Axios' Story -- Behind the Curtain: Deep Democratic Depression -- getting it straight and not so straight

[ancianita]

Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2024, 12:16 AM - Edit history (2)

AXIOS is right AND setting up the same tired anti-Democratic media playbook.

Here's the part they get straight:

Democrats didn't just lose badly.
They lost to a convicted felon they ridiculed as a racist, misogynistic fascist — and an existential threat to democracy.
And they didn't just lose to President-elect Trump. They lost the Senate ... likely the House ... many Hispanic men ... all three Blue Wall states ... both Southern swing states ... even substantial support in the bluest of states and cities...

The traditional media structure sympathetic to their views, and hostile to Trump's, was shattered.

The big picture:
In our volatile, 50-50 America, where voters seem to swing fast and hard against the ruling party, resurrection and resurgence are often an off-year election away.

But the road to the Democrats' Damascus requires deep, honest self-reflection — and, many party insiders tell us, entirely new leadership.
White House officials were dismissive of reporting about screwups.
When journalists held up a mirror, they often looked away.

Harris just lost what Democrats considered an eminently winnable race, despite relatively light scrutiny and more money than any candidate in U.S. history. Hard to see her guiding Democrats out of the wilderness.
The party's two most popular figures — Barack Obama and Michelle Obama — are happy to help in the waning moments of elections but aren't going to lead a revival.

Look to the states, Democrats will say:
Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania ... Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan ... Andy Beshear in Kentucky ... newly elected Josh Stein in North Carolina.

Other Democratic future faces:
Senator-elect Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, and Ruben Gallego, who leads in the race for U.S. senator in Arizona.
All are from states Trump just won. They're certainly politically smarter than the Washington crew. The evidence: They didn't lose.

Democrats will now start the predictable cycle of blame-casting and bellyaching. Every losing party does it. Then, they'll turn to a more serious autopsy: why they're bleeding support virtually everywhere.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who campaigned for Harris every single day the House was out of session, told us that if you were out there listening to union members, to Black voters, to men, to young people, to working women and men struggling to pay for groceries ... you knew what was coming. "Democrats shouldn't do the blame game," she said.
They should do: 'What aren't we doing right — all of us?' "

Doug Sosnik, a wise, clear-eyed Democratic strategist who bases analysis on empirical data, not emotion, is a good place to start.

He sent us a post-election deck attached to a one-word email: "bloodbath."
Sosnik's report captures the blunt reality: "The 2024 election marks the biggest shift to the right in our country since Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980. ... [Trump's victory this week] was due to support from a multi-racial working-class group of voters." The coalition includes:

One in three voters of color voted for Trump.
Trump increased his support with Hispanic voters by double digits compared to 2020.
Trump carried Hispanic men by 10 points.
Trump improved his support with voters ages 18-29 by 10+ points.
Between the lines: But top Democrats tell us the party needs to dig deeper into root causes — and to reach back to COVID to truly understand why many of these voters revolted.

It was the COVID era when many voters felt elites were lecturing them on wearing masks, hiding at home and shutting down their businesses. This preachy, judgmental tone alienated many former and would-be Democrats.

Word-policing escalated.
This invigorated the non-legacy media and started pushing Hispanic and Black men away, starting in the last presidential election. Centrist Democrats tell us this is why even big cities turned redder this month.

Here's the part that's not so straight.

The political correctness movement calmed. But Biden, then Harris, could never find words or ways to convince working-class voters they had policy ideas to make prices lower, jobs more lucrative, the future brighter.
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), a moderate, told Axios' Andrew Solender: "We have to stop pandering to the base and we have to start listening to the people ... People are sick of extremism."

Ezra Klein, the popular liberal New York Times columnist, wrote Thursday: "I do think a lot of Democrats have alienated themselves from the culture that many people, and particularly many men, now consume. I think they lost people like Rogan by rejecting them, and it was a terrible mistake."
The country has moved right on immigration and energy, and Democrats need a new approach — fast.

The Senate border bill that Harris repeatedly pointed to was "an insider talking point that was too disconnected from what Americans had witnessed in their own communities for the past four years," former Biden adviser Andrea Flores wrote on X. She says Democrats urgently need fresh ideas.
What we're watching: There'll be a strong tug back to the blue-collar-focused politics of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). He sounded more like Trump than his party elites. And Sanders was quick out of the gate with a scathing critique of his party's rich, educated ruling elite.

"It should come as no great surprise," Sanders wrote, "that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
Hard to see Democrats losing bigger chunks of the working class and winning elections. So Sanders makes a great point. But Trump often sounds more like the socialist Sanders than a Mitt Romney.

A real fight to best serve the less educated and less wealthy seems good for a nation divided by education and income, operating in a system tilted decisively to the latter.
Finally, Dems need to grapple with their denialism. Democrats let their hatred of Trump put them in a state of denial about Biden and the party's unpopularity — confident that Trump's toxicity was enough. They didn't believe their own eyes when staring at polls.

So they got crushed. Now they have dilemma and opportunity: In a 50-50 country, how do they articulate a theory of the case to win back voters — and power?

The bottom line: This will be the Democratic story of 2025.

----------------

That last line? Here's the thing. While the facts are true here, you, Axios, don't get to say "This will be the Democratic story of 2025." Why?
Because you'll just fall back on the tired old corporate messaging playbook. The Democrats can and will take a look in the mirror AND also smell a clever by half setup when they see one.

Don't think Democrats haven't learned how Republicans keep their plans behind the curtain as they changed their Reagan messaging, policies and outreach. Democrats can and will do that, too. And in 2025 you don't get to yell that Democrats are being "secret," or "sneaky," or "not transparent," because you didn't yell all those years ago when Republicans were forming their right wing oligarch messaging "behind the curtain."

Even if the facts about the losing party now seem so important, know this:
As far as the Democratic base is concerned, you as a media company, Axios, are going to be ignored by Democrats if you indulge the same old corporate double standard of making the perfect the enemy of the Democratic Party while you indulge in sane-washing the lawless Republican Party.

So no: the bottom line is NOT going to echo the old 'Democrats in Disarray' framings, even if your bottom line is profit. You'll do better to take your coverage cue from ProPublica.

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/08/harris-biden-election-democratic-party

[RandySF]

1. We haven't been walloped like this since 2014.

Even 2016 wasn’t this bad.

[ancianita]

2. We have. First time walloped, shame on you. Second time walloped, shame on us.

So let's get get going. I've got ideas about how.

I can already see new faces on MSNBC talking about how, as well. But that's only a beginning.
What Republicans have accomplished has taken years, and what we've got left to do will also take years. Because having "right" and "rule of law" on our side isn't enough.

[ancianita]

3. OTOH, we didn't get walloped in 2018, 2020, or 2022. What changed is what we need to learn.

[Silent Type]

4. Don't agree with everything, but good article. Thanks

I’m probably guilty of several criticisms in article, especially this one:

“Democrats let their hatred of Trump put them in a state of denial about Biden and the party's unpopularity — confident that Trump's toxicity was enough. They didn't believe their own eyes when staring at polls.”

Just couldn’t see how trump could win, though by June I felt he had at least a 30% chance to win. Freaked on June 27th.

[ancianita]

6. Its facts are important, and

yes, I was guilty of their criticism, too, of denying poll numbers in the very last two weeks. We were just so SURE those rallies represented the full electorate, and we were wrong. They were base rallies. The rest of the Harris/Walz outreach was good, but considering the RW's 'flooding the zone with shit,' the Harris/Walz effort just couldn't overcome the FUD the RW's media's misrepresentations and even lies.

They've got...

Fox News (and the entire News Corp.) — beef up NBC and MSNBC
Newsmax —
One America News Network
the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers,
iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel),
the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio),
Elon Musk’s X,
podcasts like Joe Rogan

Who are our equivalents? REAL equivalents that run 24/7/365, not just Stephanie Miller & Thom Hartmann.

[kansasobama]

5. Everyone is ignoring something

Trump is a fascist. It is a question of hitting him when he turns dictatorial. It is only a matter of time before fascism raises it's ugly head. Blaming Harris is very unfair Fascism won't be fun.

[ancianita]

7. You're right. But labels don't work even when they're not ignored. Know who also flipped the

word fascist back onto Democrats? Take a guess.

If labels could win elections, we'd have won many more by now. Remember the DU post about somebody talking with a MAGA about why they vote for authoritarians and the MAGA asked, "What's an authoritarian?"

Get it? It's not that labels are or are not ignored. It's that they're not the final word on what gets or loses more votes.

[kansasobama]

8. I see your point

[dalton99a]

9. Most people don't like the OCD-like pursuit of political correctness, or being told

uncontrolled immigration is not a problem, or inflation is not real

So they refuse to join the campaign of joy

[Igel]

10. I read one quote that echoes a lot of workplace comments I've heard.

It said that the Republicans were crazy--but he Democrats were preachy.

And that she'd take the crazy over somebody who constantly talked down to her.

[dalton99a]

11. +1. People vote on emotions and feelings, not on facts and truth.