If we are to believe conventional wisdom

[boston bean]

We lost in swing states for not moving to the right.

We ran the most progressive campaign in decades.

We had 8 years of nothing but Obama hate and obstruction from republicans. We had a woman running on his record.

We did what most lefties would really love, stay true to our principles and NO triangulation. WE DID DO THAT.

We didn't leave white working class out, we embraced ALL working class people. Is that really the problem? Ask yourself.

[LexVegas]

1. The white working class isn't about working class. It's about racism and sexism. nt

[boston bean]

2. ya think?

[RoccoR2]

4. Even the ones who voted for Obama twice? n/t

n/t

[LexVegas]

5. You think sexists don't vote for men?

[NCTraveler]

8. How many voted for Obama twice and then Trump.

Not one person promoting this bullshit meme has backed it up with any facts.

[RoccoR2]

10. Just 2 links of many

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/upshot/how-did-trump-win-over-so-many-obama-voters.html?_r=0

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/15/502032052/lots-of-people-voted-for-obama-and-trump-heres-where-in-3-charts

I find it hard to believe some people still cannot grasp the idea (fact) that past Obama voters (yes, overwhelmingly white) switched and voted Trump in 2016

[NCTraveler]

16. Neither link factually backs up the claim. At all.

It's shocking what the media gets away with. Their readers don't care about facts.

[RoccoR2]

17. That is your interpretation obviously

I disagree as no many others

[NCTraveler]

19. It's not an interpretation.

Show me the factual information that backs up the claim in either article. It isn't there.

[duffyduff]

30. Of course it isn't because it is flat-out propaganda.

I have written about how feature writers openly solicit people for articles, and then the writers select the most interesting interviewees for publication in their papers.

It is SOP. Nothing wrong with it but people need to realize you can't extrapolate on the basis of a handful of people.

A few years ago, thanks to having been a participant on a discussion board of unemployed people, I was in email correspondence with a New York Times reporter named Michael Luo. I was going through severe financial hardship (still am though not quite as severely), and he did several email interviews with me. He was doing a series of articles about people who were negatively affected by the last economic downturn. My story was not selected for publication.

Yes, he exists:

http://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-luo


In the case of Trump, it is clear what the meme is. They are trying to draw false comparisons between Trump and Reagan.

I believe there were FAR more "Clinton Republicans" than there were EVER "Trump Democrats."

[duffyduff]

29. Not buying it at all.

It is a media MEME--flat-out propaganda--in order to peddle a narrative that there are Trump Democrats just as there were "Reagan Democrats."

It is ALL bullshit.

[think]

31. Here are the actual voting results for Trumbull county Ohio for all 3 presidential elections.

Trumbull county is one of the areas in the rust belt that showed significant losses for the Democrats.


Obama won twice with over 60% of the vote and over 60,000 votes each time.

Clinton lost getting only 44.8% of the vote and getting only 42,130 votes.


Obama won Trumbull county with 60% of the vote in 2008

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/states/president/ohio.html

60.0% of total votes reported in Trumbull

Obama 62,254 votes
McCain 39,319 votes

In 2012 Obama won with 60.6% of the vote:

Obama 61,672 votes

Romney 38,279 votes

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2016/06/2012_ohio_presidential_electio.html

In 2016 Clinton lost getting only 44.8% of the vote.

Trump 48,152 votes
Clinton 42,130 votes

http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/ohio/

Clinton had over 19,000 less votes than Obama got in each of the 2 previous elections. And Trump gained around 10,000 votes compared to the other 2 elections.

How did Hillary Clinton get over 19,000 less votes than Obama got in 2008 & 2012 while Trump gained around 10,000 votes compared to 2008 & 2012?

[RoccoR2]

35. This may interest you

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512652141

[uponit7771]

9. Was there an overt racist and sexist running against Obama? tia

[bettyellen]

23. PPP poll just showed 95% of Trump voters hate Obama. They also believe the stock market has been

Tanking and votes in California- they den of inequity - should not count.
What do you think we should take from that?

[duffyduff]

28. Few did. n/t

[Garrett78]

34. "Trump gave them a choice between multiracial democracy and white primacy."

"Why Did Some White Obama Voters Go For Trump?"

[BlueMTexpat]

6. +1! eom

[NWCorona]

3. Moving more to the right will get us nowhere fast

[uponit7771]

11. +1

[CajunBlazer]

12. Really, do you really believe that the independents who decide Presidential elections

....in swing states are socialist?

[NWCorona]

13. Absolutely not. I didn't say we should swing that way either

I do know that the word socialism isn't the scary word it once was tho.

[CajunBlazer]

14. I don't know about whether socialism is scary, but not it's not popular

I was making the point that those who decide Presidential election in swing states are centralist who lean either left or right depending on which way the wind is blowing. A far left or far right agenda is not going to attract those people.

About socialism: In a famous recent Gallop poll people were asked, If your party were to nominate a generally well qualified person who happened to be _______, would you vote for that person?

Here are the results "would" and "Would Not&quot and remember it is "your party" that nominates this person):

Catholic 93% 6%
A woman 92% 8%
Black 92% 7%
Hispanic 91% 8%
Jewish 91% 7%
Mormon 81% 18%
Gay or lesbian 74% 24%
An evangelical Christian 73% 25%
Muslim 60% 38%
An atheist 58% 40%
A socialist 47% 50%

Among Democrats only 59% say they would vote for a Socialist, Independents 49% and Republicans 26%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/183713/socialist-presidential-candidates-least-appealing.aspx

[NWCorona]

15. To be honest I'm surprised the numbers are that high.

The reason I used the word scary is because the media tried to use socialism as a scare tactic and it didn't really pan out. IMHO if this was 2000 or even 2008 it would be a different story.

I also agree with you in regards to the fringe on both sides. They can be equally toxic. I still believe moving further to the right won't help us in the end.

[NCTraveler]

20. "To be honest I'm surprised the numbers are that high."

If those numbers are somewhat accurate, I'm pretty happy about them. They are a bit higher than I would have guessed.

[Garrett78]

32. The vast majority of "independents" are party loyalists who just like the term "independent."

But I'm not disputing that a majority have a negative view of "socialism."

[NCTraveler]

7. And millions more showed up to the polls for us. Many because of our message. nt.

[aikoaiko]

18. Who claims we lost swing states for not moving to the right?

[bettyellen]

24. Loads of people who say we're too invested in "identity politics" is who.

[CajunBlazer]

25. It was only politicians and talking heads, not voters, who have said....

that the Democrats were "too invested in "identity politics". Ordinary voters don't talk in those terms.

What ordinary voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (who normally would have Democratic) have said is that they were tired of losing jobs to outsourcing to other countries and automation (which a President can do little about) and that they believed Trump's lies about bring jobs back to this country. They believed those lies because that is what they wanted to here.

Perhaps you are saying that Hillary should have lied to the voters as well?

[bettyellen]

26. And people here repeating that nonsense. Hate that RW framing myself.

[aikoaiko]

27. That's not the same thing as moving to the right.

For some people that may be true, I admit that. There are people who hate traditional identity politics because it empowers POC and women.

But that's not why Bernie and others are talking about the role of identity politics in Democratic campaigns.

I'm not saying Bernie is doing it right either. I prefer it, but I recognize that it didn't resonate well with significant numbers of POC and women.

[JCanete]

21. Well, our conventional wisdom has always sucked. Too little too late is not necessarily a win.

I still vastly prefer it!

There are some people absolutely too wet behind the ears or too insulated to understand the need for the social justice the democratic party is seeking, and so they are wrongly pushing for us to lay off of those issues, and to focus on "jobs." That misses the Sanders economic point greatly. The two are inseparable, and we can't win by abandoning the plights of our brothers and sisters. We need to fight for each other.

The rest of us might feel like we keep losing because we keep trying to play the game according to the rules of the people who keep winning. The prevailing wisdom here I think, is that we have to quit playing nice with corporations, and just go populist already. Those same corporations we're playing nice with don't declare all out war on us because we're a palatable alternative to their diet of choice, so that the public feels like it has one, but all our work to try to get a place at that table doesn't pay off most of the time. We water down our social justice and our economics and the corporations still have their media machine destroy us.

It was the media, more than anything else that elected Trump, so yes, we can stop blaming Sanders and we can stop blaming the Clinton campaign and the DNC, except that it is our very unwillingness to go after these mechanisms that ensured this loss and ensures all of the painful losses to come. We need to fight the corporate messaging. We need to call it out for what it is and suffer the consequences already, because we get those no matter what.

[mcar]

22. K&R

[think]

33. The TPP was supported by almost the entire GOP in congress & corporations. The overwhelming majority

of the House Democrats, the unions, many of the major environmental groups, and even Doctors Without Boarders opposed the TPP

Opposing the TTP was NOT moving to the right.

The TPP was corporate trade policy written by corporations for corporations.

Clinton, Sanders, and Trump all opposed the TPP...