[Discussion] What comes next? Liber-all

American liberals and progressives now face their biggest challenge in a generation: What do we do with 4 years of a trump presidency, a republican congress, a likely conservative supreme court and most states under complete republican control?

This thread is not meant as a forum for discussing HOW or WHY democrats got destroyed in the 2016 election. It's meant for finding a way forward.

Malor wrote:
Votes that, according to Cook's Political Report, puts Hillary less than 1.5 million from what Obama managed in 2012.

You're still doing it.

I specifically brought up the number of votes for Hillary because you've repeatedly used the number of votes she received to emphasize how much of a catastrophe this was for the Democrats. The only problem with that, of course, is that you used numbers which are completely bogus.

There is no ten million vote gap and there never was.

Instead Hillary got 5.8 million fewer votes than Obama in 2008 (a year of record turnout) and less than 1.5 million fewer than Obama did in 2012. And votes are still being counted.

So it's puzzling to me that Obama himself got 3.6 million fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008 and yet there wasn't a hue and cry that Obama was a terrible candidate and that the Democratic Party had better blow up all its messaging and start over from scratch. But when Hillary got a million and change fewer votes than Obama then suddenly the Democratic sky is falling.

Hillary still lost the presidential race and finding out why is important. But it's just as important to not to use bogus information to insist that everything needs to be burned to the ground when it's much more likely that things need to be tweaked. Doubly so during an election cycle dominated by media focus on non-existent candidate scandals and the sheer volume of FUD flung by the right.

DSGamer wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
Malor wrote:
Votes that, according to Cook's Political Report, puts Hillary less than 1.5 million from what Obama managed in 2012.

You're still doing it.

I'm so dreading four years of you hitting this note over and over and over again.

Please don't.

Yeah. D&D is going to be basically unusable if it becomes 4 years of "I was right".

For the record, I am *not* responding to this post with snark.

DSGamer wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
Malor wrote:
Votes that, according to Cook's Political Report, puts Hillary less than 1.5 million from what Obama managed in 2012.

You're still doing it.

I'm so dreading four years of you hitting this note over and over and over again.

Please don't.

Yeah. D&D is going to be basically unusable if it becomes 4 years of "I was right".

Especially if it's continually unsupported by, or in contradiction to, the facts.

I mean, I realize we're in a post-factual world, but it would be nice if that doesn't carry over here too much.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
Malor wrote:
Votes that, according to Cook's Political Report, puts Hillary less than 1.5 million from what Obama managed in 2012.

You're still doing it.

I'm so dreading four years of you hitting this note over and over and over again.

Please don't.

Yeah. D&D is going to be basically unusable if it becomes 4 years of "I was right".

For the record, I am *not* responding to this post with snark.

Oh Norman. You had me at 'snark'.

But when Hillary got a million and change fewer votes than Obama then suddenly the Democratic sky is falling.

Hey, OG? I don't know if you noticed, but the Democratic sky has fallen.

It would be nearly impossible for them to have done worse. They lost essentially everywhere, at every level.

But, no, it's not the Democrats at fault, for fielding the worst candidate I've ever personally seen. Her approval ratings were insanely awful. She was literally the only candidate in the entire race that could have lost to Trump, and that's what the Democrats put up.

And you're rabidly defending this outcome! Everyone else is at fault, but not the Democratic Party. For frak sake, how much worse could it get? You've just been hit with the biggest clue-by-four that I've ever seen, and you're standing there with virtual blood on your noggin and insisting that everything's fine, it's not the DNC at fault.

I don't think anyone here is saying that the DNC did no wrong. We have different ideas about the level of fault they bear and what specifically went wrong, but otherwise I kind of feel like you're tilting at a strawman.

Also, if Clinton supporters agree that she was a deeply flawed candidate and had many major problems with her campaign, can Sanders supporters reciprocate and acknowledge that he was also a flawed candidate and had problems with his campaign apart from any alleged DNC meddling?

Demyx wrote:

Also, if Clinton supporters agree that she was a deeply flawed candidate and had many major problems with her campaign, can Sanders supporters reciprocate and acknowledge that he was also a flawed candidate and had problems with his campaign apart from any alleged DNC meddling?

Would that help? I have no horse in this race, I'm just genuinely curious what this would help (unless it's a counterpoint to "Bernie would have won this easily").

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Also, if Clinton supporters agree that she was a deeply flawed candidate and had many major problems with her campaign, can Sanders supporters reciprocate and acknowledge that he was also a flawed candidate and had problems with his campaign apart from any alleged DNC meddling?

Would that help? I have no horse in this race, I'm just genuinely curious what this would help (unless it's a counterpoint to "Bernie would have won this easily").

Basically, I've seen countless slapfights since the election that come down to "Clinton did nothing wrong" versus "Clinton did everything wrong and Sanders would've won easily". I don't think either position is helpful because they both had significant issues with their campaigns, and neither position addresses what I think is the chief problem with the Democratic party -- refocusing on local efforts.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Also, if Clinton supporters agree that she was a deeply flawed candidate and had many major problems with her campaign, can Sanders supporters reciprocate and acknowledge that he was also a flawed candidate and had problems with his campaign apart from any alleged DNC meddling?

Would that help? I have no horse in this race, I'm just genuinely curious what this would help (unless it's a counterpoint to "Bernie would have won this easily").

It would demonstrate some intellectual honesty. Generally, in my experience, Bernie Bros are sticking very carefully to the idea that Bernie would have won, despite the fact he was handily beaten in the primaries, remember there was no evidence of actual DNC sandbagging, and his complete lack of outreach to minorities.

It wasn't struggling whites who didn't turn out for Clinton. She didn't energize minorities and Sanders would probably have done worse.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Also, if Clinton supporters agree that she was a deeply flawed candidate and had many major problems with her campaign, can Sanders supporters reciprocate and acknowledge that he was also a flawed candidate and had problems with his campaign apart from any alleged DNC meddling?

Would that help? I have no horse in this race, I'm just genuinely curious what this would help (unless it's a counterpoint to "Bernie would have won this easily").

It would demonstrate some intellectual honesty. Generally, in my experience, Bernie Bros are sticking very carefully to the idea that Bernie would have won, despite the fact he was handily beaten in the primaries, remember there was no evidence of actual DNC sandbagging, and his complete lack of outreach to minorities.

It wasn't struggling whites who didn't turn out for Clinton. She didn't energize minorities and Sanders would probably have done worse.

Why must you denigrate Sanders supporters in this dismissive manner?

You can point fingers all you want, but name calling is about the least productive thing you can possibly do. If you want progressive voters to feel welcome in the Democratic Party, I have a concrete suggestion: stop using slurs against us.

gore wrote:

Why must you denigrate Sanders supporters in this dismissive manner?

You can point fingers all you want, but name calling is about the least productive thing you can possibly do. If you want progressive voters to feel welcome in the Democratic Party, I have a concrete suggestion: stop using slurs against us.

I'm getting really sick of it too.

I firmly supported Bernie over Hillary until the DNC. Hillary got the nom, and she was the only liberal candidate with a chance of winning, so she got my vote. I am under no illusion that Bernie's chances of winning the national election were substantially different from hers.

But no, we've got multiple people simply blaming Bernie and those who supported him over and over for this mess, which is disingenuous and tiresome. I refuse to be anyone's scapegoat just because they can't face reality with all of its ugly complexities.

For the record I'm not blaming Bernie supporters for Clinton's loss. My point was more that a blueprint for going forward should acknowledge all the issues and that includes the primaries. I'm 100% for taking the best parts of Sanders's message and campaign forward.

Demyx wrote:

Also, if Clinton supporters agree that she was a deeply flawed candidate and had many major problems with her campaign, can Sanders supporters reciprocate and acknowledge that he was also a flawed candidate and had problems with his campaign apart from any alleged DNC meddling?

People should simply acknowledge reality and not worry about balancing out "both sides" but I'm sure we all know that.

With that acknowledged, the typical problems associated with Sanders that I see tend to be ones of conventional wisdom (e.g. "America will never vote for a Socialist"). Considering Trump won, I'm not sure how much conventional wisdom applies to this election. I'm not sure how much it will apply to the next one, either. Assuming there is one.

It's also a matter of matchups. Clinton probably beats, say, Jeb! easier than Sanders. Clinton, though, was particularly vulnerable to Trump. Trump's win was very, very narrow in just a few states. Enough voters decided to ignore the warning signs that Trump's game is the most rigged game of all. Whatever his flaws, Sanders was uniquely situated to call Trump out on that. To expose him as the con man that he is.

Clinton did not. Maybe she felt she couldn't because people--rightly or wrongly--wouldn't find that kind of attack from her to be convincing. As I saw it, she instead made this about his temperament, which in fairness nearly worked. She counted on that message getting through better than his dark take on populism. It didn't.

So sure, let's acknowledge all the problems. However, let's also not make this into a false balance situation.

And personally, I see no problem with being a Bernie supporter AND a Hillary supporter. You don't have to hate Hillary to love Bernie, and vice versa. My own take would be that in a normal political environment, Hillary would be a far superior candidate, and maybe even a slightly better President when you consider everything that every American needs in the short term.

This was not a normal political environment, though. This was a moment in time when the Democrats had a candidate that resonated as someone who couldn't be bought, right when Trump got elected by selling enough people the lie that he couldn't. Bernie would have put the fakeness of Trump's populism in direct contrast with the real deal. Instead they had a candidate who could not have had less authority (unfairly or not) to call Trump out on being a con man.

Demyx wrote:

For the record I'm not blaming Bernie supporters for Clinton's loss.

You're not one of the unnamed people I'm complaining about. I doubt Gore was either. Your post above was quite well-stated and not at all insulting. I agree with you, Sanders was a flawed candidate as well, and would have faced substantial challenges in the election just like Clinton did. Like I said, I don't actually have confidence that Bernie would've performed better than Clinton.

Malor wrote:

But, no, it's not the Democrats at fault, for fielding the worst candidate I've ever personally seen. Her approval ratings were insanely awful. She was literally the only candidate in the entire race that could have lost to Trump, and that's what the Democrats put up.

Hillary won the Democratic primary, Malor. Millions of Democrats thought she was a better candidate than Sanders, something I grudgingly agree with.

Polling showed that Hillary was vastly more popular among black, Hispanic, and women voters than Sanders, doubly so for older voters (you know, the ones that actually show up on election day).

How many millions of young, white voters would Sanders have to had attracted to make up for the fact that a lot of PoC and women wouldn't be jazzed up about an old white dude who's finally revealed his true colors by saying the Democrats should ignore race and gender entirely and just focus on class?

Malor wrote:

And you're rabidly defending this outcome! Everyone else is at fault, but not the Democratic Party. For frak sake, how much worse could it get? You've just been hit with the biggest clue-by-four that I've ever seen, and you're standing there with virtual blood on your noggin and insisting that everything's fine, it's not the DNC at fault.

I'm not rabidly defending anything, Malor. I'm simply saying that we need more time and more information to figure out exactly what happened this election cycle.

What's becoming clearer, though, is that your initial argument that voters hated Hillary so much that ten million Democrats didn't vote isn't a real thing. At best we're going to be down to arguing over how to allocate blame between Hillary, the DNC, third-party candidates, mainstream media, conservative "media," Facebook, and voters for losing states, some by just a couple ten thousand votes.

What we shouldn't be doing is pulling a Chicken Little and insisting that the DNC blow up everything and because some people think that narrowly losing states means the Democrats need to jettison all their values and begin pandering to high school-educated white dudes who live in East Jesus.

2016 didn't change the demographic reality of America. Every four years the block of eligible voters is going to get about two percent less white and the only party that is going to hurt is the party who pretty much only pulls white voters.

Demyx wrote:

I don't think either position is helpful because they both had significant issues with their campaigns....

You know how annoyed you get when someone uses that argument referring to the election?

Tyops wrote:
Demyx wrote:

I don't think either position is helpful because they both had significant issues with their campaigns....

You know how annoyed you get when someone uses that argument referring to the election?

Only when it's false. There are times when "both sides do it" and "the truth is in the middle" is completely accurate, and times when it's really not.

Also for the record, I think Bernie's greatest liability was the way he seems to see everything in economic terms. The article OG linked above is a case in point.

Farscry wrote:
Demyx wrote:

For the record I'm not blaming Bernie supporters for Clinton's loss.

You're not one of the unnamed people I'm complaining about. I doubt Gore was either. Your post above was quite well-stated and not at all insulting. I agree with you, Sanders was a flawed candidate as well, and would have faced substantial challenges in the election just like Clinton did. Like I said, I don't actually have confidence that Bernie would've performed better than Clinton.

I agree, I was certainly not referring to Demyx.

What I'd like to propose is that people interested in furthering a broadly "liberal" agenda stop blaming the supporters of any particular candidate in this election. It just doesn't matter now, even if you're right.

What we have to do is figure out how to put forward an alternative to Donald Trump in four years, and in-fighting and insulting each other is almost certainly not the way to do that.

I love how if anyone criticizes the Bernie Sanders campaign or defends Hillary the Bernie supporters come out in droves to complain about being slurred or attacked about on the same level Trump has been attacking minorities. What? Work to improve things? Nah, let's fight over petty sh*t instead while it all burns.

I have to say I'm with Farscry and gore on this one. I firmly supported Bernie as well (and still do) but voted for and *campaigned* for Hillary and other Democratic candidates at the polls, and one of the the big reasons I decided to volunteer hours of my time was because of having been inspired and energized by Bernie. I'm still feeling inspired and energized by Bernie, as well as by people I've met locally while working at the polls.

Dr.Ghastly wrote:

I love how if anyone criticizes the Bernie Sanders campaign or defends Hillary the Bernie supporters come out in droves to complain about being slurred or attacked about on the same level Trump has been attacking minorities. What? Work to improve things? Nah, let's fight over petty sh*t instead and while it all burns.

Good point. So why are you wasting time shooting off passive-aggressive insults over petty sh*t while everything burns?

Serious response: I mostly (highlighting so you don't miss a key word there) sat back and ignored all the sh*t being thrown at Sanders & those who supported him for the last couple weeks because hey, the election left us all raw and grieving.

You're unhappy that I and a few others (which I don't think constitutes a "drove", but whatever) are finally getting fed up with people complaining about petty sh*t while we would rather move on to work to improve things? WTF. Here, let me throw sh*t at you for the next two weeks and see you maintain that holier than thou attitude.

Bloody hell, I took a four-month hiatus from the P&C/D&D/whatever after this sh*tty rhetoric got tiresome during the campaign; I come back to rejoin the discussions after the election only to find the same sh*tty rhetoric, point out that it's unproductive, and your response is yet more passive-aggressive bullsh*t?

*edited out offending phrase*

gore wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Also, if Clinton supporters agree that she was a deeply flawed candidate and had many major problems with her campaign, can Sanders supporters reciprocate and acknowledge that he was also a flawed candidate and had problems with his campaign apart from any alleged DNC meddling?

Would that help? I have no horse in this race, I'm just genuinely curious what this would help (unless it's a counterpoint to "Bernie would have won this easily").

It would demonstrate some intellectual honesty. Generally, in my experience, Bernie Bros are sticking very carefully to the idea that Bernie would have won, despite the fact he was handily beaten in the primaries, remember there was no evidence of actual DNC sandbagging, and his complete lack of outreach to minorities.

It wasn't struggling whites who didn't turn out for Clinton. She didn't energize minorities and Sanders would probably have done worse.

Why must you denigrate Sanders supporters in this dismissive manner?

You can point fingers all you want, but name calling is about the least productive thing you can possibly do. If you want progressive voters to feel welcome in the Democratic Party, I have a concrete suggestion: stop using slurs against us.

So you're not actually engaging with what I said? Just tone policing me. That's interesting. Especially considering that simply asking for intellectual honesty is construed as blame.

I respectfully suggest you take a minute to examine your reactions and do a bit of reading about white fragility.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

So you're not actually engaging with what I said? Just tone policing me. That's interesting. Especially considering that simply asking for intellectual honesty is construed as blame.

I respectfully suggest you take a minute to examine your reactions and do a bit of reading about white fragility.

I'd suggest the following thought experiment to you: if people consistently described Clinton supporters as "Hillary Hags," would you consider that to be a useful rhetorical device? Would you feel it productive, especially in a thread ostensibly about finding unity and a path forward?

OG_slinger wrote:

What we shouldn't be doing is pulling a Chicken Little and insisting that the DNC blow up everything and because some people think that narrowly losing states means the Democrats need to jettison all their values and begin pandering to high school-educated white dudes who live in East Jesus.

What about black people in Milwaukee?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us...

Reminds me of when I was big "C" Conservative - I nearly even bought Limbaugh's book - "The Way Things Ought To Be," and then the follow-up - "See, I Told You So" - time and experience makes me want to go back in time, and slap 90's me around for a while... ugh.

Here I thought Hillary was a shoe-in over trump... I thought "how can anyone possibly vote for that snake-oil salesman? He's the one candidate that guarantees the first woman president!"

Not only was I shocked that it was even CLOSE, but that he WON!?! W. T. F. indeed.

Spoiler:

I had to un-follow the trump thread... it just makes me want to vomit. I'm not even an American!!!

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Reminds me of when I was big "C" Conservative - I nearly even bought Limbaugh's book - "The Way Things Ought To Be," and then the follow-up - "See, I Told You So" - time and experience makes me want to go back in time, and slap 90's me around for a while... ugh.

To be fair to yourself, I think most of us would slap ourselves from the past.

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Reminds me of when I was big "C" Conservative - I nearly even bought Limbaugh's book - "The Way Things Ought To Be," and then the follow-up - "See, I Told You So" - time and experience makes me want to go back in time, and slap 90's me around for a while... ugh.

Here I thought Hillary was a shoe-in over trump... I thought "how can anyone possibly vote for that snake-oil salesman? He's the one candidate that guarantees the first woman president!"

Not only was I shocked that it was even CLOSE, but that he WON!?! W. T. F. indeed.

Spoiler:

I had to un-follow the trump thread... it just makes me want to vomit. I'm not even an American!!!

I think it was a shock to us all.

As a recovering conservative you might appreciate the National Review's take on things, the conservative publication which notoriously did not get in line behind Trump. I think they're as confused and bewildered as the Democrats are right now.

If it's any consolation, I still think that only even a minority of Republicans are actually happy with Trump, and that a lot of Republicans voted more out of a sense of party obligation than anything else.

cube wrote:

What about black people in Milwaukee?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us...

I think that many voters feel a sense of hopelessness in our political process that runs much deeper than either of these two candidates. Remember, only about half the country ever bothers to show up and vote in Presidential elections; large swathes of apathetic voters always feel disenfranchised, arguably for very good reasons.

I think about those people who just never vote a lot. I think a lot of them would vote if they thought it mattered, but I have no idea how to convince them that it does, because our government has a long, almost unbroken, track record of failing to help the common people.

cube wrote:

What about black people in Milwaukee?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us...

That article cites numerous reasons for the decline in voter turnout in Milwaukee, including more restrictive voter ID requirements.

Also cited was one voter believing in bullsh*t stories about the Clinton Foundation. One feeling that foreign nations wouldn't respect America because we had a woman president (including, I assume, the countries that have female political leaders). One that voted for Trump because he blamed Bill. And one who didn't vote even though he knew that Trump was "going to mess with us on some racist level." Another reason strongly hinted at, but never explicitly stated, was that Hillary wasn't black like Obama.

gore wrote:

I think about those people who just never vote a lot. I think a lot of them would vote if they thought it mattered, but I have no idea how to convince them that it does, because our government has a long, almost unbroken, track record of failing to help the common people.

Sadly, what motivates me to vote is not so much a hope that our government will help the common people, but rather a hope that I might influence the outcome so that our government is less likely to actively cause them harm. I haven't seen much to disavow myself of that attitude (the ACA was a good, though flawed, attempt).

OG_slinger wrote:

Also cited was one voter believing in bullsh*t stories about the Clinton Foundation.

Not every Clinton scandal was bullsh*t. They may seem minuscule compared to Trump's, but in a saner election cycle they would have been enough to sink her.