Mojo Hand

Not to mention that the Obama image is significantly preferable to the Trump image. "DMZ 2019" is a national security disaster.

A dying, starving child is welcome to whatever is in my car. Thankfully, it doesn't have to come to that. These families want to come to America and work and participate in our society, not steal from cars. They want to do so legally, but border guards are preventing them from entering the ports of entry that, by statute, are a legal way to seek asylum. They are willing to endure horrible conditions to do so that they shouldn't have to endure, but rather that are inflicted on them by cruel people like you. And America has plenty of wealth and capacity to welcome them in. The problem is entirely on your end.

That depends entirely on how much we win and what we do with it. Winning and going back to the Obama years of trying to be palatable to the lib-hating right will get us right back where we are now. That's exactly why I oppose efforts to "reach" Trump dead-enders. Winning and doing what the Rs do when they win — that is, dominating — will kill Trumpism. Win the Senate and presidency. Kill the legislative filibuster and pack the Court. Enact a huge swath of progressive policies, starting with true universal health care. That will steamroll Trumpism, IMO.

I don't propose telling them to fuck off, or doing anything aggressive towards them (and you may have been responding to someone else who was, so I agree with you there). What I propose is writing them off. Don't try to get in their heads or figure out how to reach them or cater to them in any way. Don't give them any more oxygen than they already have. Stand for what we stand for. Universal health care, college access, etc. will help everyone, including them. Work with reasonable Never Trumpers where appropriate. Shun Trump supporters socially. Don't temper a single policy to appeal to their racism, xenophobia, or ignorance. Succeed and they will wither.

What, a Trump cultist doesn't agree? I'm shocked!

I just don't see the analogy. Germany and Japan were humbled and desperate and thus susceptible to our influence. The GOP controls all of government except the House. I'd be happy to throw some bones of kindness to a rebuilding GOP in ten years, if the Dems have the presidency, the House and Senate, a majority of the Supreme Court, and a majority of state governments. If there's any analogy to be made to WW2, what you're suggesting is more akin to trying to rebuild Germany and Japan in 1943 or something. It makes no sense. Right now we need to beat Trumpism to a pulp, and we can worry about rebuilding the GOP when they've been thoroughly defeated.

One difference being it wasn't true when Rush was saying it about the left, and it's actually true about the right now. And another difference being that it was reflected in a GOP candidate running on a Muslim ban, a wall to keep brown people out, repealing Obamacare, and cutting taxes on the wealthy, whereas the Dem candidates are all running on universal health care, DACA and immigration reform, access to college, and a score of other positive policies. Dems don't have to be the bigger person. They are the bigger person. And it's well past time that they do it their way without trying to bend over backwards to accommodate the hateful people who brought us to this point. How about the GOP gets the pressure to be the bigger person for once?

No, I think most of them live in a fantasy world that protects them from either feeling empathy for Trump's victims or from blaming him for the things that trigger their empathy. I think they are in a cult of personality, and that it would be counterproductive to waste resources trying to deprogram them. They will generally not be moved by self-interest. The GM workers who lost their jobs this week but still love Trump and blame Dems. The farmers who are going bankrupt but still love Trump because at least he's sticking it to China too. And on and on. The self-interest group I was referring to covers the actual low-to-no empathy folks. Sociopaths and low-EQ people who are fine with border concentration camps as long as their stocks are up. If the economy crashes, some of them will lose their reason for supporting Trump and peel off. But it won't be because their grandkid thinks they're mean; they just laugh at how naive they are.

That describes my in-laws too. Our disgust and disapproval for their votes was palpable and we wouldn't engage their bullshit for even a moment. Now they are ashamed and tell us they they think he should be impeached. It's clear that they were affected by our loss of respect for them. So, anecdotes. But the central thing is, anyone still on board is on board after family separations and the Mueller report and his insane daily ramblings. Maybe what we did swayed our parents, maybe they would have left Trump anyway because he's horrible and they're not bad people deep down. Who knows. But I don't buy that anyone left at this point is reachable on any basis other than their own self-interest, if even that.

Would she vote for Hillary this time?

A single poll doesn't tell the whole story. I don't think Trump has broken 43% approval on 538 since his inauguration: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ His biggest lows were when his antics were still shocking. They've rebounded as they've been normalized. We need to get back to the place where it isn't treated as normal, and the way to do that isn't by treating the deplorables like they are normal, IMO. RCP current averages of the front-runners: Biden 49, Trump 41 https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html Sanders 50, Trump 43 https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html Yeah, the next tier is only up about 3 points over Trump, but I don't think that's indicative of Trump having greater appeal than his approval rating reflects. Warren, Kamala, and Pete are taking off right now as the country gets to know them, and that will be reflected in the head-to-heads soon. I don't dispute that Trump can win. I just think the way to beat him is by focusing on the 57% of voters who already don't approve of him. Energize the left with progressive policies. Attract independents by being stable and sane, and by actually standing for something concrete and aimed at helping people who are struggling. Make it a choice between racism and sociopathy and incompetence, on the one hand, and expertise and sanity and kindness, on the other. That wins more than the 80K votes across the blue wall that made the difference.

But Trump support isn't at 50-50. He's consistently about 42 - 53, both in approval and against the major Dem candidates, and that's counting states like Mississippi that we should just fucking write off. And plenty of voters in the approval column can't stand him but would live with Hitler if the economy stays as is. They'll peel away the second the recession hits, no matter what arguments you make. There is a already critical mass against Trump. Now is the time to give the rest of them no quarter, in my opinion.

There's a big difference between a candidate attacking voters and people not inviting their Trump voting neighbors to the barbecue. Candidates obviously need to be above the fray. Not that Hillary would have actually gotten a single one of those votes had she not made that comment.

And what if none of their loved ones will be hurt, or at least you can't prove it without relying on "fake news"? Right now I'm thinking of my wife's Trump-supporting cousin. I can't think of a single person he'd care about who will be directly harmed, where he wouldn't blame it on something attributable to Dems somewhere along the line. What should I tell him? And I don't think shunning voters gains nothing or exacerbates the problem. I think it puts enormous social pressure on them and makes them choose between the nuts they are with now or reasonable, intelligent society. If people could join the Klan without being turned into pariahs, a hell of a lot more people would be in the Klan. Shun them and the ones who are reachable will make the right choice.

I respect your approach, and I wish you good luck. But I personally think it will fail, and even backfire, because facts and logic are a necessary predicate to triggering empathy. The barriers you need to break through are the very rationalizations they've erected to avoid having empathy for the targeted groups. How will you convince Trump voters to care about the father and daughter who died crossing the border, when the circumstances that drove them to do cross are "fake news," they should have immigrated the "right way," and it's sad but really the father's fault, not Trump's policies? Facts and logic are the gateway to emotion here.

This couldn't be going better for Warren, IMO. Kamala is tearing down Biden and pissing off his backers in the process. Warren is also doing a great job drafting off Bernie without pissing off his supporters, while adding her own policies that are making her palatable to centrists.

Plus our contributions to the conditions in their home countries.

How can you tell the difference?

Well, the ballistic missile restrictions weren't part of the deal, and violating external demands isn't the same thing as violating an agreement. I mean, I can't argue with someone's gut about what Iran is really doing, even while the Trump administration affirmed their compliance, but the party that unquestionably broke the deal was the United States.

Multilateral deals, how do they work? And aside from our breach denying Iran a huge part of what they bargained for in the deal, we are also forcing the EU to breach or face US sanctions. But why oh why isn't Iran abiding by the deal while losing most of what they were supposed to get in exchange!?!

Iran has now surpassed the enriched uranium limits with which they had been abiding under Obama's nuclear deal. Many of you vocally opposed the deal and wanted us out, and Trump has given you what you wanted. What's your plan now?

Which party is the party of elitists again?

When this thread started, some of us said that Trump was just going to normalize NK as a legitimate nuclear nation and pretend that he had solved everything. Others said that Trump had brought Kim to his knees with tough talk and sanctions and that Kim would have to cut a deal to denuclearize or face riots from starving North Koreans within six months.

Sounds like you don't believe in the policies of the left. Which is fine, if that is your view. But I disagree. I think we should run left and govern left, and that will lead to big rewards when voters like what they see.

I'm not advocating liberal tyranny. I'm advocating that we don't treat their murderous authoritianism as a reasonable perspective on the American political spectrum that should be engaged and reasoned with. It should be treated as the cancer that it is. Like the Klan and Larouche nuts and every other movement in the same vein that has been marginalized by reasonable society. The oxygen they've gotten from hijacking a major political party, and then being treated like they belong there, has only strengthened their resolve. Let them spend their energy buying Trump's future ghostwritten books and following his future radio show or whatever. They'll crawl back into the holes they came from, and the stigma will do the rest. Meanwhile, I believe in progressive policies and I think they'll go a long way towards healing the major divides in this country over time. I think a big part of the reason we've gotten to this point is that Dems have bent over backwards to accommodate the right for years, and what we've gotten is shitty, watered-down Republican-lite policy from the Dems that has failed and that Dems have taken all of the blame for. I think Dems should actually enact progressive policies and let the chips fall where they may. The Dems won back the House in 2018 not by accommodating Trump voters, but by finally standing up for the good parts of Obamacare. Which itself was a shitty compromise of a Republican policy, but things like the ban on pre-existing conditions helped enough people to make a big difference 8 years later. Dems need to focus on that same progressive energy from 2018 going forward. Outline our vision. Appeal to the majority of voters that aren't deplorables. Treat the deplorables as the pariahs they should be. Pass a progressive agenda into law. And then see what happens when everyone has health care, and access to higher education, and freedom from crushing student loan debt, and all the rest.