Democrats Have a Problem, But It’s Not the One You Think

Adam Taylor

Adam Taylor is a native Texan, centrist life-long Democrat, and among other things, creator of the simulation fantasy baseball site No-Lyfe Fantasy Sports. He also likes to think he has valid opinions on a wide range of topics. He doesn't tweet much, but is on Twitter.

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113 Responses

  1. Greginak says:

    This is far more an issue with advocacy groups then D’s. Dems will often go along with advocacy groups terms but to many groups don’t market their terms to the widest public. It would be better to have slogans and words that are more natural. However Carville, who I think is a jackass in general fwiw, is making the same mistake to many advocacy groups make. You can’t win or achieve all the change simply through clever wordsmithing. I don’t think defund was a great term and reform is more my style. Buy they are only slogans there has to be real meat(beef or bugs or some meat like substance) behind that. A good slogan isn’t creating deep or meaningful change to budgets or laws. A better slogan while good is thin gruel and not substantial. Cops, for example, will still push back against any change regardless of the slogan.Report

    • Adam Taylor in reply to Greginak says:

      It’s the slogans, however, that get public support on your side. Even if the chance for reform is still small, having the large majority on your side will still grant you better odds at reform than if you don’t. Exactly the problem with “Defund the police.”Report

      • Greginak in reply to Adam Taylor says:

        Yeah but that only goes so far. Defund is not a good slogan but when it comes time to make new laws or pass budgets you need a metric butt ton more then a good slogan. Lots of middle ground people will nod along to a slogan then ghost when it means something. I’m fine with Ds and advocacy groups talking on a more normal person manner designed to get more support. That would be good but it doesn’t change any fundamental calculation.Report

  2. Good piece!

    Personally I think it’s more complicated than Carville is making it. There are reasons why Dems engage in this practice. One is that it ensures there are “insiders” and “outsiders” and the insiders profit in variety of ways from translating the meaning for the outsiders, and can act as gatekeepers to keeping the outsiders OUT. This is certainly unpleasant and bad, but doesn’t strike me as blatantly evil, just an outgrowth of human nature.

    But I also think it creates a bailey-motte type of thing where words can mean whatever they need to mean in any given moment and no one can pin things down exactly. That way they can skate through without ever being honest about their intent, and people can read into their policies whatever they want. And if ever called out on a greater intent, they run back up into their castle of defense, and how DARE anyone say such a thing, why they’re clearly a crazy conspiracy theorist!

    This feels rather more sinister to me.

    Long story short, I don’t think this is in any way an accidental thing that Democrats plan to work on correcting any time in the near future.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Kristin Devine says:

      Are you sure you are talking about Democrats?Report

    • Defund the police is a good example of it. We have half the Democrats saying, “Oh no, defund the police just means reform” and the other half saying, “Oh, no, it means abolishing them.” The former is what we are going to get; the latter is what people fear. So all it does is turn voters against them.Report

      • Dark Matter in reply to Michael Siegel says:

        the latter is what people fear.

        Not all people. If your view is that the police are the source of the problems (maybe even inequality) and it’s never acceptable for a white cop to kill a black, then “abolish” looks like a good idea. Presumably that’s a tiny minority but they may be a big deal in the Dem primary.

        Or you may just be virtue signalling to that demographic.Report

  3. Kazzy says:

    [Disclaimer: Broad strokes ahead]

    Inherent to liberal political philosophies is a desire for change.
    Inherent to conservative political philosophies is a desire to resist change.

    I say that with zero value judgement on either desire. Change can be good. Change can be bad. Change can just be.

    But this seems to inevitably stack the deck a bit against the liberal side of things.
    “Hey… you know those jokes or comments or behaviors or attitudes many people have had for their whole lives? We want to change that. But we can’t even describe it. We need a new term. How about microaggressions?”

    Compare that to: Make America Great Again

    Is it fair? I dunno. Life isn’t fair. But it does mean that folks who are seeking change need to first define the change they’re seeking and that is inevitably a challenge since the language may not exist to adequately do so.

    Maybe this is a good thing insofar as we don’t want to just make change willy-nilly so having some natural barriers can help avoid that.

    But in the American political context, all of this stuff gets weaponized. So this maybe unfair but maybe helpful aspect becomes something different.

    And, it is what it is.

    Dems can get better at this one way or another. Or they can fail.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Kazzy says:

      The language always exists to adequately define the change being sought. However, that language maybe difficult for the layperson to digest.

      I still recall the first time I encountered the term “Schadenfreude”. It was an episode of Boston Legal, and James Spader was explaining it to the jury. Wonderful word that encompasses quite a bit (the Germans are good at that, so are the Russians, come to think of it; and I’m betting the Chinese and Japanese languages have a host of such lovely terms).

      Anyway, I digress.

      Compressing that language takes work, and time. Not just for disseminating the new bit of language into the public consciousness, but also getting public acceptance (the population has to want to use the new language). It’s like code review for software*. You make a change to the code base, and the rest of the developers on the project get to look it over and decide it they find it acceptable.

      Thus, the problem as I see it is that you’ve got people who like coming up with new language, but don’t want to do the work to get it past code review.

      *Or legislative review.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        And another layer is that the other side, always game to play ball, will quickly attack that language before it can even gain a foothold. So even if you get it right, you’re still trying to explain it while the other side has been poking holes in it for a while.

        Let’s look at the debate over marriage.
        One side just had to defend marriage.
        The other side had gay marriage. Wait wait wait, no, it’s same-sex marriage. Wait, no no, marriage equality.
        And then they spent time trying to explain that marriage didn’t really mean what conservatives said it meant if you looked back a thousand years.

        Meanwhile… the other side… just marriage.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Kazzy says:

          That kind of conflict doesn’t happen all the time, but yeah, if the new language has political impacts (and feck-all everything does these days…), then it’s game on.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Kazzy says:

          If we didn’t think in words, this wouldn’t be a problem. But I think ambiguity in words can reflect uncertainty in thought.Report

          • Kazzy in reply to Pinky says:

            Definitely a possibility. But I also think liberals (specifically contemporary American liberals) tend to overthink all of this.

            Gay marriage was a less good term than same sex marriage which was a less good term than marriage equality. But was gay marriage good enough? Yea, probably. But they (we) let the perfect be the enemy of the good so, no, it was not good enough. And energy was wasted rebranding and re-rebranding the idea.

            Liberals would really benefit from someone who could just say, “Cut the crap. Let’s all call it this until we win and then we can get into the weeds.” But liberals tend towards decentralized movements.

            Consider the post yesterday on how the beef BS permeated the right wing so quickly. Sure, it was BS, but the right wing fell in line in moments.

            Imagine liberals trying to do that:
            “Trump wants to take away our beef!”
            “Hands of our cows, Trump!”
            “Um… cows is a gendered term. How about cattle?”
            “Cattle it is.”
            “Wait… have we asked EVERYONE to weigh in?”
            “Must our slogan be in English?”
            “What about deaf people?”
            “Is ‘deaf people’ the right term?”

            Meanwhile, all the beef is gone.Report

            • InMD in reply to Kazzy says:

              The proper term is Bovinx.Report

              • North in reply to InMD says:

                Bovinx is based on Latin which makes it a western centric term based on old dead white guys and thus problematic. I submit “baqarx” for the committee’s consideration as it’s based on Arabic which is a language from a designated oppressed minority group with the obligatory x included to eliminate patriarchal gendering norms.Report

              • InMD in reply to North says:

                Clearly I am bested by a true master (but not in the #problematic way).Report

              • Kazzy in reply to InMD says:

                We joke but the fact that we can do so so easily I think kind of makes the point.

                The GOP is holding pep rallies with choreographed cheer routines while the Dems are in the library doing a group project.Report

              • InMD in reply to Kazzy says:

                I think that’s an excellent metaphor. I also think the tension in these arguments is really about the people who want to grade the project in the library on a curve due to what’s happening at the pep rally in the gym versus those who don’t.

                I can personally say that I think the defeat of Protestant Christianity/SoCons as a political force is, on balance, a good thing. They proved they can’t be trusted to wield the power of the small-l liberal, secular state in a way that is responsible or likely to succeed in the modern world. But I’m not so happy about it that I’ve abandoned all my critical faculties. There’s nothing wrong with looking at what the study group brought back and saying ‘Really? This is what you came up with? And you’re telling me it’s the best you could do?’ And then wondering about how competent they really are if it is in fact the best they can do.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Kazzy says:

                oh look it’s “the real problem Democrats have is that they’re just too darn niceReport

              • Kazzy in reply to DensityDuck says:

                That’s not what I’m saying. And it is a pretty uncharitable read to say as much.

                Liberals/Democrats too often favor moral victories over actual victories. That has nothing to do with being nice and everything to do with misplaced priorities.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Kazzy says:

                If you’re trying to eliminate inequality by getting rid of microaggressions, then a “moral victory” is as good as it gets.

                The Fortune 500 train their employees to not do this, so you win.Report

  4. Philip H says:

    This gets to a core tenet of communication that Republicans since Reagan have had down pat, but for whatever reason seems like a foreign concept to a large majority of liberals and Democrats: When speaking to an audience, do not use the language and words that make most sense to you, use the language and words that make most sense to your audience.

    Its called Framing in linguistics, and you are neither the first nor the last to point out its necessity, nor harangue Democrats and liberals for its lack. I harangue my fellow liberals for it almost daily.

    Plain language would have helped immensely. That is where Republicans excel in this. They take already widely understood words and language and use them to their advantage to paint a picture that is easily imaginable in someone’s mind. Even if it is not accurate, if you can easily imagine it, then it makes a great first impression on the mind that takes many times the effort to dislodge. They rarely coin new terms and phrases, because if you are taking time to explain you are taking time to lose.

    This is also true. Republicans are master story tellers who rely nearly completely on emotional appeals to achieve and maintain political ends. It’s a big part of why calling they liars doesn’t work, and why “entertainers” like Tucker Carlson are given prominent air time slots on “news” channels.Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to Philip H says:

      I don’t think Republicans are the master politicians people like to make them out to be.

      One, a lot of their power derives simply from the fact that the Constitutional structure gives outsize influence to scarcely populated states.

      Two, their power in those states is due to gerrymandering and voter suppression, which gives them the illusion of broad support.

      Three, their base isn’t growing, but is shrinking. They aren’t gaining converts, there aren’t any new voters joining the crowd. If you didn’t vote Republican in the last election, you probably won’t this time around.

      Despite having possession of a vast network of propaganda arms, Fox, Sinclair, OAN and others, they just can’t whip up even a majority of support for Republican policies. All of Frank Luntz’s clever wordsmithing, all of the Rovian strategery can’t hide the fact that very few Americans want to live under Republican policies, including a lot of Republicans.Report

      • Philip H in reply to Chip Daniels says:

        Chip – All those things are true. They are also beside the point. Republican politicians are all masters of emotionally thick story telling. Its how the whip their shrinking base. Its why the Big Lie is resulting in actual legislation. Democrats still do not do this.Report

  5. Chip Daniels says:

    Biden is the perfect example of Carville’s point.

    He was never the choice of the online faculty lounge crowd, but has a tremendous level of support among rank and file Democrats. He doesn’t speak in the jargon that Carville criticizes, but instead just communicates in a clear understandable way and focuses on pocketbook issues that even Republicans support.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      This is true. If a large swath of the GOP wasn’t satisfied playing “Own the Libs” or “Anything But The Libs”, Biden would have a lot more bi-partisan support.Report

    • North in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      Biden is also a perfect example of how both the media, the right-wing media and the Republicans are full of it when it comes to defining the Democratic Party in particular and the left in general. Everyone signal boosts and focuses on the lefties who spout the kind of jargon that Adam is complaining about while, at the same time, bemoaning that the Dems are dominated by those kinds of folks and thinking.

      In reality, of course, that’s far from accurate. Biden, the plain speaking old white guy thumped the Socialist and the various anointed candidates of the woketariate professors lounge like drums. Carville even observed that he was watching a safe LA district contest with interest where the two candidates were a faculty lounge speaking candidate with all the woke endorsements vs a plain speaking candidate with endorsements from more managerial and practical authorities. Once again the plain speaking candidate, Troy Carter, won by 11 points.

      And yet still the media and the right howl that the Democratic Party specifically and the left in general is dominated by the woke left. What are they smoking? For the right, of course, it’s understandable because their continued political survival depends mightily on their framing their opponents as social justice loons. But the media and commentariate don’t have that excuse: maybe they should pull their heads out of their collective behinds… and twitter, but then again, those seem to be different terms for the same thing.Report

      • InMD in reply to North says:

        I think it looks that way because legacy and virtually all non-expressly-conservative media is in fact increasingly dominated by social justice loons or those under professional pressure to placate them. It’s not the world nor is it the entirety of the world of the Democratic coalition but it is the world in which those particular people live.Report

        • North in reply to InMD says:

          I understand that quite well but that doesn’t ameliorate my exasperation with those groups but, rather exacerbates it. Previous generations of reporters didn’t operate under some delusion that popular hobbies in their particular lives dominated the world but modern reporters can’t?!?Report

          • Oscar Gordon in reply to North says:

            What are they teaching in those journalism schools these days?

            Or, alternatively,

            This is what happens when you confuse a degree in fine writing (or whatnot) with a journalism degree.Report

            • InMD in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

              Elite institution lingua franca is what I assume combined with lack of social mobility. Hear the same s— from your 10k a month preschool to your 50k per year high school to your 100k per year private liberal arts school and you don’t know anything else. Or maybe you do but you just also know these are the things you say to get your A.Report

            • North in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

              One could also argue the fall of the gatekeepers, the rise of an entire writing cohort on the internet (people who can afford to basically give their writing away for several years until they can get a paying gig writing clickbait and listicles and eventually maybe climb into a niche being an actual paid writer) are contributing factors as well. I think it was Jay who observed that journalism schools churn out enough graduates to replace every paying gig in the country -each year-. Paid writing is basically the same as professional actor or TV star now.

              And, of course, the idea of a national monoculture is new too. Prior to the internet and, to a lesser degree, broadcast TV it was much more regional as I understand it.Report

            • Saul Degraw in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

              I think InMD’s “social justice loons” is too much of a cranky smear but I think various things are at play:

              1. The Internet has killed the need or ability for most media to be big like everyone used to gather around and watch Uncle Walter.

              2. This means that the key to survival is probably more in microtargeting than appealing to a broad miller.

              3. Younger journalists correctly see problems with the old model of “objective” reporting which Republicans learned to work so well and to their favor. The “cult of savvy” and “view from nowhere” and lazy cynicism of “BSDI” is getting tiresome and old just like the old schoolers who adhere to it. Plus all the old cliches of pretending guys who hang out in dinners are salt of the earth working stiffs instead of probably being well to do enough that they can afford to mull around a dinner for breakfast everyday. I am not struggling but I certainly don’t have that liberty or time.

              6. Different generations develop different worldviews and I am still hearing a lot of cranky middle-aged guys complaining about the yutes seeing the world differently.Report

              • InMD in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                I was quoting North on the ‘social justice loon’ description. But I think it’s telling Saul that you never seem to defend any of this on the merits. Instead you accuse people of being closet Republicans or go milquetoast racist about how ‘white guys (other than good ones like Saul) see the world.’ As if you have some magical insight into how every individual thinks based on their race or demographics.

                Now I think you do have a good point in #3. That type of media has failed spectacularly and it was exposed over and over again in the aughts as incapable of serving as a 5th estate. But do you really think replacing the view from nowhere/BSDI kind of jounalism with one that frames every piece of information in terms of some watered-down intersectionality fluff is an improvement? Like do you really think the citizenry is better informed for it? Or does it just make for a different spin on the same types of laziness and misinformation?Report

              • InMD in reply to InMD says:

                *4th estate.Report

              • dhex in reply to InMD says:

                a return to smaller market advocacy models of journalism is actually fairly historical. it doesn’t make it good or bad*, but it’s not a new invention so much as a reinvention of a more targeted time.

                substack is a further narrowing of that concept, but broken down into a patronage model for individual writers.

                * i think it’s not great and gives rise to terrible habits, but given the economics of journalism and the pmc-centric viewpoint of ivy leaguers dominating journalism it is definitely here to stay.Report

              • North in reply to dhex says:

                I sympathize with that viewpoint but with the paid writing industry imploding and the unpaid writing industry exploding under the aegis of the internet I don’t think the trends are reversible. In theory some new economic writing paradigm is needed and God(ess?) knows many many people have attempted it over the last couple decades but nothing has emerged.Report

              • dhex in reply to North says:

                i agree they’re not reversible. the patreon era of content is gonna be uh interesting. we’ll see more platform-based fights as drowning out the other becomes less feasible and various platforms wax and wane in popularity.

                i still sub to publications, and i’ve got one patreon sub for a music creator whose videos are excellent for my learning interests, but have not yet found anything i’d substack for, no matter how silly the substack critics are.Report

              • InMD in reply to dhex says:

                I don’t actually have a problem in principle with journalism with a perspective as long as it’s fully disclosed. Transparency done well can serve as its own form of accountability.

                What I object to is this game where the legacy outlets pretend to be doing the old school 20th century American style of journalism but are in fact doing something else. Then of course they get all affronted when it’s noticed and wonder where all their credibility went. It’s made even worse by the fact that the new perspective they bring is pretty sad intellectually.Report

              • North in reply to InMD says:

                Yeah my personal guess is we’re in for a long era of thinly veiled yellow journalism. Looking at it historically, though, maybe it would be more accurate to say that the brief interregnum of journalists pretending to be impartial has come to a close and we’re returning to the journalistic default.Report

              • dhex in reply to North says:

                i think you’re right about the arc of advocajournalismo – there’s a lot more options, to be sure, but far less centralized. the ability to very conveniently and instantaneously shape our filters to this degree is probably as good an argument for never using social. (or even visiting this blog, perhaps?)

                i was slightly hopeful the post-trump media landscape would shift some of these resources from the 4 year bonanza that was his presidency into longer-form research and reporting.

                that is probably not likely, given the amount of hate subs driven by trump’s constant need for attention and talent for insulting absurdities being no longer in play. but who knows? i’d like to be wrong on this front. i don’t think i am, but i’m very happy to be so.Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to North says:

        I agree in part and disagree in part. Biden is pretty liberal but he gets away with it because he is an old Irish-Catholic guy. He is adamantly opposed to the New Deal and makes statements that Obama would never have been able to get away with.

        “The government is not some force in a distant capitol, its us, its we the people.” This was from his speech tonight and it is pretty much stating “Bye Bye Reagan and small government.”Report

        • Marchmaine in reply to Saul Degraw says:

          1996 Clinton speech writers:
          *The era of big government is over.

          2021 Rejected Biden speech writer ideas:
          *The era of the big government we got after it was over is over.
          *Government, it’s gonna be YUGE
          *Deficits don’t matter
          *Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help
          *It’s infrastructure week, baby!Report

        • North in reply to Saul Degraw says:

          Did you mean Biden is adamantly opposed to the -Green- New Deal? Because he seems pretty fond of the FDR New Deal. If so then I agree with you and think it’s good because the Green New Deal was an utterly unserious proposal and would have been laughed out of congress and the electorate so it’s a fine thing that Biden and the rest of leadership kept well away from that radioactive garbage.Report

          • JS in reply to North says:

            There was never a Green New Deal. There was several people’s vague ideas collected under that name.

            Which is pretty much par for the course for junior US Reps and generalized goals.

            Meanwhile Biden seems pretty happy to go for the ideas already fleshed out. I suspect if he had a stronger Senate, he’d be seriously looking at carbon taxes.Report

            • North in reply to JS says:

              I agree and biden would be right to do so. Was just trying to parse Sauls’ comment because the assertion that Biden is/was adamantly opposed to the New Deal seems.. uh.. incoherent.Report

          • Saul Degraw in reply to North says:

            Silly typo. Of course he loves the New Deal. What I meant was that he is not a moderate or DLC-third way type of Democrat. He might have been at one point but not now.Report

            • North in reply to Saul Degraw says:

              I think a pretty strong argument can be made that Biden is a modern Democratic moderate. He’s certainly not a DLC type- the DLC is gone and the GOP killed most of the DLC inclinations under Obama’s term and then finished it off when Trump defeated HRC.Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to North says:

                You have a lot invested in having the Democratic Party be “moderate” as a descriptor.Report

              • North in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Just describing what I see. The pattern is the party’s rank and file, and the electorate, keep electing the least progressive Democratic alternatives and the progressive wing and the right wing post hoc redefines the elected politician as progressives to make themselves feel better and to claim the Dems are in thrall to progressives respectively.Report

              • InMD in reply to North says:

                Not to mention that the most important people for setting the agenda are Joe Manchin and to a slightly lesser degree Kyrsten Sinema. As interesting as the squad is to Fox News they don’t have much influence.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to North says:

        ” Biden, the plain speaking old white guy thumped the Socialist and the various anointed candidates of the woketariate professors lounge like drums.”

        nah

        people voted for Biden because they remembered his name

        if he hadn’t been around then Sanders would’ve won in a walk, he was ahead until 18 hours before Super Tuesday when the 3rd and 4th place candidates mysteriously decided to simultaneously drop out and endorse the 2nd place guy (and the 5th place candidate stayed in to split the ticket by attracting women who figured that they needed to “send a message” with their vote)

        but sure, keep telling yourself that Biden’s policies of were the real attraction that struck a spark with voters, that his legacy of was what energized the baseReport

        • North in reply to DensityDuck says:

          Heh, yeah of course DD. If Biden had not been in the race all that support would have just gravitated to Bernie and it’s inexplicable/somewhat nefarious that the other candidates in Biden’s lane dropped out and endorsed him when it became clear that their own moderate candidacies weren’t going to catch fire. All this to prove that the Dems are actually a woke left dominated institution? That’s a lot of reaching.Report

          • JS in reply to North says:

            I love how DD is recycling a Sanders-wing conspiracy theory about how they was robbed to prove the Sanders wing conspiracy theorists somehow have all the power.

            Just not the power to win elections. Or prevent Democrats from somehow conspiracy against Sanders to…have more votes?

            Actually, it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from DD’s perspective. I mean I get the sore loser crap from Sanders supporters, but DD is effectively trying to claim the woke left is so powerful it was denied all power by…someone else?..and that makes them powerful?

            Dear god, is that what conservatism is now? Just a bag of crazy screaming conspiracy nonsense?Report

          • DensityDuck in reply to North says:

            “If Biden had not been in the race all that support would have just gravitated to Bernie”

            Sanders was leading until Super Tuesday, bro.Report

            • InMD in reply to DensityDuck says:

              So… the centrist wing of the party was supposed to dutifully split votes between Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar so that a different faction could win? Why would they do that?Report

            • North in reply to DensityDuck says:

              Sure was: out of two tiny white states, Nevada and South Carolina Sanders eked out a tie, a win, a blow out win and a blow out loss. And that was, of course, with four plus moderate candidates splitting up the centrist vote. Then, when it became one moderate candidate vs Bernie; Bernie lost in a series of devastating blowouts.Report

  6. LTL FTC says:

    The problem is that 99% of this stuff isn’t used by politicians, but by the intermediaries in media (content more generally, really) through which they are filtered. Those intermediaries use these words as gatekeeping for their internal purposes, but it inadvertently uncovered how you can move the Overton Window without moving politics.

    Now, we have Democratic politicians disclaiming things like Abolish ICE/Police, SF School Board nonsense, looting as liberation, etc., which are all either irrelevant to most people at best and huge losers at worst, because fluent Faculty Loungeish is the Twitter equivalent of knowing which fork to use with escargot.

    Mass adoption of this tortured language and faddish radicalism is not going to happen, but we just have to pretend it’s important, and that’s a wasted opportunity. Carville is right.Report

  7. LeeEsq says:

    Democrats like using faculty longue speak because the upper middle class professional part of the Democratic coalition likes using faculty longue speak. They aren’t the majority of the Democratic coalition but they provide a lot of the money and organization for the party, so Democratic politicians believe they need to cater to their aesthetic tastes more than a little.Report

    • North in reply to LeeEsq says:

      I think you’re onto something there. Just like Republitarianism is deeply popular with the decision makers in the GOP even though its actual voting constituency couldn’t fill a small stadium.Report

  8. Saul Degraw says:

    Some elephant undies are showing here.

    1. It is a heavy dose of right-wing media nutpicking to take the “faculty lounge” speak crowd and make them the voice of the Democratic Party. Joe Biden doesn’t speak like that. Kamala Harris doesn’t speak like that. Actual faculty member Elizabeth Warren does not speak like that.

    2. The connection between the “faculty lounge” crowd and the Democratic Party is not an overlap, many of the faculty lounge crowd dislike the Democratic Party for being too moderate or too conservative.

    3. All of this ignores that the Democratic Party received more vote than the Republican Party in past election cycles.

    4. The GOP has “had this pat since Reagan” is a strong tell. The GOP of Reagan is dead, now is the GOP of Trump which is doing a lot to alienate and isolate suburban moderates because of its heroin-levels of addiction to owning the libs and drooling at Tucker Carlson’s white power hour.

    James Carville hasn’t been a relevant party player in Democratic campaigning for several decades and complaints about wokes sound a lot like old guns who are upset they are no longer the center of attention.Report

    • Jesse in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      It amuses me greatly Joe Biden actually understands the younger demographics than guys like Carville or you can even argue, Bill Clinton.Report

    • “Elephant undies?” heh… More like I am a lifelong Texan who sees what messages get through to people who unlike me don’t binge political news 24/7, who might otherwise support Dems if not for the fact that the only thing that breaks through to them is the looney stuff.

      And acknowledging that since the time of Reagan, the one constant the Republican party has had is that they can run a tight messaging ship says nothing about political bias, and in fact is not a political statement at all. It doesn’t matter if today’s GOP is recognizable to the “party of Reagan” or not. Throughout their evolution since then, they have known how to keep a clear, concise message for whatever their position of the day was.Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Carville and Clinton were part of that Kennedy New Frontier generation where liberalism was written primarily from the viewpoint of the white guy from Ohio named Kowalski who wears a hard hat, not a female health care aide in Oakland who immigrated from Somalia.

      We hear this a lot in the constant calls to appeal to coal miners. There are more lesbian baristas in America than coal miners, but somehow white guys with hard hats loom very large in the political consciousness of tee vee pundits.

      I mean, his point about speaking in faculty lounge jargon is well taken, but replacing it with Sunday talk show green room jargon isn’t an improvement.Report

      • FortyTwo in reply to Chip Daniels says:

        Chip sent me down a google hole. I thought the barista comparison was ridiculous, so I looked it up. There are 500k baristas in the us. There are 50k coal miners. Female baristas are 66% of baristas. 1.5 % of us women are lesbian. If distributed equally, there are about 5k lesbian baristas. But maybe lesbian women are overrepresented in that occupation, so if it’s 10 times higher, there are indeed as many lesbian baristas as coal miners.Report

    • Koz in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      1. It is a heavy dose of right-wing media nutpicking to take the “faculty lounge” speak crowd and make them the voice of the Democratic Party. Joe Biden doesn’t speak like that. Kamala Harris doesn’t speak like that. Actual faculty member Elizabeth Warren does not speak like that.

      2. The connection between the “faculty lounge” crowd and the Democratic Party is not an overlap, many of the faculty lounge crowd dislike the Democratic Party for being too moderate or too conservative.

      Yeah, this ain’t right. If there is really going to be any meaningful separation between the faculty lounge activist crowd and the grass-roots ex-Demo voters, the faculty lounge crowd is going to have be Souljahed, and that plainly hasn’t happened in ages.

      3. All of this ignores that the Democratic Party received more vote than the Republican Party in past election cycles.

      4. The GOP has “had this pat since Reagan” is a strong tell. The GOP of Reagan is dead, now is the GOP of Trump which is doing a lot to alienate and isolate suburban moderates because of its heroin-levels of addiction to owning the libs and drooling at Tucker Carlson’s white power hour.

      And I don’t think this is right either. In fact, this actually is very relevant to the main theme of the midterms, which is about how big is the GOP post-election majority in the House. I expect the GOP to win majority control regardless, but in practical terms there is a huge difference between having a 5 seat majority and a 35 seat majority. And which is which will largely be determined by the suburbs.

      The GOP has been losing upper-middle class white-collar white professionals for a long time now, but the Trump years were especially bad. But, now that Trump is gone, I expect a good number of those to revert to the GOP.

      Think about this. Suppose you were a suburban professional who supported the GOP in 2004 or 2014, enthusiastically even, and then voted Demo and/or changed voter registration at some time since then. Why should you continue to support the Demo’s now?

      Lib/resistance people like to squawk “Charlottesville, Insurrection!!!!” but tbh I don’t think any of that will have very much traction come the midterms, or later.

      I don’t expect the issue mix to be favorable to the Demo’s by then. They will be very vulnerable on immigration, and closed public schools, the latter especially important for key parts of the Demo base. Add that up with the usual structural complaints from the libs, I’m expecting a very bad election day for the D’s in 2022.Report

      • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

        Why should you continue to support the Demo’s now?

        Well for starters – because the Biden-Harris Administration is following through on all the economic boosting that Trump promised and never delivered. The “rebuild stuff” portion of the infrastructure bill is going to add jobs in all sorts of segments of the economy, and there will be folks who will enter those jobs as apprentices, work their way up to foreman and retire doing the same thing for 30+ years in the same place. To say nothing of the demand signal this will create for all sorts of services.

        They will be very vulnerable on immigration, and closed public schools, the latter especially important for key parts of the Demo base.

        The only thing “vulnerable” about the Biden position on immigration is its based in reality. Color me unimpressed that it will be a millstone.

        As to public schools – sure some systems in some blue cities are not reopened fully yet, but they will all be so by this fall. Which means grumbling will likely be local, not national, and largely done by the time people step into the 2022 primary booths.

        If the D’s loose the House it will be in the 5 vote range, and more likely because of Census redistricting – and a healthy dose of Republican voter suppression – then anything else.Report

        • Koz in reply to Philip H says:

          The only thing “vulnerable” about the Biden position on immigration is its based in reality. Color me unimpressed that it will be a millstone.

          As to public schools – sure some systems in some blue cities are not reopened fully yet, but they will all be so by this fall. Which means grumbling will likely be local, not national, and largely done by the time people step into the 2022 primary booths.

          If the D’s loose the House it will be in the 5 vote range, and more likely because of Census redistricting – and a healthy dose of Republican voter suppression – then anything else.

          Uh uh. This is simply lib feelgood rationalization for continuing to stick with President Biden, and the sell-by date for that is coming quicker that you want.

          Basically, looking at the probabilities for meaningful policy agenda until midterms, it’s probably a third nothing, a third GOP-supported infrastructure infrastructure, a third at least some amount of Demo “___ is infrastructure” infrastructure.

          IOW, very little chance of anything the libhaters really want. No HR1, no DC or PR statehood, no VRA, no SCOTUS, nothing on climate change/fossil fuels beyond what’s been done already. Nothing for the Palestinians, probably restoring the status quo ante on the Iran deal.

          You might know better than I would, ‘cuz you’r a lib and I’m not, but I’m not expecting libs to hang around and be good team players when and if the GOP starts handing out L’s to the Biden Administration. If it were Obama, it would be all about “GOP is sooo racist” but for Biden I don’t think so. They’ll feel like they already put in a fair shift keeping it together through the general election campaign. They’re through taking one for the team, it will up to the rest of the party/coalition to keep them happy, and if they don’t, they’ll take the ball and go home.

          That, and other factors I mentioned above (and some I didn’t mention), means it’s likely the good people will have a good election in 2022.Report

          • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

            You need to talk to more liberals and more leftists. Biden is making impressive strides, and several of the actions you poo poo are already either scheduled for House floor votes or have been approved by the House. There’s plenty of time for HR1 and a revived VRA, and if the Republicans in states that went Biden keep up their vote fraud farce (I see you Arizona), then the campaign ads write themselves. Manchin seems to be getting over his destructive tendencies, so the Biden infrastructure package will likely pass under reconciliation. Again, schools are opening up, and most states will have jettisoned any and all Covid restrictions by this fall, which means the Republican attacks on “Dems took your freedom” mask mandate cr@p will be a distant memory by the time anyone votes in a primary next year.Report

            • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H says:

              Every now and then various groups get a chance to see if their policies will work. This is the libs big chance.

              My expectation is we’ll find soak-the-rich doesn’t result in anywhere near as much money as expected and we’ll have to soak the middle class as well.

              He’s doing a lot of other things I wonder about, i.e. giving all federal workers a min wage of 15, was that a small thing or is he massively making the gov more expensive?

              I’m busy and don’t have the time to deep dive on all this.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

                giving all federal workers a min wage of 15, was that a small thing or is he massively making the gov more expensive?

                FWIW that’s only for CONTRACTORS, and really likely only applies to areas not already headed to a $15 Minimum wage. It may make government a little more expensive, but as always the government can’t pay contractors with money Congress doesn’t authorize. Contract staff are here to stay, because that’s how we keep the size of the federal civil servants cadre small but manage to provide an every growing list of services to the public.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H says:

                I spent a minute trying to see how big an effect this was and found a pro-labor piece claiming the gov was paying many millions of people less than 15. If I had more trust in it I’d link to it.

                The obvious problems are it’s unclear how big an expense labor is and how many people are covered by this.

                The claim was these “contractors” were things like janitors and so on.

                The lack of clarity on all this is an additional problem.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I will agree on the lack of clarity. But here’s what I know:

                The federal civil service workforce currently runs just north of 2 Million. The Contract workforce runs between 2 and 4 million additional people, and it fluctuates based on appropriations, wars etc. Contractors run the gambit from janitors, to national park service interpretive staff (not law enforcement), to logistics providers for the military. Most of the federal government’s IT staff are contractors (both helpdesk types and software developing/programming types). Federal science – in federal facilities – is also done by contractors. Most of the in person Census interviewers were contractors (and most are now unemployed). So its a broad category of folks. And like the federal workforce, most contractors live outside of DC.

                Making it even harder to track, the contracts don’t generally say how many bodies to hire but what services and products to provide, and none of them is competed on the same schedule as any other.

                As with the federal civil service I think there is a legitimate discussion to be had about the size and scope of contract support to the government. But we’d have to be willing to stop doing things, and while some politicians periodically make waves about cutting this or that, it generally doesn’t happen.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H says:

                Our inability to get rid of gov programs is a big reason why I’m deeply reluctant to create them.

                If there are side effects or if the results are just less good than expected, we’re still stuck with them. Everything from the War On Drugs to the 47 jobs training programs.Report

            • Koz in reply to Philip H says:

              Uh uh. Libs got plenty of time, they just have a deficit of votes.
              Manchin is the flashpoint, but he’s not the only obstacle to passing the libs wishlist in the Senate, not even the most meaningful for some of the items. Manchin and Sinema take the heat, but there are probably at least a half dozen others who want to see the lib agenda items die.

              You can see this in the infrastructure bill(s), which are going nowhere at the moment, and that’s the easiest lift of anything the D’s have on the to-do list.

              If I had to guess I’d say the Senate will get something done on infrastructure before midterms, but even there it’s 50/50 they’ll need or have GOP votes, which for the libs is almost as bad as a loss, maybe even worse.

              If they do get infrastructure done in the Senate by 51-50, clearly they’ll be closing up shop after that.Report

  9. Jaybird says:

    One huge problem is the one where maybe the emperor isn’t naked, per se, but the fool saying that he is happens to have a point that the emperor’s outfit might not have been as grand as his most ardent defenders assured us that it was.

    And now we’re stuck with the choice between agreeing that the fool has a point and giving him a win or *NOT* doing that.

    Why would you want to give the fool a win, anyway?Report

    • InMD in reply to Jaybird says:

      Why would you want to give the fool a win, anyway?

      The only people who would consider it are obviously secret Republican with a fetish for white guys in hard hats. They’re probably also the victims of grifters who have gifted them so hard that they liked it and therefore don’t even deserve any leeway for having been gifted.Report

  10. Koz says:

    I don’t think this is right, that is the premise that the Demo’s problems are reducible to messaging and framing.

    MIcroaggressions are a perfect case in point. As Kazzy comments above, libs didn’t come up with this concept out of thin air. To them, the idea represents a grievance that they want redress for, by this or that.

    The problem for Demo’s is not just that the word is unfamiliar to grass-roots ex-Demo’s. The ex-Demo’s are not at all bought into the concept that the word is supposed to be shorthand for. And if, somehow, this idea was made crystal clear for them, it’s at least as likely as not that they would be opposing the libs theory of anyway. If, of course, they cared enough to make sure they understood the idea with perfect clarity anyway, which, of course, they don’t.

    At this point, there’s probably just as much reason to believe that the lib/Demo coalition is overperforming as the opposite, given the internal tensions among the people involved.Report

    • Dark Matter in reply to Koz says:

      MIcroaggressions are a perfect case in point. As Kazzy comments above, libs didn’t come up with this concept out of thin air. To them, the idea represents a grievance that they want redress for, by this or that.

      At my workplace, I was “trained” to not create microaggressions about 4 years ago. None of their examples were of things I remember creating or even observing. That may not matter, someone may have incorrectly have read my mind. Wiki talks about “lack of scientific basis, over-reliance on subjective evidence, and promotion of psychological fragility”. That’s not good after 50 years of researching this.

      The concept of microaggressions seems to be more a world view thing. Whites need to be at fault for a lack of diversity, ergo a non-falsifiable way to blame them is needed.

      I’m not sure what happens after everyone has been trained in microaggressions and I still don’t find many black software engineers (but lots of Asians) when I go to college intern recruiting events. Train everyone again?

      IMHO the disconnect goes beyond messaging and framing. I don’t especially mind being trained on the latest corporate fad, but I don’t think it’s going to do any heavy lifting in terms of making society more equal. When it fails, what is next? Are we going to find some other non-falsifiable way I’m at fault? Are we going to insist on quotas?Report

      • InMD in reply to Dark Matter says:

        Your primary mistake is believing that those trainings are actually supposed to be educational. Think of them as defense exhibits for lawsuits and EEOC complaints.Report

        • Marchmaine in reply to InMD says:

          Which is both exactly right in the banal prosaic case *and* the philosophical argument that the Laws shape Morals.

          I mean, having taken dozens of these CYA courses, I can imagine the future such that co-worker Suzie overhears Pam talking about the importance of choosing not to have downs-syndrome babies knowing that co-worker Divya has a downs-syndrome baby. Does Suzie a) Quietly take Pam aside and educate her about Downs-syndrome and Divya’s child? b) Publicly confront Pam the next time she brings up the topic, c) Tell Divya about Pam’s hurtful views so Divya can avoid Pam in the future?, or d) Discuss the matter with Pam’s manager so Divya’s views can be brought to HR for further review and possible action.

          The levers of power are not shaped to one type of hand.Report

          • InMD in reply to Marchmaine says:

            Yup. My opinion has long been that these things are in effect going to create more litigation than they prevent, at least under now-existing law. You see a preview of it with Title IX in universities. It’s no coincidence that you have skyrocketing and increasingly frivolous complaints in the campus system. Then the university promptly loses in court almost any time someone puts up minimal resources to fight it. Anyone who isn’t a totally bought-in ideologue can see it’s a no-win.

            But your larger point about law and morals is what gets to the question no one is supposed to ask about these things in polite company. Namely, do we want to live in the hair-trigger, hyper litigious, and bureaucratic society these things will inevitably create if they are allowed?Report

            • Kazzy in reply to InMD says:

              And I think that helps distinguish between trainings that are at least trying to make a real change and those which are CYA.

              We had a workshop recently where we discussed the difference between calling out and calling in, with the latter really looking like option A above.

              I think it is important to recognize that there is a feedback loop seems to be exacerbating the issue.

              In prior times, if someone at work was acting in a way that was bothersome to folks, they could be told to shape up or ship out. The decision-making was typically left up to the bosses in terms of what behavior they were willing to consider bothersome and who they felt needed to shape up or ship out.

              Nowadays, we have wrested that control away from bosses… with positives and negatives arising from that. But too many folks seem to have the attitude of, “NO ONE CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!” Well, actually, yea, some people can. In particular, your boss can in a number of areas.

              So the knee-jerk hair trigger litigious cuts both ways to a degree. “Go ahead and try to fire me… I’ll sue!”

              I won’t say it happens equally in both directions. But it isn’t a one way street either.

              Because we didn’t trust employers to handle this shit we’ve tried to standardize the process through laws and made it far more complicated.Report

            • Pinky in reply to InMD says:

              The CRT people would give you the same answer as last generation’s Marxists (because they were their teachers): it’ll be a little awkward until human nature changes.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to InMD says:

              By way of Balloon Juice, Ron Charles writing in WaPo:

              I suspect some major publishers still don’t understand what having a diverse workforce entails. It was never just about making your office look like a Benetton ad. The real goal behind a diverse workforce is a wide range of experiences and ideas — and people empowered to act on them.

              In an earlier era, editors and their friends in the executive office were largely White men. It’s easy to imagine that tales of authors’ sexual aggression were treated as locker room banter — just as Bailey treats them in his biography of Roth.

              The fact is, publishers have always made highly selective judgments about who they print and who they don’t. And for all Karp’s high-minded allusions to appreciating “the ideological spectrum,” for many decades those judgments were based on what White men considered important, valid and entertaining.

              Emphasis mine.

              I liked that part because it reflected what I think is the attitude of many white people, liberals included, that “Gene Roddenberry” liberalism where minorities are just colorful exotics arrayed around the white male authority, but without any real power to shape the world or define what is acceptable or not.

              Litigiousness is a symptom of conflict, where two forces are grinding against each other. It dies down when one side becomes the establishment view and the other backs down.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                “Gene Roddenberry” liberalism

                I think Star Trek is pretty deep into “happy communism”.

                However ignoring the economics, when Roddenberry was putting women into command positions (the pilot of ST), or minorities on the bridge, this was ground breaking.

                That was especially true for Uhura who was one of the first Black characters to be in a non-menial role, and maybe the first scripted interracial kiss. Roddenberry did what he could.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyota_Uhura#MilestoneReport

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I agree, and nothing should be taken as a criticism of Roddenberry.
                Within his time, he was a liberal…as were Roth, Mailer, Vonnegut, Vidal, and all the other writers of the time.

                What is happening now is a re-evaluation of what that liberalism entailed; While it may have been liberating to some, it remained unaware of the viewpoints of others.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Here’s a very good piece on Star Trek and liberalism changing over the years.

                https://thefederalist.com/2015/09/15/how-star-trek-explains-the-decline-of-liberalism/Report

              • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Wow, you pretty much just said that it’ll be a little bit awkward until human nature changes. I mean, not in those words, but that last sentence follows the pattern. We’ll have a lot of lawsuits until the white man accepts bigotry.Report

              • InMD in reply to Pinky says:

                I was about to reply to Chip but I think he kind of proved your point.

                The good news is that we’re getting into an area where Marxism just plain falls flat on its face in the real world: solidarity. We suck at it as a species and any project that relies on it for its own sake is doomed. The bad news of course is the proverbial paving of the pathway to hell with Balloon Juice level silliness.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

                ” it’ll be a little bit awkward until human nature changes.”

                Isn’t changing human nature the foundation of social conservatism since the Bronze Age?Report

              • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                I just deleted my first pass at answering this question. Let me try something shorter:

                philosophical conservatism or a conservative orientation – the past is the best guide to the future – implicit assumption that human nature cannot be changed

                Western religious tradition – human nature is flawed but capable of self-improvement

                American founding – human nature is so bad that we need a governmental system which can survive terrible rulers, but no system can survive terrible masses

                American social and economic conservatism – people’s behaviour will respond to incentives, but people’s impulses are outside any common system of governanceReport

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

                Isn’t asking the current power establishment to acknowledge the experiences of marginalized people, part of “self-improvement”?Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                You aim too low, the problem is getting established power to acknowledge marginalized people as equals as a class (rather than do so on an individual basis and calling it progress).Report

              • Philip H in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                agreed.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Philip H says:

                The b*tch of it is, established power sits on both sides of the political divide, and they all have classes they would just rather not acknowledge as equals, because that’s a handy way for power to stay established.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Yes, and getting people to simply treat each other as they wish to be treated, has been an ongoing project of human improvement for quite some time.

                One might almost say it is a time honored tradition. Honored mostly in the breach, but honored nonetheless.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Per my comment to Philip, refusing to acknowledge equals is a handy way to keep power for the established.

                It’s not the only, but it’s an easy way, and we are primed to it.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                A lot of what is going on is not “refusing to acknowledge equals” but “attempts to use the gov to enrich me and mine”.

                Entitlements and/or benefits which are going to be paid for by taxing other people is a great example. So is “reparations” for what happened to people long dead.

                More generally, treating people individually as equals implies one set of actions and laws. Attempting to have entire classes have equal outcomes is the polar opposite of that because you’re going to have to pick individuals in that group and do special things for/to them.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                My last comment was intended to sketch out an answer to your broad question of whether social conservatism sees human nature as changeable. There are about 60 steps from that question to the specific one you just asked. I’d rather just let my overview answer breathe.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Isn’t asking the current power establishment to acknowledge the experiences of marginalized people, part of “self-improvement”?

                Experiences yes, beliefs no.Report

  11. Chris says:

    I’ve been around long enough to know that this has been a problem for Democrats, at least since Bush Sr. Hell, it was the #1 criticism of Gore in the popular press. “Republicans have taking points; Democrats have policyv essays.” I’m not sure it’s ever been true, even now, and honestly just seems insulting to the audience, especially when considering that Dems definitely don’t sound like they’re in a “faculty lounge.”Report