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As soon as I saw the thread title I suspected who would be dumb enough to argue for the doubling down on a failed strategy, and lo and behold, if it wasn't ol' Jeff. It was completely obvious that Donald Trump was an odious crock of poo poo back in November, and the Republican base still voted for him. And they'll do it again for him (or an even viler GOP candidate) in 2020, while the milquetoast centrism bullshit and taking their base for granted will likely sink the dems again unless they try actually fighting for something and not just expect to win by default because they're the ~lesser evil~.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:12
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Ze Pollack posted:Your anti-Trump strategy, in its entirety, consists of trying to say Trump's name enough to make people not like him. It has been abundantly, painfully demonstrated to you that this is insufficient. Donald Trump is your president, and all the saying "trump bad" millions of dollars in Wall Street donors could buy not only couldn't get you Pennsylvania, it actively lost you the rust belt, because people were willing to take a chance on such an awful candidate just to avoid having to be ruled by the same old democratic establishment. Either you did not read the OP or you are really bad at reading. quote:There’s no reason why we cannot frame anti-capitalist sentiment as anti-trump. For instance: If your summary is "scream trump's name and then blame leftists" I'm not sure how successful our discussion is going to be in a written medium.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:14
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JeffersonClay posted:
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Mar 6, 2017 19:19
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JeffersonClay posted:But attacking Trump on Russia is making it impossible for Trump to focus on his agenda Things that Trump has already done that Democrats haven't made a goddamn peep about :
But please, keep playing cold warriors while the GOP enacts their actual policies.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:22
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That's obviously not the strategy Clinton used, and your constant whining about how democrats are just as bad as republicans is not actually germane to the discussion other than to out you as a moron who should be ignored.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:23
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JeffersonClay posted:Either you did not read the OP or you are really bad at reading. Your olive branch to the leftist boogeymen that haunt your nightmares is that we will add "because capitalism" to Trump Bad. One candidate offered a host of grandiose ideas there was no way he could ever deliver on that would (through mechanisms that ranged from poorly-defined to outright lies) make people's lives better. One candidate offered Trump Bad. The American people knew Trump Bad. It turns out the ones that mattered didn't care. Trump offered them something. Hillary offered them Trump Is Bad. And your proposition is that we just shout that Trump is bad harder this time.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:30
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Jeffferson Clay the problem is it isn't just Trump. The whole of the GOP is the problem, and we should make it clear that the things you are saying Trump represents are evils that have to be fought, and are not just what will be talked about to win. You have to inspire the people to vote, not just read platitudes.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:32
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JeffersonClay posted:That's obviously not the strategy Clinton used, and your constant whining about how democrats are just as bad as republicans is not actually germane to the discussion other than to out you as a moron who should be ignored.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:32
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Kilroy posted:Yeah but leftists and "Sanders people" are totally welcome in the party! Just don't say things centrists might not like to hear! Because then you can get hosed! We must seek common cause with moderate republicans to work against Donald Trump. Also, anyone who says shouting Trump Bad was not a winning strategy must be purged from the party immediately.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:38
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Kilroy posted:It's weird that you parse "it wasn't technically a secret ballot" as "it was a secret ballot". It was not a secret ballot - I was saying that in the other thread too. Keeping the results from the public was also against their claims of wanting a more transparent process. I'm also glad they released the results and it seems we're in 100% agreement here on this issue, so I don't know why you keep coming after me for... whatever it is. did they release the vote tally? i haven't received anything yet.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:47
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Ze Pollack posted:We must seek common cause with moderate republicans to work against Donald Trump. Also, anyone who says shouting Trump Bad was not a winning strategy must be purged from the party immediately. I got news for you, the moderates don't exist. You might as well go out into the woods and look for a pink unicorn.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:50
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Ze Pollack posted:We must seek common cause with moderate republicans to work against Donald Trump. Also, anyone who says shouting Trump Bad was not a winning strategy must be purged from the party immediately. *poses for a selfie with GWB* (Seriously though. gently caress Democrats for spending the last 2 weeks rehabilitating the image of that mouth-breathing war criminal.)
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Mar 6, 2017 19:52
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I think pushing the anti-Russia thing is important because holy poo poo if it pans out, but I'm very wary of a strategy that attempts to associate everything bad with Trump and then trying to tar future opponents by tying them to Trump. I don't think I see that succeeding very well. Like this:quote:Trump = Wall street greed and corruption I just don't see this playing out so neatly. I mean, it's hard to say how things will play out with Trump right now, but it seems like it would be pretty easy for the other side to label Trump as something far outside the norm and make comparisons to him seem outlandish. It seems like one gamble on whether you can successfully tie that stuff to him, and then another gamble on whether people will buy the comparison to him down the line. Personally I'm thinking the more effective strategy will be to focus more on policy and less on the man. Specifically, I'd say there are two prongs to this. First, point out specific things he and the Republicans are doing that cause direct harm to people. Just saying "he's got connections to Wall Street! that's bad!" isn't really going to be a winning strategy I don't think, but if you can connect that to actual outcomes I think it becomes more effective (like pointing out how some rule he changed made student loan payments go up or something, I think that's something he's done already?). The second is advocating for our policies in broad terms. When you're attacking something, specifics are good since you can be like "see, this is what's loving you." But when promoting something, broad terms are just an easier sell. For one, it's easier to get a simple message to penetrate: "medicare for all" or "paid parental leave for all" is a much easier thing for people to wrap their heads around than "lower the medicare age by X, increase marketplace subsidies by $X" or "require 60 days of parental leave, during which you'll get at least 2/3rds of your normal paycheck". Some might call it a lie, in that you may expect a zero percent chance of getting those things passed, but I think "promising Good Thing, fighting for Good Thing, and then delivering Compromise Thing" isn't really a lie even if you know "Good Thing" is impossible from the start—or if it is, it's within the bounds of the lies people from every politician anyway. It's also easier to keep the party together while out of power if things stay broad. "More and better healthcare" is an objective of everyone in the democratic party, but how to achieve it varies. Infighting should be saved for after a majority in congress is obtained and an actual bill is being hammered out. The Republicans did a pretty good job of this, with 100% lockstep opposition to "Obamacare" despite not at all being in agreement about what to replace it with (if anything). Basically it comes down to convincing people that having Republicans in power makes their lives worse, and putting Democrats in power will make their lives better. Just pointing out how terrible a person Trump is won't be that effective in encouraging turnout if people don't connect that to how it will have an actual impact on their lives.
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Mar 6, 2017 20:01
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If we keep praising Republican Presidents, Republican voters will have to vote for us. Nobody loves Reagan more than me. I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:08
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Kilroy posted:Yeah but leftists and "Sanders people" are totally welcome in the party! Just don't say things centrists might not like to hear! Because then you can get hosed! z0glin Warchief posted:I think pushing the anti-Russia thing is important because holy poo poo if it pans out, but I'm very wary of a strategy that attempts to associate everything bad with Trump and then trying to tar future opponents by tying them to Trump. I don't think I see that succeeding very well. The anti Russia stuff will, at minimum, get us into Trump's finances, and even if there's nothing criminal there will be plenty that's gross, and it will be really easy to use those new scandals to power an anti-capitalist narrative. If we choose to take it that direction. quote:I just don't see this playing out so neatly. I mean, it's hard to say how things will play out with Trump right now, but it seems like it would be pretty easy for the other side to label Trump as something far outside the norm and make comparisons to him seem outlandish. It seems like one gamble on whether you can successfully tie that stuff to him, and then another gamble on whether people will buy the comparison to him down the line. quote:Personally I'm thinking the more effective strategy will be to focus more on policy and less on the man. Specifically, I'd say there are two prongs to this. First, point out specific things he and the Republicans are doing that cause direct harm to people. Just saying "he's got connections to Wall Street! that's bad!" isn't really going to be a winning strategy I don't think, but if you can connect that to actual outcomes I think it becomes more effective (like pointing out how some rule he changed made student loan payments go up or something, I think that's something he's done already?). quote:The second is advocating for our policies in broad terms. When you're attacking something, specifics are good since you can be like "see, this is what's loving you." But when promoting something, broad terms are just an easier sell. For one, it's easier to get a simple message to penetrate: "medicare for all" or "paid parental leave for all" is a much easier thing for people to wrap their heads around than "lower the medicare age by X, increase marketplace subsidies by $X" or "require 60 days of parental leave, during which you'll get at least 2/3rds of your normal paycheck". Some might call it a lie, in that you may expect a zero percent chance of getting those things passed, but I think "promising Good Thing, fighting for Good Thing, and then delivering Compromise Thing" isn't really a lie even if you know "Good Thing" is impossible from the start—or if it is, it's within the bounds of the lies people from every politician anyway. quote:It's also easier to keep the party together while out of power if things stay broad. "More and better healthcare" is an objective of everyone in the democratic party, but how to achieve it varies. Infighting should be saved for after a majority in congress is obtained and an actual bill is being hammered out. The Republicans did a pretty good job of this, with 100% lockstep opposition to "Obamacare" despite not at all being in agreement about what to replace it with (if anything). They achieved this unity by being focused against Obama and against obama's policies, which is exactly the strategy I'm advocating here. quote:Basically it comes down to convincing people that having Republicans in power makes their lives worse, and putting Democrats in power will make their lives better. Just pointing out how terrible a person Trump is won't be that effective in encouraging turnout if people don't connect that to how it will have an actual impact on their lives.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:11
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JeffersonClay posted:The vast majority of leftists have no difficulty telling the difference between the parties and I think it's pretty lovely to demean them all by suggesting they're as dumb as you and kingfish.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:17
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JeffersonClay posted:Trump is going to leave office in disgrace. Counterpoint: Nothing will come of this and Trump is going to win in 2020 because the opposition was too busy trying to pin scandals on him that they didn't create a lasting political movement. Slick Willie survived impeachment and left office with a high approval rating.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:21
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Hey JC. https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/837801549371932672
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Mar 6, 2017 21:21
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 i was on the fence as to whether the Russia freakout was good political strategy but surprise! it doesn't matter because it's the democratic party and media trying to execute it so lol of course it wasn't
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Mar 6, 2017 21:26
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This shows Democratic Party favorability going up before the election and then returning to the baseline after the loss. We know large majorities of democrats and independents think the issue is important. This isn't at all convincing. Frijolero posted:Counterpoint: Nothing will come of this and Trump is going to win in 2020 because the opposition was too busy trying to pin scandals on him that they didn't create a lasting political movement. There's no inherent problem in using anti-trump sentiment to create a lasting political movement. if trump is able to recover from the endless scandals, implement his agenda, and secure a positive approval rating we're hosed regardless. This scandal is literally the only lever we have to push on right now. Your plan requires us to wait for years before we have any plausible means to resist in any substantive way.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:34
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Why does that have to be because of Russia in particular? That graph goes back two years. I read that as "Democrats utter fecklessness in the face of a mortal threat to the Republic makes them the second-most* hated political party in America". * I'm just assuming the GOP remains the most hated party, but I'm open to evidence otherwise.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:35
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JeffersonClay posted:This shows Democratic Party favorability going up before the election and then returning to the baseline after the loss. We know large majorities of democrats and independents think the issue is important. This isn't at all convincing. You did a masterful job unskewing that poll. As for your second point, you demonstrate the lack of imagination I've come to expect from a deep-party stooge. You literally believe that if Trump doesn't destroy himself then there is nothing the DNC can do to win voters.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:39
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JeffersonClay posted:This scandal is literally the only lever we have to push on right now. Your plan requires us to wait for years before we have any plausible means to resist in any substantive way. Uhhhh... There's a million things that we could be doing that aren't Russophobia. Why do you people think that not attacking Trump on Russia is akin to surrendering? Here's my plan: Shut the gently caress up about Russia. Ready ourselves for the elections next year by putting forth a progressive program that working class Americans can get behind. Attack Trump's terrible policies, not his terrible personality. And give the voters some goddamn credit instead of assuming that they'll vote for you just because you're not Trump.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:42
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The Kingfish posted:As for your second point, you demonstrate the lack of imagination I've come to expect from a deep-party stooge. You literally believe that if Trump doesn't destroy himself then there is nothing the DNC can do to win voters. I think the comparison to Berlusconi most apt, and that the lesson to take from that, is that focusing on the scandals will not give you the results you expect, to the degree you expect. The right loves to focus on the scandals of the left when they're out of power, but expecting that to translate into disgust for their own people when they do even worse is too optimistic, and if anything it appears to encourage turnout, not depress it. That's probably because the right loves to piss off liberals more than actually enacting any single point of policy, and what better way to do that than to elect someone utterly hideous?
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Mar 6, 2017 21:51
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Just a friendly reminder that Zizek was extremely right when like a decade ago he was talking about the new face of authoritarianism being vulgar and cartoonish ala Berlusconi.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:57
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IF Trump has destroyed himself it will be with this Russia scandal. And the only way this Russia scandal destroys him is if it takes him out of office. Which I'm not convinced is a good thing.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:00
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Congressional democrats do not have any power to block Trump's policies or appointments. The only way we can resist trump in any substantive way is to push this scandal and use it to disrupt Trump's agenda. It should not be the only thing we talk about--we should make a lot of noise about his lovely policies too-- but the alternative y'all are proposing is powered by unicorn farts, or requires us to wait 2 or 4 years before it starts working. It's possible this scandal goes nowhere but it sure doesn't look like that right now.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:03
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JeffersonClay posted:Congressional democrats do not have any power to block Trump's policies or appointments. we still have the filibuster, you know.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:17
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And pushing the trump/Russia scandal does nothing to take it away. A "filibuster everything" strategy is necessarily an anti-trump strategy, regardless. JeffersonClay fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 22:30
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The Kingfish posted:IF Trump has destroyed himself it will be with this Russia scandal. And the only way this Russia scandal destroys him is if it takes him out of office. Which I'm not convinced is a good thing. Impeachment is a bad move no matter which way you slice it. At best you get president Pence, who's just as crazy as Trump but less stupid. He also would have significantly greater support from the establishment which means that that he'd meet less institutionalized resistance to his agenda. Then you have the possibility that working with the deep state to remove a democratically elected president will lead to significant backlash. Particularly if the charges against him are bullshit or even just too vague for the average person to grasp. The right could flip its poo poo and embrace someone even worse the next time around and considering that the Democrats still haven't learned anything from the last year odds are this person will win too.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:47
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To be honest, pushing the Russia narrative doesn't bother me, as it has paid some dividends already (although contributed to in part by the incompetence of the Trump people). What does bother me is that when it is used as a central narrative that ultimately relies on smoking gun evidence that either Trump is some Russian stooge or that the Russians hacked voting machines in order to come to full fruition. Without that smoking gun at the end of it, the narrative is a band aid solution that keeps the democrats from resolving their internal contradictions that results in their terrible messaging. A Russia narrative will NOT allow Joe Donnelly in Indiana to keep his senate seat come 2018.
MooselanderII fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 22:49
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Trump getting impeached necessarily means republicans voted to impeach him which means their coalition blows up. I'll take mike pence leading a rump party with the Trumpenproles screaming for GOP blood over the status quo any day. That outcome would also help out every democrat in every election. Fracturing the GOP guarantees democrats win more elections.
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Mar 6, 2017 23:00
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The anti-Trump strategy leftists are against is the one where democrats put substance on the back burner while hollering about how they aren't Trump, and look how uncouth Trump is, and look at these ancient conservative ghouls who we paid to say "we don't like Trump." If dems actually appeared to be doing the poo poo in the OP you'd have a lot of leftists on board, but dems have lost the faith of the left audience that they are building a hard-on-Wall-Street, tax-the-rich, pro-working class party. In other words, the absence of a coherent push toward what the OP is suggesting is exactly what a lot of leftists have been complaining about. Because they bailed out Wall Street instead of homeowners, because they pushed back hard against Bernie, because they just had to run Perez, because Steve Beshear was trotted out to spout weird senile platitudes after the Congressional address, because dems have waffled about the minimum wage, because they want to get rich old whites to vote dem instead of rallying non-voters, because union rights keep evaporating . . . (before you protest, I'm talking about how the left sees things, not necessarily what was possible or how things actually happened. It should be abundantly clear by now that how things look is extremely important and that it isn't always possible, much less worth trying, to bring how the left sees things and how dems see things into alignment. Debating the above left viewpoints would be a useless derail for the thread). For the left, democrats have no remaining credibility on this stuff. When democrats demonstrate they're doing the stuff in the OP, leftists will be on board in greater and greater percentages. The left hates Trump as much or more than the next guy. After all, you don't see left pubs writing equivocating bullshit about Trump's lies like The Fix (fair to call it centrist, I think) published today. But democrats have failed in many ways and there hasn't been much convincing about their opposition yet. Embrace of the Russian stuff with so little hard evidence and praying for "deep state" intervention looks really bad when it looks like you can't get your poo poo together besides.
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Mar 6, 2017 23:02
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JeffersonClay posted:The only way we can resist trump in any substantive way is to push this scandal .... but the alternative y'all are proposing is powered by unicorn farts, or requires us to wait 2 or 4 years before it starts working. You are dangerously unimaginative and a terrible advocate for the party. It's really telling that you think putting out a solid, working class message is "unicorn farts." Bernie and Trump are popular because they promised to create an economy which benefitted the lower and middle classes. It's not rocket science. Drop the bullshit and start addressing the needs of the voters. Exactly this. Thank you. Frijolero fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 23:33
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Frijolero posted:It's really telling that you think putting out a solid, working class message is "unicorn farts." That idea isn't powered by unicorn farts. It does, however, require winning an election before it will have any power to resist Trump. So it certainly gives him two, and very likely four years of unrestrained crazy. Pushing the Russia scandal has the potential to stymie his agenda right now. I don't disagree with the strategy in general, and it would be entirely consistent with a strategy that opposes trump and his policies. We just paint the republicans as a party of and for Trump and his ilk, and the democrats as the party of and for everyone else.
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Mar 7, 2017 00:36
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JeffersonClay posted:That idea isn't powered by unicorn farts. It does, however, require winning an election before it will have any power to resist Trump. So it certainly gives him two, and very likely four years of unrestrained crazy. Pushing the Russia scandal has the potential to stymie his agenda right now. I disagree to an extent. Trump is a logical conclusion to the GOP on it's current course for the past generation. We must work to not only undermine Trump but to anhilate that party.
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Mar 7, 2017 00:48
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I agree, breaking the republicans should be our goal. It's going to take an impeachment to have any hope of fracturing the die hard trump supporters from the rest, so our best bet is to tie trump to the republicans so when he goes down in flames they will too. "Trump is the logical endpoint of GOP philosophy" is exactly the kind of idea we should be pushing, although I'm sure we could state it in a sexier way.
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Mar 7, 2017 00:55
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Breaking the republicans. Impeachment. RESIST. PROTEST. It's so obvious the kind of person proposing such things. The same kind of kid that starts on the first day and wants to change everything. The uni grad that with his undergrad degree wants to tell us how much they know about it, because they learned it at University! Trump isn't bad. He won, won against one of the most experienced White Housers out there. To quote Bill Burr 'this guy was tripping over 3 coffee tables a day, for weeks on end, and Hillary still managed to gently caress it up'. You could say something here like if you stopping trying to sling poo poo and focused more on why Hillary lost so badly, why so many people clearly are sick of the left wing poo poo, what is actually fair debate and what is just outrage culture.. then maybe you might have a chance. But you're talking to a group of people that delight in shouting down others, delight in their Internet victories and their acceptance by a group of strangers they'll never actually know. It happens on these forums all the time. Increasingly there are two groups of people, those that do poo poo and make mistakes and the second group are those that post about it. I personally don't give a poo poo about the posters, commentators, 'journalists'.. it's those actually doing things that are worth my attention. If those people say some politically incorrect things, that's fine because I've been introduced to an animal that is always politically correct, has heaps of Facebook likes and a million Instagram followers, one of the 'Best Posters' on these forums and they're actually.. nothing. Just a popularity vessel, a barely sentient being pushed and pulled by the tides of human stupidity. gently caress those people, focus in on those doing interesting things, not those commentating on it!
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Mar 7, 2017 01:59
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OP, how old are you and what do you do for a living? You can go ahead and make poo poo up, if you need to.
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Mar 7, 2017 02:03
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JeffersonClay posted:I agree, breaking the republicans should be our goal. It's going to take an impeachment to have any hope of fracturing the die hard trump supporters from the rest, so our best bet is to tie trump to the republicans so when he goes down in flames they will too. "Trump is the logical endpoint of GOP philosophy" is exactly the kind of idea we should be pushing, although I'm sure we could state it in a sexier way. And this framing is why you have failed and continue to fail. You do not have to convince Republicans that Trump is bad. They know he is bad. They do not care. You do not have to convince the people who voted for Obama that Trump is bad. They know he is bad. They did not care enough to vote. You need to convince the people who did not vote for Hillary Clinton that the Democratic Party is worth voting for. And you have yet to come up with an answer beyond "because Trump is bad."
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Mar 7, 2017 02:07
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