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PoliGAF 2016 |OT16| Unpresidented

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A

Aaron Strife

Banned
I think I expected Clinton to enjoy similar (if somewhat muted) turnout that Obama did among minority groups, but I guess the best campaign in the world can't drag a candidate across the finish line with low-40s approval.

Well, that only applies to Democrats because Republicans will always fucking vote. Charisma over all else for Democrats from now on, but the GOP learned they can nominate fucking whoever and still win.
 
N

nature boy

Member
Tired Dem donors feel like their money got burned

Democratic donors stung by Hillary Clinton’s upset loss in the presidential race feel like they just set their money on fire.

The sore feelings are a huge problem for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which is trying to rebuild its image and reinvigorate a defeated party in time for challenging midterm elections in 2018.

It’s also a worry for top liberal activists as they prepare for war with President-elect Donald Trump and a GOP Congress that is hell-bent on rolling back President Obama’s accomplishments.

Many Democratic donors still feel burned by the party’s 2016 election losses and what they see as dysfunction in the DNC, which will elect a new leader in February.

Adding insult to the injury: The names of many donors were released in the WikiLeaks hack of Democratic emails, believed to have come at the hands of Russian intelligence. It was a mortifying development that has rattled some of the party’s big-money men and women.

“They’re tired,” one DNC official told The Hill. “They’re upset about the election, and there was significant trauma surrounding the Russians. They’re upset and they’re tired.”

Democratic investors went in on Clinton to the tune of more than $550 million, believing she would dispatch Trump, deliver Democrats the Senate and help the party make inroads into the GOP’s House majority.

Many liberal donors also viewed the election as an opportunity to cement Obama’s legacy.

Instead, Democrats find themselves in the throes of a full-scale and expensive rebuilding project punctuated by a rudderless DNC that won’t elect a new leader until more than a month after Trump is sworn into office.

Investor Marc Nathanson, who spent big in 2016, says he has no interest in participating in the party’s rebuilding efforts.

Nathanson, who was one of Clinton’s top donors and fundraisers in 2016, told The Hill he’d continue to give money and support to Democratic candidates in gubernatorial and mayoral races in his home state of California. But beyond that, the frustration over the party’s 2016 debacle will keep him on the sidelines.

“The feeling I get from big donors out here in California is that they’re not only extremely disappointed, but they’re shell-shocked,” he said. “So to turn around and say, now it’s time to rebuild the national party and the DNC, I just don’t see it.”

Some Democrats believe the fundraising panic is being overblown, arguing that in Trump, the party has a fearsome boogeyman that will keep horrified donors in a giving mood.

...

“I may very well be done with political giving entirely,” said John Morgan, an Orlando attorney and one of Clinton’s top fundraisers in Florida. “My message to anyone reading this is, ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ From here on out, I’m giving to charities. I’d much rather give money to build a new Boys & Girls Club than to give to the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee].”

Outside of the DNC and its congressional campaign arms, top liberal fundraisers are painting a rosier picture of donors who have been jolted into action by November’s stunning results.

Gara LaMarche, the president of Democracy Alliance, the influential network of donors who invest in groups to push progressive policies, has been touring the nation’s liberal donor hubs — Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, among them — to discuss the progressive movement’s way forward with top donors.

A Nov. 14 donor event in Washington, D.C., which drew liberal donor George Soros, was notable for its “bigger than expected turnout.”
...
Click to expand...

Can't blame them TBH, although I don't feel sorry for them either,
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Might be good for the Democrats in the long run, that. Push them towards small donors and their needs.
 
P

Pixieking

Banned
excelsiorlef said:
The important thing for donors is to definitely just give up after the white supremacist got elected...
Click to expand...

I would assume that this is a way for donors to make their voices heard. The DNC at State level is pretty crappy, so donors saying that they're not going to invest in something that crappy is a warning-shot to make a good number of improvements.

If donors still feel like this going into 2018, I'll be very surprised.
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
Pixieking said:
I would assume that this is a way for donors to make their voices heard. The DNC at State level is pretty crappy, so donors saying that they're not going to invest in something that crappy is a warning-shot to make a good number of improvements.

If donors still feel like this going into 2018, I'll be very surprised.
Click to expand...

Donors were talking Presidential level in that article though.
 
T

thefro

Member
Crab said:
Might be good for the Democrats in the long run, that. Push them towards small donors and their needs.
Click to expand...

There's not enough active small donors to fund the DNC to a level to compete with the RNC and all the SuperPAC money.

Big donors are needed as part of the fundraising mix.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
thefro said:
There's not enough active small donors to fund the DNC to a level to compete with the RNC and all the SuperPAC money.

Big donors are needed as part of the fundraising mix.
Click to expand...

Clinton had an enormous amount more money than Trump did this election. Didn't do her much good, did it?
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
P

Pixieking

Banned
Crab said:
Clinton had an enormous amount more money than Trump did this election. Didn't do her much good, did it?
Click to expand...

This probably needs more info than we have, is the thing. Personally, I think if it had been on a level playing field, Clinton's large amount of cash would've helped. But, Trump had Breitbart as a media-wing, CNN and the rest of the media's free marketing during the Primaries (like, $14bn worth, wasn't it?), and Hillary had to cope with the both-sides/horse-race narrative, as well as the standard anti-Hillary/anti-liberal narrative driven by Fox.

So, campaign dollars can get you only so far against all that, I would argue.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
The Democrats should probably have Donald Trump run on their ticket next time.

The Senate Majority PAC needs large donors, the DSCC is funded largely by larger donors.

Feingold ran against $15 million in outside spending in his Senate race.
Kander ran against $21 million in outside spending in his Senate race.

The aforementioned funds helped to make this a little less lopsided.

Both didn't raise most of their money from small donors. Everyone can't be Donald Trump.
 
P

Pixieking

Banned
Too much to start posting about Angela Merkel and exclaiming "Yaaaaas Queen!"? :p

Speaking of Hillary...

‘Still with Her!’: Watch Hillary Clinton Receive Outpouring of Support at UNICEF Ball Honoring Katy Perry

They’re still with her.

Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received an overwhelming outpouring of support when she made a surprise appearance at the UNICEF Snowflake Ball in Manhattan on Tuesday night, just three weeks after losing the 2016 election.

The former secretary of state was on hand at the charity gala to present Katy Perry with the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund’s Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award. Clinton was smiling from ear to ear as she took the stage to Perry’s hit song “Roar.” But before she could even speak, Clinton was greeted with a standing ovation and chants of “Still with her! Still with her!”

It took several moments for Clinton to quiet the crowd as audience members shouted, “Hillary!” and “We love you!”
Click to expand...

Really good to see that she's still supported, even though she lost. Gives me hope that we can start disentangling "Hillary the Presidential Nominee" from "Hillary the Charity Campaigner" soon.
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
CyclopsRock said:
Tbh the problem with wikileaks isn't that they're erroneously seen as credible. There's no evidence to suggest that the stuff they leak isn't true.
Click to expand...

You mean like the spirit cooking shit they did?

They were propped up by the left 6 years ago as "whistle blowers"

Ooops turns out they're just ideological hacks with no sense of responsibility.
I said fuck em 6 years ago and I especially say fuck em now.


The left absolutely gave them credibility 6 years ago that has led them to being influential now.
 
G

Goodstyle

Member
Oh my God Bernie.

He really has no clue what is actually happening here. This is Crony Capitalism at its finest, and he's acting like Carrier isn't in on it.

Also, he's acting like the promise Trump made to the working class can be kept. THOSE JOBS AREN'T COMING BACK. Manufacturing jobs will die off more and more over the next few years.
 
C

Cesare Borgia

Banned
Supast4r said:
Stuff like this has me convinced that he is a one term president. Democrats have to find the next Obama; a new politician that has "outsider" qualities to them in the next four years.
Click to expand...

On the flip side he won without establishment support and despite doing worse than most republican nominees throughout republican strongholds. Now he's the president and will consolidate the party, meaning he should do better next time right? #NeverTrump types are going to enjoy his Supreme Court selections and tax cuts too, after all. Even an unsuccessful Trump term will likely include a laundry list of victories that the republican party has wanted for years. He'll re-secure conservative dominance of the Supreme Court, massively cut taxes, dismantle Obamacare, gut financial regulations, expand the military, etc. Those all seem pretty much guaranteed, and easier/less controversial than privatizing social security/Medicare for instance, which I don't believe will happen.

He has an opportunity to set himself up very well for re-election, at least when it comes to firing up his base and raising a billion dollars. He's still Donald Trump though, which means he can fuck everything up and ruin the republican party. We'll see.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
So what's your solution? Saying "the jobs aren't coming back", and nothing more, is saying "you're fucked and we're not going to do a thing". Of course they're not voting for you, when the other guy is saying "I'll bring the jobs back!". What's the Democratic plan for the Midwest? Like, let me put it more specifically: I'm a 55 year old white guy. I used to work at Carrier; I've done manual labour all my life. My maths isn't so good and I can't really use a computer, I'm the wrong generation. My spelling isn't so great either - but I'm not stupid; I know how to work with my hands like nobody's business. My job got shipped over to Mexico, there's no more manual jobs around, and I can't get work in a tech company or become a lawyer or whatever. I'm coming to the voting booth. What are the Democrats offering me? What are they telling me my next decade is going to look like?

EDIT: I mean, read this paper (from the Obama White House): https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20160620_cea_primeage_male_lfp.pdf

Participation rates by educational attainment, previously quite similar, have diverged since the 1960s. In 1964, 98 percent of prime-age men with a college degree or more participated in the workforce, compared to 97 percent of men with a high school degree or less. In 2015, the rate for college-educated men had fallen slightly to 94 percent while the rate for men with a high school degree or less had plummeted to 83 percent.
Click to expand...

Highlighting prime-age to show this isn't an aging population thing. There is a systemic lack of employment for men without college degrees. Nearly a fifth of them don't even participate in the labour force - that's not even unemployment because they're not even in a position to be looking.

What are we saying to them? And that question needs to be asked of every single leftist party in the world.

Most of you in this thread don't seem to understand because afaik, every single regular poster here is college educated. You live in a different world to these people.
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
There's nothing we can do for them. They do not want handouts. They do not want to be retrained. They want jobs to exist that will never exist again. Given the choice between a random crazy person telling them their jobs are coming back, versus someone saying they're retrain you, or we'll take care of you, they'll pick the crazy person, even if he's crazy and there's no chance he can follow through.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
Even "working class" jobs that remain in manufacturing or logistics are going to need a level of numeracy and literacy.

No one cares if you can work with your hands when I have a robot that can do it better.

Learn to use a computer. Or at least a tablet.

Service jobs aren't women's work.

I'm not a politician so whatever.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
balladofwindfishes said:
There's nothing we can do for them. They do not want handouts. They do not want to be retrained. They want jobs to exist that will never exist again. Given the choice between a random crazy person telling them their jobs are coming back, versus someone saying they're retrain you, or we'll take care of you, they'll pick the crazy person, even if he's crazy and there's no chance he can follow through.
Click to expand...

If this genuinely is what you believe, then why are you even talking about 2020? It's already lost, as is every single election until these people are outnumbered as a swing demographic. Admittedly that's probably 2024, or 2028 at the latest, but 12 years of Trump and his successor is not something I'm comfortable with.
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
Crab said:
If this genuinely is what you believe, then why are you even talking about 2020? It's already lost, as is every single election until these people are outnumbered as a swing demographic. Admittedly that's probably 2024, or 2028 at the latest, but 12 years of Trump and his successor is not something I'm comfortable with.
Click to expand...

It's not lost. When Trump's policies fail to live up to their promises, the WWC will do what they always do and just move back to the other party. Back and forth between broken promises over and over until they die off.

This has entirely eroded their belief in government, but it's also caused them to just go back and forth between whoever last failed them.

Without the auto-bailout, 2012 might have looked entirely different.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
shinra-bansho said:
Even "working class" jobs that remain in manufacturing or logistics are going to need a level of numeracy and literacy.

No one cares if you can work with your hands when I have a robot that can do it better.

Service jobs aren't women's work.

I'm not a politician so whatever.
Click to expand...

Do you not even care? Is there not some small part of you that says something like: these people are in pain, and have no hope? I'm almost shocked by the lack of empathy. These people used to be in the unions. They were Democrats, for a long, long time. I mean, even the ones that aren't are still people - I was lucky to be born as who I was, yet there but for the grace of God went I, or you.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
balladofwindfishes said:
It's not lost. When Trump's policies fail to live up to their promises, the WWC will do what they always do and just move back to the other party. Back and forth between broken promises over and over until they die off.
Click to expand...

I'm genuinely shocked and saddened that the prevailing attitude in this thread is just: let them die. We have no genuine intent to help them and given another few years we don't need them, so fuck 'em, into the dustbins of history they go. I grew up in towns like that - both in the UK and when I was living in America. They deserve better than what they're given; anyone would.
 
J

Joe Shlabotnik

Banned
Pixieking said:
Too much to start posting about Angela Merkel and exclaiming "Yaaaaas Queen!"? :p

Speaking of Hillary...

‘Still with Her!’: Watch Hillary Clinton Receive Outpouring of Support at UNICEF Ball Honoring Katy Perry



Really good to see that she's still supported, even though she lost. Gives me hope that we can start disentangling "Hillary the Presidential Nominee" from "Hillary the Charity Campaigner" soon.
Click to expand...

I mean, that's really nice and heartening for her, buuuut yes I imagine a celebrity charity ball in Manhattan would be pretty supportive of her, ha ha.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
Pointing out reality isn't an inability to empathise. This is the frank reality. The world changes, the areas of employment growth are this and that.

One can fully realise the human situation.
And at the same time draw dispassionate conclusion.

It isn't "let them die." They'd just seemingly rather die waiting for the world to go backwards than accept that things have changed and they need to change too. Let alone accept the help towards that change.
 
lyrick

lyrick

Member
Crab said:
So what's your solution? Saying "the jobs aren't coming back", and nothing more, is saying "you're fucked and we're not going to do a thing". Of course they're not voting for you, when the other guy is saying "I'll bring the jobs back!". What's the Democratic plan for the Midwest? Like, let me put it more specifically: I'm a 55 year old white guy. I used to work at Carrier; I've done manual labour all my life. My maths isn't so good and I can't really use a computer, I'm the wrong generation. My spelling isn't so great either - but I'm not stupid; I know how to work with my hands like nobody's business. My job got shipped over to Mexico, there's no more manual jobs around, and I can't get work in a tech company or become a lawyer or whatever. I'm coming to the voting booth. What are the Democrats offering me? What are they telling me my next decade is going to look like?

EDIT: I mean, read this paper (from the Obama White House): https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20160620_cea_primeage_male_lfp.pdf



Highlighting prime-age to show this isn't an aging population thing. There is a systemic lack of employment for men without college degrees. Nearly a fifth of them don't even participate in the labour force - that's not even unemployment because they're not even in a position to be looking.

What are we saying to them? And that question needs to be asked of every single leftist party in the world.

Most of you in this thread don't seem to understand because afaik, every single regular poster here is college educated. You live in a different world to these people.
Click to expand...

Today I still work with ~860 of these people in the northern midwest and in the past I have actually worked their exact job. I've done everything from final pack to operate gateway machinery and I held several roles in between.

There is no good answer or solution, there is a trend and demand for increased productivity which is obtained through automation and other process reductions. Simply following the trend lines will produce the expected result of what happens when one continually produce more goods with less resources (people, time and inputs).

We still need to make shit though, unfortunately the shit we need to make is much too complex to do manually and for the most part the demand is much too great to do so by hand as well.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
shinra-bansho said:
Pointing out reality isn't an inability to empathise. This is the frank reality. The world changes, the areas of employment growth are this and that.
Click to expand...

Nearly half of all jobs in the US are susceptible to automation over the next 30 years. This isn't some passing episode to be endured and weathered; it's a beginning. You must have some plan? Or even some few scattered thoughts?
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
I come from a WWC family on the farthest eastern tips of the Rust Belt. My grandfather worked as a mechanic in a factory. My other grandfather was a line manager. My mom has no formal education and barely made it through high school and isn't really able to hold a steady job. My dad worked dead end jobs in manufacturing after dropping out of college in the 80s. He'd often need my grandparents to help, since my maternal grandma was one under the VP at a bank, and my paternal grandfather was great at stock trading.

But that life wasn't good enough for him and his children, so he went back to college to be an engineer, and has been an engineer for 20 years now. He actually went out, saw that his career prospects were dwindling, educated himself and made a better life for his family. He was the first person in his family to graduate college. He's now carved himself somewhat of a niche since he has a very specific legacy training that is still sought after by companies.

So I have empathy for these people. But at the same time, if they don't want any help at all and just want to cross their arms and hold their breath until the impossible happens, I have a hard time thinking of ways to actually appeal to them without outright deceiving them.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Without wanting to be rude, much of that reads exactly like the laissez-faire libertarian's "we were poor, but then my dad made his millions by selling bikes and working his way up until he owned a motorcycle company. Anyone can do this, and their failings are their own fault". Like, it's the bootstrap argument, plain and simple. When did we start becoming a rightwing party?

Do you really think these people are consciously choosing decay over what they're offered - saying - "Oh, I have the money, time, and resources to do an extensive retraining period that will get me a great job, but I don't want it because I'll just wait for steel to come back"? Or do you think, maybe just maybe, there might be institutional barriers in the way?
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
Crab said:
Without wanting to be rude, much of that reads exactly like the laissez-faire libertarian's "we were poor, but then my dad made his millions by selling bikes and working his way up until he owned a motorcycle company. Anyone can do this, and their failings are their own fault". Like, it's the bootstrap argument, plain and simple. When did we start becoming a rightwing party?
Click to expand...

I'd be one thing if I was saying this without also wanting to make sure the government takes care of their health, food, homes, etc, but I'm not.

But if someone is unwilling to retrain themselves, they refuse government assistance, and would rather live miserable and poor because they can't get the very specific jobs they want, and if they don't get them they're not going to do anything but complain, then it's pretty hard to not say "uhh... what do you people even want!?"

Crab said:
Do you really think these people are consciously choosing decay over what they're offered - saying - "Oh, I have the money, time, and resources to do an extensive retraining period that will get me a great job, but I don't want it because I'll just wait for steel to come back"? Or do you think, maybe just maybe, there might be institutional barriers in the way?
Click to expand...
Most of them vote against the very government programs that are keeping them alive and at least somewhat okay and not under a bridge.

The government wants to hand them that money and resources to help them and they have seething anger against them for it. They don't want help. They're crying for help, but when people offer to help, they scream at them and call them entitled. They only want very specific help that will never come.
 
lyrick

lyrick

Member
Crab said:
Nearly half of all jobs in the US are susceptible to automation over the next 30 years. This isn't some passing episode to be endured and weathered; it's a beginning. You must have some plan? Or even some few scattered thoughts?
Click to expand...

If the population continues to rise and the opportunity for work continues to fall, we're probably not even trying to solve the right problems by playing around with solutions that are similar to predator and prey models.

If we were to try and alter the model back to a the model we're trying to utilize we would have to try to adjust the trends to force the model. Adjusting the the trends would require either growing the need for a workforce or reducing the population in need of work. Actually creating more jobs would entail a planned regression of productivity, a further increase to service related roles, or an unaccounted for job growth factor. Reducing population in need of a work force could be done through actual population reduction methods like China's one child policy or War, or more civilly by a reduction in entry to the workforce, by forced higher education or public service (military or similar), early exit to the workforce by creating a national early retirement system and by possibly implementing periodic retraining education to temporarily pull a certain quantity of at risk workers out of the market to realign them to lower risk opportunities.
 
T

Totakeke

Member
The problem isn't really what we should do as much as what they will believe isn't it. There's no better message than the good old days will come back.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
Maybe they are libertarian. It isn't a requirement to be left wing to post in here. We have meta and benji.

Anyway, yes more routine roles will be automated away. Education should be geared towards equipping people for non-routine work. Retraining needs to be available to help people transition.

At some point, when feasible some sort of basic income scheme will presumably be necessary. My job will get automated away too when computers and robots get better at more complicated cognitive work.

But we're talking about the now. And a particular mentality amongst a particular workforce. Where actual solutions don't hold up to bandaids making the problem intractable.
 
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