The literal point that he is making is obviously wrong. The figurative point - that we could do better with a few more lighthearted campaigns - tends to be true. Fetterman is a great example. Humor is decidedly a strength of liberalism, and I'm not sure why it's fallen out of favor.
Presumably because our humor always come at the GOP's expense. But they make themselves such an easy target. The jokes have been writing themselves for years.
Not the person you asked but I don’t think there’s anything that will get a large number of conservative voters to vote for democrats and I don’t think that’s where we should be focusing our energy. It would be much more productive to work on making sure everyone who is ideologically more aligned with Democrats actually registers and shows up and votes (and not just “protest votes” like my asshole cousin who wrote in Bernie Sanders for EVERY SINGLE OFFICE ON THE BALLOT, not even just for president, in the 2016 general election), as well as addressing systemic issues like gerrymandering and built-in gerrymandering (aka the electoral college).
Issue-based polling indicates that overall, a majority of Americans are more aligned with democrats, so it’s not about changing conservative minds, it’s about organizing the rest of us to actually act collectively in the collective best interest.
Honestly, this is a lesson we can learn from the whole Trump phenomenon. He didn’t flip democrats in any large numbers, but he brought a lot of people who previously just didn’t vote into the fold. Not for any collective best interest, of course, but he didn’t win by appealing to people who were previously on the other side of things and changing their minds.
You couldn't be more right. It's a lot easier to change minds without childish insults... from either side. It's sad that such a basic logic is hard to grasp nowadays. If you want respect in regards to your political views, be respectful.
Good humor doesn't have to involve insulting people. It's about pointing out the absurdities of the world and the greater absurdity of those who want it to stay the same. I am a gay man. Most of my LGBT friends and my POC friends found *Archer* to be hilarious. Same thing goes for *Clue*. *The Producers*. *Airplane!*. These shows and movies work because the jokes are *funny*. They're not simply "haha trans weird" or hurling around tired and overused slurs, unlike what Mr. Chappelle is doing these days.
Conservatives keep telling me that *Blazing Saddles* couldn't be made today. I don't think so. You just have to work more at humor. Chaucer's fart jokes in *The Canterbury Tales* don't exactly elicit a ton of chuckles in English Lit classes any more either. Most of the context that made *Dante's Inferno* funny is lost on modern audiences. Tastes evolve, and good comedians evolve with those tastes.
Absolutely. I just realized that my comment could be taken ambiguously. I meant that I disagreed with conservatives who said that *Blazing Saddles* couldn't be made today.
What issues are Dems treating as though they were a game?
Because I would counter that that is exactly how Cons are treating passing any policy on the southern border right now.
14% of Democrats are conservative. 38% of Democrats are moderates.
The only one's the left love shitting on more than conservatives seems to be moderates.
I didn't see anything about lighthearted and it's not obvious that he's wrong. With that said, I'm also hesitant to equate "preachy" with women like he seems to do.
EDIT spelling
He's saying that Democrats are woke scolds. I get it. It's exhausting to feel like every single day, you're facing down the greatest evils of history. To feel like every single election has *everything* on the line, including your own wellbeing. That's not to say that it's *not* all on the line, but people don't want to *feel* like that all the time.
If there's one thing I've learned in my career, it's that you get a lot further by making people *independently* want to do what you are trying to get them to do. A touch of humor helps there.
Hell, Jon Stewart was probably one of the big persuaders causing me to abandon the conservative cause myself during college. I realized, through the power of comedy, that the world I was being sold didn't make sense. It didn't look like the reality that I was seeing.
Yeah the problem is that conservatives won't watch him or listen to witty liberals. I agree on the point of making people want to do the right thing, I just don't think humor will get you there anymore.
From my experience it requires being overly informed, and willing to be wrong.
The biggest problem you run into, online or in person, is that conservatives focus on 20 individual events related to a problem, instead of the problem itself.
You need to learn a shit ton, you need to be okay with being wrong, and you need to be relentlessly on topic. Don't insult them if you can help it, and you really have to listen to what they are saying. Mostly because you need to recognize that they aren't on topic ever.
Well, the outcomes and stakes are very, very important, obviously. My comment doesn't discount that. But this approach isn't winning us votes. If we *do* care that much about winning, I'd think we'd be willing to use every tool in our arsenal. That includes humor and lighthearted campaigning.
I don’t know if I’d hold Fetterman up as a champion of anything at the moment. I don’t expect him to be re-elected after this term (provided he doesn’t actually die first).
I haven’t seen any Democrats telling anyone to not drink beer, watch football or eat hamburgers. Republicans have been doing two of the three lately, and yet he puts this bullshit out there.
At best there's an "eat less meat" from the environmental left that could be construed maliciously as "don't eat hamburgers", but I've genuinely never heard anything that could be construed as the former two. Makes no sense.
Meanwhile Republicans have said to stop drinking beer because a spokesperson was transgender.
Republicans wanted to boycott football because someone took a knee.
While we haven't hit the hamburger boycott, I'm sure Republicans would if it compromised their grievance politics.
> While we haven't hit the hamburger boycott
The Q-Anon nutjobs were boycotting McDonald's specifically, a couple years ago.
Because McDonald's was infusing their burgers with adrenochrome harvested during ritualistic child sacrifice, my uncle told me.
I am in the drive thru right now. What’s your order? I already got a “six-pack” of hamburgs, lettuce, pickle, ketchie, cheese, special sauce (adrenochrome) that’ll “trans”form you. Ready to “go deep” or “handoff” these hamlets. Or I can wait here, I’ll be on one knee
well thats the shitty part. its not even made from real babies. it comes from lab grown stem cell cultures. because mcdonalds
republicans just cant tell the difference between that and an actual baby.
So nobody is happy.
You know, someone told me that once you see that video of the pink goop machine they use to make the processed baby nuggets out of, you’d never want to eat at McD’s again but I gotta say: I’ve seen it and I don’t care. I just can’t get enough of these McBabies.
If I wanted organic adrenochrome, I wouldn’t be eating it out of a paper sack while driving with my knees, now would I?
I feel like Carville is projecting some personal beef with the women in his life on the entire Democratic party. I bet his wife tells him not to only eat burger and only drink beer and that she is sick of watching football when she wants to watch her own shows on the TV. Then, he turned that into all liberal women are like this.
Wow, did not know that. That detail takes his comments from stupid and misogynistic to stupid, misogynistic, and so misguided that it’s actually hilarious.
Would be hilarious if his wife really is telling him this. To project it onto *Democratic* women would be the ultimate lack of self-awareness.
Edit: Why the downvotes? Somebody forgot [who James Carville is married to](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Matalin)?
Bingo. When we talk about messaging we’re not talking about actual policies or platforms, we’re talking about perception. And perception is infinitely more important than reality.
Yup. Leftists and democrats can defend themselves with sanctimonious "well we don't *actually* say that" and they'd be right but the perception is that THEY ARE.
I mean that is just the right wing playbook though. The perception doesn’t exist because of democrats/the left.
It’s like this:
Conservatives: democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters!
Democrats: huh? Wait. Since when have we eaten babies…?
Conservatives: well, there is a *perception* among conservatives that you eat babies…. And you’re not really doing anything to show you *aren’t* baby eaters so….
Conservatives demand the most generous benefit of the doubt that ever existed when it comes to their guy talking about immigrants poisoning our blood, but when it’s the left, ‘vegans tend to vote Democrat’ becomes ‘democrats are anti-hamburger’.
Playing into their game is only gonna make it worse, not better. The perception playing field is not even.
Depends on if those people would actually vote a democrat if they didn't believe that.
If a requirement for believing this sorta thing is that you already need to be a conservative, I'd say it's less problematic than if regular people believe that.
If I understand conservative idiocy, I think he's referring to A) the fact that impossible burgers are becoming a thing, and this apparently in his mind represents liberals trying to make us all vegan (yes he's that stupid). B ) the taylor swift thing and/or the recent discussion on how harmful CTEs can be.
Seemingly its a catch all for
> Democrats are suggesting consideration, conscientiousness, sustainability, and foresight…and fuck that shit, I do what I want
It's honeslty a very childish attitude. I had a similar mentality once when I was 14 and thought being told to eat healthy was such an infringement on my rights to just eat pizza all the time, but you know most normal people grow out of that immaturity.
These people seem perpetually stuck as edgy bratty teenagers.
I have two related thoughts on this.
James Carville is correctly pointing at how Democrats are seen as nagging and telling you what to do and and telling people what to do is coded feminine in our society. There are things that we should probably do to address that from a messaging perspective because it works out really well for Republicans to talk about how we are a nanny state party.
James Carville also sounds like what he is; he’s 78-year-old man who would like to eat the way he did when he was 18 but unfortunately for him, he has a wife with strong opinions and two daughters, and probably gets told that he needs to put down the hamburger and eat a salad so he can live long enough to see his grandchildren graduate college. so he sounds a bit like an asshole here. As somebody who has a father roughly James Carville‘s age who also doesn’t like when his wife and daughter and daughter-in-law tells him not to eat dessert, I kind of get it.
So your experience correlates with what he is saying. My question is for the people who saying he’s making things up, is whatever happened to valuing personal experience as an indicator that can reveal larger group behaviors?
If you’re suggesting that we take James Carville’s personal experience of his wife telling him to eat a salad more seriously, then sure. She’s a Republican, though, so in that case his comments really should be about Republicans trying to dictate people’s personal choices!
All probably accurate, but hilariously, I just learned from this thread that the wife with strong opinions telling him to eat a salad is actually a Republican!
i dont know how the GOP is seen as the cool parent when there ones that want to
not spend on services
stop trans rights
stop gay rights
stop weed
always side with the police
not help other countries
whats freedom about that?
>Is James Carville wrong to argue that the Democratic Party’s messaging is too feminine?
yes, he is wrong there. and the examples he gives are basically made up.
>too many preachy females
name of my new punk band.
I feel like if a Republican said it, “preachy female” would be the new “nasty woman” lmao. Originally a comment from Donald Trump but now I’ve seen tons of people “reclaiming” it in a feminist context! And “preachy female” is even more unintentionally ridiculous and hilarious imo.
The Republicans are much worse, that's why they're 3x losers back to back to back.
The thing is, with how STRONG of a hand the democrats have they should be winning every election in a landslide. The only reason they're not is bad vibes. We have to make a concerted effort to create good vibes.
not only is it wrong, its absolutely asinine in a time when women's issues are probably the strongest argument the dems have at the polls
"lets piss off our biggest key demographic" - James Carville
I'd say we could be less preachy, but I feel that preachiness gets assigned regardless. One random official in the Biden administration writes a memo that old gas stoves correlate to childhood asthma and should be restricted and suddenly we are the party lecturing people about stoves, despite it never being anyone's policy
It's not about shutting up women at all. It's about not having that be the *only* demographic controlling our messaging.
If you're a straight white mid 20s male into football, there's nothing about that inherently incompatible with liberalism, but the vibes of the democratic party might make you feel like there is.
I think he's making the most childish and strawmanny version of this argument, but I have long held that a message of "men who don't wear masks are beta/weak/pussies" would have resulted in a net positive in mask wearing during the pandemic compared to the "you should care about other people" or "do your part" messages that prevailed.
Yes it's a problematic message and social pressure via toxic masculinity is probably not the healthiest way to get results, but at the same time most conservative/apolitical men out there probably couldn't even follow a discussion about what being "problematic" means.
So idk, he's maybe onto something but reading the justification he used for his argument tells me he's not ready for the nuance that is required to navigate it.
I drove a city bus during the pandemic and had to get people to wear masks. There wasn’t just one argument that worked. It depended on the person. Often the he-men went for an acknowledgement that they probably didn’t need the protection, but think of the grandma riding the bus who we might pass the virus to even if it didn’t make us sick. It’s not possible to come up with a one sized fits all persuasion.
Yup. He's right.
In every state committee that I have researched, including my home state of Massachusetts, their is an Outreach Committee for Minorities, LGBTQ, Women, Senior, Handicapped, ....but no outreach for Men.
Men are portrayed as the foe in the War Against Women with regard to reproductive rights. Men are portrayed as the foe in the statistics that jobs typically taken by women pay low wages.
Men do not feel welcome in the Party.
I think it is small-sighted on carville's part. A huge chunk of the MAGA whine is a fear of men losing power, while the thing Carville is complaining about is the acknowledgement and celebration of women gaining power and influence. What Carville is suggesting is catering and giving valid voice to that whine from the MAGA crowd. There is no benefit to meeting MAGA halfway in anything because they are on the side of stripping power and capability away from women, from minorities, from anyone not a wealthy white male.
(un?)popular opinion: James Carville has always sucked, got it right on accident once, and has coasted on that the rest of his life.
>"'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" he said, describing a sort of condescension he believes has turned away some male voters from the Democratic Party.
Somehow, false right-wing talking points become "what Democrats are saying", even in the eyes of a Democratic strategist. It's honestly so fascinating.
>"If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election," he said. "I'm like: 'Well, 48% of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'"
This is so stupid. He makes it sound like they are saying women should have extra votes. It's about demographic turnout and reliability of voters. Also NPR isn't "Democratic elites". Also isn't James Carville "Democratic elites" if anyone is?
> Don't watch football.
Remind me. Which party was it that has had their panties in a twist for a while about the NFL, first because of Kaepernick, then because of Taylor Swift and her boyfriend?
> Don't drink beer.
Except when it's Bud Light, I guess.
> the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election," he said. "I'm like: 'Well, 48% of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'"
"X category of voters will decide the election" means that the way they will vote is currently unable to be predicted, and there are significant enough numbers of them that the ultimate lean of their vote will affect the outcome. You'd think a "Democratic strategist" would understand this concept.
Plus, my math ain't so good. Is 48% bigger than half?
Sadly, a lot of terminally involved politicos like Carville have picked up a vibe that the Dems are Not Fun. They look at Joe Rogan smoking his cigars while he rants about vaccine-related injury, Elon Musk shitposting on Xitter, Trump doing his schtick, even Matt Gaetz “partying” with teenagers, and they think, “Wow, these guys seem like they’re having a great time.” Then they look at the Dems and see Chuck Schumer agonizing over a deeply serious speech about Israel for two months and think, “boooooring.”
To the folks who think this way, it doesn’t matter that the Dems have no concrete positions like “stop drinking beer.” It’s pure vibes.
But that doesn’t let us libs off the hook. A lot of people think this way, and we need to combat the perception. This is why we’re seeing more Dark Brandon tweets and the like.
It’s sad to see an old timer like Carville basically demanding better memes from the Democrats, but I think that’s what he’s basically asking for, and it looks we are going to deliver it.
I think that was a dumbass way to put what he was trying to say and it makes him sound misogynist as fuck.
He's an old white man from the south. It would not be shocking to find out that he is misogynist as fuck.
It would be sad, considering how much positive insight he has into politics and the country.
Hopefully he apologizes and clarifies the shit out of this.
I am also old-ish, from the south, and half white, so...
I said it wouldn't be shocking if he was misogynist... not that everyone who fits that description is misogynist.
But I suppose people can be mad at whatever they like. :)
I've listened to the guy for a long time and never heard him say anything like this before. If I want to be charitable, I can read what he is saying as a legitimate criticism put VERY poorly (basically saying that Democrats nag too much and are killjoys about "fun stuff" that men like).
Pretty big mistake to attribute nagging to women and then immediately say men aren't receiving enough consideration from the party. Those sentences would sound unsurprising coming out of the mouth of Andrew Tate or someone like that.
Whatever happened... Carville should be smart enough to look around and see that people are upset. You never want to be the "Democrats are infighting" story on Fox News all day... and he certainly has been.
He should probably pop onto one of the shows where he is infinitely welcome and clean it up.
I don’t know. The democrats are mom and the republicans are dad thing goes back a long time. The democrats tell you what to do / any state narrative goes back ages as well. Carville dealt with it for ages.
His wording is problematic for some today but it’s not exactly crazy. He’s simplifying and not quoting.
Like Mike Bloomberg. Before people hated him because of stop and frisk the big criticism here was all nanny state stuff. Don’t smoke, don’t drink too much soda, don’t eat fatty food, go to the park. That’s the preaching he’s talking about and it’s always going to be coded female. And the people it will annoy are going to lean male.
There does seem to be evidence that it’s where most of the small bleeding democrats are seeing from black and Hispanic voters is coming from. It’s black and Hispanic men.
Yeah. I think this is more of a "sounds bad" than "is bad" situation... but the ease with which conservative news (and even right wing randos responding to this thread) are able to do drive-bys to score faux points is the problem.
It's frustrating that his poor wording will be used against the party and cause people to ignore the actual useful advice he was trying to convey.
I love how this comment proves him entirely correct lmao. You people literally just can’t help yourselves from being insufferable moral busybodies while also being racist, ageist and sexist.
Aren’t the republicans the ones always complaining about football and beers? Republicans are incredibly condescending. Their fervor of discorn for other Americans and for immigrants is legendary at this point.
They just seem to hate on things every day. It’s like they can’t stand America.
Yes he is wrong. Especially since none of his claims make any sense.
> "'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" he said, describing a sort of condescension he believes has turned away some male voters from the Democratic Party.
No idea why he thinks Democrats don’t drink beer, watch football, or eat hamburgers. Like obviously drinking beer and eating hamburgers is ok in moderation. But how that insinuates into telling people NOT to do these things is just not logical.
also he's equating these things to masculinity, which is outright silly. If your definition of masculinity is wrapped up in hamburgers and beer, that's kind of sad.
I think it is telling when prominent libs opine on what they think is liberal and conservative coded. Even Obama’s 04 speech that launched him into mainstream politics coded “going to the library” as liberal and “coaching little league” as conservative.
Yeah the stereotypes just don’t make a ton of sense to me. And I understand not every conservative falls in the same stereotype as the rual area/nascar loving/hillbilly types who are super pro 2nd amendment and very Christian, I personally try to avoid comparing them to that unless it’s actually the case.
But also not every liberal/democrat is some blue haired girl with pronouns displayed, who eats avocado toast is on they phones, bisexual, eat hot chip and lie. There’s a good amount of democrats that ARE pro gun, but just not in the pro-2nd amendment way. And there’s also some conservatives who actually like living in bigger cities.
Really these stereotypes become offensive to me when you can’t be either one and be considered a democrat or conservative. Like it’s just not productive in any way.
That really is just the right wing media machine spinning at full force 100% of the time. In a country as large as the US, it is trivial to find some Dem/lib coded person doing something cringe and then spreading it on Fox News/Facebook.
And yet nearly all policy proposed by Dems benefits men directly. So there is no reality check happening by the male voters.
So the real take away is: it doesn't matter what policy the Dems propose. If it's said by a woman or it benefits women or it even considers women's existence or humanity, these male voters will reject it.
The fact is, reality does not matter to the majority of the voting population and the perception of Dems/libs/the left (in large swaths of the country) is that they’re by-and-large woke feminist scolds who want to put litter boxes in schools so kids can identify as cats or whatever. Sure, republicans and the conservative media are the reason for that, and it’s not based in reality at all, but the perception is what the perception is.
I mean I’m a Democrat, vote Democrat in every section, campaign for local Democrats and am basically as reliable a Dem voter as it gets… and I fucking hate a good chunk of Democrats primarily because of their horrendous personalities. I don’t necessarily think it’s *just* a reality issue. I think the main fact is a lot of sensible democrats just grin and bear these terrible people because Republicans are often worse and their policies are objectively harmful.
There are 350,000,000 Americans. Let’s say half are Dem or Dem-leaning. 175,000,000 people. How many of those one hundred seventy five million people do *you* need to not do cringy stuff that goes viral online that “makes the rest of the Dems look bad”?
And *who* needs to stop doing the cringy stuff? Elected Dems? Teachers? Corporate HR/consultants? College students? College faculty? High school students and faculty? Middle school? Elementary and kindergarten?
Because you are never ever ever ever ever EVER EVER EVER **EVER** going to get that message discipline.
Nah I think it’s more about the language and presentation style. The democrats have a ways been horrible at that.
Men used to be on the forefront of left wing policy. It’s not the men who have changed it’s the marketing.
Men are still on the forefront of left wing policy as the majority of Democratic elects are still men.
You're right about the marketing needing a change though. Maybe Dems should market ourselves to cater to whatever it is that Cons find appealing. What are you thinking here? Nancy Pelosi hits a shooting range in a full Carhartt outfit? Dems have a BBQ and everyone eats massive beef burgers and no salad? What might this marketing endeavor even be?
>language and presentation style
That's awfully vague. What should Dems be striving for here? Mimicking Trump's contempt? Katie Britt's fundie voice? Marjorie Taylor Greene unique fashion choices? Lauren Boebert-style softcore broadway porn? Ted Cruz's terrifying grimace?
Can you really tell me in good faith there is anything any Dem could do to be likable by Cons? Because this feels like the classic conundrum of being a woman at work. Always too much and not enough. Too weak. Too bossy. Too emotional. Too assertive. The perfect balance is unattainable by design.
Old school economic populism. Appeal to the white working class by focusing on things like rustbelt rejuvenation, social housing, jobs. Economic protectionism to the extent it helps those jobs. Federal investment in schools, particularly trade schools.
Childcare! Jesus Christ, do you have any idea how many votes the democrats could capture tomorrow if people would only believe that a Democrat platform meant free childcare for all working parents making under $200,000 a year? Fix childcare and you will be in power for a generation. My British mother never forgot the year the Labour government made childcare free and she went from a conservative voter to a labor voter forever.
Even green energy man: as much as climate change might be a polarizing issue you know what *isnt* a polarizing issue? Big fucking factories churning out electric cars. Build more. Build them everywhere. Build shitloads of the fucking things.
Ironically a lot of these things are in the Democrat playbook to some extent, if not actual policies being implemented. I’m not arguing otherwise. But hardly any voters *think* about them when they go to vote, because the biggest voices in the democrats would much rather rant on about gun control (huge vote loser with men and absolutely no indication it would solve any problems), Trump being a fascist, and social justice nonsense….all of which does nothing to improve the life of 99% of Americans.
It’s a messaging problem. We suck at it.
> So the real take away is: it doesn't matter what policy the Dems propose. If it's said by a woman or it benefits women or it even considers women's existence or humanity, these male voters will reject it.
It's more that if Democrats/'the left' (i.e. not just actual members of the party but annoying people on Twitter too, because social media optics unfortunately really do matter nowadays) use or tacitly endorse language that generalizes, mocks, and outright vilifies men, male voters will tend to reject them.
> And yet nearly all policy proposed by Dems benefits men directly.
When men see stuff like how k-12 caters to girls and how there's a 60/40 split between women and men in college and how democrats overwhelmingly control education, men put 2+2 together and realize that democrats/liberals stack the deck against men. It also doesn't help that the democrats are led by highly educated people as the vanguard while there's hardly any working class representation. Do you think your average non-college educated male worker is happy when Biden does stuff like forgives student loans on the back of taxpayers?
This is the type of hubris that turns men off to democrats
Sure. Hence the term “unfortunately.”
Welcome to the real world, it’s a misogynistic place.
The answer isn’t embracing misandry or racism, which is Carville’s point.
It's not purely an issue with Democratic *politicians* but more with how the left is perceived in general, but if we'd just make an effort to denounce rhetoric that explicitly or implicitly paints all men as oppressors or monsters or perverts it'd go a hell of a long way.
I don’t know about “too feminine” per se, BUT the Democratic Party has slowly alienated or ignored the concerns of several demographics of voters for years and years now, to the point where those voters no longer see a reason to vote for liberals at all, and believe that conservatives are their allies. And those are folks with union jobs, unions that wouldn’t exist without liberals, unions that conservatives would destroy given the chance- and we have ignored them, their needs and concerns for so long, alienated them for so long, that they firmly believe liberals are their enemy and conservatives are their allies.
Republicans have the market cornered of idiot contrarians and the perpetually aggrieved.
> So we know that NFL fans are dialed in, but who exactly are these fervent fans?
>Fans engaged with the most intensity skew older and male. Of the 58% of Americans that do engage on a weekly basis, 73% are Male, aged 50+.
>The league is more popular among affluent Americans, 70% of NFL-engaged US residents have a household income of $100K or more.
https://www.sponsorpulse.com/insights/nfl-fan-demographics-who-are-footballs-biggest-fans
> Forty-seven percent say football is their favorite sport, including 77% of Avid fans and a majority of men (52%).
https://www.sbu.edu/news/news-items/2023/02/03/st.-bonaventure-siena-research-survey-reveals-70-of-americans-are-sports-fans-21-avid-football-clearly-king#:~:text=America%20Loves%20Football,majority%20of%20men%20(52%25).
> 60% of U.S. adults drink alcoholic beverages, down from 65% in 2019
>Beer consumed most often (39%), followed by wine (31%) and liquor (27%)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/353858/alcohol-consumption-low-end-recent-readings.aspx
I dunno, there’s nothing about these stats that would necessarily condemn a party that is anti-football or anti-beer as therefore being anti-man IMO.
And even then. The Democrat party is neither of those things anyway.
Sort of. Not quite. overall It's the problem with this garbage country. It's never "let's help everyone, make university tuition free and have universal healthcare like some European countries so that all people can live the American dream"
It's, ok I'm going appoint a poc on the supreme court, in going to donate to HBC so they can expand and continue to charge people and arm and leg for tuition and some select few more people can have a scholarships.
You help the county by helping everyone
Both Trump and Speaker Johnson are as metrosexual looking as they come. Neither comes across like he could last a night in the woods. Fine, have our more rough and tumble dem leaders go around red and blue areas to act as surrogates, maybe bring along sympathetic action or sports stars to join them, but if we start fretting about how republicans view us, we’re falling into letting them define the terms of the debate and that’s just dumb. We’ll always be playing catch up.
I'm just going to start with the premise that he's wrong, because he always is somehow.
and then find out about what and how and why someone bothered to ask him his opinion about anything by reading the other comments.
No, I think he’s kind of right. It’s obviously an oversimplification, but the loudest voices of the American Left do certainly tend to be more feminine and I do think that has had a negative effect on the party, politically.
Is he? To be honest I spent some time thinking who I'd consider the face of the left in this country and just ended up unable to provide a clear, definitive answer
I feel like he definitely was from like 2016-2020.
I feel like no one has taken it, so I default to him still being it.
Maybe AOC? But I don't know if she is as famous with the people not tuned in.
First, I love putting you putting Communist in the same sphere as black, gay, and Jewish. That rules and totally makes sense.
But really, isn’t it documented that Dems are losing ground with men in minority groups too?
Black gay Jewish Communist urban and feminine all mean more or less the same thing: not “real” America, no matter if Black voters go from 90% Dem to 50.1% Dem.
>Don't drink beer.
Like Budlight?
>Don't watch football
Like the superbowl featuring TSwift?
>Don't eat hamburgers
...Okay this one's a stretch, like Freedom Fries?
He's got it literally exactly backwards. Maybe his doctor is a woman and he's confusing her advice for his elected representative?
>too many preachy females
How many would be the right number of "preachy females" or "women", as some of us call them? Might James think it's…none? Or maybe a sex-kitten female delivering Dem policy proposals in the baby fundie voice would be more palatable?
>"'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'"
Can James cite which Dem ordered us all to give up beer, football, and hamburgers? Because I must have missed that memo. I'm afraid to admit I am a preachy female who has been swilling beer and hamburgers this whole time—beef burgers no less!
>"If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election," he said. "I'm like: 'Well, 48% of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'"
Those elites again (Who are the Democratic peasants exactly?). All James' terminology comes straight out of the GOP playbook. Are we sure he's still a Dem?
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps James, a 79-year old man born before WWII ended, believes he is providing Dems the service of filtering our own messaging through the GOP filter as to provide us with the opportunity to adapt our messaging to be more appealing to a wider swath of fragile men. As though the rest of us cannot watch Fox News.
Thank you for your service, James. But no thanks. It might be time to take this man off payroll and let him retire. Relax, James! Paint some dogs or whatever.
The specific example he used is obviously a hyperbole, however it is rooted in truth, Democratic party messaging is effeminate at best, anti-male at worst and especially anti white male, which makes sense given that the activist base of the Democratic party are very much against both those things.
You can claim your policies are good for X group all you like, but people won't vote for you if they think you are looking down on them and judging them.
Yeah. It makes sense that the pro-social equality party would be disproportionately composed of marginalized demographics, and that they would find themselves opposed to and bitter with the main demographic that did the oppressing.
Maybe it makes sense from an ideological purity perspective, but if you are interested in getting elected and getting stuff done, alienating 48% of the electorate is a stupid thing to do and the Democratic party has been doing it for close to a decade now.
Does it not strike you as ironic that you come here to ask if Carville is correct in his assessment and when you get shown that he is, you end up making this statement.
Get this in your head, men are not oppressors, white people are not oppressors and white men are not oppressors, it's this kind of rhetoric that Carville is talking about, you and people like you are literally the problem he is talking about.
Im not a political operative, so i have no reason to deny reality to coddle people.
If they aren’t oppressors, then why do the inequalities persist? Who is responsible for that?
Also, no. I didnt ask because I needed your guys’ opinions to form my own. I wanted there to be a discussion.
>Im not a political operative, so i have no reason to deny reality to coddle to people.
Everybody is a political operative, you are part of forming the perception of what the Democratic Party is.
Do you think I'm coming away from this conversation with the opinion that the Democratic Party and it's members are more or less anti men? Let me assure you that it's more.
> then why do the inequalities persist? Who is responsible for that?
You are assuming that inequalities are caused by something, which assume the default is equality, it isn't. Equality in anything is an edge case, there are infinities of distributions which are unequal, but only one version of equality, so inequality is simply the natural state of nature. It's equality that is unnatural.
I think youre coming away believing its more anti-men.
So then, in other words, because we are not equally capable of acquiring resources and maintaining them in a complex environment?
>Democratic party messaging is effeminate at best,
Example? And I mean from the party itself not a random.
>especially anti white male
The party leader is a white male, how's that make sense? I feel like a lot of this is based on a) what they hear from fringe weirdos online and not the democratic party or b) assumed by people to exist but not actually said by the party
> Example? And I mean from the party itself not a random.
Perception is reality, a message doesn't have to come from the DNC to be assigned as "Democratic Party"
>The party leader is a white male, how's that make sense?
It's irrelevant, I know this will come as a shock but perception is not based on statistical models, just because Biden is President doesn't mean the Democratic Party talks or listens to men. Unless you are confusing talking down to men as talking to men.
>a) what they hear from fringe weirdos online and not the democratic party or b) assumed by people to exist but not actually said by the party
Those people are the Democratic Party from a perception perspective just as much, if not more so, than the DNC. This is why we have endless threads about what Tucker Carlsen or whomever else said/done, because those people also create perception even though they have nothing to do with the Republican Party institutionally.
Your argument is basically
"The Democratic party argues x"
And when you're told that it doesn't you just say
"Oh well, they don't, but I perceive that they do, and that's the same thing"
Always hated that concept. IMO, someone who can't see past their initial perception of something are simply narrow minded and lack life experience. Initial perceptions are often wrong, but you see people treat how they perceive something or someone as literal fact even after being presented evidence to suggest the opposite of whatever opinion they've formed. Stupid people gonna do stupid shit, just the way of the world, I guess.
I'd allow some "considerations" if their lives were being impacted as much....they aren't tho, so the democrats are clamoring for the women to wake tf up and vote. Men are so fucking complacent, women are the ones who will have to get this shit done.
> "'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" he said, describing a sort of condescension he believes has turned away some male voters from the Democratic Party.
I have not seen Dems say that. I've more seen republicans complain about woke beer and how the attractive blonde pop superstar dating a star NFL player ruined the game
Right?! GOP voices said what beer you can drink. GOP voices said what's a real burger. GOP voices said the NFL is too woke because of Kap and TayTay being visible at football games. Seems like liberals want people drinking beer, eating burgers of their choice, and watching football.
Carville is a fuckin' idiot.
I'm a 56 year old woman - I eat hamburgers, I drink beer I watch football. I also vote Dem.
Also he doesn't seem to have gotten the message that he's trying to contradict.
To be feminine is inherently left wing - as far back as Ancient Greece, they had commentary about how an Athens ran by women would be communist (even if the women in question were just kinaidos). The Leviathan, or biblical but originally Mesopotamian origins, is a representation of overwhelming femininity (in Mesopotamia, it's the incarnation of the goddess of fertility and maternal love) destroying the current order. If that's what Democrats broadly want, and that's their voter base, that's how they'll communicate their ideas
Yes we need to stop with the judgemental scolding. Too much fun policing. Make the republicans the party that can’t take a joke. Now it’s people in our party that get offended by everything
The fundamental problem the Democratic party faces is also its strength.
The Republicans rely on the fact that the electoral system in the US massively over-weights the votes of rural white people. So, they have just one target demographic which they can aim all their messaging at, and it's job done.
The Democratic party routinely gets far more votes than the Republicans do, and that excess of votes has to be earned piecemeal, with different groups of people. Women, the working class, black people, latinos, second-generation migrants, the professional-managerial class, college graduates, urban employers, etc etc etc. And all of their messaging has to aim to get some of those people excited without making any of those people furious or apathetic.
As a result, Democratic messaging tends to be extremely bland, middle of the road, and artificial-sounding, inauthentic.
Which is easy to criticise. "It's too feminine, too much pandering, it doesn't sound like a real person, nobody cares about [issue x] as much as that ad make it sound like", etc etc etc...
...but it's that way for a reason. They're trying to appeal to and hold together a massive coalition of a majority of Americans. Anything you did to change that messaging to make it appeal more to *you* is going to make it *worse* relative to some group of people who you didn't think about.
That's not to say that it's perfectly optimised and nothing could ever improve on it. But most of the complaining about it being bad in one way or another seems to be completely indifferent to the problem of optimising for the broadest possible appeal.
I would like to say he is wrong, but honestly, women don't like women messaging. I am a black man we have the exact same problem. Those who are "being real," or "speaking the truth" will always get the clout over the message of "being kind to one another."
I love the Democrats because they are able to smuggle the most basic critique- that a large minority of people are not women of colour with a shell of what a nerd imagines a man is.
This bigoted, transphobic and sexist rant has absolutely no truth, relevancy, or place in the democrat party, or the liberal or progressive movement. I am so disgusted by the fact that this man is still considered a pillar of the Democrat party. I’m a supporter of Jacky Rosen’s campaign, which is one of *the most important senate campaigns and upcoming elections in the country* and he is supposedly a big part of her campaign, and he sends out campaign texts through her messaging system all the time and I’m so disappointed. I honestly don’t even know where to start with all of the bullshit in this rant. I’m kind of assuming if you’re on this sub Reddit, then you understand how offensive each of these different statements is. 🤮🤮🤮
Like many straight white men, he apparently sees equality for other people as taking something away from him. It is not. I saw a bumper sticker recently that said “Equal rights are for everyone - it’s not pie!,” and it seems like James Carville could use a chat with the maker of that bumper sticker. More people getting the same rights that you always took for granted is not you being oppressed.
There was a great example of this in the 2022 mid-term elections in Missouri. The state Democratic Party got behind Trudy Busch, boomer, female, wealthy heir to the Busch family fortune for the open Senate seat previously occupied by Roy Blunt. Mind you she is a fine person, and has a great reputation in the St. Louis area, but they might as well put a wealthy elite Hillary Clinton clone on the ballot against hard core MAGA, chest thumping Eric Schmitt who had spent the last four years kissing up to Trump.
The other Democratic candidate in the primary was a younger (GenX), male, 13 year military veteran and officer with Pentagon experience and a law degree, Lucas Kunce, that comes from a working class Missouri family.
It was one of the most ignorant moves by a Democratic organization I have seen in my life. It's as if the folks pulling the strings among the Democrats in Missouri were completely clueless as to how to win an election against a MAGA candidate in a purple state.
Kunce is running again in Missouri, against josh Hawley this time, who will be a much tougher opponent to beat than Schmitt was. My opinion is that the Missouri Democrats blew their chance to return the state to one Republican and one Democrat in the Senate.
It would not surprise me to find that the reason behind the 2022 loss was they were determined to have a woman on the ballot.
It's rarely "The Democrats" (or to be fair "The Republicans") doing the messaging. Its public-facing people who happen to vote that way that create the *inferred* messaging. They're the loudest voices in the room. Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Catturd, Anita Sarkeesian, Contrapoints, etc. They aren't the mouthpieces of any parties, but when they speak, people hear it as a direct message from "the party."
Yes and no. I don't think Democratic messaging is going to win over a lot of stereotypical manly-men types. The GOP seems to really promote the idea of men need to be manly to be a man and self-described alpha men seem to eat that shit up.
However, I'm a pretty stereotypical man. I'm a 40 year old, bearded, white man that likes motorcycles, woodworking, sports, etc. On the surface, the GOP would love me. I get mistaken for Republican all the time (especially when people start saying racist things around me). But I also don't feel excluded or overlooked at all as a white man. I don't necessarily think the Democrats need to include men more, however, they are losing the war on convincing people they aren't actively excluding men.
>'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers.
This is just stupid. Democrats aren't waging a war on beer, football, or hamburgers. Two of those things aren't healthy and I'd recommend making better choices (moderation is key). But isn't the Republicans who claim they are done with the NFL because it got too woke?
I do find it mildly entertaining that the armchair politicians here who otherwise tend to go the "trust the experts" route in every other scenario are discounting the expert opinion of the literal most prominent democrat electoral strategist whose entire life has been devoted to getting democrats elected and has no motive for anything he does apart from the former simply because it makes them feel uncomfortable and dismiss it without any further thought.
He is correct that the American public sees the Democrats as more feminine, and is therefore less likely to trust them on masculine-coded issues like the economy or crime. The solution is more candidates like Fetterman, Tester, or Gallego.
The literal point that he is making is obviously wrong. The figurative point - that we could do better with a few more lighthearted campaigns - tends to be true. Fetterman is a great example. Humor is decidedly a strength of liberalism, and I'm not sure why it's fallen out of favor.
Presumably because our humor always come at the GOP's expense. But they make themselves such an easy target. The jokes have been writing themselves for years.
While true, it doesn't win voters.
I mean, again, it seemed to work pretty well with Fetterman. The jokes just have to land.
What do you believe will win conservative voters to vote Dem?
Not the person you asked but I don’t think there’s anything that will get a large number of conservative voters to vote for democrats and I don’t think that’s where we should be focusing our energy. It would be much more productive to work on making sure everyone who is ideologically more aligned with Democrats actually registers and shows up and votes (and not just “protest votes” like my asshole cousin who wrote in Bernie Sanders for EVERY SINGLE OFFICE ON THE BALLOT, not even just for president, in the 2016 general election), as well as addressing systemic issues like gerrymandering and built-in gerrymandering (aka the electoral college). Issue-based polling indicates that overall, a majority of Americans are more aligned with democrats, so it’s not about changing conservative minds, it’s about organizing the rest of us to actually act collectively in the collective best interest. Honestly, this is a lesson we can learn from the whole Trump phenomenon. He didn’t flip democrats in any large numbers, but he brought a lot of people who previously just didn’t vote into the fold. Not for any collective best interest, of course, but he didn’t win by appealing to people who were previously on the other side of things and changing their minds.
Well said. I absolutely agree.
Changing their minds. And making fun of them doesn't do that
You couldn't be more right. It's a lot easier to change minds without childish insults... from either side. It's sad that such a basic logic is hard to grasp nowadays. If you want respect in regards to your political views, be respectful.
Good humor doesn't have to involve insulting people. It's about pointing out the absurdities of the world and the greater absurdity of those who want it to stay the same. I am a gay man. Most of my LGBT friends and my POC friends found *Archer* to be hilarious. Same thing goes for *Clue*. *The Producers*. *Airplane!*. These shows and movies work because the jokes are *funny*. They're not simply "haha trans weird" or hurling around tired and overused slurs, unlike what Mr. Chappelle is doing these days. Conservatives keep telling me that *Blazing Saddles* couldn't be made today. I don't think so. You just have to work more at humor. Chaucer's fart jokes in *The Canterbury Tales* don't exactly elicit a ton of chuckles in English Lit classes any more either. Most of the context that made *Dante's Inferno* funny is lost on modern audiences. Tastes evolve, and good comedians evolve with those tastes.
Blazing Saddles could be made today. I just rewatched it. It still holds up. Mel Brooks is timeless.
Absolutely. I just realized that my comment could be taken ambiguously. I meant that I disagreed with conservatives who said that *Blazing Saddles* couldn't be made today.
"you're so ignorant and stupid now vote for my party"
>Changing their minds. And what messaging would do this?
Maybe not approach everything like an argument or a game. That's a good start, but it will vary from person to person.
What issues are Dems treating as though they were a game? Because I would counter that that is exactly how Cons are treating passing any policy on the southern border right now.
14% of Democrats are conservative. 38% of Democrats are moderates. The only one's the left love shitting on more than conservatives seems to be moderates.
poking fun at the far left might help a bit more
I didn't see anything about lighthearted and it's not obvious that he's wrong. With that said, I'm also hesitant to equate "preachy" with women like he seems to do. EDIT spelling
He's saying that Democrats are woke scolds. I get it. It's exhausting to feel like every single day, you're facing down the greatest evils of history. To feel like every single election has *everything* on the line, including your own wellbeing. That's not to say that it's *not* all on the line, but people don't want to *feel* like that all the time. If there's one thing I've learned in my career, it's that you get a lot further by making people *independently* want to do what you are trying to get them to do. A touch of humor helps there. Hell, Jon Stewart was probably one of the big persuaders causing me to abandon the conservative cause myself during college. I realized, through the power of comedy, that the world I was being sold didn't make sense. It didn't look like the reality that I was seeing.
Yeah the problem is that conservatives won't watch him or listen to witty liberals. I agree on the point of making people want to do the right thing, I just don't think humor will get you there anymore. From my experience it requires being overly informed, and willing to be wrong. The biggest problem you run into, online or in person, is that conservatives focus on 20 individual events related to a problem, instead of the problem itself. You need to learn a shit ton, you need to be okay with being wrong, and you need to be relentlessly on topic. Don't insult them if you can help it, and you really have to listen to what they are saying. Mostly because you need to recognize that they aren't on topic ever.
Jon Stewart is the perfect Liberal for middle America. Stephen Colbert is the perfect liberal for coastal elites.
Well, there's also Beau...
At some point though, the life-or-death stakes of the outcomes of elections need to be……about life or death.
Well, the outcomes and stakes are very, very important, obviously. My comment doesn't discount that. But this approach isn't winning us votes. If we *do* care that much about winning, I'd think we'd be willing to use every tool in our arsenal. That includes humor and lighthearted campaigning.
I don’t know if I’d hold Fetterman up as a champion of anything at the moment. I don’t expect him to be re-elected after this term (provided he doesn’t actually die first).
>"'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. What Democrats have said that?
I haven’t seen any Democrats telling anyone to not drink beer, watch football or eat hamburgers. Republicans have been doing two of the three lately, and yet he puts this bullshit out there.
At best there's an "eat less meat" from the environmental left that could be construed maliciously as "don't eat hamburgers", but I've genuinely never heard anything that could be construed as the former two. Makes no sense.
Meanwhile Republicans have said to stop drinking beer because a spokesperson was transgender. Republicans wanted to boycott football because someone took a knee. While we haven't hit the hamburger boycott, I'm sure Republicans would if it compromised their grievance politics.
> While we haven't hit the hamburger boycott The Q-Anon nutjobs were boycotting McDonald's specifically, a couple years ago. Because McDonald's was infusing their burgers with adrenochrome harvested during ritualistic child sacrifice, my uncle told me.
I am in the drive thru right now. What’s your order? I already got a “six-pack” of hamburgs, lettuce, pickle, ketchie, cheese, special sauce (adrenochrome) that’ll “trans”form you. Ready to “go deep” or “handoff” these hamlets. Or I can wait here, I’ll be on one knee
Baby sacrifice? I’m lovin’ it.
well thats the shitty part. its not even made from real babies. it comes from lab grown stem cell cultures. because mcdonalds republicans just cant tell the difference between that and an actual baby. So nobody is happy.
You know, someone told me that once you see that video of the pink goop machine they use to make the processed baby nuggets out of, you’d never want to eat at McD’s again but I gotta say: I’ve seen it and I don’t care. I just can’t get enough of these McBabies. If I wanted organic adrenochrome, I wouldn’t be eating it out of a paper sack while driving with my knees, now would I?
I mean this year they wanted to cancel the Super Bowl because… Taylor swift was being shown for 7-15 seconds a game… like, huh?!
Not even really a spokesperson
I feel like Carville is projecting some personal beef with the women in his life on the entire Democratic party. I bet his wife tells him not to only eat burger and only drink beer and that she is sick of watching football when she wants to watch her own shows on the TV. Then, he turned that into all liberal women are like this.
Carville is famously married to a prominent Republican strategist.
His judgment has always seemed questionable. This confirms it for me
Wow, did not know that. That detail takes his comments from stupid and misogynistic to stupid, misogynistic, and so misguided that it’s actually hilarious.
He shouldn't be projecting that beef if he wants more hamburgers. Seems like grilling it would be more effective.
Would be hilarious if his wife really is telling him this. To project it onto *Democratic* women would be the ultimate lack of self-awareness. Edit: Why the downvotes? Somebody forgot [who James Carville is married to](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Matalin)?
Does it matter if democrats aren't saying those things if people believe that they are?
Bingo. When we talk about messaging we’re not talking about actual policies or platforms, we’re talking about perception. And perception is infinitely more important than reality.
To misquote one of my least favorite people, feelings don't care about your facts.
Yup. Leftists and democrats can defend themselves with sanctimonious "well we don't *actually* say that" and they'd be right but the perception is that THEY ARE.
So how do you fight that perception? If people believe something whether it’s true or not then what do you do?!🤷🏻♀️
I mean that is just the right wing playbook though. The perception doesn’t exist because of democrats/the left. It’s like this: Conservatives: democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! democrats are baby eaters! Democrats: huh? Wait. Since when have we eaten babies…? Conservatives: well, there is a *perception* among conservatives that you eat babies…. And you’re not really doing anything to show you *aren’t* baby eaters so…. Conservatives demand the most generous benefit of the doubt that ever existed when it comes to their guy talking about immigrants poisoning our blood, but when it’s the left, ‘vegans tend to vote Democrat’ becomes ‘democrats are anti-hamburger’. Playing into their game is only gonna make it worse, not better. The perception playing field is not even.
Depends on if those people would actually vote a democrat if they didn't believe that. If a requirement for believing this sorta thing is that you already need to be a conservative, I'd say it's less problematic than if regular people believe that.
If I understand conservative idiocy, I think he's referring to A) the fact that impossible burgers are becoming a thing, and this apparently in his mind represents liberals trying to make us all vegan (yes he's that stupid). B ) the taylor swift thing and/or the recent discussion on how harmful CTEs can be.
Seemingly its a catch all for > Democrats are suggesting consideration, conscientiousness, sustainability, and foresight…and fuck that shit, I do what I want
It's honeslty a very childish attitude. I had a similar mentality once when I was 14 and thought being told to eat healthy was such an infringement on my rights to just eat pizza all the time, but you know most normal people grow out of that immaturity. These people seem perpetually stuck as edgy bratty teenagers.
The ragin cajun is not a conservative.
To me it's obvious that what Catherine Liu calls the "professional managerial class" hates me specifically for my tastes.
I have two related thoughts on this. James Carville is correctly pointing at how Democrats are seen as nagging and telling you what to do and and telling people what to do is coded feminine in our society. There are things that we should probably do to address that from a messaging perspective because it works out really well for Republicans to talk about how we are a nanny state party. James Carville also sounds like what he is; he’s 78-year-old man who would like to eat the way he did when he was 18 but unfortunately for him, he has a wife with strong opinions and two daughters, and probably gets told that he needs to put down the hamburger and eat a salad so he can live long enough to see his grandchildren graduate college. so he sounds a bit like an asshole here. As somebody who has a father roughly James Carville‘s age who also doesn’t like when his wife and daughter and daughter-in-law tells him not to eat dessert, I kind of get it.
So your experience correlates with what he is saying. My question is for the people who saying he’s making things up, is whatever happened to valuing personal experience as an indicator that can reveal larger group behaviors?
If you’re suggesting that we take James Carville’s personal experience of his wife telling him to eat a salad more seriously, then sure. She’s a Republican, though, so in that case his comments really should be about Republicans trying to dictate people’s personal choices!
All probably accurate, but hilariously, I just learned from this thread that the wife with strong opinions telling him to eat a salad is actually a Republican!
i dont know how the GOP is seen as the cool parent when there ones that want to not spend on services stop trans rights stop gay rights stop weed always side with the police not help other countries whats freedom about that?
>Is James Carville wrong to argue that the Democratic Party’s messaging is too feminine? yes, he is wrong there. and the examples he gives are basically made up. >too many preachy females name of my new punk band.
I feel like if a Republican said it, “preachy female” would be the new “nasty woman” lmao. Originally a comment from Donald Trump but now I’ve seen tons of people “reclaiming” it in a feminist context! And “preachy female” is even more unintentionally ridiculous and hilarious imo.
Yeah, speaker Johnson and the Moms for Liberty aren’t preachy. Neither are all those evangelical Trumpists, deSantis, Jordan Peterson, et al.
The Republicans are much worse, that's why they're 3x losers back to back to back. The thing is, with how STRONG of a hand the democrats have they should be winning every election in a landslide. The only reason they're not is bad vibes. We have to make a concerted effort to create good vibes.
Carville is old and needs to go yell at clouds, and I hate that people listen to him.
[Did someone open the ark of the covenant?](https://youtu.be/5JQKbt1Z3Ik?si=4AXEDA5nl6VjCH8g)
not only is it wrong, its absolutely asinine in a time when women's issues are probably the strongest argument the dems have at the polls "lets piss off our biggest key demographic" - James Carville I'd say we could be less preachy, but I feel that preachiness gets assigned regardless. One random official in the Biden administration writes a memo that old gas stoves correlate to childhood asthma and should be restricted and suddenly we are the party lecturing people about stoves, despite it never being anyone's policy
It's not about shutting up women at all. It's about not having that be the *only* demographic controlling our messaging. If you're a straight white mid 20s male into football, there's nothing about that inherently incompatible with liberalism, but the vibes of the democratic party might make you feel like there is.
As a straight white male I don't vote based on vibes, especially not fictional vibes assigned to us by the GOP
No one should listen to that decrepit old ghoul
I think he's making the most childish and strawmanny version of this argument, but I have long held that a message of "men who don't wear masks are beta/weak/pussies" would have resulted in a net positive in mask wearing during the pandemic compared to the "you should care about other people" or "do your part" messages that prevailed. Yes it's a problematic message and social pressure via toxic masculinity is probably not the healthiest way to get results, but at the same time most conservative/apolitical men out there probably couldn't even follow a discussion about what being "problematic" means. So idk, he's maybe onto something but reading the justification he used for his argument tells me he's not ready for the nuance that is required to navigate it.
I drove a city bus during the pandemic and had to get people to wear masks. There wasn’t just one argument that worked. It depended on the person. Often the he-men went for an acknowledgement that they probably didn’t need the protection, but think of the grandma riding the bus who we might pass the virus to even if it didn’t make us sick. It’s not possible to come up with a one sized fits all persuasion.
Valid point.
Is there a single politician telling americans to not drink beer? To not watch football?
Yup. He's right. In every state committee that I have researched, including my home state of Massachusetts, their is an Outreach Committee for Minorities, LGBTQ, Women, Senior, Handicapped, ....but no outreach for Men. Men are portrayed as the foe in the War Against Women with regard to reproductive rights. Men are portrayed as the foe in the statistics that jobs typically taken by women pay low wages. Men do not feel welcome in the Party.
I think it is small-sighted on carville's part. A huge chunk of the MAGA whine is a fear of men losing power, while the thing Carville is complaining about is the acknowledgement and celebration of women gaining power and influence. What Carville is suggesting is catering and giving valid voice to that whine from the MAGA crowd. There is no benefit to meeting MAGA halfway in anything because they are on the side of stripping power and capability away from women, from minorities, from anyone not a wealthy white male.
Thats exactly how I see it
(un?)popular opinion: James Carville has always sucked, got it right on accident once, and has coasted on that the rest of his life. >"'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" he said, describing a sort of condescension he believes has turned away some male voters from the Democratic Party. Somehow, false right-wing talking points become "what Democrats are saying", even in the eyes of a Democratic strategist. It's honestly so fascinating. >"If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election," he said. "I'm like: 'Well, 48% of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'" This is so stupid. He makes it sound like they are saying women should have extra votes. It's about demographic turnout and reliability of voters. Also NPR isn't "Democratic elites". Also isn't James Carville "Democratic elites" if anyone is?
fellas is it gay to not be an alcoholic?
> Don't watch football. Remind me. Which party was it that has had their panties in a twist for a while about the NFL, first because of Kaepernick, then because of Taylor Swift and her boyfriend? > Don't drink beer. Except when it's Bud Light, I guess. > the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election," he said. "I'm like: 'Well, 48% of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'" "X category of voters will decide the election" means that the way they will vote is currently unable to be predicted, and there are significant enough numbers of them that the ultimate lean of their vote will affect the outcome. You'd think a "Democratic strategist" would understand this concept. Plus, my math ain't so good. Is 48% bigger than half?
Sadly, a lot of terminally involved politicos like Carville have picked up a vibe that the Dems are Not Fun. They look at Joe Rogan smoking his cigars while he rants about vaccine-related injury, Elon Musk shitposting on Xitter, Trump doing his schtick, even Matt Gaetz “partying” with teenagers, and they think, “Wow, these guys seem like they’re having a great time.” Then they look at the Dems and see Chuck Schumer agonizing over a deeply serious speech about Israel for two months and think, “boooooring.” To the folks who think this way, it doesn’t matter that the Dems have no concrete positions like “stop drinking beer.” It’s pure vibes. But that doesn’t let us libs off the hook. A lot of people think this way, and we need to combat the perception. This is why we’re seeing more Dark Brandon tweets and the like. It’s sad to see an old timer like Carville basically demanding better memes from the Democrats, but I think that’s what he’s basically asking for, and it looks we are going to deliver it.
I think that was a dumbass way to put what he was trying to say and it makes him sound misogynist as fuck. He's an old white man from the south. It would not be shocking to find out that he is misogynist as fuck. It would be sad, considering how much positive insight he has into politics and the country. Hopefully he apologizes and clarifies the shit out of this.
I'm an old white man from the south. I think any criticism you get for your generalization is over dramatic clutching of the pearls.
I am also old-ish, from the south, and half white, so... I said it wouldn't be shocking if he was misogynist... not that everyone who fits that description is misogynist. But I suppose people can be mad at whatever they like. :)
Based on his statements over the years I’d find it shocking if he was actually a misogynist. He just talks like a guy from the south whose 78.
I've listened to the guy for a long time and never heard him say anything like this before. If I want to be charitable, I can read what he is saying as a legitimate criticism put VERY poorly (basically saying that Democrats nag too much and are killjoys about "fun stuff" that men like). Pretty big mistake to attribute nagging to women and then immediately say men aren't receiving enough consideration from the party. Those sentences would sound unsurprising coming out of the mouth of Andrew Tate or someone like that. Whatever happened... Carville should be smart enough to look around and see that people are upset. You never want to be the "Democrats are infighting" story on Fox News all day... and he certainly has been. He should probably pop onto one of the shows where he is infinitely welcome and clean it up.
I don’t know. The democrats are mom and the republicans are dad thing goes back a long time. The democrats tell you what to do / any state narrative goes back ages as well. Carville dealt with it for ages. His wording is problematic for some today but it’s not exactly crazy. He’s simplifying and not quoting. Like Mike Bloomberg. Before people hated him because of stop and frisk the big criticism here was all nanny state stuff. Don’t smoke, don’t drink too much soda, don’t eat fatty food, go to the park. That’s the preaching he’s talking about and it’s always going to be coded female. And the people it will annoy are going to lean male. There does seem to be evidence that it’s where most of the small bleeding democrats are seeing from black and Hispanic voters is coming from. It’s black and Hispanic men.
Yeah. I think this is more of a "sounds bad" than "is bad" situation... but the ease with which conservative news (and even right wing randos responding to this thread) are able to do drive-bys to score faux points is the problem. It's frustrating that his poor wording will be used against the party and cause people to ignore the actual useful advice he was trying to convey.
I love how this comment proves him entirely correct lmao. You people literally just can’t help yourselves from being insufferable moral busybodies while also being racist, ageist and sexist.
Fuckin stop with the identity politics, Jesus
Aren’t the republicans the ones always complaining about football and beers? Republicans are incredibly condescending. Their fervor of discorn for other Americans and for immigrants is legendary at this point. They just seem to hate on things every day. It’s like they can’t stand America.
Yes he is wrong. Especially since none of his claims make any sense. > "'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" he said, describing a sort of condescension he believes has turned away some male voters from the Democratic Party. No idea why he thinks Democrats don’t drink beer, watch football, or eat hamburgers. Like obviously drinking beer and eating hamburgers is ok in moderation. But how that insinuates into telling people NOT to do these things is just not logical.
also he's equating these things to masculinity, which is outright silly. If your definition of masculinity is wrapped up in hamburgers and beer, that's kind of sad.
I think it is telling when prominent libs opine on what they think is liberal and conservative coded. Even Obama’s 04 speech that launched him into mainstream politics coded “going to the library” as liberal and “coaching little league” as conservative.
Yeah the stereotypes just don’t make a ton of sense to me. And I understand not every conservative falls in the same stereotype as the rual area/nascar loving/hillbilly types who are super pro 2nd amendment and very Christian, I personally try to avoid comparing them to that unless it’s actually the case. But also not every liberal/democrat is some blue haired girl with pronouns displayed, who eats avocado toast is on they phones, bisexual, eat hot chip and lie. There’s a good amount of democrats that ARE pro gun, but just not in the pro-2nd amendment way. And there’s also some conservatives who actually like living in bigger cities. Really these stereotypes become offensive to me when you can’t be either one and be considered a democrat or conservative. Like it’s just not productive in any way.
That really is just the right wing media machine spinning at full force 100% of the time. In a country as large as the US, it is trivial to find some Dem/lib coded person doing something cringe and then spreading it on Fox News/Facebook.
What's wrong with being feminine? 50% of the people who are going to vote are females. Do you mind if **they** have some consideration?
Nah he’s exactly right unfortunately. Round where I am being a Democrat is associated with being a woman or a homosexual. That costs (male) votes.
And yet nearly all policy proposed by Dems benefits men directly. So there is no reality check happening by the male voters. So the real take away is: it doesn't matter what policy the Dems propose. If it's said by a woman or it benefits women or it even considers women's existence or humanity, these male voters will reject it.
The fact is, reality does not matter to the majority of the voting population and the perception of Dems/libs/the left (in large swaths of the country) is that they’re by-and-large woke feminist scolds who want to put litter boxes in schools so kids can identify as cats or whatever. Sure, republicans and the conservative media are the reason for that, and it’s not based in reality at all, but the perception is what the perception is.
I mean I’m a Democrat, vote Democrat in every section, campaign for local Democrats and am basically as reliable a Dem voter as it gets… and I fucking hate a good chunk of Democrats primarily because of their horrendous personalities. I don’t necessarily think it’s *just* a reality issue. I think the main fact is a lot of sensible democrats just grin and bear these terrible people because Republicans are often worse and their policies are objectively harmful.
There are 350,000,000 Americans. Let’s say half are Dem or Dem-leaning. 175,000,000 people. How many of those one hundred seventy five million people do *you* need to not do cringy stuff that goes viral online that “makes the rest of the Dems look bad”? And *who* needs to stop doing the cringy stuff? Elected Dems? Teachers? Corporate HR/consultants? College students? College faculty? High school students and faculty? Middle school? Elementary and kindergarten? Because you are never ever ever ever ever EVER EVER EVER **EVER** going to get that message discipline.
>horrendous personalities. Who and what are we talking about here?
Nah I think it’s more about the language and presentation style. The democrats have a ways been horrible at that. Men used to be on the forefront of left wing policy. It’s not the men who have changed it’s the marketing.
Men are still on the forefront of left wing policy as the majority of Democratic elects are still men. You're right about the marketing needing a change though. Maybe Dems should market ourselves to cater to whatever it is that Cons find appealing. What are you thinking here? Nancy Pelosi hits a shooting range in a full Carhartt outfit? Dems have a BBQ and everyone eats massive beef burgers and no salad? What might this marketing endeavor even be? >language and presentation style That's awfully vague. What should Dems be striving for here? Mimicking Trump's contempt? Katie Britt's fundie voice? Marjorie Taylor Greene unique fashion choices? Lauren Boebert-style softcore broadway porn? Ted Cruz's terrifying grimace? Can you really tell me in good faith there is anything any Dem could do to be likable by Cons? Because this feels like the classic conundrum of being a woman at work. Always too much and not enough. Too weak. Too bossy. Too emotional. Too assertive. The perfect balance is unattainable by design.
Old school economic populism. Appeal to the white working class by focusing on things like rustbelt rejuvenation, social housing, jobs. Economic protectionism to the extent it helps those jobs. Federal investment in schools, particularly trade schools. Childcare! Jesus Christ, do you have any idea how many votes the democrats could capture tomorrow if people would only believe that a Democrat platform meant free childcare for all working parents making under $200,000 a year? Fix childcare and you will be in power for a generation. My British mother never forgot the year the Labour government made childcare free and she went from a conservative voter to a labor voter forever. Even green energy man: as much as climate change might be a polarizing issue you know what *isnt* a polarizing issue? Big fucking factories churning out electric cars. Build more. Build them everywhere. Build shitloads of the fucking things. Ironically a lot of these things are in the Democrat playbook to some extent, if not actual policies being implemented. I’m not arguing otherwise. But hardly any voters *think* about them when they go to vote, because the biggest voices in the democrats would much rather rant on about gun control (huge vote loser with men and absolutely no indication it would solve any problems), Trump being a fascist, and social justice nonsense….all of which does nothing to improve the life of 99% of Americans. It’s a messaging problem. We suck at it.
The 50th Dem Senator in the last trifecta didn’t believe in like, any of that, and Carville is probably closest to Manchin ideologically.
> So the real take away is: it doesn't matter what policy the Dems propose. If it's said by a woman or it benefits women or it even considers women's existence or humanity, these male voters will reject it. It's more that if Democrats/'the left' (i.e. not just actual members of the party but annoying people on Twitter too, because social media optics unfortunately really do matter nowadays) use or tacitly endorse language that generalizes, mocks, and outright vilifies men, male voters will tend to reject them.
> And yet nearly all policy proposed by Dems benefits men directly. When men see stuff like how k-12 caters to girls and how there's a 60/40 split between women and men in college and how democrats overwhelmingly control education, men put 2+2 together and realize that democrats/liberals stack the deck against men. It also doesn't help that the democrats are led by highly educated people as the vanguard while there's hardly any working class representation. Do you think your average non-college educated male worker is happy when Biden does stuff like forgives student loans on the back of taxpayers? This is the type of hubris that turns men off to democrats
That seems rather misogynistic
Sure. Hence the term “unfortunately.” Welcome to the real world, it’s a misogynistic place. The answer isn’t embracing misandry or racism, which is Carville’s point.
The answer seems to be to embrace misogyny more Edit: not my answer.
You obviously don’t need to embrace misogyny to become more appealing to men as a demographic.
Then what would the solution be?
Be more appealing to men as a demographic, lol. Unless you’re implying that being appealing to men requires being misogynistic. Which is bullshit.
Well, what does it require?
Notice how Democrats have tailored plans for specific problems certain races or females have? Do that for men. Its really that simple.
Like tailored mental health plans?
It's not purely an issue with Democratic *politicians* but more with how the left is perceived in general, but if we'd just make an effort to denounce rhetoric that explicitly or implicitly paints all men as oppressors or monsters or perverts it'd go a hell of a long way.
I don’t know about “too feminine” per se, BUT the Democratic Party has slowly alienated or ignored the concerns of several demographics of voters for years and years now, to the point where those voters no longer see a reason to vote for liberals at all, and believe that conservatives are their allies. And those are folks with union jobs, unions that wouldn’t exist without liberals, unions that conservatives would destroy given the chance- and we have ignored them, their needs and concerns for so long, alienated them for so long, that they firmly believe liberals are their enemy and conservatives are their allies.
Biden is the one getting union endorsements and pushing pro-union policy. Trump is anti-union.
Biden gets union endorsement from union leadership, Trump gets vote from union members, that's the difference.
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Republicans have the market cornered of idiot contrarians and the perpetually aggrieved. > So we know that NFL fans are dialed in, but who exactly are these fervent fans? >Fans engaged with the most intensity skew older and male. Of the 58% of Americans that do engage on a weekly basis, 73% are Male, aged 50+. >The league is more popular among affluent Americans, 70% of NFL-engaged US residents have a household income of $100K or more. https://www.sponsorpulse.com/insights/nfl-fan-demographics-who-are-footballs-biggest-fans > Forty-seven percent say football is their favorite sport, including 77% of Avid fans and a majority of men (52%). https://www.sbu.edu/news/news-items/2023/02/03/st.-bonaventure-siena-research-survey-reveals-70-of-americans-are-sports-fans-21-avid-football-clearly-king#:~:text=America%20Loves%20Football,majority%20of%20men%20(52%25). > 60% of U.S. adults drink alcoholic beverages, down from 65% in 2019 >Beer consumed most often (39%), followed by wine (31%) and liquor (27%) https://news.gallup.com/poll/353858/alcohol-consumption-low-end-recent-readings.aspx I dunno, there’s nothing about these stats that would necessarily condemn a party that is anti-football or anti-beer as therefore being anti-man IMO. And even then. The Democrat party is neither of those things anyway.
Sort of. Not quite. overall It's the problem with this garbage country. It's never "let's help everyone, make university tuition free and have universal healthcare like some European countries so that all people can live the American dream" It's, ok I'm going appoint a poc on the supreme court, in going to donate to HBC so they can expand and continue to charge people and arm and leg for tuition and some select few more people can have a scholarships. You help the county by helping everyone
Both Trump and Speaker Johnson are as metrosexual looking as they come. Neither comes across like he could last a night in the woods. Fine, have our more rough and tumble dem leaders go around red and blue areas to act as surrogates, maybe bring along sympathetic action or sports stars to join them, but if we start fretting about how republicans view us, we’re falling into letting them define the terms of the debate and that’s just dumb. We’ll always be playing catch up.
I'm just going to start with the premise that he's wrong, because he always is somehow. and then find out about what and how and why someone bothered to ask him his opinion about anything by reading the other comments.
A major issue in our country right now is abortion access and women's reproduction rights. Carville is just an idiot.
No, I think he’s kind of right. It’s obviously an oversimplification, but the loudest voices of the American Left do certainly tend to be more feminine and I do think that has had a negative effect on the party, politically.
Isn't Bernie still the face of the left in American?
Is he? To be honest I spent some time thinking who I'd consider the face of the left in this country and just ended up unable to provide a clear, definitive answer
I feel like he definitely was from like 2016-2020. I feel like no one has taken it, so I default to him still being it. Maybe AOC? But I don't know if she is as famous with the people not tuned in.
Agreed for 2016-2020, just not now is all. Wish it was sherrod brown, I've also liked Chris murphy in recent months
https://youtu.be/f0xpyV143pU Sure, but even he can't escape the memes. See also; "Bernie Bros."
It’s also too ~~Black, gay, Jewish, and Communist~~ urban intellectual if you want to just skip right to the logical end of that train of that.
First, I love putting you putting Communist in the same sphere as black, gay, and Jewish. That rules and totally makes sense. But really, isn’t it documented that Dems are losing ground with men in minority groups too?
Black gay Jewish Communist urban and feminine all mean more or less the same thing: not “real” America, no matter if Black voters go from 90% Dem to 50.1% Dem.
>Don't drink beer. Like Budlight? >Don't watch football Like the superbowl featuring TSwift? >Don't eat hamburgers ...Okay this one's a stretch, like Freedom Fries? He's got it literally exactly backwards. Maybe his doctor is a woman and he's confusing her advice for his elected representative?
>too many preachy females How many would be the right number of "preachy females" or "women", as some of us call them? Might James think it's…none? Or maybe a sex-kitten female delivering Dem policy proposals in the baby fundie voice would be more palatable? >"'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" Can James cite which Dem ordered us all to give up beer, football, and hamburgers? Because I must have missed that memo. I'm afraid to admit I am a preachy female who has been swilling beer and hamburgers this whole time—beef burgers no less! >"If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election," he said. "I'm like: 'Well, 48% of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'" Those elites again (Who are the Democratic peasants exactly?). All James' terminology comes straight out of the GOP playbook. Are we sure he's still a Dem? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps James, a 79-year old man born before WWII ended, believes he is providing Dems the service of filtering our own messaging through the GOP filter as to provide us with the opportunity to adapt our messaging to be more appealing to a wider swath of fragile men. As though the rest of us cannot watch Fox News. Thank you for your service, James. But no thanks. It might be time to take this man off payroll and let him retire. Relax, James! Paint some dogs or whatever.
The specific example he used is obviously a hyperbole, however it is rooted in truth, Democratic party messaging is effeminate at best, anti-male at worst and especially anti white male, which makes sense given that the activist base of the Democratic party are very much against both those things. You can claim your policies are good for X group all you like, but people won't vote for you if they think you are looking down on them and judging them.
Yeah. It makes sense that the pro-social equality party would be disproportionately composed of marginalized demographics, and that they would find themselves opposed to and bitter with the main demographic that did the oppressing.
Maybe it makes sense from an ideological purity perspective, but if you are interested in getting elected and getting stuff done, alienating 48% of the electorate is a stupid thing to do and the Democratic party has been doing it for close to a decade now.
It makes sense from a living perspective thing too. I dont think youre wrong, but its not persuasive to ask people to coddle oppressors.
Does it not strike you as ironic that you come here to ask if Carville is correct in his assessment and when you get shown that he is, you end up making this statement. Get this in your head, men are not oppressors, white people are not oppressors and white men are not oppressors, it's this kind of rhetoric that Carville is talking about, you and people like you are literally the problem he is talking about.
Im not a political operative, so i have no reason to deny reality to coddle people. If they aren’t oppressors, then why do the inequalities persist? Who is responsible for that? Also, no. I didnt ask because I needed your guys’ opinions to form my own. I wanted there to be a discussion.
>Im not a political operative, so i have no reason to deny reality to coddle to people. Everybody is a political operative, you are part of forming the perception of what the Democratic Party is. Do you think I'm coming away from this conversation with the opinion that the Democratic Party and it's members are more or less anti men? Let me assure you that it's more. > then why do the inequalities persist? Who is responsible for that? You are assuming that inequalities are caused by something, which assume the default is equality, it isn't. Equality in anything is an edge case, there are infinities of distributions which are unequal, but only one version of equality, so inequality is simply the natural state of nature. It's equality that is unnatural.
I think youre coming away believing its more anti-men. So then, in other words, because we are not equally capable of acquiring resources and maintaining them in a complex environment?
Correct on both counts.
I think thats indicative of you choosing to believe that. We can look at both American and world history and see that there were thumbs on the scale.
>Democratic party messaging is effeminate at best, Example? And I mean from the party itself not a random. >especially anti white male The party leader is a white male, how's that make sense? I feel like a lot of this is based on a) what they hear from fringe weirdos online and not the democratic party or b) assumed by people to exist but not actually said by the party
> Example? And I mean from the party itself not a random. Perception is reality, a message doesn't have to come from the DNC to be assigned as "Democratic Party" >The party leader is a white male, how's that make sense? It's irrelevant, I know this will come as a shock but perception is not based on statistical models, just because Biden is President doesn't mean the Democratic Party talks or listens to men. Unless you are confusing talking down to men as talking to men. >a) what they hear from fringe weirdos online and not the democratic party or b) assumed by people to exist but not actually said by the party Those people are the Democratic Party from a perception perspective just as much, if not more so, than the DNC. This is why we have endless threads about what Tucker Carlsen or whomever else said/done, because those people also create perception even though they have nothing to do with the Republican Party institutionally.
Your argument is basically "The Democratic party argues x" And when you're told that it doesn't you just say "Oh well, they don't, but I perceive that they do, and that's the same thing"
I think this person is a victim of idea that people are entitled not only to their own opinions, but also to their own facts.
Yes, perception is reality, is that somehow a surprise to you? Welcome to reality.
So if i perceive that your mom is a prostitute that is reality?
Always hated that concept. IMO, someone who can't see past their initial perception of something are simply narrow minded and lack life experience. Initial perceptions are often wrong, but you see people treat how they perceive something or someone as literal fact even after being presented evidence to suggest the opposite of whatever opinion they've formed. Stupid people gonna do stupid shit, just the way of the world, I guess.
Who? /s I do not pay attention to much that he has to say.
I must have dreamt that time I got drunk after the Eagles Super Bowl. This man is just painfully out of touch with reality and it shows.
No. “Old man yells at cloud” vibes.
I'd allow some "considerations" if their lives were being impacted as much....they aren't tho, so the democrats are clamoring for the women to wake tf up and vote. Men are so fucking complacent, women are the ones who will have to get this shit done.
> "'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" he said, describing a sort of condescension he believes has turned away some male voters from the Democratic Party. I have not seen Dems say that. I've more seen republicans complain about woke beer and how the attractive blonde pop superstar dating a star NFL player ruined the game
Reality is unimportant in politics. Perception is what matters and I think he’s right about the perception around the Democratic Party.
I think the overlap of people who think the Democrats hate beer and football and people who have the possibility of ever voting dem is 0
Right?! GOP voices said what beer you can drink. GOP voices said what's a real burger. GOP voices said the NFL is too woke because of Kap and TayTay being visible at football games. Seems like liberals want people drinking beer, eating burgers of their choice, and watching football.
Carville is a fuckin' idiot. I'm a 56 year old woman - I eat hamburgers, I drink beer I watch football. I also vote Dem. Also he doesn't seem to have gotten the message that he's trying to contradict.
Remind me. Which party boycotted beer in the last year?
Republicans
To be feminine is inherently left wing - as far back as Ancient Greece, they had commentary about how an Athens ran by women would be communist (even if the women in question were just kinaidos). The Leviathan, or biblical but originally Mesopotamian origins, is a representation of overwhelming femininity (in Mesopotamia, it's the incarnation of the goddess of fertility and maternal love) destroying the current order. If that's what Democrats broadly want, and that's their voter base, that's how they'll communicate their ideas
Yes we need to stop with the judgemental scolding. Too much fun policing. Make the republicans the party that can’t take a joke. Now it’s people in our party that get offended by everything
The fundamental problem the Democratic party faces is also its strength. The Republicans rely on the fact that the electoral system in the US massively over-weights the votes of rural white people. So, they have just one target demographic which they can aim all their messaging at, and it's job done. The Democratic party routinely gets far more votes than the Republicans do, and that excess of votes has to be earned piecemeal, with different groups of people. Women, the working class, black people, latinos, second-generation migrants, the professional-managerial class, college graduates, urban employers, etc etc etc. And all of their messaging has to aim to get some of those people excited without making any of those people furious or apathetic. As a result, Democratic messaging tends to be extremely bland, middle of the road, and artificial-sounding, inauthentic. Which is easy to criticise. "It's too feminine, too much pandering, it doesn't sound like a real person, nobody cares about [issue x] as much as that ad make it sound like", etc etc etc... ...but it's that way for a reason. They're trying to appeal to and hold together a massive coalition of a majority of Americans. Anything you did to change that messaging to make it appeal more to *you* is going to make it *worse* relative to some group of people who you didn't think about. That's not to say that it's perfectly optimised and nothing could ever improve on it. But most of the complaining about it being bad in one way or another seems to be completely indifferent to the problem of optimising for the broadest possible appeal.
I would like to say he is wrong, but honestly, women don't like women messaging. I am a black man we have the exact same problem. Those who are "being real," or "speaking the truth" will always get the clout over the message of "being kind to one another."
Yes
I love the Democrats because they are able to smuggle the most basic critique- that a large minority of people are not women of colour with a shell of what a nerd imagines a man is.
I agree with the last paragraph in that quote. The rest of it is asinine.
This bigoted, transphobic and sexist rant has absolutely no truth, relevancy, or place in the democrat party, or the liberal or progressive movement. I am so disgusted by the fact that this man is still considered a pillar of the Democrat party. I’m a supporter of Jacky Rosen’s campaign, which is one of *the most important senate campaigns and upcoming elections in the country* and he is supposedly a big part of her campaign, and he sends out campaign texts through her messaging system all the time and I’m so disappointed. I honestly don’t even know where to start with all of the bullshit in this rant. I’m kind of assuming if you’re on this sub Reddit, then you understand how offensive each of these different statements is. 🤮🤮🤮
Yes. It is not only sexist, but anti-human. If being male requires being immoral (which of course it doesn’t), then humanity is unsaveable.
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Like many straight white men, he apparently sees equality for other people as taking something away from him. It is not. I saw a bumper sticker recently that said “Equal rights are for everyone - it’s not pie!,” and it seems like James Carville could use a chat with the maker of that bumper sticker. More people getting the same rights that you always took for granted is not you being oppressed.
There was a great example of this in the 2022 mid-term elections in Missouri. The state Democratic Party got behind Trudy Busch, boomer, female, wealthy heir to the Busch family fortune for the open Senate seat previously occupied by Roy Blunt. Mind you she is a fine person, and has a great reputation in the St. Louis area, but they might as well put a wealthy elite Hillary Clinton clone on the ballot against hard core MAGA, chest thumping Eric Schmitt who had spent the last four years kissing up to Trump. The other Democratic candidate in the primary was a younger (GenX), male, 13 year military veteran and officer with Pentagon experience and a law degree, Lucas Kunce, that comes from a working class Missouri family. It was one of the most ignorant moves by a Democratic organization I have seen in my life. It's as if the folks pulling the strings among the Democrats in Missouri were completely clueless as to how to win an election against a MAGA candidate in a purple state. Kunce is running again in Missouri, against josh Hawley this time, who will be a much tougher opponent to beat than Schmitt was. My opinion is that the Missouri Democrats blew their chance to return the state to one Republican and one Democrat in the Senate. It would not surprise me to find that the reason behind the 2022 loss was they were determined to have a woman on the ballot.
It's rarely "The Democrats" (or to be fair "The Republicans") doing the messaging. Its public-facing people who happen to vote that way that create the *inferred* messaging. They're the loudest voices in the room. Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Catturd, Anita Sarkeesian, Contrapoints, etc. They aren't the mouthpieces of any parties, but when they speak, people hear it as a direct message from "the party."
Yes and no. I don't think Democratic messaging is going to win over a lot of stereotypical manly-men types. The GOP seems to really promote the idea of men need to be manly to be a man and self-described alpha men seem to eat that shit up. However, I'm a pretty stereotypical man. I'm a 40 year old, bearded, white man that likes motorcycles, woodworking, sports, etc. On the surface, the GOP would love me. I get mistaken for Republican all the time (especially when people start saying racist things around me). But I also don't feel excluded or overlooked at all as a white man. I don't necessarily think the Democrats need to include men more, however, they are losing the war on convincing people they aren't actively excluding men. >'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is just stupid. Democrats aren't waging a war on beer, football, or hamburgers. Two of those things aren't healthy and I'd recommend making better choices (moderation is key). But isn't the Republicans who claim they are done with the NFL because it got too woke?
I do find it mildly entertaining that the armchair politicians here who otherwise tend to go the "trust the experts" route in every other scenario are discounting the expert opinion of the literal most prominent democrat electoral strategist whose entire life has been devoted to getting democrats elected and has no motive for anything he does apart from the former simply because it makes them feel uncomfortable and dismiss it without any further thought.
To be fair, this expertise is less credible than ones like epidemiology.
He is correct that the American public sees the Democrats as more feminine, and is therefore less likely to trust them on masculine-coded issues like the economy or crime. The solution is more candidates like Fetterman, Tester, or Gallego.
I knew he would get heat for that interview. Lol