April 28, 2017

Optimism and the Democratic Party

When Democrats have succeeded in the last 80 years, optimism has been integral to our success. Optimism was FDR's calling card, and we heard echos of optimism in the Camelot of JFK, and in Obama's "Hope and Change" in 2008/9. The GOP has also succeeded by the same strategy with Reagan ("Shining City on the Hill&quot being the key example.

Today, most of the political press centers on the daily outrages of Trump. The Democratic party gets much less press and some of that is counterproductive as highlighted by continuing coverage of squabbling among some Democrats about the future of the party.

What the Democratic Party needs now is to return to it's most successful strategy emphasizing the bright future of America, the power of collective action through the government to accomplish great things (like curing cancer), the promotion of both freedom AND equal rights for all. "America is great and we will make it better yet for everyone..." I think this requires remembering to inject optimism into political discourse by Democrats at the grass roots on upward to Congressional and Senate Democrats. And to inject optimism, one must feel optimistic that the dark days of Trump and the GOP will pass and that great things are still possible. Biden's Moonshot for Cancer is the best example I think of in the recent past of something that was both realistic and achievable in the not to distant future that almost all Americans (perhaps besides some folks like Trump who want to cut the NIH budget) would agree is worth achieving.

April 23, 2017

Two-thirds of Americans think that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the country

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/04/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-that-the-democratic-party-is-out-of-touch-with-the-country/?utm_term=.dc0d1db65142

By Philip Bump April 23 at 12:41 PM

"You might not be surprised if I were to tell you that a majority of Americans think that President Trump is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today. Sure, he won the election, but a plurality of voters opposed him, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that he hasn’t expanded his base of support significantly since then. You certainly wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s a broad partisan split on the question, as there is on nearly everything in politics these days.

Only 1 in 10 of those who voted for Trump in November think he’s out of touch — but 90 percent of Hillary Clinton voters do. Partisan views are slightly more moderate, with 20 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of Democrats holding that position.

When it comes to the Republican Party, the numbers are a bit worse. Sixty-two percent of Americans, and 30 percent of Republicans themselves, think that the GOP is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States.

But none of this means that Democrats are seen as echoing the concerns of the common man. In fact, the Democratic Party is viewed as more out of touch than either Trump or the party’s political opponents. Two-thirds of Americans think the Democrats are out of touch — including nearly half of Democrats themselves."

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I was surprised to see this. That the GOP (62%) and Democratic parties (67%) are both viewed as out of touch by ~2/3 of voters. For the Democrats 44% of Democrats say the party is out of touch.
The question is out of touch in exactly which ways?
Hope to find a followup to this.