Democratic (Party) Direction

i'm also not convinced about some of those salary numbers -- how is he defining "household"? and is he giving salaries in cities like new york and san francisco equal weight to ones in poor rural regions? how does income tax figure in? it's kinda vague.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the salary numbers either -- plenty of households still struggle on an income of $60,000 a year. The article gets it right that those people don't receive any government assistance, but that's just where the problem lies -- they end up too well off to get assistance but still unable to afford their debt and medical bills.

or hollywood actor

the article suggested that the dividing line between affluent and poor was $50K per household, but for a married couple where both spouses work that only comes out to $25K per person, which isn't much once you figure in the high cost of living in america. plus, the article doesn't say who in these salary ranges pay for their own insurance and retirement funds.

read: "we won't send your existing jobs to india."

it could happen, provided the elected politicians don't have any vested corporate interests. and monkeys might fly etc.

hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
hohohohoHOHOHOHOHOHOOH
heheheheheHEHEHEHEEEHEHEEEHEEHAHAHAHAHAHASNORTSNORTSNORT!

sorry

Er wait, am I talking about Americans, or ILXors?

it is funny how many "affluent" "property owners" are up to their necks in mortgages and high-interest loans. it's like that commercial where the rich white suburban lawnmower dude says "i'm in debt up to my eyeballs!"

In the vast swaths of country between the megapolises there are people raising families of 5 on $57,000 a year and doing it relatively painlessly. And yeah, economic issues don't mean a goddamned thing to them.

Wow, what an incredible insight. Very novel!

"Environics found social values moving away from the authority end of the scale, with its emphasis on responsibility, duty, and tradition, to a more atomized, rage-filled outlook that values consumption, sexual permissiveness, and xenophobia. The trend was toward values in the individuality quadrant."

I've long thought that if the Democratic party would focus their message on individualism (and the resulting freedom it implies) that they might get somewhere.

Today’s average American “worker” is, in short, very much on his or her own -- too prosperous to be eligible for most government assistance programs and, because of job laws that date back three quarters of a century, unable to unionize. Such isolation and atomization have not led to a new wave of social solidarity and economic populism, however. Instead, these changes have bred resentment toward those who do have outside aid, whether from government or from unions, and an escalating ethos of every man for himself. Against that ethos, voters have increasingly flocked to politicians who recognize that the combination of relative affluence and relative isolation has created an opening for cultural appeals.

"Every man for himself" has been an American credo for hundreds of years. It's the essence of competition, of capitalism, of industry. There's a bridge somewhere between individualism and community--is the Democratic party forcing people over a bridge or seeking one?

American voters have taken shelter under the various wings of conservative traditionalism because there has been no one on the Democratic side in recent years to defend traditional, sensible middle-class values against the onslaught of the new nihilistic, macho, libertarian lawlessness unleashed by an economy that pits every man against his fellows.

Maybe they're taking shelter because they don't think it's an economy that's pitting man against man, it's shelter from the resulting culture war. What are "traditional, sensible middle-class values" anyway? The only hint we get from this article is that candidates should talk about religion and that will mitigate their stance on the death penalty (in Virginia.)

I am happy to see the wasteland that is the Democratic Party looking inward. The Republicans wouldn't dare stare into their own dark abyss.

As for the "average American household" that makes $60K a year, it would have been more informative to see the median income, because the average is skewed upwards by those at the top of the scale - ie., less than 50% of Americans make the "average" income.

Lakoff's extensively written about the need for Democratic candidates and progressives in general to start explicitly talking about values. Also, for campaigns to work at creating more of an overall narrative for a candidate than just a laundry list of policies. It's only his work on the framing aspect that's received attention lately, not so much his work on defining the values systems that right/left folks tend to hold(e.g. "maintaining authority" vs "care & responsibility").

He's offered up Schwarzneggar's campaign as an example of a guy who ran entirely on narrative & perceived identity, and expressively refused to offer up any policy suggestions. Most folks don't have the time/energy/inclination to get into policy specifics, but if they trust your guy, they're trust him to take care of the details.

As he says,

"The pollsters didn’t understand it because they thought that people voted on the issues and on self-interest. Well, sometimes they do. But mostly they vote on their identity -- on persons that they trust to be like them, or to be like people they admire"

which connects to that aspirational bit that the article mentions.

Jim Wallis has talked about several of these same issues over the last year as well, especially with on the whole "onslaught of the new nihilistic, macho, libertarian lawlessness unleashed by an economy that pits every man against his fellows" bit.

Wallis has written about conversations his group has had with Frank Luntz and some other Repub pollsters who were quite open about their m.o. being to get voters so caught in such intense issues that they vote against their economic interest.

As other folks have pointed out, the Republicans have been better that bring the polls to them(gay marriage is the biggest thing you care about) vs the Democrats moving to where the polls now seem to be(well i guess we need to move rightward on gay marriage).

That's the thing, innit? If you build up an entire apparatus to both promote & reinforce certain narratives, people will believe them even if they have no basis in fact. George W. Bush is steadfast & strong, Kerry's a weak-willed flip-flopper, Republicans are all about a smaller government, supply-side economics works, etc

oh fuck yeah this is a major bit of it, too. But since when did we start promoting self-reflection and critical thought?

For real despair, look at how Sen. Rodham Clinton is pandering to libs and righties on alternate days. "Congress run like a plantation," "I'd bomb Iran," etc.

xpost

Please God, take Hilary quietly so she won't fuck up the party with a presidential campaign. WORST POSSIBLE CANDIDATE EVER.

Huh? He's only been going this stuff in the press for about two years. Second, there are plenty of other folks who have made the connection, but have gotten shit for coverage(not fitting in with "religious = rightwing conservative" media narrative?), even when they got arrested for it on the Capitol steps.

For real despair, look at how Sen. Rodham Clinton is pandering to libs and righties on alternate days. "Congress run like a plantation," "I'd bomb Iran," etc.

DLC-candidate-in-centrist-message shocker

very much otm. The change will come from the outside.

Re the direction of the party, past actions indicate the party will be quicker to line up behind someone with Clinton's politics as opposed to Tasini's. I'm not too hopeful when it comes to the future of the Dems.

do you think it's necessary for dems to use the religious right's language ("morals" and "values")? would a less-loaded word like "ethics" skew too liberal?

my question is, when do they not? unless a voter has completely descended into some cynical nihilism, of course.

i mean, yeah, "values" has come to signify a very specific set of values, which just goes to further show that democratic types do need to start talking about theirs.

I don't think it's necessarily too liberal, but it definitely lacks the primal grip of "values"

I mean, we all value things, right? We value ethics, for example, since honesty, fairness, & justice are core principles.

not necessarily, but quite possibly, and yes, respectively.

it looks like the WI Dem establishment is trying to ratfuck Francesca Hong in the gubernatiorial race. I don't know if it'll work because nobody here seems to care what any of them have to say right now. I have been seeing a bunch of ads from Dems though saying this or that candidate polls better against Tom Tiffany than Hong does, real emblematic of what's wrong with them, instead of figuring out why Hong is doing so well or adopting any of her extremely popular policy positions they instead lean fully into "if you don't compromise now it'll be your fault if we lose"

when will these fools recognize it's not just the more socialist policy positions that attract people, but it's also the MOR Dems' lack of principles and strong stands that repel people?

i think it would take a $2.6M assessment of the democratic party carried out by the most talented team of consultants that are ready to get to the bottom of what's wrong. this assessment will take 14 years to carry out and will be buried, but its influence could be noted

that's right - 14 years, 2.6M - that's $538K per year, enough to pay the project manager, documentation of meetings, a yearly annual check-in, travel and incidental expenses, an exclusive "deep dive" into three of the issues that matter the most, and "other"

yea I mean people ain't exactly forgetting that Dems had the trifecta in 2020, there was a goddamn attempted insurrection, and all they did was run out the clock and allow all this shit to happen. similar energy as when an NFL team gets knocked out of the playoff picture by the 3-14 Jets or whatever, the fans just want everyone fired

oh wait, claude has told me that's $186K a year, not $538K. only one exclusive deep dive can be provided now, and the executive summary has now been pre-populated with "you're already doing a great job"

I admit Kamala going "now that the shackles are off I can be the candidate I always wanted to be" is pretty funny

yea I mean people ain't exactly forgetting that Dems had the trifecta in 2020, there was a goddamn attempted insurrection, and all they did was run out the clock and allow all this shit to happen

i'll dial down my posts per minute but i honestly think that yes, people have forgotten that, in fact that the overwhelming majority of people have never knew it in the first place. this is why january 6 happens, an entire party gaslights people into thinking that the ones doing the coup were actually the ones saving the republic, andf then 4 years later it's another tight election.

not even exaggerating, and i know that's dismal and cynical, sorry. but compared to such classic questions as "who is the current vice-president?", "how old is the earth", and "is foreign aid spending more or less than 20% of the federal budget?", i think even fewer americans can describe what happened in 2020/21 with any kind of cohesive narrative whatsoever

I'm guessing that a fair amount of people who actually show up and vote on a regular basis are aware of this and are in fact not happy with how it was managed. That isn't to deny that there are a huge amount of ignorant people out there, but a lot of them just aren't going anywhere near a voting booth.

it looks like the WI Dem establishment is trying to ratfuck Francesca Hong in the gubernatiorial race. I don't know if it'll work because nobody here seems to care what any of them have to say right now. I have been seeing a bunch of ads from Dems though saying this or that candidate polls better against Tom Tiffany than Hong does, real emblematic of what's wrong with them, instead of figuring out why Hong is doing so well or adopting any of her extremely popular policy positions they instead lean fully into "if you don't compromise now it'll be your fault if we lose"

― frogbs, Thursday, July 23, 2026 1:22 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's so transparent and pathetic. The biggest ratfuck is Gov. Evers specifically stating he would not get involved in the primary, then going and endorsing Crowley, who had dropped out of the race two days prior before getting back in, all because Lt. Gov. Rodriguez's campaign manager blew all her money and she also dropped out. Endorsing candidates who can't even crack like 5% in the polls is textbook loser shit. Hong and Roys are superior candidates in just about every way, imo, and somehow Barnes seems to be hanging in there, but again imo he has no juice.

Headline and deck from one of the WaPo's concern trolls, Carine Hajjar:

Do Democrats want real ICE reform? It’ll take more than slogans.
The party has chosen to call for abolition instead of accepting modest improvements.

"Modest improvements," the great centrist rallying cry.

What do we want?

*whisper* modest improvements

When do we want them?

*whisper* after we appoint a commission and hire a consultant

it's interesting to see how freaked out the GOP is by this very modest number of democratic socialist who have won primaries, not even general elections. They would normally ignore the 'fringe freaks' but their big fear (I guess) is a lefty Tea Party movement

its so fucking dumb, ICE started in 2003 and have not made anyone's life better in any meaningful way, they have now ballooned into an unaccountable and barely trained mercenary force committing murder in broad daylight and rounding people up into concentration camps, the arguments for keeping them around are so tenuous that you have to make up shit about eating people's pets to justify it. after Renee Good I don't think I've seen a single non-Trumper argue for "reform", they want it abolished entirely at the very least

Outgoing Minnesota Senator Tina Smith has endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Wisconsin.

or Michigan? or maybe she made the endorsement in WI

I just sent in my primary ballot for MN5 and obviously voted for Ilhan and Peggy Flanagan, who went to my high school and grew up with a bunch of people I babysat when they were really little.

Ah so *that's* how you win Suzy's vote

or Michigan? or maybe she made the endorsement in WI

Sorry, yeah; El-Sayed is running in Michigan, and Smith has endorsed him.

There was a NYT article about the WI governor's race the other day that annoyed me. It started with the news about Sara Rodriguez dropping out and David Crowley getting back in.

But then the 4th and 5th paragraphs (very close to the top) said:

Some more moderate Democrats in Wisconsin have watched the primary with growing trepidation, worried that the winner in August could be State Representative Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist who has excited voters on the party’s left flank.

If Ms. Hong, a chef from the liberal capital city of Madison, wins the Democratic nomination, some in the party fear it could send the votes of moderates to Republicans in November. Representative Tom Tiffany, who is running with President Trump’s endorsement, is the likely Republican nominee.

Later (all the way down in the 15th paragraph), the article notes that Rodriguez's departure could be "an opportunity for Ms. Hong to expand her left-wing base, as she has highlighted her background in restaurants and promised to address affordability and the cost of health care in Wisconsin."

But at no point does the article give voice to the perspective of Hong's supporters, in the way that it gives attention to the feelings of "some more moderate Democrats."

Hahaha I’m just thrilled for her, honestly: she grew up in section 8 housing, eating free school lunch. More people like her should be in office.

absolutely

More WI analysis for folks who haven't been paying close attention

https://goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/coordination-and-electability-wisconsins

Good post, thanks for sharing

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2028-election/dnc-committee-sets-south-carolina-vote-first-democrats-2028-presidenti-rcna588863

South Carolina is poised to hold the first Democratic presidential nominating contest in 2028 after the Democratic National Committee’s powerful rules committee moved to keep the state at the front of the line.

The move, set to be recommended by the rules committee Friday and presented to the full Democratic National Committee at its summer meeting next month, settles a monthslong battle among a handful of states.

The end result elevates South Carolina over rivals like Nevada and New Hampshire, which will still be allowed to hold early nominating contests, and pushes Iowa out of the early-voting window altogether. DNC members also granted Michigan, New Mexico and Virginia the ability to hold an early contest, leaving six states eligible to hold contests prior to Super Tuesday.

That’s not a bad spread of 6 states — one the Democrats won’t win (S.C.) but has a concentrated Black voting base, five others they should or could win, decent demographic and geographic spread. Bumping Iowa takes away a Midwestern state, so I guess New Hampshire is the small-white-state proxy.

Tho I guess Michigan is also Midwestern. I think of it more as the Rust Belt specifically.

Back in 2019, 538.com did an analysis that ranked each state by how demographically representative its Democratic electorate was of the national Democratic electorate. The idea being that the states at the top would be ideal states to go early in a Democratic primary.

Illinois was 1st, which made me happy as an Illinoisan.

Of the six states selected today, Nevada was 5th, Michigan 11th, Virginia 14th, New Mexico 31st, New Hampshire 34th, and South Carolina 46th.

The argument for the latter three, I guess, is that they rank highly within specific demographic groups: NM has the highest percentage of Hispanic voters, SC has the 3rd-largest percentage of Black voters, NH has the 5th-highest percentage of white voters without a college degree.

(NB: The demographic data is based on the 2016 election, so will likely have changed in the past decade.)

It's not the most representative sample they could select, but it's an OK proxy given the legacy claims of New Hampshire and South Carolina. I do think displacing Iowa from first is good, even if it has sometimes propelled interesting candidates.

I agree. Especially god to get rid of a state that uses a caucus system.

*good

The argument for the latter three, I guess, is that they rank highly within specific demographic groups: NM has the highest percentage of Hispanic voters, SC has the 3rd-largest percentage of Black voters, NH has the 5th-highest percentage of white voters without a college degree.

― jaymc, Friday, July 24, 2026 12:06 PM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the rationale for choosing south carolina is it will give a major early advantage to whatever corporate centrist the party leaders want to end up with the nomination

Yep, what Kevin said

Rep Clyburn in South Carolina will be endorsing whichever corporate centrist Dem the party leaders want and will try to sell that person

i was going to say something to that degree but was beaten to it. Clyburn sucks.

Interesting take via Politico on how the shift might make SC actually less important than it has been.

https://archive.ph/2026.07.24-233455/https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/07/24/south-carolina-first-black-voters-consequences-01012063

endorsements are wildly overrated biden campaign was banking on sc had put a ton of work in there clyburn endorsing him three days before the primary was just the cherry on top and a convenient story for the media, but realistically most people have made up their minds by three days before the election not sure what sc early voting sitch is but prob many people had already voted, and of course the studies say endorsements dont really move the needle

which is not to say that establishment dems arent trying to make this work in their favor of course they are thats politics baby

I agree. If endorsements mean anything, it's signaling whom the party apparatus is most comfortable with.

We live in an age of early voting. If people want their endorsements to matter they should make them the day before early voting begins in that state.

New financial reports released this week revealed the depth of the D.N.C.’s financial hole. The party is $2 million in debt, while the Republican National Committee has $128.5 million in cash on hand

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/26/us/politics/ken-martin-dnc-democrats.html?unlocked_article_code=1.01A.Ng6q.Au-B16a_JpSt&smid=nytcore-ios-share

I can't imagine why no one wants to donate to the Democratic Party. I bet it's the socialists' fault.

Hey, he’s me writing again. I need to ask you for just $5 to help keep democracy alive…

Q: Jim Clyburn’s takeaway from the 2024 presidential election?

A: Black people let Democrats (and Kamala Harris) down

Watch the back and forth: pic.twitter.com/aa41icIKji

— Astead (@AsteadWH) July 25, 2026

clyburn’s late career has really been an unmitigated disgrace

He will age like a fine wine, give him time

i just bought a case '84 McConnell - even knowing it was a bad year - purely for resale