Democratic (Party) Direction

yeah I don't think he's a good example, it's impressive that he was able to win in 2016 and 2018

He was one of only two House Ds to vote against impeachment, and the other (Jeff Van Drew) promptly switched parties.

the corn vote
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/cr-pr.php

what about it?

outside of a few mid-sized conservative population centers, there are huge house districts that mostly roll on with incumbents for decades with little campaigning and the only main issues are adhering to some sort of vague rural-centric set of social values and making sure the national farm subsidies programs keep going

I think democrats could do well with a rethinking of the subsidies and disaster recovery programs to incentivize small farmers — that is, people who still have family farms and thousands of acres, not the consolidated corporate-owned farms with tens of thousands of acres. But if you look at someone like Steve King, who only got bounced from running for re-election after his inability to shut up about his racist feelings made his DC coworkers unwilling to publicly work with him, then you realize it’s mostly about not rocking the boat and just punching in the correct votes and being a known name.

The democrats have a uphill battle in these districts and *not campaigning* might be how Peterson held on to that position for so long, by not cementing an association with other democrats and reminding people that (D) after his name was supposed to mean something. A lot of people in farm country like to think they’re nonpartisan and are willing to vote for the right guy, and oddly enough, they were voting for Peterson so that kept up the charade. This election cycle, people cared less about that and they decided to vote straight ticket

Yeah, Peterson's loss wasn't due to anything he did or didn't do. It was just a function of increasing polarization, esp. rural/urban. Like, I'd be shocked if Manchin ever gets re-elected again, no matter how much he panders to the right.

Rural/urban polarization seems like the whole story and I haven’t the foggiest notion what rural people want or need or are like really so I hope someone does.

From what I can tell of polling rural voters would like a reactionary New Deal - socially conservative, anti-immigration, better healthcare, rural jobs/infrastructure investment. No idea how you square that circle with a socially progressive party aside from crossing your fingers that economic populism gets them to ignore their deeply ingrained social beliefs.

Will they accept train stations

rural jobs/infrastructure investment. No idea how you square that circle with a socially progressive party

there's tons of stuff that would be a huge help to rural areas, related to infrastructure, upgrading internet access, clean energy, and especially the grid.

no idea what their opposition (or anyone's...) is to the first two, but they can't support clean energy and a smart grid because climate change is a hoax and because they think america's energy future is clearly in extracting more oil and gas

upgrading internet access

it’s called “moving to parler” iirc

The same rural/urban divide occurred before 1932, but it took the Depression and FDR to create a coalition. COVID should've been our moment.

Isn't (deep red) West Texas still the top wind power generator in the country. I dunno, sell clean energy without mentioning climate change, just pure pork.

I'm curious about rural views on immigration. I would think that farm owners would favor it (farm labor). But I don't know how significant a block of voters actual farm owners that employ immigrant labor make up.

no idea what their opposition (or anyone's...) is to the first two, but they can't support clean energy and a smart grid because climate change is a hoax and because they think america's energy future is clearly in extracting more oil and gas

Another thing that can be helpful will be the end of dumb trade tarrifs that hurt the agricultural populations.

Also, I wonder how popular that specific viewpoint of america’s energy future being oil/gas is beyond coal country?

xp I don't think conservative voter opposition to alternative energy is all that big actually, I think it's mostly just conservative donor and lobbyist opposition.

i disagree. every climate change skeptic i know is a conservative moron

yes, i realize clean energy != climate change. but in effect, opposition to one means opposition to the other

But that's the question - is there real, on the ground, opposition to clean energy? ie rural solar and wind production
If you make climate change the quiet part, and jobs the loud part can you sell it?

“Do we want to govern or do we want to be internet celebrities?” Rep. Jeffries asked other top Dems on a private leadership call.

Behind the scenes in the House Democratic Caucus and its turbulent post-election day adjustment:

W @sarahnferris https://t.co/xvte6Zq8hE

— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) November 11, 2020

Celebrity, useless for building political support.

Is that a shot at "the squad"?

Yes if there's anything we've learned in the last four years it's that celebrity and media attention don't help win elections...

Maybe you can't sell clean energy to conservatives, but the states that produce a lot of wind energy are pretty conservative - Texas, Oklahoma, up through the Dakotas - and I haven't heard any calls to tear down those windmills.

I'm sure there are plenty of sun belt conservatives with solar panels on their roof. Most people like the idea of not paying for their energy. Plus there's an "off the grid" appeal for the prepper types.

i disagree. every climate change skeptic i know is a conservative moron

Conservative moronism is not monolithic!

#notallmorans

I'm sure there are plenty of sun belt conservatives with solar panels on their roof. Most people like the idea of not paying for their energy. Plus there's an "off the grid" appeal for the prepper types.

At one point, no matter where you stand on the spectrum, you can’t argue with prices, the moment conservatives will realise they save money in the short term by shunning oil, they will.

I work in solar and it is definitely WAY more bipartisan than one might think, for the reasons cited above and more

and yeah the grid parity numbers don't lie

That's similar to Bernie's emphasis on jobs when he was stumping the Green New Deal. Appeal to people's baser instincts (save money, more jobs) rather than abstract notions of doing good for the climate.

Can it be that the difference and arguments might be more within the lines of does it come from the free market or does it come from ‘big government’?

I really think it's more just that most people like to save money and not have to send their money to big corporations when they can get energy from the sun. Medicare is big government and it's popular, obamacare is more "free market" and it's less popular. Don't add too many layers of abstraction to it, people like ease, simplicity, safety, comfort, and saving money.

I think a lot of the main issues for the rural voters are the same as urban voters, but pivoted:
Healthcare: Expensive, and a lot of rural hospitals and clinics are consolidating or shutting down. It’s not profitable for medical provider networks to run those centers in sparse areas. The thing that comes to mind was a Sanders push for community healthcare centers in several bills, which worked hand-in-hand with the Medicaid expansion. If there aren’t enough patients, the system isn’t sustainable. We need people seeking and receiving healthcare at rural clinics in order to make them viable.The ability to get medical care in your own community is overlooked by people who live within 20 minutes of a hospital
Schools: Again, consolidation and a lack of funding in sparse areas. Part of this is just numbers — there aren’t going to be a lot of high schools out there with 50 people in a graduating class due to monetary constraints, but maybe there should be?

Part of this is the inability to attract new industry to areas where there just isn’t the population, and those areas that are having population growth in the midwest are those that have mostly low-paying, majority-immigrant populations. I have family members who grew up in a semi-rural town that isn’t that far from a city, but they were still shrinking compared to actual suburbs. Then a meat processing facility moved in, and the complaints changed for a while to having a lack of resources for ESL students.
I think the community is doing relatively OK, but.. well, remember all those news stories where a high school basketball team with a majority of students from families of color were treated to assholes from another district yelling racist crap and chanting “Trump” at the game? That kind of shit happened.

And don’t even get me started about that entire Devin Nunes debacle where it became clear that his family’s dairy farm up and left California years ago and now operates in the midwest, with mostly immigrant laborers.

have democrats ever gone "too far left" -- and by too far left i mean too "radical" with income inequality proposals, climate change proposals, offering social services at the expense of the military, corporate america and big donors -- and lost votes because of it?

Maybe in 1968. Losers will claim they did. I tend to think not. I need data, though.

maaaybe McGovern in '72? And they've never recovered since even though things are totally different now, sad lol.

huh thx, food for thought

‘66-‘68-‘72 were a social backlash more than government program backlash

Mondale threatened to raise everyone’s taxes but not to spend more just to lower the deficit IIRC.

yeah, McGovern was not noticeably left-er than Humphrey or LBJ.

and Humphrey in 1948 was more liberal than Jimmy Carter in any year.

I think it's always a bit reductionist to say anyone loses an election by going "too far left" or too far anything. I think it's plausible that Republicans succeeded in branding the democratic party generally with unpopular stances like defund the police, even though there's no candidate-specific evidence (i.e. that any swing candidate who lost supported defunding police).

But "unpopular" is the key there, not "left."

Whichever party more effectively captures the public's feeling of what is wrong with the country seems able to ride that to push things left or right as they see fit. (cue silby's 'people don't vote for reasons' argument)

"Make America Great Again" resonated against "America Is Already Great" because who actually believed the latter?
Obama and Clinton won on Hope and Change challenges to the status quo.
Dubya ran against the moral dissolution of the Clinton White House (least effective counter-narrative, not enough people gave a shit if the President had affairs).
Carter's austerity without hope didn't play well against Reagan's boundless optimism.
Carter/Ford... both just kind of meh in the end.
Nixon's silent majority thought we weren't patriotic enough, didn't love the troops enough, backlash against the decline of American exceptionalism/Manifest Destiny/etc..

Captures in branding*

And Biden ran on "back to normal, don't you want to spend your day not thinking about politics again," resonating against "chaos in the White House" and won.

Can't help but think that americans (and elsewhere!) love that 'let's be united' stuff that Biden sold.

the obvious solution is for the Democrats to run someone with a farther left platform that people actually like

I think it’s a good goal, but we’ve got to also get that going across the house, senate, and maybe more importantly state and city level politicians

The closer you start to the ground, the more we’re going to see how progressive policies work in practice and can be pushed to the federal imo

tbh, any Democrat can choose to run for any office - and can adopt whatever platform they think will appeal to the most voters. It's getting your campaign stood up and organized that's the real hurdle, not a lack of blessing from the Democratic Party apparatchiks.