General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHillary Clinton didn't Really lose, she lost because Republicans are really good at cheating!
When will the Democratic politicians learn to fight back against Republican methods to win elections?
1. The GOP continues to suppress black, native americans and latino voters efforts to vote. Why tolerate these voter suppression tactics? (Black voters did not stay home and not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Their ability to register and vote was hindered by GOP voter suppression methods. then GOP propaganda was leaked to the press saying that black voters just stayed home.)
2. The use of foreign money and foreign spy agents to influence the American voter's opinions about Democratic Politicians. Yes, I mean Russian spy assets were used by the GOP, NRA, to change voter's perception of Hillary Clinton thus drive down her democratic base willingness to eagerly support her.
3. The use of electronic voting machines that cannot be transparent and accurately count and-or accurately recount the vote. Why? Why not call these voting systems out? What about voting systems that send centralized vote counts out to other computers and back again with completely new vote totals? (Ohio)
If you can think of other instances where the Democratic Party and its leadership needs to organize and fight tooth and nail please feel free to list them below.
LBM20
(1,580 posts)party. Clinton admits some campaign mistakes. And yes, Russia, the Comey letter, etc. But, some people also simply wanted change. It is rare for a party to win the presidency for three or more terms in a row.
Don't forget ALL the reasons. It was NOT just about the GOP cheating.
We need to GOTV and overwhelm them at the polls, seize power, and use it.
Learn from the past, but we can't bemoan the past endlessly.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)the intense barrages of RW and Russian (also RW) lies. They have huge blame for Trump, of course. Their responsibility as adults was to seek truth and right, to identify wrong, and to act on it.
But their responsibility not to be fooled into helping elect Republicans/Trump in NO way obviates the RW efforts to sabotage their beliefs and subvert their decisions. Undermining by lies of their previous commitments based on truth, shown in many months of polls, is THE major form, among many, that voter subversion and suppression took in 2016.
Those 3 million more votes cast for Hillary in no way reflects the far higher numbers who intended to vote and vote Democrat before those people failed to hold against barrages of lies. And in the end it really was "ALL ABOUT THE GOP CHEATING," although cheating is far too mild a word for their malignant degrading of our electorate's beliefs and corruption of our democracy.
I agree with your messages on other threads that we need to stand strong and win, though. There are a lot more of us. If good people refuse to be used as fools and do their duty, we will smash them down far harder than they can come at us.
UCmeNdc
(9,589 posts)53,000 voters being denied their registration to vote. (Add in the black voters blocked by local government and you get a hefty number of voters denied a chance to vote for their candidate.)
7962
(11,841 posts)ALL of the people caught up in that story are still able to go to the polls and if told they arent properly registered (which may not even happen) they can still vote with a provisional ballot. Those ballots cannot be tossed if the voter is found to be an actual real legit voter, which they would be.
UCmeNdc
(9,589 posts)before their provisional ballot can be counted.
So how many will actually feel like trying to fight for their vote to be counted. What is they comeback and the people in charge says their proof is not enough. Who is going to follow up on this method of blocking voters from having their votes actually count?
UCmeNdc
(9,589 posts)Are you ready for this? Brian Kemp. They'll be given provisional ballots. In this case you still won't be able to vote. And in this case, you'll think you'll have voted but you won't. You're going to have a massive number of provisional ballots and Brian Kemp gets to count those ballots."
Freddie
(9,232 posts)Can you think of any other country where the person with less votes gets to take office? Now 2x this (young) century. The Russians played the EC like a fiddle.
Amishman
(5,541 posts)Russia, voter suppression, etc could only move the vote by a small amount. She should have been up 5-10% running against someone like Trump. Mistakes in target and messaging, gaffes (deplorables comment and the 50 points ahead were certainly weaponized against her), and other errors made it closer than it ever should have been. Comey was also an infuriatingly large factor.
The whole thing was a Rube Goldberg device, it took many factors to make it happen. We can't focus on one thing and say 'this is what made it happen!' it took all of them contributing in tandem.
Raine
(30,540 posts)came together in a "perfect" storm that blew Trump into office.
BlueTsunami2018
(3,461 posts)Either play the game the way they do, ruthless and cutthroat, or were always going to lose. Its long past the time to stop pretending being the better person is its own reward. Its not.
JI7
(89,182 posts)this .
we do need to change the system but it would take winning in the current system to change it. so it will be tougher for democrats even if you take out the cheating. k
one thing we have going for us is changes in demographics .
watoos
(7,142 posts)Let's also not forget, as we talk about voter suppression and disenfranchisement, which is profoundly real, those electronic voting machines keep pounding out results without absolutely any verification or independent audits.
Paper ballots would be a good start.
Sprite
(77 posts)Paper ballots only. If it takes a week to count so what. We dont have to know instantaneously.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)puts ideology over the well being of america...
watoos
(7,142 posts)United we stand, divided we fall. If by the ultra-Left you mean expanding Medicare, if you mean making college affordable, if you mean looking at health care as a right and not a privilege, etc. etc. then count me among the ultra-Left.
When our intelligence agencies said there was no proof that any of our voting machines were hacked, that is a correct statement because none of our electronic voting machines were ever independently audited. In other words, there is no proof that our electronic voting machines aren't being rigged or hacked. Every time I vote I ask for a paper receipt and am denied one, why? I can go to Sheetz, order a death dog and cheese fries and within seconds I have a print out of what I punched in to the screen.
The well being of America is not putting our faith into electronic voting machines that are owned by right wingers that can't be audited because the owners claim proprietary software. Proprietary software!! Let that excuse settle for a minute in your mind. All the machines are doing is simple addition, 1+1=2. Proprietary software my ass.
UCmeNdc
(9,589 posts)Not enough of those types of voters really exists.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)But the answer is always "we'll get the BESTEST, most CHARISMATIC SUPERSTAR candidate EVAH next time!".
But nothing will work until the cheating is dealt with. Unless that happens, they will be getting away with it over, and over again.
Demovictory9
(32,324 posts)of the voters with voter supression
elocs
(22,474 posts)or who voted for a 3rd party candidate (here in Wisconsin, Jill Stein's vote was as great as Trump's victory margin) did nothing to help Clinton to win either.
But Republicans do love when Democrats self-supress their vote because it makes winning so much easier for the GOP.