Democrats should pay attention to Kristen McDonald Rivet's election postmortem

[u/cathbadh]

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kristen-mcdonald-rivet-democrats-win-rcna184010

[u/DeafJoo]

Completely disagree.

The GOP faces no consequences for their extremism. Think of Jan 6, Lauren Bobert, MTG, the racist jokes at MSG right before the election, and recently Trump and JD at the Army Navy game with a "hero" who killed a homeless black man

Dems need to study and figure out why only liberals face consequences for their fringe. We can't have one side who the party at large is linked to extremists and another party where people ignore the crazy

[u/556or762 → u/DeafJoo]

I think it would help if you realized that the general public doesn't see what you see in these situations.

Lauren Bobert and MTG are basically non-existant to most of the country. If I wasn't a reddit addict I would have literally no idea who those people are.

Jan 6th is viewed as another riot in a whole year of riots.

The Madison square garden is viewed as a comedian who's entire shtick is inappropriate comedy going too far for the venue.

The Daniel Penny thing is very clear. People dont see an "a beloved Unhoused PoC unjustly slain by a racist for his mental health struggles ," they see an insane homeless crackhead was threatening to kill people and was stopped by a heroic bystander.

Most people just don't see the entire country as an iredeemable racists. They don't see things like border issues as based on xenophobia. They don't have the viewpoint that is considered axiomatic in the echo chambers that the progressives live in.

You can disagree with them and feel your right, but doubling down is going to be detrimental when your position holds that those who don't view the world through a very narrow lens aren't just incorrect or ill informed, but actually bad people.

[u/DeafJoo → u/556or762]

I'll use your same argument. So people don't know about MTG or far right extremism but are well read in far left college protests and anti-racist authors?

Again. Progressive positions are popular. Abortion. Medicaid expansion. Marijuana. Paid famiky leave. Minimum wage. And to be honest, look at how people view the far right. Many times they will say they don't agree with it, but admire the confidence. If one thing dems are not, it's confident

The far left isn't going to go away. And you need their votes.

Im presuming we all want to get away from MAGA. Maybe not. If we want this to happen, we need to figure out how to not let the fridge define us.

[u/seeyaspacetimecowboy → u/DeafJoo]

"Abortion. Medicaid expansion. Marijuana. Paid family leave. Minimum wage."
Those are common neo-liberal, liberal, centrist and conservative dem positions, almost universally supported among Democrats. Those aren't progressive polices.

Progressives struggle with voter trust because of this. Progressives claim ownership to widely supported policies and try and sneak in unpopular policies through manufactured consent using progressive controlled media. None of those policies are progressive policy, they're just policy. And not even exclusively Democratic party policy these days.

The GOP isn't as anti-weed as it once was. Potential State-Centric Marijuana Policy in the 119th Congress.

Given paid family leave is nearly universally popular, it may get through a GOP Congress as well.

Minimum wage increases aren't limited to Democratic controlled states, as many GOP controlled states enjoy cost-of-living increases to their minimum wages by design. See the chart in this article.

[u/WorksInIT → u/seeyaspacetimecowboy]

Yeah, progressives like to point to things like universal paid family leave being popular, yet they ignore the arguments against the details of their preferred implementation.

Child care is another great example. Yes, people in general support making childcare more affordable for all. No, they do not support the ignorant ideas the last Congress had on this which would have punished middle class people and made their costs higher.

[u/Theron3206 → u/WorksInIT]

Same with abortion, most people support a sensible law there. Something in line with the rest of the world like freely available until 16 weeks and after that only if deemed in the mother's best interest by at least one (often two) doctors.

They don't support no restrictions, even if in practice later term abortions would only be performed for medial reasons regardless, because they see it as wrong and the purpose of laws is to make things that are wrong illegal, even if they almost never happen.

If the dems adopted a populist approach to their progressive ideology (toned it down to get broad appeal) they would do better, and would get at least some of what the progressive fringe want, rather than nothing because they can't win a majority to implement anything.