The Surprising Division Among Democrats
While most people who watched last night’s convention are focused on Tim Walz’s moment with his son, Oprah Winfrey’s star power, or the SNL guy who tried to be funny, Bill Clinton had the line of the night that perfectly sums up the deep divisions within the Democratic Party.
In his usual folksy charm, Bill Clinton described Trump voters as neighbors who used to be “one of us.” Instead of demonizing the base of voters supporting Donald Trump, he humanized and identified with them as fellow Americans who simply held a differing set of beliefs. This fell on deaf ears because this simply is not where the party is at.
Bill Clinton was elected during a time when - while the parties were drifting apart - he was able to build coalitions with the right to pass budget reforms that allowed the government to function. Fast forward to Barack Obama who specialized in division and claimed Republicans were the enemy. This is the guy who forced Obamacare down the throats of Americans and then ruled by executive order when his congressional majorities were stripped away. He told supporters to bring a gun to a knife fight and told Democrats to get in their neighbor’s faces.
However, Barack Obama was a less effective president than Bill Clinton because Clinton’s bipartisan coalitions allowed him to get more accomplished in office that wasn’t ultimately undone by federal courts. There’s a lesson to be learned here by Democrats (and Republicans). Watch:
Bipartisan efforts are the backbone of America. But since Obama and arguably Pelosi in 2006 the dems have decided they are the only hope for America and that there way is best or the highway. They have no intent to hear another side.
Obamacare was the beginning when they realized they could get around the constitution and grab America by its throat and throttle it away into a socialists heck hole.
Freedoms be damned.
So since the dem labeled 50% of America as enemies of the state and republicans forgot to bring their backbones, you got Trump.
Brash and hotheaded he was saying what republicans would not.
But Dems took it personally when Hillary lost. Fast forward to Feb 2020 and things were looking bleak. Trump was on his way to reelection with a strong economy and stable world.
In comes COVID.
Which gave them the opp to seize back power by any means necessary.
They got it back and largely kept it through 2022. Which they took it as validation that they could do anything they wanted. They didn’t have to rely on republican voters or catering to all of America. Just enough voters to keep them in power.
This dnc has one message alone. “We are progressive socialists, and we don’t care that you know it.”
All the bad socialist and even communist policy that comes with it.
It will be the first convention ever where the party doesn’t get any bump in the polls. It’s too far left to attract any middle swing voters. And while that is low this time around it’s still a good portion of voters that Dems are taking for granted.
The Ronald Reagan ad trump is distributing is extremely impactful. It will win him the election.
Play it hour by hour. On every TV.
Final point. You’re right Erick. And Clinton is right. We are far and away from these days.
The disgusting state of our politics formed under Obama.
Before Obama the primary method used was positive branding your party (candidates, ideas, policies, etc.). Obama brought in a form of thuggery where the primary strategy was to negative brand the opponent.
I keep using the analogy of Coke and Pepsi. Think about the "I like to teach the world to sing" advertisement campaign from Coke. Now think about it being like this.
Coke delivers a massive media-coordinated negative branding campaign against Pepsi... claiming the CEO is a racist and misogynist... claiming that Pepsi uses toxic chemicals in their products and pollutes the environment. Journalists repeat it.... and take it to the next level claiming Pepsi drinkers are uneducated and fascists... who are a threat to democracy.
Think about how destructive that would be to common decency and good feelings about the state of society.
That is what the Democrats started doing under Obama, and what Trump picked up on as the political game that needed to be played in competition. The Uniparty is 80% Democrat controlled and 30% of the GOP. The GOP establishment is the absolutely most guilty of this degradation because they have never really directly opposed the crap behavior of the Democrats (because they too have their hand in the ruling class power cookie jar)... but then have the hypocritic position opposing Trump for doing the same. It is like safe-space virtue signaling... not damaging the globalist, corporatist ruling class cabal and their related looting sandbox... while showing that they are good and moral "Reagan" types of GOPers.
Gag me.