By whom?
This series tries to explain where that belief is coming from.
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Clinton did far worse with unmarried men and women than in the Obama/Romney election. All other demographic groups were minor changes.
Unmarried democratic voters are probably a pretty good proxy for Sanders voters.
Where did they go? Not to Trump.
They voted third party. Just like they said they would. Also please do note that Trump’s share of the white vote was actually down a bit from Romney’s. No whitelash.
Sanders backers largely supported Clinton but enough did not do so to make the difference. Why didn’t they? Because though Sanders started his campaign debating policy, when it became clear he was falling behind he abandoned that. He started a vitriolic campaign centered around a cult of personality. He was the first to claim the election was rigged against him, not Trump. He reinforced the claims that Clinton was unethical. He whipped his supporters up into a white hot hatred of Clinton. Some held their noses and voted for her anyway. Some maintained their purity and voted third party. They probably would not have done so had Sanders ended his campaign the way he began it. But his ego wouldn’t let him.
I voted for Sanders in the primary. I soon came to regret that vote. At this point, I think he’s a worthless son of a bitch who should never show his face in public again. His people just doomed the entire planet.
I don’t think so.
You’re framing this as if the US had stable 100% turnout, and that the only way to increase your vote is to convert the opposition.
But y’don’t. The data isn’t fully in yet, but I think that rather than Dems changing sides, what you got was more Dems staying home and right wing non-voters coming out for Trump.
The part of the non-voting electorate that were converted into voters by enthusiasm for Obama have turned back into non-voters. And we have a new set of voters created by Trump.
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Can you provide the quote in context where someone suggested in this thread a Sam Bee ----> KKK vote?
I think enough people who would have voted Sanders just ended up not voting and I think that’s the sentiment here.
Sam Bee, and others who enjoy a certain cultural relevance among that group of primarily young voters who identify as being informed, socially progressive, etc are very much subject to/in the path of personalities like them. So when someone who you may look up to, respect, and so on calls you horrible shit for months on end.
Sure sometimes the Bernie hardcore were being dickheads, they are also mostly very young and dealing with dickheads should be a job qualification in politics. Other times they were either earnestly mislead by what should have been reliable sources and then actual fuck ups on the part of the DNC and the HRC for POTUS campaign which they were told to shut up about.
If your approach to winning over people in their 20’s is to talk down to them and berate them when you need their help and cooperation then you’re a goddamn idiot or you really don’t give a fuck about this election.
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Very iffy premise, I see no likely relationship or correlation. You’d need to back that up with data for me to accept it.
Your Kevin Drum article does discuss 3rd party voters, but doesn’t suggest or show they were Sanders backers. Most 3rd party voters went to the Libertarian candidate, and any Sanders backer who decided to vote L would have to have been dumber than a box of rocks since they have opposite policies and agendas. Anecdotal, but I do know a number of GOPers who voted L out of a hatred of Trump, and no leftists.
I voted for Sanders in the primary. I don’t regret it at all, and I think he’s an amazing guy very worthy of admiration. There are a lot of reasons for the loss, but I really only blame two groups:
- Trump voters - racist scum deserving only scorn
- Non-voters - lazy scum deserving only scorn
3rd party voters were a tiny drop in the bucket, didn’t vote for Trump, pulled as much if not more support from Trump as Clinton, and only made any difference because of the racist scum who voted Trump and the lazy narcissists who didn’t turn up to the polls.
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With respect, no. Because this humor isn’t even reaching the “other side” which I put in quotes only because the people who actually voted Trump into office aren’t the centrists we get in places like this one. Liberals have built themselves a bubble. It’s not that the communication is failing. It’s that it’s not even happening in the first place. Self-described conservatives, by and large, don’t even set foot in the spheres of liberal awareness anymore.
Progressives cannot count on the Democratic Party to save them. If they do, everyone will pay the price of their apathy.
[I deleted most of this comment because I’m too angry to write a civilized response, but know that the anger wasn’t directed at you, and I shouldn’t have even combined the comments.]
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There you go oversimplifying again, with a lack of nuance that’s ironically Trumpian.
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Which Trump message are you talking about? “You’re right that the system has been fucking you over” or “Racism and misogyny are justifiable”? Yes, some voted for the latter, but many more clearly voted for the former, and felt it so strongly, that they did it DESPITE the latter.
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Where’s your blame for Clinton and the other DNC establishment limousine liberals? The election was theirs to lose, and they did. Seems to me that you don’t blame them, and maybe don’t even see them, because you’re too busy instead making the same mistake they did – sneering at, homogenizing, and alienating the supposed “deplorables,” who used to be mostly democrats.
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You’re framing this as if the US had stable 100% turnout, and that the only way to increase your vote is to convert the opposition.
I never said the only way. Of course it’s not the only way.
The data isn’t fully in yet, but I think that rather than Dems changing sides, what you got was more Dems staying home and right wing non-voters coming out for Trump.
I agree. It wasn’t only republicans who saw right through the Clinton machine.
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I think part of the problem with this discussion is related to what Jay Smooth talks about here about the distinction between being a racist and racist actions:
My feeling is that there may have been a large group of Trump voters who didn’t perform many racist acts or have many racist thoughts in their heads, but in voting for someone who has expressed such racism himself and strongly & apparently intentionally emboldened those elements of society who revel in racist thought … in voting for someone like that the voters show that those oppressed people who will have it worse under President Trump. Whether to call this lack of concern for those with less privilege ‘racism’ (or more properly, a racist thought-pattern) is a question i leave to each reader.
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I’ve written a list of the people I think voted for Trump and why, just for my own peace of mind, and in an attempt to understand what the hell happened. But as a life-long white, middle-aged, Southern, Christian, straight, male, Democrat/Progressive, I’ve long felt like I should be in a cage in a carnival freak show somewhere. I just don’t understand why so many of my friends and family are all of those things except the last one.
There are lots of different groups who voted for Trump. Many of those groups overlap. Some of those groups I refuse to defend. Straight-up racists, misogynists, homophobes, xenophobes and the like. I’m saying that I believe – perhaps naively – that there was a sizable group in Rust Belt states and elsewhere who voted because of their economic realities, and out of fear for their economic future. They saw Trump as a change agent.
And change, as my Millennial son reminded me this morning, is what this election was really about. We Dems/Progressives were tone deaf maybe because we still thought Obama, and by annointment, Hillary, were still representing change and hope. They no longer were. I’m convinced by the post-election arguments that Bernie (the kind of candidate I’ve been waiting to vote for since Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election) would have fared much better in the general election than Hillary did. Sanders might have been the change those rural/small town voters who weren’t motivated by the -phobes would have voted for – and with renewed hope – not out of fear, or a “what the hell” hopelessness, as they did for Trump.
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I don’t think that’s at all naive. I think it’s the truth, and that their economic reality has gotten so dire, so seemingly everlasting and so seemingly bound to only get worse, that they voted for Trump as a possible change agent DESPITE (not in favor of) his horrible downsides. Hell, many of those downsides were in a way upsides, because they too marked him as an outsider to a system that clearly isn’t work for them, that clearly doesn’t give a shit about them.[quote=“xkot, post:138, topic:89213”]
I’m convinced by the post-election arguments that Bernie (the kind of candidate I’ve been waiting to vote for since Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election) would have fared much better in the general election than Hillary did. Sanders might have been the change those rural/small town voters who weren’t motivated by the -phobes would have voted for – and with renewed hope – not out of fear, or a “what the hell” hopelessness, as they did for Trump.
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Amen. I think the Dem establishment blew it (and maybe even acted criminally) when they did all they could from very early on to shut down Sanders the Outsider and boost Clinton the Insider.
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Yep. Just like Brexit.
Doesn’t matter that the campaign lied. Doesn’t matter that the consequences are going to be negative for everyone. It was a chance to express anger. Why not vote to tear it all down?
EDIT:
And just like Brexit, the “outsiders” were a bunch of rich plutocrats. And the other side was the political insiders from both major parties (or at least some of them…), reinforcing the idea of a monolithic status quo and making it even easier to vote against them.
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Which campaign and consequences are you talking about?
I know you’re talking about the Trump campaign, but that’s exactly how the supposed “deplorables” saw the Clinton campaign. And given how little many of their lives improved after eight years of Obama, I find it hard to blame them for thinking that Clinton wasn’t going to do much for them, nor for seeing that she and her campaign also told a lot of lies.
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Me either.
I’m really frustrated that Sanders showed that there was an engaged populist movement that could have been a major positive, and it was pissed away.
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Exactly how I feel. By pushing Clinton instead, the Dem establishment demonstrated that it really IS out of touch. Having its head up its own ass made it tone deaf. A major reason that Sanders supporters were so excited about him is the same thing that excited so many Trump supporters – the possibility of an outsider changing a broken system.
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I’ve assumed he had the organized crime vote from the get-go. If everyone who makes a living how do I say, off the books, voted for him, en masse, that’s a couple percentage points in some key districts.
One thing about criminal organizations is that they can get the word out to their membership. The black economy is not insignificant, and neither are those who live off of it.
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to be fair, any ‘deplorable’ you’re referring to hung that mantle around their own necks. Hear me out. I think it’s fair to call the earliest adopters and strongest supporters of the Trump campaign ‘deplorables’. I really have no problem calling pussy grabbers (and their enablers) ‘deplorable’. It’s ad hominem, but not inapt.
I think Trump got the pussy grabber vote, and that turned out to be a surprising number of people - at least surprising to those among us (this man, specifically) who aren’t pussy grabbers. Probably less of a surprise to women.
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Yeah. I haven’t been talking here about Trump supporters en masse. Unlike smug limousine liberals, I don’t homogenize them.
Yes, many devout, wannabe pussy-grabbers voted for him, as did many literally hood-wearing racists. But it seems clear to me that more of his supporters were the sort who were willing to overlook things like that because they’re sick and tired of being pummeled by the status quo, and because the corporatocratic Dem establishment didn’t seem nearly as passionate about their plight as Trump (however falsely) did.
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I suspect the strongest supporters were, Trump’s shock troops as it were. The earliest adopters I don’t think were for the most part. The practical questions I hear @anon15383236 asking are: Was there a large disaffected class of working Americans the Democratic campaign abandoned by pushing Clinton? Did a lot of them vote for Trump or a third party or not at all? And is there any way the Democratic Party can get its act together to reach them in 2018 and beyond? And the self-evident answers appear to be yes, yes, and it damn well better, but we can’t count on it. (And believe or not, that’s me be optimistic today.)
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