The case for a new Democratic Leadership Council

[hopper]

Oh yes, give up all principles to target a shrinking segment of the population after winning the popular vote by 3 million.

No.  Democrats need to be patient and look at the big picture.  In the 2020's a number of states are going to flip from reliably Red to reliably Blue... certainly Georgia and Arizona... perhaps North Carolina. 

A large part of the Democrat's problem is they have a consistently decent but not quite good enough share of the vote in many southern states (e.g., Georgia, North Carolina, Texas).  This results in a lot of wasted votes.  However, as the minority population grows in those states, their fortunes will reverse and the GOP will get the raw end of this... getting a consistent but not good enough share of the vote.  The Democrats need to keep this coalition rather than piss it off by catering to voters that are long gone.

Before the election I was not one of the people here adamantly trumpeting how Hillary would win.  Now all those seem people have suddenly done a complete and utter 180 and are trumpeting how the Democratic party needs to be completely restructured.  This was alarmist on both fronts.  The trendiness are clear and they are moving in the Democrat's favor... Virginia was once a consistently Republican state... the demographics changed over a 10-15 year period and now it is a consistently Democratic state.  This will occur on a wider level soon.

....Maybe at the Presidential Level but at the state level not really. Remember Doug Wilder, and Chuck Robb? Mark Warner also got elected Governor in 2001 which pre-dates the 2006+ era or Obama era of US politics. True the Republicans controlled both chambers of the Virginia State Legislature from 2000-2007. In 1996-1997 The Virginia State Senate was tied at  20R, 20D, and Dems still controlled "The House Of Delegates" 52-47-1. In 1998-1999 The Republicans took the majority in the State Senate 21-19 and Dems Retained the Speakership in "The House Of Delegates" because the 1 Indie(Lacey Putney) caucused with the Republicans making it 50D-49R-1 Independent Republican. Dems controlled outright majorities in both bodies in the  State Legislature from 1870-1995 till split control in the State Senate in 1996-1997.

[hopper]

....Maybe at the Presidential Level but at the state level not really.

You could say that for just about any Southern state, no? It took Republicans a long time to catch up to their presidential success in that region, with some of the most unlikely states not getting GOP legislatures until 2010-2012.

True Southern States have Democrat Party histories rather than Republican Party Histories.

Interesting note about the Virginia Governor's Office the Republicans had the Governor's Office for 3 straight terms from 1970-1981 followed by Democrats having the office for 3 straights terms from 1982-1993. The Democrats had the Governors Office from 1874-1969 till A. Linwood Holton Jr's(R) win in the 1969 Governors Race.

The Republicans had the majority of Virginia's US House Seats from 1971-1986 except for 1975-1976 when the state congressional seat delegation was tied 5-5. 1969-1970 the state's congressional seat delegation was tied as well.

[hopper]

When Reagan won in 1984, the Democrats had control of 35 governorships and the GOP had 15
Democrats had 46 seats in Congress, GOP had 54
Democrats had full control of 28 state legislatures, 11 split, and only 10 were in GOP control, hell by 1990 only 6 states had a GOP controlled state legislature

Those are all infinently worse than the Democrats today and this was during the so called "Reagan Revolution"

As bad as things seem today for Democrats, they are still nowhere near as bad as things were for the GOP when Reagan was president

The problem is that Democrats didn't much care to keep a lot of those legislatures (specifically in Southern states), at least not enough to pour resources into them to stop an aggressive GOP.

I honestly think that who controls senate seats, governorships, and state legislatures are outside of the parties control and just seem to ebb and flow depending on who's prez and other things. The GOP got lucky with Obama because their hatred of him was a great motivator for their electorate. But now both the Clintons and the Obamas are gone and their's no one left to motivate the hate of the GOP electorate and the GOP's policies are going to hurt their own electorate more than anyone else.

Trump, Paul Ryan, and McConnel are the most hated people in America right now and they run the show. That alone will probably tip the scales back in the Democrats favor irrespective of how much money is spent.

If anything, this election has taught me that money and "ground game" is not that important. People will turn out from their own enthusiasm for a candidate they like.

All the Dems need now is a marketing strategy to rebrand the party.

Hatred of Obama had really nothing to do with it. The GOP won Indies by double digits in '10 and '14.

[hopper]

Yeah, but what will they do?  Someone like Booker will probably want to attack Trump from a "he's a crazy racist, I mean how could you support him?!" standpoint, and we saw how that worked for Hillary.  Someone like Bernie would want to attack him from a "this guy says Populist Thing X and Populist Thing Y, but he's governed like just another Republican giving tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, and he doesn't care about people like you."  I am inclined to believe - specifically with respect to downballot races - the second strategy is much, much more effective.

Obviously the climates were different, but in 2004 Democrats more or less ran on the idea that Bush was a semi-retarded frat boy in the White House, and we needed to elect someone with a functioning IQ like Kerry ... in 2006, they hammered Bush as an imperialist Wall Street crony who sent hardworking Americans' kids to go die for oil ... one worked a hell of a lot better than the other.

Nobody liked Hillary though. Had Hillary been elected, the GOP would of won a super majority in 2018. Hillary was totally loathed by the Bernie wing of the party even more than the Republicans hated her.

I think this will end in one of 2 ways:

1) Trump is where Carter was in 1976. Disliked by the opposing party yet not trusted or liked by his own party; on the cusp of an emerging realignment that hasn't quite been figured out yet. Trump may fail miserably at things totally our of his control like Carter did or just flat out fail to lead.

-or-

2) Trump is where Reagan was in the 80s. Meaning that he will do a decent job as president but the opposing party will make tons of gains and keep him in check while they figure out who/what their party is about.

Both parties are fractured and your seeing splits emerge even right now. Alot of the neocon faction of the GOP endorsed Hillary. If Trump pals up with Russia, your going to see that part split and possibly join with the Democratic coalition. Trump has also turned off a decent amount of republicans from the idea that the free market can solve every problem. They now dislike free trade and are warming up the idea that health care is a right. If Trump fails to deliver on these things then that's a wing of the GOP that can be split and taken by the Democrats in 2020, much like the GOP took blue collar Democrats in 1980.

The thing is, Democratic politicians and Democratic voters (outside of teens on Atlas and self-absorbed "pundits" on CNN) don't want to alter their policies in a way that would appeal to those voters.  Moderate/business/affluent/neocon/whatever Republicans might not like Trump, but their alternative is worse, and they voted accordingly in 2016.  I highly doubt the Democrats will move in a direction that appeals to them, and so far they've done the opposite.

True the Dems don't want to change because they think their coalition of minority voters is good enough to win a Presidential Race in 2020. They think what's the use of pandering to White Voters when the dominant growing share of the US population is Latino.

The Dems think they aren't left-wing enough but they are acting like Republicans(i.e. Conservative Talk Radio) were after 2012 in that the Republicans weren't conservative enough.

[hopper]

Yeah, but what will they do?  Someone like Booker will probably want to attack Trump from a "he's a crazy racist, I mean how could you support him?!" standpoint, and we saw how that worked for Hillary.  Someone like Bernie would want to attack him from a "this guy says Populist Thing X and Populist Thing Y, but he's governed like just another Republican giving tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, and he doesn't care about people like you."  I am inclined to believe - specifically with respect to downballot races - the second strategy is much, much more effective.

Obviously the climates were different, but in 2004 Democrats more or less ran on the idea that Bush was a semi-retarded frat boy in the White House, and we needed to elect someone with a functioning IQ like Kerry ... in 2006, they hammered Bush as an imperialist Wall Street crony who sent hardworking Americans' kids to go die for oil ... one worked a hell of a lot better than the other.

Nobody liked Hillary though. Had Hillary been elected, the GOP would of won a super majority in 2018. Hillary was totally loathed by the Bernie wing of the party even more than the Republicans hated her.

I think this will end in one of 2 ways:

1) Trump is where Carter was in 1976. Disliked by the opposing party yet not trusted or liked by his own party; on the cusp of an emerging realignment that hasn't quite been figured out yet. Trump may fail miserably at things totally our of his control like Carter did or just flat out fail to lead.

-or-

2) Trump is where Reagan was in the 80s. Meaning that he will do a decent job as president but the opposing party will make tons of gains and keep him in check while they figure out who/what their party is about.

Both parties are fractured and your seeing splits emerge even right now. Alot of the neocon faction of the GOP endorsed Hillary. If Trump pals up with Russia, your going to see that part split and possibly join with the Democratic coalition. Trump has also turned off a decent amount of republicans from the idea that the free market can solve every problem. They now dislike free trade and are warming up the idea that health care is a right. If Trump fails to deliver on these things then that's a wing of the GOP that can be split and taken by the Democrats in 2020, much like the GOP took blue collar Democrats in 1980.

True on Free Trade but I don't know if GOP Voters think healthcare is a right.

I don't think Trump thinks that the free market can solve every problem either.