They are consistent... constantly non-consistent.

I'm not going to surrender to it, but I've started to accept we're living in a version of The Amazing Digital Circus as conceived by Hieronymus Bosch.

1974. The Republican support for impeaching Richard Nixon led to Tricky Dick resigning instead.

Ever since, it’s been an increasingly messy, increasingly smelly shitshow with those clowns.

Sen Barry Goldwater walked up to the Whitehouse and convinced Nixon to resign. It's been all downhill since.

school one of his supports when McCain was running against Obama? I forget the exact verbiage, but the supporter was dissing Obama, as racists do, and McCain corrected his facts (and very nicely told him not to be ab Ahole.) I don't know whether that rises to "noble," but it surely more than you would get from a REyhug today.

If I had known I was going to need it, I'd have tried harder to remember it.

His defense of Obama in that clip always stuck with me. He may have been a Repub, but I gave him credit for that one.

Wasn’t McCain the one that gave a thumbs down to trying to get rid of ACA under Trump? I may be misremembering that.

Thumb Down, McCain Votes No On 'Skinny Repeal'
The US Senate rejected a Republican measure to repeal portions of former President Obama's health care reform law. Republicans John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins joined the Democrats in voting down the measure, 49-51. (July 28)

Republicans used to get the bill advanced to kill the ACA. Otherwise he would have voted to kill it.

Took real courage.

Btw, elite in magat world translates to literate people.

More stupid people voted for Trump...apparently 80mm eligible voters didn't give a shit.

how many of those 80 million were disenfranchised one way or another? and how many actually didn't give a shit?

If they gave a shit.

because it consists of factions with inconsistent and sometimes completely contrary interests. The educated tech bros like Musk and Ramaswamy and other corporate billionaires are essentially libertarian - they are interested in minimal government regulation of economic matters so they can make as much money as possible. MAGA, on the other hand - Trump's base - is focused on the culture wars. They are the working class types who worry about trans people in bathrooms and in women's sports and immigrants eating pets, and they tend to be white supremacists. A subset of them are Christian nationalists. MAGA wants lots of government regulation, at least where matters of personal behavior are concerned. We are starting to see the clash already - MAGA hates all immigration, but the tech bros want more of it, at least as needed to cheaply staff their tech businesses. But Musk via DOGE wants to cut the programs the poorer segment of MAGA relies on. There will be more clashes as Musk continues to lock horns with the MAGA members of the House.

Be sure to stock up on popcorn.

Even huge tax refunds of money they never paid to begin with (real free loaders).

Democrats: Really? The economy is better than it has ever been. You're imagining things.
Republicans: I know! The price of eggs, rent, etc. are through the roof. It's never been this bad. We're gonna fix it.

Now which of the two do you think low-information voters are going to gravitate to?

Democrats are right, on a macro scale about the economy, but that's not what the low income/low information voters care about. They care about how far their paycheck goes - and telling them not to believe their lying eyes was not a winning strategy.

Republicans were flat out lying about being able to fix things - but they did so after first acknowledging and responding empathetically to the pain they were hearing.

As for the current nonsense - Republicans are no longer in election mode. They have largely dropped their pretense of being able to fix the paycheck issue.

Millionaire athletes and owners need their cash flow.

Never happened. Not true.

While the words were not literal quotes, they are very much the sentiments many expressed on DU and elsewhere when many of us tried to explain one of the major reasons for our loss.

prices means elected officials, the Republican Party. No elected Democrats told voters they're imagining things, which was the obvious insinuation and not true.

if it said White Working Class Voters. ~90 percent of Black people voted D
And I'd guess a higher proportion of Black people are working class

Last edited Mon Dec 30, 2024, 09:09 AM - Edit history (1)

The subject line isn't about how voters voted. It is about complaints of working class voters that their paychecks aren't covering their bills. It is true that more Black voters knew there were other, more critical, issues and voted Democratic despite our poor response to this concern. But that doesn't change the reality that working class workers (regardless of race) are not, in general, feeling the impact in their day-to-day lives, of the macro improvement in the economy.

As for black voters, specifically, there were additional issues at play: (1) We failed to effectively counter the "why bother voting" and even though Black voters voted overwhelmingly for Harris, in many states Black voter turnout was down from the 2020 election and (2) We were unable to effectively counter Trump's message (and societal prejudice) that any male (regardless of race) is better than a woman message and that message enticed a statistically significant portion of Black men to vote for Trump. (Slightly different phrasing because I think the former was more realistic for us to effectively counter than the latter.)

and meant "and even though Black voters voted overwhelmingly for Kamala,"

What’s information technology have to do with anything?

People have seemingly substituted IT for tech jobs.

I am not surprised IT is seeing an uptick in unemployment when so many people entered the field after taking 16 week courses or getting a few certs. IT professionals span the full spectrum of skill level. From guys with masters and even PHDs who can program in several languages, to guys who got a network administrator certificate that allows them the knowledge to answer questions at the help desk and core load a computer, or keep servers running. And data centers have a lot of tasks that are being automated too. But the IT professionals with high skill and for the most part degrees are not getting laid off.

One of the most brilliant people I know is in IT and he’s smart enough to recognize what AI means to his career and is working to leverage it to his advantage. But even he knows he needs to keep adding skills.

And I have a ton of respect for IT, I deal with some extremely skilled and helpful IT folks who have to solve really difficult problems all us aerospace engineers are creating for them by tinkering with everything to do with technology all the time. “You did what to the what now? Why the hell would you do that?”

But I think the bigger point about AI is pretty valid. The “learn to code” meme has puzzled me for years now, as if learning a coding language alone was some guaranteed career success. It’s a start, but I think most tech workers know you have to be a lifetime learner to be successful is such a dynamic industry.

I was just making the point Vivek and Musk are lying about shortage of US IT.

Two different things. I am a systems engineer in aerospace and don’t know a heck of a lot about IT, but I’d bet most IT people know next to nothing about avionics and airborne electronic hardware.

Not totally familiar with the Elmo quotes. But at face value, I agree there is a serious shortage of capable engineering talent in this country. And an even bigger shortage of expert engineering talent.

And I am sure they’re looking for specific engineering talent, which is understandable. Generic engineer isn’t really a thing. Everyone gets specialized once they enter the work force. The brightest can switch domains mid career and still produce.

Didn’t see that they said IT engineers. I think they’re just talking about engineering and technical talent in general and the media somehow conflated tech with IT because the T stands for technology.

I have hands on experience trying to manage projects with a wide array of engineers from all over the country and the world. The fact is there are some things we simply can’t find US teams to do. First we try to keep as much in house as possible. Then we use American contractors. Then if we still need heads we look to our offices in Mexico and England. But we do have tasks we simply can’t find the manpower to do or in some cases the relevant expertise and use teams from India and elsewhere.

But what doesn’t make sense about Musk and Vivek’s gripe is you don’t need visas to hire contractors from abroad. You can do work remotely as long your export compliance is up to snuff.

..they just know they don't want Democrats in the White House.

Ramaswamy and Musk have run out of budget cutting ideas and seemingly gone off topic. Musk says we need more high-skilled foreign workers and Ramaswamy says “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence..."

The pundits keep trying to blame "messaging" for the Harris election loss saying the Dems, in part, didn't connect with the blue-collar crowd. Joe walked on a damned picket line and Kamala talked about the low wage, blue collar crowd in every speech I heard.

She lost because she didn't get enough votes: she's Black, female, didn't address the price of rice, didn't close the border and didn't have a propaganda machine superior to Trump's...the people who could have voted her in, didn't vote.

Trump got 3M more votes in 2024 than 2020...3%. Harris got 6M less votes than Joe got in 2020...8%.

I'm not sure she would have won if gas was $2 and the alleged border crisis was non-existent.

Not only did the prop machine motivate stupid people to vote against their best interests, it probably discouraged 70MM eligible voters to vote.

We don’t have to do any lying - just keep repeating all the good things that Dems have been doing.

But a loud propaganda machine that ran non-stop for four years, getting free air time on all the networks, while congresscritters simultaneously got their marching orders from the Kingpin.

And Vivek is basically saying Indian culture is better than white culture.

Imagine if Harris had said something similar about her Indian heritage on the campaign trail. MAGA white assholes would’ve burned the country down!

https://bsky.app/profile/akilah.bsky.social/post/3ledf4njgj22g

A big part of the appeal of a visa-holder over an American worker is the control factor.

he overheard the new workers' manager tell his manager, "There's no need to give them any days off. They work seven days a week."

MAGAts are just too fucking stupid to comprehend this

"We have to bring in Indian engineers because American culture is so dumb that you value Zach and Slater over Screech!"

Very working class position. Very middle America.



(By the way, Screech isn't actually smart in Saved by the Bell. That's the girls. It's beyond Vivek's understanding, apparently.)

The NYT would have a full on conniption.

that they climb and die on hills that aren't necessarily popular.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-h-1b-visas-have-been-abused-since-the-beginning/



For reference, Elon would have been 22 in 1993, and Vivek was 8.

Silicon Valley money and lobbyists -- to both Republicans and Democrats -- have prevented these loopholes from really being fixed. I've heard friends in the field talk about companies that put out job notices as they were required to, listing as a requirement "10 years experience with (X technology)" when that technology didn't even exist 10 years earlier. NOBODY could meet the requirement, but it was used as a reason why someone from overseas was "essential" to the job.

that a consistent message is one of the top 100 items on the Republican List of Priorities.

They have a massive and well coordinated network of talking points and propaganda that can explain inconsistencies away. And then remind their base to focus on the most important thing: Liberals and Democrats are the enemy. It's been working for decades.

Here from a populist Left leader, wrong and terrible damaging for progress, and for some reason everyone has to pretend didn't negatively affect elections for the last ten years and help Republicans:

"We need a Democratic Party that is not of the liberal elite but of the working class of this country; we need a party that is a grassroots party, where candidates are talking to working people and not spending their time raising money for the wealthy and powerful."

"Democrats have focused too much on a liberal elite that is raising incredible sums of money from wealthy people, but has ignored to a very significant degree working class, middle class, and low income people in this country."

"It is not good enough to have a liberal elite. I come from the white working class, and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to people where I come from."

"The business model, if you will, of the Democratic Party for the last fifteen years or so has been a failure. Over the last 30 or 40 years the Democratic Party has transformed itself from the party of the working class ... to a party significantly controlled by a liberal elite." (Do we have to go over this every time? When did white working class leave the Democratic Party? 60s, when there were still plenty of high salary manufacturing jobs and inequality at its lowest -- economy changed from manufacturing to service and then tech starting in the 70s --STOP WITH THE BS ABOUT DEMOCRATS JUST STOP).

We're all elites from the "donor class" la la la la elite elite elite elite *does a little elite Renaissance dance* (psssst, I heard the Democratic presidents Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden were from working/middle class backgrounds but, like, studied in college and stuff -- ELITES). And now here come Republicans with the elite stuff but it's not being used to pummel Democrats!

like those whose neighborhoods have a Panera Bread, hence the name. I heard those voters saying "So what if eggs are $6 a dozen -- TRUMP IS HITLER!!!!"

That IS "out of touch" because for many households food and gasoline make up a large percentage of monthly spending. They can't just skip their monthly 401K buy because they have zero savings.

Those who pay $35K+ per year for their kids to go to college cannot understand why ground beef at $8/pound is a bigger problem than Trump. Those who are on the edge financially see it completely the other way.

The point is it is very hard to message to the Panera Bread crowd in a way that does not alienate those who are much less financially comfortable. The problem was not that we did not convince more people that DJT cannot do what he says but rather that we dismissed their financial issues in an off-putting way by hammering away only on Hitler and "middle class"

I disagree with it. Your argument is that we need to get better at telling people what they want to hear - which is what Trump did - and he did it with no intention of following through.

1. Lying to get votes is not the way to do it.
2. This is all BS anyway because they don't care about the price of eggs, as evidenced by their big trucks etc. They just didn't want a woman "telling them what to do". Hillary and Kamala were both incredibly qualified candidates, and the right wing was going to do whatever they could to keep both women from the top role.

That's what is "off-putting" to me.

That is not my point. My point was that it would have been good to acknowledge rather than dismiss the financial realities of low income voters.

We are too far apart on this and you are putting words in my mouth despite me writing very clearly.

Who exactly did this? I'm not buying it. Democrats, throughout the decades, have been the party of the people: higher minimum wages, decent working hours, benefits, overtime, livable wages, progressive rather than regressive tax policies - the list goes on and no. The republicans run on one policy - as little as possible for workers and low (or no) taxes for billionaires.

In the interest of finding some agreement, however, I can see a way democrats could improve messaging. They (meaning party leaders) could broadcast our policies. I don't think it's very confusing, but I will grant you that the right wing has their cable shows, radio shows, etc. - all owned by billionaires and hammering all their distractions 24/7. That's where I think we could improve - supply alternative media where the democratic policies could be heard in the same way.

but let's try three:

"I grew up in a middle class household..." was said over and over. As a statement it embraces the comfortable and ignores the struggling.

"The stock market is at an all time high" -- sounds very different to people who don't own stocks, especially since credit card debt is also at an all time high.

KH >told union leadership she would "win with you or without you" and left their meeting early during her 2024 presidential campaign.<

https://www.newsweek.com/teamsters-president-kamala-harris-cut-union-meeting-short-2005505

including Newsweek, which is owned by Grahams Holding Company (worth - 4 billion).

And you pointedly ignored my point about finding agreement re messaging. You don't have any interest in finding agreement, you are determined to disparage democrats.

You found fault with only one of them. The Teamsters boss was self reporting what was said and I will grant you it might not be 100% accurate but we know that the Teamsters declined to endorse and we know what her schedule was on the day in question. The DNC has not refuted the Teamsters' version of events. Exit polling shows union members did not support KH.

"Panera Bread" was coined as a description of the Dem party's shift away from working class voters and toward more affluent voters.

I'm talking about strategy and messaging -- not "democrats". I did not, as you assert, "disparage democrats".

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/20/15834898/panera-voters-georgia-election

instead you're desperately trying to split the party or at the very least insist a split exists. "Panera Bread" is a term used by "one Dem strategist" to quote your own article. I believe the term was "latte liberal" back in 2016 when there were folks on here trying to do the same thing.

I don't think we gain by splitting people, and I do think we could make inroads by trying harder to reach all of our potential (historical) voters with media controlled by democrats rather than letting the billionaires control the airwaves.

So, I guess we are not going to find agreement here, but I did try.

I gave clear examples of how that strategy is still being pursued and messaged. I have not disparaged any person or group but I think 2 losses and a near loss show that the DNC strategy of ignoring working people and chasing suburban middle class swing voters is not working well enough to win a crucial GE.

The group the DNC is chasing is not "latte liberals" (!). I thought that the Panera Bread term would help you understand what group they are chasing -- Not liberals and there is no latte on the menu at Panera. "Panera Bread strategy" is not a term that disparages Democrats because it is NOT REFERRING to Democrats.

The Lincoln Project
Liz Cheney
these are components of the DNC's strategy which sought to win over pursuadable Republicans who found DJT to be unacceptable.

Schumer famously put it this way:
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two, three moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”

I'm not sure that we disagree, or how much we do, because we are talking about two very different things. I'm okay with disagreeing but wanted to try to one more time to be understood. Thanks for your feedback.

suburban middle class swing voters is not working well enough" -

OK, yes, I misunderstood that. I thought you were splitting democrats.

On this, if it truly is the strategy then it needs to stop. Unions need to be our first priority, along with anyone else who is working for a living. The way I always think of it is if you need to be at your job (whatever it is, making a widget, a hamburger, or putting together a big deal as a marketing or corporate manager ...) - but if you need that money to live - you are a worker. The very wealthy - who inherit wealth or otherwise come into it - those are the folks like the Kennedys, Trump, Musk, etc - who have never really had to work in order to know their rent/mortgage is paid - those are the owners.

We need to be with the workers (to simplify), and we can expand so that lower income republicans (especially folks like small business owners who really have more in common with us if they think about it - these I suspect are your Panera people), can feel welcome. But bottom line we're for workers.

I think we are, in fact, on the same page. Unfortunately, I think these categories will become even clearer when Trump/Musk take over and start taking away things everyone has depended on - from O/T to programs that help small businesses. And Democrats better be ready to welcome everyone. We need them.

Tense Teamsters Meeting With Harris Ends With an Endorsement Still Dangling

The Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, indicated he could announce as soon as Wednesday which presidential candidate — if any — the union would back.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/us/politics/teamsters-harris.html

https://archive.ph/SWmvM

Vice President Kamala Harris held a sometimes tense meeting with Teamsters leaders on Monday, defending the Biden administration’s labor policies against pointed questions and concluding with a promise that she would win the presidency and treat the union fairly with or without its backing. While Ms. Harris has the endorsement of most of the nation’s unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose truck drivers, freight workers and other members are divided in their political allegiances, has held out. Sean O’Brien, the union’s combative president, said after the meeting that he could announce an endorsement — if there was an endorsement — as soon as Wednesday.

John Palmer, a Teamsters executive board member and vice president at large, said the meeting had lasted a little more than an hour. He praised Ms. Harris for parrying questions on the role President Biden played in averting a rail strike in late 2022 and the ways the White House could have been more helpful in a Teamsters dispute last summer with United Parcel Service. Ms. Harris repeatedly castigated her opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, for appointing anti-union members to the National Labor Relations Board when he was president and reminded the Teamsters that Mr. Biden had shored up pensions for thousands of union members.

At the end of the meeting Ms. Harris told the leaders of the union, which has 1.3 million members, “I’m confident I’m going to win this,” according to Mr. Palmer. She also said, “I want your endorsement, but if I don’t get it, I will treat you exactly as if I had gotten your endorsement,” he added — a characterization that Ms. Harris’s campaign aides did not contradict. After the meeting, Mr. O’Brien said that he still needed time to consider the union’s next move. Ms. Harris opened the meeting by saying she understood she might not get the union’s endorsement, and that some Teamsters would be voting on issues beyond labor, such as the border, according to another person in the room.

That person said she had asked that Teamsters leaders educate their members about the bipartisan border control bill that she had backed and that Mr. Trump had killed. She also recalled how Mr. Trump had told Elon Musk that striking workers should be fired, and she said to them, “Listen to the guy when he’s told you who he is.” Mr. O’Brien asked for speaking slots at both party conventions, and was given a prime-time slot by the Republicans but not by the Democrats. He has met with Mr. Trump at his Palm Beach, Fla., mansion and in Washington.

snip

Also ban all books that contain words that have more than 3 syllables.

The media just thinks white voters are more important and creates narratives based on one group.

less taxes for themselves. Period.

The rest have bought into whatever racist, religious, etc "flavor of the week" republicans are selling.

That's it - that's what the republican party is. Extremely wealthy people and the morons they manipulate to keep those tax cuts coming. It's literally all they care about.

Rethuglicans want us all poor, sick, and stupid because it's easier to control the masses that way.

If the latter, turn that shit off and keep it off, on the former, I haven't seen DUr's saying that, but maybe I missed it. I wouldn't give it a bee's knees worth of attention.
there's a hell of a lot more to worry about.

as possible so they can remain billionaires. The rest is smoke and mirrors.

Cheap labor - at every level. That's it.

right now in this country folks seem to be doing it two ways - either with savings from the Pandemic years (which has to be running out soon) - or on credit (which will eventually bust if it becomes too big a bubble).

I dunno, I do my best w/understanding economics but I'm really a liberal arts grad. Maybe there are pieces I'm not understanding. To me it looks like they want people to basically have just enough to lose and not a penny more.

It makes no sense at all.

Considering that the Biden administration did more to help ordinary people than any administration since LBJ: unions, going after corporations in a number of ways, etc.

I'm not sure what their angle is in downplaying college like that, and which factions of the right are pushing it, but when you look at the overall picture, it's very disturbing: downplay college, engage in a "bloody" mass deportation effort to remove low-wage migrants, get rid of the Department of Education, and increase h-1b visas beyond the already generous 65,000+ a year? This seems like an attack and downgrade of American citizens.

Remember, trump and republicans in power are ALWAYS projecting--they convinced racists and some people of color that Democrats were trying to "replace" them. But now, it looks like the gop is attempting to replace all American (white collar) workers and just start fresh, since the native borns are too lazy and too stupid to lead America into the next century, at least according to eLoon, vile-vek and trump. There will be plenty of work in the fruit fields and farms for any Americans who lose their office jobs. Good luck! 😳 🤯

They wanted non educated voters because they are easy to fool.
But they despise them.

I love how the Media is like this omnipresent source of guiding principles and ideas to absorb process and then repeat in shared discussions.

It's way past time to shut that shit off forever. We can consume headlines of latest breaking news, right here on DU, or Google headlines, we don't need to click on CNN etc al.

You're just wrong out the gate.

However I do understand your intention. Here is my understanding of this: it is a dog whistle for 'ban the trans' and 'bash immigrants' and 'abortion rights don't matter'.

Fuck that noise.

Arbeit Macht Frei was the Nazi version of it,.

I still have heard from people, “they’re going to stop taxing overtime and tips next month! I can’t wait!”

I just chuckle, they’re doing nothing for working people. Everything will be for the benefit of billionaires.

Politics was racialized. Have some college, you meet people from different backgrounds and are more open-minded, less vulnerable to fear about race and diversity. The "elite" blah blah blah BS...