Democratic (Party) Direction

right right, my flub

hey, an article about a thing i help with

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/12/20/16798026/rebuild-left-democratic-party-democratic-socialists-tenant-rights

Democrats, who hope to recapture the House and Senate in 2018, are trying to understand their unexpected success in Alabama so that they can replicate it next year. But it was painstaking, careful organizing by black organizations that seems to have made the greatest difference—and black activists are drawing their own lessons from their successes in Alabama, as they seek to empower their communities.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/sparking-an-electoral-revival-in-alabama/548504/?utm_source=atlfb

it was painstaking, careful organizing by black organizations that seems to have made the greatest difference

so the take-away is to strengthen community organizing everywhere, which is always very hard work and is pretty much the take-away from every successful progressive movement in history.

ORPHANS > CORPORATE JETS

A brief thought on basic organizing...

As a matter of strategy, organizing requires opening a trusted channel of communication within the community being organized, so important news can be shared and activities can be coordinated. The internet, email, mobile phones, and social media provide glaringly obvious tools for creating such open channels.

However, as a matter of tactics, people respond far more strongly to voices they connect to faces, and most especially to trusted people whose character they know and understand. This is why churches have always proved such fertile ground for community organization. Electronic media are disembodied and faceless. It's their glaringly obvious weakness.

I suspect that social media are being overly relied upon by progressive organizations as a simple, cheap and fast solution to communication and the human connection piece of organizing is getting short shrift. The ease of electronic communication also leads to its abuse, by overloading it with junk messages and incessant fundraising appeals. This ends with it being swiftly tuned out. iow, it fails its purpose and proves to be an empty waste of effort.

All of which is just to say this is a big rake in the middle of the path waiting to be stepped on by newbies to organizing. The old-fashioned shoe leather and church basement organizing will never stop being the most effective and lasting methodology, even though it is the most time-consuming and difficult. Electronic media need to be an adjunct, not a primary tool.

I think that's already the approach most left orgs are taking tbh

I suspect that social media are being overly relied upon

lots of stuck up "liberals" out there and sadly, long gone, no more ACORN. o'keefe (a caricature, sure. . .) has cause more damage than dems know

ACORN was targeted because it was effective

Dems might not have lost 2010, 2014, and 2016 if ACORN had never been o'keefed. weird they haven't figured that out yet

ORPHANS > CORPORATE JETS

if they are fighter jets though 2/3 of Dems are still happy to give Trump even more money than he asked for.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll631.xml

unashamed bipartisan support for the war economy damages their brand far more than a silly O'Keefe video

The war economy is unwarrantedly popular across much of the US population. It connects so directly to fear-based voting that it's a consistent vote winner.

Franken uses his final speech to lay out his core political values. In a country that believes in pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, he said, the federal government can give families the boots.

"That's why I'm a Democrat," he said. "That's why I'm a Democrat." pic.twitter.com/XAEn1tfB7B

— Jennifer Brooks (@stribrooks) December 21, 2017

Bear in mind that the war economy is one of the only industries where we actually still make the shit here. tanks, submarines, destroyers and fighter jets are still handcrafted and assembled in the USA. The DoD budget has become the most straightforward and uncontroversial way to preserve jobs in your community and it's been going for so long it's not even seen as corrupt. On the other hand, a scientific research or infrastructure investment is a significant political risk with almost no upside. There's a reason Reid put a $22M UFO pork project through under the banner of DoD instead of using NSF or NASA etc.

did someone post that UFO pork project NYT story? cuz holy shit

it's too bad some of those missiles wind up w/ ISIS tho

how is there not a thread for the US DoD’s latest UFO program

Come next November
Be sure to remember
Republican treasonous plots.

I see no reason
Republican treason
Should ever be forgot.

unless you want to actually connect with voters

Yup, "the other guys are horrific" is not a compelling reason to vote if you can't prove you are just are horrific. You have to offer something positive to look forward to.

what's the frequency thomas

http://deadline.com/2017/12/donald-trump-tweets-fox-friends-to-brokaw-newt-gingrich-at-war-1202231049/

xp -aren't as horrific

It's still empirically untrue. As long as you are in the opposition, that is.

donald trump is the soviet union's revenge

Qualmsley, drop the Russia stuff for a little while, please

I thinks it’s cool that we have a celeb like Eric Garland posting here.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/26/off-message-bill-de-blasio-216168

That piece‘s central argument is that the Mayor is supported and even admired by a majority of his voters and many fellow Democratic progressives who are willing to to go on the record, BUT... “they” think he’s smug, and “they” talk all kinds of smack off the record, and “they” are lots of people in the Democratic Party. Strong journalism.

still waiting for evidence that de blas belongs among the set "Democratic progressives" though. on housing, development and transit - perhaps the critical issues of inequality in NYC at this date - he has been barely distinguishable from bloomberg, with a focus on developer-friendly schemes and shiny toys at all levels.

People I know who work in planning/transit HATE Di Blasio for his positions on those. Especially the latter, where he has no problem with hard crackdowns on turnstile jumpers and bicycles but won't give a thought to congestion pricing.

also: vaporware light rail and real, expensive ferries for developers in north brooklyn, mysteriously impossible to spend money or time on anybody else's needs

https://theoutline.com/post/2783/democrats-need-to-move-farther-left

^^^ some good stuff there! always encouraging to hear the face-to-face stuff with actual progressive candidates. rooting for all of them.

I'm standing on my chair yelling HAM HAM HAM HAM

Outside of major cities, it can be shockingly easy to take effective political action. In many small towns, a little handful of committed people willing to make phone calls and mail fliers and knock on doors and wave signs and write letters and attend public meetings and generally make a very visible ruckus can get a lot of things done, because the competition for attention is not so great. Much of the actual work of politics is this sort of mundane, labor and resource-intensive stuff. Money helps, yes, but on a local level, what you really need is a band of committed people, a useful list of contacts, and a name recognizable enough for people to pay attention.

If you can bring the committed people, you can plunder your local Democratic Party for the rest.

https://splinternews.com/the-democratic-party-is-yours-take-it-1821647051

hell yeah

At @MoonPalaceBooks and I just found the book that strike fear in the heart of @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/r81nYoeqpL

— Rep. Keith Ellison (@keithellison) January 3, 2018

!

hello there, keith.

Newsweek def clinging to ThirdWayism

http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-rich-700-jacket-billionaires-768739

America needs to get back to normal so it must elect Joe Biden to a single term in 2020 | Opinion https://t.co/WkTsSeo150 pic.twitter.com/1vicX6MIWe

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 3, 2018

Biden-curious

Bidenfluid

ew

Lol, surely a $700 jacket can't seriously be extravagant by Capitol Hill standards?

I hope his response is to show up on the Senate floor in one of Liberace's old minks.

if this is really the best line of attack people have he's doing a fine job

tbf i was a bit disappointed that Sanders agreed to function as a sort of inaugural prop for Mayor de Blasio, whose progressive bonafides are very flimsy until he gets me a cheaper apartment.

wtf is happening in the tone of that newsweek bernie tweak, is that breitbartian breathlessness actually how they write now

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/will_bunch/trump-make-america-great-again-mount-airy-germantown-will-bunch-20180104.html

Lol, surely a $700 jacket can't seriously be extravagant by Capitol Hill standards?

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, January 4, 2018 10:42 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a gift from his step-son who works at the company in vermont which makes the jackets.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/if-you-want-to-know-whos-running-in-2020-watch-capitol-hill-not-iowa/

From the late 1980s to 2016, neoliberal ideas held hegemonic sway among the Democratic elite. But the economy created by this ideology — and the ensuing crises — is a major reason why Clinton lost to Trump and the party is completely out of power today. This obvious failure has provided an ideological opening that the American left has been eager to fill.

Yet even the left-wing is divided about the best way forward. Should it follow Elizabeth Warren's lead and promise a return to the trust-busting ways of the early 20th century? Or should it emulate the more sweeping, Nordic-style politics of Bernie Sanders? Or perhaps the Democratic Socialists of America are right and something even more extreme is needed.

i like cooper, this'll be a decent series

http://theweek.com/articles/725419/decline-fall-neoliberalism-democratic-party

Well organized summary thx- very shareable for some relations who need it.