Required reading: Dear Democrats: Nobody Cares About Your Feelings

[Gman]

Dear Democrats: Nobody Cares About Your Feelings

...
In that vein, here’s another lesson Democrats need to learn: complaining about the rules won’t change the results. Take, for example, Democrats’ continued outcry over gerrymandering and voter ID requirements in Republican-controlled states. You can simultaneously accept that these devices are in place to suppress Democratic votes and also understand that as long as Republicans hold power, these devices will remain in place. If you want to change the rules, there’s only one way to do that: win elections. If that means mounting drives to help voters in states with restrictive voter ID laws get the necessary photo identification, then that’s what you have to do. You don’t have to like these laws, but you do need to get real. Stamping your feet and holding your breath until you turn blue will not win an election or change a law.

And here’s another, closely-related lesson Democrats would do well to learn: nobody cares about your feelings. You can march, yell, and sign petitions all you want, but your voice won’t be heard until you figure out where the correct pressure points are located.

Lots to think about.

http://observer.com/2017/01/democrats-need-to-learn-how-to-win-elections/

[truebluegreen]

1. Amen. Good read.

[MineralMan]

2. Yes. We must work with what we have to elect Democrats

so thing can be changed. If we don't win elections, we can't change things, as we are about to discover for the next two years, at least.

Complaining about the situation is not the same as GOTV activism.

[hwmnbn]

3. Absolutely right!!!

This article needed to be written and received.

[JTFrog]

4. Why do I want to read anything in Donald Trump's son-in-law's rag?

Why am I seeing all this right wing shit all over DU this week? I also noted a huge uptick in bashing Democrats. What did I miss?

[WillowTree]

5. What you're missing.......

.......is that he's telling you a lot of the reasons why Democrats keep losing so many elections and making real world suggestions as to what they need to do to stop that trend. Ignore if you like, but don't be surprised if Democrats keep losing.

[KittyWampus]

8. All we have to do to win elections like Trump is collude with the Russians & FBI

and disenfranchised legal voters who just happen to be minorities.

[Gman]

6. Why? Because you just might learn something

Right wing shit? The cold truth is hard to deal with. Lash out all you want. Hopefully you'll realize it doesn't win an election.

[KittyWampus]

9. What cold hard truth? I'm wondering. Does this POS article tell us how to collude w/Russia?

How to get the FBI to intercede on our behalf?

How to keep legal American citizens from voting because they're black?

[JTFrog]

14. If you want to be lectured by right wingers, that is your prerogative.

I'll pass.

[wildeyed]

16. Oh hell yeah!

It's a know Trump propaganda outlet. One of the best, IMO, because it is almost sane and liberals will link to it and disseminate their propaganda It beggars belief that Democratic supporters are still flogging this site after all we know about the propaganda efforts that went on during the primary and GE.

[HughBeaumont]

7. Well, that and having a Horatio Alger-addicted American population doesn't hurt.

I don't buy any of these arguments that America ISN'T a predominantly conservative nation. If it wasn't, this election wouldn't have been close enough to be won by an unqualified shit like Trump on a technicality. The fact that a fuck like Trump got 60 million votes . . . the fact that even FIFTY million people thought "President Donald Trump" was a great idea in the first place . . . Sorry, we're a country straight up filled with dumbasses. I'm not even going to apologize for calling someone who thinks a billionaire's going to solve the problems billionaires created by hiring more billionaires a dumbass.

I still think it's because too many Americans think they're one lucky break away from BEING Donald Trump instead of one lost job away from homelessness.

That doesn't mean the Democratic Party's absolved from looking in a mirror. We ignore and marginalize progressive voices, we don't hire the right people to run the ground game, we're horrible at messaging, we think the Clinton blueprint is going to perform like it did in '92 and '96 forever and, sad as it is to say . . . all of the issues we're better performers at, all of the diversity . . . it hurts us.

Republicans threw out their moderates and became the lockstep, racist pro-wealth xenophobe party. It works so well, we cede 135 votes right off the bat. We're all things to all people . . . some moderates aren't on board with that. In the big tent, there's going to be wars between the actual left and the cast-off moderate Republicans. It leads to votes for third parties that are either more right leaning economically than Republicans or parties with people like Jill Stein ruining them.

We're not a party with a solid economic blueprint, which is what everyone's caring about. I don't think either party is going to help the coming job dearth (which moderates cheer and makes reasonable people see disaster) and that needs to be addressed, but relying on a party that thinks giving more money to wealthy people is a feasible solution . . . it tells me our work is becoming more than we can handle.

[KittyWampus]

10. DU'ers need to stop falling for Republican bullshit. Jared Kushner's rag should discuss

how Republicans win by colluding with Russia, the FBI and preventing legal minority voters from casting their votes.

[JTFrog]

13. Exactly. nt

[Orsino]

11. So make them care.

When we shut up about gerrymandering, that'll be one fewer reason voters have to join us.

[Tikki]

12. Dear repubs...when you lost your home, your business and your health under boosh, we....

Cared For You and ourselves.
We worked hard to find a leader who would bring about some relief and he and his administration did just that.

This time, so soon after boosh and his butties, it will be harder for us to feel your pain as chuckles the clown
turns your smile upside down and twists it into a knot.

We have our own agenda we are working on now. It will fit us, not you.
Tikki

[wildeyed]

15. Dude, that's Jared Kushner's rag you are linking.

Are we sure that we want to take political advice from them? Cliston Brown appears to be an insurance media relations specialist (propaganda) who worked for a Dem politician for about 5 minutes 100 years ago. So why are we listening to him?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliston-brown-38b9ab9

Marching, protesting, etc. ABSOLUTELY work. It worked for MLK. It helped end Vietnam. It keeps eyes on the state house in my beloved and beleaguered state of NC. It can't be the only thing, but is keeps eyes and media focused our our issues. Your elected officials absolutely do keep track of constituent contacts, particularly state and local. Koch tool Senator Thom Tillis, my very own GOP senator, is taking constituent meetings about ACA and telling our state GA to cool their crazy the fuck down. This is because his internal polling already looks like shit, his constituents have been burning up the phone lines and he is afraid of losing.

Jared Kushner wants you to sit down and shut up for a reason.... It is embarrassing his FIL and interferes with his ability to transfer the wealth of this great nation into the pockets of his fabulously wealthy cronies.

It is NOT irrelevant that Clinton won popular vote. It will not overturn the results of the election, but it weakens Trump's claim to any mandate, as does the Russian interference in the election. Hey, they used a COMPLETE LIE about Obama's birth certificate, and see how far it got them?

I actually agree that Dems have to be tougher. But the problem is that most liberals genuinely respect democracy and seek to protect it. I really want every vote to count. Not just my party or candidate's votes, but every single vote. That puts us at a huge disadvantage against the GOP because even when we do have power, we don't go out of our way to block their voters, other than the regular partisan gerrymandering BS (which I also hate and seek to outlaw).

Same with propaganda. The RW propaganda game has always been mighty. We in the truth-based party are naturally wary of using lies and logical fallacies to promote our fact-based policy positions. Personally, I recently made the decision to go to the dark side and engage in the same type of disingenuous discourse that was deployed (primarily) by RW and Russian trolls during the primary and it feels soooooo good. It is beyond easy to dominate online discussions when you no longer constrain yourself to facts and logic. And so few even see what you are doing. Sad! But many I know understandably feel like this behavior is a deal with the devil. YMMV.