I'm going to say this again and again. It's the messaging, stupid! All of this post-mortem blame being cast upon Democrats for abandoning the working class - it's bullshit. Biden and company have been furiously advancing pro-working class legislation for years, only to be undermined by either the Republicans or the crypto-Republicans like Manchin and Sinema. Minimum wage? Health care access? Prescription drugs? Tax reform? Job-creating infrastructure? Help with children's health and family expense? DEMOCRATS! The problem is that Biden never used his bully pulpit to engage the public, like FDR did, in his fight with the oligarchy and Fox News. He never proclaimed his successes. He was invisible! While Trump kept hogging a spotlight offering criticiusm, promoting despair and negativity. We got out-marketed, damn it. Could we have done better? Sure. Do the neo-liberals and centrists and "elites" of the Party deserve censure? You betcha. Did "woke" stuff like defund the police and transgender rights hurt us? Of course...we got killed by "Amnesty, acid, and abortion" in 1972. But if you play dead (like Merrick Garland) and forget about speaking to the public every day (and not just leaving it to your press secretary or surrogates), you'll get Biden-like approval ratings, even after whupping Trump in 2020. You've got to keep campaigning. Trump did.
I think there is a gap between messaging and reality. There were 8 Democrats that voted against raising the National minimum wage. Democrats have a decision to make do they continue to play both sides of the fence, or do they abandon their corporate masters and actually serve the people.
Are their corporate masters the pharmaceutical or health insurance industries? The banking industries? The oil and gas industries? Well, those are some powerful industries, but they are mostly - not unanimously - opposed by Democrats. But who are their puppets? Guess? REPUBLICANS! And who won the governmental trifecta? REPUBLICANS! By your logic, and all the others who blame the Democrats for policy, the Dems should have won. Something else is going on, something that Trump and Bannon and others understand. And because Dems love to engage in orgies of self-purging and self-criticism, we don’t. We’re not winning the perception battle. The freaking reality is so misperceived it’s insane. It’s why veterans overwhelmingly voted for an anti-veteran president, for f’s sake!
🎯🎯🎯‼️ Daniel, we were carpet bombed by the right wing, Putin supported media from every direction. Big wins for Biden, meh…no need to mention it. Any tv stations in rural and suburban areas not owned by the right wing? NOPE.
THIS WAS A MEDIA BLITZ, a war on information to the American people.
I am so damn sick of the Democrats blaming Democrats while a damn FELON, FASCIST, PSYCHOPATH, SEDITIONIST, RIGHT WING MEDIA once again isn’t mentioned!
Reply to SeekingReason: CORRECT! THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT! RURAL MICHIGAN WAS PLASTERED WITH TRUMP SIGNS. CORPORATE OR WEALTHY OWNED RIGHT-WING MEDIA! THIS WAS A MEDIA BLITZ! SAY IT TEN TIMES.
Our rural Missouri TV station (that's right we have just one that airs all three major networks and controls the TV news around here) is owned by Sinclair and regularly, even during their 6 o'clock news, runs heavily biased pieces. So even if Biden built a huge wall around the entire nation and threw every sitting democratic Senator in prison for life, they'd spin it in a very Red way.
To Seeking Reason. Why have democrats not vigorously opposed lies? Where has AG Merrick Garland been? January 6 committee results were ignored. Kamala was a great candidate to win educated voters but the other half of our citizens lack a college degree. Lots of excuses no action against false Fox news. Excuses for Afghanistan withdrawal and excuses for border chaos are symptoms of dysfunction that is unforgivable in a tactical environment. I am a very old military guy that nobody listens to any more. My Vietnam good neighbor points have expired. Our judiciary has performed well and found Trump and other criminals guilty. Now we are going to declare treason and felony criminals immune from prosecution??? There is no-one to blame but ourselves. Media controls our thoughts but we refuse to identify truth from lies.
I hate to say it, but I DID listen to you, and I think you're right. With all of the ''good groups" supporting the Dems and Harris, none of them were vocal enough either. It is such a crying shame that we are now left with this disastrous Presidency and the emerging ridiculous Administrative people that Trump is appointing. It truly is a circus and would be funny if it weren't that it's now our reality.
A meda blitz of misinformation. That is the basis of Biden's low ratings. The kitchen table issue was blamed on Biden. The cost of living issues were blamed on Biden, when in fact he had nothing to do with it other than providing people some survival money during the pandemic. And he had the lowest rating of any president when in fact he will go down as one of the best presidents in history regardless of what he did or did not do before and during the campaign.
I agree with you with respect to those who voted for Trump.
However, Prof. Reich is focusing on Democratic voters who stayed home and didn't vote at all. I agree that Democrats haven't adequately addressed their economic concerns, but there might be an additional explanation. Perhaps those non-voters can see how appalling Trump is and they wonder how the Biden administration could allow him to freely commit crimes, without ever being held to account. And allow him to become a major party nominee for president. The Black men who are arrested and harshly punished for every misstep, and their female family members, could see clearly how the Democratic administration let a wealthy white man get away with serious crimes. The non-voters might conclude that, when push comes to shove, Democrats don't really care about equal treatment under the law, even if they didn't articulate this feeling to pollsters or in focus groups. The fact that Kamala Harris was a prosecutor probably didn't help.
The prosecution of Trump was too little, too late, and too timid. I think Merrick Garland, in bending over backward to appear non-political, did a lot of damage to the Democratic Party brand.
Wait until we get a load of Matt Gaetz as AG. He won't be too little, too late, too timid. Democrats need to get tougher and stop trying to always be politically correct! Stop playing softball in a hardball game!
Love Michelle Obama and was 100% behind her motto “when they go low we go high”. But I’ve learned MAGA doesn’t play any way but dirty. I knew that about Trump since at least the 80s, but gave more credit than was due to the GOP and my right-leaning fellow Americans. First, dems don’t play dirty enough to compete. Second, dems don’t baffle with bullshit their constituents near to the degree than the other side because they know we won’t bite. Fake news outlets and rightwing lunatic talking heads like Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, and Rogan also have cult-like followings that are impossible to combat. Rogan’s flipflop on Trump and his grip on the twenty-somethings contributed to young first time voting red and young registered dems not voting at all.
MAGA is a good slogan--this is why Trump chose it. Democrats made huge mistake when they attacked the slogan rather than the fraud hiding behind it. Lumping all Trump followers as one amorphous mass of morons might have been emotionally satisfying, but t not smart, to put it mildly.
I don't think that was it. I think you are substituting your dismay with Democrats as an explanation. But we need to find out. Let's start by asking them - and by the way the reasons people give can't be relied upon.
I agree that people often don't reveal the real reasons for their decisions, sometimes because they don't even recognize or acknowledge why they are doing what they do, sometimes because they're ashamed.
I'm not arguing the failure to hold Trump accountable is the entire reason Democrats stayed home, but it could have contributed to the unease many felt that Democrats aren't really working for them. The same Biden DOJ that let Trump go free has vigorously prosecuted two Democratic Hispanic members of Congress: Robert Menendez and Henry Cuellar, and Democratic Black mayor Eric Adams.
MAGA won because the slogan has great appeal. What was the Democrats's slogan? Making American fair for all? Including illegals? We are loss averse, and it is a lot easier to scare us than to give us faith and courage.
It's almost funny to still see Democratic enthusiasts still thinking that damning the evils of Trump will convince the Pubs to go against him. As someone reminded us, it's a cult. They don't care. Their leader can grab pussy, hide taxes, screw his workers, commit treason - he's the one guy who can play the system like a fiddle. We're behind him even more. When we grow up, maybe we can do it too.
Really... what about the fact that the Dems cave on every tax code vote. Congress sets the tax code, so why does anyone think it's only Republicans that are giving tax breaks to the rich? The Dems and Republicans hide behind bullshit spending rules so they don't have to defend philosophical positions on spending. They both drink at the corporate trough, the most honest thing Trump said, was he contributed to both parties. I agree the messaging could be more forceful, but that doesn't get to Democrats looking the other way or compromising to claim victory. Basically, I'm simply saying the Dems need to decide where their morale compass points.
Not really, I blame the fact that politicians put corporate interests before their constitutes. Call it what you want, it happens at every level of government.
Daniel you yourself blame the victim. Haven't you implied that Trump voters are victims of delusion, and that they will be victimized by the choice they made?
Blue abandonment? Look to the Muslims and "principled" leftists.
14 million less people cast a ballot in this election than they did in 2024, quite a few of them were Muslims who said that they wouldn't vote for Biden/Harris. And don't forget the Imams who endorsed Trump.
Then there are the principled "leftists", simps and symps that didn't vote because of the Israel/Gaza thing.
Their reward for being feckless, is Ambassador Mike Huckabee and a Zionist Steve Witikoff as Special Envoy to the middle east.
A just reward, for stupidity.
What part of game over, does every not get. there will be no real election, with a real opposition in 2068, there is as much chance of a come back, as their is of a comeback of Democracy in Hungary or Russia.
Does anyone really think,that there will be a full throated,honest election in 2028?
A fairer economy in the 4th Reich of the Rich, in a demoralized and depleted United States.
Elon Mosca also had his hands in this election by doing something unscrupulous and now U.S is going to be a South Africa Nation! Mosca/Trump's Imperium! 218,000 voters purged in Az alone claiming problems with proving residence! No one has said anything about it! Deplorable situation!
The last election cost more than 10 BILLION dollars! How is being the party of the bottom 90% supposed to work when Citizens United opens the floodgates for the oligarchy and special interests to flood the election process with billions of dollars? The current system does not allow for a fair completion and a true reflection of citizen’s true interests.
The “lost” 9 million votes of those too disgusted to even bother added to the millions of “screw you” votes for Trump and, yes, he does have a mandate to gleefully wreck it all. A vast majority of Americans are frustrated and angry and Trump grotesquely echoed those sentiments. The Democrat's politically-correct stance for “democracy” and inclusion rang untrue with the realities and inequities of the system. It is not so much a mandate for Trump but for the destruction he reeks. He’s the man to “stick it to the man!”
Will the American nation survive this? Perhaps, but it will not emerge as the same dysfunctional nation it has evolved into. The 18th-century American experiment has failed. We need to begin the discussion of how we might replace it to meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.
To your comment about Dems, Kerry, I'd respond that Dems de-regulated banking; Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall. As for Big Oil, Biden approved new drilling permits and did nothing to get rid of government subsidies. Also, Biden went along with the continuation of the privatiztion of Medicare and abandoned his promise about a public healthcare option as soon as he was elected. There are plenty of examples of Dems feeding from the corporate trough.
In other words, Jim is correct here: the Dems are either going to get 100% behind the working people, or they're going to lose more elections. Saying the Biden economy is great doesn't pay the [exorbitant] rent, pay the ever-increasing ACA permiums, or cover rising food and utility costs.
Yes, the messaging must be better, but people's lived experiences must align with that messaging, or it's useless. (and I'm an independent who's never voted R in my life)
There's much more wrong with this letter than I can address. Robert's progressive bias always makes me cringe,but here goes.
1. As seems obvious to me, this election WAS a mandate for trump. For him to have won 32 states and the POPULAR VOTE is a mandate. He had never won the popular vote. This vote for trump was a much more reasoned vote than the other two. The other pro-trump voters were more of a wild eyed, crazy, cultist vote. This time his supporters were more rational in their choice. It wasn't a rejection of Harris as much as it was a pro-trump choice. If anyone was rejected, it was the Biden administration's economy and failed border policy. Of course, there was plenty racism and misogyny involved, too. Neither side was wild about electing a black woman. I hate to keep saying that, but it's just so true.
2. I have to take issue with the notion that today's workers earn less than their grandparents did. Having had many long conversations with my grandparents, their description of the economic times they lived through don't exactly speak to a thriving worker class. Although my grandad was a druggist, which is what today's pharmacist was called back in the early 20th Century. He owned the best drug store and snack bar in the City of Rome, GA. Snack bar/restaurants always accompanied drug stores in those days. He struggled at times trying to make a success of his business, and he related how difficult the average worker had it trying to make ends meet. Also, my granddad had to work well into his 80s since there was no Social Security or Medicare. Today's workers make many times more than those of his time, and have far more opportunities for decent work.
3. As for the distribution of income and wealth disparity, I'd have to say that's a worry that most people don't concern themselves with. Who cares that Elon Musk or Joe Schmo are billionaires? I keep seeing Robert Reich and Bernie Sanders keep haranguing about that as if it concerns the rest of us. I'm not saying it's not obscene because it is, especially in Musk's case, but it's not something that bothers me, insofar as the money goes. It's the political stance that makes me want to throw up. A liberal billionaire is ok, but he should be taxed out of this world because rich people are an economic flaw of capitalism. There's no need to fret about it as long as they pay their fair share of taxes and pay their workers justly.
4. The reason 12 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 stayed home this time was simply because they were moderate independent voters who just could not stomach voting for what they saw as a far left liberal who cared more for people of color, migrants and issues like sex change operations for prisoners than them. That commercial that addressed sex change operations for prisoners was one of the most effective commercials I've seen in years. That's where the moderate independents jumped off the bus of the Democrats. It was the equivalent of the George H. W. Bush commercial of Michael Dukakis riding in the tank in 1988 that absolutely obliterated his chances.
We will be ruminating and debating the reasons why we lost this election forever. There are always many things that go wrong for the losing candidate as well as the winning candidate. The bottom line is that trump's right wing following is still under his spell. They like him more than they liked Harris, and envision a trump world of authoritarian rule as being superior for them than a progressive left wing government that will cost them more money to live, and cares more about blacks, Hispanics, and gays than they do them. They aren't concerned about the environment, nor do they want to spend their hard earned money on solar energy over fossil fuel that we still have a vast supply remaining. There is at least 129 years of cheap coal right beneath our feet according to articles I've read. Those are just a few of the reasons why Harris and Democrats lost this election. We could easily lose many more until some changes are made, either in the electorate or in the Democrats' thinking. Just think, we lost to the most flawed opponent that I've ever even read about. Something went really badly!
I prefer Robert Reich's views much more, yes I'm partial to being progressive. Also you seem to be disagreeing with what Robert posts as facts--it has been known for many years that for the majority of people, those in the working class and service jobs, that wages have not gone up. Also money went much further forty years ago than it does today.
Charlie, thank you for sharing your thoughts. You are absolutely right when you say that something went really badly. But your perception of Harris as a left-liberal who cares more about Blacks, etc., is false; it springs from prejudice reinforced by systematic, continuous confirmation bias. You have conservative media to thank for that. You agree with Reich that taxes should be fair, which is really his main argument. You are right when you say that most people don't care about inequality, that what people care about is fairness, and that was precisely what Kamala Harris was campaigning for. Could it be that a white candidate would have been more reassuring to you?
Good question. Our data shows that we shudda won. I cite to Palast below.
I keep citing to psyops. Is Tulsi Gabbard, named to control national security, an agent or just a willing idiot for Putin? Is this a payoff to Putin for "fixing: the election?
Daniel, Harris losing all swing states? Pretty damn preposterous in my books. Trump would have to go to prison and being in demtia, he may have exposed what he gave to Putin, Orbán etc. THEY needed trump to win at ANY cost. That Democrats don’t demand an investigation pisses me off.
Really, as you say, Daniel, Pelast makes compelling arguments and has the receipts. Also, the commentator you linked elsewhere, Political Girl, points out some glaring irregularities. I'm copying your link here, for any who might be interested.
I was thinking the same thing Daniel. Much harder to climb back at this point. But this would be the best possible way to use his wealth! We needed this at least 20 years ago. But I’ll take it. I just don’t trust that the FascistFelon party could make it illegal. They also have SCOTUS. Biden should break the rules and assign more SCOTUS now. And pass the No Kings Act!
It is a GD mystery why Dems have not acted over many years to gain power over media distribution channels. there is no there there when it comes to strategy
Check out the article from "Barn Raiser" . In an interview with a democratic leader from rural part of Georgia you wilhear the disappointment not only of the Harris campaign but also the general displeasure with the national democratic party and their disrespect for working people. https://barnraisingmedia.com/
The problem with that is how do we get Democrats to abandon corporate masters? Greed is greed and with that comes abandoning moral code. A part of me feels this country needs to go to hell in a hand basket so all the working class wakes up and takes control.
They won't "wake up" though because the channels of communication they would use to organize are poisoned, and the elites in control of the government and economy learned that they can demagogue against minority immigrant and gay targets to redirect any rage generated from the awful circumstances suffered in daily life. This is a recipe for a repeat of the mid20th century, and I don't think we have an off ramp anymore.
The democrats never abandoned the working class. All Joe did was work for us the whole four years he was there. Where the messaging went wrong was the mainstream media. They were very much a good portion of the culprits. I really have cut the cord from listening to them except for a couple of different commentators, which I feel are still trustworthy.
I think it's more innocuous than that. Most people will agree mainstream media is owned by corporations. So, I don't think it's hard to imagine that people are misinformed. If we were to imagine that a majority are getting their messaging from social media, then chances are they don't see the Democrats messaging anyway, due to the algorithms that determines what users actually see.
This is a great point. But I have an issue with the whole framing of Dems vs Republicans we have. We always act like poor widdle Dems just can't do anything against these evil terrible powers around them. It's so weird. 'Oh the media is biased against them'. 'Oh the Republicans sabotage their efforts.'
How exactly are we not able to have independent media, or dem-biased media like Republicans have for their side? What is stopping us? Do you guys see how much MONEY the top Democrats have? Do you see how much lobbying there is? It's patently ridiculous to claim that somehow Republicans magically have better media-stacking powers than we would, if we actually wanted to do that.
Same with getting things passed through government. Half the time they're pretending they want to do a progressive thing so we think 'oh look they're trying' and then 'the Republicans sabotage it'. Yet whatever horrid ridiculous thing the Republicans decided to do Dems never manage to sabotage it. Are we stupid? Are they just objectively better at everything? Jesus Christ it's a weird take. Poor little us, too innocent and pure for this world. I hate it.
Agree completely, Lidija. As one example, all the legislation that Manchin and Sinema blocked. Could Biden not have called them into the Oval and played hardball, as LBJ would have? But no-o-o-o. Or when Biden had majorities in both houses, couldn't he have gotten a public healthcare option through? Oh, no, can't do that! Gotta have bi-partisanship. Dems have to learn to be hard asses, like the other side of the aisle.
Yeah there is a feeling of really not wanting it that bad, or being kind of weirdly hapless, like ‘oh no, what do we do, they’re not playing fairrr!’ Oh nooo!!’ It feels like an excuse, these people weren’t born yesterday. Remember when we didn’t want to pick a supreme court judge ‘last minute’ but then they casually stacked the court and now it’s just like that? ‘Oh no what can we do!!’ Well if you present yourselves as perpetual losers don’t be surprised if your voting body isn’t fired up.
Oh I do, personally. But the Democratic Party does not. They don’t protect independent journalism, they don’t protect people’s right to protest, so they can’t cry when they get beaten by republicans at the game they are also playing. They’re just playing it worse.
And Biden welcoming that monster right on in is a big part of this. He is complicit, he is an old school suck up and I did not vote for him in the primaries. Oh well. Lots of us did.
Heather, do you mean Biden calling for a “peaceful” transition? If so, I agree with you. Everyone needs to refer to him as Convicted Felon-Rapist trump. The last thing Biden should do is pretend it’s a normal election with a mere difference of opinion! Biden should be using executive powers like there’s no tomorrow…because there isn’t a normal tomorrow anymore! This stresses me out as much as the Fascist take-over
Biden obviously hopes that there might be a chance for a peaceful transition of power in 2028. It is not an entirely irrational hope. To do what you suggest would result in certain chaos. Let Republicans bear responsibility for chaos.
I agree with you in theory, Victor, but I don’t think for a minute that the Rs will bear responsibility for anything. They'll blame the Dems, and their relentless media outlets will continue to convince the cult.
Victor, the pretense that there is anything OK with. 34-count FELON, a man guilty of RAPE and sedition, should Never be normalized in any way. Too bad you don’t get that. But of course you can pretend trump will show up with a bouquet of flowers and not be a the terrorist he is, I’m sticking to reality and fighting this disgrace off.
Biden is too kind to not invite him in because he knows it's protocol to do it, and he can't shun him. In his eyes, I'm sure it would make him look to the country and to the world like he's as petty as Trump is. He is a man of honor.
There are always a few center/right Dems who throw the thin balance back to the rescumliCons. That's a big problem too! RescumliCons stick together even for a Convicted Criminal
You hit it right Heather Moscrip. Deregulation, and Citizens United add a dash of no Voter Right Act and voila, billionaires getting their greedy power hungry way.
Have you checked out Ground news yet? Paid subscription (small monthly fee, so they are not beholden to advertising and thus corporate funding). They provide context - like how biased the article is and for which side, who paid for the reporting, etc, plus lots of ways to filter and sort for yourself, including a "blind spot" option that shows you stories NEITHER side is talking about. We ALL need to support this effort to give control of the algorithm and content back to us. The days of depending on "mainstream" media for fair and balanced reporting are over. We MUST be relentless in our quest for facts and truth, and we must collectively find it ourselves. Because corporate news and social media are OWNED by those who want us deceived, confused, disengaged oblivious or all of the above.
E Sonoma…Boycott what? Most mega corporations are owned by the right. Unless you shop at a local independent for everything, you’re always supporting the right at some level.
You’re absolutely right! The problem with the Democrats is the lack of communication with the working class. People need to hear the message, the promises, and know what’s being done for them. The campaign was too short; Biden should not have run initially and Harris should have had time to address the issues. Marketing!!! Yes! Everything has become a commodity, including our freedoms, our environment, and most certainly, our economy! Democrats, energize, act, and definitely engage!!
I believe the Democrats that didn't vote, or voted for someone other than Kamala, indirectly voted for trump. Now I have to believe that many Democrats are as stupid as the trump supporters. Why vote against your best interests. I remember Ross Perrot running for president; how did that go? Democrats are the party of the working class, the middle class, the lower middle class, and the poor. They constantly fight for our rights and our freedom.
I am mostly on your wavelength. An additional way forward is a mandatory military draft or government service of some type. Most of the public has no idea whatsoever what the government does, or any connection with it. But if our country allows them to be propaganized against the government then that would be pretty pointless perhaps.
The Democratic party should not eschew economic progressives. They are central to the energy of the party and appeal to voters. Cultural progressivism- some of the woke stuff- is more problematic.
There's a big difference between job training which an individual volunteers for and a compelled military draft or national service. The electorate is grumpy and simply does not want to be told what to do. I do agree that national service would be beneficial, but I don't think it would be embraced at this point.
True. "Job training" would have far more appeal conceptually and once it begins paying off for people. I don't think it's either build a stronger info system OR job training. They should do both. It would help them market whatever they want to do. I see your idea as extension to the Tim Walz waiver of college degree for state government jobs, in a way.
Patricia, bullshit. Biden has passed everything for working people and despite this being the best economy in decades, keep riding the right wing noise machine. I’m so sick of this kind of fact-free comment! Yet you think trump did a superb job? That he will help working people? That his 34 felony convictions, rape, sedition is a footnote for you! FOCUS. This was not a poor
was a well-run campaign. Her debate hit it out of the park! Record attendance in stadiums! Rather than smelling the rat, you start the classic Dem blame game. While they make mistakes, they aren’t Nazis! And the REPUBLIcons NEVER do anything for working people. Get to that blame game & put your energy there.
You are so right. The messaging has got to be there -- and the White House simply can't delegate that out to the media. On the contrary, they need a staff of folks to monitor the media and counter the disinformation with facts and metrics.
It IS the messaging. I think the main problem is that half the country is wildly misinformed,
because they're getting the message from Fox News & other rightwing outlets, which form an echo chamber within which any rightwing inversion of reality is taken as fact. And with the exception of Pete Buttigieg, the Democrats seem not to understand that publishing incisive articles in the NY Times or WaPo will never be heard by them. The Dems need to mount a sustained effort, spearheaded by people with good communications skills, to penetrate the barrier of that echo chamber, & to tell our countrymen on the other side that Fox is jerking them around, & in what way.
Nailed it! I wrote a similar response to a previous similar column from Robert, of all people, and Bernie as well, WTF? Your 3rd & 4th sentences are right on.
As for failing at messaging, maybe, but as the years wore on, I began to see that basically it was the media simply ignoring Biden and the Democrats beyong reporting how unpopular the polls showed they were, and then going on and on speculating about it's kitchen table issues, voting their pocketbook, inflation is hurting them, endless redundancy. Essentially telling the middle class over and over how rough they had it and who they were or should be blaming.
Simultaneously from all RW propaganda 24/7 (to summarize) BIDEN IS DESTROYING THE COUNTRY!!!!!11!!!1!OPEN BORDERS!!!!!!MURDERS!!RAPISTS!!!!ONLY TRUMP CAN FIX IT.
The 'woke' things do hurt us. Although to my mind, defund the police and trans issues aren't 'woke' things, per se, but the also weren't specifically Democrat things. I never could track down who was resonsible for the idiotic, Defund the Police, but it seemed to come from some radical in the BLM movement, but the media went insane with it. The RW propaganda machine is expert at taking anything that happens or is trending in the modern world that freaks out (triggers😉) the traditional old school folks who make up the 'conservative' base in the culture wars and blowing it all out of proportion and connecting it to "the Democrats." The trans thing, was created by the same RW think tank messaging machine to create a hot button issue to replace abortion after the dog caught the car on that one. The huge blast of noise about it on the right served to force it as an issue that any candidate had to have a position on, despite it not even being on the radar previously. From there to Donnie's lie regurgitation vomit hole: "they're giving your kids sex change operations at school." And "they" is the Democrats in the MAGA borg mind, and the Democrats have to state a position on it.
Reich is not talking about the “working class” as much as the “abandon hope” class. Union workers get a $35 minimum hourly wage. The hopeless get handouts or McDonalds $10/hr hopeless jobs!
There absolutely were strides made by the Biden admin. The problem is that people are struggling against price gouging and stagnant wages. Those strides by the Biden admin didn't affect those things for most people. The only thing that would have won over these voters is if the Dems had done things that were AGGRESSIVELY pro worker and made a real dent in their grocery bill or a bump in their wages. It's clear that Dems have been courting the "middle class" (read: upper middle class) and cow-towing to donors (just not as loudly as Repubs) for years. This is not something that can be fixed with slow moving or more nebulous policies that the Biden admin was doing. They needed to be aggresive, and as always, they weren't. The left has been saying this for YEARS but the libs never listened to us. Now, liberal weakness has lost us democracy to a fascist dictator.
unfortunately its better to invest money in propaganda and trumpet about solving stuff falsely then to invest time and effort into solving problems...
Idiocracy all the way...
apparently dems need to buy out propaganda outlets and focus on what matters (media presence) to grab attention of the voters
OR as always... try to invest more in education...so that common voter baseline gets to the level where they can separate propaganda from substance and stop eating up trumps shit as god given gospel
try to make blue states better to live in for the common people by example ...and not only promises
AND start keeping a track record!! and keep spaming the positive differences
Yes but they don't get it. It is " messaging." They aren't insulted when Trump talks to them like a 4 tear old. But the old rhetoric of "everyday Americans," "the kitchen", "equal opportunity" doesn't morivate them enough to get out of bed and vote.
The rhetoric matters. People are bombarded by crafed messaging in all sorts of media. They are truly annoyed by rhetorical wars about ponouns and correct identity speech. It feels intrusive. The word woman is forbidden. Pregnant people???
We need to revive the generic blue collar Democrat...People will quickly figure out JD Vance is another Yale plutocrat, though he didn't get there by birth. I'm one of those liberal elitists, but I try to study the word, how my blue collar associates try to understand. Facts and structural analysis have to be validated in their personal experience Just explaining isn't enough. Corelation is not cause. Evolution is slow. Extinction is fast.
Cultural evolution may be slow, but technological change can be fast, and the consequence may be cultural devolution. These are interesting times.Trump's current cabinet nominations promise stagnation.
Kerry 🎯 GOOD comment Kerry. We’re not going to ignore everything the Democrats have done for workers, LGBTQIA, attempts to push equality. But also we must acknowledge the media is almost ENTIRELY owned by the far right. How the hell do you message when you are blocked on tv, newspapers, radio. We ONLY have part of the internet.
Did the RepubliCons give us the end of segregation NO! In a system that GIVES every advantage to money, there has to be money to fight back..so here we are. Granted, Bill Clinton did us no favors moving to the right. So at some point we know not enough could be done but the damn republiCons blocked those things. We can POSSIBLY excuse the first round of trump…an unknown. But after 4 years of his catering to the mega rich, ignoring climate change, ignoring COVID and a campaigning as a FELON-RAPIST and hearing his vile illegal threats WITH NO CONSEQUENCES helped this happen. Trump publically declared a terrorist threat to Liz Cheney while out on bail…The result of this violation of bail? Crickets.
Wrong. When you stop listening to the majority of your base, shout down and exclude supporters with impunity, campaign with neocons and talk about building the most lethal military in the world as if the military industrial complex hasn’t already bankrupted the country and made the insiders and Corporate America filthy rich, proudly subsidize and prioritize the interests of a foreign country and its citizens before your own, and literally tell lifelong D’s that you don’t need their vote because you’ll pick up R votes in the suburbs, you lose— BIG!
Yes, Schumer and others have said it. It’s been the D’s strategy for several years now. And, in my opinion, KH’s actions during her campaign demonstrated that she had adopted this cynical strategy. They miscalculated.
Agree 100%!! Dems dona lot of things Americans want but they NEVER BRAG about it. Trump does nothing but whine and collect $$$ for his own pockets and he takes.credit for all the things Biden and DEMs do and Biden and DEMs never fight back!! Come.on DEMs!!
Spot on! You know from the start that it’s an uphill battle to make ppl see the value of long-term fixes like all the legislation that got passed under Biden, especially in current media environment, and to compete with populist MAGA bs, and yet Biden was invisible. Yes, he should have been everywhere, all at once, yes also signs on every infrastructure and other projects ‘Joe did it’, ‘Big Deal’ (like New Deal) etc, ad nauseum. In the world where attention span is 1 min that’s what you need to do.
I have fearful respect for the Trumpers - they are malignant, destructive, selfish, greedy. Not to mention morally and ethically bankrupt. Hoping there are some equally powerful adults to mediate the damage.
Back when their ilk was busy undermining the anti-felons' efforts, I was reminding them that we were voting on the president of the US and not of Israel or any other foreign power. Their failure to show up this election has been instrumental in electing the Putin surrogate regime that will now label them terrorists.
And from my POV, as I've already stated about the possibility of Garland being purged, it'll damn well serve them right.
2% is not a mandate. Trump won 50% Harris won 48% … so a 2% difference …. How is that a landslide … how is that a mandate … that is a razor close election … 1/2 of America does not agree with Trump/MAGA
But for psyops, we wudda won bigly. According to Greg Palast, 2.7 million provisional ballots were tossed. https://www.gregpalast.com/
"Whose ballots? If you’re Black, Hispanic or Asian-American, the chance you were shunted to one of these provisional ballots is 300% higher than if you’re white."
"How many Black ballots were thrown in the electoral dumpster?"
"As a former professor of statistics, I know there’s still a lot of sleuthing in the numbers I have to do, but I can tell you this: The number of rejected provisional ballots, the number of voters wrongly purged from the rolls, the number of ballots “spoiled” and not counted, has unquestionably skyrocketed."
Those votes in swing states may have been enough to change the outcome.
Speaking as someone who lives in Georgia -- where nearly two dozen precincts had to be temporarily evacuated -- they all opened back up in pretty short time, the officials being confident the threats were false -- and all votes were processed Hours were extended at those locations too.
It's reasonable to expect some people were scared shitless. For months Russian propganda predicted violence on election day. In some places ballots were burned. My wife worked the polls during early voting. Aqui mismo, Proud Boys showed up.
I can only speak to Georgia, where 5.2 million ballots were cast -- and over half of those in over 2 weeks of early voting in person. In 2020, 4.9 million voted. Trump won this year by 115,000.
Mayorkas at the DHS dropped the ball. Knowing the amount of pressure Russian bots have and would put on the US, why not "electronically close the borders?" For six or twelve hours. No one either calls in or out. No email, no phone call. And Disable Starlink through which all their communications go? Early on, Garland gave a list of Russian suspects to be indicted by the DOJ. I remember clearly him saying that those guys were still working to harm the US "as we speak now." Why was nothing done against those threats? Next time, we too should start freaking white people out of voting booths. What is good for the goose....
Excellent point! Why the hell didn’t we get ahead of this with what is known! And how desperate Putin would be to keep trump out of prison and from singing!
The stat I just read was Trump 50.3% The problem is two fold. First the Electoral College is a remnant of a time when those who invented it did not trust the majority of people to vote "properly". It was the elite white male property owners who should decide who runs things - sound familiar?
Second, we have a lazy ass citizenry who are clueless as to the threat of an autocrat. Most of us on these Substack sites know what fascism is. Millions of naive spoiled young people do not. When I think of Trump, I envision the camps he will set up for immigrants and I think WWII Germany - because those photos are embedded in my brain. My parents fought so this would never happen again.
Many younger people just stare at their phones and are influenced by asshats like Joe Rogan. They will get involved someday, perhaps when things get truly ugly - for them. They didn't vote.
"Australia has one of the highest voter turnouts in the world. Since voting became compulsory in 1924, over 90 percent of those registered have voted in every federal election. Compulsory voting means every eligible Australian citizen (18 years or older) is required by law to enrol and vote. For more information about elections, visit the Australian Electoral Commission website."
Americans don’t like to do any extraneous thinking.
They tend believe what they’re told and rarely research to see its credibility.
And the Trumpists spent the last four years gaslighting America, repeating their bullshit over and over. Repeat a lie long enough and it becomes the truth.
We the democrats abandoned our base in the real world for the fantasy world of the college educated; then we spent
1 billion in campaign funds on fluff advertising than persuaded no one to vote for Harris. A nice person that is finely tuned and very articulate about fringe issues such as trans rights for prisoners in Jail.
We missed the boat the pier and water completely due to amateur deep pocket Hollywood actors that are living in fantasy OZ. Internal stupidity killed us…
I think the Democrats have a problem being embedded with corporate interests. In 2016 Bernie was talking about things that the majority of Americans want, universal Healthcare, free college tuition, a living minimum wage, taxing billionaires, breaking up monopoly corporations. And the Democrats ridiculed him, they charged he wasn't a Democrat, he was an Independent. Bernie is going to increase your taxes. Even Joe Biden laughed off universal Healthcare, when debating Bernie. And now Dems are surprised they've had their ass handed to them. The Dems, will give speeches on how unfair workers are treated. But, when given the opportunity to vote for progressive issues, they don't.
Bottom line - mass propaganda on Fox, social media, etc. pounded this lie over and over: “Dems don’t care about you - we (MAGA) support your interests” - the Democratic counter was either feeble (not where most got their info) ingenuous (too many mixed messages) or totally ignored (take your pick) - so no matter what programs were helping people, and how much MAGA proposals were against their own interests, many of the voters weren’t listening, believing or understanding. Add misogyny, racism, fear, ignorance, apathy, and the delay in seeing results added to the frustration of 50 years of decline to that miserable stew and you get a perfect storm of this election. What should have been a Democratic landslide was degraded by constant lies and pixie dust promises. They may have buyers remorse now, when they find out what’s in store - inflation on steroids, mass deportations, recession and job loss, loss of health care and social safety networks, also affecting the entire world (watch out for WWIII), not to mention dictatorship of the kleptocracy-oligarchy. I could go on about the end of this republic - it took the Romans a bit longer to self destruct. Benjamin Franklin was right - “… if you can keep it.”
Yes, exactly! Every time a progressive leader speaks up among the Dems, they poll well, ignite the base, and draw excitement from millions of young people and others who don't see either party as representing anything other than corporate interests and donors. Then, of course, the Powers That Be proceed to torpedo that candidate's chances using every tool at their disposal, leaving nothing behind but the same old argument that we are not a force for good, but just a slightly lesser evil.
And then they get beaten by a guy who led us to Iraq and found 0 WMDs...and the guy that joked about and advocated for sexual assault....and then the guy who mishandled a public health crisis, could not definitively call out Nazis as bad for America, and tried to overthrow the government.
My question now is, for those who continue to believe the Democratic party can be salvaged, can be somehow wrangled away from the corporate interests that define it, what would it take for you to believe that was no longer possible? How much defeat can you entail before you admit that you keep defending and fighting for a perpetually losing team that is beyond saving? Or will left-leaning people keep reminding the world of the definition of insanity until climate change makes all of these efforts meaningless?
The hypothetical polls in 2016 showed that Sanders would have beaten Trump hands down, 70/30, so Sanders' victory would have included a lot of people who would vote MAGA in the contest with HRC.
What was Sanders' most potent promise? Universal Healthcare. It's what 70% of Americans want.
Oh, and by the way, the ACA, which Trump vows to abolish, was never a particularly good program. Better than nothing, to be sure, but nobody liked the higher deductibles, copays and drug costs that came with it - the price Obama had to pay to get it across the line. It's not fit for the world's richest economy. Nevertheless, its abolition will be the greatest gift the Democrats could have, but please no more talk about restoring the ACA. The pitch should be "Medicare for all who want it." Bernie, you were right!
Michael, the good thing about the ACA was that preexisting conditions were not supposed to be a reason to not cover with insurance. I knew that the cost of ACA would go up as more people were forced into it. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois was legally bound at one time to insure everybody, but they denied me. Shortly thereafter they gave up their tax exempt status to have the right to deny insurance to individuals.
Now that I found out that Medicare Advantage is a scam, I can't go back on Medicare and buy a coinsurance without being charged a higher rate and possibly being denied the gap insurance altogether. I am so disappointed we can't have universal coverage like other wealthy countries. It is ridiculous to believe we can't afford it. But how would the insurance/finance parasites maintain their wealth if we abandoned the for-profit healthcare system now that the US has been de-industrialized?
Now that private equity is cannibalizing hospital system the way corporate raiders sucked up the assets in industry toward the end of the last century, will we have any kind of a healthcare system in a few years without government intervention and a takeover?
Gloria, I agree with you about the ACA. There were actually two good things about it. First, as you say, insurance corporations could not deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. Second, about 20 million Americans, mainly Blacks and Hispanics, who were previously uninsured, got access to Medicaid - which is threadbare insurance but is a lot better than nothing.
Now the downside. In order to win these concessions Obama had to give up a lot. Copays went through the roof, deductibles went through the roof, and drug prices went through the roof (remember the $800 Epi pen? - that was the result of the ACA). Because of the ACA, 75 million Americans are either uninsured or underinsured (by which I mean they cannot afford their deductible so they don't go to doctors).
We can do a lot better than this. Hell, every other rich country in the world has done it. We pay the highest medical costs in the developed world, and we have the worst outcomes. It's a national embarrassment.
So, you have a platform of Medicare for all, and you run with it. There is a wrinkle here. When polled, 72% of Americans approve of M4A, but when you say "You realize this applies to you individually?" support drops to 36%, which suggests to us that over a third of Americans are perfectly happy with their plan, and don't want to change. So why do they approve of M4A? Because when they hear M4A they think universal healthcare. So the way we put THIS together is that the 28% of Americans who don't approve of M4A are happy with their plan and don't want to pay for anyone else to have decent insurance. Add the 36% of Americans who are more generous spirits who also want to keep their plan but DO want other Americans to have decent healthcare, and you get 64% of Americans who want to keep their plan.
So, M4A should instead be pitched as "Medicare for all who want it," while making it abundantly clear that this is not a freebie to be paid for by the government, but rather a real plan that people (or their employers) can pay for, just as they would for commercial insurance. If you are self-employed you pay for it directly (and it would be a lot less expensive than Obamacare plans), and if you are employed it would be offered as one of the choices alongside commercial insurance products. So, no-one would be forced to choose it, and this would induce real price competition, a proper marketplace.
In the end, as more and more people choose Medicare, the corporations would save a lot of money, we estimate over a trillion dollars a year (we wrote a book about it in 2019 - Healing American Healthcare).
As for the commercial insurance companies, they could reorganize as boutique, concierge, services.
BTW what took you so long to recognize that Medicare Advantage plans are a scam?
How do I respond in the same smooth, salesmanlike way that you present your idea? How about No, No, No? We don't need another complicated way to pretend to cut costs while padding a few pockets with tons of money that should be spent on actual healthcare. Health shouldn't be sold in a market place. Health shouldn't be for sale and for profit. Notice I said "health" and not "healthcare?" Healthcare is health, and health is life. Health extortion is a crime.
We should have a fair and equal system that is paid into according to income and covers everyone from the cradle to the grave. Government is meant to do for it's citizens what the citizens can't do individually. Such as pay for fire departments, police departments, education, infrastructure, and HEALTHCARE from taxes.
If I sound angry and frustrated, I am. I just requested the record from Maximus that my MA Plan, Quartz, is using to deny paying for my continuous glucose monitor that is medically necessary. I succeeded with two appeals, but the insurer asked for a reconsideration from the "final appeal." It never ends.
Btw, "Healthcare Uncovered" is Wendall Potter's new substack. You may want to read it. I restacked some articles.
You are right - in an ideal world. What we were trying to do in "Healing American Healthcare" was to introduce Medicare for all who want it, as a way of introducing your system by stealth. The problem with imposing Medicare is that 2/3 of Americans will likely reject it.
Our system is not at all complicated, it just requires employers to offer Medicare as an alternative. This broadens choice. We anticipate that there would be a gradual shift to Medicare over time, with about 20% of the population demanding private health insurance. So there would still be a role for private insurance, but Medicare would become the backbone of Medicine.
Look at the attacks on Keir Starmer, the UK's soundly elected Labour Prime Minister, from the moment they got into power. Papers and media owned by conservatives (and oligarchs) immediately screamed about benefits he and his wife that were got on a miniscule scale (I mean, football tickets) compared to the chumocracy of the last Conservative government. Almost anything to neuter Labour's ability to govern. Thank goodness we had our election in July.
Isn, is your answer to vote for the only other option? Fascism? Bullshit. The right/center Democrats and corporate interests (DNC) have deeply damaged the Dem Party. In a Capitalist system, you CANNOT abandon money sources. That is why corruption is there! We need out of Capitalism!
SPENDING PROTEST - Top Republicans power-brokers have an Achilles heel … they worship money … DEMOCRATS ARE 1/2 OF THE COUNTRY … DEMOCRAT SPENDING IS 1/2 OF THE ECONOMY … if democrats stopped spending … the US economy will be affected … all major businesses will be affected … if even 50% of Democrats (25% of the country) stopped spending except for necessities … delay buying a new or used car … delay buying a house … delay buying any appliances … delay shopping (buying clothes, etc), delay traveling, delay booking travel, delay any airline travel… etc … etc … THE POWER BROKERS WOULD FEEL THE HEAT … if persisted …. it could affect the economy. Theoretically it could be political leverage. I’m not suggesting or advocating this …. just making an hypothetical observation.
There is an excellent used book store in my town and if there's a book I want, the owner uses her contacts to get it for me. It's great! I can get my hands on the latest books coming out and I don't have to buy them at a corporate run store.
I like this idea. It also addresses problems like climate change. Not buying stuff is an aspect of the degrowth needed to drawdown our planetary impact. That it can twist Trump and his billionaire buddies is a side benefit in a much more important struggle to save the planet. Billionaire denialism on climate primarily stems from their desire to sell us stuff we do not need.
Consumerism, the great American sin. As much as we are Grinching-Up, the wealthy are creating a cataclysmic problem as they crank-up cybercoins & bitcoins. The computer demand for operations is an abominable usage of electricity & water.
I agree with this! I canceled my Amazon account. Switched away from good reads to storygraph, etc. These are all tiny things, but I'm encouraging others to do the same. I'm looking for a list on ways we can all alter our buying decisions to let our wallets speak for us. If anyone has one started already, please share.
I’m in the midst of doing likewise. Stocking up on non-expiring essentials in Biden’s last full quarter. Eliminating non-essential spending in the 47 economy guided by https://www.goodsuniteus.com/
Steven, I LOVE this idea! I have said on this substack that I refuse to spend my money on any corporations. I shop thrift stores, discount stores, farmers' markets, fruit and vegetable stands and u-pick fields. My car is very old but it still gets me where I want to go. Do I do without luxuries? Sure, but it is worth it to me not to give anything to these greedy, power-hungry corporations. Americans need to decide if they want to continue to feed these corporations and uber rich by spending their hard-earned money on their products or can they sacrifice some of those luxuries, tighten their belts and show the corporations that the very people they punish for profit are the people they need to keep them in business!
American Eulogy ….. In 2024, a depraved president was elected with an agenda, to take from the working class and give to the rich. The government was dismantled to further enhance the rich and for corporations to run the marketplace as they pleased. America …. once the most admirer nation on earth was reduced to a violent, unstable, chaotic cinder of its once glory. Half of its citizenry glory in the depravity and half wish for the great America past. When honor, morals, dignity, class and law returns … maybe the great America will be restored.
Those opposed to the autocrats and oligarchs are going to have to come up our own "Project" outlining where and how to rebuild America.
In the face of climate change, the old "American dream" was not sustainable, Most people, at some gut level realize that -- which is why some take the path of denial.
That project needs to start at the ground level of helping people in their communities. And then working up from there. It also needs to address the increasing amount of foreign propaganda targeting the US citizens and elections.
Why can’t we just say that 50% of Americans would rather vote for a lying, racist, misogynistic, conspiracy theory, rapist, narcissistic, sociopathic traitor reality star because they have loss their minds and decency?
Why can't we just say: "a lying, racist, misogynistic, conspiracy theory, rapist, narcissistic, sociopathic traitor reality star" cheated his way into the United States Presidency? The idea that Trump won "fair and square" is offensive in its ingenuity.
🎯Thank you Franxois!! My sentiments exactly!! The first thing Democrats do is fall for the right wing bullshit of blaming our own. Meanwhile, the Convicted Felon-Rapist Seditionist forgets to be mentioned yet again. Nothing like helping the Nazis deliver their message!
I know that's right. Split hairs. Blame Bill Clinton. Still crying because Bernie lost to Hillary and Biden. Big money has bought the political system. Bla, bla, bla. But the truth is exactly what you said. 51% of the voting populace love donald trump. This country is a right wing voting bunch who are repulsed by all the left wing politics and everything it stands for. Full stop!
I’m repulsed at the right wing MAGA lying thieves! Americans are too stupid to quit voting MAGA GOP even when they know they are nothing but greedy power hungry thieves! Too bad if their wives die due to their lack of Womens healthcare or any scientific information, or shots like measles, mumps, polio, etc!
you cant say 50% of americans would rather vote MAGA because 50% of eligible voters aren't even registered to vote. 48% of eligible voters are registered, and only 51% of those are voting republican... that's 24% of the population, not half. Not even close to half.
I am a white woman over 65. Your conclusion that it wasn't racism or sexism seems to me overly simplistic and logically flawed. Yes, Obama is black, but he is a MAN. Yes, Hilary is a woman, but she is WHITE (and she was unable to win the electoral college). Harris is neither. When she entered the race, I slapped my forehead and said "nooooooooooo!"; I was sure in my gut that America would NOT elect a black woman. Even one as eminently qualified and morally exemplary as Kamala. I contributed to, and worked for, her campaign. I listened to her and to the polls, and became hopeful, but my gut remained convinced that she didn't have a chance. The Democrats under Biden have demonstrated that they support the middle class. Harris made it abundantly clear that she supports the middle class. The people who voted for HIM don't know either of those things, and if they did, they wouldn't care. They only "know" what the right-wing propaganda machine tells them because they actively avoid anything BUT right wing sources - and that is remarkably easy to do at this time in history. And what it told them was that she is BLACK ("I didn't know she was black, did you know she was black, suddenly she was BLACK"). And it told them that she has been letting in all the BROWN people for the last four years. Worse, it told them she wanted to spend their hard-earned tax dollars on TRANS people, thereby convincing many brown and black people that they'd better vote for him too. So many in the Democratic party are reaching the same conclusion you seem to have reached. It offers hope because it concludes that we can win back our democracy if only we work harder. I wish I could believe it. My gut says it's just not true.
The "bro culture" along with the Dobbs decision and the resulting deaths of pregnant women make it abundantly clear to me that misogyny is alive and well in the USA. We still don't have equal pay for equal work and aren't represented in legislatures in percentages representing our numbers.
"Even one as eminently qualified and morally exemplary as Kamala." Biden is senile. Harris is an airhead. Eminently qualified my eye. Those who spend their entire careers in academia or government positions have no idea how the American economy works. Trump does know! Kamala morally exemplary? Does that include sleeping with the married Willie Brown to advance her career? I have no problem with a woman becoming president but would prefer someone like Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher or Georgia Meloni, someone with a focus on good results for all citizens of their country. Sex and skin color count for absolutely nothing.
Bob, your analysis cuts to the heart of a vital issue: the Democrats’ decades-long drift from working-class priorities and embrace of the neoliberal center-right. Since the Clinton administration, the party has leaned into 1980s neoliberalism, favoring corporate interests under the guise of modernization. Clinton’s concessions to Gingrich’s “Republican revolution” in the ’90s, like welfare cuts and financial deregulation, betrayed a shift away from labor alliances, laying the groundwork for the disconnection we see today. These were not just tactical concessions but symptomatic of a deeper misalignment with working Americans.
The repeated sidelining of Bernie Sanders—both in 2016 and 2020—exemplifies the party’s aversion to substantial reform, even as Sanders embodied the populist economic vision their base craved. This was more than campaign strategy; it was a willful choice to uphold a corporate-backed status quo, maintaining policies that benefit the wealthy and perpetuate inequality. The Democrats’ approach has left millions of voters feeling unrepresented and forced to choose between a party that seems to cater to elites and another steeped in reactionary politics.
As you point out, the economic stagnation of blue-collar wages over the last fifty years alongside soaring CEO compensation illustrates the depth of the disconnect. Legislative victories for wage increases and sick leave in red states like Missouri and Nebraska show that working people are indeed receptive to progressive policies, just not to a Democratic Party that appears unresponsive to their struggles.
If this is this is the Democrats' moment to turn the tide, a real pivot means more than campaign rhetoric. To genuinely reconnect with working Americans, the party must overhaul both its policies and approach. First, a transparent commitment to economic justice is essential—policies targeting wage stagnation, affordable healthcare, affordable shelter, and job security need to be central, not sidelined. The party should limit or derail the influence of high-wealth donors and visibly stand against corporate monopolies, reflecting a commitment to working- and middle-class values.
Operationally, this shift requires prioritizing community outreach and grassroots organizing in regions often written off as “lost” to Republicans. Democrats would need to foster connections with local leaders and labor organizations who understand the needs of their communities. This is a vision that needs not just to be adopted but lived out through the voices of candidates and leaders who embody these principles. The pivot won’t happen in a single election cycle, but with visible dedication to these changes, they might be able to start restoring trust and positioning themselves as the genuine party of the people, instead of digging their grave.
they also shifted to the more authoritarian outlook as well. Biden in 2020 was where John McCain was in 2008?!? And Clinton in 2016 was further on economic right than Trump?!? A symptom of disconnect from the common people...
Kamala supposedly went back to the "roots" on the compass ...but that was too little too late (or not communicated adequately)?
Note the position of Sanders in 2016 and 2020 graphs ...and what is said about him
"Bernie Sanders is popularly perceived in his own country as an off-the-wall left figure; in other western democracies he would sit squarely within the mainstream social democratic parties that regularly form governments or comprise the largest opposition"
Will someone be able to drag Dems there ...or at least to the Biden/Obama position from 2008?
Professor Reich: considering the current state of the union, and the impending disaster, how can the working people restructure how things work in america? i'm so angry that i need to know what to do with my rage, and directing it towards improving things for myself, for others and for the country is the only direction i can think of. worse and more frightening, this fascism, this corporatism, is gaining ground almost everywhere in the world.
so many people worship money and those who have it, whilst they are wage slaves who operate under the bizarre belief that "i too will one day be filthy rich" (so we must not tax the wealthy) despite all the evidence that obscene wealth is the result of starting out extremely wealthy and becoming moreso as time goes on, that the obscenely wealthy are greedy sociopaths who would sell their own mother if they could earn another dollar from it.
The wealthy are plotting a bitcoin takeover. More environmental destruction from the enormous electricity requirements, & water waste. It's as tho their goal is destroying Planet Earth as soon as they can. I recall you once posted you do not have offspring, know that you made a wise decision there.
In addition to embracing economic left-populism and working-class youth, the Dems should change up their strategies. What comes to mind is a new, loose, independent media ecosystem to counter the right and build parasocial relationships the way Trump has via Adin Ross, Joe Rogan and Theo Von. This ecosystem should be highly critical of the national media that keeps sanewashing Trump, ignoring root causes of crime, racism and inflation, and focusing on ‘the odds, not the stakes’ of politicking. Above all, it should make social democracy cool and exciting again.
Another change the Dems should adopt is a fifty-state strategy. This is how Howard Dean led the Dems out of the wilderness in ‘06. Harris lost all seven of the battleground states, but her margins against Trump were -3.1 percent, whereas the rest of America gave her -6.1 percent. The focus should be on shoring up the base in blue and red states alike. It should be complemented by a rule that the next POTUS nominee should not shortchange the state parties, and instead give their chairs the autonomy they need. That was part of how Obama lost the House in ‘10, and Clinton lost the presidency in ‘16.
Finally, the Dems should run on a sweeping vision of civic nationalism, like the one that built the New Deal, which transcends identity politics without ignoring marginalized groups’ needs. It should be patriotic and cosmopolitan at once. Job Corps isn’t enough. A program modeled on CalVolunteer comes to mind as the perfect vehicle for this.
Glad I could supply your ear candy. Gee, it’s like Substack is effective at curing hecklers. Thanks for reminding me why I have a comfort zone in the first place.
Anyway, the problem is that I’m too poor to move back to the US as an expat. I could donate to Democrats Abroad, or The American Prospect, but I can’t do that because of unemployment. Anyway, I’m content with doing nudges every now and then, as long as there’s an audience.
I personally would like to see Sherrod Brown take up the chair position, but Dean’s a good alternative. AOC and Anderson Clayton wouldn’t be bad either
Not only suppression but "grabbing" as wrestled from the Harris' side. How on earth could she get less votes than Biden. When even Republicans publicly endorsed her?
William 🎯🎯‼️ stadiums jam packed for Harris, more door to door and phone banking ever! Dem Gov, Senate winning but not Harris…in every single swing state. It is bullshit. Putin- Orban, et al, had to insure trump would not sing once in prison!!
I think people are exhausted from all of the protests previously and the fact that they change nothing. Realistically we should be the ones armed & marching in the streets. But there has to be a win once in a while. People are smothered just trying to pay bills, insurance, car pmts etc. Debt society = slave society. Everything this country does is to drive people into debt! Rather than upping interest rates to make money by SAVING. The constant drumbeat is to keep it crazy low so everyone can be strapped with high mortgages, car loans, student loans and credit cards.
As an impartial observer I saw the election being fought on the major pod casts and YouTube videos. Trump makes news so the scavengers who rely on Youtube views for their revenue picked up his name and re-broadcast his messages. Hundreds of millions saw him. Kamala fought a traditional costly inter- personal battle where only hundreds of thousands saw her. Nobody could re-broadcast her messages as the format was not shareable. And copyright protected. Trump is an internet man. Kamala a courtroom woman. She never really had a chance. But what courage!
“We can’t know for sure but it seems most likely that those 9 million potential voters — mostly working class — said to themselves, ‘I won’t vote for Trump because he’s an asshole. But I won’t vote for the Democrats either, because they don’t give a damn about me.’”
Nonsense. Early voting and voting on election day were reported to be at or near record levels. Those votes didn’t go to Trump, who drew only about 1.1 million votes more than he did in 2020.
So where DID they go?
Trump, always anticipating defeat (because, I’d like to think, deep down he knows he’s a radioactive piece of filth), poisoned the electoral waters by claiming, early and often, that the election was rigged. If it was rigged one way, then it must also be rigged the other, and Harris simply could not have underperformed to such an immense degree, especially in light of the enormous enthusiasm for her and huge grassroots fundraising drawn by her campaign.
Democrats simply MUST not accept the narrative that Democrats failed to turn out. They DID, but the votes evaporated into the ether, perhaps because it would seem less suspicious if that narrative blamed apathy rather than Biden voters switching to Trump.
yeah, I believe many state election boards just read off Trumps 2016 election vote counts to pollsters like AP and Decision Desk for their electoral maps. At the time of this writing, votes are STILL being counted, so the official results have NOT been released to anybody yet, including Biden.
There's a reason that AP election results are called UNOFFICIAL. They haven't been audited and may not be correct.
I'm going to say this again and again. It's the messaging, stupid! All of this post-mortem blame being cast upon Democrats for abandoning the working class - it's bullshit. Biden and company have been furiously advancing pro-working class legislation for years, only to be undermined by either the Republicans or the crypto-Republicans like Manchin and Sinema. Minimum wage? Health care access? Prescription drugs? Tax reform? Job-creating infrastructure? Help with children's health and family expense? DEMOCRATS! The problem is that Biden never used his bully pulpit to engage the public, like FDR did, in his fight with the oligarchy and Fox News. He never proclaimed his successes. He was invisible! While Trump kept hogging a spotlight offering criticiusm, promoting despair and negativity. We got out-marketed, damn it. Could we have done better? Sure. Do the neo-liberals and centrists and "elites" of the Party deserve censure? You betcha. Did "woke" stuff like defund the police and transgender rights hurt us? Of course...we got killed by "Amnesty, acid, and abortion" in 1972. But if you play dead (like Merrick Garland) and forget about speaking to the public every day (and not just leaving it to your press secretary or surrogates), you'll get Biden-like approval ratings, even after whupping Trump in 2020. You've got to keep campaigning. Trump did.
I think there is a gap between messaging and reality. There were 8 Democrats that voted against raising the National minimum wage. Democrats have a decision to make do they continue to play both sides of the fence, or do they abandon their corporate masters and actually serve the people.
Are their corporate masters the pharmaceutical or health insurance industries? The banking industries? The oil and gas industries? Well, those are some powerful industries, but they are mostly - not unanimously - opposed by Democrats. But who are their puppets? Guess? REPUBLICANS! And who won the governmental trifecta? REPUBLICANS! By your logic, and all the others who blame the Democrats for policy, the Dems should have won. Something else is going on, something that Trump and Bannon and others understand. And because Dems love to engage in orgies of self-purging and self-criticism, we don’t. We’re not winning the perception battle. The freaking reality is so misperceived it’s insane. It’s why veterans overwhelmingly voted for an anti-veteran president, for f’s sake!
But for psy ops we would have won. They target visceral, not rational people. Goes directly to hatred of "the other."
No rational person would vote for a criminal, a grifter, would vote againt their own economic or physical health. .
🎯🎯🎯‼️ Daniel, we were carpet bombed by the right wing, Putin supported media from every direction. Big wins for Biden, meh…no need to mention it. Any tv stations in rural and suburban areas not owned by the right wing? NOPE.
THIS WAS A MEDIA BLITZ, a war on information to the American people.
I am so damn sick of the Democrats blaming Democrats while a damn FELON, FASCIST, PSYCHOPATH, SEDITIONIST, RIGHT WING MEDIA once again isn’t mentioned!
Reply to SeekingReason: CORRECT! THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT! RURAL MICHIGAN WAS PLASTERED WITH TRUMP SIGNS. CORPORATE OR WEALTHY OWNED RIGHT-WING MEDIA! THIS WAS A MEDIA BLITZ! SAY IT TEN TIMES.
The word "blitz" is more than appropriate, since we are dealing with a Nazi Germany-type propaganda machine.
Our rural Missouri TV station (that's right we have just one that airs all three major networks and controls the TV news around here) is owned by Sinclair and regularly, even during their 6 o'clock news, runs heavily biased pieces. So even if Biden built a huge wall around the entire nation and threw every sitting democratic Senator in prison for life, they'd spin it in a very Red way.
Sinclair owns the major networks in our area as well; talk about biased journalism…
Friends and readers, copy down what SeekingReason said. It's the truth.
To Seeking Reason. Why have democrats not vigorously opposed lies? Where has AG Merrick Garland been? January 6 committee results were ignored. Kamala was a great candidate to win educated voters but the other half of our citizens lack a college degree. Lots of excuses no action against false Fox news. Excuses for Afghanistan withdrawal and excuses for border chaos are symptoms of dysfunction that is unforgivable in a tactical environment. I am a very old military guy that nobody listens to any more. My Vietnam good neighbor points have expired. Our judiciary has performed well and found Trump and other criminals guilty. Now we are going to declare treason and felony criminals immune from prosecution??? There is no-one to blame but ourselves. Media controls our thoughts but we refuse to identify truth from lies.
America had a preexisting condition: willful ignorance.
I hate to say it, but I DID listen to you, and I think you're right. With all of the ''good groups" supporting the Dems and Harris, none of them were vocal enough either. It is such a crying shame that we are now left with this disastrous Presidency and the emerging ridiculous Administrative people that Trump is appointing. It truly is a circus and would be funny if it weren't that it's now our reality.
It's a double whammy in many markets. Fox AND Newsmax.
brava! truth.
A meda blitz of misinformation. That is the basis of Biden's low ratings. The kitchen table issue was blamed on Biden. The cost of living issues were blamed on Biden, when in fact he had nothing to do with it other than providing people some survival money during the pandemic. And he had the lowest rating of any president when in fact he will go down as one of the best presidents in history regardless of what he did or did not do before and during the campaign.
I agree with you with respect to those who voted for Trump.
However, Prof. Reich is focusing on Democratic voters who stayed home and didn't vote at all. I agree that Democrats haven't adequately addressed their economic concerns, but there might be an additional explanation. Perhaps those non-voters can see how appalling Trump is and they wonder how the Biden administration could allow him to freely commit crimes, without ever being held to account. And allow him to become a major party nominee for president. The Black men who are arrested and harshly punished for every misstep, and their female family members, could see clearly how the Democratic administration let a wealthy white man get away with serious crimes. The non-voters might conclude that, when push comes to shove, Democrats don't really care about equal treatment under the law, even if they didn't articulate this feeling to pollsters or in focus groups. The fact that Kamala Harris was a prosecutor probably didn't help.
The prosecution of Trump was too little, too late, and too timid. I think Merrick Garland, in bending over backward to appear non-political, did a lot of damage to the Democratic Party brand.
Wait until we get a load of Matt Gaetz as AG. He won't be too little, too late, too timid. Democrats need to get tougher and stop trying to always be politically correct! Stop playing softball in a hardball game!
Love Michelle Obama and was 100% behind her motto “when they go low we go high”. But I’ve learned MAGA doesn’t play any way but dirty. I knew that about Trump since at least the 80s, but gave more credit than was due to the GOP and my right-leaning fellow Americans. First, dems don’t play dirty enough to compete. Second, dems don’t baffle with bullshit their constituents near to the degree than the other side because they know we won’t bite. Fake news outlets and rightwing lunatic talking heads like Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, and Rogan also have cult-like followings that are impossible to combat. Rogan’s flipflop on Trump and his grip on the twenty-somethings contributed to young first time voting red and young registered dems not voting at all.
voters voting
MAGA is a good slogan--this is why Trump chose it. Democrats made huge mistake when they attacked the slogan rather than the fraud hiding behind it. Lumping all Trump followers as one amorphous mass of morons might have been emotionally satisfying, but t not smart, to put it mildly.
I don't think that was it. I think you are substituting your dismay with Democrats as an explanation. But we need to find out. Let's start by asking them - and by the way the reasons people give can't be relied upon.
I agree that people often don't reveal the real reasons for their decisions, sometimes because they don't even recognize or acknowledge why they are doing what they do, sometimes because they're ashamed.
I'm not arguing the failure to hold Trump accountable is the entire reason Democrats stayed home, but it could have contributed to the unease many felt that Democrats aren't really working for them. The same Biden DOJ that let Trump go free has vigorously prosecuted two Democratic Hispanic members of Congress: Robert Menendez and Henry Cuellar, and Democratic Black mayor Eric Adams.
MAGA won because the slogan has great appeal. What was the Democrats's slogan? Making American fair for all? Including illegals? We are loss averse, and it is a lot easier to scare us than to give us faith and courage.
It's almost funny to still see Democratic enthusiasts still thinking that damning the evils of Trump will convince the Pubs to go against him. As someone reminded us, it's a cult. They don't care. Their leader can grab pussy, hide taxes, screw his workers, commit treason - he's the one guy who can play the system like a fiddle. We're behind him even more. When we grow up, maybe we can do it too.
No rational person or person with common sense. Dumbing Down America fits into the question puzzle on all aspects of why the US is where we are.
Yes Daniel!
A bit of well-timed and amusing news for these dark times:
https://youtu.be/JubbOHiPKOQ?si=WkNKG4RbfIVm50eS
https://youtu.be/JubbOHiPKOQ?si=_QKq-D_GcNMaE3FQ
I can't think of anyone better to coopt and likely flip this platform to serve folks to the left of the mafia party!
Really... what about the fact that the Dems cave on every tax code vote. Congress sets the tax code, so why does anyone think it's only Republicans that are giving tax breaks to the rich? The Dems and Republicans hide behind bullshit spending rules so they don't have to defend philosophical positions on spending. They both drink at the corporate trough, the most honest thing Trump said, was he contributed to both parties. I agree the messaging could be more forceful, but that doesn't get to Democrats looking the other way or compromising to claim victory. Basically, I'm simply saying the Dems need to decide where their morale compass points.
Jim, Oh please…moral compass? Which Democrat is a 34-count FELON, RAPIST, SEDITIONIST, terrorizer?
Jim Scott blames the victim.
Not really, I blame the fact that politicians put corporate interests before their constitutes. Call it what you want, it happens at every level of government.
Sez you "the Dems cave on every tax code vote" is bullshit. .
yes but is that why Harris lost to Trump? Most voters know very little about tax codes or anything else.
Daniel you yourself blame the victim. Haven't you implied that Trump voters are victims of delusion, and that they will be victimized by the choice they made?
Blue abandonment? Look to the Muslims and "principled" leftists.
14 million less people cast a ballot in this election than they did in 2024, quite a few of them were Muslims who said that they wouldn't vote for Biden/Harris. And don't forget the Imams who endorsed Trump.
Then there are the principled "leftists", simps and symps that didn't vote because of the Israel/Gaza thing.
Their reward for being feckless, is Ambassador Mike Huckabee and a Zionist Steve Witikoff as Special Envoy to the middle east.
A just reward, for stupidity.
What part of game over, does every not get. there will be no real election, with a real opposition in 2068, there is as much chance of a come back, as their is of a comeback of Democracy in Hungary or Russia.
Does anyone really think,that there will be a full throated,honest election in 2028?
A fairer economy in the 4th Reich of the Rich, in a demoralized and depleted United States.
Demoralized and depleted? Perhaps polarized and fearful?
It is not an either/or but an "and" situation,
Well said, Jim.
Elon Mosca also had his hands in this election by doing something unscrupulous and now U.S is going to be a South Africa Nation! Mosca/Trump's Imperium! 218,000 voters purged in Az alone claiming problems with proving residence! No one has said anything about it! Deplorable situation!
The last election cost more than 10 BILLION dollars! How is being the party of the bottom 90% supposed to work when Citizens United opens the floodgates for the oligarchy and special interests to flood the election process with billions of dollars? The current system does not allow for a fair completion and a true reflection of citizen’s true interests.
The “lost” 9 million votes of those too disgusted to even bother added to the millions of “screw you” votes for Trump and, yes, he does have a mandate to gleefully wreck it all. A vast majority of Americans are frustrated and angry and Trump grotesquely echoed those sentiments. The Democrat's politically-correct stance for “democracy” and inclusion rang untrue with the realities and inequities of the system. It is not so much a mandate for Trump but for the destruction he reeks. He’s the man to “stick it to the man!”
Will the American nation survive this? Perhaps, but it will not emerge as the same dysfunctional nation it has evolved into. The 18th-century American experiment has failed. We need to begin the discussion of how we might replace it to meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.
Any proposals?
To your comment about Dems, Kerry, I'd respond that Dems de-regulated banking; Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall. As for Big Oil, Biden approved new drilling permits and did nothing to get rid of government subsidies. Also, Biden went along with the continuation of the privatiztion of Medicare and abandoned his promise about a public healthcare option as soon as he was elected. There are plenty of examples of Dems feeding from the corporate trough.
In other words, Jim is correct here: the Dems are either going to get 100% behind the working people, or they're going to lose more elections. Saying the Biden economy is great doesn't pay the [exorbitant] rent, pay the ever-increasing ACA permiums, or cover rising food and utility costs.
Yes, the messaging must be better, but people's lived experiences must align with that messaging, or it's useless. (and I'm an independent who's never voted R in my life)
The Democrats are in back pockets, maybe not as obviously as the GOP, but they are!
There's much more wrong with this letter than I can address. Robert's progressive bias always makes me cringe,but here goes.
1. As seems obvious to me, this election WAS a mandate for trump. For him to have won 32 states and the POPULAR VOTE is a mandate. He had never won the popular vote. This vote for trump was a much more reasoned vote than the other two. The other pro-trump voters were more of a wild eyed, crazy, cultist vote. This time his supporters were more rational in their choice. It wasn't a rejection of Harris as much as it was a pro-trump choice. If anyone was rejected, it was the Biden administration's economy and failed border policy. Of course, there was plenty racism and misogyny involved, too. Neither side was wild about electing a black woman. I hate to keep saying that, but it's just so true.
2. I have to take issue with the notion that today's workers earn less than their grandparents did. Having had many long conversations with my grandparents, their description of the economic times they lived through don't exactly speak to a thriving worker class. Although my grandad was a druggist, which is what today's pharmacist was called back in the early 20th Century. He owned the best drug store and snack bar in the City of Rome, GA. Snack bar/restaurants always accompanied drug stores in those days. He struggled at times trying to make a success of his business, and he related how difficult the average worker had it trying to make ends meet. Also, my granddad had to work well into his 80s since there was no Social Security or Medicare. Today's workers make many times more than those of his time, and have far more opportunities for decent work.
3. As for the distribution of income and wealth disparity, I'd have to say that's a worry that most people don't concern themselves with. Who cares that Elon Musk or Joe Schmo are billionaires? I keep seeing Robert Reich and Bernie Sanders keep haranguing about that as if it concerns the rest of us. I'm not saying it's not obscene because it is, especially in Musk's case, but it's not something that bothers me, insofar as the money goes. It's the political stance that makes me want to throw up. A liberal billionaire is ok, but he should be taxed out of this world because rich people are an economic flaw of capitalism. There's no need to fret about it as long as they pay their fair share of taxes and pay their workers justly.
4. The reason 12 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 stayed home this time was simply because they were moderate independent voters who just could not stomach voting for what they saw as a far left liberal who cared more for people of color, migrants and issues like sex change operations for prisoners than them. That commercial that addressed sex change operations for prisoners was one of the most effective commercials I've seen in years. That's where the moderate independents jumped off the bus of the Democrats. It was the equivalent of the George H. W. Bush commercial of Michael Dukakis riding in the tank in 1988 that absolutely obliterated his chances.
We will be ruminating and debating the reasons why we lost this election forever. There are always many things that go wrong for the losing candidate as well as the winning candidate. The bottom line is that trump's right wing following is still under his spell. They like him more than they liked Harris, and envision a trump world of authoritarian rule as being superior for them than a progressive left wing government that will cost them more money to live, and cares more about blacks, Hispanics, and gays than they do them. They aren't concerned about the environment, nor do they want to spend their hard earned money on solar energy over fossil fuel that we still have a vast supply remaining. There is at least 129 years of cheap coal right beneath our feet according to articles I've read. Those are just a few of the reasons why Harris and Democrats lost this election. We could easily lose many more until some changes are made, either in the electorate or in the Democrats' thinking. Just think, we lost to the most flawed opponent that I've ever even read about. Something went really badly!
I prefer Robert Reich's views much more, yes I'm partial to being progressive. Also you seem to be disagreeing with what Robert posts as facts--it has been known for many years that for the majority of people, those in the working class and service jobs, that wages have not gone up. Also money went much further forty years ago than it does today.
Charlie, thank you for sharing your thoughts. You are absolutely right when you say that something went really badly. But your perception of Harris as a left-liberal who cares more about Blacks, etc., is false; it springs from prejudice reinforced by systematic, continuous confirmation bias. You have conservative media to thank for that. You agree with Reich that taxes should be fair, which is really his main argument. You are right when you say that most people don't care about inequality, that what people care about is fairness, and that was precisely what Kamala Harris was campaigning for. Could it be that a white candidate would have been more reassuring to you?
No more kool-aid for you.
The freaking reality is so misperceived it’s insane - That is SPOT ON!!!!
Who is your master?
A superb “exposé “ in both our replies of what is really the problem for Democrats. Thanks for making such a clear and cogent answer .
Good question. Our data shows that we shudda won. I cite to Palast below.
I keep citing to psyops. Is Tulsi Gabbard, named to control national security, an agent or just a willing idiot for Putin? Is this a payoff to Putin for "fixing: the election?
Daniel, Harris losing all swing states? Pretty damn preposterous in my books. Trump would have to go to prison and being in demtia, he may have exposed what he gave to Putin, Orbán etc. THEY needed trump to win at ANY cost. That Democrats don’t demand an investigation pisses me off.
Not sure who I should fear more: Putin or our internal adversaries. Not even sure there is much difference between the two, as you suggest.
Tulsi Gabbard is in Islamophobe and, almost certainly, a Sinophobe as well. She is a mercenary for sure.
Really, as you say, Daniel, Pelast makes compelling arguments and has the receipts. Also, the commentator you linked elsewhere, Political Girl, points out some glaring irregularities. I'm copying your link here, for any who might be interested.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcep4FNL54w
Well said, Jim!
Nah. It's not like Biden was emperor. True we have interbal problems. But thowing out the baby with the bathwater is not the answer.
The medium IS the message. Here's a little hope....
https://news4sanantonio.com/news/trouble-shooters/fcc-approves-controversial-radio-station-deal-involving-soros-backed-group
May be too late.
I was thinking the same thing Daniel. Much harder to climb back at this point. But this would be the best possible way to use his wealth! We needed this at least 20 years ago. But I’ll take it. I just don’t trust that the FascistFelon party could make it illegal. They also have SCOTUS. Biden should break the rules and assign more SCOTUS now. And pass the No Kings Act!
It is a GD mystery why Dems have not acted over many years to gain power over media distribution channels. there is no there there when it comes to strategy
Check out the article from "Barn Raiser" . In an interview with a democratic leader from rural part of Georgia you wilhear the disappointment not only of the Harris campaign but also the general displeasure with the national democratic party and their disrespect for working people. https://barnraisingmedia.com/
The problem with that is how do we get Democrats to abandon corporate masters? Greed is greed and with that comes abandoning moral code. A part of me feels this country needs to go to hell in a hand basket so all the working class wakes up and takes control.
They won't "wake up" though because the channels of communication they would use to organize are poisoned, and the elites in control of the government and economy learned that they can demagogue against minority immigrant and gay targets to redirect any rage generated from the awful circumstances suffered in daily life. This is a recipe for a repeat of the mid20th century, and I don't think we have an off ramp anymore.
At this point, I'm very afraid you're right, Jan.
People are individuals. How many Republicans voted against it?
The democrats never abandoned the working class. All Joe did was work for us the whole four years he was there. Where the messaging went wrong was the mainstream media. They were very much a good portion of the culprits. I really have cut the cord from listening to them except for a couple of different commentators, which I feel are still trustworthy.
I think it's more innocuous than that. Most people will agree mainstream media is owned by corporations. So, I don't think it's hard to imagine that people are misinformed. If we were to imagine that a majority are getting their messaging from social media, then chances are they don't see the Democrats messaging anyway, due to the algorithms that determines what users actually see.
Yes, Sinclair has a monopoly in my area.
This is a great point. But I have an issue with the whole framing of Dems vs Republicans we have. We always act like poor widdle Dems just can't do anything against these evil terrible powers around them. It's so weird. 'Oh the media is biased against them'. 'Oh the Republicans sabotage their efforts.'
How exactly are we not able to have independent media, or dem-biased media like Republicans have for their side? What is stopping us? Do you guys see how much MONEY the top Democrats have? Do you see how much lobbying there is? It's patently ridiculous to claim that somehow Republicans magically have better media-stacking powers than we would, if we actually wanted to do that.
Same with getting things passed through government. Half the time they're pretending they want to do a progressive thing so we think 'oh look they're trying' and then 'the Republicans sabotage it'. Yet whatever horrid ridiculous thing the Republicans decided to do Dems never manage to sabotage it. Are we stupid? Are they just objectively better at everything? Jesus Christ it's a weird take. Poor little us, too innocent and pure for this world. I hate it.
Agree completely, Lidija. As one example, all the legislation that Manchin and Sinema blocked. Could Biden not have called them into the Oval and played hardball, as LBJ would have? But no-o-o-o. Or when Biden had majorities in both houses, couldn't he have gotten a public healthcare option through? Oh, no, can't do that! Gotta have bi-partisanship. Dems have to learn to be hard asses, like the other side of the aisle.
Yeah there is a feeling of really not wanting it that bad, or being kind of weirdly hapless, like ‘oh no, what do we do, they’re not playing fairrr!’ Oh nooo!!’ It feels like an excuse, these people weren’t born yesterday. Remember when we didn’t want to pick a supreme court judge ‘last minute’ but then they casually stacked the court and now it’s just like that? ‘Oh no what can we do!!’ Well if you present yourselves as perpetual losers don’t be surprised if your voting body isn’t fired up.
And then on top of all of that Gaza.
If you hate it then support progressive media.
Oh I do, personally. But the Democratic Party does not. They don’t protect independent journalism, they don’t protect people’s right to protest, so they can’t cry when they get beaten by republicans at the game they are also playing. They’re just playing it worse.
Not mainstream, far right media, our (Democrat) contribution was and continues to be NO REGULATION, no consequences, no teeth.
And Biden welcoming that monster right on in is a big part of this. He is complicit, he is an old school suck up and I did not vote for him in the primaries. Oh well. Lots of us did.
Heather, do you mean Biden calling for a “peaceful” transition? If so, I agree with you. Everyone needs to refer to him as Convicted Felon-Rapist trump. The last thing Biden should do is pretend it’s a normal election with a mere difference of opinion! Biden should be using executive powers like there’s no tomorrow…because there isn’t a normal tomorrow anymore! This stresses me out as much as the Fascist take-over
Biden obviously hopes that there might be a chance for a peaceful transition of power in 2028. It is not an entirely irrational hope. To do what you suggest would result in certain chaos. Let Republicans bear responsibility for chaos.
I agree with you in theory, Victor, but I don’t think for a minute that the Rs will bear responsibility for anything. They'll blame the Dems, and their relentless media outlets will continue to convince the cult.
Victor, the pretense that there is anything OK with. 34-count FELON, a man guilty of RAPE and sedition, should Never be normalized in any way. Too bad you don’t get that. But of course you can pretend trump will show up with a bouquet of flowers and not be a the terrorist he is, I’m sticking to reality and fighting this disgrace off.
Biden is too kind to not invite him in because he knows it's protocol to do it, and he can't shun him. In his eyes, I'm sure it would make him look to the country and to the world like he's as petty as Trump is. He is a man of honor.
Well.....there's doing the bare minimum honorable thing, and there's kowtowing. I tend to think Biden skewed toward the latter, at least publicly.
There are always a few center/right Dems who throw the thin balance back to the rescumliCons. That's a big problem too! RescumliCons stick together even for a Convicted Criminal
You hit it right Heather Moscrip. Deregulation, and Citizens United add a dash of no Voter Right Act and voila, billionaires getting their greedy power hungry way.
Who is still worthy? NPR? I find myself going to AP, Al Jezeera, or Reuters.
Have you checked out Ground news yet? Paid subscription (small monthly fee, so they are not beholden to advertising and thus corporate funding). They provide context - like how biased the article is and for which side, who paid for the reporting, etc, plus lots of ways to filter and sort for yourself, including a "blind spot" option that shows you stories NEITHER side is talking about. We ALL need to support this effort to give control of the algorithm and content back to us. The days of depending on "mainstream" media for fair and balanced reporting are over. We MUST be relentless in our quest for facts and truth, and we must collectively find it ourselves. Because corporate news and social media are OWNED by those who want us deceived, confused, disengaged oblivious or all of the above.
Boycott!
E Sonoma…Boycott what? Most mega corporations are owned by the right. Unless you shop at a local independent for everything, you’re always supporting the right at some level.
Start with Amazon. I've been boycotting them for years. I wish more people would.
https://www.goodsuniteus.com/
Totally agree
You’re absolutely right! The problem with the Democrats is the lack of communication with the working class. People need to hear the message, the promises, and know what’s being done for them. The campaign was too short; Biden should not have run initially and Harris should have had time to address the issues. Marketing!!! Yes! Everything has become a commodity, including our freedoms, our environment, and most certainly, our economy! Democrats, energize, act, and definitely engage!!
🧨🧨🧨🧨 DON'T MISS THIS!!! 💥💥💥💥💥
How can Democrats break through the red wall of the right-wing media disinformation system? I think there is a way. Read about it:
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/dems-can-win-by-selling-one-big-idea
I wrote a piece four days ago about the missing 9 million voters and I fully agree with Professor Reich about why they stayed home.
Vanished into thin air: Where did 9M Democratic voters go? Nov 09, 2024
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/vanished-into-thin-air-where-did
I believe the Democrats that didn't vote, or voted for someone other than Kamala, indirectly voted for trump. Now I have to believe that many Democrats are as stupid as the trump supporters. Why vote against your best interests. I remember Ross Perrot running for president; how did that go? Democrats are the party of the working class, the middle class, the lower middle class, and the poor. They constantly fight for our rights and our freedom.
I am mostly on your wavelength. An additional way forward is a mandatory military draft or government service of some type. Most of the public has no idea whatsoever what the government does, or any connection with it. But if our country allows them to be propaganized against the government then that would be pretty pointless perhaps.
The Democratic party should not eschew economic progressives. They are central to the energy of the party and appeal to voters. Cultural progressivism- some of the woke stuff- is more problematic.
Willful ignorance has only one cure: hardship.
There's a big difference between job training which an individual volunteers for and a compelled military draft or national service. The electorate is grumpy and simply does not want to be told what to do. I do agree that national service would be beneficial, but I don't think it would be embraced at this point.
True. "Job training" would have far more appeal conceptually and once it begins paying off for people. I don't think it's either build a stronger info system OR job training. They should do both. It would help them market whatever they want to do. I see your idea as extension to the Tim Walz waiver of college degree for state government jobs, in a way.
All of this a moot point except for how it figures into campaigns mostly. Go sell it to Spanberger running for VA governor in 2025. go to her FB site or whatever. Or go here and participate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUU5zJd7LDQ&ab_channel=RuralUrbanBridgeInitiative
It is an important question, but the fundamental question is why millions voted for Trump.
Patricia, bullshit. Biden has passed everything for working people and despite this being the best economy in decades, keep riding the right wing noise machine. I’m so sick of this kind of fact-free comment! Yet you think trump did a superb job? That he will help working people? That his 34 felony convictions, rape, sedition is a footnote for you! FOCUS. This was not a poor
was a well-run campaign. Her debate hit it out of the park! Record attendance in stadiums! Rather than smelling the rat, you start the classic Dem blame game. While they make mistakes, they aren’t Nazis! And the REPUBLIcons NEVER do anything for working people. Get to that blame game & put your energy there.
You are so right. The messaging has got to be there -- and the White House simply can't delegate that out to the media. On the contrary, they need a staff of folks to monitor the media and counter the disinformation with facts and metrics.
In SPANISH as well as in English.
Messaging how? Right wing owns virtually every single media conglomerate. Where have you been?
It IS the messaging. I think the main problem is that half the country is wildly misinformed,
because they're getting the message from Fox News & other rightwing outlets, which form an echo chamber within which any rightwing inversion of reality is taken as fact. And with the exception of Pete Buttigieg, the Democrats seem not to understand that publishing incisive articles in the NY Times or WaPo will never be heard by them. The Dems need to mount a sustained effort, spearheaded by people with good communications skills, to penetrate the barrier of that echo chamber, & to tell our countrymen on the other side that Fox is jerking them around, & in what way.
Nailed it! I wrote a similar response to a previous similar column from Robert, of all people, and Bernie as well, WTF? Your 3rd & 4th sentences are right on.
As for failing at messaging, maybe, but as the years wore on, I began to see that basically it was the media simply ignoring Biden and the Democrats beyong reporting how unpopular the polls showed they were, and then going on and on speculating about it's kitchen table issues, voting their pocketbook, inflation is hurting them, endless redundancy. Essentially telling the middle class over and over how rough they had it and who they were or should be blaming.
Simultaneously from all RW propaganda 24/7 (to summarize) BIDEN IS DESTROYING THE COUNTRY!!!!!11!!!1!OPEN BORDERS!!!!!!MURDERS!!RAPISTS!!!!ONLY TRUMP CAN FIX IT.
The 'woke' things do hurt us. Although to my mind, defund the police and trans issues aren't 'woke' things, per se, but the also weren't specifically Democrat things. I never could track down who was resonsible for the idiotic, Defund the Police, but it seemed to come from some radical in the BLM movement, but the media went insane with it. The RW propaganda machine is expert at taking anything that happens or is trending in the modern world that freaks out (triggers😉) the traditional old school folks who make up the 'conservative' base in the culture wars and blowing it all out of proportion and connecting it to "the Democrats." The trans thing, was created by the same RW think tank messaging machine to create a hot button issue to replace abortion after the dog caught the car on that one. The huge blast of noise about it on the right served to force it as an issue that any candidate had to have a position on, despite it not even being on the radar previously. From there to Donnie's lie regurgitation vomit hole: "they're giving your kids sex change operations at school." And "they" is the Democrats in the MAGA borg mind, and the Democrats have to state a position on it.
Did you see the mainstream media calling out Donald's insane lie?! Because they did not.
No rational person would believe that kids get sex change operations at school!
Reich is not talking about the “working class” as much as the “abandon hope” class. Union workers get a $35 minimum hourly wage. The hopeless get handouts or McDonalds $10/hr hopeless jobs!
a living wage today should be about $40 to $50/hr.
There absolutely were strides made by the Biden admin. The problem is that people are struggling against price gouging and stagnant wages. Those strides by the Biden admin didn't affect those things for most people. The only thing that would have won over these voters is if the Dems had done things that were AGGRESSIVELY pro worker and made a real dent in their grocery bill or a bump in their wages. It's clear that Dems have been courting the "middle class" (read: upper middle class) and cow-towing to donors (just not as loudly as Repubs) for years. This is not something that can be fixed with slow moving or more nebulous policies that the Biden admin was doing. They needed to be aggresive, and as always, they weren't. The left has been saying this for YEARS but the libs never listened to us. Now, liberal weakness has lost us democracy to a fascist dictator.
unfortunately its better to invest money in propaganda and trumpet about solving stuff falsely then to invest time and effort into solving problems...
Idiocracy all the way...
apparently dems need to buy out propaganda outlets and focus on what matters (media presence) to grab attention of the voters
OR as always... try to invest more in education...so that common voter baseline gets to the level where they can separate propaganda from substance and stop eating up trumps shit as god given gospel
try to make blue states better to live in for the common people by example ...and not only promises
AND start keeping a track record!! and keep spaming the positive differences
a rolling (and well referenced) effort like https://hartmannreport.com/p/why-are-red-state-citizens-poorer-2ef
I think you are right on. Biden accomplished so much, but was much too quiet about all he accomplished. Sad
Defund the police was a marketing hit job by republicans.
Yes but they don't get it. It is " messaging." They aren't insulted when Trump talks to them like a 4 tear old. But the old rhetoric of "everyday Americans," "the kitchen", "equal opportunity" doesn't morivate them enough to get out of bed and vote.
The rhetoric matters. People are bombarded by crafed messaging in all sorts of media. They are truly annoyed by rhetorical wars about ponouns and correct identity speech. It feels intrusive. The word woman is forbidden. Pregnant people???
We need to revive the generic blue collar Democrat...People will quickly figure out JD Vance is another Yale plutocrat, though he didn't get there by birth. I'm one of those liberal elitists, but I try to study the word, how my blue collar associates try to understand. Facts and structural analysis have to be validated in their personal experience Just explaining isn't enough. Corelation is not cause. Evolution is slow. Extinction is fast.
Cultural evolution may be slow, but technological change can be fast, and the consequence may be cultural devolution. These are interesting times.Trump's current cabinet nominations promise stagnation.
Kerry 🎯 GOOD comment Kerry. We’re not going to ignore everything the Democrats have done for workers, LGBTQIA, attempts to push equality. But also we must acknowledge the media is almost ENTIRELY owned by the far right. How the hell do you message when you are blocked on tv, newspapers, radio. We ONLY have part of the internet.
Did the RepubliCons give us the end of segregation NO! In a system that GIVES every advantage to money, there has to be money to fight back..so here we are. Granted, Bill Clinton did us no favors moving to the right. So at some point we know not enough could be done but the damn republiCons blocked those things. We can POSSIBLY excuse the first round of trump…an unknown. But after 4 years of his catering to the mega rich, ignoring climate change, ignoring COVID and a campaigning as a FELON-RAPIST and hearing his vile illegal threats WITH NO CONSEQUENCES helped this happen. Trump publically declared a terrorist threat to Liz Cheney while out on bail…The result of this violation of bail? Crickets.
Wrong. When you stop listening to the majority of your base, shout down and exclude supporters with impunity, campaign with neocons and talk about building the most lethal military in the world as if the military industrial complex hasn’t already bankrupted the country and made the insiders and Corporate America filthy rich, proudly subsidize and prioritize the interests of a foreign country and its citizens before your own, and literally tell lifelong D’s that you don’t need their vote because you’ll pick up R votes in the suburbs, you lose— BIG!
they told lifelong D's that ?!
Yes, Schumer and others have said it. It’s been the D’s strategy for several years now. And, in my opinion, KH’s actions during her campaign demonstrated that she had adopted this cynical strategy. They miscalculated.
Agree 100%!! Dems dona lot of things Americans want but they NEVER BRAG about it. Trump does nothing but whine and collect $$$ for his own pockets and he takes.credit for all the things Biden and DEMs do and Biden and DEMs never fight back!! Come.on DEMs!!
Spot on! You know from the start that it’s an uphill battle to make ppl see the value of long-term fixes like all the legislation that got passed under Biden, especially in current media environment, and to compete with populist MAGA bs, and yet Biden was invisible. Yes, he should have been everywhere, all at once, yes also signs on every infrastructure and other projects ‘Joe did it’, ‘Big Deal’ (like New Deal) etc, ad nauseum. In the world where attention span is 1 min that’s what you need to do.
No mandate. No red wave. No huge win. And now a confederacy of dunces.
True, but dangerous dunces. Nothing makes this more apparent than the nomination of Matt Gaetz. The fox is in the chicken house.
I have fearful respect for the Trumpers - they are malignant, destructive, selfish, greedy. Not to mention morally and ethically bankrupt. Hoping there are some equally powerful adults to mediate the damage.
And how about these idiots: https://youtu.be/AoO0KuuP8mE?si=om6UfYi3cd32MFu-
Back when their ilk was busy undermining the anti-felons' efforts, I was reminding them that we were voting on the president of the US and not of Israel or any other foreign power. Their failure to show up this election has been instrumental in electing the Putin surrogate regime that will now label them terrorists.
And from my POV, as I've already stated about the possibility of Garland being purged, it'll damn well serve them right.
https://youtu.be/MVlnxSnzLaw?si=ZrTQAFowfe5f-kBq
https://youtu.be/fy45PgAzkaE?si=vvNiRAkdyDqlCd4t
https://youtu.be/jqjheD86jx8?si=MlTyEDD9XF-U5H5B
2% is not a mandate. Trump won 50% Harris won 48% … so a 2% difference …. How is that a landslide … how is that a mandate … that is a razor close election … 1/2 of America does not agree with Trump/MAGA
But for psyops, we wudda won bigly. According to Greg Palast, 2.7 million provisional ballots were tossed. https://www.gregpalast.com/
"Whose ballots? If you’re Black, Hispanic or Asian-American, the chance you were shunted to one of these provisional ballots is 300% higher than if you’re white."
"How many Black ballots were thrown in the electoral dumpster?"
"As a former professor of statistics, I know there’s still a lot of sleuthing in the numbers I have to do, but I can tell you this: The number of rejected provisional ballots, the number of voters wrongly purged from the rolls, the number of ballots “spoiled” and not counted, has unquestionably skyrocketed."
Those votes in swing states may have been enough to change the outcome.
Don't forget polling places closed in Democratic areas due to Russian fake bomb threats
Speaking as someone who lives in Georgia -- where nearly two dozen precincts had to be temporarily evacuated -- they all opened back up in pretty short time, the officials being confident the threats were false -- and all votes were processed Hours were extended at those locations too.
It's reasonable to expect some people were scared shitless. For months Russian propganda predicted violence on election day. In some places ballots were burned. My wife worked the polls during early voting. Aqui mismo, Proud Boys showed up.
I can only speak to Georgia, where 5.2 million ballots were cast -- and over half of those in over 2 weeks of early voting in person. In 2020, 4.9 million voted. Trump won this year by 115,000.
Apparently, nationally, 15 million didn't.
Mayorkas at the DHS dropped the ball. Knowing the amount of pressure Russian bots have and would put on the US, why not "electronically close the borders?" For six or twelve hours. No one either calls in or out. No email, no phone call. And Disable Starlink through which all their communications go? Early on, Garland gave a list of Russian suspects to be indicted by the DOJ. I remember clearly him saying that those guys were still working to harm the US "as we speak now." Why was nothing done against those threats? Next time, we too should start freaking white people out of voting booths. What is good for the goose....
Excellent point! Why the hell didn’t we get ahead of this with what is known! And how desperate Putin would be to keep trump out of prison and from singing!
The stat I just read was Trump 50.3% The problem is two fold. First the Electoral College is a remnant of a time when those who invented it did not trust the majority of people to vote "properly". It was the elite white male property owners who should decide who runs things - sound familiar?
Second, we have a lazy ass citizenry who are clueless as to the threat of an autocrat. Most of us on these Substack sites know what fascism is. Millions of naive spoiled young people do not. When I think of Trump, I envision the camps he will set up for immigrants and I think WWII Germany - because those photos are embedded in my brain. My parents fought so this would never happen again.
Many younger people just stare at their phones and are influenced by asshats like Joe Rogan. They will get involved someday, perhaps when things get truly ugly - for them. They didn't vote.
From au.gov:
"Australia has one of the highest voter turnouts in the world. Since voting became compulsory in 1924, over 90 percent of those registered have voted in every federal election. Compulsory voting means every eligible Australian citizen (18 years or older) is required by law to enrol and vote. For more information about elections, visit the Australian Electoral Commission website."
Americans don’t like to do any extraneous thinking.
They tend believe what they’re told and rarely research to see its credibility.
And the Trumpists spent the last four years gaslighting America, repeating their bullshit over and over. Repeat a lie long enough and it becomes the truth.
Probably much more than that. They just don’t know it yet.
We the democrats abandoned our base in the real world for the fantasy world of the college educated; then we spent
1 billion in campaign funds on fluff advertising than persuaded no one to vote for Harris. A nice person that is finely tuned and very articulate about fringe issues such as trans rights for prisoners in Jail.
We missed the boat the pier and water completely due to amateur deep pocket Hollywood actors that are living in fantasy OZ. Internal stupidity killed us…
Hollywood has ONE SCENE of a working class employee asking for a raise? After100 years of movie making?
❤Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy❤
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMZKkyDTc2Q
The greatest "ask for a raise scene" of all time. Robert Downey Sr.'s "Putney Swope."
(His son played homage to the film's main character -- whose voice often had to be dubbed in by Downey sr. -- in Tropic Thunder.)
https://youtu.be/0XOcuCZJRmE?si=TFi-IolFiAiUdJme
I think the Democrats have a problem being embedded with corporate interests. In 2016 Bernie was talking about things that the majority of Americans want, universal Healthcare, free college tuition, a living minimum wage, taxing billionaires, breaking up monopoly corporations. And the Democrats ridiculed him, they charged he wasn't a Democrat, he was an Independent. Bernie is going to increase your taxes. Even Joe Biden laughed off universal Healthcare, when debating Bernie. And now Dems are surprised they've had their ass handed to them. The Dems, will give speeches on how unfair workers are treated. But, when given the opportunity to vote for progressive issues, they don't.
i agree. the Dems fucked Bernie as they anointed Hillary exposing rot in the party
Bottom line - mass propaganda on Fox, social media, etc. pounded this lie over and over: “Dems don’t care about you - we (MAGA) support your interests” - the Democratic counter was either feeble (not where most got their info) ingenuous (too many mixed messages) or totally ignored (take your pick) - so no matter what programs were helping people, and how much MAGA proposals were against their own interests, many of the voters weren’t listening, believing or understanding. Add misogyny, racism, fear, ignorance, apathy, and the delay in seeing results added to the frustration of 50 years of decline to that miserable stew and you get a perfect storm of this election. What should have been a Democratic landslide was degraded by constant lies and pixie dust promises. They may have buyers remorse now, when they find out what’s in store - inflation on steroids, mass deportations, recession and job loss, loss of health care and social safety networks, also affecting the entire world (watch out for WWIII), not to mention dictatorship of the kleptocracy-oligarchy. I could go on about the end of this republic - it took the Romans a bit longer to self destruct. Benjamin Franklin was right - “… if you can keep it.”
Yes, exactly! Every time a progressive leader speaks up among the Dems, they poll well, ignite the base, and draw excitement from millions of young people and others who don't see either party as representing anything other than corporate interests and donors. Then, of course, the Powers That Be proceed to torpedo that candidate's chances using every tool at their disposal, leaving nothing behind but the same old argument that we are not a force for good, but just a slightly lesser evil.
And then they get beaten by a guy who led us to Iraq and found 0 WMDs...and the guy that joked about and advocated for sexual assault....and then the guy who mishandled a public health crisis, could not definitively call out Nazis as bad for America, and tried to overthrow the government.
My question now is, for those who continue to believe the Democratic party can be salvaged, can be somehow wrangled away from the corporate interests that define it, what would it take for you to believe that was no longer possible? How much defeat can you entail before you admit that you keep defending and fighting for a perpetually losing team that is beyond saving? Or will left-leaning people keep reminding the world of the definition of insanity until climate change makes all of these efforts meaningless?
The hypothetical polls in 2016 showed that Sanders would have beaten Trump hands down, 70/30, so Sanders' victory would have included a lot of people who would vote MAGA in the contest with HRC.
What was Sanders' most potent promise? Universal Healthcare. It's what 70% of Americans want.
Oh, and by the way, the ACA, which Trump vows to abolish, was never a particularly good program. Better than nothing, to be sure, but nobody liked the higher deductibles, copays and drug costs that came with it - the price Obama had to pay to get it across the line. It's not fit for the world's richest economy. Nevertheless, its abolition will be the greatest gift the Democrats could have, but please no more talk about restoring the ACA. The pitch should be "Medicare for all who want it." Bernie, you were right!
Michael, the good thing about the ACA was that preexisting conditions were not supposed to be a reason to not cover with insurance. I knew that the cost of ACA would go up as more people were forced into it. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois was legally bound at one time to insure everybody, but they denied me. Shortly thereafter they gave up their tax exempt status to have the right to deny insurance to individuals.
Now that I found out that Medicare Advantage is a scam, I can't go back on Medicare and buy a coinsurance without being charged a higher rate and possibly being denied the gap insurance altogether. I am so disappointed we can't have universal coverage like other wealthy countries. It is ridiculous to believe we can't afford it. But how would the insurance/finance parasites maintain their wealth if we abandoned the for-profit healthcare system now that the US has been de-industrialized?
Now that private equity is cannibalizing hospital system the way corporate raiders sucked up the assets in industry toward the end of the last century, will we have any kind of a healthcare system in a few years without government intervention and a takeover?
Gloria, I agree with you about the ACA. There were actually two good things about it. First, as you say, insurance corporations could not deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. Second, about 20 million Americans, mainly Blacks and Hispanics, who were previously uninsured, got access to Medicaid - which is threadbare insurance but is a lot better than nothing.
Now the downside. In order to win these concessions Obama had to give up a lot. Copays went through the roof, deductibles went through the roof, and drug prices went through the roof (remember the $800 Epi pen? - that was the result of the ACA). Because of the ACA, 75 million Americans are either uninsured or underinsured (by which I mean they cannot afford their deductible so they don't go to doctors).
We can do a lot better than this. Hell, every other rich country in the world has done it. We pay the highest medical costs in the developed world, and we have the worst outcomes. It's a national embarrassment.
So, you have a platform of Medicare for all, and you run with it. There is a wrinkle here. When polled, 72% of Americans approve of M4A, but when you say "You realize this applies to you individually?" support drops to 36%, which suggests to us that over a third of Americans are perfectly happy with their plan, and don't want to change. So why do they approve of M4A? Because when they hear M4A they think universal healthcare. So the way we put THIS together is that the 28% of Americans who don't approve of M4A are happy with their plan and don't want to pay for anyone else to have decent insurance. Add the 36% of Americans who are more generous spirits who also want to keep their plan but DO want other Americans to have decent healthcare, and you get 64% of Americans who want to keep their plan.
So, M4A should instead be pitched as "Medicare for all who want it," while making it abundantly clear that this is not a freebie to be paid for by the government, but rather a real plan that people (or their employers) can pay for, just as they would for commercial insurance. If you are self-employed you pay for it directly (and it would be a lot less expensive than Obamacare plans), and if you are employed it would be offered as one of the choices alongside commercial insurance products. So, no-one would be forced to choose it, and this would induce real price competition, a proper marketplace.
In the end, as more and more people choose Medicare, the corporations would save a lot of money, we estimate over a trillion dollars a year (we wrote a book about it in 2019 - Healing American Healthcare).
As for the commercial insurance companies, they could reorganize as boutique, concierge, services.
BTW what took you so long to recognize that Medicare Advantage plans are a scam?
How do I respond in the same smooth, salesmanlike way that you present your idea? How about No, No, No? We don't need another complicated way to pretend to cut costs while padding a few pockets with tons of money that should be spent on actual healthcare. Health shouldn't be sold in a market place. Health shouldn't be for sale and for profit. Notice I said "health" and not "healthcare?" Healthcare is health, and health is life. Health extortion is a crime.
We should have a fair and equal system that is paid into according to income and covers everyone from the cradle to the grave. Government is meant to do for it's citizens what the citizens can't do individually. Such as pay for fire departments, police departments, education, infrastructure, and HEALTHCARE from taxes.
If I sound angry and frustrated, I am. I just requested the record from Maximus that my MA Plan, Quartz, is using to deny paying for my continuous glucose monitor that is medically necessary. I succeeded with two appeals, but the insurer asked for a reconsideration from the "final appeal." It never ends.
Btw, "Healthcare Uncovered" is Wendall Potter's new substack. You may want to read it. I restacked some articles.
You are right - in an ideal world. What we were trying to do in "Healing American Healthcare" was to introduce Medicare for all who want it, as a way of introducing your system by stealth. The problem with imposing Medicare is that 2/3 of Americans will likely reject it.
Our system is not at all complicated, it just requires employers to offer Medicare as an alternative. This broadens choice. We anticipate that there would be a gradual shift to Medicare over time, with about 20% of the population demanding private health insurance. So there would still be a role for private insurance, but Medicare would become the backbone of Medicine.
Look at the attacks on Keir Starmer, the UK's soundly elected Labour Prime Minister, from the moment they got into power. Papers and media owned by conservatives (and oligarchs) immediately screamed about benefits he and his wife that were got on a miniscule scale (I mean, football tickets) compared to the chumocracy of the last Conservative government. Almost anything to neuter Labour's ability to govern. Thank goodness we had our election in July.
Isn, is your answer to vote for the only other option? Fascism? Bullshit. The right/center Democrats and corporate interests (DNC) have deeply damaged the Dem Party. In a Capitalist system, you CANNOT abandon money sources. That is why corruption is there! We need out of Capitalism!
SPENDING PROTEST - Top Republicans power-brokers have an Achilles heel … they worship money … DEMOCRATS ARE 1/2 OF THE COUNTRY … DEMOCRAT SPENDING IS 1/2 OF THE ECONOMY … if democrats stopped spending … the US economy will be affected … all major businesses will be affected … if even 50% of Democrats (25% of the country) stopped spending except for necessities … delay buying a new or used car … delay buying a house … delay buying any appliances … delay shopping (buying clothes, etc), delay traveling, delay booking travel, delay any airline travel… etc … etc … THE POWER BROKERS WOULD FEEL THE HEAT … if persisted …. it could affect the economy. Theoretically it could be political leverage. I’m not suggesting or advocating this …. just making an hypothetical observation.
I don’t intend to contribute to the Trump economy. My husband and I don’t need to buy a damn thing except essentials. And we won’t.
Debarah, the same here except I buy books I want to read that the library doesn't have.
There is an excellent used book store in my town and if there's a book I want, the owner uses her contacts to get it for me. It's great! I can get my hands on the latest books coming out and I don't have to buy them at a corporate run store.
Or at small-store-breaking Amazon...
Gloria:
May I recommend On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017) by Timothy Snyder?
\Vince S
I like this idea. It also addresses problems like climate change. Not buying stuff is an aspect of the degrowth needed to drawdown our planetary impact. That it can twist Trump and his billionaire buddies is a side benefit in a much more important struggle to save the planet. Billionaire denialism on climate primarily stems from their desire to sell us stuff we do not need.
Kudos to you and your husband, Deborah! We need so many more true Americans to do what you and your husband are doing!
Consumerism, the great American sin. As much as we are Grinching-Up, the wealthy are creating a cataclysmic problem as they crank-up cybercoins & bitcoins. The computer demand for operations is an abominable usage of electricity & water.
I agree with this! I canceled my Amazon account. Switched away from good reads to storygraph, etc. These are all tiny things, but I'm encouraging others to do the same. I'm looking for a list on ways we can all alter our buying decisions to let our wallets speak for us. If anyone has one started already, please share.
Don't tell me, you don't like those golden sneakers? Or those $100k watches?
I’m in the midst of doing likewise. Stocking up on non-expiring essentials in Biden’s last full quarter. Eliminating non-essential spending in the 47 economy guided by https://www.goodsuniteus.com/
My charitable contributions will continue.
Steven, I LOVE this idea! I have said on this substack that I refuse to spend my money on any corporations. I shop thrift stores, discount stores, farmers' markets, fruit and vegetable stands and u-pick fields. My car is very old but it still gets me where I want to go. Do I do without luxuries? Sure, but it is worth it to me not to give anything to these greedy, power-hungry corporations. Americans need to decide if they want to continue to feed these corporations and uber rich by spending their hard-earned money on their products or can they sacrifice some of those luxuries, tighten their belts and show the corporations that the very people they punish for profit are the people they need to keep them in business!
And don’t buy ANYTHING from companies that donate to or support Trump in any way!
Betty, that will be virtually impossible unfortunately.
https://www.goodsuniteus.com/
That’s essential 😊
American Eulogy ….. In 2024, a depraved president was elected with an agenda, to take from the working class and give to the rich. The government was dismantled to further enhance the rich and for corporations to run the marketplace as they pleased. America …. once the most admirer nation on earth was reduced to a violent, unstable, chaotic cinder of its once glory. Half of its citizenry glory in the depravity and half wish for the great America past. When honor, morals, dignity, class and law returns … maybe the great America will be restored.
Those opposed to the autocrats and oligarchs are going to have to come up our own "Project" outlining where and how to rebuild America.
In the face of climate change, the old "American dream" was not sustainable, Most people, at some gut level realize that -- which is why some take the path of denial.
That project needs to start at the ground level of helping people in their communities. And then working up from there. It also needs to address the increasing amount of foreign propaganda targeting the US citizens and elections.
Why can’t we just say that 50% of Americans would rather vote for a lying, racist, misogynistic, conspiracy theory, rapist, narcissistic, sociopathic traitor reality star because they have loss their minds and decency?
Why can't we just say: "a lying, racist, misogynistic, conspiracy theory, rapist, narcissistic, sociopathic traitor reality star" cheated his way into the United States Presidency? The idea that Trump won "fair and square" is offensive in its ingenuity.
🎯Thank you Franxois!! My sentiments exactly!! The first thing Democrats do is fall for the right wing bullshit of blaming our own. Meanwhile, the Convicted Felon-Rapist Seditionist forgets to be mentioned yet again. Nothing like helping the Nazis deliver their message!
I know that's right. Split hairs. Blame Bill Clinton. Still crying because Bernie lost to Hillary and Biden. Big money has bought the political system. Bla, bla, bla. But the truth is exactly what you said. 51% of the voting populace love donald trump. This country is a right wing voting bunch who are repulsed by all the left wing politics and everything it stands for. Full stop!
I’m repulsed at the right wing MAGA lying thieves! Americans are too stupid to quit voting MAGA GOP even when they know they are nothing but greedy power hungry thieves! Too bad if their wives die due to their lack of Womens healthcare or any scientific information, or shots like measles, mumps, polio, etc!
Because that is not why people vote. That is an easy answer used to demonize half the country so we'll feel better and won't have to do any work.
you cant say 50% of americans would rather vote MAGA because 50% of eligible voters aren't even registered to vote. 48% of eligible voters are registered, and only 51% of those are voting republican... that's 24% of the population, not half. Not even close to half.
Excuse me know it all. I was making a point. Then 50% of the people who voted are MAGA traitors!
I am a white woman over 65. Your conclusion that it wasn't racism or sexism seems to me overly simplistic and logically flawed. Yes, Obama is black, but he is a MAN. Yes, Hilary is a woman, but she is WHITE (and she was unable to win the electoral college). Harris is neither. When she entered the race, I slapped my forehead and said "nooooooooooo!"; I was sure in my gut that America would NOT elect a black woman. Even one as eminently qualified and morally exemplary as Kamala. I contributed to, and worked for, her campaign. I listened to her and to the polls, and became hopeful, but my gut remained convinced that she didn't have a chance. The Democrats under Biden have demonstrated that they support the middle class. Harris made it abundantly clear that she supports the middle class. The people who voted for HIM don't know either of those things, and if they did, they wouldn't care. They only "know" what the right-wing propaganda machine tells them because they actively avoid anything BUT right wing sources - and that is remarkably easy to do at this time in history. And what it told them was that she is BLACK ("I didn't know she was black, did you know she was black, suddenly she was BLACK"). And it told them that she has been letting in all the BROWN people for the last four years. Worse, it told them she wanted to spend their hard-earned tax dollars on TRANS people, thereby convincing many brown and black people that they'd better vote for him too. So many in the Democratic party are reaching the same conclusion you seem to have reached. It offers hope because it concludes that we can win back our democracy if only we work harder. I wish I could believe it. My gut says it's just not true.
The "bro culture" along with the Dobbs decision and the resulting deaths of pregnant women make it abundantly clear to me that misogyny is alive and well in the USA. We still don't have equal pay for equal work and aren't represented in legislatures in percentages representing our numbers.
I agree with everything you said.
64 white woman here. Sadly, I agree with you.
"Even one as eminently qualified and morally exemplary as Kamala." Biden is senile. Harris is an airhead. Eminently qualified my eye. Those who spend their entire careers in academia or government positions have no idea how the American economy works. Trump does know! Kamala morally exemplary? Does that include sleeping with the married Willie Brown to advance her career? I have no problem with a woman becoming president but would prefer someone like Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher or Georgia Meloni, someone with a focus on good results for all citizens of their country. Sex and skin color count for absolutely nothing.
Why are you at this forum? You must really miss Rush Limbaugh
Bob, your analysis cuts to the heart of a vital issue: the Democrats’ decades-long drift from working-class priorities and embrace of the neoliberal center-right. Since the Clinton administration, the party has leaned into 1980s neoliberalism, favoring corporate interests under the guise of modernization. Clinton’s concessions to Gingrich’s “Republican revolution” in the ’90s, like welfare cuts and financial deregulation, betrayed a shift away from labor alliances, laying the groundwork for the disconnection we see today. These were not just tactical concessions but symptomatic of a deeper misalignment with working Americans.
The repeated sidelining of Bernie Sanders—both in 2016 and 2020—exemplifies the party’s aversion to substantial reform, even as Sanders embodied the populist economic vision their base craved. This was more than campaign strategy; it was a willful choice to uphold a corporate-backed status quo, maintaining policies that benefit the wealthy and perpetuate inequality. The Democrats’ approach has left millions of voters feeling unrepresented and forced to choose between a party that seems to cater to elites and another steeped in reactionary politics.
As you point out, the economic stagnation of blue-collar wages over the last fifty years alongside soaring CEO compensation illustrates the depth of the disconnect. Legislative victories for wage increases and sick leave in red states like Missouri and Nebraska show that working people are indeed receptive to progressive policies, just not to a Democratic Party that appears unresponsive to their struggles.
If this is this is the Democrats' moment to turn the tide, a real pivot means more than campaign rhetoric. To genuinely reconnect with working Americans, the party must overhaul both its policies and approach. First, a transparent commitment to economic justice is essential—policies targeting wage stagnation, affordable healthcare, affordable shelter, and job security need to be central, not sidelined. The party should limit or derail the influence of high-wealth donors and visibly stand against corporate monopolies, reflecting a commitment to working- and middle-class values.
Operationally, this shift requires prioritizing community outreach and grassroots organizing in regions often written off as “lost” to Republicans. Democrats would need to foster connections with local leaders and labor organizations who understand the needs of their communities. This is a vision that needs not just to be adopted but lived out through the voices of candidates and leaders who embody these principles. The pivot won’t happen in a single election cycle, but with visible dedication to these changes, they might be able to start restoring trust and positioning themselves as the genuine party of the people, instead of digging their grave.
The Dems shift to the economic right is kind of scary to see...
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020
they also shifted to the more authoritarian outlook as well. Biden in 2020 was where John McCain was in 2008?!? And Clinton in 2016 was further on economic right than Trump?!? A symptom of disconnect from the common people...
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2024
Kamala supposedly went back to the "roots" on the compass ...but that was too little too late (or not communicated adequately)?
Note the position of Sanders in 2016 and 2020 graphs ...and what is said about him
"Bernie Sanders is popularly perceived in his own country as an off-the-wall left figure; in other western democracies he would sit squarely within the mainstream social democratic parties that regularly form governments or comprise the largest opposition"
Will someone be able to drag Dems there ...or at least to the Biden/Obama position from 2008?
YES!!!
Professor Reich: considering the current state of the union, and the impending disaster, how can the working people restructure how things work in america? i'm so angry that i need to know what to do with my rage, and directing it towards improving things for myself, for others and for the country is the only direction i can think of. worse and more frightening, this fascism, this corporatism, is gaining ground almost everywhere in the world.
so many people worship money and those who have it, whilst they are wage slaves who operate under the bizarre belief that "i too will one day be filthy rich" (so we must not tax the wealthy) despite all the evidence that obscene wealth is the result of starting out extremely wealthy and becoming moreso as time goes on, that the obscenely wealthy are greedy sociopaths who would sell their own mother if they could earn another dollar from it.
what can we do?
The wealthy are plotting a bitcoin takeover. More environmental destruction from the enormous electricity requirements, & water waste. It's as tho their goal is destroying Planet Earth as soon as they can. I recall you once posted you do not have offspring, know that you made a wise decision there.
In addition to embracing economic left-populism and working-class youth, the Dems should change up their strategies. What comes to mind is a new, loose, independent media ecosystem to counter the right and build parasocial relationships the way Trump has via Adin Ross, Joe Rogan and Theo Von. This ecosystem should be highly critical of the national media that keeps sanewashing Trump, ignoring root causes of crime, racism and inflation, and focusing on ‘the odds, not the stakes’ of politicking. Above all, it should make social democracy cool and exciting again.
Another change the Dems should adopt is a fifty-state strategy. This is how Howard Dean led the Dems out of the wilderness in ‘06. Harris lost all seven of the battleground states, but her margins against Trump were -3.1 percent, whereas the rest of America gave her -6.1 percent. The focus should be on shoring up the base in blue and red states alike. It should be complemented by a rule that the next POTUS nominee should not shortchange the state parties, and instead give their chairs the autonomy they need. That was part of how Obama lost the House in ‘10, and Clinton lost the presidency in ‘16.
Finally, the Dems should run on a sweeping vision of civic nationalism, like the one that built the New Deal, which transcends identity politics without ignoring marginalized groups’ needs. It should be patriotic and cosmopolitan at once. Job Corps isn’t enough. A program modeled on CalVolunteer comes to mind as the perfect vehicle for this.
Ok. Get going. Run for something! Fix the party. Tell me about your actions so far so we can build your campaign!
I love hearing this shite from ppl who nary lift a finger to actually do something for others.
Glad I could supply your ear candy. Gee, it’s like Substack is effective at curing hecklers. Thanks for reminding me why I have a comfort zone in the first place.
Anyway, the problem is that I’m too poor to move back to the US as an expat. I could donate to Democrats Abroad, or The American Prospect, but I can’t do that because of unemployment. Anyway, I’m content with doing nudges every now and then, as long as there’s an audience.
Jarrod, calling back Howard Dean would be a very smart move actually!
I personally would like to see Sherrod Brown take up the chair position, but Dean’s a good alternative. AOC and Anderson Clayton wouldn’t be bad either
Jarrod, sounds like a plan.
Record turnout and Dem voting, but 20m less than 2020 in Red States? I smell voter suppression.
Not only suppression but "grabbing" as wrestled from the Harris' side. How on earth could she get less votes than Biden. When even Republicans publicly endorsed her?
two answers:
1. Racism and misogyny. Gen Z males are angry and frustrated and don't think women are strong enough (or think they are too strong)
2. Record turnout and Dem voting, but 20m less than 2020 in Red States? I smell voter suppression. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/14/election-republicans-win-house-majority
Another great point. 40 of trumps 44 staff refused to endorse him!!
William 🎯🎯‼️ stadiums jam packed for Harris, more door to door and phone banking ever! Dem Gov, Senate winning but not Harris…in every single swing state. It is bullshit. Putin- Orban, et al, had to insure trump would not sing once in prison!!
Why isn't there an outcry? Why are Dems silent?
We turn out in record numbers and lose!? (Which I think is a big bullshit lie by the desperate Putin puppet who might tell all if in prison!)
I think people are exhausted from all of the protests previously and the fact that they change nothing. Realistically we should be the ones armed & marching in the streets. But there has to be a win once in a while. People are smothered just trying to pay bills, insurance, car pmts etc. Debt society = slave society. Everything this country does is to drive people into debt! Rather than upping interest rates to make money by SAVING. The constant drumbeat is to keep it crazy low so everyone can be strapped with high mortgages, car loans, student loans and credit cards.
Abusers are irrational. Insurrectionists, specifically, have no entre to elected office .
' illionaire liars polluters are mentally mal formed.
Tyrannists have no elected office available.
Mutual abuse is not an option.
I don't think you can write off the sexism so easily.
100%, nor the intersectional racism 💔
As an impartial observer I saw the election being fought on the major pod casts and YouTube videos. Trump makes news so the scavengers who rely on Youtube views for their revenue picked up his name and re-broadcast his messages. Hundreds of millions saw him. Kamala fought a traditional costly inter- personal battle where only hundreds of thousands saw her. Nobody could re-broadcast her messages as the format was not shareable. And copyright protected. Trump is an internet man. Kamala a courtroom woman. She never really had a chance. But what courage!
“What happened to the 9 million?
“We can’t know for sure but it seems most likely that those 9 million potential voters — mostly working class — said to themselves, ‘I won’t vote for Trump because he’s an asshole. But I won’t vote for the Democrats either, because they don’t give a damn about me.’”
Nonsense. Early voting and voting on election day were reported to be at or near record levels. Those votes didn’t go to Trump, who drew only about 1.1 million votes more than he did in 2020.
So where DID they go?
Trump, always anticipating defeat (because, I’d like to think, deep down he knows he’s a radioactive piece of filth), poisoned the electoral waters by claiming, early and often, that the election was rigged. If it was rigged one way, then it must also be rigged the other, and Harris simply could not have underperformed to such an immense degree, especially in light of the enormous enthusiasm for her and huge grassroots fundraising drawn by her campaign.
Democrats simply MUST not accept the narrative that Democrats failed to turn out. They DID, but the votes evaporated into the ether, perhaps because it would seem less suspicious if that narrative blamed apathy rather than Biden voters switching to Trump.
Investigations must be undertaken.
yeah, I believe many state election boards just read off Trumps 2016 election vote counts to pollsters like AP and Decision Desk for their electoral maps. At the time of this writing, votes are STILL being counted, so the official results have NOT been released to anybody yet, including Biden.
There's a reason that AP election results are called UNOFFICIAL. They haven't been audited and may not be correct.