Many people on the social medias, the left-leaning press, and establishment Democrats seem to believe that the path to victory is to moderate our politics and policies and become more centrist. They advise all who will listen to listen, really listen to the PEOPLE.
But let’s take a closer look at a typical recommendation from the autopsy of the “corpse” that lost the White House by just a few thousand votes—which is less corpse-like and more like a contender that merely lost on points, like a boxer who goes the distance without being knocked out.
“What do we have to do? Listen, it’s not that hard. This is not rocket science. This is representation. It starts with listening, and it means getting out to places and spaces and people and communities that we’ve all but turned our back on,” he added. (Phillips: Democratic Party is ‘totally devoid of leadership’ by Filip Timotija on 28 December on The Hill)
This is the same Dean Phillips who wanted to win so badly, he decided to take the party through a bruising primary—historically a path that leaves a candidate so battered that victory in November becomes nearly impossible. Just ask Poppy Bush because no incumbent has survived a serious primary challenge at the end of their first term.
The call to “listen to the voters” ostensibly means addressing their concerns, developing policies that resonate with them, and running on that platform. Sounds like a winning strategy, right?
Until you recognize that many of these voters are leaning Republican precisely because they’re drawn to the racist, misogynistic, authoritarian, anti-democratic rhetoric of the other side. Advocating that kind of response to our narrow loss is similar to Bill Clinton’s response to the shellacking that Reagan laid on Mondale by moving towards the center. Going that route just produces Trump-lite, all the racism and misogyny with a light sprinkling of anti-democratic authoritarianism.
These advocates act as if the Trump era and the Republican Party’s antics over the last nine years (let’s be real, the GOP has been on this trajectory for fifty) are normal and, somehow, supportive of the Constitution and democracy. This normalization only legitimizes the autocratic, oligarchic Republican agenda and their disinformation smear campaigns.
Ultimately, this approach is unlikely to yield any meaningful political victory. As the saying goes, why buy the bull when you can swallow for free?
So, the real question is: do those advocating for this “listening” approach truly understand what they’re recommending, or are they simply lost in their own echo chambers? Let me know what you think, in the comments.
Image Attribution
This image was found on Chuan Chew on Flickr and has an Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 2.0) license
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The ‘move to the center’ can never work when the other side is dragging the ‘center’ rightward as fast as they can. All this creates are half-hearted calls to ‘Republican-Lite’ ideals, which, no surprise, no one wants.
When ‘the people’ are asked, in non-partisan language and framing what they want, actual Dem policies win every time.
What we have to do is own those policies loud and clearly advocate for them, not equivocate.
Grow a $!@^%$ spine and behave like an opposition party.
Pin the failures of Republican governance on the Republicans, and quit with the Tip-n-Ronny bipartisan comity bullshit.
Make them own their failures.
Laugh at them! Call them weird!
Call them liars, because that’s what they are.
Absolutely right, but the for-profit press won’t do anything but normalize them and bothsides it all because profits.
Democrats are more afraid of losing than they are desirous of winning. The 2024 election was lost by nearly as slim of margins as the 2016 and 2020 elections were decided by. We don’t need to have all of this hand-wringing and winging. We need to hit the streets and expand the base.
Early last year, I did write a post about how laughing at MAGA is the best way to beat the rightwing propagandists.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
I’m thinking of some pieces I’ve seen comparing American “Liberals” and “Conservatives” to the parties with those labels in Europe. The observation was that our Liberals would be Conservatives over there, and our Conservatives would be Far Right Radicals. Their Liberals would be the Progressive fringe of our Democratic Party (Bernie and AOC). The rightward drift of the Democratic Party over the past 40 years is blamed on the Neo-Liberals siding with the “Establishment” corporate donors over the workers. You’ve covered this process with reference to the moving of the Overton Window, which is the cause and effect of the normalization of the pathological.
I think it is fair to take a lot of the advice in the autopsies as more of that same. They seem to be looking for a new Bill Clinton who earned the undying hatred of the GOP by being able to dog whistle out of both sides of his mouth.
Many of these political coroners are clearly suffering some cognitive errors. The worst is probably in treating the loss of a very close election as the landslide that the other side claims.
Another mistake in listening to those Trump voters is ignoring what they are listening to in a country saturated with right wing media, from Fox “News” and AM radio, to “X” and other social media platforms. And that goes for the non-voters too.
So, do the critics know they are talking about using the racist, misogynistic, etc. dog whistles? Some do. They want the Democrats to become Republicans lite. Others may be just flailing about and producing content to fill column inches and air time on deadline.
Perhaps, the better advice would be to listen better to the half of the electorate who voted for Democrats rather then the brainwashed mass of MAGA.
Howdy Bob!
Clinton slowed the tide of awful conservatism as it flooded across America. Gore would’ve slowed it further had he won. I’ll never forgive him for losing an election he should’ve won walking away. We weren’t at war. The economy was in good shape. WTF, Al? WTF?
I remember my grandmother had four pictures on her living room wall. On one wall, alone, was Jesus Christ. On another wall hung JFK and LBJ flanking FDR. She revered all three of them because of they so greatly benefited her life and allowed her raise her five sons, live in her ancestral home (a mountain cabin without plumbing) in the Great Smoky Mountains, and rise above poverty.
Since LBJ, the Republicans have been winning the propaganda wars, though. Every Republican anti-government trope is firmly established in the American conscious: all politicians are corrupt, no government agency can perform as well as a private company can, government is inept and bloated, social programs cause dependence and laziness, and I’m sure you could add one or two more.
We do have half of the electorate, though. 2016, 2020, and 2024 were all by the same margins. I think you’re right. The real autopsy results are to figure out how to expand and motivate our base. Trump won because he got the toxic male vote across demographics and Republicans made it harder for Democratic voters to vote in key battleground counties and districts.
I think establishment Democrats are trying to circle the wagons and protect their positions rather than actually engaging in a real political struggle for the soul of America that Biden embarked upon in 2020.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
The Republicans have been propagandizing on more than the formal government. The attack has been, and remains, on the idea of The Commons, that there are resources and activities, goods and services that properly belong in the commons rather than private for profit hands. One of the best examples is the shift in financing higher education from tax supported to student debt supported. Now, they are working to extend that model to all levels of education. And health care has suffered the same fate.
Yes, the opinionating from most establishment Democrats does have that circling the wagons flavor. Of course, a lot of them are on Trump’s enemies list, and no amount of dog whistling can protect them from that.
Howdy Bob!
I just reread a post of mine from 2023 reporting on the through line from the 1960 presidential election through to Trump in Republican attempts to roll back Civil Rights and social support programs. The anti-democratic efforts really kicked into high gear with Goldwater and his Arizona plan led by William Rehnquist to intimidate non-Republican voters at polling places. Just as an aside, one of Rehnquist’s clerks was John Roberts.
Health insurance became attached to employment during the Depression as a perk that could be offered that didn’t cost much. Insurance didn’t become a for-profit industry until Reagan, I believe. Maybe you know that better than I do. Since FDR’s New Deal, conservatives have been trying to figure a way, any way, to undo the programs. It was part of the reason they fought the ACA so hard. I think it was McConnell who said that if it went into effect, it would be as difficult to revoke as Medicare and Medicaid. But, now they’ve nearly done it. They feel emboldened to privatize all of the federal government’s social programs and other services, turning them all into the same nightmare that health insurance is.
The history of education has been an interesting one. It has always been based in classism and sexism. Education was only seen as being worthwhile for the upper classes. You didn’t need much of an education to work on farms and in factories. As long as the patriarchy was strong, women didn’t needed even less than their male counterparts did.
As long as the state had a vested interest in producing citizens with a minimal necessary education, it would be supported by taxes of one kind or another. As the space race and Cold War heated up, we needed a more educated population, but bent policy towards ensuring it was a white male population that received most of the benefits, especially of a college education. Reagan in his search for income to support his bloated deficit, began taxing Pell Grants and making them harder to get, increasing student loans, which eventually evolved into a very profitable sector for private lenders and saddled the unworthy lower classes with massive debt that they could never get out from under, especially when coupled with medical debt.
FDR, JFK, and FDR had clear visions of what was needed to make our society more functional and more equitable. Democrats lack that now. There is a slew of issues that Democrats should consistently and vociferously support, Medicare for all, gun control, the child tax credit, abortion, immigration reform, and many others. But, the system as it exists now cripples any politician by forcing them to raise campaign funds on a daily basis and leaves them beholden to special interests who can fund them at the levels they need.
It is sobering for me to realize that these forces have always been here in our country, but my education from elementary through advanced degrees never taught it that way. But, it is the only way that anyone can really understand what is happening now and do anything to save our democracy and maintain a nation that serves the middle class.
Biden had that vision, but the Republican smear and disinformation campaign, propaganda machine, and collusion from the for-profit press stopped it in its tracks. Harris, quite frankly, just seemed confused by policy, and Walz just happy to be there.
I guess the real lesson from all of this is that Sheldon Whitehorse was right. The Democrats need to be able to counter the Republican information wars more effectively.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
howdy, Jack,
The real boost to employer health coverage came in WW2 when wage and price controls and rationing went into effect. Employers were unable to compete for worker in a shrunken labor market by offering higher wages. If I remember right, it was Henry Kaiser who realized that offering health insurance and other benefits that did not count as part of wages would work. Kaiser also included setting up clinics for employees and their families. The unions loved it and made sure it stayed in place when the men came back from the war. Until Reagan came along Blue Cross Blue Shield was the major health insurer and was a non-profit structured very much like a network of coops (state by state). The same was true of several of the largest hospital groups and care networks. Along with those operations going to for-profit, came the concept of “managed Care”, which sounds good in theory until you realize that in the for profit context it becomes about limiting care.
The whole fight is really about one central question: Who is the government for, Capital or Labor? The European political parties seem to understand this concept and the necessity of balancing those interests to maintain a functional system of mixed capitalism and socialism. In America, it has been re-framed as between the rugged individual and a collective.
Yes, Sheldon was right, and it is no easy task.
Howdy Bob!
I looked at writing a post on how Democrats could adapt what I’m calling Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook, but since it is all based on lies and deception, I can’t see how it would work. The only rules they can use is repeat, repeat, repeat and couple that with simplifying their message instead of trying to justify and explain everything.
Then, the task is finding a Fox News media outlet to help them amplify it and hiring a cadre of social media savvy youths to pump it out onto all of the rapidly proliferating platforms. But, I don’t know if any of that will ever get done.
All of the media outlets are obeying in advance and signaling that they will be compliant in not holding Trump et al. accountable.
I still maintain that part of Europe’s success in balancing capitalism and socialism is the parliamentary system. We suffer greatly without it.
Huzzah!
Jack
I am convinced that our political duopoly is now, and is perhaps inevitably toxic and that we would be better served by a multiplicity of parties such as those parliamentary systems have. It is like Jefferson’s argument regarding the separation of church and state fostering a multiplicity of sects so that none could claim the secular power. Our Founding Fathers, despite their almost unanimous distaste for political parties (“factions”), went and created two, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists in the debates about the new proposed Constitution, and we’ve been stuck with them ever since, even though the names have changed.
The only solution I’ve been able to imagine has been to make political party membership a dues paying system, with all party income being from member dues, cheap enough for voters, and more for candidates and incumbents to wear the party brand. Anybody who was not a dues paying member of a party would be registered and/or campaign as Independent.
In the duopoly situation, the dream of turning it into a monopoly is always there to be dreamed.
I’m afraid that the creation of the resistance media will have to be a grass roots process, and probably the work of a new generation of emerging liberal/progressive leaders. The Old Farts in Democratic Party and Media leadership still think they can survive Trump and Trumpism if they play their cards right. Some might even get that lucky.
Howdy Bob!
The saving grace of the duopoly was pork-barrel and ear-marked spending and political machines because then party and political support wasn’t based on ideology and belief but on favors and services. Is the system we have now any less corrupt than Tammany Hall was? When we got rid of those practices, we got rid of incentive to compromise and the ability of a political party to have a spectrum political belief and overlap of policy preferences.
Now, the only thing our politics is driven by is identity where policy and delivery of services doesn’t matter. Republicans have cornered the market on trash-talking and demonizing their opponents whether they are moderate Republicans or Democrats. When trash-talk and winning become more important than truth, the foundation of society is eroded, especially when the institutions that should be upholding truth are not doing it. The two main institutions that we have for doing so are the media and the electorate. Neither, as a collective, is willing to hold lying politicians accountable. In fact, they seem to be happy to be lied to.
The Democratic Party just seems lost and leaderless at the moment. The Biden-so-old movement has removed Biden as the de facto leader of the party. Harris’ loss has removed her as the de facto leader. No one seems anxious to be stepping up and filling that void. Anyone who is serious about running in 2028 should be out there establishing their presence and bolstering their name recognition. You’d think Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom would be giving speeches and interviews full of what the Democratic Party should be doing and reaching out to various constituencies of the Party.
If the Party is going LISTEN, REALLY LISTEN to their voters and not just once every four years when they need their votes, they need to be doing it now.
As annoying as Bluesky is and Twitter was — I’m annoyed by the repetitious memes and simple sick burns that seem to dominate and go viral — Bluesky should be the place where the dissident media should be based. Substack should be the place for substantive pieces along with sites like The Daily Kos and Crooks and Liars.
Huzzah!
Jack
It’s true that when elected officials can’t make deals across the isle to deliver things their constituents need/want, they are left with party unity/discipline and ideology, and demonizing the opposition.
It seems that those Democrats who aren’t still trying to figure out who to blame for the loss, are trying to figure out what Trump and the Gang are really going to try to do and how to resist, impede, and survive that.
The best listeners are those who do not have an established position to protect, and a record to defend. This is more true when a party is involved in the autopsy blame game. Then, there is the question whether what the voters are saying they need or want is reality based and possible. Right now, for a large part of the electorate that is not the case, even to some degree on the left side of the isle. Far too many are drowning is BS and magical thinking.
Howdy Bob!
Do we have any evidence that the people calling for the Democratic Party to LISTEN, REALLY LISTEN to voters this time, have actually made any efforts to actually listen or make constituents feel heard?
I think there is a lot of self-serving rationalization and out and out cognitive dissonance trying to limit the pain of the defeat and the absolute disaster that it will be for the democracy and the planet. Obviously, no one has figured out what Trump and the oligarchs are going to do beyond the broad strokes of grab with both hands. You can see the beginnings of preferential treatment in US policies for those donating on to inauguration.
I think now the battle lines have been drawn in the House with new rules and the election of Johnson as Speaker. By not allowing Democrats to vote of efforts to recall the Speaker, he virtually guarantees that Democrats won’t bail him out on votes for some important legislation. I guess that was the goal of the MAGA Republicans in the House, though. They want the government shutdown. They want to default on the debt. They want the world’s economy to be in shambles so the billionaires can buy up the pieces at fire sale prices.
Huzzah!
Jack
A lot of many people’s reason for figuring out who’s to blame for something is to try to make sure it isn’t them. This is definitely operating among the Democrats and the media that so horribly failed us for so long.
The “Freedom Caucus” really do come as close as anybody in current politics anywhere to being full on anarchists at war with the very idea of government.
And it shows that Gandhi was right. Any idiot can throw a bomb and destroy something. It takes dedication to a cause to suffer through the building of something.
Indeed!
Dog whistles….that road leads nowhere. Happy New Year chuq
Dog whistling by Democrats just leads to being the permanent opposition party in a pseudo-democracy.
Huzzah!
Jack
Exactly! They have a chance to change their direction but will they? chuq