[Discussion] Democrats Progress-all

This thread is for discussing the way forward for Democrats and Progressives after the results of the 2016 election.

Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party lost the presidential election to Donald Trump, and lost a very real shot at flipping the Senate to boot.

Where do we go from here?

Is neoliberalism dead? Is progressivism the way forward, or do we need something new? How can Democrats better appeal to the voters it lost? What can we do to actually help at-risk populations, including minorities and the working class, instead of just paying them lip service?

Here's some of the things I'd like to see:

Democrats emphasizing that social justice is not incompatible with helping the white working class.

A decreased focus on programs that are perceived as "handouts" and an increased focus on labor rights. The social safety net is important but we also need to listen to people when they say they don't want welfare, they want jobs, and they don't just want crap jobs with long hours and little pay, they want good jobs. It's probably not possible to bring manufacturing back to the Rust Belt but I think Democrats need a better plan for training and employing these people. Democrats need to get back to championing workers' rights. Increased wages, better job security, improved benefits, these are things that are broadly popular.

I think Democrats need to focus less on the presidency and federal power and more on state and local races. Even here in liberal Mass, Republicans often get state and local positions because Dems can't get their act together. That's ridiculous. A lot of Trump's rollbacks are going to involve returning federal power to state and local governments in areas such as social liberties, education and environmental protection, and they'll have a lot less bite if those state and local governments are actually reasonable.

This can be closed, it's a duplicate now.

I think neoliberalism is dead. I remember when I was in college being really angry with my father. He was a Bill Clinton guy and thought everything was a-ok under Clinton. I thought it was a ruinous decision to abandon labor and denigrate trade jobs in favor of the entire workforce becoming knowledge workers and doctors. People were going to get left behind. And here we are.

I think that strategy has played out and it failed both as policy and it failed as a political strategy. It pushed people like myself into knowledge jobs when we might have been just as happy in a well-compensated trade. It accelerated the busting of unions and helped create the urban / rural divide we now see.

When I was volunteering at the food pantry yesterday I had a thought. Urban knowledge workers have become, in a sense, a version of "Panem" from "The Hunger Games". Panem, in this case isn't a place, but a state of mind. We take pictures of food, jet around on vacations and spend time writing snarky stuff on Twitter while meanwhile people across the country try to scratch out a living with the hand they were dealt.

Now, this isn't the whole picture, of course. While I was working my knowledge job I was donating money heavily. And I was sending assistance back to family in rural areas and being generous to them. I voted for people who I thought would make their lives better. But a lot of the time I wasn't in touch with them and I definitely had dived head first into that life I was granted by luck. I took pictures of food and posted pictures from vacation because my family said they, "Liked to live vicariously through me." I didn't fully see the sadness in that.

I think I became a citizen of this virtual Panem because I had worked my way out of poverty, hated my job and I felt that I needed a break from work that wasn't always so fun. But it still created a divide that social media accelerated. And then we retreated to our silos and it was all over.

Neoliberalism is dead and what has to replace it from the left is a comprehensive strategy that values all kind of work and craft and labor and promises to compensate people for their time and not just their fortune of going to college or falling into the right career. This could be a good thing.

Demyx wrote:

I think Democrats need to focus less on the presidency and federal power and more on state and local races. Even here in liberal Mass, Republicans often get state and local positions because Dems can't get their act together. That's ridiculous. A lot of Trump's rollbacks are going to involve returning federal power to state and local governments in areas such as social liberties, education and environmental protection, and they'll have a lot less bite if those state and local governments are actually reasonable.

Reasonable? 38 states now have Republican governors, 15 have Republican-controlled legislatures and governors, and only 4 states are Democratic-controlled.

Robear wrote:
Demyx wrote:

I think Democrats need to focus less on the presidency and federal power and more on state and local races. Even here in liberal Mass, Republicans often get state and local positions because Dems can't get their act together. That's ridiculous. A lot of Trump's rollbacks are going to involve returning federal power to state and local governments in areas such as social liberties, education and environmental protection, and they'll have a lot less bite if those state and local governments are actually reasonable.

Reasonable? 38 states now have Republican governors, 15 have Republican-controlled legislatures and governors, and only 4 states are Democratic-controlled.

I reposted this in the other thread, could you move it over there?

But we're basically saying the same thing. The fact that the majority of states are Republican controlled when so many of those states went for Obama and Clinton is probably the largest failing of the Democratic party, but I think it's one that's possible to reverse.

Link to new thread?

Yellek wrote:

Link to new thread?

[Discussion] What comes next? Liber-all

MOD: Closing at the request of the thread creator.