The Fight Outside Cities

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Hey all. I just read a pair of articles on Politico (as I am wont to do). The first is about electing progressive politicians in Alaska. The second was about an Indiana rural Democrat.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...cs-2018-216304

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...indiana-216273

So I thought I'd drop these two here and basically ask two questions:

One - Is it even possible at this point for the City-centric base of the Democratic party to realize how/why they are failing politically?

Two - If the answer to that first question is yes, how can the Democratic party re-approach these issues without alienating its base but still bringing in voters that may agree on 80% of the broad points with 20% of hardcore disagreement.

The interesting thing about this to me is it always brings to mind LBJ. A president the progressives of his day hated (the Kennedy boner still exists to this day despite the number of hawkishness - Vietnam is precipitated by his policies and lack of actual legislative civil rights success), but actually got more progressive policy done in his time than the vast majority. Anyway this brought to you by a flight that lent itself to some reading.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

My answers -

One - No I don't think it is. I think in the second article, it really highlights how (perhaps partially due to right wing radio) there are some core issues that Democrats in the city have drawn hard lines on. In their dominant position within their party, they will be loathe to compromise on them within their own party even if that means people like Trump get elected. You can see that behavior with white and black millenials in the Clinton loss. Ultimately, Democrats still don't understand what Grover Norquist in the Republican party did - you have to build a coaition.

You can see that distaste for centrists and perhaps socially conservative democrats. Which is interesting because really the only thing you need to do to fix that is make sure your party is "live and let live." That is, if you just brand yourself with a splash of libertarian "let people live their lives as long as they're not actively hurting someone" and worry less about how woke they are, you allow multiple groups that have a few vehement disagreements to actually execute the policies they both agree on.

On Two - this is where I think the only thing that works here is top down. For better or worse you can see the Democratic party's stances largely evolving in accordance with dominant blogs in their constituency. Things like Jezebel, HuffPo, etc. aren't any different (in terms of influence) then Brietbart/Fox, etc. So I think what you actually need is those sites which have pet issues engaging actively with fellow progressive "others." I'm not sure that's financially viable, but ultimately you need the resources for both rural and urban progressives to see each other as progressives again.

Whereas right now you literally have progressives running around in MAGA hats.

[s_stabeler]

I disagree- partly because I don't think Trump's election was actually a rejection of Obama's actual policies. the problem is more that Trump was undeniably a grassroots candidate- in that he was elected despite the RNC not wanting him as a candidate- while Clinton was always considered "the candidate of the party elite"- and never really developed the same grassroots support Obama had. What the Democrats need to do is 1) when there's been a divisive race for the nomination, put some effort into reuniting the party's base around the candidate, rather than assuming. 2) shore up your base (the "blue wall" before trying to flip more states blue. 3) pay attention to what supporters actually want- which is what's happening in Alaska- since candidates are building local support, not relying on the national party, they're succeeding where an imposed candidate wouldn't.

[Judecat]

D Yeti Esquire -- may I steal your second paragraph -- because that's what I've been trying to say for a while. It seems to me that instead of working on what is good for America, in general, they are too busy courting the special interest groups. I'm a life long Democrate -- I live in the big city, and I'm fairly well educated for my age group, but I am not a radical, I'm not a screaming liberal. And since I know that the far left is just as messed up as the far left, I don't fully support either. I'm more likely to vote for a moderate, centrist republican than a extreme liberal democrat. I'm just not as good at summing up my ideas as you are.

[s_stabeler]

while true, I'm not sure the actual politics are the problem. In some ways, Obama and Trump are two sides of the same coin- they both had a fundamental message that summed up their campaign. Obama's was Hope and Change- which is why people became disillusioned when entrenched interests blocked him when he tried-while Trump's message was "Make America Great Again"- by, as far as I can tell, sucking up to big corporations, acting like classroom bullies, and utterly ignoring any criticism.(and the classroom bullies bit he all but admitted to in his actual campaign- making Mexico pay for a border wall, various diplomatic blunders he intended to make...)

Basically, Clinton never really explained why she should be President apart from being a woman and one of the Democrat elite. hence why it wasn't exactly difficult for the Trump campaign to smear her. Would people have paid attention to the email scandal if she had set out a coherent vision of how she would run America? I doubt it. (oh, and before the debate about the rights and wrongs of it: it turns out Trump's lot promptly set up their own private email servers when they got in, so Clinton probably was just following usual practice)