Rachel Bitecofer absolutely nails it; bolding added for emphasis. Spot on.
“The hot take that ‘D’s need to learn to talk to the other side of the electorate’ is absolutely the WRONG take. I mean my god. Biden, Lincoln, the outside groups: they threw the best persuasion messaging in the history of persuasion campaigns at them.
What Ds need to do is come to terms that when it comes to the electorate, the very 1st thing that matters is party ID, and this includes Indie leaners. This data is from June, but last night’s results make clear that it reflects the actual results as well. Right leaning Indies- which make up a disproportionate share of the overall Indie pool, are closet Reps: they are not persuadable no matter how much you cater to them or whether or not Cindy McCain is on your side.
The Biden campaign, all of the Senate Dems, and the House Dem candidates bet their candidacies on a couple of assumptions, most imp is that they should focus their arguments on issues & not on nationalized referendum campaigns, which is the way that the GOP runs their down-ballot races. Also, in case you haven’t noticed, Trump lies directly to people bc he knows they are stupid & will never find out. Did I state that plainly enough? You want to know why Rs are willing non-college voters? They tell them what they want to hear. The Ds talk to everyone like they have a master’s degree. Trump talks to them as they are: Walmart shoppers. I realize that sounds elitist and condensing- it’s meant to. Some 60+ million of them just cast ballots for Donald Fucking Trump & if you ask them why, probably 40 million of them will tell you reasons that are literally exact opposite truths like ‘he drains the swamp’ or “he’s a ‘successful businessman’ or my personal fave, ‘he’s the only honest man in Washington.’
If Dems want to learn how to ‘reach voters on the other side’ then they need to realize that these people would tell you ‘yes’ they read news & then report ‘The National Enquirer’ as their paper of choice. Now, IDK if its just that I’m one of fewer academics that come from the real, unpolished, bottom 50% world, and not the romanticized bullshit painted by J.D. Vance of working-class America- the real one where people have 3 kids from 3 different women and get angry when 1 of them is reticent to let them visit their kid when they get out jail. AGAIN. In THAT working class, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and bigotry run rampant: and not only are these “isms” prevalent, there is a belief that they shouldn’t have had to be buried (see how that relates back to their culture war champion?) That the old days were far superior bc they could just call someone a f&g or slap their female co-worker in the ass is they were in the mood. There was a hierarchy, a caste @Isabelwilkerson notes, and they were at the top of it. Everything else might be a shit sandwich, their job, their house, their marriage, their debt, but that hierarchy & their place at the top of it- as Wilkerson notes in her book, that shit was SOLID. And now its gone. And do you know who took it? The Democrats.
So, you’re not appealing to that. Anyone looking at Maine senate, the state with the most Indies in the nation, but also an electorate that is predominately white and lower educated & thinks we just need a better argument is coming at this the wrong way. Don’t get me wrong – you gotta change the voting behavior of these voters, but you’re not going to do it via tweaking issues or talking about this and not that. Its going to take a complete and total overall of the entire electioneering approach of the party.”
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
