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Cake day: August 17th, 2024

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  • It seems to me that rather than explicitly trying to listen to the elite and ignore the cries of the common class, the article instead explains that the indicators that Dems were using to get a measure on the economy sort of betrayed them. See for example,

    For those focused on short-term macroeconomic indicators like growth and unemployment, that immiseration has been hard to see—and voters’ cries of misery beggared belief.

    And also,

    rates of homelessness and child poverty predictably resurged. Yet since this was in effect simply a return to the pre-Covid norm, it seems to have barely registered

    They saw the traditional indicators said things looked great and rolled with that, instead of digging deeper after a pandemic unprecedented in modern times to see if maybe those traditions had become outdated (as the article hints at).

    Overall this is a more positive take, because it means that if Dems just looked at the wrong place and got the wrong idea as a result, they’d be more open making whatever necessary adjustments are needed to avoid a repeat mistake.















  • Agreed. The current party is trying to be a coalition that brings in folks from as far right as neocons like Dick Cheney to as far left as Andrew Yang (UBI) along with super progressives like the Bern.

    I’ve said before that it naturally makes sense for it to split up based on that. I guess without systemic and constitutional reform, the new parties would have to cooperate and agree on e.g. a single candidate for President (maybe a multi-party group primary?)

    But if we had a primary this year I feel like a candidate would have been chosen who could have won, so anything that forces primaries to occur (and allow voters more choice) is a good thing.




  • But they still are actively refusing to acknowledge the American working class exists and are struggling.

    The Bern is smart and usually right about these kind of things.

    That said, I’d argue that even in the campaign this year some steps were taken in the right direction, e.g.

    We have not even brought forth legislation to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, despite the fact that some 20 million people in this country are working for less than $15 an hour

    But then, https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/federal-minimum-wage-harris-trump/index.html

    Whoever told Kamala to brag about the economy to anyone that isn’t a millionaire needs to be the first person to never work in politics again

    I can see this as being a calculated risk - take credit for something that sounds good - but yeah they forgot the maxim “it’s the economy, stupid!”

    We need a popular vote of registered Dem voters to determine DNC leadership and party platform

    Better yet, a reformed system so that a third party who implements this has a legitimate shot at the highest offices.

    If we keep giving leadership to whoever gets the most donations, they’ll keep ignoring the working class because it’s easier to get money from the wealthy.

    Perhaps I defeated myself here - I came here to justify the Dems but if I’m saying we have a better shot at reforming the US constitution than we do at reforming the internals of the Dem party, then I’ve really done the opposite.