Democrat: Party has 'fallen out of touch with the majority of Americans'

[everyonematters]

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said he believes the Democratic Party has “fallen out of touch” with what the majority of Americans want from the party.

“I don’t agree that we should just step back, I think we’ve got to show leadership, show Americans that we’re actually willing to change,” Moulton argued. “We lost an election across the board, so by definition we’ve fallen out of touch with the majority of Americans.”

“We need to show that we’re willing to change, we’re willing to listen, and we’re going to make a positive difference in your lives,” he said.

Moulton has been outspoken in combatting the Trump administration. Earlier this week, he said he believes Trump is “selling out Ukraine to Russia.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrat-party-has-fallen-out-of-touch-with-the-majority-of-americans/ar-AA1zR2qv?ocid=BingNewsSerp

[Raven123]

1. We all look forward to SEEING the leadership

[surfered]

2. I was thinking more like "We're Not Like Them."

Or “We’re Not Crazy.”

[SheltieLover]

3. I do not believe we "lost the election across the board". It was stolen. Muskrat.

[Ninga]

4. Moulton speaks in code for the party supporting

the marginalized and standing up for women and POC.,
Biden did more for the middle class working people and the economy and yet certain party members insist the party is out of touch.
BS

[stillcool]

14. Seth Molton?

He must have changed his tune recently.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

26. 100!!

[tulipsandroses]

38. Yep. That is exactly right. In order to win the " working class"/white men, we must throw everyone else under the bus

Democrats have ideas, plans to lift everyone up. That is not what they want. They spend their time listening to Faux news, and all the online trolls telling them there is a war on white men. Bullshit. They stew in the propaganda of " DEI" and "boys playing girls' sports".

If there is a democrat to blame for losing, it is members of congress. They should have been going back to their districts and touting the success of the Biden administration. Shit, republicans that voted against everything Biden did, still went home and celebrated Biden's wins, except their constituents would never know they voted against it.

[Abstractartist]

5. Kick it in gear

Is it just me or are others seeing how the MAGAts are doing all the shit work to put the democrats back in control in 2026. I’m not hearing anything from our leaders. Time to clean house. Sorry, but AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Speaker to be Jeffries, young progressives…. Time to step into leadership roles. Schumer, et. al…. Thank you for your service but…

[Happy Hoosier]

6. Change HOW?

What specific changes do you think need to be made, Seth? That article doesn't highlight single fucking change. Not one.

[travelingthrulife]

8. Exactly. So we should start lying and supporting Russia and become lawless?

The main issue is media Congress, fix it. Put restraints on that first amendment like most countries have.

[Happy Hoosier]

9. I suspect he means...

... we should abandon trans rights. I can't think of what else he could be getting at.

Nope... won;t throw my trans brothers and sistyers under the bus.

[karynnj]

20. Not to mention, the Democrats did not make trans rights an issue

The Republicans did speaking about "men" in women's sports and bathrooms. Fear mongering.

Even if no Democrat anywhere mentioned trans rights, the Republicans would STILL have fearmongered. Proof that Republicans know it worked is the very early, very broad attack on DEI. Even if the Democrats abandoned the most vulnerable people(transgendered) it would not have convinced people who made this an issue. Then, in addition to losing the election, we would have lost our conscience and integrity.

The broadness of that attack, shows that it was not just the small number of transgendered people they attack, but women, POC, LGBT and so on. They are against more than half the country.

[keep_left]

33. Yep. Just Google "Christopher Rufo".

He's made a very lucrative career from bigotry. There have been many posts about his handiwork here at DU.

To see them, Google this: site:democraticunderground.com "Christopher Rufo"

[JI7]

7. willing to change by supporting Doge, project 2025 ?

That's what most people voted for.

[whathehell]

15. I would strongly disagree with

the idea that "most people voted for" DOGE or Project 2025, at least knowingly.

[karynnj]

22. Especially as Trump repeatedly said 2025 was not his agenda

And that he had not read it. yes, I see the inconsistency in the two statements, but when did Trump ever care if his words made sense .. as long as his cult followed.

[BlueKota]

10. I think they are missing the point

It really wasn't a majority of Americans who voted for Trump. Between the voters who voted for Harris and the people who didn't vote period they outnumber the Magats.

I think our side has the best ideas for the country by far, but are just too concerned about proper manners and following Marguess of Queensbeery rules rather than doing what it takes, to forcefully get our message out. Bullies only get stronger if you refuse to take an even stronger stance against them. Call them names, reup the coat hanger abortion commercials from pre Roe era, ones about dangers of kissing vlad's butt. Save the Kumbya stuff until after the election is won. Policy ads and talk of bipartisanship don't win elections. We have to win first to help the people and enact our policies.

If people don't see their leaders willing to battle for what they believe in, they won't see the point in fighting back either.

[chouchou]

11. He apparently didn't pay attention regarding what-was-going-down, in the last Election.

Like Fox News lying 24 hours a day. Republicans spouting stupid crap like "The Dems and Haitians were eating cats and dogs".
Right wing people said >>The Dems were going to (Insert the most idiotic bullshit here)
Even the main media ABC, NBC, CBS was hawking Donald Trump every damn evening.
The egg shortage was the Biden people.

We lost by 1.6 percent. The Media and the fucking Republicans played a dirty lying campaign from start to finish.

I HATE when people start that crap.."We need to do so and so.... FUCK YOU!
The Dems usually play fair and try to not lie constantly...Again ..The Right wing blows shit from their minds and mouths..

GRRR...

[valleyrogue]

12. Bullshit. n/t

[Kingofalldems]

13. Bad things about Democrats.

[Silent Type]

16. Howsabout a Democratic Project 2026/2028, or something.

[GaYellowDawg]

17. It's the messaging, stupid.

I think that there are a lot of Americans who agree with Democratic policies, but don't know that they are Democratic policies. I think that the most fundamental flaw that the Democratic Party has is inadequate messaging.

For instance, why in the hell would anyone send out Chuck Schumer to comment on anything? If you put a piece of stale toast in the middle of the Gobi desert for 5 years, it wouldn't be as dry as Chuck Schumer. So, Chuck: "People are aroused. I haven't seen people so aroused in a very, very long time in terms of going, trying to get this done." Really? People are aroused? What in the blue-stained fuck would make you say something that incredibly stupid? All that did was to completely clown and discredit anything he or the Democratic Party had to say at the time. How about the word "enraged"? As in, the people are enraged that you would do something as spectacularly stupid as use the word "aroused" and set the right up to just laugh at you instead of having to address the issues you're trying to talk about?

When Republicans want to get messaging out, they take one issue and pound the shit out of it, from national down to local. They find something they don't like, they put together a completely insane straw man for it, and then they beat the hell out of the straw man from national to local until they get it across. They do this with good policies!! And along with the straw man, there are always ridiculous anecdotes. So why in the hell can't Democrats get unified messaging out? Why isn't there someone out there screaming every day that egg prices haven't gone down, food prices haven't gone down, and now planes are either dropping out of the sky or having near misses? Why isn't there a different story every day about a Federal worker getting fired who did something that even a MAGA has to admit serves everyone's interest? There's just no penetration to ordinary people using ordinary terms.

[Ping Tung]

18. The will of the people

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. - H.L. Mencken

[karynnj]

19. I wish he and others would be more nuanced than " we lost across the board'

The House is approximately 50/50. The Presidential results were not all that different from a mirror image of 2020. In 2020, we won the swing states, in 2024, they did

What is different is that they already had a partisan hold on the Supreme Court. The SP's immunity decision could well have made the difference. The fact that Trump derailed his prosecutions strangely made it easier for his messengers convincing enough people that the indictments were just political persecution. ( which played well with parts of his base who feel that they have been unfairly treated.)

Another thing that is different is that their control of the majority of broadcast and cable media and social media was increased to the point that it is difficult to get out our message - ANY message.

Molton is not wrong that our message did not win and there is always room to consider changes, but it may not be the message, but that we have no signal strength to get our message out.

This is not a new problem, but it has gotten worse since at least the 1990s when it seemed most of the AM radio band went to talk radio ... almost all right wing.

With the Republicans controlling everything, we need to find ways to hold them accountable for the messes they make.

[Initech]

21. We need an anti-Project 2025.

[EarthFirst]

23. What we need to do is stop convincing Republicans to break rank and vote as a Democrat...

Republicans can be miserable and discontent with their party all they want.

Fuck ‘em.

Embracing Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to do our outreach is ridiculous…

The Democratic Party is not out of touch with the majority of the demographics that align with Democratic values…they are out of touch with voter outreach attempting to convince the wrong people who we are and what we stand for.

[The Revolution]

24. There is polling that suggests

The priorities of the Democratic Party (or perceptions of those priorities) do not align with the priorities of voters:



Abortion: No question we focused heavily on this issue, but it wasn't a top one for voters

LGBT: Probably based on transgender rights more than anything. I don't think this was actually a top priority. In fact, Republicans talked about it way more, but in a way that pained Democratsas out of touch. Still, not a top issue for voters.

Climate Change: Still not on people's radar. Just not a winning issue, despite its actual importance. We'll just have to be the party that offers solutions after the really bad effects start.

Democracy: Again, very important in reality. People don't realize how fragile Democracy is though, so other things seem more important. We need better messaging, or ignore it during the election, but add permanent safeguards once elected.

Healthcare: Voters' #2 issue, which they believe Republicans don't care about. Huge opportunity for us here. We should put a lot more emphasis on this. Tie it to the economy - health care costs are killing us. Republicans care more about guns than they do about your health.

[dutch777]

37. We have to prioritize what the voters want. Period. We can still work on DACA, LGBTQ+, climate but...

we can't just say inflation isn't all that bad when 35% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That appeared tone deaf and we paid the price. Trump lied that he could fix it, but he acknowledged it and voters followed those who they felt were listening to their priorities. Now, we do get to paint the GOP with what they are not fixing but were elected on-- inflation, national debt and that they are just giving tax relief to the top 1% while hurting the average American by limiting Medicaid and cutting services all while probably increasing the national debt.

[alarimer]

25. Not really.

He may be right in some ways, but in others, Democrats have just been so demonized that the truth never really gets out.

Voters believe things that simply ARE NOT TRUE.

Like the economy is bad.

It is not bad by most measures (at least at the end of Biden's term) but prices are too high (the result of profit-taking by corporations, not really inflation).

Crime is up

It is down by most measures.
As for DEI-type stuff, we see the backlash now. I don't think these policies are bad, exactly. But some are a little bit too radical (my opinions on some may get me banned here, so I won't say). I also think Democrats have not really framed it correctly. Because why should anyone believe only white men are any good at anything? It makes no sense to think that. It also makes sense to increase opportunities for all other groups of people. Why not have the largest possible talent pool available?

[Voltaire2]

27. In this case Seth Moulton appears to be attacking Carville (Idiot, past expiration date, possible lizard alien)

who opined that Democratic politicians ought to lay back and enjoy the raping of the republic.

In other cases, earlier, Seth Moulton tossed trans people under the bus. So I don't know which Moulton is the real Moulton.

[JohnSJ]

31. Exactly right. He is a politician.

[Quiet Em]

28. I believe Seth Moulton is the one who is out of touch

and I'm not sure why he gets so much air time and press.

[Walleye]

29. OK Seth, so we need to take a step back and show leadership. I'll get right on it.

I’ll say it again, no amount of messaging is going to stop a racist and misogynist from hating people.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

30. Most Americans favor progressive populism... we need to go further in sticking with our principles!!

[Johnny2X2X]

32. Fuck the American people

And I mean that in this way. Trying to coddle the American middle class doesn't win. What works is lying and taking control of the media to spread your lies.

[pandr32]

34. I think too many Americans have lost touch with Democratic values.

They've been influenced with constant brainwashing.
It isn't just propaganda, either, which is a momentous problem.
It's commercialism on steroids. Even our cars are showing us ads on our screens. Ads make people want things and resent not being able to have everything. They also show happy people being well-adjusted in their lives and having wholesome families and a vibrant social life with giant wine glasses and smiles.
Not many people understand how government works, or what our Constitution sets out beyond their warped views of our First and Second Amendments.

[jmbar2]

35. Last week, Sen Sheldon Whitehouse warned against Dems getting into a circular firing squad.

And here we are.

[Historic NY]

36. Well they definitely read the tea leafs wrong

You can not be the all that ends all on every issue. With people all going in different factional directions.

[Eko]

39. I agree.

There is a reason Bernie Sanders is doing so well right now with his rallies. People only see gradual change for the middle class and poor from the Democratic party while the rich are getting far richer at a much faster rate. They don't see the Democratic party doing much to change that. That is not to say that the Democratic party is not trying to help the poor and middle class, far from it but what did they propose to change the status quo? What did they propose to reign in the rich from keep getting far richer that was not just gradual change and modest movement?

Everything in their platform was good, increasing the child tax credit, paid leave, but those wouldn't change the insane growth of the rich and would only modestly change life for some Americans. What does a child tax credit do for those who are childless? Paid leave is good but that doesn't change any actual income for anyone. She wanted to raise the taxes on the rich but only to 28% which is lower than the 35% that was in effect until dump changed it. Sure her tax changes would have save people making under $28,000 about $1,130 but that is not much over a year. That is just under $100 a month and sure would help some but its not really changing the status quo.

https://itep.org/a-distributional-analysis-of-kamala-harris-tax-plan/
Once again I am not bashing Kamala Harris, I voted for her and I think she would have made a great president and would have probably gone farther than the policies she stated. But I don't think it would have changed the status quo much.

[ananda]

40. Insane. So the GOP is in touch?

Right.