...of field.

Brilliant!

That's the exact same brush they painted Joe Biden with in Georgia. Seems to have turned out okay.

Dems may well lose Georgia because it's an extremely close race but can we put to bed this idea that Dems loses races whenever they believe in things? The GOP spent half a year claiming Biden was a police-defunding socialist and it didn't fucking work.

I'm not optimistic they're going to take both seats, but it's going to help that the GOP is now handicapped with their own "Bern it all down" purity faction encouraging protest votes.

shit comparison for morons

Gork, I can get into a more sophisticated discussion about this if you'd like based on current GOP canvassing strategies and Dem campaigning in GA, if you're interested in as much.

Xenocide: Trump and down ticket Repubs did really well across the board. Trump didn't do well enough to beat Biden, but he improved by 12 million votes nation wide. These improvements and the success of down ticket Repubs was in large part due to messaging that painted Dems as radical, communist/socialist, wanting to literally "defund the police", and literally have open borders. That scares lots of white people and a portion of the hispanic community. We're seeing similar messaging in GA right now. The issue isn't that Dems believe things, its that their messaging/sloganeering is easily turned against them. "Defund the police" and "socialism/communism" is political poison. It doesn't matter what the merits are of a policy; if it at all can be construed as anti-capitalist and anti-police you've just alienated a huge percentage of the white voting bloc and a significant portion of the hispanic voting bloc.

Dems haven't had white majority support since LBJ and the voting rights act. And Dems don't win unless they get, depending on the state, 30-43 white, 30-35 hispanic, 86-90 black vote support.

Messaging has to be tight and focused towards those white voters, unfortunately as that may be. And the far left slogans and apparent policy priorities turns off that bloc. That's what Rep Clyburn was talking about when he criticized the "Defund the police" slogan and movement. He said you need to be practical (in your messaging and what you are proposing), otherwise you don't win elections and you don't hold power and you don't enact policy. Full stop.

But with luck, the MAGA crowd sabotages the races for Perdue and the rich lady.

Dave Weigel has been in GA a lot recently, says that the Trump whining will not impact the GOP vote even a bit

The 2020 election should have proved once and for all that appealing to right of center suburbanites ISN'T a fool's errand, and that no, Bernie would not have won.

There mere myth that democrats were running on socialism was enough to stop a blue wave cold and boost Trump's performance against the polls. Imagine what would have happened if the democratic candidate actually DID run under that banner. To say nothing of working class swing state voters and how far down their list of priorities free college tuition is.

America is unfortunately still a conservative country and not enough Boomers have died off yet to change that.

Yeah, center left politics wins in this county. Bill Clinton saved the Dem party after three straight losses. Obama ran a center left campaign and was explicit about the inability of government to make radical changes. The metaphor Obama explicitly used was of making small adjustments to the ship so that eventually it makes the turn. That wasn't him being a sell out, it was him being practical and reading the country. He won twice with high white working class support in the mid west.

If you want really progressive policies, you need to enact them over the course of 12 - 16 years, be fucking disciplined on your messaging, and cater to scared white majority. It can work. The thing holding back a public option is getting off message and failing to paint GOP as against the working class and incapable of governing.

"Dems may well lose Georgia because it's an extremely close race but can we put to bed this idea that Dems loses races whenever they believe in things? The GOP spent half a year claiming Biden was a police-defunding socialist and it didn't fucking work."

Biden didn't claim to be about Defunding the Police, though; in fact he rejected the slogan. But he was still very much for ending police brutality.

With very few exceptions, Democrats have been supportive of efforts to stop police abuses. Many of us have protested and marched, we contributed money, we urged candidates to take police reform seriously. The only point of dispute here is whether it makes sense to use a slogan that is muddled and confusing at best, and makes a worthy cause sound foolish and reckless at worst. That's why, for example, if you ask AOC what "defund the police" means, she can't just say "it means what it sounds like"; she will instead launch into a 1000 word essay on reallocating some police funds to other agencies (which is not the same as "defunding" the police).

But "defunding" the police ... ? Even a good 81% of black people don't want that, and and they're the ones with the most to fear from truncheons:

https://www.newsweek.com/81-black-americans-dont-want-less-pol ice-presence-despite-protestssome-want-more-cops-poll-1523093

What most black people want are police that do their jobs fairly, so that they don't have to fear the police. They want the same general relationship with police that white people have. That's not even a matter of police funding; that's all about training, community oversight, revising qualified immunity, and replacing officers who can't do the job properly. Change in funding: probably close to zero.

So, let's spitball some non-stupid slogans, a few that even white people might be able to get behind. I'll even restrict myself to three-word slogans:

Stop Police Brutality
Demilitarize the Police
Reimagine Public Safety
Justice in Policing

That's plenty. The point is, it's not hard to come up with a slogan that is inviting. And it's not unrealistic that white people would be opposed to police brutality: take a look at those Portland protests, and how many moms, dads, and veterans showed up. They weren't all arch-liberal hippies, they were ordinary citizens who mostly believe the police have a role to play, but they need to do their job properly.

I'm pretty sure the insistence on "Defund the Police" and no other slogan is less about strategy or principles. and more about an obstinate and undeserved confidence in the progressive wing's infallibility. To as much as admit that "Defund the Police" is a bad slogan and perhaps they should adopt a better slogan, would be too much like admitting that 1) they were wrong about something and 2) if they want to succeed they may have to meet other people halfway, even on matters of pure marketing. Me, if I believed in a cause whose slogan was off-putting, I'd recommend changing the slogan, but then again I'm more about results than patting myself on the back.

In summary, next time you see footage of George Floyd being choked to death, just say to yourself: "if only those police were making a little less money, this never would have happened".

I hope Ricky shows up and headslaps his other eye out.