To my fellow Democrats/liberals: Stop saying Republican voters are stupid.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     This topic is right on the mark. A huge factor in the defeat of the Democrats was the sheer condescension that many people experienced from them. When people talk about their real concerns and these are simply handwaved by liberal talking heads as somehow being invalid, of course the Democrats are going to be identified as elitists.

     Defending this conduct by saying that "but Republicans are stupid" is just proving the point that Democrats are extraordinarily tonedeaf and uninterested in actually addressing the issues. I had hoped y'all would take a good lesson away from 2016; some Democrats have learned a lesson, but it seems many are just doubling down on the same flaws that put them in this situation.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Republicans hate Democrats and Democrats hate Republicans. That's how it is.

Republicans, Democrats, Independents, should all learn even though we have our differences, we should all have respect for one another.

We are, after all, all members of the human race.

That includes urban people as well.

     As well as Christian conservatives. Attacking the other party's base is politically beneficial because those people will never vote for you anyway and you can rally your own base in doing so. The mistake the Democrats made was not that they mocked other people, but that they mocked crucial swing voters and then acted shocked when those swing voters delivered the election to Donald Trump.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I've never met an intelligent racist.

there are MAAAAAAAAAAANY.....they are just normally not very decent persons.

     Indeed, there are some very intelligent and well-spoken people who are virulently racist. Conflating intelligence with holding decent political opinions is a terrible trend that promotes misunderstanding of politics and ideology.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Too late.

The Democrats are so incompetent, morally bankrupt, and lacking of vision that we are becoming a one-party state ruled by the Republicans as the Democrats keep losing record numbers of seats.

wanna bet that "trend" will be kind of...eh.... stopped 2018, outside of the senate?

I hope so as well, but I fear the pendulum has swung so far its stuck in the wall, and won't be moving until the whole building collapses. (I.e. I expect lots of blatant and effective GOP voter suppression, met by tepid whining from the Democrats.)

538 did an exhaustive study that showed that voter suppression ID laws really didnt do as much damage as previously thought. It all comes down to enthusiasm and the Dems have none

Have or had? Cause it seems like their is a lot of liberal enthusiasm against Trump

Against Trump and against the Dem establishment

The liberal/progressive left hated Clinton just as much as they hated Trump

I know that but I was confused by the statement. Are you saying because of Perez that the dems will make no gains in the midterms because of some third party protest? Cause if not I don't see how you can say dems don't have momentum?

The Dems are banking on Trump being so bad that it will drive turnout so they're yet again running with nothing but empty platitudes/rhetoric with candidates who will most likely be stiffs straight out of DNC central casting. The Dems need a progressive "Contract with America," nobody even knows what the Dems are for or what their policy proposals are. If running on Trump=bad man didn't work in 2016, it wont work in 2018

     This is actually what I have been saying for a while now. It's pretty clear that going hard anti-Trump isn't the surefire winner that Dems thought it would be before the election. A stronger message would require reflecting on the flaws that drove historically Democratic voters in the Midwest to vote Republican and addressing them. That's a tough step to take, though.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Most of the comments here seep to be either "but they are stupid!" or "both sides do it!". This is what's wrong with the modern left.

Please share your explanation why refusing to kneel before a horde of rabid, brain-damaged troglodytes and the billionaire sociopaths occasionally guiding their stampede is "wrong". I'm rather curious.

That fact that this is how you view all Trump supporters, including ones in the Midwest that have previously reliable Democrats, shows me that any attempts to explain this to you would be wasted effort on my part.

     It turns out that when you insult swing voters for entertaining the opposition they don't vote for you.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Why does they left have to be the one to fight political polarization. Is it because if you asked Republicans/conservatives to stop insulting Democratic voters, they'd laugh in your face, and call you a cuck?

     This may be a surprise, but most Republicans aren't on /pol/ or the Daily Stormer. We don't call people cucks.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Why does they left have to be the one to fight political polarization. Is it because if you asked Republicans/conservatives to stop insulting Democratic voters, they'd laugh in your face, and call you a cuck?

     This may be a surprise, but most Republicans aren't on /pol/ or the Daily Stormer. We don't call people cucks.

No, but the general sentiment is there. If it's not cuck, it's libtard or some other such word.

     If we're talking about general sentiment, having some word or phrase to dismiss the opposition is universal to ideologically-driven groups. The point I made earlier was that it is expedient to apply it to your opponent's base. The Democrats can call Christian conservatives deplorable until the cows come home and it wouldn't hurt them. That's not what they did, though.

[Associate Justice PiT]

You guys are in for a rough time as it is, don't dig your 2020 hole any deeper.

     If they really want to jump then you can't stop them.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Why does they left have to be the one to fight political polarization. Is it because if you asked Republicans/conservatives to stop insulting Democratic voters, they'd laugh in your face, and call you a cuck?

     This may be a surprise, but most Republicans aren't on /pol/ or the Daily Stormer. We don't call people cucks.

By the same token, most Democrats don't spend all of their time calling Republicans racist inbred morons. (Naturally, those that do are very vocal about it) Yet, I do feel as though we're often asked to take responsibility for the worst among us. If we're expected to regularly address and denounce our worst hacks, why shouldn't reasonable Republicans do the same?

     This forum is dead-set on making reasonable Republicans do the same, it seems. The problem with having big tent parties is that you get normal people associating with extremist ideologues. Naturally attacking the latter group is easier than attacking the former one, so your opponents end up talking endlessly about how you associate with deplorables.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I have a .....crazy...proposal:

The US party-duopoly ensures, that literally EVERYONE is all the time pissed at both parties, even while to a different degree or for different reasons.

     I think you've touched on the fundamental reason here why the country is so politically dysfunctional. Winning is typically about being the less disliked rather than the more liked.