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The more I work in political areas, the more I realize that a big problem with older dems is that they can't really acknowledge that 1) the past thirty years of American policy has been a huge failure 2) if they acknowledge 1, they want credit for fighting rearguard actions.
3) Assume most Americans disagree with them and want bad things and thus must be lied to on some level to fight said rear guard actions.
Point 3 is complicated, as that's less true but still holds some water.
More likes for one and two than three, which is the actually interesting point...
From the POV of a national democratic elected, they know that the policy is suboptimal but we've really not given them much evidence that there is actually anything behind them to shift their mindset that the average voter actually isn't satisfied with things being bad.
You can get almost anything past them, if you can find a way for them to essentially lie and call a policy centrist exactly because that has been what they've always done.
They aren't dumb. They know exactly what they are doing and that is fighting against what they assume is a public that is too racist and conservative to improve things.
And so far, I am not sure we've proven them wrong.
So the path to power isn't electoral but taking control of the bureaucracies.
Basically, take power by whatever means necessary and do only two things. 1) voting reform 2) establish lots of independent power centers and staff them with your people. Then build enough actual hegemony to restructure the electorate.
This is exactly what the Regan revolution was. Lying about intentions and following through with them through means voters couldn't control.
