We don't need to reach out to the "center", we need to reach out to the common people

[Bjorn Against]

We are told after every election that we need to reach out to the "center" to win elections, but the "center" they define for us never represents the common person instead it represents the corporate interests.

The common person does not worry about whether or not the CEO of the company they work for has to pay a higher rate of taxes, they worry about whether or not they can make wages that provide their family with a decent quality of life.

The common person does not spend their time demanding spending cuts to poor people, the common person wants to live in a society where they don't have to see people suffering from poverty or other forms of hardship.

The common person does not run around demanding we allow industry to pollute more, the common person wants to breathe clean air and drink clean water.

The common person does not demand we bust up teacher's unions, the common person wants good schools for their children to attend.

The common person does not sit around cheering the money the CEOs of the health insurance companies pull in every year, the common person wants to be able to see a doctor without making an enormous financial sacrifice.

We don't need to reach out to the "center" that the media likes to pretend represent the common people, we need to reach out to the people who actually do represent the common people. It just so happens that the common people have a hell of a lot in common with progressives and we need to show them how progressive values will benefit them, once the common people see those benefits the Republicans will no longer be able to compete with us.

[nashville_brook]

1. best example of this was folding on immigration -- this was a fight we needed to have

we didn't win any old white men b/c of taking it off the table temporarily -- and it likely lost many latino votes. i know it took the wind out of the sails of folks who'd been working on it for years.

[FogerRox]

21. As Kos said. Obama shit on Latinos and Asians.

[zeemike]

2. Could not agree more.

[mopinko]

3. and life gets tougher every day for the common people.

i talked to them in wisconsin. they are too busy trying to keep their own lives from going down the drain to pay attention to politics they way folks on du do.

i had 3 voters in tears, and gave out a couple of badly needed hugs. they were all dealing with problems that their government is not only not helping them with, they are making them worse.
it was a tough sell to convince them that voting could help.
i am sure they watched the results, and said- i told you so.

[bigwillq]

4. K and R. K and R. K and R. K and R.

I think the biggest reason why the DEMS lost is because despite some encouraging economic news, folks haven't felt it in their pocketbooks and at home, and they decided to vote for the party not in power.

So many people still struggling. Common people.

Good post.

[MrMickeysMom]

5. HellYES, Bjorn...

I mean, we do this every day in general life, so why shouldn't we present a platform supporting that?

The dis-engagement is exhausting those of us who have run, who have continued to get people to run and to convince the support of what we end up with.

Reminds me of the Star Wars prequel where the senator realizes that THIS is why the destruction of democracy looks like…

[appalachiablue]

6. Agree 100x. Thanks.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. There is no "center".

[Bjorn Against]

10. I pretty much agree with that

If you take a poll you will have a lot of people who call themselves centrists but that term means so many different things to different people that it is basically meaningless. The media tries to present the Third Way types as centrists, but the reality is the Third Way is a tiny fringe group and very few of the people who identify as centrists also identify as Third Way. Most of the people who identify as centrist are really just common people, they may not actually be progressives themselves but they are often people that share some common ground with progressives. We don't need to move to the right to win a lot of them over.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. "Third Way" Dems are indistinguishable from classic Wall Street Republicans.

[Bjorn Against]

13. I think many of them are Wall Street Republicans

I believe they are Republicans who joined the Democratic Party so the wealthy interests can have their tentacles in both parties, they don't represent the common person at all.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Part of this dates WAY back...

After Dukakis lost the narrative was that he was "too liberal" and the mantra was that America was "a center/right country" so the Liberals were told to STFU as the party recruited Blue Dogs and former lobbyists from what were enemy camps to help the party shift to the right in order to keep pace with the public. They ran Bill Clinton who ran as a Liberal and once in office governed as a Conservative. Then they had the NERVE to claim his appeal to America was that he was a Conservative.

Around the Beltway the favorite sport has been "kick the Hippie" and it's getting tiresome.

The reality is the GOP Convention in Houston under Daddy Bush was hijacked by the religious right with things like criminalizing gays and banning abortion and the country rejected their wacko moralistic message by voting for Clinton.

[jtuck004]

8. Newest Oxfam Report: The richest make $500,000-per-minute

...
Just before the annual gathering of the global elites last January (at the Swiss mountain resort of Davos), the anti-poverty charity Oxfam released an eye-opening report that showed the world’s 85 richest billionaires hold as much wealth as 3.5 billion of humanity’s poorest half. That shocking statistic quickly went globally viral. Now there's a new report.

Last week the 72-year-old organization launched a new campaign called "Even It Up" with a new 136-page report showing that the combined wealth of the world’s top 85 multi-billionaires is increasing at the rate of a half million dollars a minute.

The reports says: “Oxfam’s decades of experience in the world’s poorest communities have taught us that poverty and inequality are not inevitable or accidental, but the result of deliberate policy choices.”
...

deliberate. ya think?

Here.
____________________

What I find interesting about last night is the utter despair and utter joy at all the stuff, while all the time this is going on the people in the report above are making $500,000 a minute.

The REASON I find this interesting is that despite this little war between two factions, both are just menu items for that group, regardless of your winner.

It's as if War of the Worlds came on for real, the Martians are marching through devouring or destroying everything in their path, and everyone just switched off the radio and started hurling curses and insults at their neighbors.

You are 100% right. Who you need to reach out to is your neighbor. Even if they are the horriblest, angriest, meaniest slime of a human (with a few exceptions), they are likely less of a threat than the 1%.

Heck, there's a 99% chance you should both be on the same side. If we don't find common ground none of us will survive.

(And, frankly, there's no reason why that can't start with the undoing of Citizens United. No one wants a corp telling them what to do, do they?)

[AgingAmerican]

9. There is no center

Doesn't exist. That is what makes this whole thing so damn stupid.

[RobertEarl]

12. Just common sense

Just doing the mundane, everyday taking care of business, is what has been the Democratic party meat and potatoes.

Recently we've expanded and gone into the equality field and pushed that envelope. The common people are all for it, but the elite are embarrassed that they have to share power with the non-elite.

What I am trying to say is that the leadership has not yet caught up to the people. LBJ was one of the last higher echelon to do so, and he delivered civil rights and health care and food stamps. And the party paid a price for that, for sometime.

Now we push equal rights and that is causing our leaders some discomfort and they just can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get with the program.

It is just common sense to make progress on many fronts. What we have failed to do is to deliver that progress message over and above the mass media. My hope is the social media can broadcast the Democratic party message.

That message is: We are for the people. All the people, all the time.

[Last_Stand]

15. I lived in Wichita, KS for 9/11 and a couple of years after...

"These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."

[TBF]

16. I would begin the quest

by NOT referring to fellow citizens as "common people".

[Bjorn Against]

17. What is wrong with common people?

I consider myself a common person, the large majority of people are common people. I don't know many people who would be offended by that term.

[TBF]

19. Why the label?

Why not just "people"? It is a very small class of billionaires right now running things. If any labels are needed it's to identify the folks hoarding the money and letting others starve on the streets.

ETA - It's kind of like when Queen Ann referred to us as "you people". We don't need to find the common people and embrace them. We all need to realize we ARE the common people. That is the hoop many on DU need to jump through.

[Bjorn Against]

20. As you say "we are the common people"

I agree with you that we are the common people, but I don't understand why you are opposed to me using that label when you just acknowledged that we are indeed common people.

[Dreamer Tatum]

18. Then be prepared to deal with icky religious people and Southerners.

You know, people DU usually wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.