Timely and essential questions! They keep nagging me as well. To be honest, I’m flummoxed; I really thought we’d see a very different result in this 2024 Election.
Some of the failure of Dems is not understanding the power of white Christian nationalists platforms, radio, funding, etc. I never even hear it mentioned but it is a huge block of voters who voted for DT in large numbers. Where is the resistance? There are many Christians who are appalled by this and would like to see a counter programming to it.
It needs to be positive and American. Christians for True American Values. If it's some of their wording, all the better, to get Christians to tune in.
Yes too many words have had their original/root meanings co-opted and hijacked in the body politic. It’s a confusing mess trying to use language honestly in a way that conveys an authentic message.
True that ! Perhaps one’s personal Christian practices are probably best left out of the political arena altogether. Although I do think putting these values into practice without naming them as such is the best approach.
Yes. I only recently found out that one of my couple clients are Christian Nationalists. They proudly told me that they hosted Mike Johnson several times this summer and fund raised for him. I had to let them go as clients, and I thoroughly explained my reasons. This is taking a big loss financially, but as John Lewis says, “you can’t be at home with something you know is wrong.”
Some of my family members are dismayed about some of my actions post election. I tell them it not about politics but about values and basic humanity. They are starting to understand as I discuss mass deportations, deaths due to miscarriages and leadership submission to Putin and other autocrats; and the endless grift to come; by bit they are understanding why boundaries have been drawn. My grandkids tell me so many of their friends are regretting their votes now but had thought it “cool” Musk was involved. Ugggggg!
Bart Ehrman had a good line about this (highly recommend his interview on Sam Harris' podcast if it's accessible).
Paraphrasing: There are two versions of Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount Jesus and the Book of Revelation Jesus. Christian Nationalists/Right Wing Christians are huge fans of the latter, and are actually starting to detest the former.
Ha ha ha. Probably true. His sentiment was that for the past 20 years, they mostly ignored it. Now, they actively detest it as being "weak". The Revelation Jesus helps them rectify their proclaimed Christianity with their unabashed Trumpism.
Sam Harris completely blamed Kamala's loss on her trans stance. He said late breakers probably thought she was incoherent on the issue and feared she would be a blue haired, woke, maniac. Sam Harris has a very large opinion of himself.
Sam Harris is mostly a great voice and comes at most things honestly. However, he does see everything through anti-woke glasses. He's more anti-woke than most people on the right. So, admittedly that does color much of his political commentary. Even given that, it doesn't mean he's wrong. If there's post-election polling on that, it would be interesting to see if that indeed have a strong effect.
It's interesting, because in his article pre-election, one of the positive cases he made for Kamala was that she wasn't a woke maniac. She was a reasonable center-left leader.
He didn't say he thought she was a woke maniac though. He said her answers led folks to believe that. But his suggested answer was too convoluted and suggests politics are not among his strong suits.
He's OK on politics, but he has such a strong anti-woke bias that it strongly colors the way he looks at things (i.e., he wants to blame every strange outcome on wokeness). Time will tell if he was on to something. Former Gov Andrew (?) Cuomo thought that anti-trans ad was devastating to her, also. We'll see.
Yeah, I'm not convinced that it was mostly responsible for the loss. Time will tell, though. Would be good to get data on that if possible. But, you have to wonder why late-breaking swing voters saw Trump more favorably than Kamala. We can't fathom it, nor could any rational person, but would be very interesting to see why that was. Not saying it's possible to ever know, but I'm curious, regardless.
I suspect there might be some hesitation for the Christians leading the fight against Christian nationalists to be publicly and overtly partisan for a variety of reasons, even if they personally are voting Blue and hate what the GOP is currently.
I think steps from center left sites like Hopium to make a connection and work with them would be a start. An interview with KK Du Mez, the historian and writer who created the recent documentary, For Our Daughters and wrote the book Jesus and John Wayne would build a connection to that world. Maybe that could lead to some strategizing and some learning about how to resist, but maybe more importantly, some insight into how best to change minds of people who identify as Christian but have thought of the democratic party as a non-spiritual, purely rational group (and probably as "baby-killers) that looks down on them even though these Christians may be ambivalent about MAGA, white supremacy, the patriarchy etc.
Yes I’m just concerned that they don’t understand the depth of it. Amanda Tyler’s new book would be helpful—How to End Christian Nationalism, Katherine Stewart Money, Lies & God, Robert P Jones, KK Du Mez. How to convince your opponents if you don’t even know who they are?
I think, too often, political strategists and political parties only look at the margins and assume the "base" of the other side is unreachable. In the short term, that reasoning makes sense, but working on changing the opinions of that opposing "base"--which is largely cultural, is needed. Much of that work is slow, but look how much opinions nationally have changed about LGTBQ+ people in the last 25 years? We can definitely welcome in people of faith, people that are spiritual. I mean , look at Martin Luther King and Black Evangelicals who have always been leaders here.
This is important. Even the "liberal" White Mainline Protestants voted for Trump as did Catholics. It's hard to change perceptions of a party, culturally. "Rebranding" is such a superficial term for this and not nearly deep enough for what needs to happen. Being a home for loving people of faith and spiritual people (and people who aren't) needs to be part of what the Democratic party is thought of and something we strive for and promote.
I am really, really sorry to bore you with my rant, LJ... Got started and couldn't stop!
Just ordered the Amanda Tyler book, BTW. Thanks for the recommendation!
You raise good points. Maybe those cultural changes are slow, but they do happen.
Of course, the reverse can be true. My personal belief is that the forecast that the US will be less than 50% White by 2042 freaked out a lot of White people and they became reactionary.
Which is the dominant factor in White Christian Nationalism? Is it Whiteness or being Christian? I don't know, honestly. If you take out either the "White" or the "Christian", the whole movement falls apart.
As far as that forecast and triggered white people becoming reactionary, I think it might be a broader "reaction" than just the US, but that sort of thing (the forecast) is absolutely feeding the beast. Anyway, I'm going to reference a book about all that which helped me very much in understanding the current moment in history.
Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian-Populism, by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart.
The New Evangelicals - they are actually reaching people and everyone should know about them. Also serves as a hub for a lot of anti-Christian Nationalist efforts. Start there. https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewEvangelicals
Check out James Talarico, a Texas state legislator. GOP has tried and failed to gerrymander him out of office but he keeps winning. He's studying for the ministry and effectively espouses a progressive vision of Christianity. I really hope he makes it more to the national political stage. I think he's a rising star and a model of how to rebut the Christian nationalists.
. (Reposting a comment from Marcus Graly at The Downballot, which I think is worth discussing.)
"A theory I have regarding the drop off in Democratic turnout, especially in less competitive areas:
"One of my relatively apolitical friends, neither completely tuned out, nor posting about / engaging with political content all the time, posted something a couple weeks before the election that in the past he would receive communications encouraging him to vote and giving information like where his polling place was or about early voting etc, but this year it was just fundraising, fundraising, fundraising and nothing asking for his vote. (We both live in Massachusetts.) I feel this experience was pretty common: people who seldom, if ever, give money to political causes were just deluged with texts asking for money.
"Absent any competitive race, this was their whole perception of the election campaign: one giant nonstop fundraising pitch that was impossible to unsubscribe from. This, needless to say, doesn't make you enthusiastic about voting or feel positive or excited about the Democratic party.
Personal note: Thankfully, I did not receive a single email, or text or call to my cell phone asking for money. Until I can withhold both my email address and cell phone, I am hesitant to donate through ActBlue or online.
I am pretty sure Federal law does not require these, so this could be an opportunity for political campaigns to revise their annoying modus operandi.
(I did, however, contribute in other ways, including writing hundreds of postcards to encourage people to vote in North Carolina and Michigan.)
I was reticent to donate to ActBlue too because of the personal info you mention. I finally decided a few cycles ago to donate and gave fake telephone number and email address. Somehow I got emails but managed to program them to spam so no problem there. If Federal law does not require it, then you can lie about it. ;)
I supported candidates in remote places like N. Dak, although I knew the odds.
I was involved with orgaizations that raised millions......
I still think circumstatial evidence shows that psy ops tipped the election. Democrats are too eager to form a circular firing squad. But for Putin we wudda won...bigly.
I think you are right. Certainly Trump and Musk have been running an intense propaganda war for a long time. And lest we forget, Vlad Putin’s specialty at the KGB was... psy-ops.
I believe it did. In my simple anecdotal experience so did "phone banking", the people that actually answered their phone were very annoyed and expressed this. They were not Trump supporters... yet. I will also say the same for postcarding, the default suggested message of "we don't know who you voted for but we know if you voted" always seemed really creepy to me, but I deferred to the "experts" and did as suggested. Not doing that again if we get the chance. We need new experts.
I too reacted negatively to that sentence, and I tweaked the wording on my postcards. But I did have a dialog with "Postcards for Swing States" and received their approval before doing so.
I think we have to look to Citizens United as a major cause. Unlimited dark money contributions to pacs from billionaires and corporations has destroyed the playing field. Corporations are not people, money is not speech.
To compete, Dems are asking the little guy in a tidal wave of asking. Kamala's campaign raised over a billion dollars, but the Elon Musks and Peter Thiels can counteract millions of small dollar contributions by themselves if they want to. Another case of getting screwed by the conservative SCOTUS and that goes back to 2010. It is perhaps the most anti-democratic decision they have made in our lifetimes.
Given the enormous sums, will Democrats actually work to find a way to undo Citizens United if they had the power? I have my doubts, because you just don't hear any of them talking about it.
This may well be true. I certainly received so many requests for money that I had to unsubscribe/block those campaigns. I sent postcards and knocked on doors because most people weren't going to be overwhelmed or annoyed with personal efforts.
But the Senate map was terrible for us. The Electoral College makes those of us in non-swing states powerless, and campaigns cost money. The Right-Wing noise machine was spreading lies and blocking the truth. Billionaires were funding right-wing candidates, and Citizens United meant there were no limits on donations. Foreign governments were clearly spreading overwhelming amounts of targeted misinformation. Republican leaders had utterly abandoned patriotism and courage. And a few thousand voters in a handful of states held everyone's fate in their hands.
I can't feel bad that we cried out in our desperation. I do wish there had been a better way, but I don't know of one.
Agree, the fundraising drumbeat was excessive and obnoxious. You can easily unsubscribe to these but that's a lost opportunity. A better use of these emails would be have each one highlight a campaign point, comment on a GOP outrage, etc. Then stick a brief fund ask and click to donate button at the end. This would preserve some recipients and probably raise as much money.
Race doesn't seem to be mentioned as much, often pointing to the growth of the Latino Trump vote as evidence that it doesn't apply. However, Jardin's White Identity Politics uses statistical analysis and breaks down many of the beliefs that are associated with whiteness, which remains the biggest force in the support for trump across all white demographics (except for education, though I think white educated men remain supportive of trump, but barely). One of the things Jardin mentions is that the more that someone believes the economy isn't doing well, the more that they identify with whiteness as a racial identity. Whiteness is also associated with more conservative beliefs as a form of protecting what they see as a declining status of whites as a group. Those whites who are not as likely to identify themselves as part of a racial group tend to be more liberal in their politics. Another excellent book is Racism Without Racists, by Bonilla-Silva. The author argues that colorblind racism is the newest iteration in politics, where the "I'm not racist" defense provides a cover for those beliefs. Bonilla-Silva believes that one way around the declining demographic majority of whites is to bring in ethnic groups that can be "made white," similar to what happened with European immigrants in the 20th century. Those groups assimilate with and are attracted to the social benefits of whiteness. That could be what is happening with the Latino support for Trump.
Could be, though Latinos themselves are a fairly diverse racial group. I have known Jewish, Black, indigenous, Italian, Chinese and Japanese Latinos. The current president of El Salvador is a Muslim and his father is an Imam. Shakira is of Middle Eastern descent. So was Carlos Menem. When I first started teaching in NJ in the 80's many Cubans identified as White.
Melanie Stansbury NM CD-1 is kicking ass in Congress talking about the horrible trump nominations, her opposition to H.R.8706 - Dismantle DEI Act of 2024 that terribly amends the Civil Rights Act, and describing The New McCarthyism. Check out what she said in Congress yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bMjpoWzcsQ
Self reporting: I contacted both my Senators to fight hard against the nominations of RFK Jr., Hegseth, and Gabbard and also to get as many judges through the process as possible with the time we have left.
And the list keeps growing. Pam Bondi, Linda McMahon, come on. Competent leaders surround themselves with competent people. Need I say any more? Oh, lest I forget Dr Oz.
I just can't get out of my head the trans video Trump ran non stop. Door knockers in Pennsylvania said 1 in every 4 people were influenced by that ad that ran in every battle ground state. And the Democrats door knockers had no answers nor did Kamala and her team do anything to combat it. It took the Lincoln project to put out an ad to try and answer it but it was not near enough and to late. Harris team couldn't combat for fear of alienating the progressive wing of the party. Just like they couldn't promote energy production records throughout bidens term because of offending clean energy proponents. How can you message effectively when your always afraid of losing a big part of your coalition. Your hands are tied. I'm sick of having to be so careful in our messaging that we get destroyed on who gets the credit. Republicans can take credit for what we do because they don't have to fear offending anyone in their party.
This is the argument Sam Harris is making but I do not buy it. I still believe a lot of people were looking for an excuse to vote against Kamala because she was a Black woman. Obama survived the Ayres and reverend controversies which would have sunk anyone else;but he was a man, and a skilled orator, and note, when people are really voting on the economy, the incumbent party takes a beating; it doesn't lose by a hair; McCain got trounced.
I just think middle class voters should be coming in droves to the Democrats. Like unions, because everything Biden and Harris did and said was for the middle class. But because we're always dealing with LGBTQ and climate change issues, that the middle class is turned off by these liberal agendas and were losing a lot of the bro culture that thinks that's woke. But to keep the progressive vote were weak on messaging to that bloc of voters. We just should not be bleeding middle class voters. It's hard to overcome liberal culture values when 1 in 4 Pennsylvania voters literally said that trans ad really influenced their vote for trump. And the Lincoln Projects Rick Wilson believes that ad was so effective that was the difference
I believe it was an excuse. The ad gave them the excuse they were looking for; they knew she was miles better than trump, but there was just something....oh, it must be because two inmates got trans surgery! She's gonna be a de-balling b....and THAT's why the ad was effective. So, it wasn't the economy, and it wasn't trump's policies. It was fear of a Black woman, who is gonna come for your manhood. It's just so obvious. By the way, no one I know in NJ was ever aware of the ad; she still under performed here, badly. As for that 1 in 4 voters and what they said....by now we should admit that polls only tell you what people say, not what they do. Obama went to a church where the pastor literally said goddamn America...and he still won. Twice. Keep in mind trump is a bona fide sex offender. Who would you leave your daughter with... a law abiding trans citizen or a serial sex offender who has admitted his MO? So again, this may have been the excuse, but it can't be the reason. Not when the alternative is a sex offender, among other things......
Many of these people were the Latinos and black voters who are conservative in their values. They are in many instances professing Christians who don't want an LGBTQ culture. Trumps biggest voting bloc is evangelicals who have been conditioned to believe Trump is a Christian fighting for their cultural causes. They know Kamala isn't coming after their manhood, they simply don't like those things they think our anti biblical.
Agreed. Further proof of misogynoir at work is found in comparing Harris’s popular vote with Hillary’s.
Hillary WON the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Harris is going to LOSE the popular vote.
I’m angry at white men like Rosenberg who either don’t realize or fail to acknowledge this issue. But I am ALSO angry at many liberal white women who ONLY see the sexism, and don’t understand the DOUBLE burden Harris faced.
Kimberly Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” 35 years ago - and black women are well aware of the phenomenon. The rest of the society, including almost all of the punditry, not so much.
I agree. Harris had no well defined positions on any issue because she was afraid of alienating the far left. She easily could have rebutted that ad by simply saying with time and experience opinions can change. But instead she said she'd follow the law. What does that mean? Where does she stand? She had no clear positions on the economy except saying she'd promote an opportunity economy. What does that mean? What was her position on the border? Anyone know? By trying to please everyone she didn't please anyone.
Harris had an over-80-page document detailing policy, I phone banked for her regularly.
The biggest mistake to me was that of Biden not deciding to step down in 2023 to give the party adequate time to choose a new candidate and give that candidate enough time to develop more detailed policy plans and to get their message out to the public. Trump, monster that he is, was known, Harris was barely heard of by a lot of voters who don’t follow politics or don’t read.
Harris did an outstanding job of putting together a smooth campaign given the short time frame she was given.
And frankly, there are a lot of not real smart, TV-watching, illiterate American voters who are clueless about history, about authoritarianism and who are bullies themselves, have had to interact with these types all of my life.
Thx Simon. I totally agree that the Democratic establishment has been blind to the growth of the right wing media ecosystem & has not supported the new progressive media that supports them like Tara’s Courier Newsroom. Can the donors to Future Forward be persuaded to start investing now in established progressive media including podcasts & influencers?
I quite agree that we need to invest in more media that promote our values but I think those values need to be portrayed in a broader way to cover more of the spectrum of moderate to progressive/liberal. Our side is easily dismissed by too many who are in the middle when it is presented as liberal vs conservative. So yes, let's fund progressive media but also media that promotes the values we have that don't go all the way far left. I know this is a struggle inside our party as when I've mentioned this a couple of times previously, there has been strong pushback from the left. But not all Democrats are down the language that is used to promote our values ("privileged white male") or the hills we choose to die on (they/them) that we feel make us easy prey for the right. If we don't change how we promote our values we will continue to alienate people who otherwise believe in them.
Totally agree here. The main thing about the RW media system is that it's coordinated. It largely avoids internal controversy, and settles on a few singular messages (whether that is organic or externally coordinated, who knows) that resonate completely within the right, and just enough with people outside the bubble. Having a gigantic megaphone won't matter if our message is not broadly appealing. The message really matters.
Yes to loud and proud. Yes to framing our values.. yes to “challenge and contest the right-infused national discourse far more aggressively - change people’s understandings, go on offense, create greater 24/7/365 capacity”
One of trump’s strategies seems to be promise everything to everybody. This seems to work for him because his voters, when asked, say he “hears them” and will take care of them. But don’t we have examples of the man himself promising one thing to one audience and the exact opposite to another? Now that he’s in office, Can we perhaps demand that he keep the promises to, for instance, build a beautiful healthcare system for all and put his score card on promises kept out there for all to see? Let his own words and deeds, on the pocketbook issues people care about, speak for themselves.
I think we need to focus more on driving a wedge between Trump voters/people who are mad at Dems and Republicans writ large rather than Trump. We can take advantage of the fact that Trump’s image and appeal to certain types of voters is somewhat unique. Since he can’t run again, and is nearing 80, we have to pivot to who we are running against next time.
As much as I would like to convince everyone what a sham he is, we may make more hay out of: the other Republicans are just trying to use Trump to put the rich ahead of everyone else, and this is exactly what they are gonna keep doing when Trump is gone”
I think Dan Pfieffer had an interesting take on this. Almost all voters assume politicians are making mostly empty promises. They don't expect much. The key point is what you said: they think that he hears them. If you can convince them that you're on their side, and the other guy is against them, they'll support you. I think that's why R's constantly bring up the "trans wars", "border chaos", and "stoves, toilets, and showers wars". All of it is a way of saying, "we care about you, they are elitists who care about everyone else (trans people, illegal immigrants, tree huggers) and they want to make you care about everyone else, too".
So, it's not just keeping a scorecard on whether he did what he promised (most people assume he won't). It's about keeping a scorecard on how what he actually did hurt them and only helped "the other" (big corporations, ultra-rich folks, foreign adversaries).
Simon, agreed we need a 365/24/7 dem party. not the party that shows up just before elections in selected areas. It was baffling to me that Biden had been so successful with the economy and yet neither he nor KH would promote the wins. So she ran a campaign with her hands tied behind her back focusing on people still hurting while the vast majority had real improvements. Yes, there will always be people at the bottom who are hurting. But this should have been a message that gotten thru because our economy is the best in the world. This was the BIGGEST gift to the other side. Now, he will claim credit for it.
I think it's because they opted to "hear the pain and work to do something about it" (as opposed to Trump who only cares about himself) instead of presenting their favorable economic news. One doesn't have to exclude the other, however. One can lead with the success we've brought about but that we recognize there is still more to do and here's the plan.
YES! And many of the "big deal" projects that they are now touting will now occur under DT. Why oh why were these projects not touted over and over in 2024? Why oh why was there not a big deal made over every damned project??? Once again Democrats do great things but forget to shout about them from the rooftops!!!
Calling Sen. Booker every day and waiting for Sen. Kim's swearing in once election is certified here in NJ. Emailed WH re background checks. "We have not yet begun to fight." -John Paul Jones
“Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States. How could you do so? The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence.
"From this perspective, Trump's proposed appointments — Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard — are perfect instruments. They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done.”
– Timothy Snyder, Historian, author of "On Tyrrany"
The Russians have been working on the Republicans for a long time as they are the most transactional. They broke through with the NRA and now the party itself has unabashed promoters. So yes, they have helped themself to the true "enemy within", the weakness in our system.
Timely and essential questions! They keep nagging me as well. To be honest, I’m flummoxed; I really thought we’d see a very different result in this 2024 Election.
This is great, well done
Some of the failure of Dems is not understanding the power of white Christian nationalists platforms, radio, funding, etc. I never even hear it mentioned but it is a huge block of voters who voted for DT in large numbers. Where is the resistance? There are many Christians who are appalled by this and would like to see a counter programming to it.
How about starting a group called Christians against nationalism?
Already several groups but strategists need to know about them
Getting them all under 1 banner is the way forward
How about Christians For American Values.
I like it but the other side already claimed all of those words. They would be lost in the sea of identical sounding RW groups.
It needs to be positive and American. Christians for True American Values. If it's some of their wording, all the better, to get Christians to tune in.
Oooh, I like “true American.”
Yes too many words have had their original/root meanings co-opted and hijacked in the body politic. It’s a confusing mess trying to use language honestly in a way that conveys an authentic message.
Sounds like Moral Majority who weren't exactly moral.
Too limiting. Not everyone against Nationalism is a Christian.
True that ! Perhaps one’s personal Christian practices are probably best left out of the political arena altogether. Although I do think putting these values into practice without naming them as such is the best approach.
https://www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/statement
The "GOP Jesus" is ... very different, indeed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ2L-R8NgrA&t=18s
Tony Campolo just died who cared for poor and not power. They think he is a heretic.
May Campolo’s compassion and wisdom continue to echo and spread.
They don’t even carry his books in so-called Christian bookstores. Used to be in windows.
Yes. I only recently found out that one of my couple clients are Christian Nationalists. They proudly told me that they hosted Mike Johnson several times this summer and fund raised for him. I had to let them go as clients, and I thoroughly explained my reasons. This is taking a big loss financially, but as John Lewis says, “you can’t be at home with something you know is wrong.”
Yes he was twisting himself into pretzel defending Gaetz
He is one of the architects of the (first) coup and thus is a traitor to our country.
Glad you explained it. When I left evangelical groups, I let them know.
Amazing-Thank you Pamsy🙏🏻
Some of my family members are dismayed about some of my actions post election. I tell them it not about politics but about values and basic humanity. They are starting to understand as I discuss mass deportations, deaths due to miscarriages and leadership submission to Putin and other autocrats; and the endless grift to come; by bit they are understanding why boundaries have been drawn. My grandkids tell me so many of their friends are regretting their votes now but had thought it “cool” Musk was involved. Ugggggg!
Thank you Again!
Fighting onward 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Bart Ehrman had a good line about this (highly recommend his interview on Sam Harris' podcast if it's accessible).
Paraphrasing: There are two versions of Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount Jesus and the Book of Revelation Jesus. Christian Nationalists/Right Wing Christians are huge fans of the latter, and are actually starting to detest the former.
I think they’ve detested it for quite some time.
Ha ha ha. Probably true. His sentiment was that for the past 20 years, they mostly ignored it. Now, they actively detest it as being "weak". The Revelation Jesus helps them rectify their proclaimed Christianity with their unabashed Trumpism.
Jay Sekulow, James Dobson, constant proselytizing
Sam Harris completely blamed Kamala's loss on her trans stance. He said late breakers probably thought she was incoherent on the issue and feared she would be a blue haired, woke, maniac. Sam Harris has a very large opinion of himself.
Sam Harris is mostly a great voice and comes at most things honestly. However, he does see everything through anti-woke glasses. He's more anti-woke than most people on the right. So, admittedly that does color much of his political commentary. Even given that, it doesn't mean he's wrong. If there's post-election polling on that, it would be interesting to see if that indeed have a strong effect.
It's interesting, because in his article pre-election, one of the positive cases he made for Kamala was that she wasn't a woke maniac. She was a reasonable center-left leader.
He didn't say he thought she was a woke maniac though. He said her answers led folks to believe that. But his suggested answer was too convoluted and suggests politics are not among his strong suits.
He's OK on politics, but he has such a strong anti-woke bias that it strongly colors the way he looks at things (i.e., he wants to blame every strange outcome on wokeness). Time will tell if he was on to something. Former Gov Andrew (?) Cuomo thought that anti-trans ad was devastating to her, also. We'll see.
Sam Harris’ claim sounds like quite a stretch.
Yeah, I'm not convinced that it was mostly responsible for the loss. Time will tell, though. Would be good to get data on that if possible. But, you have to wonder why late-breaking swing voters saw Trump more favorably than Kamala. We can't fathom it, nor could any rational person, but would be very interesting to see why that was. Not saying it's possible to ever know, but I'm curious, regardless.
The so-called "Liberal" Rich need to purchase and/or set up radio stations thoughtout the rural areas.
Sez.us is new pro-democracy info channel trying to counter propaganda. Joe Trippi podcast today talking about it
How would you get rural voters to listen? When driving long distance, I skip past the RW talk and C&W stations.
I agree with you, LJ.
I suspect there might be some hesitation for the Christians leading the fight against Christian nationalists to be publicly and overtly partisan for a variety of reasons, even if they personally are voting Blue and hate what the GOP is currently.
I think steps from center left sites like Hopium to make a connection and work with them would be a start. An interview with KK Du Mez, the historian and writer who created the recent documentary, For Our Daughters and wrote the book Jesus and John Wayne would build a connection to that world. Maybe that could lead to some strategizing and some learning about how to resist, but maybe more importantly, some insight into how best to change minds of people who identify as Christian but have thought of the democratic party as a non-spiritual, purely rational group (and probably as "baby-killers) that looks down on them even though these Christians may be ambivalent about MAGA, white supremacy, the patriarchy etc.
Yes I’m just concerned that they don’t understand the depth of it. Amanda Tyler’s new book would be helpful—How to End Christian Nationalism, Katherine Stewart Money, Lies & God, Robert P Jones, KK Du Mez. How to convince your opponents if you don’t even know who they are?
I think, too often, political strategists and political parties only look at the margins and assume the "base" of the other side is unreachable. In the short term, that reasoning makes sense, but working on changing the opinions of that opposing "base"--which is largely cultural, is needed. Much of that work is slow, but look how much opinions nationally have changed about LGTBQ+ people in the last 25 years? We can definitely welcome in people of faith, people that are spiritual. I mean , look at Martin Luther King and Black Evangelicals who have always been leaders here.
This is important. Even the "liberal" White Mainline Protestants voted for Trump as did Catholics. It's hard to change perceptions of a party, culturally. "Rebranding" is such a superficial term for this and not nearly deep enough for what needs to happen. Being a home for loving people of faith and spiritual people (and people who aren't) needs to be part of what the Democratic party is thought of and something we strive for and promote.
I am really, really sorry to bore you with my rant, LJ... Got started and couldn't stop!
Just ordered the Amanda Tyler book, BTW. Thanks for the recommendation!
Completely agree. They ought to interview Robert P Jones at PRRI for understanding magnitude and depth of it.
You raise good points. Maybe those cultural changes are slow, but they do happen.
Of course, the reverse can be true. My personal belief is that the forecast that the US will be less than 50% White by 2042 freaked out a lot of White people and they became reactionary.
And YOU raise some good points, Jenny!
Which is the dominant factor in White Christian Nationalism? Is it Whiteness or being Christian? I don't know, honestly. If you take out either the "White" or the "Christian", the whole movement falls apart.
As far as that forecast and triggered white people becoming reactionary, I think it might be a broader "reaction" than just the US, but that sort of thing (the forecast) is absolutely feeding the beast. Anyway, I'm going to reference a book about all that which helped me very much in understanding the current moment in history.
Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian-Populism, by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Wait, Katherine Stewart wrote another book? I need to go order that.
Kristin du Mez mentioned it on Convocation. Comes out in Feb 2025 so asked my local library to buy it and reserve me copy.
I agree! Christian Nationalism is a huge problem! I just signed this statement by Christians Against Christian Nationalism: https://www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/statement
The New Evangelicals - they are actually reaching people and everyone should know about them. Also serves as a hub for a lot of anti-Christian Nationalist efforts. Start there. https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewEvangelicals
Check out James Talarico, a Texas state legislator. GOP has tried and failed to gerrymander him out of office but he keeps winning. He's studying for the ministry and effectively espouses a progressive vision of Christianity. I really hope he makes it more to the national political stage. I think he's a rising star and a model of how to rebut the Christian nationalists.
Yes he’s great!
The Prospect has a fine article on one of Trump’s most, uh, noteworthy nominations:
. "How Best to Utilize Tulsi Gabbard’s Unique Talents"
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-11-21-how-best-to-utilize-tulsi-gabbards-unique-talents/
Trump's "thank you" gift to Putin.
Did OBNOXIOUS FUNDRAISING lead to LOWER TURNOUT?
. (Reposting a comment from Marcus Graly at The Downballot, which I think is worth discussing.)
"A theory I have regarding the drop off in Democratic turnout, especially in less competitive areas:
"One of my relatively apolitical friends, neither completely tuned out, nor posting about / engaging with political content all the time, posted something a couple weeks before the election that in the past he would receive communications encouraging him to vote and giving information like where his polling place was or about early voting etc, but this year it was just fundraising, fundraising, fundraising and nothing asking for his vote. (We both live in Massachusetts.) I feel this experience was pretty common: people who seldom, if ever, give money to political causes were just deluged with texts asking for money.
"Absent any competitive race, this was their whole perception of the election campaign: one giant nonstop fundraising pitch that was impossible to unsubscribe from. This, needless to say, doesn't make you enthusiastic about voting or feel positive or excited about the Democratic party.
"Hence the drop in turnout."
Personal note: Thankfully, I did not receive a single email, or text or call to my cell phone asking for money. Until I can withhold both my email address and cell phone, I am hesitant to donate through ActBlue or online.
I am pretty sure Federal law does not require these, so this could be an opportunity for political campaigns to revise their annoying modus operandi.
(I did, however, contribute in other ways, including writing hundreds of postcards to encourage people to vote in North Carolina and Michigan.)
I was reticent to donate to ActBlue too because of the personal info you mention. I finally decided a few cycles ago to donate and gave fake telephone number and email address. Somehow I got emails but managed to program them to spam so no problem there. If Federal law does not require it, then you can lie about it. ;)
I donated...
I supported candidates in remote places like N. Dak, although I knew the odds.
I was involved with orgaizations that raised millions......
I still think circumstatial evidence shows that psy ops tipped the election. Democrats are too eager to form a circular firing squad. But for Putin we wudda won...bigly.
I think you are right. Certainly Trump and Musk have been running an intense propaganda war for a long time. And lest we forget, Vlad Putin’s specialty at the KGB was... psy-ops.
Imho, Agent Orange is his greatest success.
I have decided that until the policy for constant fund raising texts changes I will not donate online. I agree it turned a lot of people off.
I believe it did. In my simple anecdotal experience so did "phone banking", the people that actually answered their phone were very annoyed and expressed this. They were not Trump supporters... yet. I will also say the same for postcarding, the default suggested message of "we don't know who you voted for but we know if you voted" always seemed really creepy to me, but I deferred to the "experts" and did as suggested. Not doing that again if we get the chance. We need new experts.
I too reacted negatively to that sentence, and I tweaked the wording on my postcards. But I did have a dialog with "Postcards for Swing States" and received their approval before doing so.
How did you revise the wording?
Hi AAA,
Thank you for being a voter. This year your voice really matters – make it heard!
Your friends and family may need a reminder. PLEASE ask them to VOTE in the Tuesday Nov 5th Election!
Best regards,
(sign.)
I think we have to look to Citizens United as a major cause. Unlimited dark money contributions to pacs from billionaires and corporations has destroyed the playing field. Corporations are not people, money is not speech.
To compete, Dems are asking the little guy in a tidal wave of asking. Kamala's campaign raised over a billion dollars, but the Elon Musks and Peter Thiels can counteract millions of small dollar contributions by themselves if they want to. Another case of getting screwed by the conservative SCOTUS and that goes back to 2010. It is perhaps the most anti-democratic decision they have made in our lifetimes.
Given the enormous sums, will Democrats actually work to find a way to undo Citizens United if they had the power? I have my doubts, because you just don't hear any of them talking about it.
Democratic leaders don’t talk about Citizens United, but the Democrats I know personally talk about it all the time.
Yes they do!
This may well be true. I certainly received so many requests for money that I had to unsubscribe/block those campaigns. I sent postcards and knocked on doors because most people weren't going to be overwhelmed or annoyed with personal efforts.
But the Senate map was terrible for us. The Electoral College makes those of us in non-swing states powerless, and campaigns cost money. The Right-Wing noise machine was spreading lies and blocking the truth. Billionaires were funding right-wing candidates, and Citizens United meant there were no limits on donations. Foreign governments were clearly spreading overwhelming amounts of targeted misinformation. Republican leaders had utterly abandoned patriotism and courage. And a few thousand voters in a handful of states held everyone's fate in their hands.
I can't feel bad that we cried out in our desperation. I do wish there had been a better way, but I don't know of one.
Agree, the fundraising drumbeat was excessive and obnoxious. You can easily unsubscribe to these but that's a lost opportunity. A better use of these emails would be have each one highlight a campaign point, comment on a GOP outrage, etc. Then stick a brief fund ask and click to donate button at the end. This would preserve some recipients and probably raise as much money.
Race doesn't seem to be mentioned as much, often pointing to the growth of the Latino Trump vote as evidence that it doesn't apply. However, Jardin's White Identity Politics uses statistical analysis and breaks down many of the beliefs that are associated with whiteness, which remains the biggest force in the support for trump across all white demographics (except for education, though I think white educated men remain supportive of trump, but barely). One of the things Jardin mentions is that the more that someone believes the economy isn't doing well, the more that they identify with whiteness as a racial identity. Whiteness is also associated with more conservative beliefs as a form of protecting what they see as a declining status of whites as a group. Those whites who are not as likely to identify themselves as part of a racial group tend to be more liberal in their politics. Another excellent book is Racism Without Racists, by Bonilla-Silva. The author argues that colorblind racism is the newest iteration in politics, where the "I'm not racist" defense provides a cover for those beliefs. Bonilla-Silva believes that one way around the declining demographic majority of whites is to bring in ethnic groups that can be "made white," similar to what happened with European immigrants in the 20th century. Those groups assimilate with and are attracted to the social benefits of whiteness. That could be what is happening with the Latino support for Trump.
Doesn't necessarily reach the collective subconscious, which was targeted by the psyops propaganda.
To me, Rushkies are the "other." "Cake eaters" were "the other" when I was a kid. Unless you are a trust fund baby, that resonates.
Consider that a majority of female athletes probably voted against 6'7" transies depicticed in the Trump ads.
Could be, though Latinos themselves are a fairly diverse racial group. I have known Jewish, Black, indigenous, Italian, Chinese and Japanese Latinos. The current president of El Salvador is a Muslim and his father is an Imam. Shakira is of Middle Eastern descent. So was Carlos Menem. When I first started teaching in NJ in the 80's many Cubans identified as White.
Melanie Stansbury NM CD-1 is kicking ass in Congress talking about the horrible trump nominations, her opposition to H.R.8706 - Dismantle DEI Act of 2024 that terribly amends the Civil Rights Act, and describing The New McCarthyism. Check out what she said in Congress yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bMjpoWzcsQ
Everyone contact your rep to oppose that bill too, please
Thanks for sharing this! I forwarded the information to Indivisible.org.
Thank you for sharing this.
Self reporting: I contacted both my Senators to fight hard against the nominations of RFK Jr., Hegseth, and Gabbard and also to get as many judges through the process as possible with the time we have left.
And the list keeps growing. Pam Bondi, Linda McMahon, come on. Competent leaders surround themselves with competent people. Need I say any more? Oh, lest I forget Dr Oz.
I just can't get out of my head the trans video Trump ran non stop. Door knockers in Pennsylvania said 1 in every 4 people were influenced by that ad that ran in every battle ground state. And the Democrats door knockers had no answers nor did Kamala and her team do anything to combat it. It took the Lincoln project to put out an ad to try and answer it but it was not near enough and to late. Harris team couldn't combat for fear of alienating the progressive wing of the party. Just like they couldn't promote energy production records throughout bidens term because of offending clean energy proponents. How can you message effectively when your always afraid of losing a big part of your coalition. Your hands are tied. I'm sick of having to be so careful in our messaging that we get destroyed on who gets the credit. Republicans can take credit for what we do because they don't have to fear offending anyone in their party.
This is the argument Sam Harris is making but I do not buy it. I still believe a lot of people were looking for an excuse to vote against Kamala because she was a Black woman. Obama survived the Ayres and reverend controversies which would have sunk anyone else;but he was a man, and a skilled orator, and note, when people are really voting on the economy, the incumbent party takes a beating; it doesn't lose by a hair; McCain got trounced.
I just think middle class voters should be coming in droves to the Democrats. Like unions, because everything Biden and Harris did and said was for the middle class. But because we're always dealing with LGBTQ and climate change issues, that the middle class is turned off by these liberal agendas and were losing a lot of the bro culture that thinks that's woke. But to keep the progressive vote were weak on messaging to that bloc of voters. We just should not be bleeding middle class voters. It's hard to overcome liberal culture values when 1 in 4 Pennsylvania voters literally said that trans ad really influenced their vote for trump. And the Lincoln Projects Rick Wilson believes that ad was so effective that was the difference
I believe it was an excuse. The ad gave them the excuse they were looking for; they knew she was miles better than trump, but there was just something....oh, it must be because two inmates got trans surgery! She's gonna be a de-balling b....and THAT's why the ad was effective. So, it wasn't the economy, and it wasn't trump's policies. It was fear of a Black woman, who is gonna come for your manhood. It's just so obvious. By the way, no one I know in NJ was ever aware of the ad; she still under performed here, badly. As for that 1 in 4 voters and what they said....by now we should admit that polls only tell you what people say, not what they do. Obama went to a church where the pastor literally said goddamn America...and he still won. Twice. Keep in mind trump is a bona fide sex offender. Who would you leave your daughter with... a law abiding trans citizen or a serial sex offender who has admitted his MO? So again, this may have been the excuse, but it can't be the reason. Not when the alternative is a sex offender, among other things......
Many of these people were the Latinos and black voters who are conservative in their values. They are in many instances professing Christians who don't want an LGBTQ culture. Trumps biggest voting bloc is evangelicals who have been conditioned to believe Trump is a Christian fighting for their cultural causes. They know Kamala isn't coming after their manhood, they simply don't like those things they think our anti biblical.
Agreed. Further proof of misogynoir at work is found in comparing Harris’s popular vote with Hillary’s.
Hillary WON the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Harris is going to LOSE the popular vote.
I’m angry at white men like Rosenberg who either don’t realize or fail to acknowledge this issue. But I am ALSO angry at many liberal white women who ONLY see the sexism, and don’t understand the DOUBLE burden Harris faced.
Kimberly Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” 35 years ago - and black women are well aware of the phenomenon. The rest of the society, including almost all of the punditry, not so much.
I agree. Harris had no well defined positions on any issue because she was afraid of alienating the far left. She easily could have rebutted that ad by simply saying with time and experience opinions can change. But instead she said she'd follow the law. What does that mean? Where does she stand? She had no clear positions on the economy except saying she'd promote an opportunity economy. What does that mean? What was her position on the border? Anyone know? By trying to please everyone she didn't please anyone.
Harris had an over-80-page document detailing policy, I phone banked for her regularly.
The biggest mistake to me was that of Biden not deciding to step down in 2023 to give the party adequate time to choose a new candidate and give that candidate enough time to develop more detailed policy plans and to get their message out to the public. Trump, monster that he is, was known, Harris was barely heard of by a lot of voters who don’t follow politics or don’t read.
Harris did an outstanding job of putting together a smooth campaign given the short time frame she was given.
And frankly, there are a lot of not real smart, TV-watching, illiterate American voters who are clueless about history, about authoritarianism and who are bullies themselves, have had to interact with these types all of my life.
Thx Simon. I totally agree that the Democratic establishment has been blind to the growth of the right wing media ecosystem & has not supported the new progressive media that supports them like Tara’s Courier Newsroom. Can the donors to Future Forward be persuaded to start investing now in established progressive media including podcasts & influencers?
I quite agree that we need to invest in more media that promote our values but I think those values need to be portrayed in a broader way to cover more of the spectrum of moderate to progressive/liberal. Our side is easily dismissed by too many who are in the middle when it is presented as liberal vs conservative. So yes, let's fund progressive media but also media that promotes the values we have that don't go all the way far left. I know this is a struggle inside our party as when I've mentioned this a couple of times previously, there has been strong pushback from the left. But not all Democrats are down the language that is used to promote our values ("privileged white male") or the hills we choose to die on (they/them) that we feel make us easy prey for the right. If we don't change how we promote our values we will continue to alienate people who otherwise believe in them.
Totally agree here. The main thing about the RW media system is that it's coordinated. It largely avoids internal controversy, and settles on a few singular messages (whether that is organic or externally coordinated, who knows) that resonate completely within the right, and just enough with people outside the bubble. Having a gigantic megaphone won't matter if our message is not broadly appealing. The message really matters.
Ppl flocking to ex GOP backed media and calling it “progressive” is just 🤯. How did ex GOP folks convince ppl they’re the ones that have solutions? 😏
Yes to loud and proud. Yes to framing our values.. yes to “challenge and contest the right-infused national discourse far more aggressively - change people’s understandings, go on offense, create greater 24/7/365 capacity”
One of trump’s strategies seems to be promise everything to everybody. This seems to work for him because his voters, when asked, say he “hears them” and will take care of them. But don’t we have examples of the man himself promising one thing to one audience and the exact opposite to another? Now that he’s in office, Can we perhaps demand that he keep the promises to, for instance, build a beautiful healthcare system for all and put his score card on promises kept out there for all to see? Let his own words and deeds, on the pocketbook issues people care about, speak for themselves.
I think we need to focus more on driving a wedge between Trump voters/people who are mad at Dems and Republicans writ large rather than Trump. We can take advantage of the fact that Trump’s image and appeal to certain types of voters is somewhat unique. Since he can’t run again, and is nearing 80, we have to pivot to who we are running against next time.
As much as I would like to convince everyone what a sham he is, we may make more hay out of: the other Republicans are just trying to use Trump to put the rich ahead of everyone else, and this is exactly what they are gonna keep doing when Trump is gone”
It was the Russians!
I think Dan Pfieffer had an interesting take on this. Almost all voters assume politicians are making mostly empty promises. They don't expect much. The key point is what you said: they think that he hears them. If you can convince them that you're on their side, and the other guy is against them, they'll support you. I think that's why R's constantly bring up the "trans wars", "border chaos", and "stoves, toilets, and showers wars". All of it is a way of saying, "we care about you, they are elitists who care about everyone else (trans people, illegal immigrants, tree huggers) and they want to make you care about everyone else, too".
So, it's not just keeping a scorecard on whether he did what he promised (most people assume he won't). It's about keeping a scorecard on how what he actually did hurt them and only helped "the other" (big corporations, ultra-rich folks, foreign adversaries).
Simon, agreed we need a 365/24/7 dem party. not the party that shows up just before elections in selected areas. It was baffling to me that Biden had been so successful with the economy and yet neither he nor KH would promote the wins. So she ran a campaign with her hands tied behind her back focusing on people still hurting while the vast majority had real improvements. Yes, there will always be people at the bottom who are hurting. But this should have been a message that gotten thru because our economy is the best in the world. This was the BIGGEST gift to the other side. Now, he will claim credit for it.
I think it's because they opted to "hear the pain and work to do something about it" (as opposed to Trump who only cares about himself) instead of presenting their favorable economic news. One doesn't have to exclude the other, however. One can lead with the success we've brought about but that we recognize there is still more to do and here's the plan.
YES! And many of the "big deal" projects that they are now touting will now occur under DT. Why oh why were these projects not touted over and over in 2024? Why oh why was there not a big deal made over every damned project??? Once again Democrats do great things but forget to shout about them from the rooftops!!!
Calling Sen. Booker every day and waiting for Sen. Kim's swearing in once election is certified here in NJ. Emailed WH re background checks. "We have not yet begun to fight." -John Paul Jones
Apropos ONE DOWN – THREE MORE TO GO:
“Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States. How could you do so? The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence.
"From this perspective, Trump's proposed appointments — Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard — are perfect instruments. They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done.”
– Timothy Snyder, Historian, author of "On Tyrrany"
The Russians have been working on the Republicans for a long time as they are the most transactional. They broke through with the NRA and now the party itself has unabashed promoters. So yes, they have helped themself to the true "enemy within", the weakness in our system.
Michigan Sen. Mallory McMorrow thinking about DNC head job. Are we going to chime in on this campaign at some point? Think its mission critical.