geek tragedy
geek tragedy's Journalthe depressing reality of American politics: we need to win back a sizable number of votes
from WWC voters who are perfectly okay with a white nationalist running our country.
Those of us who find white nationalism and bigotry utterly repugnant and a per se disqualification from higher office are not a majority of voters.
We find ourselves in a much different country than the one we thought we lived in, and one that bears no resemblance to the one Barack Obama described from 2004-2008. Truth be told, there are no American values.
It will take strong stomachs to form coalitions going forward in order to win elections. The big tent will have to include apologists for white nationalism, which is absolutely sickening. But the alternative is to let the worst of the white nationalists rule over us.
Is there a logical explanation for putting huge resources into OH while ignoring
WI, MI and to a lesser extent Pennsylvania?
I can see the argument for pushing Arizona and even Georgia--they're much different than the Big 10 states and have their own set of factors, including regional and demographic differences.
But, in no universe was Clinton going to win Ohio while losing Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin. They're similar states, but with Ohio being a lot more Republican-friendly and Trump-friendly.
She wound up getting blown out in Ohio, but was campaigning there until the end. Did they really have no idea what was going on there?
Did it never occur to them to safeguard the states they needed instead of the states that they merely would have liked to win?
Senate Democrats strategy: help Trump and other Republicans get re-elected
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/us/politics/democrats-house-senate.htmlOn infrastructure spending, child tax credits, paid maternity leave and dismantling trade agreements, Democrats are looking for ways they can work with Mr. Trump and force Republican leaders to choose between their new president and their small-government, free-market principles. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, elected Wednesday as the new Democratic minority leader, has spoken with Mr. Trump several times, and Democrats in coming weeks plan to announce populist economic and ethics initiatives they think Mr. Trump might like.
Democrats, who lost the White House and made only nominal gains in the House and Senate, face a profound decision after last week’s stunning defeat: Make common cause where they can with Mr. Trump to try to win back the white, working-class voters he took from them, or resist at every turn, trying to rally their disparate coalition in hopes that discontent with an ineffectual new president will benefit them in 2018.
Mr. Trump campaigned on some issues that Democrats have long championed and Republicans resisted: spending more on roads, bridges and rail, punishing American companies that move jobs overseas, ending a lucrative tax break for hedge fund and private equity titans, and making paid maternity leave mandatory.
Some Democrats are even co-opting Mr. Trump’s language from the campaign. “Every single person in our caucus agrees the system is rigged,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan.
Hard to describe how foolish this is. Trump and the Republicans will get all of the credit, Democrats will get none.
So, the skids get greased for this fascist, racist, pollution-loving animal to get another 8 years of Congressional majorities to roll back the New Deal and Great Society.
Were they asleep during 2009-2010?
Remember how the Republicans tormented the Democrats, including President Obama,
between 2009-2010, when we had a majority?
It's payback time. They gave us a playbook.
No Democratic fingerprints on any of their legislation.
United front to vote against anything they propose, even if it was originally our idea.
Swarm their townhalls and Congressional offices with protestors when they try to phase out Medicare.
Remind those people who flipped from Obama to Trump every day that he threw in with the Republican Establishment in order to get rid of their Medicare.
Attack, attack, attack.
Our goal is to make Trump a one-term President.
Lesson from upstate New York.
New York state didn't get a lot of attention because the outcome was never in doubt. However, there's something to be learned in the difference between Clinton's numbers vs Chuck Schumer's. Keep in mind, Clinton back in 2006 won the entire state and was very popular in upstate New York.
In 2016, Clinton's entire margin of victory statewide came from 4 NYC boroughs: Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Across the rest of the state it was pretty much a dead heat.
Clinton won a total of 16 counties. Trump won 46.
In 2016, Chuck Schumer won 55 counties. His Republican opponent won 7.
Schumer's margin of victory statewide was over twice as big as Clinton's.
Look at the two maps:
Clinton-Trump:
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/new-york
Schumer-Long:
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/new-york-senate-schumer-long
There are a number of significant differences, but the big one is pretty inescapable--Schumer has maintained a connection to the voters in upstate New York that Clinton lost on her way to being a national politician.
If you want another comparison, look at how Barack Obama did in NY State in 2012:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/states/new-york
Obama won 37 counties to 25 for Mitt Romney.
21 counties flipped from Obama to Trump.
In a state Hillary won with 67% of the vote in 2006.
No Democrat over 60 years old has won an open Presidential election since the Civil War
Woodrow Wilson, in 1912, won at the age of 56. Every one of our winners since then was younger.
FDR--50
JFK--44
Carter--52
Bill Clinton--46
Obama--47
Two Democratic Presidents ran for the first time as incumbents after becoming President via succession--Truman was 64 and LBJ was 56.
a bitter, painful, incredibly damaging wake up call.
to start, I think it's fair to say all of us are reacting with some combination of horror, disgust, dread, fear, anger, depression, despair, and grief. We're all on the same side here, so we should keep that in mind at all times.
though there are a dozen explanations for that apply to this cycle (Comey, misogyny, vote suppression), there are a few lessons we can learn from this in order to make ourselves a stronger party and carry the day forward:
1) We've been bleeding votes in the less-populated areas of the Midwest especially, but also in the south and mid-atlantic areas. This didn't start in 2016. It first happened to us in 2010, and then again in 2014. Our vote totals were way down in those areas from historical levels. But, the truth of the matter is that we do have a working class white voter problem. It's time we stopped dismissing them as merely a perpetually 60-40 vote against us group. They went 70-30 or even 80-20 in some places, and that's what tipped the electoral college. If they had voted 60-40 against us this election we would have won. We need to make our case to this group to keep the bad guys' margins down. We've assumed in the "demographics is destiny" mindset that we can run up the score with Latinos, African-Americans and others while counting on white voters to vote as individuals or as a complex grouping based on class, geography etc. In 2016, white people bought into identity politics, and that's a major problem for us since they still constitute around 70% of the vote.
2) Our natural base gets complacent, and so does the party. This was in many ways a repeat of the 2000 electoral cycle. Even though the threat of the Republican winning was much greater--and with much more dire consequences--in the two previous cycles, we not only lost votes to the Republicans, we also failed to turn out our base in the same numbers. Part of this is failing to recognize that, after one party has held the white house for two terms, voters are ready for something new. Doesn't matter how good the party has done, voters want a change. Call it short memory, or boredom, or whatever. But, they need something different. And some voters are going to want change more than others, because they've felt removed from whatever accomplishments happened over those 8 years. In 2000 and 2016 we saw the same thing--the primary deck being cleared for a technocratic, caretaker candidate who was carrying the baggage from previous policy fights and exposure to the DC cesspool.
What do we need to do? Easy and difficult question to answer. The easy answer is that we need to win, and then win some more, and then keep on winning. The hard part is how to do that--how do we expand our party's appeal without offending members of our coalition.
Certainly, Trump and Privatizer Ryan will give us plenty of ammo, from their attacks on Medicare to the all too predictable cases of corruption and abuse of power that will emerge from his shitshow of an administration. Certainly, we can at a minimum repay the Republicans for what they did to us in 2009-2010.
But, we also need to have a long game, a strategic game, that we execute day in, day out, without regards for what Trump tweeted or threatened to do. We need to try to win every vote possible in every congressional district, not just write off the people outside of our urban strongholds as a bunch of dumb racists beyond redemption.
Fundraising won't save us. Big data operations won't save us. A superior ground game won't save us. We learned that in 2016.
Nevada looking reaaaally good. How good? (Updated!)
https://mobile.twitter.com/ralstonreports/status/794737005091401728They just extended voting hours at a Mexican supermarket to 10 PM. Close to 1,000 voters in line. If you have a panic button GOP, find it.
Mexican-Americans are building a wall to keep Donald Trump out. And he's going to pay for it.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cwd797hVEAAmnko?format=jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cwdo9a9UcAAE5i5?format=jpg
And Democrats won the early voting in Washoe, where Republicans hold a registration edge.
Dem - 6,058
GOP - 5,820
TOTAL - 16,373
https://mobile.twitter.com/ralstonreports/status/794754491836862467
Early voting in Florida now looking pretty good (70% will be early voting)
http://steveschale.com/blog/2016/11/4/it-is-friday-somewhere-and-that-somewhere-is-2016-election.html...
First, through Wednesday, 170,000 more Hispanics had voted early (or VBM) in 2016 than voted early or by VBM in the entire 2012 cycle. And keep in mind, because Hispanic is a self-identifying marker, studies have found that the real Hispanic vote is larger than the registration. So while Hispanics might make up 14.2% of the voters who have voted so far, in reality, the number is larger.
And it isn’t just that Hispanics are voting, it is the types of Hispanics who are voting. Here is one way to look at it: Right now, statewide, 16% of early voters are either first time Florida voters, or haven’t voted in any of the last three elections. Across party lines, 24% of all the Hispanic votes today come from these first-time voters. Among Hispanic Republicans, it is 14%, among Democrats, it goes up to 26%, and among Hispanic NPAs, a whopping 32% have no previous or recent voting history.
When you expand it out to voters who voted in one of the last three, which is what I define as “low propensity,” it goes up to 53% of Hispanic Democrats and 60% of Hispanic NPAs. That, my friends, is the definition of a surge.
Right now, Democrats hold a 117K vote advantage among all low propensity voters, in large part due to this Hispanic surge. 32% of Democratic voters so far are low propensity voters, compared to 26% of the GOP voters. But among NPA, the number rises to 48%. That’s right, 48% of NPAs who have voted so far are low propensity – and 25% of those are Hispanic.
In fact, of the NPA low propensity voters, a full 42% of them are non-white. That right there is the Clinton turnout machine edge.
Huge turnout amongst Latinos/Hispanics, NPA portion of the electorate looking very Democrat friendly, looks like Republicans are cannibalizing their election day voters at a greater rate than Democrats are, Democrats now leading in early voting.
Some concerns about lagging African-American turnout, but President Obama was down there to drive that turnout this week.
No complacency(!!!) but it's looking a lot better than it did earlier in the week. Florida's looking better than the polls would indicate.
Can anyone blame Hillary for a touch of paranoia and secrecy, given the FBI witch hunt?
The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has its tentacles in every institution, whether it be media, religion, politics, judicial, or law enforcement.
The NYC FBI--aspiring to be future henchmen of Rudey Ghouliani and his network of political saboteurs--are fanatically supportive of a candidate who is (1) has extensive ties to organized crime on multiple continents; (2) a tool of hostile foreign power; (3) a serial sexual predator; (4) a shameless and flagrant fraudster.
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