The Dems need to stop appealing so much to urban & metro sections of the country only, its the Electoral vote they need not the Popular vote, but Clinton’s establishment roots simply didn’t help, 4/6 of her top donors were mostly banks (or related to banks) and her saying she would do something about the banks was simply unbelievable.
15 Likes
I want to see Ellison take over the DNC, but there was a fake antisemitism scandal drummed up to keep him out.
3 Likes
A purity Millenial attitude? I’m not one of them, but what I observed was young liberals and progressives who understood that neoliberal globalist “business as usual” was no longer sustainable in light of their own rapidly diminishing prospects. Neither they nor their grumpy socialist grandpa were demanding purity, just reform.
So I can’t blame them for not being enthusiastic about yet another beigist Boomer Dem who stubbornly believes that Third Way economic policy will deliver the same results now that it did 1992. When you throw in a DNC establishment that did every slimy thing it could to assure a coronation, her lack of Obama-level charisma, and her crappy and complacent campaign it’s no wonder they couldn’t get out the vote with young people.
The Dems could also use their duopoly status to push for reform of the Electoral College. But there seems to be as much will in the party establishment to do that as there is to push through meaningful campaign finance reform (let alone tone it down with big-money donors from the financial services industry).
29 Likes
The numbers in the past three elections have been flat for the Republicans. This tells me people willing to vote Republican will literally vote for a pig in lipstick as long as that pig is alive and born in America.
The Democrats with Obama were able to prompt millions of people to get up and vote, where as Hillary made them sit at home. And here we are. So yes, you vote counts, especially if you had no vote otherwise.
And this article squarely pin points who is to “blame”. It wasn’t anything Trump did to get supporters. He just pulled in the standard party line voters. It was Hillary’s unlikability (deserved or not) that kept liberals and moderates at home. I don’t know if Sanders would have energized the voters or not, but I think he had a better shot. Or maybe both of them would have lost still. It is kinda a shame you have to deal with people who would vote for you in a poll, but wont actually get up and vote for real.
Though, perhaps lessons are learned with this election, and voter turn out will be higher next time.
Still think we should make it a holiday.
17 Likes
To learnedcoward, I singled out the millennials because that's what 538's conclusion was about. Clearly the data supports this conclusion whether you personally know purist millennials or not. Many reports leading up to the election were about how terrible HRC was and even though I personally felt it was largely a fabrication of the years of right wing propaganda and the opportunity to smear her after being in the public spotlight for 25 years, clearly she wasn't a great candidate because that exaggerated propaganda worked.
2 Likes
That’s fair. But if you believe that politics is the art of what’s possible, not voting for HRC in light of the alternative is a no brainer. But maybe this is the road to get real reform since Trump is going to be a true disaster.
If the Electoral College were to become like how the states of Nebraska & Maine have it set up the results would be that much more accurate but unfortunately most of the country outside urban centers lean right, reforming the EC is only brought up when the other party looses. The 2-party system is too entrenched.
3 Likes
I’ll settle for more accuracy. If the results aren’t to my liking, well c’est la democratie.
As it happens, I think the results in our still urbanising country would be to my liking. Especially if preference voting was also made standard for the popular vote.
It’s difficult enough to get young Americans to come out and vote for someone under the best of circumstances. Also, our public education system doesn’t give them the grounding they need in civics, media literacy and game theory which would get them out the door on election day.
3 Likes
This is all very interesting for Democratic strategists, I’m sure. But Hillary’s failings (real or perceived, which amounts to the same thing in politics) do not excuse anyone who let Turmp become president. And I include Republicans in that. It doesn’t matter how you identify yourself, if you’re a registered human it was your duty to prevent this abomination, and you failed.
/gives US electorate withering look
22 Likes
No. Your duty in an election is to vote for and only for the person you sincerely believe ought to be President. That’s the long and short of it. Votes must be earned. Not blackmailed by using the threat of Trump. That path is dishonest and leads only to the mire of perpetual rightward drift leading to this execrable election which featured the clash between a neocon warmongering racist bastard and Donald Trump.
And lo! and behold, it turned out that Democrats didn’t want a Republican candidate and so stayed home. Which is what I’ve been saying for a while now. Not that this research (which was done by the only leftward outlet to have predictions that were close to reality (70-30 if memory serves) will stop the cottage industry of inventing reasons why Hilary lost which aren’t Hilary being Hilary, i.e. a republican candidate, a neoliberal, neocon wretched excuse for a human being[1].
[1] If she only ran for the GOP side she might have won! That’s an advantage over yonder, I note.
17 Likes
The message here is that the DNC, HRC for POTUS, DWS, etc. had nothing to do with this failure.
Don’t alter the power structures folks, this message tells us right here that it was a problem with the people and not with leadership. It’s on us you guys, they should keep doing business as usual.
10 Likes
I think this is where Russian interference worked. By having the constant drip of leaked DNC documents and internet trolls to amplify them they could relitigate the primary and paint Clinton as corrupt. I expect that in turn demoralized many Democrats and got them to stay home.
11 Likes
Hadn’t heard about that one. It’s his support for Stephen Bittel as dnc Florida chair thats got my goat.
Well, but it really is, isn’t it? Not one part of the political establishment wanted Turmp to be president; it was the electorate alone that did that.
Abstention isn’t voting. I would have preferred it if Bernie had been the candidate, especially since Turmp created an almost unprecedented situation where he could have won. But by November the question on the ballot was “do you want Turmp to be president, or not?”; the enormity of that issue swamped any other consideration. Plus, if you know that Republicans are going to vote for a candidate they hate far more than you dislike Hillary, it’s a question of whether you want to be the loser who fought fair.
I recognise the problem with tactical voting, and if the GOP candidate had been merely as horrific as, say, Bush II, I wouldn’t make the same argument. The difference with Turmp is the promise of irreversible damage; you can’t play a long game against an opponent whose strategy is to flip the board and molest the pieces.
14 Likes
“the message from the Democratic Party’s left wing, represented by Sanders supporters, who argued that Hillary Clinton represented a finance-friendly, militarized, neoliberal continuation of the Obama administration”
Unfortunately, that wasn’t it - for the people who didn’t vote, and most of those who voted against her, they weren’t even aware of that. It was mostly about Benghazi and “emails” and fantasy molestation pizza parlors, not substantive issues that swayed them; it was about a lack of demagoguery on her part; at best it was about a vague feeling that she represented something new - the way Obama did. I only wish it were about the issues.
Really? Despite the new voter ID laws that remained, or the polling places that acted as if there were ID laws? The many polling paces in Democratic areas (particularly near college campuses) that were closed for this election, and the incredibly long lines to vote in those areas that we’d never seen before? Those were both new and successful efforts.
But Hillary got more votes than any white male nominee in history… so how is that a (general) failure to get out voters?
9 Likes
Not voting isn’t partisanship, not voting is a vote to be ignored. That’s even more true in data-driven campaigns like today’s world.
5 Likes
[quote=“anansi133, post:19, topic:92510”]
and even Sanders’ pick for the chair Keith Ellison looks like a sellout now.
[/quote]This is something I need to hear substantiated.
3 Likes
I couldn’t vote (I was in the wrong country and I am not allowed to.) and kept supporting Bernie right until Hillary got the nomination, but when I spoke in favour of voting for Hillary and protesting every neo-liberal and authoritarian action she made I was accused by “Blue Conservatives” of being just like the Trump voters.
This election has just shown the huge difference between the American left and the supporters of Hillary Clinton. Any future nomination needs to find a balance and deliver on it, and not just mostly ignore the left while expecting their support as we have come to expect over the last 30 years.
7 Likes
Yes really. Every election there’s accusations of voter suppression, purging polls and other vote suppression tactics. The point is not that there was voter suppression but that it was particularly worse this go around and I didn’t see any evidence for that. As for the rest of your comments I agree.
1 Like
Minorities are . . . “racialized”?
7 Likes
