r/neoliberal announces it will permanently ban anyone who suggests the Democrats should focus more on economics and less on gender politics

I have long believed that libertarian arguments for socially liberal positions are better (or more broadly convincing) than progressive ones, and this really seems to have manifested.

Obviously we care about these groups.

But our narratives suck.

So many posts about "As a white male, I'm voting to protect my queer mixed race niece!"

We need to make white males understand our policies are better for them too. Because they are.

When people think they're voting dem only to protect some niche group, dems aren't going to win elections.

So many posts about "As a white male, I'm voting to protect my queer mixed race niece!"

For real. That screams "yeah we know voting democrat is for gays and women but you can be one of the good ones!"

democrats should become republicans in order to gain republican votes

Homie, we lost the popular vote.

Sure. But we didn't in 2020 and the policies weren't all that different.

My hypothesis is that it's probably low turnout, inflation and sexism

There was a once in a century pandemic to help out.

This was a relatively normal 2016 election, and we couldn't take it.

Not only did we not take it this election, kamala lost 10 million voters.

Let's be real here fam, we didn't have a primary, we gave the nomination to a person who didn't win a single delegate and was literally the first person to drop out of the race in 2020.

The hubris is what lost this.

we can't keep calling the rest of country "fringe" when we're clearly the minority here, we're the fringe at this point, and we need to figure out where the middle is.

Us refusing to do that work is killing us.

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We lost because of the economy, immigration, and crime, first and foremost, plus Biden's age, the general democratic shift to the left, and so on. Dems can triangulate massively on the stuff that actually moves voters, without also taking the weird move of hating on trans people, since trans stuff doesn't even seem like a particularly salient issue politically

The way Republicans used social issues (including trans rights) is to imply that Democrats are out-of-touch weirdos who care more about their social issues than they do about crime or the economy. That's the vibe all those nasty "Kamala is for gender-affirmation surgeries for prisoners" commercials gave. Not just that it's bad that Dems are trans allies, but that they'll spend taxpayer money on trans prisoners.

Here's an article about this ad campaign: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-goes-harris-anti-trans-ads-football-games-rcna174354

Although now I'm sure if we can even discuss this. Which seems odd, because both campaigns are discussing it.

The "for prisoners, paid for by the government" was probably worse than the fact that it was gender-affirming care. People do not like the government doing expensive things for prisoners.

The gay rights movement was very successful at actually convincing people and winning, and I'm confident that democrats and liberals can emulate that and figure out better ways to appeal to the general public on trans issues in ways that are still standing up for trans rights rather than throwing them under the bus. If anything, I figure this might be one of the few areas where Dems/liberals don't need to really concede at all on policy

I'm a staunch believer that Dems and liberals need to triangulate massively in general, but it is sad to see folks turn to trans people for that, rather than looking to other areas like trying to purge defund the police, socialism, abolish ice, and stuff like that

While democrats did lead the gay rights charge they did not run nationally on things like marriage equality til after it was settled law and public opinion shifted. 2008 Obama did not support gay marriage.

Gay marriage lost in California in 2008 (prop 8). This year adding gay marriage protection to the CA constitution passed with 61% support. In 2008 only 48% supported it even in California. Progress is slow, much slower than we'd like.

I think it's possibly the best option for trans people, not just democrats, for the national democrats to moderate their language during the campaign (heck just say it's an issue that should be decided by the states) while privately supporting trans rights while in office and blocking Republican legislation that hurts them.

Democrats should also publicly eschew the abolish police/ice movement, the reparations movement, and other radical left policies. The Democrats need to tweak multiple things so that not only can they win the presidency but get a trifecta. Democrats keep failing to deliver on their campaign promises because they don't have a trifecta (plus the senate filibuster) which leads to people being disillusioned with the party and staying home.