Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
Really? One of the major left criticisms of the Democratic Party is exactly that it doesn't publicize it's accomplishments.

For example (read a couple pages):
https://books.google.com/books?id=oi...page&q&f=false
I will take a read, maybe my perception is incorrect.

Uh, the ACA? I think you may be talking about something else. You're not referring to how Democrats advertise/message their record in government, but on their framing of tentpole priorities in elections?
The ACA can be said to be an improvement in the sense that more people are now covered under private health insurance...but as far getting to end goal, this ended up being a terrible waste of effort. Midterm backlash, catering to private insurance companies, lack of public option. Then the inevitable sabotage from SCOTUS (either that or Robert's had to toss the whole thing) which allowed much of the Medicaid expansion to be withheld by GOP Governors. Then the GOP removed the mandate which was one of the key components of the policy, and basically tinkered with the requirements for coverage to the point where I don't know how well of a metric insurance coverage even is anymore.

Yeah I think I am more talking about priorities. It's not so much "let's upgrade department infrastructure and increase R&D to maintain competitive advantages" it's "we need to dismantle entire systems and we promise that the replacement will be better". Whether or not you actually agree the gov can and will do some things better, it feels like Dems are always asking for these priorities and big issues to be accepted on faith that execution will go well.


Incremental improvements.
But improvements could have been much better and less costly to achieve, I think.


That's why one priority is reestablishing labor militancy, since labor is both a major component of people's lives and a locus of the expression of power in real-time.
What does leftist theory say about the acceptance of militarist mentality among manufacturing vs service vs other types of jobs.


Well, I'm not sure there have been many socialist candidates trying to run in rural areas. The bench isn't exactly unlimited or evenly spread across the country, so putative electoral support isn't the only limiting factor. Here's a relevant article.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/onli...-rural-america

The most important thing is not to run a shitty campaign (e.g. Eliot Engel), after that your program or ideology is almost an afterthought. On the local level retail politics and institutional cooperation (e,g. endorsements) is key.
I think that could be said on any level. Bernie certainly could have used some of the endorsements he threw away. I'm not a campaign manager, but to my eyes it seems it comes down to voter engagement and turnout, at least for a purple/swing district. Finding friends in the establishment is probably the way to go for NYC where a single party is dominant.