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workings of government are way down on the list of the things they think about, and really know anything about.
Yes, people who don't vote are not the brightest candles on the altar. Sorry, but facts don't lie, and it is what it is. But we already know this, so we have to give them something to get excited about. Employment figures that they can't understand, and see as having no immediate relevance in their lives, simply won't get them to go to the dance with us.
They see figures like "200,000 more jobs" and think to themselves, "oh, that's nice". They don't relate it to the fact that Democrats took the desolation left behind by Bush and brought the economy and country back from the brink of hell.
What they think about is how their buying and savings power has continued to dwindle. They have the same job, are making the same amount of money, but the cost of living is, and has been, continuously increasing. People who used to save money every month are now tapping their savings every month because their cost of living has increased at a much higher rate than their wages have, over a significant period of time.
Everything costs too much, people don't make enough money to be able to afford a new set of tires for their car without tapping their savings, (if they have any), or using their credit card, if they still have any credit. The upper 20% is raking in the profits at record rates, from the higher costs of goods and services, goods and services that are necessary for workers to comfortably live and function in society, because of the continuation of trickle down on economic policies.
The democracy killing polarization of wealth is accelerating exponentially, faster than the speed of light.
Plus, Obamacare was not the big boost for Democrats that it should have been, because many of the primary beneficiaries in the population were far below the poverty level, people who could get Medicaid. Many of these people are low information voters, if they vote at all. I was actually driving people to sign up for Obamacare Medicaid, who desperately needed medical care, while they were telling me how much Obama, Obamacare, and Democrats sucked.
I would have tossed them out of the car, respectively, but it was obvious that they were fully propagandized by the RW, and too ignorant to understand how the world works to any significant degree.
Unfortunately, partially due to the circumstances I outlined in the italicized paragraph above, Obamacare is too expensive for the upper lower class, lower middle class, and middle class. Many people I know had to take shitty bronze disaster plans that they couldn't afford. Even people who can afford decent silver plans like myself have their lives handicapped by the costs of the premiums, the deductibles, the co-pays, and the corrupt, complex maze of this for profit healthcare system, that is designed to confuse people so they don't understand how much things are going to cost, until they get a bill a month later and have to go back to the hospital, because they got a heart attack from sticker shock. (Dark humor, for the humor challenged). Private health insurance companies, and health care providers of goods and services, at every level saw a cash cow in Obamacare and jacked up the cost of everything, of course, they are for profit entities, and they could, so they did, because these costs are not regulated, in true Third Way style.
In other words, the Third Way, who quickly took single payer off the table in 2009, dry fucked the Democratic party in the ass with their unregulated, corporate profit bonanza new healthcare program. (I won't go into the epic failure of the rollout of the Healthcare Marketplace overseen by former HHS Secretary "Third Way" Sebelius).
We needed single payer. We need single payer.
The Third Way is an organization/philosophy of, by, and for the wealthy. Their primary concern is making money for the corporations, not helping people. Trickle on economics is utter fail for everyone who isn't wealthy.
Here's exactly what Democrats could have done from Day One, January, 2009, and got it all done before election 2010, as advocated by many liberal Democrats here at the time, including myself.
Steamroll the republicans as quickly as possible. End the filibuster. End the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Tax the ass off the rich, right back to the Eisenhower years. Use the enormous new tax revenue to fund universal healthcare, free higher education, student loan relief, and state sponsored jobs programs used to repair national infrastructure, etc, similar to those implemented by the FDR administration. Arrest, prosecute, and imprison every bankster guilty of shenanigans that helped destroy the economy. Subjugate and regulate corporations to the maximum extent possible. Rejuvenate labor unions. etc
It's not rocket science, and it could have been done if Third Way "Democrats" were not there to stymie and trash all the necessary populist policies that would have bolstered opportunity for the majority, provided us with relief from
With this "New Deal Two" type policy, we would have established another Democratic Party dynasty, driven the republican party to extinction, and we would right now be toasting each other yet another awesome election victory for Democrats.
Instead, Democrats engaged in bullshit Third Way "Fresh Tinkling" (excuse me while I vomit) trickle on 1% favorable policies...so here we are, right now, floundering in the mire of the Third Way excrement that is minority status in both houses of Congress.
Fuck. Just...fuck.
We're fucked right now, and it is the Third Way that fucked us, all the way from their safe little corporate ivory towers, admiring each others Prada, commenting on how wonderful their facelifts and boob jobs look, how delicious the Beluga Caviar is, blissfully unaware, and uncaring, of how I couldn't afford, and had to cancel, my minor surgery last month because the 1 hr outpatient minor procedure carried a facility fee with an $8000 price tag. Let's see...should I pay the rent and live with the annoying pain? Or should I tap my meager savings for the $500 down and yet another monthly bill for medical costs, get rid of the annoying pain, and try to fix up my old motorhome so I can live rent free down by the creek for awhile before the cops kick me out? Decisions, decisons.
These are not the type of choices that any working person in this country should be forced to consider.
The Third Way, and their corporate masters are making coin hand over fist, at a faster pace every day, and that is their job, to take our money and give it to the rich.
We need to be the party that is the opposition party of the republicans, not their Junior Varsity. If Democrats want to get out the vote, we need start promoting a populist message, an anti-corporate message, a serious rock bottom on the street and down home on the family farm message, and then follow through with it, if we ever manage to get back to the lovely place where we were in 2009 again.
All this goes back to 2009-2010, when Democrats squandered all our political capital by following policy based in Third Way: Fresh Tinkling 
"Democrats moving to the Middle is a double disaster that alienates the party's progressive base while simultaneously sending a message to swing voters that the other side is where the good ideas are.' It unconsciously locks in the notion that the other side's positions are worth moving toward, while your side's positions are the ones to move away from. Plus every time you move to the center, the right just moves further to the right." ~ George Lakoff
^This^....is not rocket science.
And yes, of course, I totally know things are going to be far, far worse with our new, evil republican Senate majority. And the people who didn't vote? They are going to suffer, and hopefully, they will learn a lesson from their mistake. Even if they can't grasp, in their new found suffering under republican lunatics, their mistake, it is still the job of the Democratic party to give them something shiny and exciting enough to bring them to the polls.
The Democratic Party must also learn from its mistakes.
*A wonderful, comprehensive platform/blueprint, in complete form, for the resurrection of the Democratic party, already exists. It can be found...
Here:
http://www.gp.org/what-we-believe/our-platform
Voters elect more derailers.
Derp.
