Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

I know this is a smaller target to aim for and thus trickier to hit, but I really do want to talk about (american-style) liberals, not leftists. I think we have a generational issue here where SA posters mostly know fellow young people, who, if they are into politics at all, tend to hold very strong, rigid opinions and share them freely. But that's not what most older people are like.

I want to talk about the group that's huge, but during the election at least, seemed entirely invisible to D&D. Regular non-angry, non-puritiy-testing liberals who punch a straight-D ballot every four years and go home. Happy Hillary voters - there were a lot of them, no matter how impure she seemed to people here. Those people didn't evaporate overnight when the election happened, and I'm really curious where those people are going to go and what they're going to do.

They are frightened by leftism and as you guys have rightly pointed out, the left is likely to become more uncompromising, for good and for ill. But we aren't talking about the left, unless it's in the framework of how they can mobilize the liberals. We have a huge chunk of mostly-inert voters that we could make use of, but not if we ignore them and not if we deride them. Ignore the presidential elections for a minute - most people in this country vote by party lines no matter what. We'll never have anybody not funded by the pharmeceutical industry to run for president if we don't build up governors, senators, mayors, city council members, school boards, and for my own personal safety please, DAs and judges. How do we get them to show up in off-year elections, use their old-people wealth and status to put pressure on institutions, to act?

How do we radicalize your mom?