Vestal
Junior Member
Bernie is not the answer for everything. The Democratic Party is not just the far left but the centrist left as well. We need a unifying voice like Obama again. Someone to bring both sides of our party together as one voice.
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PoliGAF 2016 |OT16| Unpresidented
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
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Bernie is not the answer for everything. The Democratic Party is not just the far left but the centrist left as well. We need a unifying voice like Obama again. Someone to bring both sides of our party together as one voice.
UltimaPooh
Member
Not to mention there are already rules in place to vote. I have to show an ID when I vote... and Missouri this election just had a voter ID law on the ballot.
Dems do not need to reverse course on stuff like that. It is unjust and it is wrong and I do not want to be on the side that is willing to compromise that.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Basically this. It's an untenable proposal if we're trying to pass it with the current legislatures. "Free voter ID" is actually a solid platform to run on in R states, though, since it would appeal to Diet Racists who can't bring themselves to admit what the laws are really for.
(I hate the idea of coddling them too, but dammit, they vote, so let's trick them into voting for us).
excelsiorlef
Member
Absolutely
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The last two days I've been thinking about the hot reaction for democrats to blame themselves for not understanding the rust belt and rural whites. Sure, there's something there. It looks like Hillary's team fucked up horrifically on that point as well.
The thing is, you can always say "We should have understood the other guys better" because outreach has no ceiling. There's always something more you could have done. Before democrats guilt trip themselves into complete self-doubt though... I kinda feel there's some context to keep in mind. None of this happened in a vacuum. It was far from just a liberal failure to take a disenfranchised group seriously.
I've been exposed to this stuff since the 80s. Grew up in Texas hearing Limbaugh's show from the very beginning. Long before liberals had a chance to screw anything up, the neoconservative machine was poisoning the well. In '88 Limbaugh was warning people about Liberal Lies. Revealing how democrats were commies. Urging people to see them as the enemy of democracy. Warning them about liberals coming to steal everything and give it to lazy blacks. A favorite, reiterated again and again, was that liberals and democrats had no right to exist. They were illegitimate and the goal should be, ultimately, to eliminate them.
This has been repeated for so long and drummed in, it is the conventional wisdom of the country outside the cities. The cities are your enemies, full of white traitors feeding lazy minorities who vote to keep the traitors in power. So you know, when you go to try and reach out to these people, long before any of your own "smugness" comes into play, they already think you're the devil sent to trick them. This is one of the real reasons these people vote straight down ticket R - it's often not a formal, patriotic party loyalty. It's not even always a coherent desire to fuck over minorities (but they resent minorities for all the Free Stuff they must be getting). It's because the R is protecting them from the D.
Doesn't sound dissimilar from people who see the D as protecting them from the R. Rationally, objectively, both sides aren't the same. It's pretty documented that it is the Republicans who have been running the long con, performing the work. They succeeded in creating the media empire and spread the propaganda first, shifting the blame for what they were doing onto the other side. So that by the time everybody noticed and rushed to blow the whistle, the people who had been absorbing the Republican work just said "can't fool us. We know you're the ones who are really behind it all."
So when you go to try and understand the people outside the cities, my life experience says just acting friendly and saying you want to hear their problems is not going to work by itself. A lot of them are going to be too busy sneering at you and being blinded by rage, wanting your diseased kind to disappear. At this point I suspect the only thing that can ever work is doing for these people what the republicans promise and then intentionally sabotage. Give them some way out. It is why they went batshit over Trump. He finally looked like a way out that wasn't a D or an R, which really makes it more tragic what's about to happen.
The funny thing is, while I sure as fuck would rather Trump not be president right now - particularly because the incoming GOP is set straight on ruining my personal life - this could present an opportunity. If Trump fails these people as completely as many think, I guess there's something to work with. A vacuum to fill.
I think a word to the wise though is that right now in the immediate future, it's going to have to be about surviving what Trump has done and building a resistance. Until Trump betrays the angry white mob, they are obviously running on a blind high, believing salvation is here. This isn't the time for guilt-laden democrats to crawl to them begging forgiveness for not listening. Even if sincere, they're not going to take it the way you want. It's just gong to be an admission that the republicans were right, you WERE wrong all along, and now you can be put into place forever, as the true Americans inherit the country at last.
And yes, of course, all this is in addition to the fact that the angry white mob traded the promise of economic opportunity for the lives of everyone who isn't them. (Nothing personal.)
The thing is, you can always say "We should have understood the other guys better" because outreach has no ceiling. There's always something more you could have done. Before democrats guilt trip themselves into complete self-doubt though... I kinda feel there's some context to keep in mind. None of this happened in a vacuum. It was far from just a liberal failure to take a disenfranchised group seriously.
I've been exposed to this stuff since the 80s. Grew up in Texas hearing Limbaugh's show from the very beginning. Long before liberals had a chance to screw anything up, the neoconservative machine was poisoning the well. In '88 Limbaugh was warning people about Liberal Lies. Revealing how democrats were commies. Urging people to see them as the enemy of democracy. Warning them about liberals coming to steal everything and give it to lazy blacks. A favorite, reiterated again and again, was that liberals and democrats had no right to exist. They were illegitimate and the goal should be, ultimately, to eliminate them.
This has been repeated for so long and drummed in, it is the conventional wisdom of the country outside the cities. The cities are your enemies, full of white traitors feeding lazy minorities who vote to keep the traitors in power. So you know, when you go to try and reach out to these people, long before any of your own "smugness" comes into play, they already think you're the devil sent to trick them. This is one of the real reasons these people vote straight down ticket R - it's often not a formal, patriotic party loyalty. It's not even always a coherent desire to fuck over minorities (but they resent minorities for all the Free Stuff they must be getting). It's because the R is protecting them from the D.
Doesn't sound dissimilar from people who see the D as protecting them from the R. Rationally, objectively, both sides aren't the same. It's pretty documented that it is the Republicans who have been running the long con, performing the work. They succeeded in creating the media empire and spread the propaganda first, shifting the blame for what they were doing onto the other side. So that by the time everybody noticed and rushed to blow the whistle, the people who had been absorbing the Republican work just said "can't fool us. We know you're the ones who are really behind it all."
So when you go to try and understand the people outside the cities, my life experience says just acting friendly and saying you want to hear their problems is not going to work by itself. A lot of them are going to be too busy sneering at you and being blinded by rage, wanting your diseased kind to disappear. At this point I suspect the only thing that can ever work is doing for these people what the republicans promise and then intentionally sabotage. Give them some way out. It is why they went batshit over Trump. He finally looked like a way out that wasn't a D or an R, which really makes it more tragic what's about to happen.
The funny thing is, while I sure as fuck would rather Trump not be president right now - particularly because the incoming GOP is set straight on ruining my personal life - this could present an opportunity. If Trump fails these people as completely as many think, I guess there's something to work with. A vacuum to fill.
I think a word to the wise though is that right now in the immediate future, it's going to have to be about surviving what Trump has done and building a resistance. Until Trump betrays the angry white mob, they are obviously running on a blind high, believing salvation is here. This isn't the time for guilt-laden democrats to crawl to them begging forgiveness for not listening. Even if sincere, they're not going to take it the way you want. It's just gong to be an admission that the republicans were right, you WERE wrong all along, and now you can be put into place forever, as the true Americans inherit the country at last.
And yes, of course, all this is in addition to the fact that the angry white mob traded the promise of economic opportunity for the lives of everyone who isn't them. (Nothing personal.)
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I may have stoked some of those thoughts in the morning...
...but the reality is that it's going to have to be a given? Sadly enough? We had great minority turnouts compared to years past, but that sadly wasn't enough. It's a reality that Democrats HAVE to appeal to white people and their problems. Even if it's just lying to them.
If the data Nate Cohn pointed to, that Obama voters turned to Trump is true, than that's probably pointing towards disillusioned white voters that Obama had catered to in years past. The demographic that Hillary was least catering to.
I think this most accurately reflects where I'm at right now
Me too. Caps and all.
UltimaPooh
Member
I don't want their vote that way. I want them to be the humans they are supposed to be and use their own critical thinking.
Same. I know Obama probably wanted to go home and chill with his family, but the Democratic Party needs him now more then ever to help stick around in some compacity and bridge the rift that's brewing between those groups.
Poodlestrike
Banned
They don't have any critical thinking, that's why they're diet racists. If they did, they'd either be full racists or not racist.
Publically, it's clear that Dems have to be as clean as a whistle, or else their own supporters will punish them. But privately, we need to get a hell of a lot more ruthless. That's why I'm in favor of someone like Reid as DNC chair. He's a bastard and he's DAMN good at it. Let the position fall back into obscurity, and Reid will take us where we need to go.
That's all predicated on Bernie Sanders not being an idiot about it, though.
excelsiorlef
Member
You abandon minorities you lose every election. The party is dead.
You're done. Minorities are dragging the Democrats to the victories they get.
That said good fucking luck getting some White focused only nominee through the primaries where minority Dems have their most say.
metalslimer
Member
I completely agree. The problem I have is that if Trump doesn't screw up royally we have no shot at getting convincing any of these people. Even if he does screw up, if he throws them a bone I don't think we will reach those people
shinra-bansho
Member
Obama's share on non-college grad whites declined and were never good. Just less horrible. It's also not 2008 or 2012. McCain isn't Trump. Nor is Romney, to give these voters a leader and outlet. "He tells it like it is." "He says what I'm thinking."
This isn't just a rejection of the now. This is also a rejection of Obama. So while I think he would have won. It wouldn't have been them.
What a spineless twit.
excelsiorlef
Member
We're totally fucked going forward.
Their trending after meeting with conservatives basically meant Breitbart reached billions daily
Ugh, I do some volunteer tutoring in Los Angeles for a largely Mexican group of middle/high school students and damn, so many of them are fucking frightened and angry. Too many with one or two undocumented parents, and trying to tell them that there's hope in Trump being unable to fulfill campaign promises really doesn't cut it.
What a nightmare.
What a nightmare.
I can be quite candid, which is that you guys in the OT are swimming around inside a bubble where all the hypotheticals and alternate realities are true.
At this point there's been overreach by the Sanders stans to the point where even less involved posters are pointing out the grossness in your eagerness to abandon minorities to pander to rural whites.
All those people who are shitting on Hillary, how many of them phonebanked/volunteered/canvassed instead of constantly shitting on her on social media and on GAF? How many of them wanted 'unity' with the Democratic party when their candidate lost? None that I can see, since there was promotion of anti-democracy to pick their candidate above all else of the popular vote in the primaries. And the oft-repeated 'rigged' narrative, eternally delegitimizing Hillary's win. The Republicans won because in the end, at the ballot box, they are unified. They vote as a collective.
But liberals, we are plagued by the Sanders faction. They have contributed nothing but want to make the decisions on everything. What blood and sweat and tears have they put into Hillary and electing Democrats and preserving Obama's legacy? Where was the call for 'unity' back when Hillary and Sanders asked for unity in the slogan of 'Stronger Together'?
The far left have been basically acting like Republicans when they lost against Obama: obstruction, the perpetuation of false narratives and stories, continued negativity, and then when the tide shifts their way they get loud and obnoxious and righteous. When in reality, this group contributed to the fall of the coalition by depressing turnout through relentless slander of Hillary Clinton. And then they have the gall to be 'out for blood' without ever taking an ounce of blame?
OrangeGrayBlue
Member
Poodlestrike
Banned
This I could actually see causing a bit of an R split. Entitlements are still the third rail in a lot of places, and without the Trumpian Behemoth behind it, this suggestion is going to spook the fuck out of McConnell.
sazzy
Member
VoterID isn't going to go away anymore.
Continuing to oppose VoterID at this point is = not helping people get VoterID = people who may vote Democrat remain disenfranchised.
Democrats should fight to keep the cost and requirements of voterID low/reasonable.
That's just the reality of the situation right now.
eBay Huckster
Member
medicare privatization is exactly the kind of shit that helped cause 2006 to unfold the way it did, by the way
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I sent an email to Keith Ellison begging him to be involved in the new DNC in some capacity precisely because I trust him more than anyone not to let them get away with this
Shit.
America already decided to undo his husband's legacy, she owes the country nothing.
Randolph Freelander
Member
^
excelsiorlef
Member
Trending went from detailed articles from reoutabke sources to Breitbart everyday.
They're a private company... they don't have an obligation to give propaganda sites like Breitbart a featured platform.
You do what you can based on the state. There should be no blanket approach across the country, not with each state having differing rules anyway.
UltimaPooh
Member
Then I don't want it unless they give it willingly without us coddling their diet racism/sexism.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I mentioned this earlier, but letting the DNC chair become a publicly visible position would be DISASTROUS. We're going to have to get dirty to turn this around, but we CANNOT let that become visible, because our voters are too lily-livered to put up with it. DNC chair needs to be the guy/gal who Gets Shit Done, while the candidate is as clean as a whistle. Letting Bernie turn it into a big part of people's perception of how the Democratic Party operates would be a massive mistake.
Also, literally every single Democratic operative needs to start using 2FA, and they need to do it right now.
Also, literally every single Democratic operative needs to start using 2FA, and they need to do it right now.
Bernie already made his stand. It's a politicized position now.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Well, I want it, because goddamnit I want the power to dismantle everything they've built and having them give it to me without even knowing would just make me so goddamn happy.
We gotta get that guy to shut up.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Trump voters are about to be economically destroyed by self-driving trucks and Trump literally has no idea that this is a thing that's coming.
https://twitter.com/griph/status/796539192721506304
https://twitter.com/griph/status/796539192721506304
campfireweekend
Member
Can we please stop doing this. It's not true and you're just conceding to the fake mandate that Republicans lie that they have.
metalslimer
Member
That medicare privatization shit isn't going anywhere. It gives me hope with Ryan McConnell and Trump likely being on 3 different pages outside of Obamacare
UltimaPooh
Member
It would make me happy too but I'm not going to compromise on a dying group of people that only have themselves to blame for where they are instead of people of color.
Xisiqomelir
Member
Someone in the last thread asked me why Nate Silver deserved opprobrium for the result. I found this compilation on Reddit:
Poodlestrike
Banned
I'm not compromising anything, I'm just proposing that we trick them into voting... actually, not even voting against their best interests, but voting against their bias.
It's all those immigrants/brown people's fault tho...
Yep, if they want to grab that rail again then good luck. I remember the blue wave that followed with Nancy Pelosi pledging to "drain the swamp."
This is about fake news. It's like putting creationism in school and teaching it as real science. This is not about free speech, it's about actual facts vs. propaganda. I got served ads about videos from PragerU a few days back on Youtube, tell me how would an uninformed person tell that this video is pure propaganda?
https://www.prageru.com/courses/political-science/dark-art-political-intimidation
eBay Huckster
Member
fixed that for you, given that she's about to win the national popular vote, and possibly 50% of it, outright
I love the Internet, it's a part of our lives, but I really think social media soils the experience. And when 2 out of 10 adults only read legit news and would rather have Facebook feed them what they want, that's really scary.
But seriously, Zuckerburg's statement could not be more ignorant. I continue to lose respect for him, tbh he's kind of overrated. He's no Steve Jobs or Bill Gates imo.
He also had an article last week called "Trump is one systemic polling error away from winning the election" or something like that. Just saying.
I hate it too. But I seen intense fucking hatred for Hillary and it makes me fuming mad--but this clear anger and vitriol is what helped Trump win. And then you have the apathetic people that don't like her because of "collusion with the DNC" or that she's more of the same. All I'm saying is that we need a candidate that just "looks" better as shallow as that sounds.
that's just how it works, and we need to deal with it.
Yeah, you're right. I know two of them and as infuriating as it sounds, I could do nothing to disuade them from believing that Hillary wasn't the devil or murderer. It's insanely bizarre.
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