• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Strong leaders missing within the Dem party

Democrats need to stand for something other than just opposing Trump and voters rejected what they stood for in 2024. They veered so far left that many found Trump appealing. In other words, just having a leader to oppose Trump isn't going to work when it comes to the win column. They need a leader who stands for something different than what democrats stood for in 2024.
Since Trump was first elected in 2016, that’s about all the democrats stood for, anti-Trump. That worked in 2020, the Covid year. But Trump’s first term, he basically defeated himself. Trump has learned from his first term. That was Harris’s problem, she thought she’d win only because she wasn’t Trump. But Biden’s poor governance doomed her. At least that’s how most Americans viewed the Biden administration governance.
 
I completely agree. No one (besides AOC) seems to be willing to get out there and give it a solid effort
Do you mind telling me where you are seeing AOC? She and Bernie were out there awhile ago but I haven't seen her lately at least not on CNN. I don't watch MSNBC. It does make sense if she is out and about more than others, if she is, because it's pretty clear she is likely going to take a shot at primarying Schumer.

I'm watching Wes Moore, his speech last week at SC Democrat affair was energetic and passionate.
 
Things change over time. It wasn’t until September of 2021 when Biden dropped from the positive approval down into the negative while the democrats lost the initiative when it came to the house elections. Today, there’s about 40 competitive house seats or at risk of switching seats. The democrats have 22 of them vs. 18 for the GOP. The senate as of today, the republicans have two seats in the tossup column, Maine and North Carolina, the democrats have three, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire. Some would add Minnesota to the democratic list since it’s an open seat. Minnesota has slowly been trending red.

It's way too early to make any type of prediction for next year’s midterms. I usually wait until around January to do that.
Just the fact that Democrats themselves aren't predicting a huge wave come the midterms doesn't bode well for them. In the end, voters in 2026 will decide how they feel the country is doing. I really believe that Trump would have been easily re-elected in 2020 but for Covid. The same will probably hold true in the 2026 midterms. If things are going OK to well, Republicans may keep control of the House. Honestly, I'd hate to see democrats regain the House at the midterms because then it will return to doing everything they can to get Trump, to hell with Americans.
 
Both parties have either thrown moderates overboard or forced them to walk the plank and jump of their own accord. It's getting to be that no sane person would want to be in politics, only leaving the insane running for offices. Over the last several years there has been a fever pitch of both parties wanting to primary their own incumbants for not towing the party line.
Exactly correct. There’s no more representing one’s constituents, it’s all about loyalty to party regardless of how one’s constituents feel or think.
 
Just the fact that Democrats themselves aren't predicting a huge wave come the midterms doesn't bode well for them. In the end, voters in 2026 will decide how they feel the country is doing. I really believe that Trump would have been easily re-elected in 2020 but for Covid. The same will probably hold true in the 2026 midterms. If things are going OK to well, Republicans may keep control of the House. Honestly, I'd hate to see democrats regain the House at the midterms because then it will return to doing everything they can to get Trump, to hell with Americans.
Trump was too disliked my most Americans in 2020 to be reelected. His overall job approval was down to 41%, no sitting president has ever won reelection nor has his replacement won the election with an overall job approval of below 50%. Throw in that only 38% of all Americans had a favorable view of him vs. 58% unfavorable, that was too much of a climb for him to win, Covid or no Covid. The list:

1952 Truman 33%, his replacement Stevenson lost to Eisenhower

1968 LBJ 43%, his replacement Humphrey lost to Nixon

1976 Ford 45%, Ford lost reelection to Carter

1980 Carter 37%, Carter lost reelection to Reagan

1992 G.H.W. Bush 34%, Bush lost reelection to Bill Clinton

2008 G.W. Bush 28%, his replacement McCain lost to Obama

2020 Trump 41%, Trump lost reelection to Biden

2024 Biden 39%, his replacement Harris lost to Trump.
 
Oh come on and be serious, CLAX1911. The only reason Hakeem Jeffries is where he is is because he represents Wall Street. That's it. Have you watched Jeffries speak? I literally find watching paint dry on my D&D miniatures to be more inspiring. Jeffries is ineffective, uninspiring and feckless. Saying that Democrats should back Jeffries as the leader of the party is right up there with me saying that Republicans should put everything they have behind Jeb Bush right after he suffered a stroke as Trump's successor. It's just controlled opposition.
I think what is behind their inability to inspire is they rely on institutionalism and after so many defeats because we stupidly let Trump get in the first time, hes already taken over the institutions. What legal way is there left to go? The supreme court stole our ability to bring justice to the presidency.
 
Yes, sir, I think that's correct.

Of all people, Obama probably expressed it best, something like, "we don’t need to embrace a false choice between appealing to minority voters or white working-class voters. A candidate who prioritizes and effectively speaks to the issues that most voters truly care about can do both."

I think that is good advice for any candidate from any political party.
I fear democrats are going to throw lots of people under the bus now. They have effectively let republicans bully them into abandoning certain people that arent popular.
 
Trump was too disliked my most Americans in 2020 to be reelected. His overall job approval was down to 41%, no sitting president has ever won reelection nor has his replacement won the election with an overall job approval of below 50%. Throw in that only 38% of all Americans had a favorable view of him vs. 58% unfavorable, that was too much of a climb for him to win, Covid or no Covid. The list:

1952 Truman 33%, his replacement Stevenson lost to Eisenhower

1968 LBJ 43%, his replacement Humphrey lost to Nixon

1976 Ford 45%, Ford lost reelection to Carter

1980 Carter 37%, Carter lost reelection to Reagan

1992 G.H.W. Bush 34%, Bush lost reelection to Bill Clinton

2008 G.W. Bush 28%, his replacement McCain lost to Obama

2020 Trump 41%, Trump lost reelection to Biden

2024 Biden 39%, his replacement Harris lost to Trump.
In this day and age of uber partisanship, it may be impossible to achieve an approval rating greater than 50%. That may be our near term future for a while.
 
I think what is behind their inability to inspire is they rely on institutionalism and after so many defeats because we stupidly let Trump get in the first time, hes already taken over the institutions. What legal way is there left to go?

It is not the fact that the Democrats are out of power that is frustrating. What is frustrating is Democratic leaders refuse to show any spine, any energy, any desire to fight. And that is by design. They are not cowards. They are traitors.

When Republicans were out of power 17 years ago and Obama won his mandate, did the Republicans just shuffle about meekly and hold out their hands whining "What can we do? We are out of power!" No. They used every bully pulpit they had. They seized on every problem in the country and laid it at the feet of Democrats. They evangelized and slowly shifted enough public opinion in their favor such that they were able to win back control of local, state and Federal legislatures and governor's mansions and then pushed their policies forward.

The Democrats should do the same thing, but because they are controlled opposition, they will not do so. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer serve the same corporate oligarch masters that the Republicans do, and they will fight like Hell to not allow the Democrats to become a populist progressive party again. It is up to the voters to kick as many of these Judas Goat leaders to the curb.
 
That you think the majority of voters, the same people who elected Obama, have all of a sudden decided that they don’t want to elect anyone other then a straight white middle aged male is simply stupid.

The democrats ran a shitty candidate who even the left didn’t want to elect. And gave her a fraction of the normal time to campaign as normal. But no it is all because she is a black woman.

I mean clearly that is why she failed so epically when she ran last time right?


But hey. It’s time for you to actually back up your claims with anything more than your poutrage ranting. So let’s see what you have. I will be waiting patiently
You were doing such a good job and then you had to toss in “your poutrage ranting”.
✌️
 
Last edited:
Amazingly, the rise of independents and disapproval of both parties has led to more votes for the two parties. Everybody seems to realize the two parties are the only real games in town and are chosing their respective corners, picking one side or the other while at the same time leaving both parties. You'd think that this would be a good time for some kind of third party to get a foothold but it isn't happening.
I intended this comment to be about the paltry showing of third party movements in the last election. A visit to the No Labels website changed my interest. Clicking on their leadership link I was stunned, floored actually, to see the name of Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

Gluesenkamp Perez is not unknown to me. I stumbled upon a video interview a couple years ago and was I ever impressed with this problem-solving lady from Washington state. The title from a July 2024 Politico Magazine article almost summed up her political character.

She’s a Blue-Collar, Bible-Quoting, Israel-Supporting, Pro-Choice, Millennial Latina. Is She the Future of Democratic Progressivism?

And this paste from within the article:

While party leaders are quite happy to retain her seat in a closely divided House, she has become engaged in a generational ideological debate with much of the party’s left flank — most prominently grassroots groups passionate about student loan debt forgiveness and support for Gaza — over who gets to define what helping working-class Americans actually looks like.

And this:

Gluesenkamp Perez has taken her share of heat, but she is not alone. Along with Mary Peltola in Alaska and Jared Golden of Maine (both of whom won districts that Donald Trump also won) — she is part of a small cadre of representatives from largely rural and conservative districts rebuilding the moribund Blue Dog caucus whose members often take positions that appeal to their politically diverse districts but can run afoul of their party leaders and even their president.

So for me the question becomes, how many inside both major political parties fit the Gluesenkamp Perez model? Maybe we do not see or hear them in the midst of today's sturm und drang.
 
In this day and age of uber partisanship, it may be impossible to achieve an approval rating greater than 50%. That may be our near term future for a while.
I think it is very possible for a president to have a 50% plus overall job approval. Biden averaged 55% job approval for his first six month in office. That wasn’t that long ago. The two major party’s strength is relatively even if Gallup has it right. The party of the president have been giving their president a job approval of 90-95% while the party not of the president, the other party has been giving the president a job approval in single digits, usually around 5%. That leaves independents, the less to non-partisan group to decide whether a president is above 50% or below 50%. The two major parties basically cancel each other out leaving it up to independents to determine whether a president is positive or negative.
 
Vance isn't rich enough to be that leader.

Yes, he is. He has Thiel and Musk's and other fanatic oligarch's wealth paying to elect him.
 
Oh, contraire, mi amigo. Trump's return to power was predicated by much more than insults. Both 2016 and 2024 were the culmination of literal generations of pen- up resentment and alienation.

My attempt to explain the release was at post #236 and repeated below:

Re: the Democratic Party lacks a strong, single-minded populist autocrat who’s willing to exploit the fragile hopes of the desperate and disillusioned.

Here is an applicable term not spoken by Everyman: illiberal populism or as some call it, illiberal democracy. It explains Trump's rise from television celebrity to elected president and his return to power.

The MAGA movement has deep roots. After fifty years I still remember this opening paragraph from C. Wright Mill's The Power Elite (1959)

The powers of ordinary men are circumscribed by the everyday worlds in which they live, yet even in these rounds of job, family, and neighborhood they often seem driven by forces they can neither understand nor govern. ‘Great changes’ are beyond their control, but affect their conduct and outlook none the less. The very framework of modern society confines them to projects not their own, but from every side, such changes now press upon the men and women of the mass society, who accordingly feel that they are without purpose in an epoch in which they are without power.

Updating that paragraph to describe the powerlessness of ordinary men and women today, you arrive at a feeling of abandonment by and alienation from liberal democracy and its institutions. Over time the diminishment of cultural identity and social cohesiveness aggravated by too rapid economic changes, and the perceived failure of institutions to equitably balance the effects across classes, makes a bull-in-the-China-shop illiberal populist leader like Trump a natural choice for hopes of change and equalization.

That's my opinion, anyway. And what Democrats should do, also my opinion, is move to the center with problem solving candidates to reclaim the alienated and disaffected.

The policies of the Democrats, and the Biden administration, benefitted the working class, the white working class included. Trump did absolutely nothing for them during his first term, and the GOP hasn't done jack shit for them in decades.

So, I reject what you say. There is absolutely nothing Democrats can do to reach these voters, ever, especially when it comes to policy. These voters aren't voting for Trump because of policy, and everyone, Trump included, knows it.
 
Trump’s overall job approval isn’t bad, within a couple of points of being even. Having as many approve as disapprove. But the polls are about a week behind the events happening today or yesterday.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating

Yes, being the political era, we live in today, that of polarization, the great divide, the super, mega, ultra-high partisanship, having another 1980 landslide seems a bit impossible. We have way too many solid states with only around 8 or so that are in the swing or battleground column. I have been pegging MAGA or the avid Trumpers at around 30% of the electorate. Basically, going by those who view Trump very favorably in the polls leaving out those who view him somewhat favorably. But 30% or 35%, that’s close enough.


Trump's approvals on the issues, except immigration, are all bad. The economy was his "strongest" issue during his first term, and that's all gone.

He was elected supposedly to fix the economy and inflation...and nothing is better, and arguably it's worse.
 
The policies of the Democrats, and the Biden administration, benefitted the working class, the white working class included. Trump did absolutely nothing for them during his first term, and the GOP hasn't done jack shit for them in decades.

So, I reject what you say. There is absolutely nothing Democrats can do to reach these voters, ever, especially when it comes to policy. These voters aren't voting for Trump because of policy, and everyone, Trump included, knows it.
Ok. You believe all Trump/MAGA voters are intractable malcontents.

Between 2008 (Obama) and 2024 (Biden/Harris) Democrats lost 30% of the working class vote. That was enough to swing the election for Trump. Explain that, if you can.

Come 2028 Democrats will need to win them back. On the other hand, if Trump wrecks the economy and continues to upheave the social and legal order, all Democrats may need to do is salvage the leavings.
 
So nothing, gotcha.
If nothing is what you think, then nothing it is (to you)

It isn't nothing though, and I think you well know far right policies when you see/discuss them.

Immigration. Economic. Social.

It is usually not any single issue, one way or the other, it would come in the form of compromise to be 'centric'
Abortion would be one. OK, within a certain time frame.
Immigration. Some would be fine, just not illegally.

etc etc
 
Ok. You believe all Trump/MAGA voters are intractable malcontents.

Between 2008 (Obama) and 2024 (Biden/Harris) Democrats lost 30% of the working class vote. That was enough to swing the election for Trump. Explain that, if you can.

Come 2028 Democrats will need to win them back. On the other hand, if Trump wrecks the economy and continues to upheave the social and legal order, all Democrats may need to do is salvage the leavings.

Democrats lost because Trump maximized support with his base, while Harris lost support. And I never said all people who voted for Trump can't be won back, I believe a good chunk of Trump's latino support is very tepid, and can easily swing back if his economic approval numbers continue to be shit. But the white working class rural voters? Most of them are gone, and never coming back to the Democrats. That's just the reality.
 
Democrats lost because Trump maximized support with his base, while Harris lost support. And I never said all people who voted for Trump can't be won back, I believe a good chunk of Trump's latino support is very tepid, and can easily swing back if his economic approval numbers continue to be shit. But the white working class rural voters? Most of them are gone, and never coming back to the Democrats. That's just the reality.
South Texas Latino voters are an intriguing lot. Nominally and traditionally Democratic voters, if they believe the candidate will best serve their district, they'll vote Republican. Those elections are always tight, hard fought, and interesting.

I'm not so sure the white working class rural vote is static. Two examples which give me hope are Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington representative who twice won in what was a staunchly Republican district, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear whose reelection was fueled by Democrats, Independents, and an increasing number of Republicans (about half). With a mix of Democratic, Republican and Independent voter appeal, perhaps Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro fits the model as well.
 
Back
Top Bottom