If we change NOTHING, how do we make any sort of a comeback in '18 and '20?

[Ken Burch]

We ALL want the party to do better next time than this time.

We ALL want the party to keep defending historically oppressed groups(and, if anything, to defend said groups with increased vigor).

But why the fixation with preserving the exact status quo at all cost?

What good does it do to fight for staying exactly like we are now?

I strongly believe that all of us here are committed to keeping the anti-oppression agenda(and that anyone here who wants that watered-down should just leave). That part has never been in any serious question.

So why all this fear-based insistence on trying to stifle any real discussion?

[realmirage]

1. It says a lot that no one is replying. The losing mindset

is to keep doing what caused you to lose the last time. Democratic Party seems pretty fucked to me, since no one wants to change a thing, just to keep on losing with the same playbook

[La Lioness Priyanka]

54. lots of people responded. nt

[mattocaster6]

2. The Only People Saying Change Nothing...

Are Die-hard Hillary primary supporters who hate Bernie and are in denial about what actually happened this election. Trump WON. The Republicans KEPT the Senate, the Republicans KEPT the House, the GOP controls 2/3s of the state legislatures and state governor-ships.

Whatever the Dems have been doing for the past 8 years has NOT worked.

[NRQ891]

17. I think the senate and house republican wins were actually motivated by 'contain Hillary'

as Trump was painted consistently as the underdog. I don't think the majority of those who voted for the republican congress really thought Trump would win

but the result was a synchronized catastrophe for this party

[Blanks]

28. After the election in 2008...

Democrats controlled the house, senate and White House.

In 2010, the republicans took a lot of seats in places that had been democratic strongholds.

Sure, there was the tea party, but Americans are impatient. THEY want THEIR lives to improve.

We need to do SOMETHING, but we don't have to do it right this second. We just need to point out that the republicans haven't improved their lives, and they will vote them out.

[guillaumeb]

3. Was it really the fault of the message, or are their structural issues at work also?

Gerrymandering, outright voter suppression, a corporate media that blasts the GOP message every day, stagnant wages that force many people to go from job to job with no time to do anything else.

Just some of the obstacles. But in spite of these obstacles, Clinton received 2 million more votes than did Trump. My feeling is that the pressure from Sanders encouraged a more progressive platform, but it was still an uphill fight.

[stopbush]

5. Exactly. It makes little difference who we run if the system is rigged

through gerrymandering and voter suppression.

[guillaumeb]

6. Voters on both sides seem certain that the system is rigged.

The challenge is getting out the facts of how it is rigged. The GOP, with its advertiser driven strategy, is better at this type of framing.

[yeoman6987]

41. Gerrymandering results in one thing the house

Doesn't explain the loss of governors, state houses and the senate. We are getting crushed and it is only a small part due to gerrymandering.

[guillaumeb]

45. True. But gerrymandering results in more state level GOP lawmakers

preaching the GOP message. And it allows people like the Koch brothers to focus on blue and/or competitive states when deciding where to send and spend the money.

[Kingofalldems]

48. False.

[rzemanfl]

4. Same way as always, let the Repkes f**k it up then come in to clean up

their mess. If we still have a country and election in 2020.

[WhiteTara]

7. Ken, do you belong to your local county central committee?

Do you belong to your local county democratic club? That is where all these thoughts should be directed. Armchair quarterbacking is not doing something new and will not bring change.

[pangaia]

8. But, but.. isn't that what this website is for? to discuss stuff?

[WhiteTara]

9. You're right.

[JI7]

10. yeah and local level politics is part of the discussion

[NRQ891]

18. yes, but only when spoken to lol - nt

[Ken Burch]

22. I did in Juneau

Spent the fall working on the campaign here in Olympia, but hadn't joined the organization formally yet.

[WhiteTara]

24. Your ideas will fall on fertile ground

formally join and keep talking!

[JI7]

11. it worked in california

[NRQ891]

12. Einstein said, the definition of insanity is

'repeating a cliche, and expecting to sound clever and wise'

ok, he didn't say that, but he should have

but we all know what the cliche is, and it does apply here

[Laffy Kat]

13. I don't know.

I feel like Trump won with the white-male-bigoted-asshole-and-their-wives vote. Trying to appeal to that segment of the voting public is against everything Democrats stand for.

[NRQ891]

15. it's not that simple

she had tons of baggage

- NAFTA

- the other 'dynasty' president (George W) was a complete disaster, and his brother Jeb was showing up for number 3 in the family, put the nation in a very 'anti-dynasty' mood in both parties - Jeb had the biggest warchest and was completely humilated

- FBI investigation Anthony Weiner scandal, as husband of closest aid, which brought back memories or Monica and putting the nation through an impeachment

- historically high negatives in polling

- Iraq war vote

- wall street paid speeches

The party can say 'we're not going to consider that stuff', but the voter can do whatever they like in a secret ballot

[Laffy Kat]

19. And Trump had less baggage, how? nt

[NRQ891]

20. he didn't - but it was the people who didn't vote for either, that decided the election

people who would have voted for a Democrat with lower negatives.

'You have to vote for the lessor of the evils' is a valid proposition, but presented too many times, it wears out it's welcome

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. Nah, it was the hundreds of thousands of minority voters who were forced to cast

provisional ballots because someone had a similar name in another state, that decided the election.

It was the hundreds of thousands of Americans who just gave up, couldnt jump thru the hoops to get the "exact right type ID" to vote, that decided the election.

It was Putin and Russia hacking the DNC and exposing emails ONLY of one candidate, then going on into the election itself and apparently hacking the voting machines, that decided the election.



And last but certainly not least, it was the head of the god damn FBI a week before the election releasing a letter that absolutely changed the outcome of this election, an action that was so unprecedented we are all still in stunned shock , THAT DECIDED THE ELECTION.

[ismnotwasm]

29. Wow--welcome to DU!

[NRQ891]

36. 'it was the head of the god damn FBI a week before the election releasing a letter'

the closest aid's husband got caught sexually hitting on a 15 year old girl. I'm just dumbfounded that people here can't accept that bad luck played a factor here.

suppose you're the best candidate for a job. this job is going to make or break your entire future. on the way to the interview, you get a flat tire.

now, that wasn't your fault, it doesn't change the fact that you're the best candidate - does it mean that you wont get the job? yes - it probably does, if the interviewer's schedule is tight and tends to view all excuses, legit or not as simply 'excuses'

in the analysis of this election, i see a breathtaking lack of objectivity, that could be fatal in the next elections

[ismnotwasm]

44. You need to get your stories straight

[NRQ891]

46. care to elaborate where I'm wrong?

or are you unable to do that?

[ismnotwasm]

56. No time

As you will find, I'm not big on back and forth crap--unless it's productive.

[NRQ891]

57. ' I'm not big on back and forth crap'

odd that you waited until your third response in this exchange to say that

[Laffy Kat]

62. Agree. Welcome. nt

[Exilednight]

74. He had less political baggage.

Sure, he had baggage, but it wasn't baggage that hurts political candidates.

[ismnotwasm]

30. You are really on those negatives

She has far more positives, but between the primary bashing and the GE bashing she couldn't overcome the Goddamn lies.

[NRQ891]

31. you can't tell voters in a secret ballot that they have to ignore *legitimate* negatives! nt

[Exilednight]

73. You nailed it. She was weak because she couldn't overcome the lies. Obama managed to do it

Bill managed to do it.

And Obama was in a pretty nasty primary, just as Hillary was.

[DanTex]

37. We don't need to do a thing to change any of that because Hillary isn't running anymore.

[NRQ891]

38. no, she isn't. but the party needs to learn from it

you can't change faults in others

but you can learn from your own team's mistakes - and I think this team made enough of them to lose the election

'Nov 20, 2016 - President Barack Obama told reporters Sunday that he was not concerned he might be the last Democratic president.'

that should scare the hell out of everyone on this site - no president has ever felt the need to say that before

[DanTex]

40. Almost everything you mentioned is specific to Hillary Clinton.

The "dynasty" thing is a non-factor, unless Michelle Obama decides to run, which she won't.
The "baggage" is Clinton-specific.
The emails are Clinton-specific.
The "unlikeability" in polls is Clinton-specific.
Wall Street paid speeches are Clinton-specific.
Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin are Clinton-specific.
By 2020, NAFTA will be 26 years old and the IWR vote will be 18 years old, and likely whoever we nominate will not have voted on either, especially if it's a governor.

If these are our problems, we don't need to do anything to "turn the page" because the page will turn itself.



Now, there are some things we do need to learn:
-how to combat fake news
-how to deal with the fact that Russia is actively trying to meddle in our elections, starting with email security precautions

[yeoman6987]

47. The Democratic Party must overhaul their computer security

[DanTex]

49. For sure.

The election was so close, it could easily have gone the other way without the email hacks. In fact, it probably would have.

There's really no excuse. It's not like this is a huge corporation with tens of thousands of employees. Set up a secure private server for the top people, and hire someone who knows what they are doing to explain security protocols and constantly monitor for breaches.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

26. That talking point right there is part of the problem...

An awfully lot of white voters in the rust belt that voted for Trump this time voted for Obama twice. Calling all those people bigots and racist is absolutely IGNORANT and people keep doing it. If someone is really a racist there is no way in hell they would have voted for Obama twice.

The Democratic Party FAILED those people in some way. Those were Democratic voters that were LOST, not new people to appeal to. WHY were they lost? Where did the Democratic Party fail? How can it be fixed? THOSE are the things people need to be talking about but too many people can't stop calling people racists long enough to do that.

[NRQ891]

39. yes nt

[Nay]

43. It's just a guess, but I wonder if those who voted for both Obama and Trump

simply responded emotionally to both men's charisma and ability to stir them up with their speeches. It may be as simple as that. Those voters looked past the black/white, Dem/Pub and voted with their emotions.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

55. That's an excellent point and absolutely could be the case with some people

Obama made people hopeful with his message. Trump made people angry. When a person is in despair they typically cope in two ways...they have faith and hope or they are fearful and angry. Obama gave those voters hope and due to the GOP blocking so much of what he tried to do, it just wasn't enough to fix what they needed. Then Trump tapped into the fear and anger and those rust belt voters responded to that this time around.

So next time around Democrats need a charismatic leader with a strong, positive message. The country will need that after 4 years of doom and gloom.

[Ken Burch]

64. Agreed that we shoudn't try to appease bigots or appeal to bigotry

Anyone who doesn't agree to that not only shouldn't be in this party but shouldn't be calling her-, their-, or himself a progressive in any sense.

The key is offering a program(without pandering) that appeals to people who voted other-than-Democratic out of alienation or on shake-up-the-system grounds.

It's about finding the way to say "We won't abandon anyone to win you over-but if you are willing to stand with us, we are willing to stand with you".

The first groups to appeal to are those who voted minor-party or didn't vote.

[4139]

14. 2017 Proving Ground: Virginia Governor and legislative elections

Also New Jersey Governor and legislative elections

[4139]

16. WashPost: "Trump win shakes up 2017 race for Virginia governor"

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/local/virginia-politics/trump-win-shakes-up-2017-race-for-virginia-governor/2016/11/10/bb0cc442-a6a2-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html?client=safari

[dsc]

21. change for change sake isn't a great idea

The problem is that we, right now, have no idea what change is needed. The evidence suggests that this wasn't about economics or trade. Johnson and Portman did better than Trump despite being pro trade candidates running against exceptionally anti trade candidates. Hillary won, by a decent margin, those voters who voted on the economy. To some extent she lost due to things unique to her. She lost due to the press waging a 30 year jihad against her that was all too often aided and abetted by liberals. She also lost due to being a woman. I think that not only will people my age die without seeing a woman President who gets elected in her own right, my students may well die before that happens as well. Those aren't failures of messaging or policy. Frankly I think we need to create a liberal version of Fox News and that consequences need to be meted out from this election. I kind of hope that the filibuster gets eliminated (we should filibuster any nominee to SCOTUS indefinately which may well cause the GOP to get rid of it). The fact is currently many voters are voting for the GOP knowing full well that even in the minority Dems will protect their government programs. I think they need to see that when you vote for those who say they will gut Medicare, Medicare will get gut. If you vote for candidates that say they will end Obamacare, then Obamacare will be ended. Will that stop them from casting such votes, I have no idea, but maybe it would.

[jfern]

23. We must fight to change the party, since they didn't change anything after the 2014 disaster

The party obviously isn't going to go full Bernie, but we must fight to tilt the party towards a progressive agenda that works for all Americans. A party that stands for working Americans of all genders, races, and so on, and against Wall Street and endless wars.

[boston bean]

25. People who think the enemy is the Democratic Party, need to change.

[NRQ891]

42. people aren't saying the Democratic party is the enemy

they are saying it dropped the ball, and needs to learn from the mistake

[dawg]

32. Let's try being unashamedly partisan for a change.

No more "admitting" that our nominee has flaws. No more half-hearted endorsements of her as the "lesser" of two evils. No more "understanding" people's reluctance to vote for her. No more "both-siderism". No more bending over backwards to say that rival candidates do, in fact, have a point.

Fight like hell during the primaries, but then go all-in with our nominee.

Oh. And show up to vote in off-year elections. That'd be a good change, too.

[LuvLoogie]

33. THIS!

[ismnotwasm]

35. Yet that'd work.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

51. yup.

[LuvLoogie]

34. Regroup. Reform the line. All in.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

50. All of us here are committed to keeping the anti-oppression agenda.

who is this all of us you are referring to?

Are these people championing Tim Ryan who was anti choice till last year?

Or Tulsi Gabbard for DNC chair when she is an outright Islamaphobe?

Who are these all of us?

[stone space]

52. Where did you ever get this idea?

All of us here are committed to keeping the anti-oppression agenda. That part has never been in any serious question.

There are posters here on DU who would terrify us if they lived next to us.

There's a reason why people are so fearful.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

53. there is a poster of DU who used to constantly justify domestic violence

literally terrifying. still here, i just have him blocked for years.

this is not accounting for all the softer bigots here and elsewhere.

[stone space]

58. Not true. Some here at DU want them deported and their families ripped apart.

We ALL want the party to keep defending historically oppressed groups(and, if anything, to defend said groups with increased vigor).

[stone space]

59. Not true. Some folks here support Zimmerman. The Zimmerman supporters even have their own group here

We ALL want the party to keep defending historically oppressed groups(and, if anything, to defend said groups with increased vigor).

[BainsBane]

60. "All of us here are committed to keeping the anti-oppression agenda."

Not true at all. And then how can you follow that statement with this assumption: "What good does it do to fight for staying exactly like we are now? " Both statements cannot be true, even for you personally. If you think the current situation is one of anti-oppression, you can't share the goals that many have to change the inequality at the heart of American society.

It is not that people don't acknowledge problems in the party. What everyone is not doing is accepting your particular interpretation.

The status quo is over. We are now facing a fascist government, yet you continue to wage a battle from months ago. Frankly, it's bizarre and utterly irrelevant.

If you want to do something, quit trying to force people into accepting your analysis and get off the computer and start organizing. Organizing for America is already holding meetings about how to move forward. There are other organizations as well. You can work for Democratic control in your state and local area or issues that matter to you. But insisting on getting people to accept your particular view of the election is a waste of time and furthers rather than heals divisiveness.

[Ken Burch]

65. The only part I would call for changing

Would be to strengthen the economic justice program(a program that never conflicted with the fight for "social justice", btw). Doing that wouldn't have caused any of the issues you prioritize(and that I agree with you on, issue for issue)to be left out in the cold, and won't have that effect in the future.

And I didn't say that the current situationiin this country was oppression-free-rather-Nothing I have ever said would track with you believing that about me, that all sections of the party and of the progressive side of the spectrum are committed.

I want us to defeat social oppression, just as I want us to defeat corporate greed and to end the unjust concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. That is at least half of the reason I'm a supporter of economic justice-because you can't reduce bigotry in a society where people are in fear of falling into want-as the continuing post-1965 "white backlash" has taught us. It's that fear that makes tribalism(the sense that people have to care only about them selves and their "own kind&quot appealing-scarcity and fear of scarcity causes people to turn to selfishness and smallness of spirit.

And yes, what people like myself support might cost us some corporate/Wall Street donors, but did those donors do us any good? They didn't get us the Senate...they didn't get us Congress...they didn't get us the White House. I'm fairly sure that money is all just gone now, and of no further use to us.

I am involved in organizing work(antiracist organizing work), and you have no good reason to be personally angry at me. I campaigned for Hillary all fall and spent a lot of time trying to persuade people to our left to vote for her. Sometimes I think I succeeded, other times not. But I am not a saboteur and I am not the cause of our failure to carry the Upper Midwest. And I'm as devastated about the result as you are. I didn't want to see Trump get in anymore than you did.

And the reason I post on this board a lot is that it's the best way for me to communicate. it's almost impossible to create a large-scale movement of change solely on person-to-person contact.

[Tatiana]

61. If we change nothing, we will continue to be defeated by Republicans.

And they will not hesitate to change rules and policy to ensure that we remain defeated.

I cannot for the life of me understand why some think we should run the same plays that lose us elections (or cause them to be stolen from us).

[LittleBlue]

63. We're going to get destroyed in 2018 because we're in denial about 2016

Identity politics don't work in a FPTP, electoral college, 2 rep per state senate system.

We won't have Comey to blame in 2018, so maybe we can have an actual postmortem then. All I've seen so far is "stay the course" and "election was stolen." We're stealing the mantle of Stupid Party from Republicans.

[yeoman6987]

66. 2018 was always going to be difficult for the democratic party

The 2016 election was supposed to help ease the 2018 election. It didn't happen and now we're worse off going into 2018.

[Kingofalldems]

68. That's about the 5th time you posted that in the last few weeks.

An OP with actual facts would help.

[bettyellen]

67. She didn't fail on economics no matter how much you'd like to spin it that way. And we all know

That's the subtext here- the "doing things different" always circles back to Sanders. I've not seen one thread on this topic that wasn't actually about Bernie.

[Ken Burch]

69. I haven't posted a single thread since endorsing Hillary a week before the convention

(which is the earliest I could endorse her and remain in any way true to my own convictions)and actually not probably for at least a month before that, IIRC, in which I was argued that Bernie should have been nominated instead of Hillary.

And I spent the entire fall working in the campaign to elect her, so think I've made a good-faith effort to prove I'm trustworthy.

And neither Bernie nor Hillary will ever run again, so who supported who in the primaries really shouldn't still matter.

[bettyellen]

70. And I think we need to face the fact that if HRC had a penis, she would have won handily.

But every time I see this rethinking what to do differently thing it's always pushing toward the 99% memes whether Bernies name comes up or not. I think both the hatred and the worship of any candidate is unhealthy and leads to the kind of personality instead of issues coverage we saw all this past year. It doesn't serve us well at all.

[Ken Burch]

71. I believe Hillary would have had the exact same showing if she had been male.

The issues that Trump used against her would have had the exact same effect with a candidate who was like Hillary in all respects save gender.

And those issues would not not have vanished if only Hillary had face NO primary opposition.

They weren't invented by Bernie and his supporters and Bernie's supporters had mostly been Elizabeth Warren supporters before she ruled herself out, so we CAN rule out gender as an issue in the primaries.

(BTW, would you have objected to Warren being drafted in Philly? She had every strength Hillary had, but with nothing Trump could go after her on).

But this isn't about which candidate we should have gone with. It's too late for that particular conversation to matter. OR to do any harm if it were carried on(which it probably shouldn't have been).

I don't hate Hillary OR worship Bernie. They are mortal human beings.

And this thread wasn't even about Hillary as a person.

The type of campaign I'm talking about would have worked with her as well as with anyone else.

Voters need to be reminded over and over again of what a party stands for and what voting for that party will mean for THEM-especially young voters

What is your objection to "the 99% memes"? that 99% includes women, people of color, LGBTQ people AND immigrants. Occupy was never a white-dudes only thing.

[bettyellen]

79. HA ha ha no. blows my mind you could say sexism cost her no votes.

What a magical world you live in!

[Ken Burch]

80. Not none, but certainly not much among people to her left.

People to Hillary's left didn't object to the idea of a woman being president. If they had, they wouldn't have been prepared to support Warren first(remember, there was a serious draft Warren effort before the idea of Bernie's candidacy emerged).

I tried to get those people to vote for Hillary, over and over-but the responses they gave me were, overwhelmingly, about trade policy and the perception(which I DON'T share)that she was too likely to get us into a war with Russia. Those were the things I heard, over and over and over again.

Sexism and racism are massive problems, but reducing the fall result to blaming that that is basically an argument for not changing anything at all. And we can't win if we don't change anything-if we hope to just "win by default" by somehow getting those extra 100,000-150,000 voters in the Upper Midwest.

I recognize that Hillary had an economic justice message, but in the ads I saw and the speeches I saw in the fall, it was barely mentioned. And a lot of the time, racism and sexism weren't mentioned all that much. In the last month, it was almost totally about Trump being a d-bag(which he manifestly is, but which was never going to be enough).

[bettyellen]

81. Circular argument.

[Ken Burch]

82. Why is it so important to get people to believe it was racism and sexism and nothing else?

What do we gain as a party from taking that as the only interpretation?

[bettyellen]

83. No one said nothing else- but it was NOT economics, get over it.

Amazing that people still want to push that crap after it's been debunked.

[treestar]

72. I doubt nothing will change

but Republicans may well hang themselves. What will have happened in the next two years will be relevant too. We can't decide what to change now.

[hollowdweller]

75. If Trump and the GOP really make good on economic populisim they will be very hard to beat.

Lets go over some actions so far:

Saved Carrier jobs. We can argue about the specifics but great PR.

Gave a big fuck you to the Chinese by talking with the Taiwan leader. China, who most people think steals our jobs.

Tweeted about a 35% tarriff on companies that send jobs overseas and threatened them.

It just really puts a burr in my ass that after giving lip service to these issues but saying not much could be done, democrats are being outflanked by the GOP on this.

It's possible that all these gambles will fuck the economy and start a trade war, but I honestly think the people will be behind him even then if they think it's to protect their jobs.

We HAVE to counter Trump and be more pro worker like we SHOULD be. If we could peel off the non racist working votes he got and combine them with our people we could win.

[still_one]

76. It is more than just a possibility, if he starts to add 35% tarriffs it WILL start a trade war

which was one of the major factors in making the Great Depression Worse.

His trade war will cause job loses. China owns 1.3 TRILLION of our debt, so good luck with that, and when the banks start failing, don't expect the trump administration to bail them out, it will be too late, as people see their 401Ks, IRAs, etc. shrink to nothing.

People may think he gave a big "FU" to China, but if push comes to shove, China will take over Taiwan in a New York minute, and give a big FU to us. What is trump going to do? Start a nuclear war? Because that is what it would take. You are not going to win a land war with China, and if that happened, it is really irrelevant what else takes place.

In fact, if trump holds to his promises, and cannot be stopped, wondering who will win the next election will be the last thing on people's mind, I believe the U.S. will be in real danger of collapse, and yes the Constitution will be suspended, and we will go into a totalitarian system.

[democrank]

77. I highly doubt the status quo will survive the next round of elections.

Discussing a new Democratic Party path forward...here and elsewhere...is essential, regardless of who objects to it.

We must open our minds, broaden our scope, revitalize and recommit to long-standing Democratic Party principles, listen to new voices, embrace diversity, and make it clear to our leaders....stand loud and proud with us or lose our votes.

Most importantly, we must find our way back to the workers and the issues they hold dear, not with lip service, but with tangible support.

LARGE groups of Democratic leaders should have been the FIRST to show up in Flint, Chicago, Detroit, with the Standing Rock Sioux, with unemployed and sick coal miners, at boarded-up paper mills and textile factories, on and on and on.These used to be our people and I want them to be enthusiastically on our side again.