Wait, Not THAT Emerging Democratic Majority!

[JudyM]

During some of the darkest days of the George W. Bush era, liberals contented themselves with one particular certainty: It was just a matter of time. Thanks to demographics, the GOP’s stranglehold on the presidency, the Senate, and the House would all eventually be broken. The country was getting younger and browner, and the Republican coalition of old white conservatives, increasingly cohered by racist messaging, could not hold. The GOP was on the edge of collapse, its support aging out and dying off. If the Democratic Party could get those young people and people of color to vote, they could win.
...
Still, for roughly two decades, some Democrats have held fast to this understanding. Invariably, the electoral cavalry would come. For decades, they’ve been disappointed, as that swell of support has been stuck just beyond the horizon. But three contests in, that long prophesied Democratic majority, in some form, seems to have arrived.
...
Of course, for all the criticism from the establishment of Sanders’s candidacy, his success has been largely to actualize the wishful thinking that mainstream Democrats have been banking on for the bulk of the 21st century. He’s drawn up new plays, but he’s running an offense that the party ... has also embraced... these same Democrats have been quick to dismiss the viability of the approach. Even if Sanders is able to ride the emerging Democratic majority to primary victories in Texas, California, and elsewhere, it could never work in the general, various ex-Obama and -Clinton staffers have insisted to MSNBC, amid bouts of apoplexy from the network’s anchors. ...

However, if they just relented and let the process play out—allowing Sanders’s campaign to activate young voters, Gen Z college students and workforce millennials, the oldest of whom are now nearing 40, and voters of color, particularly Latinos—the party might finally have the loyal, activated base that it’s so long pined for. That loyalty could well prove lifelong, and produce the sustained victories that have eluded the party since the collapse of the New Deal order.

https://prospect.org/politics/wait-not-that-emerging-democratic-majority/

[lapfog_1]

1. Populism is, by definition, popular

but it also burns out because it isn't usually pragmatic.

[bluewater]

2. Populist ideas become mainstream, then people forget they were Populist ideas.

Free public schools...

The right to Unionize...

Child Labor Laws...

the 5 day work week...

Social Security...

Medicare...

All those populist ideas sure seem damn pragmatic now though, don't they?

[mathematic]

8. Racism, anti-semitism, isolationism, nativism, militarism...

Populism is a plague.

[bluewater]

9. Those all sound like establishment vices

Racism... enshrined in the US constitution until the Civil War

Anti-semitism.. EVERY European government until basically the end of WWII.

Militarism... lol HAVE you looked at our defense budget for the last 70 years!

Nativism... lol Again, EVERY European country until the last 20 years were all Nativists. Most still do not have birthright citizenship.

[mathematic]

12. They went mainstream so we should just forget that they're populist?

An odd pivot, for sure.

[bluewater]

15. A strange pivot, of yours, indeed! Lets talk about Militarism and SLAVERY in the US, shall we?

LOL

Sure.... POPULISM is to blame for our defense budget, not vested corporate interests, as just one example.

Yeah, SLAVERY, not just racism was enshrined in US law and the Constitution since our nation's founding because who wanted it to be? Oh, the rich slave owning Planter class in the South, and the Northern Business interests that made money on the slave trade. Like the founder of Brown University in Rhode Island.

What's that old saying?

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging?



I think my point has been made, no profit, pun intended, in repeating it in some tangential thread death cycle.



Enjoy your day.

[LanternWaste]

16. You're now moving the goalposts... rather quickly too.

I get it... it's a tough old world when our statements are applied consistently. So I completely understand why you make excuses without any supporting evidence; just simple editorial.

[bluewater]

19. Oh my, non-specific non sequiturs!

lol

Yeah, populism is to blame for the Militarism of the last 70 years of defense spending, not vested corporate interests.

Yeah, SLAVERY, not just racism was enshrined in US law and the Constitution since our nation's founding because who wanted it to be? Oh, the rich slave owning Planter class in the South, and the Northern Business interests that made money on the slave trade. Like the founder of Brown University in Rhode Island.


But lets ignore that... lol

[HarlanPepper]

4. I'll go with "not at all"

[PatSeg]

6. I'm afraid you're right

You can't make all those revolutionary changes via executive order and getting such policies through congress will be very difficult, perhaps impossible.

[ehrnst]

7. You think he's going to be in too bad of health to last 8 years?

[Politicub]

14. Populism is a rhetorical tool

In our winner-take-all system, it’s one of the many tactics that candidates use to get ahead. Others are advertising and local organization among many others.

All of the democratic nominees running are offering approaches to our inequities in healthcare, childcare, etc. It is how they talk about and position their solutions that differs.

I would argue that a promise of a return to normalcy and less drama is a populist position. No one can predict the future. But they can paint different pictures of it.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Judy.

[redqueen]

10. K&R!

Ah, reminds me of the old DU

[JudyM]

11. Ah, it sure does!

Those were the days... united in purpose on the battlefield.

[redqueen]

18. Days when we all knew exactly what 'establishment' meant.

Alas

[JudyM]

20. .

Here’s hoping for reason to trust again.

[lambchopp59]

13. Emerge, emerge...

And submerge the idea of lukewarm candidates, please DU'ers before we repeat the outcome of 2016 all over again. This "pragmatist" argument is a loser in a time we need someone fighting from the left, hard and has, yes, "populist" appeal the only winning electoral strategy I see as possible unseating even an unpopular president in a good economy dUh-mericans will be just stupid enough or Fox Noise mesmerized enough or white supremecist trash enough to keep the Orange menace in power.
Try to run with Mr Boomer-appeal Pragmatic Dem... get ready to tough out 4 more years of Trump/Pence.
I don't want my futile sing with the choir California vote to be even more so. Yes it's futile other than to add to the statistic of 2868686 or however many we win the popular vote but lose the rigged system by this time.
And we need the 3 million more from other states who will join us if we don't choose Mr White-America pragmatist establishment ho-hum. Unless Mr White America pragmatist establishment performs unexpectedly well, has populist as well as pragmatic appeal, nerves of steel to keep on message against the Trump tantrum at the debate and truly only the sharpest and mike-drop of retorts if any to the squall.
I'll keep my airsick bag handy for the morning of November 3rd or 4th morning if the boomers get their choice.

[Politicub]

17. Pragmatism and moderation are the most radical ideas of all

And they take the most magical thinking to imagine them working.

Trump has taken a wrecking ball to our system. Americans are sharply divided ideologically. The idea that there is a person who is a moderate savior is as difficult for me to imagine as it is to get Medicare for all passed.