Hillary won the popular vote. She lost the electoral vote. Which means that if Sanders supporters sitting out cost her the election, they must have lost her states that went to Trump.
Did Trump really win any states that had a large percentage of Sanders voters? Enough to sway them to Hillary if they’d voted? I can’t say it’s impossible but it seems unlikely.
I don’t know. I guess I’d be making posts like yours.
We had primaries. Sanders lost them. Clinton won them. At that point, Sanders supporters needed to suck it up and move on. Talking on Election Day about how Sanders should have been the nominee did not keep Trump out of office. Voting for Hillary Clinton on Election Day was what people needed to do to keep Trump out of office.
I supported Paul Tsongas in 1992. But after Tsongas lost the primaries to Bill Clinton, I voted for Bill Clinton in the general election. I supported Hillary Clinton in 2008. But after Hillary Clinton lost the primaries to Barack Obama, I voted for Obama in the general election. I didn’t stay at home pouting because my candidate didn’t get nominated.
Anyone who voted for Donald Trump on November 8, 2016 should be ashamed of themselves. And anyone who didn’t show up to vote against Donald Trump on November 8, 2016 should be ashamed of themselves.
No, it isn’t.
80% of Sanders supporters DID suck it up and move on. And I’m guessing half of the other 20% were either Republicans trying to game the Democratic primaries or people who just personally despised Hillary so much that they weren’t ever going to vote for her. (I can’t think of any other reason why significant numbers of self-identified moderate and conservative Democrats would have supported Sanders).
Criticize the handful of Bernie Bros who refused to vote for Clinton all you like, but don’t insult the rest of us by falsely implying that their attitudes were typical of Sanders supporters.
Well, my point stands: I’m not sure on what basis one can conclude that people standing up for the (ethical) right to do X must by definition be made up of a significant percentage of people who did X.
Because you shouldn’t try to explain the cause of a phenomenon before you establish the phenomenon exists. In this case, there’s no evidence to suggest that a substantial group of Americans who are Nazis exists. There is evidence, based on voting records, that there was a substantial group of Americans who decided not to vote in the 2016 Presidential election.
I haven’t used the word “proof”. I’m saying that the data you’re citing doesn’t support any particular hypothesis in itself.
Agreed.
Well it leaves lots of issues.
How many independent or apathetic voters came out? What were the proportions on the republican side, what did the “never trumpers” do, for example?
What about all that crap in the last days about Comey’s investigation or Clinton appearing to stagger?
It seems strange to focus on one explanation absent any supporting data.
I’m going to assume the people who are apathetic and don’t vote remains pretty constant from election to election. But in 2016, we saw a substantial number of people who went out and registered to vote but then decided to stay home on Election Day. The fact that they bothered to register suggests they were not apathetic about voting.
James Comey was certainly a factor in Trump winning. But Comey was a Republican who wanted Trump to win. His actions, while reprehensible, were in accord with his desires.
The topic of this thread, as I understand it, is Democrats who didn’t want Trump to win and whether their actions led to that goal or not.
Among that group would be a large group of people who had a personal hatred for Clinton. Some of that was totally irrational and basically just absorbed through osmosis from 30 years of the right wing hate machine making her the big bad, even if they aren’t normally inclined to those politics. Some of it was misogyny. But Clinton was a uniquely repelling candidate for a lot of people, whether that was justified or not. Generic White Guy Empty Suit from central casting would’ve beat Trump handily. Clinton was such a uniquely bad candidate to run against Trump.
I may have brought this up in the thread earlier but it bears restating: everyone here is assuming that every Bernie supporter is a democrat that normally votes democrat and owes the democrats their vote, and they just happen to like a more progressive flavor of democrat when given the chance. But that is not true.
Bernie is way outside the norm for a democratic candidate. He’s not really even part of the party, though he does his absolute best to campaign for them and people are not giving him enough credit for that.
2016 had a very anti-establishment zeitgeist. It’s one of the reasons Trump got traction. Things had been getting worse for the average person for years due to wealth inequality and unequal distribution of power in this country, and people knew that. They may not understand where to place the blame, but they knew the existing powers were making things worse for them.
The time was ripe to be an anti-establishment candidate to tap into those feelings. This powered both a lot of Bernie’s support, as someone who desperately wanted to shake up the system for the benefit of the average person, and Trump, which was like sending a big “fuck you” to the establishment, or perhaps like throwing some live explosives at the system and see what shakes out. If you think the current system is going the wrong way, maybe you think a wild card could shake things up in a positive way.
For people who were only interested in politics to oppose the establishment, you cannot reasonably expect them to easily transfer their votes to an anti-establishment candidate like Bernie, who has a lifetime of proving that he is legit, non-corrupt, and really does want to make positive changes for the average person, to Clinton, who is probably the most establishment candidate ever, who is one of the big reasons that the country has been going in the wrong direction for several decades with her third way neoliberal oligarch-friendly politics.
You all assume that every Bernie voter obviously owes Clinton their vote, because they’re part of the same party, but they are dramatically different candidates. It is entirely rational and supportable to be willing to support Bernie and not support Clinton.
Now, the sort of people who would support Bernie are generally empathetic and decent people who wants what’s best for everyone, so they recognized the necessity of a strategic decision to vote against Trump even though they know they’ve been manipulated into a horrible choice. This includes me. But in no way did they owe Clinton their vote just because they liked Bernie, those candidates were almost polar opposites. Acting like anyone is somehow a spiteful child because they’re not willing to support someone who is the polar opposite of what they actually want to support is ridiculous. Bernie and Clinton are not two similar flavors of the same dish - Clintonism/third way/neoliberal politics is a big part of what Bernie is fighting against and a big part of what made people so enthusiastic about him is not only not transferrable to third way democrats, it’s exactly the opposite of what such supporters want.
Given that, 80% of transferrability of the votes is actually quite high, probably spurred on by the incredible threat Trump presented. Everyone here that thinks democrats are somehow entitled to those Bernie voters despite the fact that the entire reason people like Bernie is that he’s different from those democrats fundamentally doesn’t understand that people want actual progressive policies and know they’re not going to get them from neoliberals.
No, they are not.
Which should go a long way to explain why he lost the Democratic nomination.
Right, I heard a whole lot of “Burn it to the ground, rebuild from the ashes” rhetoric coming from those anti-establishment types.
Two things I learned about them, they had never been in a fire, and they had never built anything.
No, but I can expect them to understand the consequences. They have three choices, they can either support Clinton or Trump, or they can simply abrogate their responsibility to vote entirely. If they did not support Clinton in the general election, then they at least tacitly supported Trump.
Sure, if you want Trump to win.
No they don’t. Stop making shit up. No one thinks that the Democrats are entitled to any votes at all. The voters get to make a choice, and some made a choice that left us with Trump. It’s not entitlement, it’s just basic logic.
Now that they don’t want to even hold themselves accountable for that choice, they lash out. They know that it’s their fault that Roe v Wade got overturned, that people are losing their voting rights, that the judiciary has been bent to the far right for a generation, but rather than accept that and learn from it, they need to blame someone else, anyone else.
I get that you guys hated Clinton. I see just pure venom and hatred dripping off your posts whenever you mention her name. I see that hatred twisting perceptions to make her this evil monster that you describe.
The problem is, is that hatred is not rational, and it’s not a useful way to govern, it’s only a good way to break things and hurt people. And things have been broken, and people have been hurt, and those responsible simply double down on their hatred rather than take any responsibility.
Yeah, you guys are perfect, so fucking perfect that you have done your damndest to destroy everything that is good. At least take some responsibility, rather than continuing in these childish tantrums that you think for some reason will have any effect other than to make ever more sure you won’t get what you want.
I don’t like responding to you anymore, since you have a history of mischaracterizing what I say and making personal attacks on me, but what tantrum am I throwing? My posts have been thought out and rational, and I voted for your shitty candidate like I’m supposed to. And I told everyone else to do the same.
Furthermore, if I always vote for the right wing democrat no matter what, even if they never pass a policy that benefits me or the average person at all, they can count on having my vote even if they completely ignore what I want, what incentive do they have for actually passing policies I want to see? They could continue chasing republicans to the right, giving more and more power to the already powerful, and completely ignore me and people like me, but they still get my vote. Where does “doing good” enter the picture there?
Because that’s what we’ve been manipulated into doing for the last few decades - vote for the neoliberals because, hey, you can’t vote for the actual facists, can you? And if you’re not happy to be manipulated into making life worse and worse for the average person despite the world having more wealth and technology and peace and prosperity than it ever has before - well you’re just throwing a tantrum. Grow up and vote for the people who are screwing you a little slower than the other guy.
Well, when it turns out you are completely fucked and not just slowly being screwed with a chance of making things better… Don’t complain - you voted for the fast screwing after all.
…LOL.
In a country run by Democrats we would still have the Roe decision in place. In a country where the Republicans were in charge the Roe decision was overturned. There, that’s the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans winning in 2016.
So if you don’t think pro-choice rights matter, sit out elections until you have a Progressive candidate. If you think pro-choice rights matter, vote for Democrats while you’re waiting.
There are people whose lives are affected now by what the Republicans do. They don’t have the privilege of ignoring the Republicans and waiting in comfort for some eventual better day. For them, the difference between getting screwed over this year or not matters.
Even if Democrats never do anything they’re still better than the party that is actively seeking ways to make their out-groups suffer more than they are currently suffering.
Is anyone actually disputing the assertion that those who didn’t vote for Clinton in the general election (at least in swing states) bear at least some small partial responsibility for Trump’s victory? Not as much as those who voted for Trump, but still some small non-zero amount? That just seems like basic logic to me. And I’m gobsmacked if anyone would NOT take responsibility for that consequence. If you don’t vote for the alternative to Trump, then it seems pretty obvious to me that you find Trump acceptable as compared to the alternatives.
I actually am going to join @Atamasama in questioning to what extent exactly Sanders had substantial support in states that went Trump, and particularly in swing states that went Trump. It didn’t cost Clinton the election that a Sanders supporter in California stayed home. Or, frankly, that a Sanders supporter in Texas stayed home.
I’m sure there are some Bernie supporters in WI, PA, MI, etc., who stayed home or even voted Trump because they were pissed that Bernie didn’t get the nomination. And they bear a small share of responsibility for Trump, just like other Trump voters or non-voters. This just doesn’t seem like a controversial statement to me. Bernie himself, and the vast majority of his supporters (most of whom almost certainly voted for Clinton in the general) bear zero responsibility for Trump winning.