Why is it verboten to criticize GE voters

[BainsBane]

but acceptable to criticize Democratic Primary voters for failing to vote for the person who lost by 3.8 million votes?

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. Beats the hell out of me.

[DemonGoddess]

2. Because we're not allowed to criticize

the I told you so'ers. It's not "polite" or some other such bullshit.

[Starry Messenger]

3. Ding!

[WhiteTara]

4. little feefees to match

little hands

[yallerdawg]

5. Joy-Ann Reid has somethin' to say:

Even Bernie Sanders couldn’t rush fast enough to get on the Trump side of the line, declaring himself a member of the white working class (his and his wife’s three homes and high six-figure income aside) and cautioning Democrats—who belong to a party of which he is still not a member—to start focusing on these voters too. Sanders ran a campaign that echoed Trump’s in many ways; appealing to a majority white, populist audience that hated Hillary Clinton more than it disdained Republicans. A majority of Black Americans were unimpressed, which is why he didn’t become the nominee, and they should be unsurprised that he is dropping them faster than he and his supporters wrote off “the South” as insignificant during the primary campaign.

[Hekate]

7. Joy-Ann Reid speaks the truth

Thanks, yallerdawg

[BainsBane]

8. She's good that way.

[bettyellen]

10. The lady knows what she's talking about...

[Warren DeMontague]

16. how was the AA turnout for Hillary as compared to 2012?

Just curious.

[yallerdawg]

17. Will we ever really know?

We got a real good idea from the primaries, though.

It could have been a lot worse...

[Warren DeMontague]

18. well, actually, I think there's some data in that regard.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/clinton-votes-african-americans-latinos-women-white-voters/

(CNN)Hillary Clinton just couldn't hold onto the Obama coalition. And that proved to be a large part of her undoing.
African-American, Latino and younger voters failed to show up at the polls in sufficient numbers Tuesday to propel Clinton into the White House.

***

While she won the key demographic groups her campaign targeted, she underperformed President Obama across the board, even among women, according to exit poll data.

[yallerdawg]

19. The same organization that told us this was a cake walk for Hillary...

is now the reliable source for why she lost.

I guess there was never anything special about Obama - or Hillary.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. You mean CNN? They're citing exit polling.

[yallerdawg]

21. Polling.

They're citing polling - and this is NOW reliable?

Or just more 'confirmation bias'?

[Warren DeMontague]

22. exit polling is distinguishable from pre-election polling, to be sure.

Are you suggesting turnout wasn't down? CNN is lying, here?

I don't know, man, there's only so far down the conspiracy rabbit hole I'm willing to go.

[yallerdawg]

23. We don't know what the turnout was!

Christ, their still counting votes. They are finding issues.

How could the polling be so wrong, including exit polling November 8th?

But now - the same organizations who got it all wrong - are the "reliable" sources now?

How many people confidently blew off voting because the outcome was so certain?

Who was watching those rural locations where Trump blew the roof off the 2012 voting?

I want to see what shakes out - I want facts, not polling extrapolations.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. And I could be a head in a jar, dreaming all of this. Of course.

Still, even leaving aside distrust of the media and polls- understandable, to be sure- I will say my own perception of an enthusiasm gap? In 2008 and 2012 I saw scads of Obama bumperstickers in my very blue state. Tons.

I think I saw one Hillary sticker all year. That's an enthusiasm gap.

[LisaM]

26. Well, I'd have had some Hillary stuff

except that I was afraid of vandalism or being yelled at, and I know I'm not alone in that. We park our car (we have a Club, after our other car got stolen) that is in a high prowl area, and strangely, a lot of the local car thief gangs have been Russian, and I don't have the time or money to deal with more vandalism.

[yallerdawg]

28. I live in Alabama.

I saw no bumper stickers or yard signs for either candidate here in Montgomery.

What does that tell us?

Alabama was never in question by either candidate. It has nothing to do with enthusiasm.

If bumper stickers and yard signs mattered, according to DU, Sanders would be president today!

[Warren DeMontague]

31. Okay. If you say so.

I live in an extremely blue area. I saw a shitton of Obama stickers in '08 and '12. No Hillary. Does that mean anything? Maybe, maybe not.

One can discount it, certainly. Discounting the exit poll data takes a bit more effort.

[Demsrule86]

29. Right and I suppose the way Bernie bashed her and the Democratic Party for months...

He didn't concede and pretty much drove her numbers down...Trump literally took words right out of Bernie's mouth. Now I don't think Bernie wanted this but he played a role in this loss.

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Her negatives came baked in. Sanders didn't do that.

[Demsrule86]

35. He did increased them and caused division.

[boston bean]

36. Some people take the position that Hillary was just a bad candidate.

They don't bother to worry about the fact that in many states where margin was close there the voting rights of hundreds of thousands were limited by republican governors and state legilatures.

And those most affected were minorities.

But hey, it makes them feel better to say Hillary was a bad candidate... WTFEver!

[yallerdawg]

37. All we needed to do was to run a self-described socialist.

America was ready!

We'll do better in 2018, 2020. It's looking good...

[Kaleva]

42. Comparing AA turnout in 2016 to 2004 mght be more accurate.

It's most likely Obama would generate higher then normal AA turnout.

Here are links to CNN's 2016 and 2004 exit poll data.

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

[boston bean]

6. Zingo! so true... they got some high standards they just don't hold themselves to them.

[NurseJackie]

9. VOLUME!!

[kenfrequed]

11. Not verboten

Just an amazing waste of time and energy.

[BainsBane]

12. Yet somehow not for all the people saying

I told you so. You should have voted for Bernie. Seems to me people ought to focus more on their own expension of energy than that of others. The election was only a week ago, the primary many months back.

[kenfrequed]

13. Well...

A bit of that was bound to happen really.

I left this place for awhile when mass-amnesty for those that behaved badly occurred (was it May or June) and I only returned recently after the elections were over.

There was a lot of negativity. No doubt had she won there would have been a fair amount of "see I told you so" in counter to whatever electability arguments people made (or reposted from TYT). But since she lost, a lot of Bernie supporters (myself included) are looking back and pointing out how maybe there was another way.

I think that might be a bit different than simply blaming all voters. But I could be wrong, maybe it is just an inverse to blaming voters.

One question I would consider asking of anyone:

Knowing then what you know now, would you have considered supporting another candidate in the primary?

I can tell you that if Bernie won the primary and lost the election I would have reluctantly backed Hill in the primary.

[Demsrule86]

30. It wouldn't have mattered.

Here is my question...knowing what we now I wonder if Bernie would have gotten into the primary. There is little doubt in my mind had he not done so, we would have won. I don't think he would have.

[kenfrequed]

33. Blame is all you have

So rather than actually answer the question you decide to find another route to blame Bernie.

How original.

[Demsrule86]

34. No we also have one of the most evil president-elects

in the history of this country...many warned during the primary that Bernie was doing irreparable harm to a Clinton general election. And we were correct. I do blame Bernie. Don't get me wrong...he was but one factor. However, it is my belief that if Bernie Sanders had not run in the primary Hillary would be president-elect.

[kenfrequed]

38. A ridiculous argument.

A primary doesn't exist to completely insulate one particular candidate (mint in box) until the election. I don't think you seem to comprehend the arrogance encapsulated in that particular argument.

[Demsrule86]

40. I don't think you understand...Bernie being in the primary helped Trump win.

He should have known better

[kenfrequed]

41. Again... absurd

A primary is a mechanism by which a party chooses it's candidate.

I want you to actually think about what you are saying. I want you to turn the calendar back to late spring of 2015. What is the measure by which a person should determine whether or not they should run to be the candidate of that party?

[mcar]

15. Unlike a dozen threads telling us what we should have done?

[OrwellwasRight]

39. 1

[mcar]

14. Things that make you go hmmmm

[OnDoutside]

24. "The people have spoken, the bastards."

[treestar]

27. I never get why it is wrong to blame the voters

The swing state voters are responsible for Dump because they voted for him. They voted him in those state, they caused him to win, they are to blame.

People who don't vote just don't care so they are to blame for nothing but their complaints of any kind would ring hollow.

People who vote third party surely realize that their vote only counts once, so they are to blame for contributing to the loss of any candidate more closely to their side. Especially when the opposition candidate is so bad that the country is in danger if the person wins.