Thursday, September 28, 2017

Why Do Millennials Hate The Democratic Party Almost As Much As They Hate The Republican Party?

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Yesterday while I was getting dressed, I switched on MSNBC and saw Maryland Wall Street whore and DSCC chair Chris Van Holland being interviewed.A little background MSNBC didn't provide:
Panicked that stalwart progressive Donna Edwards might be elected, last year the banksters financed Van Hollen's successful primary race against her for the Senate, giving him $3,306,869, more than any other non-incumbent from either party.
The Finance sector has given Van Hollen $4,932,470 in bribes since he was first elected to Congress in 2002.
Van Hollen has worked very hard to make Wall Street happy they put their faith in him.
Big Insurance ponied up $267,805 last year to make sure Van Hollen got into the Senate instead of Edwards.
Pharmaceutical companies chipped in last year too, giving Van Hollen $254,100 for his primary against Edwards.
Now, the 2 questions, he answered while I was putting on my socks. The anchor asked him if he is supporting Bernie's Medicare-For-All bill and he used every focus group-tested weasel word to avoid an honest answer. Slimy politicians are the reason why people absolutely despise career politicians. The closest he came to explaining his position was to assure MSNBC viewers that there would be "other proposals." He's so awful, it's no wonder Schumer picked him to run the DSCC and it's no wonder the DSCC's two first candidates are absolutely execrable conservative shiotheads from the House, Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and worthless waste-of-a-seat Jacky Rosen (NV), each of whom is more comfortable voting with the GOP than with progressives.

Then she put up a chart from a new poll that shows the millennials hate the GOP but don't much like the Democratic Party either and asked him why, with the Democrats having put so much energy into courting millennials, they have failed to get that demographic to think of them as anything other than just the lesser of two evils. Clueless as always, Van Hollen started babbling nonsense about taking the battle to the campuses. He literally started talking about the geography about where out-of-touch, corrupt Beltway politicians could physically find millennials. It made me want to throw up-- and I hadn't even had breakfast yet.

People like Schumer and Van Hollen can't win in 2018. They can only be there if the Republicans self-destruct enough so that the lesser of two evils party is the only choice for distraught voters who may be forced to vote for unbelievable garbage candidates like Sinema and Rosen. Van Hollen, of course, is working to derail the Bernie-backing alternative to Rosen in Nevada, Jesse Sbaih. Tonight Jesse told us that "In the past 8 years, Democrats lost over 1,000 state and federal seats. The Democratic Party will continue to lose unless corporate money is rejected. Democrats must start putting the best interests of the people over greedy corporations."




I actually stumbled upon the graphic MSNBC asked Van Hollen to explain. And an analysis of the poll. It starts with a bit of good news for the Democrats: "A majority of millennials, 64 percent, disapprove of Trump's job performance, while 58 percent said they have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party." And then a warning: "Millennials are a critical group for Democrats, and although they feel warmer toward the party than they do the GOP, they don’t feel overwhelmingly positive about either party."
Just 43 percent of millennials have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and only a slight majority (53 percent) said the party cares about people like them.

Similarly, millennials were more likely to say the Democratic Party cares about people like them than the Republican Party does. Only three in 10 millennials said the Republican Party cares about people like them. Still, nearly half (46 percent) of millennials said they don’t think the Democratic Party cares about them.

In other words, millennials aren’t fully convinced that either party best represents their interests.

Political uncertainty among millennials is also clear in terms of 2018 congressional election preference-- 41 percent of all millennials said they’re not sure if they will vote Democratic or Republican in the midterms next year. Another 37 percent said they plan to vote for the Democrat, and only 21 percent said they plan to vote for the Republican.

...[N]either party has convinced a majority of white millennials that their policies are sufficiently concerned with people like them-- 60 percent of white millennials said the GOP doesn’t care about people like them, and 55 percent said the Democratic Party doesn’t care about people like them.

Overall, a third of millennials (33 percent) said that neither party cares about people like them-- a significant portion of young adults when considering the growth of the millennial electorate.

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12 Comments:

At 10:09 PM, Blogger Kurt said...

It would help the Democratic Party's image tremendously with Millennials and others if Democrats would live up to their often professed ideal of taking the money out of politics. And in fact Democrats *can* live up to that ideal, at least during primary elections.

That Democratic candidates typically raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend in defeating fellow Democrats seems remarkable in these times, although it is seldom remarked on. Not only is it hideously wasteful of our resources, but it inevitably leaves numbers of our most enthusiastic supporters and volunteers believing that their primary candidates lost on an uneven playing field of donor money.

The Democratic Party could enforce a ban on large donations during primaries. After all, Democratic candidates can't become Democratic candidates without the party's endorsement, so the party really does have the final say. A ban on large donations in the primaries would let us use more of our resources defeating Republicans, and it would show skeptical voters that we really are trying to do things differently. It would also improve the primary selection process by encouraging more substantive debate in place of shallow TV and radio ads.

 
At 7:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kurt's comments list the many reasons why the Democratic Party should be seen as a lost cause. None of the things he lists are going to change as long as those running the Party retain control of the reins. Everything they have done while in power has been to ensure that no one can mount a viable challenge to their control, which can be seen in how quickly Bernie (while not a Party member) and Keith Ellison and other so-called progressives have knuckled under. They can see the futility of refusing to be assimilated by the Democratic Party Borg.

This can only be changed when those progressives with integrity break free of the Party. To steal a phrase from the deservedly-loathed Maggie Thatcher, "There Is No Alternative".

 
At 8:55 AM, Blogger Kurt said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 8:56 AM, Blogger Kurt said...

Anonymous, I'm having trouble understanding your prescription:
Step 1: progressives leave the Democratic Party.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: things get better.
(h/t gnomes)

I realize it is idealistic to entreat Democrats to act in the better way, but everything progressives ever accomplish starts with idealism. I believe we Democrats can transform our own organization in this way. All organizations evolve, and sometimes they can be made to evolve for the better.

Even so, we have to make our path and our plan on the terrain where we actually find ourselves. Leadership means getting people to move in the right direction, toward the higher ground. It doesn't mean walking away from them.

 
At 12:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You must like having liars and incompetent frauds lead your party, Kurt. I hope you don't live to regret your choices.

 
At 12:34 PM, Blogger Kurt said...

Why can't we step up and be leaders ourselves, Anonymous, along with like-minded people? If you don't believe progressives are capable of doing that within the Democratic Party, with an existing infrastructure and constituency for us to build on, then why do you think we'd be so magically successful by starting from scratch?

 
At 1:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's your "magically successful" party reform:

"Panicked that stalwart progressive Donna Edwards might be elected, last year the banksters financed Van Hollen's successful primary race against her for the Senate, giving him $3,306,869, more than any other non-incumbent from either party."

What powerful magic do you plan on using to reform the existing Democratic infrastructure?

 
At 2:21 PM, Blogger Kurt said...

The example you put forward is exactly the kind of thing I'm suggesting we need to change. Will we change it though powerful magic? No, just grassroots persuasion and nuts-and-bolts platform work.

The Democratic Party isn't going away, regardless of whether you and I are part of it or not. Let's engage with it and shape it into something better. That approach seems more tangible than the plan you have offered, which is simply to walk away.

 
At 3:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kurt, Bernie tried to "engage with it" and remains on the campaign trail promoting his major issues which should be part of the Democratic Party agenda. He is not getting any support from the Party officials that I know about. He at least has the remains of a campaign fund to allow him to do some travelling in support of his issues. Does Donna Edwards?

What is it going to take for you to see that the Democratic Party is a club, and you ain't in it?

 
At 9:16 PM, Blogger Kurt said...

If your purpose is to help progressives advance their goals, rather than sowing division among them, then you should explain your better plan.

 
At 8:43 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK, Kurt. I'll make it simple for you. The outcome is preordained when one attempts to swim while wrapped in an anchor and chains. One must shed the dead weight if one is to remain afloat.

The Democratic Party is dead weight.

 
At 11:57 AM, Anonymous sneed urn said...

The most plausible avenue right now is a 2 to 4 year grassroots up movement of the likes of JusticeDemocrats, whose first plank is don't be corrupt, to gain traction with the electorate and get into office as democrats. It seems that it is a numbers fight. Honest new constituent representing candidates must over-run the financial elite supported candidates. Then they take the levers of power in the democratic party infrastructure to make taking big money explicitly verboten. At That point there will be a tsunami of voters supporting the party. Obviously the financial elite will throw more money at this. There is only one way to fight this...
The key is to make taking big money donations itself a publicly shame-able voter-alienating event. In the way anti- sexual harassment is becoming a social movement. Make honesty in government a "thing". Like lifetime revolving door restrictions and bans on corporate lobbyists. Voters will appreciate that.
Any candidate who has taken big money has to be called out on the public carpet, branded as what they are...corrupt, and replaced.

 

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