Bernie To Dems: Stop Neglecting Trump Voters!

[Jim Lane]

102. No. What you should do is stop with the idiotic straw-man arguments.

No one has said "kowtow" except you in #95.

No one has said "ignore Russia" except uponit7771 in #2.

No one has said "grovel and apologize" except Hekate in #4.

No one has said "{w}ash their sheets" except world wide wally in #9.

No one has said "cater to nutjobs and racist assholes" except dalton99a in #28.

When so many people fall all over themselves to refute things that Bernie didn't say, it's a strong indication that they can't counter what he actually did say. Trust me, Bernie Sanders, of all people, was not suddenly saying we should try to get to the right of the GOP and hope that if we out-racist them we'll carry West Virginia. His point, a more subtle one, is that voters are influenced by multiple considerations, so we shouldn't just write off more than 60 million people.

Taking it as a given that many Trump voters were racists, many others weren't. We can go after the ones who believe, correctly, that the political establishment in Washington hasn't been looking out for their interests. Trump, with his faux populism, conned enough of them into thinking that he was an outsider who was different. (Anecdotal evidence: Haven't you seen the reports of Trump voters who are sure he won't actually take away their Obamacare?)

So, no, it doesn't mean we kowtow to them. It means we compete for their votes with a combination of the positive (for example, strongly pushing for a $15 minimum wage) and the negative (for example, making a big deal about the regressive tax cuts that Trump will probably be signing).