Democrats organize to fight back

[The Wonkette]

(12-14-2016, 08:20 AM)Odin Wrote:

(12-13-2016, 06:22 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-13-2016, 05:16 PM)Odin Wrote:

(12-13-2016, 10:46 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-09-2016, 04:11 PM)FLBones Wrote: Exactly. Democrats need to come up with their own populist, anti establishment candidate whom appeals to the working classs if they want to win. That person will have to be someone who is anti-globalism, anti-illegal immigration, anti-free trade, etc. He probably would have to more authoritarian like. A lot of Americans want someone who is a strong and decisive leader and will get us through tough times.

The Democrats need to transform themselves from the PC party of special pleaders to a broader party focused on defending the not-elite in total.  Other than Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren, there aren't a lot of Bernie-types to draw on. 

Assume this is not a single cycle problem.  Being effective as a broad-based party of the non-elite will take more than a white knight POTUS.  They will need the Congress and state offices first.  That's a decade at a minimum.

IMO the big problem is that the party has lost it's sense of the guiding principle behind the current party coalition, that guiding principle is being the party that supports whoever is getting screwed over by the economically or socially privileged, be it working class whites, women, minorities, LGBT folks, etc. To quote Poppy Bush, we lack "the vision thing" right now. We are at risk of decomposing into our various competent groups because of the increasingly narcissistic "my pet issue is the most important and if you don't agree you are a reactionary shitlord" mentality of the activist wing of the party.

Your last sentence hit the point exactly.  The herd-of-cats party is so incoherent that it is literally a organ for spouting the talking point of the minute from the cause of the hour.  Worse, the special pleaders that feel fully entitled to petition for full and unwavering support of the party have forgotten (assuming they ever knew) that reciprocity is mandatory ... unless losing is the goal.

The Dems need to move the social issues off page one, and focus on two issues 95% of the time: inequality and upward mobility as their economic message and global warming as the primary foreign policy objective.  It also wouldn't hurt to show some cojones when threatening foreign powers try to play them.  I don't expect it will happen, but I can hope.

IMO one of the huge mistakes the Clinton campaign made was not attacking Trump the same way Obama attacked Romney as a evil rich POS. She should have spammed the airwaves with ads with stories from all the people and companies fleeced by him. No, instead the campaign made it about "we are oh-so enlightened, they are all deplorable bigots".

Odin, you got it exactly right.  The campaign should have presented Trump as the con man he is.