Some left voters have a habit of abandoning normal candidates for ridiculous reasons (Gore, Hillary) so they may well wash their hands of the entire election if a Trump equivalent were nominated.
On the other hand, a Trump equivalent would be enticing to a large segment of the left, just as Trump is to the right. His “deplorable” moments might only be seen that way from the right at first. For example, being extremely anti-Israel could be defended, but then later he could be caught on tape bad mouthing Jews. If this guy were a serial sexual abuser I don’t know what women and feminists would do, vote Pence or Cruz? Doubt it. If he said super crunchy stuff like crystal healing will solve our health care problems I could see myself rationalizing it just like conservatives do Trump – he’d be reined in by the party, he’s pandering, the other guy is worse, etc.
“Just as crappy” is hard to define since a left-wing deplorable would probably behave differently from a right-wing deplorable, at least in public. Obviously, a Democratic candidate could be accused of being terrible to women, it’s happened many times.
But I voted less, because Democrats are more likely to resort to arguments like, “Republicans are so bad and it’s the policies that matter more than the person” yada yada. If Republicans gave them a moderate as an alternative a lot of Democrats might defect, but if it’s a strong conservative, no matter how decent or honest he is they’d sooner support the bad Democrat. Heck, even downballot, I have yet to hear a single Doper actually say, “Democrat A is so corrupt that people there should vote for the Republican.”
I don’t know what everyone else would do, but I know exactly what I would do, because I did it: in 1990, despite being a lifelong Democrat, I voted for William Weld over John Silber in the Massachusetts race for governor, because John Silber was such a pathetic excuse for a human being (he was corrupt, homophobic, and misogynist).
So yeah, there’s at least one Democrat out there who would back away from a dishonorable candidate and vote for a reasonable candidate of the other political persuasion.
Thanks, everyone. Key words from the OP: “all things being equal” and “a nominee who was comparably awful.” I’m definitely not saying the Democrats would ever nominate a Trump clone.
Here’s one gem of an argument I’ve heard in the past to justify Democrats who mistreat women: “What’s worse, grabbing a woman’s ass without her consent, or forcing her to carry a baby to term without her consent?”
The Democrats are a big tent party. That means a Democratic nominee actually has to appeal to a broad range of people. A Dem who can only carry the White Progressive vote is Bernie Sanders, for example: He did well, but not nearly well enough. Similarly, a Dem who can only carry the Let’s Elect a Crazy Person vote is Jessie Jackson, or someone else whose support is down in the statistical noise.
My point is, being a true big tent party gets you somewhat centrist, anodyne candidates, but it effectively filters out the nutballs and the people who are sane but just too marginal to win a national election. It’s boring, which is why most of the heat in the Democratic primary season came from Trump supporters claiming it was rigged, but it does the job effectively and results in a candidate who has a solid shot at winning the actual race.
OTOH, the Republicans are not a big tent party. We know this by a simple experiment: Run a guy who is so repugnant to everyone except poor, uneducated white men that he actively marginalizes his own campaign, and see how far he gets. If he wins the primary, your tent isn’t very fucking big, now, is it? If you move too far away from those voters, you’re effectively out of it. You’d better build your own tent, and see if you can draw support from the Democrats and Independents, because the one you just left is too small to win a Presidential election.
So, to answer your question, the Democrats can move away from a bad candidate because they have room inside their party to move into. The Republicans can’t, because he’s not locked in with them, they’re locked in with him.
That’s sort of a inaccurate portrayal of how Trump won. It was a huge split field. We also had people voting for Trump just for the laughs. If it would have been Trump versus one or two normal people and the press didn’t sit on some of the more damaging stories regarding Trump it would have been a different race. Hell, the press gave Trump a free ride for the laughs. It would be funny if by some bizarre twist of events he does actually win.
That would mean next election people and the press may actually act like adults.
None of the current news stories about Trump’s behavior are any kind of unexpected revelation to anyone who’s been paying attention to any part of the massive readily available documentation about him. If a large segment of Republican primary voters were too lazy or too gullible to bother learning these things about Trump, and/or too frivolous or too shallow to figure out that a Presidential nomination is actually a fairly important choice rather than just a silly prank, I don’t think it’s very convincing to try to blame their behavior on “the press” in general. (I readily concur that specific sections of “the press”, e.g., Fox News and Breitbart, etc., have been actively trying to induce just this kind of thoughtless gullibility in conservative audiences for a long time.)
The Democrats do not have a demonstrated history of denying scientific fact for political convenience. When politicians basically act like they can create reality just by repeating something enough times, well then eventually your base starts believing you.
Democrats would run from the candidate much faster, because the blatant falsehoods uttered by someone like Trump would actually be an issue for the base. If you look at factcheck.org and count the number of “pants on fire” statements from both Clinton and Trump there is no comparison. Clinton is a paragon of honesty compared to Trump.
Okay, so as long as they know what they are talking about, treating women like dirt and being corrupt would still make them preferable to a Republican?
As a Democrat, i’m backing Hillary not because I like her all that much, but because the other option is absolutely unacceptable. If the Republicans were running a viable candidate this cycle, I’m pretty sure I’d still be an undecided voter.
I may vote party line down ticket, but not for POTUS.
There’s a little Republican meme out there showing Democratic presidents who were lecherous cheaters and womanizers. FDR, Kennedy, & Clinton. Add in Johnson (who as I hear it would have been mad as hell to be left off the womanizer list), and that only leaves us Truman, Carter and Obama as recent Democratic Presidents who appear to respect women.
Trump is different because he’s also a pathetic spoiled man-child. He’s not a good solid leader with a skeleton or two in his closet.
We’re in a different time now though. In the distant past, getting caught was death to your career. Then we went through a short period where we weren’t supposed to judge. Now we’re back to ostracizing men who behave badly.
ALthough I suspect most Democrats wouldn’t hesitate to bring out the Clinton-era excuses for a modern Democrat who had a bad rep. It just wouldn’t work very well. It ain’t the 90s anymore.
Excellent point! You can just see him thinking a few years ago: “Hmmm… which of these parties has a voter base with enough stupid people AND enough jerks AND enough stupid jerks that I might actually have a shot at this thing…?”