The challenge facing Democrats is deeper than simply finding the right words and phrases. To win back the heart and soul of America, Democrats must retell the four basic stories that have defined and animated the United States since its founding. - ThreadSky

rbreich.bsky.social • 133 days ago

The challenge facing Democrats is deeper than simply finding the right words and phrases.

To win back the heart and soul of America, Democrats must retell the four basic stories that have defined and animated the United States since its founding.

Comments

excalibre2030.bsky.social•133 days ago

We were warned, and now, it may be too late.

We told our 'basic stories'.

They were mocked and vilified.

That's because we're up against an axis of transnational evil that embraces global fascism.

And, in the USA, fascism won.

Because the 'right words and phrases' no longer matter.

catskillowl.bsky.social•132 days ago

📌

wildflower-farm.bsky.social•133 days ago

Nope. What they must do is NOTHING. Let this situation become as painful as possible. Then they run in 2 years on "they cut your social security and snap benefits, we will give them back."

wefailedcivics.bsky.social•133 days ago

Controlling the narrative is one of the most important perogatives of power, and Trump is a master of it.

samwisela.bsky.social•133 days ago

The question is, if he had an opportunity to cheat, would he? Of course he would. Why don’t we deal with him that way? We are pathetic, the numbers don’t make sense and we’re just shrugging???!!! America has jumped the shark. Time to get out, like our ancestors did, to have a better life.

momoduff.bsky.social•133 days ago

The Democrats have a messaging problem for sure. How is it that the Republicans get people to vote against their own self interest? Poor education in civics? Poor messaging?

excalibre2030.bsky.social•133 days ago

.

Poor education and poor messaging are only part of The Problem.

Those factors, as intended, only make us more vulnerable to the Real Culprits.

Blame the Transnational Axis of Evil and the fascist national governments they spawn.

#resist

joedelaplaine.bsky.social•133 days ago

we (the 300 million+ working class) are kicking the #DemocraticParty "leaders" to the curb because it's *always* been a one-sided, exploitive relationship & we're better without the capitalists. we'll run things for & by ourselves without the parasitic bosses, thank you. https://wefightback2025.org

nonotever.bsky.social•132 days ago

The actual challenge is far worse than Trump. Here's the real threat: Christian Nationalism. They have a plan to destroy the constitution and it's all in the documentary "Bad Faith" (on Prime and Peacock now). It's horrifying.
https://www.badfaithdocumentary.com/

daveed13.bsky.social•133 days ago

Make sanity normal again!

kilocharlie237.bsky.social•133 days ago

A segment of white people who have a certain value system & view of themselves & America in a particular form are afraid of losing control of that. That's how they define themselves as flawed as it is. They ain't backing down on that. Forget democracy. White tribalism is what matters at this point.

stevesawyer12.bsky.social•133 days ago

📌

joanstarr.bsky.social•133 days ago

We also have to learn to #listen as much as (or more than) we tell, retell, share, talk, etc.

eviedp.bsky.social•133 days ago

I hope folks realize the schmuck and his cohorts are as horrible and inept as we think and in 2 years cripple the schmuck when we take back congress and the senate.

proudlib007.bsky.social•133 days ago

It's time for the democrats to retire the old establishment and develope the next generation. I believe leaders such AOC are the future we need right now.

gretasmom.bsky.social•133 days ago

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around-does it make noise?… same issue with this argument. No matter the message, if trump, the GOP, and ultra rich own the main media streams - there is no dem messaging. The messaging is not the problem- honest reporting is

pierrepma.bsky.social•133 days ago

📌

keepcalmandresist.bsky.social•133 days ago

Footnote: See Biden administration 2020 thru 2024.

doc0120.bsky.social•133 days ago

The dnc hss lost me forever. First off, where TF are they? A three month Vacay?

I will only vote progressive now. I dont care how much " vote blue no matter who or get hitler" they regurgitate at me.

dickritchie.bsky.social•133 days ago

Robert do you think most Americans actually care? It's clear our values as a country have long since tread upon what our founders intended.

hazdaz.bsky.social•133 days ago

- Universal Healthcare.

- Low cost tuition.

- Shift the tax burden onto corporations and wealthy.

- Promote domestic industries, such as manufacturing, which gave previous generations a way to move up in the world.

Focus on these things, or continue to lose.

pamela196.bsky.social•133 days ago

I don’t know if Democrats can win me back at this point, but I really have no one else to vote for. 😕

cottagedweller.bsky.social•133 days ago

I don’t think it is fair to say the Dems stopped telling the stories. It’s more like citizens stopped listening or caring.

cottagedweller.bsky.social•133 days ago

And sucking up to Elon is not a good place to start.

moderatelyangry.bsky.social•133 days ago

They also should realize the vast majority of Americans are willfully ignorant with a chip on their shoulder. So each message needs to be like ten seconds, loud, and geared towards sounding like it will benefit them personally.

screamingsarcasm.bsky.social•133 days ago

Dems ignored or outright rejected too many bold proposals, leaning ever further to the right. Stop trying to out-Republican the GOP. I don't agree with everything the farther left believes, but at least they have a vision and don't just call for change when it's politically safe to do so.

gtbtr.bsky.social•133 days ago

They need to abandon corporate sponsorship.

I want to vote for poor people that worked hard jobs and endorse UBI and universal healthcare.

We want representatives that understand the real problems we face and don't cave to the corporate donor censorship of beneficial social support.

drbirdeye.bsky.social•133 days ago

I think Democrats have to embrace the idea of a smaller federal government.
It has become way too big, and our fellow citizens dislike it.

cottagedweller.bsky.social•133 days ago

Not when it works for them. Right now it doesn’t. Was getting better but RW liars squashed that now. We need consistency, ie Dems in control of Hill and Exec branch for multiple terms in order to make a visible, lasting difference. Americans are slow to catch on. Ping pong elections aren’t working.

sisterunity.bsky.social•133 days ago

My dear friend, to win back America Democrats need to undo the mechanisms of cheating that the GOP & Russia have inflicted upon us for almost a decade now.

highdesertbob.bsky.social•133 days ago

The Democratic Party needs Ben Wickler to run things. He turned Wusconsin into a player up and down the ticket. We need a complete 50 state strategy like Howard Dean promoted and what Ben Wickler wants. Down ballot candidates are equally important as those at the top of the ticket.

geekythinker.com•133 days ago

THANK you for a thoughtful and detailed response on how we need to frame things going forward!

You did touch on the Billionaire class some but it likely needs more of an underscore.

naeemsiddiqi.bsky.social•133 days ago

Its not the parties. Its the system that has essentially pawns funded, owned and ran by billionaires on both sides. Bernie was an exception.

thefool37.bsky.social•133 days ago

To win they have to go on serious offense and explain the outrageous things that are going on on the Republican side. And they have to say it like they really, really mean it.

keramy.bsky.social•132 days ago

Actually the democrats need to put on the boxing gloves!!

michiganchris.bsky.social•133 days ago

I think you're a step or two ahead of yourself here.

First and foremost the Democratic party is going to have to win back its own voters.

latinbishop.bsky.social•133 days ago

If you loose twice to a tyrant you have a deeper problem

louissamuel.bsky.social•133 days ago

Or, hear me out now, the democrats stop offering and start doing? How's that for an option?

richjvann.bsky.social•132 days ago

Top goal should be defeating the masterfully successful divide-and-conquer strategy of the ruling class. There are a couple of causes we and a lot of *rump voters agree on - singular focus on those while listening to other viewpoints will bring the required unity to win.

mdmcmanis.bsky.social•133 days ago

I will not support any candidate that does not support Medicare for all.

70goodtrouble.bsky.social•133 days ago

Democrats need to point out that the billionaires are taking over in destroying democracy. They’re gonna dismantle all of the benefits we have contributed to and they are going to privatize everything for their profits. Be mad at the one percent not the poor people in our fields.

pasto76.bsky.social•133 days ago

The challenge facing us is for 2 years conservatives and billionaires have also un restricted ability to do whatever they want, and a supreme Court to back it.
We literally might never have a chance to right this for 50 years

thatajthompson.bsky.social•133 days ago

How about investigating all the purges and outright fraud that just occurred?

d1saffected.bsky.social•133 days ago

you’re awesome, but this era reveals a lacking in the population.

chrispyle.bsky.social•133 days ago

Unfortunately people need to fall on hard times in order to get them to pull their heads out.

elgrb.bsky.social•133 days ago

If Americans had “hearts and souls” and more importantly BRAINS, they would’ve figured out that the US had one of the lowest post Covid inflation rates and that having a democracy is more important than the cost of gas and their excess consumerism. They got the fascist president they deserved.

addicusadam.bsky.social•133 days ago

The problem now is that in the next 4 years, IF the Democrats win, there's a very real possibility Trump is going to declare martial law, and not give up his seat, or pull a North Carolina, and simply ignore the outcome of the election, and remain in power anyway.

queenlindaxxx.bsky.social•133 days ago

Maybe the MSM not lying would help.

michal69.bsky.social•133 days ago

The message could be better, but they won't hear it anyway because fox news won't air it or will lie about it.

antonshadow.bsky.social•133 days ago

The GOP Have Lowered Education Levels So Badly Across The USA, You Literally Have To Use 1st Grade Reading Levels To Even Get Their Attention.

infobro.bsky.social•133 days ago

Wrong!!! Dems needed too tell the truth then and tell the truth how they improved the economy’s and the working class!!!! Win the hearts? Excuses!!! Dems should be shouting out the truth, not the lies of rump. Voted their pocket books? Then they should have voted against greedy Corporations!

camofarc.bsky.social•133 days ago

I have to thoughtfully consider at length the "four stories" narrative., and I will. For now, let me just reply that for me this statement has huge explanatory powers:

srrussell.bsky.social•133 days ago

And tell them in the languages of the people including the dialects of those with 6th grade English.

frogsintrees.bsky.social•131 days ago

They have to go back to the electoral college, trickle down ,citizen united. It will also involve Nixon, Gore and the truth that we have always had a king.Now! We have a king with immunity.🤣 Not new. No man is above the law 😂

cacaodivine.bsky.social•132 days ago

Robert, you say it so well, thank you

polkabone.bsky.social•133 days ago

How about we point the finger at the electorate and ask them why they are so ignorant about government and social affairs? Democrats could have said all of the right things at the right time during this cycle and they still would have lost because Americans are either uniformed or misinformed.

ruviewer.bsky.social•133 days ago

They are actively being disinformed

mjofla.bsky.social•133 days ago

Run on Medicare For All will do it.

cottagedweller.bsky.social•133 days ago

It didn’t before. The evil ones convinced citizens that the government was going to take something away from them, ie 'for profit' crappy health ins, remember?

mjofla.bsky.social•133 days ago

It's eight years later. I've personally convinced any anti m4a person I know to be pro m4a. Good work out there on your part.

floydhaas.bsky.social•133 days ago

Here's what elected democrats need to do...
Stop ALL MAGA bills, etc.
Vote No, FILIBUSTER and file lawsuits with Liberal Judges to stop EVERYTHING.
Top Priority...
No cuts to social programs!
NOT ONE DIME IN TAX CUTS TO THE RICH!
#NotOne

aiteall.bsky.social•133 days ago

But..."it's the economy, stupid" ....DNC Dems basically accept the neo-liberal Economics mindset that drives the oligarchs around Trump.

texarcana91.bsky.social•133 days ago

Maybe it isn't partisan. Since the GOP is the Trump party, democrats must be the 99% party.
Shouldn't be hard but I'm sure they'll find a way to be incompetent

4realtatica.bsky.social•132 days ago

Why does having a kind, civil, helpful community have to be political at all?

bubbawny69.bsky.social•133 days ago

yes. we must tell stories. that's it. not elect people with honor education determination courage truth and morality. let's tell stories. that's it.

bubbawny69.bsky.social•133 days ago

what ever happened to electing good people who are held to account to represent the voters on main street?

bubbawny69.bsky.social•133 days ago

sorry. just tired of this bullshit. we need strong fighters like katie porter and doe the geriatric crowd like schumer to step aside.

bubbawny69.bsky.social•133 days ago

ditch the geriatric

stingleword.bsky.social•133 days ago

It's time for a fifth story, the story of the Gilded Age, Great Depression, and New Deal.

Because labor is as essential to American freedom as the constitution.

jennifereccles.bsky.social•133 days ago

"We live in a gerrymandered nation twisted into extremism by one side as eager to warp the map as they are to protect their ill-won gains. And every time you think it can’t get worse, or harder to overcome, Johnson’s mistruths suggest that it very much still can."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/12/republican-majority-gerrymandering?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

lordabaddon.bsky.social•133 days ago

The Pres, Dems, and real GOP working with the Pentagon, FBI, Homeland should now declare MAGA a domestic terrorist organization under the US Patriot Act. Trump, Greene, all of them should be arrested. We are on the verge of falling like the Weimar Republic when they let the Nazis take power.

eviedp.bsky.social•133 days ago

The whole republican party has been a hate group for years.

lordabaddon.bsky.social•133 days ago

It shifted under Reagan and became radicalized with the Gingrich Congress and the Tea Party. There were a lot of Republicans who weren’t filled with hate at one point, but the shift minimized them. And sadly like Democrats they did nothing afraid of their cash cows.

dreadpiratepat.bsky.social•133 days ago

Now were cooking with gas! The Devil is in the details.

gr33ngrl.bsky.social•133 days ago

📌

upperstrength.bsky.social•133 days ago

💙

dthomas2914.bsky.social•133 days ago

VP Walz said it best, and we should grasp that slogan "Mind Your Own Business."

kevinshirley.bsky.social•133 days ago

Excellent analysis. Your discussion of the four stories crystallizes what so many of us have watched unfold over the course of our voting lives. Kudos sir.

janlibby.bsky.social•133 days ago

And make sure those 4 stories are delivered via memes and short video clips because nobody's going to take the time to read a plan, listen to a speech or click a link to a long complicated article.

taoskier.bsky.social•133 days ago

I think they mainly need to stop the asinine PC stuff. It’s so easy to make fun of. Focus on gov’t single-payer health, stuff like that. Forget whether your sentence is gender neutral or not.

stand7.bsky.social•132 days ago

📌

albertagirl67.bsky.social•133 days ago

As an outside observer of the US might I suggest that if retelling the stories tell them with the hard truth, not fantasy. The US has Trump as its president because of clinging to a fantasy of what the US is. It looks like the next story will be the end of an empire.

lpetrich.bsky.social•133 days ago

Here are those stories:
- The Triumphant Individual
- The Benevolent Community
- The Mob at the Gates
- The Rot at the Top

lpetrich.bsky.social•133 days ago

In progressive messaging, it’s hard to compete with AOC. She’s emphasized the 2nd & 4th ones, with a bit of the 1st one, & hardly any of the 3rd one.

Consider her campaign against Joe Crowley, & her portrayal of the Green New Deal, “A Message from the Future” (YouTube)

lclittlelies.bsky.social•133 days ago

I believe Trump and Elon will go too far and turn the people against them. Cutting Social Security received by our elderly loved ones will be the first bad choice they will make.

cjcarpenter.bsky.social•133 days ago

I don't think so. You're not going to get the Republicans to confront reality until you get them to confront one another. How to do that? So far, every conservative that was ready to deny Trumpism has either given up of been pushed out.

frenchieorleans.bsky.social•133 days ago

Citizens United wrecked our country.

scullyfu.bsky.social•133 days ago

SCOTUS wrecked our country.

zimjay.bsky.social•133 days ago

Undo decades of teevee brainwashing
Sure

nfpnone.bsky.social•132 days ago

The key to our governing system is the States assembled as the Established Government Authority, a democracy of the States as the Union assembled in a congress, that union then establishes all other departments of necessary to manage the general affairs of the United States under their direction!

nfpnone.bsky.social•132 days ago

You can’t possibly believe that the governing system established by the Constitution of the United States is this susceptible to influence and corruption to the point we can elect even a Hitler and there would be nothing we could do about it!

https://gofund.me/42cb52fb

nonotever.bsky.social•132 days ago

Oh no. Watch this. Worse than Hitler.
https://www.badfaithdocumentary.com/

nfpnone.bsky.social•132 days ago

You need help, because you are making the same mistakes that all lawyers, and the legal system as a whole is making, and that is a dependency on precedence, which is no more than copying off someone else’s paper with the lack of context to judge the merits of those arguments!

https://gofund.me/42cb52fb

nfpnone.bsky.social•132 days ago

You need to someone to help you, we must end the Party Governing Era, not perpetuate that bastardized system and its politics, as politics is the mischief of factions which is controlled by the Republican Principle to prevent the spread of the influence of political parties!
https://youtu.be/xnmpRAs3gAs?si=WKskJboL57M4NiP2

nfpnone.bsky.social•132 days ago

Political parties are killing our democracy, which is the assembly of the States as equals with equal suffrage in the Senate, where the states must guard their independent representation and suffrage against improper consolidation to form a simple republic!

https://youtu.be/4bMC9NXsMwQ?si=d4RgwUSGbwU5X6bZ

nfpnone.bsky.social•133 days ago

There is no challenge facing democrats, or republicans, we as a society are facing a challenge of braking our dependence on political factions to allow the democratic process to function properly unfettered, because if you haven’t noticed the two party system is a failure.

https://youtu.be/4bMC9NXsMwQ?si=UphgUJJR4bgWdtHP

djmdtrump.bsky.social•133 days ago

I have to disagree.

Democrats need to directly address the two things that concern all Americans:

1. Financial security
2. Physical security

And they need to stop blowing vast sums of money preaching to the choir. 89 million eligible voters did not vote. Democrats need to address that yesterday.

leevangoodgrief.bsky.social•133 days ago

We couldn’t even explain to ignorant assholes how re-electing the traitor who sicced a mob on the US Capitol would be a bad idea. What possible story is there that we can tell people like that?

janetmckennalowry.bsky.social•133 days ago

@tadstoermer.bsky.social I so want to hear your take on this.

tadstoermer.bsky.social•133 days ago

My issue is that I don’t care what the Democrats do. To even assume that it’s Rs vs Ds, and that’s the whole ballgame, is to perpetuate the toxicity of those stories without even interrogating them. We need to remake what “American” means, root and branch, outside of Reich’s zero sum game.

janetmckennalowry.bsky.social•133 days ago

Oooooo, I really like the sound of that.

evolvegracefully.bsky.social•129 days ago

I do not think the Democrats have lost the heart of America
#TrumpCheated
And we have had no
#ForensicRecount
or Vote recount at a large level that I know of !

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