For Jonathan Bernstein, the most undercovered part of this campaign by the media is the depth and breadth of Trump’s lack of support within his own party. It’s easy to dismiss this, but, as Bertstein details quite well, there’s a stunning level of dissent about Trump on the right.
For Chuck Todd, the most undercovered part of the campaign by the media is the depth and breadth of dissent from both the left and the right to the status quo, and the degree to which this campaign has been a giant middle finger to our elites.
What nearly every pundit agrees about is that this campaign has been uniquely unpleasant and that the country is divided in ways that make it ungovernable. Partisans on the left are still seething about how Barack Obama, who had run a campaign on there being no true red/blue divide, was received by the Republicans in Washington DC when he took office. Although President Obama is generally popular on the left, he’s seen as naive for ever believing that he could work with the right. The last thing they want to see is Hillary Clinton wasting a bunch of time and opportunity in a doomed effort to “bring the country together.” But, of course, that’s exactly what Chuck Todd (and countless other Beltway insiders) wants and expect to see.
The level of antipathy that many Trump supporters have for her is beyond anything we’ve previously seen. She simply can’t afford to not try to at least de-escalate the anger.
She should embark on a set of town halls in Republican states with actual Trump voters starting in December and begin a conversation. She may make little actual progress, but democracy demands a real effort. If she simply adopts the 90s model of “hammer them harder than they are hammering us” — we’re doomed.
I always defended Obama in the early days by pointing out that he had to try to be the adult in the room even if it was a hopeless exercise. He ran on uniting us, and he needed to make the effort. In the end, enough people understood who was obstructing and who was being unreasonable that he was able to win reelection even in a pretty unfavorable environment. While it’s true that Clinton has won on a “Stronger Together” platform, she hasn’t promised to work miracles in deescalating the partisan divide. I don’t think too many voters expect her to accomplish this. Her promise is more to continue to defend an inclusive, heterogeneous and tolerant America that reflects its growing diversity and changing mores. And that’s exactly what Trump was running against. If she were to embark on some pre-inauguration townhall tour of red areas of the country, her message would have to be less of an olive branch than a recognition that inclusiveness includes everyone, even if they think they’re getting left behind by her rainbow coalition. But this doesn’t mean that she should make empty gestures of faux bipartisanship. She’s still going to be facing that giant middle finger no matter what she does.
With Bernstein, there’s an implication that since the Republican dissenters haven’t gotten enough attention or credit, the GOP as a whole has gotten a rather raw deal. Maybe they’re not quite as rotten to the core as it seems, and maybe their deplorables don’t make them irredeemable. I’m tempted to argue the opposite. I feel like a lot of what Trump did will stick precisely because it wasn’t repudiated strongly enough. The party divisions are real and unprecedented, but still weren’t anywhere near where they needed to be. And, in any case, the GOP is still stuck with these supporters. The elite upper crust that coughed up Trump like a fur ball doesn’t amount to more than a tiny percentage of their political movement.
To his credit, Chuck Todd recognizes that the media screwed up their prognostications in this election because they’re too insulated in New York and DC and don’t have their finger on the pulse of the country. He senses that even the Democratic Party now represents too few of the people on the economic margins, and he predicts that the financially pressed minority groups within the Democratic base will not stick around without a more concerted effort to address their needs. After all, at some point the GOP will stop campaigning against blacks and Latinos and Muslims and Jews and start dealing with the political realities that actually exist in this country.
My response to this is twofold. First, as I’ve said many times, the two-party system gives us two busses to ride. What those busses claim to care about can change and even reverse. The Democratic segregationist South can become the base of the Nixon/Reagan GOP. The rock-ribbed Vermont and Connecticut Republican can learn to Feel the Bern. Our party system is elastic, so the suburbs can go for George W. Bush and then go for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. A white Democratic governor from Arkansas can carry Kentucky and West Virginia twice and then those states can give 30% of their vote to a black Democratic candidate from Chicago. Most of the people in the Democratic Party right now are less committed to the ‘D’ label than what the party stands for right now. If, in the future, the Republican bus seems like it’s got a better chance of addressing their issues, that’s not some crisis. It’s more likely a sign of significant societal progress.
Secondly, it may be true that both parties are out of touch with the economic hardship felt by many of their supporters, but suppose that Clinton has absorbed this lesson? What’s going to be the primary obstacle to her delivering the change people want to see? It’s true that due to objections from “conservative” Democrats like Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad, and Joe Lieberman, President Obama delivered a needlessly flawed health care reform. But he got it passed and that was the main hurdle. It was the conservative Supreme Court that gutted the Medicaid portion of the bill. It was the Republicans who voted to repeal it eleventy-billion times. And it’s the Republicans who will prevent it from being from being improved next year.
At some point, we have to face up to the fact that the Republican Party is broken and is responsible for breaking this country. Hillary Clinton is doing her part by defeating them, but she shouldn’t enter office with the responsibility all on her shoulders for getting her rabid political opponents to behave in a rational country-first bipartisan manner.
She is showing them why they must change and that has to be enough. There will be a zillion articles putting it on her to reach out and make gestures. She has to do some of that just to give the other side an opening. But when her open hand is slapped away with extreme prejudice, it will be clear why most of those zillion articles should have been addressed to the Republican leadership, their rank-and-file, and, yes, Trump’s supporters.
But I think where it needs to happen is to rural voters on economic issues. That is the real divide in this country – between urban and rural and Ds have done a horrible job of addressing rural economic concerns.
If I am Clinton I set up a highly visible task force to address rural economic growth. Ask Tom Harkin to shepherd it and within 6 months introduce a bill in the Senate that addresses rural economic concerns. Make sure that is the top thing Ds address at August town halls.
the problem is what actual policies could help rural people?
Better high speed internet infrastructure? Price supports?
I doubt they’d want subsidies (or at least willing to admit they would)
they definitely need help but also reject help when it’s offered
It’s not that the reject help, they love government help and they know it.
The trouble comes because it’s very easy to convince these people that they’re struggling because all the money went to those people in the Inner City. And China and Mexico something something.
Actually all the money is getting sucked out of their communities by multinationals with chains.
a lot of these communities are too small for even big box stores
a lot of farming has become mechanized so there are fewer people in general in rural areas and the only real industry is farming
Wonder what the internet volume of sales is now in rural areas? Amazon, etc.
Another reason why destroying the post office is a very bad thing for rural America.
I’m a little at a loss to figure out what the national Democrats are supposed to do about Rural economic issues. Isn’t that for their own representatives to mull over? It was one thing 70 years ago when there was a big need to push for electrification and small town sewage systems and paved roads. But I’m not certain I’m ready for centralized industrial policy that favors putting light manufacturing back in small towns. Should we add “rural owned company” to the list of types of companies DoD needs to use for provisioning?
Rural Economic Impact Zones – give them a break on some kind of tax to put a plant in a rural area.
Restrict chain stores – there is nothing which has damaged rural areas more than WalMart. Of course, Hillary, former corporate lawyer for WalMart, is unlikely to do that. The US has gone from a nation of shopkeepers to a nation of part-time clerks in 40 years due substantially to the ability of chain stores to be in many states. Eliminate WalMart, and small stores will return to rural areas. Of course, by the same logic, eating pork rinds will enable you to float without support. Not sure if either is going to happen.
agressive anti-monopoly policy as detailed in the Washington Monthly by my brother.
A very interesting piece by your brother. He should write about the rise of chain stores and chain banks. These were not legal before about 1970. I remember people talking about branch banking. The chain stores have been another agent of the destruction of the middle class. By replacing the small shopkeeper with the part time cashier at WalMart, many deleterious effects are seen – less local charity, hollowed-out downtowns, men who stock shelves instead of running businesses, etc.
One idea that I suggested when I ran for State Senate in 2012 was to couple wind power with rural industrial development. When you transmit power over long distances, power is lost. By using the power locally, you can reduce that loss. You can also reduce the need for high-power lines. Here are some projects that could be placed rurally:
Many projects could be sited rurally, power would be available and there would be jobs.
Actually, there’s a lot that can be done though these will be actively opposed by the R’s that represent those rural areas. Although I live in a blue state in a Metro area, I have a farm in an adjoining red state. More and more of those farmers are using subsidies to put solar panels on their barn roofs and loving it. And they’ve always loved crop and input subsidies. R’s oppose solar and green infrastructure generally. Likewise, because of the failure to extend Medicaid in the R states, many rural hospitals are being forced to close and not just in minority populated areas but in rural, white conservative areas adding to the rural health crisis. Democrats could usefully start by campaigning about the disgraceful behavior of the R’s to their own constituents and proposing candidates for the mid-terms who would challenge the incumbents to put up or shut up.
Move elements of the Federal Government out of Washington DC and in to the country.
This has been a successful way to spread money into the provinces in Canada.
Pretty soon a bunch of farmers kids are working for the government, and they don’t hate it so much any more.
This is already done wrt defense (military bases). Do more, and in other departments. Move , say, half the Dept. of Education to Wichita, put the other half in Columbus OH.
I would suggest you read up on this case
That is what happens.
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I think that Clinton needs to roll out a broad range of programs. Not just something for the Country Folk. If she offers a comprehensive program it’s better politically and it’s better for the nation.
And I believe she’s got the depth and experience to put it together.
But one thing you can count on, she’s got the bullet holes in her back from 30 years of dealing with an antagonistic opposition. I’m thinking she will not play patty cake with them the way Obama did. Given the circumstances of his presidency, Obama was right to make a go of it, but now that the GOP has gone full melt-down, Clinton has less of a political requirement to ‘work with them’.
She should try to bring in the Sanders voters AND those rust belt voters. There’s a very broad coalition to be built on that, and Trump, by torching the GOP and scrambling the map, has opened up some new ground to work on. It’s the only good thing he did.
DON’T throw money at private corporations with debt to sell and expect good results.
DON’T de-federalize it and give it to the states to monkeywrench. If there is credit earned by the programs, let them show that federal govt CAN do good work for citizens.
There is a LOT of climate change mitigation that could use central planning and implementation. It need addressing on a ecosystem basis.
Stop screwing with public schools.
The Coasts are not doing badly, wage-wise and job-wise. The center is cratering.
I don’t understand the utility of continuing to say, “The Allies aren’t perfect, but we must face the fact that the Axis powers are the problem.” Yes. That’s a given. It’s been obvious to every thinking person, including blobs of right-centrism like Norm Ornstein, for many years. Any adult with the slightest rational interest in politics who doesn’t get that is being willfully ignorant.
Are you just saying that the only real battle, now, is for sufficient power to enact Democratic policies? If so, then yeah. The Democratic party may be weak on income inequality and transparency, and strong on fighting wars in seven countries and killing children halfway across the world, but I don’t know how we improve when there’s always Republicans to obstruct … and to blame.
So what systemic changes will lock in Dem power so that we can actually move forward with a progressive agenda? The Fairness Doctrine? A massive focus on equal access to voting? (What would that look like?) Politicizing the Justice Department to attack the Koch Brothers and their ilk? Free guns to rural areas?
And I haven’t seen any evidence of this: “Most of the people in the Democratic Party right now are less committed to the `D’ label than what the party stands for right now.” I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Or how do we make Election Day a national holiday? What’s the mechanism of that happening?
The Supreme Court will be the ‘tell’.
If republicans start squawking about SCOTUS nominees there will be no going back, because it’s their job to give a vote. Don’t do your job, you don’t get respect.
If Clinton was to do a series of red state town halls the republicans would start an organized movement to yell at and disrespect her. It’s what they do. Why should she go through that. Of course Chuck Fucking Todd would LOVE that, because then he could pontificate on how out of touch Clinton is.
Lawyers, Guns, and Money has had a series where they make fun of the ‘financially anxiety’ meme of Trump supporters. They show a picture of some person holding a racist sign and then post ‘another Trump supporter expressing economic anxiety’. The media wants to believe that meme, in fact, they ‘NEED’ to believe it.
It is incredibly overblown for that reason.
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I’m not concerned about the middle finger, but the trigger finger…
There are a lot of people visible now who are armed, dangerous, angry and convinced that they were robbed and 2nd Amendment…
Surrogates, yes, and a really strong Secretary of Agriculture, and a calculated flood of helpful legislation, especially if the Republicans in the House won’t pass it. Just keep sending it.
But. Don’t send her out there. She has a target on her back.
Next 4 years same as the last.
How about a real plan to improve political fortunes in states? Nary a peep there but when Dems lose the presidency they’ve got fuck all grip on the levers of power.
I’m not convinced a majority of this country wants to be united with the other side. Do I want to be in unity with the racist, misogynist morons who voted for Trump? No thanks, trench warfare from here on out.
Did Bernstein just awake from a 50-year coma? Does he not see a straight-as-an-arrow direct line between Jesse Helms threatening President Clinton ‘You better not come down here” or Gingrich “He’s not MY president”, through Joe “You lie!” Wilson to Jason Chaffetz “We’ve got years of investigations lined up!” to John McCain’s “No Supreme Court Nominees for You!” Soup Nazi impression?
Even the Republicans who hated Trump with the fire of a thousand suns are going to gleefully sign on to the Category 5 hurricane of obstruction they’re planning to send against Hillary…it’s who they are by now.
We won’t have a functional two-party system in this country until the GOP as it is currently constituted is dismembered, burned, buried with garlic in it’s mouth and the land it’s buried in is salted and a gargantuan stone monument with Don’t Open! GOP INSIDE” emblazoned in all the languages of the earth is erected upon it…
You are asking the $64,000 question here, Booman. The way I understand the situation is that Hillary Clinton simply cannot afford, politically, to continue her Wall Street and MIC-lovin’ ways, and she absolutely needs all the help she can get from the Sanders and Warren forces in order to connect with those who don’t like or trust her. It would be suicidal for her to try to block the Sanders/Warren movement, because it holds the key to the amelioration of these terrible problems.
Sure there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth from the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party, not to mention the Republicans. But there comes a point when you just have to tell them, the party’s over, I’m not committing political suicide any more just to do you guys favors.
I like the suggestions from Dataguy because they are direct and concrete. And they are ecologically sound and healthy. Do stuff that will quickly and tangibly improve people’s lives, put more money in their pockets. Obamacare, yes, but now, things that are not as policy-wonkish and politically vulnerable as that. This country has gone off the rails in part because the Democratic policy leadership is out of touch and lacks common sense. Sorry, Obama, but passing TPP would be the kiss of death.
The GOP, as a number of people have already said, needs to die. But that’s a separate issue. The Dems have governed for years in such a way as to leave a lot of people out. I don’t care what color they are or aren’t, you can’t just say fuck ’em, because they will only go and find themselves another Trump, and next time maybe one that’s a lot smarter.
In 2012 the republicans sat down and figured out what was wrong with their act, politically, and then instead of changing, they doubled down and kept doing it. Is that what the Democratic Party is going to do now? Or are we going to learn something from this near-death experience?
I say this with the more conviction because I and my family have not benefited mightily from the Clinton revolution or whatever you want to call it either. I’m not living in a drug-infested trailer park, but I’m not happy. Leaving out the genuine racists, who can go fuck themselves, I’m sorry there are so many people with such low information and poor reasoning skills, but they do have a lot of genuine grievances, and if those were being dealt with, in ways that Sanders and Warren definitely understand, I guarantee you they would be a little less hateful. I actually think Hillary understands this, to some degree. I’m not sure she did before the campaign, but surely she does now? But she’s going to need a lot of help.
Yes the GOP has poisoned the well. That’s ALL they do. That’s why they have to go. But meanwhile, let’s remember, we’re the Democratic Party not the Plutocratic Party.
To understand where I’m coming from, read this superb interview with Thomas Frank — I agree with almost every word :
http://inthesetimes.com/features/listen-liberal-thomas-frank-democratic-party-elites-inequality.html
Thomas Frank
George Packer: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/31/hillary-clinton-and-the-populist-revolt
Heard him on Terri Gross – very sharp guy with a lot of interesting points.
J.D. Vance: Hillbilly elegy. This is a coming-of-age autobiography of the author, who grew up in Southern Ohio, across the river from Kentucky. That part of Ohio is Appalachia north. If you ever saw “The Mothman Prophecy”, you would know the area – S Ohio, W Virginia, Kentucky.
Hillbilly Elegy. Haven’t read it but definitely mean to.
If Clinton wins Obama will be crowned the Democratic Reagan:
So there’s that.
Revisiting this thread in the aftermath…
At the end of counting, Clinton likely will have won more votes than Trump. And she built a considerable campaign apparatus in the process of doing so. She will undoubtably want to recede from public view — who wouldn’t? — but I would argue that in an extraordinary election like this one, she has a responsibility not to. She’s not going to be the champion for everyone, but our country is going to need a strong opposition voice and it’s not going to come from the press or the minority congressional party.