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Cindy's avatar

I knew Obama deported a lot of people… I didn’t realize his rhetoric about that. Totally in opposition to current Dems. I think most people are for ‘controlled legal immigration’. It’s hard to understand why progressives don’t see that the migrant influx under Biden affected the poor working class the most. The migrants strain social services, housing and job availability for these Americans. Those financially better off are not affected in this way

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Minsky's avatar
18hEdited

Today there is the added challenge of figuring out how to pierce the bubbles people are living in to get your message out.

For example--manufacturing employment in the U.S. reached a level in February 2023 it hadn't seen since November 2008, and ended Biden's term at a higher level than it was pre-pandemic during Trump's term. (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP)

Clearly none of that got through to blue-collar voters for which bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. was one of the most important political goals they were concerned with. Polling shows they thought manufacturing was declining.

Messaging is just as--if not more--important as actual policy, and too many Democrats, including Biden, are still messaging as if it's the Obama era. The media ecosystem has changed, and their strategies need to change, too. Polished oratory and television ads are on their way out; it's 'authenticity', memes, podcasts, and attention-getting theatrics now. Trump understands this at a primal level, and because the Republican party's whole identity is (some mavericks aside) essentially being Trump acolytes, it has a built-in advantage right now. Mamdani and AOC get it, too--now the Dems need the centrists of the party to get their heads around it, so it's not just the party's leftmost flank piercing the bubble. Folks like Buttigieg show that it can be done, but there's not nearly enough Buttigieg's to go around at the moment.

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