General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Jim Carrey tears in to dems [View all]northremembers
(63 posts)I'm not even sure where to start. When I look at the other posts in this thread, along with many other threads I hear the same things: "We need more money", "We need to redraw the districts", "We need to get rid of the electoral college". Democrats have been losing ground for decades. Before Russian influence, before Twitter, before even Fox. Democrats started losing ground when we controlled the ability to draw the congressional districts. We don't need to change the rules to win elections and we should be mindful of the message we send to mainstream voters by repeating that message.
We lose because the general public feels disconnected from us on a fundamental ideological level. Most voters don't even know what we stand for, just what we are against. How many posts in this thread, including Jim Carrey's, are about "Beat Trump"? There is coverage of #metoo resulting in a wave of women running for office. Most of the message in that coverage is about women out for revenge for poor treatment in the workplace. It turns out many of these women have great ideas about how to improve their communities and our country, but those ideas are lost in the overall message of anger.
Liberalism and conservatism function on different dynamics. Anger is a conservative dynamic because it is destructive and divisive. Conservatism needs us divided to be successful. Liberalism needs cooperation to be successful. Anger cannot produce cooperation. Our heroes are not anarchists. They are leaders who inspire us.
Inspiration is our dynamic. How are we going to move our communities and country forward? How can we solve problems we have in common together? Negative campaigning helps conservatives, but not liberals. it's not so much that we have to follow a higher standard, but a positive standard.
So, who is running in this election, at any level, that inspires us?