The Democrats danced to the same old tune and we lost, and they’re still doing it. Nancy Pelosi working the phones to prevent AOC from becoming the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee is a perfect example. Until we loosen the stranglehold of the old guard nothing will change.
Right on. Both parties have shown a colossal failure with succession planning. Running presidential candidates in their late 70s and early 80s is only the tip of the iceberg.
Having octogenarians hanging on to continue trading stocks with inside information may show the crux of the issue.
Stop age bashing. There are plenty of younger Rs taking plenty of advantage. Plenty of older people espousing new ideas and new blood … Many of the BEST and most progressive pundits these days are 70+ years old. How about we go after lousy policies and stop age-bashing.
Come on Pat. It is not age bashing. I am 85, and well aware that with few exceptions old dogs don't learn new tricks, not because they can't, but because they won't. Nancy, Chuck are stuck in their paradigm., it is how they grew up, it is how they attained wealth and power, and it what they believe in and what they will guard.
Voltaire said, "A man can no more change his charcter than a leopard change his spots".
Biden learned politics, being mentored by southern racists, and learning comity, bipartisanship, compromise and he carried those lessons into the presidency, and the result is Merrick Garland, and failures.
The only reason the CHIPS and Science act, the American Rescue Plan, and the Inflation Reduction Act passed is because they had serious "easter eggs" for corporations, financial institutions and thus the billionaire class.
Considering that I am 85 and older than you. I don't think that people my age should be in that kind of position. Society changes, the mentality changes, and try as we might we don't keep up, and there really is such a thing as old age senility.
As far as focusing on the person, frankly the person in question (President Joseph R Biden) is evidencing a loss of mental faculties, evident in the interviews, evident in the debate.
The person in question had problems because of conditions caused by age.
While typing this I had to stop and search my mind for the word "debate"
The first thing to go with Alzheimers is nouns, long term memory stays pretty much intact, but short term memory.. not so much.
Except for accidents and rare genetic incidents, Alzheimers and dementia are AGEIST diseases.
Don't personalize the impersonal Pat, it doesn't look good, and it betrays you.
Cannot really agree with the premise about the PCPs. I have worked in local politics for two decades and know the organizations of both parties quite well.
The Dems have PCPs largely in name only. Unlike local Republican parties, there is little or no funding. Many local parties in Red areas or counties get little or no funding. They have to go begging to registered Dems for money. Then they are asked to do lit drops for candidates who are not all that experienced and have little potential. It is the local party equivalent of the flyover state strategy. Perhaps we should call it the drive-through at 75 mph strategy.
Howard Dean's approach was starting to work but was then was abandoned by the party. That approach involved funding local infrastructure. If we go back to that, it will involve a national party willing to allow money to flow from donors directly to local efforts, including full-time paid staff and think tanks. If the money continues to be controlled nationally, all the PCPs in the world will not help.
We had democratic PCPs in name only, so my five boys and their friends would get in the full-size van with the Democratic literature. I would drive them to neighborhoods, where they would jump out and place literature on doorknobs and mailbox posts.
The Republicans took over anyway by pretending to be Independents in Democratic communities, banning candidates from running for any party other than Independent by statute. They had real estate money behind them to steal people's homes through a " special assessment scheme." Now, we don't see Democrats on the ballot except for the top of the ballot.
Thom is right that they played the long game, and we must, too. Every journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.
A major reason why Republicans get financial and moral support at the precinct level, up through the national level, is because they play the fear card. When people feel threatened they dip into their wallet, and fall out to vote.
When Democrats come to recognize that, then the power dynamics will shift.
People aren't motivated, vote for, what has happened in the past, or what you are going to do for them, what motivates them is the fear of what is going to be done to them, and the belief of what is being done to them.
I will sum up the election of 2024,as follows: "They owned the libs" That was more important than even their pocket book.
Hitler came to power,not because he promised to create jobs,but because Germany, was a demoralized, broken, basket case with no national pride after the treaty of Versailles.
Hitler promised them that they would rise up and gain respect among nations, and regain their place in the world as a power to be reckoned with.
It is identity politics, and that is the basis of MAGA, Make AMERICA great again.
Hitler was Make Germany Great Again.
A persons identity,sense of self, is woven from many things, their gender, their sexuality, their religion, their race, even avocation, vocation, education, and sports, but ultimately with a nation, and a nation is not political boundaries as we have been taught to think.
Europe is famous for their football (soccer) riots, especially when nations are involved.
That is because the fans find their identity,or a portion of it, in a football team.
Republicans use identity to tap into that chauvinistic fear. Democrats do not. When we do try, like trying to ring the alarm bell that fascism is taking over, we are ridiculed, because the enemy is amorphous, faceless.
Whereas he Republicans create a bete noir that has a face and is personal, parental rights, books, education = children, crime = minorities, nake hegemony = feminism, gay rights, trans people.
And the face of fascism is Trump and Musk, and they hold themselves forth as a bulwark against the things people fear.
We need to take the battle to them, we need a metaphorical Jun 6,1944.
Dems should run TV ads, NOW, showing moms and dads living in poverty, in misery, because of severe cuts in Social Security. Lying sick in bed for lack of Medicare coverage.
Real information that will show people the real effect the GOP policies will have in their lives. We don’t have to lie and create false scenarios. The reality is scary enough
Running a lot of TV ads is how the DNC has been getting the message out. If money is scarce, how about first building precincts and other wise supporting action at the local level?
There's no shortage of playing the fear card on the Dems side either. The problem for the Dems is that they are reactive. The first to instil fear wins.
Please tell me more about this. I am a Democratic Committee I woman, and I’m really interested in hearing about funding at my local level. I could do my own mailings , etc!
During the first years of Dean's 50-state strategy, we had state-level business execs funding local party ops directly. I won't name names but the types of things were such as having full-time staffers in the red counties, candidate recruitment and training years before a run for office, year-long fellowships on key issues, e.g. healthcare, water, economic development, etc., and local think tanks designed to capture earned media.
Starting with Obama, money was largely centalized at the national level, and the party has become a once in four years event planner for a presidential election. All the money was and is sucked up to fund the presidential campaign and the national legacy media buys. Local parties are by and large, the cobbler's children without shoes.
How did they get rid of the power of the leaders. When the Dems chose a congressman dying of cancer over AOC, and supposedly from Pelosi in a hospital bed in another country- that was a slap in the face to all voters! It was politics as usual and now I see more clearly why so many refused to vote and stayed home! I don’t agree with that option because look where it’s gotten us. Thank you so much for constantly waking people up to history - which always repeats itself as we don’t listen and learn.
The donor base of the Democratic party is the same as for the Republican party, only the Republican party is not bothered with pesky progressives.
Bernie Sanders proved that with the right messaging and agenda you don't need the donor class, but in the eyes of the DNC that is a risky thing, because they have to be able to reach out to hundreds of millions and they don't know to do that, in the meantime the Republican party built a base from the animal control officer and city council on up, and with their messaging of fear, and their financing by corporations, financial institutions and billionaires. They have turned the Democratic party into an inferior, ineffectual and impotent copy of themselves. The Republican party is the obverse and the Democratic party is the reverse of the same coin.
The DNC needs to be remade and remodeled form the ground up, the old guard has to be ousted. Pelosi now lionized by the old guard. It is because of Pelosi, that we don't have single payer health insurance.
As always, Thom has something valuable to offer. His is essentially and Inside-Out strategy, to gain control of a vehicle -- in this case, the Democratic Party -- to pursue a Progressive vision for America.
Lord knows that the corporate Dem leadership, in their insistence on pushing H. Clinton on us while undercutting Bernie, is one of, if not THE reason we have Trump.
But we still lack an OUTSIDE-In vision.
Progressives have completely lost control of the Progressive Brand to the bad guys. And we continue to pursue 'shoot yourself in the foot' strategies that leave the FOX et al monsters salivating in their joy as they work to twist and poison the poorly pursued framing and presentation.
How many regular Americans have a clear and positive view of what Progressive means?
I spent 35 years in business, a lot of it in sales, and one key thing I learned is that if you let the competition define your brand, you are dead.
To begin, two key problems:
One: We have to stop basing our call to action through giving every sliver of the body politic their 15 minutes at the microphone. I argued against that 60 years ago and I still rail against it now. Every time Progressives feature yet another group -- let's say the handicapped Lesbians with AIDs -- as needing special attention, the right is overjoyed with the opportunity to further splinter America.
Look how the right savaged Black Lives Matter and the Woke identity. Both were dream come true targets given them for free.
The Progressive Brand should focus upon only one identity: People. It should mean that we place no value upon how each of us sees ourselves: Only that we all share basic needs and a right to fulfill those needs. No one goes to the head of the line... there is no line, when ensuring the general welfare.
Two: We need to take from Republicans the right to decide who now can be white. This is the one ring of power:. It has been dangled before the Irish, then Italians -- I know personally how it worked on these two groups; then Jews, etc. who came to America. It is now dangled before Spanish speakers to draw in their votes.
Dem strategists wring their hands as they keep singing 'It's a small world, after all...'
But each, in turn, has had no interest in being folded into any Rainbow coalition:
Hell no...
They want to be WHITE...
White, when they walk into a restaurant... white, when they go to buy a house or put their kids in school... white, when they get stopped by a cop.
As long as their is power in being White, and we allow one group to bestow that power, we will lose.
As Thom said, there is a lot of work to do. And working from the Inside, Out is necessary.
But without regaining control of the Progressive Brand, it will mean nothing in this age of mega-media and weak critical thinking.
Dems have been forced into a centrist and somewhat corporate position, for a couple of reasons. GOP reach exceeded ours thanks to their ownership of the MSM. Radio dominance created the McCarthyism which permanently bent the Midwest towards the far right. The long term destruction of the middle class ( Reaganomics) forced communities into desperation, and people react by abandoning the old ways (Democratic party) and jumping to something..anything… new, out of that despair. The Democrats have no other option: we must run PAID broadcast TV ads, all year long. Informative , and even some alarming enough to get the people’s attention.
Already started in Missouri! I am putting together a group to get started. We are going to put together a massive group of canvassers to talk to voters one on one and really address their concerns. Check out a book written by Mickey Dollens from Oklahoma who has done this to be elected to the Oklahoma Legislature and has written a book about how he did it. Your ideas could really help a lot!
Thom, You have mentioned this, starting at the bottom and taking over precincts, years ago on your TV show on Free Speech TV (ch 9415: Dish and ch: 348 Direct TV, and on some cable TV.
It didn't make any headway then, maybe now, progressive activists will pay attention and do something other than feel good demonstrations.
Amy Goodman at Democracy Now reaches a lot of progressives so does Randi Rhodes, and Stephanie Miller, and even Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid. I sure hope they are paying attention.
1. That's the point. And that means have tolerance in a big tent party. We can have blue dogs and yellow dogs but we can't win in part because of the dissention.
2. IMHO we "lost" due to Russian psy ops. In key states the spread is less than 2%. Marlo has posted the expert opinions of statisticians that the counts are wrong. Add to the view that intimidation scared enough people to stay home that the blue wave didn't kick in. As a matter of national security, Biden could exert his powers given recently by SCOTUS and channel Abe Lincoln.
3. I was a member of our Dem exec board and worked at the precinct level. I was also a member of our state data directors' org and was in several national rep groups. The basis for our organization is VAT and VAN, computer programs that, in effect track every precinct in the US. Here's a sample. https://www.reach.vote/knowledge-base/state-party-data/
I live in a transient area where we had voter preclusion and although we coud identify every registerd dem, we could not guarantee they'd support us. I am sure that many registerd dems voved a straight Republican ticket, even if they voted for abortion and marijuana, on our ballots here.
4. I took courses offered by the DNC and related organizations and I was active in Field Team 6, whigh uses data mining -- to find people who rend Dem and register. Odds are if they register, they'll vote.
5. I tried to put the DNC together with orgs like Field Team 6. I'm sure both groups _+ Thom think I'm a pain in the ass.... but it never worked. I am disappointed in virtually everything. I spent too much time and money.
I see Field Team 6 is staying in the struggle. My life is seriously complicated, and my financing seriously small, but I need to feel like I can make a difference. I think foreign interference and influence helped depress the left vote, absolutely. I see so much age bashing and left bashing from the left … discouraging people is probably the strongest way to overpower them. Create helplessness, depression — very effective .. I’m trying to fight it off myself …. Damn!
In my daily news summaries, I scan the headlines of over 50 MSM sites and a dozen or more independent journalists sites like this one. What this has shown over the years is that the MAGAs are far better at dominating the news. It is not just Fox News. By dominate, I mean MAGAs have 6 to 8 unique headlines to every1 Democratic party headline. This is a norm; not something new.
Trump posts something outrageous and most the media echo it like taking back the Panama Canal, insulting Alaskan natives by renaming a mountain, or buying Greenland (again). It is ready clickbait, so it is picked up. Trump even said he would put off killing Tik Tok, a known security threat, because there were so many favorable posts while he was running for re-election - the TikTok KowTow.
In contrast to 18 Red headlines yesterday, the Blue headlines reminded readers of the WSJ expose' that the Democratic Party lied for 4 years hiding Biden's dementia and frailty - an insult to their voters and the nation plus evidence that Dems lie biggly just like MAGAs do (whudabout Article 25?). There were also headlines about AOC being passed over for a leadership role by a sickly aging Boomer with cancer because the leader of the DNC gerontocracy, Pelosi, opposed her. How can readers conclude anything else than the Blues are run by a bunch of old fogies who will not let go of power and retire and let the majority of their own party have a say? At least there has been little in the MSM on Biden's impulsive rescue of a staged Israeli invasion and US unbending support for Genocide in Gaza.
How many Arab Muslims are there in that region? Israel is surrounded by them, and they have been trying since 1948 to genocide the Jews in Israel. Oct 7th, 2023 was merely the opening shot of the latest attempt.
What chance that 10 million Jews can genocide 1 billion Arab Muslims?
I do agree that which has happened in Gaza and to Gazans is horrific, not as horrific as our carpet bombing of Germany and Japan, and yet no one has accused the US and England of genocide.
The horror in Gaza lies on the head and in the hands of HAMAS, when they set out to rape and slaughter the Jews of Israel, gleeful and joyfully shouting Allahu Akbar and celebrating as if it was a high holy day
Watch we will dance again, a documentary composed of footage from cell phones, HAMAS as well as Israeli, you might think different: Here is a trailer:
It has been in the hands of HAMAS all of this time, to stop the carnage and wreckage, but they haven't because in the eyes of Islam all of the people are martyrs, and martyrs are not mourned, they are celebrated.
As regards the numbers, first half of them, at least, are HAMAS and Islamic Jihad battalions, and the source of the numbers are the HAMAS Ministry of Health,and of course they have no reason to lie /s.
The devastation of Gaza is entirely on the head of HAMAS, they started it and could stop it.
I guarantee is the same happened to you, or America, you and we would do the same as Israel.
Absolutely! Those drunk on wealth have been putting millions into researching techniques to take over. Hey, that money they are using was stolen from us over the last 50 years. Now they are weaponizing it against us. We might as well use the techniques our money has enabled them to learn.
I always look back to parallel entities around the same time. The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. How disappointing. The Tea Party was an organized well funded movement that got around 20 people elected to Congress in 2010. The Occupy Wall Street folks seemed to take down their tents and go home. It seemed to be more of a protest, than a movement.
Another large issue is media and funding. The Tea Party had Fox News and AM radio, not to mention coverage by the mainstream. Conversely, Occupy got some media attention. This may be the chicken/egg problem. Until the Dems get positive media attention (aka coverage of their accomplishments and the truth), they will struggle to win elections. Just look at 2024. Lies, fear and theater won out over accomplishments and truth. The GOP must lie and cheat to win. The Dems need to get the truth out. The GOP does a better job lying and cheating, than the Dems do getting the truth out. Easy to understand: The GOP controls 80%-90% of the media and the mainstream media is right wing “light”. They are loath to broadcast anything that makes the Dems look good, or the GOP look bad. There are myriad examples. Theirs is a sin of omissions. A progressive billionaire (if that isn’t a unicorn) is going to have to put…progressive mouths where his money is, the way Murdoch and others have for the GOP. Time to pony up…or donkey up.
But, I agree. We must all do more and organize and get involved locally. Local party organizations, school boards, redistricting committees. As well as putting pressure on local media and calling them out on their coverage.
Exactly - for progressives who believe in the 2 party structure (as do I for the foreseeable future, unfortunately). There are many progressives who have soured on this structure, however, and I’d argue that MAGAs have as well. Could we at least discuss and promote others that are arguably more democratic? My fave flavor is parliamentary democracy, where parties are numerous and collaboration is the game.
Howard Dean might be the person to help with implementing this strategy if Pam Bondi doesn't arrest him as an enemy of the Trump state. The fear factor that drives the Tea Party/MAGA types which Thom mentions has not been a driver for progressives because we have not had a Fox Nuisance channel equivalent engaging in fear mongering 24/7 and progressives are less fearful as a rule. Indeed, courage and fearlessness are integral to the concept of liberality and progressivism. Having a dictator may finally inspire the requisite fear. The other major hurdle is finding people with the necessary passion and the tendency to use simple talking points, slogans, and emotional appeals to stir concern and interest. I do not see a lot of progressives getting excited about small group meetings, fiery discussions about policies, and "owning the cons". This is going to take some real organizing and hard nose-to-the-grindstone work.
It's far too late for that Thom, you've been saying this for a decade while you ignore genocide to favor a judgment-addled Biden and a party that has repeatedly defied the will of its base until you and the other party apologist pundits returned them to Cold War propaganda and nationalism. You called Nancy Pelosi a progressive and Biden the next FDR. Pelosi has cancelled AOC, who in turn sold herself out to the establishment and gets nothing for it. There is no progressivism in the Democratic Party because there is no integrity and no truth. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/ding-dong-the-democrats-are-dead
How did the Concord movement and leadership build itself to be an effective advocator? And what did they do to make the love matchers be effective? How do you build this organization? That we need a national advocate seems obvious. The Dems never seem to be able to do it.
The Democrats danced to the same old tune and we lost, and they’re still doing it. Nancy Pelosi working the phones to prevent AOC from becoming the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee is a perfect example. Until we loosen the stranglehold of the old guard nothing will change.
Right on. Both parties have shown a colossal failure with succession planning. Running presidential candidates in their late 70s and early 80s is only the tip of the iceberg.
Having octogenarians hanging on to continue trading stocks with inside information may show the crux of the issue.
Stop age bashing. There are plenty of younger Rs taking plenty of advantage. Plenty of older people espousing new ideas and new blood … Many of the BEST and most progressive pundits these days are 70+ years old. How about we go after lousy policies and stop age-bashing.
Come on Pat. It is not age bashing. I am 85, and well aware that with few exceptions old dogs don't learn new tricks, not because they can't, but because they won't. Nancy, Chuck are stuck in their paradigm., it is how they grew up, it is how they attained wealth and power, and it what they believe in and what they will guard.
Voltaire said, "A man can no more change his charcter than a leopard change his spots".
Biden learned politics, being mentored by southern racists, and learning comity, bipartisanship, compromise and he carried those lessons into the presidency, and the result is Merrick Garland, and failures.
The only reason the CHIPS and Science act, the American Rescue Plan, and the Inflation Reduction Act passed is because they had serious "easter eggs" for corporations, financial institutions and thus the billionaire class.
IT IS AGE BASHING when it is aimed at the age, and not the entrenched person.
Considering that I am 85 and older than you. I don't think that people my age should be in that kind of position. Society changes, the mentality changes, and try as we might we don't keep up, and there really is such a thing as old age senility.
As far as focusing on the person, frankly the person in question (President Joseph R Biden) is evidencing a loss of mental faculties, evident in the interviews, evident in the debate.
The person in question had problems because of conditions caused by age.
While typing this I had to stop and search my mind for the word "debate"
The first thing to go with Alzheimers is nouns, long term memory stays pretty much intact, but short term memory.. not so much.
Except for accidents and rare genetic incidents, Alzheimers and dementia are AGEIST diseases.
Don't personalize the impersonal Pat, it doesn't look good, and it betrays you.
Thank you. I’m 89 and really pushing on this in Missouri.
Cannot really agree with the premise about the PCPs. I have worked in local politics for two decades and know the organizations of both parties quite well.
The Dems have PCPs largely in name only. Unlike local Republican parties, there is little or no funding. Many local parties in Red areas or counties get little or no funding. They have to go begging to registered Dems for money. Then they are asked to do lit drops for candidates who are not all that experienced and have little potential. It is the local party equivalent of the flyover state strategy. Perhaps we should call it the drive-through at 75 mph strategy.
Howard Dean's approach was starting to work but was then was abandoned by the party. That approach involved funding local infrastructure. If we go back to that, it will involve a national party willing to allow money to flow from donors directly to local efforts, including full-time paid staff and think tanks. If the money continues to be controlled nationally, all the PCPs in the world will not help.
We had democratic PCPs in name only, so my five boys and their friends would get in the full-size van with the Democratic literature. I would drive them to neighborhoods, where they would jump out and place literature on doorknobs and mailbox posts.
The Republicans took over anyway by pretending to be Independents in Democratic communities, banning candidates from running for any party other than Independent by statute. They had real estate money behind them to steal people's homes through a " special assessment scheme." Now, we don't see Democrats on the ballot except for the top of the ballot.
Thom is right that they played the long game, and we must, too. Every journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.
A major reason why Republicans get financial and moral support at the precinct level, up through the national level, is because they play the fear card. When people feel threatened they dip into their wallet, and fall out to vote.
When Democrats come to recognize that, then the power dynamics will shift.
People aren't motivated, vote for, what has happened in the past, or what you are going to do for them, what motivates them is the fear of what is going to be done to them, and the belief of what is being done to them.
I will sum up the election of 2024,as follows: "They owned the libs" That was more important than even their pocket book.
Hitler came to power,not because he promised to create jobs,but because Germany, was a demoralized, broken, basket case with no national pride after the treaty of Versailles.
Hitler promised them that they would rise up and gain respect among nations, and regain their place in the world as a power to be reckoned with.
It is identity politics, and that is the basis of MAGA, Make AMERICA great again.
Hitler was Make Germany Great Again.
A persons identity,sense of self, is woven from many things, their gender, their sexuality, their religion, their race, even avocation, vocation, education, and sports, but ultimately with a nation, and a nation is not political boundaries as we have been taught to think.
Europe is famous for their football (soccer) riots, especially when nations are involved.
That is because the fans find their identity,or a portion of it, in a football team.
Republicans use identity to tap into that chauvinistic fear. Democrats do not. When we do try, like trying to ring the alarm bell that fascism is taking over, we are ridiculed, because the enemy is amorphous, faceless.
Whereas he Republicans create a bete noir that has a face and is personal, parental rights, books, education = children, crime = minorities, nake hegemony = feminism, gay rights, trans people.
And the face of fascism is Trump and Musk, and they hold themselves forth as a bulwark against the things people fear.
We need to take the battle to them, we need a metaphorical Jun 6,1944.
Dems should run TV ads, NOW, showing moms and dads living in poverty, in misery, because of severe cuts in Social Security. Lying sick in bed for lack of Medicare coverage.
Great idea. Run ads, scary ads, all year long, just not at election season.
Inculcate fear and disgust in the public, mimic the Republicans.
Real information that will show people the real effect the GOP policies will have in their lives. We don’t have to lie and create false scenarios. The reality is scary enough
I never said lie. As you said, the truth is bad enough, but it is messaging and framing it right enough to scare and piss off the public.
in other words breaking through the sound barrier.
Running a lot of TV ads is how the DNC has been getting the message out. If money is scarce, how about first building precincts and other wise supporting action at the local level?
GOP creates the fear, then runs on it
There's no shortage of playing the fear card on the Dems side either. The problem for the Dems is that they are reactive. The first to instil fear wins.
About the only fear card the Dems have played is fascism and that is amorphous, too general,not personal enouogh Dr Gilbert,
The Republicans have a whole suit of fear cards, and they are personal and they throw them out like the are playing 52 pick up.
There is a big difference between the Dems and Repubs when playing the fear card.
"Politics is television with the sound turned off." attributed to Karl Rove.
And I’ve long complained that our local Dem committee gets no financial support from the top
Please tell me more about this. I am a Democratic Committee I woman, and I’m really interested in hearing about funding at my local level. I could do my own mailings , etc!
During the first years of Dean's 50-state strategy, we had state-level business execs funding local party ops directly. I won't name names but the types of things were such as having full-time staffers in the red counties, candidate recruitment and training years before a run for office, year-long fellowships on key issues, e.g. healthcare, water, economic development, etc., and local think tanks designed to capture earned media.
Starting with Obama, money was largely centalized at the national level, and the party has become a once in four years event planner for a presidential election. All the money was and is sucked up to fund the presidential campaign and the national legacy media buys. Local parties are by and large, the cobbler's children without shoes.
How did they get rid of the power of the leaders. When the Dems chose a congressman dying of cancer over AOC, and supposedly from Pelosi in a hospital bed in another country- that was a slap in the face to all voters! It was politics as usual and now I see more clearly why so many refused to vote and stayed home! I don’t agree with that option because look where it’s gotten us. Thank you so much for constantly waking people up to history - which always repeats itself as we don’t listen and learn.
The donor base of the Democratic party is the same as for the Republican party, only the Republican party is not bothered with pesky progressives.
Bernie Sanders proved that with the right messaging and agenda you don't need the donor class, but in the eyes of the DNC that is a risky thing, because they have to be able to reach out to hundreds of millions and they don't know to do that, in the meantime the Republican party built a base from the animal control officer and city council on up, and with their messaging of fear, and their financing by corporations, financial institutions and billionaires. They have turned the Democratic party into an inferior, ineffectual and impotent copy of themselves. The Republican party is the obverse and the Democratic party is the reverse of the same coin.
The DNC needs to be remade and remodeled form the ground up, the old guard has to be ousted. Pelosi now lionized by the old guard. It is because of Pelosi, that we don't have single payer health insurance.
As always, Thom has something valuable to offer. His is essentially and Inside-Out strategy, to gain control of a vehicle -- in this case, the Democratic Party -- to pursue a Progressive vision for America.
Lord knows that the corporate Dem leadership, in their insistence on pushing H. Clinton on us while undercutting Bernie, is one of, if not THE reason we have Trump.
But we still lack an OUTSIDE-In vision.
Progressives have completely lost control of the Progressive Brand to the bad guys. And we continue to pursue 'shoot yourself in the foot' strategies that leave the FOX et al monsters salivating in their joy as they work to twist and poison the poorly pursued framing and presentation.
How many regular Americans have a clear and positive view of what Progressive means?
I spent 35 years in business, a lot of it in sales, and one key thing I learned is that if you let the competition define your brand, you are dead.
To begin, two key problems:
One: We have to stop basing our call to action through giving every sliver of the body politic their 15 minutes at the microphone. I argued against that 60 years ago and I still rail against it now. Every time Progressives feature yet another group -- let's say the handicapped Lesbians with AIDs -- as needing special attention, the right is overjoyed with the opportunity to further splinter America.
Look how the right savaged Black Lives Matter and the Woke identity. Both were dream come true targets given them for free.
The Progressive Brand should focus upon only one identity: People. It should mean that we place no value upon how each of us sees ourselves: Only that we all share basic needs and a right to fulfill those needs. No one goes to the head of the line... there is no line, when ensuring the general welfare.
Two: We need to take from Republicans the right to decide who now can be white. This is the one ring of power:. It has been dangled before the Irish, then Italians -- I know personally how it worked on these two groups; then Jews, etc. who came to America. It is now dangled before Spanish speakers to draw in their votes.
Dem strategists wring their hands as they keep singing 'It's a small world, after all...'
But each, in turn, has had no interest in being folded into any Rainbow coalition:
Hell no...
They want to be WHITE...
White, when they walk into a restaurant... white, when they go to buy a house or put their kids in school... white, when they get stopped by a cop.
As long as their is power in being White, and we allow one group to bestow that power, we will lose.
As Thom said, there is a lot of work to do. And working from the Inside, Out is necessary.
But without regaining control of the Progressive Brand, it will mean nothing in this age of mega-media and weak critical thinking.
DL
Dems have been forced into a centrist and somewhat corporate position, for a couple of reasons. GOP reach exceeded ours thanks to their ownership of the MSM. Radio dominance created the McCarthyism which permanently bent the Midwest towards the far right. The long term destruction of the middle class ( Reaganomics) forced communities into desperation, and people react by abandoning the old ways (Democratic party) and jumping to something..anything… new, out of that despair. The Democrats have no other option: we must run PAID broadcast TV ads, all year long. Informative , and even some alarming enough to get the people’s attention.
Already started in Missouri! I am putting together a group to get started. We are going to put together a massive group of canvassers to talk to voters one on one and really address their concerns. Check out a book written by Mickey Dollens from Oklahoma who has done this to be elected to the Oklahoma Legislature and has written a book about how he did it. Your ideas could really help a lot!
Thom, You have mentioned this, starting at the bottom and taking over precincts, years ago on your TV show on Free Speech TV (ch 9415: Dish and ch: 348 Direct TV, and on some cable TV.
It didn't make any headway then, maybe now, progressive activists will pay attention and do something other than feel good demonstrations.
Amy Goodman at Democracy Now reaches a lot of progressives so does Randi Rhodes, and Stephanie Miller, and even Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid. I sure hope they are paying attention.
So, we have to BE members of the Democratic Party, Sigh. OK, if that’s what it takes. Makes sense …
1. That's the point. And that means have tolerance in a big tent party. We can have blue dogs and yellow dogs but we can't win in part because of the dissention.
2. IMHO we "lost" due to Russian psy ops. In key states the spread is less than 2%. Marlo has posted the expert opinions of statisticians that the counts are wrong. Add to the view that intimidation scared enough people to stay home that the blue wave didn't kick in. As a matter of national security, Biden could exert his powers given recently by SCOTUS and channel Abe Lincoln.
3. I was a member of our Dem exec board and worked at the precinct level. I was also a member of our state data directors' org and was in several national rep groups. The basis for our organization is VAT and VAN, computer programs that, in effect track every precinct in the US. Here's a sample. https://www.reach.vote/knowledge-base/state-party-data/
I live in a transient area where we had voter preclusion and although we coud identify every registerd dem, we could not guarantee they'd support us. I am sure that many registerd dems voved a straight Republican ticket, even if they voted for abortion and marijuana, on our ballots here.
4. I took courses offered by the DNC and related organizations and I was active in Field Team 6, whigh uses data mining -- to find people who rend Dem and register. Odds are if they register, they'll vote.
5. I tried to put the DNC together with orgs like Field Team 6. I'm sure both groups _+ Thom think I'm a pain in the ass.... but it never worked. I am disappointed in virtually everything. I spent too much time and money.
As a public service, I am still a NSA "reader". If you don't believe me about psy ops.....
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2024-12-23/cia-behavior-control-experiments-focus-new-scholarly?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9ddef985-2873-4fc6-a084-d1973d684609
Way too much info for today but thanks.
I see Field Team 6 is staying in the struggle. My life is seriously complicated, and my financing seriously small, but I need to feel like I can make a difference. I think foreign interference and influence helped depress the left vote, absolutely. I see so much age bashing and left bashing from the left … discouraging people is probably the strongest way to overpower them. Create helplessness, depression — very effective .. I’m trying to fight it off myself …. Damn!
In my daily news summaries, I scan the headlines of over 50 MSM sites and a dozen or more independent journalists sites like this one. What this has shown over the years is that the MAGAs are far better at dominating the news. It is not just Fox News. By dominate, I mean MAGAs have 6 to 8 unique headlines to every1 Democratic party headline. This is a norm; not something new.
Trump posts something outrageous and most the media echo it like taking back the Panama Canal, insulting Alaskan natives by renaming a mountain, or buying Greenland (again). It is ready clickbait, so it is picked up. Trump even said he would put off killing Tik Tok, a known security threat, because there were so many favorable posts while he was running for re-election - the TikTok KowTow.
In contrast to 18 Red headlines yesterday, the Blue headlines reminded readers of the WSJ expose' that the Democratic Party lied for 4 years hiding Biden's dementia and frailty - an insult to their voters and the nation plus evidence that Dems lie biggly just like MAGAs do (whudabout Article 25?). There were also headlines about AOC being passed over for a leadership role by a sickly aging Boomer with cancer because the leader of the DNC gerontocracy, Pelosi, opposed her. How can readers conclude anything else than the Blues are run by a bunch of old fogies who will not let go of power and retire and let the majority of their own party have a say? At least there has been little in the MSM on Biden's impulsive rescue of a staged Israeli invasion and US unbending support for Genocide in Gaza.
All good Tom until the last sentence.
What rescue of a staged Israeli invasion.
As regards "genocide" in Gaza.
Gazans are Arab Muslims, are they not?
How many Arab Muslims are there in that region? Israel is surrounded by them, and they have been trying since 1948 to genocide the Jews in Israel. Oct 7th, 2023 was merely the opening shot of the latest attempt.
What chance that 10 million Jews can genocide 1 billion Arab Muslims?
I do agree that which has happened in Gaza and to Gazans is horrific, not as horrific as our carpet bombing of Germany and Japan, and yet no one has accused the US and England of genocide.
The horror in Gaza lies on the head and in the hands of HAMAS, when they set out to rape and slaughter the Jews of Israel, gleeful and joyfully shouting Allahu Akbar and celebrating as if it was a high holy day
Watch we will dance again, a documentary composed of footage from cell phones, HAMAS as well as Israeli, you might think different: Here is a trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiEZ24ODaXw
It has been in the hands of HAMAS all of this time, to stop the carnage and wreckage, but they haven't because in the eyes of Islam all of the people are martyrs, and martyrs are not mourned, they are celebrated.
As regards the numbers, first half of them, at least, are HAMAS and Islamic Jihad battalions, and the source of the numbers are the HAMAS Ministry of Health,and of course they have no reason to lie /s.
The devastation of Gaza is entirely on the head of HAMAS, they started it and could stop it.
I guarantee is the same happened to you, or America, you and we would do the same as Israel.
In fact we did, we call it WWII.
Absolutely! Those drunk on wealth have been putting millions into researching techniques to take over. Hey, that money they are using was stolen from us over the last 50 years. Now they are weaponizing it against us. We might as well use the techniques our money has enabled them to learn.
I always look back to parallel entities around the same time. The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. How disappointing. The Tea Party was an organized well funded movement that got around 20 people elected to Congress in 2010. The Occupy Wall Street folks seemed to take down their tents and go home. It seemed to be more of a protest, than a movement.
Another large issue is media and funding. The Tea Party had Fox News and AM radio, not to mention coverage by the mainstream. Conversely, Occupy got some media attention. This may be the chicken/egg problem. Until the Dems get positive media attention (aka coverage of their accomplishments and the truth), they will struggle to win elections. Just look at 2024. Lies, fear and theater won out over accomplishments and truth. The GOP must lie and cheat to win. The Dems need to get the truth out. The GOP does a better job lying and cheating, than the Dems do getting the truth out. Easy to understand: The GOP controls 80%-90% of the media and the mainstream media is right wing “light”. They are loath to broadcast anything that makes the Dems look good, or the GOP look bad. There are myriad examples. Theirs is a sin of omissions. A progressive billionaire (if that isn’t a unicorn) is going to have to put…progressive mouths where his money is, the way Murdoch and others have for the GOP. Time to pony up…or donkey up.
But, I agree. We must all do more and organize and get involved locally. Local party organizations, school boards, redistricting committees. As well as putting pressure on local media and calling them out on their coverage.
Exactly - for progressives who believe in the 2 party structure (as do I for the foreseeable future, unfortunately). There are many progressives who have soured on this structure, however, and I’d argue that MAGAs have as well. Could we at least discuss and promote others that are arguably more democratic? My fave flavor is parliamentary democracy, where parties are numerous and collaboration is the game.
What would be super helpful is if someone could post the links to find their democratic party headquarters state by state.
Howard Dean might be the person to help with implementing this strategy if Pam Bondi doesn't arrest him as an enemy of the Trump state. The fear factor that drives the Tea Party/MAGA types which Thom mentions has not been a driver for progressives because we have not had a Fox Nuisance channel equivalent engaging in fear mongering 24/7 and progressives are less fearful as a rule. Indeed, courage and fearlessness are integral to the concept of liberality and progressivism. Having a dictator may finally inspire the requisite fear. The other major hurdle is finding people with the necessary passion and the tendency to use simple talking points, slogans, and emotional appeals to stir concern and interest. I do not see a lot of progressives getting excited about small group meetings, fiery discussions about policies, and "owning the cons". This is going to take some real organizing and hard nose-to-the-grindstone work.
It's far too late for that Thom, you've been saying this for a decade while you ignore genocide to favor a judgment-addled Biden and a party that has repeatedly defied the will of its base until you and the other party apologist pundits returned them to Cold War propaganda and nationalism. You called Nancy Pelosi a progressive and Biden the next FDR. Pelosi has cancelled AOC, who in turn sold herself out to the establishment and gets nothing for it. There is no progressivism in the Democratic Party because there is no integrity and no truth. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/ding-dong-the-democrats-are-dead
How did the Concord movement and leadership build itself to be an effective advocator? And what did they do to make the love matchers be effective? How do you build this organization? That we need a national advocate seems obvious. The Dems never seem to be able to do it.