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Democrats Can Avoid Trump’s Culture-War Traps (jacobin.com)

submitted 6 days ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/usa@midwest.social

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Donald Trump is skilled at inflaming culture-war conflicts to distract from the GOP’s shameless class war on behalf of the rich. For Democrats to counter Trump effectively, they need to attack the billionaire class.

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[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Please show me where his platform lists platitudes instead of concrete actions.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Now you're saying it's about not having platitudes as the platform, not just not saying them? And this somehow is not engaging in the culture war?

Most politicians, including the vapid ones, will have some policy in the details to back up the platitudes. Sometimes "supporting black people" is a $10k tax credit for an inner city small business if you're left handed and buy American, sometimes it's "housing discrimination is wrong and it must be ended". Bernie says stuff like the latter more than the former, and that's not a bad thing.

Sirota doesn't seem to want either, because we have to peel off MAGA voters and Trump likes to play to racism.

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Now you're saying it's about not having platitudes as the platform, not just not saying them? And this somehow is not engaging in the culture war?

I'm consistent. "<...> offer useless platitudes of "I support x minority" and then do nothing to help them <...>" is not the same as saying you support someone for the sake of saying to gain political capital. And it's not his platform. His platform is about working people. It might have some policies that are targeted, but the goals are the same. To help all working people to have a better life.

There is a good quote from Sanders in this article that highlights this.

“You get to what we call identity politics (which is) you’re Black you’re wonderful, you’re tremendous, you’re gay you’re the greatest human being on Earth, rather than saying what do you stand for?” Sanders said recently. “You’re gay, that’s fine, who cares. . . . The issue is, what you stand for, which gets you back (to) class politics in the sense of which side are you on? Are you going to stand with working families?”

Sirota doesn't seem to want either, because we have to peel off MAGA voters and Trump likes to play to racism.

Kamala Harris tried to peel of MAGA voters, how did that worked out for her? His whole post is about the focus being around anti-capitalism and elite establishment which resonates to more people than there are in the MAGA cult. You can't reach cult members, but you have millions upon millions of people that can be easily reached with good working class focused platform.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Kamala Harris tried to peel of MAGA voters, how did that worked out for her? His whole post is about the focus being around anti-capitalism and elite establishment which resonates to more people than there are in the MAGA cult.

Literally my whole point is that Sirota (and the centrists) continuing to counsel for the politics of conversion is fucking stupid! Harris tried it! It's dumb! Assuming your own voters don't have other options so crafting a message that won't offend your opponents just means you lose your own people. Sure everyone would like a pay raise, but if you just pretend trans rights are irrelevant or a rising tide lifts all boats despite a long history of that tide not actually being equally distributed, they're not going to trust you're actually going to be there for them after you just go stealth mode "for the election".

Sirota:

Liberals are offended by Trump’s lack of manners in pulling off extreme versions of what their own party icons have done, but many Americans seem to cherish the Joker-like quality of Trump’s antics. They seem to appreciate that — unlike establishment Democrats — Trump at least doesn’t use a dog whistle to trick anyone. He uses a bullhorn to proudly broadcast and brag about his malfeasance — all while offering a captivating and distracting culture war along the way.

Swinging these disillusioned voters away from the authoritarian right is an imperative — not for saving the Democrats, but for saving the country. And yet right now, these voters are being offered only conservatives’ MAGA circus or liberals’ Davos cocktail party.

We literally just tried avoiding the culture war to convert conservatives and the centrists and Sirota won't let that stop them from saying the problem is all that wokeness. Fuck them all.

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Sirota:

Liberals are offended by Trump’s lack of manners in pulling off extreme versions of what their own party icons have done, but many Americans seem to cherish the Joker-like quality of Trump’s antics. They seem to appreciate that — unlike establishment Democrats — Trump at least doesn’t use a dog whistle to trick anyone. He uses a bullhorn to proudly broadcast and brag about his malfeasance — all while offering a captivating and distracting culture war along the way.

Swinging these disillusioned voters away from the authoritarian right is an imperative — not for saving the Democrats, but for saving the country. And yet right now, these voters are being offered only conservatives’ MAGA circus or liberals’ Davos cocktail party.

We literally just tried avoiding the culture war to convert conservatives and the centrists and Sirota won't let that stop them from saying the problem is all that wokeness. Fuck them all.

That's not how I read that in the context of the rest of the article. Maybe it's me, but I feel like you try to fit this article into the "centrists" framing when it's not about that. The article is about offering alternative to Trump fake anti-establishment talk with a real policy based anti-establishemnt movement. It's promoting everything that corporate (aka centrists) Democrats doesn't stand for.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Literally the only difference between the (white cis male) centrists and (white cis male) Sirota is that he says "economic populism" and the centrists say "kitchen table issues" or "tariffs". They have exactly the same scapegoats, the same goal to convert conservatives, and the same dismissiveness for core constituencies on the left.

He literally centered "avoiding culture war" in the title and spent two thirds of it listing the things you shouldn't say, dutifully accompanied by conservative caricatures of the left. How you can come away from that as "it's just anti-establishmentism" is beyond me.