I honestly don’t know why people think this election was unique. To me it was essentially a replay of 2000, where after 8 pretty good years the Left forgot how bad a GOP president can be and got all whiny about how the parties are the same, stiff old Al Gore didn’t excite them, and how he wasn’t “pure” enough like the Bernie of the day, Nader. Rinse and repeat.
I have seen no poll evidence that Bernie could have been elected, the traditionally Dem blue collars who voted for Trump would never have gone for a old Jewish Socialist.
What’s worse is that hope almost always wins over fear- It’s the only thing that does- and while Clinton was selling fear, Trump was promising* to bring back the jobs and keep people safe.
The Democrats let an actual fucking Nazi become the voice of hope for America. That’s beyond just bad politics, it’s damned near unforgivable.
Yes, they were bullshit false promises. That’s not the issue.
The “Democratic blue collars” already flipped to a significant degree in 2010, 2012, and 2014. That’s why the “firewall” concept was challenged by Nate Silver.
2010 GOP goes +6 senate, +63 in the house, and +6 governors
2012 Dems go +2 senate, +8 house, and GOP goes +1 governor
2014 GOP goes +9 senate, +13 house, and +2 governor
This is a massive conservative shift despite the president elections being next to no contest.
I blame the people who keep saying that a third party candidate can’t win, that you’re throwing away your vote, that you’ll be a “spoiler” if you vote for the person you think is best for the job.
Most Americans didn’t vote- And I promise you that a hell of a lot of those people didn’t vote because they didn’t think their vote would make a difference. In fact, I would go so far as to wager that the number of people who think their vote doesn’t count, are enough by themselves to put anyone into office.
Because here’s the thing that has me seeing red- If every single one of those people wrote in their own name for the presidency, or split their votes between Candidates A, B, C, and D, then they’re right- their vote for president wouldn’t matter. But while they’re in the booth, they’ll also be voting for congress, and for state offices, and for ballot initiatives, and for local office.
And that’s a whole fucking lot of people getting involved in politics at the local and state level where it really matters- Where the assholes can be stopped before they get enough political clout to really be dangerous.
And a ton of them are doing nothing, because people keep telling them they’re just throwing their vote away.
All the more reason why a centrist D made more sense that a leftist D. The DLC came into being to lead the Dems to a centrist position that could win in 1992, rather than the repeatedly failing left wing. Nothing has changed to make a far left candidate viable in an increasingly conservative nation. The messed up thing is that asked about points individually, many of these “conservatives” support liberal positions, but not cumulatively. If you posted Sen Warren’s speech about antitrust in a populist conservative forum they’d support it till they heard who it was from.
It’s nor relevant to who wins the election. Winning the popular vote doesn’t mean something in the American system. Means everything in the Russian system, say, or the French, but nothing in the American. I don’t know why you made your country that way, but you did.
And I’m not understanding why you’re so desperate to single me out for me to shut up.
Look, Cory Fucking Doctorow is claiming that Donald Trump won because liberal minorities dropped the ball. We’re going to let that stand, but pointing out that Clinton voters did, in fact, vote in greater numbers than Trump voters, that’s right out? Come on. We can’t discuss something if we demand that the facts be thrown out.
The fact of the matter is that the GOP has figured out how to win electoral votes, by pretending to care about rural voters…but that’s not all.
Mitt Romney won the 1st (53%), 4th (50%), 5th (53%), 6th (59%), 7th (57%), 9th (63%), and 10th (50%) districts. Barack Obama won the four remaining districts – the 2nd (50%), 3rd (79%), 8th (68%), and 11th (62%). Had the Carrico plan been in place in 2012, Mitt Romney would have won nine of Virginia’s electoral votes, and Barack Obama would have won four – even though Obama won the popular vote of the state by nearly 150,000 ballots, and four percentage points.
I can tell you how we ended up with this system: the founders of the United States didn’t trust democracy, so they put the Electoral College between the people and the government, as a compromise.
It’s sort of funny, in a sad way, that people like, oh, Donald Trump were calling for an end to the Electoral College when Obama won, but now that he’s won, it’s a wonderful thing.
Voting for lesser evil makes sense only if you trully believe that other candidate is the bigger evil. Obviously a good chunk of voters didn’t really buy that story.
On the other hand she (and her PR team) presented her victory as all but inevitable, so many didn’t really feel the urgency to go out and vote.
…have I told you to shut up? I’m sorry if I have. I disagreed with you, that’s true, but can’t find the injunction for you to shut up anywhere in what I wrote.
No, Cory F. Doctorow is reporting on the statistical analysis of voting patterns. Which appear to show that the losing margin is comprised largely of disillusioned young minority voters. This may or may not be true as is the case with the subtle art of statistical analysis, but it is not against anyone. It’s just what the numbers show.
No one’s asking for the facts to be thrown out. Hilary needed either the votes to be in a different pattern (less in California more anywhere else) or more voters so that it spills over into getting more states. Since the pattern is pretty much fixed (hence the whole red state/blue state thing) energizing more voters (to say, an Obama) level is what she needed to do.
She didn’t. The article explains how exactly as best it can given uncertain data.
They also allowed slavery, made the state legislatures elect senators, and extended the franchise to, like, 3% of the adult population. They were, diplomatically put, men of their time.
It doesn’t mean you can’t fix this. You got the franchise sorted, after all. In 1964, but still. You managed it.
[quote=“Mal_Tosevite, post:111, topic:92510”]Look, Cory Fucking Doctorow is claiming that Donald Trump won because liberal minorities dropped the ball.
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Alternately, it may be interpreted as “the Dems lost because they made no real effort to address the needs of minority voters”.
Want folks to vote for you? Give them something to vote for. A continuation of mass incarceration and kleptocracy won’t cut it.
I agree completely, and wish we had all sorts of voter-friendly devices everywhere, like voting prior to the election, easier registration, etc. But in terms of a conservative friend of mine, “If they can’t get to the polls on election day, perhaps they should be allowed to vote.” He believes having the right people vote is more important that trying to get everyone to vote. So although some states have tried to make voting, it will never happen in red states – unless we get federal voter protections back in place somehow, and a hell of a lot stronger.
The problem with this analysis can be seen in this sentence:
It’s otherwise a look at national-level figures only, when the election is decided by the states.
My impression, overall: states like Florida and Pennsylvania went red because of Dems and “leaners” staying home, yes. People who would have been energized by Sanders, no doubt. On the other hand, states like Michigan and Wisconsin flipped not because of differences in turnout, but because for Hillary the Obama coalition shrunk, losing white working-class voters. Their reasons are also pertinent. I tend to think it’s a “kick the bums out” attitude coming from genuine government dysfunction, combined with a lot of misinformation running amok.
So I don’t think the picture’s quite as straightforward as it’s been made out to be in the article.
Impeding voter registration is not the only GOP voter suppression tactic, not by a long shot.
