[syllogism]

Carville (DNC strategist) is advocating a "play dead" strategy. Let Trump implode so that he owns the inevitable failure. His base will desperately want to blame the left for not letting the policies work as intended. The less the Democrats do, the harder that is. I think a lot of Democrat politicians are going this way, and it's why Schumer rolled over on the budget.

Part of the logic here is that Trump is indeed different from other authoritarians. He's even less competent. He's blowing all his political capital on imploding the economy. He also can't understand the legal battles, so when Stephen Miller tells him they won the Supreme Court case 9-0, he believes him. This seems to have been a big wake-up call to Gorsuch, Coney-Barrett and Kavanaugh. The administration has shown its hand much too quickly, before it fully consolidated its power.

What the Democrats should be doing already is campaigning more. Run ads that are literally just Trump quotes. Show people Trump calling January the "Trump economy" before inauguration, then calling April the "Biden economy" now that he's crashed it. If Trump polls low enough, more senators will jump ship, and impeachment could be possible.

[xracy]

The dumb thing about this, is that the republicans are going to blame democrats whether or not they do anything. Play dead is a really dumb idea because it looks exactly like the rest of the democratic do-nothing strategies.

Someone needs to stop listening to Carville. Every time I see/hear him I am reminded of everything wrong with the DNC. They don't even pretend like they want to fight for people's rights. That's not gonna win them any elections. I would argue the reason they lost the election was for how little they actually promised they would do beyond "maintain the status quo".

[Waterluvian]

Not just campaigning. Resourcing. By now (by 8 years ago, to be !@#$ing honest) there should be a very clean, crisp website that's a searchable list of topics/talking points, with immediately available videos, audios, screenshots of Trump contradicting himself, along with links to easily digestible facts.

This alone will never convince anyone of anything who isn't already convinced. But as an absolute minimum, it should be effortless for anyone to demonstrate his lack of ideology every single time he speaks about how he's always/never supported something.

Maybe we could even educate "journalists" and the media on its existence so they can do more than "agree to disagree" whenever they talk about things.

[dgfitz]

> Carville (DNC strategist) is advocating a "play dead" strategy.

Our tax money hard at work. What a fucking joke.

[verzali]

Do American parties get tax money to spend on strategists?

[fuzzfactor]

There's no playing. It's real. Flatlined a long time ago.

They need to rise from the dead.

And it needed to be done way before Trump got elected the first time.

What were people thinking then, and why haven't they gotten off their butts yet?

[anigbrowl]

This is so easy to counter though.

1. Just make stuff up, MAGA and stupid people will believe it. For example, there are so may AI-generated political videos on Youtube that resemble Facebook boomer posts, with completely fake stories about some conservative figure getting the best of a liberal '...and then everybody clapped'. Even when it says in the description that the story is fictional, there are often hundreds of approving MAGA comments. (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM_ylQmJIHo )

2. Say the Democrats subverted something. Example, blaming judges or deriding DOJ lawyers who admitted the government deported someone by mistake as 'Democrat plants'.

3. Castigate the Dems for not actively supporting the President and imply they created a morale crisis.

I don't think many GOP senators are going to jump ship because they are afraid of MAGA people on a personal level. They are more afraid of being branded as traitors and putting their family in danger than they are of losing re-election.

[techdmn]

This might be a crazy idea, but they could also try advancing policies their constituents care about.

[specialist]

Yes but...

> Run ads that are literally just Trump quotes.

TIL cliché "Democrats buy ads, Republicans buy stations."

I mosdef 100% utterly agree Dems should campaign more.

It's just that... Per the entire duration of the Biden Admin and post mortems of 2024 election, voters barely hear any Dem messaging. So I question the ROI on buying ads.

Like most others fretting from the sidelines (I'm still recovering from activist burnout, sorry), I have no idea how Dems, and "The Left" more broadly, can connect with voters.

AOC & Bernie's nationwide tour is doing a good job. A good start.

Insert something here about embracing social media(s).

Insert something here about owning our own media ecosystem.

Insert something here about loudly and proudly pivoting away from neoliberalism into full throated support for our working class(es).

Blah, blah, blah building and nurturing a movement.

Etc.

Please share any tips, ideas you have. TIA.