In some of our recent discussions about How to Fix Everything, we’ve had a lot of talk about messaging, positioning, and the like. These are all worthy topics, but to me the real issue is credibility.
Take the recent healthcare vote, especially John McCain’s role in it. You could take the view that he first grandstanded, and then sandbagged McConnell and Trump. But the public didn’t see it that way. I heard a caller to WBUR saying how she always votes Democratic, but she loves McCain.
McCain of course has been buttressed by fawning coverage from the national media, and the fact that he’s the most frequent guest on Sunday shows. And he also sounds credible.
McCain’s best friend in the Senate is Lindsey Graham. Granted, Graham doesn’t have McCain’s compelling biography. But he does have McCain’s sense of when things have gone too far. McCain showed it with Bush, and Graham is showing it now with Trump. But somehow, Graham will never be as credible with the public as McCain.
Closer to home, I’ve seen no polling on this, but I think Elizabeth Warren has a lot of credibility, even among people who politically oppose her. Markey does too, but in a quieter way. And people may have hated Ted Kennedy, but they knew where he stood, and he was the best dealmaker in the Senate.
Most of Trump’s credibility came from his EFF YOU-ness. He had no respect for Washington, and he said it every chance he got. This made him refreshing (especially to the press, who hold establishment Washington in contempt as well). But Trump is finally beginning to erode that sense of trust. People still hate Washington, but now Trump is a) not doing anything to change Washington, and b) lying to their faces.
I could go on — Bernie Sanders, a cranky old guy who is almost a Socialist, had broad appeal because he believed in what he was saying.
Our 2018 field, and especially our 2020 field, just needs to be people who believe what they say. We can remain the big tent, and accommodate Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, Cory Booker (he needs to stop making things up, but on issues he sounds credible), and whoever else.
In these confusing times, I think people want leaders they can trust.
I don’t know what to do with this.
I’m inclined to agree with you that “people want leaders they can trust”.
We know that Donald Trump tells a thousand lies for every statement uttered by any other figure. He is a pathological liar — he lies about virtually EVERYTHING, big and small. He lied about whether not he had a phone call with the leader of the Boy Scouts, for crying out loud.
Yet the claim is that people “trust” him, and did not trust Ms. Clinton. I just don’t know what to do with that.
I suspect that a different dynamic is happening. I think we’re in a world where too many people listen ONLY to people and statements that they already agree with.
I don’t see how our political system can continue to operate while people continue to “trust” public figures who loudly lie about things that countless sources show are objectively false.
I didn’t mention HRC at all.
But, among people who voted for Trump, I frequently heard that “He tells it like it is.” Whether he was or not (he wasn’t), he connected on a gut level with many people.
I’m not sure you can cleanly separate out the statement and the underlying subtext. Saying “He tells it like it is.” is gesturing at two things: A) that others don’t “say it like it is” and 2) his version of ‘like it is’ maps to theirs.
This is classic con-man shtick: ‘con’ being short for ‘confidence’ and used to illustrate manipulation of someone by taking them into confidence and supposedly sharing information that, purportedly, no one else has (‘tell it like it is’) and, fleece them while they are not looking… The con-man’s game isn’t to take anything at all, but to make the mark give it all away.
So… the question is begged… did they connect ‘on a gut level’ or were they completely and utterly snookered?
People are angry. We watched the big banks get bailed out. We’re watching the rich get richer. We’re watching our kids go into massive debt in school loans. We’re watching out parents lose their jobs and unable to find a suitable replacement. We’re watching all the gains from the period of 1940-1970 slowly erode away. All while Republicans AND Democrats were in office and promised better times ahead.
Trump was “something different”. Did people get snookered? Sure, but it seems like we’re getting used to it.
Should have added: but now he’s undoing that, and is a sitting duck. But that doesn’t mean votes automatically go to our nominee. Our nominee needs to be someone people trust instinctively.
Amen my friend. Hillary Clinton (as THE most qualified and experienced politician to EVER run for the presidency) tried that as her campaign strategy “Vote for ME because I am a woman and Trump is a bad man”……..and it resulted in President Trump. Do it again and it will result in a second term.
Well, with the caveat that the post isn’t really about HRC, I agree. Making the campaign about her qualifications was another way of saying “Qualified to maintain the status quo” in a year where swing voters wanted change.
Worth noting though, before Trump took on HRC, he decimated the deepest GOP field I can remember: four Senators, three Governors, etc. That was a credibility issue. Anyone with a Washington label wasn’t credible.
Anyone who looks at Donald Trump even a millimeter deep knows that he is a pathological liar.
He lied about Trump University. He lied about supplements. He lies about EVERYTHING.
Nobody who really cares about trust or “credibility” can support Donald Trump. So something else must be at play.
Yes, there is. There are many factors. Mistrust of the establishment, I’m saying, is the biggest factor.
Also — I promise not to say this again — this isn’t really a Hillary/Trump diary. I’m talking more generally. What makes a politician credible? Consistency, for one thing (Warren proves this). Another is willingness to stand alone sometimes (McCain has that — maybe Bernie too in this way).
I understand about HRC/Trump.
Still, I think we have to talk about Mr. Trump if we’re going to have any meaningful conversation about “credibility”.
I’d like to think that “consistency” and “willingness to stand alone” include SOME connection to rational objective truth.
Senator James Inhof has consistently reject ALL evidence about global warming and consistently promoted a long list of lies in it’s place. Does that make Mr. Inhof “credible”? I hope not.
Not with us, no. But I’ll bet his voting record on core GOP issues is pretty solid.
Also, rejecting evidence is the sort of thing we could/should attack when taking on these guys.
Plus, HRC has a CONSISTENT record stretching her entire adult life of fighting for people, often those who don’t have many other champions.
She was qualified to do the job. You know, the experience most potential employers look to when hiring and the people collectively are the employer. Try getting hired anyplace else with the selling point of “I have absolutely no experience, but hire me and I’ll blow the place up.” That aspect isn’t about status quo vs. change. She and Bernie could have completely switched positions and I would have supported her, though ironically he had been in DC longer than she had.
What if instincts of some of the people just plain suck? They don’t call it ‘the silly season’ for nothing. And, let us not forget, Stephen Colbert had a solid ten years on Comedy Central mocking ‘truthiness’ and ‘gut’ instincts… night after night after night.
I know you don’t want to make this a rehash of Trump v Clinton, but it is worth reminding that Clinton did get 65 million votes. This wasn’t Nixon v McGovern where McGovern didn’t even crack 40% of the electorate nor even 20 electoral votes… Yet the way you’re framing this suggests a certain cast of thought in the direction of a dire and pitiless shellacking. That’s not this.
This is false.
Yet the way you’re framing this suggests a certain cast of thought in the direction of a dire and pitiless shellacking. That’s not this.
That’s not how I cast it. That’s how you’re reading it, for the sake of making your argument.
If we lost in a landslide, it would be a whole different discussion.
I’d call it a landslide.
When the most politically experienced and highly qualified person with years of government service is who the Democrats select and the Republicans choose a reality TV show real estate developer with zero experience in politics or government – and the Republicans win – I call that a landslide.
It’s like the Democrats draft Tom Brady for their team and the Republicans draft Marsha Brady for their team and the final score on the board is 21-17 in favor of the Republicans……that’s a shellacking,
That is how I’m reading it. That’s how you said it: You said, and I quote, “that doesn’t mean votes automatically go to our nominee. “… in the wake of an election where, in fact, more votes DID, indeed, go to our candidate.
How else am I supposed to read that?
You can’t have it both ways and neither could HRC. You can’t point to her years with Bill in government, including the White House and just cherry pick the nice things while dismissing the bad ones. The man who sank Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency was not Donald Trump. It was her husband.
Meta — At the moment (7:43 a.m.), I appear to have the ability to edit comments. Such temptation …
(Thanks for the bump though.)
We’ve lost the ability to reply beyond a certain layer and to rate comments – what happened?
I think JimC is making great points. I think we should listen to them as the party and movement move forward rather than argue about the last campaign, the last primary, and the last nominee.
Moving forward implies change. If we can’t agree as to why we lost the last campaign and so many other campaigns leading up to that, how do we agree on what changes are to be made?
I say the party needs to be more focused on the working class and I am told that the last candidate we ran for the WH was already deeply focused on the working class……
And here we are….
I say that just about every campaign we’ve “lost” is as a result of the other side lying, cheating and ratfucking their way to ‘victory’ on the backs of unrestricted huge money donors who think they know better than anyone else. The other side, put simply, cannot win on merit. They have to gin up fear and smear and racism and sexism and make the debate about lower than the lowest common denominator. Even then, they need James Comey and the Russians to put them over the top.
We “can’t agree as to why we lost” because your version of political determinism doesn’t take this into account and, instead, pretends that the election and all the participants are above-board, fair-minded and generally willing to play by the rules. So you spin the very narrowest of losses as ‘a landslide’
We’re the good guys. There are at least 65 million of us who didn’t fall for the lies or the skullduggery. There are 65 million of us willing, at least, to think. And that gives me hope.
Charlie Baker cheated? A majority of state governments are run by Republicans because they cheated? Really? Republicans hold a majority in the house and senate because at each election, they cheated?
I’ll need to see evidence of this.
I certainly think he lied about how far and how deep his conservatism goes.
Yeah. It’s called voter suppression. You should look it up. Gerrymandering, too: They illegally gerrymandered Texas, to take but one example. They also use their big money donors to repeat lies, ceaselessly. It happens. ‘
What part of any of this is a surprise to you? Ostensibly, you turned against Limbaugh for a reason, no? Well, what was that reason?
What’s your solution then, if the ONLY reasons that Democrats have lost the house, senate, White House, and a majority of state governments….is because Republicans are liars & cheaters and voters are bigots and misogynists?
Looks like all we can do as Democrats is to admit the system is rigged against us, the voters are stupid, mean, and evil….and call it quits.
We continue to argue. because you continue to not listen. We are, therefore, likely to do ourselves and our movement more harm than good in any willful and deliberate ignorance of the facts.
Westley: No, no. We have already succeeded. I mean, what are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp? One, the flame spurt – no problem. There’s a popping sound preceding each; we can avoid that. Two, the lightning sand, which you were clever enough to discover what that looks like, so in the future we can avoid that too.
Buttercup: Westley, what about the R.O.U.S.’s?
Westley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.
Aaarrgghhh…..
Hitting reply limits. petr said:
“That is how I’m reading it. That’s how you said it: You said, and I quote, “that doesn’t mean votes automatically go to our nominee. “… in the wake of an election where, in fact, more votes DID, indeed, go to our candidate.
“How else am I supposed to read that?”
In context, for one thing. You’re quoting my reply to Somerville Tom. I was clearly referring to our NEXT nominee.
Well, I envy you the ability to compartmentalize so neatly. Implicit, however, in your statement are two connections: credibility equals votes and people did not trust Hillary Clinton. SomervilleTom mentioned this also specifically stating he couldn’t parse that on your behalf…
If, as you allege, trust equals votes how do you explain the title of your post “The Biggest Issue Is Credibility.”??? If, in a straightforward mathematical sense credibility does equal votes, then isn’t it fair to say, since Hillary Clinton had more votes she has more credibility? I’m not agreeing with what you are saying, per se, just following your own logic…
Of course it’s fair, which is why she WON (which I know some people hate harping on because obviously she’s not POTUS, but frankly the knowledge that the people chose her is the only thing keeping me saying the Pledge of Allegiance these days!)
Trying to recenter a bit:
My larger point here is that voters are not ideological, or at least not as ideological as us.
They just want to know who they’re dealing with. A pro-choice alternative, for example, could have beaten Bob Casey in Pennsylvania. Alison Lundergan Grimes would have been much better off answering the “Did you vote for Obama?” question (no, she probably wouldn’t have won, but she would have had a better personal brand).
Al Franken remains popular in a swing state because people know who he is, he explains his positions, and he never talks down to people (or reporters for that matter). He’ll last.
Franken is really a dark horse in my view. I think he could really pull together the Clinton and Sanders wings without sacrificing swing state appeal. He is really underrated, and unlike other Clinton surrogates, he is open about how our side failed as well.
Petr no one is arguing against GOP rat fucking, voter suppression, or gerrymandering. Those are things that are currently out of our control. Democrats have won Congress, statehouses, and the presidency and electoral college despite those structural disadvantages in the past and will need to do so again.
Next time we are in power we should actually reform the structure so it’s not enabling a minority of Americans to have a majority of electors, the Senate or the House. Failing to kill the electoral college when we had a chance was a huge mistake in my view, one we are paying for dearly today. Failing to fight for card check and oppose right to work was another.
Our nominee has to be twice as good and fight with one hand tied behind his or her back. So we need an exceptionally talented person capable of winning despite the structure. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are. Al Franken might not seem so-but he ran six points ahead of Clinton during a lower turnout election against a well funded credible Republican. He did so running on the economy first-as Obama did in 08′ and 12′ and Clinton did in 92′ and 96′.
I think we can disagree about the last election while agreeing that the next one will be won or lost on the economic record of the most corrupt administration in American history.
And…
…. that means any such nominee also gets a handicap when monday-morning quarterbacking….
The last few months, however, have been, more or less, me saying “Gee, Hillary Clinton was only one and ninety-nine one hundredths as good and spent a lot of the time with both hands held behind her back” and you saying “Worst. Candidate. Ever.”
So, welcome back to reality. You’re forgiven.
“You can fool some of the people all the time. And you can fool all the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all the people all the time.” A. Lincoln.
Hillary Clinton was the most qualified candidate. She was also the most vilified. With the deck stacked against her in almost every conceivable way… with actual — literal– Billions of dollars of lying, cheating, ratfucking GOP animosity against her….
… wait for it…
… you know it’s coming…
… still, she got more votes than the other guy.
She lost. We lost. That’s in the past. Our next candidate can get more votes a second time and we can lose a second time. Why brag about a losing strategy? Why keep talking about it?
The deck was only stacked against her because she dealt herself many of those cards.
Time to move on. Time to move away from losing strategies and candidates with ultra high negatives.
Time to stop asking for more and more money to promote flawed candidates without a unifying value message.
She had the polls on her side and the constitution shafted her in the end, but as for moving on – you first!
Is the deck stacked against us? You said it yourself. You (it seems) agreed with that upthread.
If the deck is stacked against…. If they ‘other side’ is not playing by the rules, what about any strategy of ours makes it a ‘losing’ strategy. If, absent the stacked deck, we’d only get more votes and they less…. how can you call our strategy a ‘loser’? What strategy would you propose in its place that would have had greater hope of ‘success’?
But you would rather blame Hillary Clinton, which is, yet again, another form of stacking the deck against her: as was said about her husband so long ago, “Clinton could walk on water and the Republicans would claim (s)he doesn’t know how to swim.”
Everything old is new again.
The deck is only stacked against us if we continue to run an identity based issue campaign and abandon working class voters in part because we are afraid to alienate wealthy corporate interests that are bankrolling our campaigns.
I blame Hillary because it was her candidacy. She ran a horrible campaign. She lost.
Time to move on. Time for a unifying value statement as our war cry instead of “I’m with Her!”
You’re right. It’s our fault. We stacked the deck against our own selves… how foolishly I’ve been struggling against the clarity of it…
… and in a diary about ‘credibility’ no less. Irony.
Yup, we sure did. All we had to do was not align so tightly with Wall Street, not present an establishment candidate, and be a party of the working class, but we decided to not play those cards. Out choice. Our loss. .