2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders and minority voters: Can he persuade them?
The media generally says two thing about minority voters and the Democratic primaries:
1) Minorities remember Bill Clinton's presidency, are happy with the results and feel that Hillary will continue where Bill left off.
Although one could try and puncture holes in this argument, it is one I respect and can fully understand. The next one I cannot.
2) Most minorities still don't know about Bernie Sanders.
This baffles me no end. I know that in each society you get groups of people who are not well informed and who don't take part in the political process but the way the media presents it (maybe it's exaggerating?), one gets the impression that minorities live in some remote, inaccessible area with no electricity or internet, and in which the only news available is a Victorian-era like pamphlet printed by the Clintons once a month and delivered on horseback and by canoe.
Maybe I am just speaking from my hyper-informed bubble but how can most minority voters NEVER HAVE HEARD OF HIM? Yes, the mainstream media has given him short shrift but the campaign has been going on for months. You would expect his name to somehow crop up somewhere. If they really have never heard of him, I think another legitimate question would be to ask whether they even know know that there is an election taking place and whether they will participate at all. If anyone can shed light on this issue, it would be much appreciated because I really do not understand it.
I think that Bernie Sanders's campaign will quickly die out without the support of minority voters so I would like to hear more about this issue. Can Bernie Sanders persuade minority voters to vote for him instead of Hillary Clinton? What is the ground-game to get them on board?
I thank you beforehand for reading my post and trying to answer my questions.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)Will Hillary continue to dominate the black vote?
So far in this campaign Hillary Clinton has been overwhelmingly dominant with African American voters...Can this continue?
Can Hillary continue to take the black vote for granted?
Will minority voters rescue the Clinton machine?
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)Amigo, we get our news by the ol', reliable smoke signal.
Seriously, it baffles me too. Uninformed people come in all races. why paint minorities with such a broad, unfaltering brush?
I'm sure PoC are as aware of Sanders in similar numbers as any other group. There is another reason for the lack of connection with him. To say, at this point in time, that "they just don't know him" is absurd.