You seem to be fighting one generalization you don’t like with another that you do.
I think we can analyze the 2016 election to death. In summary, it’s fair to say that there is no clear mandate from either party. It is clear that white working class and upper class individuals, particularly those who live outside of city centers, have one view of the world and than those who live in multi-ethnic/multicultural urbanized centers (we’re generalizing of course).
What I will say is that democrats and progressives have the greater challenge on their hands. The places in this country where democrats have both executive and legislative control are scant; the places where republicans have total executive and legislative control are numerous, and growing. There are practically no ‘red’ states where progressive or center-left democrats have won statewide races (no, Jon Bel Edwards of Louisiana is not progressive or center-left). But there have been an increasing number of places over the past 10-25 years where republicans have made inroads in traditionally progressive strongholds. And as West Virginia’s governor Jim Justice’s party switch made clear, Trump’s lack of popularity doesn’t seem to have fundamentally impacted this trend - at least not yet. In fact, this is exactly why I have rejected the Bernistas and their belief that they would have somehow been more successful than Clinton - all the evidence on the ground suggests that the opposite is true. Once people put the spotlight on his platform, he’d get crushed as a Northeastern commie liberal.
This goes back to Democrats really needing to find a message with broad-based appeal, but they first need to have a retreat and have a come to Jesus moment where they can find a way to work together.
I don’t disagree that the EC functioned as intended (mostly).
Even if that assessment is accurate, it doesn’t invalidate the votes or political beliefs of those who receive assistance, anymore than it invalidates those who take home mortgage deductions and other tax breaks and loopholes that we give away to people of various political stripes. The poor ain’t the only ones licking the government teat from time to time.
Well, it’s another subject, but anyone who depends on the government, or especially a political party, for the bulk of their income is no longer someone who can make a free choice. You’re bought and paid for.
The way it relates to what we’re talking about is that one reason Republicans want to limit government benefits is so there are more voters free to make a choice based on other factors, and Republicans tend to win when voters don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.
I don’t recall ever expecting Social Security benefits to be there for me. I just watched money come out of my paycheck, year after year, decade after decade, thinking, sure hope what I have left will suffice; better budget accordingly.
Having read Elvis’ post first, I was ready with the usual rebuttal for the usual argument about SS. But adaher, your blew it. Elvis is exactly right in this instance. Your argument doesn’t hold water as it implies humans lack the brains to understand their own circumstances.
So why would anyone on benefits naturally chose one party over another ? People make such choices for 1000s of different reasons, some not even apparent to themselves. Plus both parties in your present duopoly have been the government they ‘depend on’.
Trump may have brought in the right-wing Ryanite anti-welfare policies, but anyone relying on Hillary to coddle the poor wasn’t paying attention to the Clinton war on Welfare and her denunciation of out of work people as deadbeats.
To be just, for those working, she does favour A Fair Day’s Pay for A Fair Day’s Work. So when the U.S. Embassy says jump, the Haitian government tends to ask how high. In this case, they ended up cutting the proposed minimum wage hike of 39 cents an hour all the way down to 9 cents. It might be worth thinking hard about the fact that the girls sewing your jeans have Hillary Clinton to thank for their current salary of 31 cents an hour next time a liberal scold tells you not to “demonize” Secretary Clinton.
Counterpunch Lesser Evil Voting and Hillary Clinton’s War on the Poor
She knows, somewhere, that we can’t all get $200,000 for a fair afternoon’s speech.
America’s decline began with the socialized highway system, cramming government-mandated modes of transportation on us. No more rough riding across the country, you have to drive on the government’s roads.
And the single-payer police force prevents Americans from choosing for themselves how to enforce the law. Whether or not you can protect yourself, you still have to pay your protection money to the socialized cops.
If you prefer a narrative to data, it’s quite simple: Outside of her base, Clinton was viewed as a corrupt (even criminal) Washington insider, uncaring and oblivious. The kind of people who voted for Obama in 2012 but went for Trump, or registered for the first time to vote Trump because he was “different”, anyone angry at the status quo and the Washington establishment, would have gone for Sanders. The only way he’d lose is if Clinton’s base spitefully stayed home.
Anecdotally, I can say that among my die-hard Republican friends here in Kentucky, Sanders was respected far, far more than Clinton. He wasn’t coming after their guns, and he had integrity. Your average low-to-middle income Republican isn’t as enamored of tax breaks for the rich, or crushing student debt, or foreign wars, or health-care related bankruptcies as you might think, given the stances of the representatives they elect.
It can’t be overstated how unpopular Clinton was (and is). You simply cannot nominate someone who’s widely hated, while pretending that you’re choosing based on “electability”, without coming off as completely out-of-touch.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: polling involving hypothetical match-ups are absolutely useless. It’s impossible to know what would have happened in a one-on-one match-up between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders because they didn’t compete against each other. The media didn’t compare these two candidates. The media and political oppo research firms didn’t go after Bernie Sanders. The GOP machine didn’t have a chance to call Sanders a socialist - believe me they would have. If Bernie Sanders couldn’t win against Hillary Clinton among progressives, he would most certainly have had a harder time against a republican candidate among voters who are a lot less progressive. You’re not going to find a truck-driving duck hunter who says “Oh wow, I didn’t know I could vote for a democratic socialist who looks like an absent-minded professor.” Yes, they like Bernie Sanders more but they’re not going to vote for him.
The only reason that Clinton lost was because much of sander’s base spitefully stayed home, why do you think that Clinton supporters would be any less spiteful?
So, your die-hard republican friends in Kentucky would have voted for the self avowed socialist over donald? They may have respected Sanders as they skipped their pen over his name to put a check next to don’s name.
She was nominated by voters picking her, and voting for her in the primaries. What other basis are you saying we should have? We should pick the people that the voters did not choose in the primaries? How is that coming across as being in touch?
Then stop saying that Sanders would have lost too. Either it’s unknowable, or it can be speculated about, and if you’re going to speculate about it, others can too.
If I asked you about a candidate with no previous political or military experience, who seemingly went out of his way to alienate anyone outside his niche base, and the personal style of a villainous rich guy from a movie, I’m sure you’d say (as I would) that such a person was unelectable. How’d that turn out? 2016 was not a typical election.
Sanders did win amongst progressives. Democrat /= progressive. He failed to win the rest of the Democratic coalition.
You can absolutely find rural people who’d favor Sanders’ message over Trump’s. Again, not all Republicans think rich people should get even more breaks in life, or that the average working person shouldn’t be able to afford health care.
It’s evidence. So far, it’s been balanced against nothing but asahi gut feelings. I’ve got gut feelings and observations of my own, if polling data is useless.
Some, yes. Some are Republican robots who’d vote for reanimated Hitler if there was an R next to his name. Others were disgusted and embarrassed by Trump, but hated Clinton more. Those people, along with former Democrats who crossed over because of economic distress, could have been won over.
I’m criticizing Clinton primary supporters here, not the DNC or the concept of elections. Obviously, I think they made a bad choice, one that was grounded in a myopic view of what would appeal to swing voters.
It’s not the be-all end-all, nor is it nothing. It’s in the middle - a data point, but not, by itself, conclusive.
It is worth noting that Sanders, right now, is the nation’s most popular active politician in some polls. Clearly, the man has appeal. Whether he’d have picked up enough voters who stayed home or went Trump to offset one’s he’d lose from Clinton’s base or whatever else, we can only speculate about. But, that’s my read on the situation, considering who the key voters Clinton lost were, and how unpopular she was outside her base. An outsider with a clear message that spoke to the anxieties of many people in the nation won this election. It’s not crazy to suggest that a different outsider with a clear message that spoke to the anxieties of many people in the nation, without being a complete scumbag, might have won instead.
