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Part of the problem? Drew Magary argues they care way too much about what Republicans think.

Yesterday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put out a bunch of limp potential slogans for their would-be takeover of Congress in 2018, and Twitter summarily took them to the woodshed for it. One glance at the options presented and you can tell that tell that the committee spent hundreds of man-hours and enormous sums of money just to throw RESIST & PERSIST into an online poll. You would think that after losing to Donald Trump, and then getting subsequently beaten in five special elections after the fact, that the Democratic party would re-evaluate both its ideals and its leadership. Instead, they decided to put their mental energy into bumper stickers.

Democrats have been relatively clueless since the day I was born. Lewis Black once said that America is ruled by a party of bad ideas and a party of no ideas, and that more or less holds true in 2017. Given the demonstrable evils of the Republican party, Democrats SHOULD win back Congress in 2018. A literal cadaver ought to be able to siphon votes away from those shitbags. But then again, Democrats should have beaten Trump as well, which means that the political hopes of a majority of Americans currently resides in the hands of a party that has all the strategic acumen of Elmer Fudd and, even worse, still doesnt realize its shortcomings.

I dont like grousing about this. For all of the Democrats obliviousness, theyre still a far superior option to the party that wants to burn poor people for fossil fuels, and I dont wanna be one of those Weird Twitter assholes who spends all day calling Hillary a bitch. But every day that Trump remains in power does lasting, perhaps irreversible damage to both the country and the greater solar system, and his only opposition remains the only group of people ON EARTH who could have possibly blown an election against him. If the past year wasnt an obvious sign that the DNC needs to change how it does business, then what would be? Do we all have to die first?

Just today, the New York Times gave column space to former Clinton operative Mark Penn, who stupidly argued that the Democrats need to be the party of the mythical American center, the exact same strategy that backfired on Clinton last fall. One of my GQ colleagues said that Democrats care wayyyyy too much about Republicans, and this op-ed goes a long way toward proving it. This dribble of think-tank strategery comes after Georgia Congressional candidate and eight-year-old boy Jon Ossoff lost a special election afteryou guessed itpositioning himself as a centrist. In fact, Ossoff decided against loudly denouncing Trump on the campaign trail, and instead released this actual ad:

It really is stunning how Democrats continually try to hit Trump in his least vulnerable spots. Hey, you folks who love the way Trump talks shit on Twitter: I promise you that I wont do that! Meanwhile, Trump rose to power by ginning up the fervor of a supposedly small voting bloc that believed (wrongly) that its needs were being ignored. God forbid Democrats take any lessons away from that. No, instead we get more whinging about working class white voters (God, enough of these motherfuckers!) and all their bullshit angst over crime and immigration. You think Democrats will be able to address that angst better than the golf blob currently occupying the White House? Who in hell is this party really serving if theyre so horny for the redneck vote?

"[The Democrats are] too meek to get what voters REALLY want, and thats because they are all strategy and no heart. They chase voters rather than lead them."

Yet, its hardly surprising that big-name Democrats would still see value in this kind of empty heartland pandering. Say what you will about Republicans, but at least their leadership genuinely represents their constituency. Thats the party of rich guys, and its RUN by rich guys. Those two entities are simpatico. Meanwhile, the Democratic party is still run by cocktail party vets like Pelosi while trying to serve people with whom Pelosi has little to nothing in common: poor people, minorities, etc. I genuinely liked Hillary Clinton as a candidate, but on the campaign trail she basically acted like a robot that was trying to learn empathy by observing humans. Oh, I see you humans call these tears. These tears mean that you are sad! They are, as constituted, the party of lip service.

Thats not good enough. Democrats fail again and again because (A) They want to reach the broadest possible audience, which means they reach no one at all, and (B) Leadership runs the party but is not OF it. Even firebrands like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are still relatively genteel white people from New England. They LOOK like Republicans, as do the Silicon Valley buttheads currently ruminating on ways to DISRUPT liberal politics. Why do you think people loved Barack Obama so much? Because Democratic voters actually felt like he was one of them (even if Obama was still too centrist and too damn deferential to monsters like Mitch McConnell). Theres no reason for Obama to be an anomaly among Democratic leadership. They have willed this disconnect into perpetuity.

My friend Jeb Lund once said that the reason Republicans succeed is because, in general, theyre better at giving their voters tangible things. You want a meaningless tax cut? They can get you that. You want immigrants rounded up? Theyre on it. Love guns? Heres seventeen! Big fan of war? Oh! Oh, Republicans will give you all the war you can eat. By contrast, Democrats will give you a VERSION of what their voters wanted that just happens to have been watered down roughly 98 percent by concessions to Republicans. Your health care will still be an expensive pain in the ass, but at least Democrats heart was in the right place. Theyre too meek to get what voters REALLY want, and thats because they are all strategy and no heart. They chase voters rather than lead them. You only need to look where that strategy has gotten them so far to know where its going to take them.

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Democrats Will Never Get Their Shit Together - GQ Magazine