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Ideally, yes. But is this realizable? The person who's been maximizing his/her 401K for 30+ years, investing it in stocks, is going to have very different concerns than the one just starting out. The child-free are going to have very different concerns from parents with large families. The young healthy people are going to have very different concerns from persons with chronic health-conditions. Likewise the urban vs. rural debate, the secular vs. religious debate. Can two voters of similar economic concerns, but opposing views on abortion and gay-marriage, come to realize their common economic interests? Can two voters of similar persuasions on the so-called wedge-issues, but very different economic circumstances, share the same party?
By "blue collar", I mean less about vocation or even pecuniary resources, but culture. Bud Lite or craft beer? Football or Formula-1? Desire for a mythical America of 1950, or a mythical Austria of 1910? Everybody wants job-security and a rewarding retirement. But not everybody wants the same culture. This is why it's so effective to divide the voters along wedge-issues. My question is: is this divide phony and superficial, a distraction from the "real" issues? Or, is this divide indeed real?
The alternative view, is that the economy will do what it wants to do, regardless of what happens in Washington. Politicians can't do much to improve things, or to screw them up. But they can assuage our feelings - our cultural feelings. So in fact it's the social issues, the cultural issues, that matter more - politically speaking - while it's the economic issues that are a vapid distraction.
I agree with the bolded and no one ever talks about the cultural aspect of politics. These are excellent points, ohio peasant.
It’s not that most Republicans and Independents I know who voted for Trump liked him or even now think he’s a good president. They were voting against the other side, the politicians, Progressive media pundits, and Hollywood entertainers who pushed and widened a vast cultural divide. Progressives just know the Left's culture is superior to the dumb hicks in the flyover country. And flyover said FU, Guys. So we got Trump. I don't see this polarization changing either. The right is entrenched just as much as the Left.
I agree with the bolded and no one ever talks about the cultural aspect of politics. These are excellent points, ohio peasant.
It’s not that most Republicans and Independents I know who voted for Trump liked him or even now think he’s a good president. They were voting against the other side, the politicians, Progressive media pundits, and Hollywood entertainers who pushed and widened a vast cultural divide. Progressives just know the Left's culture is superior to the dumb hicks in the flyover country. And flyover said FU, Guys. So we got Trump. I don't see this polarization changing either. The right is entrenched just as much as the Left.
I think there is a lot of generalizing going on here. I like craft beer, but I wouldn't want it all the time. I usually drink Natural Light. Don't care about football, had to double check to see that Formula 1 had to do with cars. I like baseball. I'm a Christian, and I read The New Yorker. I like opera and Eminem, BBC documentaries and reruns of "Touched by an Angel." I hate Monsanto and factory farming, but I like to fish with my stupid little pink Zebco rod and reel and think responsible hunters (which would be almost all of them who hunt for food) are cool.
Now, can we do away with the stereotypes, already? They are part of how we got in this mess.
One of the reasons Trump won the election is because he was able to so completely dominate the national conversation. I wonder sometimes if we (myself included) are letting the same thing happen again.
I'm not saying he shouldn't be criticized. He deserves it, richly. But we have to have something more to offer than simply being anti-Trump. If we don't start talking more about the things we want to accomplish, like better health care and decent wages, we are going to be just as screwed in 2020 as we were in 2016.
I am interested in hearing people's ideas about how to address this, and particularly interested in hearing from Democrats who jumped ship to support Trump, and what prompted that decision. I don't mean "Reagan Democrats" who have been voting Republican for decades, I mean the recently departed.
I honestly believe that we have a better agenda, or I wouldn't be a Dem. How can we get our message out there more effectively?
You asked an honest question and I will try to give an honest answer.
I am convinced that when Donald Trump runs for reelection in 2020 he would win. Forget the "he won't last til Christmas" junk because it is just noise coming from your end.
The left is making a huge amount of noise right now but it is just noise while we conservatives, we're not Nazi's, quietly sit back and wait for the next voting cycle. The left, hearing all if its own noise, is convinced there is no way their next candidate can loose which is exactly why they are coming up with Elizabeth Fauxahontas Warren and Maxine Waters as possible candidates. With all the anti-Trump noise how could they possibly lose?
The only thing that matters is the voting booth and with the noise and mayhem coming from the left right now you are simply alienating a large group of American voters. We're degenerates don't you know?
You asked an honest question and I will try to give an honest answer.
I am convinced that when Donald Trump runs for reelection in 2020 he would win. Forget the "he won't last til Christmas" junk because it is just noise coming from your end.
The left is making a huge amount of noise right now but it is just noise while we conservatives, we're not Nazi's, quietly sit back and wait for the next voting cycle. The left, hearing all if its own noise, is convinced there is no way their next candidate can loose which is exactly why they are coming up with Elizabeth Fauxahontas Warren and Maxine Waters as possible candidates. With all the anti-Trump noise how could they possibly lose?
The only thing that matters is the voting booth and with the noise and mayhem coming from the left right now you are simply alienating a large group of American voters. We're degenerates don't you know?
So stop with the hate, you'll lose.
I actually agree with all of this.
Dems need a message. Hating Donald Trump does nothing for me. Nor is calling his supporters all "racist neo-nazi's" helpful, either.
You asked an honest question and I will try to give an honest answer.
I am convinced that when Donald Trump runs for reelection in 2020 he would win. Forget the "he won't last til Christmas" junk because it is just noise coming from your end.
The left is making a huge amount of noise right now but it is just noise while we conservatives, we're not Nazi's, quietly sit back and wait for the next voting cycle. The left, hearing all if its own noise, is convinced there is no way their next candidate can loose which is exactly why they are coming up with Elizabeth Fauxahontas Warren and Maxine Waters as possible candidates. With all the anti-Trump noise how could they possibly lose?
The only thing that matters is the voting booth and with the noise and mayhem coming from the left right now you are simply alienating a large group of American voters. We're degenerates don't you know?
So stop with the hate, you'll lose.
Good post. What the hysterical left does not understand is that their rather extreme acting out since the election is further cementing for many of us in the middle politically that the Democrats have become a party of extremists. If they want to start winning hearts and minds they could do so tomorrow if they denounced Antifa as a terrorist group. It would be a good start towards trying to win back some of the people they lost during the Obama years, and then outright chased away during the Hillary campaign.
Dems need a message. Hating Donald Trump does nothing for me. Nor is calling his supporters all "racist neo-nazi's" helpful, either.
I think I can pretty much pin-point the time when Hillary lost the election; it was when she called all Trump supporters "degenerates".
Quote:
The Donald Trump campaign is slamming Hillary Clinton for saying that half of Trump’s supporters belong in a "basket of deplorables."
Speaking at the LGBT for Hillary Gala in New York City on Sept. 9, 2016, Clinton said that Trump’s supporters were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic." Trump said the remarks showed "her true contempt for everyday Americans."
While chances of me voting for Hillary were between zero and non, I am just being honest here, her talk just made me double sure to get to the voting both on election day. I know I am not alone.
The Russia thing is turning out to be a big fat nothing, it always was, and this is going to cost democrats dearly in the future.
In the meantime republicans stand to lose a lot in the 2018 mid terms. Many of them are just as anti-Trump as Maxine Waters but not nearly as smart because somehow they believe that by distancing themselves from Trump the Occupy Wall Street types will swarm to support them? Really, how can anyone be so dumb. I the meantime a good number of Trump supporters just won't bother to support their anti-Trump congressional candidates.
Of course the anti-Trumpers and democrats will blame Trump for the mid-term losses but when they lose it will be solely their fault.
I'm getting a lot of input from people who supported Trump, and I appreciate the honest replies, especially from those who defected during this election cycle, but I do want to know...where are my fellow current Democrats? How can we regain lost ground without sacrificing our core values?
I'm getting a lot of input from people who supported Trump, and I appreciate the honest replies, especially from those who defected during this election cycle, but I do want to know...where are my fellow current Democrats? How can we regain lost ground without sacrificing our core values?
I know you are out there. Talk to me.
No disrespect intended but what are your core values? Do democrats have any because I am starting to doubt it.
I'm getting a lot of input from people who supported Trump, and I appreciate the honest replies, especially from those who defected during this election cycle, but I do want to know...where are my fellow current Democrats? How can we regain lost ground without sacrificing our core values?
I know you are out there. Talk to me.
Maybe they are still out there throwing rocks and clashing with the police? LOL
Now, can we do away with the stereotypes, already? They are part of how we got in this mess.
They are; and indeed, stereotypes are insulting. But often, they have an uncanny proclivity to approximate reality. One such quiver of stereotypes is the relation between social-class in America, and matters of taste, values, personal preferences... and politics. I refer for example to Paul Fussell's "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System". He is unrelentingly insulting, in the interest of making a point (and selling more books). But his breezy pigeonholing of 300 million people is only too true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nicet4
No disrespect intended but what are your core values? Do democrats have any because I am starting to doubt it.
I'm not really a Democrat, but here's an attempt at Democratic notional core values:
1. Individual rights are potentially assailed by all sorts of concentrations of power.... public or private. A strong, activist government is useful as counterbalance to strong, activist private organizations - be they corporations, churches or whatever else. Thus, a strong government is not a desirable end in itself, but a desirable means towards the higher end, of keeping the various power-centers at loggerheads.
2. Universalism. People are largely alike in all places, in all times - having similar aspirations, struggles and fears.
3. Traditional documents and rubrics are limited and inelastic. We must realize that no document is holy, no doctrine is unassailably correct. Everything can and should be subject to review and revision - including the US constitution.
4. There is indeed a fundamental right to privacy.
5. "Pursuit of happiness" is not congruent to "pursuit of property".
6. Immigration is fundamental to the American national ethos.
7. Whatever our religious persuasions happen to be, law and morality in the civic-realm must be rooted in experience, observation and systematic analysis - rather than on purportedly revealed truth.
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