Turning The Ballot Box Against Republicans

If we take both houses impeachment will be first on the agenda I'm sure.

The recent upset in the special election for US Senate in Alabama has Democrats fantasizing about a 2018 wave election, and rightfully so. When you couple the Doug Jones narrow win in Alabama with the big victories in Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats have every right to feel optimistic.

There is, however, one obvious similarity in each race: strong African American turnout fueled Democratic candidates to victory.

Boosting African American turnout will continue to be the key to Democratic victories in 2018. And I encourage Democrats to use the campaigns of two, young progressive mayors in the deep south as a blueprint for effective engagement with black voters.

Chokwe Lumumba, the self-described revolutionary mayor of Mississippi’s largest city, is just as forceful in his plan to fill Jackson’s potholes as he is about Mississippi’s oppressive state flag.

Randall Woodfin became the youngest mayor in the history of Birmingham by campaigning on aggressive blight elimination and a comprehensive public safety plan that allowed him to crack the code on black infrequent voters, particularly 11,000 that had never voted in a municipal election.

What do Lumumba and Woodfin have to do with Democrats in 2018?
Both campaigns reassembled the Obama coalition in high-population areas where Democrats must run up the score in order to win statewide races.

The Obama coalition is re-emerging in places like Jackson and Birmingham. And it’s being led by young, black politicians, and maverick black political firms like Pine Street Strategies.

It is no coincidence that the city of Birmingham and Jefferson County came out for Jones at a rate that nearly matched Hillary Clinton. The value of these races extends beyond votes, as many Woodfin campaign staffers, organizers and volunteers brought invaluable experience to efforts to elect Jones.

Bold candidates like Lumumba and Woodfin enhance Democratic voter files with newly identified voters, ultimately leaving behind campaign infrastructure that can be inherited and leveraged in future statewide races.

So, what is the playbook for 2018 that gets Democrats the turnout they need to support a wave election?

It starts with having candidates like Woodfin and Lumumba. Young, progressive candidates of color like Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Ian Conyers and Jermaine Reed. Each bring with them personal narratives that can establish credibility with millennials and voters of color, tapping into the excitement of the progressive base benefiting Democrats up and down the ballot.

Hillary did not represent the 1%, though they found her husband so competent in running the economy that they can live with her.

Trump was more of a maverick than many conservatives like, but take a look at what he's done-go after Obamacare, put forward a tax bill which immensely favors the wealthy. And the white nationalist, anti-minority themes that Trump rode to victory on were stoked by the mainstream conservatives in previous years as well. Trump just took them to a higher level than they wanted.

??? The 1% isn't a tax bracket, it's the 1% of households with the most wealth, as defined by Zucman.

And while we are at it, it does not matter how many individual people were in the top 1% in 1980 versus 2012, the important thing is that the wealthiest 1% of the households in 2012 had a much larger share of the wealth in 2012 than the top 1% of the households had in 1980.

It doesn't matter how the population "feels" about it, the chart merely mentions what percentage of the total wealth of the country goes to the wealthiest 1%. That share is increasing.

You have tried every conceivable method of changing the subject to some irrelevancy, from what a tax bracket is to how the population emotionally feels about something, because you are desperate to avoid the simple truth the chart shows:

The wealthiest 1% of the households have gone from owning less than a quarter of the country's total wealth in 1980 to owning nearly half of the country's total wealth in 2012.

And you'll be posting so what, the 1% work hard for their wealth, they deserve to own 99% of everything, and everybody who disagrees with you is a Marxist.

How the wealthiest 1% came into their wealth is irrelevant,

the important thing is that they used to own less than a quarter of the wealth in 1980, they own nearly half now and in forty years they will own 99% of the wealth unless we DO something to prevent it happening.

Which you and people like you will try to prevent happening, because your favorite radio show keeps telling you how intrinsically virtuous the 1% are and how much they are to be admired, and you believe it.

Who are you trying to fool? Hillary was 100% supported by the 1% as well as the "evil" corps who you seem to hate so much.

Not to mention the the majority of the top wealthiest people in the world live in the US, they are all left leaning. How about those Hollywood stars?

And while we are at it, it does not matter how many individual people were in the top 1% in 1980 versus 2012, the important thing is that the wealthiest 1% of the households in 2012 had a much larger share of the wealth in 2012 than the top 1% of the households had in 1980.

Sure it matters. If there were only 100,000 people in this group in 1980 and now there are almost 900,000, that means there is indeed upward mobility to this level of wealth, and it would make sense if the population of the 1% increased that there would be more of the total wealth in that group.

You haven't proven that they [the 1%] don't work for their wealth. How did they get it?

I'm more interested in what people in other income brackets [besides the top 1%] think about what is taking place and not people like you who want to limit the argument to the 1%.

What's your problem?

Gun rights are guaranteed by our Constitution.

The other side of this is the simple fact that more guns means more accidents and killings.

If we wish to keep our citizens safe, we must control the ownership of guns.

How have dems violated their rights to own guns?