“What should they say” is not the right question a better question is “who are they” and “what do they care about?”
Somehow the majority of Americans missed that they were doing OK. Perhaps that’s begging the question.
That’s incorrect. They never recovered from a transformed economy and society. the people a few rungs up did, and pulled the ladder up behind them. And of course, those who were just about to enter the working world at that time had their ability to build any kind of real ownership equity in anything or own a home traded away before they had a chance. And they are all rightly pretty furious. The structure of the economy is much more rigid and there is far less economic mobility than there was 20 years ago. And that was far less than it was 20 years before that. Gen X is the last generation that had much of a chance to do the American dream in the traditional way.
Incidentally, you can’t really understand the rise of bitcoin and its popularity with millennial and Gen Z men outside that context, but I digress.
I’ll give you that they were better than Republicans, but they don’t deserve more credit than that.
Out national elections aren’t “rigged,” Democrats made explicitly and conscious strategic choices at the leadership level to make tactical retreats from places like Texas, betting that demographic change, supported by Republican policy failure would carry them back into power. Their strategic thesis was wrong. It speaks to their ignorance of the communities they counted on.
They aren’t victims.
1) abandon all issue based litmus tests and racial or gender representation goals in favor of the single objective of winning races, recruit candidates who are the most credible and appealing person who lives in and is a product of the community on the 2-3 most tangible and immediate problems the community has.
2) Contest every race in every place, with the strategic priority of winning county and state legislative elections.