I think Steve Kornacki is on the right track. He’s looking at the polling numbers for Trump and acknowledging that they look bad, but he’s noting that they’ll also looked bad as election day drew near last year. In fact, the numbers then and now don’t really look much different. We all still want to know how Trump managed to win when most people thought he was unfit for the office. But we also need to ask whether he’s as strong today as he was last November when he was elected the president of the United States of America.
Kornacki speculates that one explanation for Trump’s success and the surprise associated with it is that Hillary Clinton was almost equally unpopular. Kornacki also wonders whether the media is so hated that their relentless moral condemnations of Trump only served to make him more popular. And, likewise, maybe the near unanimity with which our celebrity culture condemned Trump and the contemptuous way they talked about him and his supporters made him look good by comparison. Kornacki doesn’t mention it, but it’s also true that Congress it almost unimaginably unpopular, which makes anyone who picks a fight with them the likely winner.
I suspect all of this played a part and can help us understand our political culture a little better. People are simply underestimating how much the American people dislike our politicians, our media, and the Democrats’ message and messengers, which makes us wrongly conclude that these groups have more credibility and appeal than they do.
We look at Trump and see all his flaws clearly, but we tend to blame the people instead of ourselves when we’re confronted with our own unpopularity. The result is that we’re constantly startled to realize that when Trump does something awful it doesn’t accrue to anyone else’s benefit. In our country, right now, it could be that an approval rating in the mid-30’s is miraculously high rather than perilously low.
Relatedly, since no one is really any more popular than Trump, no one has the kind of credibility needed to make perceptions about Trump change for the worse and stick. Paul Ryan isn’t going to win a pissing match with the president, but neither apparently are the reporters at the Washington Post or the National Review. Susan Sarandon isn’t changing any minds, and neither is George Clooney. No matter how much people worry about the president, that doesn’t make them want to rush into the warm embrace of Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi.
If this theory is correct, Donald Trump remains unpopular but more popular than pretty much anyone or anything else.
Personally, I like this theory and think it has a lot of explanatory potential. But, if it is right, it means that our institutions have fallen into such disfavor that the the whole country and world has been endangered as a result. This has been part of a long-term conservative movement project but many of their members are now realizing that they went too far.
To be sure, a lot of this contempt has been well-earned. And I’ve participated in creating a lot of it myself. Our institutions have failed miserably over the last twenty years or so, especially during the Bush administration. But we might discover that the road back to national competency and self-respect must come through a rehabilitation of our institutions. That’s no easy trick, especially since most of them have never been more broken.
I guess, one way to start is to focus on the positive a little more. For example, the media is far better today than it was in the pre-blog days of 2002.
Another way is to do much better when we get our next chance at governing.
One way or the other, we need something to be more credible and respected than Donald Trump. And it’s just not clear that that something currently exists.
Repairing our damaged institutions was a major focus of Obama.
Do you know what’s more popular than Trump, Republicans, Democrats, or Congress?
Obamacare.
You can’t beat Narrative X with nothing but Counter X. You need a new narrative. Democrats don’t quite have one.
As for the MAGArons, they’re sheep. Sheep will follow a malicious shepherd in the absence of a better shepherd. We have not yet provided that better shepherd.
I don’t think this is at all hopeless, but we need to do the work to develop a coherent message that goes beyond contempt for Trump. And we need a handful of people out front who regular voters can begin to see as reliable opposition spokesmen. Neither Mr. Perez nor Mr. Ellison can assume that role, nor can Schumer or Pelosi.
The DNC needs a compelling, charismatic front person, someone of unquestioned integrity. I don’t have a name.
Why do you feel that neither Mr. Perez nor Mr. Ellison would do well at that task?
Because I like them both and even I can’t listen to them. There isn’t an iota of charisma, appeal, call it what you will, they’re neither of them a convincing salesman. Neither of them screams, ‘Future.’
Charisma is such a mixed bag that it defies definition. Generically, those that are viewed as physically attractive start with a plus, but that didn’t help Brownback in ’08 or O’Malley in ’16 (and on a range of issues both were as in-line with their respective party bases as the other candidates). Exhibiting a high energy level (something that can be manufactured as it was for GWB in ’00) and passion for specific policies can override the physical as Perot demonstrated in ’92 (and he was also a bit of a mad-hatter outside the product he was selling).
Authenticity, consistency, and comfort in one’s own skin are additional components. The first can also be manufactured but faux authenticity has a short shelf-life. Sanders had all three plus passion and high energy. It explains why he was the only ’16 candidate that ended up with a high net approval rating.
Work on a coherent message but do not rush. The donald and the GOP seem prepared to prove they are not able to govern. Whatever the message is it better be about jobs.
I don’t get this absurd focus on the DNC. You know who lead the RNC in recent years? That dead-eyed creep, Reince Preibus. How charismatic and compelling was he as rode Trump’s coattails?
Ds don’t need a narrative.
Ds need credible, workable policies that they’d actually, you know, pursue.
What are Ds OFFERING to do for citizens?
What?
Damned if I know. And I read and research and look around for info, so don’t tell me to go look at website. I want action. Not seeing it.
Um…standing firm on maintaining ACA, for starters. There’s a reason repeal has not happened and now looks exceedingly unlikely. It’s the Dems who will stand firm against other attempted transfers of wealth from the public sector and from those of us who are lower or middle income to the uber-rich. Tax “reform” looks dead in the water. It’s the Dems who will be the adults in the room when it comes to the budget fights next month. Dem – affiliated organizations like Indivisible have done yeoman’s work organizing ahead of the few town halls GOP congresscritters have held this year, as well as organizing efforts to flood their offices with phone calls. Seems like they’re doing more with their relatively limited power as a minority party than nothing.
BooMan, I’m glad you’re back! But I have to say that I think you are off track on this.
Tell me how President Obama could have done better with the party of NO on the other side? With the party of FUCK YOU on the other side? Sometimes I think it’s amazing that we got as much done as we did.
I think it’s more of a problem of the media not getting the Democrat’s message out. Who is on the Sunday shows? Not Democrats. Who is interviewed in the papers? The 97% of black people who hate Trump with the heat of a thousand suns, or some stray black person who still likes him?
If you want to blame one one entity, I would take a hard look at the media.
Completely agree with the first point. We need to look hard at the Obama years. He was extraordinary in many ways … and yet we ended up precisely here. So if we can’t expect better than Obama–and we can’t–how can we expect to do better than we’re doing?
I don’t agree with the second. I don’t think it’s how much Americans dislike our elite or a problem getting our message out.
I think Boo is right with a previous point: it’s the Southification of the North. The following made the rounds on FB. It’s a great sentiment. I loved it:
Except the more I thought about it, the more I suspected that the vast majority of white people don’t have a strong German, or Serbian, or Irish identity. They can maybe say, “I’m part German, part French, some English, there’s probably Irish and I heard I’m one thirty-second Native American,” but that’s about it.
As those specific identities blend and fade into something non-specific, these Americans are left with … white. That’s the only ethnic identity available to them. So while it’s true that there never was a white culture, is it the case that there now is one, at least in the US?
Most humans apparently need a strong and specific group identity. Usually, though not always, this is ethnic. The Democrats are the party of people with strong identities as POC, as Muslims and Jews and gays–and maybe as, pardon the phrase, cosmopolitan/well-educated. The Republicans are the party of whites. In the north now, too. Hence, the Southification–whiteification–of Northern whites, as pale identities blended together and lost specific ethnic potency.
Maybe Trump is an avatar of ethnic whiteness. Do whites who have no stronger group identity than ‘white’ feel attacks on him as attacks on themselves? Do they defend and support him as a co-ethnic, more than as a politician?
Obama as the product sold; the neoliberal public policies he espoused didn’t.
In politics, we can always expect better. It’s not as if the bar for better is that high.
Perhaps very hard to expect a better campaigner. Much easier to expect a better president. 8 yrs in office and not nearly enough accomplishments. After a while, it seemed he was satisfied with small, incremental change, where he could get it. Not exactly in the spirit of his campaign theme of Hope and Change.
Overall he disappointed. In the important FP area, more often than not he sold out/capitulated to the neocons in govt, some of whom he had put in place himself. Did someone at the Pentagon or CIA show him the Zapruder film?
Obama’s ’08 campaign operation was about as good as can be expected. No foot-faults and oopsies were quickly corrected. (Re-election campaigns begin with so many advantages that not as much is required of them. Unless a sitting President is like Carter who didn’t think he needed one at all.)
As a campaigner, Obama was competent. Good speech writers, but his oratorical skills only look good in comparison with those of recent vintage that barely exist at all. Perhaps tech has eliminated the need for such skills, but it reduces the level of potential inspiration.
I gave you a 4, but if I could have I’d have given you a lot more for this thoughtful comment.
Thanks! I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I keep hoping to find an article on this topic by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about!
He blew it in ’09. It wasn’t his fault so much as it was Larry Summers.
But it is a tiresome argument.
I think your quote gets to the heart of the matter. What the quote misses is that many white people don’t celebrate their Irish heritage or any other heritage but being an American. Their heritage isn’t really traceable to one place, or alternatively they don’t really regard it as relevant. So to your point it is a frontal attack on their identity. It says THEY HAVE NO culture.
True story. I went to my wife’s synagogue in Brooklyn shortly after we were married. The Rabbi talked about not becoming a “bland American”.
Everyone in the temple knew what it meant. There is a whole history about Jews and assimilation and worries about the long term survival of the Jewish identity.
But only one person heard that as an insult.
Me.
I am a bland American. Mostly Scottish – though I really have little sense of connection to the place. Home is here. The culture of this place is my culture.
Great comment Steggles. Really great.
Thanks, fladem. That means a lot coming from you.
And that’s very on point with your wife’s synagogue. I’ve had that same conversation with other Jews many a time. And with a Boston Irish friend who is extremely Boston Irish, and concerned about raising a ‘bland American’ daughter. I feel deep in my shtetl bones the dread that my kids will lose ‘our’ culture; but of course it is an insult.
I don’t know how to square that circle as a Jew, and I don’t know how we square it as Democrats.
This was profound to me and then a day later it hit me…
these Americans are left with … being Americans. Isn’t that enough?
My sense is that it’s often not enough. Jews identify as Jews and Americans. Blacks identify as black and American. Gays identify as gay and American. I suspect that ‘American’ isn’t specific enough to scratch this itch for most people, in the same way that ‘I identify as a human being’ isn’t enough for most. Identity requires opposition; and it really really helps (see Jews, blacks, gays) if you have a narrative of oppression to bind you together.
Also … I’d imagine that if they ran around saying, “We’re Americans!” all the non-white Americans would say, “And what the fuck do you think we are?” Like they’re saying, We’re real Americans, we’re the only non-hyphenated pure Americans?
I don’t know. I’m just thinking aloud. Maybe those non-ethnic Americans for whom ‘American’ is enough are white Democrats? Maybe they don’t have trouble identifying as ‘Americans,’ and that’s why the right’s appeals to their ethnic whiteness don’t work? If so, is the way to Move Forward to figure what identities they do have, and to expand and support those?
<i.Tell me how President Obama could have done better with the party of NO on the other side?</i>
Throw some bankers in jail? That was an Obama/Holder decision alone. Unless you think people like David Dayen lie as much as Trump. Black America lost half its wealth in the recession. I’m not making that stuff up. The studies to back up that claim are out there. Yet no one went to jail for the biggest fraud perpetrated on this country possibly ever.
That would have also made it a lot more difficult for the Republicans to demagogue the bailout.
When conservatism has failed miserably in governing or serving the people…
When the logic of political argument is that conservatism is the only true ideology and cannot fail…
…and can only be failed by politicians who were not conservative enough…
There is a contradiction that freezes politics into inaction or fires it into disastrous frenzy.
In no way can it be called “rational expectations”.
Until institutional control changes dramatically or the perceptions created by the information environment change drastically, we who seek as practical alternative to disaster are stuck. It seems that money is capable of buying a simulacrum of both of those changes and delivering more of the status quo.
With the utmost respect to all concerned, I hate these “Democrats need a new narrative” discussions.
The problem with Hillary was that she was the victim of an obscenely well-funded, multi-tiered, decades-long smear campaign, full stop. There’s nothing about Hillary that wouldn’t look completely different if she’d been treated the way Reagan, Bush, or Bush were treated, rather than how she and her husband (and Obama, but they didn’t have enough time to really smear him; he came up too fast) were treated, it’d be a totally different story.
The problem is on television and in the Times (Frank Bruni, etc.), not in the candidates. We’re facing state-of-the-art propaganda techniques that turn assholes like GW Bush into “great statesmen” and straightforward, doctrinaire politicians like John Kerry or Hillary Clinton into horrible scare images.
I’m not saying this is something we can overcome, or even affect at all. I’m simply saying, “We have to change our message” is not going to do it. It’s futile.
I thought Hillary had no message long before November, even as I was maxing out my donations to her campaign. Yes, she was absolutely the victim of a high-tech lynching, and of course she was the far better qualified candidate, but aside from the roll call of minorities I couldn’t tell you what she intended to actually do. She was a manager at a time when people wanted a leader. She was trying to replace one of the most eloquent and inspirational presidents in recent memory with nothing but a resumé.
That’s on you, or on the newsmedia. Her entire platform, in detail, was on her website and in her speeches. None of it got reported on; journalists said it was “boring” and focused on her catching a cold.
That doesn’t mean anything. Those are just words; Trump isn’t a “leader” either. What you’re really saying is, she couldn’t talk as well as her husband or as Obama, but few can, and neither could (for example) George W. Bush, who sounded like an ignorant cracker, and look what happened to him.
I had somewhat the same feelings about her. I don’t think I ever really trusted her, that she would follow through and maybe start another war to conquer Syria or start one in Ukraine. Still I gave her money and I voted for her. She did not inspire me. I often thought that some people in the states she lost may have wanted more than pablum. She was not convincing. And, for whatever else you say about Trump, he could get his message across even if it was only just “amazing”.
But everything you’re saying is filtered through the overwhelming journalistic bias that legitimized him and denigrated her.
I’m too tired of the whole topic to go through it all again, but the press treated her like some kind of marginal, barely-legitimate, sketchy grifter (whose only issue was being female — they ignored her platform, which was one of the most detailed and serious ever contrived), while totally skimming over Trump’s mobbed-up grifting, sleazeball businesses, and total ignorance.
No doubt. She had to contend with Comey and decades of propaganda. Then Trump hit her with the e mails, server and lock her up. All of that lead to an impossible hill to climb. I feel bad for her but, as I said, she didn’t inspire me, whatever the impact of the press.
The facts don’t support your opinion:
That’s without a score sheet on the negative coverage. For example, and here I’m only speaking of the MSM, what was the ratio for negative coverage on old stuff? iirc most of the negative coverage on Clinton concerned her use of a personal server while she was SoS and her private GS speeches. The latter was done 2013-14 and while the former was done 2009-2012, it was only publicly disclosed in the spring of 2015. Was the media not supposed to cover either in 2015-16?
Fairly or not, voters give more weight to what a candidate has done in his or her life than what “they’re gonna do if elected.” That’s in part the fault of all politicians because the “gonna does” are routinely ignored once elected. Or worse — they promote or enact stuff that the public opposes. Both are in evidence on Trump’s Afghanistan flip-flop.
An alternate take on that study.
When you break down what that ‘negative’ coverage actually was, and dig into to the fact that almost none of Clinton’s policy proposals were actually covered while Trump at received a lot of coverage oh his ‘proposals’ your particular narrative falls apart.
It’s especially important to not that most of Trumps ‘negative’ coverage was over immigration. The media may have portrayed it as bad, but Trump supporters took the MSM portrayal of Trump’s immigration ‘stuff’ as a positive.
Trump had policy proposals? Okay — his stupid wall and deporting Muslims and Mexicans and not letting any more in. How much positive coverage did he get for any of that? How much negative coverage?
It’s not up to the candidate and not the media to promote her/his policy proposals. From the beginning to the end of Clinton’s campaign, there were too many flip-flops and too much parsing and she often left a visceral residue in viewers that she was dissembling. (Romney had the same problems.)
I have a higher bar for what constitutes “negative coverage” than what is used in studies. At the top are reports that are factually incorrect and/or distorted to such a degree that they aren’t true, loaded with hyperbole, disgust, denigration, mocking by the reporter, and presented a large number of times. Dean’s “scream” falls into that category. A close second is Gore’s “I invented the internet” and not far behind were the “swiftboat” attacks. Don’t recall that any in the ’16 election reached that level.
Right below that category are the non-fact based or skimpiest of facts that tell little to nothing that are used in a variety of ways, heavy on unsupported opinion, to impugn a candidate. Sanders was the recipient of that in ’16 (when the MSM wasn’t doing its best to ignore him).
At the bottom of negative coverage are reports that are factually true and cast the candidate in a negative or murky light, but with hyperbole, etc. and excessive coverage and repetition beyond what the truth warrants. I’d put the Rev Wright and Bill Ayers from the ’08 election in this category. I’m sure both Trump supporters and Clinton supporters can cite examples of this sort of negative coverage for their candidate, but doubt that I’d agree.
On the opposite end is coverage that is false (or based on nothing more than a reporter’s like for a candidate) in it’s effusiveness and praise. GWB did receive a lot of this in ’00. And I’ve never stopped criticizing those reporters for it. Didn’t notice anything that extreme in ’16. However, there were some claims that came close.
The MSM, in my opinion, didn’t stay on top of and properly challenge Trump’s claim that he would be self-funding as it evolved. Otherwise, the rash of shit that he got was appropriate or close enough. If it hadn’t been, then his high net negatives would have been lower. With one exception, reports culled from the sealed documents in his contentious divorce from Ivana should have been off-limits. (iirc the MSM stayed away from the rape allegation lawsuit. Good move since it was quietly dismissed as the claimed victim’s story had cargo truck size holes in it.)
Wow… just wow. Literally citing a study for evidence of equal negative coverage and then changing the standard for negative coverage when it’s pointed out your original statement was incorrect because it was incomplete. Talk about moving the goal posts.
She has hers on wheels.
Do you always mock those that present a coherent explanation of how they view a certain matter which in this instance is negative media coverage of candidates and their campaigns? You didn’t even bother to state where you disagree with me and retreated behind a Harvard and not even honestly because you could see that I cited the general election portion of it and not the election cycle as a whole. For the specific reason that the primary cycle coverage doesn’t carry over to the general election electorate as a whole.
(I also know how difficult it is to score something like media coverage labeled positive and negative and therefore, very broad criteria end up being used. Too broad to make any fine gradations in understanding. Thus, Democrats still can’t understand how Trump managed survive Machado, pussygate, Manafort and Russians.)
Nobody disputes that Trump received an excessive amount of coverage during the primaries. Last report I saw, it was twice as much as what Clinton received. Somebody (cough, cough) wanted him to both be the nominee and have a credibility problem with the party primary base. During the general election MSM coverage in number of seconds and number of words was more nearly equal.
Marie3… there is nothing coherent about your second post. Not a damn thing. You opened on one post with one ideal and used a study to back up that ideal. All well and good for the most part.
When it was pointed out that your statement about what that study showed was incomplete, you literally changed the definition of ‘negative’ that was used to make your original point into something completely subjective, i.e. your personal view what what is and isn’t true or negative, while complaining about the subjectivity of negative in the study you brought up in the first place.
In response to me pointing out, with derision and mocking yes, that you had completely redefined the terms for your arguments and the evidence for your arguments and therefore your arguments themselves, you further redefined and reshaped the area of debate from negative coverage to ‘Marie3’s personal definition of negative coverage’ and once more ‘Marie3’s personal definition of negative coverage’ but only in the general election.
There is absolutely nothing consistent about your argument or the space your argument is supposed to take place. It’s been redefined three times in three posts.
It’s compulsive behavior .
“Did I wash my hands? I’m not sure I washed my hands. I think I’ll wash my hands again, just to be sure.”
.
Clinton never used any of her policy proposals in her advertising. Her closing argument in NH was about getting things done with Republicans.
Analysis done after the election found her advertising the most negative and personal of any presidential candidate.
Putting a policy proposal on the web doesn’t mean crap if it isn’t in your advertising.
As noted elsewhere here, Clinton spent three debates laying out her policy proposals. But I think you are right her proposals were not covered extensively by MSM. I don’t think that was the MSM fault. She was never particularly forthcoming about it or I just missed it. I think I heard her whisper increasing the min wage once but not much after that. She liked to say or advertise negative things about Trump.
Nonetheless, Trump – at least to me – seemed to have wall to wall coverage. I don’t think he cared if you called it positive or negative. His campaign was about what it is now- MAGA, immigration, fake news, drain the swamp, crooked Hillary, lock her up, now morphed to Sessions, McConnell, Comey. He doesn’t much care if you call it negative or not. Truth and facts mean very little to him. Hell after last night some are fully convinced it was the MSM that misreported what he said about Charlottesville. He works to his base and he is very good at it.
I think it would have required a very special person to beat this man and it still does. We didn’t have that person last year, and we don’t have anyone yet, whom I feel can take him down.
It was a tough to watch him breathing over her in that debate and watch the returns on election night.
While that is true, you can go around the media reporting and go straight to the voters with advertising. It gives less effect then what media reports, but it does give the candidate a way to get the message out there.
I don’t live in the US, so I follow US politics from afar and I might miss stuff like what message is pushed through advertising if it is not reported on. But the study quoted here I think indicates that the Clinton campaign also chose to focus on Trump’s personal defiencies rather then on Clinton’s policy program:
Study: Hillary Clinton’s TV ads were almost entirely policy-free – Vox
And that is on the candidate.
It’s unreal. There were 3 debates in the general election. Clinton spent the majority of all 3 laying out a policy vision for her presidency. The primary was in large part contested on policy differences. The policy platform adopted at the convention was the result. Clinton’s convention speech was full of policy proposals. To have no idea what she intended to do as president is willful ignorance.
Not really true. I couldn’t tell you what she planned to do in the same way I knew what Obama would do if he won. I knew he’d do health care, some sort of cap and trade, and he’d end the war in Iraq and close Gitmo. Stimulus and financial regulation came more out of circumstance than plans. I knew he had plans beyond those things, including immigration, but I wasn’t under the impression it’d be the first (or second) focus. What would Clinton do when she got there? shrugs
I knew what Sanders would do, even if it would fail. You guys keep blaming the electorate for her failures to articulate an actual vision rather than a laundry list of random shit and “go to my website”. Made same point to a friend on FB messenger in December 2015. It was a problem then, turns out a problem all the way until November.
Maybe Booman saw the commercials because he lives in PA. But do you know what HRC commercials ran in PA, and probably other swing states? They focused almost exclusively on Trump’s character. You know how I know? Because they aired a ton during NFL football last fall before the election. Commercials about him ripping Mr. Khan. Commercials about “grab ’em by the pussy!” Which the p-word was bleeped out of course.
All I saw in NH was attack ads on Trump and an ad about getting things done with Republicans.
I don’t remember seeing a single policy based ad from Clinton after September 15th.
It’s almost like incremental change isn’t enough.
Incremental change is fine, and broadly supported, when generally things are near or at good enough. Provided those incremental changes aren’t half-measures that retard getting to good enough.
When conditions are far short of good enough, incremental change doesn’t cut it because they’re too weak to have much impact on what’s wrong. It’s like medicine — if a cure dosage is 100 milligrams/day, 50 milligrams/day doesn’t lead to a cure in twice as many days. Given enough time, it may result in a cure or it may be worthless or even worse than no medicine at all.
This is an example of the problem C.S. Lewis mentioned about cynicism. As he put it: “You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that a window should be transparent, because the street or the garden beyond is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”
In the same way that physically see through everything would render one functionally blind, the kind of utter cynicism about our institutions of governance that Mr. Drum is describing renders people incapable of making rational choices about governance. Trump is the result of that attitude, and an important part of recovering ourselves from that disaster is to rehabilitate those institutions and to teach people to care about them and for them.
” since no one is really any more popular than Trump”
Bernie!! He was at 57% in April, way above Trump, and probably has not moved up or down since then. He has clearly shown he is a player, and yet he is still invisible when booman looks for “anyone” – anyone – more popular than Trump.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/329404-poll-bernie-sanders-countrys-most-popular-active-politic
ian
True, Bernie is the most popular politician in America. But he couldn’t possibly win a national election because … umm, he’s too old … that is, because he’s Jewish … no, wait … because he’s too grumpy … yeah, that’s the ticket, too grumpy. People don’t like that. Anyway, he doesn’t know anything about foreign policy. And most conclusive of al, it’s because he’s an independent calling himself a socialist, so even when running as a Democrat he wouldn’t be a REAL Democrat lie Hillary … anyway, as you can see, there are many things about him that would cancel out the fact that he’s the most popular politician in America.
Wow. Is he up to 66 percent popularity?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/146891/hillary-clinton-favorable-near-time-high.aspx
Has he had a decades-long smear campaign being waged against him designed to demonize and destroy him? Is he being relentlessly targeted by the RW propaganda machine, aided and abetted by the MSM? Do you really believe he’d be immune to such a concerted, coordinated, unwavering assault?
And, please, before you dismiss me as just another mindless Hillbot: I didn’t care for either her or Sanders as our candidate; I wasn’t blind to either candidate’s faults; but nor was I willing to trash either one and thus give aid and comfort to the evil bastards who have seized control.
Yes, Hillary Clinton polled very high in 2011, when she was secretary of state. As soon as people started to realize she wanted to run for president again, her popularity began to drop. In other words, as an Obama appointee she was popular — as a political candidate on her own, increasingly less so.
Although it can be documented that the preliminary part of her campaign began as soon as she resigned as SoS (i.e. in February 2012) right after Obama’s second inauguration — it wasn’t until around Dec. 2012 that the public began to realize she probably would be running again:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/06/hillary-clinton-2016-democratic-primary-winner
Look at this graph. Notice the steep decline in Hillary’s favorability beginning in Dec. 2012. Note too that it had already been on a slight decline for some time before that.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating
This trend continued, and by about 3 years later, her unfavorables had become higher than her favorables. The disparity continued to grow right up to the election. By Nov. 2016, it was nearly as bad as the disparity in Trump’s job approval right now. That pretty well chimes with Booman’s point here.
During the primaries, in polling matchups with Trump, Sanders always beat Trump by a healthy margin, while Hillary did significantly worse against Trump than Bernie did — enough to cause concern, if more people had taken it seriously.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/yes-bernie-polls-better-against-trump-than-hillarybut-theres-a-catch
This article documents this, but also tries to find “a catch” as to why this was consistently so. It was, supposedly, the fact that Bernie had not faced the same scrutiny as Hillary.
True, he had not. But it all comes down to this: Do you really think that in a few months of anti-Bernie propaganda, they would be able to do as much damage to Bernie as had accrued to Hillary after two and a half decades?
I don’t. First of all, because Hillary had incomparably more baggage (whether real or imagined) than Bernie and was a far less motivating candidate. And second of all, precisely because he did NOT have “a decades-long smear campaign being waged against him designed to demonize and destroy him” as you put it.
It is not a question of whether that was fair or not — it was just A FACT, and BTW, much of it had come about in tandem with the relentless anti-Bill Clinton propaganda.
Again, on top of this, Sanders proved himself the far more motivating candidate. Except where there was a strong Democratic machine.
In any election, against any candidate, it is a GIVEN that the Republicans will do whatever they can to smear their opponent. The only questions are,– what they can use to attack, how ably the candidate defends him/herself, and how much good will the candidate has with the general public. On all three parameters, Bernie had the advantage not only over Hillary, but what’s more important, over Trump.
I have never considered you a Hillbot, but I wish you would look into these matters in greater detail.
With some of the things they had on Sen. Sanders? Oh heck yeah.
He’d easily lose 5% just from reporting about him going to a literal anti-American rally, some where in Central America I believe though I can’t remember exactly where right now, where there are multiple witnesses as well as his own recounting where he personally was chanting anit-American slogans. If they have video of it, and there is a good chance they do, he loses 10% minimum.
And that’s just one thing he’s done in his 70+ years of life that is off putting for huge swaths of Americans.
If you think Bannon and Trump wouldn’t ratfuck Sen. Sanders over the rape porn he wrote, no matter how benign it was in actuality, you’re also crazy. Especially because it would create ‘doubt’ to inure Trump from his own rape tape.
Trump and Bannon’s strategy was to be King of the Pig Pen. There’s plenty of shit they can fling at Sen. Sanders to smear him up if he was the nominee.
Worse, the MSM freaked the fuck out over a Clinton. Imagine the shit they would come up with over an actual ‘Socialist’ running for President.
Then tell me, what imaginable “Mr Clean” would they NOT do that to? I guess we can never win a fucking national election again.
There isn’t one. They’re Republicans after all. But you’re in denial that Sen. Sanders has some legitimate dirt, as defined by most of America, on him. He really did right a rape fantasy piece, he really did go to a foreign country and chant anti-American slogans, he really is a ‘Socialist,’ he really did honeymoon in the Soviet Union. All of that really will turn off a lot of voters if it gets play time in the national media.
Sen. Sanders is popular right now because his ‘negatives’ are the least talked about by the MSM. When that changes, so does his popularity. And worse, while the characterization of most of all of that would be false and out right lies, it’s based on things that actually happened.
You asked what they would hit him with. I pointed out two of many things. Two of many things, that objectively are a lot more consequential than ‘Emails and The Clinton Foundation’ to a great many Americans even though those things are bullshit. They were able to turn this into a mud fight with mostly pure lies and bullshit. If you think they couldn’t have gotten Sen. Sanders with things that are have a real basis in reality…
There would also have eventually been some focus on the circumstances surrounding his wife’s tenure running a liberal arts college that ended up going bankrupt (my vague recollection). She’s had to lawyer up, and no doubt if Sanders had been the nominee last year the shit would have hit the fan there as well. Would that have mattered to me? No. The object from my standpoint had become very simple even early on in 2016: keep Trump out of the White House. Both Sanders and Clinton were flawed candidates – each in different ways – but they both had the advantage of being competent and both had the advantage of being generally in our corner with regard to social and economic issues. Each had their strengths and weakness there, but they overlapped enough to where I could have voted for either with a clean conscience (and in fact I voted for both of them – Sanders in primary, Clinton during the general election). The circular firing squads of who was more pure than whom that I saw here and on my social media feeds irritated the fuck out of me, mainly because of how stupid the whole thing was when we faced and still face an actual existential threat. It’s probably too much to ask the circular firing squads to lay down their arms. I’ll simply say that in a candidate, I want someone who will act in the interests of those of us who are less well off and who are otherwise marginalized to a degree that Trump or whatever goon replaces him won’t. I’m not looking for a savior, just a competent politician. The flaws? Whatever.
Everybody’s got negatives, because it’s the job of oppo research to dig them up (or create them).
Obama is of course a n-r. No white people would ever vote for him. But not only that — he’s a Muslim, born in Kenya. A disciple of Reverend Wright and Saul Alinsky. He wants to institute Shariah law in place of the US Constitution. Aside from being a Muslim, Obama is also a socialist, depending on who you ask.
So, a lot of these turn out to be bullshit talking points. And everybody (in theory) can overcome them depending on a variety of factors. Obama blew right threw them. Hillary never could. If we haven’t learned all this from the last election we haven’t learned anything. Tell me that both Hillary and Trump didn’t have far more negatives than Sanders.
Really? You think to the public at large that Sen. Sanders participating in chants of “The Yankee will Die” in pro-Sandinista rallies in Nicaragua isn’t going to be a deal breaker for 20% of the country we need to win? That’s a huge negative.
Or how about when the GOP drags up the good ole Reagan good, Carter bad feels when they trot out Sen. Sander’s statement that he “stands with revolutionary Iran” during the Iran Hostage Crisis. That’s not a huge negative?
Or how about when the bring up his vote against criminalizing photo-shopped Child Porn of simulated child rape? Never mind that I think that was the right vote because it’s not real people and therefore falls under the First Amendment, I guarantee a majority of voters are not going to agree with me. Hence why I’m never going to run for President. Anyone who had to make that vote should have known at the time that it would come back at them if they tried to go further up the political chain.
Or how about when they brought up his opposition to the Auto Bailout during the Great Recession? You think that’s going to play well in the Rust Belt when they start hammering on that?
Or what about Sen. Sanders’ personal documentary of Eugene Debs where Sanders praises Lenin and the 1917 Revolution? You think that’s not a negative to the public at large?
Again, I don’t think you realize exactly how much ‘dirt’ there is out there on Sen. Sanders and exactly how many ‘negatives’ he really has to the public at large.
I personally don’t care about much of this shit. I’ll admit I don’t think anyone who went to a rally in another country and shouted “The Yankee will Die” has any business being President of the United States, but that’s a personal quibble more broadly based things you just don’t do if you want to be President.
But for all the ‘negatives’ Hillary Clinton had, yes I do think Sen. Sanders had more ‘negatives’ to the public at large if not in quantity then in quality. I just think we have not heard about much of them yet because Sen. Sanders may still run again and while Republicans are Stupid, they aren’t that stupid. They’ll sit on that stuff until they can best use it to tank him.
“n July 1985, Bernie Sanders traveled to Nicaragua, where he attended an event that one wire report dubbed an “anti-U.S. rally.”
“The leftist Sandinista government was celebrating the sixth anniversary of the revolution that saw it take power from an American-backed dictator, Anastasio Somoza. Sanders was in a crowd estimated at a half million people, many of whom were clad in the Sandinistas’ trademark red-and-black colors and chanting “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die.”
It does not say that Sanders was one of the chanters.
Now let’s see, the Sandinistas were fighting the Contras. Reagan, Bush, Iran-Contra, anybody remember that? I gwouldn’t blame Bernie for wanting to have a look-see.
So you’re literally running with the current Repub Neo-Nazi defense?
“I willfully and with knowledge aforehand joined the
Neo-NaziSandinista rally, but I didn’t chant or waveNaziSandinista Flags. Therefore, I’m not aNeo-NaziSandinista and don’t support theNeo-NazisSandinistas whose rally I was willfully participating in even as they chantedBlood and SoilThe Yankee will Die.”I’m mean, you can do that. But damn…
I don’t think that will hold up well. Perhaps you should quit while you’re behind before you go full Trump.
Obama’s pastor said in one sermon< God bless America? God DAMN America!” The GOP spin machine certainly went to town with that.
And yet Obama was elected president and elected again.
Fancy that.
At the time it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Obama was going to win the Presidency. Hell, it was pretty close much of the electoral season. That pastor’s quote (taken out of context) did cost Obama some tangible support. We ended up with a contingent of dead-enders known as PUMAs for example who at least tried to get a good circular firing squad going. Almost succeeded. The circumstances of that election were different – we were in the midst of a major recession/minor depression that damn near well could have been Great Depression 2.0. The GOP had a very unpopular lame duck president, and a nominee who had baggage and a VP running mate who was a blithering idiot. The Iraq War was unpopular, especially with young adults, and the GOP’s hands were all over that one. And yet, for a good while, it was a close race. In hindsight, of course, Obama’s success seemed inevitable. Sure wasn’t at the time.
That’s exactly my point. Just as Bernie’s success seemed anything but inevitable. And Hillary’s seemed (to many at least) virtually guaranteed.
HRC was the odds on favorite to win the nomination. Whatever one might think of her as a candidate, the nomination was hers to lose. That Sanders came as close as he did was highly improbable, but it happened. National polls seemed to have HRC under the 50% mark fairly consistently, and her leads against rivals in the GOP were consistently in the single digits. There were exceptions, but that seemed like a fairly safe rule. Hell, there were enough polls showing HRC’s lead against Trump during the latter months and weeks of the election cycle to where we could say that the outcome was essentially a tossup – HRC’s lead was within the margin of error in a number of polls. There were a number of historical conditions that folks like Sabato loved to discuss regarding the difficulty in a party winning a third term in the White House – especially when the economy is still weak, the lame duck President is underwater in terms of favorability, etc. HRC or any other candidate the Democratic Party might have hypothetically fielded would have faced those same headwinds. No matter which person received the Democratic nomination, there was going to be some faction that felt left out, and would become the 2016 equivalent to the PUMAs. It wasn’t clear at the time how effective at forming an effective circular firing squad within the party, but in hindsight we can sure see the consequences. Also unknown at the time was the possibility or scope of Russian interference in the US election, or potential Trump collusion with that interference. Maybe someone different would have done better in 2016 or worse in 2016 than HRC did against all those headwinds, but we start getting into the realm of “unknown unknowns” once we go down that path. We could play counterfactuals all day – some political equivalent to playing fantasy football or fantasy baseball – but that would be counterproductive. I suppose I understand the psychological need to do so, especially among those whose identities were tied to particular candidates or movements, but that’s never struck me as especially healthy. Surely that has not led to healthy conversations here or elsewhere on the internet tubes as near as I can reckon. About the best I can do is stick with my mindset at the time that HRC looked like she’d probably pull out the needed popular and electoral votes, but that erring on the side of caution was in order. I would have likely said the same had Sanders been the nominee, or Spongebob Squarepants had been the nominee.
I like to argue against a belief in the inevitability of an event simply because we rarely have enough info to make that assessment in the first place, and because such beliefs lead to complacency and laziness – meaning actions needed to make preferred outcomes happen don’t get taken. I’ll likely offer the same mindset going into 2018 or 2020 and beyond. I’m comfortable saying “this looks good” or “this looks bad” if data warrant it, but that’s as far is I’ll go. The rest would be well advised to do the same. Just my two cents.
Well… what Don Durito said, and I’d like to point out that for the rest of the non-Repub world it came to light that that quote was taken out of context; and that in the context it was used in was actually well in line with what even Repub evangelicals were saying about the US because of the US government not having a program of outright killing gay people. It also wasn’t something Obama said himself and Obama had to visibly distance himself from said pastor to appease the masses.
I think you are having a logical problem here. Just because one person, Obama, survived character assassination by the GOP does not in any way shape or form provide for a way for another person to survive character assassination by the GOP.
2008 was an extraordinary time in many ways. I don’t think it appropriate to normalize it and treat it as just another election year.
Obama is not the only person who ever survived character assassination by the Republicans. But he is a particularly striking example because at the time, to many, it seemed he could not possibly beat either Hillary or whatever Republican he’d have to run against. First and foremost because he was black. No black had ever been president. Not even close. Second, too young and inexperienced. Third, left-wing radical background. And then the various smear issues: Rev. Wright; Saul Alinsky; Bill Ayers; and of course, the bogus story that he was a Kenyan-born Muslim.
http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2012/01/25/what-connection-between-obama-and-saul-alinsky.html
http://www.wnd.com/2008/10/78217/
But Obama was popular. When he spoke, people were impressed.
Sanders’s profile, on this very general level is similar.
My argument is not that this proves Sanders would have won. It doesn’t. It only proves that there is no reason to assume that all of the supposed Sanders “gotchas” real or fictional would surely have prevented him from winning.
Well, you might say, it wasn’t worth the risk. To which I would answer, Hillary was a greater risk, only masquerading as a certainty.
You say 2008 was an extraordinary time in many ways. Well 2016 was at least as extraordinary. Enough to get an oysvurf (Yiddish for “low-life”) like Trump elected president of the United States, and in defiance of nearly all polls.
Yeah… I don’t believe you. At all.
Not least of which because you are lying point blank about my position and lying straight up that Obama and Clinton bullshit hit pieces are the same as things Sen. Sanders actually did. Especially because I know you know that there is a different standard for Republicans and ‘Not Republicans’ in politics.
I am of the opinion currently that 2016 wasn’t actually “Hillary’s to lose” like the common wisdom portrays.
The more data we get about what went down, the clearer the picture looks that 2016 was Trumps as soon as he started using a bullhorn instead of a dog whistle and went with the “King of the Pig Pen” strategy.
I think Bernie would have lost big time. I think and implied that in a “King of the Pig Pen” scenario that Trump wins that in 2016 against either Clinton or Sanders, because if everyone is offering Populism but one person is offering White Supremacy on top of the populism, the White Supremacy offering candidate is going to win.
Bernie was, nationally, a much stronger candidate than Hillary.
2016 was Hillary’s to lose because she did fucking lose it. Your argument to the effect that she shouldn’t have lost it is somewhat undermined by the fact that she did. Then you just can’t conceive that anyone else could have beaten Trump, since Hillary was invincible. Circular reasoning.
“I think Bernie would have lost big time.”
Yes, you’ve made it pretty clear that’s what you think.
And I think the logical conclusion, the reductio ad absurdem, of your argument is that no Democrat can ever beat a Republican. Because after all, they use smear tactics on their opponents. Clearly if the guaranteed victor, Hillary Clinton, didn’t win, then nobody can.
Umm… no? I didn’t say any of that.
Sen. Sanders was not Nationally a much stronger candidate. Sen. Sanders didn’t even appear to be a much stronger candidate than Clinton. That’s why he lost to her.
2016 wasn’t Hillary’s to lose. I specifically said that in my previous post. I actually think all evidence currently points to 2016 pretty much having been in the bag for Trump and the Republicans as soon as Trump stopped dog whistling and picked up a bullhorn. I just think ‘we’ didn’t see that for a variety of reasons.
I think Trumps “King of the Pig Pen” strategy worked because there were no Dems who could have won the Primary, Sen. Sanders included, who didn’t have enough baggage (real, imagined, or invented out of thin air) that with the nature of our current media would not have let Trump control the narrative and bury any candidate’s policy positions to the point he could frame it as Racist Populist vs. Socialist Populist and win because if Americans have a choice between racist populism and just plain populism, they tend to pick the racist populism with a high degree of frequency.
I also happen to think that the same trick should not work twice, but I’m on the fence about that.
Also if you want to complain about circular logic, this:
is a classic example. Especially considering I said point blank that knowing what we know now, Clinton should have lost! We just didn’t see the reasons until after.
Trump ran as a racist and a populist. We knew he was faking the populism from the start. Clinton ran as a populist, but couldn’t get her message out because all anyone wanted to talk about was Trump. Every time she did talk about policy the media either ignored it altogether or called her stuck up.
In that situation we wanted to believe that enough Americans would turn away from the Racist fake populist. But they didn’t, and we should have known they wouldn’t.
Trump had more than enough ammunition against Sen. Sanders to smear him enough to keep enough Dems home while bringing 2 million more Republicans than Romney in 2012 and almost 3 million more Republicans than McCain in 2008 to win.
In summary: I believe that the political field was not nearly as conductive to a Dem win as everyone though. Combined with the very real baggage Sen. Sanders has and I think that at best he does as well as Clinton did, and at worst loses even worse than she did. I don’t think by any means this is a permanent condition but something unique to 2016.
But go on lying about what I wrote.
P.S. It’s called Redutio ad Absurdem because it’s a reduction to the absurd. It’s not very popular in formal debate anymore because it’s too easy to turn it into a strawman attack by cherry picking the conditions for the reduction to absurdity. You know, kind of like you’ve been doing this entire comment thread.
Senator Sanders lost to Hillary in the DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY, not as a national candidate in the General. There is a big difference. Otherwise there would be no point in this discussion.
“2016 wasn’t Hillary’s to lose. I specifically said that in my previous post.” Yes, I know you sad that. That’s why I diagreed with it — because you said it. If you hadn’t said it, I wouldn’t have disagreed with it.
‘I think Trumps “King of the Pig Pen” strategy worked because … ‘ Yes, I know you think that, but you’re only half right. When you reduce that position to its basic point, it’s an absurdity. There is no such Democratic politician. You don’t just sit there while they throw crap at you. That’s the whole point about Obama. It didn’t work on Obama, not because they didn’t smear him as much as they could, but because he was too good a candidate. The point is that smearing alone doesn’t automatically destroy a candidate, and it wouldn’t have destroyed Sanders. The stuff they had on him is bot kryptonite. Smears destroyed Clinton because she was a bad candidate — too much baggage and not appealing to enough people.
“Trump had more than enough ammunition against Sen. Sanders .. That was the core of your argument and it remains so, but I’ve been arguing against it and you haven’t answered my points or developed any new ones yourself.
I have not lied about what you wrote. I’ve been arguing straightforwardly against what you wrote. I just don’t agree with you, and you have not given me any reason to.
This is not an argument that can be proved one way or another. The point is, you are asserting that Sen. Sanders COULD NOT HAVE BEAT Trump, when all the polling evidence indicated that he could have.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-sanders
P.S. I reduced your argument to the absurd because fundamentally it cancels itself out — Basically you’re saying that nobody could have beaten Trump.
And I’m done. You’re just lying and making shit up now.
The Democratic Primary wasn’t held Nation wide?
And that’s where the bullshit starts.
Polls said Clinton was going to win. Those same polls said Sen. Sanders would win. They turned out wrong in once case, but you claim that doesn’t mean anything because…
Clinton was a bad Candidate because she couldn’t respond to smears. Sanders lost to Clinton because he was a great candidate who totally didn’t get charged by massive numbers of primary voters as being tone deaf and totally was never able to effectively counter that ‘smear’ because of his own baggage and inability to appeal to enough people…
Also, you are relying on facts not in evidence for your central premise. I posit that knowing what we know now, that Trump was unbeatable by the Dems because we arrogantly assumed that people just were not that racist anymore. We were wrong. Trump got ~3 million more votes than McCain and ~2 Million more votes than Romney. That kind of blows the “Trump was a bad candidate.” meme out of the water.
Your reductions are bullshit not based on observable fact, because they are based on the ‘not-fact’ that Trump was a bad candidate and so was Clinton. Therefore you posit, a good candidate could have beaten Trump because Trump was a bad candidate. Actual reality says that contrary to what the MSM and anyone to the left of Glenn Beck thought, Trump turned out to be the best Republican candidate in over a decade.
Your reductions are also bullshit because you think that Sen. Sanders popularity numbers are something that couldn’t crater. You’ve explicitly said as much. That’s not reality by any measure. The Repubs have barely scratched the surface of the ammo they have on Sen. Sanders and his number are worse than Obama’s after they have been dumping everything and the kitchen sink on him for years.
You’re delusional because you think that when they turn up the heat with the stuff I’ve talked about that somehow, Sen. Sanders is going to keep all the Dem votes Hillary got and win some of the votes Trump got.
For all that it seems crazy, you’ve not presented any evidence that as far as the 2016 election went, and only 2016 election, Trump was beatable, let alone the easily beatable you claim with “It was Hillary’s election to lose” nonsense. You don’t just get to call my premise that Trump wasn’t beatable wrong just because it makes you feel icky. Show some damn evidence. I’ve shown mine.
I don’t think Trump was beatable because ‘we’ were too optimistic about people being turned off Trump’s open racism while also being too optimistic that people would see through Trumps ‘obvious’ fake populism.
As long as those things are the basis for claims of Trump’s chances in 2016, I think the Dems would lose every time. Even if Sen. Sanders was the candidate as long as his staff believe that racism wasn’t a big deal, and they did because that’s how he got the ‘tone deaf’ label, and that economics alone would win they were going to fall prey to the same trap Clinton did.
Interesting. Now go fuck yourself. Because I didn’t talk to you that way, asshole.
Well maybe that one. Especially in recent months — even worse than what he displayed in the campaign.
Sad situation when even our own socialist pol can’t stop falling in line with the neolibcons on FP matters.
If I don’t see him make some serious course corrections in this area in the near future, I’ll probably take a pass on supporting him again in 2020.
The Dems — apart from the sole example of Tulsi Gabbard — are still woefully lacking in pols with courage on FP. Depressing.
And the age factor is not entirely irrelevant — someone who would take office the first time at age 79/80 makes me nervous.
Why do you insist on not only opposing intervention into Syria — you do though, because you support the war against ISIS — but defending Assad? Because when you talk about being “good on FP”, that’s what you’re articulating without spelling it out. That’s not “good”.
Bernie’s FP shortcomings and stupidities don’t just involve Syria. As for Assad, Bernie seems to have unthinkingly bought the neocon line about that democratically-elected leader, which is troubling because it’s that sort of mindless repetition of unchallenged assertions as fact, largely propaganda, that gets us ultimately into disastrous regime change operations.
I might have expected someone as smart and progressive as Sanders to at least note some important context — that elsewhere in the world we openly ally ourselves with brutal dictators (SA for one) and we do plenty of business with a country, China, led by a man not noted for his progressive views on human rights or freedom of speech. I might have further expected Bernie to call out and name the hypocrisy of our FP attitudes, where we say nothing about those countries who do our bidding/with whom we do a lot of business, while we call out for condemnation those who won’t toe our line (Syria, Russia).
Perhaps he was afraid of being called a defender of Assad?
“Democratically elected leader”. Wow.
Booman at his best.
The party as a whole needs a theme. A list of platform policies (or ppt bullets) is not a theme (and most didn’t believe it in 2016 anyway).
Republicans do have a theme – its deregulation and lower taxes on the rich to let jobs and wealth trickle down. In Trump’s case, add some immigrant bashing.
Democrats stand for what? not Trump? We wont scapegoat <some demographic>?
Its shocking how Democrats cant articulate a theme to beat a Republican theme that is a proven failure. Or maybe they are more afraid of scaring off their corporate backers than losing to Republicans.
In this age of inequality, elites above the law and rigged outcomes the Dems need to stand for “fairness”. Policy follows.
That was Trump tonight in Phoenix. It’s been standard GOP playbook for years.
This is bog-standard GOP propaganda messaging. Done because it works. Done because GOP voters are too stupid to even know WTF it means. Just means to them: LIEbruls is horrible.
This really isn’t all that newsworthy. Fox, Rush and the Hate Churches preach this message 24/7/365.
If this is the worst thing Trump said, I’d frankly be sort of sanguine. This is simply not worth the time or effort to tweet it out.
It’s also complete bullshit, like 98% of what Trump says. Dems have plenty of ideas and policy. Most people don’t care, it’s boring, and it gets no airplay.
Good thing for the GOP that in an age of rising and massive income/wealth inequality, Democrats still fear selling anything other then Hoovernomics which Republicans have moved into full out craptocracy. Guess Democrats expect if they cry enough for Hillary over being robbed of what she had inherited, the public will be moved to …
When the establishment fails the door opens for demagogues.
The establishment has completely failed on multiple levels since 2000.
Of course I could note that Sanders’ favorables are significantly better than Trump’s – over 50 in every state in the recent Marist polling of PA, WI and MI.
Funny how that never comes up in pieces like this. Because then you might have to ask WHY he is popular.
And that answer scares the crap out of a lot of people in the Democratic Party.
Sanders offers solutions that will predominantly help the 99%, rather than suck up to and help the 1%. Sanders got screwed over by the Clintonites. Pile on.
Funny how all of the alleged new pack of “leaders” in the D party – looking at you Cory Booker & Kamala Harris – are all suck ups to the 1%.
Funny how, after Sainted Obama won the election, he effectively neutered the 50 State Strategy that got him into office.
Funny how the D party has essentially thrown in the towel on GOTV initiatives and actively registering voters. Their so-easy capitulation to the R-Team on dismantling ACORN – after Sainted Obama won – was telling.
Now that Howard Dean has been brought to heel – not that he was much more than a bog-standard neoliberal anyway – he’s effectively as useless as an ancient bacteria-laden sponge.
Funny how the D party is essentially useless at the local level and can’t be bothered much to show up for state and local elections.
And so on and so forth.
The Ds are offering not much of anything at this point, insofar as I can see. There’s a lot of mourning over the loss of our fearless, drone-killing “leader,” who refused outright to prosecute Wall Street and the Banks and who increased the War in Afghanistan with nary of wimper from his fans. IOW, he continued the reign of Bush, but OMG how DARE I say that heresey?
Unless or until I see the Ds get off their lazy entitled butts and start running to the Left – and that’ll be the day – I don’t see them as anything more than a Rump party.
Everyone can stand around seething about poor poor poor Hilary who – yes, it’s true, she endured a 30 year campaign against her; no doubt – ran one of the more useless, stupid, entitled campaigns that I’ve yet to witness in my life. It was her campaign to LOSE, and she lost it to that moron.
Yet all I see coming from Clinton and the Ds is blaming the Russians. Yeah, well, MAYBE the Russians had their fingers in the pie, but it’s clear to me that if Clinton had run a much better campaign – and you know, hey, here’s a daring thought, gone to those rust belt states and, you know, OFFERED them a vision of what she’d do for them (rather than partying with all her sports/rock/hollywood star pals) – then just maybe she would’ve won.
I have precious little time for the D party, which is basically sitting around doing sweet EFF ALL, while our country burns to the ground.
Talking about “better messaging” is pointless.
WHAT, pray tell, will the Ds actually DO to help the 99%??? What??
Pile on. It’s fine. I’ve got broad shoulders.
No pile on from me. Thought it was a damn good rant. A few needed heresies spoken.
The ObamaLite candidates. The other one, Deval Patrick, would be the RomneyLite entry.
Depressing to contemplate, as I see at least 2 of them running in 2020. Happily, they will both/all split the important AA vote, and thus probably not get the nom.
Russiagate still a nothing burger, and after 10 months non-stop coverage, it doesn’t seem to have moved the masses. Certainly not the GOP masses. Still worse, this no-evidence bs story has greatly harmed US-Russia relations, put us closer to war, and has led to a growth in DemPty neo-McCarthyism. Putin puppet! Kremlin stooge! Defender of Assad!
Here’s a thought on Clinton’s campaign — never a remote chance of course, this is Fantasyland stuff — but how about she had gone to these rust belt states and offered them a vision of what substantial improvements there would be in their lives if the US would only get out of the costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stop arming dictatorships like SA, start dismantling most of our 800 military bases abroad, significantly reduce Pentagon spending, and begin, for instance, repairing and modernizing the infrastructure in this country. Millions of new jobs. Medicare for All could be paid for with these savings. And the free public higher education.
But no, no way. She sold her soul long ago to the hawkish war party in D.C. So has most of our party apparently. Again, look how alone Tulsi Gabbard is. Not even the otherwise fine Bernie Sanders dares dissent substantially from the neolibcon line.
Compare this speech:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-text-hillary-clintons-dnc-speech-226410
To this one
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25958
In ’92 Bill found a way to weave a set of desperate ideas into a vision.
In 2016 I saw Hillary Clinton speak 3 times. They were not minor addresses: the NH State Convention, her closing speech in Iowa, her acceptance speech.
anything close to a unifying theme. I don’t think it is left or right so much as an inability to succinctly describe what she was FOR.
But consider, buried in her acceptance, this:
“My primary mission as President will be to create more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages right here in the United States…”
Very little in her campaign down the stretch communicated that thought.
I would say be sane and decent, like most Dems are, in the age of Trump counts for being more credible. But maybe that’s just me.
Also, I would say left-leaning women, who will take this country back, are more credible than Trump and everyone of his ilk. Stop the hand-wringing and get busy helping to enact change.