There are many ways in which the Democratic Party is pursuing an agenda that is bad for ordinary Americans, but for the most part the public hasn't grasped just how and why it is bad for them. There are two areas, however, where the public has clearly and substantially rejected the current agenda of the Democrats in Washington:
1) Gun Control,
2) Increasing immigration -- especially immigration of refugees from the civil war in Syria, but also generally.
The polling on these is clear, but if you don't trust polls practical behavior by Americans shows the degree to which these positions are rejected. On the one hand you have the record gun sales across the country, lasting for years. On the other you have the sustained popularity of Donald Trump, whose major virtue in the eyes of the public is intense, loud opposition to immigration. You've got the fact that a majority of state governors felt that it was good politics to formally reject new refugees last week.
What if we could combine both of these into a single symbolic effort to tie the Democratic party to the two things Americans have most clearly rejected?
Mike's got the principled argument against all this right in his post below. Even if you rejected the principles, though, politically this is irrational. It's as if they were trying to throw the 2016 elections.
4 comments:
It's as if their strategy is external to elections. Thinking inside the Box that is election strategy, would make them seem irrational.
Maybe, although it could be overconfidence. Every Democrat I've talked to -- and I talk to them a lot -- is absolutely confident that they're going to win in 2016. They think the Republican candidates are a bunch of clowns, especially Trump, and that there's just no way anyone could vote for them.
Most of the ones I know are Sanders people. (Big Sanders rally in Atlanta tonight, if you're inclined to go and are near the Fox theater.) But the few Clinton supporters I know (invariably liberal feminists) are if anything even more confident.
The party is further to the left than it's ever been in my lifetime, and is entrenching itself on these unpopular positions, and they're just completely sure that the American people are going to go along with it. They're so obviously correct, right-thinking, and good, and their opponents are evil troglodytes.
Every Democrat I've talked to -- and I talk to them a lot -- is absolutely confident that they're going to win in 2016.
Of course, because every American patriotic soldier believed they would win WWII as well. But that doesn't mean they understand the strategy. And on the Japanese side, the civilians were told that the Americans were beaten dogs. And that Americans were demon barbarians, so be sure to kill yourself and your family if defeat is nigh, which people on Okinawa did, voluntarily or not. Propaganda can have various uses. What people believe, doesn't have anything to do with high level strategy decisions, even though propaganda has such beliefs as a morale raising objective to support logistics.
They think the Republican candidates are a bunch of clowns, especially Trump, and that there's just no way anyone could vote for them.
Ever see those WWII propaganda posters from Leni R, the Nazis, or the Soviets? In the age of image capture and editing online, the old era is now the modern era, in some ways.
They're so obviously correct, right-thinking, and good, and their opponents are evil troglodytes.
If I was fighting a war, I would make sure my allies were mentally prepared for it. While I wouldn't fabricate victories from defeats, it's important not to create an air of defeatism. Isn't that why military commanders remain calm and cool under fire and pressure, instead of acting like shaking chickens even if that is how it feels inside?
Grim-it's like it's always been-
“I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”
Pauline Kael, 1972
At least she had some awareness of the bubble...
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