TYT says that no Corporate Democrat can win the presidency in 2028

[Basman]

I don't understand why democrats are so incompetent when it comes to their messaging. A 16 year old could tell you that they just need to appeal with bread and butter economic issues. Obviously, niche social issues aren't that important to the broader contingent of society. Not so obvious I guess. 

[Raze]

5 hours ago, Basman said:

I don't understand why democrats are so incompetent when it comes to their messaging. A 16 year old could tell you that they just need to appeal with bread and butter economic issues. Obviously, niche social issues aren't that important to the broader contingent of society. Not so obvious I guess. 

Because they are funded by wealthy donors who do not support said economic issues. So they have to find alternative things to campaign on, or talk about the issues vague enough to not make a major promise they will get heat for backtracking on.

[Basman]

4 hours ago, Raze said:

Because they are funded by wealthy donors who do not support said economic issues. So they have to find alternative things to campaign on, or talk about the issues vague enough to not make a major promise they will get heat for backtracking on.

I think it is interesting how "woke issues" also tend to be very safe relative to the establishment. Like, trans issues are inconsequential relative to the sociopolitical situation we are in now with the growing wealth inequality, loss of trust in institutions, or global warming.

Edited Friday at 10:29 PM by Basman

[Leo Gura]

On 8/8/2025 at 5:58 AM, Basman said:

appeal with bread and butter economic issues.

Economic issues are too wonky to excite average people. People are excited by culture war identity politics. This is true of right and left wings.

A debate about marginal tax rates does not mobilize the political activists. It has to be some outrage like molestation of children, shooting a black man, etc.

The issues that are popular are reptile brain issues. In this way politics is like social media. You don't win in politics by doing deep serious, long-format videos, you will with TikTok slop.

That's what Trump understood well. Trump is the king of reptile brained content.

Edited Sunday at 07:40 AM by Leo Gura

[Husseinisdoingfine]

The culture war obsession largely doesn’t make sense because transgender people only make up 0.5% of the U.S. population, and only 2.8% of generation Z.

And yet, this one issue dominates so many news headlines. I should know as my parents watch Fox News.

[Basman]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Economic issues are too wonky to excite average people. People are excited by culture war identity politics. This is true of right and left wings.

A debate about marginal tax rates does not mobilize the political activists. It has to be some outrage like molestation of children, shooting a black man, etc.

The issues that are popular are reptile brain issues. In this way politics is like social media. You don't win in politics by doing deep serious, long-format videos, you will with TikTok slop.

That's what Trump understood well. Trump is the king of reptile brained content.

Well, maybe not that granular kind of politics. I could probably have phrased myself better. 

Trump himself used some broad economic talking points during the race, like wanting to protect working class people economically. There is a precedence for it. 

Edited Sunday at 06:39 PM by Basman

[Hardkill]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Economic issues are too wonky to excite average people. People are excited by culture war identity politics. This is true of right and left wings.

A debate about marginal tax rates does not mobilize the political activists. It has to be some outrage like molestation of children, shooting a black man, etc.

The issues that are popular are reptile brain issues. In this way politics is like social media. You don't win in politics by doing deep serious, long-format videos, you will with TikTok slop.

That's what Trump understood well. Trump is the king of reptile brained content.

However, culture-war identity politics in the 20th century was never anywhere near as bad as it has become in recent years. It wasn’t even this bad in the early 2000s—things have escalated dramatically since the 2010s. At this point, it feels like the worst it has been since the antebellum era before the Civil War.

There used to be much more reasonable debate over issues, including economic ones, during the 20th century. The 1960 Nixon–JFK presidential debate is a prime example of classy, substantive discourse on both political and economic topics. In fact, the mid-1900s marked the peak of political consensus and unity in the U.S., and a time when most Americans were more deeply engaged and enthusiastic about economic issues than even social ones. The early and late 1900s were a close second.

[Hardkill]

On 8/7/2025 at 11:52 PM, Leo Gura said:

I don't see this as a problem.

An easy unifiying message is to crack down on corruption and the rich. That is enough to transcend race/ethnicity/gender.

The real battle is between the rich and the not-rich.

Dem's messaging needs to be virulently anti-oligarchy and anarcho-capitalist dystopia.

I totally agree that they need to do that!

However, I’m not sure the party elites — along with their special interests, corporate donors, “woke” activists, and out-of-touch consultant class — will allow it.

Independent pundits like David Pakman and Anand Giridharadas have recently said that the Democratic Party still hasn’t had its reckoning, even though it should have happened months ago. They’re pessimistic about the party making enough changes to its messaging strategy in time for 2028 — or even 2026 — because the leadership seems so stubborn and entrenched in its current approach to communicating with voters.

 

An arguably bigger question is: how does the Democratic Party get voters to focus on fighting oligarchy and an anarcho-capitalist dystopia when the culture war has distracted most voters — particularly low-information and low-engagement ones — to an insane degree?

[Hardkill]

3 hours ago, Basman said:

Well, maybe not that granular kind of politics. I could probably have phrased myself better. 

Trump himself used some broad economic talking points during the race, like wanting to protect working class people economically. There is a precedence for it. 

He engaged in a kind of faux right-wing economic populism while appealing to about half the country on conservative cultural issues, including racism, xenophobia, sexism, and Christian nationalism.

I hate to say it, but I feel like the Democrats may have no choice but to return to their more pro-white, pro–Judeo-Christian, more patriarchal, and more nationalist roots—albeit in a subtler way than the modern Republican Party—even though it seems unlikely the party will truly drop its support for civil rights, women’s rights, or immigration rights anytime soon.

Edited Sunday at 11:11 PM by Hardkill

[Basman]

14 hours ago, Hardkill said:

I hate to say it, but I feel like the Democrats may have no choice but to return to their more pro-white, pro–Judeo-Christian, more patriarchal, and more nationalist roots

Oh no, not nationalism 😵.

[Apparition of Jack]

Discussions like these make clear to me that absolutely no one has any goddamn idea what direction the world is heading (myself included) and any “educated guesses” are no more accurate than throwing darts at a board and seeing where they land, lmao.

Things are wayy to influx. I say just enjoy the ride.

[Hardkill]

11 hours ago, Basman said:

Oh no, not nationalism 😵.

We gotta take care of more of our citizens first before we can return to a more global-oriented kind of agenda.

[Basman]

6 hours ago, Hardkill said:

We gotta take care of more of our citizens first before we can return to a more global-oriented kind of agenda.

I would argue that should be the default. It is a democratic failure if people feel like their state isn't working for them. Really, you should stay within the circle of concern of the wider population broadly speaking, which is more national than global. 

[Elliott]

You guys have this all backwards. Republicans are top down sheep follow the leader, Democrats are the opposite, legislators follow the people, it's not a failure of Democrat leadership as in legislators, the leaders of the democratic party are the people. People don't look at political campaign policy to decide on who to vote for, it's more herd mentality and politicians don't lead the democratic party, the people lead the democratic politicians. This structure for Democrats is a really good thing by the way, the people just need to work harder while the magat mind virus rages.

 

For crude example, what did Obama win on? Biden? Bill Clinton?

Edited yesterday at 12:16 PM by Elliott

[nerdspeak]

In the age of mass politics, in the 20s and 30s, and again in the 50s and 60s, people fought in the street over wages and political gerrymandering.  

People are capable of getting fired up over economics and corruption, there is something else about the current context which is suppressing this process. 

[Joshe]

47 minutes ago, nerdspeak said:

People are capable of getting fired up over economics and corruption, there is something else about the current context which is suppressing this process. 

Seems attention hijacking would top the list. Back in the day, there was more space and time to think about things and their consequences, and to share those thoughts and ideas with others. 

[Jodistrict]

The Democrats need to remember history.  FDR was the only 4 term president and he was the biggest socialist politician America ever had.   But FDR wasn’t woke.   This isn’t complicated.