Trump won the white working-man vote..

[Anomalocaris]

The reason why turn out for Clinton is so bad when the alternative is trump is that that almost every poll made it seem a clinton victory is inevitable, so her unfavorability rating was not measured against a trump victory, but only against the perception that she would win anyway and swallowing dislike for her would be immaterial to preventing the worse outcome.

[Catholic_Lady]

Say what you want about Democrats, one thing is true - they are smart. They know how to appease people and win people over.

Sure, they felt a bit cocky/invincible after 8 years of Obama and did some stupid stuff that caused them the election - like having Hillary be the candidate, overusing the words "racist, bigots, xenophobes, etc" on anyone who veered slightly from their ideal narrative, and ultimately marginalizing a large group of people.

But they are smart, and they will learn from this mistake. Perhaps not a few members here, but many others already have identified the mistakes of this election, and they are talking about it. I've heard it on CNN, on radio shows, etc. The people who matter are figuring it out.

If Trump turns out being a crappy president, all the Dems need to do to win back the power is...

1. Have a better, more charismatic candidate. Someone who is fresh and has new ideas. People like the prospect of "change". They eat it up. Hillary was tired and worn out.

2. Quit it with the racist/bigot/xenophobe/etc narrative every 2 words. Be more humble. Be better at discussion and trying to understand people's perspective rather than immediately shutting them down with labels as soon as they say anything outside of the usual, liberal narrative.

3. Be more inclusive. Kiss the ass of everyone, not just minorities and women. Dem politicians are good at kissing ass, but it just so happens they got a little too carried away and cocky this time around and villainized a whole group of people (white blue collar men) instead of remembering they need to kiss their asses too.

4. Oh yeah... and the protests and clogging up streets are really turning people off. Seriously needs to stop. It's coming off as bratty and entitled to the hard working people who voted for Obama in 2012 but went for Trump this time around.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wonder how large that set is, lol?  

I'm hearing over nine million.

Excellent, I'd love to get a source for that.  Disparities in votes between Obama and Clinton doesn't actually tell us that those people voted Trump.  I am, however, tickled at the idea that the dems lost 9 million votes to an overt campaign of bigotry and racism.  Maybe yall didn't know yourselves as well as you thought you did?  The reds have been calling yall the racists and bigots for some time....didn't take that seriously?

In Michigan, she got 300,000 fewer votes than Obama did in 2012, 230,000 fewer in Wisconsin (Trump got exactly the same number of votes as Romney there). Clinton's black voter turnout dropped 11% compared to Obama's in 2012; she might have won North Carolina if blacks had turned out for her like they did for Obama. In Pennsylvania, the narrative of Trump stirring up working class voters in his favor has a little more going for it, he at least did better than Romney there.

Sounds like those folks who stayed home and or voted third party.

I was shocked that against a man like Trump, Democrats couldn't get out the vote, even with a candidate with Clinton's unfavorable rating. I thought she was going to win. It is extremely important to understand why she lost and not make the same mistakes next time.

I wasn't.  As soon as I saw the KKK endorsement I knew he had the south, lol. I did, though, think she would win. She lost because she was a flawed candidate, and the other guy made certain promises™ that appealed to a certain demographic™.  Even then, she only lost narrowly (and only electorially) and with substantial help by the gutting of the voters rights act and with less-than-insignificant assistance from the DNC, the "news", and a certain federal agency.

Some of those things, I think, dems could probably fix. Others, not so much.

[AceBoogie]

I honestly have no tolerance for racist or bigoted people. With that being said, I don't think it is fair for someone to say that just because a person voted for Trump they're automatically a racist. Though I'm sure many of them were.

[Mister Agenda]

And not only will calling them racists not do that, it's patently untrue.

If you vote for a racist ideologue who makes racist campaign promises, I don't care how you rationalize it away to yourself....youre a racist.

Trump got 61 million votes, nearly half of the popular vote. Extrapolating that, nearly half of America. If they're all racists, the word doesn't have much meaning, anymore. Sometimes discrimination is a good thing, like when you use it to distinguish your true enemies from the merely mistaken. That you can encompass half the country with the accusation is, I think, a factor in many people thinking the accusation is meaningless. You voted for Trump, you're a Klansman or Neo Nazi, same thing. And a short step to 'you didn't vote for Clinton, you're a Klansman or Neo Nazi, same thing.

[Mister Agenda]

Call the deplorables racists all you want, they're not who the people you're disagreeing with are talking about, that's just the strawman you're erecting so you can feel good about being intolerant of the intolerant, that's harder to do if you acknowledge that you're actually being intolerant of what used to be the Democrat base.

What strawman?  Did a person vote for a racist ideologue with racist campaign promises or didn't they?  They might not be the same class of racist as their more well practiced bigoted brethren...the deplorables, nevertheless.....a vote for trump was an affirmation of racism.  

"Im not a racist, I just voted one into the office of the presidency"  
-nah, doesn't work for me.  Could've voted third party, not voted, or wrote someone in.

The straw man that the people who are saying that we need to address the economic concerns of people in the Rust Belt are somehow defending racists and racism.

[The Grand Nudger]

It still has the same meaning as it ever did....doesn't really matter how many people the term accurately describes.  Once upon a time, it accurately describing an even larger portion of "we the people".

What, did you think there were fewer racists in the US or something?  Or did you simply -hope- that there were?

I think we need to address the economic concerns of people in the rust belt too. I didn't vote trump. I'm afraid that you might have swung that accusation in the wrong direction. I won't trade that, if offered, for all the other racist shit. Trump voters might have held their noses while they did just that....but they did...just...that.

[A Theist]

@MA

By the by, racists don't take the racist accusation seriously anyway....lol,.... You don;t need to look any further than this thread or these boards to realize that.  

What do you think of these candidates and former office holders? Would you have voted for any of them?

Alan West


Alan Keyes, who was my favorite in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries



Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor who I voted for against his democrat challenger,Ted Strickland

[Faith No More]

Your disapproval of them will not bring the Senate one vote closer to turning blue in 2018.

So what, we ignore it all and just try to pretend that they didn't vote in authoritarian racist?

Democrats understanding Rust Belt economic concerns and at least sympathizing with them will get more votes back in formerly blue states than railing against 3rd Party voters and calling everyone who voted for Trump a racist. However satisfying and effortless the latter may be. We should be thinking about how to get the ones who are reachable on our side, not how to alienate them further.

I'm not doing it to try to bring them to the other side. I'm not a democrat. I'm doing it because so many Trump supporters are afraid to admit that they just handed the keys to the white house to racist. Just watch 'em bend over backwards here on this very board to avoid acknowledge that. I'm giving them a reality check.

[The Grand Nudger]

The political version of "I have black friends" LOL< good for you, A? So does my grandfather, in fact that's the only friend he has left. Still a racist.

I'm giving them a reality check.

QFT.

Pointing out bigotry doesn't phase bigots (again, take a look in this thread, on this board, and around our country). It's not for them.....it;s for their "non-bigoted" apologists, sympathizers, and collaborators. Get your shit together.