From the Washington Post, November 23rd : How long before the white working class realizes Trump was just scamming them?
Democrats are taking a “we told you so” approach to this, I guess to feel better about their numerous losses over the years. As Bernie said “When you lose the White House to the least popular candidate in the history of America, when you lose the Senate, when you lose the House, and when two-thirds of governors in this country are Republicans, it is time for a new direction.” Yes, it’s time to go in a new direction and that direction is not pointing our fingers at Republican voters and laughing about how they’ve been scammed.
It’s time to look into the mirror and admit we’ve been scammed, all of us, women, men, all races, of all ethnic heritage, all of us who are working class, all laborers. We’ve been scammed by both parties. Maybe labor class Republicans realized that the establishment candidates have been scamming them and that’s why they ditched their “favorite son” Jeb Bush even before the Carolina primary. Maybe that’s why they figured, what the hell, let’s roll the dice with a complete outsider.
We Democrats did not act with such boldness, maybe because we still hold onto hope that our establishment candidates will, like trickle down, deliver prosperity with job training and education. Trickle down, job training, all the same “wait and see, it will work soon, real soon” approach that either party has used to put off our demands for another year as we wait. Republicans stopped waiting.
Without regard to who has been in the White House median household income continues to stagnate In 1990, it was $52,684, twenty five years later in 2015, it’s $56,516. But let’s take a look at CEO wages. In that same period, CEO wages went from $2.7 Million to over $16 Million. By the way, in 16 of those years, Democrats controlled the White House.
Both partied have scammed the working class. If Trump does not deliver (and I can’t see how he can), will Democrats take this the next step and elect a real populist candidate with a real commitment to the working class without regard to race, sex, or national origin? Or will we continue to mock the Republicans who “got played” while we keep telling ourselves that we have not?
I think a lot of Trump voters knew that he was lying to them and would be a lousy President. They did not care. They’d watched the champions of one or the other of the two parties get elected for decades and not appear to care about the welfare of the middle class. They were disgusted with the results, and were willing to burn the whole thing down.
…that we are in fact the more popular party. Not only did our nominee win by 2M popular votes and counting, I have also started to see reports that more aggregate votes were cast for Dem Senate candidates and possibly even Dem House candidates.
“When you lose the White House to the least popular candidate in the history of America, when you lose the Senate, when you lose the House, and when two-thirds of governors in this country are Republicans, it is time for a new direction.” Bernie Sanders.
“we are in fact the more popular party” Christopher.
Most votes for President
Most votes for Senate
Most votes for House
Just not distributed the right way, and by design in the case of the House.
We lost the house, the senate, several state houses and if you missed it, the White House.
I’m looking at a guy stuck in a hole, offering him a ladder…and he’s asking for a shovel…..because that;s the tool he knows…?
…then the greatest number of votes is the only valid standard. What is so difficult to understand about this?
There is no reason to believe that the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign would have employed different strategies if the rules were different. Trump would have worked more to GOTV in Texas and so on, Clinton would have worked more to GOTV in California and so on. Both knew the rules going in. Clinton was touted as the most qualified person to ever run for office, a woman who possessed unmatched political skills. If either of those were true, how does she lose 306/232? How does she believe the polls and try to turn red states blue and ignore Michigan, Wisconsin, and the rest?
Time to face facts. She ran a horrible campaign, again, not unlike the one she ran against Obama. She focused on big dollar donors and identity politics. She lost.
By the way, Massachusetts elects by popular vote. Why did Martha lose (twice) if Democrats are more popular here?
There is no reason to believe that the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign would have employed the same strategies if the rules were different.
…and if your question were about electoral strategy I might have had a different answer, but you keep asking about popularity. HRC is still the most qualified candidate to run in a long time and has lots of political skills. Results can’t take that away from her, but that just proves that running and governing are two different things and that candidates aren’t completely in control (media, FBI, voters’ personal circumstances, Russian mischief, etc.). As for Massachusetts, Coakley may not have been the best candidate (and not my primary choice for either Senator or Governor, FWIW), but even then with overwhelming majorities in both chambers, most of the Governor’s Council, statewide offices, county offices, and the largest single-party federal delegation in the country I like our party’s position just fine here too.
Hillary Clinton was an enormously talented and skilled public official. Martha Coakley was not.
Both were women. Each had to overcome significant obstacles explicitly because of their gender. Hillary Clinton was far more successful at that than Martha Coakley. There was no need for the right wing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars creating a completely false impression of Martha Coakley — all that was necessary was to look closely at what Ms. Coakley did (and did not do) and said (and did not say), publicly and privately.
She lost an election where her detractors complained about the “corruption” of the Clinton Foundation while the Trump Foundation was being successfully prosecuted for fraud in multiple states. She lost an election where her detractors complained about her “honesty” while Donald Trump openly, brazenly, and repeatedly lied over and over and over again.
There was a long list of perfectly legitimate reasons to reject Martha Coakley as governor, and that long list was pretty much irrelevant to her skills as a campaigner. Ms. Clinton stands in stark contrast — the reasons cited for her high negatives, in poll after poll, were the direct consequence of the very successful right-wing media campaign against both her and her husband.
We know, now, that Ms. Clinton won the popular vote by a larger margin than JFK in 1960 and Richard Nixon in 1968. George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000. From the piece:
You are making claims about popularity that are simply false, and your last question is exemplifies why fledgling lawyers are often instructed to avoid asking questions for which they do not know the answer.
..not according to the results at hand. She rode her husband’s coattails for as far as they could take her, and then, as Coakley gave us Brown, Hillary gave us Trump.
Please.
Hillary Clinton was widely respected and admired as a senator of New York. She was similarly respected and admired as Secretary of State.
Your comment about “riding her husband’s coattails” is offensively sexist. It just is. As far as I’m concerned, it is voters with attitudes like what you just expressed that gave us Donald Trump.
She has admires, like you and others here in BMG. No one is denying that. What you can’t seem to see is that her negative ratings were lower than most anyone, except Trump. A lot of people did not like her. She ran two disastrous campaigns. Those two truths are undeniable. And there is nothing “sexist” about my comment. Your continued insistence to see sexism in all negative comments about her is only blinding you to the truth. George Stephanopoulos rode Bill’s coattails to a gig on ABC news. Is that a “sexist” comment…or is is somehow anti-Greek?
I meant to uprate your comment to johntmay.
Following your patience to reason with him calls to mind a quote I can’t attribute :
” The ignorant and the fearful are manipulated by the evil and the greedy.”
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I am doing my best to reach out to you, to listen to you, to hear your suffering.
I am simply not willing remain silent while you write sexist garbage like “riding her husband’s coattails”.
I further note that this is another clear and stark difference between Ms. Coakley and Ms. Clinton. There was no husband for the sexists among us to attach Ms. Coakley to. The hostility and ill-will that caused Ms. Coakley to lose her gubernatorial race (and she did lose the popular vote) was the direct result of herself and herself alone.
Your dismissive language (“riding her husband’s coattails”) exemplifies the challenge I face in attempting to remain civil with you.
And resist the urge to call out “sexist” and so on whenever someone runs counter to your world view.
Had her husband not been a US president, you are saying she would still have been a US senator and so on? I see no evidence to support that claim.
She has a high IQ, no doubt, but given the way she ran her last two campaigns, her fumbles as secretary of state, I see little reason to say that she is an magnificent and accomplished as some do.
Would George W. Bush have been president without his father? Did you dismissively attack him for “riding his father’s coattails”? How about Mitt Romney — son of George Romney, long time Republican governor of Michigan. Do you contemptuously scorn him for “riding his father’s coattails”?
Men use whatever means available to them to gain high office, and do not get contemptuous comments like yours. Which of the following men was, in your view, a better qualified candidate than Ms. Clinton:
– George W. Bush
– George H. Bush
– Ronald Reagan
– Jimmy Carter
– Richard Nixon
Ms. Clinton ran a fine campaign in 2008 — Barack Obama ran a better one. Ms. Clinton was a far more successful secretary of state than any of the following:
– John Kerry
– Condoleeza Rice
– Colin Powell
– George P. Schultz
– James Baker
– Alexander Haig
The fact that you and others do not see or recognize her accomplishments does not mean those accomplishments are any less real or impressive.
All those names other than Condi or Haig were more or just as successful. Schultz and Baker negotiated the end to the Cold War with Baker also doing more for Mideast peace than any SoS before or since. Powell is universally admired within the Acheson building as the best Sec State who focused on reforming the actual bureaucracy and streamlining the Foreign Service for the first time in decades. If the Iran deal, Cuban reapprochment, Paris accords and the Sino-American agreement on climate are not undone than Kerry goes down as a top five diplomat. One of the best we ever had.
Hillary was an excellent Sec of State, but she was not better than any of those individuals I cited. For all your talk about women you also left our Madeline Albright who was a great Sec State.
I left out Ms. Albright because I think she was a great Secretary of State, better than Ms. Clinton.
I don’t share your opinion of Colin Powell, I think he was suckered and should have known better. I think Mr. Schulz and and Mr. Baker have much blood on their hands, far more than Ms. Clinton.
My point is that statement like “her fumbles as secretary of state” should not go unchallenged.
…Albright can’t be President anyway. Personally, I think this one could go either way. She is accomplished and smart enough in her own right that maybe she would have made it to the WH by another path. However, the path she did take IS tied to her husband in a lot of ways. Her own public life would not have started as Senator from NY had she not been FLOTUS which pretty much by definition means married to POTUS. It was from the Senate she ran for President herself and then got to be SoS. Her qualifications are based on those offices and yes, being the type of First Lady she was.
Would George W. Bush have ever been considered for any public office were it not for his father?
Of course Ms. Clinton came to public awareness by being married to Bill Clinton. My point is that virtually EVERY politician comes to office through close connections to other politicians. Marrying into a political family doesn’t hurt men. Being the son of a political figure doesn’t hurt men.
I don’t think it’s sexist to observe that Ms. Clinton was FLOTUS. I think it is the contemptuous phrase “She rode her husband’s coattails for as far as they could take her” that is offensive.
There is a famously racist phrase often used by whites against black women — “affirmative action hire”. I find this similarly offensive.
… With the possible exception of John Kerry’s work in Senate Foreign Relations, none of those others voluntarily took the job at a time when respect for the US was at its absolute lowest around the world. The damage done by George W. Bush and the neo-Cons (aided and abetted by the amoral Colin Powell and the single dumbest person ever to occupy the seat, Condeleeza Rice) coupled with near total global financial meltdown led by US Wall Street firms, probably mean that the job of Secretary of State, at the time Hillary Clinton took it on, was a particular cauldron of thankless tasks, competing vendettas (internal and external) and top-of-your-game diplomacy.
And she didn’t even blink.
Her issue wasn’t the governing, legislating, or administrating, but the campaigning.
I would put her above every other SecState on that list save Baker and Albright. She did a fantastic job with an agency that was a shambles after the Bush administration, in no small part because of Powell, sad as that may be.
Of course, I suppose you will also need coffee entitlement programs to investigate your caffeine eligibility….along with the Living Cup prices
Ever notice how Hillary always robustly promised to FIGHT for stuff? How all Democrats vow to STRUGGLE? They never say they will DO anything, they will just work TOWARDS a never accomplished Utopia (and we all know where that is). So talking about how they are the popular losers seems an epitome of their mindset.
Two bucks will hardly get you a coffee most places.
…to indicate that whatever it is other than fifty cents won’t be worth much or get you very far.
…speaks to the point of lack of communication
That and a dollar will get you on the subway.
Obviously, the expression predates fare cards, when you could figure out how much getting on the subway cost.
I was just editorializing on coffee inflation.
This piece articulates much of what you have been saying this election cycle.
I think the point about Obamacare is a particularly interesting one. The folks most adversely impacted by Obamacare are the lower middle class. They don’t qualify for subsidies, are the group most affected by the “if you like your policy you can keep your policy” kerfuffle and in many cases are paying more for less under the ACA. As a result Obamacare is largely transfer of “wealth” from the working class to the poor and running on it hurt Hillary with this demographic.
The fact that this piece is written by an academic and published in HBR doesn’t make it any more correct.
I find even the title condescending and incorrect. I don’t know about anybody else, but I “get” what’s being said. I’ve heard all this all my life. I punched a clock during my summer jobs while in college to hear all this during those four summers. The fact that people say these things doesn’t make them true.
I hear them. I think they are mistaken, and in many cases gravely mistaken.
This paragraph, for example:
What does the writer mean by “a man before his time”? Who does the author think Archie Bunker caricatured? A key measure of how far America has declined is the simple observation that Archie Bunker was a comic character when introduced in 1971. He was comic because America as society correctly ridiculed him as a racist, sexist, ignorant bigot who blamed everybody except himself for the various “wrongs” that beset him.
Today, millions of Americans emulate him. College professors write paeans like this to him, as if he is a tragic figure that must be “understood”. Bullshit. He’s an asshole. He was then, he is now.
Or this paragraph:
There’s nothing new here. What’s new is trying to pretend that these attitudes are anything but ignorant bullshit. Most doctors are not quacks. Most lawyers are not “shysters”. Most professors are not “phonies”. These are nothing more than statements of prejudice. Recognize them? Absolutely. Elevate them to some sort of “insight” from which we can derive constructive changes in behavior? Absolutely NOT.
The sexism of phrases like “manly dignity” is obvious on their face, and surely needs no further exploration to reveal. The piece offers this:
Say WHAT? The piece admits that “the ideals they’ve grown up with” are explicitly sexist — “a return to an earlier era, when men were men and women knew their place.” This “ideal” is, by construction, misogynist. No amount of handwaving will change that, no matter how many times it’s repeated. It is pure claptrap, and dangerous claptrap at that.
The “five major points” are similarly suspect. They strike me as trite regurgitations of already overused memes from already over-exposed media talking heads. The piece correctly cites “shockingly high numbers of working-class men are unemployed or on disability, fueling a wave of despair deaths in the form of the opioid epidemic” — and cites as that as a reason why those working-class men are voting for a man and a party who will worsen each and every one of those things.
Of course economics needs to be at the center. It has been. The hilarious irony of this piece is the close juxtaposition between the claim that “economics needs to be at the center” and the guidance that “[a] modern industrial policy would follow Germany’s path. ”
Excuse me? Does the author understand that much of what we heard from Mr. Trump’s campaign is explicitly illegal in Germany? The assertion that economic issues are more important than cultural issues in Germany betrays a stunning ignorance of actual life in Germany — never mind politics. Oh, and it is well worth examining gender stereotypes in Germany versus the US, especially as it relates to “breadwinners” and gender.
The conclusion, with its defense of the “split-second decisions in life-threatening situations” made by police, really deserves its own diary. It epitomizes the error of this entire approach. Police who kill innocent blacks are WRONG. When those killings happen, they should force changes in how police are are recruited, trained, equipped, and managed. They should NOT be excused in the guise of some sort of misguided empathy about “one of the few good jobs open to Americans without a college education”.
Cambridge cop Thomas Ahern was NOT making a “split-second decision” in a “life-threatening situation”. He was instead being a racist asshole in my neighborhood (Porter Square). Medford narcotics detective Stephen LeBert was NOT making a “split-second decision” in a “life-threatening situation” when he terrorized an innocent motorist. It turns out that Mr. LeBert had a long history of similar incidents, such as this 2012 bullying.
We should be seeking ways to stop police abuse like this, not excuse it.
Despite the Teachout results.
Yeah. He coulda been a contender.
Jeesh. Get over it, please. We lost.
All the polls indicated he had a better chance of winning. Yes, we lost. We lost when we ran a Wall Street candidate who cold not connect with working class America. Yup, no argument there.
Madra Dios !
If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle !
Can we all just give it a rest about Bernie ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Let’s give it a rest and forget about appealing to working class Americans…..I hear that Chelsea is thinking of running in 2020. You good with that?
Pro Tip: When you are in a hole, stop digging.
I AM A WORKING CLASS AMERICAN !
Good God, man. Take your head out of your butt.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
And neither one of them has a great track record of fixing our massive infrastructure issues downballot. Dean does. Maybe he and Ellison can co-chair, since I want Ellison to be the voice while Dean does the grunt work full time.
We need to win back legislative bodies in 2018 and do it rapidly, to avoid the gerrymandering trap in 2020. Frankly, that’s more important in the long term than who is President. States have done far worse than Trump with right wing extremist legislatures and Governors. Give the GOP credit, they were prepared to catch a break and we didn’t have a Plan B. Likely the same result with Sanders, he might’ve been President but he’d have been unable to do much. It’s the unified government that is scary and totally avoidable.
We can either follow the advice of Clinton or we can follow the advice of Sanders. Many here tell me we need to follow Clinton more and that in doing so, we will win…because we did not follow Clinton enough.
We don’t have a plan B.
We won’t even consider an outreach for a plan B.
So as a working class American who has not seen a raise in wages for the past 45 years, who witnessed the explosive rise of CEO salaries and the widening wealth gap in the past 45 years, what attracted you to Clinton and not Trump? Please keep to the subject and question asked.
Because Hillary Clinton and the party that nominated her have been striving mightily to address and reverse the causes of those issues for the past 45 years, while the Donald Trump and the party that nominated him have been striving mightily to WORSEN the causes of those issues for the same time.
Because Donald Trump and his party will TODAY, under the tax proposals that they advocated during the campaign, RAISE TAXES ON WORKING CLASS AMERICANS and SLASH TAXES ON CEOS.
Because too many of those working class Americans chose to pollute their minds with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, so that those working class Americans not only don’t know the reality, but when faced with it dismiss is as “media lies”.
Because some working class Americans are able and willing to resist and reject the lies they are being told by Donald Trump and the party that nominated him, while others are not.
Lip service is not enough.
Yup, no argument from me on that.
The question is now, what do Democrats offer in place of this? More of the same shit that has not worked for the past 45 years? Really?
What you call “lip service” is how American democracy works.
You offer nothing beyond simple negativity for how we move forward.
When Bill Clinton says he will side with labor and goes forward with welfare reform, NAFTA, and deregulation of Wall Street….that’s lip service to “side with labor”.
You offer little except blind admiration to the Clinton Cult of Personality.
…we would have seen the red-baiters and anti-Semites come out of the woodwork, and THOSE would be the people about whom we would wonder how they still exist in 2016. The honest answer is that hypotheticals are near impossible to prove, so you go with the person you think would make the best president and not worry about the other stuff.
So these voters went for McCain and Romney and Trump……because they are all racists….and we run a black guy and win twice……and it’s still racism when Hillary gets shellacked.
Okay. Got it.
No, the racists, anti-Semites, misogynists, and other misanthropic despicables did NOT vote for Mr. McCain or Mr. Romney, and they did come out and vote for Donald Trump.
The other side ran a misanthrope who spent the last eight years leading the racist charge against Barack Obama, and we ran a qualified white woman.
In my view, it is inarguable that racism and sexism played a major role in the outcome of the 2016 election. We can discuss how major, but that discussion cannot begin until we admit the facts.
Yeah, well, we’ll need a little data analysis to prove that’s not just another fantasy.
Democrats have to grapple with the fact that they lost this election because millions of white working-class voters across the United States voted for Obama and then switched to Trump.
By the way: Clinton swept all of the wealthy and white Protestant enclaves in Connecticut that always vote Republican.
If it’s a class based realignment I don’t want to be a part of it, our party cannot afford to become the party of wealth.
The link only notes one actual verifiable fact: the difference between the Trump numbers of 2016 and the Romney numbers of 2012. The pundits then assume the difference is Obama voters. The only way that assumption can be valid is if voter turnout, in both cases, approached 100%. Again, with the zero-sum thinking…