I've been saying this for a long while and will keep on saying it. The key is going to be the suburbs. I agree that that there are many on the Left that want to reach out rural America and on the face of it many of positions of Warren and Sanders should appeal to rural populism. The problem is that social issues essentially make a firewall for the GOP. That firewall has only gotten stronger during impeachment as many of them look at it as the evil Democrats trying to overthrow their elected choice in a war on their values. I don't think we should dismiss rural voters, who actually happen to be hurt more by Trump policies than many other voters, but I'm not sure trying to win them over is going to be worthwhile. The suburbs are divided but appear to be swinging over towards the Democrats. What mainly interest those voters is competence and the ability to return this country to some sense of stability. I don't think many suburban voters are interested in revolution.
My overall premise is that american voters are like a box of 12 jurors with high school level education, and the republican party takes advantage of that by creating this post-fact world and getting away with actual lying. I identified rural places for two reasons (i) I have a better appreciation of that area by some personal experience (shame on me for not traveling there earlier in life), and (ii) they are the ones most successfully targeted by the republican party. Their priorities and values, as you note, make them particularly pre-disposed to accepting republican messaging. Their priorities and values provide the basis for the existence of confirmation bias, so they more naturally accept the messaging and don't have the bandwidth, and I would argue, intellect or eduction, to sift through the deception.
trump will tell any lie if its self serving... and a common "tell" of a trump lie is he conditions it with "a lot of people say" or "many people believe"... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...orced-out-ukraines-top-prosecutor/3785620002/ Timeline: Trump, Giuliani, Biden, and Ukrainegate (updated) https://www.justsecurity.org/66271/timeline-trump-giuliani-bidens-and-ukrainegate/ Viktor Shokin: The inside story on Ukraine’s ‘very good’ prosecutor at centre of Trump scandal https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...r-joe-investigation-impeachment-a9147001.html
Ignoring the irony (decline of public morals) ivanka shows she is a part of the trump family... In summary:
trump continually repeats this lie... even the fox sycophants call him on it, and another trump lie "tell" "thats what the word is"...
Rural America needs a kick in the ass... They don’t want socialism but don’t take away their Medicare or farm subsidies. They believe in personal responsibility, but blame NAFTA and globalism for being left behind. They believe in small government, but overwhelmingly want the government to protect their culture wars and make the foreigners pay (tariffs and immigration).
On bandwidth, in a culture of quick fix, short term thinking and Twitter, I said this isn’t unique to any group, but generally apply to all. On intellect or education - I’ll just said and yet the “intellect” on the left haven’t been able to effectively get their message across, to cut through the deception.
Donald Trump went on Fox and Friends this morning and revealed, at long last, what Ambassador Yavanovich did that was so damning. "She wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy. She is in charge of the embassy. She wouldn't hang it. It look a year-and-a-half, two years to get the picture up. She said bad things about me ... This was not an angel this woman, okay?" FFS. With Trump it always comes back to either his Putin relationship or his own sensitive skin. For the record, apparently the majority of the federal buildings didn't have the Trump portrait up for more than a year because the Trump transition team didn't take care of it like they were supposed to. They never sent portraits out.
To be fair to Fox and Friends (lol) when Trump started ranting about Crowdstrike, Doocy did actually say "Are you SURE they did that?"
A perfect summary of the problem - do the Dems join the Republicans in the post fact world and spew garbage? It is a difficult problem to solve. Corrosion said it - you only have a chance if you nominate a candidate that the swing states are receptive to.
When have I said it's not their duty? I support impeachment I just don't think it will move the needle much but it had to be done.
It's amazing how the Crowdstrike stuff has made it all the way to the president. It started as a 4chan rumor and now he echoes it without knowing the facts at all. It's amazing that Fox News let's him say all this and doesn't correct any of it. He claims it's a company based in Ukraine owned by a Ukrainian oligarch and that the DNC gave them "the server" and that now Crowdstrike is hiding "the server." First of all, there is no "the server." The DNC had cloud based servers. They didn't hand them over to anyone. Crowdstrike was allowed access to the servers to conduct an investigation because that is their specialty. They did it for Sony as well. Secondly, they are neither Ukrainian based nor Ukrainian owned. They are based in California and their CEO is a New Jersey born American. He is one of the founders along with a Ukrainian. The Ukrainian lives in the United States and worked for multiple US Cyber security firms, including McAfee, for years before hooking up with the New Jersey guy to start their own company. Lastly, the FBI has received the images of the DNC servers. There is no one saying that they are missing data on the breach, except for conspiracy theorists on 4chan, Donald Trump and now his supporters.
Peggy Noonan, former adviser and speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, had this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Defenders Have No Defense Witnesses were uneven, but even his closest allies don’t try to deny he did what he’s accused of doing. by Peggy Noonan Nov. 21, 2019 7:27 pm ET Look, the case has been made. Almost everything in the impeachment hearings this week fleshed out and backed up the charge that President Trump muscled Ukraine for political gain. The pending question is what precisely the House and its Democratic majority will decide to include in the articles of impeachment, what statutes or standards they will assert the president violated. What was said consistently undermined Mr. Trump’s case, but more deadly was what has never been said. In the two months since Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry was under way and the two weeks since the Intelligence Committee’s public hearings began, no one, even in the White House, has said anything like, “He wouldn’t do that!” or “That would be so unlike him.” His best friends know he would do it and it’s exactly like him. The week’s hearings were not a seamless success for Democrats. On Tuesday they seemed to be losing the thread. But by Wednesday and Thursday it was restored. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was not a persuasive witness and did not move the story forward, because in spite of the obvious patriotism reflected in his record he was annoying—smug and full of himself. He appeared in full dress uniform with three rows of ribbons. When Rep. Devin Nunes called him “Mr. Vindman,” he quickly corrected him: “Ranking Member, it’s Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, please.” Oh, snap. As he described his areas of authority at the National Security Council, he seemed to glisten with self-regard. You got the impression he saw himself as fully in charge of U.S. policy toward Ukraine. Asked if it was true that government offered to make him their defense minister he said “yes” with no apparent embarrassment. I don’t know about you but I don’t like it when a foreign government gets a sense of a U.S. military officer and concludes he might fit right in. (A Ukrainian official later said the job offer was a joke.) Mr. Vindman—I’m sorry, Lt. Col. Vindman—self-valorized, as other witnesses have, and tugged in his opening statement on America’s heart strings by addressing his father, who brought his family from the Soviet Union 40 years ago: “Dad, . . . you made the right decision. . . . Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-defenders-have-no-defense-11574382421
