can’t call someone a fascist and cap it off with a smile. However if you read the comment, I said if she had not , she would have been called an angry woman.
As for the other guy; who becomes president if he and Vance have massive coronaries before the inauguration. I haven’t read the 25th amendment lately. To make me happy the Democrats would have to control the House .
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& why is there less teaching of history & civics? Don’t blame the teachers!
Why, “standardized” testing, of course, & all those other good things (Common Core) brought to us by NCLB & Race to the Top.
(&, yes, Obama Admin. stuck the knife in deep…thanx, Arne {whom I consider worse than Betsy DeVos/did more damage to American education}.)
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Yes !!!
NCLB wiped out civics, shrank history
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Those awful tests made testing companies richer and richer and narrowed the curriculum to stupid stuff.
I trust teachers more than any test score! Teachers are with their students and have “real-time” information. Tests don’t!
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Well you don’t get much more Working Class than this retired Electrical foremen who spent 42 years after College, as a member of the IBEW.
You will also get no Union in the Nation that has been touted by and supported more by Biden/Harris than the IBEW . Between Chips Factories , Data centers and infrastructure. IBEW construction division work is booming in most of the Nation. Even as much of the Infrastructure work has barely started…
I keep trying to point out to other members that Andrew Cuomo proposed a Public Private Partnership for a major overhaul of JFK Airport in Jan of 2017 . The first construction boots hit the ground in November of 2022. NYC which has suffered a major collapsed Commercial real estate market ; due to work from home . (The Bread and butter of the NYC Construction trades) ,has defied the National trend and is still waiting for those massive projects.
That said part of being in the IBEW is the ability to travel from the tip of Long Island to the California Coast and answer the calls for men that were created by Biden policy. Many have not but those who have are making well over 100k annual wages . While traveling usually not much further than Pennsylvania . A younger friend just started working at a data center in PA. he will be making up to 3k+ a week. Thank You Joe Biden!!!! .
All of that said I shudder to think what the internal polling in Building Trades or even the IBEW show . The only failure was Democrats running from Biden as early as fall of early 2021 . The same spineless misfits they have always been wrenching their hands about what they should have done . On the Social issues Republicans have never been afraid to make them issues even if their stand was unpopular. As they decimated the working class in their home states and Nationally , rejecting any attempts to raise minimum wage or empower workers. Yet some how we are told democrats play to social issues????
There are perhaps 150 or so Trans male athletes playing in Girls K-12 sports nation wide. That is out of 3.4 million girls in HS sports. The odds of your daughter facing a boy on the Soccer or lacrosse field are about 22,000 to 1 Yet some how the Republicans can convince not only working class voters but “Morning Blow ” this is an issue .
The odds of my local #3 IBEW brothers having a Daughter or Grand Daughter facing a Trans athlete (again ) 22,000 to 1 . The odds of Trump suspending prevailing wage (and worse) near 100%
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College boy, eh? And you call yourself working class!
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42 years in heavy electrical construction. Much of it down the filthy dirty NYC Transit system. I would say yes, working class. When I came in any degree started you at a higher apprentice rate. That was then, after it changed to only Engineering degrees .
(It was in the genes and was supposed to be a few years . LOL.)
Very shorty after, the one time long term Business Manger of my Union implemented a program that insisted that all apprentices were made to attend an associates program with some labor studies provided along with their Apprenticeship.
Unfortunately it was never taken seriously by the students or the Instructors. It became a pass through. College degrees the old fashioned way before they became mere training programs ,would benefit the working class more than a second tool box . Which is why Powell wanted to see that change in his famous memo .
Of course when I went to school you did not have to mortgage your future to get one. The CUNY system was free as was the University of California and most of the State Schools not far behind .
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I just hope Trump doesn’t muck it all up. Biden’s plans for the future are so important to our well-being and national security as well as providing good paying jobs. Unfortunately, too many people swallow GOP lies.
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Im fourth generation IBEW and my son is fifth generation. Most of my relatives were lineman and we all voted for Trump.
Our number one competitor where I live is Helix Electric;they are non-union and hire illegal aliens. The union leadership could have lobbied State government to require e-verify, but democrats don’t want that.
The Republicans rightly rejected the partisan immigration bill that would have Expanded illegal immigration and created amnesty. No! We will pass a real immigration bill and start deporting alien criminals.
Obamacare The “Cadillac healthcare plans” we negotiated for were destroyed, and inflation decimated our paychecks. The Trump team should have made a commercial showing how union members don’t have to vote how leadership wants them to but we were already doing that.
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It would be helpful to see statistics on the percentage of businesses that use E-Verify.
Thr nation will find out soon enough how thr mass deportation play out.
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No matter how many times you say it, the facts are there if you choose to see them. The bill was crafted by a bi-partisan committee. The articles are easy to find, but, of course, they all must be fake news, right?
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jacquilenhardt5598
First even if you are too ignorant to realize it. Whether your pension was near default or not, if is a multi employer plan; Biden and the Democrats rescued your Pension from cuts that would have decimated it. Not if but when the Teamsters Central States plan bankrupted the PBGTF. Let one of the Social Studies teachers here or Diane explain “The Shock Doctrine” to you . That was the Republican Plan for your Pension was to gut it sound or not. .
223 to 5 in the House Democrats voted for the Pro Act. 47 to ZEROOO in the Senate. (of course both parties are the same )..
Trump would not commit to apply prevailing wage to the infrastructure act he never put on the table…
Helix Electric did not just go non union recently. It was there when Trump was in office the first time . Seems according to you that Trump did not use I9 raids to hold employers accountable for knowingly hiring the undocumented . Nor did he conduct raids on Construction sites to do so . He certainly did not in NYC get rid of the undocumented construction workforce the first time around. And they were not hiding in churches the were on construction sites.
Which is why the Non union merit shop umbrella organization, the ABC Contractors Association which helped decimate the Building trades for decades along with the National Right to Work Committee gave Trump their wholehearted endorsement in 2016 , 2020 and 2024.
The truth is in 2015 Local #3 NYC in an attempt to raid the Nonunion Contractors of key personnel advertised and invited 1500 workers down for interviews and apply . They had to provide the same Documentation required in those I9 inspections by DHS (the ones that were not happening under Trump).They knew if hired the Contractor would voluntarily submit to E Verify. Although the vast majority were minority Hispanic or Black and some were legal immigrants none turned out to be undocumented . The vast majority of undocumented do not work in the Skilled trades . They are laborers or concentrated in less skilled trades .
Your competition is more likely to be a former Apprentice trained in an IBEW local who failed out, was thrown out or faced years of unemployment when he got a Journeyman’s card . Or similarly a Journeyman working scab .
Hold on because you might / make that will get exactly what you voted for and it is going to hurt.
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Joel Joel Joel, I live in Las Vegas where Dirty Harry Reid pretended to care about the trades for decades. Why does your history of non border enforcement start with Trump’s first term? Let’s go back to Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. Both sides allowed this non-border enforcement to go on. Blue cities are sanctuary cities. Democrats and RINOS blocke,d Trump’s border agenda and I’m sure you were for it.
NO more! Right this moment Mark Elias is plotting how to stop deportations, this is what democrats do. For the most part union electricians in Vegas are legal, but leadership is trying to change that. The organizers keep saying we need to “organize Hispanics.” Why the focus on Hispanics? Why not black kids and asian kis and white kids, Hell, why are we focusing on RACE at all?
I asked them, Do we care if they are here legally?” and they got quiet. Helix has billboards in Mexico saying that if you make it to the US they will hire you.
This isn’t just about jobs, our schools, prisons, hospitals, and welfare rolls are being overwhelmed by the lawlessness on our border, and it is by design.
It is evident that Democrats have learned Nothing from their epic loss at the polls, so they will continue to lose, especially when voters realize that Democrats are thwarting the agenda they voted for.
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Bernie Sanders disagrees with the thrust of this article. He stated that the Democratic Party abandoned the working class hence the working class abandoned the Democratic Party. I agree with Bernie Sanders.
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Robert Reich kind of confirms this in his Monday morning blog post ( I don’t always agree with RR as I think he gets a bit too hysterical sometimes!). People wanted Sanders to blow up the establishment in a way that supported working class Americans. Once the DNC stepped in and thwarted his campaign, they voted for the Orange man to blow it up…..and they are still voting for trump to blow it up.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-151431733
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Agree
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In a heartbeat Republicans would have labeled Bernie a socialist. As it is that label lost him the Black vote. As for his BS claim about losing working class voters when would that be . Was it when working class voters abandoned George McGovern in 72 with a hundred percent rating from the AFL-CIO and progressive policy aimed at the working class . A war hero pegged as coward by George Meany as he insulted him daily and stopped just short of endorsing Nixon. And we can’t forget Peter Brennan sending Union Hard hats into the Streets of NYC to beat the crap out of anti war protestors . Probably clueless but it did not work out well for the Building Trades. In fact it was a Blood Bath. Heck of a Job Pete and George . By 1982 mechanization and the essential gutting of the NLRA had seen the Union movement drop from 34% to 22% of the work force and being that that 34% included almost no Public sector workers and the 22 % included many Public Sector Workers , the difference is even more profound .
When Reagan launched his war on workers setting the tone and example for an orgy of Union Busting how did the working class react . Hell bust unions and the working glass gave him a landslide against Mondale again one the most pro labor Senators in the US Senate. Not one term but two as Bush won as well .
Which leads to Clinton and Obama well Bernie may have had a point there. But it is Bernie’s fault the most ambitious parts of Bidens pro worker agenda didn’t pass. Saying it didn’t pass is like saying it is cold in winter. Whose fault was that. Might as well be Bernie’s . It was the people who Elected Manchin and Sinema and two or three others. The same people in the State of WV who voted for Trump 68 % in 2016 and Manchin in 2018. 45 out of 50 Democrats immediately signed on to the pro act and ZER0000 Republicans. Yet the Democrats abandoned the working class.
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That’s the thing. It’s easy to proclaim that the reason Dems lost is because they weren’t socialist enough. What’s hard is pointing to the track record of socialist platforms succeeding in presidential race. Not in my lifetime, that’s for sure.
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We forget that the U.S. is NOT a leftist country.
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it was the black Representative Clyburn, that rallied the black voters for Biden. Up until that point Sanders was winning. Clyburn said nothing about socialism as I recall.
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My nephew is a resident of WV and has met Mr. Manchin several times. Manchin is a DINO and every Dem in the state knows it. WV could do better but they could do a whole lot worse than Joe Manchin. The Senate seat is now flipped and the poverty stricken folks in WV will have to grapple with the new guy in DC and it won’t be pretty….at least Joe was widely respected in the state. But just keep complaining about Joe Manchin.
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Up until that point Bernie Sanders was “winning” from 25% – 40% of the vote in just a few states, and the 40% was Nevada – caucuses instead of a real primary.
I supported Bernie, but South Carolina was 7 DAYS after Nevada! South Carolina voters voted big for Biden because they preferred him to Bernie, probably because they thought he could beat Trump (and it turned out they were right).
Many Black voters in South Carolina ARE the working class. I don’t get the assumption that white working class voters who vote anti-union against their own economic interests because the Dems aren’t offering them enough to be absurd. They are voting for Trump because Trump preaches hate and they like that.
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Unions are socialist? Heaven forbid that Joe hard hat can’t go up against his corporate boss on his own! If the 1% didn’t keep getting wealthier while the wages of 90% of the population stagnated for decades I wouldn’t be tempted to talk about the oligarchy most of us failed to see. Perhaps we lost democracy a long time ago. Republicans just have to grasp their pearls and cry socialist to send tremors of fear through the cosmos. How long are we going to fall for it? Do we have to lose all our socialist institutions before we realize that working together to provide services we cannot possibly duplicate as individuals is not a bad thing. who was it that pointed out that insurance companies are actually socialist constructs?
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LisaM
They could do a lot worse then Manchin and perhaps Jim Justice fills that bill. But they could have done a lot better as well. 68% voted for Trump in 2020 . That is a sad statement.
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When Ms Ravitch pillories charter schools and book banning, I applaud her. When she serves aa an uncritical mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, not so much. With all of those wonderful initiatives (many unrealized like pharmaceutical cuts, student loan foregiveness, higher minimum wage) why did so many middle and working class people abandon the Democrats? Hubbell accepts that they are racist, miscogynistic and culturally backwards. But where in Kamala’s campaign was there a ringing call for a truly equitable tax structure that would challenge the income inequality that stifles the economy? As phony as he is, why is Trump the only one suggesting backing away from endless wars where working class kids get slaughtered? Where was the inspiring vision of an end to censorship, and end to school shootings by attacking the NRA? She played it safe, and the workers and middle class stayed away – Trump got less votes than 4 years ago and still won! No, blaming lower classes just wont cut it.
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I don’t blame the working class or “lower classes” for Trump’s win. I blame the Trump campaign of lies, empty promises, scapegoating the weak (trans), fomenting hate towards immigrants.
Trump appealed to the basest instincts and it worked.
Search every post, every comment and you won’t find a single word where I blamed the working class. Or the poor.
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Of course. The voters who supported Trump are from all backgrounds including extremely wealthy.
This guy is the one who is trying to blame working classes for voting for Trump when many working class Americans did not and many affluent voters found their kindred spirit in Trump – a man who shared their enthusiasm for lies, attacks, violence, and hate. Or at least found it perfectly acceptable which speaks of their own values.
The ones that thought Trump’s campaign of hate was wrong did not support Trump.
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As a member of the working Class who has seen well over 4 decades of Union leadership pleading with members to vote their wallet. I do blame the (White )working class voters who have ignored those pleas . Of course not even the White Working class is a monolith. Nor are most in Unions . But there is a severe disconnect there.
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Joel, thanks for bringing some fact-based reality to this discussion .
It sometimes seems that when people say “working class”, they mean mostly “white working class”.
Do they believe there are no working class Black women? Since 80% of Black women voted Democrat.
Why don’t they hate trans minors as much as we are told white working class do? Do their daughters not play sports? Do they not care about economic issues as much? Of course they do.
Perhaps the working class women who aren’t fooled by trump’s false promises care about the fact too many parents have to give their sons “the talk” (and are put off still hearing white people blaming unarmed Black youths who are victimized by police for not understanding they look more dangerous than a white teen illegally holding an assault weapon.)
Perhaps they know that Trump lied about Haitians kidnapping and eating people’s pets and think lying to demonize immigrants is wrong , not entertaining.
In other words, they weren’t drawn to the same appeals to racism and xenophobia that other working class voters may have been.
It’s absurd not to understand that Trump decided to make appeals to sexism, white supremacy, racism and xenophobia centerpieces of his campaign because he knew that some folks would really like that and other folks would say they didn’t like it while it obviously didn’t matter to them either way if Trump turned out to be a white supremacist.
The lesson shouldn’t be for Dems to join Republicans in appealing to hate.
The liberal media hasn’t just been sane-washing Trump. They have done something far worse – they have hate-washed Trump voters and turned the folks who aren’t bothered at the thought of Trump reigning retribution on their neighbors into the very best people in America. Dems are supposed to offer more to appeal to those who hate.
There is a reason why many life-long Republicans – working class AND college educated – worked so hard to defeat Trump even if they were anti-abortion conservatives or pro-business and hated Kamala’s policies. THEY are the better people who joined the very good Democrats to fight the hate that Trump voters endorsed. The hate that led Trump voters to endorse authoritarianism. And a large percentage of those haters were not working class at all.
I find it sad that the lesson some folks seem to have taken away is to ignore the hate rather than to analyze why some people embrace the hate, while others do not.
it’s sad if the lesson learned is that Dems should normalize the hate.
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For me the Democratic Party should grow a spineless and tell their shrillest culture warriors on social media to shut up- in all caps. Those people demand 100% purity for their cause and they alienate people.
Having said that, thr GOP uses transphobia as a distraction. How many trans people are we talking about? They are a very small fraction of thr population.
But, sure, let’s focus on that when Trump will very likely introduce yet another mass tax cut for his donors and the 1%.
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Talk about spineless. You want Dems to throw LGTBQ folks under the bus? Maybe they should throw Jews under the bus, too, if Trump starts talking about the Jewish problem? Or maybe Muslims? How dare Dems defend them when Trump and the Republicans like to refer to them as terrorists so often. “How will we ever appeal to those white working class folks who hate trans people and love when Trump uses hate to appeal to their true values?
You might consider stopping using undefined propaganda phrases like “shrill culture warriors” – those terms are from the right wing fascist playbook and while the right wing does celebrate whenever some useful idiot on the left legitimizes this as a “very serious problem”, it isn’t.
The idea that only a “shrill culture warrior” would support the right of parents who believe they – along with their child’s doctor – should be making decisions about what is best for their child instead of transphobic right wing neofascists – and the idea that Dems should legitimize the right wing propaganda – is exactly why Dems lose.
Why not try to understand the many voters – rich, middle class, working class and poor who did NOT fall for the hate. They did not fall for the hate about trans people. They did not fall for the hate about Haitian immigrants. They did not fall for the hate about Muslims and Jews and women and “libs”.
The bottom line is that voters who shared Trump’s values voted for him and they will continue to vote for the guy who shares their values every time, even when it is against their own economic interests – although of course many Trump voters are quite well off and looking forward to the tax cut that will make them even richer while his working class voters at least get the hate they wanted.
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This blog is turning into an echo chamber.
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What a nonsensical comment.
Please do tell me what is being “echoed” because from what I can tell, there are comments here saying that the Dems need to go more left and become anti-trans, or go more right and become anti-trans, or stay the same and be anti-trans, and do all of those and NOT be anti-trans, and be more like Bernie, or be less like Bernie, or be exactly as they are.
I criticized this vague comment you made:
“tell their shrillest culture warriors on social media to shut up- in all caps. Those people demand 100% purity for their cause and they alienate people.”
And I criticized it because I hoped you would be much more specific and name at least one or two culture warriors that you are so angry that the Dems didn’t tell “shut up” to.
It’s weird that you believe some people need to be told to shut up, and it isn’t the people spewing hate and fomenting violence and trashing Puerto Rico and Haitian immigrants.
It’s some unnamed shrill culture warrior.
(shrill, of course, is often a characteristic attributed to women)
I don’t understand why you are so shrill, Birdchum. You might consider that if you weren’t being so shrill, people would agree with you more and you wouldn’t feel you are in an echo chamber. No need to be shrill, just state your opinion without all the shrillness.
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^^Apologies for using the term shrill. I shouldn’t stoop to that level and there was nothing shrill about you having an opinion.
I do ask that you please consider how damaging it is when our side concedes to some right wing narrative that isn’t true. I watched the Dems run away from “liberal” in 1988, and the Dems run away from gay marriage later. The Dems are always being told to NOT be true to their values because the Republicans says that their values are bad. And then the Dems concede the point instead of fighting, even if fighting means a loss.
I was so proud of the Dems in the summer of 2020, when a few concern trolls on the right were telling them to run away from Black Lives Matter, especially a few months before a very important election.
The Dems didn’t listen. Finally, they found their spine. They did not run away from BLM, and they won the 2020 election.
Kamala wasn’t perfect, but she had more than enough spine. She didn’t run away from cultural issues, but she did try to downplay them. Whether or not that was the “right” decision is unknown, but it certainly was a perfectly reasonable decision not to play into the right wing hands to demonize the most vulnerable Americans just because the right wing had decided that getting people to hate and fear them was their best political strategy.
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NYCPSP
In total agreement
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I got the impression that maybe Birdchum was saying that people have allowed the culture war issues to have an oversize role in how people decide to vote. Democrats apparently(?) had more of a tendency to just stay home despite the very real chance that their unwillingness to vote for the only candidate that paid any attention to them would cost that person the election. I’m not saying it did, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for one issue voters, not that their concerns should be totally ignored. Nobody talked about education which is of great concern to me, but there is no way I would have stayed home because Kamala didn’t come out with a forceful policy statement.
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speduktr,
Joel was agreeing with my comment at 2:14pm. I apologize for digressing and responding to Birdchum’s reply to me above, but Joel’s comment came before that.
I find it hard to believe that there were many voters who objected to Trump’s campaign of hate and agreed with Dem policies on the economy (i.e. did NOT want a tax cut for the rich/tariff/trickle down economic policy) but felt the Dems had gone too far on trans issues (or other cultural issues) and just stayed home. People who shared Trump’s values made anti-trans and other cultural issues into a very important issue for them but they were never not going to vote for him. I don’t know any voters who shared Kamala’s values (i.e. respect for the Constitution and democracy) but decided “I can’t vote for her because of those pro-trans policies”.
I know Republican voters who were fighting hard campaigning for Kamala, and they were cultural conservatives from all backgrounds. And they knew those cultural issues were not important.
I think the people who made cultural issues important either had a bone to pick with Dems and if they hadn’t found the anti-trans, they would have come up with some other reason that the Dems weren’t good enough.
I like reading your insightful comments and I agree with all of them here. Except for a minor quibble in that I think that it isn’t true that many Dems stayed home. I think either Dems were disenfranchised or some Dems were possibly mad about Gaza. But not cultural issues.
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How do we organize now?
I’m open to suggestions.
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How about we all yell at each other on the internet?
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It wasn’t LOL but your comment did make me smile. Thanks.
That’s a good start.
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Thank you. I wish that our could have intelligent, country could have intelligent, constructive conversations about cultural issues, rather than the hysteria ginned up by rightwing YouTube and TikTokers.
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Depends which Democrats. More specifically, depends whether you look at present Democrats or to historical Democrats. I tend to think it’s usually best looking to history for answers.
I read a lot that everyone after Tuesday blamed who they already wanted to blame. I’ve always hated the internet. Historically.
I blame Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore for creating Elon Musk.
There were many New Yorkers who voted for Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the same ballot. On. The. Same. Ballot. AOC. Trump. Quixotic? No. They were both social media stars. Elon Musk bought the United States of America when he bought the Washington Post and most importantly bought Twitter. He now owns the truth.
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When Trump lost the 2020 election, you didn’t hear a lot of blame. Even after he incited an insurrection! Even when he illegally retained classified documents and refused to return them after being asked.
Instead of the blame game, Trump simply doubled down on all of his hate and lies. And won.
Maybe instead of a circular firing squad, Dems should do what Republicans do, which is keeping a non-stop focus on attacking and undermining Democrats and blaming them for everything (even turning successes into massive failures). Maybe it’s long past time to reject the false journalism of the legacy liberal media – journalism that has sacrificed truth to “both sides” reporting – and support new media forms where folks like Heather Cox Richardson simply tell the truth without being so scared – as NYT reporters are – that if they report too much truth about a totally unfit president it will look “biased” so they need to find something to justifuy writing just as many negative stories about the Dems for “balance”. As long as the fascist-normalizing both sides liberal media is given credibility, Dems will struggle to win. They need real journalists, not stenographers who believe truth is biased if the truth makes a lawless, Constitution spurning political party look like a lawless Constitution spurning political party. When Trump starts meting retribution on Pelosi and Schiff, the NYT will be normalizing it as they have done with every other outrage, and slowly what becomes acceptable and normal in the liberal media will be full out authoritarianism.
Trump ran a TERRIBLE campaign. He didn’t win because Kamala was worse. He didn’t win because the economy was a disaster. He won because he not only has a huge right wing mediasphere, but he has a liberal media on bended knee.*
*h/t to Mark Hertsgaard, who more than 35 years ago wrote about the voluntary self-censorship of the media during the Reagan years, when at least there were still decent Republican politicians. Republicans who do not lie when ordered to were purged from their party since Trump.
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Wow! – remain loyal to its core “values” (mainly inclusion) and see the Dems lose again in 2026. Yeah, Dem are right on policy as you described them, but why did voters ignore their rational self-interest and vote their feelings for Trump? Talking policy over and over to voters who aren’t listening and expecting a different result is….you know. Here’s a clue to why Dems are losing on the policy approach: not once in you essay did I read anything about Hispanics. And that sleeping giant , so long taken for granted by Dems has awakened with disastrous consequences. Working Americans are not going to vote for your policies (no matter how well-intentioned and needed) if they feel you not are speaking for them…
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“Working Americans are not going to vote for your policies (no matter how well-intentioned and needed) if they feel you not are speaking for them…”
Is your point that Republicans are speaking for working Americans?
Is it their promise of a tax cut for the wealthy and more trickle down economics, or their refusal to raise the minimum wage, their promises to privatize social security and medicare, their anti-union stance? Maybe it’s cutting regulations for workplace safety?
Or is it that they will vote for you if you lie about what you will do, lie about the opposing party, and offer them racist, xenophobic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-progressive hate?
“Working Americans” voted for Reagan in large number? Wonder how much of their medical bills “Morning in America” covered.
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I read an article that pointed out how bad the “instant” commentary is – often based on data that turns out to be quite different than the reality.
In 2024, turnout in swing states seems to have INCREASED from 2020. There were a lot of instant articles written about how Dems couldn’t motivate their voters to come out, but that wasn’t true.
Did new voters vote for Trump? I hope the Senate race in Pennsylvania is close enough to trigger a hand recount that enables the presidential vote to also be tallied. It clearly wasn’t the Democrat “brand”, given that so many Dem Senators in those swing states that Trump won held on. (The losses were blue Senators in red states). People appear to have voted for Trump and a Democrat in other races, and given Trump’s horrible campaign of hate and lies and incomprehensible digressions into pro golfers and other nonsense, with people not even bothering to show up at his rallies, it should have been the opposite.
Why was Trump acceptable in swing states while other Republicans he endorsed were not?
Why was turnout so high in places where there was no particular reason for it to be higher than elsewhere in the state? Pure love of Trump?
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This has been a lively thread for sure! It’s been good to see a variety of opinions and perspectives. And (for the most part) people were respectful and didn’t get too upset. Thanks, Diane!
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One disturbing Orwellian trend I see is the so-called liberal media (and some Democrats who get a lot of media exposure) describing Trump’s message as “populist”. That is one of the problems – the idea that Trump is offering something for working class Americans because his message is “populist”, even though I have never seen anyone actually support that with any supporting argument about what is “populist” about big tax cuts for the rich, cuts to programs for the middle and working class, privatizing medicare and social security, keeping the minimum wage low, anti-union policies, tariffs on foreign goods. Since when is a message of hate of others normalized by calling it “populist”? That was certainly not how David Duke was described when he was running in 1991 – as someone with a “populist” message.
Bernie Sanders has a populist message – and coincidentally it does not involve hate. Yet voters ignored it and voted for the guy who is offering them the OPPOSITE of every “populist” party.
It’s pretty frightening and I expect that when Trump starts rounding up dissenters, the NYT will simply call it another one of Trump’s norm-breaking “populist” actions.
Did anyone see that a 67 year old female pediatrician in Russia got convicted and will serve a 5 year jail term for supposedly telling a child that his father deserved to die? Welcome to our future, where people – even on our side – are so propagandized that they would believe what was truly the most absurd scenario – as absurd as the idea that two Black women – Oprah and Michelle Obama – told people not to vote for Trump because he was a billionaire. But when the Republicans come for whoever they come for, those very people will be saying “well she did say some horrible thing about billionaires so she deserved to be locked up.” The liberal media will normalize it as “populist”. And as in Russia, the “populist” right wing Republicans will continue to win sweeping victories with nearly universal agreement that their far right policies are wonderful for all.
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I came on here months ago and said the Democrats would lose the election because of immigration.
The Democrats lost because of immigration.
If you are going to lose your job or have your wages halved because employers will only employ illegals in your industry – (such as what happened in meatpacking or construction) then that is going to have a much bigger effect on you than any other govt action. And you will vote to stop that limitless immigration even if its an idiot scammer like Trump.
By supporting unlimited illegal immigration (and exploitative ‘legal’ immigration like the H1B bonded labor scam), Democrats support plutocracy. No other way around it.
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