Democratic 2014 autopsy identifies the problem: We’re Democrats
Democrats want more “narrative” to win back the southern whites they hate
Following huge 2014 midterms losses, Democratic Party leaders did some soul searching, analyzed their problems, and made recommendations for winning in the future.
The results were published in the Democratic Victory Task Force Preliminary Findings. Most notably, Democrats want more “narrative” to help them win back the southern whites they hate. You can read the document here. I’ll share a few short excerpts:
As Democrats, we believe in an economy where hard work is rewarded, where everyone pays his or her fair share and plays by the rules. We believe in a government that’s focused on building a stronger and more secure middle class, with good-paying jobs, affordable higher education, and a secure retirement…
The national Democratic Party must never allow itself to become a party of Beltway consultants who routinely recommend cookie-cutter campaigns that are detached from the concerns of the people we hope to represent, at the city, state, and federal level. In order to consistently win on every level, we have to reconnect with the reason we want to win—and that reason is the people. The national party must work with and help grow state and local parties, to empower the people to participate in politics, while recruiting and training the next generation of office holders….
We know that our message is powerful because our opponents are trying to steal it. Income inequality and the resulting middleclass economic stagnation have become so extreme that even the Republicans are giving lip service to economic fairness—even as they advocate policies that would undermine it…
No area of this review caused more debate or solicited more ideas than the belief that there is no single narrative that unites all of our work and the issues that we care about as a community of Democrats. It is strongly believed that the Democratic Party is loosely understood as a long list of policy statements and not as people with a common set of core values (fairness, equality, opportunity). This lack of cohesive narrative impedes the party’s ability to develop and maintain a lifelong dialogue and partnership with voters.
The Task Force recommends creating a National Narrative Project to work with party leaders, activists, and messaging and narrative experts to create a strong values-based national narrative that will engage, inspire and motivate voters to identify with and support Democrats…
In order to win elections, the Democratic Party must reclaim voters that we’ve lost including white Southern voters.
TIME’s Zeke Miller dug into the document and provided more commentary:
Democrats Call for Focus on Narrative, White Voters After 2014 Losses
The Democratic Party’s autopsy of its devastating defeat in 2014 calls for a renewed focus on the party’s message and winning back white Southern voters.
In preliminary findings unveiled Saturday at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, a task force studied the party’s defeats in 2010 and 2014—despite its victories in the 2008 and 2012 presidential years. It called for the creation of a “National Narrative Project” to help the party develop a message that can survive in midterm election years.
“This morning we’re going to hear some tough love, and frankly we need to hear it,” said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chairs the DNC.
Here are a couple of choice observations:
@redsteeze @ZekeJMiller Imagine the response to "Republicans call for focus on narrative, white voters after losses"
— Jason (@jasonhsv) February 21, 2015
Democrats might want to keep working on the new plan.
Featured image is a screencap from the report cover.
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Comments
Hey, Southern Whites! We have a bridge for sale…
Same old story. The problem is the messaging, not the policies, which everybody agrees with of course.
They never learn.
The eeeevil corporations are “playing by the rules” too. They’re called tax incentives. Enacted by Congress to promote certain behaviors and bolster certain industries, intentionally. I am constantly amazed at how the Democrats can continuously blame people for doing everything the law allows.
But of course, today’s “tax incentives” are tomorrow’s “loopholes”.
They’ve decided to make sure every Democrat operative in the country is telling the same set of lies, so that the consistency will fool more, well, fools.
Look around, it’s not just southern whites they hate. They hate all white males. And they hate all white females that aren’t card carrying progressives.
http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr03/2012/11/9/14/enhanced-buzz-wide-1035-1352488120-4.jpg
“As Democrats, we believe in an economy where hard work is rewarded, where everyone pays his or her fair share and plays by the rules. We believe in a government that’s focused on building a stronger and more secure middle class, with good-paying jobs, affordable higher education, and a secure retirement…”
The Republicans should take this and run with it. These goals something that the Republicans wholeheartedly endorse. The problem the Democrats have is that they have had their policies in place, and they haven’t accomplished their goals. The Repubs should say this out loud. “Our policies will get the goals the Democrats promised.”
But their stated “goals” are another litany of lies.
They detest the middle class, and have historically.
They refuse to “play by the rules”, and so much so it’s a grim joke for them to say otherwise.
For most Americans, a “secure retirement” is MUCH further away than it was even a decade ago, and that entirely due to Deemocrat/Collectivist economic policy and tinkering.
So what. The Democrats have said what they “believe”.
As a man once said, make them play by their own rules. They can’t.
The only thing they have going for them anymore are the idiots running the GOP.
I think their problem is that insipid Circle-D logo. They could at least have added some serifs.
The real electoral problem for Democrats is a simple one, one that re-branding won’t fix.
Here is the problem: the Democratic leaders hate southern whites.
These leaders belittle and scoff at the beliefs of these voters: family, faith, traditional, small ‘c’ conservative values, hard work, simple pleasures, and a common, core set of values that in turn govern a just society.
Southern whites, in turn, have noticed the hatred and invective coming from the national Democrats. It took a while, not everyone got the memo on the same day, but southern (and midwestern) whites have figured out that the Democrats want a society that is radically different than what we have in the South today.
It seems that a little Michael Moore goes a long way. Go figure.
Neither the Democrats nor the MSM (but I repeat myself) can take notice of this simple fact publicly. To do so would require them to recognize that what has happened is a rejection of their core beliefs. Human nature in general, and progressive human nature in particular, refuses to take the blame for one’s own failings. So it is that the Democrats on the one hand focus on messaging and branding, and on the other hand blame the Koch Brothers, and on the third hand blame southern whites for being stupid and backward, for electoral defeats.
There is, of course, one more option available to the Democrats: a raw, naked grab for power. I don’t discount the possibility of that happening as they continue to flounder with their ‘messaging’ and the electoral defeats that they’re going to continue to suffer.
The power grab: which they are very interested in, witness their effort to eviscerate the 1st Amendment by stripping out freedom of speech.
The Democrats keep spouting the narrative that “everybody must pay their fare share”. Are they referring to the 47% that pay no Federal Income Tax. If that’s what they want, I’m on board!
oops, fare is not fair!
The scientific standard of measure for the brief period of time between hitting “submit” and having a typo in your comment catch your eye right before it disappears is called an “ohnosecond”.
“Oh, no!”
And they keep doing it! “You inbred rednecked Bible-thumping gun-clinging banjo-stroking cousin-poking knuckle-dragging racist hillbillies just don’t understand what’s good for you! Here, we’ll say the same thing again but this time LOUDER, and in an even more condescending tone!”
Income inequality and the resulting middleclass economic stagnation have become so extreme that even the Republicans are giving lip service to economic fairness—even as they advocate policies that would undermine it…
This is the same problem as with ISIL, except this time they are also using projection. While we keep hearing that the middle class needs help, it’s always the 1% who somehow end up with even more of the money. It’s almost as if it were planned that way.
… perhaps it was