You are entitled to your feelings

[mr715]

11. Question Everything

An important sentiment.

Thank you for this.

From my perspective it is extraordinarily difficult to accept political loss. I had a professor when I was an undergrad that was a soviet exile. He said our national sport is elections, and it holds from an emotional perspective. It differs from sports obviously, in that there are real world ramifications for political losses. We are typically going to be empathic and forward thinking, and so we are more sensitive to injustice and malicious actors.

Part of the issue is just how grotesque the Trump agenda is, and how he was able to wear it on his sleeve without consequence. What this tells me is that there is a very large part of the electorate (larger than I thought) that prefers confrontation to governance.

In many ways I think this loss corroborates what we learned when HRC lost (the electoral college) in 2016 -- the leading edge of the democratic left does not message to voters in a particularly effective way.

What is the solution? Do we find it at the neoliberal center? Was the Harris-Cheney coalition not enough?

Do we surrender our identity as the party that speaks to the marginalized and instead adopt a populist posture?

I don't know what the Democratic party's identity is in the wake of Trumpism. Typically, it is easier to be in the resistance. However this election cycle informs us that that isn't sufficient to win elections. And if we can't win, we're irrelevant.

Who leads our party, do you think? Not who runs. Who is the intellectual and philosophical leader.


MR