while democracy hangs on by a thread. Fuck me.

With democracy hanging by a thread, we'd better fail to stand for anything. That'll show 'em!!!

I'm sorry, but asking Democrats to engage meaningfully with the most important issues and grassroots movements of the time is not "purity test bullshit."

-app

I've only checked a few


Democrats

357 + 516 + 127 = 1,000


Republicans


369 + 482 + 148 = 999


Elizabeth Warren

342 + 337 +209 = 888


Mike Pense

468 + 354 + 151 = 973



Hillary Clinton

351 + 554 + 94 = 999


Congress

257 + 517 + 223 = 997

What's your plan to address this?

-app

Let them not vote for Democrats. Let them be pissed. They can have Trump and people like him from now on. It is obviously that is what they wanted otherwise, 11,000 of them wouldn't have voted for a goddamn gorilla. and another 50k wouldn't have been stupid enough to write in Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders. Hope they are all happy with their protest votes.

Of course, much of it can be traced to wall to wall propaganda by the corporate right. However, the party itself does deserve some of the blame for its abandonment of many of its core principles and the shift to the right since 1969.

Conservatives hate it when you say that because I guess no conservative is capable of ever having done anything that doesn't work, like ignoring the grassroots movements and completely failing to tap into their energy because their issues might offend--wait for it--conservatives.

This article raises a lot of good points and says things I've been lambasted for saying for years.

The bottom line is that the party has gotten unpopular in part because it doesn't stand for anything or anyone any longer.

It's a miracle Clinton still won the popular vote even against a horror like Dolt45.

Humphrey had been an old time liberal. The thing that sank him was his continued support for the Vietnam War, something Nixon promised to end. That plus anger in segregationist states over the Civil Rights Acts and a minor protest against scruffy college kids who didn't want to fight a war provided his coalition.

The shift to the right was to counter his southern strategy after he got in. It has been a spectacular failure since it forced the GOP to become utterly lunatic as they distanced themselves from the center right the Democratic Party was trying to claim.

Learned nothing from Obamas or Sanders campaigns.

That is, "Why aren't I 50 points ahead?"

Is not liked much here.....so let's see how long this post will last.....

Unless you are praising all things Hillary you will not be well received.

What's our promise?

Yeah of course the Republicans are full of shit but
still...we have to offer people something better.

Because what they offer is a lie to begin with. The "American dream" is a big like and both parties have been trying to pretend it's real. Get a job, play by the rules, buy a house, raise your families, then retire fat and happy.
The truth is the comppetetive nature of capitalism means there will be losers. Instead of the jobs jobs jobs, roses and sunshine will follow lies, Democrats really need to work on policies that make life just a little easier for those who don't hit the jackpot that will allow us to finance a comfortable life and retirement. Not being real about it has been a betrayal to a lot of people.

Don't forget Hillary won the popular vote and the election was influenced by Putin

Do all those losses mean nothing?

NOT ALL STATES SUFFER FROM THOSE THINGS YET SOMEHOW OUR LOSSES ARE ACROSS THE BOARD. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE VINEGAR.

AND STOP FUCKING YELLING.

votes for house and senate than repubs but were shut out by gerrymandering. shaun king is an idiot

or statewide elections? Data is data - review it, and use it to improve. Republicans cheat in elections all the time. It's what they do. What's the Dem response?? After all these years, 2000 election, 2004 - all we have to say at this point is Republicans cheated? That is like saying the sun rises in the east. What is the next move, Democratic Party? More underwhelming campaigns that don't even inspire a whole segment of our own base?? Not being competitive in most of the South and Midwest? Followed by Monday morning excuses, hand wringing, we wuz robbed?? Even after Trump conspired with the Russians and Comey dropped a dime on Clinton, a good percentage of the Dems in Washington were still considering cooperating with Trump rather than resisting!! How completely counterproductive and pathetic is that??? It's either change the approach or prepare to be a permanent minority party, even when we "win."

Even after years and years of getting our asses handed to us, does the national Democratic leadership realize it must start winning smaller elections in the states and begin developing a stronger nationwide presence??

NOOOOOOO.

And on and on. Many lifelong Democrats are wondering what the hell the party stands for anymore. We should NEVER have to wonder what the party stands for. And frankly, most of us out here have realized that winning the presidency isn't the prize it should be, if the Pubs have the Senate, the House, and most of the state political machines. Look at what happened to Obama -- he was steamrolled at every turn. It would have happened to Hillary, too. It's time to start real local reform with REAL commitment, not lip service.

I happen to agree with the articles point. The Democrats should have sworn of corporate money, focused on the issues that energize the base while not totally alienating the middle. We really need an FDR type revolution in the party, one that welcomes the hate of the alt-right nuts out there.

You say they should energize the base, but I'm thinking that different people have different ideas who the base is.

One poster referred to them as progressives. I don't think so. The Dem base I think is a spectrum from the far left all the way to left of center.

Young people are more progressive, usually, I've read. But they don't vote as reliably. The "base" means voters.

The base is more of a mix of different types, whereas I think the Repubs are more homogeneous (religious and white...and Ben Carson).

I think there are 3 in the entire country and I guarantee there are none in the Democratic Party.

And as the right has grown ever more extreme, the ever compromising, bipartisany Democrats have followed them, so that now the party occupies center-right territory and the left wing is out in the cold.

Bernie isn't a socialist, he's an FDR Democrat...and his positions are not extreme, either in our own historical context or when compared to center-left parties in Europe.

I wish the Party was center-left; it would be a lot easier to generate enthusiasm and votes.

The Republicans have gone the way of the John Birchers, and the Democratic Part has replaced the moderate Republicans. The FDR wing of the party? Disappearing. Sigh.

The biggest mystery to me in this past election was why Bernie chose to label himself a socialist, which he isn't, instead of the social democrat that he is. Too nuanced? Then why not hark back to FDR? Why not call for a Green New Deal, in exactly those terms? A costly mistake, I think...for all of us.

This is only my personal experience in one small corner of the country. I had never tried to become involved in party politics at the local level before the Traitor stole the election with the help of the Russians and the Electoral College. Sure I went out and did canvassing in previous elections, and I've done a number of activist type things on behalf of Americans with disabilities. But this year for the first time I went down to the local county Democrats to see if I could offer my services in a more sustained and cohesive manner. The first meeting I attended was all about electing new chairs and vice chairs for the various precincts and officers like the treasurer, etc. OK, fine. The second meeting I attended, it was announced that this was the time and place for the heads of the precincts and other elected officers of the local county democratic party committee to meet with one another and decide what priorities would be set for the next couple of months or so. Anyone else was welcome to sit in, but our participation was not encouraged. Now maybe that's the common practice everywhere. I wouldn't know. But it did turn me off. Here I was dying to help and it felt like my help was not wanted. Quite a few people left at the break and I was one of them.

In between those two meetings, the Montezuma County Alliance for Unity (largely a grassroots women's group with loose ties to the "official" dem party) staged a highly successful march in support of the Women's March in Washington The Alliance plans another march for "Women's Her Story" tomorrow, and I hoping to attend, but none of this has had more than token support by the "official" dem party.

Another interesting thing that I discovered at official meeting 2 was that in our overwhelmingly republican county, there was one precinct that had voted 100% for Clinton. There was not a single person who voted for the Traitor in that precinct. Guess who the people of that precinct were? The members of the Ute Mountain Ute Nation whose tribal boundaries run along the southern part of the county. I immediately thought of Standing Rock, yet there was not a single Ute in attendance as either a precinct head or just an interested observer like myself. I sat thru the remainder of the meeting until the break when I left, wondering why no one suggested making some sort of outreach attempt to tribal members. If we could engage the Utes, we would be running this county with the Utes leading the charge instead of sitting around in a little room in the town library, bemoaning the fact that all the county commissioners are republicans.

Now maybe my experience was atypical or maybe being so new, I didn't understand all the ins and outs of local party politics (I'm sure the latter was at least partly true). Still, it sure seemed to me that the local dems were ignoring the chance to get in on and become a part of several already strong grassroots movements. But what do I know?

Regardless of whether your experiences are atypical or nearly universal, the fact remains that you tried to engage for at lease 1.5 meetings, and felt rebuffed. Hopefully one of your Democratic Precinct chairs are reading this an paying attention.

The fact that you remain engaged with your local Alliance for Unity speaks to King's important point that Democratic organizers need to engage grass roots movements as true allies,because that is where the energy and passion will originate and build.

-app

Local party structures tend to have their own entrenched people and procedures and do not always welcome new participation. Something to work on, for sure.

Yes, it felt a bit like being in high school and trying to crash a seat at the cool kids' lunch table. I understand very well how inbred small towns can be, but the leaders of the local dem party all came off as very intelligent people, and many are folks who originally came from more sophisticated parts of the world. Maybe they think we native Coloradans are just a bunch of hicks - beats me.

Never involved in party politics until the awful thing happened. I missed the meeting where elections for chair etc were held. Then the next two months there was no meeting so the first one will be in April. Really? There are other groups that have sprung up such as Indivisible but the Dem party has been conspicuously absent. If I'm looking for them and can't find them how are they ever going to attract new people to the party.

I searched the Net, the social media and the local paper, seeking to find activities and meeting times for the local dem party. Their activities are conspicuously absent from all three. The paper will print announcements of any local group's meetings for free and it's certainly easy enough for them to update their FB page. Nada. Yet they want to create a groundswell of enthusiasm for their efforts. Good luck with that.

.....but I think King is asking a vital question.

According to Data from the US Election Project, Census Bureau:

19.8% Voted for Clinton
19.5% Voted for Trump

29.9% Did Not Vote

28.6% Were Ineligible to Vote

That 29.9% should be easy pickings for the Dems, and there's something wrong that the Clinton percentage is so close to DT's. I don't believe the election was stolen by "Russia". I think we lost it. People just stayed home, un-enthused about either candidate.

It's crazy that the majority of ordinary people are not enthusiastic about the Democratic Party. That's a Party failure---not anyone else's.

I think embracing neo-liberalism has made it hard for people to feel enough trust that they'll inconvenience themselves to go vote.

Why haven't the Dems fought for weekend voting? Automatic registration? The end of gerrymandering? Why only now are they returning to an in-touch 50 state strategy? Why couldn't they ever explain the ACA better? How, in God's name, did DT manage to appear the "populist" compared to any Democrat?

Bernie is popular. Warren too. There's a reason for this.

With a huge assist from Russia and Wiki working with GOP operatives. Clinton's were certainly the biggest victims of this, but it's been a thing for years, manipulating the press into assisting their attacks on Dems. The media loves this shit, much more than they love talking about actual policy. And it killed us, not for the first time.

Any time you would like to raise actual questions or concerns about the source, I'd be glad to delve into them.

-app

and rip them out! The years of "working across the aisle" was a total loss for President Obama. Previous Democratic presidents were sabotaged in the last few decades. BUT... If the Repugs hated Clinton, they despised Obama. Mitch McConnell is the truly racist (yes,he is) destroyer of effective government for petty and partisan reasons. I see him as the most obvious example of the "vast right wing conspiracy" that Hillary was ridiculed for "outing". McConnell and Paul Ryan are the coldest House/Senate leader we've ever dealt with.

Maybe it was crass calculation purely within the Democratic Party (who were the ones who did finally do all the heavy lifting to pass Romneycare writ large, i.e.- the ACA). But maybe it was yet another sacrifice to the illusory "Maybe they will like us if we bend a little more" god of bipartisanship. Whatever the reason, we are reaping a poor harvest at the moment.

-app

I guess it is easier for the far left to reframe Obama as a villain, much like their close cousins on the far right.

How many "Pass the Public Option!" speeches of Obama's do you recall?

-app

...problem. Insurance companies basically wrote the ACA. They threatened to destroy him with a fierce counter campaign and they had unlimited PAC money. I think as a new President, he felt he had to back off so he could have a win, and what emerged was this weak compromise.

But too, I think one of the main problems was that he invested so much political capital on the ACA, as soon as he was in office, and right in the middle of the Bush recession. It should have been jobs, jobs, jobs. The Dems should have been seen as the Party of Jobs. He was seen as doing this health care thing which was important but not the crisis at the middle of people's lives as unemployment went up to nearly 9% and they lost their houses and then, on top of that, the health bill was never explained well. It was confusing and the roll out was a mess. And people were forced to pay money they didn't really have.

So 20million got covered in an expensive way (expensive compared to single payer), insurance companies did pretty well, but how many millions were unemployed or underwater in their homes? I really think the ACA was not the best the Dems could have done at that time. Considering Obama's huge mandate and momentum. If he'd gone back to the people who voted for him and said "I need your help--let's do single payer"---he'd have gotten it. But he was cowed by the PAC's and the relentless tactics of the Repugs.

I think the problem goes back to the Democratic Leadership Council, established in the early 90's, and decisions they made about starting to accept corporate money as much as the Repugs did. That really changed the party.
Wish they had solved their low electability problem in another, more populist, way.

That first election after the ACA was critical because it in many states it gave the power of reapportionment to Republicans.That local strength does indirectly influence who wins the statewide and national elections. An almost decade long loss of seats not being addressed or addressed ineffectively has taken a toll. The strength of the party in 2008 was quite different from 2016-

There is no barrier to people who want to staff the Democratic Party. There is no barrier to telling people who attend rallies to bring their energy to the Democratic Party and to lead the way oneself.

In the old days the nuts and bolts work of the party was done by women-you know all the societal reasons that is no longer happening and is not going to happen.

I keep hearing reformers give analyses of what is wrong with the Democratic party. What I am seeing however is the unwillingness to build the party-nuts and bolts-and an unwillingness to focus opposition on the nationalistic white supremacist and anti-worker Republican Party.

White supremacism is a powerful movement and it is international , a good % of voters aligning themselves with it are authoritarians. If we waver on human rights we will only earn their contempt, not their votes. I don't see the point in fishing for their votes. They don't even want more equality of income. They approve of the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

We can get the non-authoritarian votes-but we won't get them by being Trump-lite. We still have to stand on principles of human rights-unapologetically.

Union strength was in steady decline way before the 1990s. Many union members seemed to vote "against their own economic interests" in the 1980s.

Maybe more unions needed to follow the runaway shops south in the sixties and confront the anti-union forces then-but they didn't and mainly kept fishing in the same pond, catering to the same voters who eventually decided that their interests were with corporate America and not with other workers.

The Democratic Party of the nineties was just reactive to the events of the 80s.

...in the last election...

Oh, wait...

No, it didn't.

As for the poll cited in the OP, it doesn't really cite any poll. It links to a largely illegible PDF file on Suffolk U's website, but a search of the website proper shows no such poll being reported upon. Suspicious to say the least.

Even if we accept there WAS a poll, the figures show that the Republican and Democratic Parties are pretty much running neck and neck in terms of popularity and unpopularity. Hey, guess what? Maybe it's POLITICIANS who are unpopular these days. Certainly the figures for Congress are worse than those for either of the two main political parties. And Congress is chock full of politicians.

OK, I've wasted enough time on this nonsense.

Let's gat back to something slightly more constructive.

and a pointless one. There were a lot of other races lost, this year and going back to 2010, that have left the Democratic Party in tatters. When push came to shove our candidate lost to DFT.

Democrats and Republicans are equally unpopular? We know why they are, why are we? That is not a nonsense question.

before the election Comey sent a letter to the republicans in Congress, which MSNBC was the first to report as breaking news that the email investigation had been reopened. THAT WAS A LIE. MSNBC then proceeded to parade every right wing politician across their screen for the next hour and a half perpetuating that LIE. Within two hours the other networks followed suit with the same LIE.

The polls begin to fall immediately after that. Then a few days later, Bret Baier from fox news came out and said "his sources within the FBI said an indictment was pending on the Clinton Foundation". That was also a LIE. 48 hour later Bret Baier came out and apologized that he made a mistake, but various news outlets including Google news, spewed that garbage, and the damage was pretty much done by then. It didn't mater that in the 11th hour Comey came out and said there was no need to reopen the investigation into the emails.

Then we had Jill Stein imploring her folks not to vote for Hillary under any circumstances, even if they lived in a swing state, and spreading the LIE that Hillary was worse than trump.

Hillary lost Michigan by .3%. Jill Stein received 1.1% of the vote. Similar results in Wisconsin and the other critical swing states.

Every Democrat running for Senate in a swing state lost to the ESTABLISHMENT, incumbent, republican, and that included Russ Feingold and other progressives.

The election was lost because of the FBI interference, and the polls indicated that without a doubt.

One small fact that is also ignored. 99% of Hillary's supporters would have voted for Bernie if he was the Democratic nominee. The reverse was not true, and Noam Chomsky made that very clear:

Progressives who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton made a ‘bad mistake’

"Legendary linguist and activist Noam Chomsky thinks that progressives and left-wingers who didn’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton this year have badly miscalculated — and will now pay a very dear price."

.....

“I think they [made] a bad mistake,” said Chomsky, who reiterated that it’s important to keep a “greater evil” from obtaining power, even if you’re not thrilled with the alternative. “I didn’t like Clinton at all, but her positions are much better than Trump’s on every issue I can think of.”

Chomsky also attacked the arguments made by philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who argued that Trump’s election would at least shake up the system and provide a real rallying point for the left.

“[Zizek makes a] terrible point,” Chomsky told Hasan. “It was the same point that people like him said about Hitler in the early ’30s… he’ll shake up the system in bad ways.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/noam-chomsky-progressives-who-refused-to-vote-for-hillary-clinton-made-a-bad-mistake/

She asked the question herself: "why aren't I 50 points ahead?" Against DFT.

That is the question that is begging for an answer.

environment.

The Republicans could run an old shoe and it would get 60 million votes.

Thing is, registered Democrats are (at best*) 30% of registered voters, Republicans are less than that, independents are 40% or so.

The point is our opponent was Donald Fucking Trump, who by ANY measure was unsuited, unready and incapable--why was he even within shouting distance? Why did the blue wall collapse? And why the F was Hillary campaigning for moderate Republicans?...if you are paying attention, you can see that the third question answers the first two.

We need to stop pointing fingers at everyone except ourselves. There's plenty of blame and we have our share.



*we lost ground in this election cycle, did you notice? As much as 5 points, which we have only--partly--regained as Trump demonstrates his true abilities and views.

HRC NEVER campaigned for any Republicans. She made appeals to NeverTrumpers, yes, but that's not the same thing. By all accounts her platform was the most progressive we've yet seen at the GE level.

We lost because Putin, Assange, and 30+ years of GOP propaganda took their toll on HRC. It turned off just enough voters to allow Trump to squeak out a victory.

We lost because we as Democrats, as progressives, as Hillary or Bernie supporters, did not take responsibility for counteracting the lies, fake news, and other dishonest propaganda emanating from the Trump-Bannon-Putin Deluda Triangle.

If you're upset and disappointed about the election results, then starting now spread the truth about Trump-Bannon-Putin, as well as spreading the Good News about the Democratic Party agenda, its leaders, and any and all local or state candidates in your area.

Many people don't want to listen to politiicans giving them well-rehearsed speeches. But they WILL listen to someone they know, in their family, workplace, social group, etc. You don't have to get into a debate or argument. Just tell the truth and let people make a more informed decision.

The near equal unpopularity of both Reps and Dems leads to a logical conclusion: the unpopularity is linked not to partisan stances, but to politicians in general.

There are clear ideological differences between the R and the D. The Tweeddle-Dee-Dum meme is invalid. As long as people despise politicians, both parties will suffer unpopularity.

But this doesn't mean that the D's can't put on their big girl panties and come back fighting with an agenda AND candidates that appeal to the masses in the face of powerful manipulation by oligarchs and billionaire Mussolini imitators. It means hard work, honesty, and dedication not only by our party leaders, but by every registered Democrat (and many independents) to spread the word at home, at work, at church, at school, at social events: everywhere. Unless we do that, we're doomed to be crushed under the thumb of wanna-be dictators like DJT.

Resist is far more than a bumper sticker.

A co-worker (who happened to be Hispanic) made the comment to me (white) that he wasn't going to vote for "that n****r". I put aside my revulsion at his choice of words, and calmly told him that Obama was smart, educated, and inspiring, and the one candidate who could unite our citizens and bring hope back to the nation.

He didn't say much, but his eyes got a little bigger.

A few days later he came up to me and said, "You know, I looked into it, and I'm voting for Obama.".

I'd like to think those couple of minutes I spent on the job reasoning with a co-worker helped Obama to win.

We can all do the same with future local and national elections. Speak out, tell the truth, let people make up their own minds with the FACTS.

It reads like a primary screed. It's also contrary to the large turnout at Dem mtgs & conventions. Big donation surge, members, volunteers.

Yeah, wildly unpopular. In your dreams.

America is full of racist bigoted troglodytes

Look, I'm not saying we have to kowtow to Trump voters. But when "unaffiliated" or non-voting dwarfs either the Trump or Clinton voters (~50% larger than either of those camps), there's something that you and the DNC are both missing with that glib explanation there.

-app

incumbent, republican, and those Democrats, were mostly progressive

Bernie knows how to get a message out in simple terms that appeal to people's emotions and common sense. He fights for what he believes in and tells it like it is.

Democrats could also take some pointers from Stephen Colbert:

"Mr. President, you're not the POTUS, you're the 'gloat-us.' You're the glutton with the button. You're a regular 'Gorge Washington.' You're the 'presi-dunce,' but you're turning into a real 'prick-tator," Colbert said.'

Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign-language gorilla that got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's c--k holster."

The Democrats need to be running a non-stop charm campaign for the next couple of years (and hopefully permanently) to win as much support as they can from as many groups as they can , and try to avoid alienating any supporters they already have.

They need to play cleaner than the Republicans and be seen to be doing so. And they need to create a movement , Trump has his centipedes (this is what trump supporters call themselves on reddit) , and the democrats need a similar movement. And it needs to be a positive movement that makes people feel good about themselves, people respond more to the carrot than to the stick and if one side is promising a massive pile of carrots while the other side has a great big stick that they wallop all and sundry with then it doesn't take a genius to work out which side people will go to. And this is part of the not so big secret of why Trump got elected, he was able to make people feel good and have hope (even if it was only an illusion). It is also why Obama was elected (what was one of his campaign slogans again? it was the iconic hope poster, that made people feel good)