Feel free to make your own judgment. For my money, I’m thinking folks didn’t much like Hoover.
You think *that *was the main reason for the Dems’ wins in 1944?
Anytime you want to bring those goalposts back from Alpha Centauri and stop misstating my position we might have a substantive debate. But you’re really not interested in that, are you?
Trump was and is objectively a horrible human being, one of the worst alive. I knew that from way back, and even many of those voting for him said exactly the same thing. Democrat and Republican has nothing to do with that. Aside from the fact that Trump’s party is neither (it’s the Donald Trump party), people came up with all kinds of rationalizations for voting for him because a) they didn’t like the establishment and grasped for any change, no matter how obviously draconian and backward, or b) HILLARY IS THE DEVIL!!1!1!. Of course, it’s to your advantage to try to recast the discussion as Dem vs. Pub, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get away with it.
Or do you, for example, approve of his threatening to kick over the Obamacare apple cart himself, risking who knows how many, you know, actual lives?
There was also a massive economic depression that left half of households in economic distress. In 2016 we didn’t have an economic crisis; in fact we had economic growth for pretty much 8 consecutive years.
Do you think it’s somehow a better strategy to rid ourselves of impurities on the political left and let the radical right control politics and just run everything into the ground? If that were to happen, what makes you so certain that history would repeat itself and that we’d have another FDR? We ended up with FDR because we were somewhat fortunate, but we could have just as easily ended up with someone like Huey Long. Were it to happen a few years from now we could end up with anyone from another Huey Long to someone who’s off the charts fascist.
You are confusing “the economy” with “income of the working class”.
But I guess the real question now is, are there any poster here who were the age of current millennials during Hoover’s campaign, and were they insulted by it? 
A total lack of scruples is the one constant that both major parties share. It’s sad anyone has been convinced to the contrary.
I didn’t confuse anything, and I’m fully aware that incomes stagnated, which is a problem that Hillary Clinton was probably far more prepared to address than the abject disaster we have now. The real problem that really didn’t require any genius to figure out is that Trump might cause us to regress so badly that it will be decades before we ever get back to where we ought to be. Let’s start with the court system. Suppose in 2021 we want medicare for all – maybe the most conservative judiciary since the 1920s finds it unconstitutional. Suppose we want real campaign finance reform and want money out of politics – they’ll probably find that unconstitutional too. What are we going to do then?
And I’m not even addressing the possibility that Trump gets in a dick measuring contest that provokes a disastrous war or many of the other myriad things that could happen on his watch. I’m not touching what will undoubtedly be the most disastrous environmental legacy in modern presidential history. The people who seriously believe that a vote for Hillary was the same or just marginally better than a vote for Trump are ignorant muck sticks who really have no idea just how bad things can get. As much as they try to distance themselves from Trump voters from the back country, they have a lot more in common with them than they may wish to admit because they, like Trump voters themselves, are just woefully ignorant. Ignorance has a price - sometimes a pretty hefty one. I resent having to pay it just because someone can’t be bothered to have some curiosity to do some simple Google searches and vote in the occasional congressional and local election once in a while.
[quote=“Bone, post:71, topic:792426”]
[li]Trump is elected, is super terrible, and the backlash causes the country to move against the Republican party across all fronts. Democrats are able to gain control of the Congress, and the presidency for 20 years with a mandate and able to effectively enact their agenda.[/li][/QUOTE]
Ummm, no. Not even close. Two years, not twenty. The Republican brand hit rock bottom in 2006-2008 as they were swept out of Congress and Bush left office with some of the lowest approval ratings in history. They were a complete and utter shit-show.
Twenty-four months later, they had a House majority.
And if Hillary had somehow won (which she could not, it was not possible, she was too hated, and it’s only due to Trump’s complete lack of admirable qualities that she came as close as she did) then the Democratic Party would have fallen even further, and we’d be looking at President Ted Cruz and movement conservative supermajorities in both houses of Congress in a few years. Compared to Cruz, Trump was the lesser evil. He’s such a clown he’s easier to run against.
But win (as if) or lose, making the enemy of the people the leader of your party kills your party; and Hillary was the enemy of the people. Sadly, too many elected officials in the Democratic Party chose her over Middle America. The party’s over, the party’s dead. A two-party system very likely just became a one-party system, because of that self-inflicted wound.
This is factually untrue.
For thirty years, the overwhelming majority of the USA have lived in a shrinking economy with a growing population. The middle class was shrinking even before 2008, and the bankers and politicians of much of the Western world used the 2008 crash as a pretext for “austerity” and grinding the population further. Pointing to headline GDP and claiming the economy is doing well, when all the gains go to the top few percentiles at best, is just blowing smoke.
Trump is a ridiculous mobster; and he’s very likely going to die in office a national hero anyway, because his version of reality is closer to the lived experience of Middle America than the unfounded optimism of the Obama Democrats.
Reddy Mercury: Although I’m Gen X, I agree with every word in your OP. Back before the word “populist” was co-opted and twisted around by the alt-right, I used to say that Hillary was just not a populist. (in the definition I was always familiar with – someone who strove to represent the common people and their best interests.)
I know exactly what you mean about that feeling that she seemed condescending, or seemed to lack a sense of being genuine or sincere. I never felt that she would be comfortable around black folks, or any non-whites really, or anyone, unless they were also massively affluent.
I guess this is the impression a lot of people have about liberals? That they are careful to recycle and support green industry, and give lip service to general leftist issues; but yet wouldn’t be caught dead actually rubbing elbows with any actual poor folks. That is only because we pretty much are only governed by the wealthy at the highest levels.
It’s a shame really, because not very long ago at all (60s and 70s) you had real liberals, who in my opinion were far more likely to walk the walk, rather than just talk the talk. People who enacted a lot of sweeping changes, and tried to improve the life of Americans for real, rather than this cynical wishy-washy style that liberal politicians have now.
Everyone I know says that the current mainstream liberal is about equivalent to a Republican of twenty years ago. It’s hard for me to stomach. Thank God I live in Barbara Lee’s district. (she’s way cool.)
I like how you and other Bernistas point out that something is factually incorrect and then proceed to explain why with verbal diarrhea that has nothing to do with the facts in question itself. This is typical of the Bernistas because like Trumpists, they don’t exactly live in a world of facts. They just keep coming back with “Hillary was a shitty candidate and she was shoved down our throats”. As I said, :rolleyes:
I don’t know where you get this idea that Hillary Clinton was chosen by Democratic party officials. She and other candidates, like Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, and Jim Webb, filed their paperwork, raised money, paid some staffers, recruited volunteers, and spent money trying to get noticed; other candidates who might have been popular, like Joe Biden, did not do these things and therefore disqualified themselves. When it was over, more voters voted for Hillary Clinton than any of the candidates who went through the process. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand and months later, despite me and others asking people to explain how Hillary was “shoved down our throats”, no factual explanations are given. Just more invective.
A common refrain among Bernistas is that Bernie would have outperformed Hillary across the Heartland and beaten Donald Trump. I posted a response up-thread and got no response, so I’ll post it again. How does a “democratic socialist” from Vermont beat a Republican in states that have Republican governors, Republican US Senators, mostly Republican US House Reps, and Republican legislatures. Do you really think that Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in Ohio, was going to beat Donald Trump in Ohio when voters there voted for such “progressives” as Rob Portman and John Kasich? Sanders might - and I emphasis might - have slightly outperformed Clinton in Wisconsin in Michigan, but he probably would have been even more vulnerable than Clinton in Virginia and lost there even had he gained one of the states Clinton lost. I’m going with the actual turnout and results in the primaries here.
Another common refrain is that the reason they lose is because they aren’t progressive enough, and yet the historical evidence shows the opposite: every time over the last 30 years a Democratic majority has tried either successfully or unsuccessfully to pass major progressive legislation…they invariably lose the mid-term elections that follow. Bill Clinton tried unsuccessfully to pass healthcare reform and he actually did pass firearms control, and did progressives support that? No, they stayed home and gave us House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the first Republican congress in more then 40 years. Barack Obama stabilizes markets, passes a stimulus bill that employs millions (even if temporarily), and expands healthcare to include millions of people. And did progressives reward that? No, they stayed home while the angry tea party voters gave him a congress so obstructionist that they wouldn’t even hold confirmation hearings on his Supreme Court picks.
Talk is cheap, bud. And facts are stubborn things.
You are conveniently forgetting about super-delegates. 
No, I’m absolutely not forgetting about them, and those who make that argument are forgetting that Hillary Clinton entered the 2008 with a pretty significant endorsements in both political endorsements and super delegates advantage over Barack Obama – until she started losing primaries.
I realize you’re probably not a Sanders supporter, but that’s the kind of bullshit revisionist history they use and I get tired of hearing it. I got tired of that just like I get tired of hearing how the democratic party keeps losing because they aren’t liberal / progressive enough.
Riiiiiiight. Now let’s see how that worked back in 1994 after then President Bill Clinton tried to come up with a plan for expanded healthcare coverage, tried to have his wife pitch the idea to congress (Gasp! Why wasn’t she in the kitchen where she should have been?!), and actually did pass firearms control. Oh that’s right - they ended up with a Republican congress and a bogus impeachment effort that most of the country didn’t want. And how did liberals reward Obama for stabilizing the economy with de facto receivership of the auto industry, passing a stimulus bill that put millions of people back to work within a matter of months, and actually passing the most significant of health insurance coverage expansion since 1965? Oh that’s right, they stayed home and gave him a Republican congress that nearly forced the US Treasury into default and in unprecedented form blocked confirmation of a Supreme Court appointee that went against all constitutional norms and now rigged the judiciary against popular will.
Yes, spare me the bullshit talk about what Bernistas and liberals SAY they’re going to do if given the chance. They had their chances and they fucked it right up.
I don’t think that her super-delegate count ever approached the sort of hyper-majority she had over Sanders the entirety of 2016. Part of what Sanders was wading upstream against was a party establishment that did not want him, and the super-delegate count reflected that.
It’s not “revisionist history.” It’s a fact that she had the super-delegates in her pocket, and the party establishment in her favor. There were numerous instances of this during the primary campaign. I don’t particularly care one way or another (I’m not a Sandersnista by any stretch of the imagination, and I’m not a Clintonista either in any way shape or form, so it machs nichts to me). But those who are trying to figure out why the Democrats lost this very winnable election must start accepting that the Democratic Party anointed Hillary Clinton as their candidate, and she was a poor selection for a variety of reasons, and they insulated her from her competition. If you don’t accept that this played an important part of what happened in 2016, you’re going to see a repetition of the same mistake at some point in the future. And as someone pointed out in another thread, in a way this was very similar to why the Democrats got waxed in 1984, because Mondale was the establishment candidate who had the substantial help of the Party in making Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson go away. So y’all already haven’t learned the lesson once; will you go for two-for-two?
As for losing because they aren’t liberal enough, well, that’s just plain silly.
Hillary is not that bad. If she would have taking Bill’s advice and focused some efforts in the rust belt and addressed some of the cons of globalization and automation she’d have won.
Individuals in both parties are totally unscrupulous. The thing is, those in the Republican party far outnumber their opposites.
I have a few leftist tendencies, but I don’t even understand this critique. “Enemy of the people?” Really?
Yeahrite.
To quote Mark Twain, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
I’ve already gone over this on numerous threads. Hillary Clinton won because she was more popular in the democratic party, not only among delegates but among those who voted in the elections. There’s really nothing more to add to that. Barack Obama entered the 2008 primary season at a significant disadvantage and yet he was able to win. If the democratic primary process were rigged, how come Obama became president but Sanders didn’t? O’Malley and Webb were just not that popular. A lot of Democratic delegates wanted Biden to run, especially as they saw how Clinton’s popularity was fading in the face of the ongoing Bengazi scandal, and this was before the primary season. Biden didn’t run. Now is that because the Clintons and the Democratic party colluded to murder Beau Biden the way they murdered Vince Foster and Seth Rich? :rolleyes: Really, let’s just cut the conspiracy theory crap. I mean, since we’re talking conspiracies, was the 2012 Democratic primary rigged for Obama because he had their support before the season began?
No, that wasn’t the real problem with the Democratic party in 2016, and it’s not the problem they have now and going forward. The problem they do have is that they don’t have a platform, a message, and a farm system for candidates that appeal to a broad range of people. I agree that there should have been a wider field than just Clinton, Sanders, Webb, and O’Malley, but there wasn’t. That’s not because the DNC rigged the system, though; Biden dropped out because of his son’s death. I’m sure that many DNC insiders were devastated when he made that decision. To add to that, I would absolutely agree with you that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is symptomatic of a larger disconnect that the Democrats have with much of the voting public. I think you or someone else mentioned it: writing off Ohio and spending more time in big cities and less time in rural Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. But that’s not just a Hillary Clinton problem; that’s a Democratic party problem as a whole. Obama was one of the few politicians in the DNC to have the brains to make those trips to small to mid-size towns in rural farm country once in a while. The fact that Obama won the fucking Iowa caucuses in 2008 was proof that he gets it, but the Democratic party as a whole does not. They’re afraid of white rural America and feel more comfortable getting in front of audiences in Philadelphia and Los Angeles and talking to their base about how cruel conservatives are. That’s not going to work.