Thread by @Rhinocerization

This take is not uncommon, but it's a rhetorical pearl formed around a white supremacist grain of sand.

Within this notion is the assumption that the democrats are failing to convince people.

This is a fallacy and a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics at work.

1/x

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1323871107947122688

It requires that a number of facts be dismissed or diminished.

First, it is predicated on the idea that there's a "war of ideas". Ironically, it's an internalization of a neoliberal cold war and war on terror framing, albeit applied to neo-Marxist political thinking.

2/x

There is no failing on the part of the American left in delivering and gaining support for our core beliefs and propositions.

Instead, the assumption that Republicans, and "bystander" lefties and independents process politics in this way is a strategic error. They don't.

3/x

We can't persuade these Americans in the way we do the bulk of our camp.

We just have to deliver the policies and programs that we know will work for the people and the country.

These then become the norm if they work, and set a new bar and raise expectations.

4/x

Examples can be seen in policies, programs and standards like social security, expanded voting rights and ballot access, greater social justice, more realized civil rights, and the ACA.

Once set, they are hard to dismantle because even the non-engaged come to expect them.

5/x

Second, this assertion requires significant erasure of BIPOC progressivism and the voters it brings in and retains year-over-year.

It sets as an unwritten condition that the voters we need to reach or bring into the fold are mainly whites. That's less true each year.

6/x

This error is one of the most pernicious and damaging.

Until white, mostly male, progressives learn to take direction from BIPOC lefties WITHOUT IDEOLOGICAL PRECONDITIONS in order to do so, we won't unlearn this bias, and frankly injurious bigotry.

7/x

Third, a corollary to the error above is the tendency to believe Republicans, independents and Republican voting lefties -- usually conservative thinking -- are acting rationally in some manner.

While sometimes true, they are largely "in group" and "our group" motivated.

8/x

If you'll allow me the conceit of setting to the side the sexism and smears that unfairly hurt Clinton.

Biden's "A President for and to All Americans" messaging is key to his successes in places Clinton's idealistic "Stronger Together" messaging didn't click.

9/x

Clinton's "diverse factions coming together into a coalition" premise, not unlike other left politician's "big tent" pitches works well with our base, but falls flat with conservative-thinking voters, no matter their income, societal or cultural status and identities.

10/x

Whereas the "one nation, one set of shared principles" used by Biden resonates well.

The grace and largely overlooked tactful pivot Biden achieved switching from a "big tent", team of (internecine) rivals primary to a "one America" general campaign was masterful, imo.

11/x

In essence, Democrats are saddled with a much harder challenge than Republicans.

Republicans simply don't want to build new things, or even govern, so much as maintain what Democrats have largely built and steal from the poor to bribe the rich, their true constituents.

12/12

*"out group"

Hi @threadreaderapp, unroll.

(CC: @IktomeSD)