Subject: Re: Jake Auchincloss
Agree to ban trans kids from sports? Execute pedos? Build more coal fired power plants? More $$$ for ICE? What are dems missing here? Or is the problem that dems are biting on these distractions instead of hammering republicans as the party of billionaires and techno-Nazis?

I think a lot of it is the latter. I think Democrats' positions on things like climate change, immigration, criminal justice, gun ownership, and the like are very alienating to working class voters. If you tell working class voters they aren't welcome to share actual power within the Democratic coalition unless they adopt the bourgeoise values that are held by the managerial/college-educated classes, they're not going to want to join your coalition.

Whenever voters are given a chance to elect genuine class warriors, they get excited.

Except, of course, when they don't. Remember, Bernie lost his two elections. Other candidates, like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, lost their races. Plenty of socialists lose elections, just like plenty of centrists lose elections also. There are absolutely certain voters that get very excited when given a chance to elect genuine class warriors. But there are also lots of voters who don't want to elect genuine class warriors. It's certainly true that moderates tend not to evoke fervid activism the way that policy zealots do, but they can have a broader appeal even without "exciting" the voters that same way.

The Democrats have certainly lost huge chunks of working class voters. Did they lose them because they weren't running class warriors, or did they lose them because they were running candidates who support positions on climate change, immigration, gun, and a host of other matters that those working class voters don't support? If it's the former, then running class warriors would be the cure for what ails the Democrats. If it's the latter, though, then those class warriors will have a rough time.

Your version of the Democratic Party has nothing to offer the future, Al, except intensifying economic inequality and social decay.

Well, it does offer the future the possibility of winning elections. If working class voters don't actually want genuine class warriors, but rather prefer to have more moderate policies, then running genuine class warriors isn't going to win you many races. It can win some, of course - but you also end up losing some races where the working class isn't looking for genuine class warriors, but folks who offer more modest fixes without going quite so far to the left on cultural and social issues.