Thread by @churusaa

100%, and that candidate needs to be as different from Trump as possible.

If swing voters have to choose between Trump, and Trump, but blander and less interesting, swing voters are probably going to still go for Trump.

I'm not a swing voter, just so we're clear.

https://twitter.com/elegantcoretta/status/1147946155562754048

I just live in a swing state. My district is going to go Blue this year just like it has every year since 1996.

The last time my county went to a conservative was in 1992, and we've been dragging it and the state further and further to the Left ever since.

Well... I mean, Clinton and Obama were conservatives, but only in like literally every other country on earth. In the US they get called "Liberals" because we do so love our euphemisms.

We only get two choices in most elections:

"I want them to die because they're gay and poor"

and

"I don't want them to die because they're gay, I want them to die because they're poor"

Holding out hope for Bernie, the first "I want people to live & not be poor." Pres hopeful.

Seriously, if the Dems run another uninteresting, bland, centrist liberal with policy positions that fall somewhere between the excitement you feel looking at a beige wall and a moist fart, it's as good as giving the race directly to Trump.

Swing voters don't want a conservative democrat, they want someone who will shake shit up because their lives suck and they're desperate to try anything and vote for anyone who might make something change for them.

You're not going to win over hardened conservatives w/ a weak, pusillanimous Democrat who's going to compromise with Republicans. They're just going to vote for a Republican. You're not going to win over Independents with a centrist dem, either.

People are hurting & need change.

Obama was hardly a lion, but he ran a great campaign. He tapped into forgotten America's feelings of hopelessness and distrust in a government that doesn't care about them, and he sold them Hope. He sold them Change, and we bought it. He didn't deliver, but the idea stirred us.

They're already drowning, and you're telling them that you want to keep it that way when you run candidates who promise to keep things the way they are and not shake the boat. It's the same as telling swing voters to fuck off & die.

Don't be surprised when they tell you the same

Trump was swing voters saying that if they're going to die anyway (HRC and Trump would have both been equally catastrophic for them), we're all coming with them.

They're not going to vote for someone who's going to throw away rural communities to coddle liberal city slickers.

I came from one of those flyover towns with no way out, where your only chance of making a life for yourself was marrying into money or figuring out a way to get yourself over the gleaming paywalls around the city to find work.

And let me tell you, it's not easy or even feasible for a lot of folks. You can't afford to live anywhere near a major city unless you have a job in a major city already.

Mass transit in this country is a joke, so you're basically screwed if you're poor and rural trynna get out.

For me, the way out was taking a job as an IT guy for the Imperialist US Army and supporting their wars of aggression and genocide by maintaining the infrastructure.

Most folks are too decent and principled to take that route. Rather starve to death than murder for money.

You could capture the vote for almost all of rural America by showing that you're going to lift them up and give them a fair shake at a good life, and they don't have to hurt anybody or compromise their morals to get that chance.

As long as Dems keep running soggy, weak-willed candidates who don't care about the working class and poor in this country, rural America is going to keep giving us the middle finger when we ask them to vote blue, especially when Republicans at least /pretend/ to care bout them.

There are some absolute saints out there, queer folks, Black folks, earth mothers and young people who know that they're screwed either way, & choose to use their vote to try to keep us city folks safe from republican monsters

I don't want you to think I've forgotten about y'all

But people like my Dad voted for Trump because he saw that I was having trouble finding good paying work, & Trump promised to put America first and bring the jobs back.

He was never really going to do that, and there's no way he could even if he wanted to, but he said he would.

This fucking man voted for a whole-ass fascist because he thought it would save me and my kids from starving to death for want of work and money.

I can understand why he did it even though I know he was wrong and wrong to vote that way. Low information kills.

He's old and surrounded by sources of misinformation. All of his news sources lie about what's going on, and they lie off the same sheet of music as each other. They all say that the jobs went to China, but we can get them back. They say Mexicans are taking what few jobs remain.

The news media that he trusts & has access to don't say the truth: There's as much work to do as there ever was, but all our wealth is concentrated in a few hands because we have an economic system purpose built to concentrate wealth.

We've nothing because a few have everything.

I don't think we're going to get anywhere until we recognize and take into account that people aren't voting for Trump because we haven't begged them to vote Blue hard enough, lots of them really believe that y'alls fav is going to do more harm than Trump ever could.

The same way you're pleading with people to vote Blue no matter who because people are going to die if a republican wins, folks are fluffing up conservatives and excusing their MANY flaws because the way they see it, your smooth-talking politician is going to get folks killed.

Some people really are shitheads & think it's their moral duty to deprive women of the right to bodily autonomy so they can use the state to force her to give birth, or who think that queers and blacks don't suffer enough.

In conclusion, fuck them, stop trying to get their vote.

Focus on people who can be won. Focus on the understandable reasons why good people might vote for a bad president, and put up a candidate they can vote for. Give 'em a Bernie Sanders.

Give them hope that one day their children can get an education, healthcare, work, and a home.

Give them hope that their kids won't live and die hardscrabble poor like they're expecting to… like their parents and grandparents did. Give them hope that shady politicians and businessmen won't extract the wealth from their town and leave once they've taken all they can take.

@threadreaderapp Can you please unroll this for me?