RBInMaine
RBInMaine's JournalTrump shits in his supporters' mouths and they think it is ice cream.
Trump is the consummate bullshit artist. Always has been, always will be. We tried to tell people he was a fraud and con artist. He said he'd drain the swamp and all he has done is fill it with unqualified billionaire swamp monsters. Hillary will not be locked up. There will be no Great Wall Of Mexico Paid For By Mexico. There will be no 30 million jobs. Thousands of companies will not return. Tons of coals mines will not be re-opened. He said he would put tariffs on companies and instead, with Carrier, he did a tax cut giveaway for a company with 7 billion bucks in annual profits. The R's are going HARD after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and 20 million people (MANY of whom are Trump voters) are going to lose their health plan instantly. And now he is telling his supporters that all that crazy stuff he and THEY did and said in the campaign is OVER now that he was won because now he needs them to be "calm" and behave in a way that makes him seem more presidential.
These voters got SO had. They got taken to the cleaners. They got ROYALLY DUPED. Hopefully at least some are starting to wake up.
And now we need to do our job. REFORM the Dem Party BIGTIME and tell the people just how DUPED they got from this lifelong professional bullshit artist who shits in people's mouths and they suck it down like it's ice cream.
Bernie filled stadiums. Much as I like Hillary, she just wasn't an exciting candidate.
Enough of the Bernie bashing. That's ridiculous. He filled stadiums. He brought millions into the party. He excited people with a CLEAR and COMPELLING message. I wish I had a dime for everyone I know who said they would have voted for Bernie if he had been our nominee.
Please don't get me wrong. I really like Hillary and really wanted her to win. But the hard truth is Hillary could barely get a thousand people to attend her primary rallies and had mostly pretty small general election rallies too. Her primary campaign was just plain lackluster. She was seen as the past and the establishment in an era where people are just sick and tired of insiders. They wanted someone new. She and her team made huge mistakes not campaigning where necessary, not having a CLEAR and COMPELLING populist economic message front and center, and trying to win over moderate suburban Republican women who were SOFT in their support instead of shoring up the working class base. She also spent too much time with donors or off the campaign trail in August and September. Very bad moves!
Polling indicates that Bernie had a much better chance of beating Trump than did Clinton. Would that have happened? Not sure. Bloomberg was talking about getting in if Bernie had done so and that could have ruined him with a split vote. But in a head to head I think both Hillary and Bernie would have won (the third party candidates screwed it up for us too), and Bernie would have won by more than Hillary and probably much more.
Right now the party needs a MASSIVE re-boot with a return to the 50 state strategy, and the message of JOBS FOR EVERYONE EVERYWHERE (including small town America which is HURTING)!!
We are in an era of OUTSIDER POLITICS, and Hillary, sadly, was the ultimate insider.
To just write off white working class folks or ANY group ANYWHERE is STUPID. Here is why:
* In the 60's, so many of these small towns and rural areas were doing SO much better economically than today. Many are now in very dire economic straights, and Trump's message of re-opening factories and attacking bad trade deals definitely resonated. No denying it.
* Obama won MANY of these working class voters that now went for Trump. So MANY do vote primarily on economics. We can't win all white working class voters back, but we can win many back with the right economic arguments and respect of their culture. WE MUST END THE DISCONNECT WITH THESE FOLKS!
* The "either/or" argument is a load of horse shit. We are talking about boosting economic populism and having a strong, compelling, resonating jobs message for EVERYONE, not abandoning social progressivism. And, just because saying you agree with the right of legal and safe gun owners to hunt and target shoot is not abandoning progressive ideals in any way, shape, or form. A bleeding heart liberal can also be an avid hunter.
* We MUST return to our working class roots and stop being the party of corporate-lite!! And we need to be more than a party of liberal social issues. Those issues are important, but people MAINLY vote on ECONOMICS, not social issues. Any survey will tell you that JOBS AND THE ECONOMY is always the number one issue. People want something tangible for their vote.
* If we are to be the "party of the people" that means ALL the people EVERYWHERE, not only certain groups. Yes, we need to embrace all people and value all people, but that sure as heck doesn't mean ABANDONING white working class or ANY voters. Just writing them off is STUPID.
* Writing off working class rural and small town folks is the very kind of thinking which has hollowed us out at the state and local levels and has now led us to being the minority in the national government too.
* Sure we need to go after gerrymandering, but we can't do that without winning state majorities and that means we need a message for small town and rural voters too. We also need to bolster our traditional voting blocks including young people, and we do that with a powerful JOBS message too. We can not just win on identity politics and liberal social issues. We need a strong, compelling, CLEAR, working and middle class economic message too that we put FRONT AND CENTER!!
Profile Information
Member since: Mon Aug 1, 2005, 07:24 PMNumber of posts: 13,570
