Originally Posted by New Era
Both of you mean well, but you're way off base. I really don't believe you understand what drives Americans, especially uneducated and rural Americans, and definitely not those in the south. You don't understand it until you actually live it and are exposed to it. You need to see it, hear it, smell it, and just live it to get it. These are not people you win over with policies or ideas. You win them by playing to their base instincts and leveraging the biases that have developed over the decades. This is why the Republicans are better at this game than the Democrats, because they understand how to leverage these biases and motivate these people to vote against their very self-interests and in favor of the corporations that are making their lives worse.
When Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 he said then that the Democrats had lost the south for a generation or more. He was right, because this policy was against the very biases that existed in the south he knew the Republicans would use that to stoke fears and blame all evils on the granting rights to the disenfranchised. This law did not curb those biases, nor the behaviors associated with them. It did not magically change anything, except give people who hate each other more reason to hate each other, and then other people they don't even know. Racism is still rampant in the south (and not much better in the north) and nothing is changing that. Black people still fear the power of white people and white privilege. They still have that hanging over their heads and must tread carefully as a result. Voting for black people is not easy as it is a privilege they don't have the same access to that white people do. This systemic racism and the mechanisms that forward this racist agenda is what keeps change in check.
Conversely, for poor white people the very same racist agenda is what keeps them in check and keeps them voting for the party that is actually doing the most damage to them and their ability to leverage any form of social mobility. The racist fires are kept stoked by the Republicans (ironically the party of Lincoln) and they make sure that all of those poor working class people remember that it is black and brown people who took their jobs, which were later off-shored by evil Democrats, even though it was their corporate benefactors behind the mess in the first place. The biases that people hold are reinforced each election and nothing is changing in that regard. For white people, it is the black and brown people are coming to take your livelihood away from you and only one party can protect you from that. The Democrats don't have an answer to that, because they have to try and represent everyone and they don't get to rely on those base biases. It's a weakness in their approach and strategy.
What makes things worse, and this was alluded to by another poster, the Democrats don't have a real good state level game. The Republicans dominate state politics and as a result they get to pull the levers of power that enforce the systems that systemic disenfrachisement and racism. Gerrymandering makes it possible for these biases to be maintained and re-enforced. The majority rule does not exist, so making change is impossible when the states are set up so small enclaves of rich voters outweigh the power of larger voting blocks. The system is set up to be repressive and all the policies and policy wonks in the world will not change this. Systemic change is required, but the mechanisms to change that are unavailable because of the way the system is stacked against those who need the system changed in their favor. It is the ultimate catch 22.
I am very hopeful that we are seeing the beginning of the end to this as a result of the past two elections. Those powerless groups have started to get to the polls and have started to vote in blocks. They have turned Georgia and Arizona purple. That is BIG. But it is only a result of activism by the black (Georgia) and brown (Arizona) vote getting out and casting ballots. Sadly, the state level politics has not been impacted to the same level, because these people don't know how the system works and what they have to change to make that system start working for them. This is a baby step, but a good step. Now these people need to be educated on how the system is stacked against them and how to get past the biases they have to expand their voting block and dominate the states as well. You have to own the local politics if you hope to change the state, and you have to own the state if you hope to change the federal politics, because the levers of power to restack the deck are managed at that state level. Change starts with education and action as a result of that education. Without understanding the system you're trying to change you stand no hope in making it work for you.
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