Don’t count your electoral votes before they are cast.
As much as anything else - HRC lost because she thought (thanks to polling, etc) that she had it won - so stopped alot of the campaigning.
The one thing you have to give Trump is that he hit the campaign trail hard - and this did have an immediate affect on the people as he was seen (by them ) to actually want to talk ‘to them’.
Well, article after article, pundit after pundit, expert after expert disagrees with you, not to mention the FBI and the Justice dept. The Russians hacked the election. Which rigged it for Trump. Now, if you are saying they didnt rig the* voting machines-* sure. But they hacked and rigged* the election* itself.
Nope. This is very similar to the mistake you made in this thread. Words have meanings, and the election was not hacked. Emails were hacked and released, but not “the election”. Nor was the election “rigged”. None of your cites support either of those claims.
Ok, I’ll just go with the freaken FBI and Justice dept.
I never just run in and post without reading a thread, but I’ll admit I’m doing it here because I’ve devoted a huge amount of time thinking about this issue. I think in descending order of importance:
A lot of otherwise good people for example who are Christians simply cannot imagine how you can reconcile Christianity and a belief in evolution by natural selection, so they simply don’t. Even if you’re explaining it to them in a way they intellectually understand, they aren’t going to want to say “Well I accept your argument, but now I’m not a good Christian anymore, so I’m no longer part of my tribe and I’m a bad person.” How does it relate to politics? Basically I posit people exist in these somewhat vaguely defined “tribes”, and these tribes have certain touchstone beliefs that are very, very important to them. A lot of Trump voters ignored a lot of logical things that go very much against their self-interest when they voted for him, but did so because his message told him they were part of his tribe and Hillary wasn’t (and Hillary helped by making it quite clear she wasn’t part of their tribe.) In a tribal context, the argument “this guy is going to hurt your job prospects and your healthcare” still doesn’t compete very well with “this guy is a part of your tribe and this Hillary person isn’t, in fact she hates your tribe and mocks it regularly.”
[There are tribal beliefs on the left, right, and center. Try to talk rationally with a Sanders supporter about how the DNC really didn’t rig the primary election because it’s simply functionally not powerful enough to do that, and they will never listen. Doesn’t matter if you explain to them how the DNC works, what powers it has/doesn’t have, or any of that. Or even if you point out that the primary contests that the DNC historically had the best odds of controlling were caucuses because of how they’re organized, and that’s where Sanders won more than he lost; he primarily lost in primaries especially in the South.]
To go back to my point about people “digging in their heels”, this was exploited by Trump (intentionally or not), with the help of Hillary because she clearly didn’t / doesn’t understand the tribal nature of politics particularly as it relates to the demographic distribution of voters in the United States. I’m going to in detail break this down:
-The basic postulate of the Trump campaign, and he basically came very close at times to openly admitting it, was that Mitt Romney would’ve won the electoral college if he got a bit higher percentage of white voters, particularly throughout the Midwest.
-The basic response was “Mitt Romney won the largest share of white voters since Reagan won in a historic landslide against Walter Mondale, moreover, in 1984 whites were a bigger part of the country so even winning as much as Reagan did in '84 isn’t enough to win.” But no one is going to win that much of the white vote anyway.
-The reality is–Trump did and he could, win such a share of the white vote in the Midwest where he won the Presidency. His campaign frequently stated, and was all but mocked (including by 538, which has retconned its coverage of the election and tried to say they always presented a front which took Trump’s odds of winning seriously, the reality is they largely understimated him until the very very end) for campaigning in states like Pennsylvania (lol no GOP has won there since 1988, dummy.)
-Trump was able to do this because he went all in on “his tribe”, and his theory was if that tribe was big enough in the Midwest, he’d win the Presidency. Observers simply said based on past elections the numbers didn’t work, but they misunderstood how tribalism works and how past candidates operated. Past successful candidates while they may have never understood or said the word “tribalism”, they operated with the concept of “I want votes from as many people as possible.” If you understand what Clinton did in his elections (Bill), and Obama did in his, or even W. Bush in his, they had dual goals: appeal to as many people as possible, and avoid angering as many people as you possibly can. What they’re basically doing is trying to define their tribe as “very very large.” That’s why Obama talked about his Christian faith. That’s why he had an evangelical outreach director. That’s why he campaigned heavily in stretch states like Iowa. That’s why he kept saying “Hope and Change”, hard boiled political writers and myself didn’t like that because it was fluff, but fluff avoids firming tribal lines. It makes it so more people could potentially view you as part of their tribe, and less immediately dismiss you as not part of theirs. Some black writers have complained or at least argued that Obama represents a ‘safe black person’ for whites to vote for. He speaks in a certain way, acts in a certain way, avoids certain contentious racial issues. But what that did was made Obama’s “potential tribe” quite large. He also benefited from a very dedicated tribe of black voters who didn’t want to go down in history as having voted against the first black President.
For Bill Clinton people called this the “bubba effect.” Bill was an Harvard and Oxford educated lawyer and had been in politics for 20 years when he won the Presidency, but he spoke in a certain way, acted in a certain way, avoided certain things, that made it so a large swathe of people could imagine being in a tribe with Bill.
Bush did the same thing with Gore. A lot of people called the Election of 2000 “boring” as it was going on because neither candidate was vigorously staking out diametrically opposite positions. When both candidates are good at creating these large, fuzzy tribal boundaries, a ton of voters are “in play.” And it’s also less likely either candidate alienates so many people that people stay home.
In 2016 Trump abandoned that and said “I’m going so hard after this tribe of whites that I believe will get me to the Presidency, I will never apologize for it, I will never equivocate, and I will play to their base instincts at every turn.” Hillary’s response was “I’m going to basically cast Trump as a dangerous imbecile and make it so no one would dare vote for him.” I think she succeeded in running effectively a campaign that cast Trump as a dangerous imbecile (it helps that frankly, that’s what he is.) But the effects of that campaign didn’t go how she expected. What her attacks did was just firm up a large portion of the right-of-center “tribe” hated Hillary because they felt she was attacking them, not Trump. People who might vote for Trump aren’t just wrong, they’re racists. Idiots. Bigots. Losers. I think she helped Trump’s strategy by making the sides so diametrically opposed, party loyalty is always high in elections, but the few percentages difference can determine the Presidency. Republicans were more loyal to their party than expected with an unpopular and unlikeable candidate like Trump, partly because Hillary did a good job making an entire spectrum of people feel like their tribe was under attack. This caused a thought to coalesce “Trump is bad, but he’s our Chief, and I’m not betraying my tribe”, and those people voted, and they voted where Clinton could least afford to have them vote. She also alienated the true anti-Trump Republicans, who stayed home and didn’t vote at all.
Meanwhile she invested nothing in her side of the house. She did nothing to build up her own tribe, she focused on blasting Trump and his tribe. So not only did she harden resolve to support Trump, she created apathy among swathes of her potential voters, who may have had had questions about her big business ties, emails, etc etc that she ignored to focus on attacking Trump.
I’d argue not only did she do really bad at building up her side–Trump as bad as he was cast as a campaigner spent a lot of actual time talking about his tribe. How he was going to help them. She devoted a lot more time and mind-space to talking about how bad Trump was instead of what she could do for her tribe.
Come election day the demographic mistake set in. If the tribes were evenly distributed, even though Clinton basically helped Trump’s strategy, he’d have lost in a landslide. But they weren’t/aren’t. Something like 60% of the nation’s Hispanic voters for example are concentrated in three states, only one of which is competitive electorally. Meanwhile a quiet but important part of Democratic wins in Ohio/Michigan/Pennsylvania have always been the black population and blue collar whites. Blue collar whites were being appealed to far more effectively by Trump and joined his tribe, and the fence setters were helped off the fence when Hillary’s response was to attack that tribe relentlessly, lots of black voters compared to previous elections stayed home, with historically poor Dem turnout in Democratic strongholds like Detroit. HIllary ran up huge wins in places where her tribe was big, but unlike Bill or Obama she had helped make the borders of her tribe firm and narrower, so she ran right into Trump’s game.
The reality is Hillary wasn’t a great candidate intrinsically because she was so polarizing; if she had ran a more broad campaign I think she’d have still won, but the Dems really would’ve done better to run someone with broader appeal and smaller dislike. Sanders is himself pretty polarizing but I’d argue even less so than Clinton. The reality is a choice between a guy who really is a fringe thinker like Sanders and a disliked establishment figure like Clinton is a poor choice to begin with. Sanders did so well in the primary because Clinton was so bad a choice. Sanders would be the Dennis Kucinich of 2016 if better Democrats had ran. But the problem is, I struggle to name any better Democrats. The Dems as a party have a leadership “drought”, due to basically controlling few governorships (a traditional source of Presidential candidates) and a systemic problem where top Dem leadership hangs on too long (Pelosi) and deny other Dems the national platform they need. By 2020 the Dems need to find a way to have cultivated a lot of leadership.
President Obama forgot politics is an ugly sport. He should’ve done something to control Comey, who was permitted to have an unconscionable, undemocratic impact on the election. The timing of anything related to the email stuff should’ve been managed from the White House–in an open, honest process. I’m not saying Obama should’ve been corrupt and squashed the investigation, but he had an obligation to his party and his country to have done more to push it to a final conclusion months and months before it happened, and to have been more involved. The results of that investigation were too important for the election for the President to give so much power to a guy like Comey, who has no special writ of impartiality, he’s a political appointee and acted like one.
The relatively surprising showing from Dems in recent special elections in Kansas and Georgia suggest Democrats probably should have been trying harder, through the DCCC, to campaign in higher education level “red” districts all along, I think the Dems response to the Tea Party movement has been to basically throw their hands up and abandon large swathes of the country that used to sometimes vote Democrat. I don’t think the Dems have an easy road here, but they’ve made it harder by basically not fighting. The GOP seems more adept at fighting in tough districts while Dems appear to have gone down a weird spiral where they just focus more and more on playing to things that are only strengths in ultra blue, high-density districts.
Can you provide a direct cite and a link to where the FBI or the Justice department says that Russia hacked the election? Or Russia rigged the election? Note, not that Russia tried interfering** but actually hacked or rigged*.
Slee
*Russia/U.S.S.R has been trying to interfere with our elections forever. Just as we try and interfere in every other countries elections.
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsro...rity-statement
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
Which candidate did the US seek to get elected in the last elections in Canada, Mexico, the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, and Australia, and how specifically did we seek to influence those elections?
Three strikes and you’re out.
Broad-brushing it a bit: I’m a pretty strong Sanders supporter, and suspect I’ll keep being one, but I think the conspiracy theories about the DNC’s rigging of the primary are foolish and distracting, and indeed think that caucuses, the place where Sanders showed the best performance, should probably go away. I know plenty of Sanders supporters who have similar views. I get your overall point, but figure you shouldn’t use this particular example.
Since when is discrediting a candidate by leaking the truth “rigging” an election?
When it’s done selectively. Comey could explain that if you’re having trouble.
and it is edited and taken out of context.
Right–let me clarify not everyone operates purely tribally, I don’t think I do. But I think it takes a “certain type.” I don’t put a ton of stock in Myers-Briggs, but for example I’m an ENTP, sometimes coined “The Debater” archetype. Under the M-B theory these personality types feel a need to explore every side of an argument, nothing is sacrosanct to an ENTP because they always want to explore the pros and cons of anything. ENTPs often find themselves playing Devi’s Advocate. They also often (and my experience confirms this) tend to rub people the wrong way, because most people really dislike exploring both sides of every argument, and truly hate someone playing devil’s advocate. I have enough self-awareness I’ve learned that most people I don’t know well, I need to suppress these behaviors.
I also don’t confuse being different with being smarter, I know lots of very smart people who don’t act/think this way. They know their position on an issue and they aren’t interested in exploring beyond that. I was a Clinton voter (I struggle to claim I’m a “supporter” of hers since I was literally solely voting for her in defense of the Republic) and I obviously don’t fall into the group that will defend every accusation against her, same for you and Sanders. But I spend time on places that are hotbeds of modern progressivism like r/political_revolution (not because I’m progressive at all, I just like seeing the opposition’s views) and there is very little tolerance for any nuance about the primaries there. The narrative that it was stolen by the corrupt DNC is basically an unquestioned fact, to the point people who bring it up are rarely argued against, just back patted and given “hell yeahs.”
I do think people who, call them skeptics, ENTPs, whatever, like to explore all sides of an issue are uniquely suited to having more robust views on the political system. But a lot of really smart people don’t have much use for politics or need/interest in delving into it, so I’m not saying this mindset is any sort of “superiority”, it just tends to mean a more capable eye when it comes to analyzing politics. I don’t believe most supporters of any candidate have such an eye, that’s why tribalism is a thing.
The Dems lost over 1,200 seats since Obama was elected if you count senate, and house elections in both federal and state elections, not to mention quite a few state governors. If you see a map of who controls the various counties in the USA, the nation is very red.
I don’t think Democrats have fully accepted the reality that they have lost the working class/union type of vote in many states. I also think they have not accepted their tax and spend ways with fat cats being supported by the taxation has done nothing but put states and large cities in debt.
Democratic leadership on the federal level remains old guard. And they traditionally do poorly in nonpresidental elections for whatever reason.
Since they can not control the house or senate and are unlikely to win either in 2018, they would be better served with more pragmatic leadership giving concessions, but also doing what they can for their core issues.
Once Trump starts talking infrastructure spending, my guess is 90% of democrats will intuitively think, I’d like it to happen in my state or district.
Tax and spend ways as opposed to 'borrow and spend" of the GOP? :dubious:
[quote=“Iggy, post:4, topic:784510”]
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][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][/li][/QUOTE]
To #3: it’s true that putting more resources into WI and MI might hypothetically have flipped those States, but it wouldn’t have mattered because she still would have needed PA, where she did campaign intensively and still lost by a larger margin than in WI or MI. So that particular criticism of the Clinton campaign is IMO overblown.
You are dubious (and rightfully so about the effect of the “spend” part). But one of the hallmarks of Reaganesque Republicanism is the absolute faith in the idea that taxes are bad, and should be reduced if at all possible at all times. That viewpoint has seeped pretty deeply into the national consciousness. The fact that one of the starting points for that thought process was California itself (see: Proposition 13) causes me no end of ironic sadness.
So, yeah, “tax and spend” ways. A LOT of the country thinks “tax” is evil.