Libs have this worldview that there are certain people that are obligated to vote blue no matter who. Rural white men, not on that list, they don’t care. Minorities, women, LGBT, immigrants, some sections of the working class, those they see as owing their votes to the dem machine. And oh boy do they get pissed if they are not given what is owed. The only voters democrats think they need to earn are rich, suburban, bloombergian centrists that mostly don’t exist, and the few that do already live in deep blue states.
Like, Republicans are fucked up in a million ways, but at least when their candidate loses they generally respond with “okay we need to turn shit around to get our base out next time.” (Trump is the exception, but he’s the exception on everything). Democrats blame their base, never the candidate’s fault, which is why they keep betting the house on losers instead of recognizing when a candidate isn’t selling.
I think you are giving the Republicans too much credit here. It's not that they actually care what their base wants, it's that their bases desires line up with capital, so there is no cost to giving it to them.
Frequently the Republican base calls for things I don't think capital cares about. Like I remember 15 years ago when republican office holders would get grilled about young earth creationism and would have to say they believe in it, regardless if they actually cared, since that's what their base wanted to hear.
I think a better way of saying it is that Republicans have more leeway to do theater for their base, to say the same bigoted things, because those bigoted demands don't necessarily conflict with capital. Whereas Democrats have to do the opposite kind of theater, making claims of progressivism and solidarity with poor people, but then not act upon it because that would be in conflict with capital.
Libs have this worldview that there are certain people that are obligated to vote blue no matter who. Rural white men, not on that list, they don’t care. Minorities, women, LGBT, immigrants, some sections of the working class, those they see as owing their votes to the dem machine. And oh boy do they get pissed if they are not given what is owed. The only voters democrats think they need to earn are rich, suburban, bloombergian centrists that mostly don’t exist, and the few that do already live in deep blue states.
Like, Republicans are fucked up in a million ways, but at least when their candidate loses they generally respond with “okay we need to turn shit around to get our base out next time.” (Trump is the exception, but he’s the exception on everything). Democrats blame their base, never the candidate’s fault, which is why they keep betting the house on losers instead of recognizing when a candidate isn’t selling.
I think you are giving the Republicans too much credit here. It's not that they actually care what their base wants, it's that their bases desires line up with capital, so there is no cost to giving it to them.
Frequently the Republican base calls for things I don't think capital cares about. Like I remember 15 years ago when republican office holders would get grilled about young earth creationism and would have to say they believe in it, regardless if they actually cared, since that's what their base wanted to hear.
I think a better way of saying it is that Republicans have more leeway to do theater for their base, to say the same bigoted things, because those bigoted demands don't necessarily conflict with capital. Whereas Democrats have to do the opposite kind of theater, making claims of progressivism and solidarity with poor people, but then not act upon it because that would be in conflict with capital.