Democrats In The Wilderness

Discussion in 'Elections' started by Knave, Nov 9, 2016.

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  1. Deadtigers

    Deadtigers Member+

    Jul 23, 2015
    Independent Republic of the Bronx, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ghana
    Yeah all sure it will. All flowers and sunshine. I mean the ACA was out to make lives better and cost no jobs and created jobs and that went swimmingly. Maybe it just needed a white salesman.
     
  2. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    It was a focking redistribution of wealth to the very pigs we are all complaining about.

    Want to look principled while protecting your centrist GOP lite TPP/Fracking loving principles? Stop accepting *massive* donations from those industries. It might have served mr booker well following that advice.

    Alas, we are stuck with whatever slag the Dems prop up in 2020....because many of us aren't sure millennials will make it through 8 years of Trump...
     
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  3. Deadtigers

    Deadtigers Member+

    Jul 23, 2015
    Independent Republic of the Bronx, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ghana
    Oh come the duck on. Bernie gets more in Big Pharma donations than Booker. However Big Pharma provides like a 1/5th of the jobs in NJ. No way Booker could have supported that, someone else had to yield, This is how politics works, because it is all local. Like if Dems are gonna pass an anti coal Bill. For the sake of his career Manchin will have to say no, so the Dems have to look to a Gop to get a yes and soon.

    I thought yourr fellow Bernie Bros hated fracking? I ask because they just let in someone who will let it go unregulated over someone who would cut it down and regulaate it hard. But I guess you guys would rather starve than eat the bread of compromise. You do know the US government was designed for compromise right?

    Also if you research it, the Obama team debated and made the call that considering the economy just fell of the Cliff and insurance industry would be providing loads of desperately needed employment, it was best to let them exist, especially since all those millennials where nowhere to be found at the Town halls as Dems were under fire for even pushing for the ACA.

    No prospective, pragmatism or anything like that.
     
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  4. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    pragmatic...realistic.....isn't that how we ended up where we are today? ~1000 elected seats lost....but lets continue being 'pragmatic' and 'realistic'

    [​IMG]

    BTW....'bernie bro' is so 2016....try to keep up. I think I said something about 'party geriatrics' already...
     
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  5. Deadtigers

    Deadtigers Member+

    Jul 23, 2015
    Independent Republic of the Bronx, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ghana
    Remind me, how many Oscars, Willard has?

    We lost those seats because people decided Obama can do it all that is why no one showed up to the midterms. We had a 30-50 mill drop from the pres election to the mid-terms and no of these **************** progressives want to take the blame for that. It is the someone else's fault I didn't care about my country and it's future. If it had been the talk of the coffee shops, blogs and podcasts, I would have cared!
     
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  6. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    funny, I was around in 2012, 2008, etc.....they were there, but 'Hope and Change' was a slogan..nothing more. That's where many of us felt burned. Their silence about DAPL didn't help either. You know who was there? Tulsi, and Bernie...and Pocohantus didnt' weigh in until it really didn't matter...opportunist...

    Lets see, since 2012, 4 years of millenials came into voting age, little sh*ts, they weren't around in 2012.... :rolleyes:
     
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  7. MatthausSammer

    MatthausSammer Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 9, 2012
    Canada
    Club:
    Borussia Dortmund
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    #1882 MatthausSammer, Aug 6, 2017
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2017
    I apologize. I forgot to respond to this for a while. I'm here now though if you still want to dialogue.

    By your own timeline, Bill Clinton was the first of the "corporatist" Democrats, right? You argue that this produced a ripple effect wherein Republicans were forced further fringe right, beginning with Gingrich and culminating in Trump? And as a result the working classes abandoned the Democrats for the Republicans? Therefore "corporatist" Democrats are responsible for Trump? This is your argument as I understand it.

    There are a few problems with it:
    1. If the working class abandoned the Democrats out of self-interest because of rightward policy shifts that didn't benefit them, why would they side with the Republicans, who have only lurched even further to the right? It feels like your logic isn't consistent with itself; if they're self-interested and understand the direction being taken by the Democrats isn't working for them, why wouldn't they also understand that the rightward lurch by the Republicans isn't working for them? Why wouldn't they fight for their position within the Democratic party? It would seem to me that even within your own story, the working class deserve some blame as much as the "corporatists" for Trump. And if they aren't self-interested or necessarily informed, and the reasoning behind working class voting patterns is more cultural than economic, then your argument with regards to why the Democrats lost working class voters isn't aas strong.

    2. Let's put this argument in context; the Democrats had mostly gotten their rears whooped by the Republicans prior to Clinton. Mondale, Dukakis, and Carter all got gored by Bush I and Reagan. Reagan in particular was an unapologetic conservative. If the working class were behind the Democrats before Clinton, they weren't really much help. Clinton's more centrist approach clearly resonated with the larger voting public. You can bring up poll after poll saying Americans are much more leftist on specific issues than perceived, and therefore the problem is that Democrats aren't sufficiently left-wing to capture their enthusiasm, but that isn't reflected in their voting patterns. Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic primary by a substantial margin both in the votes of ordinary Democrats and the votes of Democratic superdelegates. The period prior to Bill's corporatist/centrist cancer supposedly infiltrating the party, Democrats were getting lit up. Obama won by proposing Clinton-esque policies with a younger fresher face on the front oof it. There's very little policy daylight between him and Hilary. Hilary and Gore both won the popular vote with a similar blueprint. Democrats certainly appear to be more competitive as centrists than as leftists, regardless of what issue-specific polls make out. And Republicans have suffered relatively little damage for their radical lurch towards the right. Nationwide American voting patterns are pretty clearly interested in a right vs center election as opposed to a right vs left one.

    3. So if point two is correct, responsibility for Trump lies not with the corporatist/Clinton/centrist Democrats,, who have overall appeared to trend towards increasing Democratic competitiveness nationally, but instead with the working class they supposedly abandoned. They didn't vote with their self-interest unlike your hypothesis, which claims their move away from the Dems was based in self-interest. They voted for Trump, who has done jack for them and supported a bill to gut their health care, only to threaten to try to gut it anyways after the bill failed. And doesn't it simply make more sense to point the finger at those who voted for the man, rather than try to make a variety of connections to put degrees-separated responsibility at the feet of those who failed to stop him?

    I guess I could've combined points 1 and 3, sorry.
     
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  8. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

    The next candidate should probably be a bit more humble and worldly...pull this again and we could be looking at 8 years of the current dumpster fire. I'm not saying the DNC shouldn't pick her, but at least pretend that their voters have a say

    20597064_10103724072480754_8243329616010576959_n.jpg
     
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  9. Deadtigers

    Deadtigers Member+

    Jul 23, 2015
    Independent Republic of the Bronx, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ghana
    If you turned 18 after 2008 and all those that turned 18 every year since! I was voting from 21 when I got my citizenship. They got no excuse, they just didn't care! But now they show up. They don't want to buy the ACA but want free college. No
    The lack of logic is Macedonian Frank's Forte. They believe everyone will see their brilliance and just fall in love. Forgetting what we have seen in actual elections.
     
  10. Deadtigers

    Deadtigers Member+

    Jul 23, 2015
    Independent Republic of the Bronx, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ghana
    I hope it is not Harris. The Dems need a white male. Large swathes of White America didn't take a half black male well can't imagine a black female will go well.

    I would prefer Chris Murphy out of Connecticut, maybe a Sheldon Whitehouse or considering how well he has done in the house on the Russia committe, Adam Schiff has to get a mention. I would be overjoyed with McAuliffe.
     
  11. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    So millennials are to blame? Ok well keep on alienating them. I'm a gen-Xer, never have I seen such irresponsibility in painting an entire demographic in such a way....pathetic. How about reaching out to them instead of patting them on their heads in such a condescending manner? This party can't BS these kids like they did us with "rock the vote," they have basically he entire world in their hands and endless knowledge at their disposal.


    What have we seen? Losing over a thousand seats? Well whatever it is it MUST be working. Let's stick with it! [emoji849]
     
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  12. Deadtigers

    Deadtigers Member+

    Jul 23, 2015
    Independent Republic of the Bronx, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ghana
    There is a lot to be said for not showing up when needed. You keep talking about seats lost and act like it happened in a vacuum. It is not their fault they didn't care, the DNC didn't work hard enough to make them care. The DNC can't say it but what kind of shiite is that! So the lack of turnout is totally on the dems. It is the DNC's fault these tickets didn't watch the news? They watched enough to go out and vote Obama but after that despite his battle to move the conversation toward affordable healthcare for all.
     
  13. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    The DNC needs relook their outreach programs. Reality is that the majority of us have short attentions spans, and you can't just count on votes and party loyalty. I'm in my 40s and can say over the course of my voting life, I'm pretty evenly split in party affiliation and voting record. Guess what? I'm unaffiliated at this time, want me back or my vote in the generals? Get me excited to go vote, get my attention with more than just hot sauce and Pokémon Go.
     
  14. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    /cocks eyebrow
     
  15. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    She's an opportunist who blew a huge opportunity to stand with her people and progressives....instead she was lined up to kiss some establishment a$$
     
  16. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And Bernie Sanders is an opportunist who is more interested in advancing Bernie Sanders Inc. than in actually advancing progressive causes through legislation, but you don't see me calling him stereotypically Jewish names, do you?
     
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  17. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    What does Bernie have to do with this? He's so 2016.

    Nor does he claim to be anything but who he is, heck he skipped AIPAC, which is a blatant pro Israeli agenda entity.

    But I get your point. Poor choice of words, sellout would have been a better less polarizing name.
     
  18. MatthausSammer

    MatthausSammer Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 9, 2012
    Canada
    Club:
    Borussia Dortmund
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    I'll tell you what; you find one, just one, Democratic representative or senator or governor from a purple or red state that got elected by espousing the values you claim to espouse to a sufficient extent that you'd hold them up as a model for other Dems to follow, whether it be opposing DAPL, opposing TPP, supporting Bernie, etc and I'll concede the point. There's hundreds to choose from IIRC. Blue states like Vermont or Hawaii don't count, because it's easy to be pure and principled when you're a shoe-in to get re-elected. You got to reach the people in closer races to gain ground on a national scale.
     
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  19. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    Look into the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC

    "The CPC advocates "universal access to affordable, high quality healthcare", fair trade agreements, living wage laws, the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in collective bargaining, the abolition of the USA PATRIOT Act, the legalization of same-sex marriage, US participation in international treaties such as the climate change related Kyoto Accords, strict campaign finance reform laws, a crackdown on corporate welfare and influence, an increase in income tax rates on upper-middle and upper class households, tax cuts for the poor, and an increase in welfare spending by the federal government."

    House

    [​IMG]
     
  20. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    #1895 Boandlkramer, Aug 7, 2017
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2017
    some more along this vein...the old voter outreach model geared towards senior citizens needs to be relooked. It's already common knowledge that Boomers are consistent. Younger voters won't vote party line or based off of name recognition. Policies that matter to them are what gets them to the polls. @Deadtigers is right about their absence in the off years, but the reality is that their votes (General and state) are needed in the presidential election years. We all already know midterms have always experienced a lower voter turnout.


    https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/millennials-vote-2016-election/?fb=dd
     
  21. totti fan

    totti fan Red Card

    Jun 24, 2010
    Club:
    SSC Napoli
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    To make this easier I'll paraphrase each of your points and in turn respond:

    Point 1:
    Why did the working class vote 'right' out of self-interest and not 'left' in 2016? Why aren't they fighting within the Democratic Party?

    Pretty sure we've already had this discussion. You could easily rephrase this question as why did Trump win? Trump won because he won key battleground working class states that were apparently shoe-ins for the Dems. How? Because he flanked HRC policywise to her left. (important that we make the distinction here b/w Trump the president and Trump the campaigner). Do you disagree? B/c I can link to a series of interviews, tweets, campaign ads to support this contention. People who view HRC through a MSM lense also fail to appreciate how intensely disliked she is, and no not for personal reasons but because of pain inflicted on their lives associated with the policies of Bill and Obama. Her left-wing campaign promises rang hollow. Btw please don't misrepresent my argument to suggest that Trump was a left-wing candidate, he was more of a right-wing populist who tried to appeal to as broad a swathe of people as possible, comparisons with Mussolini are apt.
    And on why the working class don't try to fight within the Dem party. Political involvement for the WC generally doesn't extend further than the ballot box, trade unions are significantly diminished. You phrased my argument as the WC abandoned the Dems when actually the inverse is true. "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." —Sen. Charles Schumer. Working class voters are fought by either protest voting Trump, abstaining or going third party. They succeeded in sending an abundantly clear message to the Democratic party, "Stop taking us for granted!"

    Point 2:

    Why are centrists and outright conservatives (ie Reagan) consistently winning elections?

    "Its the economy, stupid". I don't care whether your political bent is left, right, up or down. If you can deliver jobs and economic prosperity to the voters then you are virtually guaranteed electoral success. Carter presided over a difficult period of economic stagnation and stagflation. He had to contend with the OPEC oil crisis and the Friedman monetarist school of economic management was coming into prominence (with strong support from business interests) and so voters were ready for something different. That experience damaged the "progressive" brand. Australia had a similar experience with Whitlam. Never mind the longest serving president in history FDR and progressive Dems in power for the 35 years after the Great Depression for all but one president.
    Reagan and his successor won elections because his tax cuts and expansionary fiscal military expenditure boom was a classic Keynesian aggregate demand stimulus. Clinton came into power because of the early 90s recession and proceeded to balance the fiscal budget but the drag on the economy was offset by a private credit explosion facilitated by deregulation of the financial sector. That idiotic policy approach gave us the dot-com and subsequent sub-prime collapse. Also, Clinton's DLC did irreparable institutional damage to the party by entrenching a culture of taking money from big corporates with its attendant quid pro quo relationship.
    Turning to the present we now have a situation where voters are disillusioned with the economic status quo and are begging for some glimmer of hope of economic reform. Instead we got two intensely disliked candidates one an outright liar and the other is "everythings great expect more of the same". Clinton was a classic centrist and she went the way of similar centre-left parties in New Labour in the UK, the "Socialists" in France and a range of parties in countries in Southern Europe.
    And Sanders was cheated of the nomination. Polls consistently said and still indicate to this day that he would have won the GE. Perhaps voters were more centre-aligned in the 80s and 90s but economic conditions and voter attitudes have now changed. Furthermore the overseas experience shows us that when they are given a chance progressives perform better than centrists. Dems are actively working against progressives within their own party.

    Point 3:

    Based on Trump's efforts since assuming office people who voted Trump didn't vote in their self-interest. They're to blame for Trump.

    I'm tempted to argue this point but its not really relevant as voters were basing decisions in 2016 on information available in 2016. And you've built a number of assumptions into this question which you have an onus to prove before I make the effort to rebut.
     
  22. totti fan

    totti fan Red Card

    Jun 24, 2010
    Club:
    SSC Napoli
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    Agreed. Has there ever been a more fortunate generation who have done more than any other to fvck things up for the rest of us than than the Boomers. No.
     
  23. totti fan

    totti fan Red Card

    Jun 24, 2010
    Club:
    SSC Napoli
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    there was a 20 point swing in a congressional district in Kansas despite heavy spending from Repubs and virtually no support form the DNC. 50 state strategy huh?
    Also Jackson Mississippi recently elected a 'radical' mayor.

    Can you tell me a centrist Dem that has been elected recently in a red or purple state?
     
  24. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    You assert that it is just progressives that don't show up in the mid-terms. That's a significant and pointed assumption.
     
  25. Boandlkramer

    Boandlkramer Member+

    Apr 9, 2009
    Samma Weltmeister!
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    #1900 Boandlkramer, Aug 8, 2017
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2017
    Oh, this is interesting. Old article referencing the primaries. This post isn't about Sanders but highlights the influence these 'kids' can have if actually mobilised and leveraged.

    Again...poopooing all these 'kids' isn't anyone's best interest. The dems have some work to do. Disenfranchised is the perception among many of them after the convention. Right wrong or indifferent, getting them back should be a priority. This past election has demonstrated that boomers can't save the Democrats. At best, get these 'kids' motivated to go to the polls in 2012. Not getting them back could have some dire long term consequences. Browbeating them probably isn't a good start @Deadtigers

    [​IMG]

    Original source:http://civicyouth.org/total-youth-votes-in-2016-primaries-and-caucuses/
     

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