The Democratic Party Continues to Ignore Reality

[Hayabusa Rider]

Who me?

So sorry if I misunderstood your need to attribute some of the worst attributes of the GOP to the Dems.

The worst attribute of the Dems regarding the election were the failure to connect with an an inclusive message provided by a candidate which merited trust in the eyes of the public. You see no matter what you think of people if you cannot be seen as someone who cares, not market to segments then will shy away from that choice.

Besides that, what worst attributes are you referring to? The lack of inclusiveness? Guilty as charged. Hillary selected out demographics and ignored others and that's problem. The campaign on the whole was one Madison Avenue exercise. People are more than that as they see it.

But assuming that's not the worst thing in all possible universes, what do I attribute to Dems that are the worst of the Reps? Wanting to destroy what health care we have? No. Well perhaps hating on minorities and considering Muslims animals? Hmm, not that either.

If you respond with such comments I'm going to ask you for specifics and for you to back them up. Otherwise Trump could put such an argument forward. I think you are in distress, but not some evil spirit hanging onto the Internet. Again vent if you want, but when you do and you use negative commentary I will force you to disengage, continue onto another untruth or hopefully realize that I'm not your enemy and neither are most others by forcing you to examine your prejudices for factual consistency. Do as you will but you will not make me angry with you and become that which I would not have you be.

 

[ivwshane]

You are absolutely right. That's the reality of it all. The problem with that though is that it puts all the responsibility on the candidate and none on the electorate and that's bad for democracy. The electorate needs to start holding themselves accountable and each other accountable and until that happens we will continue to have to choose between the lessor of two evils.

I'm no longer surprised by the collective willingness to follow. Some people need to be led and there's not much for that.

Taking a break from our normal sparring, I'd ask you to think about the complete election scenario. Clinton won the popular vote over Trump, no dispute and if that were the only factor then we would agree, or at least more so.

First there is the fact that people do not only vote for candidates they want, they pick the lesser of evils as they see them. That meant some portion voted for each candidate because they felt they had to pick one but dislike the other more. It happens and I know you know that.

Then there are two other measurable factors, the lowest turnout in 20 years being one. If either candidate was inspiring on the whole then the turnout should have been larger, but it wasn't. The other thing is that both candidates were highly disfavored. You might argue that's entirely due to Republicans, but if she had a connection with the nation as a whole she could have overcome this or at least done much better. But likeable? That's hard to put into units, impossible. I submit that looking about comments from other than Trump supporters might be useful. Certainly Biden wasn't mind controlled by Trump, I wasn't, and there is a dearth of credible articles which praise her warmth and sincerity. That she was manipulative and controlling was more common, an Ice Princess.

Naturally some will disagree and that's fine but it would be hard to argue a genuine connectedness and inclusive attitude was pervasive in the campaign at an exterior, not personal, level.

Bowfinger had it right. People do not vote for platforms. Those are the responsibility if mere functionaries. A politician is a partisan who has navigated the perils and holds office. No qualities of leadership are required, but real leaders, those who people can look up to are exceedingly rare and we had none of those in the General. One does not win by beating others over the head and telling them how fucking stupid they are but by connecting with them to form a bond of trust.

 

[dank69]

Then you can't complain about people who didn't vote for Clinton.
Trump wasn't just bad because of his policies, irrational behavior, and overall lack of knowledge, he was/is is a bad choice because he has a cult like following who have no problems justifying anything he does and that's a recipe for disaster as seen throughout history.

So if you don't view trump in that light then you can't complain about others who saw Hillary as being just as bad or worse but felt that there wasn't any consequences to their actions.

I suspect we would be seeing the exact same cult-like following for Cruz or Bush. Conservatives value loyalty above all else.

 

[FIVR]

Loyalty is the most important quality in a government official when that government is a dictatorship. If you could ask Hitler, he'd tell you that it was loyalty first, and competence second that he valued in his subordinates. Trump has similar views, and he is attempting to turn the US into a dictatorship right now.

 

[dank69]

The worst attribute of the Dems regarding the election were the failure to connect with an an inclusive message provided by a candidate which merited trust in the eyes of the public. You see no matter what you think of people if you cannot be seen as someone who cares, not market to segments then will shy away from that choice.

Besides that, what worst attributes are you referring to? The lack of inclusiveness? Guilty as charged. Hillary selected out demographics and ignored others and that's problem. The campaign on the whole was one Madison Avenue exercise. People are more than that as they see it.

But assuming that's not the worst thing in all possible universes, what do I attribute to Dems that are the worst of the Reps? Wanting to destroy what health care we have? No. Well perhaps hating on minorities and considering Muslims animals? Hmm, not that either.

If you respond with such comments I'm going to ask you for specifics and for you to back them up. Otherwise Trump could put such an argument forward. I think you are in distress, but not some evil spirit hanging onto the Internet. Again vent if you want, but when you do and you use negative commentary I will force you to disengage, continue onto another untruth or hopefully realize that I'm not your enemy and neither are most others by forcing you to examine your prejudices for factual consistency. Do as you will but you will not make me angry with you and become that which I would not have you be.

No she didn't and that's the problem. You and the rest of the electorate only see what you want to see. Sure, she didn't physically go to the midwest but if that's all it takes to flip an entire state to vote for a con man then we have much bigger problems.

 

[ivwshane]

The worst attribute of the Dems regarding the election were the failure to connect with an an inclusive message provided by a candidate which merited trust in the eyes of the public. You see no matter what you think of people if you cannot be seen as someone who cares, not market to segments then will shy away from that choice.

Besides that, what worst attributes are you referring to? The lack of inclusiveness? Guilty as charged. Hillary selected out demographics and ignored others and that's problem. The campaign on the whole was one Madison Avenue exercise. People are more than that as they see it.

But assuming that's not the worst thing in all possible universes, what do I attribute to Dems that are the worst of the Reps? Wanting to destroy what health care we have? No. Well perhaps hating on minorities and considering Muslims animals? Hmm, not that either.

If you respond with such comments I'm going to ask you for specifics and for you to back them up. Otherwise Trump could put such an argument forward. I think you are in distress, but not some evil spirit hanging onto the Internet. Again vent if you want, but when you do and you use negative commentary I will force you to disengage, continue onto another untruth or hopefully realize that I'm not your enemy and neither are most others by forcing you to examine your prejudices for factual consistency. Do as you will but you will not make me angry with you and become that which I would not have you be.

Lol you say all of this as if you are completely ignoring the fact that trump catered almost exclusively to one type of demographic.

You keep ignoring the facts of the election.

If you want to claim that she lost because of weak or no messaging, fine but there isn't any concrete evidence of this. I will say that any reaching out she did try to do was immediately called out as pandering (the coal miners incident is the prominent one I remember).

She won more working class voters than trump (those making 50k or less).

She won over more minorities than trump.

She won the popular vote by a huge margin.

She lost by less that 80k voters.

Her polling took a nose dive when comey came out with more investigative talk.

So in my mind clearly propaganda, Russian or not, affected the election and either caused enough people to vote third party or not vote at all.

There is plenty of blame to go around and while you wish to hold accountable a politician who most likely will never seek an elected office again or hold accountable a party that pushed the most viable candidate they had, I'll hold accountable those with actual power, those that vote.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

No she didn't and that's the problem. You and the rest of the electorate only see what you want to see. Sure, she didn't physically go to the midwest but if that's all it takes to flip an entire state to vote for a con man then we have much bigger problems.

Obama disagrees.

I think that there does have to be better organization, a smarter message. And one message I do have for Democrats is that a strategy that's just micro-targeting particular, discrete groups in a Democratic coalition sometimes will win you elections, but it's not going to win you the broad mandate that you need. And ultimately, the more we can talk about what we have in common as a nation, and speak to a broad set of values, a vision that speaks to everybody and not just one group at a time, the better off we're going to be.

I think that's part of the reason why I was able to get elected twice, is that I always tried to make sure that, not only in proposals but also in message, that I was speaking to everybody.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...20/press-conference-president-obama-lima-peru

That is from Nov. 20th 2016 and the full link above. Why would Obama give this advice if he didn't see a problem? He would not.

 

[ivwshane]

I suspect we would be seeing the exact same cult-like following for Cruz or Bush. Conservatives value loyalty above all else.

Sure you can say that but reality doesn't back that up.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm no longer surprised by the collective willingness to follow. Some people need to be led and there's not much for that.

Taking a break from our normal sparring, I'd ask you to think about the complete election scenario. Clinton won the popular vote over Trump, no dispute and if that were the only factor then we would agree, or at least more so.

First there is the fact that people do not only vote for candidates they want, they pick the lesser of evils as they see them. That meant some portion voted for each candidate because they felt they had to pick one but dislike the other more. It happens and I know you know that.

Then there are two other measurable factors, the lowest turnout in 20 years being one. If either candidate was inspiring on the whole then the turnout should have been larger, but it wasn't. The other thing is that both candidates were highly disfavored. You might argue that's entirely due to Republicans, but if she had a connection with the nation as a whole she could have overcome this or at least done much better. But likeable? That's hard to put into units, impossible. I submit that looking about comments from other than Trump supporters might be useful. Certainly Biden wasn't mind controlled by Trump, I wasn't, and there is a dearth of credible articles which praise her warmth and sincerity. That she was manipulative and controlling was more common, an Ice Princess.

Naturally some will disagree and that's fine but it would be hard to argue a genuine connectedness and inclusive attitude was pervasive in the campaign at an exterior, not personal, level.

Bowfinger had it right. People do not vote for platforms. Those are the responsibility if mere functionaries. A politician is a partisan who has navigated the perils and holds office. No qualities of leadership are required, but real leaders, those who people can look up to are exceedingly rare and we had none of those in the General. One does not win by beating others over the head and telling them how fucking stupid they are but by connecting with them to form a bond of trust.

Just admit it- America got trolled. You got trolled. Acceptance is the first stage of recovery.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Lol you say all of this as if you are completely ignoring the fact that trump catered almost exclusively to one type of demographic.

You keep ignoring the facts of the election.

If you want to claim that she lost because of weak or no messaging, fine but there isn't any concrete evidence of this. I will say that any reaching out she did try to do was immediately called out as pandering (the coal miners incident is the prominent one I remember).

She won more working class voters than trump (those making 50k or less).

She won over more minorities than trump.

She won the popular vote by a huge margin.

She lost by less that 80k voters.

Her polling took a nose dive when comey came out with more investigative talk.

So in my mind clearly propaganda, Russian or not, affected the election and either caused enough people to vote third party or not vote at all.

There is plenty of blame to go around and while you wish to hold accountable a politician who most likely will never seek an elected office again or hold accountable a party that pushed the most viable candidate they had, I'll hold accountable those with actual power, those that vote.

She didn't do well enough to beat the most disliked candidate in history in the worst attended election in two decades. You can entirely blame everyone but Hillary and the Dem strategist and argue with Obama as well (See my previous post). Of course the Republicans and Trump were clever. So what? That does not excuse the failure to understand the electorate. Even a little improvement would have won the election in spite of Comey. Everyone involved holds some responsibility and no one is exempt by clinging to implicit absolution being fact.

 

[ivwshane]

She didn't do well enough to beat the most disliked candidate in history in the worst attended election in two decades. You can entirely blame everyone but Hillary and the Dem strategist and argue with Obama as well (See my previous post). Of course the Republicans and Trump were clever. So what? That does not excuse the failure to understand the electorate. Even a little improvement would have won the election in spite of Comey. Everyone involved holds some responsibility and no one is exempt by clinging to implicit absolution being fact.

You can find countless threads where I blame Hillary. We are talking about the future and blaming Hillary isn't going to fix anything, especially when what needs fixing is the electorate themselves.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Just admit it- America got trolled. You got trolled. Acceptance is the first stage of recovery.

Why should I admit to something which you cannot dispute? "Being trolled" is not a reasoned response to a argument. All you need do is go down my statement of facts and disprove them. I did not support Trump and the numbers I posted are irrelevant to my feelings about Hillary. That the facts are what they are, do not blame me.

 

[Indus]

Lol you say all of this as if you are completely ignoring the fact that trump catered almost exclusively to one type of demographic.

You keep ignoring the facts of the election.

If you want to claim that she lost because of weak or no messaging, fine but there isn't any concrete evidence of this. I will say that any reaching out she did try to do was immediately called out as pandering (the coal miners incident is the prominent one I remember).

She won more working class voters than trump (those making 50k or less).

She won over more minorities than trump.

She won the popular vote by a huge margin.

She lost by less that 80k voters.

Her polling took a nose dive when comey came out with more investigative talk.

So in my mind clearly propaganda, Russian or not, affected the election and either caused enough people to vote third party or not vote at all.

There is plenty of blame to go around and while you wish to hold accountable a politician who most likely will never seek an elected office again or hold accountable a party that pushed the most viable candidate they had, I'll hold accountable those with actual power, those that vote.

Are you suggesting the dems should run her again?

 

[Jaskalas]

Raising taxes on the rich, a nationally popular idea, should be a signature policy stance in 2020.

I disagree. Insofar as making that the message everyone hears.
Economic populism, yes... but speak towards helping people and the programs to do that. The policy to do that.
The details on how to pay for it are important, but not for PR. Not as a focal point.

It's because taxes are viewed as "taking away" and "harming" folks. They need to see the benefits (to them) before they'd accept it.

 

[ivwshane]

Are you suggesting the dems should run her again?

Has the electorate some how gotten smarter?

 

[Indus]

Haha. Funny. Nope.

You forget a few stats.

College educated women went for hillary 51-47.
College educated men went for Trump.

Working class women went for Trump 62-36.

So in one word.. running her again would be akin to trying the same thing again and again and hoping for a different result.

 

[Jhhnn]

Why should I admit to something which you cannot dispute? "Being trolled" is not a reasoned response to a argument. All you need do is go down my statement of facts and disprove them. I did not support Trump and the numbers I posted are irrelevant to my feelings about Hillary. That the facts are what they are, do not blame me.

Enumerate the alleged "facts".

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

You can find countless threads where I blame Hillary. We are talking about the future and blaming Hillary isn't going to fix anything, especially when what needs fixing is the electorate themselves.

Then we really agree, mostly. My problem with others is they not willing to admit partial responsibility, that all fault is in the stars not ourselves so to speak. The whole dynamic behind any election, especially this one is highly complex and one thing may have fed back on something else. The reason that I continue to blame Dems and Hillary is because in this forum the tactics and response of Republicans is well known to most. Certainly I haven't challenged you on any of that have I? So why do I bother? One word, Iraq. That's not a non-sequitur, it's relevant in that the whole fiasco was something largely rejected by most here and ultimately much of the public. What happened? As soon as Bush was out it went away. All the outrage and calls for justice vanished into the background. What kind of people would look at such a horrific injustice one day and ignore it afterwards except for "look at how bad they were" in some bizarre scoring contest. That doesn't matter, lives matter and the justice they deserve. It never happened. So I beat that dead pointless horse too because some things should not be forgotten, and this election is one of them. The system and the people let the nation down. We deserved a large portion of it, some in power the rest and no one party or group is wholly exempt in their choices.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Enumerate the alleged "facts".

Read the post, not just reflexively respond. I cited turnout and more. You may disagree with the conclusions but like Trump, saying small turnouts are "the best" isn't true.

 

[ivwshane]

I disagree. Insofar as making that the message everyone hears.
Economic populism, yes... but speak towards helping people and the programs to do that. The policy to do that.
The details on how to pay for it are important, but not for PR. Not as a focal point.

It's because taxes are viewed as "taking away" and "harming" folks. They need to see the benefits (to them) before they'd accept it.

Honestly I think the best the left can do right now (and by left I'm not talking about the Democratic party), is to start running its own propaganda on as many sources as they can. The messages would be simple, things like; In your line of work, do you find those that are best for the company are the ones that hate the company and actively try to destroy it? Then why support Republicans to run the government? (then cut to a montage of Republicans saying and doing things that hurt government and who want to destroy parts of it).
Other ads would simply be the negative impacts of Republican policies, like those who died because they lost their health care.
And lastly, you could have ads that show, factually, how Republican policies continuously fail to do what they claimed they would do (like reagans, kansas's, and Bush's tax cuts did not lead to an increase in tax revenue nor did they lead to above average growth in the economy.

 

[Jaskalas]

You can find countless threads where I blame Hillary. We are talking about the future and blaming Hillary isn't going to fix anything, especially when what needs fixing is the electorate themselves.

Instead of "fixing the electorate" maybe we will fix the message to the electorate.

 

[Jhhnn]

Obama disagrees.



https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...20/press-conference-president-obama-lima-peru

That is from Nov. 20th 2016 and the full link above. Why would Obama give this advice if he didn't see a problem? He would not.

So Hillary depended on the mental acumen of the voters more than she should have?

I believe you'd be correct in saying that.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

So Hillary depended on the mental acumen of the voters more than she should have?

I believe you'd be correct in saying that.

Call Obama and tell him how wrong he is.

 

[ivwshane]

Then we really agree, mostly. My problem with others is they not willing to admit partial responsibility, that all fault is in the stars not ourselves so to speak. The whole dynamic behind any election, especially this one is highly complex and one thing may have fed back on something else. The reason that I continue to blame Dems and Hillary is because in this forum the tactics and response of Republicans is well known to most. Certainly I haven't challenged you on any of that have I? So why do I bother? One word, Iraq. That's not a non-sequitur, it's relevant in that the whole fiasco was something largely rejected by most here and ultimately much of the public. What happened? As soon as Bush was out it went away. All the outrage and calls for justice vanished into the background. What kind of people would look at such a horrific injustice one day and ignore it afterwards except for "look at how bad they were" in some bizarre scoring contest. That doesn't matter, lives matter and the justice they deserve. It never happened. So I beat that dead pointless horse too because some things should not be forgotten, and this election is one of them. The system and the people let the nation down. We deserved a large portion of it, some in power the rest and no one party or group is wholly exempt in their choices.

Correct. So the focus shouldn't be on the party but the electorate. Its the electorate that elects people who then set or influence the party.
We can't move forward until those with the real power are held accountable and those with the real power are the electorate.

Now maybe you understand how and why I post. Its not to defend the party (of which I am not a part of), it's to hold those that vote accountable. I do this because they not only have to be better informed but because they also have to see and understand their own biases.

 

[ivwshane]

Haha. Funny. Nope.

You forget a few stats.

College educated women went for hillary 51-47.
College educated men went for Trump.

Working class women went for Trump 62-36.

So in one word.. running her again would be akin to trying the same thing again and again and hoping for a different result.

Correction: White college educated men went for trump.

White working class women went for trump.