What people believe and what they are willing to do about it are two different things. Let’s take a poll on the policies the Dems will force on us, written or just actions that will be taken, and see how they fare. Oh that’s right, they have no answers. Will they have any by 2026? The odds are against it. At this point, I would say the 2026 elections are not looking good for the Dems. They have already lost twice on the strategy of just attacking Trump. From what I observe, they’re willing to die on that hill again.
It seems that working class voters prioritize economic issues while the college educated prioritize cultural issues. The only real economic issue in the perception of the Democrats is health care and even there the hill the Democrats have picked to die on in the shutdown is health care for illegal immigrants, This pushes the issue back into the cultural category. (Or worse, ghosts 12M of the people with fully subsidized premiums had 0 claims of any kind in 2024.) Democrats try to dress up climate change as economics but the public is buying it. It is the reverse watermelon issue that was covered here last weekend. At some point, Democrats need to choose and decide who they are.
While working class voters prioritize pocket book issues there are many cultural issues that are non starters. You cannot despise people with mainstream views and say it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to work to simply stick with the 20 side of 80/20 issues and hammer on grocery prices.
The working class knows how much the average D college educated leader hates them. The leadership of the D party and all the groups that own them need to be cored like an apple and replaced with folks who actually like the majority of the electorate rather than seeing them as a giant social justice project.
Please explain the term "reverse watermelon." I know what a watermelon is in political terms. It is one who advances socialist or communist causes by presenting them as environmental: Green on the outside, red on the inside. But, what is a "reverse watermelon"? One who advances an environmentalist cause by pretending to be communist?
Bill Clinton put it best when he said that the Democrats stand for people who work hard and play by the rules. If only the fool hadn't fallen for a thong, he'd have gone down in history as one of the best presidents. Still, "work hard and play by the rules" was as "working class" as it gets, but universal and unifying at the same time. It was brilliant, and sadly forgotten.
How far the Democratic Party I supported for so long has strayed! These days, they pay consultants big bucks for "messaging," when "work hard and play by the rules" was as good as it gets, right up there with "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and "make America great again."
Is it a class gap? Yes and no. The numbers in the article show it, but as strongly drawn to hard data as I am, one thing I learned in finance was that the numbers, as critical as they are, have their limitations. Numbers are the tool of engineers. I love engineers and engineering, and we are in an engineering culture. But engineering will inevitably focus narrowly, and miss larger realities. This is why I am a huge fan of liberal arts, even if your average sociology professor makes me grind my teeth.
Back to Bill Clinton. I will say it again: "Work hard and play by the rules" is pure factory worker (I worked in two factories, and in potato fields and a rock quarry along the way), but it was universal. It applied from top to bottom, excluding the lazy and the criminal while favoring the productive. Any CEO could recognize it in his personal affairs, as much as the people who cooked and served his dinner in a fancy restaurant. Work hard and play by the rules. It was American idealism and pragmatism at its very best. It is how those of us who pay the bills in this joint live, fer chrissakes!
So now we have a Democratic Party run by rich "progressives" who for some reason don't think about working hard and playing by the rules, even though it's how they got to where they are. Their top priorities have nothing to do with climbing the ladder. Why? Because they already climbed it, and like Thurston Howell III from "Gilligan's Island," climbing the ladder isn't even on their radar screen.
I don't think there's as much class difference as all of this implies. I think something else is at play, encapsulated by two things my departed father would always say: "Never forget where you came from" and "Everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time." The nouveau riche "progressives" who have come to run the Democratic Party don't want to think about how they climbed the ladder, or how the rest of America is forever trying to. Why not? What makes these people think they are so god damn special that they are above it all? Grrrrr.
The issue for the Democrats is how to hold the college educated voters that everyone hates here while addressing the issues that everyone loves here. Maybe it is impossible and, like the GOP from 1932 until recently, the Democrats will only win elections when the opposing party has a bad candidate or otherwise screws up. As most here seem to love the Trump agenda on tariffs, immigration, climate and crime, maybe that's not so bad and we should just quit worrying about the Democrats?
I am college educated and damn proud of both my undergrad education and my Wharton MBA. The difference between myself and "progressives" is that I have never looked down on those who didn't go to college. In fact, the smartest American I've ever known (measured I.Q., 164) dropped out of college and rescued his grandfather and father's farm. Stop being such a smug "progressive" snob.
The Democrats will welcome working class people back into the party when they finally shed their deplorable views. This comes across loud and clear in the Dems’ constant smug and condescending rhetoric. I’m not even convinced they’ll take the House in the midterms, bar a political catastrophe for the Rs.
It’s easier for Dems to dismiss problems with the economy, immigration, and crime, because as a group, they’re less affected by them. Though I’ll admit that I’m completely stumped on how people who hector us to “follow the science” can claim that men can become women, that a man dressed as a female in the women’s changing room is not creepy (and threatening) at all, and that their brand of racism is virtuous.
How can the party claim to want to “save democracy” when it lied about Biden’s condition, barred competition against him in the primaries, and anointed a candidate who had never even been in one single primary?
How does gerrymandering in California save democracy? I know Texas is doing it too. The solution to antidemocratic methods isn’t doubling down on them.
I’m at a loss. I’m angry. I’m frightened about where this is leading.
The Republicans can be cruel, but right now the Dems strike me as being more the dangerous party.
Check out the senators who are up for reelection in 2028 and 2030. Even if the Democrats somehow hold on to *all* of their current seats in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania they are still a decided minority in the senate. And the next census will be bringing such demographic changes that it will be much harder for a Democrat to win the Electoral College. They Democrat senators in these swing states are basically serving at the pleasure of Republican-oriented voters in these purple/reddish states. My point is that they are way worse off than it appears with regard to the senate and probably the electoral college. Is there any hope? Think about the current Republican Party which managed to cobble together a ruling plurality (barely) by going full-on populist in 2016. How incredibly different is the 2024 GOP from the 2014 GOP? This should give hope to the Democrats. Can Democrats pull off a similar metamorphosis? I think that is the question that Ruy is asking. As one of those white, college educated (sort of) Republicans I can actually see the Democrats' being able to pull it off. It wouldn't really take much more than agreeing to work with Trump on some of his favorite issues. The country is desperate for comity and true bipartisanship on *anything*. But the current leadership in Washington seems incapable of this change (both sides). So it take a big change on the part of the Democratic voters to replace these leaders. There are still very strong Democrats at the state level. And Trump's "landslide" was only in the Electoral College. Yes, he won all the swing states, but other than Arizona they were all relatively close. This moment in time feels like the ship is sailing into the fog and the lights on the ship are beginning to fade into the darkness for the Democrats. There is still time to signal to the ship to come back, but it seems like that moment is rapidly closing. I don't want to live in a country governed exclusively by either of these dysfunctional parties.
What people believe and what they are willing to do about it are two different things. Let’s take a poll on the policies the Dems will force on us, written or just actions that will be taken, and see how they fare. Oh that’s right, they have no answers. Will they have any by 2026? The odds are against it. At this point, I would say the 2026 elections are not looking good for the Dems. They have already lost twice on the strategy of just attacking Trump. From what I observe, they’re willing to die on that hill again.
It seems that working class voters prioritize economic issues while the college educated prioritize cultural issues. The only real economic issue in the perception of the Democrats is health care and even there the hill the Democrats have picked to die on in the shutdown is health care for illegal immigrants, This pushes the issue back into the cultural category. (Or worse, ghosts 12M of the people with fully subsidized premiums had 0 claims of any kind in 2024.) Democrats try to dress up climate change as economics but the public is buying it. It is the reverse watermelon issue that was covered here last weekend. At some point, Democrats need to choose and decide who they are.
While working class voters prioritize pocket book issues there are many cultural issues that are non starters. You cannot despise people with mainstream views and say it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to work to simply stick with the 20 side of 80/20 issues and hammer on grocery prices.
The working class knows how much the average D college educated leader hates them. The leadership of the D party and all the groups that own them need to be cored like an apple and replaced with folks who actually like the majority of the electorate rather than seeing them as a giant social justice project.
I thought “average D” meant it was their grade point average.
😅
Please explain the term "reverse watermelon." I know what a watermelon is in political terms. It is one who advances socialist or communist causes by presenting them as environmental: Green on the outside, red on the inside. But, what is a "reverse watermelon"? One who advances an environmentalist cause by pretending to be communist?
Bill Clinton put it best when he said that the Democrats stand for people who work hard and play by the rules. If only the fool hadn't fallen for a thong, he'd have gone down in history as one of the best presidents. Still, "work hard and play by the rules" was as "working class" as it gets, but universal and unifying at the same time. It was brilliant, and sadly forgotten.
How far the Democratic Party I supported for so long has strayed! These days, they pay consultants big bucks for "messaging," when "work hard and play by the rules" was as good as it gets, right up there with "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and "make America great again."
Is it a class gap? Yes and no. The numbers in the article show it, but as strongly drawn to hard data as I am, one thing I learned in finance was that the numbers, as critical as they are, have their limitations. Numbers are the tool of engineers. I love engineers and engineering, and we are in an engineering culture. But engineering will inevitably focus narrowly, and miss larger realities. This is why I am a huge fan of liberal arts, even if your average sociology professor makes me grind my teeth.
Back to Bill Clinton. I will say it again: "Work hard and play by the rules" is pure factory worker (I worked in two factories, and in potato fields and a rock quarry along the way), but it was universal. It applied from top to bottom, excluding the lazy and the criminal while favoring the productive. Any CEO could recognize it in his personal affairs, as much as the people who cooked and served his dinner in a fancy restaurant. Work hard and play by the rules. It was American idealism and pragmatism at its very best. It is how those of us who pay the bills in this joint live, fer chrissakes!
So now we have a Democratic Party run by rich "progressives" who for some reason don't think about working hard and playing by the rules, even though it's how they got to where they are. Their top priorities have nothing to do with climbing the ladder. Why? Because they already climbed it, and like Thurston Howell III from "Gilligan's Island," climbing the ladder isn't even on their radar screen.
I don't think there's as much class difference as all of this implies. I think something else is at play, encapsulated by two things my departed father would always say: "Never forget where you came from" and "Everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time." The nouveau riche "progressives" who have come to run the Democratic Party don't want to think about how they climbed the ladder, or how the rest of America is forever trying to. Why not? What makes these people think they are so god damn special that they are above it all? Grrrrr.
The issue for the Democrats is how to hold the college educated voters that everyone hates here while addressing the issues that everyone loves here. Maybe it is impossible and, like the GOP from 1932 until recently, the Democrats will only win elections when the opposing party has a bad candidate or otherwise screws up. As most here seem to love the Trump agenda on tariffs, immigration, climate and crime, maybe that's not so bad and we should just quit worrying about the Democrats?
I am college educated and damn proud of both my undergrad education and my Wharton MBA. The difference between myself and "progressives" is that I have never looked down on those who didn't go to college. In fact, the smartest American I've ever known (measured I.Q., 164) dropped out of college and rescued his grandfather and father's farm. Stop being such a smug "progressive" snob.
The Democrats will welcome working class people back into the party when they finally shed their deplorable views. This comes across loud and clear in the Dems’ constant smug and condescending rhetoric. I’m not even convinced they’ll take the House in the midterms, bar a political catastrophe for the Rs.
It’s easier for Dems to dismiss problems with the economy, immigration, and crime, because as a group, they’re less affected by them. Though I’ll admit that I’m completely stumped on how people who hector us to “follow the science” can claim that men can become women, that a man dressed as a female in the women’s changing room is not creepy (and threatening) at all, and that their brand of racism is virtuous.
How can the party claim to want to “save democracy” when it lied about Biden’s condition, barred competition against him in the primaries, and anointed a candidate who had never even been in one single primary?
How does gerrymandering in California save democracy? I know Texas is doing it too. The solution to antidemocratic methods isn’t doubling down on them.
I’m at a loss. I’m angry. I’m frightened about where this is leading.
The Republicans can be cruel, but right now the Dems strike me as being more the dangerous party.
Check out the senators who are up for reelection in 2028 and 2030. Even if the Democrats somehow hold on to *all* of their current seats in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania they are still a decided minority in the senate. And the next census will be bringing such demographic changes that it will be much harder for a Democrat to win the Electoral College. They Democrat senators in these swing states are basically serving at the pleasure of Republican-oriented voters in these purple/reddish states. My point is that they are way worse off than it appears with regard to the senate and probably the electoral college. Is there any hope? Think about the current Republican Party which managed to cobble together a ruling plurality (barely) by going full-on populist in 2016. How incredibly different is the 2024 GOP from the 2014 GOP? This should give hope to the Democrats. Can Democrats pull off a similar metamorphosis? I think that is the question that Ruy is asking. As one of those white, college educated (sort of) Republicans I can actually see the Democrats' being able to pull it off. It wouldn't really take much more than agreeing to work with Trump on some of his favorite issues. The country is desperate for comity and true bipartisanship on *anything*. But the current leadership in Washington seems incapable of this change (both sides). So it take a big change on the part of the Democratic voters to replace these leaders. There are still very strong Democrats at the state level. And Trump's "landslide" was only in the Electoral College. Yes, he won all the swing states, but other than Arizona they were all relatively close. This moment in time feels like the ship is sailing into the fog and the lights on the ship are beginning to fade into the darkness for the Democrats. There is still time to signal to the ship to come back, but it seems like that moment is rapidly closing. I don't want to live in a country governed exclusively by either of these dysfunctional parties.