It's not so much what Democrats have done wrong, but what the GOP has done right

[andym]

Last edited Mon Sep 18, 2017, 01:22 AM - Edit history (1)

The Democratic Party has been on a losing arc since 2010, with the exception of President Obama's re-election. With a huge majority in the House, a small majority in the Senate and 2/3 of state houses in GOP control, things really have changed since 2008, when things were polarized in the Democratic Party's favor. Why?

It's not so much that Democrats have made mistakes, but that the GOP has been proactive.

Why increasing influence of Fox news have pushed the country rightwards:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016192851
"A stunning new study shows that Fox News is more powerful than we ever imagined"
GOP gained over a 6% voter advantage attributable to Fox in 2008...
Fox's influence reinforces GOP/conservative influence from talk radio and conservative internet sites.
Basic point, is that GOP is propagandizing their anti-government beliefs far better than Democrats or even Democratic Socialists like Bernie are promoting their pro-government solutions, which will eventually doom progressive legislation.

Much much better organization at the local level, due to
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016164776
"Democrats are losing to Republicans at the state level, and badly. Here's why."
Basically, the Koch brother's organizations are executing a master plan to gain GOP dominance
"THE RIGHT-WING NETWORKS ARE A WELL-OILED MACHINE: ALEC PUSHES PROPOSALS WITHIN STATE LEGISLATURES; THE STATE POLICY NETWORK BUILDS THE INTELLECTUAL AND POLICY CASE FOR THOSE BILLS; AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY THEN GENERATES OUTSIDE POLITICAL PRESSURE, THROUGH ADS AND GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING "

A plan to get control in 2010 in order gerrymander election districts for a generation.
(see post just above for how) and http://theweek.com/articles/625095/how-rig-elections-legal-way
"In the 2010 election cycle, the Republican Party took gerrymandering to a new level by creating a national redistricting strategy. The GOP's plan, which they called REDMAP, was to "keep or win Republican control of state legislatures with the largest impact on congressional redistricting..." "After pouring $30 million into state legislature races — a huge sum for down-ballot fights — the Republicans gained a record 680 state seats. That gave them total control of 25 state legislatures, which between them oversaw the redistricting process for 40 percent of congressional House of Representatives seats."
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141806934
"AP analysis shows how gerrymandering benefited GOP in 2016"

Resulting in this problem:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016183787
Two-thirds of Americans think that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the country
Why? See all the points above.
Disbelieve this kind of poll at one's own peril.

So what's the solution? An organized effort to promote Democratic ideas, a combination of progressive and moderate ideas that appeal to people's sense of how the country might be better than it is. The first point is to convince people the federal government can be benevolent and extremely capable, sometimes even more capable than private enterprise. For example, combining helping people create and grow small businesses while providing a means to affordable universal health care.

[Turbineguy]

1. The GOP has another advantage:

Their lack of morals.

It's what makes everything else they do work.

[justhanginon]

3. Sums up the bottom line in a nutshell.

[andym]

4. GOP surely believes in the ends justify the means

that's why they tolerate Trump, even though he exposes their amorality.

[pangaia]

5. That is a HUUGEE advantage.

[brush]

26. Right. It's not about what the repugs have done right. It's what they do wrong, always.

Voter suppression, gerrymandering, vote hacking, voter intimidation, Comey, Russian bots.

THE REPUGS CHEAT.

[TDale313]

2. Fine. How do we fight back?

We need to adjust. That's a fact. "We're not as bad as the other side" is not gonna get us out of this mess. You can say we've done everything correct- but we've lost ground at every level of power, and the country is being ripped apart and our democracy is being systematically dismantled. We're in a major crisis here, and I see too many not willing to accept that our tactics Are.Not.Working.

I see two major issues that I think all Dems should be fighting like hell for- cause they're the key to every other possible agenda item. 1) campaign finance reform and 2) protecting voter rights. Without those two, nothing else happens, cause we can't get the people in we need to change anything.

[yardwork]

6. We have to get back in power first. We have to win elections.

Here's my suggestion:

1. The Democratic Party needs to make big promises to the American people. The message must be - vote for Democrats and we will get you jobs, health care, and the chance to achieve your dreams. We need to make these big, bold promises over and over. No wonky pussyfooting around. Big bold promises. (This is what Trump did. It worked.)

2. We need to elect every Democrat in sight. We must win as many races as possible, on the national, state, and local level. No more divisive purity tests. No more third party voting. No more whining that the Democratic nominee doesn't "inspire" us.

Once we get back in power we can set about fixing the sorry mess that the Republicans have made. We can vote for campaign finance reform and universal healthcare and everything else that we want and need.

[crosinski]

25. Yep, take a clue from Bernie. He promised big things and people loved it.

It's ideas that people fall in love with, and they really don't care how we get there, unless the other side convinces them that getting there's going hurt them. At that point, they'll go for the other side's big ideas instead.

Hey, I think I just summed up American politics in two sentences!

[sharedvalues]

11. Voter turnout. Stop suppression. Weaken Fox news

The most important thing any single Democrat can do is tell everyone they know:
Fox News lies to benefit GOP billionaires.

We can break the propaganda influence of Fox if we spread knowledge of Fox's true agenda.

[andym]

14. Making everyone aware of Fox's agenda would be very helpful

I wonder is there is any is any Lonesome Rhodes moment (From A Face in the Crown) in existence, where Roger Ailes mocks his intended victims on video. That might be the best way to wake people up.

[sharedvalues]

28. This is close "FEAR & UNbalanced: Confessions of a 14-Year Fox News Hitman"

https://medium.com/@tobinsmith_95851/how-roger-ailes-fox-news-scammed-americas-la-z-boy-cowboys-for-21-years-1996ee4a6b3e

How Roger Ailes & Fox News Got Rich Scamming America’s La Z Boy Cowboys and Selling Out America’s Soul

[Bettie]

15. Messaging

One of the things that the right is good at is packaging their message in a way that is easily articulated and simple.

Then, they have every one of them from their pundits to congresscritters to anyone who leans their direction and is on TV repeat it, over and over until it becomes true in the minds of listeners/watchers.

We need our message to be consistent and repeated often. Daily talking points that everyone is expected to hit in every interview.

The up side: our message is one of hope and human decency...we can tell the truth and not turn off decent humans.

[FakeNoose]

21. Gerrymandering has to end immediately

It's the gift that keeps on giving - to the rightwingers. That's how they've gamed the system to beat Democrats even though the GOP has fewer numbers.

And voter supporession HAS TO END (along with gerrymandering) IMMEDIATELY. Voter suppression is the other tactic the GOP has been using to prevent growth in the blue states, or to stop Dems from voting in the red or mixed states. It violates the law and the spirit of the US Constitution, but they keep getting away with it. They call it "voter fraud prevention" but it's plain old suppression.

If we Dems stop these 2 things it will have an immediate effect on elections. If we don't, it won't matter what plans we have to "fix" campaign financing or anything else, because we'll never win.

I'm all for campaign financing reform, but it has to wait a couple of years.

[brush]

27. A standing, well-funded committee to combat repug cheating on the national, state...

and local level with top attorneys to file suits, private investigators to help them, social media experts, traditional media liaisons and publicists to get the word out on repug cheating, fund-raisers, volunteers — the works — against repug cheating, vote purging, vote hacking, vote suppression, Russian social media bots, voter intimidation and all their dirty tricks.

This should have been done after 2000 and 2004.

Waging huge campaigns to register new voters is great but we need the parallel campaign against repug cheating because as hard as we work to get new voters they work just as hard to suppress our voters, therefore we need a strong, concerted effort to stop their vote suppression.

For every vote we stop them from suppressing or purging counts as a positive vote for Democrats.

[Initech]

7. Bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Fox News loses its' influence.

Easy - we need to make that happen.

[andym]

8. The Fairness doctrine is a great idea

and needs to be pushed.

[Voltaire2]

13. Doesn't apply to cable.

[uponit7771]

9. Cheat ?

[andym]

10. Cheating is one of their tools as is lying

Voter suppression via removing voters from the rolls is probably their biggest cheat. The Democratic response should be registering even more voters and of course opposing them in court and in the legislatures. Of course, when the GOP controls the legislatures and courts, there is little recourse other than registering new voters, or re-registering old ones that have been removed.

[samnsara]

12. what the Dems did right was NOT to stoop to the level of the GOP..

....that's what cost us. We didn't cheat, lie, bully our opponents or our fellow party members (well not as much). We didn't allow a foreign nation to infiltrate our party and influence our voters. So if that's what we did wrong to lose the election and if that's what the GOP did right...then at least we still have our dignity and pride. We lost with honor and that's more winning than trump did by a mile.

[andym]

18. "When they go low we go high"

is a beautiful and noble sentiment, but means even more effort needs to be made to prevent scapegoating, lies and dirty tricks from prevailing, because in the end, GOP government makes peoples lives so much worse. For example, if they repeal the ACA they will literally kill thousands or more.

[CrispyQ]

22. And now they have their boot on our neck & probably will for the foreseeable future.

I could deal with a little less honor, pride & dignity.

[JI7]

16. We are going through a backlash by racists and other bigots

Against gains made by certain types of people in this country.

[andym]

17. There is no question that racism and other biases are a component of the problem

that is exacerbated by the President and Fox News. Fox news in particular draws a connection between "free stuff" (eg welfare) and minorities in the not so grand tradition exploited by Reagan and his "welfare queens."

Although the racial component has only become explicit under Trump. the GOP since Nixon, has been recruiting the bigots using dog whistles. Remember the Willie Horton ads against Dukakis in 1988, a clear example of this kind of campaigning. But Trump actually states what many of his followers believe. Scapegoating does work and is now included more than ever in the GOP manipulation of the public.

[ProudLib72]

19. I completely agree

And I don't believe "When they go low, we go high" necessarily means we refrain from fighting back. It means, we don't cheat, but we push the issue of their cheating. It means we don't lie, but we promote forcing them to tell the truth. It means we disrupt their narrative completely.

[andym]

20. Exactly-- the first goal is to disrupt the GOP narrative

People need to understand that the GOP narrative is not based on reality, especially their disastrous economic ideas and ideas about the government and science-- they can be proven wrong on these topics.

[crosinski]

24. Yes, I've seen this happen.

I've seen a few Trumpsters come around on a healthcare forum I belong to by simply being told the truth over and over again, and pointed to sources where they could confirm it. This is never easy. It takes a tag-team of several people constantly answering every single nasty repug talking point with the truth until they finally go away or come on over to our side.

So, I'm convinced you're right that we can disrupt the GOP narrative. They've gone so far beyond 'stretching' the truth that normal gopers know it's getting ridiculous.

[ProfessorPlum]

23. $

[andym]

29. Yes: $ + brains

Unfortunately, there many intelligent GOP operatives able to take the money they are given and execute effective plans, to the detriment of the entire nation.