A call to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide is on the agenda Friday for the justices' closed-door conference.
We lost in 2024 because of delusional thinking that we can bully people into voting for us. Convincing people to vote for your side starts with not being a rude pompous ass. It starts with not announcing that you know voter’s wishes and beliefs better than they do. If voters get a whiff that you feel that you are entitled to their vote, they will punish your side out of spite. You can whine about this fact of human nature, but your whining won’t help you win any elections. Elections have never been some dispassionate utilitarian balancing of policy platforms, and voters get annoyed when you pretend that they are.
Democrats lose when they forget that they’re supposed to represent voters first and foremost. This is why white progressives usually fail when they go into minority communities looking for their votes. They’ll try to brow beat racial minority communities. They’ll say, “surely, our policies of government programs and redistribution are in the best interests of your community!” while at the same time not really trying to represent the issues those folks actually care about. Maybe UBI would be a great boon for members of a racial minority group. But that doesn’t mean members of that group will vote for you, or that they have to. They may simply have other political priorities and would prefer politicians that will push for those priorities first. This is the difference between ruling and representing.
I have no doubt that attitudes like yours cost Democrats far more votes than the few progressives that actually stayed home. Your message is meant to browbeat people who are honestly almost always going to vote for your side anyway. But people who are more moderate see your message, see that you feel entitled to people’s votes, and vote against Democrats as a consequence.
The number one complaint people have about liberals is “liberal arrogance.” And this is a great example of the arrogance that causes Democrats to lose elections. You believe you’ve diagnosed all of society’s problems. You believe you know the solutions to them. You believe you have all the answers. When other people tell you that their priorities are different from yours, and so your balance of issues are different from there’s, you insult them, bully them, and try to shame them to vote for the Democratic candidate.
You are why Democrats lose elections. Your hubris dooms us all. It’s condescending. It infantilizes voters who have a different ethical system than you do. And ultimately it shows that you want to rule people, not represent them. Liberal arrogance in its purest form.
All I can say to that is that I hope people who didn’t vote or voted for republicans enjoy this outcome. Regardless of what anyone thinks when it comes to the general election, you are voting either for someone or against someone. If you don’t vote you’re saying that you’re perfectly fine with either option. The time to whine and be philosophical about candidates is during primaries which most people don’t even participate in. That’s how you can get your mythical perfect democrat.
Anyone who didn’t explicitly vote for a democrat this past election I’m blaming for what the GOP is doing. The democrats are feckless cowards, but they don’t accelerate everyone’s ruin and sometimes that’s the literal best outcome.
My mantra now is have the day you voted for. Not voting is implicitly voting for the winner. I hope that all the petulant people who sat out because their favorite wasn’t on the docket or voted red because they have some shiny single thing they care about is personally experiencing everything that the entirety of the GOP platform stands for. I truly wish that they get everything they voted for.
Like a lot of what you’re saying is not arguable. But democrats lose for the same reason that republicans lose. Because the voter base is selfish, fickle, and tends to be driven by political trends which swing from “white liberal” left to the equivalent of that on the right.
The US will jump between trend driven politics and will vote for the person who meets the majority of people’s ideals.
If you have to vote perfectly every time or else you’ll lose your rights, they aren’t rights. They are privileges afforded to you by the ruling class in power. That clearly includes the Supreme Court. All this period in time is doing is reminding us we aren’t actually free people.
Maybe we’re closer to Yeoman than Serfs, but unless you have real money, you aren’t a part of the team.
We lost in 2024 because of delusional thinking that we can bully people into voting for us. Convincing people to vote for your side starts with not being a rude pompous ass. It starts with not announcing that you know voter’s wishes and beliefs better than they do. If voters get a whiff that you feel that you are entitled to their vote, they will punish your side out of spite. You can whine about this fact of human nature, but your whining won’t help you win any elections. Elections have never been some dispassionate utilitarian balancing of policy platforms, and voters get annoyed when you pretend that they are.
Democrats lose when they forget that they’re supposed to represent voters first and foremost. This is why white progressives usually fail when they go into minority communities looking for their votes. They’ll try to brow beat racial minority communities. They’ll say, “surely, our policies of government programs and redistribution are in the best interests of your community!” while at the same time not really trying to represent the issues those folks actually care about. Maybe UBI would be a great boon for members of a racial minority group. But that doesn’t mean members of that group will vote for you, or that they have to. They may simply have other political priorities and would prefer politicians that will push for those priorities first. This is the difference between ruling and representing.
I have no doubt that attitudes like yours cost Democrats far more votes than the few progressives that actually stayed home. Your message is meant to browbeat people who are honestly almost always going to vote for your side anyway. But people who are more moderate see your message, see that you feel entitled to people’s votes, and vote against Democrats as a consequence.
The number one complaint people have about liberals is “liberal arrogance.” And this is a great example of the arrogance that causes Democrats to lose elections. You believe you’ve diagnosed all of society’s problems. You believe you know the solutions to them. You believe you have all the answers. When other people tell you that their priorities are different from yours, and so your balance of issues are different from there’s, you insult them, bully them, and try to shame them to vote for the Democratic candidate.
You are why Democrats lose elections. Your hubris dooms us all. It’s condescending. It infantilizes voters who have a different ethical system than you do. And ultimately it shows that you want to rule people, not represent them. Liberal arrogance in its purest form.
All I can say to that is that I hope people who didn’t vote or voted for republicans enjoy this outcome. Regardless of what anyone thinks when it comes to the general election, you are voting either for someone or against someone. If you don’t vote you’re saying that you’re perfectly fine with either option. The time to whine and be philosophical about candidates is during primaries which most people don’t even participate in. That’s how you can get your mythical perfect democrat.
Anyone who didn’t explicitly vote for a democrat this past election I’m blaming for what the GOP is doing. The democrats are feckless cowards, but they don’t accelerate everyone’s ruin and sometimes that’s the literal best outcome.
My mantra now is have the day you voted for. Not voting is implicitly voting for the winner. I hope that all the petulant people who sat out because their favorite wasn’t on the docket or voted red because they have some shiny single thing they care about is personally experiencing everything that the entirety of the GOP platform stands for. I truly wish that they get everything they voted for.
I don’t disagree with all of this.
Like a lot of what you’re saying is not arguable. But democrats lose for the same reason that republicans lose. Because the voter base is selfish, fickle, and tends to be driven by political trends which swing from “white liberal” left to the equivalent of that on the right.
The US will jump between trend driven politics and will vote for the person who meets the majority of people’s ideals.
If you have to vote perfectly every time or else you’ll lose your rights, they aren’t rights. They are privileges afforded to you by the ruling class in power. That clearly includes the Supreme Court. All this period in time is doing is reminding us we aren’t actually free people.
Maybe we’re closer to Yeoman than Serfs, but unless you have real money, you aren’t a part of the team.
No