Watch now (43 secs) | Part of the reason for the Democrats downfall is that they're no longer cool. They're conformists, elitist, and remarkably uncool.
The Democratic Party has long prided itself on its hipness and future-oriented attitude has lost the coolness fight to Donald J. Trump. That's about as uncool as you can be. Unfathomable. But true.
FDR and JFK would be aghast at what passes for policy in their beloved Democratic Party. Although both were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester. Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power. Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines. Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights. Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration. Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live. Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice. Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Do all of the above and they might find their way back to power.
The coolness problem is not a small one for Dems, and Adam is spot on. Sorry to hop on the coattails here, but I wrote about the implications of Hogg's ascension to party vice chair through the same lens:
Not sure I like the "cool" tag as a description for leaving the Dems, but your reasons are spot-on! The Dems have become the establishment party. They are resistant to any and ALL change to the status quo. They are joined in their efforts by RHINOs who crave nothing better than going-along-to-get-along so they'll be invited to the "right" cocktail parties. LONG LIVE THE CURRENT DRAINING OF THE SWAMP!!
This is superb. Few people are "political." Most pay attention every four years for a brief period, they vote and they move on with their lives. Democrats forget that. In that environment common sense works. You wrote: "Cool people aren't followers. Cool people standout and inspire people to follow them. People want to emulate them, not because someone repeatedly insulted them into compliance." This quote is spot on.
Democrats think that they can insult their voters to gain their continuing support and it just doesn't work that way. You've hit the nail on the head. Where did my democrat party of the 1960's go? They've been gone a long time and the icons of that party...John and Bobby Kennedy chief among them...wouldn't be welcomed in this party any more than Bobby Kennedy's son is welcomed. The democrats of today all look like the democrats of the Daly political machine in the Chicago of many years ago, arrogant, elitist, sleazy and smarmy. Like they're all part of the in crowd. Donald J. Trump and JD Vance are anything but insiders. Thank you for pointing this out. Somebody in the democrats should listen to you and then push the party to get in touch with real people again. Until they do you are correct...they will keep losing.
In Chile we've has this same ageing throughout all parties. And young people in politics don't have the cojones for standing up and having the cojones to think beyond the party's ideology. This has created a stagnant politic scenario, with not much hope in the scenario and despair that has grown interests on Conservatives that go all in on security and safety.
I did everything I could to be cool for the first 21 years of my life, including getting arrested and thrown in jail a bunch of times. I even smoked Kool cigarettes. I was such a cool jerk!
The forgiveness of sins in Christ makes all things new and cooler than ever!
Nope. Maybe it’s because I’m a senior but I could care less about how cool you are. I want someone with morals, principles. Someone who doesn’t lie out of both sides of their mouth at once. You think Trump’s cool? He most certainly is not. And he’s dishonest and uses people. Cool might get votes but it won’t make a lasting base.
Yeah I hated Biden's vax mandates and Riley Gaines should have a gold medal, but do you know who is less cool? The new American Nazi Party formerly known as the GOP. Fascist dictatorship is not the answer to our problems. Too bad so many delusional people support these criminal.
Not sure how you equate the GOP with Nazis. The current GOP wants LESS gov't and bureaucratic interference in people's lives. BTW, you realize Nazi's are/were socialists (it's part of their name FFS!), don't you?
They do not want less government and bureaucratic control. They want to be in charge of the government and bureaucracy. It is an important distinction.
In order to reform / shrink govenment one has to first be in control of that government; no? In othr words, how can you fix the bureaucracy unless you have control over it in the first place?
If you want to reform or shrink the government then you vote specifically on bills to do that. If you want to control the government to serve your purposes then you install a bunch of people who's only qualification is that they will do your bidding.
Honest question, what do you think Trump would choose: a smaller government that is apolitical, or a government of the same size as now that does his bidding?
In order to reform / shrink govenment one has to first be in control of that government; no? In othr words, how can you fix the bureaucracy unless you have control over it in the first place?
The confusing thing to me about this comment is that it would appear to be two downvotes for the Ds, yet the Rs are troped with the standard FasciNazi ad hominem name calling with significant emotional display, without even a simple handful of supporting facts (indeed a mugshot was taken, for example).
For those reasons, this comment is indeed an outlier!
Ha! The only Nazis I see are running around madrasa (formerly college) campuses threatening Jewish students . And their ridiculously stupid madrasa presidents, who have no real educational disciplines to speak of, are encouraging them to do it.
The Democratic Party has long prided itself on its hipness and future-oriented attitude has lost the coolness fight to Donald J. Trump. That's about as uncool as you can be. Unfathomable. But true.
"Cool people aren't followers." Amen!
Great analysis @Adam. JD Vance as a pro-life, pro-working family democrat prior to 2008 is not stretching it.
Elitists are never cool.
FDR and JFK would be aghast at what passes for policy in their beloved Democratic Party. Although both were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester. Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power. Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines. Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights. Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration. Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live. Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice. Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Do all of the above and they might find their way back to power.
The coolness problem is not a small one for Dems, and Adam is spot on. Sorry to hop on the coattails here, but I wrote about the implications of Hogg's ascension to party vice chair through the same lens:
https://dennisonwrites.substack.com/p/democrats-still-dont-know-how-to
Not sure I like the "cool" tag as a description for leaving the Dems, but your reasons are spot-on! The Dems have become the establishment party. They are resistant to any and ALL change to the status quo. They are joined in their efforts by RHINOs who crave nothing better than going-along-to-get-along so they'll be invited to the "right" cocktail parties. LONG LIVE THE CURRENT DRAINING OF THE SWAMP!!
This is superb. Few people are "political." Most pay attention every four years for a brief period, they vote and they move on with their lives. Democrats forget that. In that environment common sense works. You wrote: "Cool people aren't followers. Cool people standout and inspire people to follow them. People want to emulate them, not because someone repeatedly insulted them into compliance." This quote is spot on.
Democrats think that they can insult their voters to gain their continuing support and it just doesn't work that way. You've hit the nail on the head. Where did my democrat party of the 1960's go? They've been gone a long time and the icons of that party...John and Bobby Kennedy chief among them...wouldn't be welcomed in this party any more than Bobby Kennedy's son is welcomed. The democrats of today all look like the democrats of the Daly political machine in the Chicago of many years ago, arrogant, elitist, sleazy and smarmy. Like they're all part of the in crowd. Donald J. Trump and JD Vance are anything but insiders. Thank you for pointing this out. Somebody in the democrats should listen to you and then push the party to get in touch with real people again. Until they do you are correct...they will keep losing.
In Chile we've has this same ageing throughout all parties. And young people in politics don't have the cojones for standing up and having the cojones to think beyond the party's ideology. This has created a stagnant politic scenario, with not much hope in the scenario and despair that has grown interests on Conservatives that go all in on security and safety.
Good article! You said it well!
I did everything I could to be cool for the first 21 years of my life, including getting arrested and thrown in jail a bunch of times. I even smoked Kool cigarettes. I was such a cool jerk!
The forgiveness of sins in Christ makes all things new and cooler than ever!
Nope. Maybe it’s because I’m a senior but I could care less about how cool you are. I want someone with morals, principles. Someone who doesn’t lie out of both sides of their mouth at once. You think Trump’s cool? He most certainly is not. And he’s dishonest and uses people. Cool might get votes but it won’t make a lasting base.
Man, if people need politicians to be cool, that’s a real mental disability.
Yeah I hated Biden's vax mandates and Riley Gaines should have a gold medal, but do you know who is less cool? The new American Nazi Party formerly known as the GOP. Fascist dictatorship is not the answer to our problems. Too bad so many delusional people support these criminal.
I don't care if you don't like Republicans but this is pure histrionics.
Not sure how you equate the GOP with Nazis. The current GOP wants LESS gov't and bureaucratic interference in people's lives. BTW, you realize Nazi's are/were socialists (it's part of their name FFS!), don't you?
They do not want less government and bureaucratic control. They want to be in charge of the government and bureaucracy. It is an important distinction.
In order to reform / shrink govenment one has to first be in control of that government; no? In othr words, how can you fix the bureaucracy unless you have control over it in the first place?
If you want to reform or shrink the government then you vote specifically on bills to do that. If you want to control the government to serve your purposes then you install a bunch of people who's only qualification is that they will do your bidding.
Honest question, what do you think Trump would choose: a smaller government that is apolitical, or a government of the same size as now that does his bidding?
In order to reform / shrink govenment one has to first be in control of that government; no? In othr words, how can you fix the bureaucracy unless you have control over it in the first place?
The confusing thing to me about this comment is that it would appear to be two downvotes for the Ds, yet the Rs are troped with the standard FasciNazi ad hominem name calling with significant emotional display, without even a simple handful of supporting facts (indeed a mugshot was taken, for example).
For those reasons, this comment is indeed an outlier!
Ha! The only Nazis I see are running around madrasa (formerly college) campuses threatening Jewish students . And their ridiculously stupid madrasa presidents, who have no real educational disciplines to speak of, are encouraging them to do it.