Saying Bernie’s message was pissed away by the DNC is something I disagree with, his message is currently at risk of being pissed away by letting people get away with passively letting Trump into office. Bernie Sander’s message was to come out and vote and if you disagree with the DNC to vote whatever the fuck else you want, and show the DNC that the active pool of Obama voters don’t need to be drawn out of hiding and that they were passionate about change.
Pissing away his message would be taking the passive stance and saying the government has to come to you for your voice to be heard.
[quote=“anon15383236, post:148, topic:89213”]
But it seems clear to me that more of his supporters were the sort who were willing to overlook things like that
[/quote]This is the opinion I hate most of all, the idea that we should just sweep “that” under the rug. That is a terrifying position to me.
Yes, those are a lot of my questions, and on this one, I’d partially answer by saying yes, and I’d add that the Dems abandoned them long ago. As a great Vox piece puts it:
Beginning in the middle of the 20th century, the working class, once the core of the coalition, began abandoning the Democratic Party. In 1948, in the immediate wake of Franklin Roosevelt, 66 percent of manual laborers voted for Democrats, along with 60 percent of farmers. In 1964, it was 55 percent of working-class voters. By 1980, it was 35 percent.
The white working class in particular saw even sharper declines. Despite historic advantages with both poor and middle-class white voters, by 2012 Democrats possessed only a 2-point advantage among poor white voters. Among white voters making between $30,000 and $75,000 per year, the GOP has taken a 17-point lead.
I really hope that part of fighting Trump on the left will involve “liberals” looking at themselves, and at how they come across to others, carefully.
I suspect you are right. Most of us vote for a lot of different and often contradictory reasons. Ultimately it seems important to try and make an honest and effective post-mortem.
A very compelling theory is that the overly optimistic polls caused lukewarm HRC supporters to not bother to vote. The turnout stats add weight to this argument. So non-voters may be more responsible for the result than the economically disaffected, who at least took the initiative to vote.
Few can be faulted for voting in their own best interest. Normally, those who find themselves to have been ‘snookered’ by false promises will soon enough have recourse. But this was not a ‘normal’ election by any stretch.
Trae Crowder suggested on Bill Maher that any major failure on the part of a Trump administration will somehow be spun as a the fault of anyone but him. That seems his norm. Having been fooled once, will the same voters somehow recognize this, or be persuaded to double-down?
“Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?” – never seemed less funny to me than now.
Maybe it’s a byproduct of our binary hyperpolarized culture? It seems like a lot of liberals and progressives conflate they themselves being wrong with their opponents being right, and vice versa. As if admitting they threw their constituents under the bus negates the fact that the Right did the same thing. I don’t know if this a problem of ego or some other insecurity, but it’s surely something that we have to overcome as a nation. It’s times like this that I envy coalition-style political systems.
I don’t know that there is much of an empowered Left left. There’s an establishment that seems to have as it’s main raison d’etre keeping any truly competent and effective Progressive powerbase from stealing it’s spotlight.
It’s hard to say since I don’t think she ever even remotely tried. One thing I always noticed about GOP presidential candidates is that they reach out to each others’ bases as they knock each other out of the running. Clinton’s campaign all but gave the middle-finger to Sanders’ supporters.
I’m saying the collected polling data pointed to voters voting Obama coming back out for Clinton, and then they just… didn’t. That in itself goes against Bernie Sander’s message of making sure you should go out and make sure you are heard in the system. Bernie (and dare I say Clinton) would have wanted Trump to win with 65+ million voters participating and 3rd parties getting an additional 6+ million votes than what happened.
Low turnout will never, ever get someone to listen to your needs. Even with Trump pretending to be he got a similar turnout, not a huge bump but with a little bit different makeup since his message brought some more people to the polls that wouldn’t go before while alienating others.
I read Bernie’s op-ed piece in the NY Times today, and believe he has the right response. We’ve got to hold Trump to the promises he made to working class people to stem the flow of jobs overseas, to rebuild infrastructure, etc., and where there is common ground, work together. Unlike a lot of angry Dems, I do NOT think the kind of lock-step obstruction that the Republicans practiced on Obama is the way to go. Dem legislators should help craft laws that help the working poor and struggling middle class, and stand there together with the GOP and take equal credit for it when the papers are signed and the cameras roll.
And where we differ on the social and other issues that history will judge our generation on, we need to stand firm, strong and vocally about them. I think we can get through this, taking the high road.
Bernie’s not going away. He’s taking his supporters – of which I am one – and continuing on. As for Clinton … it’ll be interesting to see what she does with the rest of her life. If she stays in the public arena and fights the good fight, I’ll support and think well of her. If she cashes out and disappears, I’ll know she was the power-hungry fake her detractors accused her of being. I truly hope she licks her wounds, and gets back in the game in a meaningful way, now that she doesn’t have to run for office anymore.
I have concocted my own juicy, wackadoo scenarios regarding Trump’s fate. If an avalanche of lawsuits or if a feckless presidency causes public opinion to turn against him (and it could, with Fox News’s help), the GOP (who have only partnered up with him because he’s now a winner) will quickly impeach him and kick him to the curb, thus putting Pence, a True Believer, into the Oval Office. But it’s going to take a big drop in public opinion for that to play out.
I wonder if Trump will have the same Teflon coating Reagan had… If his election proves anything, it’s that a big chunk of people are willing to forgive him almost anything. Time will tell.
Well that putts a kink in the narrative. I’m going to keep an open mind but if she ends up millions over Trump then there must be an electoral college change. 500K with Gore losing by 500 in FL is one thing, Clinton millions over and getting whomped is not right at all.
There’s a bigger implication. The recession could have been at such a bad time that the 2010 census is completely fucked and is so far off that the GOP has gained an unnatural 6 year advanatage in the house and now the president. If there truly was that big of a migration from some of the higher electoral areas (like the rust belt) into the better economies (like Texas and California) the house does not reflect the current US at all.
