Democrats: Stop Running to the Center - Robert Reich

[cadoman]

34. or perhaps the party of many small tents who can't come together when it matters?

There's certainly an abundance of anti-Trump energy out there but it was a struggle to get everyone committed to voting against him.

You'd think being anti-Trump would be enough, as it's obviously the #1 thing on many people's list, but when it came down to it, each of the little tents found some reason to stay home.

The pro-Palestine tent thinks Biden caused them to lose their territory.

The pro-Israel tent didn't think Biden committed enough to protect them from anti-Semitism and Oct 7.

The working class tent is always resistant to immigration (even refugees) because it hits their economic prospects most. Our successes on the border never got through the misinformation.

Even the big-business tent was somewhat available for the taking (due to MAGAT tariff chaos) but may have stayed home due to tax concerns.

The Hispanic/LatinX tent didn't show up because frankly it turned out to be a lot more racist and misogynistic than I ever would have guessed.

The long COVID and COVID cautious communities felt let down when things went back to "normal".

The Black and LGBTQ2SIA+ tents generally showed up--kudos to them.

The health care tent is definitely available for the taking. I think what we offered to folks with healthcare concerns wasn't specific enough.

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All those tents could have been reached to some degree with surgical strike policy pivots. Each tent needed to be given one damn good "centrist" reason to show up. That's how you get the fence-sitters out to vote.

But instead we ran to the center by running to...Liz Cheney? Democrats aren't excited about her, but even worse: neither are independents or conservatives. I can guarantee Liz Cheney won us zero votes. What is the point in parading her around, making everyone uncomfortable?? The neocon journalists (Kristol, Frum, etc.) were more effective by appealing to the reason of their followers in a low-key manner.