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[royalan]

It's not a purity test. People are concerned about those who backed Clinton because Clinton was responsible for the worst Democratic defeat in a generation, that handed the GOP power on a scale not seen in almost a century. That screams of bad judgement. Like, if you backed such a bad candidate now, why should we trust you to pick good candidates in the future?

Crab, this is hindsight thinking and you know it.

You can think she's a bad candidate all you want, I don't even disagree with some areas of that thinking. But polling data and her performance in the primaries have plenty is reason to back her.

 

[mo60]

Looking at everything coming out, it appears the GOP is just going to turn the country into Kansas with their economic policies. Good luck with that.

Trump and the GOP are going to end up like the federal conservatives in Canada eventually if they try that.

 

[pigeon]

pigeon, stop being dumb. Politicians do the things they promise to do, yes, but they can also do other things they didn't promise if it doesn't contradict those promises. That's, like, politics in a nutshell.

Saying that messages need to be targeted is, like, common sense. The Democrats need to be a party of minority issues and minority rights, yes. When they campaign in minority areas, where minorities provide the crucial votes, they need to emphasize what they do for minority issues. But when they campaign in areas where minority votes are not the crucial votes, then they don't need to. That doesn't mean they're anti-minority. It doesn't even mean that, when in office, they don't implement racial justice reforms. It just means that the emphasis of the message is elsewhere. Racial justice is still in the manifesto, it's still in the party platform, but it isn't the focus of the campaign leaflets and rallies, etc.

I mean, you asked me whether I thought racial justice should be a national message.

What I'm reading above is that you don't think there should be a national message, but only a local one.

Which means your question was a trick question! That seems rude.

If you think the way to winning back Wisconsin is to turn up at the rusted out remains of the old factories and start telling cranky old white men about why they need to vote Democrat because otherwise there won't be police reform, you're going to lose. We literally just tried that, that's why Clinton lost.

And if you think you're going to get racial justice without winning over Wisconsin, you're nuts. To be President, you have to win 270 votes in the electoral college. I will always vote for racial justice unconditionally. Always have, always will. But I have the basic common sense to work out that there's not enough people like you and I to win office. That requires building a coalition - you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Cranky old white guys in Wisconsin will vote for people who assist with racial justice. We know because at least some of them voted Obama. But in return, they want people who assist with the auto industry, and so on.

I think this is mostly false.

Hillary lost three states by 1% or less -- MI, WI, PA. If she had won them, she'd be president.

She lost those states in the face of the most concerted effort, from both Russia and US government agencies, to destroy her and invalidate her candidacy, that America has ever seen.

It is too early, and too easy, for white liberals to decide the problem was that we cared too much about people of color.

As I said before, this desire to immediately discard people of color and their desire to live in peace when they seem to be dragging on your economic interests is the exact same desire that drove so many white Obama voters to vote for Trump this year. It is the selfsame moral failing.

 

[whyamihere]

Ellison is fine.
Dean is fine.
They'd both be fine.

This primaries fight needs to end. Guess what? We're all losers. Bernie's coalition wasn't big enough in the primary and Hillary couldn't drive turn out in the general.

Also sobering.

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

Crab, this is hindsight thinking and you know it.

You can think she's a bad candidate all you want, I don't even disagree with some areas of that thinking. But polling data and her performance in the primaries have plenty is reason to back her.

She was polling statistically tied with Trump in most head to head match ups during the primary.

 

[Officerrob]

Howard Dean is not a "Clinton person". If people seriously want everyone out who endorsed Hillary over Bernie, they might as well start a new party and enjoy the single digit vote totals

 

[Deleted member 231381]

So your admitting that Sanders judgment is in question considering he made the decision to back her as well and thus we shouldn't listen to him or does he get a special escape card? He could have chosen to just take his ball and go he and remain pure, but he didn't and even campaigned and pushed for her much harder than people like Dean did.

And in the case that Sanders nonetheless gets an escape card and his judgement remains pure, why can't we give other people escape cards as well where this clearly doesn't seem to amount to anything meaningful in their cases, such as Dean? Either apply this consistently or not. Don't try to have it both ways where it only applies to the people you don't like and not the ones you do.

Sanders literally only endorsed Clinton at the point she was the Democratic nominee. What did you want him to do - not endorse her at all? Don't be stupid. If he had refused to endorse, you'd have gone stark raving mad over it. By contrast, Dean chose to commit to Clinton very early on, when he had a choice between multiple candidates. Heck, he didn't even have to pick between Sanders and Clinton, he could have talked to promising young talents like Booker or whoever else this thread thinks well of and encouraged them to run. The fact that he committed to the Clinton train so early, especially when she just lead to the Democratic party's worst defeat in nearly a century, is, at least, is a good reason to be cautious.

Again, not reason not to consider him. But it does call into question at least part of his ability to sense the political waters and direction of the political current - key parts of what a DNC chair needs.

 

[metalslimer]

Please. Hindsight is 20/20. Democrats wanted to win. Hillary was remarkably well positioned to win in 2016 until Bernie did his stupid personal attacks on her which served as Trump ads and talking points in the general. Hillary had the necessary coalition backing her. She gave an exceptional fight to friggin Barack Obama in 2008 so of course she was considered a heavy favorite.

She was well liked. She actually had 60% approval rating before the fucking republicans made the media chase nonsense with their hearings.

I think this is important to remember as well. CLinton was a beloved secretary of state that people wished had run during some of the darkest Obama presidency days. I mean in 2015 it was obvious she would win especially with all the demographics in our favor.

The primary and the email server was the beginning of her undoing.

That being said the coronation she got can't happen again. We need a robust primary. If her and Biden had fought it out no matter who won I think would have been in a better position.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

She was polling statistically tied with Trump in most head to head match ups during the primary.

But doesn't history also show that polling during primaries as projections to general success as mostly useless?

And that they tighten really only when both primary contenders are mostly already decided?

 

[ShironRedshift]

She was polling statistically tied with Trump in most head to head match ups during the primary.

Oh? We suddenly trusting polls now? How interesting...

 

[Goodstyle]

I think this is moreso that Clinton was weaker than any of us imagined.

Edit: No knock against Clinton because she SHOULD be an amazing candidate but all of the bullshit just ended up being too much to overcome.

Nah man, I'm reading analysis suggesting Trump galvanized white support in a way unheard of in modern election history. Look out for Nate Cohn et al. They're going to release a big report soon.

Trump really connected with them somehow.

 

[HTupolev]

For people old enough, were things this bleak when Bush won? And during his presidency?

Not even close.

The Bush years were a time of substantial bitching, and the bubble grew into a big economic crisis that we still haven't fully recovered from. But for the most part, dialogue still existed and people weren't terrified that the world would actually come crashing down.

 

[Shao Kahn on the Lawn]

They are saying she needed to focus more on rural white racist voters and their concerns.

Venture outside of PoliGAF to regular OT and you will see. Posters there don't venture here, and vice versa.

No, they aren't. The fact that you can't see the difference in what they're saying and what you're asserting is a significant part of the problem.

 

[Grexeno]

She was polling statistically tied with Trump in most head to head match ups during the primary.

ALL THE POLLS WERE WRONG

except the good ones for Bernie

 

[ErasureAcer]

Crab, this is hindsight thinking and you know it.

You can think she's a bad candidate all you want, I don't even disagree with some areas of that thinking. But polling data and her performance in the primaries have plenty is reason to back her.

The most well known woman not named Oprah lost 22 states to a nobody from Vermont. This isn't what Hillary GAF was predicting. The read was ...Bernie might win Iowa and NH and lose everything else. You were all wrong. If Superdelegates, Media, and the DNC didn't tip the scales...we'd have President-Elect Bernie Sanders with the Senate and Paul Ryan's plan to cut Food Stamps would be the joke of the day of the day on PoliGAF. But it's real because Clinton is weak. Everyone who supported her is out of touch with reality of the America you live in. Corporatism is not the way.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Nah man, I'm reading analysis suggesting Trump galvanized white support in a way unheard of in modern election history. Look out for Nate Cohn et al. They're going to release a big report soon.

Trump really connected with them somehow.

He spoke to their economic concerns. He spoke to their seeming loss of standing. He spoke to immigration issues. He knew exactly what they wanted to hear.

 

[VendettaRed07]

Sobering.

It is but it isn't as bad as it seems. Hillary just couldn't make herself an extension of Obama no matter how hard she tried. She didn't have the same genuine appeal. People thought Obama was selfless and would do things to help out the working class. Clinton did not give people that impression.

 

[mo60]

Here is what the democrats should do instead of focusing on trying to get back rural areas and the people that live there. Try to energize the liberals that live in the cities in the midwest like WI,MI and PA and to a lesser extent NH. Try to strengthen their hold on the west and protect and build the gains they made in the southwest and southeast in this election. It's pointless trying to win back states like IA and OH.

 

[pigeon]

Also pigeon, I'm actually genuinely interested in your response to this - sorry to come across as brusque. I think we both genuinely care about the same things, and I respect your intellect, so find it frustrating and bewildering that we don't reach the same conclusions.

I like you too.

I don't mean it insultingly at all, but I genuinely think that being a white person in the UK versus being a person of color in America means that we just have different understandings of politics, especially as it relates to racial justice.

It is not as easy, emotionally, for me to put together responses to the arguments that we need to stop talking about the rights of people of color in red states as it is for people to make those arguments.

 

[Sirpopopop]

If someone is struggling putting food on the table, they're not going to give a shit about people not like them. Social issues are thrown out the window. It'll be someone who speaks to them economically. The Democrats forgot this and paid a heavy price. Sure maybe a solid percentage of them is racist, but I'd bet they want to be able to work near their homes and not struggle first.

And racial issues are paramount to someone like me. I would like to not be attacked when I leave the apartment thank you very much.

So yes, we have a divide here that can't be bridged. If you care about your economic anxiety enough to sacrifice my safety, I won't accept that at all.

This isn't a mere "disconnect" here. Safety isn't something that can be handwaved away. That we can compromise on. Focusing on their concerns means sacrificing my concerns. You do that and you lose my vote.

 

[Crocodile]

Crab, this is hindsight thinking and you know it.

You can think she's a bad candidate all you want, I don't even disagree with some areas of that thinking. But polling data and her performance in the primaries have plenty is reason to back her.

I mean, you asked me whether I thought racial justice should be a national message.

What I'm reading above is that you don't think there should be a national message, but only a local one.

Which means your question was a trick question! That seems rude.



I think this is mostly false.

Hillary lost three states by 1% or less -- MI, WI, PA. If she had won them, she'd be president.

She lost those states in the face of the most concerted effort, from both Russia and US government agencies, to destroy her and invalidate her candidacy, that America has ever seen.

It is too early, and too easy, for white liberals to decide the problem was that we cared too much about people of color.

As I said before, this desire to immediately discard people of color and their desire to live in peace when they seem to be dragging on your economic interests is the exact same desire that drove so many white Obama voters to vote for Trump this year. It is the selfsame moral failing.

Not that it excuses the mistakes made but the above (especially the bolded) bear repeating until the end of time.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Nah man, I'm reading analysis suggesting Trump galvanized white support in a way unheard of in modern election history. Look out for Nate Cohn et al. They're going to release a big report soon.

Trump really connected with them somehow.

I wonder what it might have been...

 

[thehypocrite]

Oh boy, more purity tests <3

The Clinton & Sanders worked together on the platform and she co-opted many/most of his positions. It was the most progressive Democrat platform ever. If it was good enough for Sanders, why isn't it good enough for you?

Also, politics is like all sausage making LOL. As long as nothing illegal or unethical is going on that's not a reason to be upset if the policies you like are being put in place or have a chance of being put in place.

Unethical is a value judgement. a lot of people think that Hillary had failings on those areas just so you know.

North Carolina, Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania heavily rely on black voter turnout for Democrats.

This is true.

Well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...us_5824cb95e4b0ddd4fe7954e8?f019736x1ofscerk9

He's right. Zach is completely right.

Fuck the old guard at the DNC.

She should be told* to step aside.

She will be gone by March. It's easier to let stay around and help her build the democratic party again while her successor gets picked.

No need to wait.

Yes because changing his party in the middle of his term to run for president is totally something he told his constituents he'd be doing.



She's not even that good on paper. She's one of those "Obama never said islamic terrorism" people.

I though only socialists used purity tests.

Here's a claim: the Democratic Party should stand for and advocate equal rights for people of color.

It should be one of the largest points in their platform.

Who agrees with this, and who doesn't?

I agree it must be. This is part of how they form their voting bloc. But a viable party caters to multiple blocs.

 

[Goodstyle]

The most well known woman not named Oprah lost 22 states to a nobody from Vermont. This isn't what Hillary GAF was predicting. The read was ...Bernie might win Iowa and NH and lose everything else. You were all wrong. If Superdelegates, Media, and the DNC didn't tip the scales...we'd have President-Elect Bernie Sanders with the Senate and Paul Ryan's plan to cut Food Stamps would be the joke of the day of the day on PoliGAF. But it's real because Clinton is weak. Everyone who supported her is out of touch with reality of the America you live in. Corporatism is not the way.

Jesus Christ, this fiction that Bernie was somehow this amazing campaigner that was held back by that pesky DNC is nonsense. He made some blindingly boneheaded decisions in his run, and Bernie people refuse to accept that he could have won if he didn't.

 

[Kusagari]

Honestly if this super villain Ryan plan does happen, I really do think someone like Bernie is the perfect candidate to run against it.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

And racial issues are paramount to someone like me. I would like to not be attacked when I leave the apartment thank you very much.

So yes, we have a divide here that can't be bridged. If you care about your economic anxiety enough to sacrifice my safety, I shouldn't have to accept that. Yet, here you are implying that I do need to understand and accept it.

I'm black, so yeah I know it sucks. But now look at the alternative that has just occurred.

 

[pigeon]

Nah man, I'm reading analysis suggesting Trump galvanized white support in a way unheard of in modern election history. Look out for Nate Cohn et al. They're going to release a big report soon.

Trump really connected with them somehow.

I have a theory how!

 

[RustyNails]

The most well known woman not named Oprah lost 22 states to a nobody from Vermont. This isn't what Hillary GAF was predicting. The read was ...Bernie might win Iowa and NH and lose everything else. You were all wrong. If Superdelegates, Media, and the DNC didn't tip the scales...we'd have President-Elect Bernie Sanders with the Senate and Paul Ryan's plan to cut Food Stamps would be the joke of the day of the day on PoliGAF. But it's real because Clinton is weak. Everyone who supported her is out of touch with reality of the America you live in. Corporatism is not the way.

This is the height of red herring.

How many states Obama lost to Hillary?

 

[Barzul]

Here is what the democrats should do instead of focusing on trying to get back rural areas and the people that live there. Try to energize the liberals that live in the cities in the midwest like WI,MI and PA and to a lesser extent NH. Try to strengthen their hold on the west and protect and build the gains they made in the southwest and southeast in this election. It's pointless trying to win back states like IA and OH.

Why is it pointless though? You want to hand Republicans those states for a generation or more?

 

[royalan]

Here is what the democrats should do instead of focusing on trying to get back rural areas and the people that live there. Try to energize the liberals that live in the cities in the midwest like WI,MI and PA and to a lesser extent NH. Try to strengthen their hold on the west and protect and build the gains they made in the southwest and southeast in this election. It's pointless trying to win back states like IA and OH.

Energizing city Dems isn't the problem, at least not in PA. Philly performed like we were supposed to. Trump still took the state.

 

[Basileus777]

Here is what the democrats should do instead of focusing on trying to get back rural areas and the people that live there. Try to energize the liberals that live in the cities in the midwest like WI,MI and PA and to a lesser extent NH. Try to strengthen their hold on the west and protect and build the gains they made in the southwest and southeast in this election. It's pointless trying to win back states like IA and OH.

So they should put all of their chips into winning a narrow electoral college victory and never taking the Senate, House, or state legislatures/governorships?

 

[Goodstyle]

I though only socialists used purity tests.

It's not a purity test. She defends Assad and claims the innocent people he and Putin are killing are just "terrorists". She's literally almost as bad as Trump is on foreign policy, she should absolutely never become president.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I didn't realize progressives hated the governor of Vermont

Liberals hate everyone. It's the default state. Because they're dumb.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

It is too early, and too easy, for white liberals to decide the problem was that we cared too much about people of color.

As I said before, this desire to immediately discard people of color and their desire to live in peace when they seem to be dragging on your economic interests is the exact same desire that drove so many white Obama voters to vote for Trump this year. It is the selfsame moral failing.

This is such a bad strawman it's almost painful. There is not a single person in this entire thread who has suggested we stop caring about people of colour, or that we discard people of colour. If you want violent protest, I will be at the barricades. All anyone is saying is that: when you're talking to unemployed angry white people, telling them they should vote for you because you'll improve the justice system is just pointless. That's the solution to somebody else's problem, not their own. They don't care. So use a different message! Then, once you're elected, you can please both coalitions. That's literally the entire point of a coalition. Angry white people's representatives will be able to go ahead with minority rights because they also get to go ahead with saving the auto industry.

Like, in my world, there are more minority rights being implemented than in yours, because in yours you literally never get elected because you seem to want the Democrats to be a single issue party!

 

[metalslimer]

We can't focus on city dems otherwise we will be locked out of the rest of government forever outside of a few presidential wins.

 

[mo60]

Honestly if this super villain Ryan plan does happen, I really do think someone like Bernie is the perfect candidate to run against it.

They seriously should look at what happened when the federal conservatives in Canada got a lot of power. Sadly they won't if they actually abuse their power and the will be crushed in four or eight years.

 

[A Human Becoming]

I'm even more surprised she was able to win New Hampshire now.

We need more Mass transplants here.

 

[mo60]

Energizing city Dems isn't the problem, at least not in PA. Philly performed like we were supposed to. Trump still took the state.

Then I have no clue.

 

[pigeon]

I agree it must be. This is part of how they form their voting bloc. But a viable party caters to multiple blocs.

I agree.

Can you believe that I genuinely lacked faith that Bernie and his movement would protect this goal, in the same way that you and others genuinely lacked faith that Hillary would fight for anti-corporate reforms?

This shapes my response to the debate about the DNC currently going on.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I like you too.

I don't mean it insultingly at all, but I genuinely think that being a white person in the UK versus being a person of color in America means that we just have different understandings of politics, especially as it relates to racial justice.

If it helps, I am a minority in a way I do not feel comfortable disclosing on GAF. It's not a visually applicable one, so I don't have to suffer the public opprobrium and shame you do, and I can empathize but likely never understand, but I do know something of the hate of the ignorant.

 

[kirblar]

They seriously should look at what happened when the federal conservatives in Canada got a lot of power. Sadly they won't if they actually abuse their power and the will be crushed in four or eight years.

This already happened w/ Dubya.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

We can't focus on city dems otherwise we will be locked out of the rest of government forever outside of a few presidential wins.

It's like targeted messaging isn't a thing! Different areas will have different concerns. There is no need to mention as many social issues to rural voters as there is urban/suburban voters.

Economics as the blanket. Targeted messaging and policy proposals from there depending on who you're talking to and where.

 

[Plumbob]

We have no idea what the democratic party's going to look like in 2 years, folks.

 

[kirblar]

It's like targeted messaging isn't a thing! Different areas will have different concerns. There is no need to mention as many social issues to rural voters as there is urban/suburban voters.

Economics as the blanket. Targeted messaging and policy proposals from there depending on who you're talking to and where.

I'd go further and say you need to do what the GOP does. After the primary, backburner social issues. People don't vote on them. Prepare the pro-reproductive rights, LBGT+, BLM agenda in the back and put it into full force on Day 1.

 

[mo60]

So they should put all of their chips into winning a narrow electoral college victory and never taking the Senate, House, or state legislatures/governorships?

Nope. They can still focus on gaining back what they lost in the midwest states but they should not be focusing on the midwerst exclusively. They midwest states they should be focusing on are MI, PA and WI. They need to focus on going after the GOP's weakspot's in the West, southeast and southwest.

 

[The Chosen One]

Wow just looked at the first page on OT GAF, about 75% of the topics are related to Trump in some way.

There wasn't anywhere near this amount leading up to election day. Have to think that if people actually had some urgency BEFORE the election, just maybe Trump wouldn't have gotten elected. Perhaps some of the numbers from minorities and millenials could have been pushed up further to offset the Rust Belt surge.

 

[sphagnum]

Looks like Hillary's trying to get her mind off things.

http://mashable.com/2016/11/10/hill...o/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#4V.hAT1bOmqw

 

[Gruco]

For people old enough, were things this bleak when Bush won? And during his presidency?

I was just a blissfully unaware kid for most of his presidency.

I remember 2004 in particular as being very scary. In part because we had evidence of how horrible Bush was. This is much scarier. Trump's erratic nature, vanity, ignorance, and racism are just on a completely different level.

We made it then. Spent a lot of time talking to my parents about the Nixon years and how bad things were then. So I guess I take solace in knowing it's hard for me to fully understand how bad people have seen things before now. I dunno, I guess that's a weird way to think.

Here's another reason to reconsider the numbers we've seen.

This is so surgical. Cassandra Santorum? RNC data operation stealthily amazing and no one realized?

 

[Grexeno]

I'd go further and say you need to do what the GOP does. After the primary, backburner social issues. People don't vote on them. Prepare the pro-reproductive rights, LBGT+, BLM agenda in the back and put it into full force on Day 1.

Sounds like a recipe to crater youth turnout.

 

[Hindl]

Looks like Hillary's trying to get her mind off things.

http://mashable.com/2016/11/10/hill...o/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#4V.hAT1bOmqw

Why not? She's going to disappear now. She's done in politics

I'd go further and say you need to do what the GOP does. After the primary, backburner social issues. People don't vote on them. Prepare the pro-reproductive rights, LBGT+, BLM agenda in the back and put it into full force on Day 1.

Absolutely not. That's exactly what pidgeon is warning against. If you focus solely on economic issues the only people you attract is white straight people. And Dems will never win that entirely from Republicans. We need to focus on minority issues of all forms, just learn how to market it