They got it all wrong: New data shows how Dems can win back America

[DonViejo]

Turns out conservatives are getting crushed in family values debates. Here's 5 other findings the left should know

ANAT SHENKER-OSORIO AND JEFFREY PARCHER

To everything there is a season and now is the time for election dissection. How do we reconcile an electorate that raised the minimum wage everywhere possible and opted for Republicans who profess not to believe in it? And what do we make of the – even for America – pathetically low turnout?

One-third of Americans struggle to make ends meet. That’s 106 million people who often don’t know how they’ll pay rent, get childcare or retire. Even in our fractious America, that’s a large group with shared interests – decent wages, reliable work hours, affordable child and health care, and the means to enable a livable last couple of decades.

Never mind the 99 percent, why don’t we see the bottom 33 percent rising up? They’re the ones with the sharpest ax to grind with our current economic policies. We know there are major structural and economic impediments to them organizing and voting, but are there other reasons they’re sitting on the political sidelines?

We recently completed an investigation to understand why and what to do about it. We wanted to know if there are new and better ways to describe poverty, its origins and fixes that could compel people to challenge the economic status quo. We sought unfiltered language from the people most affected and focused on frames that move those people to action rather than merely meeting the mushy middle where they are.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/03/they_got_it_all_wrong_new_data_shows_how_dems_can_win_back_america/

[still_one]

1. All that is fine, but if people don't get out and vote then they are part of the problem

[librechik]

3. vote all you want

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html

snip
"Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.?

[still_one]

4. That is a cop out. There are more issues then just President Obama and the Federal level. In fact

it should start at the local level, that is how change actually takes place.

People who don't vote deserve everything that happens to their situation

[librechik]

7. I heartily agree. Local is where it must start.

I direct you to the example of Detroit, where a corporate executive was appointed to takeover the town and run it like a business.

Do you think Detroit voted for that?

Of course not. Their vote meant nothing.

If they had voted for a different mayor, would that have helped?

Of course they could only vote for the two pro corporate candidates offered.

Can we solve that on a local level? You don't believe HUGE INTERNATIONAL INTERESTS had something to do with turning The Motor City into cheap real estate worth investing in?

could the voters of Detroit have stopped that? Nobody asked them.

[still_one]

8. Then individuals run, and gathered grassroots support, that is how it is done.

[librechik]

9. that is how it used to be done, before Citizen's United. Now the bigger bank account

will always win out over the populist independent candidate; There are other loopholes to stop them, too. Not to mention The Final Solution, which our PTB use when they're really up against a mass movement, like Civil Rights or Peace.

And it's not just money, but a network of powerful organizations that frankly will stop at nothing to get their candidate elected. Or in the case of the Democratic Campaign Committee, abandon them if the polls are down.

I admire your loyalty, still_one, but we need a new paradigm. I hope the Millennials can come up with something because the only solutions i can think of are bloody and unpredictable.

It would help if we had some portion of the justice system on our side, but we haven't since Clinton, at least.

[librechik]

2. Democratic Party messaging is non-existent.

They don't even do the easiest things, like the PuKKKes do, i.e., Smearing their piggy faces in their crimes and evil the way they smear us with our what, our liberalism? yeah that's evil, to them.

Where are the leaders who ought to be studying the populist success of FDR and Truman?

Hiding somewhere in some rich guy's pocket.

[still_one]

5. Then vote for someone who you don't think is in someones pocket. There is no excuse for not voting

[librechik]

6. I always vote. I'm a romantic.

I'm just saying that my vote which I love and respect so much means NOTHING to those who count it. They put their cronies in anyway.

I think voting should be compulsory, like in Australia. For better or worse, they have a more representative government than we do.

[still_one]

10. who isn't disillusioned

[librechik]

11. we'll think of something

I hope it's in my lifetime…this crazy shit is unbearable!