The Dems are losing ground with Latinos--how should they respond?

[Mr.Vic20]

The meek stupid shall inherit the Earth! Largely because they will arrest progress and drag us backward as much as they can due to fear and explorative representation. But just remember, before it all crumbles to dust, we did invent these:

 

 

Not bad mankind, not bad! 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

6 hours ago, sblfilms said:

The GOP blew a slam dunk wave mid term because their policies simply aren’t as popular as the Democratic Party’s policies are X 5

And they’re by and large just off putting, strange weirdos with an obsession with things most swing voters don’t care about. Dems being normal doesn’t hurt by any means

[Fizzzzle]

The Republicans have one unifying, actual policy (so not counting culture war things): Cut taxes and cut spending. The thing is, cutting *any* military spending is a total non-starter, but they also can't cut medicare, social security, or anything that would actually make a difference because... obviously.

 

So that's why they've leaned so hard into the culture war stuff, because underneath that they have literally no ideas for actual governance.

 

That's why I'm not super worried about the 2024 election.

[Greatoneshere]

2 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

The Republicans have one unifying, actual policy (so not counting culture war things): Cut taxes for the rich and try and cut spending for the middle class and the poor. The thing is, cutting *any* military spending is a total non-starter, but they also can't cut medicare, social security, or anything that would actually make a difference because... obviously.

 

So that's why they've leaned so hard into the culture war stuff, because underneath that they have literally no ideas for actual governance.

 

That's why I'm not super worried about the 2024 election.

 

FTFY  

[Fizzzzle]

2 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

FTFY  

Well, yeah, but the whole policy enacted by the House Republicans right now is that no bill will be brought forth that increases spending in any way unless you cut spending from something else. There really isn't a whole lot to cut is my point, outside of social security, medicare, etc. - in other words, things they might bluster about but would never dare actually cut because it would be political suicide.

 

(they could also cut military spending, but that dog just ain't gonna hunt)

 

So they'll try and get their base riled up about wokeness, abortion, and "indoctrination" because that's literally the only thing they have. I saw more of CPAC than I probably should have, and hardly anyone ever gave any positions on actual policy decisions... because they don't have any. It was just "woke indoctrination trans agenda" and whatever the hell Donald Trump ranted about for like 2 hours.

 

The only play they have is to try to rile up their base into single-issue voting, which they tried already with abortion.

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

2 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

Well, yeah, but the whole policy enacted by the House Republicans right now is that no bill will be brought forth that increases spending in any way unless you cut spending from something else. There really isn't a whole lot to cut is my point, outside of social security, medicare, etc. - in other words, things they might bluster about but would never dare actually cut because it would be political suicide.

 

(they could also cut military spending, but that dog just ain't gonna hunt)

 

So they'll try and get their base riled up about wokeness, abortion, and "indoctrination" because that's literally the only thing they have. I saw more of CPAC than I probably should have, and hardly anyone ever gave any positions on actual policy decisions... because they don't have any. It was just "woke indoctrination trans agenda" and whatever the hell Donald Trump ranted about for like 2 hours.

 

The only play they have is to try to rile up their base into single-issue voting, which they tried already with abortion.

 

The centrist take is that the Dems are leaving themselves too exposed on those cultural issues by drifting just a tad too far beyond the window of public opinion on them. (But they're always saying that, right?)

 

I'm not sure yet whether the centrists are worth listening to, but the center-left analysis of commentators like Ruy Teixiera (the guy who wrote about the 'emerging Demcoratic majority', see article "Does the abortion issue mean Democrats have won the culture war?") interests me --or at least the cited poll numbers do:

Quote

Thus, to even get in the door with many working class and rural voters and make their pitch, Democrats need to convince these voters that they are not looked down on, their concerns are taken seriously and their views on culturally-freighted issues will not be summarily dismissed as unenlightened. With today’s Democratic party, unfortunately, that is difficult. Resistance is stiff to any compromise that might involve moving to the center on such issues.

 

With this context in mind, consider some recent poll results. The new NBC poll tested which party voters preferred on a number of different issues. Republicans were preferred over Democrats by 36 points on border security, 23 points on dealing with crime and by 19 points on immigration. All three of these ratings are the highest net advantages for the GOP ever found on the NBC poll.

 

In the new New York Times/Sienna poll, voters by 15 points (49-34) say Democrats have gone too far in pushing a “woke” ideology on issues related to race and gender, rather than not far enough. This balloons to a 23 point margin (53-30) among all working class (noncollege) voters, 36 points (61-25) among white working class voters and 39 points (59-20) among rural voters.

 

In the same poll, voters, by 31 points (61-30) endorsed the idea that “gender is determined by a person’s biological sex at birth” rather than an identity that can be divorced from biological sex. Among all working class voters the gap was 43 points (67-24), among rural voters it was 51 points (70-19) and among white working class voters it was 54 points (73-19).

 

Even more lop-sided, the poll asked voters whether they supported or opposed “allowing public school teachers to provide classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity to children in elementary school (grades 1-5)” Note that this stipulation is actually stricter than the one in the Florida law that aroused such horror in Democratic circles. Voters responded by 43 points (70-27) that they opposed allowing such a practice. Among all working class voters, the margin was an astronomical 58 points (78-20), among rural voters it was 63 points (80-17) and among white working class voters it was an amazing 71 points (84-13).

 

Regardless of what one might think of the salience and accuracy of such numbers and the merit of caring about them, they're worth thinking about, and it's at least interesting to see that there is growing (but obviously not universal) support by analysts on both the right and the left side of the political divide for the idea that society has fractured into a new class conflict, different than the one which defined the industrial era, held between a degree-holding elite class and a non-degree-holding lumpenproletariat. (Or, if it's more your cup of tea, you could also frame it as a new college-educated, digitally savvy bourgeoisie versus everybody else, acting as proxies for the struggle between a dominant tech capital against all the rest of the less influential but still quite powerful and numerous competing capitals)  

 

I've seen the formulation posited by people whose political backgrounds are so different they have little else they agree on.