I’m not sure why everyone hates all the articles about what Democrats should do next, I think they’re interesting and potentially important. I liked this article by Ezekiel Kweku (Shrill Cosby @theshrillest on twitter) a lot:
The lesson we should draw from Clinton’s loss is not that white supremacy is unbeatable at the polls, but that it’s not going to beat itself. White people are not going to instinctively recoil from racist appeals, and neither are people of color going to flock to the polls to defeat them. If the Democratic Party would like to keep more Donald Trumps from winning in the future, they are going to have to take the extraordinary step of doing politics.
[….]What message will energize the Democratic base and reach persuadable voters is an open question, but the simplest place to find it is probably in economics. The answer could be, as many former Bernie Sanders supporters believe, that the Democratic Party must cut ties with neoliberalism and adopt a more progressive, populist economic platform. In the primaries, at least, this message was successful in some of the same areas where Trump won in the general election. Another idea is for Dems to pay more attention to the importance of places, creating policies that would help struggling communities, both urban and rural, rather than policies that simply help individuals. In any case, white nationalism is not a new normal, it’s the old normal, and if it’s going to be defeated at the polls, the Democratic Party is going to have to use an old tactic, too.
I’m quite skeptical that Trump benefitted from his anti-immigrant and at times blatantly racist and xenophobic stances. I live on the edge of the so-called rust belt (though my county went heavily for Obama) and I can tell you that people are obsessed with trade here. But that’s not inherently racist or xenophobic. Trump tapped into something that has a strong, repulsively racist side to it. But there’s more to the story than that. Liberals can compete for working class votes in rural areas without compromising our commitment to social justice. And we will.
Jacel
Never forget that, even when losing, many more votes were cast on our side. Build from that strength in the face of injustice, hate, and avarice.
NR
Why, that’s just crazy enough to work!
People here don’t want to hear it though.
Betty Cracker
Uh, we did. HRC’s platform was the most progressive in a generation. You can argue that she was the wrong messenger, etc. But let’s not pretend that she didn’t co-opt most of Sanders’ platform.
I see we’re getting ready to play another round of “economic anxiety” vs. “racist shitheads,” so I’ll restate my position: I am fine with the party retooling its economic message to be more anti-Wall Street and pro-Main Street. I guess we can even pretend this is new. But if we dilute our strong support for nonwhites, immigrants, women and the LGBT community to appeal to racist shitheads (who may not live near you but goddamn sure live all around me), we will not only be morally wrong, we will lose.
Timurid
This is the showdown that last year I thought was still decades away.
White America has moved all in. They’re betting everything they own on a chance to rule for another century.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: what dd you do to reach WWC and rural voters in the last cycle?
also, shut the fuck up
Mnemosyne
I would also keep in mind that most of the people who actively voted for Trump are probably not winnable. We need the people who either didn’t cast a ballot for president but voted for the down-ticket races, or who didn’t vote at all.
Also, VOTER SUPPRESSION HAPPENED! It’s documented. We know it happened. Can we please keep that in the discussion as well rather than pretending that we lost for mysterious, unknown reasons? Yes, the Democrats can and should message better, but voter suppression is what created the margin to let Trump win.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: the Ricketts and the Mercers and traders chanting “locker her up!” could read platforms and positions and figure out which candidate was on their side
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I see your Google alert is still letting you know when we’re in danger of having a productive conversation.
Damien
I think that we need to drive more people to the polls with big-name legislation. Something that people can get behind (or oppose) by name. Obamacare is an example.
I personally was shocked to discover that there is no constitutional right to vote, and I’d wager that most anyone you asked would be similarly surprised. This feels like an area where we could do really well and get people energized, because it feels like an oversight from the Founders, and despite what Republican politicians seem to think, people believe in the right to vote.
American Voting Bill of Rights or something. Put in literally everything that’s used to suppress the vote and then make them explain why Americans shouldn’t have equal access to the ballot. When you’re explaining, you’re losing: make them.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
I smell shit, does anyone else smell it ?
Amaranthine RBG
Really, tell me some more about these “white people” of which you speak …
sharl
Hey Doug, as a courtesy I suggest you correct the Twitter handle you have for Mr. Kewku. He used to be Shrill Cosby on Twitter, but after all of Bill Cosby’s sexual assaults came to light, he changed that to TheShrillest. I saw that account name change in real time as it happened.
Major Major Major Major
Uh, why? The polling certainly does not back your opinion.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thank you for the “Shut the fuck up, Donnie”; I’m out of energy at the moment.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
What is that now, 300? 400? posts from you pushing votor suppression as the single, simple thing that let Trump win?
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Do you guys *all* have a Google alert?
Eljai
We have better ideas than the other side. We always have. It’s important to keep imagining the kind of world we want to live in — a world based on stewardship of the planet and taking care of one another, for starters. This is not escapism. This is about creating the conditions for brilliant ideas and solutions to thrive. Because on top of everything else, we’ll need to be crafty as we come up with ways to move forward while the grifters appear to hold power. Don’t know how long the grifting will last, but the fact of the matter is that, ultimately, it won’t last at all.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: About pie, yes.
Amaranthine RBG
@Betty Cracker:
And let’s also not pretend that voters are so dumb that they believe that Clinton’s latest triangulated policy position represents what she really believes.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, certainly slots into the “feature, not bug” column. There’s also a psychological component whereby somebody says a ton of over the top, batshit-crazy things and gets away with it (see: shooting somebody on 5th Avenue) and as if by magic, the deeply dangerous but less obviously crazy utterances are accepted without challenge. This is Trump. This is what has replaced traditional campaigning in the 21st century.
NR
@Betty Cracker: You are correct that we will never out-racist the Republicans and we shouldn’t try. But the hard-core racists, by themselves, are not enough to win a national election. We saw that when a black guy got elected president twice.
We can win with the right economic message. But it’s not enough to talk the talk, we have to walk the walk. We have an opportunity now. Trump is not going to deliver on his promises to the working class, both because he doesn’t really give a shit about them, and because for many of them, he simply can’t. When the things Trump promised don’t materialize, we need to be out there pushing policies that will benefit the working class and letting them know that they can count on us, not for the bullshit that Trump offered, but for real policies that will make their lives better. No more incrementalism. Go big or go home.
I’m nervous about Senate Dems picking a Senator so close to Wall Street to carry the banner for this, but who knows. Maybe Schumer will surprise me.
tobie
This is getting old fast. Doug J–do you read the threads on this blog? We’ve flogged this theme to death. Can we just stop for a bit with the election post-mortems, Dem circle-jerk firing squads, etc. and get back to the important question about how we can do whatever we can to preserve civil rights, voting rights, Medicare, environmental protections, etc. GOP public figures are talking about friggin’ internment camps and we’re sitting here squabbling whether we paid too little attention to lunch bucket issues, too much attention to multicultural issues, etc. Wake up!
Wiseone
Why don’t you and MM go start your own blog?
You are either with us or against us.
charluckles
Unless the press is going to do something besides focus on emails, I don’t see how careful well thought out policy and platform is ever going to compete with “f*ck those Chinese bastards”! and “screw the rapists coming over the border too”! with a lot of these people. And this is my extended family we are talking about.
trollhattan
@Amaranthine RBG:
You really are the problem right there, Donnie.
Amaranthine RBG
@tobie:
Excuse me, why are you wanting to deny Menosyne her god-given right to make several hundred more posts about voter suppression?
Calouste
Nope. Liberals will still be baby-killing godless communists and no evangelical is going to vote for them. You assume these people are rational. They aren’t. I’ve read the article my evangelical in-laws posted on Facebook to explain their vote, it’s a different reality out there.
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne: Until and unless Democrats figure out how to address voter suppression laws (many more to come) by either helping potential voters with obtaining necessary documents or getting courts to overturn them (increasingly unlikely), minority voters who would normally vote for Democrats will not be able to do so.
This is a big deal and I don’t understand why Democrats appear to wait until we’re facing elections to talk about this. What can we actually do NOW to address this issue beyond freaking out every 4 years? I’m going to shoot an email to the DNC and see if I get any response.
MaryL
We could take a page out of the Trump playbook and make incredible sounding promise that we can’t possibly keep.
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne:
Voter suppression did indeed happen, and we’d probably have won without it. *However*, we’ll have to win elections before we can do much about it, so it’s not a good target for getting back on top. Likewise, the politicized FBI and racism also cost us the election, in the sense that if they weren’t there we’d have won – but those aren’t things we can change from out of power either.
Now economic issues are also ones that likely cost us the election. Without TPP, we’d have won (there was a big shift in the Rust Belt, even beyond in other rural areas). Likewise, if we’d done a better job messaging on minimum wage, wage theft, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, we’d have won too. Those, however, are things we *can* change while out of power, and so they’re the best route (that I can see) to get back into power.
tobie
@Amaranthine RBG: Mnemosyne has an incredible memory (!!) so I’m very happy to read her posts.
(Google Mnemosyne is you don’t get this post.)
NR
@charluckles: Part of it is going to these people’s communities and talking to them. Hillary didn’t visit Wisconsin at all during the general election campaign. She only visited Michigan at the very end. Meanwhile, Trump was in those states all the time.
It makes a difference.
trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
Specifically, full-press efforts to win back governorships, starting with the Republican stranglehold on the upper Midwest.
Chris
I’m fine with the first half of the sentence and suspect we’ll be doing a lot of that in 2018 and 2020, as long as the second half of the sentence remains understood.
Archon
I’m sure getting tired of this implicit argument that the only people in this country with any real economic agency are working class white folks.
Major Major Major Major
@tobie:
Knowing Doug’s modus operandi, there’s half a chance he wants us to fight.
Mart
Old white folks detested lying Hillary. Trump stating “Crooked Hillary” every time he spoke her name was a great idea. Unprompted, have been told by about a half dozen 50+ white R’s that the best moment of all the debates was when Trump responded he would get an Attorney General who would put her in jail. When I ask what did she lie about – everything. Name one – Benghazi. I say 8 Benghazi investigations and no charges, and Politico says she is remarkably honest. Liberal press. Name two – Vince Foster. I give up and say that Trump is extremely dishonest. Huh. That this is not a banana republic, you do not lock up your opponent. Looks at me with understanding as I am so clueless.
Think it really boils down to 35 years right wing media hating on the Clinton’s. Really that simple. No more analysis neede.
trollhattan
@Mart:
It certainly had the ultimate desired outcome, so the RoI looks really good. Yay, us.
tobie
@Chris: I wish I had your confidence. I don’t. We’re thinking of replacing Nancy Pelosi with someone who “just evolved” into supporting a woman’s right to choose. Women and minorities understand what this means: some quarters of the Democratic party believe WHITE working class MALES are more important than anyone else. The tone-deafness and ideological blinders are breathtaking.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
It is pretty interesting that you refuse to talk about this very well-documented story.
Here’s another topic for you — pretty interesting that both Trump’s and Sanders’ campaign managers worked for Putin, isn’t it? I guess that’s just another one of those totally insignificant coincidences that didn’t have any effect on the election. Nothing to see here, keep walking, comrade.
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: We certainly won’t have the federal government on our side.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
Love you, Betty, but literally no one is saying we should do that.
James E Powell
White working class is the Democrats’ Great White Whale. We’ve been having this argument since Reagan. They are against any program that provides economic benefits to workers if that program includes African Americans.
Alesis
This country is both open minded enough to elect a black president and racist enough that blatant appeals to racism don’t lose a candidate any votes on net.
We should have taken those stories about Obama campaign canvassers in speaking to citizens who proudly proclaimed “we’re voting for the n….” His election was not a sign that “hard core racists” are no longer a major force but that they simply require a little motivation that they used to. Mitt Romney (to his credit) refused to play.
Donald Trump?…. well he moved on that like a….
gogol's wife
@tobie:
Amen.
bemused
@Calouste:
A Trump voter explained his vote in Star Tribune yesterday. Starts off with the usual I’m not a racist, the rest of the ists and phobes He doesn’t want to throw granny in the street or deny access to birth control but he’s so damn sick of liberal elites telling him they know what’s best for him and everyone else. Now liberals are shocked that we don’t don’t see the world through their smug eyes. He doesn’t really believe Trump is all those vile things that liberal say just to make us toe the line and accept their world view. He ends with he could have been personally fine if either Trump or Clinton won and he voted for Trump but not for personal reasons.
He most certainly did vote for Trump for personal reasons. It’s all about his feelings, his grievances. These folks have gigantic chips on their shoulders. No point in wasting time trying to woo them. They’re always going to feel inferior and vote with their resentments.
kc
@Matt McIrvin:
We hardly have any states on our side either, unfortunately.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
Yeah, no. It’s a nice story, but do you remember what the #1 predictor was that someone was going to vote for Trump?
It was that they thought President Obama is a secret Muslim.
I’m sorry, but I can’t let you guys whitewash this. This was a vote for white supremacy, and it happens every time when white voters feel economically secure.
They only voted for Obama because they were drowning and he was able to throw them a rope. As soon as they were back on dry land, they turned on him and his coalition. Again. They never learn.
Fair Economist
@Archon:
I don’t see that as implicit in any way. The claim is that there’s a winnable section of the working class, overwhelmingly white, which we lost this round because their racism and the desire for trade restrictions overcame their desire for various pro-working class policies we support. We don’t have to win back the non-white working class, because they’re already overwhelmingly for us. This is just practical politics.
schrodinger's cat
@kc: I guess California, NY and Massachusetts are chopped liver, now?
Matt McIrvin
@kc: No one on this thread, but I’ve definitely heard it: it’s the Jim Webb argument.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, but in those voters minds “Clinton = neo-liberal plus NAFTA” It’s really hard for a politician to run against their own record, ever harder to run againt the record the voters make up in their head and Hillary can’t just hand wave it away as “that was Bill” because they were going on about a partnership during his presidency.
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne:
We don’t have to win every Trump voter. We don’t have to win even most Trump voters. Actually, we don’t even have to win a particularly large fraction of Trump voters – we only need to win the ones that voted for Obama in 2012. Those probably didn’t think Obama was a secret Muslim. The total nutbars are another ones of those “things we’d have won if they didn’t exist, but which we can’t do much about for a while”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Any time I see a piece that uses the “n word”, in this case neoliberalism, the author loses me. It’s like reading the comments section at Booman where the usual cabal of Our Progressive Betters don’t feel that they can take another breath without posting something with the “n word” in it. Yes, let’s take an Elizabeth Warren approach to economic issues
From above: these people are not logical. Two diaries just went up over at Teh Orange that dovetail nicely on this:
in which it comes down to “it’s the candidate stupid”. I wholeheartedly supported Clinton but it certainly appears that in part she suffered from Clinton Rules, 30 years of media tilt against her and her own campaign’s operation decisions in terms of campaigning.
The other one:
asks “How can you appeal to a voter that went Bush-Obama-Obama-Trump?” You can’t.
So, going back to Senator Warren, she’s essentially saying what Betty said above: “I see we’re getting ready to play another round of “economic anxiety” vs. “racist shitheads”, except only more diplomatically.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodinger’s cat: States with generally blue governments are a distinct minority and definitely not enough to carry the whole country. That needs to get better, and it’s a chicken-and-egg problem unless there’s some support outside of disenfranchised minorities. And the vote fraud argument has a way of neutralizing the moral argument for voting rights.
Major Major Major Major
@kc: @Matt McIrvin: I have also heard this, including from commenters right here on BJ.
Emma
@Amaranthine RBG: That’s it. Unlike NR and GoBlue or whatever, I thought you really had thoughts in your head. Forget it. Added to the ignore column.
Kay
It’s just that it’s counterfactual because liberals really are different than Trump. If Trump were doing what he said he would do business and media would be freaking out and undermining him. He’ll get away with it BECAUSE it’s bullshit. If it wasn’t bullshit there would be immediate pushback from monied interests.
Say liberals said what Trump did about the economy. Would Wall Street be cheering the new liberal President like they’re cheering Trump? No. They KNOW it’s bullshit. And as long as he cuts taxes and guts regulation they’ll all cheer him. You won’t get that with a genuine populist approach. You’ll get the kind of opposition Obama got X 10.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
The media spent zero time discussing policy. None. Zip. Nada. None of this was about issues, or Wall Street, or millyunaires and billyunaires, it was about a con man’s huckstering the rubes who hate everyone who isn’t exactly like them, who are dumb and mean. Trump told so many lies, so many times, then lied about the lies he lied about, that the press just simply abdicated any role they could have played, and played along. What Democrat could have out Trumped Trump? Bernie???? LOL. Unless he promised to build a wall, with a moat, with sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their head, and wanted to round up people by skin tone. Not only do people not want government expanded by any liberal, they want it dismantled to kick liberals in the teeth, just because they’re mean and dumb.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fair Economist: Trump also had a few things that set him apart from other Republicans: 1) He said, repeatedly if not loudly, that he had no interest in tinkering with Medicare and Social Security. 2) We all laugh at his bankruptcies and flimflammery and history of exploiting his (father’s) political ties to have what successes he did, and we may know that “run the country like a business” is a really dumb fucking slogan, but to a lot of people it’s such obvious good sense that they don’t think a step beyond it. 3) likewise, “shake things up/outsider/drain the swamp”, another meaningless slogan that has great appeal, or at least enough to make a difference in a tight election against a flawed candidate.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-democrats-real-turnout-problem.html
Kryptik
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It’s even harder when the media gives almost zero time for actual policy, and innuendo and insinuation about emails, emails, and did we mention emails?…suck up all the oxygen in the room. Clinton gave a lot of time for actual policy, and usually she got relegated to a Picture-in-Picture on mute for a lot of those times, or just not covered in general, because ‘DID YOU HEAR ABOUT WIKILEAKS?’
Emma
@tobie: Exactly. And I am getting sick and tired of it.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
AmarinthineRBG, NR, and goblue1972 are all saying just that, but they’re gussying it up as “economic insecurity” and “trade deals,” just like Trump did.
When people talk about attracting Trump voters, what did you think they were talking about, taking tea?
SatanicPanic
@tobie: This. Bernie, Hillary, whatever. It’s done. We’re all in this together now, whether we like it or not.
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
THIS.
These people need to stop with the economically anxious, distressed, anxiety bullshit. There is no economic policy where the GOP’s position polls better with voters than the democratic position, higher minimum wage, paid time off, overtime rules, paid sick days and holidays, even on taxes higher rates for the wealthy are popular. They are beating us with the message of who is responsible for their lack of upward mobility, “those people.” While we try to be honest and nuanced about the changing world we live in with globalization, they just scream that democrats are taking your shit and giving it to those people. Democrats are stealing from you and your kids to give it to undeserving, shiftless, lazy people who don’t belong here. That is and has been their message since the great St. Reagan, and it has not changed. We have plenty of evidence of this, when the economy is not in a crisis caused by the GOP, white people go back to their default GOP candidates, because democrats are the party of multiculturism, they will vote for us in a crisis because we can be relied on to fix the shit they break. See Clinton, Bill, see Obama, but as soon as they right the ship, they go right back to the GOP, because they are the fiscally responsible party, who are best on the economy. Elkhart IN, is the example I keep going back to, they were in danger of going belly up because of the Bush near depression, so they voted for Obama, who saved them, they acknowledged he saved them, but as soon as they got back on their feet, they wanted a change and so voted for RMoney. They want to be in a party where they are in charge and the priority, that’s not the democrats. It sucks but that is the bottom line, we have the numbers, but what we are still lacking is a turnout machine that gets our side out to vote for each and every election, down to dogcatcher. I’m not saying we are perfect, far from it, but it’s the default settings that are the problem. Between the reality of where these voters see their interests, all evidence to the contrary, and the media amplifying the falsehoods the GOP perpetuates, that they are the fiscally responsible party, and best on national security and the economy.
Archon
@Alesis:
That’s why Trumpism is going to be a hard nut for Democrats to crack. Trump was able to use his celebrity to get his message out without having to kowtow to movement conservatives media gatekeepers. Movement’s conservatives ideology of making everyone worse off for the benefit of the wealthy kept a critical amount of white nativist bigots in the Democrats camp. White identity politics unmoored from ideological conservatism will be very popular with white folks.
That’s why as long as Trump doesn’t start World War III and helps the average white person (even marginally economically) he will maintain the support of the majority of white folks regardless of how many boots come down on the faces of blacks and browns, and Muslims.
NR
@Fair Economist: Yep. The polls I saw said that 60-70% of Trump supporters thought Obama was a Muslim. That still leaves 30% who didn’t think that. That’s many millions of voters we’re talking about.
Matt McIrvin
A lot of the arguments about economics vs. racism in Trumpism have the sides talking past one another because one side is talking about absolute support and the other is talking about changes vs. 2012 or 2008. My impression is that Trump’s support, as with past Republicans, came more from upper income brackets than lower ones, but that the difference from 2012 may indeed have had to do with lower-income voters.
We might have to wait for final numbers, though. There were early claims that total turnout was way down from 2012 that seem not to be true.
Fair Economist
@tobie:
Tim Ryan gets a lot of minority support, so no, supporting him isn’t putting whites ahead of minorities. His evolution on choice might be significant, except that that fight isn’t going to happen in the US House. Even Pelosi was forced to put an anti-choice rider into the ACA.
Also, too, the last thing we need is Democrats inventing problems with other Democrats the way so many did with Hillary in the campaign.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Bullshit. I said the exact opposite right here in this thread. Stop lying.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@NR:
I’ve seen this first hand here in Misery during McCaskill’s political career. Back when she ran for governor, she never campaigned anywhere that wasn’t a Democratic stronghold and she lost handily. She learned that lesson and during her first Senate run, she damn well went to all parts of the state knowing full well she wasn’t going to win those areas but by showing up, she encouraged the Dems to come out and vote for her. Why? People out here (and I live in a rurl Misery county that went 82.6% for Cheetoh Donnie) want to be *asked* for their vote and ifns you don’t come out here, you’re in effect not asking.
Booman’s done some interesting analysis of this in a PA context but it applies equally here. Clinton’s campaign made a serious operational error by not campaigning like McCaskill’s done over the last 8 years.
SenyorDave
If I am ever going to give money to the Democrats again, I want it going to expanding the base. The WWC wants two things:
1. Be ahead of the POC working class, just like the old days
2. They want to be told exactly what they want to hear, that they will get back the high paying manufacturing/mining/labor jobs that disappeared. The ones that don’t exist anymore, when they do exist don’t pay what they used in relative terms, and even if the factories re-open they would employ a quarter of the old work force and probably require degrees in many cases.
But they will always listen to a lie from a good liar. They will not vote for Democrats anymore as long as the Democrats stand for equal rights, and stand against discrimination. Most of the WWC is just fine with discrimination, as long as its them
boatboy_srq
@Major Major Major Major: Trump certainly did in my neck of the woods. But then again I live in NoVA, in a town the folks who fled there for paler climes reminisce about “when it was a
whitenice place to live.” And yes, I have heard it expressed in exactly that phrasing, and very nearly called the speaker out on it.Kay
Even if I accept that Trump got elected on populist economics, Trump has no intention of DOING populist economics.
We already know that. Monied interests know it too. Trump’s plan is standard Right wing economics. Tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation. That’s why they’re not mounting an opposition. But they would if he were liberal!
That’s important because if he WERE planning on doing that he would get a lot more opposition from powerful interests. The theoretical liberal would actually have to follow thru. Trump doesn’t. It’s key to his acceptance and promotion that he NOT follow thru.
Major Major Major Major
I thought this was an interesting read. I don’t agree 100% but I thought it was good.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html
Botsplainer
Thinking there might be a growth industry in serving as a paid agent of the Chinese government.
Foreign retainage sure in shit worked for Carter Page, Manafort, Devine, Jill Stein and Flynn…
Mnemosyne
@bemused:
WereBear summed it up in a single word from her experience of being raised in that world: Spite. They don’t care if they suffer as long as the rest of us suffer, too.
Padraig
@Betty Cracker: So were all agreed! No compromise on social justice, but link it to economic justice.
I mean, why are we not the party of justice? That’s the overarching ideology for the new left and the old left, no? Were not calling for nationalising the shoe factories, but empowering non-racist unions and reigning in the banks.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, I guess no one has ever thought of that before. Someone should have told Obama.
Alesis
@Major Major Major Major:
There is no such thing as “post identity politics”. Before the KKK was Andrew Jackson’s frontier men and Thomas Jefferson’s yeoman farmers.
The notion that liberals somehow play identity politics while every four years politicians of both parties gather at an Iowa Straw Poll and stuff corn-dogs and fried Snickers down their gullets is patently absurd.
ALL politics is identity politics.
cleek
because they are inevitably this :
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Kay: Well let’s look at the executive branch picks and cabinet appointments. Don’t see any body in there that wants to get rid of NAFTA or is worried about factory jobs. They sure as fuck look like they can’t wait to stomp the shit out of BLM though.
Fair Economist
@hovercraft:
True, except that Trump was seen as anti-free trade and Clinton was seen as pro-free trade. Neither is aligned with their party (both parties are opposite their nominees), but that’s significant, and to casual voter the President is all that matters.
Another important issue is messaging. Yes, our policies are more popular, but there wasn’t much effort put into pushing them. Clinton has great policies on her issue pages, but her televised speeches were mostly about social justice mixed with fairly bland statements on economics. I’d be surprised if 10% of the Obama-to-Trump flippers knew about, say, paid time off and overtime rules.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
Can you explain this further? I think you’re saying that the Republican cries of “voter fraud!” have undermined our argument for voting rights by making people think there’s a ton of fraud out there, but I want to make sure I’m reading you correctly.
NR
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Obama talked about this recently, discussing how he won Iowa when it had gone red twice before.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
Co-signed. And I say that as someone who has her own pet theory. ?
Chris
@James E Powell:
All this talk of “rural” and “working class” also seems to obscure the fact that, if I’m understanding correctly, it was middle class exurbs and suburbs that flipped R to D this time, not the rural areas.
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
Completely off topic -reposting from the Penzey’s thread, below –
i just placed my Penzy’s order order – and then I called their 800 number and told the lady that I was ordering BECAUSE of their founder’s email. She seemed extremely happy to hear it, i think the nutjobs are calling them in full force – so if you want to order today,or send a friendly note, or give them a call – I think they are having a tough life today, we should reward good deeds!
Cain
@Calouste:
Your existence must really bug the shit out of them. You should be smug. It is the small petty things that sometimes we must take comfort in.
Roger Moore
@Damien:
This is a bullshit piece of right wing propaganda. Just read the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments, which protect the right of various people to vote, and the 14th, which provides some remedies if states are found to have prevented people from voting.
Weaselone
Show me the template. Who is this “Liberal who competes for working class votes in rural areas without compromising his or her commitment to social justice?”
What about in states dominated by Republicans? States like Kansas are in sore shape. Certainly there should be room for some Republicans to incorporate a more progressive set of economic policies into their campaigns and displace some of the caltrops and anthrax Republicans dominating the states? Where are they?
We could look at the Senate race in Missouri. Good, solid conservadem who could actually field strip a rifle vs. total raving loon. The foul fowl won.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Alesis:
Challenge accepted
,…like he would on a drunk teenage blonde.
The way I figure it if blatant racism was viable, the GOP pols would have done it long time ago and Donny only did it because he can’t think beyond the next tweet. One thing is for sure than four years from now America is going to be a lot less white by demographics.
Kryptik
@Alesis:
Amazing how few see the inherent irony in decrying Democrats for “identity politics” and then dedicating hagiographies to the re-emergence of “the white working class” and demanding that they “not be ignored or left behind”.
You know, like the other population groups who scream for a place at the table only to be told to stop playing “identity politics”
Cain
@Major Major Major Major:
His troll on Rush fans was exquisite, causing me to reflexively defend my favorite band.
waysel
Since when did Chuck Todd become a front pager here?
hovercraft
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yes let’s believe that people don’t change, just like I’m sure that the CBC, that’s the Congressional Black Caucus still supports the 1994 Crime Bill that the majority of them voted for back then, and how many of those members voted for the Defense of Marriage Act? People’s positions never change, I mean we elect people to positions, and when they support or don’t support something we call to cheer them on or complain about it just for the hell of it, not because we want them to change their minds. Astro turfing is a thing just for fits and giggles, not to influence policy right? I guess in your world you still hold the same opinions you’ve held all your life, facts be dammed, a changing world be dammed. I guess the fact that Bernie has been giving the same speech for 40 years is comforting to you, but I hate to break it to you, globalization is here, and it’s here to stay, there’s no going back. It cannot be undone, opposing TPP will hurt our workers more than it will help. Can it be strengthened, of course, but protectionism was never the answer.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
No, I am not saying that.
I know that your standard MO is to attribute absurd and distasteful positions to people with whom you disagree so you can flounce up on your Stallion of Justice and Boldly Denounce the Speakers of Evil. But, you should pay less attention to the comic strip playing in your head and try and look at reality.
As I have said several times – yes there are lots of racist white folks out there. Just like there are lots of homophobic black folks. And lots of latinos who are anti-choice. And so on.
You don’t win elections by searching out the pure and perfect votor who holds no views inimical to your candidate. You win elections by reaching out to common ground.
I know that you are sufficiently insulated from the concerns of the white working classes outside of your urban bubble that you can’t even imagine that someone could be both a) concerned about their economic future and b) racist. But those people do exist and a candidate can get their vote by appealing to a) without necessary adding the racist frosting to the cake.
And since you, you dumbass, missed this the first time I posted it, let me repeat this: When I was over in Reno canvassing for Clinton in the week before the election, I did not walk up the walkway and past the votive candles, knock on the door, and then ask Ms. Reyes or Mrs. Sandoval whether she was Catholic and whether she supported a woman’s reproductive freedom because if she didn’t then Clinton didn’t need her sorry ass vote. No you look for the common ground and work from there.
Read your Alinsky you stupid git.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Alesis:
White men don’t have an “identity”. Everyone else does.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
I added some scare quotes, but otherwise this is co-signed without reservation. The WWC is willing to let minorities and women clean up after their (economic) mess, but as soon as things are stable again, they go right back to voting on cultural superiority.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne:
Yes.
Fair Economist
@Chris:
No, it was rural and exurbs (which kind of blend together these days). Suburbs moved toward us this election.
Major Major Major Major
@cleek: Yeah, pretty much.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Well, yeah. I should note that he won.
ETA: @Cain: I was right there with you!
Alesis
@Kryptik:
Thank you for saying that better than I ever could.
The phrase “Identity Politics” is like the phrase “white guilt”. Entirely meaningless outside of being a cautionary tale about the power of white supremacist framing.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne:
You do? Perhaps also a newsletter I could subscribe to?
Hoodie
It may not be inherently racist or xenophobic, but Trumped framed it that way by coupling it to code-speak like “political correctness.” The people “obsessed with trade” did appear to respond to Trump’s ostentatious lack of political correctness because they view political correctness as what was behind the political elites’ policies on trade deals, immigration, etc. Trump sold them a simplistic narrative that has at least a superficial coherence. These voters may not be overtly racist, but Trump takes advantage of the fact that they have racial and ethnic biases that make them vulnerable to particular interpretations of their own circumstances. This is difficult to counteract because Dems — particularly those associated with the Clintons — have been supportive of things that enabled de-industrialization, but not because of political correctness. More often, it was because of foreign policy concerns, intellectual property protections for important export industries (Hollywood), environmental concerns, etc. I had the sense that Obama was trying to counteract that with some kind of new generation industrial policy (e.g., clean tech) that would lead to new, better jobs, but I never got any sense of such a narrative coming from the Clinton campaign.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Chris:
Not sure if that’s true across the board. I’ve referenced one of Booman’s posts earlier. He looked at returns in PA and Clinton clearly exceeded her targets in the urban areas where she was strong. The problem is that she couldn’t afford to lose the Pennsyltucky counties by the margins she did. Per NR’s quote above about Obama, Clinton could afford to lose those counties (and she was gonna no matter what) by a certain amount but by not going there and perhaps talking in more detail about all the great stuff she had on her website, she didn’t implicitly ask for votes. The result is losing a county let’s say 80-20 as opposed to 70-30. Again, it’s what Obama discusses as quoted above and what I’ve observed here in Misery for the last 20 years.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that the WWC voter is the Great White Wale of the party. They key out here in white, rurl, ‘Murka, is getting those people who might vote Dem to vote Dem. They do exist but need a bit more cajoling to vote. Fuck the rest of the crackers around me who are unreachable, always have been, always will be. The rurl bubble in this country is very real, impermeable and largely overlooked by the Villagers.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Lip service to “preserving minority rights” while throwing people under the bus is an old, old game. Did you think we couldn’t hear the dog whistle?
Major Major Major Major
Republicans–who it should be noted are pro-trade–Republican voters literally changed their opinion on trade to match Trump’s. This is borne out in polling.
Amaranthine RBG
@hovercraft:
I appreciate your attempts at sarcasm, but if you can’t tell the difference between tactically moving to co-opt an opponents best arguments versus changing one’s beliefs over decades, then I can’t help you.
But I will tell you this, most people can.
tobie
@Padraig:
We always have been! And at no time more so than in this past election with a very progressive platform and a candidate who talked at every campaign stop about her plans for American manufacturing.
It didn’t do any good, which raises the question: maybe populism wasn’t the path to victory some of you are claiming. We really don’t have the data right now to address this but we are pulling each other’s hair out and weakening any resistance to the tide of right-wing legislation that will rolling our way soon.
Fair Economist: Tim Ryan reminds me of Virg Bernero. He’s really popular in Lansing but was crushed when he ran for governor of Michigan. Ryan’s appeal outside of Youngstown is negligible. I’d certainly have a hard time rallying behind him.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Fair Economist:
Did you actually listen to what Sec. Clinton said, or did you just hear emails?
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: So what he/she is saying is, in bald terms, let’s throw the minorities, the women, the gays to the back of the bus and feed them scraps as long as we can get a centrist Democratic hierarchy back on top. Screw that. I’ll sit home and let you all drown in crap rather than commit suicide-by-ally.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
The saddest part is, it wasn’t liberals who passed a bunch of laws demanding that transgender people be allowed to use the right bathroom. It was conservatives who passed them to try and keep people out.
And yet somehow it got turned into, Crazy liberals putting men into women’s bathrooms! instead of Conservatives want to be the potty police.
Cain
@James E Powell:
I guess it is good time will heal all wounds?
MaryL
@Major Major Major Major: That’s all well and good, but in the mean time POC are being shot by police and incarcerated at insane rates. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Are we supposed to pretend these things aren’t happening?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne: Their arguement turns voting from a civic duty of everyone in the community to the privilege of some elite with the correct birth choice.
Capri
I think folks who care about politics and read political blogs way overestimate how little most folks know/think about it. More than anything else, I think Dems need to be seen as the party that works for “the little guy” – i.e. pro-labor (union and non-unionized and pro-consumer. They should be working to increase the life of the WalMart employee, concentrating on the jobs people have now, not bringing back union manufacturing.
People don’t read or know platforms. They remember short catch phrases that are repeated all the time.
Brachiator
Horseshit like this:
Here the writer is just regurgitating the same shit he or she already believes, and putting it in a new package.
Roger Moore
@kc:
They aren’t saying it out loud, but that’s the essence of the “we have to appeal to WWC voters”. Saying that we have to stop worrying about identity politics, we need to start focusing more on economics instead of social policy, etc. boils down to saying that focusing on equality cost us the election.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Even my lifelong Republican brother has figured out that “white working class” is an identity, not an economic class. Trump presents himself as being culturally WWC even though he’s the billionaire son of a millionaire from New York City.
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: @MaryL: A different commenter replied to the same post by pointing out that what the author is suggesting is what Obama did (successfully) in 2008 and 2012; where do you get that this means we should throw people under/to the back of the bus or stop caring about police brutality?
NR
@Mnemosyne: You hearing things people didn’t say is your problem, not mine. I’m not throwing anyone under the bus and I won’t tolerate politicians I support doing it either.
Like I said: stop lying.
The Truffle
@Major Major Major Major: Wasn’t it a GOP governor who introduced the stupid bathroom bill?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@tobie:
I would like someone to explain to me like I’m 5 years old how to keep populism in a majority white country from quickly becoming white nationalism. As soon as Fred Hampton started having success convincing poor whites that the struggle was up v. down and not black v. white, he was assassinated by the police at the behest of the FBI.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, that’s part of what I’m saying. I know seemingly intelligent people who never did stop believing that there are massive Democratic campaigns to stuff ballot boxes using ineligible voters.
But I think there are also people who just seem to morally rate the prevention of fraud way over increasing access to the vote. Even if the rate of fraud is minute, one in a million or a billion votes, they think it’s more important for the integrity of the system to prevent that than to make sure it’s easy to vote. Even if barriers to voting have a far larger effect on the results, they’ll say to themselves, well, those people are just lazy if they couldn’t be bothered to go do some simple paperwork. They don’t deserve to vote anyway. It’s hard to push back against this.
Just in general, I think a majority of Americans are never going to be against voter ID, so railing against voter ID is probably a loser. It might be possible to convince them there’s something wrong with massively unfair ID laws that, say, are tailored to exclude forms of ID that black people have while allowing the ones that white people have.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
Spite trumps reason.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: No, it isn’t. Really it isn’t. Obama built a coalition. The writer wants to retain the coalition but give white issues the front seats. You may not hear the dog whistle, but I can tell you that women, gays, and minorities will. Because we have heard it before.
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: I’m gay (ETA: and an active LGBT activist), but alright.
hovercraft
@The Truffle: Pat McCrory signed it, it wasn’t his bill, but he went all in once the backlash started. Right now he’s trailing Roy Cooper by 5k votes and is crying voter fraud in heavily AA county. Because of course he is.
MaryL
@Major Major Major Major: It’s because any attempts to address those issues are automatically tagged as “identity politics.” So the only way to move past “identity politics” is to ignore those issues. It’s really hard to see it any other way, but I’m willing to be convinced that there’s a way to address racism and injustice without alienating people who are turned off by any attempts to focus on the plights of minorities.
maurinsky
@NR: I think the problem is that it looks like the moves the Democratic party are making right now are appealing to those voters by stepping back from having minority and women leaders.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Dude. You are describing my extended family. I know they hold both of those beliefs at the same time, because they tell me all the goddamned time. Why do you think I’m so familiar with these spite voters?
I have been patiently explaining reality to them for 20 years. They don’t give a shit about anything but being at the top of the social heap again.
My cousin in Wisconsin has two sons who will very likely inherit their father’s (her ex-husband’s) multiple sclerosis, and yet she gleefully voted for Trump because he’s going to end abortion. She cared more about what total strangers do with their wombs than her own children. How am I supposed to combat that?
We can’t appeal to their self-interest, because they’re willing to sacrifice their own self-interest in order to be “morally” right in an abstract way. Now what?
Betty Cracker
@kc: Here’s an excerpt of an article my co-blogger Mistermix* linked to approvingly just the other day:
It buys into wingnut framing (have PBO or HRC ever said a word in support of BLM without clearing their throats with a paean to police bravery?) and the implicit point is, shaddup about all the unarmed dead black kids, libtards! The author also scolds the Dems for nominating a “dorky” woman who wears elitist pantsuits and is therefore an incarnate insult to blue collar men, the implication being they might like the cut of Jim Webb’s jib a little better, I guess.
A commenter who shall remain nameless (maybe he’ll show up now that the Bernie Beacon has been lit) scolded us about focusing on “bathrooms” last week, the implication being that calling out anti-trans hysteria doesn’t resonate with the precious WWC, so shaddup already. That’s just off the top of my head, just within the last week, just on this blog. So yeah, there are people who are suggesting this.
As I said, I’m all for retooling the party message to appeal to working class people of all colors. I’ve been saying for years it’s dumb to act like everyone must go to college — apprenticeship programs like they have in Germany are a great idea, IMO. I thought PBO was wrong to let corporate interests play the primary role in negotiating the TPP.
But this sudden fetish for the WHITE working class is bullshit. People in MI, PA, WI, etc., are one data point we should consider, but let’s not pretend they’re the holy fucking grail. There are many explanations for the present debacle, including a foreign power’s interference, the FBI’s interference, garden-variety CHANGE voters who would have flocked to a dumbass like Kanye if he ran, plus the racism and sexism that will apparently always be with us.
*Not saying he buys into the bullshit conclusions I excerpted and alluded to, but he did find it food for thought. Lots of liberals do these days, from what I’m seeing on the ‘tubes. Makes me nervous.
sharl
WHO
LET THE DOGS OUTOPENED PANDORA’S BOX?WOOF!…WOOF!…WOOFWOOFWOOF!
h/t – and apologies – to Baha Men
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
I promised my brother a PowerPoint presentation at Thanksgiving, but he declined. ?
Cain
@Kay:
The thing is, if 2008 happens again, we are not going to be bailing out anybody. I don’t think we should be taking on the risks if they are going to roll back regulations. They want to take risks, then they lose, we aren’t going to help them. They should die like the dogs they are. The problem is that we keep propping these people up, fixing their mistakes etc. That’s what democrats do and it is expected because we dont want people to lose their shit…
NR
@maurinsky: Well Keith Ellison is a strong contender for DNC leader. He even got Bernie Sanders’ endorsement.
dogwood
@Major Major Major Major:
That article perfectly describes how Obama campaigned and won 3 times.
MaryL
@Betty Cracker:
I love this. “I do not defend police who kill innocent people, but let me defend them right now.”
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Well, I hope we’ll hear from you when you finally realize that’s what the Berniebros are planning to do. But I’m assuming we won’t.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I kind of think Biden could have. Look how people joke about Biden. It would have been Trump the dainty hands grooper verses the Dude that bikers have no problem with dry humping thier old ladies in front of them.
kindness
@Amaranthine RBG:
Jesus Christ on a shingle go fuck yourself.
Do you see that what you wrote could very well have been said at Fox News? If your do, then stop saying dumb shit like that. You are hurting the cause you pretend to support.
Major Major Major Major
@dogwood: Do you mean 2 times?
And I agree, but apparently this makes us evil.
Alesis
Any approach to white crossover voters has to start by reaching white voters who stayed with the Dems but are “racially anxious”. In other words everyone suddenly concerned about the “ubiquity of identity politics”.
We have to get our own side on the same page that it doesn’t suddenly become “identity” when brown people are doing it. That people fighting for dignity and respect is what the Democratic party is all about. There is nothing less legitimate about BLM than there is about the AFL-CIO.
Doug!
@MaryL:
I think that’s something to consider
Served
I’ve been trying to think of a good metaphor for how racism fueled the campaign. Something like, how the earth isn’t fully made out of the core, but it was the center of it and held the rest together.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m not even sure that would help, but it might help to find some sympathetic white people — elderly, disabled, etc. — who were unable to get a voting ID for the same reason that African-Americans were. Sometimes it takes people seeing that, holy shit, people like them are being treated just as badly as Those People to make them wake up. My aunt wasn’t indignant about police shootings in her town until the cops shot a whiteguy who squirted them with a garden hose. Now she thinks that those Black Lives Matter protesters might have a point.
If we’re fighting “identity politics,” let’s go all in and present white voters with the stories of white folks who have been hurt by these policies.
Major Major Major Major
@Doug!: @MaryL:
So we’re back to “be more like Bernie”.
Doug!
@Capri:
I agree.
Kay
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Right. Exactly. It’s easy to say you’re for the little guy, like Trump did. The ferocious pushback comes when you do it.
Remember how we were all amazed at all the weeping and wailing from Wall Street about Obama? We were thinking “he’s pretty moderate, yet these people are going insane!”
That’s what would happen if Trump followed thru on any of his promises.
We just saw it today. Ford is saying they aren’t moving to Mexico because Trump is cutting taxes and gutting regulation. It’s a kind of ransom, right? Do what we want or we’ll bring down your Presidency.
That would be 100X with an actual economic populist. They’re okay with Trump BECAUSE he’s a fraud.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
This. Absolutely This.
Even her original platform was good. She made it better as she went along but the name Clinton has been dragged through the mud so many times, too many people didn’t want to hear it any more. We are seeing this from a segment that is just now realizing that they voted for someone far, far worse than GWB. And I considered him to very easily make the grade into the 5 worst presidents ever, and probably my group size is too big.
But to say this was mainly about economics and not racism is just bullshit. One had to be close to comatose not to have seen the evidence, from his ardent supporters to even the media.
SgrAstar
@Calouste: What Calouste says! I live in a red, red state. It’s God, Gunz, and Gays+ Abortion out here. Nothing, repeat..Nothing we can do will change minds and win hearts here. Let’s focus on the dems who didn’t turn out.
dogwood
@Major Major Major Major:
No, 3 times. It was the campaign style and message that beat Clinton as well.
MaryL
@Major Major Major Major: Well beyond that, I’d think. I’m thinking Oprah levels of “You get a high paying job and revenge on your enemies, you get a high paying job and revenge on your enemies, EVERYBODY gets a high paying job and revenge on your enemies!”
Major Major Major Major
@dogwood: Ah. Yes. That and Clinton sucks at caucuses.
@Kay: Ford has explicitly said they never had any plans to move to Mexico and that Trump is making shit up.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Biden might have but, frankly, it would have been due to sexism. Biden had the exact same problems Hillary did as far as supporting Wall Street and supporting the Iraq War, but dudebros on the left give him a pass because peni$.
Again: Biden co-sponsored the horrendous bankruptcy bill that made it harder to discharge credit card debt. But he might have done better against Trump because it wasn’t actually about economic insecurity.
gorram
I think what’s often missing in this discussions is a full context of what the working class White (and usually cisgender and straight for that matter) voters who went for Obama but then opted for Trump this time around are saying. A lot of them readily admit that on the whole, the Democrats approach to economic policy includes policies they would prefer, but they still trust Trump on the economy more. People don’t want to dig into what that means because the only real conclusion is that they want some sort of differentiation between people who can be in the system and people who are “undeserving” or whatever language they choose.
Anyone familiar with the European-style welfare systems the Sanders and others espouse is probably familiar with this dynamic, where citizenship, language, race, criminal status and other identities are used to separate society into classes that are both economic and decidedly not. That there is a robust but tightly limited system providing socio-economic security to an esteemed group, while being effectively fueled by the toiling of a broader class of people. The sections of the “working class” (are they really? That’s another question) that vote for that aren’t really advocating for policies that help the working class – they’re voting for their ethnic, racial, or what have you bloc to be included in the system even as the same parasitic relationship between workers and worked-fors is maintained.
We’ve seen this before. This isn’t new. Let’s not fall for it out of some imagined belief that people who clearly aren’t operating in good faith are, for whatever reason.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
So they’re admitting that identity politics started with white voters, but telling liberals that they need to give up on trying to court minorities. It’s a prescription for losing the way unilateral disarmament always is. Whites aren’t going to give up on identity politics just because minorities do.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
“be more like Bernie.”
No, just fucking no. I can dream up pie in the sky. If that’s all you want, elect me. Or Baud, he’s already there. Bernie and the Shit-Gibbon are all about pie in the sky, or in the S-G’s case, pie in the mud. I live in the real world, one that shits on everyone but not equally. What I want is that equality. Either we all get it or we all get nothing. That’s acceptable, this some of us are better bullshit – the ones that think they are exceptional are exactly the ones who aren’t.
hovercraft
@MaryL:
My thoughts exactly. People keep telling me how to try to understand how scared these poor white people are, the advent of camera phones has made their jobs so much more dangerous. The vast majority of police persons are not racist murderers, they go out and do their jobs valiantly everyday. But and this is a huge but, there are some who should never have been hired, because they are trigger happy, racist, or both, and here is where I fault the majority of police officers, they turn a blind eye to these bad cops. If cops would get their own damn house in order the BLM movement would never have become such a big deal period. It is the fact that the other cops on the scene, confiscate and disappear, CCTV and any footage they cam get their hands on (Laquan MacDonald), corroborate bullshit statements until a video contradicts them, the FOP lies and attacks the victim, and the DA’s refuse to serve the community rather than the police force. Policing is a dangerous job that people sign up for knowing the risks, so accept them. Members of the military cannot go around indiscriminately killing people because they are scared, which is the standard justification given for most police killings.
Black kids have not signed up for anything dangerous, they are simply trying to just live, and this in too many cases is enough to get them killed. Living in a dangerous neighborhood is hazardous enough without having to avoid the police as well.
SenyorDave
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It would have been Trump the dainty hands grooper verses the Dude that bikers have no problem with dry humping thier old ladies in front of them.
Maybe more colorful than I would phrase it, but I agree. Biden would have been tough for the predator-in-chief to run against. He has the WWC background, he really comes off as a likable, ordinary guy. He could have done a “c’mon, Donald, that’s a bunch of malarky”, and people would have eaten it up. The problem for Clinton is she eviscerated Trump in the debates, clearly was competent as opposed to his know-nothingness, and it still didn’t matter in the end. Her persona might not have killed her, but it certainly almost never helped her.
tobie
@Betty Cracker: You should send this to every Dem member of the House and Dems prominent in the media! It can’t just fall on Van Jones and Charles Blow to make this point. Maybe some midwesterners like Marcy Kaptur can speak up. I’m starting to wonder what our party’s values are.
Matt McIrvin
@Alesis: I think there are a lot of white people in the US who are just un-racist enough to be against obviously discriminatory behavior, and to lack obvious animus toward black people and other POC… but are also oblivious enough that they think there is much less racism than there is; and whose hackles will be raised whenever black people start vigorously demanding things that they perceive as special treatment (even if it’s really just compensation for immense injustices they can’t or won’t see).
This may even be the majority of white people. Though it seems now like blatant white-sheet racism is making inroads.
I’m not sure how to solve this.
gorram
And I threw in the reference to the LGBT community because, despite the high profile defections to the GOP, what little polling suggests is that we don’t vote in ways consistent with cisgender and straight voters, particularly when these political dynamics come into play, precisely because even those of us who are White have a relationship with economic insecurity that leads us to be uncertain that if we’re creating a small circle for recipients of social welfare, that we’d be included.
The main axiom this happens along, however, is as always race and racially-related communal statuses (religion, ethnicity, language, etc).
BillinGlendaleCA
@Fair Economist:
aka, Common Clay of the New West…
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: Yes, I was making a joke.
@Roger Moore: I think it’s describing Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, myself. Not disarmament but less of a focus on it.
Archon
The arguments we are having about building multi-racial political coalitions that can win elections is fundamentally not that different then arguments progressives have been having since the end of the Civil war.
So it is a little strange to here some leftists talk about focusing on populist economic reform while maintaining our commitment to social justice as if it’s some revolutionary political idea. I mean seriously, that idea has been around since at least the time of the Freedman’s bureau opening up shop in 1865.
My point is there aren’t any easy answers, especially when it comes to defeating white identity politics, not in America at least.
piratedan
the part that was especially telling was the breathless “breaking news” about wikileaks releasing more hacked information from DCC staffers. Not that there was anything newsworthy about what was comprised in those e-mails (which then we’re somehow easily conflated with Ms. Clinton’s e-mails) just the fact that “new data” was released. What did they reveal, damnifIknow, but certainly nothing that would have brought the Democratic party under any kind of scrutiny… but because we have “something new” that the news agencies received and didn’t have to work for and it allowed them to speculate, ad infinitum and never really do any fucking reporting or analysis of anything… just people at desks, some paid for by the GOP themselves (awesome!) to sit there and imply and speculate about how bad the optics are and nary a thought as to why those optics are bad and how they got to be bad without actually looking at ANYTHING.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Except no one is planning to do that. Your lies are tiresome and, quite frankly, pathetic.
Major Major Major Major
@Archon:
Every new generation thinks they invented sex, as the saying goes. Sometimes it’s easiest to just let them pretend they did.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
What integrity of the system? This is not a real issue. I’m not sure what goes through people’s minds when they talk about voter fraud, but I am not sure that you have identified the issue either. Trump and Rudy G and their ilk seemed to be talking about thousands of fraudulent votes, enough to overturn elections, not tiny fractions of votes polluting an otherwise pure process.
It’s funny. If you vote by mail, how could anyone be sure that it was you who actually voted, or that some pressure was not applied to the voter. But I take your point that people who back voter ID laws believe that it is absolutely trivial to get some form of ID.
MaryL
@Matt McIrvin: And there’s a ton of people who will outright deny that Trump is racist at all. The problem is that large swathes of the country do not understand what racism actually is or why it’s bad.
Alesis
@Matt McIrvin:
I grew up in Birmingham, AL so take this with a regional grain of salt but in my estimation it is most certainly “most white people” and in addition to being oblivious most are also disdainful in general of black people’s presumptions of equality.
While perhaps lacking an integrated worldview on the inferiority of blacks they accept that to the extent the black community suffers any disproportionate harm it must be because black people themselves misbehave.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Weaselone:
Folk will always choose real beer over near beer.
divf
There is an argument that has occurred to me over the last week that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Obama was able to run in 2012 projecting a soft-focus inclusiveness image, for a variety of reasons, among which was (1) he is black, and so didn’t have to be loud about it for the African-American vote to turn out in big numbers; and (2) the events of 2013-2016, both good (Obergefell v. Hodges) and bad (BLM, Charleston shootings, …) hadn’t yet forced the Democratic party to make the hard choice. They made the right choice of full-throated embrace of equality and inclusiveness. But it came at the price of energizing the hard right bigots, and made the white exurban enclaves so uncomfortable so as to look for an excuse to vote for Trump, or to not vote at all.*
If this is a major factor in the election, then looking to motivate the white communities is going to yield vanishingly small returns, because we are not going to walk this message back.
*Lighting up the White House in rainbow colors the day Obergefell was handed down probably cost enough votes in PA, MI, and WI to swing the election. But Obama was right to celebrate in this fashion.
ETA: the cause of the 2016 loss was multifactorial. But identifying all of the factors is essential, to understand what actions to be taken.
NotoriousJRT
@Betty Cracker:
I would add that the “base” of the party may not be who it thinks it is and does not seem to be white. Economic anxiety being talked about for white America is nothing new to people who system kept behind the 8 ball.
WereBear
@Amaranthine RBG: Oh, for the sweet love of rescued kitty cats, you should change your name to Adamantine RBG.
Because your head is so hard…
sharl
Story Time with Donald Trump
…
The author then looks at Hillary Clinton, in a way I suspect won’t be well received here. The tl;dr version was that she was a nuanced technocrat bad at populist politics (‘like Gore or Kerry’) taking on a pathologically lying conman. I have a little problem with this part of his piece myself; for example, anytime someone uses the word neoliberal, I wanna know how they define that word, which in the places where I do my reading tends to be a generic pejorative used to label one’s opponents.
Final excerpt:
I think the author – probably correctly – presumed reader awareness of the critical role of Electoral College dynamics, as well as multiple other factors – e.g., voter suppression in narrowly lost key states – that likely contributed to the (electoral college) loss, and just didn’t want to get off track from the thesis of his piece. But I think the piece makes a point that is worth considering.
Patricia Kayden
@NR:
Why didn’t the voters who turned out for Trump’s “economic message” turn out for Sanders and help him win the Democratic primaries? What was so special about Trump’s “economic message” that his voters couldn’t have supported Sanders who had an actual strong “economic message”? This argument that Trump had such a strong economic message that he was able to attract White working class which didn’t vote for Sanders is laughable at best.
MaryL
@sharl: This is the only argument that Bernie could have done better that I have read. I’m still not entirely sure I buy it, but the simple story aspect is worth considering.
Major Major Major Major
@sharl:
Ooh, assumes facts not in evidence.
ETA: But I agree that having a single story you can hammer over and over is, in general, good.
NobodySpecial
/sigh. I didn’t even get halfway through this post before I just gave up, because you all are running in your grooves.
No, economic anxiety isn’t what prompted white people to vote for Trump.
HOWEVER, economic anxiety mixed with ‘government is useless’ prompted more than a few people not to vote at all.
The problem is, you have to overcome 30 years of pithy messaging from Republicans. “Tax and spend liberal”. “Death tax.” “Socialism.” They were aided and abetted in this by a lazy, compliant media that wants page views instead of being responsible. You don’t do that by explaining, which is what gets done a lot by the current Democratic leadership at all levels. Instead, you have to have your own attacks and soundbites ready to go, and use them as live and unfiltered as you can get. It would really also help if our guys and gals had shown up as much at OWS rallies as they did at Davos.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
I knew you were making a joke.
I just find the last couple of weeks to be so shitty that I feel that I can hardly trust anyone. Who are all these assholes who chose a completely fucked up moronic asshole as their leader? One of my docs making health care decisions about me? The people who own the bank where I go? The cop behind me? It isn’t just all the idiots in jacked up 4x4s with confederate flags flying.
Matt McIrvin
@divf: I think that that long, long string of high-profile killings of black men and boys, and BLM and the unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, had the effect of inflaming racial tension to an extent that the Obama presidency hadn’t on its own. The furor hadn’t really begun, or was just beginning, in 2012; Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012 but Zimmermann finally walked and BLM formed in 2013.
Obama was a person who just enough white people, maybe not a majority but enough to win elections, could tell themselves was a good black guy. He didn’t seem too angry or anti-cop or anything like that. But all the other stuff on top of Obama kicked white attitudes straight back to the late Sixties.
And again, I don’t know what we do about it, because the BLM side is clearly the morally right side. If we can’t win anything without giving up that stance… then what? “Throw them under the bus” is not an acceptable answer.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
I’m waiting with baited breath for the answer to this one.
gvg
@Patricia Kayden:
Just because you didn’t notice the effort going on before we lost the election does not mean it didn’t happen. We also lost some court cases where the justice department tried to prevent vote suppression before the election. there were stories here about the legal challenges and things groups were doing to get people ID’s plus the get out the vote was trying to meet this problem. there were also stories from some of our black posters about how mad and fired up their communities were and how it was going to backfire on the GOP. Links to stories about the hispanic communities increased registration for voting etc. There were efforts before the election, for years before this election and it was discussed. It just didn’t work well enough.
Patricia Kayden
@Alesis: You’re making me laugh. Are there any people more into “identity politics” when it comes to race than White folks? Anyone? And I’m not even limiting this discussion to the United States. White folks who are anxious about identity politics because Black people are speaking up for their rights aren’t ever going to be comfortable in the Democratic Party. Or so I hope.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
That isn’t quite true. The wave of bathroom bills was a response to regulations promulgated by the Obama administration that said Title IX applied to transgender students. So it wasn’t a liberal law, per se, just a liberal technical interpretation of an existing law that had the effect of expanding it. That’s not to say we should give up on protecting LGBTQ rights, but let’s not pretend that conservatives were making the issue up from whole cloth.
Alesis
@NobodySpecial:
I do believe the Democratic Party has to address political alienation which has been borne of decades of cynicism worship by the media and the “paranoid style in American politics” leaving people to assume “it’s all RIGGED/pointless”
I don’t know if Hillary showing up to and OWS rally was an answer. Put simply she’d just be booed off the stage (presuming there is a stage)
Comrade Scrutinizer
We can argue the election results forever. That doesn’t matter as much as what’s coming to everyone, no matter how they voted. This is what we need to concentrate on.
tobie
@sharl: I have no doubt that what the author of the article says has some merit…and yet I’m not willing to settle for victory at any price. The strategy outlined here has a name. It’s called scapegoating. Is it satisfying? Sure. Can it win elections? Yeah. But as a governing philosophy it’s a recipe for disaster. Pick on those you can to solidify your majority. That’s the end effect of grievance-based politics, which is why I have no truck with either left- or right-wing populism.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, yes. This was the key to Nixon and Reagan’s “Southern Strategy;” instead of emulating liberal Democrats or segregationist Democrats, reach for the lion’s share of white voters, namely the “I am not a racist, but” crowd. Dubya embodied this dynamic too – speak words of unity and tolerance to the Muslim American community, while meanwhile empowering the security state to profile, torture, or whatever.
Trump is changing that dynamic, though.
debit
@MaryL: Trump lied and said there were simple solutions to complex problems. Democrats don’t do that because it’s simply not true. If that’s the only we win anything going forward, we’re screwed.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: Sadly, this is completely accurate.
@hovercraft: Fun fact: it’s ‘bated’. One of life’s little anachronisms.
@Alesis: OWS didn’t believe in such ego-driven concepts as ‘stages’.
James Powell
@Mnemosyne:
This thread is kind of long and I don’t want to make six or seven replies in a row, so let me just say I agree with and wholeheartedly endorse everything @Mnemonsyne has said so far and would add that what the Democratic Party (nationally speaking) needs right now is for one of its leaders or wannabe leaders to call a big fat press conference and state clearly and loudly that the Democratic Party is and will always be the party that welcomes all Americans, that we are in no way deterred from our mission, and that we will not back down from the racists, misogynists, anti-semites, and bigots that Donald Trump is hiring to carry out his anti-American agenda. We may have lost power, but what power we will use.
Patricia Kayden
@gvg: Okay, but as several commenters have said on BJ, we need to be more proactive about handling voter suppression tactics to limit their impact on potential voters. I am perfectly aware of the lawsuits, voter registration uptick for Latinos, etc. It’s not enough since hundreds of thousands of voters were turned away at polling booths (in Wisconsin, for example) last Tuesday so hopefully the DNC is working on doing more long before the next election.
sharl
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I think that is an error on the author’s part. Relying too much on social media noise can lead to an incorrect conclusion like this.
I think we need actual good/detailed post-election statistics before reaching any defensible conclusions, but fwiw, my early impression is that there is a generational component the author is ignoring, i.e., older people comprised most of the enthusiastic Trumpkins, while younger people comprised most of the Berners. Although I have seen them in the wild, people who went from Bernie to Trump – at least among young lefties – were relatively rare; former Berners were more likely to “stay home” or vote third party afaict.
divf
@Matt McIrvin: Thank you for expanding on the BLM issue – it is exactly what I was referring to, including the timeline.
tobie
@James Powell: Here, here.
Patricia Kayden
@debit: It will be interesting to see how Trump’s supporters react when they realize that they won’t be winning so much that they’ll be sick of winning like he promised. **rolls eyes**
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MaryL:
Great, until Bernie got to the part of the story about how the government was going to take over more of everything – IOW, a big tax and spend liberal who is also for abortion rights, and had a fondness for communist dictators.
Betty Cracker
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I just made my husband read the latest post. He still thinks I’m a kook, that we’re facing a Bush 2-level suck event with bonus racism and pussy-grabbing rather than the complete transformation of the US into a Putin-style authoritarian kleptocracy. FSM, I hope he’s right!
Chris
@MaryL:
And that’s always been the case. As I noted above, though, it was usually a two-tiered system where people in power would denounce the overt and blatant racism to reassure people (including white people, reassure them that they weren’t racist) while continuing to encourage things like the war on drugs, the underfunding of inner cities, etc.
The difference now is that Trump is pretty much returning to making the racism overt, and white people are having to make more and more of a reach to pretend that it isn’t really, in fact, racism – even by the “real racism” standard they’d held in their heads all this time. The conclusion, though, is that when confronted with “real racism,” they’re ultimately okay with it.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Good to know. I am learning.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: To be fair, Sam Seder of Majority Report asked this question and I thought it was perfect. The White voters who allegedly voted for Trump because of their “economic anxieties” could easily have voted for Sanders who has voiced actual policies which would address those anxieties. If anything, Trump is going to worsen White working class economic problems with Paul Ryan champing at the bit to cut entitlement programs which benefit White folks.
SenyorDave
@Patricia Kayden: I think the individuals will stick with him forever, and even if he drove the economy off a cliff they’ll blame the establishment. Because for Trump supporters they consider him to be for the little guy.
He could make the tax cuts 100% for the top 1%, and they’ll still support him.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Ford was never planning on moving that plant to Mexico. Trump lied about it even when Ford tried to correct him, but now he’s saying that their not moving it is proof that his economic plans are great. It’s 100% Trumpian bullshit.
MaryL
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: From the excerpt posted (confession: I didn’t read the article), the point was just that people respond to a simple message and don’t care about policies or salacious personal history. Like I said, I’m not convinced, but it’s the best argument I’ve seen so far.
Major Major Major Major
@Comrade Scrutinizer: That reminds me of a paper I wrote about archival best practices for the materials of deceased LGBT people. It’s tangentially related, but I just pulled it up and flipped to this part:
Fun times!
gogol's wife
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
I keep hearing this person’s name, but when I got to this line: ” I am an independent, not a Democrat or a Republican, because I am as disappointed in political parties as you,” I stopped reading. GDIAF
Weaselone
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The point I was making was that the Democrat was actually the real beer. The Missouri voters chose to drink lukewarm cow piss instead.
gvg
Some of the Bernie was right and it’s economics mightbe sincere. They are wrong about the electorate as a whole because the economy isn’t particularly bad right now compared to other recent times. However some people really have had a bad time economically for quite awhile. Because they feel economically stressed, they are projecting that onto all the rest. We all tend to do that, think we are typical etc. I actually think we do have structural economic problems that are pretty serious, however I think other things like privatization of important social safety nets, getting rid of social safety nets, screwing up schools and so on, actually would make the economy more dangerous and thats even without a thin skinned idiot who steals money and calls it business gets into office. In other words keep the apples we have, don’t drop them reaching for another uncertain one.
Actually fixing the problems with the economy will take a lot of smart wonks like Hillary not story tellers like Sanders or Trump, both of whom have demonstrated that they don’t actually understand economics. Real solutions will come from boring people not showmen. Yes that’s a problem….
Botsplainer
I’m just happy that middle aged and older white people will be able to call people of color by their pejorative names in public again without any real fear of social approbation from their peers.
It made everything feel less free and less Christian. After all, that crazy Wingnut uncle, dad, grandpa, neighbor person needs that creative outlet.
And who knows? Maybe polack jokes can become funny again, especially when Putin invades. Everybody knows they’re really dumb, and we’ve been missing that kind of funny humor. Been missing those Jew jokes, too…
debit
@debit: And let me tack on that I think we’re screwed anyway. I’ll add a caveat that I’m going to continue fighting, because why the hell not. However, at the risk of sounding like my mom, I think this country is becoming meaner and stupider every year. Now Trump has made what used to be beyond the pale normal. Your black barista is taking too long to make your latte? Call her garbage and scream Trump in her face. The couple at the table next to you are talking about political views you don’t agree with? Punch one of them in the face! I could go on, but you all have read the stories already.
When I was a teen I remember reading a quote that one of the signs of the downfall of a nation was a lack of common courtesy. I thought it was stupid and overly simplistic at the time, but now I think I agree.
Sorry, don’t mean to be a downer.
divf
@gogol’s wife:
QFT. I blasted my 23 y/o nephew when he started on the “both sides are equally bad” crap a couple of days before the election. I felt slightly bad about it afterwards, since he is starting from having Trump-voter RWNJs for parents, and came with us on vacation to see my family over Thanksgiving to avoid having to see his parents post-election.
Roger Moore
@piratedan:
This is something the Democrats could certainly learn from. The constant drip, drip, drip was very effective at keeping bad news in the news. Their oppo on Trump might have been more effective if they could have stretched it out better.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MaryL:
Here’s a nice simple story Trump would tell about Bernie – “Crazy old commie Bernie wants to take more of your money so the government can control your life like Chavez does in Venezuela”.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: Agreed. Although the fact that all you had to do was put “Clinton” and “emails” in the same sentence and the media would report breathlessly certainly made the ratfuckers’ jobs easier.
dogwood
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Jason Kander isn’t a “conservadem”. Read his letter to supporters. It was a testament to the liberal values and policies he campaigned on. He assured his supporters he would keep fighting for those values. He, also out-performed Clinton by a country mile. Deciding that a white dude who can assemble a weapon must be a conservative is identity politics at it’s worst.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
I know. My point is Ford is working with Donald Trump to help Donald Trump’s Presidency. That wouldn’t happen with a liberal populist, who wouldn’t be cutting their taxes or gutting regulation.
It’s ALL they care about. You can’t compare a Trump fake populist to a liberal real populist because Trump is NOT actually a threat to monied interests. “Trump’s strategy” won’t transfer, even without the racism because an actual liberal populist would receive ferocious pushback from the powers that be.
The key to the pass that Donald Trump got IS conservative economic policy. They don’t care about anything else.
It’s a trade, a deal, a bargain. Trump can throw black people and women and Muslims under the bus but what he CANNOT do is violate what they value and what they value is not paying taxes and not following regulations.
debit
@Patricia Kayden: I think that he’ll be a lot like Sarah Palin. People will love him for a while as long as he pretends to love them back. They’ll even swallow his obvious grifting for a while because he has to make a living, doesn’t he? Eventually some of them will drift away in disappointment or when they find a new object of adoration. Others will hang on until the bitter end, which will be a paid subscription to his youtube channel.
Botsplainer
@gvg:
And for a large number of those hard working white people in disadvantaged rust belt and Appalachian ruralities from Scranton to Chattanooga to the UP, the only real answer is resettlement. Those communities are moribund, out of contention for any serious potential for reinvigoration. Their old are stuck, their middle class hollowed out, their young undereducated and undertrained, many of them underway to newer, better economies. Better to quit throwing money at those losing propositions.
Stalin wasn’t wrong about resettlement, resource consolidation and forced collectivization – he was merely too harsh about method. The effort shut down thousands of nonproductive hardscrabble villages.
NobodySpecial
@Alesis: Understand, I’m not necessarily saying Hillary should have shown up to an OWS rally. But it’s instructive to see which Democrats showed up for Davos historically. Bill Clinton multiple times. Gore. Kerry. Leahy. Several other congresscritters over the years. Not nearly as many as the Republicans, but still enough to know where the technocrats of the party were getting their ideas. When one spends enough time rubbing shoulders with the likes of Jamie Dimon long enough, you’re gonna get perceived as not being on the side of the little guy, fairly or not.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: Well, let’s agree to disagree. And we’ll see what happens. The thing is, I have stopped trusting a lot of people I thought I could. Everything raises my hackles lately. Maybe if Democrats in Congress act as they should, they’ll go down, but I have no hope.
Kay
@Botsplainer:
That’s what Sessions said at his 1986 hearing. He said he was making Klan jokes. Didn’t work.
Patricia Kayden
@SenyorDave:
How would they separate the President from the establishment when the entire Congress is Republican? Will be interesting to see how they twist themselves into pretzels to make such a foolish argument. Somehow enough Republican voters must come to their senses so that we don’t end up with 8 years of Trump.
WereBear
Cripes, yes! I’ve been varying levels of activist the last fifteen years and it is staggering how many people choose a political candidate the same way they rush down to Mickey D’s because the McRib has appeared.
Doug R
@Amaranthine RBG: I believe the margin of victory in Michigan was LESS than the amount of rejected ballots.
sharl
@tobie: I haven’t read anyone – either liberal or leftist – who (at least explicitly) calls for tossing people-of-color, the LGBTQ communities, and other traditionally oppressed groups under the bus. However, suspicions among left-of-center groups abound that this very thing will happen sooner-or-later. And speaking of scapegoating, it is happening in abundance – at least online – among those left-of-center groups right now.
One disadvantage Hillary had is that she wasn’t running to replace George W. Bush; that helped Obama A LOT.* Having said that, here is something in that author’s piece that should perhaps be considered in future Democratic campaigns (bolding is mine):
There are going to be whites too committed to their precious racist view of the world to ever be won over, and honorable, responsible politicians shouldn’t even try to woo them and their bullshit worldview. But especially where a close election** is involved, you don’t need everyone, just a few percent – those who are able to put their racist attitudes aside for a moment to consider real threats and opportunities. Again, granting that Obama was following in the burning ruins of Dubya’s Administration, this happened in 2008:
Who knows if this would have worked for a woman candidate who has been the victim of a 20+ year (successful) campaign of demonization, campaign to succeed a successful and well liked man? Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. But it seems to me it is something to consider, as long as the Electoral College is something we have to live with.
Weaselone
@dogwood:
It’s my fault. I believe I referred to him as a conservadem in my post, although it wasn’t meant to be derogatory. I wasn’t really suggesting that he didn’t have solid values, just differentiating him from a blue state Democrat. My basic point was that we’ve run some really solid democratic candidates that should appeal to Rural voters and they still don’t seem to be able to get over the hump, even when they completely outclass their Republican opponent.
Chip Daniels
We can also use California for a role model.
We are every bit as diverse as America as a whole, and have plenty of racist red areas, economically distressed people, and so forth.
Yet the Democrats have virtually exterminated the GOP and hold every single statewide office.
AND our economy is humming along nicely with a tidy reserve for a rainy day.
What we managed to do differently is make voting easy and simple, by everyone.
As mentioned upthred, voter suppression is a real thing, and made much of the difference in this election.
If everyone who wanted to vote, did vote, Hillary would be President.
Patricia Kayden
@Botsplainer: That’s Ralph Nader’s argument.
Betty Cracker
@gogol’s wife: That framing irritates me too, but if you fear we’re in danger of evolving into a Putin-style authoritarian kleptocracy and want to understand how that can happen here and what to do about it, she says a lot that is worth reading, and she saw this coming.
divf
@NobodySpecial:
Rubbing shoulders with Dimon, versus hiring Bannon as a senior staffer. JP Morgan vs. Goldman Sachs, is that why the press scrutinzes Davos, but not Brietbart?
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: I can definitely understand (and definitely agree) that some of the pieces I’ve read like this sound an awful lot like going back to pre-Prop 8 days or worse, for example; I don’t see that in this particular piece, however.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
I’ve been asking this question for a lot longer than this WRT the rise of the National Front in France, a country where starting your own third party is practically the national pastime. I’d believe that “economic anxiety” plays some role in pushing people towards the FN, and away from established parties like the PS and LR. But none of the people arguing this have ever been able to explain why this anxiety inevitably, again and again, expresses itself through support for the party that until very recently (and long after this trend began) was run by a Holocaust denier – and not for any one of the many, many alternatives out there, most of which are also anti-EU and anti-establishment. All they can do is babble something about how you just can’t call them racist! It’s mean!
Same question applies in the U.S. In fact, since Republican NeverTrumpists insisted for so long that Trump was something totally new and different and that his appeals to racism in no way reflected conservative ideology, there’s probably some fun to be had with this. “So, why exactly did so many anxious voters run to Trump and not to one of the sixteen real conservatives, at least some of whom were surely antiestablishment candidates in some way?”
Maybe someday we’ll acknowledge that people who vote for Holocaust deniers, or in this case the American equivalent, probably aren’t motivated by something as generic as corporate greed or government mismanagement.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major:
Even if it’s not, well, based in reality.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: I always found it interesting how there’s a great deal of anti-Semitism on the far left and the far right in Europe, but our far left has for the most part managed to escape that. I say escape rather than avoid because our leftism came, I believe, from continental sources.
trollhattan
@Chip Daniels:
Tip o’ the hat to you, sir. Concise and correct.
NobodySpecial
@divf: Breitbart is a minor propaganda outfit, for all the yelling about Bannon now. Davos, though, gets the likes of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore and sticks them in the same room eating the same rarefied dishes as a Dimon or a Paul Allen or any other number of big name billionaires. And then they make somber pronouncements about how it’s so very important to make sure that they help countries keep developing. And then the public looks at their town and sees another factory move to Mexico or Singapore or some other place and everyone just kinds shuffles their feet and looks down at the corner while mumbling some apology. If they feel abandoned, it’s because they’ve seen their towns and jobs go bye-bye, and nothing getting done to help them. It makes people cynical and willing to believe ‘both sides’ when on several economic issues, there’s not much gap between official R and D positions. (See TPP and multitudinous other trade deals for one example)
Tripod
Kodak invented a disruptive technology and killed what was left of the hometown industry. Shit happens. Especially to communities dependent on single industry clustering.
As to diversification, It’s been a long goddamned time since any titan of commerce gave a fuck about being conveniently located on the Erie Canal. That would be true even in a state owned command economy, or hiding behind tariff barriers.
divf
@NobodySpecial:
Not any more.
Also, how many Trump voters could locate Davos on a map?
As I said above, the failure here is multifactorial, but I think that the issue I identified above is a much bigger deal than the MotU connections. We need facts, not speculation, though.
Matt McIrvin
@Chip Daniels:
Until California gets carpet-bombed, at least.
SatanicPanic
@Chip Daniels: Our goal here in CA should be on getting ready for the storm that is coming our way. We’re the nail that stands out.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Weaselone: A Democrat is never seen as the “Real Beer” in this context.
Chris
@Chip Daniels:
Is that because your electoral system was less skewed and rigged to disproportionately represent low-population Redstateistans? I don’t know that it is, but it seems like a safe assumption…
Suzanne
@James E Powell: I think we need to cut the white working class loose. Stop going after their votes, and stop trying to pander to their bullshit culture, and stop trying to help them retool in a globalize do world. We go after Millenials with a new brand of vigor and passion and intelligence and honesty.
I’m happy to let the deplorables go.
BillinGlendaleCA
@debit:
No worries debit. I’ve been assured by my right wing betters that “an armed society is a polite society”.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne:
This. Ms. O’s family are fundagelicals in the rural midwest. I grew up in a rural backwater on the east coast. The only issue they vote on is abortion. That’s how they could somehow reconcile voting for a thrice-married, lying, cheating [the pejorative list is almost endless] philanderer. Because he will protect the unborn. Nothing else matters in their hermetically sealed worldview.
FlipYrWhig
@divf: I co-sign this. The “better economic message!” people seem to forget that everyone likes to hear “We’re for you, John Q. Littleguy!” until Republicans say, “Oh yeah, probably by raising taxes on everybody to give goodies to dark-skinned layabouts, amirite?” at which point more than half the people who initially liked “We’re for you!” immediately recoil.
Also, you know what jobs distressed people would be happy to get? Corporate ones. How do you thread the needle to be anti-corporate and anti-neoliberal and still tell people your highest priority is that they’re going to get back to work? Work for who? How does that happen? What are you actually proposing? Is supporting contracts for Boeing corporate and neoliberal and bad, or is it populist and helping the little guy and good? Is the goal to make people say, “I’m out of work because of banks!” instead of “I’m out of work because of Mexicans!” Or is the goal to make people say, “I’m not out of work anymore!”
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin: @SatanicPanic:
I’m ready for President Trump to sign Nevada and Oregon over to Cliven Bundy and California to Westlands Water District. Say you heard it here first.
FlipYrWhig
@Suzanne: In my low moments that’s what I say too. In my less low moments I say something slightly different, which is this: do things to help them, but don’t count on winning their votes because of it, because they are assholes.
SatanicPanic
@trollhattan: They can have Needles. That’s as far as I go.
Linnaeus
@Botsplainer:
Trouble is, we’re not, as a nation, really willing to pay for this, even if you could get people in economically depressed areas to sign on to it.
The Moar You Know
Every Trump voter I’ve met has two things in common:
1. They make more money than average.
2. They were racist before Trump, but are thrilled they can just say whatever the fuck they please now.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
Preach! They are one among many groups and deserve social and economic justice like the rest of us, but not more than the rest of us – which all this blather about the male WWC implies. Also, see: real Murkins vs. interest groups. Makes me nuts.
trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
Unfamiliar. This red needle? Because the Leonard Cohen tie-in would be very nice.
ETA, got this confused with a separate cocktail discussion, but found the neat Needles tie-in. How about we give them Needles and Weed?
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
As a certain American said (paraphrasing), we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
dogwood
@Suzanne:
You can’t just cut the WWC loose. There’s still a share of those voters who are democrats.
Linnaeus
@Suzanne:
We never really did this anywhere in the country.
SatanicPanic
@The Moar You Know: I know a few who aren’t successful. But you could deport every last person who isn’t paper white and they’d still be losers. Good luck telling those boneheads that though.
SatanicPanic
@trollhattan: hehe, I see what you did there
divf
@Linnaeus:
We haven’t had the votes to do this since 1980. The GOP is perfectly happy to blame us for their misery, while blocking us from spending any money to relieve said misery.
Linnaeus
@divf:
I agree that GOP misrule contributed mightily to this problem, although I think the Democrats could have been better on this issue.
NR
@Patricia Kayden:
Because a lot of them aren’t Democrats and couldn’t vote in the Democratic primary. Some could, but many states had closed primaries.
divf
@Linnaeus: How?
I’m sorry, I’m not buying it. Since 1980, we have only had two 2-year windows to try to improve matters – 1993-1994 and 2009-2010. In both cases, we got slapped down for our efforts by the GOP in wave elections.
divf
@divf: (Deleted)
catclub
@divf:
Democratic overreach. gah.
Linnaeus
@divf:
The Democrats – while still much better than the Republicans, to be clear on that – were themselves divided on what to do, in part of because of shifts within the party going back to the Carter years. They, especially the Clinton wing, embraced the “new economy” agenda with respect to trade, economic development, etc., but I don’t think they fully accounted for the costs of that agenda.
divf
@catclub: I’ll assume that is snark, although these days, it is hard to tell.
Patricia Kayden
@NR: And it’s impossible for them to re-register as Democrats before primaries? I’ve re-registered twice with no problems. Why couldn’t they?
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, in the U.S. we have different primary targets. Antisemitism is usually somewhere on the list of prejudices, but anti-black prejudice (and, historically, anti-American-Indian) were much higher up on it.
Also, I remember reading a theory somewhere that historically, antisemitism hadn’t been that high in the Anglosphere in general (when compared to the European continent), and that anti-Catholicism sort of substituted for it. Don’t know if that’s true, though if it was, it certainly isn’t anymore.
divf
@Linnaeus: Again, tell me what they could have done that would have made it through a GOP House of Representatives. Also, health care reform wasn’t exactly “new economy”.
Linnaeus
@divf:
By 1994, of course, there weren’t going to be massive Democratic programs getting through Congress, so that’s a fair point. The Democratic shift away from such programs, however, had begun before that – this goes back even to the Carter administration, when the Democrats had the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress. I’m not sure that a even a Democratic majority in the mid-90s would have been willing to take on the full costs of the economic transition that they were trying to shepherd.
True, although free trade, retraining, and welfare reform definitely were. Those have had reverberations 20 years later that we need to reckon with.
James Powell
@Roger Moore:
Which half the country will accept and repeat as fact.
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major:
I can think of one far-leftie I’ve known who started with opposition to Israel’s settlement policies but then generalized that into a statement that Judaism is an inherently racist religion, and doubled down when piled on about it. But he’s pretty much the one.
Suzanne
@dogwood: I don’t think they should be the focus of our efforts. Manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back. Coal is dead, due to economic evolution more than anything else. I am not interested in slowing down this progress in the name of helping people maintain a dying lifestyle. The best thing that we can do for the white working class is encourage them to GTFO of shit towns and into cities (which are more sustainable) and get advanced vocational skills or go to college. But I am not interested in helping them as an interest group. I supported and will continue to support policies that will make a material difference in their lives, but I do not think they get to be an interest group that we “protect”. They can come along for the ride if they want.
Tripod
@Suzanne:
Well a lot of the resentment comes from the younger ones with skills GTFO.
@Linnaeus:
Appalachian coal was a finite resource. Much of this isn’t due to a policy choice – either the resources got used up or the manufacturing process got nailed by a disruptive technology change.
Jacel
@Fair Economist:
On all occasions, we need to refer to that no-funding-for-abortion legislative provision as “The Philandering Henry Hyde Amendment” until we can put an end to it.