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Well they had 2 levers, really. If you ignore the primaries
The dems have lost so much Latino (and African American) votes because the GOP quite correctly identified that they could sway huge amounts of them with core religious and conservative messaging. 'No rainbows' and 'no abortion' seems to have turned more of them at very low cost compared to convincing them Trump has the right economic voodoo. Big chance those kind of voters are never coming back, regardless of their economic situation
Considering Trump didn't beat his 2020 numbers and Kamala came up like 10 million short of Biden's, it is not clear at all that people switched sides as much as Trump pulling in first time voters and Kamala failing to motivate the base. That is to say, claims about lost voters aren't backed by the evidence.
Yes, more Latinos voted for Trump than in 2020, but what percentage of that was from natural demographic shifts? I certainly haven't seen that analysis, which is likely to skew the reported election day polls.
Reflect on why 10 million people chose not to show up that day. Instead of blaming them, blame the people who didn't listen to them.
This summer, 30% of respondents said a gaza ceasefire would make them more likely to support the Dems. I'm pretty sure that 30% of 330 million people would have made up for the 10 or 15% of deeply religious people. Similar polls listed the economy and the wars as the most common issues for voters, but you claim- without evidence- that the motivation was abortion and gay rights, which poll nationally at 60+% approval.
Seriously, reflect on this so it doesn't happen a 3rd time. There is no path to a democratic majority that ignores the real concerns of the working class, which the Dems have been woefully inadequate on according to countless polls over the last few years.
Am I aware that inflation was caused by Trump mishandling the pandemic and introducing tariffs and trade barriers? yes. Do I think Trump will be less racist? Of course not.
But I'm highly educated, privileged, and don't have more pressing concerns like feeding a family. I will not blame voters for exercising their rights. You do you though.
I'm oh-so-sure you'll channel that rage into something useful like community activism and union organizing, right?
Maybe I'm an idealist, but I bet working in and with these communities is a better approach than saying "you owe us because of the civil rights act", while ignoring the fact that the Democratic party authored the crime bill that gave us the new Jim Crow.
What, exactly, have the Dems done to earn their vote?
I'm blaming them for exercising their rights? I'm blaming Trump voters for being idiots and working class Trump voters as being the biggest idiots.
It's great you're doing volunteer work but you sound like you consider yourself as an adult looking over mere children, apparently largely based on their skin color, and think your children should be given some slack.
They are adults, they can vote, and the GOP correctly identified that skin color is not something magical that shields them from having just as many idiots either holding strong conservative beliefs or believing in populist economic messaging. Preferably both. And if the dems aren't handing them out any gifts because of their skin color anyway, then what exactly is left holding them from voting for the conservative party?
Now beware, before you go off accusing me again, that I'm not saying people of Latino or African American descent are somehow magically more inclined to hold conservative beliefs or otherwise being idiots. They were always there. The problem lies in the fact that now the GOP has found out they can easily target them. And in the US it always takes 2 smart people to cancel out 1 idiot, as the latter is much easier to convince to go vote.
What? I'm not "looking over" anyone or treating anyone as children. I don't understand how you can confuse compassion for paternalism. I'm saying they're full people capable of forming their own opinions about what is best for their interests and you're calling them idiots.
I can disagree with them without condemning them or insulting them and it's not clear why you would attack me or them.
So, they're idiots, but you're not blaming them? I'm not sure I understand. It's either because they're dumb (your position) or it's because they have one lever to pull and the Democratic party hasn't given them anything since FDR (my position). I'm actively sympathizing with them while you're insulting them.
Well you suggest that them lacking higher education and privilege, and being too busy with a family keeps them from seeing the same thruth that you do: that Trump's policies are actually harmful for them. So when you ask "what have the dems done to earn their vote?", you yourself know the answer. Do you celebrate them voting against their own interests because they're less educated?
Lol, that's your question after literally quoting me saying "I’m blaming Trump voters for being idiots" ?
They have not one but many levers to pull, and they chose the one that's going to hurt them (and many others) the most. It's like when Waze tells you you're going to be late for your appointment you do a 180 and drive your car against traffic honking because 'the rational option' wasn't going to get you there on time. Sorry for not wanting to be a passenger in that car, and calling the driver an idiot
Huh? I did no such thing. I merely hinted at the electoral split between people with and without higher education. It's quite clear that more education is strongly correlated with a tendency to vote Democrat. I understand why someone who did not go to college would not necessarily understand how tariffs will raise prices or how trickle down economics has never had empirical success. I made no claim about people of color and their education level. I was simply discussing the measured demographic numbers around who voted for whom.
I watch the news every day and understand that when I worked 60 hours a week making minimum wage, that wasn't really a priority or something I had time for. If I had kids in addition to multiple jobs, it would be incredibly difficult to stay informed about economic and social policies, especially when there are powerful interests pushing disinformation to my tv and phone.
I don't know what the Dems have done for them-- it's a genuine question. They haven't raised the minimum wage, secured women's bodily autonomy with legislation, passed the equal rights amendment, or made any progress on redlining and historical segregation patterns that categocially lead to less wealth generation for non white families in the 2nd half of the 20th century. They didn't prosecute anyone after the 2009 crisis and have adopted the Republican border, China, and hawkish military policies wholesale since 2016.
They haven't even passed drug policy reform legislation -- an issue which has overwhelming bipartisan support nationally. However, I do know that the Dems pushed the 90s crime bill that disproportionately criminalized black men and instituted racialized penalties for drugs that were more common in black communities than white ones.
I guess we can talk about the expanded childhood tax credit, but that was a COVID era law signed into law by Trump, which passed with bipartisan support, so it's kinda weird to credit that to the Dems. Or Obamacare, which came out of the Massachusetts program proposed by the heritage foundation and implemented by Mitt Romney, so it's at least weird to credit that as a liberal policy. It was written by the same people who put Brett Kavanaugh on the supreme court.
Since we're on the topic of Huckabee more generally, while governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee pushed for socialized medicine for children in the state. That doesn't make him a good person, but certainly suggests that healthcare/childhood poverty concerns are not in the exclusive domain of the Democrats.
And do you think it's a good thing that this lack of understanding motivates them to go 'pull that lever', cancelling out your own vote?
And do you feel like any of those things you want are more likely to happen with more people voting for the GOP? Is the fastest way to get there to vote for politicians that viciously oppose these measures? Do you think other countries magically got these things passed by voting against them?
No. Other countries got there with protests and organizing the working class and building widespread solidarity. Those rights were earned with blood, not by electing the lesser of two evils.
And, yes, I do think direct action and specific, localized outreach would be the way to build up that kind of movement. Showing up one day every 4 years while the Dems move further right every time is certainly not going to work anymore than voting for the republicans they're trying to emulate.
Unionize your workplace or set up a tenant's union. Establish actual resistance and build up trust with these disaffected communities. Steal food from Walmart and give it to homeless people. Block an ICE detention vehicle or surround an eviction with people from the neighborhood. Power has never been given up willingly and no working class movement has ever succeeded without being a categorical threat to capital. The Democratic party is not that and will never be.
Stop doubling down on polarized partisan poliltics and create instances for solidarity and mutual education. That might actually work.
Most other countries got there by voting people into power that wrote and voted these principles into law. Voted for people that improved their democratic processes.
If you think it doesn't matter that you voted for the most capitalist candidate as long as you do a little Robin Hood shit on the side, you've seen too many movies and not enough history imo
Nah. monarchies were largely ended by the Napoleonic wars and world war 1. It's ahistorical to say Democracy was earned through electoralism. It also just makes no sense.
The Spanish revolution was definitely a bloody conflict. So was the foundation of Yugoslavia and it's NATO backed dissolution. So was Finnish independence from Russia. Or Ukrainian. Or Polish. Or Estonian or Latvian.
Switzerland was founded by war too. Germany's democracy was imposed by an occupying force-- as was Japan's.
France murdered their entire royal family. British India faced a decades long insurgency and worker strikes. The Magna Carta was signed after the king was fucking kidnapped.
America's founding myth is centered on a symbolic action to destroy private property (the Boston tea party).
The only country (that I can think of) that voted for it's democracy was Canada and that was only after a genocide of the indigenous population and centuries of colonial rule.
I'm not talking about becoming a democracy, I'm talking about *improving *and modernizing their democracies. As well as, well, voting for and enacting all the policy examples you listed
no, no. you must mean how school lunch exists because of electoral poltics and not because the original program was started by the black Panthers.
Or did you mean when US military service members occupied DC to get the GI Bill?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army?wprov=sfla1
ah ok. In that case, I'll point you to the bombing of a police vehicle that led to the 40 hour work week and an international holiday for workers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair?wprov=sfla1
And do you think it was the bombers that wrote this into law, or elected politicians?
edit: and why did other countries manage to get it into law a lot faster than the US?
Also, I need a source about other countries enacting this before the US. In the 1880s, there wasn't exactly a plethora of Democratic governments anywhere. Germany was a brand new idea and so was Italy. France encompassed parts of Spain and Sweden, which was itself an empire with a military dictator. The UK is still a monarchy with colonies that want to secede (namely Jamaica) and the Netherlands is too. Swedish people didn't have surnames yet--they adopted the last name of their employer.
Eastern Europe had serfdom and antisemitic laws were the norm.
I would totally believe the UK got it first, but not without a mass mobilization of working class people.
Seriously, what are you talking about?
Well, the US only enacted it in 1937
So I only have basically all of Europe off the top of my head
Right. So it was a 50 year long struggle led by the working class and groups like the Wobblies and your solution is to vote harder?
To what extent can we credit colonial nations like Portugal and the UK and the Netherlands for extending this right exclusively to white people with political capital?
Is it really a "pass" if the comfort of the homeland was predicated on slavery and/or empire elsewhere?
Not 'harder'. Smarter, better and more consistently.
And yeah the US is the only country that never meddled in or abused other countries for economic gain, or benefitted from slavery in any way, so that's the only one in the world where workers' rights really count. Right
I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that crediting the the UK for progressive politics while they enslaved half the world is a weird take.
I would make the exact same claim about the US, considering that neo-slavery (indentured servitude/whites only towns) wasn't abolished until after world war 2.
In fact, one of the most violent events in US history was a white mob that murdered an entire town of black people for trying to unionize.
Those white folks sure understood the power of working class solidarity and it's fundamental threat to capital.
That's also probably why MLKJ was assassinated during the poor people's campaign that sought to unite the grievances of the civil rights movement with the concerns of poor whites.
You sound more concerned about the extremely racist history of the US than how many other nations were able to cement many a workers' right in their legislation through voting for the right policies
You have failed to list a single example of legislative change that didn't have the backing of a mass mobilization and credible threats to capital. I have presented several instances that support the claim that legislative change is dependent on working class organization.
Lots of legislative changes are enacted without mass mobilization, bomb attacks, 'threats to capital'
You can study the evolution of paternal and maternal leave in Sweden as a nice example. The Swedes didn't have to bomb any Ikeas - they just consistently voted for the right politicians.
You mean the country with basically universal union membership and literally 0 legislation around minimum wage?
The one where worker's rights are guaranteed by union negotiations and the threat of a strike rather than national legislation?
I see you want to change the subject lol
Do you think Sweden has a problem with low wages?
I didn't change the subject. I'm saying those right were earned by unions and not gifted by politicians.
As somebody who lives and works in Sweden with a PhD in computer science, I had more disposable income when I washed dishes in NYC. So, yeah, I would say wages are pretty low.
Do you think there are a lot of working poor in Sweden?
https://web.archive.org/web/20160812025917/http://www.iariw.org/papers/2014/GustafssonPaper.pdf
I think the law is irrelevant without a mass movement. You simply won't get the law without the mass movement.
You can't get from where we are to working class liberation without passing through working class struggle.
Sure. Mass movement, politicians, pen, paper, law
Leave one of those out and it probably won't work
Maybe this coal miners strike that was an armed uprising?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain