JOE BIDENS SOUND ADVICE FOR DEMOCRATS

[elleng]

'As the Trump Administration stumbles on, Democrats’ thoughts turn to the elections of 2018 and 2020. Despite Trump’s current troubles, many of them believe that the Party faces a painful dilemma: Should it champion progressive policies that will energize its liberal base, or should it focus on winning back some of the persuadable voters it lost to Trump this past November?

Joe Biden, for one, doesn’t believe that the Party has to choose. Addressing a political dinner in New Hampshire a few days ago, the former Vice-President insisted that Democrats can promote their progressive values and reach out to economically embattled voters, including Trump voters, at the same time. “There is absolutely no inconsistency,” Biden said, “between defending the right to [gay] marriage, defining the rights of women to control their own bodies, standing up for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and demanding safe working conditions, a living wage, sick leave.”

Historically speaking, Biden is surely right. From F.D.R. to Barack Obama, the Democratic Party has prospered when it has proposed bold policies designed to improve the material well-being of ordinary people. But the modern-day split between the Democratic Party and working-class white voters who didn’t attend college can’t be ignored. In this group, according to the Edison Research exit poll, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, sixty-six to twenty-nine per cent.

Biden said that Clinton was held to a “double standard,” and he didn’t refer directly to her controversial use of the term “deplorables” to describe some of Trump’s supporters. But he did challenge the belief, widely held by members of the Clinton campaign, that many of Trump’s supporters were irredeemable bigots—and that racism was their primary motivation in backing the real-estate mogul. Referring to Trump’s narrow margins of victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Biden said, “Those hundred and seventy-two thousand people we needed, or hundred and seventy-three, a lot of them wondered whether we had forgotten them, how they were being abused by the system. Just because they weren’t the poorest or the richest, they wondered whether or not we remember. They are as decent as any one of us here. So, folks, let’s go and win it back.”'>>>

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/joe-bidens-sound-advice-for-democrats

[mainstreetonce]

1. Go Joe

You have a lot more to give.

[JHan]

2. We can choose to ignore the empirical data if we want to...

We can choose to ignore that meanness in politics was attractive to millions of people. Which is not to say that every Trump voter voted for this.... Indeed Clinton articulated better than Joe, in the very same controversial "deplorable" statement, the desperation many Americans felt. But many Americans also believe mean awful things and were given a voice last year through Trump.

And what Joe is stating is what is already known - of course we can speak to our values like women's rights, environmental health and the like, those values are right and just, but part of our values is also calling out what ails America and confronting it directly.

It is a slap to my face and other minorities when what we heard with our own ears and saw with our own eyes is excused away, rationalized and worse - smoothed over. Wasn't the impetus of civil rights rooted in racial justice? Why the fudging around it, why the ignoring of cultural anxieties based on fear of "Other"?

If we can't point out people's fears, call those fears out honestly and truthfully, and engage courageously with what's going on in America, what's the point of liberalism?

EDIT: Joe, and other well-meaning Democrats, need to understand that billions have been poured into shaping ideas that are antagonistic towards groups and that Americans have bought into this .. they have bought into the idea that they should be fearful, deathly fearful, of people who are poor and desperate. They have so bought into this lie, they vote in ways that harm "those people" and *Themselves" in the long run. It is rooted in "US vs THEM", and some Americans endorse this mindset, knowingly and willingly. Some of these Americans aren't even poor themselves, some live in suburbia and are well off - yes well off people also voted Trump. Where's the courage to tackle this?

[elleng]

3. Not excused or smoothed over,

trying rationally to address obvious problems, and if Democrats ignore solutions proposed by Joe and others, we'll all be dead.

[JHan]

4. But elleng there's already an acknowledgement we have to do better to reach out...

That's all I've heard from Perez and others. What I have noticed are attempts to skirt around what was so obvious last year - it is nauseating to see this from Democrats knowing the make-up of the dem base.

[elleng]

5. I HOPE there's an acknowledgment we have to do better reach out,

JHan, but I don't see that so much but more repeating the obvious, shoving it into 'their' faces. It won't work that, way, imo.

[JHan]

6. i'm thinking if I were a senior member of the Democratic party..

I would find a way to address the anxieties - and speak plainly about it, reminding voters of what has been done to divide us, what fuels rank partisanship to such a degree reason and logic go out of the window. To do so would mean acknowledging that yes we have a problem and calling it out for the ugliness that it is and challenging all of us to do better, to see each other as part of a community, and as a politician, I would demonstrate and show, through action, grit and determination to make the system work better.

At the core of it is values. Trump attacked *values* last year. So we stand up for women's rights and environmental health, but also justice and the importance of valuing the contributions we all make regardless of ethnicity. This is what Democrats have to hone in on, and especially reject attempts to call it "identity politics".

[elleng]

7. So do I hope senior party members would do so,

speak plainly about it.

[George II]

15. And many of the "conclusions" in that article are based on selective statistics, not the entire...

....picture.

It is selectively ignored that Clinton overwhelmingly won the popular vote (i.e., Americans as a whole wanted her to be President) and that in three key states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin trump "won" by only 77,000 votes combined, a mere one-half of one percent.

Except for the absolute result, it wasn't the devastating loss that many would like us to believe. Rather than drastically overhauling our message we only need to fine tune that message.

[JHan]

16. Exactly...

And it boggles the mind that Joe and others don't see this. In the wake of an election where Trump preyed on people's fears and exposed ugliness, Dems should not backtrack or diminish what was obvious. Doing so validates Trump's narratives which were all false. Sigh.

[Mars and Minerva]

8. I think that the Democratic Party is going to have to part ways with it's Deplorables.

They aren't "Populists" they are just "Bigraceogynists"

[still_one]

9. While on some points Biden is right, his implication that a good number of these trump

supporters are redeemable is bullshit. The pointing out of the losses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, was not due to those who voted for trump, as much as those who voted third party, or didn't vote. Those are the ones that need to be reached. Just the fact that every Democrat running for Senate in those critical swing states lost to the incumbent, establishment, republican, demonstrates the flaw in his conclusion of the typical trump voter. Most of those Democrats in those swing states were progressive, some very much so, such as Russ Feingold.

His selective analysis about these trump voters has a lot of holes in it.

He seems to ignore the fact that only 3% of trump voters regret their vote today.

Everyone who voted for trump knew he was a racist, sexist, bigot, and still voted for him. Even if it could be argued that they didn't believe that he would follow through on that, the fact that 97% of those that voted for trump still support him according to the latest polls, screams that trump being a racist, sexist, and bigot doesn't bother them.

When Joe starts looking at the individual swing states, and makes his analysis that it was because we didn't reach out to these trump voters why she lost, completely ignores what happened. In Michigan Hillary lost by .3%. Jill Stein received around 1.1% of the vote. Similar results in the other swing states. 47% of the eligible voters did not vote, is completely left out of his equation.

Ignoring what Comey did 11 days before the elections is not presenting a fair picture of what happened. Nate Silver's data pretty much show that Comey's interference did result in a trump victory. How many people stayed home because of that?

[elleng]

10. The losses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin

were because Democrats didn't go there, and MANY ignore that fact. It was easy to have reached them.

'I said Clinton was in trouble with the voters I represent. Democrats didn’t listen.

Debbie Dingell, a Democrat, represents Michigan’s 12th Congressional District in the House.

I was the crazy one. I predicted that Hillary Clinton was in trouble in Michigan during the Democratic primary. I observed that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination for president. And at Rotary clubs, local chambers of commerce, union halls and mosques, I noted that we could see a Trump presidency. “That’s Debbie, it’s hyperbole, she is nuts.”

It’s now our reality , and as Americans we need to understand why. My district reflects much of this country’s diversity. Ann Arbor is a university- and start-up town. Ypsilanti is urban, and its issues mirror those of larger cities such as Detroit and Chicago. Dearborn is headquarters to Ford Motor Co. and has the largest Muslim population in the country. The “Downrivers” — a collection of communities south of Detroit — mean auto plants and manufacturing with strong union membership.'>>>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-said-clinton-was-in-trouble-with-the-voters-i-represent-democrats-didnt-listen/2016/11/10/0e9521a6-a796-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html?utm_term=.7aea59e146e7

[still_one]

11. You are missing my point. It wasn't because of those who voted for trump., it was because of those

who didn't vote or voted third party.

That is what is missing from those who subscribe to the view that we need to go after the trump voter.

As I stated, only 3% of those trump voters regret their vote. 97% do not.

To your premise that it was because the Democrats didn't go there, I don't buy that. Wisconsin is a perfect example. Paul Ryan, Ron Johnson, and Walker have won one reelection after another. Walker not only survived a recall, but has been elected multiple times.

I recognize that we are not going to see eye to eye on a lot of this, but I would like to think we would agree that where the Democrats need to focus is on those who didn't vote, and do whatever it takes to persuade that demographic that voting for Democrats is in their best interest.

Going after the typical trump voter is going to accomplish very little.

[elleng]

12. There were a few reasons,

not only that Democrats didn't go there. And it's clear we should 'go after' more than the 'typical trump voter,' surely those who didn't vote. We have to give them a reason to vote. We can surely agree.

[still_one]

13. sure we can agree on that. I also subscribe to the Howard Dean 50 state strategy, that one size

doesn't necessarily fit all. Different states have different priorities

[elleng]

14. ABSOLUTELY, Dean's 50 state strategy!

I attended a book review, ??? years ago, at Politics and Prose in DC, where emmanuel and another 'big' 'D,' I forget who it was, talking about a book re: Dem strategy, and I asked about the 50 state strategy, would it be in play, and emmanuel refused to answer me. We canNOT have that sort of 'thinking' in the Dem party.

[still_one]

17. I assume you are referring to Rahm Emanuel, and the period where he did have a lot of

influence in the party. I would agree that the successful 50 state strategy which was quite successful, ended when Howard Dean refused to seek a second term, and that is unfortunate for obvious reasons.

There will always be healthy debate within the Democratic party. Democrats do not walk in lock and step. Rahm Emanuel, and others are not the dominant voice of the party today, as evidenced by Tom Perez's statements on re-engaging that 50-statrategy, and redefining the Democratic party mission. He has made it very clear that the Democratic party mission is not simply electing the president, but working to elect people from the "school board to the Senate", across the nation.

How successful that is will be seen in 2018

I realize that many are jumping on these special elections as some sort of indicator, but I am not sure they are at this stage. I think it will be much clearer in one year at this time. I do believe though if a Democrat or progressive wins in these special elections, that is much more significant than if the republican wins in these special elections where they were already favored to win in a republican district

[George II]

18. No, that is not true. The total loss in those three states combined was a mere 77,000 votes.

She lost Pennsylvania by only 44,292 votes (0.72%), Michigan by only 10,704 only votes (0.23%) and Wisconsin by only 22,748 (0.77%)

To attribute those losses to a failure to campaign vigorously in those states is Monday morning quarterbacking. Funny how there was little criticism prior to the election, only after the bizarre election results.

[elleng]

19. The # of votes is not important,

the ELECTORAL votes is.

And maybe you too missed Debbie Dingell. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/top-michigan-dem-warned-that-trump-would-be-competitive-there/article/2607183

[George II]

20. I know electoral votes are important, but they're determined by # of votes aren't they?

[StevieM]

21. Really? Clinton didn't campaign in Pennsylvania? That is absolutely not what I remember.

I remember her going there repeatedly.

She also made campaign stops in Michigan, although not as many.

She didn't go to Wisconsin, that's true. But then again, Trump CANCELED a campaign stop in Wisconsin a few days before the election. For some reason we never here about that.

She also had an impressive staff on the ground in these places, more in Wisconsin than Obama had in 2012.

[yurbud]

22. neither will work if it just appears to be pandering not backed by a candidates record.