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Gina Mann's avatar

Rep. Seth Moulton: “We’ve lost touch with the majority of Americans. Democrats have a habit of preaching down to people and telling them that if they don't 100% agree with our orthodox view, often defined by the far left, then they're just bad people, they're morally wrong. That’s not going to win us any elections.”

Moskowitz: “We have policy issues that are out of touch with the American people.”

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Paleo's avatar

Sounds like a lot of projection going on with those two. I'd like to hear specific Democrats and specific issues.

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

Specific issue #1 is the refusal of many Democrats to acknowledge that inflation is a big problem, has not gotten better for most people, and hits lower-income people the hardest.

Harris didn't campaign on lowering prices for Americans. Her refusal to do that meant that Trump could easily trot out how prices were lower during his term, and Harris never had any answer to that.

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Blomstervaenget's avatar

It is naive to think that prices will go down to pre Covid levels. That is unfortunately not how inflation works. The only way to achieve that is through a massive recession which is even worse for many people. Fortunately, wages are increasing faster than inflation now and have almost caught up with the inflation bump. That is not to say that the problem is over for many Americans but average wage growth has caught up.

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

This is EXACTLY the "preaching down to people" that the Democrats mentioned above are talking about. It's completely absurd to constantly hear Democrats preaching that inflation is somehow OK just because of the nominal, negligible, and in many cases non-existent wage growth going on. Two weeks ago, the American people said loud and clear that no, it's not OK. The American people want lower prices, and Democrats need to stop spouting BS excuses for why we can't do that.

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Tom A's avatar

The wage growth was real - and in fact it was bigger for the working class than the middle class for quite a while now.

As for going forward - well its not our problem anymore. We get to sit back and say - "why havent you fixed this yet".

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

What Democrats don't understand is that wage growth doesn't make inflation better. Wage growth is something that every working American deserves, regardless of inflation. Wage growth should be happening even if inflation is literally zero.

My point is that wage growth does NOT make inflation OK, and Democrats need to stop claiming that it does. It just comes across as so incredibly tone-deaf.

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Tigercourse's avatar

You understand right that wage growth contributes to inflation. Perhaps Dens should have fought hard to keep wages down, and this limited inflation, and this been more popular.

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

Only without a strong regulatory environment. If corporations try to raise prices, the government should actively work to increase the supply of the products so prices will go back down. This should be a fundamental tenet of Democrats’ economic policy.

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Paleo's avatar

A temporary price freeze is also an option. But I realize that what was good enough for Richard Nixon is heresy today.

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TheDude415's avatar

I mean Harris ran on a ban on price gouging.

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Paleo's avatar

This inflation wasn't caused by excess wage growth. Wage growth followed inflation.

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Tigercourse's avatar

It is both a cause and effect. People make more money and pump it back into the economy, which causes prices to rise.

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Andrew's avatar

It could be partly why. I received three market adjustment raises from my employer during Covid and now I make nearly 50% more in five years. (Plus a promotion and annual raises, I did some things.) I would argue the lack of workers due to Covid preceded inflation, which drove up wages and was a contributing factor to inflation. It didn’t cause it but it kept it going bc shopping habits didn’t change in a meaningful enough ways.

Not to sound like a rich turd bc I’m not, but my parents own a lake spot in Northern MN, where the locals have turned hardcore Republican. Our lake city of 300 people is a little more cosmopolitan and just opened a new bourbon and wine bar. The economics of that city have become silly. I can get lunch at a fast food place one town over that now pays $15+ an hour to their employees. Then, drink $13 Old Fashions at the new bar in the afternoon, followed by dinner across the street at the local bar and grill where they have to get temporary visa workers for the summer bc no one else wants to work there. One more stop for a nightcap or four at the VFW where the locals will call you out for being a city person. A final drive back to the lake spot where we go past the local movie theater that’s now closed bc they couldn’t find enough workers after Covid.

I sound inconsequential with so much anecdotal evidence but that’s kind of the point. I saw what I saw. And, so did they.

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culturejammer's avatar

Now understand that people making $7.25-$15.00/hour got little to NO market adjustments, no promotions, no bonuses and no raises.

Yes, the people making 60, 70 80k/yr with careers and assets are doing amazing. The bottom 30% is getting destroyed.

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culturejammer's avatar

even "historic" wage gains of 10-15% mean the people on the bottom are making $16.75 instead of $15..... meanwhile rent is up 200 bucks as month as are groceries...

Dems REALLY NEED to get it through their heads. Life for the bottom 30% is absurdly expensive and increasingly miserable...

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benamery21's avatar

Of course, actual out of pocket housing costs went up more for renters than for existing owner occupants, and OER increases for owner occupants were accompanied by massive increases in home equity. Renters are more likely to be working class than middle class. Working class folks are also more likely to have to pay for car repairs or rideshare or another used car at the bottom of the market where prices went up the most. Experience of inflation differs, so just because we usually use a common deflator for all incomes, and nominal incomes rose more as a percentage for the 40th percentile than the 80th (I assume) doesn’t necessarily mean real incomes actually rose more for lower incomes when comparing the actual disparate baskets of goods purchased at the various income levels.

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Buckeye73's avatar

The problem is that there really aren't any easy solutions to bring prices down. in the near future. We could have hit harder that Trump's policy of tariffs and mass deportations will make the issue worse.

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TheDude415's avatar

No one said inflation was ok. What they said was that the conditions necessary to cause deflation are worse. Which is true.

Explaining that deflation is bad is not talking down to people.

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Andrew's avatar

It can be to someone experiencing inflation related stress. Imagine telling someone their stress would be even worse if they tried to fix it.

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TheDude415's avatar

I mean what's the correct answer then?

Because I would argue that lying and saying you're gonna bring prices back down would be more disrespectful.

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Andrew's avatar

Winning is more important than anything. And then if you win but don’t accomplish your goals, blame Congress. Specifically after the following midterm where America kicked the ruling party out of office. But how can a Pres finish their promises with a divided trifecta? Then they run off of that shit so they can try all over again.

I’m getting cynical about politics as it’s all becoming cyclical to me.

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Tom A's avatar

Its more naive to think that it would have worked. Harris had no answer because there was no answer.

If Biden could have done something about it without pushing us into a recession, he surely would have.

So Biden and then Harris were stuck trying to basically paper over inflation and point to the robustness of the economy inflation aside. And that does sound like talking down, but its mostly just the best option for messaging.

Predictably it didnt work because well - inflation was a big deal to alot of people.

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Paleo's avatar

They failed to communicate with the people. Especially Biden, who should have been doing it all the way through.

I sound like a broken record, but I really believe lack of effective communication is the biggest problem Democrats have. Especially when they're in power. And it's rarely the "media's" fault. It's Democrats' lack of creativity and boldness. Or merely doing Politics 101.

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Tom A's avatar

Dear American people - we get it, prices are high. You all saved too much money (and frankly we probably printed too much) and now you are trying to spend it all at once.

But there is literally nothing we can do about it except on the very margins of a few products (and you will then spend the money you saved on those products raising the price of some other product), without you losing your job.

They cant do a Trump and say - trust us, we'll fix this - because well - why havent they? They are in charge.

The idea that messaging could have solved the problem despite the facts on the ground seems like just another way of talking down to people honestly.

If only Biden had brought more attention to how much is administration sucked at dealing with inflation, we would have won!

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Tigercourse's avatar

The message that they should have tried was acknowledge inflation when it started (instead of outright denying it) and blamed it on Trump. It is right out of Trump's playbook and it works.

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Paleo's avatar

That would have been good too. Politics 101.

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Paleo's avatar

The primary reason prices went up by 8-9% per annum for two years was a supply shortage. And price gouging. A lot of money was printed in '08-'09 and no large increase in inflation followed. Communicating that the rise would ease up once COVID was slain, and at least jawboning against price gouging, would have gone a long way.

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Buckeye73's avatar

This is true. However, it would go absolutely nowhere with low information voters who are mad that prices have gone up. This explanation is way over the head of the average swing voter.

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Paleo's avatar

I think those voters, or at least some of them, would respond to "folksy" version of that explanation. But the communicator has to have the skill to do that. It certainly would be, and would have been, worth a try.

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Tom A's avatar

08-09 was a completely different kind of recession and we also printed alot less money.

In 2020-21 people saved a ton of money. Some from money handed out by the government. Some by natural savings from shutting down chunks of the economy.

Inflation went up when people tried to spend it all at once and came back down when it was spent.

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Paleo's avatar

I agree with that, but that's neither "preaching down to people" nor a policy issue that is "out of touch with the American people."

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Tigercourse's avatar

Inflation has absolutely gotten better for most people.

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Paleo's avatar

The problem is prices still went up by a lot before easing up. They didn't go back down to where they were pre-2021.

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

No, wrong. Comments like these just show how out of touch so many Democrats are. Frankly, inflation is still getting worse - just in the past few weeks, the price of a pound of 80% lean ground beef went up once again, from $3.99 to $4.49. It was $2.99 in 2019.

Comments like these really make me understand why so many people, even some who don't like Trump, were too disgusted with Democrats and their aloofness on inflation to vote for Dems.

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Tigercourse's avatar

Is it you straight up expectation that prices will never rise again? Or that after a period of inflation they will return to what they were before? The level of inflation in this country dropped massively over the past year

Wages increased, particularly for the bottom brackets. These are just facts. I'm not talking about perceptions but reality!

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ArcticStones's avatar

And as for perceptions, Republican voters are suddenly "feeling good" about the economy – without the core reality shifting recently. In other words, this has everything to do with "the vibe economy".

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/13/consumer-sentiment-republican-democrat-switch

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rayspace's avatar

This is exactly what I was getting at yesterday in saying that racism and sexism were factors in Harris's defeat. If voters say they voted on the economy, which they say was in bad shape on November 5th, and two weeks later--without any change in that economy--they say it's now good, then they're voting on something other than the economy.

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ArcticStones's avatar

They may well be voting on the economy – but the "vibe economy" rather than the real one. Come January, I betcha the economy will suddenly be widely seen as "fantastic", even if the actual parameters by which it is measured don’t change by one iota.

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Toiler On the Sea's avatar

Record number of people flying this holiday season even though airline prices have remained elevated; struggling my ass.

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rayspace's avatar

There's really no such thing as a "vibe economy"--either eggs and gas are priced too high or they're not. If people can say that the same prices are okay when their candidate gets elected and not when the candidate they don't want is in office, then they're voting on something other than the economy/prices. We have to see through the rationalizations people make to reporters and pollsters and acknowledge that there are other reasons, including racism and sexism, that are driving their votes.

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

To answer your second question, yes, prices should return to what they were after inflation. If a product doesn't change, then in the medium/long term there's no reason why the price should change. And in fact, in the long term, technological advances in production, distribution, and transportation should result in prices going down!

And like I said above, wage growth does NOT make inflation OK. Wage growth is earned, and to have all the effort of earning a higher wage be taken away by inflation is a terrible feeling!

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Tigercourse's avatar

That is not how inflation works. It is not how inflation has ever worked. Inflation is basically always happening and the prices of goods and services, except maybe for airline tickets, do not drop over time. Furthermore, once heavier inflation starts, it is very hard to stop it. Usually, a recession is needed. Biden created an economic miracle in which inflation was stopped without a recession.

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Paleo's avatar

Because this was a supply problem not excess demand. The economy wasn't overheated to start.

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Tigercourse's avatar

The economy was, and is, on top of a 10+ year bull run.

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Paleo's avatar

The stock market may be, but the economy, after several years of mild growth, underwent a major disruption in 2020.

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benamery21's avatar

More of a bullish crawl out of a deep morass for most of that time, tho...

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

And the American people have said that “the way things have always worked” isn't working for them. It's why institutionalism hasn't worked for Dems, because people don't think the institutions are helping them.

Telling the American people “we can't do what you want us to do” is possibly the worst electoral strategy ever devised.

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Tigercourse's avatar

What you want is fundamentally impossible. If the Democrats have to do the impossible... That's it.

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TheDude415's avatar

So Democrats should lie to the voters?

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Andrew's avatar

It works for Republicans. I remember one year for Xmas getting some generic cheap ass version of a My Little Pony. I was unhappy at first but that shit still worked.

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Blomstervaenget's avatar

Prices haven't gone down during the past 100 years except for during recessions.

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benamery21's avatar

Gasoline prices have, more than once.

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Andrew's avatar

They don’t really count. They go up and down every day. A 12-pack of pop went from a solid $4.99 to $5.49 and I had questions. Then came Covid and it went to $8.49 and hasn’t budged.

You could argue those go on sale while gas doesn’t it. So pop fluctuates week to week depending on the store/s you go to.

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benamery21's avatar

Yes, price changes and underlying inflation are different things economically. Gasoline prices are widely overweighted in public opinion and have been and could yet be significantly lower absent economic devastation and economy wide deflation. This is terrible policy, but great politics.

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Ben F.'s avatar

That's deflation, and that is a sign of an actively bad economy.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

Well it's an issue that will be going away so there's that. I mean i think the issue was unwinnable because yaknow there was a dem president for the last 4 year even though we all remember this stuff starting under Trump. I suppose dems could just lie and say we'll lower prices.

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Tigercourse's avatar

As I was saying yesterday, it"s apparently important for Dems to lie as much as possible because even our own partisans don't believe the truth

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

Democrats need to 100% say that we'll lower prices. And then, if we retake power, we should bully, threaten, and if necessary force CEOs to lower their prices.

Remember, like I said yesterday, Dems need to position the party in opposition to greedy billionaires and CEOs

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Blomstervaenget's avatar

Inflation is 2.5% though some items are above and some are below (ironically the inflation rate under Trump in 2028 before Covid was 2.4%). This is not talking down. This is trying to have a fact based foundation for a discussion so it doesn't become what you just heard on Tic Toc. Then we should understand the pain that many are feeling and think about solutions especially about the housing/rental prices. Also, we should point out that all of Trump's so-called financial policies will dramatically increase inflation.

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culturejammer's avatar

The food is one thing, as is gas. What never gets talked about is housing and rents.... in many places shitbox studios going for $800/month are now north of $1200.... even historic wage growth won't help with that...

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Kevin H.'s avatar

They're not talking about inflation, they're talking about culture war nonsense. Moulton was going after Trans last week

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Gina Mann's avatar

He wasn't "going after" Trans people, he was saying biological men should not compete against women. Being anti-trans and being fair to women are two different things. And he's not alone:

“I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports,” Suozzi said

I got clobbered on all the transgender messaging in my district, and it was very painful,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas)

Writing off Moulton as "conservative guy who challenged Pelosi" is ridiculous. Moulton has a strong history of supporting LGBTQ rights but this issue is just common sense. We can protect the rights of Trans people to exist but don't need to sacrifice the rights of women to do it and I say this as a lesbian woman!

"Twice, once in 2022 and again in 2023, Moulton co-sponsored House Democrats’ Transgender Bill of Rights, which, among other protections, would guarantee trans student-athletes the right to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity. "

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4996259-democratic-transgender-rights-election/

Anyone who is an illegal immigrant or trans in sports absolutist clearly didn't get the memo from a few weeks ago that the majority of America is in the center on these new culture issues. America has moved left on abortion but right on immigration and Trans women in female sports.

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Paleo's avatar

It's not like Democrats ran on this issue. But, as usual, Democrats failed to fight back. The Republicans won in 2004 by using gay marriage as a club. Democrats have three choices when they try to do this: Agree with the attacks, fight the attacks, or do nothing.

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Tom A's avatar

I'm not sure what your recommendation is here. Fight back (i.e. run on the issue). Agree with the attacks (and risk losing a base that was already less enthused?)

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Paleo's avatar

Fighting back doesn't mean you're "running on the issue." It means defending yourself from attack.

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Tom A's avatar

You are going to have to clarify what that looks like in a way that doesnt raise the salience of an issue we are loosing on but also isnt just giving in and agreeing with the other side (which is ultimately what we did on immigration to no avail).

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Paleo's avatar

Stop demonizing isolated individuals to smear us in order to distract from your (fill in the blank). It's a bit of a tricky bank shot, but it's doable.

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Andrew's avatar

Throw it away as a non-issue. “I’m sick of talking about all this trans stuff,” is what Dems could’ve said. That’s what the GOP did with abortion and it seemed to work.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

If it's not Trans they'll find something else or invent it. Of course they can't run on their policies of tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of big companies.

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Skaje's avatar

Laughable to think this election made a statement about sports of all things. There's a ton of articles by now seeking out Biden -> Trump voters, specifically asking them why they voted Republican, and it's simply inflation, inflation, housing prices, rent, insurance, the disruption of the past four years, feeling like things were better under Trump, that he said a lot of crazy things but didn't actually do them, things actually felt just fine under Trump and then went crazy under Biden, Trump's going to end inflation but keep job growth and income gains, etc., etc. But sure, let's pile on to trans people and blame them for all this. Great stuff, this is the recriminations and scapegoating I can always look forward to after we lose an election.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

This is Christmas time for dems with grievances

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Skaje's avatar

Yup! And people are more obvious than they think about trying to pass their grievances off as "Democrats need to do this to win elections". If you're favorably collecting all the soundbites from Dem congressmen who are taking shots at trans people - I get you, I see what you're doing. May it age as poorly as what a bunch of conservative Dems did after 2004.

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Toiler On the Sea's avatar

The problem is there's never any ground for reasonable debate. I would bet dollars to donuts that a majority of Democrats aren't supportive of letting biological men compete in women's sports, but trying to just open up a respectful discussion on that is immediately shutdown as "attacking the trans community" . .sorry your median voter sees this dynamic and doesn't like it. It also opens the door for more regressive, reactionary positions and policies to gain more support.

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

Both things can be true. 1) We need a reasonable answer on women's sports that respects Trans women's right to participate in society without unfair advantage 2) it's likely at the bottom of issues the vast majority of people care about.

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Andrew's avatar

It is at the bottom of issues of concern but vibes are important. If people only voted on the issues, the GOP wouldn’t win very much. The whole thing is a popularity contest first and foremost, period.

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ArcticStones's avatar

Anecdotal: Sunday, while having winter tires mounted on our car, I spoke to the two people in the waiting room about the election. A middle-aged woman was so alarmed that she was seriously investigating moving abroad. An elderly man said he, unenthused by either candidate, held his nose and voted for Trump. His reason? That Trump had promised to "stop the wars".

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Mark's avatar

I'm not gonna wade into the trans issue in terms of a policy/civil rights debate, but I suspect you're wrong about it not swinging votes. Dave Chappelle's highly successful anti-trans stand-up shtick doesn't exist in a bubble insulated from electoral salience. It wouldn't be the first time that being at the tip of the spear on culture war issues cracked up the Democrats' coalition.

At the very least, the Democrats need to acknowledge they're on the wrong side of public opinion on this and update their messaging. They were winning the argument in the Roy Cooper era but once Republicans figured out a way to make it about children, they've been on offense and made considerable inroads. Pretending that they haven't and hoping people will be naturally co-opted by the gravity of civil rights acceptance might work, but it's risky.

The more serious reckoning needs to happen with illegal immigration and I won't pull punches on this. If the Democrats had to have their asses handed to them two weeks ago, I was hoping it would be unambiguously because of their unacceptable stewardship of immigration policy. The verdict wasn't definitive and Dems are interpreting it as giving them permission to stay the course on an asylum platform that is unequivocally batshit insane.

And honestly, that includes the reform plan pitched this spring which still allowed for 5,000 people PER DAY to manipulate the asylum process and cut in front of millions of people trying to immigrate legally. If anything, Democrats were lucky Trump sabotaged that bill because allowing 5,000 new asylum manipulators per day would not have stanched the deluge of crossings. The borders would be just as clogged now as they were a year ago and the issue would have been more front and center during the general election with people still as angry about the border in November as they were in February. The executive order Biden passed in lieu of the border reform bill did a lot more to cool down this issue than the reform bill would have.

Herein lies the risk for Democrats in the months to come. Trump will be carrying out deportations and, at least until there's tangible economic pain felt by consumers, these deportations will be broadly popular. If the Democrats choose to spend an inordinate amount of time in the next year outraged about sending illegal immigrants back home, they will have once again misread popular opinion badly and position themselves for another disappointing cycle.

Pretending that the Trump surge was entirely about inflation does nobody on our side any favors. It's not as if the demographics that surged to Trump this year did so out of this blue. 2024 wasn't 2016. The trend lines have been in motion for a few cycles now. We have a much bigger problem with American voters than the price of eggs being too high.

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Paleo's avatar

What's your idea of an "inordinate amount of time"?

The whole problem with this issue is that it ignores what caused the increase in the first place. Which was the economic disruption caused by NAFTA and similar agreements. You can either work to improve conditions in central America or you can start shooting people at the border. Because you're not going to stop people from coming otherwise. BTW, what happened to the Wall?

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Mark's avatar

An early concession should be made that a limited number of deportations is good public policy and a good deterrent to illegal border crossings or asylum manipulation....as well as a good deterrent to employers exploiting an undocumented workforce. Obama oversaw more than his share of deportations and it certainly had more of a deterrent effect than anything Biden did for the first three and a half years of his Presidency. It's bonkers to say we're gonna deport millions of people at a cost of $88 billion per year as Trump is saying, but I would strongly advise Democrats against losing their minds at the onset of deportations.

There will undoubtedly be examples of overreach where they will be well served to sound off as needed, but if ever there's a scenario where it's wise to choose your battles, screaming bloody murder about deporting illegal immigrants as a matter of principle is one of them.

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Skaje's avatar

Republicans have always made it about children. It wasn't just marriage in the Bush years, they went after adoption by same-sex couples. Books in school libraries. Republicans have argued LGBT people are a threat to children for decades. The idea that we were doing okay on defusing these attacks in the 2010's but are failing now is driven more by the unique electoral results of the year than any truth of the matter. Again, we beat plenty of Republicans fixated on this stuff in 2022, not by making concessions or punching left, but because we had a better electorate in many states, and were in a position to turn the focus to topics where we were more broadly popular. I will insist there is nothing we need to do, any more than after 2004. Attitudes will change with time and the aging of the younger generations into the electorate.

As for the border, I don't have any great arguments. I do agree it motivates a lot of people (this also has been true for decades). To an extent we're at the mercy of international trends (like Venezuela's collapse and hemorrhage of their population). I hope these trends reverse, but I fear it's only going to get worse over time. I think it's going to go worse for Trump than you predict. It also doesn't matter what Democrats say, Republicans are in the drivers' seat and will be judged.

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Paleo's avatar

When it comes to Venezuela, the U.S. is not at the mercy of events.

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Toiler On the Sea's avatar

Yes she did; 80% of her ads in GA were on the economy and inflation. I keep hearing these alternative realities where Biden never held public speeches touting his Administration's accomplishments the past 2 years and Dems didn't campaign on the economy. All of that happened-ya'll will have to find a new boogeyman.

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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

What Harris said in her ads didn't matter. The prices people saw in the supermarkets were what mattered.

In fact, those ads may have actually made Democrats seem even MORE tone-deaf. “The nerve of those Dems to claim the economy is great even when prices are still a lot higher!”

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Andrew's avatar

And it makes you wonder how Dems got away with this in 2022 when inflation had peaked. Seems like we got a lot of leeway for what was clearly a covid problem and then we waffled it by not acknowledging why it’s here to stay bc we said it’s actually gone. As much as people want to say inflation is lower bc technically it is, check your grocery bill.

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culturejammer's avatar

I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but there is a perception that the cultural/sexual pendulum has swung, way, way too far to the left. Many voters were responding to that as well.

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benamery21's avatar

Remember the flak Mark Udall got for being a one note Johnny on abortion rights? Looks like almost the whole party made that mistake this time. It’s an important subject, and a vote winner talked about the right way (which is different in different places). It’s not the only damn thing people care about.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

Specifics guys.

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Tigercourse's avatar

Moulton - Conservative guy thinks Dems are too liberal. News at 11. His challenge of Pelosi and run for President were also vaguely delusional.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

He ran for president? Must have not been paying attention that week

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Ben F.'s avatar

It's still amazing how many candidates ran in the 2020 cycle and whose runs are now forgotten.

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ArcticStones's avatar

Seth Moulton is the idiot who tried to stop Nancy Pelosi from being re-elected as House Speaker – without Moulton being able to recruit anyone to run against her. Had he challenged her himself, I suspect Moulton would have received two votes: his own and Jared Golden’s.

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

"if they don't 100% agree with our orthodox view, often defined by the far left, then they're just bad people, they're morally wrong. That’s not going to win us any elections.” I mean how many Republicans did Harris campaign with? I don't think this is the problem.

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Andrew's avatar

If only we had gotten attack ads of, “Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney, the biggest RINO of them all!” We would’ve won then. But, instead we got, “Harris thinks prisoners deserve tax funded sex change surgeries.”

She’s pro-prisoner trans rights?!?!? Come on now. Fucking dumb. Unless it’s 3 meals, a shower and an hour of recess per day, do not answer questions about the rights of prisoners.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

Not a popular opinion, judging by the comments here, but I maintain my view that these comments from officials are a waste of time and counter-productive. All his comments (and similar from other officials) does is create infighting in the party.

Everyone and their dog is going to pop up and say that we need to change our policies to better align with *their* policies. Magically, agreeing with them is the one secret to winning elections — unfortunately, that magic permeates across the entire ideological spectrum, as everyone from the most centrist to the most progressive democrats, and all in between, are of this view.

Fighting over Moulton's or Sanders' or anyone else's comments is a waste of our time. It's a waste of their time to make the comment in the first place! There's no magical policy or ideological change that would have made Harris president with a trifecta. This was the most policy-bereft election of my entire life.

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Skaje's avatar

Agreed, it's all so very pointless. What did Republicans need to do to get back in after Obama's re-election? What did we have to do after Bush's? Why does anyone think we need to argue social issues to have a chance to win in 2028? Trump didn't do anything to fix his losing 2020 coalition, he just ran again and said things were better under him and worse now. But no, some Dems want to talk about women's sports now...the only thing we need to do is wait for people to get mad at Trump again, and run on broadly popular things that will address what people are mad about, and improve their lives.

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Andrew's avatar

I think you pointing out Moulton and Sander’s says everything about the political discourse the left is having. Both sides of our party are saying the same thing yet blaming each other for it.

What’s really dumb is we’re all focusing on why Dems lost instead of why Trump won. I think that’s the key here. We should be bigger assholes who are more forceful in getting our agenda done. Then we’d have more results to sell.

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