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[Unknown Soldier]

On the eve of President Donald Trump's inauguration, a pretty clear and despondent piece about the tattered remains of the Democratic Party and the challenges it faces trying to revive itself runs in Politico Magazine.

As is usual for Politico Magazine, this article is incredibly long. What I've highlighted here isn't even a fraction of it's complete length. You would do better to just read the whole article rather than just the fragments I am showing you here.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...nistration-wilderness-comeback-revival-214650

As Trump takes over the GOP and starts remaking its new identity as a nationalist, populist party, creating a new political pole in American politics for the first time in generations, all eyes are on the Democrats. How will they confront a suddenly awakened, and galvanized, white majority? What’s to stop Trump from doing whatever he wants? Who’s going to pull a coherent new vision together? Worried liberals are watching with trepidation, fearful that Trump is just the beginning of worse to come, desperate for a comeback strategy that can work.

What’s clear from interviews with several dozen top Democratic politicians and operatives at all levels, however, is that there is no comeback strategy—just a collection of half-formed ideas, all of them challenged by reality. And for whatever scheme they come up with, Democrats don’t even have a flag-carrier. Barack Obama? He doesn’t want the job. Hillary Clinton? Too damaged. Bernie Sanders? Too socialist. Joe Biden? Too tied to Obama. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? Too Washington. Elizabeth Warren? Maybe. And all of them old, old, old.

There are now fewer than 700 days until Election Day 2018, as internal memos circulating among Democratic strategists point out with alarm. They differ in their prescriptions, but all boil down to the same inconvenient truth: If Republicans dominate the 2018 midterms, they will control the Senate (and with it, the Supreme Court) for years, and they will draw district lines in states that will lock in majorities in the House and across state capitals, killing the next generation of Democrats in the crib, setting up the GOP for an even more dominant 2020 and beyond.

What scares many Democrats about Trump isn’t any particular campaign pledge—his promises to build a wall or keep out Muslims or shut down Obamacare. Those are fights they can wrap their heads around. No, the existential, hair-on-fire threat to the Democratic Party is just how easy it was for Trump to sneak around their flank and rob them of an issue they thought was theirs alone—economic populism—even as they partied at fundraisers in Hollywood and the Hamptons.

If there’s anyone who can lay claim to having the worst job in Washington, it’s Chris Van Hollen. A freshman senator from Maryland, he has been charged with leading the Democrats’ efforts to retake the Senate in 2018. When Schumer, who is expected to stay central to fundraising and campaign strategy, announced Van Hollen’s role, he somewhat disingenuously described him as “our first choice”—as in first choice who didn’t say no.

Schumer and Van Hollen have a complex calculus ahead of them, driven not only by the need to keep the party base energized against Trump, but also the reality that 10 of their incumbents come from states Trump won and may often align with the president for their own survival. Senate Democrats were facing a terrible 2018 map before Trump, with 25 seats up for grabs, and their prospects have gotten notably worse, with races in already difficult spots like Missouri, North Dakota and West Virginia as the baseline, and potentially new territory opened up in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, after Trump’s wins there. Republicans are defending eight seats, but only one in a state Clinton won.

What Obama conveniently leaves out is how significantly gerrymandering, enabled by state-level losses, has since tilted the House map for Republicans, how different that 2006 Senate map looked from what’s ahead, and how at this same point, four years out from Election Day 2008, it was pretty clear that Obama and Clinton and John Edwards and probably Biden and Bill Richardson and all the way down to Dennis Kucinich were going to run for president. Now, no one has any idea who the field will be in 2020, and no one outside Washington knows the names that get talked about in Washington.

“With Barack, we skipped a whole generation,” Biden told me in an interview in his West Wing office just over a week before Trump’s inauguration, when I asked him if he would run in 2020 and what that says about the party’s lack of young leaders. “There’s also been times when it looked like there were a lot of qualified people who were younger, and all of a sudden you turn to the older folks in the party.” He didn’t name any.

There is no time for any of it: no time to debate what the party should focus on, no time to recruit candidates, no time to identify new leaders, no time to rebuild Democrats’ core of operations, no time to unpack everything that went wrong in the 2016 campaign, no time to build a legislative strategy, no time to wrap their heads around how much change is coming to America and American politics.

After decades of neglect, there’s nothing else, either.

“The Democratic Party now is left literally at zero—zero dollars in the bank, zero infrastructure as the Clinton campaign closes up shop,” wrote Democratic National Committee consultant Donnie Fowler in a post-mortem ordered by outgoing interim chair Donna Brazile, “and, most importantly, zero majority control in Washington and in 33 of the states.”

“Elections are only as bad as the next one,” Garcetti says, “when suddenly the impossible becomes possible.”

Whatever the truth of that statement, the next two and four years are going to be all about Trump. Anson Kaye, one of Clinton’s top media consultants, has been spending the weeks since the election giving a presentation on what happened and what he thinks has to happen now. It ends like this: “Trump is a radical. / Which makes him an opportunity. / Values first. / Stand up (for the little guy/against bullies/in the line of fire) / Talk like a normal person. / Protect the right to vote. / Treat 2018 like a national election. / Target governors and state legislators.”

Then on the final slide: “Be clear-eyed about the America we live in.”

 

[old manatee]

No, the existential, hair-on-fire threat to the Democratic Party is just how easy it was for Trump to sneak around their flank and rob them of an issue they thought was theirs alone—economic populism—even as they partied at fundraisers in Hollywood and the Hamptons.

rekt

 

[thepotatoman]

Demographic changes forcing republicans into full realignment in the next 10 years is still in effect. They just need to do a better job in the meantime. It seems like democrats have moved over into either Obama or Bernie style campaigning, so the change for that should be good. Only ones left wandering in the wilderness are the democrats that only know third way campaigning.

And 4 years is a ton of time to build up new names nationally. No one but wonks knew Cruz or Rubio in 2013.

2018 will be mostly defence federally, but hopefully there'll be opportunity in local races, depending on how republicans handle their first 2 years. Either way, it'll be a rough 4 years, but they can take back the reigns 2020.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Let's see what happens once the DNC picks a chair.

Chicken with the head cut off isn't much of a shock at this point.

 

[VendettaRed07]

.

 

[titiklabingapat]

I get that the White Nationalists are galvanized but it's not like it was a blowout. Dems still gained House and Senate seats and Hillary lost many of the Rust Belt states she needed by 1% or less and of course, she won the popular vote.

Yeah, it was a demoralizing lost but demographic changes and fundamentals still remain. The Blue ebb and flow *will* catch up, flipping many of the Red strongholds of the new progressive coalition (minorities, big cities, millenials) Blue in exchange for the losses in the Rust Belt. Remember, VA, NC, GA and FL are still very much in play. 2020 is a more than enough time to regroup. Nothing unites Democrats better than a Republican boogeyman realized.

2018 would be a good opportunity for a savvy, relatively unknown, young and charismatic Democratic leader to come out into the limelight.

 

[Luxorek]

I get that the White Nationalists are galvanized but it's not like it was a blowout. Dems still gained House and Senate seats and Hillary lost many of the Rust Belt states she needed by 1% or less and of course, she won the popular vote.

Yeah, it was a demoralizing lost but demographic changes and fundamentals still remain. The Blue ebb and flow *will* catch up, flipping many of the Red strongholds of the new progressive coalition (minorities, big cities, millenials) Blue in exchange for the losses in the Rust Belt. Remember, VA, NC, GA and FL are still very much in play. 2020 is a more than enough time to regroup. Nothing unites Democrats better than a Republican boogeyman realized.

2018 would be a good opportunity for a savvy, relatively unknown, young and charismatic Democratic leader to come out into the limelight.

Answered in the article

The Democrats’ desolation is staggering. But part of the problem is that it’s easy to point to signs that maybe things aren’t so bad. After all, Clinton did beat Trump by 2.8 million votes, Obama’s approval rating is nearly 60 percent, polls show Democrats way ahead of the GOP on many issues and demographics suggest that gap will only grow. But they are stuck in the minority in Congress with no end in sight, have only 16 governors left and face 32 state legislatures fully under GOP control. Their top leaders in the House are all over 70. Their top leaders in the Senate are all over 60. Under Obama, Democrats have lost 1,034 seats at the state and federal level—there’s no bench, no bench for a bench, virtually no one able to speak for the party as a whole.

“The fact that our job should be easier just shows how poorly we’re doing the job,” says Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton, an Iraq War veteran seen as one of the party’s rising stars.

 

[Abelard]

rekt

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Well get the defibrillators ready, we must bring FDR back to life.

 

[benjipwns]

They expected her to win, of course, but they knew President Clinton was going to get thrashed in the 2018 midterms—the races were tilted in Republicans’ favor, and that’s when they thought the backlash would really hit. Many assumed she’d be a one-term president. They figured she’d get a primary challenge. Some of them had already started gaming out names for who it would be.

Some of this seems like after the fact asscovering.

 

[echoshifting]

Just read the whole article.

Well, that's that.

 

[Haly]

I hope Zuckerberg isn't the leftist demagogue we'll see in 2020 but by god I'll vote for him if it's between him and Trump. If the DNC can't come up with anything they should just do what Trump did and recruit/entice someone from outside of politics.

The optics would play well anyway so why not?

 

[titiklabingapat]

Answered in the article

I didn't say that locally Dems are not in trouble. They are and this is the result of geopolitical and electoral realities that will take a while to fix (the Founding fathers did not foresee Mega Metro regions for instance). The Presidency, however is still very much in reach. It just takes one well run tight ship and the right (maybe unknown) personality and the Dems don't have that in short supply. If Trump overreaches himself then 2020 would be a perfect time for a blue wave to come in, just in time for the census.

 

[Ac30]

Well that was absolutely depressing. Can't wait for the Dems to hopefully retake the presidency in 2020 and then have no power to do shit, because the Republicans learned long ago, just stall until you get (R) back in the White House; at this point they'll have the eternal majority.

I do wonder how America has gone so far off the deep end, though. As everyone else moved center left, America just kept going right.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

The problem since 2010 has been one thing: they spend too much time on identity politics, and not enough on the economy and talking about their successes.

They literally ran from them in 2010, and lost their majorities as a result.

Clinton spent more time bashing trump then she did boasting about herself.

No one seemed to be trying to cut through GOP noise about the economy.

The key to winning in 2018/20 is hit the economy, hit it hard, and don't let up.

 

[titiklabingapat]

The problem since 2010 has been one thing: they spend too much time on identity politics, and not enough on the economy and talking about their successes.

They literally ran from them in 2010, and lost their majorities as a result.

Clinton spent more time bashing trump then she did boasting about herself.

No one seemed to be trying to cut through GOP noise about the economy.

The key to winning in 2018/20 is hit the economy, hit it hard, and don't let up.

The Democrats talked about the economy. It's just that the people that voted for Trump doesn't want to listen. Voters voting against thier own interest has been a thing since before 2010. Identity politics has nothing to do with it.

Well that was absolutely depressing. Can't wait for the Dems to hopefully retake the presidency in 2020 and then have no power to do shit, because the Republicans learned long ago, just stall until you get (R) back in the White House; at this point they'll have the eternal majority.

I do wonder how America has gone so far off the deep end, though. As everyone else moved center left, America just kept going right.

This is not an American thing. A wave of populism and protectionism has been sweeping the globe.

 

[Chairman Yang]

Well that was absolutely depressing. Can't wait for the Dems to hopefully retake the presidency in 2020 and then have no power to do shit, because the Republicans learned long ago, just stall until you get (R) back in the White House; at this point they'll have the eternal majority.

I do wonder how America has gone so far off the deep end, though. As everyone else moved center left, America just kept going right.

Unfortunately, it's not just an American thing. Many developed countries are becoming more right-wing and authoritarian. Liberalism worldwide seems to be fading with shocking speed.

 

[Ekai]

The problem since 2010 has been one thing: they spend too much time on identity politics, and not enough on the economy and talking about their successes.

They literally ran from them in 2010, and lost their majorities as a result.

Clinton spent more time bashing trump then she did boasting about herself.

No one seemed to be trying to cut through GOP noise about the economy.

The key to winning in 2018/20 is hit the economy, hit it hard, and don't let up.

The key is to approach both. This Democrat desire to go with the moderate approach of "the economy only" is disturbing to me. Especially since when Democrats do so, they compromise to the detriment of both minority rights and the economy In essence, going with the centrist approach will only give Republicans what they want. And we can't afford to give Republicans any inch. It's only going to give them more power. Throwing minorities under the bus/ACTIVELY BLAMING US does nothing to help the Democrats. It only throws us under the bus...which we're already incredibly used to. Attitudes like this only prove to me more and more that Democrats are allies in name only. If you give a fuck about the people, you approach matters from all angles.

Hell, Hillary was way more focused on the economy than she was on minority rights. She spoke so damn often about the struggles the working poor faced, even working poor whites...and it resonated with them. She won the working poor vote by significantly far greater numbers than Trump. This narrative that Trump won the poor on "economic anxiety" is flat out false. The facts don't support it. He won because of the rich/middle class and just enough working poor individuals in very specific areas (literally about 100k votes determined the election). Taking the lesson that we need to throw minorities to the wayside is counter-productive on so many levels. Hell, the link I provided argues as much while combating your desire to get rid of us.

 

[Ac30]

Unfortunately, it's not just an American thing. Many developed countries are becoming more right-wing and authoritarian. Liberalism worldwide seems to be fading with shocking speed.

This is true, but I was talking more over the last 3 decades - a centrist like Obama was one of the few leftward shifts since the 80s, and he's not even leftwing, Europe-wise.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I do wonder how America has gone so far off the deep end, though. As everyone else moved center left, America just kept going right.

Nah, Europe has been moving to the right for years too. Look at Nigel Farage and the UKIP and then Brexit, also Marine Le Pen and the National Front for notable examples of this. Even in Germany, far-right movements are gaining momentum despite the ever-present shadow of that nation's 20th century history.

 

[grandjedi6]

Defending the little guy is a good approach since Trump can't help but play into it with his bullying. Easy to tie into an economic message too, especially with Trump cutting... everything.

 

[Nelo Ice]

Unfortunately, it's not just an American thing. Many developed countries are becoming more right-wing and authoritarian. Liberalism worldwide seems to be fading with shocking speed.

Yep I'm completely terrified of the world falling to the far right.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Unfortunately, it's not just an American thing. Many developed countries are becoming more right-wing and authoritarian. Liberalism worldwide seems to be fading with shocking speed.

Liberalism has become entangled with neoliberalism in many Western democracies. The result is a world where the most prominent liberals are also yearly attendees at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. People are somehow shocked that these ultra-wealthy, ultra-powerful, ultra-elite individuals are not exactly aligned with the interests of the common people of the world's nations. Liberalism lost all of it's original meaning sometime around the turn of the millennium, it's sudden appearance of fading today is a symptom of the demise of what it once was in the past decade.

The people of the world haven't rejected liberalism, but they have wholeheartedly rejected the individuals today who claim to be the leaders of liberal movements worldwide.

 

[Aaronology]

The problem since 2010 has been one thing: they spend too much time on identity politics, and not enough on the economy and talking about their successes.

They literally ran from them in 2010, and lost their majorities as a result.

Clinton spent more time bashing trump then she did boasting about herself.

No one seemed to be trying to cut through GOP noise about the economy.

The key to winning in 2018/20 is hit the economy, hit it hard, and don't let up.

In nearly every swing state, voters preferred Hillary Clinton on the economy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/02/in-nearly-every-swing-state-voters-preferred-hillary-clinton-on-the-economy/?utm_term=.a88b5cc0bf75

The driving narrative for the results of the November election has run contrary to that. According to a broad swath of popular understanding, Donald Trump will be the next president because he narrowly won three critical states -- Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- powered by working class voters frustrated with economic intransigence.

But that's not what exit polling shows in those states, to Southpaw's point. Exit polls show Hillary Clinton winning a majority of the vote from people who told pollsters that the economy was the most important issue facing the country. What's more, in each state, a majority of voters said that was the case.

In fact, if we extend that out to every state for which we have exit polling, in 22 of those 27 states a majority of people said that the economy was the most important issue. And in 20 of those states, voters who said so preferred Hillary Clinton. In 17, in fact, a majority of those voters backed Clinton.

The circles with bright red slices are those in which voters who thought the economy was the most important issue either preferred Trump or preferred both candidates equally. Those are all states that went for Trump. In every other state, voters most worried about the economy preferred Clinton, even though she lost eight of those states.

Trump's narrow wins in those three key states mean that any number of factors could have been the determining one. But across the country, the story told by the exit polls seems clear: Trump didn't win because people were worried about the economy. He won thanks to people who were worried about the subjects of immigration and terrorism that he started hammering on from the very first day of his campaign.

Democrats think Trump won on economic issues — but exit polls offer a more complicated story
http://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-trump-econmic-issues-polls-2016-12

But while some Democrats read up on struggling white working-class voters and consider a strategy that prioritizes pocketbook issues over identity politics, others point to data suggesting a more complicated understanding of why Clinton failed to win in the former Rust Belt states.

An examination of the exit polls in three key states that helped swing the election Trump's way revealed that the economy was by far the most important issue to votes. But those who reported the economy as their top issue — at least in the abstract — believed that Clinton had a stronger message.

In Michigan, 52% of voters said the economy was "most important issue facing the country," compared to 60% of voters who said the same thing about the economy in 2012. This year, Clinton won by 6 points among people who reported that the economy was the most important issue, while Obama only won on that issue by 3 points.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton won by 4 points among the 56% of voters who reported that the economy was most important issue facing the country. In 2012, Romney won by 5 points among the 61% of voters concerned most about the economy.

The results were even more stark in Wisconsin. While about the same percentage of voters said the economy was the "most important issue facing the country" in 2016 and 2012 — 55% and 56%, respectively — Clinton won those voters by 11 points, while Romney won on the issue by a single point in 2012.

Matt McDermott, a senior analyst at Whitman Insight Strategies, acknowledged that while Democrats "need to do a better job" of connecting with workers concerned about economic and personal finance issues, "it's not the reason Hillary Clinton lost this election."

The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/hillary-clinton-working-class/509477/

But among the 52 percent of voters who said economics was the most important issue in the election, Clinton beat Trump by double digits. In the vast majority of swing states, voters said they preferred Clinton on the economy. If the 2016 election had come down to economics exclusively, the working class—which, by any reasonable definition, includes the black, Hispanic, and Asian working classes, too—would have elected Hillary Clinton president.

etc


Edit:

A bit from that Atlantic article that's particularly topical:

After the election, some people called for an end to ”identity politics" that promotes niche cultural issues over economic policy. But any reasonable working-class platform requires the advancement of policies that may disproportionately help non-whites. For example, hundreds of thousands of black men stay out of the labor force after being released from prison sentences for non-violent crimes. For them and their families, criminal justice reform is essential economic reform, even if poor whites see it as a distraction from that ”real" issues that bedevil the working class, like trade policy.

 

[soco]

it's funny people think the DNC is in some kind of crisis.

 

[Aaronology]

it's funny people think the DNC is in some kind of crisis.

Well, to a degree, it is. But it isn't the end of the world, either.

Unknown doesn't waste an opportunity to attack the Democratic Party from the left but you'll be hard pressed to find him or her posting actual ideas or solutions for the Left moving forward. This thread is a great example.

 

[Ac30]

it's funny people think the DNC is in some kind of crisis.

I'd be interested in another perspective, if you have one on hand. What the author is saying about the bench being empty aligns with what I fear - who's up for the job in 2020 that people actually know? Biden's old and probably doesn't want the job, Warren seems like a half-decent choice, and that's it?

Fuck, I hope Obama can get that redistricting initiative of his off the ground. Let's be real though the GOP will just laugh in his face with that.

 

[Log4Girlz]

it's funny people think the DNC is in some kind of crisis.

Losing hundreds of state level politicians, being in the minority in most states, losing all branches of government. Losing a supreme court nom. No crisis here, no siree.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

it's funny people think the DNC is in some kind of crisis.

Head buried firmly in the sand?

The Republicans control the House, the Senate, the Presidency, a majority of Governorships, a majority of State Legislatures, and soon the Supreme Court. They control every level of government from top to bottom. The last time one party held this much power at once was 1922 or something.

I believe the Republicans only need to control 2 or 3 more states to call a Constitutional Convention if they wanted to. They only need 3 seats in the Senate, which they may get in 2018, to be able to pass any legislation at the Federal level with zero Democratic votes.

 

[O Canada Our Home and Native Land]

In nearly every swing state, voters preferred Hillary Clinton on the economy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/02/in-nearly-every-swing-state-voters-preferred-hillary-clinton-on-the-economy/?utm_term=.a88b5cc0bf75




Democrats think Trump won on economic issues — but exit polls offer a more complicated story
http://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-trump-econmic-issues-polls-2016-12


The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/hillary-clinton-working-class/509477/





etc


Edit:

A bit from that Atlantic article that's particularly topical:

I've seen you post all that info before. If they preferred Hillary on the economy and the economy was one of the two most important issues, then why did she lose?

 

[Log4Girlz]

Democrats are fucked for at least one generation

 

[Ac30]

I've seen you post all that info before. If they preferred Hillary on the economy and the economy was one of the two most important issues, then why did she lose?

I'm assuming it's because many, many people just hated Hillary as a person

 

[thepotatoman]

I've seen you post all that info before. If they preferred Hillary on the economy and the economy was one of the two most important issues, then why did she lose?

I have a hard time reading those types of results like that as well. The data on its own is meaningless without comparing it to other results, but doing so seems incredibly hard, since the issue that people care about switch around more than their actual votes do. If a bunch of die hard republican switch their most important issue from economy with romney to immigration with trump, what does that really tell us?

In that case, hillary would naturally do better on the economy than Obama, and would complete mask the voters that stuck with economy as most important issue through both campaigns while switching from Romney to Hillary or Obama to Trump, which is the only stat we care about for his argument.

 

[tearsintherain]

Everyone thought in 2008 the republicans were pretty fucked with hispanics turning away, women turning away, etc. It reached a fever pitch in 2015 with many pundits snidely declaring that we may never see another republican president in our lifetime due to the power of the hispanic and women vote.

You know what the republicans changed in the past 8 years? Absolutely nothing. Trump was just a guy who rode a anti-establishment, "fuck everything" wave, and his opponent was the literal stand in for establishment politics. He pretty much doubled down on anti-Hispanic and women rhetoric and it didn't hurt him in the slightest.

American politics is silly to the extreme - we vote in one party, expect them to fix shit, nothing gets done, then we throw a temper tantrum 8 years later and vote in the other party and expect them to fix everything.

Yeah ivory tower elitism, identity politics, wall street cozying, free trade, etc are all important issues to some people but end of the day American politics seems to revolve around "throw the bums out", with the bums being choice A for 4-8 years then choice B for 4-8 years. Too bad we only got 2 choices to flip between.

 

[Aaronology]

The key is to approach both. This Democrat desire to go with the moderate approach of "the economy only" is disturbing to me. Especially since when Democrats do so, they compromise to the detriment of both minority rights and the economy In essence, going with the centrist approach will only give Republicans what they want. And we can't afford to give Republicans any inch. It's only going to give them more power. Throwing minorities under the bus/ACTIVELY BLAMING US does nothing to help the Democrats. It only throws us under the bus...which we're already incredibly used to. Attitudes like this only prove to me more and more that Democrats are allies in name only. If you give a fuck about the people, you approach matters from all angles.

Hell, Hillary was way more focused on the economy than she was on minority rights. She spoke so damn often about the struggles the working poor faced, even working poor whites...and it resonated with them. She won the working poor vote by significantly far greater numbers than Trump. This narrative that Trump won the poor on "economic anxiety" is flat out false. The facts don't support it. He won because of the rich/middle class and just enough working poor individuals in very specific areas (literally about 100k votes determined the election). Taking the lesson that we need to throw minorities to the wayside is counter-productive on so many levels. Hell, the link I provided argues as much while combating your desire to get rid of us.

Let's beef up this point a little for emphasis:

White and wealthy voters gave victory to Donald Trump, exit polls show
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/white-voters-victory-donald-trump-exit-polls

It was all supposed to hinge on the surging turnout of Latino voters for Hillary Clinton and whether or not the Democratic nominee could persuade enough African American voters to emulate them.

In the end, according to exit polls, the election result seems to have been more about the clear backing of America’s white and wealthy voters for Donald Trump – including white graduates, and white female voters.

Far from being purely a revolt by poorer whites left behind by globalisation, who did indeed turn out in greater numbers for the Republican candidate than in 2012, Trump’s victory also relied on the support of the middle-class, the better-educated and the well-off.

..

But on the poll’s evidence, although the disaffected, economically insecure white blue-collar voters to whom Trump was always going to appeal certainly helped him win in rustbelt states such as Michigan, they cannot explain the new Republican president’s performance nationwide.

What appears to have made the biggest difference on the night was the turnout for Trump of white voters across the board – of both sexes, almost all ages and education levels, and from mid- and higher income levels.

Among the more startling data to emerge from the poll:

• White voters, who make up 69% of the total, voted 58% for Trump and 37% for Clinton. Non-white voters, who make up 31% of the electorate, voted 74% for Clinton and 21% for Trump.
• White men opted 63% for Trump and 31% for Clinton; white women voted 53% for Trump and 43% for Clinton.
• Among non-college-educated whites, 67% voted for Trump – 72% of men and 62% of women.
• Among college-educated whites, 45% voted for Clinton – 39% of men and 51% of women (the only white demographic represented in the poll where the former secretary of state came out on top). But 54% of male college graduates voted for Trump, as did 45% of female college graduates.
• More 18- to 29-year-old whites voted for Trump (48%) than Clinton (43%).

The Mythology Of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support
His voters are better off economically compared with most Americans.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/

It’s been extremely common for news accounts to portray Donald Trump’s candidacy as a “working-class” rebellion against Republican elites. There are elements of truth in this perspective: Republican voters, especially Trump supporters, are unhappy about the direction of the economy. Trump voters have lower incomes than supporters of John Kasich or Marco Rubio. And things have gone so badly for the Republican “establishment” that the party may be facing an existential crisis.

But the definition of “working class” and similar terms is fuzzy, and narratives like these risk obscuring an important and perhaps counterintuitive fact about Trump’s voters: As compared with most Americans, Trump’s voters are better off. The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data. That’s lower than the $91,000 median for Kasich voters. But it’s well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It’s also higher than the median income for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is around $61,000 for both.

Trump voters’ median income exceeded the overall statewide median in all 23 states, sometimes narrowly (as in New Hampshire or Missouri) but sometimes substantially. In Florida, for instance, the median household income for Trump voters was about $70,000, compared with $48,000 for the state as a whole. The differences are usually larger in states with substantial non-white populations, as black and Hispanic voters are overwhelmingly Democratic and tend to have lower incomes. In South Carolina, for example, the median Trump supporter had a household income of $72,000, while the median for Clinton supporters was $39,000.

Where the Poverty Level is Over 25% the Election Was a Shutout. For Hillary Clinton, Not for Trump.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/30/1615722/-Where-the-Poverty-Level-is-Over-25-the-Election-Was-a-Shutout-For-Hillary-Clinton-Not-for-Trump

I hear that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats lost the November election because they abandoned their constituents who are struggling economically and need help.

The vote totals say that it’s not a true statement.

The scatterplot chart above illustrates non-correlation between poverty rates and Clinton’s vote totals. At the county-level, the size of her margin didn’t depend on the number of people below the poverty line. However, the vote for Trump was limited in counties if more than 23.5% of the population was below the poverty line. The election results are exactly the opposite of what they’d be if Trump voters were looking for better economic conditions, above all else.

In the counties where more than 25 percent of the population is below the poverty line, Clinton prevailed over Trump, 57% to 39%.

One in every ten people below the poverty line can be found in the counties with poverty rates over 25 percent. They're represented by the 10 dots farthest right in the chart above and all of them are blue. If people in poverty saw something in Donald Trump, you’d see some red dots in the lower-right portion of the chart, but there are none.

 

[titiklabingapat]

I'd be interested in another perspective, if you have one on hand. What the author is saying about the bench being empty aligns with what I fear - who's up for the job in 2020 that people actually know? Biden's old and probably doesn't want the job, Warren seems like a half-decent choice, and that's it?

Fuck, I hope Obama can get that redistricting initiative of his off the ground. Let's be real though the GOP will just laugh in his face with that.

Barrack and Bill were relative unknowns.

 

[Aaronology]

I've seen you post all that info before. If they preferred Hillary on the economy and the economy was one of the two most important issues, then why did she lose?

To take a cue from the OP, I'll just post an article without commentary.

It was the racism, stupid: White working-class “economic anxiety” is a zombie idea that needs to die
Donald Trump was supported by white voters across demographic groups. Can we stop coddling them?
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/05/it-was-the-racism-stupid-white-working-class-economic-anxiety-is-a-zombie-idea-that-needs-to-die/

On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will become president of the United States of America. Donald Trump is an authoritarian and demagogue who meets the definition of a fascist, as I have argued on multiple previous occasions. His election and the 60 million voters who supported him are a threat to American democracy.

How did this happen?

The first draft of this history is being written now. In the years and decades to come, we will have the benefit of hindsight, as well as more information and context, to make better sense of Donald Trump’s victory on Election Day 2016 and its implications for American democracy and global politics.

But in the immediate present, the dominant narrative for explaining the rise of Donald Trump and his fascist movement has been centered upon the “white working class” and its purported “economic anxiety.” For a variety of reasons, this is a compelling story for the American corporate news media, the pundits and other elite opinion leaders.

The white economic anxiety narrative is simplistic. It is also the result of a type of “path dependence,” whereby the answers offered are largely a function of the questions asked. The white economic anxiety thesis is also a way for the pundit class — with a majority of its members being white and from a very narrow socioeconomic background — to ignore the enduring power of racism and sexism in American society.

Here, a belief that it must be something other than racism (and sexism) that won Trump the election functions as a conceptual blinder for analysts and commentators who want to deny the ugly truth about the values and beliefs held by their fellow (white) Americans. In all, these factors are part of an effort, albeit a superficial one, to empathize with the supposed pain and anger of white working-class voters who feel “left behind” and by doing so normalize their egregious, irresponsible and hateful decision to support Donald Trump.

Most important, the economic-anxiety thesis is in many ways incorrect.

It is hobbled on a foundational level: Who makes up the white working class? Is the white working class defined by geographic region, educational level, income or cultural habitus? How one defines the white working class will in turn shape any answer about its members’ voting habits and other political decisions.

To wit: Trump won white voters across almost every demographic category. Both low-income and high-income whites supported him at rates higher than their peers backed Hillary Clinton. In fact, the typical Trump supporter comes from a household that earns $72,000 a year — significantly above the national average — and has not been negatively affected by globalization.

Moreover, if the economic anxiety thesis were correct, blacks, Latinos and Native Americans (people who have much less wealth and income than whites) would have flocked to Trump. Instead, they were repulsed by him and overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

A recent analysis of county-level census data shows, in fact, that Clinton won a higher percentage of the vote in economically distressed communities than did Trump. But Trump benefited from a statistical fluke, winning enough white voters in economically distressed Rust Belt areas to score an Electoral College majority while overwhelmingly losing the popular vote.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Barrack and Bill were relative unknowns.

They were also regarded as "once-in-a-lifetime" politicians. Which is kinda weird since it actually happened twice in a lifetime, but I'm not seeing anybody new from the Democrats who could potentially be the next Bill or Barack.

 

[thepotatoman]

Let's beef up this point a little for emphasis:

White and wealthy voters gave victory to Donald Trump, exit polls show
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/white-voters-victory-donald-trump-exit-polls


The Mythology Of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support
His voters are better off economically compared with most Americans.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/


Where the Poverty Level is Over 25% the Election Was a Shutout. For Hillary Clinton, Not for Trump.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/30/1615722/-Where-the-Poverty-Level-is-Over-25-the-Election-Was-a-Shutout-For-Hillary-Clinton-Not-for-Trump

None of these have any relevence without comparing with 2012. Republicans have always won the rich over the poor. The question is which side did Hillary bleed support from over the democrat victories of 2006-2012.

 

[O Canada Our Home and Native Land]

To take a cue from the OP, I'll just post an article without commentary.

It was the racism, stupid: White working-class “economic anxiety” is a zombie idea that needs to die
Donald Trump was supported by white voters across demographic groups. Can we stop coddling them?
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/05/it-was-the-racism-stupid-white-working-class-economic-anxiety-is-a-zombie-idea-that-needs-to-die/

Then how did a black president get elected twice? Did white america change their mind after Obama? The argument needs more backing than what the article provided. That yougov study doesn't provide cause for a Trump victory other than that people are implicitly racist.

 

[Aaronology]

Then how did a black president get elected twice? Did white america change their mind after Obama? The argument needs more backing than what the article provided. That yougov study doesn't provide cause for a Trump victory other than that people are implicitly racist.

2008 is not 2012 which is also not 2016. Attitudes on race have changed over the last decade, as they have changed over the course of history. From white America there has absolutely been a backlash against our first black President and to a lesser degree movements like BLM. If you're suggesting that the United States suddenly stopped being a country filled with racism on account of Barack's Presidency...

...well, fuck. It's late, and I honestly don't have any intention of attempting to engage you there.

 

[Aaronology]

None of these have any relevence without comparing with 2012. Republicans have always won the rich over the poor. The question is which side did Hillary bleed support from over the democrat victories of 2006-2012.

These points and more and literally addressed in the first several paragraphs of an article you jumped to deem irrelevant. I'm not going to reiterate anything else here, as I feel what I've posted has been sufficient enough in response to the discussion sparked by Mr_Antimatter's comments.

 

[Big Baybee]

Then how did a black president get elected twice? Did white america change their mind after Obama? The argument needs more backing than what the article provided. That yougov study doesn't provide cause for a Trump victory other than that people are implicitly racist.

White america as a whole didn't vote for Obama.

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

The only thing that is constant in politics is the impermanence of one party's power. These articles were made in 2004, 2008, 2012 and it didn't matter. You could just as easily write an article about how Trump and Congress don't see eye to eye on every issue and what they're going to do when they have to run for re-election and defend working with someone who's poll numbers are garbage in the honeymoon phase of all times.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

In nearly every swing state, voters preferred Hillary Clinton on the economy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/02/in-nearly-every-swing-state-voters-preferred-hillary-clinton-on-the-economy/?utm_term=.a88b5cc0bf75




Democrats think Trump won on economic issues — but exit polls offer a more complicated story
http://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-trump-econmic-issues-polls-2016-12


The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/hillary-clinton-working-class/509477/





etc


Edit:

A bit from that Atlantic article that's particularly topical:

It's macabre that terrorism is more about eliciting a radical reaction than killing hundreds of people, that's just the cherry on top for that scum, but it works.

 

[LosDaddie]

rekt

Yup. Really highlights how terrible a candidate Abuela was.

 

[Brakke]

rekt

"The democrats are out-of-touch elites!" angle continues to be nonsense in a world where Hillary beat Trump by millions of votes.

It's a mistake to overlearn the lesson of an Electoral College defeat.

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

Yup. Really highlights how terrible a candidate Abuela was.

How the hell are people still doing this "abuela" thing. I never understood it.

 

[Lord Frieza]

Anddddd that article basically sucked any hope left right out of me. The GOP is going to totally sidestep the issue of demographics by rigging the whole thing to where they can never lose, at least to a major degree, every again, and the opposition is so guttes there's no real defense in place. It's done.

 

[Rentahamster]

The DNC really fucked this up, I think. Hopefully the new chair will get the house back in order.

Bernie Sanders? Too socialist.

I actually disagree with the article here. Sander is fine, with the right marketing.

Anddddd that article basically sucked any hope left right out of me. The GOP is going to totally sidestep the issue of demographics by rigging the whole thing to where they can never lose, at least to a major degree, every again, and the opposition is so guttes there's no real defense in place. It's done.

Don't feel too bad. One party is usually not overwhelmingly in the majority for an extended period of time. There's ebbs and flows. You'll get 8 years max, and if there's more, it's probably because they actually pulled their heads out of their asses and governed well. Or because the Democrats fucked things up again. Perhaps a little of both.

 

[Nelo Ice]

Anddddd that article basically sucked any hope left right out of me. The GOP is going to totally sidestep the issue of demographics by rigging the whole thing to where they can never lose, at least to a major degree, every again, and the opposition is so guttes there's no real defense in place. It's done.

Yep that's been in the back of my head. What hope do we have if we can even mount a comeback if they're going to rig the system against us and shut us down before we can even do anything?!. I hold slim hope for 2018 and even then I can see how much the GOP will fuck the Dems over. I can barely handle day 1 and I'll be near suicidal if this gets past 4 years.