During the primaries, a ludicrous HillaryDNC meme was spread that because Bernie’s #1 issue was economic justice, he’d be soft on social justice. This struck me as profoundly perverse given Bernie’s and Hillary’s histories. It was buttressed by the fully-fake “Bernie Bro” meme, the fully-fake “women go to Bernie events to meet boys meme”, and other fabricated crap. Of course, the reality is that Bernie has been well ahead of the curve on social justice for decades – he was getting arrested fighting for civil rights when Hillary was (IIRC) a self-described Goldwater Girl. Bernie can fight for two things at once – and so can we.
This nonsense was propagated as part of the HillaryDNC strategy of stoking “identity politics” – their playing of groups – women, men, blacks, hispanics, LGBTQ, etc – against each other. Bernie’s mantra was (and always has been) that we’re all in this together, and we’re all getting #%^*ed by the 0.1%.
One candidate sought division, one sought unity. One went from “who?” to the HillaryDNC needing to cheat like crazy to keep him from a potential nomination. The other… well, we all know.
It is one thing for a group of folks to fight against injustices they suffer, but, in the end, we must pull together to fight as a team, to fight for each other. Otherwise all turns to division and $&@%. Witness the results: 30 years of plummeting economic fortunes for most, rising incarceration rates, and now President Trump.
Basically, this identity politics stuff is killing us, and it must stop, or the hole will grow deeper.
Yes, we are Stronger Together. Let future Democratic campaigns that use these words actually live them, too.
…you could have written this diary without the slaps at HRC or the DNC in every sentence? Doesn’t sound like living out “Stronger Together” to me. Sanders himself was one of Hillary’s strongest surrogates during the general. I don’t know whom you hung out with, but the attitudes you ascribe to Hillary are not at all an accurate portrayal of her or her campaign.
with which you disagree, e.g., that the DNC was a field office for the Hillary Campaign? Or is it all true, and you’re disappointed by the totality of the thing? Or… ?
From Wikipedia:
During the Democratic primary, the Hillary Clinton campaign coordinated with bloggers and columnists to use identity politics to smear Bernie Sanders on race and gender issues.[4][5][6] The Clinton campaign sought to “push” talking points that Bernie Sanders was not a strong enough supporter of abortion rights “behind the scenes without our fingerprints” among supporters of NARAL and Planned Parenthood. The Clinton campaign encouraged Clinton surrogates, including Shonda Rhimes, Ricky Martin, and Julianne Moore, to tweet anti-Bernie Sanders talking points.[citation needed] The Feminist blogger Jessica Valenti sent her Bernie Sanders hit piece to the Clinton campaign to see before she published it.[citation needed]
The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak showed that the DNC’s Hispanic Media Director Pablo Manriquez used the term “Bernie Bro” to describe journalists who were critical of Hillary Clinton,[7] in order to justify denying them interviews with DNC officials who preferred only to talk to Clinton loyalists.[8][9][10]
During the 2016 Democratic Primary, Gloria Steinem argued that female supporters of Sanders are only interested in meeting “boys”.[11][12] Critics of the American mainstream media argue that the Bernie Bro is a myth[13][14] that exaggerates the impact of internet trolling and under-represents the political agency of young women.[15][16] Sanders supporters argued that the term represents a straw man characterization used to delegitimize critics of Clinton.[2][17][18]
…and I’ll need a link for Wikipedia, and a lot more evidence of the allegations contained therein, especially where the article itself notes “citation needed”. Gloria Steinem is entitled to her views, but AFAIK was not an official surrogate. We know that certain staffers couldn’t keep their preferences to themselves, but ultimately so what? It’s not like they were stuffing ballot boxes. Even if any of this is true it’s just unnecessarily picking scabs at this point. I still say you could have made the valid point about needing to address both economic and social justice without that attitude.
“I don’t know where [Sanders] was when I was trying to get health care in ’93 and ’94…” in spite of the publicly available photo hand-inscribed and signed by her in 1993, thanking Sanders for his help with the issue.
The DNC was absolutely an arm of the Clinton campaign. There’s a reason Wasserman Schultz had to resign, and it wasn’t so she could spend more time with her family.
There were numerous instances of Clinton’s campaign playing dirty politics, like their workers at the Nevada caucus putting on red shirts to impersonate union nurses (who supported Sanders), then taking them off when caught at it.
It really appears that Clinton can do no wrong in your eyes, since you refuse to see it.
…and example of letting your mouth get ahead of your brain in the heat of the campaign (though I’m not sure how it’s relevant to this discussion). DWS wasn’t a great chair for a lot of reasons, but on this particular point I thought she got unfairly railroaded. First I’m hearing the Nevada thing, but who knows from what level that came from. We can argue did not, did too until we are all blue in the face, but HRC herself once (in)famously said in another context, “At this point, what difference does it make?!”
Emphasizing economic justice does not make one soft on social justice, if anything, it makes someone credible on both.
which seems to be the premise for this attack on “identity politics”, that simply because a party or a candidate is strong on social issues they must be ignoring economic issues.
My concern that in the name of class solidarity too many people are acting like corporate marketers, rolling out a new economic justice model to cobble together new market segments.
First of all, if the goal is to appeal to the resentful white Trump voters, this reboot isn’t going to work. This group is going to stay resentful no matter what the new policies of any of the parties are. They are a shrinking segment of the population, which is the core motivation for their resentment. That’s not going to change, and the resentment, along with the search for people to blame things is not going to change either.
Second, why would anyone return to a party which makes liabilities out of the groups that support it?
The real problem for the Democratic party is how to deliver for the groups that support it.
The reality is that “identity politics” is another way to describe “culture war” issues, that have been, and will continue to be, wedge issues for Republicans. Civil rights, equal pay for women, SSM, etc.
GOP uses these issues as a wedge, and force an incumbent Dem to play defense on those issues, which then dominate the campaign. For the most part, being in favor of economic policies that favor the “working man” doesn’t help Dems in purple districts unless that Dem is also credibly cool or hostile to the “progressive” position on those issues. A further consequence of the effectiveness of the wedge is that a Democrat can be pretty successful in a solidly liberal district, even if that Dem opposes economic policies that benefit the “working man.” Combined, those two forces have caused an estrangement between the “(white) working man” and the party that has been evident for 50 years, but was thrown into particularly harsh relief this year.
Now the call is to appeal to both. But the undercurrent there is that Dems must “move past” culture war issues– which is another way of saying “don’t pay any attention to the people being shot by the police, lets support the police union and the working man.”
I have no idea how a political party can support progressive culture war issues while simultaneously avoiding the firestorm. I suppose that the only answer is to find representatives who can be firm but respectful, and who have a thick enough skin to endure venomous attacks without replying in kind. And to expect to be a minority party for quite awhile.
Keep Hope Alive By Jamelle Bouie
“Demoralized Democrats have a road map for success in Trump’s America. It was written by Jesse Jackson.”
Now, to your point, the Democrats can only reach those people that are willing to stand for a common cause of justice and fairness for all. They can coalition build all they want, but there will be groups of “white working class” voters that do not agree with the current law of marriage equality; or those that shout “blue lives matter!” in the face of yet another unarmed black man shot by police; or criticize BLM protests out in the street OR when a black man takes a knee for the national anthem.
Jackson ran very high numbers with white farmers in both of those primaries since he bothered to show up and listen to their concerns. He even said folks that threw rocks at him in 64 cast their votes for him in 84. It can be done if you bother trying. Hillary didn’t, she wrote off that segment of the electorate as deplorable and low and behold they responded in kind. Jackson actually campaigned with people that threw rocks at him and opposed his voting rights. You don’t get much thicker skin than that.
She called a specific subset with specific views, deplorable – not an entire segment or constituency. PLEASE do not feed that nonsense!
That’s why they are called gaffes since they are usually remarks taken out of context that confirm a hidden perception now in the open. The 47% remarks were taken out of context too, but they had the exact same effect.
But it was a gaffe because it was true.
There is no reason in the world, assuming we are confident in our views, not to stand up and say how we feel on the cultural stuff when asked. I’m in the middle of rewatching The West Wing and there was a scene where some members of Congress were threatening the WH with supposedly uncomfortable legislation if they felt the WH was steamrolling them. On the show it almost seemed to work to some extent, but if I were POTUS I would have said I know exactly where I stand and have the veto stamp inked up. If you want to send that legislation up Pennsylvania Avenue, knock yourself out.
MS secrets and all
The hole we are in — 30 years of plummeting economic fortunes for most — was not caused by identity politics, nor was it caused by Hillary Clinton.
It was caused by America’s embrace of failed GOP dogma. Dogma like:
– government is bad
– private enterprise is always more efficient than goverment
– taxes are too high. Always. In good times, taxes are too high because “the government doesn’t need the money”. In bad times, taxes are too high because “taxpayers need the money more than the government”.
– people are wealthy because they work harder
– people are wealthy because God smiles upon them
– people are poor because they are lazy
– people are poor because God punishes them
The list goes on and on and on and on and on. America has been swooning for these lies since the Reagan era. They were lies then and they are lies now.
Identity politics has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with these lies.
Identity politics is, in fact, what happens when the very wealthy use the media that they own to pit various groups against each other so that the resulting squabbles keep everybody distracted. Picture a social event with 100 people in a crowded room. A pickpocket starts a fight — any fight — and methodically works the room stealing wallets while the fight rages.
Solidarity among every identity group helps that group. Such solidarity helps the larger movement. Saying that “black lives matter” helps, not hurts, a collective action to catch, arrest, and then prosecute the pickpocket.
Your opinion seems to be that our run-amok economy is due to the embrace of Republican (and Third-Way Democratic) dogma. I agree that this is the proximal cause. However, had the Democrats not pushed identity politics for so long, driving wedges between groups that all need protection, I believe that the anger we have today would not be here.
Remeber, trade unions – filled with tons of those dreaded working-class white guys – played an important role in the civil rights movement. Now tons of those working-class white guys voted for the racist and misogynist Trump, precisely – I believe – because they were tired of being flipped off, economically and socially, by the Democratic Party.
Polls show that many of those same people responded positively to Bernie’s message of inclusivity.
Black Lives Matter is incredibly important. But discussing economic justice does not, somehow, trivialize its message. Black Lives Matter and the 99% are getting hosed.
Thirty years ago was 1980. Are you arguing that Democrats were pushing identity politics in the 1970s? Really? Jimmy Carter? George McGovern?
You’re not making sense.
Working-class white guys also played an important role in electing Richard Nixon. Archie Bunker was a comic character in 1971. Was he anything but a working-class white guy? Were Democrats playing “identity politics” when they ridiculed his bigotry?
Black lives matter is incredibly important. BLM didn’t elect Donald Trump. I note that Bernie Sanders was the first target of the BLM when it entered the political arena.
I think you’re playing into the hands of the 1% when you argue against identity politics. Yes, we should fight for economic justice. Yes, wealth concentration is far and away our largest single immediate issue (climate change is even larger, but will hit us later).
It is precisely because we CAN do multiple things at once that your attack on “identity politics” is a dangerous distraction.
I grew up in one of the most Trumpy areas of the entire northeast. For the most part, people who don’t get a business degree and work in the financial sector go into the trades, or become cops, firemen, etc. Everyone who doesn’t work in those “heroic” public sector jobs themselves has a lot of family that does. An awful lot of these folks served a tour or three in Afghanistan or Iraq, which amps up the “Patriotic Hero Police Officer” thing even more.
In the 70s and 80s, it wasn’t really civil rights that was the wedge issue– it was abortion, because the area is heavily working-class Catholic. Race wasn’t as tough an issue as it was in, say, Boston.
But alas, civil rights in 2016 is definitely an issue. The confluence of BLM, the NYPD’s own issues with BLM, and the whole NFL/national anthem thing, as whipped up by Trump, was practically a perfect storm designed to inflame the local Trump voter. That’s an area that last voted for a Democratic President in 1964, so maybe it is unrepresentative.
But I don’t know how one can say, take the very controversial and provocative view that, perhaps the police should not be killing people for selling a loose cigarette while simultaneously “moving past” such issues.
…and serve their country or community as soldiers, cops, or firefighters, how to they justify voting for a man who in so many ways is the antithesis of those values? Trump never got his hands dirty serving in those ways, and he certainly doesn’t appreciate many of the values the soldiers among them fought for. I also doubt he is inclined to support police and fire through more funding, training, etc. If they care about their country and its place in the world, Trump should be the LAST person they consider pulling the lever for.
Direct quote from two Cambridge cops and guardsmen I went to high school with. One of them is black so go figure on the race part, but that is a demo where sexism certainly played a role. Along with the blue lives matter counter reaction. These were solid Obama voters in 08′ and 12′ (and that’s despite Obama attacking the department by name over Gatesgate in 2009)
…what excuse people you went to high school with (age being late 20s, right?) have for views on gender roles from way before their time!:(
Cambridge is probably the most progressive police force in the country when it comes to race, gender, immigrants and Muslims but that’s like being the worlds most liberal Republican. At the end of the day your still a Republican. And the end of the day cops, particularly those that come out of the military, still close ranks against the outside.
For the record, both would’ve voted for Bernie and both hated the rest of the GOP field. They loved that Bernie paid his Iowa details the union rate and that he stood up for “working stiffs”. They felt the same way about the Donald despite hating his treatment of women and veterans. It’s little subsets like this that added up to our Election Day surprise.
If I interpreted your previous comment correctly you quoted your classmates (again, late 20s) saying “Beats taking orders from a broad”. This is a generation for whom I assumed the default attitude would be that a woman should have exactly all the rights and opportunities that men have enjoyed all along regarding careers, including being in a position to give orders and to fill the most powerful office on the planet.
…these views should have developed long before they were cops.
wearing a fedora.
And not as a hipster.
Not for the sentiment, which I believe, but for the use of the term “broad.” Then the HS guy said, “He, pal, lets make tracks before we wind up on a meat wagon.”
There is an overwhelming body of evidence to show that sexism is far more deeply rooted in our culture than racism.
Consider the following hypothetical candidates, all equally qualified:
candidate A: black male
candidate B: black female
candidate C: white male
candidate D: white female
I suggest that we have strong evidence ranking at least three of those four, and the ranking is as follows:
1. candidate C
2. candidate A
3. candidate D
As I see it, we have several possibly overlapping pools of voters:
pool 1: Voters who oppose any black, regardless of gender
pool 2: Voters who oppose any woman, regardless of race
pool 3: Voters who oppose any white, regardless of gender
pool 4: Voters who oppose any man, regardless of race
I think we’ll find that:
1. Pool 1 contains very few black voters
2. Pool 2 contains black men, white men, and even black and white women
3. Pool 3 contains very few white voters
4. Poll 4 contains very few male voters
I think what we saw in 2008 and 2012 is that candidate A won, primarily because pools 1 and 4 are much smaller than pools 2 and 3. I think what we saw in 2016 is that pool 2 is much larger than we Democrats like to admit. I cite the hostile reaction of even BMG to suggestions that sexism played even a role (never mind a significant role) in the 2016 election as evidence of this unwillingness to face our own sexism.
It would be really interesting to find or recruit another high-powered black woman and see what happens. I think we will find that she would rank 4th, behind the much-reviled Hillary Clinton. I remind us that we already have one example with Shirley Chisholm.
It seems to me that her failed attempt to win the 1972 Democratic Party nomination (we instead chose George McGovern, another “candidate C” who lost in a landslide) demonstrates the thesis I offer here.
I think Elizabeth Warren would’ve been a better candidate and would likely have cut into Hillary’s appeal to women while embracing the kind of populist campaign and non-interventionist foreign policy that helped Trump win the general (*yes despite numerous false equivalence and lies and losing the popular vote). She would be an interesting test case since she cuts a similar
Profile without the Wall Street/insider taint. She beat a boorish populist who bested a similarly milquetoast centrist FWIW.
Chisholm it’s important to remember ran as a working class populist and really laid the groundwork for the Rainbow Coalition. Though I agree I would much rather have lost 49 states with her than with George. I really like Kamala Harris for 2020. She eloquently weaved together the fight for social and economic justice in her victory speech and has the kind of record that would appeal to Sanderistas and Clintonites alike. Gillibrand is too close to Wall Street and Klobuchar is a boring public speaker. But I want to run a POC or woman against Trump and have them win.
Sexism is deeply rooted more than racism and THAT’S why Hillary got shellacked in a historic loss. She’s a woman and THAT’S why people did not vote for her!
Imagine how John McCain feels after reading your post. If only he had chosen a man instead of a woman as his VP, he’d be president. Amazing….
…though it’s hard to imagine THAT particular woman helped. Hillary also didn’t get shellacked in a historic loss. She received more popular votes than anyone in history except Obama and of course including Trump.
All the talking heads were talking about how difficult it would be for Trump to win…..so few paths to victory and each one was a long shot….and the Clinton campaign was going to turn red stated blue……and she LOST 302 to 232. She LOST by 74 points.
So it’s sexism when a Democrat gets shellacked but it’s not when a Republican woman gets shellacked. …..okay. I’ll have to add that to my notes on this new reality that you and others are building to escape from the truth.
Earth to johntmay: Nobody got “shellacked” in 2016.
At most, Hillary Clinton lost a close election that most observers thought she would win. That’s not being “shellacked”. As has been pointed out, she won the popular vote by a greater margin than several recent victors.
And yes, attacks like the following are sexist:
– She road her husband’s coattails
– She reminds me of my mother
– She’s shrill
– She’s too smart
I stand by my analysis above.
…as a member of the House that rightly or wrongly often seems less qualified than as a Senator. I don’t want to relitigate the 1972 primary, but just noting there are other variables. I’m also much less surprised that the country was not ready for either a woman or an African-American in 1972 than I am in 2016.
Sexism and racism played a role in rejecting Clinton and electing Trump but it doesn’t absolve the entire center lefts abandonment of a group of voters to the Republicans. Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy. CMD, Tom and Christopher argued we didn’t need these stinking racists and lol and behold when they defect they did so because they are racist! Many of them aren’t, many of them are so removed from the political process that they just wanted to roll the dice and blow it up.
Which is great since we should welcome blowing up the nexus of corporate and political influence that entrenched the wealthy st the expense of ordinary people. Absolutely! And when Trump gilds the swamp instead of drains it, we should pounce. And offer a real plan to drain it for good.
What I won’t do is argue the swamp doesn’t need to be drained or accuse every voter who agrees with me that it should be drained of racism or sexism. But I won’t deny that played a role. There are multiple explanations and multiple solutions people! This either/or binary bullshit has got to stop.
voted for McCain AND Romney AND Trump….we won two out of those three……but this time, so many of the Clinton fan club want to focus on the deplorables and ignore the reality of the the entire center lefts abandonment of a working class voters to the Republicans.
That bullshit has to stop.
And telling the working class that they need job training and education is just as much of a lie as “trickle down”, it’s just in blue wrapping paper.
… What happened to the chandler? Did they just.. ahem… melt away? What happened to the whaler? What happened to the… street sweeper, chimney sweep, scrivener, arkwright, elevator operator, hooper, able seaman, gummer, sumpter, chiffonier, furbisher, knoller, apothecary, wainwright, longshoreman, gorzeman, iceman, reever, armourer, glazier, phlebotomist, valet, cotton picker, haberdasher, drover, town crier, tinker, cartwright, amanuensis, whiffler, thatcher, mountebank, drayman, coxswain, cooper, lamplighter, tipstaff, suttler, night watchman, tallyman, furrier, muleteer… and the court jester?
If they didn’t get job training and an education, their children sure did…
We’ve done this before. It’s not an economic theory like ‘trickle down’ but a long established pattern of actuality. My Irish forebears were farmers on the Emerald Isle and ironworkers here, with a brief stint as soldiers in the Civil War.. It’s what’s been going on since people invented work. Jobs come and jobs go. We know this is exactly the case and we can go meta and streamline it even more. How else is it supposed to work?
I think the more-telling criticism is how inadequate bandaid potemkin-village training programs turned out to be.
When there actually were any at all.
We are just absolutely gobsmacked by how many of them there still are and how many may not be, but are willing to look the other way.
Tom you may have to expand the choices and categories. There are some women who supported Hillary simply because she’s a women (sexism?). I understand those on the top of the totem pole are usually the only ones who can be accused of behaving badly, but. Apparently many younger women have moved beyond defining their political leanings by their sex, which is why so many younger women supported Bernie. They weren’t sexist (reverse sexism?) and supported a man.
Same for Barack, don’t you think some voters voted for him simply because he was Black? When you deduct the people who voted for him because he’s Black from the people who voted against him because he’s Black (which currently is still a higher number) you’ll get his true popularity. In 20 years inter-racial marriage will cut down on both numbers and we’ll be better off.
But I would assume every first candidate in the many categories we have First Asian, Hispanic, Gay will get some unfair negatives but will be able to count on some positive support based solely on their category.
…to proudly support a credible candidate who would be the first to share your identity. Shouldn’t cancel out everything else and it should be noted that there are plenty of non-sexist reasons to oppose Clinton (and non-racist reasons to oppose Obama). It’s just that given who her opponent was in this case it is very difficult to separate the two. Take women voting for Trump, for example. My exasperated question is not, “How could you possibly not vote for the first woman to be a major party nominee?” but rather, “How could you possibly vote for a man who so clearly objectifies and demeans women on a regular basis, possibly the most openly misogynistic candidate we’ve seen in some time?”
Because they believed he would drain the swamp and bring the jobs back and Hillary had a record of doing neither.
This is really simple folks, Trump voters know he is an asshole and a thief and they are so jaded with Washington that they think it takes a thief and an asshole to stop the thiefs and the assholes ripping the people off.
Proving that Trump is ripping them off is the only way to beat him in 2018 and 2020. Running the same playbook is the surefire way to deliver the same result. Great we win the popular vote by 2 million votes and lose PA, MI, WI, and OH again. We have to regain those four states. Only by focusing on the two issues that Trump was able to beat Hillary on can this happen.
n/t
n/t
not snark but seriously. Read up on why they supported them and why our message wasn’t enough so we can make a message that works next time, while proving he failed at the promises they care about.
I surely disagree with you that it is “really simple”. It is not. I argue that there is nothing simple about it. I think it requires changing culture, building coalitions in the community, and — frankly — waiting for some generations to die and others to be born.
We already proved that Donald Trump defrauded suckers who signed up for Trump University — nobody cared. He bragged about stiffing contractors and nobody cared. He bragged about paying no federal taxes and nobody cared. He bragged about sexual assault not just once but multiple times, and nobody cared.
What you seem unwilling to admit is that a significant number of the people who voted for Donald Trump in those four states did so BECAUSE he did all those things, not in spite of them. And every one of those who voted for him in those four states knew what he had done and ignored it.
I reject your premise that Donald Trump can be defeated by attempting to use issues to change the votes of his supporters. I think we have to, instead, do three things:
– Increase voter turnout of those in PA, MI, WI, OH who find Donald Trump’s misanthropy unacceptable
– Marginalize the misanthropists who turned out to vote for Donald Trump, so that they return to being the pariahs that they were in, say, the “Archie Bunker” era of the 1970s.
– Demonstrate that we will do more to address the root causes of their economic suffering than any other party or individual. That is very different from mindless repetition of words like “jobs”.
I specifically said they know he was an asshole and don’t care. They want an asshole since they distrust Washington so much that they want an asshole to run it and fuck over the people that fucked them.
HE. WILL. NOT. DO. THIS.
He will appoint Bush conservatives to all the major positions and govern as another tax and cut Republican big spender.
Sorry hoping to raise the turnout among the non-Trump voters is repeating the same failed strategy of 2016. Hoping the shit that didn’t stick in 2016 will stick in 2020 is another repeat failure.
What we have to do is persuade mosy of the 500,000 Trump voters who voted for Obama twice in each of these states to defect back to the Democrats by proving he failed at the two issues they cared about: jobs and corruption.
When he fails to bring back the jobs and engages in corruption and we hit him on it he will lose. There is no destiny in demography, only in constantly pounding him where he has credibility and turning his strengths into liabilities. All we did was expose the many liabilities voters already knew he had and didn’t care about. But they liked that he was an outsider, he had nothing personal to gain from politics, he would bring back american jobs and drain the swamp.
He will do none of these things. And that is the weakness we ding him on. And if he falls for Ryancare, but he is smart enough to veto that and look tough on his own party. Just you wait.
Blacks and latinos didn’t come out. They won’t in 2020.
The media and popular culture and literally every celebrity made the point that if you vote for Trump you are an evil person. And yet, voters in the firewall abandoned the Democrats for Trump. They did this since he appealed to them on draining the swamp and jobs and we didn’t. They already feel marginalized and making them feel more marginalized makes them loyal Republicans and not the swing voters they are.
We had endless laundry lists and websites to go to that did this. Facts don’t matter in elections. Feelings do. And we have to win these folks back by hitting them in their gut and showing them that their champion is just another insider in on the grift. And we run a Tim Ryan or Sherrod Brown who looks like them, is from their kind of community, and knows what it’s like to balance a checkbook. We don’t re run Nancy Pelosi and Hillary and other socially liberal one percenters.
If facts don’t matter — if we remain a “post-truth” society — then popular democracy is dead. Dead because it will lead to the wrong answer as readily as the right.
I’ve heard paulsimmons argue persuasively that blacks and latinos didn’t come out because we screwed up our campaign organization. He says we literally drove them away.
I’m not sure I buy your 500,000 number for “Trump voters who voted for Obama twice”. I’m not sure of the source for that, and I’m not sure I believe it.
I think there are a shitload of racist and sexist misanthropes who didn’t turn out for Mr. McCain, who didn’t turn out for Mr. Romney, and who did turn out for Donald Trump.
They didn’t in 1800 when the attack was Jefferson would steal your Bibles and Adams was importing Chinese prostitutes into the White House. They didn’t in 1960 when JFK invented a missile gap to hit Nixon with from the right. They didn’t in 1968 when Nixon had a secret plan. They didn’t in 1980 when Reagan said he would free the hostages, rebuild the military, and cut inflation by cutting government. They didn’t in 2004 when a draft dodger who got us into a quagmire turned the war hero promising to get us out into a pussy. They didn’t in 2008 when Obama said we could believe in change or when he made the successful businessman Romney into a Scrooge like job killer.
Elections have always been gut checks that appeal to peoples hearts and fears, not their brains. Adlai E Stevenson recognized that ‘you have the vote of every thinking voter’ ‘yes madam, but I need more than that for a majority!’
So recognizing we go to the polls with the voters we have, not the voters we want, we have to make it real easy and simple for them. Trump promised to save your jobs and drain the swamp and he made your lives worse instead of better and didn’t do any of these things. Bring back the Democrats and we will do these things instead of him. Especially with our clean Midwestern nominee who has always fought Wall Street.
…to “facts don’t matter…; feelings do”? Sorry, but part of me would rather lose. What about the rest of us by the way? I may be a bit of a partisan hack, but I am also an American citizen and voter. What about what I want? I want a President who is qualified and competent. I want a President who will appeal to our better angels rather than our latent demons. I want a President who can’t be so easily baited on Twitter. I want a President who gives two hoots about our system of government. I want a President who is respectful of those who disagree on policy. I want a President rooted in reality. I want a President who doesn’t try to use the office to enrich himself. I want a President who forcefully condemns rather than encourages and acquiesces to bigotry. Notice how while I do certainly have my preferences in this comment I am not insisting on specific policy positions which are legitimately within the realm of debate. There are plenty of citizens and voters who do in fact know how to think critically and I believe it is vital to include and appeal to them as well. Quite frankly, I feel like you have dismissed me and my vision for the country in many of these comments. You do much better when you stick with how we need to preach both social and economic justice simultaneously.
I share all of your ends, and none of them will be achieved if Trump is not defeated. That means recognizing we need to win back 1-3% of the voters in these states that swung to Trump from Obama. Clinton already tried running on competence, better angels, and the rest and people living existentially from paycheck to paycheck were desperate enough to turn to an authoritarian in their time of need.
As hungry people all the world have. You are all Americans, as am I, and we have taken our institutions for granted. The Philippines had a government explicitly modeled after ours that was handed over to a dictator for a 20 year period of ‘martial law’. He is known among the poor of that country, especially my wife’s home region as someone who built schools, hospitals, and gave back land to the poor. His modern successor is a bully who hates women, minorities, especially Muslims, and wants to make war and cozy up to Putin. But he isn’t part of the ruling class or dynasties that hand off the presidency and he promised to give land to the poor.
Hungry people will do whatever they need to do for their next meal. We really fail to recognize how third world the states Clinton lost have become and why they are now operating on those timetables in these communities where democracy is now a secondary concern to survival.
Showing how Trump failed to deliver for their material needs is the only way to win them back. You do that with a hard hitting campaign identifying each of his failed promises and the individuals who feel betrayed. You don’t do that by appealing to democracy or human rights. That doesn’t work when people are hungry.
I want to remind us that we are on the inside too, as citizens and voters. I’m just saying, those who aren’t hungry vote too, as well they should, but since we always vote and vote critically I guess what you’re saying is we really have no leverage of our own:(
As I argued when I supported my heart over my brain by backing Bernie (and it turns out he should’ve been the brains choice too). Primaries are where values matter and where I want a robust debate on all the social justice issues and foreign policy stances the party should care about.
But for the general it’s just Trumps record on the economy and our alternative to it. You’re such a big Bill Clinton fan I’m surprised your reacting so negatively to “it’s the economy, stupid!”. It beat an out of touch incumbent in 1992 and could do it again in 2020. I don’t recall abortion, gay rights or minority rights getting much airtime after the conventions. It as all about the Bush record and our alternative.
What bothers me is the sense that a certain subset of voters seems to be the Holy Grail, and it happens to be a subset I don’t personally identify with. It certainly doesn’t have to be all about me either, but it was starting to sound like pandering and hand-holding. The difference of course, is that Bush was a decent guy who understood public service and we could stick to the record. Can’t say that about Trump.
That certain subset of voters was treated like untouchables during the campaign and reacted in kind. Time to do real outreach instead of the smug condescension I’ve seen drip from keyboards onto this site and many other progressive outlets I regularly keep up with.
And yes thinking like a strategist is exactly what the campaigns I’ve worked on have trained me to do. And you have to increase base turnout and convert swing voters simultaneously. I think we maxed our base out with the appeals that didn’t twirl imeith swing voters in 2016. By all means we continue those appeals and hold the coalition which you astutely reminded naysayers like EB3 is the majority. But we need pluralities in the subsets we lost that ended up being electorally determinative. I don’t see us getting to 270 by saying we don’t need these voters, it didn’t work last time and it won’t work in 2020. That’s wishing the problem away instead of addressing it head on.
I’ve been trained to think like a strategist too (and do hold a MA in Political Management after all), but I’m also a citizen and a voter. By all means reach out, but why is their vote more important than mine? I guess I can be taken for granted because I will vote and vote Democratic?:( Isn’t that precisely the mistake we made with the constituency in question?
Your vote is never in doubt and it always is taken for granted. But how did you relate to the unenrolleds you canvassed in NH who were leaning for Trump but open to Hillary? Is it a civics lecture and asking why they are holding such antiquated views or is it by telling them how Democrats more consistently fight working people and will do so again?
I mean I guess I’ll turn the table and ask some questions. Do you honestly think the campaign worked and we just need to build better voters? Or don’t think there are lessons to learn and strategies to adjust. This isn’t about defending or attacking Hillary, it’s asking why we lost and how do we win? So far you haven’t convinced me doubling down on the status quo will work.
“Unenrolleds” who were “leaning for Trump but open to Hillary”?
I think you’re talking about pink unicorns, my friend. I think people chose sides a LONG LONG time ago, whether or not they admitted it. I think this was a starkly polarized election with a starkly polarized electorate.
I think somebody who is “leaning for Trump” wrote off Hillary Clinton a long long time ago. I think people who were “leaning for Trump” stop paying attention to facts, rationality, logic, or any semblance thereof a long long time ago. Angry? Yes. Hostile? Yes. Ready to throw rocks through windows? Yes. Ready to burn the whole place down? Yes. Ready to kick some ass? Yes.
Open to Hillary? Uh uh. Nope. They might say so, just to fuck with your mind. I think it’s bullshit. I think they know it, and I think they’re looking to see if you know it.
…I know that our message in NH was about the fighting rather than the civics lecture. There’s always a review of the message and I’ve never suggested there shouldn’t be, but I DO think we can turn out a lot more like-minded voters when only half showed up. Plus we WON NH.
It was called “outside agitators.”
Indeed, and for those who don’t remember, this was a rallying cry of Spiro Agnew and the Richard Nixon campaign.
The GOP has always practiced identity politics, that’s what the “southern strategy” is all about. The difference is that the GOP plays to majority, rather than minority, groups.