Re: Democratic Challengers 8: Candidates Can Only Work for A Vegan Farm Market
uno's statement is the natural follow up though. In fact, its the very thing you've been preaching since you were deprogrammed a few months ago!
I agree with the sentiment in general but if it's the very first thing that comes to your mind after reading that piece then it kinda proves its thesis: the Left has been trained to self-censor, to pro-actively surrender. The Right has been taught to push and push and push. The result is the headlong rush to fascism of the last 40 years. To arrest that and restore balance we had better stop ducking and mumbling and start having courage and bravado.
The People do not give a sh-t about policy, they care about affect. The GOP affect is leadership and confidence and people are drawn to that despite Republican rancidness and their century-long record of economic disaster. The People
like the big, tough, dumb sh-t with the big hair. They think he's a rebellious anti-hero even though in reality he's the tool of the establishment that is f-cking them.
The Dem affect is professorial consideration and faltering caution. The People are repelled by that. Not everybody wants to sit through a dissertation defense. If you want to know what most people like, watch commercials. The flashy, loud, pandering, and superficial in a proven winner. What matters is affect.
The Great Irony is the 1% target their campaigns to the bottom half of the electorate while we target ours to the top 5% of the educated. A new approach is needed. Be brave and confident.
Stop worrying about everything: how middle class people will hear "socialism," how one-legged Tennessee cis lesbians of color will feel insufficiently respected.
State the goal: widely shared prosperity and equal opportunity.
State how to get there: full stop
end corporate, Plute, and military welfare, make enormous long-term investments in health and education for the majority of Americans, restore
strongly progressive taxation, punish white color crime, reverse the privatization of government as a debunked, corrupt scam.
Restore balance. Repair the social ties between Americans and end the "war of all against all" the Plutes use to divide and conquer. End the trumped-up war between rurals and urbans. Make "American" more important than gender or skin color or region. Stop demonizing women (or men) and browns (or whites) and the coasts (or the middle).
Defend American values of equality and opportunity. Be proud of them, be positive about them. Own them.
We are Real America. Those other as-sholes are just a bunch of lying multi-national carpetbaggers and their paid stooges.