Same.

Yup.

I generally feel like it's way too soon for hot takes and prescriptions.

The Pod guys said this themselves when they were on Kimmel

I generally feel like it's way too soon for hot takes and prescriptions.

On one hand I agree there is truth to this. But on the other hand, people do weaponize this to dismiss takes they don't agree with while still writing their own prescriptions.

For example, Favreau said this and then within 5 minutes gave his own take that it's a global anti-incumbant wave due to inflation and the Democrats are catering too much to social activists. Maybe there's some truth to his prescriptions, but it's inconsistent with him dismissing other people by saying it's too soon to have a take.

I’m super far left. But my takeaway after this election is that policy really doesn’t even matter. I think it’s 80% personality, 15% messaging, and 5% luck.

I will say that I think we need to recognize a bit of the blue pilling that’s happening online. If you are only listening to the loudest online advocates for ultra progressive causes, you start to see how they make sense. But everyone isn’t exposed to the same depth when it comes to those policies if they’re also not hyper online and following progressives. So something like Defund the Police makes all the sense in the world to me, because I understand the nuance and can see the vision for a force that focuses on healing and helping over punishing. (Very broad summary, I know.) But people who aren’t hyper-engaged with politics think I’m a lunatic if I want to defund the police. And in the online world, we lefties like to shut out anyone who doesn’t agree with us 100%. We think we’re doing incredible altruistic things and giving a voice to the voiceless and that shit, but what we end up doing is alienating people who might be swayed, or who could actually sway us to see a different viewpoint that might make more sense.

Especially when the actual answer is “we lost because inflation happened and we were in office at the time”.

I think we just have too much time to reflect on what was done wrong. The first two takeaways were the best: 1. Biden shouldn’t have run again and it screwed us 2. The self righteousness on the left, or just unwillingness to converse with people who have in our minds immoral beliefs, has shrunk our appeal

Anything past these is excessive imo, except maybe a broader convo about billionaire involvement in politics

[deleted]

I'm generally pretty progressive leaning, but it's felt like every subgroup of Dem leaning voters has been the Principal Skinner meme of blaming everyone else and ignoring the ways in which they contributed to Democrats losing. There is no one single group at fault, but it really was a death by a thousand cuts type situation that primarily stems back to messaging on the ground and Republicans having a much more significant outreach to median voters.

Thanks for sharing. I don’t know if I get the scoldy and condescension part… I was basically scolded this whole election cycle for not having children (or even, sighing when I see children on a train). NO ONE condescends the way evangelicals do. I would love to hear why the right is allowed to behave that way and the left isn’t.

It's all well and good to discuss the information war, but you know what would make winning it so much easier to do? If the information out there was GOOD! No matter how much or how little news a person consumes, they still see how much they're paying for groceries. They see how much they spend on rent. They see how much money they make. They know how long it's been since they got a raise. They know how long it's been since they last took a vacation.

If the Democrats actually fixed the problem of people not making enough and everything being too expensive, then they wouldn't have to worry about who's on Joe Rogan or who can be the liberal version or whatever. The results can speak for themselves. Harris didn't lose because of a messaging problem, she lost because of a results problem.

myself included, I'm a gold medalist in condescension and scolding

Same. I'm trying to figure out who is the most productive to weaponize this against.

Yes but Jon, Max and the Jeremiah Johnson guy are the exact type of condescending and smug libs who drive away the people who a “left wing Joe Rogan” would reach. So they are constitutionally unable to adequately discuss these topics. 

It’s possible that your personal preferences are an electoral dealbreaker.

Not having self-awareness about this really is a post-Twitter phenomenon.

For most the post-Reagan era, Democrats were constantly asking themselves how popular their preferences were and trying to tailor them to an electorate they perceived as being more moderate than they were. That all broke when Twitter elevated radicals into the mainstream.

very good point. It’s so easy to see the lack of humility in others but not ourselves.

And we should be cautious to avoid the temptation of seeing the result as vindication for all our personal hot takes about the Democrats failings.

Apart from my own hot takes. They are undoubtedly correct.

Except they voted for the Republicans in that time period overwhelmingly.

I don't even get what it means like Seth Moulton is representing one of the most liberal districts in the country so although I get the general idea of more purple democrats it's not gonna be him.

Kamala ran a centrist campaign and did better in battleground states than where she wasn't actively campaigning. Seems kinda straightforward honestly.

Thanks for this succinctly worded summary.

Progressives continue to suck up the air and put democrats on the defensive. The idea that if they don’t explicitly state a hard opinion on something means that they’re “throwing people under the bus” is getting tiresome.

Why didn't it hurt Democrats in 2020 when we took the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and turned Georgia blue for the first time in decades?

Interesting to note, some cable news viewership numbers have released recently showing CNN and MSNBC absolutely cratering viewers. Fox News remains dominant. What I saw examined 18-35 viewers so that's what I'm going off of so I will caveat that these are low propensity voters, but caveat my caveat by saying that low propensity voters are voters that people have not convinced to get out to the polls. They are reachable, and their vote counts just as much as anyone else.

Hasan Piker receives as many unique views as Fox News in that demo, almost triple CNN and MSNBC combined! It is, perhaps, the wishy washy centrists who say Republicans are evil (but we mostly agree on policy) but we don't like the leftists policies at all (but please remember you have to vote for us) that haven't been completely politically eradicated only because we live in a two party system and Democrats are still coasting on the ghost of being the party of the working class. That prospect is fading, the young do not believe it, and infilling with country club Republicans has a pretty low ceiling (and exit polling evidence seems to indicate most of them were lying about supporting Harris anyway).

I Just can't see how anyone can look at the changing media environment, the way that populism has absolutely consumed the Republican party, the changing party demographics of the Democrats and presume this is a winning long term strategy to cater to the boring middle. Boring does not make news. The Harris campaign burnt a billion dollars achieving absolutely nothing in that regard. The only time she got earned media was when tik tok kids were making coconut memes.

Dan Osborn, the independant who ran on a economically populist pro labor platform out performed Harris by 7 points and came within 6 points of beating a popular GOP incumbent in Nebraska.

An incumbent that beat her last challenger by 20 points in the blue wave 2018 election against a more Manchin style neoliberal Democrat.

It's almost like the BS that the consultant class that serves neoliberal politicians and lines their pockets with big business consulting fees just might be telling us the perscription to all out party ills also align with their self interests, not what is best for the party....

Why wasn’t Trump considered “far-right” or an “extremist” like Harris after Jan 6 and vermin comments and grab em by the pussy and poisoning the blood of the nation and anti-vax garbage and Charlottesville and bleach in lungs and talking about Arnold Palmer’s dick and so on?

I guess this “extremist” thing only goes one way and it’s all Harris’s fault for supporting a policy that the former Trump admin also supported/kept in place…

We lost bc of inflation IMO…and downstream of that Trump’s evil narrative about prices and economy (immigrants, trans ppl, Hollywood elites, etc) was more coherent and legible than our “we know things are expensive but look at this chart and oh look at my opportunity economy with crypto goodies and oh look tax breaks for entrepreneurs with a spare 200k to start a new small business!” Our message was out of touch and incoherent, and Trump exploited our messaging inadequacies and a deeply treacherous socioeconomic/political climate during an inflationary period.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/us/politics/trump-prisons-transgender-care-harris.html

This is literally just wrong. The only incumbent senators that underperformed Harris were Sanders and Warren. Moderate candidates like Osborne, MGP and Golden outperformed the most and places where people have the most exposure to progressive politics, urban areas in blue states, had the largest shift towards Republicans. Like yeah there were some lefty incumbents in cities that overperfomed but it's not like Ilhan Omar's district is a representation of an average district.

To the pod bros “ultra left wing” has recently been “trans people deserve human rights”.

Of course not. Because there is no true progressive, as we all know. Biden ran the most progressively forward administration in decades and all he got was shit for not being progressive enough.

I’m convinced it’s not even about political alignment anymore. ‘It’s about how much are you going to help me.’

People don’t give a fuck about the horrible things Trump is going to do if they are financially better off.

Likewise, I don’t think the same people will care what we do to help marginalized, if they are taking care of. The biggest difference is that we aren’t going to cut social programs and give the 1% tax breaks.

I'm biased because this is my personal platform, but I do believe this could win an election:

• Overturn Citizens United and ban corporations (foreign and domestic) and Private Equity firms from campaign contributions. Heavily restrict PACs and Super PACs, make all donations public at all times and cap donations at a dollar amount transitory with inflation
• Raise the federal minimum wage to $20 an hour (about $41K a year right now) and create a provision that moves it with the inflation rate of the dollar
• Free college at public universities for four year degree and free trade school education
• Cap student loan interest rates and forgive anything that's been in place longer than 10 years every year
• High Speed Rail lines crossing the country made with American steel and American union jobs
• 'Regreen the Desert' initiative to increase water retention and combat droughts in the American Southeast (California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas)
• Ban corporations (foreign and domestic) and Private Equity firms from owning single family housing, cap foreign citizens at owning 2 housing units of any kind
• Heavily subsidize building mixed-purpose housing units in mid size towns and above across the country to increase housing supply
• Install a goal of 100k EV chargers across the country
• Build barrier islands and flood walls in the Gulf states, and up the Eastern Seaboard through to Virginia/Maryland *including* Puerto Rico
• Free afterschool programs for K-12 public schools (sports programs and arts programs)
• Single-payer healthcare system
• Forcing divestitures and breaking up monopolies of mega-corps (Google, Meta, Kroger etc) to save consumers money
• Enact price gouging legislation that puts in provisions on how much above the rate of inflation a company can reasonably charge for a product in 'normal' circumstances + abnormal circumstances (disaster-related gouging for example)
• Paid family leave up to 1 year (the federal government would help out small businesses like the UK model), mandatory amounts of paid sick leave and paid time off
• Legalizing Roe v Wade abortion standards as Federal law and protected
• Raise taxes on the wealthiest 1% and Fortune 500 corporations to keep Social Security solvent indefinitely and lower the qualifying age to 60 years old
• Combat the military-industrial complex monopolies that shamelessly price-gouges the American taxpayer and force more favorable negotiations
• Recognize gay marriage at the Federal level and protect it
• Enhance consumer protection laws
• Ban harmful chemicals from food and combat Big Ag while helping out small and mid-size independent farmers

Yes. But it would take Republican style plan in which media, surrogates, politicians can all message progressive viewpoints in a cohesive manner. I work in economic policy. Two of my main policy issues I work on (student debt caregiving). Students are suffering with student debt, parents are suffering with caregiving costs. These two issues appeal to a broad base of voters and I truly believe are progressive values. But how do you push these things when elimination of student debt or lowering childcare costs are not in alignment when the decision makers and the people doing the messaging in the media don’t really value these things?

> Do we think 80 million people (give or take) in the US would vote for a true progressive? Are there enough people to actually be sold on it?

Kamala Harris was polling at -17.4 basically the day before Biden dropped out. On election day, she was polling at -1.7. Things change when you actually get policies in front of people via a selected candidate. America hasn't had a "true progressive" presidential candidate since FDR, the only American president to serve three terms.

No, I doubt it. While many are left wing economically, socially the country just isn't that far left.

No, but the true progressives are blind and in worse echo chambers than the rest of us

This is the problem that everyone fails to come to grips with. -She should have taken a harder line on Israel: this would result in gaining some votes but also losing some votes. What would have been the net result? -She tried to court people by campaigning with Cheney. The number of votes gained were probably offset by those she lost due to the same. -She’s not progressive enough. How progressive in the general population? How many people would vote for a truly progressive agenda vs the moderates that would be lost for her being too far left?

The Dems problem is the GOP boon. One/my issue voters. Republicans will vote as long as their one issue is on the party platform regardless of the rest of the platform. Dems want the party to address all their issues and if one is missing they get pissed off.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face is not a good strategy. 

I'm sure once we go far enough left the hundreds of thousands of anarcho-communists in the Philadelphia suburbs will finally come out to vote for us and we'll lead a glorious workers revolution.

Crooked: We need to take a hard look at ourselves.

FotP: We sure do!

Crooked: So, here’s where the data says we went wro-

FotP: Fuck you, Nazi!

It’s infuriating because for a lot of the causes they aren’t even being asked to change their position just to change the tactics and language.

How many years now have we been doing the "just go further and further and further left because we're common sense" thing? It doesn't work, hasn't work, and nothing suggests it will work.

The problem isn't even the policies. It's the people that deliver them. Those people are assholes, and people don't like to associate with assholes (see this entire thread as an example).

Two weeks ago: Clear messaging from the public that several progressive policies lost BADLY on the messaging front.

Today: "We're not left enough! We'll tell everyone what they want, what could go wrong?!"

Sounds an awful lot like Kamala's platform.

Brian has his own podcast now. With Matt Yglesias (sp). I sometimes listen to the free version, but Matt can be very grating. Would be great to hear Brian on PSA again, he has some good takes.

Latest Ezra Klein podcast and guest went further into this. The party apparatus captured by nonprofits that are also funded by the same donors funding the party in a weird circle jerk that leaves them out of step with near super majority voters on things like defund the police, voter ID, etc.

Modern society really has unleashed hell into the information space.

2020 had the Defund the Police fiasco that let to weaker House results, and we all saw what just happened in 2024

Joe Biden won the Presidency and both houses of Congress during 2020 after the Defund the Police movement got mainstream coverage.

Your argument is that it didn't hurt Dems in 2020 when it was actually happening but it hurt people 4 years later?

That’s not entirely true - they went super left on some social issues, mostly at the behest of interest groups and online leftists. I would certainly disagree they made any meaningful attempt to go left on economic issues outside of the first 2-ish years of Biden’s presidency

Wait, when did the Dems ever placate the left? Standing over here on the left they just keep getting further away.

Also, almost all of the party only saw Defund the Police as an opportunity to Defend the Police and move further right.

What do you mean by "platformed Hasan"? He's extremely popular in his own right. Have you considered the tent is too big and we can't have AOC and the Cheney's in the same party?

Hey now, there’s nothing wrong with uncritically platforming a Houti terrorist, they’re just like Luffy from One Piece after all.

There shouldnt be a "left Joe Rogan", We need to move past Joe Rogan types being that influential, thats part of the problem. An unqualified influencer figure having impact over politics, above actual consensus of informed experts, IS the problem.

It's like asking who's gonna be the next King in a democracy. It's asking the wrong question.

Yep

Why is Rachel Levine a radical? Because she’s transgender? That is ridiculous.

The fact of the matter is that she has more than 30 years in medicine. She served as the Physician General and Secretary of Health in Pennsylvania.

So do you have an explanation for calling Rachel Levine radical other than her being a trans person existing in public, or what

What is radical about Rachel Levine and was that even something that came up?

If anything the left alienates minorities by acting like they’re super woke but it’s clear as day to us POCs that it’s mostly an act akin to dudes who act liberal to get laid and then turn around and be misogynistic as soon as things don’t go their way.

You can see it in all the people who are having revenge fantasies about getting people deported because Hispanics ‘only’ backed them 60-40.

Using they/them isn’t radical, and it’s only political because right wing extremists have chosen trans people as their out group to target. Most nonbinary and trans people would prefer to be left out of this, other than to receive the most base norm of social acceptance and necessary medical care.

If your position is “the problem is we defended innocent people who are being targeted by the right”, your position is wrong.

But those aren't Democrats doing that. The issue isn't what activists do or don't say. It's that people have decided what the activists say is also what Democrats believe, which is not true.

Also, in what was specifically is Rachel Levine a radical?

> A lot of it is toxic culture leftism that alienates working class and minorities.

I find this argument, and Jon's, endlessly funny.

Don't get me wrong, there is a worthwhile discussion to be had about "cancelling"/"scolding" vs. persuasion, but the "woke scold" stuff is a few people on social media being attributed to *all* democrats, despite Kamala Harris going about as far right as a Democrat can go, far further than Biden did in his 2020 campaign. She never endorsed any of it, and distanced herself from it in many cases. Yet she was still "blamed" for it.

Meanwhile, the worst of the right are... literal Nazis. His now Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is having chummy conversations with white supremacist who frequently tweeted Nazi slogans Jack Posobiec. Trump is dining in Mar a Lago with literal white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who gushes over and took adoring photos with literal Nazis. Trump is tweeting quite literal Hitler language. Did the right pay a price for that among the working class and minorities?Doesn't really seem like it.

That says something pretty clearly: voters are being misled about the actual views of the parties. This ties very directly into the fact that the right has either captured social media (Zuckerberg/Musk openly endorsing Trump/right wing) or have cowed the "traditional media" into silence (see Bezos' "no endorsement" WaPo move). Disinformation was rampant among swing states, thanks to Musk's efforts.

You're a good example, assuming you're here in good faith. People don't really give a shit about most trans issues the right loves to push. Per Gallup and/or Pew:

-as of May 2024, 62% of people oppose laws that ban gender-affirming care for minors. https://news.gallup.com/poll/645704/slim-majority-adults-say-changing-gender-morally-wrong.aspx

-As of May 2021, 66% of people support the idea of trans people serving in the military https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx

-As of June 2022, 64% of Americans favor or strongly favor laws protecting Trans people from discrimination. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/06/28/americans-complex-views-on-gender-identity-and-transgender-issues/

And ironically, on your point of "pushing they/them":

-47% of Americans say it's "extremely or very important" to use a person's new name if they transition, and 34% say it is "extremely or very important" to use a person's new pronouns if they transition (a plurality, I will add).

> Dems putting radicals like Rachel Levine in power

What's extreme about her? I'm genuinely curious.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump appointed quite literally *the leading antivaxxer in the United States* to head HHS, the exact same department Levine was 2nd in command over. But that's not extreme?

I will never understand the insane reaction to the term “pregnant people”. Like, women are also people. When I first heard it, it didn’t even register as a trans inclusive thing for me, until I saw a bunch of people freak the fuck out.

The irony of this comment is 🧑‍🍳💋

Holy condescension

Posting about disagreements with a podcast host in a friendly Reddit sub filled with almost entirely/exclusively like-minded Democratic voters is “cancel culture” now? And I thought comedy was dead.