by GftNC
One of my problems with the new settings, particularly since we now have a much greater frequency and number of threads (added to the short, if original size, list of Recent Comments), is that the list of Recent Posts is so short. It’s got harder to go back and check what is the right thread to put a comment in. So I am posting this from the NYT, a column by Chris Hayes headlined “The Democrats’ Main Problem Isn’t Their Message“, which I found an important topic (and which we have skirted around several times), for an Open Politics Thread!
Chris Hayes might be right: “I think we increasingly live in a postgaffe, even a postscandal society.” Or he might be wrong.
But I say this much is true: “electability” ain’t what it used to be. John Kerry was more “electable” than Howard Dean. Hillary Clinton was more “electable” than Barack Obama. Then she was more “electable” than Bernie Sanders. Was “electability” what got He, Trump nominated in 2016? Not by the pundits’ definition of “electability”, I think.
It encourages me that Democratic office holders have started to use (some of) George Carlin’s seven words. Some Americans may still be priggish enough to hold it against them, but a lot more Americans use all seven of those words in everyday conversation.
Alas, everyday conversation is seldom about politics. Maybe it’s different in “swing” states, but here in MA we libruls seldom “talk politics” with friends and neighbors who might be MAGAts. So they (and we, I suppose) only get information and hear opinions from “the media” — mass or social, but mainly personally selected. Sticking to conversation about the weather or the local sportsball team is The American Way, I guess.
–TP
Trump goes online and runs his mouth (fingers?) about make coal great again. The MSM covers his orders to keep a big coal-fired power plant in Michigan running. How do you get coverage, online or otherwise, for the other side of that story? (1) The Dept of the Interior tried to auction rights to 167M tons of coal on federal lands in Montana last week. The only bid was for $185,000 — yes, less than a penny per ton — and was rejected. As a result, the follow-on auction for land in Wyoming was postponed indefinitely. (2) The LA Dept of Water and Power announced they would retire their last coal-fired generation in Utah next month, as scheduled. (3) My little local power authority has days like the one shown in this figure.
lj, thanks for lengthening the Recent Posts list, and also for sorting out my link!
How do you get coverage, online or otherwise, for the other side of that story?
Good question. My feeling is that much of the media is being played by the savviest manipulators of the news cycle. Trump gets way too much air time for what amounts to disinformation, so do Netanyahu and the IDF, Farage and previously Johnson.
Speaking to novakant’s point, I’ve been looking for clips from the New York mayoral debate and I’m really surprised that I don’t see any. These should be things that would think my algorithm would serve up, and I’m seeing nothing. Here’s the whole debate, at 2 hours, it is probably not something folks are going to sit thru, but I think Mamdani really ate Cuomo’s lunch, so I’m wondering why the attention machine hasn’t fed me any of those soundbites.
You would think that charisma would be an obvious criterion for success in contemporary electoral politics, but somewhat oddly, that’s less often the case than it would appear.
IMO, this is it.
Trump is exceptionally charismatic. his message curdles my soul, so i can’t even stand to watch the guy on SNL imitate him. but he speaks and acts in a way that, if you are at all open to his message, you will find him charming.
it’s why he can flout political norms and why his shamelessness works. people are willing to ignore his fuckups because they like him and think he’s on their side.
2020 Biden was charismatic, in his way. but that Biden wasn’t available in 2024.
Harris is not charismatic, but Walz is. and it’s a shame they shut down his best attack: “weird”. they should have made that the entire campaign, IMO. it’s silly and fun, it’s 100% accurate, it doesn’t need a chart to explain, and it was a powerful counter to Trump’s charisma. alas.
Personal charisma is great, recognizing that nobody watches TV anymore so stop spending all your money there is great, understanding how to leverage social media is great.
Recruit the charismatic people, do all those things.
However.
My main criticism of the (D)’s over the last, say, 40 years is that they’ve neglected the areas that aren’t what they see as their places of strength. Rural areas, much of the south, much of the mountain west, to some degree the industrial midwest.
When I say that, people often reply “how can you say that, their policies are much better for those folks”. And in general I think that’s true. But I’m not talking about *policy*. I’m talking about physical presence and local identity.
There are 50 states, 435 Congressional districts, and something north of 3,000 counties or county equivalents in the US. I don’t know how many cities and towns, but a lot of those, too.
There should be a (D) candidate for every public office, in every one of those political units, in every cycle. There is not. My scientific wild-ass guess is that they’re lucky if they field candidates in half of them.
There should be some kind of (D) field office in each of those political units, and the DNC and similar (D)-aligned organizations should be supporting all of them with money and people. They should *not* be telling them how to run their local organization, because the people who live in an area almost certainly know the area better than anybody in the DNC. But they should be supported with money, assistance in recruiting local candidates and volunteers, and with boots on the ground (as they say) during election cycles.
Way back when, Howard Dean developed a 50 state strategy to basically do the above. It worked well. Obama continued it at least for his first run, but since then it’s kind of been abandoned.
There *is* interest in all of those places. Bernie Sanders and AOC have been holding town halls in very red places and thousands of people show up. So at least a basic level of interest is there.
My sense, or belief, is that the (D)’s as an institution have focused on the stuff they sort of know how to do – basically the easy stuff. Solicit big money from rich people in large cities, focus-group their messages to try to polish them up into something that will resonate with “regular people”, lean heavily on the most reliable demographics that they are (more or less) sure to win.
It’s a very top-down, center-of-power-centric approach.
They need to stop spending billions of dollars on consultants and start spending billions of dollars to establish and support *local (D) organizations* in every freaking political unit in the country. And let those organizations take the lead in identifying and understanding the issues that are significant to the people *in those places* and in explaining to those people how they benifit more from (D) policies than from (R) ones. Which, in general, they do. And also let those local folks take the lead in understanding how (D) policies do NOT benefit folks there, so they can evolve policy to address those needs.
Folks in all the places I’m talking about don’t really care all that much what Chuck Schumer says. They might not even care all that much what Trump says other than to find it somewhere between annoying and entertaining.
But they will have a much harder time tuning out what their neighbor says.
The 50 state strategy, but really make it a 50 state, 435 district, 3,000 plus county, every town and city strategy. Support (D) candidates for mayor, town clerk, school board, county sheriff, tax assessor, dog catcher. State senate and house.
And, of course, federal House and Senate. But work from the bottom up.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They’ll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they’ll win some. And over time, they’ll win more.
Patience, persistence, and quit relying on the easy wins.
I think both cleek’s and russell’s suggestions are necessary, but I also think the Dems have fallen seriously behind in taking the message to the people in other ways. It’s a bit like their previous approach to continuing to observe obsolete norms. Talking to various constituencies on the platforms that they use is absolutely necessary. Fox, for example, is almost certainly not where Trump gained his serious advantage with young men in 2024.
My main criticism of the (D)’s over the last, say, 40 years is that they’ve neglected the areas that aren’t what they see as their places of strength. Rural areas, much of the south, much of the mountain west, to some degree the industrial midwest.
The two big political geography stories of the last 35 years are the huge swing from blue to red in the Midwest, and the corresponding swing from red to blue in the West. The 8-state Mountain West now has one more blue US Senator than the 13-state Midwest. The entire 13-state West has nine more than the Midwest. 35 years ago — 1990 — Republicans in California were competitive: legislative seats at the state and national level were close to equally divided, and that year Feinstein lost the election for governor.
The consultants will advise: “hire more consultants”.
But it would be better for the D’s to load the consultants on the B-Ark and send them to Mars to work their magic for Musk.
Reduce/remove TV ads, maybe more radio presence (to the extent it’s possible with consolidation). Radio interviews and call-ins? Cheap.
Setting up boots-on-the-ground costs money, but I would not be surprised if it’s less than what is saved by eliminating consultants and TV ads. That’s less $$$ to be found, and less kowtowing to rich donors, which just causes problems.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They’ll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they’ll win some. And over time, they’ll win more.
I wonder if part if the problem is that, every 4 years, the party sees a Presidential candidate upending ongoing programs in order to do things their way. And it works for them, because they end up outspending the DNC by a substantial amount.
To get something like this in place is going to require changing where (organizationally) money gets raised and allocated. From candidate-centeic to party-centric. That, in turn, will require changing the incentives for donors. Not sure how you do that.
We’re talking about the difference between herding cats and making anxious dogs bark.
The Dems, unlike the GOP, have to bring in the dogs without upsetting the cats and making them scatter. It’s a harder set of victory conditions.
First, though, they have to start talking to people in rural areas, listening to their need, and finding language that connects with those people showing that they are both hearing what was said, and responding with an approach that doesn’t throw any of their urban constituencies under the bus. The Dems need to find common ground for a broad, grassroots solution.
So yeah, send the consultants to Mars and put Walz in charge of listening.
And in other news – I found this Bluesky thread (via BJ) that explains how the Marines managed to hit a CHP motorcycle with shrapnel while the CHP closed down I-5 to let Pete Dog and Couchy posture and pretend to be manly warrior men:
https://bsky.app/profile/bafriedman.bsky.social/post/3m3lh3t342c2z
I’m sure some poor grunt is hating life right now, but whoever in the brass okayed this pointless bit of spectacle is the one who should be shunned.
Not that any of that is going to rouse the Ancient Orange One from his eldritch slumber.
MAGA – Make Abominable Gods Awaken.
Opening fire early and with dreadful aim, a shameful display of incompetence [OK, just the usual far left extremist hate speech against the prime paladins of His most serene Orangeness].
On the record: I wish them facial necrotizing fasciitis (non-lethal but beyond cosmetic surgery to undo), not getting fragged.