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Democrats keep getting new warning signs about Black voter support
(www.politico.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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There's a difference between saying Democrats should and could do more. And saying they've done nothing. People hate to talk about it. But under Biden some massive accomplishments have happened like the recent NLRB ruling. Something not on par with, but close to the ball park of passing civil rights. And it isn't isolated. They've done a lot within the system to help a lot of people.
When it comes to loudly pretending to have accomplished things. You can't get Republicans to shut up. When it comes to talking about things they've actually accomplished. Democrats stay quiet. It's a problem.
That's not to say that they are perfect, or wonderful, or free of issues. There's plenty of issues. They've done little to nothing to address the slavery problem in the United States. And despite passing and strengthening a few safety net programs, they've realistically done very little to improve at a baseline, the life of the average American. Something that most of us are sorely in need of. Quite the opposite and they've actually done just as much or more to help out the people who are part of the problem. But to say that they've done nothing , or at least nothing good is very disingenuous.
Disheartening and driving ourselves away from the process as f***** up as it may be, is the surefire way of not changing it.
But the thing is Democrats could change their strategy. Since frankly (I don't know why, seems stupid given how small and hard to catch segment it is) Democrat strategy is to chase the middle of "moderate Republicans and fence sitters".
When I would hazard a guess, if they instead adopted are strategy of exactly focusing on non-voters with democrat leaning would bring them lot of votes.
In general blaming the voter is a bad idea. It is way easier for party to qdapt to voter sentiments with their strategy, than it is for a party to change the emotional and mental state of millions of voters. In this case it is really the customer aka the voter is always right. If one can't convince voter to vote, it is the candidates fault. To play otherwise is to say millions of people ought to adapt to single or couple persons whims. It shouldn't be that way and in general it isn't that way.
Since in practice, if person is apathetic they won't vote. No amount of "but that is stupid of you" will fix it. Apathy is emotional matter, not matter of logic. As much as some consultant might try to assume humans are rational, no they aren't. Humans are inherently emotional beings and party wanting to succeed must adapt to that.
Only way out of apathy isn't fear, it just makes apathy deeper. The way out is hope, promise of prosperity and then delivering on that promise. Since to not do so is to cause betrayed expectations and doubly deep apathy.
The reason Democrats have this strategy goes back to 1980. If you know about what happened then. You know why things are largely the way they are now.
The nation at large overwhelmingly voted for a fascist. I don't mean just slightly. I mean like nearly every state in the nation voting for the fascist heavily. Even traditional Democrats at the time voted for the fascist. And it scared the ever-loving shit out of democrats.
Combine that with the massive destruction, the fascist wreaked against labor groups. And the massive consolidation of resources and wealth he enabled. Basically gutting and taking away much of labor's power for the last 40 years.
It used to be that labor unions were one of the biggest groups to reckon with in elections. Providing massive funding and support. When the fascist broke their power. Suddenly that massive influence and resource all but dried up. They were still around. But the new ultra wealthy donor class became increasingly more important to both parties. Because if either of them went without the ultra wealthy donors. The other party would eat their lunch.
The damage was so bad. That we got Bill Clinton and his third way Democrats. Which I will say Clinton often gets a much worse rap than he deserves. But he still continued the trend of damage to the working class and society despite the good things he did too.
Voters are definitely to blame in this, however. Not completely. But they have not shown any conviction or solid stance on much of anything for the last half century. Bouncing mindlessly between one party and the other. Even as one collapse into chaos and the other deteriorated dangerously so. We as voters lost a lot of influence of course when the ultra wealthy class took over funding. But they still have to rely on us to get elected. It's why they focus so heavily on demoralization and apathy. It's easier to damage things when less of us vote or are engaged.
And no hope isn't the way out of this. Determination and conviction is. You can hope in one hand shit in the other end. As they say see which one fills up first. It's going to take us getting collectively pissed and ready to engage. Not just in voting but in running for office as well. We are tired of the people they keep running for us. But we've always been able to run our own people. We're just going to have to fund and canvas for them. Not sit back and let the parties do their thing. Because that helps no one but then.
This is a big deal! Thank you for bringing it to our attention:
I guess this explains the rise in labor organizations and strikes recently.
Definitely! I'm quite left. Heavily socialist. And outside of a few social policies. Democrats really do nothing for me. But it's crazy how little the actual things they accomplish and get recognized. The national labor relations board change was kind of Earth shattering. I've been plenty displeased with biden's current Israel Gaza response. Though I think it was expected and understandable to an extent. But he's been far better than a lot of a thought he would.