Democratic Party Doubles Down On Failure

One is inclined to gloom and despondency. This kind of lame bullshit isn't going to cut it, and if the smug fucks of the Democratic leadership don't step up, Trump and his goons are going to continue to "Make America Great Again™". If we had any of the right wing laughing boys left on this site, they'd love the implications of this article.

'The Democratic Party Just Admitted it Doesn't Stand For Anything'

"The Democrats are trying out new campaign slogans, and all of them should leave progressives deeply worried. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) recently sent out a series of proposed bumper stickers, asking party members to vote on which they liked best. The four possibilities included: 'Resist, Persist,' 'She Persisted, We Resisted,' 'Make Congress Blue Again,' and, most tellingly of all, 'Democrats 2018: I Mean, Have You Seen the Other Guys?' Many of those on the party’s left have long been concerned that contemporary Democrats don’t seem to actually stand for anything beyond 'not being Republicans.' The bumper stickers seem to confirm exactly that."

...

"The reason the Democratic Party doesn’t stand for anything is that party leaders want to court both moderate Republicans disgusted by Trump and millennial socialists energized by Bernie Sanders. Because these two groups agree on almost nothing, the only possible way to unite them is through focusing on their shared antipathy for the president. It’s a political approach pioneered by Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, who built a coalition by simultaneously appealing to conservative-leaning Reagan Democrats and liberal Gen-Xers. The way it works is this: you make sure not to propose anything that might upset the existing economic order (such as single-payer healthcare or serious action on climate change), then you throw a few bones to the progressive wing by using the language of civil rights and resistance (Hillary Clinton, for example, tweeted using the language of “intersectional” feminism, and Ossoff was proudly pro-choice.)​

"It actually sounds like sensible politics, on the surface. And it worked for Bill Clinton. Remind progressives that their only other option is the Republicans, and then reassure moderate conservatives that you won’t go after big business. You might lose a few hardcore lefties, but you’ll more than make up for it in the number of Reaganites you peel away from the other side. (Or, as Chuck Schumer put it, 'For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia.')

"But this philosophy is a dead end. For one thing, it doesn’t work. Unless you have Bill Clinton’s special charismatic magic, what actually happens is that progressive voters just stay home, disgusted at the failure of both parties to actually try to improve the country. And the mythical 'moderate Republicans' never seem to show up. (This is because there are no actual moderate Republicans.) And it’s not just electorally unwise: it also gives up on the idea of actually changing anything, with the only goal of politics being to attain political office. It precludes the possibility of ever taking serious action on healthcare, the environment, nuclear arms, housing, or any of the million other issues that require urgent and serious action."​

 

This piece is spot on. The Democratic Party's problem is that it is has no core, it stands for nothing. Being a Democrat is an exercise in trying to create a set of "values" that will appeal to a demographic that your marketing experts have managed to convince you actually exists. Hilary got her majority not because she was Hilary but because she wasn't Trump, This is, as the Dear Leader might say, sad.

 

I may as well repost this:

Which is why trump won. Many people are disgusted with their party and rarely vote, but Sanders and trump represented a rebellion against party politics, and people took interest. While the republican's effort to demonize Clinton was successful and caused many liberals to refuse to vote for her, her Establishment ties were also partly to blame. Her words sounded hollow to those who want progress instead of capitulation, to fight against the republicans and not negotiate a middle ground. To many liberals, myself included, the Democratic party has given way too much ground and become like moderate republicans used to be, and what is needed now is a strong push towards liberal ideals, such as single-payer health care and expanded social programs, things that help others rather than the typical cuts to programs Democrats have repeatedly conceded to as the republicans lured them to the middle ground and, in my opinion, over the center line towards becoming republican themselves.

In my opinion the time to compromise is over. When Obama became President, the republicans refused to compromise, and are still refusing to today. Now, they may compromise on their Health Care efforts, but it's hardly an actual compromise. The Democrats have the ACA, and the republicans want to remove it and replace it with their own version of health care. They are having issues resolving conflicts within their own party and are considering working with Democrats to push their bill through. Why the fuck should Democrats even consider to do that, as the bill would remove their own work and replace it with a worse bill?