3887

Correct. Spanberger would lose the primary in NY-14 to whoever ran against her.
AOC would lose the primary and/or the election in VA-7.

Convince them? At the end of the day some policies just aren’t going to be popular.
Messaging is a massive part of it. Like almost all of it in my opinion.

I disagree. I mean do that, but the reality is that you need to show people that Republicans are fucking them over right now. Where is my stimulus? Republicans fucked you over. I know a dude who didn’t turn on Trump completely until Trump said no stimulus. They fucked him over. He was out. All the rest of the shit? Didn’t really care, whatever. Fuck with my bottom line? OUT.

No. Push the ideas, but deplatforming means those people vote Republican. It’s not a speed boat, you have to keep pushing the party where you want it to go. If you jerk the wheel, it just comes off in your hand. Use the safe districts to push or deplatform all you want. Fill NYC with AOCs. That’s fine, as long as they don’t launch a coup or something (which can happen, ask the GOP about it).

In many ways, yes. Campaign to the middle, legislate left. It’s what the GOP has been doing and it works. You don’t even have to be as sleazy as them about it, people actually like your ideas.

Honestly, if the Democratic Party gave up gun control for 20 years, they’d start winning more. It’s a huge single-issue thing across the spectrum that never gets anywhere and never will. I know more people who vote Republican because of that single issue than anything else. Some of them came over to stop Trump. If Biden tries to pass a gun control bill, they’re gone.

Also we’re probably going to need guns because we’re probably fucked. Banning shit doesn’t make it illegal, it just means you can’t buy more. The crazies have more guns than people, it wont slow them down.

That’s a whole other ball of wax, but the fact that Obama never went after people’s guns is a big deal.

3888

As a practical matter, Democrats have given up gun control for 20 years. The last major federal restrictions on guns were passed 26 years ago and have expired. Democrats have certainly had control of the legislative process and the White House during that time, but have passed no gun control legislation of note. It isn’t even a point they really campaign on. Gun control from Democrats is largely a Republican campaign talking point.

3889

I’m not sure what this means. She says what she thinks? Should she remain silent? Jesus, you folks are really looking for someone to blame for… Biden’s victory? AOC seems like an easy target because you take the most uncharitable possible reading of what she says, project young and dumb, and assume she’s an idiot.

The idea that Democrats underperformed polling in key states because of progressives speaking is nonsense. It’s polling that’s to blame, not the progressive message.

3890

Why would we need gun control now? Fox et al assured me Obama was taking away all the guns. So the problem has already been solved.

Which is to say, there’s a bigger problem than which policies will convince the “other side” to switch sides.

3891

I’ve been told you’re not allowed to make this point, fanboy.

3892

Polling didn’t change votes.

My own theory is this;

We didn’t do enough ground game. Trump generates his own base in a way no other Republican can. We won despite this, because he generates just as many against him.

We had near 80% turnout this election. Where are you going to get more voters? The emphasis needs to be on keeping who we got - which means making this country work. Biden might have to take some risks /use his executive power heavily, and hope it ends up in good governance.

3893

Exactly. But yet every cycle someone says something about it. Biden did it like 2 days before the election ffs. Because that’s what you do if you’re a Democrat or something. Then you don’t fucking do anything about it anyway. So you lose votes for… nothing. For policy you don’t even try to pass.

It’s already political radium and you don’t want to try to pass it anyway? Just stop talking about it. It’s just costing votes.

If you can ever actually pass something, then whatever, do it and deal with it afterwards, but don’t campaign on it. Pull a GOP and sneak it in there like a tax cut for the rich or something. And then lose the next cycle, but whatever. Democrats outside big cities need to just tear that page out of their talking points.

3894

Things can change a lot in two decades, and serious primaries against well established incumbents aren’t exactly common, right?

I actually think AOC has great political skills and instincts. It’s her goals I have a problem with. I don’t think people realise how different the perspective of the far left and the mainstream left - even the mainstream progressive left - are, because right now their policy goals are largely aligned. But from her perspective she is in a factional fight - in a way that, say, Elizabeth Warren isn’t. And both her and the Biden team clearly know it.

Are you the baddies? Is this really the politics you want?

3895

It’s the politics we have, we’re going to have to fight. The good old days weren’t good, and they’re not coming back.

3896

I’m saying that it’s a district that elected a centrist Democrat for the last 20 years, prior to AOC. You know who else has a district with a PVI of +29? Eddie Bernice Johnson (D - TX). So what?

3897

As someone who followed the campaign and election pretty closely, I have to say I would not have characterized Biden’s campaign as being one that emphasized gun control at all. So maybe that wasn’t really the problem? If there was an actual problem caused by Democrats at all?

3898

I’ll pass this along to Democrat HQ. I already mandated training on the difference between semi-auto and automatic firearms.

I’d be willing to bet that the cadre of voters who would switch to Democrat based on 2A issues alone is small. I do agree that Democrats could stand to be more belligerent about guns–maybe even have candidates pose with rifles or at the gun range, emphasizing safety and responsible usage. But I don’t think this is a core issue for swing voters.

3899

Have you considered that a huge number of Republicans aren’t swing voters because of this one issue?

You know, the one you aren’t going to do anything with anyway and haven’t for like 2 decades?

3900

I hereby instruct all Democratic pols to carry guns and know how to use them. There, solved.

I don’t know what to say @ShivaX. I really do think we have far far far far far too many guns in this country. I really do think we should have sensible gun control regulation, which is all that Democrats have ever pushed for. No serious Dem pol has ever advocated for gun confiscation or anything similar. But, sure if Dems hosting an event at a gun club or firing range would win us votes, I’d say we should go for it. I’ll let my comrades at the Democratic Establishment Planning and Messaging Council know that we should start running the presses on that strategy.

But I also don’t think just saying “have you considered” is actually a demonstration of whether it would make a difference. Yes, I’ve considered. I’d have to see polling to be convinced.

3901

Well I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but fuck me for trying.

I wont make that mistake again.

3902

Here’s Gallup

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Scroll down through the survey and you’ll find very high levels of support for the kinds of regulations that Democrats actually support. What’s not here is perception of Democratic positions on the issue and whether a softer stance on gun control would swing some voters, and what that softer stance would have to look like.

3903

It means that those districts will elect literally anyone who wins the Democratic primary.

Seriously… AOC’s district is as blue as they come. Are you really gonna try to argue that it’s not? I think we can all agree that it is, right?

The problem with those types of districts, is that in order to win them, you basically just need to win the primary… which means that you ONLY need to appeal to your party, and the extreme edge of it has a magnified impact.

In districts that are more purple, the campaigns that make those appeals to the edge become far less electable in the general, because at some point you actually need independents or republicans to vote for you.

Like Connor Lamb as an example, who AOC attacked as not knowing how to run his campaign (who ended up winning). In his district in western PA, his constituents have guns. Many of them work in the natural gas industry. He needs to represent their views if he wants to get elected.

3904

What, the good old days when you didn’t deplatform the center left?

3905

Sigh. Supertanker said that she “trumpets her views from a very safe” (which is also what you and ShivaX are saying, and I agree) “hardcore left” district. And here’s where I don’t agree, because this supposedly hardcore left district with “radical constituents” elected a centrist stalwart (just Google Joe Crowley centrist) for twenty years.

So she can absolutely lose a primary if she veers off the reservation, beyond the pale of her constituents.

Unless you are saying that there is no way a centrist could get elected in NY-14, in which case, meet Joe Crowley.

3906

In NY, the same candidate can be listed under multiple parties. For instance, I voted for Biden under the Working Families Party instead of under the Democratic Party (it’s my tradition for railing against a 2 party system).

I wonder if there’s any value to somebody like AOC being “officially” in a different party (i.e. Democratic Socialist), but caucus with the Dems and be listed on the Ballot under the Dem Party as well, sort of like the occasional Independent senators have done.

Basically, for marketing purposes only, but to allow moderate Dems like Lamb to put a little distance between themselves and the very left wing progressives.

I suspect AOC wouldn’t want to do that though, since she wants to shift the entire party left.