General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How the extreme left gave us Nixon, Bush and now Trump [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But if just shouting "you HAVE to vote for us" didn't work in 2016, why would you think it would work in 2018 or 2020?
I get the feeling that the part of the point behind your OP is to shout down people who would argue that November's results mean the party needs to take a hard look at itself and to change. Is that what you mean to be arguing?
Things did not go our way...but it's hard to see how shaming people who didn't vote for us into doing so next time is going to work. Demanding votes has been our mainly-unchanging approach since 1976. The only presidential elections we've won since then were 1992 and 1996(largely on the personal charisma of the Democratic nominee, combined with a split right-of-center vote) and 2008 and 2012, where our nominee asked for voted rather than demanding them and where that nominee made a positive case FOR change, combined with an implicit promise that grassroots activists would get a real say in politics and policy on his watch).
To me, the answer lies in recapturing and more deeply committing to the promise of the Obama moment, only this time with an ironclad commitment not to ditch the grassroots and the notion of transformation.
That promise is what elected Obama in 2008, and in diffused form re-elected President Obama.
If we speak out proudly and without hesitation for what we're about at our best, we can win. If we focus on attacking the other party, demand votes and make our message sound like we're telling people to eat their spinach, we usually can't.
So why stay with what decades of experience has proved not to work?
I say that as someone who wants to win as much as you do.