“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” -John Stuart Mill 1867 (multiple attributions of similar forms).
Trump did not gain new support or create a new coalition. He got fewer votes than Romney did. Turnout was decreased for this GOP candidate. Mostly he got the same people who were voting with full knowledge of what past dog whistles were and who were okay voting when they were stated more explicitly, whether they agreed with them or not. Some were voting racism like they always have, some just GOP, some (few I think given Obama’s approval ratings) for “anything is better than what I got”, some out of Clinton dislike. Meanwhile some stayed home and some voted Johnson.
But many of those who normally vote Democratic looked on at the hate and shook their heads at how horrible it was and then did nothing. Turnout was just down more on the Democratic side. Millennials who voted voted third party twice as often as the average voter. It was not that they endorsed what they believe Trump was representing, they just couldn’t be arsed to do anything about it. Actively endorsing its rejection by coming out to vote was too much work. One non-voter I’ve met, a long ago divorced White woman, late middle aged, working class non-college educated, adult children somewhat getting by, who feels she, steady job with good health insurance, is struggling, said “neither was speaking to me.” She had been an Obama voter.
No question that the disinterest in voting held by good people is sad thing and a problem. But the nature of that problem disgusts me less than my initial reaction that this country really is that hateful. No, we are just that lazy. Laziness is more remediable than hate.
I agree with the OP and would add: the Democrats need a charismatic candidate to bring out their coalition. Hillary was completed unsuited for the task. I think Biden would have done the trick and would like to see Cory Booker next.
Secondly the Democrats need a bigger coalition. It’s absurd to have to rely on a Bill Clinton or Obama every time and it clearly doesn’t work in the mid-terms. Ideally they should expand their appeal to the white working class by moderating some of their social and cultural positions but I am not sure this is even possible without losing the millennial progressives i.e. the safe space generation. But the charismatic candidate part is very much doable and will be a medium-term fix.
In fact, I think America owes campus liberalism (Gender Studies and Post-Colonial Studies, in particular) a massive thank you, or fuck you, depending on who you are, for electing Trump; it made it impossible for the Democratic Party and the nominee to pivot to appeal to a broader geographic appeal to get 270.
What “social and cultural positions” exactly are you talking about? If you’re saying the Democrats should pander to racists, too late. The racists already have a party they’re very happy with. If you’re saying they should pander to homophobes, that’s not a racial or class divide, it’s a generational divide, and the Democrats are already on the winning side of it.
So what’s the justification for voting for the guy who was one of the leaders of the birther movement, called Mexicans rapists, called for ban on Muslim immigration, and was endorsed by the KKK (who’s planning a rally to celebrate his victory)? The best that can be said for Trump supporters is that they had higher priorities in voting than opposing racism.
I have been beating the drum of appealing to the justified concerns of rural America for a long time now in many threads but I disagree that such means appealing to “traditional” values and throwing everyone else under the bus.
It means addressing the serious economic issues that rural America specifically faces in the changing economy in a serious and visible manner with real compassion for the problems of many communities, some withering away while others deal with transient booms that overload their infrastructures and then evaporate just as fast. In both circumstances fewer people with roots in the rural communities. An economic recovery that mostly missed them too.
Agreed that no matter how great of a president she’d have been, Clinton is not a charismatic politician. The point of the op though is how pathetic many usual Democratic voters are that the difference between what Trump stood for and is and what Clinton stands for, honestly believes, and is, the difference between what they were and likely still are convinced is the future now compared to what it could have been, was not enough.
Again, the issue was not that more racist embraced Trump, no more than have been embracing the GOP previous, more who are willing to look past it. Whatever numbers they are they were less than before. The issue is that those who completely endorse the idea that Trump represents ideas and values that they find abhorrent and who rationally know that Clinton would be a continuation of the work that Obama had begun, that they were quite approving of, couldn’t be bothered to do something about it. And of course they will blame the party for that, be angry at the party, not at themselves: “You didn’t give me someone exciting enough to get me off my ass.”
I could just as easily throw the question back at you. But it’s clear that Libertarianism’s uncompromising free market economic views are far more in line with the GOP mainstream then with that of the Democrats. Add to that the fact that Johnson explicitly appealed to moderate/dissatisfied Republicans (I actually went to a rally of his on Boston Common).
He was trying to win the election by tapping into fear - a successful strategy. Now that the race is over we will start, and already are, seeing the truer Trump. Presidential. Respectful. Sometimes even humble. We saw it today.
This articleby Ross Douthat has some good examples of what I am talking about:
isk.
Here is the headlineof another article which illustrates the problem:
Progressives are moving to a point where it would be impossible to elect the 90’s Bill Clinton in a Democratic primary and even Obama would be a little dodgy and would be attacked from the left.
Ultimately racism and sexism aren’t binary but on a spectrum and you can get mild racists in your coalition just by changing the way you talk to them without changing your fundamental positions. That is a big part of winning elections but the Democratic party is moving in a direction which is making this more and more difficult.
Right, you just voted for the racist endorsed by all the what nationalists. That’s clearly not “sitting idly by”.
Look, maybe you don’t get this. You’re not a racist? Great. But the actual fucking racists? They’re emboldened by this. They saw the Trump everyone else saw - the racist, reprehensible person who embraced the label of “deplorable” - being reprehensibly racist, refusing to denounce the endorsement of David Duke, and playing to all their worst instincts, and decided that because the candidate was on their side, there was no problem. People were already talking about the “Donald Trump Effect” in schools before he was elected; now he’s president-elect. Do you think they buy what you’re selling about him just putting on a mask for the election? No. I don’t buy it either, for what it’s worth - I don’t believe Trump was playing 4th-dimensional chess the entire time and just pretending to be a bigot. Because that makes no fucking sense.
You didn’t just “sit idly by” when racism occurred. You actively voted for it. You don’t get to shirk that burden by pretending that one decent presidential address proves Trump was just pretending to be a racist.
I addressed post 12. That’s unrealistic and makes no sense. You don’t get to say he’s just pretending to be a racist when all the white supremacists saw this as an endorsement of their values and he kept on saying and doing horribly racist things.