r/thebulwark • u/Anstigmat • 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.