In short, we have to push the value of "liberal democracy." Republicans are literally against it and that's the common thread that holds all Democrats together, including the white cis male allies and whatnot.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country", "Yes WE can", "OUR revolution" play well with Democrats.

I think promises are over-rated with Democrats anyway. "Solidarity" is a bad word in many circles, but the Democratic party should be about people working together for positive change. It's not about the specific gifts promised.

^i agree with that, and if you really want specific uniting policy issues, focus on things that should be non-partisan. like having a clean environment and access to quality public education for your children. republicans have proven themselves to be enemies of both.

Well, and this is the big goal, but they need to redefine the in-group. It'll take overcoming centuries of cultural background, but they need to talk to working class whites and convince them that the psychic wage of white supremacy isn't as valuable as the real wage of universal health care and well-protected bargaining rights.

We can fight past discrimination and help white Americans by offering universal benefits.

-Universal Healthcare
-Universal Living Wage
-Universal Right to a College Education
-Unviersal Right to Vote

etc. etc. etc.

I agree with all of this, and I think Obama had an interesting way of thinking about this kind of thing (specifically in reference to Civil Rights but it seems generalizable to the "cultural issues" involved) in the interview he did with Coates back in December:

The tension seems to be that it's hard (re: the "cultural background" of working class whites) to get the message of universalist programs to cut through the resentment engendered by also talking about the kind of anti-discrimination or social justice policy (re: criminal justice, or women's issues, immigration, muslim refugees, ...) that is also an obviously necessary leg of the stool and important to the Democratic constituencies that Dvaut mentioned.

It seems like this is where you need politicians with the skill to communicate effectively to all these different interests. It's also not entirely clear to me that this way of thinking about things is entirely incompatible with OrP's idea about Obama's success. I guess it sounds a lot different to say on the one hand that it's OK for Democrats running for office in red states to pander on some issues versus suggesting that those same Democrats run on universal programs, but I'm not sure they are entirely different strategies in practice. The latter sounds better because actually trying to persuade voters and make the argument for the value of liberal democracy (re: einbert) sounds better than the idea of pandering to voters.

It also seems to me that half of the problem is some significant part of the Democratic establishment (if not liberal voters) is also opposed to these universal programs in their stronger forms. Is Democratic policy-making also subject to an excess of intellectual capture by wealthy interests? Maybe that claim is too strong, but it seems true to me.

In a word, yes.

Dem establishment is bought and paid for

Thirded, etc.

The limits of corporate feminism

https://www.thenation.com/article/ho...-age-of-trump/

Man I was all fired up to make a Heath Shuler joke about purposefully bashing your head into a wall, but it turns out it was Gus Frerotte.

Obviously cultural relativism demands that we bracket our judgements here. Treating grad students badly is a longstanding cultural tradition :P

The terrible life for grad students will always be with us, even in the socialist utopia.

I know a dude who went to grad school and now works as a film editor supervisor or something. Good union job - guarantees 45 hours/week.

Direct quote: "Even the student loan collectors know I'm never going to pay it back. They're like just throw us a little a month so we don't wreck your credit."

'Murica

universal right to college education GTFO with this

We need to go the other way, trade schools (far cheaper btw) so they can get jobs. Paying college education for kids who can't read or the ones who got C's in school is absurdly stupid. They haven't bothered by HS they're not going to in college. If you're paying 4-8 years of college and don't get a job out of it; that's on you for being a complete fool.

Universal living wage doesn't work either. Well it works until you run out of other people's money, because there's no incentive to do anything other than sit in your house and play video games all day (I'd totally do this btw).

As we saw with the affordable care act; costs just skyrocket with the gov't paying for all of it cause there's no reason not to charge a **** ton more. It doesn't work.

ofc republicans just use the one thing they are right on as an excuse to give rich people tax breaks and ignore going through with it.

Nobody wants to pay for everyone else's ****--that was a big reason why trump got elected in the first place and you want dems to double down on that platform?

Just do both. Call it job acquisition training and pay for trade schools, etc and college.

Just a thought. Perhaps at least letting them learn how to read and write a little later if they didn't learn in HS would be beneficial.

I agree that universal education might have to look a little different from the way college degrees work now to be feasible but whether you think about trade schools or colleges the basic idea is the same.

Although I suppose I'm sympathetic to the idea that the premise is flawed: i.e that the goal of universal education is to increase wages by making workers more economically valuable, but in the face of automation and reasonable limits on how skilled the average worker can be that might not be realistic, and something like UBI and redistribution is better long-term. *shrug*

I've generally been big on the we need to push technical schools a little more and college a little less team, but perhaps more universal attention to liberal arts is called for. People being out of the work force for a bit is not necessarily a bad thing in the age of automation and voters getting well rounded educations seems critically important.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is that we're not actually at the point of diminishing returns on more people being more educated yet.

https://www.amazon.com/Lower-Ed-Trou.../dp/1620970600

This book is relevant.

Society says education is essential in a way it never was. The government offers education to a minority, on terms that are incompatible with a low income worker's life. Companies that once invested in employees now rear then as disposable.

This gap is being filled by for profit #lowerEd. They make promises, sell hard, fit with peoples actual schedules, but deliver a crap product.

That crap product is paid for with non discharge govt backed loans. Poor people are valuable customers. Or marks.

The point of the book is the people choosing lowered aren't idiots. They just have no good choices.

Obama put some regulation on the industry, requiring schools to have results in order to qualify for the guaranteed loans. Trump eliminating then of course.

Anyone who thinks Democrats haven't tried running gun-friendly candidates (or campaigned to the center on every other freakin' issue for the last 15 years too) hasn't been paying attention at all.

Yeah. Wasn't Obama calling HRC Annie Oakley in 2008?

1. Universal right to a college education in my opinion only applies to those who are qualified. Those who do not have the grades and/or passet the appropriate aptitude test do not receive free tuition.

2. The skyrocketing costs in healthcare are because the money is being paid to private businesses who charge whatever the market allows. Free tuition should only be for state-operated colleges or private ones that provide a comparable quality for a comparable fee. The overall cost should come down due to the increased competition by state schools which do not cost the student anything.

It might be convenient to blame wealth influence, but doesn't seem to be very accurate. Colorado had UHC directly on the ballot and at most 37% of Hillary voters voted for it. Semi-realistic, non Bernie Sanders style fake proposals for UHC just aren't all that popular even among rank and file dems.