Of the Dem names floated here as being somewhat similar to Democratic Trump, the closest one IMO is Rod Blagojevich, who tried to use his office for personal gain. (In another simularity, after being charged he did a media blitz to claim he was innocent and would be vindicated.)
The Illinois House voted 114-1 with 3 abstentions to impeach. The Illinois Senate voted unanimously to remove him from office and prevent him from ever holding public office in Illinois again.
Oh, and that single vote in his favor in the House? It was cast by Deb Mell, who happens to be his sister-in-law.
I can’t imagine that if a similar situation occurred on the national stage with the corrupt Dem as POTUS that the result would be any different.
Fighting the hypothetical on this one. One can’t be a corrupt asshole AND champion progressive causes. If that’s the image projected by the candidate then progressive voters would shred said candidate with much haste. But if I lose that fight, then the answer depends on whom the candidate is running against. If it’s a sane and lawful person who just happens to cleave to conservative social and economic principles then that is where my vote will go. Such a person may espouse views I don’t agree with, but they’d also be unlikely to try and ram them through a differently-minded congress that actively represents the will of the people. If the congress happens to be like-minded, then those getting ready to be oppressed didn’t make a very compelling argument for their position–welcome to democracy.
No. It can be. But one can be simultaneously concerned about public welfare AND greedy about their own needs and wants. Or just be willing to accept some corruption as a necessary part of “getting things done.” People are complicated - it is why you can have a mobster who is lovingly dedicated to his family while still comfortable being a cold-blooded killer. Because people can compartmentalize and endlessly justify their less lovely impulses.
Look at the recent college scandals. My understanding is that a couple of those athletic directors took bribes that didn’t necessarily go into their pockets. One was using them primarily to subsidize the salaries of his assistant coaches, another was pumping it directly into the athletic program itself. It becomes easy to justify corruption when you convince yourself you’re doing it for a “good cause.”
If the consequences is more conservative justices that will overturn roe v wade, etc. then most Democrats would go ahead and hold their nose and vote for him.
Some voters seem to be willing to tolerate morally compromised politicians to advance their politics. See Bill Clinton
I’ve been pretty flaccid about voting all my life - I only started voting when it started to seem like it really, really mattered who won. Which is to say, I’m well aware that my vote is worth absolutely and literally nothing. My vote will have no effect whatsoever and is a goddamn waste of time, no matter what. So I only vote for ideological reasons.
Which has given me a good look at what my ideological reasons are.
I will vote for somebody only if one of the following two conditions apply:
One person is clearly a great choice, and the other isn’t.
One person is clearly a horrible choice, and the other isn’t.
So I voted for Obama because he seemed really superior (and while he wasn’t perfect, I still think he was superior) and I voted against Trump because he was clearly a gigantic shit sandwich.
So what if there was a democratic Trump? Well, I’m presuming that his opponent is still a republican - and specifically a modern republican, which means he’s pretty much certain to be at least to some degree a shit sandwich. So you’re telling me that my options are to cast a vote between a gigantic shit sandwich and a shit sandwich.
Under these circumstances, I stay home. No support for either side.
There are plenty of corrupt Democrats. NYC’s Sheldon Silver is a prime example. One had to lie to oneself nearly to the same degree Trump supporters lie to themselves to convince oneself that one wasn’t voting for a crooked politician. And he hung around for an awfully long time. But he was content with ruling Albany (capital of NY for the geographically-challenged) and never was inflicted on a national stage. So we know that Democrats will vote for corrupt politicians, at least at the state and local levels.
But Trump is on another level. Trump is cult of personality, appealing to the most base of us. I haven’t seen any elected Democrat try to do the same. It’s not that Democratic candidates don’t lie, but they aren’t as brazen nor frequent. Most are much more nuanced. Trump’s lies are in-your-face. Trump wears his racism on his sleeve; a Silver-type keeps it in the closet.
So no, I don’t think a Trump-like Democrat would even get by the primaries, but let’s not pretend that Democrats won’t put corrupt officials in place, especially in their strongholds (like Chicago and NY).
It’s easy to say “hell no” but realistically, one has to wonder - I think it has to do not so much with being willing to vote for an asshole with the correct platform as it does with being slow to realize just how much of an asshole someone is. Thinking back on Bill Clinton, I cut him a lot more slack than he deserved with respect to his affairs.
For myself, I do have evidence I’d spurn a Democratic candidate based on his/her lack of personal decency. I voted for Republican William Weld - the only time I’ve ever crossed party lines - over Democrat John Silber, because Silber was such a loathsome creature.
Often we are forced to choose the lesser of evils. I would vote for a corrupt Democrat before I would vote for Trump if the Democrat could at least fake competence.
Look at the legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was hounded out from running for a second full term in 1968 despite a landslide victory in 1964 and significant domestic legislative accomplishments through his term. Then all his personal behaviour started to be documented after his death in 1972 through his comments on race, his attitude towards women, his bullying nature towards staff, his methods of getting things done, his general filthy mouth (check the tapes!), his power hungry rise through politics. I rarely see a modern day democrat invoke him as an example even if legislatively he did a lot of transformative things. He got far more accomplished than Mr Nice Guy Jimmy Carter, but modern democrats are more likely to invoke Carter because his character is something to admire whereas it’s hard to bring up Johnson without acknowledging his methods were dodgy and he was a real SOB.
No, but I would hope that the primary system would weed such a person out before they became the only (D) choice in the general. Yeah, I know that didn’t work in Trump’s case, but I just don’t think that there are sufficient enraged Ds to blow the whole system up the way the MAGAts did.
This is what I’ve been saying - it’s easy for people to airily say “I’ll go with character rather than policy” when such a choice isn’t what they are actually facing in real life. When it’s a starkly real matter, though, almost every pragmatic voter would pick the asshole who shares their vision and agenda.
I did not vote for Trump, but I wouldn’t blame any Democrat in the least for voting for a Democratic Trump.
Of course you can. Edwin Edwards was a very, very crooked and corrupt politician. Everyone knew it and many voted for him anyway. Enough to get him 8 years as a state legislator and 16 years as governor. You might call him a populist, rather than a progressive, but he was beloved by voters both black and white. No “Dixicrat” he; Edwards was a huge champion of civil rights and was known for appointing many blacks and women to high positions in his administration. He was one of the few Southern politicians to support the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He threw money at all sorts of social causes all over the state of Louisiana. Democrats loved him.
So many jokes about “yes, he’ll pick your pocket but you can’t help but smile while he does it;” and “vote for the crook–it’s important.” Edwards was the one who admitted “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” Sound like someone we know?
Every aspect of every administration he ran was corrupt to the core. He finally, finally, was indicted (racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud) and sent to federal prison. He also was known for cruising LSU sorority row to pick up college girls (his third wife is over 50 years younger than him).
Given after all of this; after being released from prison; he won a primary election for congress. Lost in the run-off, but he still got votes.
86% of whites who scored highest in authoritarianism voted for Trump in 2016. Which means at most, 14% of whites scoring high in authoritarianism voted for Clinton (it was even less, some of those 14% voted third party).
The GOP has an authoritarianism problem. The democratic party does not. You’re basically asking ‘since the party where ~90% of authoritarians belong is a party that supports authoritarian attitudes, would the party where 10% of authoritarians belong also support authoritarian attitudes’? The answer is no.
Sure, but I presume the OP’s hypothetical is one in which you face a choice of a Democratic Trump vs. Republican Hillary in a general election. In which case I would bet big money that at least 70% of Democrats would still vote for Trump(D). Maybe not to the extent that 90% of Republicans voted for Trump(R) in real life, but most Democrats aren’t going to fall on their swords and commit political suicide, especially considering that, generally speaking, the consequences of electoral defeat are more severe for liberals than conservatives.