There’s plenty of interesting information in the data collected by the National Opinion Research Center during their latest nationwide survey. The headline takeaway is that Trump’s base of support is weaker than it may appear from just looking at the topline numbers. What stood out to me was something different, however.
The survey breaks voters into six basic categories: Strong Republican, Not-so-strong Republican, Lean Republican, Strong Democrat, Not-so-strong Democrat and Lean Democrat. The two “lean” categories are essentially people who do not want to self-identify with either party. Among the three Democratic groups, it may surprise you to learn that Trump does best with people who identify as Democrats, but not too strongly. They like Trump better than “independents” who lean Democratic.
And it’s a pretty big difference. Strong Democrats strongly disapprove approve of President Trump (eighty-seven percent) and Lean Democrats are almost as hostile (eighty-three percent). But Not-Too-Strong Democrats only register sixty-eight percent strong disapproval.
This is the group where you’ll find the Obama-Trump voters. Many of them have already seen enough of Trump, regret their decision to give him a chance and will not be voting for him again. Some of them are happy with Trump and may soon migrate into independence or a Republican affiliation. The significant thing is that whether they voted for Trump or not, whether they regret voting for him or not, and whether they’re more sympathetic to him even in opposition or not, they’re people who still identify as Democrats.
For strategists who are actually interested in convincing Democrats to vote for Democrats, they should examine what this group likes about Trump beyond his anti-immigrant racism. It could be his opposition to NAFTA and other trade agreements. It could be his combativeness and willingness to tell elites where to get stuffed. It could be as simple as a more general social conservatism within this group. To be sure, there are still nearly seven out of ten people in this group who strongly disapprove of Trump, but the rest are a weakness for the Democratic Party as well as an opportunity.
The Obama-Trump Democrat is not a myth. Republicans will do better poaching them (again) than they’ll ever do with left-leaning independents. And Democrats have a better chance of shoring up support among their own than they do of poaching right-leaning independents who also support Trump by better numbers than Not-so-strong Republicans.
In other words, the biggest minefield for vote switchers (for both parties) is among loose affiliates of the other party rather than independents, but they’re also the easiest voters to retain due to their historic allegiance. If you push you weak affiliates out, you’re doing our opponents’ work for them.
Is there necessarily anything they like about him other than his hate-mongering? I mean, that’s clearly the appeal to some fraction of that 32% of Not-Strong-Dems, right? Do we have any idea about the size of that fraction?
I’d focus more on what they’ve traditionally liked about the Democrats and disliked about the Republicans.
One thing which many Democrats need to learn is to how to talk to these Obama-Trump Democrats in a way that they feel comfortable explaining why they initially supported him, and why they might still support him enough to consider voting for him again. Sadly, there are many among us who only castigate and deride them for their choices when, in reality, they are still self identified Democrats, who likely are persuadable, if they aren’t immediately put on the defensive by the manner in which they are questioned.
Here in this area, there were a lot of Union members, always a reliable and strong Democratic contingent, who voted for Trump in 2016. And many of them are still amenable to supporting him. Many people around here are stunned at that fact, and are simply ready to turn their backs on these people as hopelessly lost to the Democratic Party. But I think we need to take a deep breath, and as much as it might pain us at times, we need to genuinely listen to what these people tell us, and figure out a way to answer their concerns. It cannot be an acceptable choice to simply think they can be replaced with new-found voters. That is a sure-fire losing bet for Democrats. These people are multi-generational Democrats, and to allow them to drift away, and over to the crazy side without even a fight, is just lunacy.
. . . among them. I.e. (though this shouldn’t require explaining/defining, experience around here makes clear that it does), the “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it” whose support for Trump came in response to his blatant appeals to their bigotry. To them, “good riddance, and enjoy the Banana Republican bigotry party, where you’ll fit right in.”
But for the rest, I agree:
But any time I imagine myself having such conversations, I conclude that I’m not the one to do so. I remain too angry and, yes, “derisive” of voters who could overlook the overwhelming evidence of who and what Trump is and the unfitness it entailed to elect a Pussy-Grabber-In-Chief (to name only the most glaring off the lengthy list of disqualifications). I’ve actually done some acting in my day, but I have no confidence I’m good enough at it to keep that all constrained/hidden, and thus keep the conversations productive . . . or at worst, not counter-productive.
So, yeah, “somebody” should have those conversations, but they’ll have to be “a better man than I am, Gunga Din”.
I agree with you at least to a point. I don’t know how I would talk to them, so I must leave it to others. But I am not at all agreeable to giving up on progressive programs for the sake of unity. I believe in the ideas Alexandria has put forth and I even put money behind it. I know a number of sometime democrats and even more republicans and in too many cases I don’t see any hope there. So I will stay out of their way.
I think we’ve listened to their concerns. Certainly the media has been more attentive to them than to just about any other demographic. Their concerns, broadly-speaking, seem to be that immigrants are criminals who destroy the economy, that Clinton is a world-historical monster, that liberals hate white people, and that Democrats support abortion.
I’m being a bit of a prick, but abortion aside, I can’t remember hearing these voters raise a single valid issue about which Democrats are worse than Republicans and Trump is worse than Clinton, even when Democrats and Clinton are shitty on that issue.
On the other hand, I’ll grant that Republicans–and Trump–did a far, far better job making promises and sloganeering, and I absolutely agree that we should attempt to reach these voters using those tools.
“….that Clinton is a world-historical monster….”
From the twice Obama then Trump/third party/didn’t vote crowd I’ve talked to and overheard, THIS is the one point that unifies them all. Demographically, the group is mostly made up of people who have heard nothing but how bad Clinton is since 1992 from sources on the Right AND the Left.
I knew southwestern Pa wasn’t going to swing the Democrats way in 2016 specifically because everyone living there for the last over 30 years, regardless of politics, had heard nothing but how terrible Hillary was. The same can be said across the rust belt where people likely don’t even know their own representatives, but they know for sure that Killary is a “corrupt aloof bitch!”.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I fear it is a waste of time. Even setting aside the racism, Democrats cannot compete with Trump’s pitch.
I live in a place that, economically speaking, is like the rust belt. My town is isolated and dependent on a single mill. Over the past thirty years technology has destroyed 90% of the jobs at that mill. The town still has a lot of money – my generation did very well – but the handwriting has been on the wall for decades. The population is aging and in decline. The smart kids leave for an education and greener pastures. The not so smart ones end up working at Walmart.
Every year, it seems, we get a little dumber and a little poorer. If there is one industry that has flourished during the decline it is the drug industry.
Sound familiar? The biggest difference between my community and Opiod, Ohio is that I live in Canada. We are not happy about any of it but we are not angry about it. There is nobody to blame for it and there is nothing anyone can do to change the fact that a town of 25,000 lost 3,000 excellent jobs.
I understand the problems in the rust belt or in West Virginia. Globalization and technology has cut a swath through excellent blue collar work. I was a labour market economist beginning in the 1970’s. It was obvious then that this was going to happen.
Trump (and Bernie) pretends these changes were not inevitable. Trump blames immigrants and the elites and dumb trade deals. He claims he can make different deals, wave a wand and bring those jobs back. It is nonsense, but it Is simple and it sells. Some of his supporters know he is talking nonsense, but they don’t care. They got screwed in the new world and voting for Trump is a way to express their anger.
How do Democrats compete for that vote?
Just a final reply to the thoughtful comments by oaguabonita, Steggles, and Tom Benjamin. A detailed response to all your points would require a diary, and I am not in the position to do that right now.
I really have no use for those Trump supporters the media seem to obsess over. Those guys sitting in the diner in Nebraska have always voted for Republicans. Why there is this deep seated need for people to report on these groups is just confusing and frustrating for me. In my area, if you look at the data, the majority of voters are officially “unaffiliated”. However, a large plurality of them always vote Republican. This has been consistent for many years. And those are not really the people in whom I am interested. The people we need to focus on here are those who, historically, have been consistent supporters of the Democratic Party, and Democratic principles, yet still voted for Trump in 2016. If you look at the numbers here, those people took away about 2-3% of the vote from what would have normally been cast for Democrats in our county. Now, in 2016, this would not really have had an impact in Ohio, or really even in the local races. The Trump wave was simply overwhelming. But now, in 2018, that margin will be the difference between a huge Dem wave in southwest Ohio, and the state, or another squeaker win by the GOP, in a year when the GOP was significantly swimming against the current of the negative Trump effect. If we say a big “Fuck You” to these people, then Steve Chabot, the most conservative member of the House caucus, will be re-elected over a true progressive, Aftab Pureval. And we will again, get a coat-tail effect which will further solidify the GOP hold in the Ohio State House. And the effect will likely ripple across the nation.
These Obama-Trump voters are likely the key to how all our races here play out. So we cannot afford, for one fricking minute, to ignore or simply cast these people into the pile of hopeless deplorables, like those who the national media seem to obsess over.
In many areas of the country, these Obama-Trump voters might not mean diddly-shit to the inevitable outcome. But the cumulative affect of ignoring them nationwide could well spell the difference between the Democrats taking back one, or both, Houses of Congress. One has to step back, strip away your emotions, and try to take a more macro view of the circumstances.
We Democrats can ill afford to slight anyone, either consciously or unconciously. And if that necessitates some of us having uncomfortable conversations with people, then that is just the fucking price we have to pay in order to save our small “d” democracy. Because that is exactly where we are come this November. This is a seminal moment in our nation’s history. And that is, by no measure, a hyperbolic statement. We need to drag our asses out of the weeds and find a way to get the Obama-Trump voters back into the Democratic fold. If we don’t have the prescience to do that, then we are majorly fucked, in a way that none of us have seen on our lifetimes. And almost none of us will live to see the end of it. That is how fucking bad things will be for a very long time.
I, and almost everyone I know, are scared shitless at the prospect of the Republicans maintaining their complete stranglehold on our country. It is imperative that we get every god-damned vote we can in November, and I don’t give two shits about how uncomfortable the process might have to be for us to get there. It is just that damn serious, people.
No argument at all regarding the level of concern or the magnitude of the threat. And I do understand how critical it is for Democrats to reach these voters to win a sustainable majority. I just don’t know how to do it.
I’m fairly certain that Bernie’s bullshit won’t do it. I’m not going to lie or pretend I can create a bunch of great jobs for people with commonly held skills. My economic message is the same sort of weak tea Hillary served up. It is the same sort of weak tea that has been offered to my community for decades. It is weak tea because there are no good answers.
Trump is going to keep spinning fairy tales about a future like the past and saying outrageous things that upset people like me. Nothing is really any better for his voters but it is all very entertaining to them.
The only consolation is that Trump is incompetent as well as corrupt. When I talk to Trumpeters in my town – yes, even in Canada – I point out that the mills and mines have not magically reopened and he has reneged on the opioid crisis. He might put on an entertaining show, but people deserve better than a show. Trump isn’t even trying to solve the real problems in the rust belt.
If I cannot convince them that Trump is a fraud, I lose the argument.
There is an art to diplomacy — which is what we’re talking about here. You can’t tell people “hard truth” because that’s not what they want to fucking hear. And besides, you can always do things for people. The government could shower them with cash, just straight up, no strings attached, and that would solve a lot of problems, albeit creating a few more.
But let’s operate within the realm of the possible. Because as long as there are republicans around to oppose ambitious domestic programs, showering people with cash — let’s call it welfare! — won’t be happening any time soon. So, in this realm of possible, we’re left with bitter truths. I think what might be needed is diplomacy. Say something that lets people fill in what they want to hear. This is not particularly easy to do, and despite their reputation, most politicians are not particularly good at this. Obama was an exception, and Clinton was not.
If we want to win, we must tell voters that we’re going to help. There is nothing more fundamental. We must make big promises. Then we must work like hell–and twice as loud–to make those promises come true.
And when they don’t, because of the ‘realm of the possible,’ we must work even hard to ensure that voters know who to blame.
At least Republicans care enough about voters’ opinions to make wild promises. Too many Democrats just say, “Vote for me and I’ll make you take your medicine.” Or, if another Democrat is making promises, they release scathing articles about pragmatism and start endless blog arguments about purity ponies and kulaks and wreckers.
Democrats also deal with huge headwinds when it comes to policy.
As I’ve said before, the media allowed Trump to run an empty High-School-Class-President-Free-Ice-Cream-and-No-Homework campaign while ignoring Hillary’s policy proposals in favor of constantly reminding viewers about her “unpopularity” among the voters.
That alone was likely enough to create the Twice Obama-then Trump voter.
Now, like before, every large scale, national Democratic policy proposal (Medicare for All, Jobs Guarantee, etc.) has quickly gotten met with “How you gunna pay for that?!?” or “What about the America people’s freedom to choose?!?” by our “non-partisan” media. No quicker way to sink a solution than concern troll over taxes and loss of freedom.
Democrats can’t even propose immigration reforms without the media responding by wondering if it just means “amnesty” regardless on the policy content.
Yeah, the deck is stacked against us. The media is a serious obstacle, but you know those word clouds that reveal how often the media used certain phrases with the different candidates? With Trump, there were 15 medium-sized phrases: wall, Mexico, pussygate, Trump University, MAGA, etc. With Clinton: EMAILS.
We need to learn to flood the zone. And we need to support our left-most candidates even when their ideas aren’t perfect, just to make room for our more mainstream candidates. Instead, we savage our own for suggesting single-payer and free college–and we continue to savage them years after they matter.
Republicans don’t care about being right, they want power over everyone.
We don’t care about power, we want everyone to admit that we’re right.
Diplomacy is not about telling people what they want to hear. Most people will see right away that you’re just patronizing them. Actual diplomacy is a dialogue in which the two parties endeavor to understand what the “opposing” positions are or to try to clarify where there may be incomplete information and understanding.
I’ll give a concrete example. Though we are residents of Blue MD, we have a small farm in the beautiful Shenandoah Co. The valley is part of the hideous Bob Goodlatte’s district where he got 72% of the vote in 2016. So, this is a very conservative voting district.
But when you talk to the farmers about what their concerns are, you get issues like this: getting loans to install solar on their barns (since the latter are often not connected to the mains). Fracking and natural gas pipelines: their agin them because they’re very concerned about pollution and damage to their water supplies. Labor: there’s a real shortage of skilled and unskilled labor for all the reasons we all know about: young people moving away for education and better jobs, an aging population that needs help with farm tasks, carpentry, electricity, etc. and, yes, workers for the inevitable chicken processing plants. As a result, there are a lot of younger Mexicans who live here, pay taxes and are providing those and other services. The older white people know that so they don’t talk about evicting these people.
Goodlatte is retiring this term and the Democratic candidate for this open seat is talking about all these issues and is a genuine progressive who also grew up on a farm. We’re going to campaign for her when we’re down there because we think she has a real shot. That’s the possible future.
Talk to people about what bothers them and explain how the GOP absolutely does not have their interests in mind. You don’t need to say that. Just ask them what did Goodlatte ever do for them? (Hint: nothing.)
No one has given me a good understanding of why people who voted for Obama then voted for Trump. If they once voted for Obama it doesn’t seem likely they are responding to Trumps racial dog whistles. So what is it?
Can you help?
. . . doesn’t necessarily mean they “weren’t responding to Trumps [sic] racial dog whistles”. Some probably responded to what else Obama was selling, at least rhetorically (hope&change!), despite his surplus of melanin, then reverted to racist form (at least openness to racist appeals) when (from their perspective) Obama didn’t deliver. Human motivations are obviously a complex mish-mash, though.
Sorry, but this doesn’t do it for me.
Someone just gave you an answer. Lots of racists are big fans of black athletes. Doesn’t make them less racist. Obama was, at least at first, to many racists, a ‘good black.’ I phone banked to people who said, “We’re voting for the Negro” and worse.
When Trump made race more salient–when the right-wing media made racism more acceptable–those people were easily swayed. Also, I expect that they responded to the dominant personality in the race.
I can’t imagine an really hard-core racist votes for Obama then Trump. But there are gradations.
During the 2008 campaign I recall reading about a stone-cold white supremacist leader who said he respected Obama for marrying a black woman instead of a white. No doubt didn’t vote for him, but….
Yes, they gave me an answer, and it didn’t provide anything that was very helpful to me. I wasn’t unpleasant about it, for crying’ out loud.
Sorry; didn’t mean to be snotty. I just think that, unsatisfying as it might be, that’s the answer. “Mild” racists voted for Obama because he was dynamic and ‘one of the good ones’ (who took pains to emphasize race) and then became “moderate” racists when Trump and the right media hit the gas on hatred.
Appreciate your remark, but the explanation still doesn’t make sense to me or satisfy me. I don’t believe I know anyone who voted for Obama who found Trump acceptable, so no way for me to gain personal insight on this matter.
I DO know people who voted for Obama who didn’t vote for Hillary. To them she embodied all that they came to find wanting in Obama over his 2 terms. Despite being really turned off by Trump, they were not terrified enough of him to vote for Hillary regardless. We sure were.
Perhaps some of this group turned to Trump not knowing as much about him as they should have. Hillary was business as usual and personified a decade long gone in what was clearly a change election. The popularity of Sanders and Trump’s ability to bring occasional voters out of the woodwork both showed us people wanted change.
I’m not sure if ‘the people I know’ is the best explanation of broader trends. I know many people who thought that Clinton embodied everything they found wanting in Obama, but I don’t know a SINGLE person who felt that way and then didn’t vote for her.
That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, though! I accept your report as true; as I accept the reports of people who discuss ‘passive’ racists become more actively racist due to the national discourse.
People I know can help me better understand national trends because I understand the context of their opinions, whereas this isn’t true of polls, articles, etc.
I think a lot of real economic anxiety played into the 2008 vote and Obama’s colour (along with everything) else was secondary to the crashing economy. Things changed away from Barack somewhat in 2012, but Romney was a poor candidate to really do well with this group.
Trump was ideal.
Part of the this was the time and the candidates. 2008 was the nadir of Republican Bush’s reign of incompetence. A lot of people were just disgusted and really worried about the Great Recession and rapidly rising unemployment. Obama represented a more credible change agent than yet another Republican like McCain.
In 2012, I think a lot of this voting cohort staying with Obama was partly incumbency momentum and partly a real dislike for the snooty Romney.
In any event, I would bet that most of those Obama to Trump voters probably voted for W in 2004.
Oaguabonito answered you.
Not to the voters who switched, and not to the ones who simply laid out, either.
They either went for another candidate…no matter how personally unattractive he may have been…or laid out again.
Has Trump “delivered?”
Has he delivered anything but bullshit headlines…pro or con…plus thousands of empty-of-any-real-power tweets?
I don’t see it, myself.
Looks like the same-old same-old from where I’m sitting, except of course for the fact that many of his appointees and other helpers are in legal trouble for various kinds of double dealing. People are still worried about money, terrorism, local crime, bad weather, massive fires etc.
Has this gone on long enough for pro-Trump voters to turn on him? For those that gave up in the face of the bullshit emanating from both supposed sides of the so-calld “aisle” to go out and vote again?
I really don’t know.
We’ll find out more as November approaches…that is, if we can separate the various self-interested media reports from the truths of the matter.
Primaries, the 2018 election, etc.:
And the beat just keeps on comin’.
Personally, my tea leaves are pointing towards a partial Dem resurgence and a partial Trumpist defeat. But neither enough to really change things. The anti-Sanders, anti-Warren, anti-Ocasio-Lopez, neocentrist/leftiness media war drums are already in full throat, and the middle electorate still hasn’t awakened to this two-edged, DemRat/RatPub media scam.
2018?
Business As Usual.
Still.
So it goes.
Sigh…
AG
. . .
I hypothesized a group of racist Obama voters who
The two things are materially different. Most saliently, your truncated (and thereby, mis-)quote ascribes to me a conclusion that I did not state as mine.
Don’t do it again.
You wrote. (Emphasis mine):
Heart of the Rockies wrote:
I wrote, in well-meaning answer to HOTR’s query:
Where’s the beef?
Writing with you anywhere in a discussion is like participating in a middle school debate class.
I didn’t say that you believe Obama didn’t deliver.
To tell you the truth, I neither know what you believe nor do I much care anymore.
You argue for argument’s sake.
Sad.
Get a life.
AG
P.S. you also write:
Or what?
You’re going to shun me?
Please do.
“… as much as it might pain us at times, we need to genuinely listen to what these people tell us, and figure out a way to answer their concerns.”
Hmmm … that would be a novel approach for the Democratic Party. Yes! Shall we chance it?
(Snark directed not at you, Mike, but at the Dem establishment.)
Their concern is that once upon a time the economy produced jobs that an unskilled guy could get right out of high school. The jobs provided a wage that allowed a man to buy a house, support a family, and retire with a decent pension.
The economy isn’t producing the same kinds of opportunity for their kids. They hate to see their best and brightest move away and they hate to see the kids who stay home in a hopeless place. They hate the drug deaths. They hate to see their community wither away. They want yesterday back.
It is easy to understand their concerns. Figuring out a way to answer them is much harder. I spent twenty years working for a government that tried very hard to solve the problem in a myriad of different ways. We spent billions – mostly on training for jobs workers had to move to get – but we could not stop the rust.
I don’t think it is fair to blame Democrats without a credible suggestion.
I don’t think it is fair to blame the Democratic establishment.
They are NOT really trying to solve their problems. Yes, they will be on the line for the big national issues like immigration and reproductive rights, but as for jobs, housing, education, it’s a Potemkin Village. I am living through a comparable story right now in a working-class, immigrant, majority-minority New York City neighborhood which the City, a Democratic, pseudo-progressive administration, is DESTROYING for the benefit of and in total cahoots with big real estate. And the voters here are virtually ALL democrats! They are literally being sold out by their own Democratic politicians. Major media is repeating the mayor’s wall-to-wall lies, that he’s HELPING the community, when everybody here knows that is a lie. The media not reporting what’s going on but what they would like people to believe is going on, as they are lackeys of big real estate too. And the cherry on top is that everybody here hates Trump, the majority POC and almost everybody else hate him too. The governor is another POS. NYC is not remotely a democracy, it is a government of real estate, by real estate, and for real estate. And WE ARE DEMOCRATS.
Now tell me that this community can’t survive with the changes in the modern world. We were doing fine until this rezoning the city is imposing on us. It’s a new version of the “urban renewal” (aka “Negro Removal”) of the 1950s-1970s, which did incredinle damage to America’s cities, especially minority neighborhoods.
This is the truth.
The post-2008 system, which has been creeping up on us since Reagan/Thatcher, IS NOT VIABLE, except for financiers and big investors. It’s killing this country and a lot of other countries. Hillary lost because, already a weak candidate, she tried to sell Americans the status quo, or more of the same, and Trump won because he bullshitted about how he’d help fix things and enough people believed him.
I do not believe Rich is correct. If I did allow myself to be that cynical, I would not waste my time on politics. I would be thankful that I live in a Brave New World rather than in 1984. At least our corporate overlords let us have nifty toys and interesting books and movies and music and sports to distract us from our misery.
I am far from rich but I am grateful for the fact that I will die a man who has lived an easier life than 99.9% of all the people who have ever existed. However horrible the Democrats and Republicans have been, I’ve had it pretty good. Even though, as Rich points out, the 1% snaffled thousands and thousands of dollars that should have accrued to me, I can’t really complain.
That doesn’t change no matter who gets elected. If you and Rich are right about the state of affairs, why should I care about politics? It is all corrupt. It will never change. Why do you bother?
This atttiude is how fascism takes hold and it’s precisely why left and liberal pols need it to change. I don’t know what it takes to win these people (it certainly wasn’t Hillary’s prescription, which is why i didn’t vote for her in the primary), but if you believe that we just can’t accept hard truths of hierarchies and the rich (because it’s always been this way), why even be a liberal at all? That’s the heart of conservatism: that these hierarchies are built into the system, and you know nothing liberals are changing the natural state of things. In fact, why bother with politics at all when the “hard truths” of climate change are even more daunting?
Exactly. Why bother with politics at all if you believe the system is rigged, and both parties are corrupt. If that is so, the current hierarchy is invincible. The best thing for me to do is to ignore it all and enjoy the rest of my life as best I can.
The reason I do participate is because I do not believe the system is rigged, I do not believe the Democratic party is corrupt and I do think things can change for the better if I do everything I can to get Democrats – any old blue – elected. Colour me naive, but that is what I believe.
To me this is the biggest problem with the positions of the performative left. If I buy the premises of the Bernie Sanders argument, I do not vote for him. I decide it is hopeless. I give up. I drop out. I quit caring. I don’t vote.
I don’t know why you interpret Sanders arguments that way, but that’s your interpretation I guess. I see it as the opposite: things can change, but we need you to mobilize against it. The Democratic Party is corrupt, I don’t see how one could think otherwise in the face of greater market concentration, the fact that Eric Holder didn’t bother going after any bankers, and that Wells Fargo as an institution was allowed to survive the crisis intact despite the massive levels of fraud and deception. We are seeing it right now with Paul Manafort’s trial that if you have the will you can actually take on these forces and white collar criminals. But it takes the will to do it. What’s the best way to hurt Putin? It’s to clean our own corrupt houses, and to start attacking his sources of money laundering. Of course, many people who are rich will have their own apple carts turned in the process, and that’s where the political rubber hits the road.
Yeah, well, good luck. I’m not spending the rest of my life tilting at windmills. If you are right – and you very well may be – we are not ever going to find the political will you seek. If Bernie is right, we have already lost democracy. I am not interested in fighting a hopeless cause when I can give up, ignore it all and live out my relatively comfortable life.
I’m only still in it because I believe Bernie is wrong about pretty much everything. Convince me he is right and I don’t join him – I drop out.
I understand that and it’s why there are so many nihilists out there. I’m not interested in committing suicide though, and I’ll fight until we’re dead. Capitalism was tamed before, it can be tamed again. It must. The planet is going to cook if we don’t.
Great discussion.
.
Yes — strongly held positions, passionately argued, but with respect for each other, expressed in cogent, well-formed language, and not a personal insult to be seen.
Perhaps you (or Bernie) could find a way to frame the argument so that it does not drive people like me to nihilism. As it stands, you can’t win my support. I either fight for and defend Democrats – the only practical route to taming capitalism in my opinion – or I agree with Bernie, see it as hopeless and drop out.
How are the ideas of “we need to end corruption in a political party” and “said political party is the best vehicle to reforming a corrupt system” mutually exclusive? That’s why the corruption in the party needs to be ended, otherwise how are you able to make a believable argument to the rest of the country that you’re serious about doing something about it and improving their lives?
On the flip side, purity pony lefties should be able to understand that their consumer driven application to voting/electoral politics (or abandonment of the square altogether) is to be shunned. Taking over a political party is hard work but it’s not impossible and can be done.
(Mutually exclusive, that is.) As I see it, this was Lemieux’s point about Ocasio-Cortez and building a movement. You work for the best available Dem everywhere while simultaneously pushing the party (and the Overton Window) left-populist (in the “of [all!] the people, by [all!] the people, for [all!] the people” sense).
I think you are too hard on the left and Bernie or Alexandria. You may not like progressive policies like single payer or free college education. And that is ok, but we do have the resources to do those things and a good deal more. I think there are millions out there who are looking for some hope in their lives, something to get them up in the morning besides the prospect of medical bankruptcy or an endless education debt and the American dream all but gone. Maybe all they need is a leader.
I won’t go into it here but take single payer. We already pay the over $3 trillion a year health care bill or $10500 per living soul. And it is twice as high as nearly everyone else. We can do better. We should be able to save over ten trillion in the next ten years by simply eliminating the administrative waste in the system and negotiating real prices not influenced by drug lords. The simple answer to it is to make the payments more equitable. It is damn sure it won’t happen if we don’t give it a shot. Other nations have done it. And that – to me – is abandoning the democrats that supported the New Deal and the Great Society.
And while I am at it, why do we have to build fucking walls and set ourselves apart from immigrants. The hate in this country today needs to end and replaced with sanity.
I sometime think the only time democrats show up to be counted is when the fucking world is crashing around them like the Great Depression or the Great Recession, or perhaps the current Russian invasion. Other times we hunker down and come up with policies like the “Better Deal”. I’m sure you heard about it. Made a big splash.
I’m Canadian. I believe in our system. It works for us (although I don’t think I would describe it as single payer.) I do not believe the United States can possibly adopt our system for several reasons too wonky to discuss in this thread.
Suffice it to say that the current fights over meaningless slogans among Democrats are stupid, counter-productive, and drive me crazy. Health care is a right and universal care essential. If you are into slogans as litmus tests, I pass. If you want to discuss a route to universal healthcare in the United States, I’ve got ideas.
Another thread, another day.
I look forward to your ideas. For now I will note we already pay for health care, every damn nickel. Our task is to make it more equitable. To that end corporations will continue to pay via a payroll tax, as will employees and the government will continue to pay as they do now and Medicare will negotiate and pay all the bills. Kinds simple concept.
The money is the easy part once the political will is found.
But it is an incredibly complicated task to deliver health care to everybody. There are no simple concepts in health care. Somebody has to sit down and redesign the workings of 16% of the American economy. I want to see that redesign before I support a meaningless slogan like “Medicare for All”.
I can’t imagine that redesign happening without numerous fuck ups. And this is health care. You cannot fuck it up.
We have the system we have in Canada because one politician in one very small province introduced a program to pay all hospital costs in the province in 1947. From there it grew – one step at a time – expanding services and spreading across the country. The federal government did not get involved until 1964.
My point is that the infrastructure for the program has taken 70 years to build. I don’t know exactly how medicare works in the United States but I imagine the negotiations and payments you describe are contracted out to insurance companies who have the knowledge and skills to negotiate and the infrastructure to re-imburse the claims.
If you want the Canadian system – the one Bernie always cites – then 50 states have to set up bureaucracies to insure people, negotiate wages and fees, decide what will be covered, set standards and pay off claims. How do you work private hospitals and clinics into the mix? Are you going to allow doctors to operate outside the system? Will doctors take the massive pay cuts to medicare levels of reimbursement? These are the kind of questions Bernie Sanders waves away.
Even if everybody agreed to a single payer system tomorrow it would take years to design, set up, staff and launch. And I think there is zero chance 50 states will cooperate to make the system work. Without that cooperation, it will not work.
Tommy Douglas put Canada on our road in 1947. Eisenhower put the US on the employer based route in the 1950’s. That was a mistake, but it is a mistake that is very difficult to repair. The healthcare infrastructure is built around it and it creates a large constituency that favours the status quo. A lot of Americans get great healthcare that is mostly paid for by somebody else. Any change is a risk to them.
Okay, so what kind of a universal care system can build on the existing infrastructure? What system does not require a central committee trying to redesign the American economy?
I look to France, a system that many observers think is the best designed system in the world. Aside from writing a single (very large) cheque, there is very little government involvement. It is very easy for me to imagine the three or four steps it would take to evolve a working Obamacare to the French system.
So my position as a candidate in 2018 would be to make the obvious fixes to Obamacare. I’m sure that is a tough sell to the left in 2018, but there you have it. I’m aiming for the French system. This puts me in opposition to the single payer or bust crowd and because I am not eliminating the role of big insurance I am clearly a neoliberal shill.
Your whole argument is based on subjective feelings, whether you feel “cynical” or “idealistic”. And essentially, “things are not too bad,””I don’t want to make waves.”
You are entitled to your opinion and to your choices, but if generalized things are not going to get better with that kind of attitude, they are only going to get worse.
What about facts? That doesn’t seem to come into consideration.
The Democratic Party is extremely corrupt. The Republican Party is even more extremely corrupt. But I am not a cynic, I’m a realist. I agree with Seabe,
From today’s Bloomberg:
Fix that trend or you’re not serious about tackling resurgent fascism.
I’m not sure you understand my point. I am deliberately not debating the facts or your interpretation of them. If you would like, I will concede that Frank Rich and you are absolutely right about everything and the American Dream is Dead.
I’m just saying you push me into a dead end. I give up. Good luck with whatever you plan to do about this sad state of affairs. The idea that Bernie Sanders – who has zero accomplishments to his credit – and the Berniecrats can take on the Democrats, the Republicans and the elite that owns both parties, and win, is laughable. A joke. A waste of my time. What kind of realist can believe you can beat a rigged system?
RIP American Dream. Doesn’t the NFL start up again soon?
Well, that’s your interpretation. It’s not me (or Frank Rich) that’s pushing you into what you call a dead end, nor do I agree that it’s really a dead end.
As for Bernie Sanders’ accomplishments,
http://addictinginfo.com/2016/02/19/heres-a-long-list-of-bernie-sanders-accomplishments-with-citatio
ns/
As for Hillary Clinton’s accomplishments, well she was my senator for two terms and I don’t remember her doing anything much except for voting for the 2002 Iraq resolution giving Bush the OK for war.
Voting yes were 81 Democrats and 215 Republicans.
Voting no were 126 Democrats, six Republicans and one independent.
But it was never my intention to rehash Hillary vs. Sanders, you brought it up.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Rigged systems, oligarchies, dictatorships, have been beaten many times through history. But not by just sitting there.
I think you’re taking Rich a little too literally. America is not an animal or plant. If something is “dead” in politics, it can come back to life. But it’s not going to happen by itself.
Plus we still have a lot of political institutions that can be revived. We have the room to organize still.
We’re not Syrians living under genocidal fascists with no room for political life, we’re not the Egyptian junta, we’re not the Saudi Arabian monarchy. We’re also not Polish and Hungarian illiberal democracies. And yet all of the people under each of those systems still rose up and rebelled. We have no excuse to just sit there and pout about it.
. . . the position you’ve been taking in this thread, Tom. It seems to boil down to “I got my American Dream, so if it’s being/been killed for those who haven’t, there’s nothing I can (or maybe just nothing I am willing) do about that.”
This outfit doesn’t look good on you.
I do not agree with Frank Rich. I do not believe that everyone in politics is corrupt. I do not believe the American dream is dead. I do believe it took 40 years of mostly Republican rule to gradually get us to this point. (This followed about 50 years of mostly Democratic rule and progress until Reagan.)
I don’t think there is anything wrong with America that about 40 years of mostly Democratic rule won’t fix. I am still active and I am still doing everything I can to make that happen. (I did realize my American Dream, but I have not stopped fighting mostly because I feel somewhat guilty for whatever success I achieved. I am a white male who understands I have been unfairly advantaged. It is very important to me to see political power shared with women and people of colour. Voting rights is probably my bedrock issue.)
What I really want is for the performative left to stop driving people away from Democrats and to stop driving people away from political engagement. It is very difficult to expand the electorate or attract new voters if the choice is between the merely corrupt and the severely corrupt.
If I did buy into Bernie’s pitch – and I do not – I would stop fighting because I would not think I could possibly make any difference. At that point political disengagement makes sense. Is there a moral imperative to spend time and money fighting a hopeless battle?
I know plenty of people who live happy lives without paying any attention to politics. They believe all politicians are crooks and they incorrectly believe that their lives are not affected by elections. So they don’t bother. Voltaire once wrote that if one found oneself in a society dominated by incompetence, ignorance and fanaticism, the only sensible thing to do is to tend to one’s garden.
Is it wrong to ignore politics if you see the only choices as being tweedledee or tweedledum? If the best I am being offered is the lesser of two evils? If the only difference between the parties is that they are in different corporate pockets?
If I believed that was the case, I would tend to my garden.
. . . which from my perspective look unfounded and invalid:
I’m a Bernie (primary)/Hillary (general) voter, one among many millions, I’m confident. In that sense at least, I bought into “Bernie’s pitch”, I still think it mostly on-target and the direction the Dem party needs to be evolving (with lots of evidence that indeed it is, and Dems who don’t risk being left behind, though of course this varies greatly among localities).
Based on my understanding of “Bernie’s pitch”, your statement that “buy[ing] into” it would somehow force you to conclude you could not “possibly make any difference” and so must “stop fighting” looks like a complete non sequitur with little/no grounding in Reality.
More of what you’ve written (after that first comment, which I thought mostly spot-on) looks either self-contradictory or invalid to me, e.g., complaining about tweedledum and tweedledee, or lesser-of-evils choices driving you to abandon politics, while simultaneously rejecting the elements within the party working to make it less like tweedledum and the much, much lesser of evils (not gonna pretend it’ll ever be perfect) than it is now. The Bernie animus just looks weirdly irrational (not so different from Hillary-hate, sadly), though I’ve encountered it from enough people I’d otherwise normally consider allies to not find it that surprising (but I do see it, like Hillary-hate, as counter-productive to the goals of the alliance).
Frankly, you’re just not making much sense to me here.
I reject the idea that the choice is the lesser of two evils. I reject the idea that the Democratic party or Hillary Clinton or Joe Manchin is an evil. I do not believe every politician is owned by whoever gave them money. I think most Democratic politicians want to serve and do good. I do not think the system is rigged. I think how campaigns are financed should be about issue 173 on any list of issues.
I don’t want you to try to make the party less tweedledum. I want you to stop calling them tweedledum. I don’t want you to make Democrats less evil. I want you to stop calling them evil.
I am saying that IF you are right and IF it really is a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, if the Democrats are corrupt, then democracy is already lost. There is no point to voting or participating in the process. Even if you believe you are right, your message is self-defeating. It leads to nihilism.
I find this view as simplistic as many lefties who view politics as purely transactional. It’s not as simple as donors buying politicians, but it donations are a problem in the company the politicians take when they have power. This is equivalent to those who point to Trump destroying the Iranian nuclear agreement as evidence that he’s not Putin’s puppet. I also think it’s because we have different definitions of what is “corruption”. Obama appointees running to banks and Silicon Valley for after government jobs is a form of corruption, for example.
But it is true that a lot of lefties discount ideology. A lot of this isn’t corruption, but deeply held beliefs that (I believe) happen to be wrong. The decision to let homeowners sink or use them to “foam the runways” for the banks was a deeply held ideological belief by many in charge, not just corruption on behalf of Wall Street. The political winds were against these “freeloaders”, too, but the right thing to do from a moral level would have been to put the political capital into not allowing so many homeowners to go under. Was destroying all that middle class wealth to assist in the capitalization of the banks evil? I think so. But Obama would argue he saved the system from destruction.
This is an interesting discussion. I had to resist my initial inclination to criticize the nihilism.
There are those who insist that both parties are equally corrupt and work to divide people who are often very much in agreement. They are not progressive allies and do not have the same motivations.
There’s no point in making myths out of the Democratic party. It is certainly flawed. However, I think most here accept that the Democratic party is the best and most effective vehicle to achieve progress and governmental change that benefits the working class and society as a whole. That’s the reason Bernie ran as a Democrat.
. . . Cortez model.
Just saw this from Loomis at LGM, wherein he links and quotes from a David Dayen LAT op-ed about an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “fundraising” trip to CA, from which Loomis concludes:
Amen.
Amen.
I watched her speak at Netroots Nation last Sunday and she is the real deal. She blew everyone out of the water speech wise and that included Senator Warren, Bill De Blasio, Senator Harris, well, everybody. David Ortiz, who is running for Gov of AZ, was a close second.
I’m not one who is typically wowed by stump speeches. I was beyond wowed.
I haven’t heard her – do you have a link to her speech? This ability to speak, unfortunately, is absolutely essential. The only Dem candidate I’ve heard who has anything close to what’s needed is Beto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=mdhifGuxlSI
She is unafraid and believes in the issues and pushes them wherever she is. We need so many more just like her.
Interviewed the less I do. In fact what I want from her right now is to go to congress and learn the ropes before she puts herself out there as a leader of a movement.
My breaking point with her was when she said in order for Abdul El-Sayed (her preferred candidate) to win the Michigan Democratic gubernatorial primary they needed low voter turn-out. No Democratic leader should wish for low voter turn-out especially in a Democratic primary. Thankfully she didn’t get her wish.
I’m not up-to-speed on that race. Was she right? Was turnout high or low? Did El-Sayed win or lose?
Turnout (over 2 million) broke the MI record for a primary. Dem Governor candidate (Whitmer) outnumbered Rep (Schutte) by over 70,000 votes.
Is what you’re saying, right?
I don’t know if her rationale was right. I do know El-Sayed (who I voted for) came in last and the turnout was record breaking. That’s the facts.
I could be mistaken but I think I saw where El-Sayed was supporting medicare for all on a state basis in Mi. That is a mistake IMO. The winner supported other progressive policies like free college but not Medicare for all at the state level. That is the best position. A state cannot support it given their restrictions on debt.
Massachusetts seemed to do well with 98% coverage under Romneycare. Restrictions are capable of being changed.
Yes to all you say, but it’s like treating a hangnail when the patient is bleeding out from a different wound.
Here’s the kind of idea I wish you and other pundits would work on, because the situation is getting desperate and the solution is so painfully frikkin obvious:
Core Concept: Just as Google did with Streetview and free WiFi, you have to start with a test region that will then be the testing ground and later poster child for the larger implementation.
Steps:
a. only 50% vote
b. if 100% voted, we could have __
notes:
question: 50% don’t vote – does anyone know how that 50% breaks down between unregistered but eligible, and registered but no-vote? Not that it really matters, but it would be good to know.
Here’s one good post-2016 election analysis of voting/non-voting, eligibility, registration, etc. for you. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/18/american-non-voters-election-donald-trump
For strategists who are actually interested in convincing Democrats to vote for Democrats, they should examine what this group likes about Trump beyond his anti-immigrant racism.
A few weeks ago, Matt Yglesias published a Vox article that examined this question. Based on the graph titled “Policy Views of Various Political Questions”, I’m not sure that chasing Obama-Trump voters will be a viable strategy for Democratic candidates in 2020.
Only about half of Obama-Trump voters were pro-choice in 2016 (compared to 62% of Romney-Clinton voters). 72% of Obama-Trump voters want to repeal the ACA, and only 47% want a a path for citizenship. Assuming these stats are accurate, the priority for the left should be: motivating Obama-nonvoters to come out to the polls, and convincing Obama-third parties to come back to the Democratic fold.
I’m not worried about Romney-Clinton voters: Clinton ignored Georgia in 2016 but was still able to flip Cobb and Gwinnett counties, moving the statewide margin from 7.82% in 2012 to 5.16%. Clinton didn’t moderate or appeal to Romney voters on policy grounds, but they flipped anyway. If this change is durable, they potentially can be conservative allies against Republicans. (I’m not exactly happy about this result, but I’m hoping that the same process that flipped Virginia from solid red to solid blue over fifteen years is underway in Georgia.)
Don’t get me wrong; some Obama-Trump voters are gettable. But I don’t think there are policy concessions that will put the Obama-Clinton and Obama-Trump voters back again. Thankfully, there are other options.
“Questions” should be replaced with “Coalitions”; it’s the final image on the page.
I’m going to be a little bit cruel along several dimensions:
Democrats need to understand how to show empathy without being committed to some honor system of absolute truth and education of the electorate during campaigns.
The coal country debacle with Clinton is a perfect case in point. Instead of `speaking truth to voters’ as a principle how about negating the Trump lies with a semi-lie that will help you AND the voters in the long run. Like `I will do everything I can to bring jobs back to coal country. Clean coal, export incentives, (and bunch of other nonsense that will have absolutely no impact on their economy) to show that you hear their concern. And then you say, but everyone has to have a plan B. Then outline Plan B and when you win deliver Plan B which will be 100% better than the bullshit Trump promised and never intended to deliver.
In short,
1-don’t call potential voters, or relatives of potential voters deplorable.
2-`appear’ to match the Republicans lies of empathy, but make it better. It’s unconscionable to lose to a lie you can just as easily as a Republican ignore later
3- educate voters off cycle, not during campaigns, they aren’t listening to you if you aren’t listening to them. BTW, most of that educating should be aimed at your own people so they understand the stakes and the strategies.
Racism is a large motivating factor for “weak” Democrats that voted for Trump. But if we’re going to set that and sexism aside, there are other factors that contributed.
One of these is Trump’s authoritarianism. Make no mistake, this is a huge part of his appeal. Many Americans have a (mis)conception of a monarchical/dictatorial executive. In fact many of our ancestors did not favor ditching this particular form of government for the nascent system of republicanism. Of course Democrats — or one of them — could take up some form of centralizing liberal authoritarianism, let’s say like a modern-day Napoleon, but I don’t particularly favor that approach and I hope no one else does, either.