It's the outright disregard of a segment of the population.
Get as many votes as you can, and don't alienate the people you might need votes from.
I worry that this means there is a population that can be ignored here - she simply ignored the wrong one.
Again, we don't care about Trump's base. Trump's base is a screaming minority—albeit a powerful one within the GOP—that will never admit wrongdoing. A deplorable minority, you might say. A veritable basket.THis line of thinking is literally what lost Hillary the election.
Incorrect. You're simplifying this again. Her saying it cost her, maybe, but if you honestly think we're going to persuade the diehard Trump supporters to vote against him, you're welcome to try. The real problem was Hillary Clinton saying it openly. It was true—just as what Romney said was true—but politically idiotic. Of course many Trump supporters are racist and sexist. Of course those people will never vote for anyone else. But to say it as a candidate is to attack the voters.
Seriously, guys, Trump has his base. Just accept that.
That rebuilding will have to take the form of adjustments over the next few years. Primaries. Chair elections. Our only hope is if the people stand up and take the Democratic Party back.
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I think the way forward is to focus more on what was wrong with Clinton.
BTW, only 62,170 fewer people voted for her than Obama.
Obama 65,915,795
Clinton 65,853,625A difference of 0.0943%.
If Clinton got effectively the same number of votes as Obama did (in 2012, he had more in 2008) then doesn't that imply the problem wasn't with her? She did as well as the last Dem who WON.
Rather, the problem was that Trump did better than his predecessors;
2000 50,456,002 R / 50,999,897 D - Bush*
2004 62,040,610 R / 59,028,444 D - Bush
2008 59,948,323 R / 69,498,516 D - Obama
2012 60,933,504 R / 65,915,795 D - Obama
2016 62,985,105 R / 65,853,625 D - Trump*Thus, the numbers suggest that Trump was more popular with the voters than Romney by a margin of more than 2 million. Clinton's total was a mere 62 thousand short of Obama's... she essentially matched his turnout.
This seems counter-intuitive because polls have consistently shown that Trump is the least popular newly elected president (Dem OR GOP) ever. Apparently, while not a lot of people like Trump... those who DO were disproportionally likely to vote.
Without recognizing the sarcasm in my first sentence, you got the gist of it.
Honestly, I'm just tired of people making pronouncements of "this is the reason she lost", because most of them rely on some sort of assumption that she did significantly worse than Obama. Voter turnout was down slightly (from like 54.9% to 54.6%) and her % of the vote total is a bit less (like 48% vs his 51%).
The Democrat nominee got more votes, even though she was a woman and more bland than her opponent. People talk as if the party is on fire and all hope is lost.
I'm in Minnesota, but my house district went red this time. I'm getting a schedule of town hall meetings and I'm going to show up to voice my opinion. I doubt he'll change his mind, cause Jason Lewis is a f*~+wad, but I'm gonna yell at him anyways.
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That rebuilding will have to take the form of adjustments over the next few years. Primaries. Chair elections. Our only hope is if the people stand up and take the Democratic Party back.Then it won't work. Temporary adjustments might help, but the fact would remain that its foundations need to be replaced, or more accurately, changed back to what they are supposed to be.
He didn't say "temporary adjustments", he said adjustments over time. Those two are not synonymous.
That rebuilding will have to take the form of adjustments over the next few years. Primaries. Chair elections. Our only hope is if the people stand up and take the Democratic Party back.Then it won't work. Temporary adjustments might help, but the fact would remain that its foundations need to be replaced, or more accurately, changed back to what they are supposed to be.
Go back and read some articles/books from 2009 and 2013. Some people were predicting that the Republican party was essentially dead and would have to fundamentally change to win an election. While Trump is certainly unusual, the party as a whole didn't really change, yet they won this year.
AND, the Democrat candidate for president only lost by a couple thousand votes spread through 3 different states. An election with 130+ million voters, you don't panic about a 150,000 vote loss. It'd be like buying a new car when your air filter needs replacement.
It's the outright disregard of a segment of the population.
Get as many votes as you can, and don't alienate the people you might need votes from.
I agree it was not a smart move, but given everything else I doubt it actually made any difference. Even before those words were uttered, everyone who felt they fell under the "deplorable" label were already firmly in Trump's camp.
Interestingly, even though Trump was fond of bringing this point up (with just cause perhaps) during the election, he apparently didn't learn the lesson. And he is reaping the price for alienating a large chunk of the US population.
You're talking about putting something forward that 66+ million people need to agree on enough to choose it. YOUR vision of what that is, isn't going to be the one that's available to choose from.
That rebuilding will have to take the form of adjustments over the next few years. Primaries. Chair elections. Our only hope is if the people stand up and take the Democratic Party back.Then it won't work. Temporary adjustments might help, but the fact would remain that its foundations need to be replaced, or more accurately, changed back to what they are supposed to be.
Exactly what are these "foundations" you speak of?
Also, for all the noise about how Clinton and Trump "got more votes", turnout was at a low. People need to remember that the total number of voters is always going to increase these days, because the population is increasing.
Well, Obama's a loose cannon who doesn't play by the rules.
I could be wrong, of course, and I'd treasure that learning experience. But everything I've read up until now indicated that Trump's turnout was very poor in most areas. Clinton's was, too, save in areas where it didn't matter, like California and Texas.
I worry that this means there is a population that can be ignored here - she simply ignored the wrong one.It's the outright disregard of a segment of the population.
Get as many votes as you can, and don't alienate the people you might need votes from.
Apparently, one cannot afford to ignore anyone.
@thejeff: What Romney said was "Hey, I know there's a chunk of the public that won't vote for me no matter what I say, so we're not going to actively seek those votes". It was a tactical campaigning call, one that frankly got blown out of proportion.
What Hillary said hit a nerve, and even if people didn't identify with what she said, she was still basically saying that if you didn't fall into a certain mindset, she not only did not want your vote, but you were the scum of the earth. Her remarks did not get blown out of proportion, and she meant every word at face value.
Those two things are not equal, I agree, but not the direction you may think it went.
Also, for all the noise about how Clinton and Trump "got more votes", turnout was at a low. People need to remember that the total number of voters is always going to increase these days, because the population is increasing.
It's hard to tell how they got the numbers in that graph wrong, because they don't actually give any. But they aren't correct.
We haven't gone over 63% voter turnout since 1908.
2008 - 57.1%
2012 - 54.9%
2016 - 54.6%
Raw numbers:
2008 eligible-229,945 voted-131,407
2012 eligible-235,248 voted-129,235
2016 eligible-251,107 voted-137,098
More people voted in 2016 than in 2008. 2008 was a higher %, it only edges out 2004 and 1992 by 2% points though.
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I worry that this means there is a population that can be ignored here - she simply ignored the wrong one.It's the outright disregard of a segment of the population.
Get as many votes as you can, and don't alienate the people you might need votes from.Apparently, one cannot afford to ignore anyone.
@thejeff: What Romney said was "Hey, I know there's a chunk of the public that won't vote for me no matter what I say, so we're not going to actively seek those votes". It was a tactical campaigning call, one that frankly got blown out of proportion.
What Hillary said hit a nerve, and even if people didn't identify with what she said, she was still basically saying that if you didn't fall into a certain mindset, she not only did not want your vote, but you were the scum of the earth. Her remarks did not get blown out of proportion, and she meant every word at face value.Those two things are not equal, I agree, but not the direction you may think it went.
Ok, I must be slow. Why is opposing racism, sexism, mysogeny, homophobia etc a bad thing?
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What Romney said was "Hey, I know there's a chunk of the public that won't vote for me no matter what I say, so we're not going to actively seek those votes". It was a tactical campaigning call, one that frankly got blown out of proportion.
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what… who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. ... These are people who pay no income tax.”
The remainder of the quote is pretty bad.
The guy was also seriously out of touch, when he'd says stuff like "middle class" means ">$250,000/year."
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Ok, I must be slow. Why is opposing racism, sexism, mysogeny, homophobia etc a bad thing?
From Comrade Anklebiter's interesting thread:
"Hell with the economy, let us be good serfs to our corporate overlords, as long as white men are serfs on the same [rung as] a transgendered biracial person."
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To me, the most significant difference between Romney's 'we cannot reach these people' statement and Clinton's is that Clinton's was essentially true (she slightly underestimated the percentage of Trump supporters expressing bigoted views) while Romney's was completely false (most people paying no income tax vote Republican).
More people voted in 2016 than in 2008. 2008 was a higher %
...which makes 2016 having a higher number entirely meaningless.
I think the effect of the basket of deplorables comment is being overestimated by just about everyone who mentions it. It was used a rallying cry, sure; even here in blue, blue Rhode Island there were Trump supporters with "Proud Deplorable" lawn signs. But I haven't talked to anyone (and I mean that literally literally, not one single individual in person or online) who's vote was changed by it.
Trump winning is due to so many different things that saying the DEM merely need a few adjustments is idiotic, they need to be rebuild from the groud up.
No, it's not. Not, they don't. And that wouldn't help them.
Each little thing that helped trump was a tiny +1 here +1 there (yay, mathfinder). He still LOST, he just wins on a rule technicality. That's how close the race was.
Take away any of those teeny tiny +1s and he loses, by a lot.
Rebuild from the ground up an... the exact same factors that cause the democratic party to be the democratic party are goingt o still be there.
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To me, the most significant difference between Romney's 'we cannot reach these people' statement and Clinton's is that Clinton's was essentially true (she slightly underestimated the percentage of Trump supporters expressing bigoted views) while Romney's was completely false (most people paying no income tax vote Republican).
No it wasn't true. Not all people that voted for Trump fit in her basket, no matter how much some folks would like to believe it. Sure, some do, but not enough to risk hitting people she didn't intend to with that broad brush accidentally.
It was a sad attempt to say "if you're not with me, well then you're x".It pissed people off, and partly responsible for why we now have a President Trump.
It is not fascism to expect people to obey the law.
It is not nationalism to want secure borders.
It is not racism to want immigrants to integrate into society.
It is not anti-immigration to be anti-illegal immigration.
It is not (insert random -ism or -phobia) to merely disagree with people.
It is not misogyny to not be cool with abortion.
These boxes that she put folks in were too broad, and unfortunately, it's now popular thought to equate these things, when they are not equal positions.
Yeah, forgot about the rest of what Romney said about the not paying taxes bit, wasn't omitted on purpose. That would piss off folks on both sides.
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He still LOST, he just wins on a rule technicality.
It's a hair to split, but he did win. He and Clinton both knew the game they were playing. :P
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Trump winning is due to so many different things that saying the DEM merely need a few adjustments is idiotic, they need to be rebuild from the groud up.No, it's not. Not, they don't. And that wouldn't help them.
Each little thing that helped trump was a tiny +1 here +1 there (yay, mathfinder). He still LOST, he just wins on a rule technicality. That's how close the race was.
Take away any of those teeny tiny +1s and he loses, by a lot.
Rebuild from the ground up an... the exact same factors that cause the democratic party to be the democratic party are goingt o still be there.
While I 100% agree with the overall sentiment of your post, I want to comment on the "he still LOST, he just wins on a rule technicality" part. Saying he won on a technicality makes it sound like it was some obscure or little-known rule that gave him the presidency rather than the primary objective of the entire game. It's like saying that the Packers beat the Falcons because they have more fans supporting them, but the Falcons get to go to the Super Bowl on the technicality that they scored the most points.
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To me, the most significant difference between Romney's 'we cannot reach these people' statement and Clinton's is that Clinton's was essentially true (she slightly underestimated the percentage of Trump supporters expressing bigoted views) while Romney's was completely false (most people paying no income tax vote Republican).No it wasn't true. Not all people that voted for Trump fit in her basket, no matter how much some folks would like to believe it.
Except she never said all people that voted for Trump did. Did you actually see what she said, or do you just follow right-wing people complaining about it?
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Yeah, it started with the phrase "You know, to just be grossly generalistic..."
But, you know...she did only say half, I guess.
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Except she never said all people that voted for Trump did. Did you actually see what she said, or do you just follow right-wing people complaining about it?To me, the most significant difference between Romney's 'we cannot reach these people' statement and Clinton's is that Clinton's was essentially true (she slightly underestimated the percentage of Trump supporters expressing bigoted views) while Romney's was completely false (most people paying no income tax vote Republican).No it wasn't true. Not all people that voted for Trump fit in her basket, no matter how much some folks would like to believe it.
Exactly...I don't think I recall the comment as being pitched as "all republicans are deplorables"
and, although my remembrance of the timeline is hazy, given everything else that happened in this election I doubt this made any actual difference in her losing the election. Maybe if there was a good ground game in some of the blue states that were ignored...or if there wasn't that email/Benghazi distraction...or a long legacy of Clintons being treated as Republican boogeymen...or the anti-establishment tenor of the election...or the general tenor of election being reduced to mudslinging...or etc. Than maybe that deplorable comment might have meant something to the election.
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...okay, I'm sorry to have to say this, but you're either being extremely lazy or extremely dishonest.
Okay, good, you edited. That said, the quote is still worth sharing. Note the second paragraph, where she explicitly called out the Trump supporters she believed were not racist, sexist, or "deplorable" in any way.
You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."
"But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
"Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
Epic fail, in the sense that it was much too late in the game at that point.
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"Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
Epic fail, in the sense that it was much too late in the game at that point.
It's unfortunate how little attention span some people have. Her overall message was not to denigrate all of Trump's supporters, but to point out to her base that many Republicans are regular people with real frustrations and a different idea of how to go about solving problems.
She's a politician from the days of long-form articles, and hasn't adapted to sound bites and twitter.
The Democrat nominee got more votes, even though she was a woman and more bland than her opponent. People talk as if the party is on fire and all hope is lost.
Who got more votes is irrelevant, because the election for the President has nothing to do with who gets more votes, but who wins what votes where. Trump did what no one would have expected him to do... he broke the Blue Wall of the Rust Belt. And that's a major reason of why he won. He put on the performance of the job saver for a population which has been mostly ignored or taken for granted by both political parties.
Meanwhile the Democrats keep in charge the woman who has been losing steadily for them since 2010. That's not a sign of a party that's become aware of it's own faults.
Ok, I must be slow. Why is opposing racism, sexism, mysogeny, homophobia etc a bad thing?From Comrade Anklebiter's interesting thread:
"Hell with the economy, let us be good serfs to our corporate overlords, as long as white men are serfs on the same [rung as] a transgendered biracial person."OTOH, the opposite approach of fixing the economy for the white men and leaving the sexism, racism and homophobia intact isn't exactly a great plan either. Those are the "great" days that Trump's followers want to go back to - whether they're actively thinking of oppressing the other groups or just remembering (tales of) good factory one-worker middle class jobs. Of course, they want to do it with no unions, government regulation and low taxes on the rich, all of which were huge factors in the days they're dreaming of - along with all the bigotry.
Obviously, both the economy and identity issues are important. I get that it's hard for the unemployed rust-belt white guy to see past his own problems, just as it's hard for the black guy getting hassled by cops to see past his or the transwoman to look past her very real dangers. I don't know all the answers or more importantly how to convince people to find a way that works for everyone, but I know that fixing either on its own is neither possible nor acceptable.
The problem is that those with the power have been experts at setting these groups against each other dating from the days when the Southern Plantation masters pitted poor whites against blacks by giving them a few privileges not available to the other group. That move ended the budding alliance between the two downtrodden niches of society by turning them against each other.
Now they have a much more efficient tools of doing the same... It's called the Internet and Social Media, as well as the Fox Media Empire. Which the Trump folks say is the only place we should be getting our news from if we're good patriotic citizens. Did George Orwell ever imagine that Big Brother would be privately owned?
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To me, the most significant difference between Romney's 'we cannot reach these people' statement and Clinton's is that Clinton's was essentially true (she slightly underestimated the percentage of Trump supporters expressing bigoted views) while Romney's was completely false (most people paying no income tax vote Republican).No it wasn't true. Not all people that voted for Trump fit in her basket, no matter how much some folks would like to believe it. Sure, some do, but not enough to risk hitting people she didn't intend to with that broad brush accidentally.
It was a sad attempt to say "if you're not with me, well then you're x".
It pissed people off, and partly responsible for why we now have a President Trump.It is not fascism to expect people to obey the law.
It is not nationalism to want secure borders.
It is not racism to want immigrants to integrate into society.
It is not anti-immigration to be anti-illegal immigration.
It is not (insert random -ism or -phobia) to merely disagree with people.
It is not misogyny to not be cool with abortion.These boxes that she put folks in were too broad, and unfortunately, it's now popular thought to equate these things, when they are not equal positions.
Yeah, forgot about the rest of what Romney said about the not paying taxes bit, wasn't omitted on purpose. That would piss off folks on both sides.
normally, I would agree with the it is not statements, but as anyone who shares my background can tell you, there are those who use the latter part of those statements to back up the opposite of the former and they look exactly like those who do not fit in the box and truly heavily rely upon their ability to blend with their fellows to avoid any and all responsibility for their actions.
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It is not fascism to expect people to obey the law.
It is not nationalism to want secure borders.
It is not racism to want immigrants to integrate into society.
It is not anti-immigration to be anti-illegal immigration.
It is not (insert random -ism or -phobia) to merely disagree with people.
It is not misogyny to not be cool with abortion.These boxes that she put folks in were too broad, and unfortunately, it's now popular thought to equate these things, when they are not equal positions.
Its hard to tell the difference when folks choose a candidate for the highest office who is a misogynist, racist, nationalist, bigot evident by his own public comments. You would think leaders of those ideals would stand up to a man like that instead of getting behind him. You would think people who honestly hold those ideals dear, wouldnt vote for someone so indecent and lacking of character just to achieve them.
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As they say:
"Everyone who voted for Trump is not an overt racist, but every overt racist voted for Trump, and everyone who voted for Trump voted for an overt racist."
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As they say:
"Everyone who voted for Trump is not an overt racist, but every overt racist voted for Trump, and everyone who voted for Trump voted for an overt racist."
I also know some shockingly open bigots -- people who will say absolutely horrific things almost casually -- who voted for Hillary, so I guess you can't always trust what "they" say.
The third phrase in the saying is certainly true, however.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Really? That's a genuine surprise. I can't imagine what they see in her. Unless they're transphobes or something, I guess—TERFers gonna TERF, after all. Or very old party loyalty fanatics.
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Its hard to tell the difference when folks choose a candidate for the highest office who is a misogynist, racist, nationalist, bigot evident by his own public comments. You would think leaders of those ideals would stand up to a man like that instead of getting behind him. You would think people who honestly hold those ideals dear, wouldnt vote for someone so indecent and lacking of character just to achieve them.
It is not fascism to expect people to obey the law.
It is not nationalism to want secure borders.
It is not racism to want immigrants to integrate into society.
It is not anti-immigration to be anti-illegal immigration.
It is not (insert random -ism or -phobia) to merely disagree with people.
It is not misogyny to not be cool with abortion.These boxes that she put folks in were too broad, and unfortunately, it's now popular thought to equate these things, when they are not equal positions.
The moral of the story is is that the electorate cares about their own issues and priorities and is quite willing to let the problems of others be suffered if they themselves are unaffected. Also keep in mind that many of the white population, feel that the Democrats are the party of "Anybody but Whitey". Clinton played straight into those prejudices with both her statement that "Coal is dead" and her "Deplorables" speech.
I don't know all the answers or more importantly how to convince people to find a way that works for everyone, but I know that fixing either on its own is neither possible nor acceptable.
Sure. And, again from the other thread:
Let me clarify that I'm strongly in favor of civil rights for all. If it were up to me, for example, we'd all have unisex bathrooms so that no one ever had to feel out of place. But I also feel those goals are far more likely to be attained when we don't have to get our corporate masters' permission to use the restroom in the first place, so I prioritize differently.
Really? That's a genuine surprise. I can't imagine what they see in her. Unless they're transphobes or something, I guess—TERFers gonna TERF, after all. Or very old party loyalty fanatics.
Most decidedly the latter.