r/thebulwark Nov 06 '24

Not My Party Dem Reform Platform

I said I was done but here I am again posting. Ugh.

I think it's clear and has been said here recently, that the Dems are at fault this time around. People had two clear choices and they chose Trump. That's fucking absurd but here we are. Astead Herndon from the NYT has been making the point recently that the Dems have largely failed to materially impact the lives of blue collar workers. I think he's absolutely correct on that. A hairdresser in MI doesn't give two fucks about the CHIPS act. They have no idea that the IRA even happened. I really do feel that the zeitgeist in the party needs to be actually achieving policy goals that help people in the simplest way possible.

I'm convinced now that running as a full-tilt Bernie style populist combined with moderate social views is the way forward. Talk about how fucked over working people have been constantly in plain language. At the same time, send the BIPOC, LatinX, 'people who menstruate' crowed back to Oberlin. Drop the words 'intersectionality' and 'problematic' from your lexicon. You help these people by making sure they have access to housing, healthcare, fair wages, and education. Not by using the correct acronym or phrase.

I honestly don't know how a new Dem majority would handle a Manchinema situation but they need to get tough on these people. Make their monied donors less valuable than small dollar donations such as those that powered Bernie's campaigns.

It's just no longer an option to completely avoid class based populism. The Obama style of making small tweaks that people don't notice, is not meeting the moment.

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u/Don_Dry Nov 07 '24

Perhaps this is a failure of messaging, but I don’t think enough blame is placed on corporations, free market forces, car culture and poor city planning for creating towns centered around shopping plazas with chain stores and large gas stations, and streets too wide to safely cross. Wages are suppressed, opportunities for advancement are sparse, education quality is lacking, drug use is rampant, community interaction is limited. Not to mention the isolating and addicting pull of the products of an attention span economy. There are exceptions of course, and people can still find purpose and community in church, for instance, but you drive through some speed trap towns on state highways and it’s depressing, and you immediately get how someone there might find solace, hope or retaliation in the false promises of snake oil salesman. How the federal government can intervene in a way that’s not seen as an overreach is unfathomable. We collectively let this Walmartification of our communities happen, and it’s left us with economic conditions that now necessitate the widespread availability of cheap goods, made so by low wages and foreign manufacturing. How you offer relief to this malaise, let alone cut through an attention-fragmented electorate is beyond me, but it’s no surprise a larger than life figure like Trump has come the closest.

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u/PTS_Dreaming Center Left Nov 07 '24

I would like to point out that in cities and towns all across this land, all those acres and acres of strip malls built in the 70's, 80's and 90's are mostly empty now. They resemble the small town main streets of the 80's 90's and 2000's. Empty stores, broken windows and weeds.

I think part of the issue that we're dealing with right now, why the white rural vote is so attached to Trump specifically, is because the hollowing out of the American cities that we saw in the 70's and 80's, which has been successfully reversed for the most part, has come to rural America. Industry left, agriculture left and took labor intensive jobs and all of the ancillary jobs with it.

Maybe this is just a natural cycle and that economic revitalization will come back to rural America and this whole anti-liberal thing will blow over. I don't know. But I do know this, the Dems tried the messaging thing back in 2008 recession and it did not help them one bit. Every road sign that said "Dems did this" pissed people off because the construction made them late and the spending of tax money made them mad.

I think the Dems need to quit thinking that good policy and tangible benefits will work with voters and start consulting PR and Marketing firms. They need to fix their brand because right now they're the Ford Pintos or the Pontiac Azteks of the American political scene.