What Democrats do well:
- building a big, welcoming political tent
- Painting the Republican Party as a party full of rich, selfish white people (even though this is stupid and simplistic)
- frame every debate as black-and-white issue so that if you don't agree with them you're evil
- not dividing the country
- good long-term economic investments and fiscal policy
- talking down to poor people about how the Democrats know what's best for them (this is very true for Atlas' young, sheltered white posters with rich parents)
- taking big political hits for long-term gain in legislation and policy
- capitalizing on identity politics without creating resentment
- sense of being "my brothers keeper" politically
- focusing on long-term goals and the progress of society
- knowing when to compromise
What Republicans do well:
- maintaining base discipline on turnout
- defining the narrative first (as others have posted)
- generating perpetual outrage
- admirable history up to the 1980s,
- general economic policy
- reinventing itself
- capitalizing on the collective short-term memory of the electorate
- individual politicans maintaintheir backbones even when faced with adversity
- being effective in governance (moreso on the state-level)
- revving America's economic engine (though the reliance on re-inflating bubbles has become a drag)
- individualism and trusting individuals to make the best decisions for them
- focusing on what people care about most: maintaining their standard of living
I agree on both counts.
