Members stevenkesslar Posted November 18 Members Posted November 18 2 hours ago, Moses said:     That's fun to read.  Thank you. I'll say it again.  AI at this stage is certainly good at repeating things. But it clearly has no real understanding of what it is saying. One thing I think we know for sure is that we should not count on AI to tell us who the next Clinton or Obama might be. Quote 1. Reconnect with working class voters. Address economic concerns. Particularly inflation, job security, and health care. AI sure got that right.  There are two silver linings in this election to me. First, it is now clearer than it was a few weeks ago that the US was not spared from the incumbency curse.  Genocide Man is a lucky guy. He gets to be the incumbent for as long as he wants, just by killing or jailing his opponents. Trump surely must be jealous! Second, the lesson from this election to Democrats could not be clearer: reconnect with the working class of all races. Or lose. That should be numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 on the list of top ten priorities. We now know it is just basic math. We also know this is easier said than done.  I'll be curious to see what Republicans do. In a perfect world, they could parachute new factories in from the sky, to re-employ millions of men making steel and tires. In fact, Biden passed funding for lots of new factories that are being built. It takes time. And I'm not sure that gets us millions of factory jobs, anyway. It will sure help. But Biden and Harris were not rewarded for their efforts. Neither were Republicans rewarded in 2020 for the tax cuts to corporations and billionaires that was the main legislative win of Trump 1.0.  So we'll see if they come up with anything better for the working class. I doubt it. Maybe deporting children will do the trick. So since you like playing with ChatGPT, ask these questions:  1. Why did Sherrod Brown lose?  2. What do Democrats have to do to win a US Senate seat in Ohio? Sherrod Brown Has Some Advice for His Reeling Party To draw workers back to the Democratic fold requires telling a better story about what the party has accomplished for them. Quote My focus was continuing to talk to workers, talk about accomplishments, talk about the future, and again, focus always on workers. And that’s why we did relatively well, but not good enough. Quote I’m not an expert in psychoanalyzing how voters get to Donald Trump, but I know that we’ve let them get to Donald Trump by not focusing on them and listening to them and showing we’re on the side of workers all the time. Quote And I also think Democrats have to make sure that voters know that this administration’s all about helping the rich and all about hurting workers. And that’s what it is. And it’s pretty clear. That’s the positions they’re going to take on their tax bill and other things.  That's the second autopsy I planned top post on that other thread I started. But your CHATGPT-generated summary of a Democratic to do list is excellent. So I'll post it here instead. This is the problem for Democrats. Sherrod Brown is a poster child, arguably THE poster child, for everything Democrats should do to reconnect to the working class. he survived in Ohio for as long as he did precisely for that reason.  And he just lost, by a much wider margin that Harris did nationally.  That's a big problem. That said, I think we also just witnessed the solution. It took eight years and and economy ravaged by inflation for a few years for Donald Trump to connect with enough working class voters that he could win 49.9 % or so of the national vote, less than half Biden's winning 2020 margin. If this is the best Trump can do in a year when incumbents were seemingly doomed to fail, Democrats should be able to turn this around enough to win the Presidency back in 2028. But it would take what Brown talks about: talk to workers constantly, win lots of things for workers, talk to workers about what you won for them, and talk to workers about their futures. And remind them that, when his dishonest sales pitch is over and the real work of government begins,  Trump's tax cuts and laws are all about helping the rich and corporations. And that often means hurting workers. Part of Brown's problem is that he can talk about successes all he wants. But factory jobs in Ohio have been decimated while he has been a member of the House or Senate. I'll still haven't gotten over the fact that it was political malpractice in 2016 for Hillary Clinton to let Trump blame the loss of factory jobs in the US on Democrats, specifically Bill Clinton.  The loss were huge, as that chart shows. And they almost all happened between 2001 and 2008, when George W. Bush, a Republican, was President. And most of the time Brown was a Senator, Ohio was run by Republican Governors and state legislators. So right there Democrats had some problem in terms of how they communicated to workers.  Or, maybe not. Maybe the lesson is that politics is and should be, "What have you done for me lately?"  Brown pretty much says that in his autopsy, without saying it quite that bluntly. If Obama is in charge for 8 years, and Biden is in charge for 4, Clinton and Harris are simply going to have to carry their baggage if they want to continue in power.  The same applied to Trump in 2020. And he lost, too. Another poster child that is a bright spot for me is Ruben Gallego. He talks like a working class Latino, because those are his roots. And his win shifts Arizona a little bit more from red to blue. The bitter part of that victory is that a Hispanic male won a statewide race at the same time as a Black woman lost. What does that say?  Was it the incumbency curse, or racism, or sexism? That discussion won't be fun. But nobody who voted for either Harris or Gallego sees Trump and MAGA as the solution for the Latino or Black working class.  That's where Democrats have to start.  Quote
Moses Posted November 18 Author Posted November 18 18 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said: So since you like playing with ChatGPT, ask these questions:  1. Why did Sherrod Brown lose?  2. What do Democrats have to do to win a US Senate seat in Ohio? Just do it (c) Nike https://chatgpt.com Quote
Members stevenkesslar Posted November 18 Members Posted November 18 1 hour ago, Moses said: Just do it (c) Nike https://chatgpt.com I'm not a ChatGPT fan, personally.  But I asked you since you seem to enjoy it. Or maybe you are just mocking me, for sounding like ChatGPT.  😉 Quote
Members stevenkesslar Posted November 18 Members Posted November 18 4 hours ago, stevenkesslar said: Another poster child that is a bright spot for me is Ruben Gallego. He talks like a working class Latino, because those are his roots. And his win shifts Arizona a little bit more from red to blue. This is more rant on what Democrats can do if they want to take back the House in 2026, and the Presidency in 2028. Out of curiosity, I went to Ruben Gallego's campaign website to see how he talked about the economy. It's only four paragraphs, so it is easy to read.  But the first and last paragraphs I will highlight. Quote Wall Street bankers and big corporations are getting richer every year, while the everyday folks who make up the backbone of our economy are still being squeezed. Ruben is fighting to build an economy that works for everyone, and makes life affordable for hard-working families. Quote But Ruben also knows that we need to end the system of tax loopholes and exorbitant giveaways for the rich. It is inexcusable that billionaires and corporations continuously exploit our tax code — Ruben is committed to making sure they pay their fair share. What I find striking about that is the language seems wholly lifted from any of the polling Stan Greenberg has been doing literally going back to the Bill Clinton era, when he helped Clinton fashion his own brand of piecemeal economic populism. His rant is that taxing the rich and corporations is one of the most wildly popular issues Democrats have. These are just words on paper, of course. But it sure doesn't seem like it hurt Gallego in one of the most purple states in America. In fact, Arizona is the swing state with the biggest margin between a winning Senate candidate and Harris. Gallego carried Arizona by 2.4 %, while Harris lost it by - 5.5 %, her biggest loss of the seven swing states. That's an 8 % margin. The next biggest margin was about 5 % in Nevada, where Harris lost by -3.1 % and Rosen won by 1.7 %. Compare Gallego's language to Elisa Slotkin's economy page on her campaign website.  She's more specific in the way Sherrod Brown encourages.  Here are dozens of ways I fought for you every day. Here is a child care center or health care center I helped get funded. That's all great. But there's no big language about class, or demanding corporations or the rich pay their fair share. It worked well enough for Slotkin, who won by 0.3 % - the narrowest win of any swing state Democratic Senate race. Gallego's class rhetoric about the rich and corporations certainly did not seem to hurt him in purple Arizona. The problem with this approach for Biden was that corporate whores like Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin were not on board. Did I mention they were the two Senators who blocked taxing the rich more, and continuing the child tax credits? Manchin and Sinema are gone. But, actually, Nancy Pelosi almost got her wish. Almost every Senate seat in a blue state and almost every Democratic House member won re-election. Gallego pledged at the time that if he replaced Sinema he'd provide the vote she wouldn't. He won. She's history. Could there be a lesson in that for Democrats? Pollster Stan Greenberg's wife is House member Rosa DeLauro, who was head of the Appropriations Committee and one of the chief backers of the expanded child tax credits that died thanks to Manchin, Sinema, and Republicans. I've been ranting about those tax credits for two years. To the extent that one of my Gay friends asked me why anyone Gay should possibly give a shit. I now have a good answer. He is in despair over Trump's victory. If we don't want Trump to win, maybe Democrats have to fight like hell to give working class Hispanics and Blacks and Whites a reason to vote Democratic. Democrats Lost 12-Point Lead Among Child Tax Credit Recipients After It Expired  That poll was done in 2022, after the one year of expanded child tax credits that cut child poverty in half expired. The credits helped tens of millions of working class parents in 2021, right before inflation was about to climb to its peak in Summer 2022. So losing a $300 a month tax credit and paying maybe $300 a month more for groceries and gas due to inflation was a double whammy. If that poll is correct, there was a 15 % shift among people who got the tax credits after they expired, from +12 % Democrat to + 3 % Republican. I'm suspicious about that poll.  It could have been measuring something else - like the rise in inflation itself. I very much doubt all these low information working class voters followed the nuances of the child tax credit debate. But one way or the other it makes sense that taking the credit away from working class families that said they gave them a little or a lot of help didn't help Democrats. And that hit exactly the voting bloc that nailed Kamala Harris's coffin shut - younger and/or Latino and/or Black and/or White working class voters that may have flipped to Trump, or perhaps more likely just didn't bother to vote. It's hard to imagine that if Harris had gone to the mat saying I fought like hell to save these tax credits, and I will fight like hell to keep them as POTUS, that would not have helped her with working class Moms and Dads of every race who felt like they gave them some help. She could have argued, "I could not stop global inflation. But here are ways that I could fight for you. And I did. And I will keep fighting." I am pretty sure that is why AMLO's successor won a landslide victory in Mexico among ......................... wait for it ............................ WORKING CLASS LATINOS. There is a growing symphony of stories of people in these groups - especially younger voters - saying we did what we needed to do to elect Biden and Harris in 2020. And we were told there would be student debt relief, and more affordable child care, and child tax credits.  And higher taxes on the rich to pay for them. And we either never got them, or they were taken away. There are plenty of good explanations for all this.  Sinema. Manchin. SCOTUS blocking Biden's student debt relief plan. But it is quite understandable that if if you start with 100 % of a voting bloc you won in 2020, some number - 5 % or 10 % or 20 % - are just going to give up. Because they feel they got nothing and are going nowhere. All I have to do to understand this is listen to my 2020 Biden voting nieces and nephews. Right or wrong, part of the anecdotal complaining is that it didn't even seem like Biden was fighting the good fight. He just got old and quiet. At least Harris seemed like she had the energy to fight. Gallego also talks in his website about "the dignity of work".  The possible danger for Democrats is that we go back to 1980 and 1984, when Reagan won a landslide railing about welfare and government handouts instead of work. But that does not seem like the problem today. The problem today is Latino Moms and Dads with a few kids feel like they are working their asses off, can't get ahead, can't afford child care, and sure as fuck can't buy a home. Republicans are not going to solve this problem by rewarding billionaire Trump donors with massive tax cuts, which is going to be their #1 priority. Democrats ought to be able to figure out how to fight and win, like Gallego and Slotkin did.  And Harris almost did, in an anti-incumbent year when inflation was a wall of lava aimed right at her. Quote
EmmetK Posted November 18 Posted November 18 I'm all in for Bernie Sanders for the 2028 Democrat Presidential nominee. He represents the true values of democrat base. I would love to see Sanders run with Elizabeth Warren aka Pocahontas as his VEEP. If not Pocahontas, perhaps Rashida Tlaib? Or Ilhan Omar? Or if Bernie wants to think out of the box, how about Sunny Hostin? Â TRUMP2024 MAGA Quote
