2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumA word on moderate Republicans
During the Republican primary a number of my Republican friends talked about how much they disliked Trump, how they thought he was riling up all kinds of nasty sentiments, how many of his followers were crazy racists and sexists, how he seemed to have backing from Putin, but by the time the general election was in full swing they were all aboard for Trump. Why? Tax cuts. They were able to look past all of Trump's massive negatives just so they could get tax cuts. These friends of mine are all affluent white guys. They really don't have much to worry about when it comes to fallout from a Trump administration.
Now I know this is just anecdotal evidence, but I suspect that there were a lot of people like my friends who would have preferred a different Republican candidate but voted for Trump anyway even knowing all of the terrible things about him just because they wanted to get tax cuts or liked his talk against a higher minimum wage or against regulations. So why did we ever think we could win these people? In my experience, even moderate Republicans mostly vote based on their pocketbooks. They will never support a Democrat unless they are very conservative on economics.
I notice that we bash the blue-collar people who voted for Trump because he promised to bring back manufacturing jobs, but why not bash the affluent folks who are probably more informed and should have seen that Trump and his supporters were dangerous but voted for him anyway? If we are going to castigate white working-class people for voting for Trump based on selfish economic interests, we should do the same to the affluent suburban Republicans who also ignored all of the warning signs and voted for Trump just to get some tax cuts.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)you pretty much have lost the War. With the Six Media outlets pushing Conspiracy and false e-mail stories,your day is not long enough.
Wounded Bear
(60,708 posts)didn't used to be that way, but it is now.
sagesnow
(2,871 posts)voted for Trump so he would appoint a Supreme Court Justice to overturn Roe v Wade. There were many churches blatantly holding meetings to GOTV for Trump. In general talking to them they also vote against taxes for welfare, childcare and minimum wage for working parents and/or any form of support for poor babies after they are here. One woman told me that Churches would meet the needs of all the poor people in the country.
They are
1)Religulous Forced Birthers
2) Wealthy Elitists: "I've got mine fuck you"
3) Yellow Dog Republicans: One woman told me I always vote Republican, period.
Good Luck penetrating this nest of vipers and why would you want them on your side? Do you really want to work with them?
still_one
(96,615 posts)establishment republican incumbent?
Wisconsin not only voted in Ron Johnson, but they voted in Paul Ryan and Scott Walker multiple times. These are people who have made no attempt to hide their anti-labor views, or right to work laws.
If every person who voted third for President, had also voted for the Democrat running for Senate in those critical swing states, rather than the establishment republican incumbent, implies this involved more than just "bring back manufacturing jobs"
There were other elements involved that show an ugly side of America, that some like to ignore or not talk about