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Lance Gallardo's avatar

Truth Bomb! The Dems are flailing b/c they do not know who they are anymore. Are they just a collection of disparate special interests all jockeying for dominance the far left the Bernie Sanders/ AOC wing or are they the Centrist Dems usually represented by Midwest Dems like Illinois Governor and Kentucky Governor? You can’t have a winning philosophy and message until you know who you are? Who are the Dems these days? I dare someone to nail THAT down! When I served in the Marine Corps, we had a running song which basically ended in I know just who I am because I’m a marine and we all had bought into a common set of purposes and values that we would live and die for. That kind of unity of purpose is completely absence in the Democratic Party. I think until they have that unity of purpose and everybody knows who the Democrats are again and what they stand for they’re not gonna become a winning political party maybe not even viable political party anymore. It was clear to me as a lifelong Democratic voter that’s the Democrats had lost that unity of identity, that unity of purpose. I think many people have recognized the issue. They’ve talked about how the Democrats left Work the working class people, the blue-collar people the people that built thing with their hands, not just with their minds. They focus too much on the college educated professional, so-called knowledge workers and the blue-collar folks felt abandoned even the union folks felt abandoned. They have always been a traditional base of the Democratic Party. You start with them and you build your way up when your policies and your messaging or not directly addressed to the majority of working class Americans you’ve lost your voting base. Both President Clinton and President Obama in their own way, and perhaps Joe Biden at one time understood this to his core. I think that’s partly why he got elected in 2020 not just to get rid of Trump because he stood for the working class America with his blue-collar roots.

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Susan Hofstader's avatar

This reminds me of the old days of Air America, when a bunch of liberals tried to organize a counter to right-wing talk radio…there wasn’t a station broadcasting it in my area, so I went and got a satellite radio, and ended up finding it so boring/stupid I used my satellite radio to listen to the BBC World Service instead. Trying to imitate Republican outlets is a dead end. Also, as you note, Rogan is more of an anti-establishment horseshoe-theory guy in terms of ideology, who was big on Bernie Sanders not that long ago. He’s MMA+comedy+alt med. If Democrats want to expand the tent they just need to find a way to not instantly right off everything that isn’t “left-coded.”

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