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comment by usualgerman
usualgerman  ·  17 hours ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: On the Democratic Party's Cult of Powerlessness

Democrats are not doing anything because they’re captured. They take money from the same business interests and banks that the Republicans do. It’s almost a controlled opposition party— they exist to hold things in place until the next republican term. They aren’t there to do things, they barely bother to pretend to be interested in that. In fact, I’d say they’re not even really an “ideas” party. If they had ideas, they’d want to get them out. They don’t, which is why Heritage Foundation can spend millions on Right Wing media outlets, radio, TV (multiple channels), websites, and so on. Democrats had Air America, but didn’t really invest in it. So now it’s NPR, MSNBC, and Bread Tube. That’s how into getting things done they are. Podcasters, Vaush, and MSNBC and the three political shows on NPR. They don’t even believe in their message enough to bother getting it out there. The way most people find out about anything the democrats actually want to do is republicans telling them it’s bad. Completely rearguard action.





kleinbl00  ·  5 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

    Democrats are not doing anything because they’re captured. They take money from the same business interests and banks that the Republicans do.

I think I would temper this by arguing there's no real alternative. The 2024 elections cost $16b. Bill Gates gave $100m, Elon Musk gave $150m. Kamala Harris got 74m votes; in order to counterbalance Elon Fucking Musk every Harris voter would have needed to chip in $2. In order to counterbalance Musk & Gates, they needed to chip in 68 cents.

But now we're talking campaign finance reform and we're both already asleep with boredom.

spencerflem  ·  10 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

I genuinely don't know what the Dems want to do.

Kamala's climate change policy was some of the most baffling word salad I've ever had to read. It seemed like every week they shifted positions or compromised on something I figured was a core Dem value.

Doesn't matter either way cuz they lost in a landslide lol

usualgerman  ·  6 hours ago  ·  link  ·  
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usualgerman  ·  6 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

I think the first step to getting the party back on track is to invest in getting the message out there. Have a network or three on the radio or TV, have news sites, etc that can explain what the ideas are and why they work and where they’ve actually done good things. Start talking about your ideas.

And when you do something TELL THE PEOPLE. It’s like the democrats almost want it to be top secret. I’ve had this conversation a few times with conservatives convinced there’s a conspiracy to poison Americans with additives in foods. Exhibit A is that a lot of things that are common in American food are not in European foods. So the government is obviously trying to kill us, population control and so on. No, the European Union is simply much more willing to ban poison from their foods than our FDA is. So this would be an excellent thing for democrats to be actually talking about and making the case for smart regulations to protect people. They’re generally MIA. And the same is true of other things. The infrastructure bill Biden passed is building lots of highways. Not one will have any sort of signage telling people that this is the infrastructure bill at work making roads better.

spencerflem  ·  5 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

I think before investing on getting a message out, they should have one to begin with. I actively sought out what their platform is and as far as I can tell they don't have one

kleinbl00  ·  5 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

Which, again, comes down to capitalism. When your rule of law belongs to the highest bidder, you end up Republican Lite at best.

spencerflem  ·  5 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah totally. Everything feels hopeless

kleinbl00  ·  2 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

Dawg, I feel you. I feel you bone deep.

But I was politically conscious for Mondale

Dukakis

Gore

And Kerry

And once we get through the circular firing squad we get to do it all over again