A primary headwind against what should be a major shift away from Trumpism. Another, somewhat related, is “socialism”. In my experience partisan dems generally scoff at these warnings, because they personally think they are overblown. But the fact remains that dem underperformance in 2020 was absolutely stunning.

Before ‘20, dems had high hopes in FL and TX, in large part due to expectations with Hispanic voting blocks. Somehow, Trump outperformed his showing in ‘16 with that block nationwide. The reasons seem pretty obvious. In S Florida, Hispanics with ties to places like Cuba and Venezuela, but choose not to live there, will not vote for a party that tries the nuanced point that their form of “Scandinavian” socialism is different.

In S TX, so many Hispanics have familial connections to ICE and law enforcement generally, inane nonsense like “defund the police” and “abolish ICE” actively offend enough of these people to keep TX a very reddish shade of purple.

In Minneapolis, the “common sense” of black and brown populations defeated the “pie in the sky limo-liberal” defund the police proposals.

Va flipped from “blue as ny” to red largely based on perceptions about wokeness in schools. Who cares if “CRT” in schools is overblown compared with reality? Shit works.

The lessons should be both offensive and defensive, and they better be learned quickly, because inflation is the new elephant in the room. Offensively, dems should learn that while few dem leaders were on board with “defund”, it was successfully hung around their necks where it mattered. Biden won by less of a margin than he should have, and down ballot races went far worse, as we constantly point out in response to all the voter fraud bullshit. Dems need to take a page from that book and hang Trump’s and Tucker’s Putin love on all repubs. Defensively, imo, they have to stop doing what you did in your 4th paragraph.

Basically, you made an argument about the superiority of dem true ideas and the nonsense of repub culture war and wokeness strategies, which will work wonderfully with the converted. But far less so with the unconverted. Or those on the fence. Dems need to stop dying on stupid hills. How about acknowledging that socialism is an English word with a definition, and no dems actually meet that definition? They’re extreme progressives, not socialists (even the Bern). They have learned the lesson about defund, and need to learn the same about excessive wokeness in schools.

I agree that’s a hard line to walk, because we urgently need to support full understanding of our history and our historical sins, so we can’t let that baby be thrown out with the bath water. I’m not a campaign strategist, but I’d start with this: stop dismissing these warnings as useful idiocy. They’re not. They’re real. They’ve already cost the dems dearly. IMO, it is a huge reason why we got Trumpism in the first place, and it could bring it back with a vengeance.