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[ItWasMeantToBe19]

The primaries are over. The election is over.

His base are the people who voted for him.

Look at the Southern states. Look at Alabama. Republicans habitually vote in people who then continue to plunge their states into poverty. Do not underestimate the loyalty of the Republican voter. Any winning strategy for Democrats moving forward needs to take into account the (very real) possibility that every single person who voted for Trump in '16 will vote for him again.

How do you get the votes? How do you mobilize YOUR base? How do you mobilize the voters who didn't come out? These are the questions Democrats need to be worrying about. Stop salivating over Republican voters. We don't need them.

Uhh, the idea in midterms is to make the voters of the party in power too depressed to vote while making your party's voters angry enough to vote. Trump's less attached fans not liking him would be very helpful in a midterm even if they would never vote for a Dem.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Worth noting that a big part of the reason we lost this election was giving up one of the legs of the Obama coalition. Maybe upper Midwestern working class whites are gone forever, but we haven't really seen definitive proof of that.

 

[Debirudog]

The primaries are over. The election is over.

His base are the people who voted for him.

Look at the Southern states. Look at Alabama. Republicans habitually vote in people who then continue to plunge their states into poverty. Do not underestimate the loyalty of the Republican voter. Any winning strategy for Democrats moving forward needs to take into account the (very real) possibility that every single person who voted for Trump in '16 will vote for him again.

How do you get the votes? How do you mobilize YOUR base? How do you mobilize the voters who didn't come out? These are the questions Democrats need to be worrying about. Stop salivating over Republican voters. We don't need them.

we don't want them to love democrats, we want them depressed enough so they won't.

 

[royalan]

Uhh, the idea in midterms is to make the voters of the party in power too depressed to vote while making your party's voters angry enough to vote. Trump's less attached fans not liking him would be very helpful in a midterm even if they would never vote for a Dem.

I want to agree with you, but Democrats have not convinced me since the 90s that going on the attack is something they're good at. Republicans are better at that game and, moreover, it's the game they WANT to play.

I'm not saying ignore Trump's inevitable fuckups by any means. But any attack, any criticism of the right needs to be framed in a way that rouses the left. This was the point Democrats lost midway through the year when they thought they could win Republicans or keep them from voting Trump. They tried attacking Trump while other-ing him and maintaining the dignity of Republican party. Fuck the dignity of the Republican party.

The sole thought in the collective minds of the Democratic party moving forward needs to be "will this engage Democrats and left-leaning voters?" Nothing else.

 

[Odrion]

I want to agree with you, but Democrats have not convinced me since the 90s that going on the attack is something they're good at. Republicans are better at that game and, moreover, it's the game they WANT to play.

I'm not saying ignore Trump's inevitable fuckups by any means. But any attack, any criticism of the right needs to be framed in a way that rouses the left. This was the point Democrats lost midway through the year when they thought they could win Republicans or keep them from voting Trump. They tried attacking Trump while other-ing him and maintain the dignity of Republican party. Fuck the dignity of the Republican party.

The sole thought in the collective minds of the Democratic party moving forward needs to be "will this engage Democrats and left-leaning voters?" Nothing else.

i need to think of more clever ways of saying "i agree" but for now i'll just type "∞+"

 

[thepotatoman]

Worth remembering here that Bush got a huge, huge influx of approval after 9/11 such that he had a good midterm in 2002.

Also worth remembering that midterms favor the nonincumbent party for basically all of postwar America. Remember that 1994 was the year that ~50 years of the Democrats controlling the House came to an end, and I don't think Clinton was that unpopular.

The midterm advantage is real, but I really hope democrats don't think they are owed a 1994 or 2010 wave when there are plenty of examples where the opponent party gains are few if any.

It's also worth noting a lot of that is from the winner simply having more to lose even in a tied popular vote, and house republicans didn't win the popular vote by that much in 2016.

 

[mAcOdIn]

I'm still of the opinion that people need to be prepared for him to actually be popular amongst his base and plan accordingly to that.

Like I've been saying, I honestly don't buy his unfavorable ratings. And if he delivers on trying to do the things he set out to do, no matter how horrific to most of us here, that despite what the opinion of his base my appear to be on the surface that secretly they're happy with it.

And unless we solve our turnout issues, and stop worrying about theirs, we're boned.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Outside of Wisconsin, I don't think turnout was very much of a problem for the election?

Black millennials in the Deep South didn't vote as much this year, but that didn't affect the election results.

 

[kirblar]

Worth noting that a big part of the reason we lost this election was giving up one of the legs of the Obama coalition. Maybe upper Midwestern working class whites are gone forever, but we haven't really seen definitive proof of that.

Monolithic white rural communities are turning on the Dems because they're super racist. This isn't just a pattern in the midwest, they're just over represented in the Rust Belt.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Outside of Wisconsin, I don't think turnout was very much of a problem for the election?

Black millennials in the Deep South didn't vote as much this year, but that didn't affect the election results.

I thought black millennial turnout in general was an issue, which would be most notable in Philly I think?

I haven't done a lot of research into this though, I'm just vaguely aware that Nate Cohn (I think?) said basically every group turned out in about the same levels as 2012 except black voters in the 18-45 range.

Monolithic white rural communities are turning on the Dems because they're super racist. This isn't just a pattern in the midwest, they're just over represented in the Rust Belt.

A third of Obama's voters were white working class and if they're gone we should probably give up on making national change because we'll never have the congressional numbers to do anything.

 

[kirblar]

A third of Obama's voters were white working class and if they're gone we should probably give up on making national change because we'll never have the congressional numbers to do anything.

The issue is a lack of ground game/turnout operation. Fix that, you fix the numbers. You're not going to win back the "economically anxious." You have to turn out the numbers you do have.

 

[Odrion]

I thought black millennial turnout in general was an issue, which would be most notable in Philly I think?

I haven't done a lot of research into this though, I'm just vaguely aware that Nate Cohn (I think?) said basically every group turned out in about the same levels as 2012 except black voters in the 18-45 range.

what could have caused that?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Ground game is probably the most overrated idea in politics.

what could have caused that?

They thought Hillary was too fake and racist I would guess.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Ground game is probably the most overrated idea in politics.

I think this one is a bit of an unanswered question, since investments in red states like Arizona did see improved numbers that underinvested states like Michigan saw issues with. But maybe it's just that she needed to go talk to union members in Michigan that she was actually against TPP so that they saw in person that she wasn't lying (even though she probably was)

what could have caused that?

"Trump's terrible but why am I going to vote for the bitch that called us superpredators"

This is my best guess from PoC I follow online anyways, since I live in a white-as-fuck state.

 

[royalan]

In terms of raw votes, Philly's number was only down from 2012 by around 20,000 votes. We were within our target range, though.

We also can't ignore (although people sure seem to want to) that a lot of Republican efforts to suppress the black vote were largely successful this election.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

I think this one is a bit of an unanswered question, since investments in red states like Arizona did see improved numbers that underinvested states like Michigan saw issues with. But maybe it's just that she needed to go talk to union members in Michigan that she was actually against TPP so that they saw in person that she wasn't lying (even though she probably was)

"Trump's terrible but why am I going to vote for the bitch that called us superpredators"

This is my best guess from PoC I follow online anyways, since I live in a white-as-fuck state.

Hillary had a great operation in Iowa and Ohio and got nothing out of that though.

Hillary did well in areas where white people had Hispanic friends and were worried about what would happen to their friends under President Trump. She didn't just improve in areas like Arizona and Texas where she invested a bit (though she barely invested in Texas and did much better there), it was California also.

 

[Odrion]

They thought Hillary was too fake and racist I would guess.

eh I dunno. she worked closely with BLM, and gave them a prominent role at the DNC convention, and aligned herself with them to the point where police unions and the fbi saw her as the enemy. if you're young and politically active/aware I don't see how you could think of her coming off as racist

 

[mAcOdIn]

Outside of Wisconsin, I don't think turnout was very much of a problem for the election?

It wasn't an issue in comparison to most other elections, however, EC wonkiness aside we still need to work on getting more of the population to vote. This one was relatively close but I don't think we should be hoping for Trump to fuck up, our next candidate to just be amazing or our adversary after Trump to be less popular. Plus we hardly ever show up during midterms so for Democrats it's always an issue. We don't need to be matching previous turnouts, we need to be blowing those numbers out of the water, we need to change the math.

What we're seeing here is a full blown culture war. Think winning one Presidential election in the future will solve it? Not if next election they can just come in again and gut everything you've done. We need the numbers not to just win an election but to hold the line long enough for our gains to stick and for that we need to solidify and increase our voting base.

 

[thehypocrite]

This will not significantly lower costs, and it certainly won't slow the overall rate of growth.

Also if it's just caps it's bullshit. Oh botched surgery left you paralyzed from the waist down? non fatal negligence is capped at 50k good luck with the rest of your life!

The democrats were open to including some tort reform in the ACA if republicans had been interested in participating in governing at all.

Wait, so price controls are now good? Oh the irony...

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

eh I dunno. she worked closely with BLM, and gave them a prominent role at the DNC convention, and aligned herself with them to the point where police unions and the fbi saw her as the enemy. if you're young and politically active/aware I don't see how you could think of her coming off as racist

Superpredators and general Clinton-era tough-on-crime policy weighs on people and I saw plenty of comments that her first instinct post-DNC was to pivot towards picking up Republicans and just take the minority vote for granted. Remember how she said "All Lives Matter" at a primary debate (I think?)?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

There aren't enough liberals in America for permanent liberal majorities as of now. If you want liberal parties to rule forever, then you have to go and convince people to be less racist or more supportive of government spending on poverty.

There aren't hidden liberals wanting to be turned out unless young people start voting and that is probably as hard as convincing white people in Michigan to not vote for a racist because the racist might bring back factories maybe.

(Note: Turnout is very important in midterms and is the entire thing! But in presidential elections, most people who care about voting are motivated to vote)

So, figure out how to get young people to vote or figure out how to convince the WWC that it's bad to vote for a racist. And both of these things are hard.

Also, it's very odd that "Dems don't vote in midterms!" is such a meme when there's a long history of the ruling parties voters not voting in midterms. The GOP has only had two midterms in the last 24 years where they were the ruling party. One was after 9/11 so they did really well, they got routed in the other one.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Obligatory mention that having low turnout in noncompetitive states is probably the rational decision on the parts of those voters and assuming they don't care is wrong. Making voting easier is a good way to help turnout but swing state turnout is much higher than the national average and when you combine the two of those into Minnesota (which hasn't really been a swing state until now but you know what I mean) you get consistently great turnout. But like, why should a Democrat in western Nebraska get out to vote?

 

[Aaron Strife]

Obligatory mention that having low turnout in noncompetitive states is probably the rational decision on the parts of those voters and assuming they don't care is wrong. Making voting easier is a good way to help turnout but swing state turnout is much higher than the national average and when you combine the two of those into Minnesota (which hasn't really been a swing state until now but you know what I mean) you get consistently great turnout. But like, why should a Democrat in western Nebraska get out to vote?

Should point out that Minnesota was very close in 00/04 as well.

Basically any election the GOP wins you can expect Minnesota to be on the knife's edge, though we haven't taken the plunge yet!

 

[mAcOdIn]

I'm not talking about making and holding a supermajority I'm talking about staying a relevant force throughout the country. It's a chicken or egg scenario, everyone says run more Democrats in more areas but our voters don't even show unless it's a Presidential election. We need more Democrats voting everywhere just to open up more local opportunities for liberals to run for Local and State offices. We need more liberals on record voting so Local and State officials are reminded that yes some of their constituents lean that way as well. We need more local, state and federal elections to not look like fucking mandates. And when we do lose it needs to be not so damn hard and far.

I don't think a permanent liberal supermajority would ever be possible as long as the Electoral College stands.

 

[mo60]

Should point out that Minnesota was very close in 00/04 as well.

Basically any election the GOP wins you can expect Minnesota to be on the knife's edge, though we haven't taken the plunge yet!

MN was not that close in 88 despite HW Bush winning nationally by like 8 percent.

 

[Aaron Strife]

MN was not that close in 88 despite HW Bush winning nationally by like 8 percent.

Eh, once you go back that far it's kind of irrelevant.

Dukakis won West Virginia that year too.

 

[Diablos]

Gutting Medicare as it is now may be hard from the SCOTUS at least.

But expanding Medicare to cover all Americans would be struck down. If expanding Medicaid was gutted, expanding Medicare will probably fare just the same if not worse.

If RBG and Kennedy for example are replaced I can see lots of stuff being in danger. Look at what the court with Scalia did to voting rights, campaign finance, gun laws...

Also it looks like Pelosi has gone from thinking the GOP doesn't have repealing the ACA in them to scolding them for presumably taking the repeal and delay route.

 

[TheAbsolution]

New tweets, yay!

People must remember that ObamaCare just doesn't work, and it is not affordable - 116% increases (Arizona). Bill Clinton called it "CRAZY

The Democrat Governor.of Minnesota said "The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is no longer affordable!" - And, it is lousy healthcare.

 

[Plinko]

That's never going to happen.

What we really need to tort reform. Now that the Dems are out of the picture we might be able to finally achieve this.

Ah, tort reform. The GOP talking point that resurfaces every decade until a study comes out destroying the idea that it would have any effect on actual costs.

No joke: my far-right father-in-law obsessed over tort reform 10 years ago. Why? Because Limbaugh was as well. Every day, actually. Then, big study says it wouldn't do anything.

Now, I see far-right people bringing it up again. Must be back in Limbaugh/Hannity vernacular again.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Ah, tort reform. The GOP talking point that resurfaces every decade until a study comes out destroying the idea that it would have any effect on actual costs.

No joke: my far-right father-in-law obsessed over tort reform 10 years ago. Why? Because Limbaugh was as well. Every day, actually. Then, big study says it wouldn't do anything.

Now, I see far-right people bringing it up again. Must be back in Limbaugh/Hannity vernacular again.

These days they'll just completely disregard the studies or claim they were rigged by the liberal elite.

 

[Rebel Leader]

New tweets, yay!

The ability to see my doctor is lousy indeed

 

[NYCmetsfan]

The primaries are over. The election is over.

His base are the people who voted for him.

Look at the Southern states. Look at Alabama. Republicans habitually vote in people who then continue to plunge their states into poverty. Do not underestimate the loyalty of the Republican voter. Any winning strategy for Democrats moving forward needs to take into account the (very real) possibility that every single person who voted for Trump in '16 will vote for him again.

How do you get the votes? How do you mobilize YOUR base? How do you mobilize the voters who didn't come out? These are the questions Democrats need to be worrying about. Stop salivating over Republican voters. We don't need them.

I mean I kind of agree with you but Hillary won white college educated voters for the first time ever for a dem. She won over republican voters. The problem is Trump won dem voters.

I mean the last election shows realignments can happen again

 

[Wilsongt]

The year of congress giving no fucks about people begins!

Also, while you all were arguing Bernie vs Hillary... Again. Congress was doing something.

Photo by REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Monday voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison.

The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday. The package also includes a means for Republican leaders to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.

Under the ethics change pushed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. It would be known as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, and the rule change would require that “any matter that may involve a violation of criminal law must be referred to the Committee on Ethics for potential referral to law enforcement agencies after an affirmative vote by the members,” according to Goodlatte’s office.

Lawmakers would have the final say under the change. House Republicans voted 119-74 for the Goodlatte measure.

“The amendment builds upon and strengthens the existing Office of Congressional Ethics by maintaining its primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics,” the congressman said in a statement.

Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, reacted angrily.

“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” the California lawmaker said in a statement. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”

Taken from the leftwing, librul source PBS.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/house-republicans-vote-eviscerate-office-congressional-ethics/

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Except what would even be the reasoning for claiming that UHC is unconstitutional?

Someone may have mentioned this, but you really can't do UHC without a mandate, which conservative justices can easily argue against.

 

[Plinko]

The year of congress giving no fucks about people begins!

Also, while you all were arguing Bernie vs Hillary... Again. Congress was doing something.



Taken from the leftwing, librul source PBS.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/house-republicans-vote-eviscerate-office-congressional-ethics/

Again, I'm not a fan of Bernie v Hillary debates, but this comment implies that we actually could have done something about this vote by House Republicans while having this discussion. We in here could have done nothing to stop it.

 

[Cesare Borgia]

In terms of raw votes, Philly's number was only down from 2012 by around 20,000 votes. We were within our target range, though.

We also can't ignore (although people sure seem to want to) that a lot of Republican efforts to suppress the black vote were largely successful this election.

On the flip side turnout was down enough in Wayne County (Detroit) that it likely helped cost Clinton the state.

The argument made about PA is that Clinton spent too much time in Philly, and while she did well there as a result it cost her elsewhere. People want to see candidates, it matters. Part of the impressive thing about Trump (in hindsight) is that he went everywhere. He campaigned like a 60 year old candidate, not a 70 year old overweight man.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

We were making fun of him for holding 100 man attendance rallies in the middle of nowhere farmtown multiple times a day...

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Were do you guys stand on the DNC race?

I'm with the Vox take.

There doesn't seem to be a substantial difference between Perez and Ellison but choosing Perez will just alienate Bernie voters and confirm the idea that the party doesn't want them. There's no real positive case for Perez besides blocking Bernie supporters

Ellison isn't going to burn down the DNC and he can probably temper the Our Revolution stuff from promoting inter fighting when everything should be about making republicans electoral lives hell.

I like Perez but I think not pissing the Bernie people off is important, lest we run down a corbyn-esque path. Perez has a future in deep blue Maryland, Ellison really doesn't have a path upwards in MN or nationally (he's not getting the gov or senate seat) so I think he fits better here as a step up.

 

[kirblar]

Ground game is probably the most overrated idea in politics.

We literally just lost an election in part because of a lack of it.

Trump's rally shit works becuase the GOP lap that shit up.

It doesn't work for liberals because they're fucking cats- you can't herd them, you have to chase them down one by one, grab them by the scruff, and get them to take their medicine.

Hillary had a great operation in Iowa and Ohio and got nothing out of that though.

Hillary did well in areas where white people had Hispanic friends and were worried about what would happen to their friends under President Trump. She didn't just improve in areas like Arizona and Texas where she invested a bit (though she barely invested in Texas and did much better there), it was California also.

Yes, it's not going to do anything in states where you're already losing. Mono-White states are going to go anti-Dems because white people living in monowhite communities freak out at nonwhite people.

It's not about that- it's about shoring up the states you should be winning.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Just pick Ellison. No need to rock the boat to put in someone else who will basically do the same job.

 

[teruterubozu]

We were making fun of him for holding 100 man attendance rallies in the middle of nowhere farmtown multiple times a day...

Yup. When his campaign manager went on TV the next day after the win she straight up said, "Raliies matter!" I was like, doh.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

We were making fun of him for holding 100 man attendance rallies in the middle of nowhere farmtown multiple times a day...

Most trump voters never attended a rally. They got it from the news. They didn't vote for him because he showed up (yes I know there are quotes where people said this but nobody votes for that).

They voted for him because he said racist things they support and this was broadcast in every conceivable media platform

 

[kirblar]

Just pick Ellison. No need to rock the boat to put in someone else who will basically do the same job.

Seriously. Obama's team is NOT good at management. I don't want them touching the DNC.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

lol Trump just tweetered House Republicans to focus on other things instead of the Office of Congressional Ethics ("as unfair as it may be")

sounds a little like an iPhone tweet though

 

[kirblar]

Again, I'm not a fan of Bernie v Hillary debates, but this comment implies that we actually could have done something about this vote by House Republicans while having this discussion. We in here could have done nothing to stop it.

Of course, but facts won't stop people from posting things to make themselves feel superior.

lol Trump just tweetered House Republicans to focus on other things instead of the Office of Congressional Ethics ("as unfair as it may be")

sounds a little like an iPhone tweet though

Picking a fight here would actually be smart of him.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Were do you guys stand on the DNC race?

I'm with the Vox take.

There doesn't seem to be a substantial difference between Perez and Ellison but choosing Perez will just alienate Bernie voters and confirm the idea that the party doesn't want them. There's no real positive case for Perez besides blocking Bernie supporters

Ellison isn't going to burn down the DNC and he can probably temper the Our Revolution stuff from promoting inter fighting when everything should be about making republicans electoral lives hell.

I like Perez but I think not pissing the Bernie people off is important, lest we run down a corbyn-esque path. Perez has a future in deep blue Maryland, Ellison really doesn't have a path upwards in MN or nationally (he's not getting the gov or senate seat) so I think he fits better here as a step up.

I agree, especially with your last paragraph. Perez has value in MD, Ellison has no value in MN.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Picking a fight here would actually be smart of him.

Things are so bleak that this kind of rationally evil political calculus is marginally comforting.

- Knows it's terrible optics(TM)

- Looks good rebuking his own party for it

- Still gets a gutted OCE and doesn't have to take heat for it

It makes evil-sense!

Pence probably convinced him.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

Stolen from OT:

 

[balladofwindfishes]

This Ethics Committee thing is blowing up all over my Facebook, which is usually fairly apolitical.

Might be the first big political fight of 2017

 

[studyguy]

This Ethics Committee thing is blowing up all over my Facebook, which is usually fairly apolitical.

Might be the first big political fight of 2017

It genuinely should be, independent review of ethics conflicts that can report to the authorities if need be is absolutely critical. Who the fuck really thinks corruption will police itself. We've literally had scandals that sent people to jail for before the committee came to fruition to tamp down on shit.