We’re now about 5 months past the election which is enough time to get past the initial shock of Trump winning and take some stock. I always thought HRC was a poor choice for a POTUS candidate. An entitled, baggage laden political warhorse with limited charisma, but the alternative was … Trump … and he won.
Now the Dems are taking a page from the GOP’s handbook with massive resistance because, really it’s the only game in town at this point if you don’t have either house of Congress or the Presidency and the GOP legislative agenda reads like a fantasy comic book.
So… what’s the lessons and strategy going forward?
Massive resistance and let Trump be Trump as he seems to do more damage to himself than any campaign against him could manage?
Fight gerrymandering? Work with the GOP? Work like devils on the 2018 elections to try and get one house back? Don’t disrespect the rubes? Learn how to count electoral votes?
[sarcasm]
The american people are stupid, gullible bigots; so it’s more important than ever for the torchbearers of enlightenment to ram progressive reform down their throats.
[/sarcasm]
Seriously, if the Dems don’t learn something besides the above, we’re going to see Republican majorities and presidential administrations for at least the next twelve years.
“Entitled” and “baggage-laden” obviously aren’t the reasons why Clinton lost, given who beat her, and even if a non-“political warhorse” could have gotten elected, you don’t actually want that.
Here’s a start.
[ol][li]Work on the state level. State legislatures are where most of the gerrymandering happens. Only a few states pass the district drawing task to an ostensibly non-partisan group. If you don’t control the legislatures you are facing a decade of elections with an unfavorable map.[/li][li]Do not assume any state that went less than D+20 in the last presidential election is a safe state. Campaign in every single state that was closer than this. No blowing off Wisconsin. No half hearted effort in Michigan.[/li][li]Take to heart that if someone took the effort to raise their concerns about an issue to your campaign there are probably a dozen people with similar sentiments who think the same way but did not say anything. Do not downplay those sentiments. Look for patterns in feedback and complaints to recognize simmering sentiments in the voting public. Be damn sure you are addressing those issues.[/li][li]Campaign *for your candidate. If you don’t give the public something to vote for then you may be stuck relying on a turnout of voters who are motivated more by voting against the other candidate. You need voters to the polls who want both to vote for your candidate as well as against the other candidate.[/li][]Do not assume that you have any damn idea in 2018 what the key issues are that will drive voters come election time in 2020. These are different races. Be prepared to shift gears if needed.[/ol]
I think your lesson is the same, first the presidential candidate must be charismatic and a natural campaigner able to attract the support beyond the core supporters via this charisma.
I think the Democrats’ 2020 strategy will depend entirely on what Trump’s popularity level is then.
If Trump’s approval rating is abysmal; like 20%, then they may go full “basket of deplorables” and double down on the 2016 campaign tactics, albeit full Bernie Sanders and go all liberal-progressive, confident in victory.
If Trump on the hand has approval ratings anywhere above 40% I’d expect the DNC to be much more cautious, trying to woo flyover-America votes.
It’s not an either-or thing. There are plenty of disaffected white working class voters who appreciated Sanders more than Clinton, because Sanders’s message was so class-based. There are real pocketbook issues that affect poor people across race lines, and while Clinton’s platform addressed each of these issues more intelligently and honestly than Trump’s MAGA brays, while campaigning she didn’t really sell these issues, and hse wasn’t as good at the baffle-em-with-bullshit razzle-dazzle that Trump employed to make people think he was one of them.
The Democratic Party needs to remember Bill’s motto: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Only they need to remember that an economic plan that puts working-class voters front and center (whether realistic or unrealistic) will win over one that doesn’t have such a clear emphasis.
Yeah, not enough folks around here realize that Hillary won the popular vote. That’s the real measure of the worth of a candidate and means the Dems have nothing to worry about next time. They area a shoe-in.
Just remember: HRC won the popular vote. That’s all we need to know. Don’t worry, be happy.
You…really, really don’t get it, do you? If you’re playing chess, you don’t get to say “My opponent captured my King, but it’s a not really a because I captured more of his pawns.”
You’ve had this explained to you, at a guess, about a hundred times. You never actually respond, you just parrot back that it was only a “technicality”.
The Dems have a lot of problems, but one of the more obvious ones is they have no answer to questions like “what do Democrats stand for?” or “why should anyone vote for you?” other than “we’re not Republicans.” Or they give rambling answers full of platitudes that any conservative would say, e.g. “lead with our values,” “equality,” or “good jobs.” As Jimmy Dore likes to joke, you can rouse a Republican from a dead sleep at 3:00 AM and he’ll tell you he’s for tax cuts, deregulation, a strong border, strengthening the military, and on and on. A Democrat stammers and talks nonsense about fairness. They’re a corporate party so they can’t recommend progressive policies. They’re stuck in no man’s land defending Romneycare.
This probably won’t change anytime soon, since the party establishment is still blaming Hillary’s loss on Russia, progressives, Comey, the electoral college, millennials, misogyny, blue collar workers, and anyone else besides themselves. They’re wedded to the Russia CT in particular, which is a useful excuse to avoid self-examination.
They’d rather let Republicans stay in charge than pursue progressive policies. If they’re sure to win due to a Trump backlash they’ll tack right, gotta pick up those Republican suburbanites.
I don’t believe this is correct. The Democratic Party had a platform. Are they re-evaluating now? Of course. At least they know that healthcare is complicated.
Hillary’s website was full of actual policies that would solve actual problems. Not one liners like “Build a wall” but details on how she actually intended to get jobs, handle healthcare, and govern.
You can argue that her campaign got distracted by the Trump clown show just like every body else and forgot Bill Clinton’s cardinal rule: it is in fact the economy and she should never have taken her eye off that ball.
I’m not sure I follow this. I would think that going “full progressive” might backfire if they want to pick up votes. How many pure progressives are there who actually vote? Also, why should they change anything if they’re sure to win due to Trump backfire? They don’t need to tack right in that case.
To the OP: Dems need to pay attention to financial divide in this country and the working poor. Yes, overall the economy improved a great deal under Obama, but there are large pockets that didn’t. Taking a compelling message to struggling communities about a plan forward, for jobs, for healthcare, for education, for senior care, for social security --just to name a few of the things it turns out that virtually everyone really cares about, and poor communities really, really care about-- would help Dems out a great deal the next time around.
I also agree that effective political movements start locally. Start with the city, county, state. Go to the town halls. Get your preferred candidates elected at the local level. Get your state running the way you want it to. Tackle gerrymandering. Leave a little time for making sure your federal reps know how you feel too. Virtually all of them want to get re-elected. They will listen.
Combat the lies. It’s one thing when people know what you stand for and choose to vote against you based on that. Like the old saying goes, you can’t please everybody. It’s another thing when they’re voting against some fun-house mirror version of you that bears only passing resemblance to your actual policies and positions.
Just for fun, I used to read rightie interpretations of Obama’s remarks and then try to
figure out what he actually said that could be misinterpreted that way.