Why Did We Lose And How Can We Win?

[CitizenZero]

13. Racism And Xenophobia

I agree that a lot of it was racism and xenophobia. But I think that it wasn't just racism and xenophoba alone. It was also economic fears. The white working class used to be the foundation of the Democratic Party, but many now voted for Trump (this is a recurrence of the old Reagan Democrats).

The question that I have, is how does the Democratic Party get enough of this block of voters back to win elections? If we could have won without them, Trump would not have taken Michigan.

In any case, Michigan was a fairly close election. I think that if Hillary had campaigned there as heavily as Trump did, she could have overcome his xenophobic message with the Truth: the Truth is the Democratic Party is the real defender of the working people.

So, I think that what we learned from the election is that we need to connect more directly to working class voters in the Rust Belt, as well as in other areas of the country. We need people to understand the fiction that Trump sold, which is that he is better for working people than the Democratic Party.

We also need to put forward candidates who will get into the arena and fight fairly dirty against Trump and his kind. Michelle Obama said a lovely thing "when they go low, we go high", but maybe what we need is someone who can counter-punch against Trump and beat him badly at his own game.

As far as countering the racist element: I do not know. How do you stop racism? Hopefully by simply outnumbering them.