I am a democrat BUT... The democratic party needs to change.

[Southern Reactionary Dem]

This election should be a warning sign to democrats to NOT look down on these voters simply because they don't have a college education or they voted for Trump, or they are racist. They have legimate concerns. I don't agree with their solutions.... but they have valid concerns.

GET AWAY FROM YALE AND HARVARD. Start going into these communities. Do we even need a internship in rural America for democrats ? We should like talk with them, see why they're so angry.

As a child of blue collar working class immigrants, I can see first hand why the Democrats on a national level are so unappealing. People might make fun of " Small Town ", But many Americans love to live in Small Town. Traditional Values. Tradition. Respect. Law and Order. Economic stability.  

The Middle Class is dying and these people are going to become very very angry. ( Ironically though, the Republicans started the policies that led to this moment, the democrats won't say it because like Terry, THEY ALSO INVEST IN THESE THINGS !! ).

WHY DON'T WE GET IT ?? THESE ARE AMERICANS TOO !

Here here, though the hollowing out of the middle class is a massive bipartisan neoliberal failure. The Republicans didn't force Clinton into signing NAFTA, deregulating banks or Obama to propose an awful healthcare hatchet job from the heritage foundation. Both parties also love exploiting labor from illegal immigration. That's why nothing ever gets done on that front. American citizens will do the work if you properly compensate them.

[Southern Reactionary Dem]

Uh... have you guys seen the media/pundit coverage of the reaction to last week? It's basically, ugh Glenn Youngkin won because people are so racist and they're so stupid they fell for anti-CRT talking points which "isn't real". Oh and anybody who voted for Winsome Sears is a white supremacist. The same people who voted for Biden and then Youngkin, are just as racist as your base Republicans, just like how Obama Trump voters became disposable after 2016. As soon as they vote R, they become bad people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY3CuLwGUx0

https://twitter.com/jemelehill/status/1455766504650067971?s=20
You saw a little bit of this last year too, before Biden ended up winning in the days following. "Is this who we are?" Joy Reid asked on election night 2020, stunned at how close the result was. Of course, in a good, moral nation that Joy Reid approves of, the result would never even be close. Everyone would just agree with her and vote for the only party that is good and decent, the Democrats.

They are not going to change anytime soon. They are doubling down on everything. It exemplifies why they lost in the first place. They have a condescending moral superiority complex that they cannot get rid of. No trends are reversing any time soon.

People said this about Republicans, too. It’s still really a tough call whether it’s worth having a bunch of blue dogs in power when we things can eventually come around. Maybe to get anything done, you have to read the room. Things in 2006 were embarrassing but they weren’t immediately bad. It made sense to have 30 guys holding down districts W won by 10 points even though they voted with Republicans on a lot of issues that weren’t immediately important.  Eventually, things got worse and people at least temporarily “came around” to more liberal people. Blue dogs at least put a defensive check on Republicans in power. You can’t really govern with them.

You don't need the blue dogs to win these areas. The blue dogs were way more corporate-friendly and fiscally conservative than necessary. I would contend that you don't have to compromise on hardly any kitchen table issues to win these folks (provided that those kitchen table issues aren't race/identity oriented or exclusive). These folks hate the Democratic Party because they feel the people leading said party have utter contempt for their traditionalist worldview and frankly I feel the same way. What the Democratic Party utterly fails to understand is that people do not vote based on policy alone. People need to feel understood before they listen to your policies.

Democrats wring their hands about voters in middle America voting against their economic interests in favor of meaningless social wedge issues but consider it morally beneath them to nominate a candidate who fits their constituents on said wedge issues. It just seems many Democrats would rather have an R hold these seats who will give them no kitchen table policy wins or social progress than a Democrat who might not give them social progress, but could deliver huge wins to the American people on kitchen table policy.

Democrats talk a big game about ushering in a second new deal but don't want to build the biggest of all big tent coalitions that made the first new deal a possibility in the first place. It would be even better this time because you wouldn't have to run segregationists and klansman like the first go around. You just need somebody who says things like "I like AR-15s too. We're not touching them", "We're not going to let this intersectionality bullsh**t into the public school system", "Abortion is immoral, it should only be available as a necessary evil in the case of rape/incest" etc. while giving us medicare for all, a minimum wage hike, paid maternity leave (paternity leave is stupid, I don't care what anyone says), hard infrastructure, tax hikes on the plutocrats, etc. What we can't be is the party of infinite pronouns, misgendering laws, 450k payments to people who came here illegally in the first place, reparations for people who weren't even slaves, "our riots are ok, but theirs are an insurrection", etc. Most Democrats don't even agree with this stuff but the party leadership feels a need to give a wink and nod at times to the extremists on Twitter. People see this stuff and are repulsed by it.

[Southern Reactionary Dem]

and yes many rural white people are racist. I’d rather have a world in which racism wasn’t central to their political identity and it wasn’t until fairly recently. Plenty of poor Black people are homophobic and anti-Semitic but that doesn’t mean they’re undeserving of economic justice and the same should go for poor white people in Appalachia. Their kids are innocent and deserve a shot at a better life, so do the children of poor people from any race.

Eh, if you think racism wasn't central to the political identity of downscale rural whites until recently, you need to crack open a history book. And the difference between white racism and black homophobia/antisemitism, to the degree it currently exists, is that we can actually win elections with the latter. We can win elections and pass progressive legislation with black voters. But we can't do the same with downscale rural whites, because their racism trumps everything else. They prefer a racist con artist to a reasonable, moderate Democrat.

It hasn’t been central to their political identity at all times in all places. The decline of unions combined with Democrats completely abandoning any effort to win them over has made it so there’s no countervailing force. Racism at times has been the driving motive for white Americans of every economic strata, in the era of white flight it was for white suburbanites yet that doesn’t stop Democrats from aggressively courting them.

Whose fault is the decline of unions? Did it have anything to do with WWC voters supporting Nixon and Reagan? And did Humphrey, McGovern, and Mondale really abandon any effort to win over Southern whites, or did those voters abandon the Democratic Party for racist reasons? This can all be traced back to the 1960's, and yeah, poor whites chose to sacrifice their economic power on the altar of white power! A truly reprehensible act they repeated in 2016. So mee-maw and pee-paw have no one but themselves to blame.

And Democrats are aggressively courting educated white suburbanites because the party has made significant inroads in those communities in recent years. So, essentially, the exact opposite of what's transpired in AL, AR, KY, LA, MS, WV, etc. When poor whites show any inclination of voting Democratic, they too will be courted. But don't hold your breath!

You don’t think Democrats themselves have some responsibility for the decline of unions? See NAFTA/Obama’s failure to pass card check.

I don’t think that Democrats would win whites in the Deep South which has never been unionized fo begin with and they were inevitably going to be lost to Democrats because of the civil rights act which was a worthwhile tradeoff. Appalachia and the rust belt are a different story though.

We were winning white southern congressional seats as recently as the Bush years while Bush was winning these districts by 15-30 points. There's no reason why these voters could't swing back with some effort. These people are not voting R because they're ardent economic conservatives. They're voting R because of an unfortunately divisive culture war. Democrats can disarm this with candidates in tune with their districts on cultural issues. Not downlplaying them... I mean run genuine social conservatives who will deliver on progressive economic policy. It's rebuilding the New Deal coalition and we don't have to run a bunch of segregationists this time to do it. It will take Democrats making a concerted effort to signal to these folks that there is a home for them in the Democratic coalition.

[Southern Reactionary Dem]

I love how every time we get one of these “elitism” woke-scolding lectures (because a moderate lost lol) ppl just act like white = working class when the majority of working class people aren’t white, lean far to the left, and don’t vote because they think democrats are corrupt.

Which is not to say that I don’t think political correctness is a problem for democrats, it obviously is although I’m not really sure what the utility of supposed party supporters making it into a bigger deal is… but the problem is obviously the nepotism, the obsession with chasing white rich people (why is nobody as outraged by the SALT cap as they are #defundthepolice?, both are v unpopular), the constant repeating Republican talking points as if they weren’t already duly noted

We need strong persuasion and turnout operations, but third way centrism fails to meet both of those challenges! It is the political ideology, ironically enough, only of the Harvard elites that you are referencing… only the old ones not the young ones. And yet somehow whenever moderate white Dems lose elections, moderate white men in the media tell us the solution is to… do nothing? Pass no bills? Succumb to Republican talking points about popular policies instead of passing them? Definitional insanity from a community that at best makes up a fifth of the Democratic coalition (when they aren’t voting gop that is) and is used to being the center of attention.

Nobody said working class = white. Woke insanity is unpopular with minorities as well, its mostly the rich white socially progressive Warren voters who it appeals to. Focusing on economics and dropping the woke stuff (which does NOT mean ignoring race issues, it just means not being insane and alienating about it) will help with working class voters of ALL races.

No it is not. I don't know where you are getting your opinion from, but I work all day every day with working class, urban POC and nobody cares about wokeness. In fact, most non-whites recognize it for what it is: a racially-tinged, mainstream-media fueled moral panic. It is a cultural problem that most Americans are fully aware has nothing to do with the government.

And how I know that I'm right and you're wrong is the simple fact that there is no evidence that Youngkin or Ciatarelli (sp?) overperformed with these voters and plenty of evidence that turnout in urban precincts was lagging. It's like y'all read an opinion piece (usually written by a white person, always written by a rich person) and think that it's a definitive take. I don't see evidence for that.

Certain aspects of "wokeness," e.g. "abolish the police," heroin needle drop sites, etc. are unpopular. But to make a claim that this is what is sinking the Democrats' chances when even Third f-ing Way says that it's Manchin and Sinema's fault is, as far as I see it, just parroting racist propaganda and leaving critical thinking to the side. And the unfortunate effect of "woke scolding" is that the more a claim is repeated, the more it is assumed to be true even without substantiation.

AOC didn't lose Virginia, Terry McAuliffe did. And when the only thing standing between him and victory is a couple thousand young voters in the DMV and Richmond (which is absolutely true in a high turnout, but low urban turnout election), I'm not going to blame a woman who he intentionally didn't invite to campaign with him for his loss. That is the pinnacle of irrationality and a one-way ticket to the same kind of Gottheimerian divisiveness that is the real problem. Democrats can't be Republican lite and win, and I am so tired of watching that reality play out only to see people reflexively blame the left

I never said we need to be Republican lite, neither did I blame the left. We need to drop woke nonsense, but go full Bernie on economics. We need to campaign on Medicare for All, a living wage, ending corruption, more social spending and generally helping the poor. At the same time we need to ignore social issues entirely, they're losing issues.
The reason why AOC is way less likeable and less likely to win a national election than Bernie is because she talks woke all the time whereas Bernie (especially in 2016) didn't.

I generally agree with you, although I'm a bit more moderate. I'm also a socially conservative person but I think the GOP dropping social issues from their agenda (with the exception of abortion) could benefit the party in the long term if future generations continue with socially progressive trends, while emphasizing religious freedom in contrast to the Dem's anti-religious authoritarianism. I agree that focusing on economics would be the best priority. I'm not sure if going full Berniecrat would be the best idea as there are still plenty of fiscal conservatives who haven't crossed over, but if the GOP wants to become a workers party, it has to abandon neoliberalism and focus on the economic concerns of working people, which it hasn't been doing, despite broken promises in 2016 to do that. I think setting up a Scandanavian-style free market welfare state, breaking up big business/banks, putting the means of production to workers (in contrast to the state or the business owners), widespread private property, and a Warren-style wealth tax are great starts.

This would effectively get me to party switch if they actually delivered on that, to be honest. I voted for Trump in 2016 hoping he would deliver on that front but he, unfortunately, did not even come close except for on trade. I like the idea of the welfare system BUT I do support means tests on that system. My bread and butter is protecting workers and wages so that the welfare state is only needed for the disabled and those who have been laid off. I would be in favor of differential executive salary caps (20x the lowest paid worker at a given company) as well as a minimum wage that automatically raises every decade.  I firmly believe whichever party offers up socially conservative, fiscally progressive candidates first will win in landslides.

[Southern Reactionary Dem]

-snip-

This is a lot closer to a position I would endorse. I think dropping BLM entirely is insane, that's our base! But we need more candidates like Raphael Warnock to successfully deliver an economic justice, racial justice message. Ceding faith, God, and morality to the Right was a big mistake and Democrats need to find a way to communicate with faith voters.

Persuasion- Andrew Yang on Why Democrats Are in Crisis

Yang: There's a layer of people who are highly engaged on social media, and who will see the interaction and interpret it in the way that the consultants intend. But the average person in that group may or may not ever see it. There are certain organizations and people that actually do speak for a very large audience. I think the most compelling example of that in this past cycle was Jim Clyburn in South Carolina. Some endorsements mean a great deal. As a candidate, I have to confess it's hard to tell which is which. But it's crystal clear that the Jim Clyburn endorsement ended up swinging the dynamics of the entire race. That's a rarity. For the most part, if you have some person who's part of a community who endorses you, it's not going to move the entire community. But there are a few people that will take their cues from that person. If I recall the Democratic nomination cycle, I don't think that Joe led in a lot of these endorsements, but he got the one that mattered in the form of Jim Clyburn.

Mounk: What's the difference between Jim Clyburn and the many, many endorsements that don't matter?

Yang: There are a lot of voters in South Carolina who aren't that engaged. But they do trust the Clyburns. If Jim Clyburn says, “Joe Biden's our guy,” then a lot of people down there would just say “I trust Jim. Let's go with Joe.” I heard that over and over again in South Carolina. When Clyburn made his endorsement, everyone moved in that direction. That is very, very unusual.

I can't think of an endorsement that would parallel it in Iowa or New Hampshire, in part because the people there are very, very engaged and had been meeting candidates and been making up their own minds for months. With the Asian-American community, I'm not sure that there is a level of engagement or unity where the entire community would move on the basis of any individual organization, because there are so many organizations. But the voters we should be most concerned about are the less engaged voters. The problem right now is that there's a massive bias towards the highly engaged online audience, and it's missing all of these folks who are from poor, more rural, or immigrant communities. They're not sitting there glued to Politico. If someone makes a very basic appeal, then they hear it.

Well, I agree with his diagnosis, but definitely not his prescription for the problem. Which tracks bc Yang is a loser with a losing track record.

What online leftist reads Politico? What he and the "anti-woke" crowd do is create a fictitious portmanteau of very different voting contingencies and then scapegoat it for problems that they themselves have created. The solution is thus twofold:

1. Democrats do need to recruit better quality candidates that fit the districts they are competing in. Candidates like Jared Golden who really defy any categorization as either moderate or progressive, are independent thinkers, and have nuanced policy positions... not New Dems like Gottheimer cuz that is, ironically enough, the kind of candidate that only Politico bro consultant types like. All forms of elitism are a bad look, whether it's left-identitarian woke warriors or neoliberal McKinsey goons. Nominate working class people in working class communities, duh! It's not that hard and obviously works for the GOP - a party whose hostility to workers is a central component of its program.

I also think that this means we rly should not nominate Harris or Buttigieg in 2024, and probably should stick with Biden (and maybe with a new VP).

BUT ALSO

2. Stop the circular firing squad. People like Suozzi and Gottheimer do the GOP's dirty work for them, and anybody who is critical of other Democrats on policy needs to be primaried. "Wokism" and "critical race theory" are racist, Republican dog whistles, and no amount of capitulating to their false concerns will win back racist, suburban voters for us. And it demonstrably depresses youth and minority turnout, which we desperately need. No excuses, the party has to have a more coherent brand identity and being white supremacy lite is not it. Anybody who is a Democrat whining about "wokism" for a dollar needs to be swiftly shut down by party leaders. Do not concede an inch, because even if "wokism" is a real concern it's pointless to talk about when there is no political or policy fix, and when it has absolutely no material, economic, or real impact on anybody's life

Holy hell. If every Democrat thought like this, this party would be absolutely doomed for a long time. Wokeism absolutely is inserting itself into the policy realm and does indeed have a policy fix as well as a marketing one. First of all, the "defund" and "abolish" slogans about law enforcement need to die. You're effectively miscommunicating to voters that your policy is in fact to eliminate policing even if it isn't. A massive unforced error brought to us by the woke crowd. You have states like NY and CA with misgendering laws, CA has an ethnic studies mandate for high schools Newsome signed into law, CA also signed into a law a ban on gendered toy sections at stores.... It may seem small in the grand scheme of things, but most voters see this stuff and think it's insane and out of control. And avoiding this garbage isn't "white supremacy lite"... Most minorities hate this garbage too. It's literally nothing but self-congratulating drivel on the part of the white guilt crowd.