How do Democrats increase midterm turnout?

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Democrats need a new platform. Vote-buying doesn't work.

Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are pork-laden disasters. If Dems had no other way of verifying these claims, they could count the number of old middle-class Republicans with healthy 401k's who are reveling in the SS/MED handouts that they "paid for" (lol?). Yet talk to Democrats on this board and throughout the electorate, and they genuinely believe that SS/MED entitlements are noble anti-poverty programs, despite what they have done to u-24 employment, and SS/MED need to be expanded, not reformed. Furthermore, they believe that working-class citizens should be forced to pay more taxes to cover the exponential cost growth.

I didn't know it was possible to be so dumb. Republicans are boarding LBJ's Titanic by the millions, and Republicans are spending on entitlements in ways that would have been unimaginable under Reagan. Yet, Democrats still can't figure out that it's time to abandon ship.

[AggregateDemand]

How about requiring that voters pass an empathy test?

It seems you lack empathy for people who lack empathy so I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve.

[AggregateDemand]

All jokes aside, if I were a Democrat and wanted Democrats to win, I'd push forward with the chicken in every pot agenda.  I'd talk about government revenues and streets and schools and hospitals and roads.  I'd talk about workers and their dreams and desires and also about their hardships.  I'd also give a nod to the "Great American Middle Class" and I'd do so unflinchingly.  I'd stay far away from homo marriage and pregnancy termination and marijuana legalization.  Avoid those like the plague.

I'd talk up the economic aspects of government investment, but I wouldn't shy away from social policies that are rapidly gaining popularity.

Whether Dems want to admit it or not, Republicans clinging to SS/MED is the best thing that could ever happen to the Democratic Party. Playing the SS/MED card has been a loser for the Democratic Party, and now that Republicans are expanding spending and begging seniors for votes, it may drag Republicans down as well.

Democratic Party should:

1. Reduce SS/MED spending to kick out all of the middle-class Republicans who are bilking the US Treasury while they enjoy their tax subsidized IRAs and 401k's. Reduce Medicare spending further by stopping doctors from experimenting on seniors in their final year of life (30% of Medicare budget).

2. Do not raise minimum wage. Expand the EITC by at least 300% ($160B/yr), and focus more benefits on young single workers to reverse the crashing labor force participation numbers in the U-24 demographic. Use the EITC to get people off of Welfare, SNAP, and unemployment.

3. Push forward with single-payer catastrophic coverage for all Americans without raising government spending. Kill the employer mandate. Reform ACA policy rules to reflect non-catastrophic services.

4. Eliminate the separate-but-"equal" tax code. Create one bracket and one filing status for all Americans. Use the personal exemption rules to make the code equitable.

5. Stop antagonizing the military. It is a government spending program with a history of building the middle class.

Democrats run against people who don't believe the government should do anything. Democrats work really hard to lose elections, and it starts with the bunk programs they support.

[AggregateDemand]

Dem mid-terms since WW2:

Good: 2006, 1986, 1982, 1974, 1958, 1954

Ok: 1998, 1990, 1970, 1962

Bad: 2002, 1978, 1966, 1950

Disaster: 2014, 2010, 1994, 1946

The key for Democrats would appear to be having a Republican President in office.

The unbridled-hatred-model of motivating voters has its drawbacks.