"Belcher contends...Until we can better engage these voters in a conversation that lessens their very real angst about the changes that are happening in the country and pivot to a compelling narrative about how we all win the future together".
HRC tried the "we're all in this together" and predictably, in an age of off the charts inequality, that message resonated - against her.
Until the Dems cut their corporate apron strings and come up with some sincere campaign promises of enacting a livable minimum wage, sufficiently-funded worker retraining programs, a financial transaction tax, and single payer, they will keep losing to Republican populist charlatans.
10
The road map is there for the Democrats. Look back to Teddy Roosevelt. Democrats are going to have to take on corporate interests. They are going to have to take a chance that they will lose campaign contributions and make the business of normal people their business. Trump won with less money and less party support, so it can be done. The democrats need to pluck up the courage to fight for the middle class at the expense of the well to do.
12
I come away from this truly baffled. If non-college whites are driven more by racism than economic interests (a higher minimum wage, support for unions, protection of public health and pension programs), does that mean the democrats need to be more racist? And are playing checkers if they reject this path? I fully agree that democrats, along with republicans, sold the working class out with trade agreements and years of pro-business economic policies. But the more "liberal " sentiments of democratic voters today includes support for policies- universal health care, progressive taxes, higher wages - that primarily benefit the working class- black and white. Yet non-college white Trump voters, you seem to be saying, reject policies that would make them better off if the benefits have to be shared with immigrants and blacks. How can the democrats win this game?
14
The Democratic Party lost its way back in the 1990s when it deliberately turned its back on the working/middle class to plunge into "identity politics". For the Democrats to return to importance, they need to remember FDR and the New Deal and come up with a bold, leftist approach to governing our country. The sort of lukewarm, GOP-Lite, corporate centrism practiced by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama was only good for Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Wall Street.
Democrats - remember the New Deal, read George Lakoff, and act accordingly. Otherwise, I'll be attending your collective funeral in about 2024.
22
I think Democrats should continue moving left. If they do that and succeed in next year's elections, it might force both parties to reverse the rightward movement we've been seeing since at least the 1990s.
4
You miss the point entirely:
"How can the gap be bridged when a significant percentage of republicans choose mythology over science at every opportunity? Have you ever tried reasoning with someone who thinks that Pat Robertson is right when he says..."
Can't say that I have. To my knowledge, I've never even met anyone who's met Pat Robertson or listened to a word he's said.
You're making what we call in the "law biz" a "straw man argument" -- something far from reality that's easy to knock down BECAUSE it's far from reality.
Trump has plenty of faults, and I (and many others) didn't vote for him. But we didn't vote for Hillary either -- in my case, because I've always found her to be a mediocrity, far overrated. People who support her claim otherwise, of course, but I suspect few of them have really bothered to look carefully. If they do, they'll find there's really not much there.
9
The intellectual Marxist heroes originally saved the downtrodden workers from the enemy factory owners.
Social Democrats are a Marxist sect - light, no gulags, willing to play within the system and see how far they can push. That's what the Democrat Party was until fairly recently. Many of their ideas are good. Bill Clinton was good. He did not betray the ideals of the revolution. He was just good and got things done.
Under Obama the Democrats (at least a large portion) decided to pivot from workers to minorities as the victims. The problem was that they also needed a new enemy - white men. Suddenly millions of people found out that they are angry, racist, sexist, homophobic pigs unless they manage to prove the opposite. They did not like that.
Can Democrats go back to being Social Democrats? Unfortunately the more extreme sect always wins by accusing the moderates of principles betrayal. That's why the moderate side is paralyzed right now while the extremists blow steam and feel good about themselves. Many on this very forum.
Did Bernie want to talk about race? NO! He wanted to talk about jobs. Hillary thought she was smart outflanking him on race. It may have won her the primary but moved the weight center of the conversation and they could never recover the center. People saw through her calculation. Trump picked up the conversation about jobs and people started believing that he has answers.
18
"For instance, this idea that liberals sneer at people who work with their hands or who live in Iowa is a pile of concocted nonsense..."
Obviously this commenter hasn't been reading the comments on this article. Many make it abundantly clear that they have nothing but contempt for the "working class." Nothing against "people who work with their hands or who live in Iowa" except that they're all racists, misogynists and otherwise deplorable.
Setting aside this commenter's failure to notice this, why in the world do commenters think a voter will support a Democratic candidate after being told by that candidate's supporters that the voter is a racist, misogynist and otherwise deplorable? Is it really enough to promise forgiveness if the racist, misogynist and otherwise deplorable voter votes for your candidate?
20
Good advice. Seems obvious, but its wisdom appears to have escaped many commenters here:
"Instead of asking a few "experts" in NYC, LA and selected Ivory Towers, maybe you should actually find some people who live in "Flyover country" ... and, instead of condescendingly acting like they are all idiots, actually talk to them.
The truth: Most of us aren't racist, we aren't idiots, and we aren't ignorant. A lot of us voted for Obama, but gagged at the very thought of voting for Clinton."
All points this commenter makes are good, and that includes the last one: Hillary Clinton is no Barrack Obama. She's really a lesser being, and her supporters are delusional to think otherwise.
16
Great analysis of why democrats have lost their focus. Once the party of the middle class against the country club republicans, they have turned into urban, coastal, tree huggers and forgotten the worker class. Yes we want clean air and water, admit climate change, rights for all of us regardless of race, ethic origin, sexual orientation, etc. but we want jobs, good schools, safe neighborhoods, etc. basically everything we got when Ike was president. Trump appeals to what was lost and promises to restore it - just like Nixon and his southern strategy - and both lied. We need a Democrat who can inspire all of us not just the coastal elite.
9
When the Democrats are the party of the working class again - the whole working class, including the white working class - they will win elections again. That does not mean that they need to abandon their commitment to opposing racism, homophobia, and sexism, or that they should not continue to attempt to appeal to professionals and urban elites. But those appeals will have to come with an understanding that the party can't win elections if it continues to be perceived by vast swathes of the common people that it is working against their interests. That will mean facing some hard truths about illegal immigration, trade, and automation. Urban liberals appear to be willfully ignorant of the fact that the democratic base, which is still the workers, is being hollowed out by the globalization they cherish so much. The party will never, ever be in power again if it cannot do something to bring its former supporters in the Great Lakes back into the fold by addressing the very legitimate economic concerns of the people who live in those states.
The alternative is the for the Democrats to go the way of the Whigs.
12
I'm pretty sure Hillary knew this before the election:
"The Democrats almost always seem to win the popular vote but the Republicans know that the only thing that matters is six or so swing states..."
Surely some college student must be searching for a research-paper topic in some Poli Sci course. Here's one: Look back at newspapers from the summer of 2000, particularly the op-ed pages. You'll find many -- not several, many -- essays lecturing George W. Bush supporters about the virtues of the electoral college system. Those were the days when it appeared that Bush might win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote. Just the opposite happened, of course, and ever since then, formerly staunch supporters of the electoral-college system have argued that we must do away with it.
I doubt it would have mattered. Had Trump known that electoral votes didn't matter, probably he'd have held big rallies in CA's Central Valley rather than attending his 47th county fair in PA.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, probably wouldn't have behaved much differently. On the last weekend before the election, she'd probably demonstrate how "connected" she is to voters by doing exactly what she actually did: Get together with Bruce Springsteen.
5
Trump could win reelection in 2020 not because the Democrats have not held on firmly to their base of African Americans, Latinos and union workers and Hollywood types with their wealth but because they will fail to get the independents in larger numbers than 2016. When all is said and done if the economy is as good as it is today and the world is winning the war on terror and there is peace between the the Israel and the Palestinians, peace in the Korean peninsula, Afghanistan is stable, Trump could get reelected by a bigger margin than 2016. The Wienstein and Weiner issues could haunt the democrats and unless the democrats nominate Sanders or some other dynamic leader they will be looking at Trump in the white house until 2024 even if they continue to thrash Trump and continue to have the press and media on their side, it will be an uphill battle for the Dems. On top of that the GOP will keep the majorities in Congress and Senate in 2018. Dems better wake up and come up with better ideas or Trump playing chess will checkmate them once again and they will wonder "What happened"
7
Mr. Edsall - it is very difficult to reconcile the substance of expert opinions you have obtained with the conclusions you draw from same.
While you take pains to cite commentators who explain that the Republican strategists pay lip-service to white blue collar workers' job-creation concerns, you quite ignore the fact that the same party's obsession with reducing public spending, and reducing high-bracket taxation (at the expense of the lower-brackets), are the largest destroyers of jobs this country has ever seen.
And while you cite Professor Enos, who expressly points to the regrettable racial element that drives white, working class resentment, you create a false equivalency by tarring both sides with the brush of hyper-partisanship.
Which in turn leads you to perpetrate - in your conclusion - the most astonishing false equivalence of all, namely that the system works because voters are presented with "real choices".
It is disappointing to see an NYT Op-Ed columnist exhibit such a cynical disregard of the qualitative differences between those choices.
10
Democrats have moved to the left? Since when? They’ve continued right since Bill Clinton was chair of the DNC.
Consider that many of the policies Richard Nixon signed into law were left of today’s Democratic Party.
Since the 70s, things like clean air and water have become partisan issues.
We can certainly thank Fox News and right wing radio and internet for spewing the lies and hate that have given us our political divide today.
19
The only event that can reelect Donald Trump would be if the Democrats go hard left with a candidate from the Warren/Sanders wing of the party.
So that is exactly what I expect they will do.
It's a sad, fallen sinful world indeed.
6
Instead of asking a few "experts" in NYC, LA and selected Ivory Towers, maybe you should actually find some people who live in "Flyover country", otherwise known as the other 48 states, and, instead of condescendingly acting like they are all idiots, actually talk to them.
The truth: Most of us aren't racist, we aren't idiots, and we aren't ignorant. A lot of us voted for Obama, but gagged at the very thought of voting for Clinton.
Our biggest concerns are: Affordable health care, terrorism, high taxes, crumbling roads and bridges, crime, police brutality, unemployment due to companies moving factories overseas, immigration related problems like drugs and crime (drug-related, violent gangs like MS-13, Los Zetas, El Chapo, Gulf Cartel, etc.), lower wages (factories have found that they can use temp services to hire young, healthy illegals for $9 per hour, to do jobs that were formerly held by older, less healthy Americans who they had to pay $20 per hour plus benefits), having to find bi-lingual teachers for their children, further problems when the factory moved to Mexico, and all of the new residents are now unemployed illegal immigrants, etc.; the democrats tying immigration to race isn't really fair.
14
If those are your concerns, why would you vote for Trump? I could understand voting for Bernie.
If you believe that Hillary was worse than Trump, you believed a boat load of lies. Again, thanks Fox News.
14
The real problem is the electoral college system, not Democratic strategy. The Democrats almost always seem to win the popular vote but the Republicans know that the only thing that matters is six or so swing states, and will say whatever they have to to win those states. "You want jobs back from China? You want to reverse automation? You want to reopen coal mines? Why sure...."
But I take your point; the system isn't going to change so Democrats have to figure out a way to win the rigged game, hopefully without abandoning all principles like certain nameless others have done.
13
I am sorry, but Democrats do not have to respect the culture of whites who are afraid of the progress of blacks, gays and other minorities, and I say this as a middle aged white guy with plenty of family who are Trump supporters.
The world is changing, and they need to adapt. They are dying at an early age because of despair, and alcohol and drug abuse. And yet, for decades, these very same people claimed that minorities, who experienced the same despair, and turned to drugs, were bad people. The minorities deserved punishment, and jail, and in no way deserved sympathy, support, and treatment programs.
The white Trump voter is in the position they are in because they swallowed the GOP lies hook, line and sinker, and the GOP has never had their interests as part of their agenda. Tax cuts for the rich do not trickle down, gays are not out to convert their children, etc. They got suckered, and continue to get suckered.
The Democratic Party needs to look to the future, and the future is not angry white males who see their status and power fading because of changing demographics.
40
“How can the party nominate someone, or be led by someone, like Bill Clinton, rather than Hillary Clinton?”
Bill Clinton, who supported traditional marriage, some limits on abortion, tough policing and welfare reform, would never, ever have a shot to be nominated for national office in the Democrat party today. That's how far left the Democrat party has lurched.
My hope is that we can stop this college/non-college divide among white people. The same liberal elites that hate working class whites, hate many college-educated whites as well. Some college educated whites are reflexively anti-Trump but hopefully will sing a different tune in 2020.
7
Let's not make this more complicated than it is. Trump carried the racist vote in large numbers.
16
Democrats need to hammer on Social Security and Medicare. That's not to say other issues aren't important, but the GOP is actively trying to decimate these programs, which are the last legs of financial stability. And, oh, hammer on wages, too. Explain how tax reform is good, but the GOP version is bad. Break it all down into easy-to-understand terms. Explain it clearly, and repeatedly.
13
Where do we see Dem leaders in the news celebrating, supporting and advocating for all the people work in retirement homes, daycare facilities, supporting the disabled? We don't.
Instead of focusing on factory jobs and tech training, start paying these hard workers what they are worth.
That would help millions of Americans.
4
We already had this conversation in the NYT opinion pages in the weeks after the election, notably in your columns and the responding comments.
Quit speaking the language of identity politics and political correctness. Go back to speaking the language of our common humanity and the need for dignity and a decent economic life for all, the sort of language one might speak after studying MLK and the traditions that informed him.
It's seems pretty clear that many on the progressive left resist taking that idea to heart.
But it's not a question of moving left or right politically, I think. It's more like moving from Copernicus back to Ptolemy, discovering that doesn't really work as well, and in response moving back to Copernicus again. Let our common humanity be the locus of our thinking on these questions.
That still leaves the question: to what extent is America a meritocracy for the world and to what extent is America a meritocracy for Americans. But we can work towards having a humane immigration policy designed to make the country prosper while fully factoring in the legitimate interests of the people already here.
11
I'd say the Republicans know how to advertise their way to power, whereas the Democrats do not.
Advertising is based on basic principles and theories of psychology, including learning theory, Pavlovian conditioning, cognitive psychology, gestalt psychology, and lots of Freudian psychology.
Republican appeals are based largely on advertising; Democratic appeals are largely based on logic, reasoning, and rational cognitive arguments. Guess which is more persuasive in the political marketplace in our advertising-saturated capitalist society?
Principles of advertising largely boil down to: keep it simple; make it familiar, relatable, and aspirational; make it attractive, attention-getting, novel, and emotionally involving; have it activate conscious and unconscious impulses and desires, etc. The goal is to create a "brand" that voters can and want to identify with.
Just watch Trump in action, and look at Fox News to see these principles constantly at play. Then watch some key Democratic spokespeople. Compare the set on Fox with the set on Fox News. Keep in mind that nonverbal behavior overrides what people are saying. Fox is fascinating here
However, in advertising they say don't lie because consumers won't trust the brand if you engage in false promises. That principle does not appear to apply to Trump, the GOP, and politics. Why do middle-class Trump and GOP supporters keep buying a faulty product that does them obvious harm?
11
To answer your question, it appears that most voters vote based on their values and the perceived values of the candidate rather than on policy and rational ideas.
5
Great stuff from Mr. Edsall, as usual. Democrats need to focus on helping the middle class, which means help with college tuition, trade school and healthcare, paid for by higher taxes on the rich and corporations.
Keep it simple, so universal coverage, either via expanding the existing system or Medicare for All if needed. Higher tax rates on millionaires and billionaires, along with eliminating tax loopholes for them (the top 1% had about $250 billion in tax breaks in 2016).
Be honest, that the jobs aren't coming back and the best way to compete is with help to get you through college, or early access to Social Security and Medicare if in an industry like coal that is going away.
Last of all, stop talking about bathrooms. It's OK to keep illegal immigrants out, and to talk about enforcing our borders.
11
Some things change -- this isn't one of those things.
"The [Democratic] candidate will also refuse all contributions from PACs, oligarchs and the national and state party apparatus."
Despite all the talk about Citizens United, etc., etc., etc., Hillary Clinton far outspent Donald Trump, including gobs and gobs of money she'd received from Super PACS (not sure about the "oligarchs"). The usual explanation, of course, was: "Well, the other side is doing it, so we have to as well."
It's highly unlikely that this will change in future elections. Democratic candidates (and Republican candidates) will take money from Super PACs and oligarchs and the national and state party apparatus, just like last time.
If some big donor turns out to be a bad person, of course, candidates will be quick to give back (or donate to charity) whatever that donor has given them -- though we'll probably be told, as we were this week, that that amount really wasn't all that large. It will turn out, in other words, that that "big donor" wasn't really all that big after all.
4
How can the gap be bridged when a significant percentage of republicans choose mythology over science at every opportunity? Have you ever tried reasoning with someone who thinks that Pat Robertson is right when he says that the latest mass shooting occurred because, as God told him, Americans are not showing Donald Trump the proper respect? Try talking about climate science with someone who believes that God will take care of everything, and if it ends in Armageddon, well let's hear it for the end of days as predicted in the Bible. Women's equality? Forget it. Evolution? You've got to be kidding. Adam was created in God's image, and then Eve sprang from his rib. Women are chattel, or at least their bodies belong to this Administration and churches; and women are either sirens or saints. Mike Pence won't be a lone with a woman other than his wife. Why? Does he think women are carrying apples around in their cleavage, waiting to seduce him? How can someone have a dialogue with people who believe such things. They care nothing for reason or science. They care neither about the world nor the people living in it, including their own children and grandchildren. Make America Great Again? We were on the trajectory to greatness, but no longer. A large part of the world has passed us by and we are regressing at a rapid pace.
5
Republicans win not because ideas just because they lie so democrats should do the same
As Bill Shakespeare liked to say: "Ay, there's the rub!"
"And while it should be EASY to beat [Trump] in 2020, I have faith in the Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I see it every day ... - the desire to be "right" outweighing the desire to win."
Some Democrats say it's better to be right than to win. Others say it's better to win, even if that means "bending" to satisfy voters. Still other Democrats say no choice is necessary: Move left and voters will follow.
This third group is whistling past the graveyard. The first two groups insist that a choice must be made, and they're correct.
5
Enos has it right. The key will be to motivate millenial and non-white voters. Had the African-American community or millenials voted in MI, WI and PA last year rather than stayed home, Hillary would have won.
She lost by 77,000 votes and won the popular vote- while being deeply flawed.
Kamala Harris would wipe the floor with the Orange Menace. Then we can go back to- rightfully- replacing "racially conservative" with "racist" and "social anxiety" with "bigotry."
6
If the future well being of the nation and our people isn't motivation enough, I don't know what is. What specifically do you propose to get minorities and millennials to vote in numbers approaching the percentage of the actively engaged?
1
Paul Begala's advice is reminiscent of Bill Clinton's other strategist James Carville: "The economy, stupid."
Trump's promise of new-directions and better results will come to naught. Tax-cuts {if they happen}, capital repatriation via a tax-amnesty, fast depreciation write-offs will enrich share-holders and entice managers to employ more automation. Slowly, working White people will be hard pressed to seethe over their taxes paying for the benefits of "those peoples" as reality passes them by.
Donald Trump's appeal to racism, xenophobia and religious bigotry, together with Bernie Sanders' and Jill Stein's total unrealism and promises of pie in the sky, is a lot more like two monkeys playing Candyland with rocks than chess or checkers.
3
Wait... didn't the Democratic Party win the popular vote??
5
There's not enough here about how white public opinion has been manipulated by wealthy right-wingers, as described in 'Dark Money' by Jane Mayer. For instance, this idea that liberals sneer at people who work with their hands or who live in Iowa is a pile of concocted nonsense, in my opinion. If we do feel anger towards them, it's because they've allowed themselves to be manipulated by demagogues into thinking we hate them.
15
Fully, completely, absolutely agree. That the mainstream 4th estate does little to nothing to push back against this false narrative/fake news is beyond my understanding.
4
Chess? Checkers? Trump is playing Mohammad Ali’s old strategy, the “Crazy Man Strategy” that Ali employed against the feared and powerful Sonny Liston. For someone with Liston’s background, the most dangerous opponent is not the strongest man, but the craziest and most unpredictable; a part Ali played to perfection. As it turned out, Liston was right to be apprehensive: Ali won.
Crazy Man” is easy for Trump to play, because he is a character-disordered narcissist whose grasp of reality is tenuous.
A better strategy: Hire the best opposition research firm and a PR firm and then IGNORE TRUMP. If you’re a Democrat, don’t let his craziness influence you or control what you do.
7
I'm sick and tired of pundits claiming that the Dems need to appeal to (racist, sexist, xenophobic) white, working class voters. Absolutely not. We need to appeal to OUT base--you know, the one that supports civil rights, womens' rights, freedom for all, and so on. We don't need to subsume our basic moral beliefs to win elections. We need boots on the ground, and get out the vote!
12
Based on the comments from many to Mr. Edsall's article, 2020 could well be a George McGovern redux. I do disagree with one observation - If Republicans are playing chess, Democrats are playing tiddlywinks. With the electoral college v. popular vote disparity increasing, the only option to win is to get more people to the polls in states that matter.
The focus has to be on the swing states, with a way to either increase support from the few remaining middle of the road voters OR convince some of the remaining GOP middle of the road voters that the Democratic party isn't actively working against them, which might reduce the percentage who go to the polls.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton, "it's the rust belt stupid!"
5
ad donnie is incapable of playing tic tac toe let alone chess.
2
As long as Democrats keep blaming white racism for everything I don't think they can win. The fact is that they lost the last election because a large swath of white Obama voters went for Trump. These voters, including myself, saw Obama's win as verification that majority America was ready to judge people based on character and not race. There was hope that we could all move forward together with a positive attitude into the future. But suddenly the old resentments again took center stage: riots, cop assassinations. I started reading articles about "whiteness" and "white supremacy" in the New York Times. Obama was overshadowed by Sharpton. Trump appeared on the scene and every word he spoke was twisted by the media to appear racist. Soon practically every article on politics in the Times and WAPO was presented through the prism of race. I ultimately decided that the Democrats and the left are the real racists and reluctantly voted for Trump in protest. The left needs to clean up its own backyard if it ever hopes to recover.
13
You can pin this on the Triad of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.
They manipulated every rule and every tradition to bulldoze the largest change in American policy and taxes in 150 + years...in such a partisan way...that it' going to take 20 years for Congres to recalibrate towards the normal bell curve distribution of Liberals-Conservatives.
Who's happy about it? Mark Zuckerburg is happy.
5
Call it whatever you want. They sought votes, they compromised with Republicans to get votes, and then they brought bills to the floor... for a vote! They key word is a VOTE. Which is more than the GOP has done with their (failing) bills. That used to be how this republic operated. Today they don't even bother with Democrats (the actual majority party, by national vote). And then they wonder why they can't pass anything! However you feel about the opposition, that's #notdemocracy
5
Republicans are playing street ball, while Democrats are complaining to the ref.
3
The Actual Problem,
How can the Dems possibly rectify the Anarchy within that horrible tragedy of NFL Players Peacefully Protesting? :):)
October 12, 2017
I happen to consider myself to be a genius president who happens to be a politicans – my mentor Bobby Fischer the greatest ever forever. What a guy!
jja Manhattan, N.Y.
1
Trump is playing chess?? Hahahahahaha..... you wish, we wish, but I doubt he could even name the pieces or say where they go on the board, let alone something more complicated like the way a knight moves.... good grief....
Let's get real... its not playing chess to incite racial hatreds. Black and white checkers, as one commenter already pointed out. Do we need to explain the intricate strategies involved in chess to Belcher?
Since when does schoolyard name calling make anyone think of chess? This column is so laughable its hard to take it seriously. When I was a kid we knew we had won when the bully resorted to name-calling rather than logical retorts. Chess? Really.... what universe is that guy in?
Read any of the thoughtful articles on North Korea, including in today's paper, and Trump's approach to the issue will make you think of anything BUT chess....
I'm incredulous... the world really is upside down. Like the kids book, where everything was falling up!
Seriously, what Trump is doing is very simple, he's appealing to our baser instincts. That's not a chess move, but is a distinctly cynical one. He, Bannon, and Miller, are evil people, with a single motive.... to destroy a multicultural America. Like the Bolsheviks in Russia, they think they need to destroy society in order to create what for them would be a better one.
6
Democratic commenters seem to be roughly equally split between:
1. We shouldn't move right just to scoop up votes from a bunch of bigoted, misogynistic, deplorable white guys.
2. We'd better move right if we want to get back in the game.
I'd say BOTH groups are right.
On the one hand, why move right if that requires that you abandon core principles? What's the point of calling yourself a "Democrat" if you're the same thing as a Republican?
On the other hand, the Democratic Party is a political party, and political parties like to win elections every now and then. Remember the Liberal Party in the UK? Its members stuck to their principles. How are they doing these days?
The real villain here is that outdated concept known as "democracy" (with a small "d"). If voters really knew what was best for them, there'd be nothing wrong with letting them vote. But when they show themselves to be racist, misogynistic, deplorables who love Jim Comey (or did, when he was a bad guy) and Vladimir Putin, why should they get to vote? They should have their leaders picked for them, by people who are NOT racist, misogynistic, deplorables, and who DON'T love Jim Comey (or at least didn't when he was a bad guy) and Vladimir Putin.
In other words, this "democracy" thing is vastly overrated!
I wonder how many Democrats didn't bother to vote because the media reported for a solid year that Hillary would win. She is inevitable!
Now the media is reporting the Dems are losers, so why bother to vote. The right is always motivated: race-baiting and fear-mongering works.
But if voters aren't afraid of Donald by now, it's hopeless.
5
Let's re-title this article: Trump is playing checkers and the Democrats are navel gazing. The Dems are totally absent, have no narrative and let the Republicans frame every issue. Wake up!
JD
5
The Democrats entire program now seems to consist of "We're not Trump"
7
The way I'd put it is that we can't complain about the "mindless heartland" without acknowledging the "heartless mindland" (educated, coastal and urban elites) they're reacting to.
4
In 2012, I ran for State Senate in my Flyover state as a D. Since then I have left.
Why? Illegals, high-tech visas, hatred for working people in the D party.
The D Party stands for lesbians, transgenders, illegals, hispandering, BLM, sanctuary cities, illegals, MS-13, illegals, and lesbians. The focus on the support for criminals (illegals are criminals) is repulsive and wrong). I will not support a party that has as a long-standing effort the promotion, support and coddling of criminals. While I am far from a majority of Dems, there are many like me. Dems spurn us at their peril.
8
Democrats have devolved into a coalition of racial and gender grievance groups.
8
Hogwash, I say. All the next Democrat candidate has to do is be tough on the immigration policy: secured border, e-verify, better H1B policy. Everything else can be taken care of.
8
Democrats don't create good slogans, but good slogans are needed. Here are 2, for use in 2018 and 2020. They outdo and outflank Trump and the Republicans on patriotism, jobs, bringing us together, and lies and fake news:
Build America
Truth, Justice, and the American Way
3
Burning down the competition hall is not playing chess.
4
How about some truth here for a change! Deomocrats can go left, center or right-- but they must be unified regardless of direction. That's right-- they MUST BE UNIFIED NO MATTER THE DIRECTION! Unless they would like to welcome the end of democracy and their relevance indefinitely (much was alreday ceded with the seating of Justice Gorsuch!) they will need to have more accepteance of all side of the party. It doesn't much matter left, right or middle, They just need to gain power. If my fellow democrats do not get this yet, all hope is lost.
3
Oh, brother! The reason White non-college voters believe that the Democrats are only on the coasts and look down at them is because Fox told them so.
As a born and bred Chicagoan for 40 years, I'm also sick of hearing about the center of the country being "flyover."
The Democrats need a constant TV/internet/social media campaign to counter the lies. Fight negative brainwashing with positive brainwashing. Simple as that.
9
An electable Democrat must not be effete & urban...rather- tough & pragmatic. The problem of ballooning entitlements must be addressed; trade schools, disability vocational rehab, concern for excess immigration must also be acknowledged.
The debt is real. Many 'conservatives' worry fiscal discipline is ignored by the Left, that they are not butch enough to navigate a dangerous world, that global policies are a loss of sovereign power.
Bannon has asserted a Populism (wolf in sheeps' clothing) that favors 'US citizens' and nationalism. Fear of America's shrinking dominance allows him to stoke isolationism as the stronger position. Why should we curb pollution if no one else is ? This angry 'logic' is simple & compelling.
Democrats must be angry at this gross distortion of democratic principles, sound policy, and rational economics...and argue directly against it.
Vague platitudes about the middle class & jobs are useless.
2
The cluelessness of this reporter and the perspectives here is the real problem with the Democratic party. Only coastal elites think that the problem is optics and candidate relatability - the choice between Bill and Hillary. In the real world, people know that the problem is the party has become controlled by crony capitalists.
Hillary's personality had _nothing_ to do with Democrats losing governerships and statehouses and mayorships. This is a policy failure.
But writers at the NYTimes would like to tell the story that Democrats should not listen to politicians who are the most popular in the country, but continue doubling down on the failed ideology that has destroyed the middle class - as long as it has a happy face.
This article and its false narrative is an example of why establishment media is losing its influence.
7
The best thing that could happen for the Democrats would be for the Supreme Court to outlaw affirmative action once and for all. Instead, what we are seeing is a doubling down on reverse discrimination. And the real risk for the Democrats is that upper middle class whites start buying into the Trump world view, as they internalize how confoundedly difficult it has become to get their kids into good colleges.
7
I automatically voted Democrat for about 50 years. However, now I am tired of the Democrats characterizing white males as oppressors and everyone else as victims. I still can't bring myself to vote Republican, but I don't ever see myself being a Democrat again. It's too bad that there isn't a third party.
9
Trump isn't playing chess or checkers, he's playing poker. The power of the presidency and the many good faith presumptions afforded to the executive branch gave him an enormous initial chip stack. And Trump being Trump goes all in with every single hand. Because he has so many more chips than anyone else, his losses have not yet busted him out of the game, but his chip stack dwindles every time. Bannon, Gorka, Preibus, Spicer, Price, the "Mooch," Manafort, etc... Trump's cards just aren't holding up well.
Healthcare? All in! (bluff called, chips lost)
Mexican-funded border wall? All in! (bluff called, chips lost)
Drain the swamp? All in! (bluff called, chips lost)
Lock her up? All in! (bluff called, chips lost)
Muslim ban? All in! (bluff called, chips lost)
The list goes on and, as we see every day, Trump has become more and more desperate for his big bets to pay off. He is already desperately all in on the tax "plan," and the ante keeps on rising... Iran nuclear deal? All in again. North Korea? All in again! One could almost forget that Trump and his entire administration are most DEFINITELY all in with regards to the Mueller investigation.
It might be fun to watch a fool and his "money" (read: reputation) parted in such spectacular fashion if not for the fact that he's playing with OUR chips too.
4
The Democrats are playing chess, not checkers. Trump is not playing chess--he's playing High Card "War", which has worked for him in the past.
2
I find the hand wring for the Democratic party a bit of a curiosity. Especially, with quotes such as this from Ms. Jardina; "........,with more racially conservative whites identifying more with the Republican Party." What does she mean by "racially conservative?"I think basically something abohorent. If white men in this country refuse to recognize that the interests, opportunity and protection of those of color and women are an equal part of the mission the "gloriuos" experiment of American Democracy it will deservedly collapse. And, perhaps that is inevitable. But to suggest that in order to cobble together a ruling coalition one must place the interest of the white working class above all others must truly be folly. Of course when one diggs beneath the hand wring one sees that the interests of the "white man" have always been put above all others in America. Perhaps that is the real problem in America today, we are witnessing the transfer of power from one interest group to another. I believe history tells us such transactions are never willing made nor peaceful.
1
Hard not to laugh at commenters who heap criticism on Trump supporters but then ask for their support:
For example, one commenter describes a typical Trump voter as a "racist, misogynist, nativist American firster," but then clarifies that this is true only if the voter lives in Alabama. If the Trump voter instead lives in a swing state -- Michigan, for example -- that voter is not a "racist, misogynist, nativist American firster" after all! To the contrary, that voter is a good friend of the commenter, and can easily demonstrate his or her close relationship by voting as the commenter desires.
Not sure what happens if that typical Trump voter moves to a different state.
6
The thing that killed Hillary Clinton wasn't only that she didn't reach out to blue-collar America, but also that many voters on the Left consider themselves too pure to vote for a Democrat who isn't totally perfect, so they throw away their vote on a 3rd party candidate instead. If the voters for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the swing states had voted Democrat, Clinton would be president now.
No matter what Republicans says about the poor quality of Republican candidates (and they said plenty in 2016), they are still willing to hold their nose and vote Republican on election day. Too many progressive Democrats aren't, and that's why Republicans keep winning.
3
Don't nominate candidates that require nose holding.
6
If the Democratic party isn't willing to alienate their corporate sponsors by SINCERELY promoting popular policies (and the sincerity quotient of centrist Dems like HRC is minimal), then they will continue losing to phony populist Republicans. Allow me to break it down for you:
> 65% of Americans would “rather President Obama and Congress focus on job creation than deficit reduction.”
(CNN/Opinion Research poll)
> 72% of Americans “favor raising taxes on those making more than $250,000/year to cut the deficit.”
(Washington Post-ABC poll)
> 78% of Americans “oppose cutting spending on Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly, to reduce the national debt.”
(Washington Post-ABC poll)
> 67% of Democratic voters support single payer
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/20/single-payer-health-care-poll-2...
> 62% support a financial transaction tax
http://cepr.net/documents/ftt-facts-myths.pdf
> 51% support a $15 minimum wage
http://www.thirdway.org/polling/june-2016-national-poll-of-registered-vo...
The Democratic Party has a choice to make: do they support an oligarchy, or a democracy?
6
I propose that the main issue Democrats need to shift more centrist on, is illegal immigration. I came to this conclusion after reading literally thousands of reader comments in the NYTimes and Wapo. How many times have I read, "I consider myself a liberal, but..." in response to articles about illegal immigration. I'd bet the farm that most democratic voters do not favor open borders, or amnesty, and plenty want to see an end to birth right citizenship. But the Democratic Party is blind to this fact, largely because accusations of racism have shut off honest debate. An anonymous forum, like the comments section, is where people feel free to be truthful. Dems had better pay attention, or we will surely lose again.
Full disclosure; almost none of my acquaintances know I feel this way. There is a conspiracy of silence on anything deviating from the acceptable mantra of amnesty and defacto open borders. For all I know, they feel the same way.
11
Outside of Talk, what has the GOP done as it pertains to Illegal Immigration?
Better yet, how have Liburls actually stopped them from doing something?
1
The internet is radicalizing everyone. I don't know why no one ever says it. It's always the elephant in the room. We are all being brainwashed and brainwashing others constantly. It's all hype, no substance. And it needs to be instant and grab our attention which is being grabbed away from us constantly.
And we are consuming all of our current events, politics and policy information on teeny little phone screens. So, really, what can come of it? Nothing, so why not just make one minute videos since they are easier to see on the cellphone screen and put thirty second commercials on either end.
Technology is ruining our lives and destroying all our institutions. Yet no one ever says this out loud and I cannot be the only one aware of it.
If you enjoyed this post, please "like" below and be sure to follow me on twitter to stay up-to-date on the most important policy issues of our time in three second, 140 character bites.
4
During the 1960s, many highly educated white radicals who'd been active in the civil rights movement shifted their attention to opposing the Vietnam War. By the end of the decade, the civil rights movement had entered a long period of "benign neglect," in the famous words of Daniel Moynihan, then an assistant to the newly-elected President, Richard Nixon (who'd asked Moynihan how he (Nixon) ought to deal with the civil rights movement going forward).
While almost all black leaders opposed the Vietnam War too, several complained that many key white supporters had abandoned the civil rights movement. Most prominent among them was Jesse Jackson, with his infamous "Hymie" remark (many white radical leaders were Jewish).
Fairly or not, I came to doubt the "civil rights" sincerity of many educated white radicals when I read about an academic study in which callers telephoned residential listings in the NY City phone book, focusing on "educated" areas (OK, the professors were a little shaky in their methodology). The caller would claim to be taking a "survey" and would time how long it took for the called person to hang up on him. (Eventually nearly all did, as the "survey" questions became increasingly annoying.)
On average, black callers got hung up on far sooner than white callers.
The resulting skepticism has stayed with me. Today I doubt the sincerity of many who champion the rights of various groups. I suspect many of them would "hang up" on callers from those groups.
1
It is very simple, actually.
"Whites' anxieties" are exactly those of "Blacks' anxieties"; with the difference that they don't experience directly the anxiety of racial discrimination.
To allow the GOP (or anyone) to pretend that Blacks and Latinos have any less economic difficulties than whites, is to buy into this narrative: that somehow Democrats care more about them. They don't. It's just that Dems acknowledge a fundamental truth- about the racism they face.
These people have to be made aware, that they are being played by the GOP- for their racism. It isn't helping them. And the GOP isn't really gaining anything by investing in their racism: Remember, gerrymandering, tea party primarying, and appealing to the lowest common denominator issues have turned their party into a perfect vehicle with which to create a Trump presidency.
Which is, after all, in spite of all this "Winning" Edsel describes, destroying the GOP from the inside . .
5
This ethics-free assessment is rather sickening to those of us who, you know, care about human beings. What Edsall and these experts are describing is racism, plain and simple. Racism must be defeated, not accommodated. Being "animated by racial animus" is racism defined. Appealing to racism is not like playing chess, as Edsall's title implies. It is more like hitting a hornet's nest in your neighbor's backyard with bat, over and over. Democrats must not adopt such an approach for moral reasons beyond the horse race politics involved. It is simply wrong.
4
Democrats should stand exactly where they are on policy. No need to shift either left or right. They must, however, rediscover the art of retail politics and fulll-throatedly explain to the white working class exactly why their policies are the best ones.
Trump offers a daily opportunity to do so. Ask the red hat, for example, how moving 23 million workers off of health care strengthens the American economy. How does the Trump strategy of dismantling the renewable energy industry, in favor of coal, make America great again? These daily opportunities to explain the Democratic advantage, instead, are met with hysteria or some form of Trump psychoanalysis. Ignore Trump. Turn the conversation to the Democratic advantage.
5
Trump is not playing chess, he's playing with himself. Trump can't win the next election but the Democrats can certainly lose it and if the Democrats follow the general drift of New York Times policy prescriptions—or for that matter the MSNBC line— they most certainly will.
While Mr. Edsall does present a range—if not the complete range—of Democratic policy alternatives, he doesn't weight them competitively or show the dynamic of how they are actually playing out in the Party.
The Democrats are divided but in terms of Democratic political and policy direction there is everything to play for.
At the moment the only thing one can definitively say is that the Obamaites and the Clintonites are the architects and practitioners of a politics based more on political positioning and posturing than organizing and coalition building.
It is no irony then that these upholders of the Democratic Party status quo are the most committed to a losing politics, provided they can stay in control.
2
One quote in here is this: "As a straight, white, married, gun-owning, church-going man, many of my hunting buddies feel like Democrats have contempt for them."
I believe they feel that, but I doubt they're right. To me, this seems more like a pervasive myth stoked by rich Republican political consultants and media moguls. Millionaire Fox anchors consistently talk about coastal elites looking down on everyone, as one example.
But the idea that everyone in California and New Jersey looks down on white, straight, married men who attend church is just wrong, even silly. That describes just about every guy in my town, in a very blue state.
I think even responsible hunting is widely admired, or at least respected, by Democrats. Certainly by many environmentalists (I'm in that camp). Someone would have to prove to me that all those elitist school teachers, nurses, and pharmacists who keep stubbornly living along the coasts are really scornful of everyone else.
6
I ASK MYSELF WHAT HOLE TOM EDSALL HAS BEEN HIDING IN. People from everywhere on the political spectrum realize that Trump is so defective as a leader that he must be medically incapable of fulfilling his oath of office. Trump refused daily security briefings, saying that he didn't want to hear the same words repeated to him daily for the next 8 years. That doesn't sound anything like a chess game to me. It sounds to me like a person describing his severely impaired language, memory and executive functions; someone suffering from severe dementia. Trump, according to his own description, can only understand words and brief phrases, but is incapable of understanding context or narrative. All of which means that his long term planning skills, which, given the number of his business failures were bad; but now they're dangerously impaired. What's happening is that the Democrats are playing Checkmate while Trump is holding up a checker and saying, give me a pen so I can sign this check. That said, I agree that political polarization has increased dangerously. I attribute the phenomenon in no small part to the isolation caused by electronic social media, which have the power to effectively brainwash its users. As do other media on the Internet. How do we return the power to the people, revive democracy and survive as a nation? Those are the essential questions. Meanwhile, Edsall can call the moves from Trump's imaginary chess game and explain the strategies Trump can't.
6
This article proposes leading from behind....find out what more median conservative voters want, presuming that to be racism and less immigration, and go there. I don't think that is the best way to go. Rather, I think the Democrats need to look for issues the Median Republican wants like better wages, better job prospects, more secure healthcare coverage, better roads and bridges and limited tax increases. Interesting, the median person thinks schools are overly costly and generally provide pretty good education. While the median Republican is particularly upset about paying taxes, it is the more strongly rightwingers who rigidly oppose paying a little more in taxes. This median group also sees no need to lower high-income earners' taxes and sees that group as privileged in how culture provides them subsidized college degrees and increased earning power. However, class denigration is not acceptable, class jealousy is not couth, and income equality is not necessary. The liberals should continue the mantra of equal pay for equal work but not be so sure that prolonged time off work is equal in job knowledge and skills to those who take no time away from work. Longevity is not primarily about years of service but accumulated hours of service. So, equal pay should be for equal hours of equal work.
Think fairness from workers' perspectives.
4
Politics In the US is not nearly as much about the Republican Party versus the Democratic Party as political scientists and journalists think it is
Newsflash! American voters don't really like either political party. Over 40% of Americans identify as "Independents," while only 30% claim to be Democrats, and 26% say they are Republicans. (Gallup)
Politicians who are viewed as outsiders rather than as stars of either of the inside-the-beltway establishment 2 political parties have been especially appealing to voters.
The young upstart Barack Obama beat DP insider Hillary Clinton in the primaries for the 2008 presidential election.
Relative unknown and party Independent Bernie Sanders was perceived as more trustworthy and popular than H. Clinton in the 2016 primaries, and nearly won the DP nomination.
Outsider Trump beat 17 Republican Party insider candidates in the primaries for the 2016 presidential election, and he beat the highly experienced DP insider H. Clinton for the presidency--though he lost the popular vote by 5 million votes but was saved by the states rights electoral college system.
Here is a clue: Many of us are disgusted by the the big donor, Citizens United campaign funding system that feeds and controls both Republican and Democratic politicians. What the American people want/need takes low priority relative to what big money, big corporate, & special interests demand.
Dems can win if they have compelling candidates with an independent approach.
6
With a voter turnout of 54% in 2016, wouldn't it be prudent to get a better understanding of the 46% who didn't bother to vote? Polls of committed voters and exit polls of those who have already voted barely gives you half the picture. Developing hypothesis and drawing conclusions using incomplete data is specious at best.
3
I can't imagine an analogy that has Trump playing chess. The knife game is more his style (with him holding the knife and our hands on the table).
1
How about just concentrate on correcting the illegally gerrymandered districts and voter suppression efforts all over the country, as well as abolish the Electoral College? That should account for a lot of the Democratic losses engineered by Republican corruption in recent years. Oh yeah, and stamp out all the Russian meddling. I believe the majority of individual American voters are NOT casting votes for Republicans; after all, Hillary won the popular vote by almost 3 million.
The Democrat party needs to relate more to blue collar working people. They've lost much of the private sector labor movement, an historical constituent. Race is a factor to some extent, but these folks feel abandoned and disrespected everyday. They are constantly attacked for their social positions. Not sure if he's a Dem or not, but someone like Mike Rowe that shows respect for working class people might help. They feel grossly disrespected by the elite culture that looks down on high school graduates. This is why Joe Biden would have won if he'd have run. He relates to these folks without looking down at them.
4
Trump is playing WWE. That's "world" (truthful hyperbole) fake "wrestling" "entertainment" of a sort. If his base abandons the NFL, this and watching cars go fast in circles are their "sports."
2
Didn't the Chief Justice justify his ruling by saying America was post racial? Maybe he was wrong there just as he has been most of the time.
I think 2016 was a perfect storm of white resentment, Obama fatigue, Republicans all out of ideas, and the Dems nominating the worst candidate in US history. That is why we got Trump.
And while it should be EASY to beat him in 2020, I have faith in the Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I see it every day in every column in every liberal-leaning publication - the desire to be "right" outweighing the desire to win.
Here's a test for you Democrats: If you had to agree to ban abortions after 20 weeks (and live by it) in order to gain control of the Presidency, both Houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court - and therefore have the ability to enact all of your agenda (besides abortion) would you do it?
If the answer is "no" (which I expect it is), then my case is made.
2
For those with a slightly sadistic and even voyeuristic bent, few things can more more entertaining than watching self-styled "conservatives" and "liberals" trumpeting (no pun intended) their respective labels. This is Neo-Labelism at its best (or worst). Wannabe megalomaniacs like Bannon are fond of threatening to blow up the system. But the system is already blown up, not by bombs or even politics but by language. Today, the labels of yore mean nothing. The "conservative" label has co-opted by bigots, xenophobes and populist demagogues, "liberal" by anything-goes self- congratulatory quasi-moralists. It's time not only for serious soul searching but for some serious re-branding.
2
I am an American with English, French, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish ancestors.
The shelling of Fort McHenry in September, 1814 by the British, is remembered by most Americans for Francis Scott Key's poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry, but I remember this battle for an American casualty—an ancestor of my family.
I don't consider myself a "white". The term is as offensive in my mind as "colored".
For those on the right, and left, who want to brand me—brand, as in branding livestock—as white, my reply is, You are close-minded, racist and need to repair your "values".
3
I don’t believe our country is not going to be able to survive social media. I used to be able to pretend that the unseen masses in this country were ‘just like me’, you know: flawed, imperfect, but basically decent people. Not only has social media enabled the spread of magical thinking and flat-out falsehoods to epidemic proportions, it has also pulled the covers on my wishful thinking, and exposed large sections of the population of this country as the ignorant bigots they are. This ignorance and bigotry are now on full display via fb and twitter, and it can’t be denied it any longer. The election of trump feels unreal because no decent person could possibly cast a vote for such an indecent buffoon. I would be ashamed to be an American if he had won even one state. A line has been crossed in mind, and I want nothing to do with “middle America”.
In my mind secession is a viable option. CA, WA, and OR break off and become the “Western States of America”. NY, MA, IL, NJ, CT, VT are now the “Eastern States of America”. Or maybe we all leave and become the “Democratic States of America”, and leave middle America to become the “Republican States of America”. A quick glance at the electoral college map - which dear leader is so fond of rolling out - should clearly delineate where each state belongs.
1
Certainly a thorough breakdown of identity politics
1
A couple of thoughts:
1) "...with more racially conservative whites identifying more with the Republican Party." "... many voters in 2016 were worried about the rate of changes taking place in the racial and ethnic composition of their communities...". Can't we just call bigoted people bigots, or racists anymore? 'racially conservative'? Or the more coded term 'working class whites'. Really? If a black or Pakistani family moving into the house down the block from you makes you 'worried', worried enough to make you vote for a women groping, race baiting, narcissistic, lying man-child, then guess what: You. Are. A. Racist.
2) Democrats have been talking about job re-training for decades, and we can argue the adequacy or proper funding of those programs, but in reality a lot of 'working class whites' *don't want to be bothered* to learn a new skill, or move - even a couple 100 miles - to take a new, even better, job. Coal mining is a hard and dangerous job that any rational person would WANT to leave behind, but I guarantee you a huge chunk of coal miners would rater die in the mine than have to spend even an hours worth of time to learn something new or move to a new city or town. THAT is human nature.
5
The Democratic Party needs to ditch “a better deal” as a banner statement and replace it with “Fighting for the American Dream”. No more straddled allegiances between oligarchs, corporations and working families.
The successful Democratic candidate will push for all those programs which strengthen working family economics — The ACA, no tax cut paid for by reducing social services now or later and investment in modern infrastructure— electric transportation, solar and wind power. The candidate will also refuse all contributions from PACs, oligarchs and the national and state party apparatus.
The Sanders approach worked and now the public is much more activated than during the primary season of 2016. Elizabeth Warren is correct when she calls out the midterm election of 2018 as critical to our future. Even redistricting and the Supreme Court hang in the balance.
9
The article pretty much confirms that when you get right down to it the people who voted for trump were basically driven by hate which is really just another way of saying fear.
At the same time, when you come right down to it the people who provided the money for trump - the wealthy white folks who only care about a tax cut for themselves - were all about exploiting that hate and fear for themselves.
I keep imagining that all those working class white voters for trump (and the republican party) are going to wake up one day and say, "oh my god, how could have been so stupid", but I'm not holding my breath. These are pretty much the same people who fought for the south to preserve slavery even as their real economic interests were with freeing the slaves rather then dying for the plantation owners and in over 150 years they still haven't learned a thing.
3
Please name me one Trump voter, or even one Nixon, Bush, or Eisenhower voter who also fought for the Confederacy or the continuation of slavery. Please cite even ONE.
3
Obviously, that was a figurative example that would have been clearer if it said something like "the same kind of thinking of people"...
But then again you probably already knew that so I would say you are probably one of those people with the same kind of thinking and hopefully one day you will wake up to the terrible choices you have made. But I doubt it.
1
Nobody talk now about the ban of semiautomatic A47. It was silence.
This, although a useful cautionary note, is a rather slack piece from the great Edsall, lower on systematic empirical data and analysis than most TBE pieces and lower too on challenging ideas. For one thing, the current evidence can be read as well to suggests some deterioration in Trump's electoral prospects as steadiness. For another, there's plenty the Democrats can do, like for example loudly champion infrastructural spending. Moreover, Trump's prospects of surviving a term are increasingly doubt, as Bannon just recently expressed to Vanity Fair; and what undermines Trump's popularity tends to undermine GOP 2018 electoral prospects.
This article certainly represents the worst of my
fears and feels hopeless.Defeatism, auto voter
suppression why bother. As a way out somehow trying to lure the long lost blue collar workers
back into the fold by appealing to what?
We are faced with an existential crisis; I don't
think waiting until 2024 will suffice. I agree with
the previous comment. The Democrats need to
get to work.
The 65 %+ of the population(not democratic or republican but all of us) that consistently voices its opinion that unfettered illegal immigration broken up by times of amnesty is NOT okay do not understand why the minority of voters want to allow this stuff to continue. Look we all know there are jobs american do not want but lets be clear, when complaints about mexican immigrants come in they are about Trade jobs where compensation has been gutted because there are way too many illegals in the job pipeline willing to work for poor wages. We should be like every other country on the globe that controls immigration into their country and only allows workers in industries that have true labor shortages. It's the right policy and its not racist. The DACA kids can stay but all the other line cutters need to go back and try to enter the country the legal way.
11
The GOP has the majority now, have had it in the recent past and they've done 0 about Illegal Immigration.
Yet they always claim they will do something, same for outlawing abortion, why haven't they?
2
I get very disheartened when I read this kind of information. I have thought for many years that there is no solution to this divide. The left wants you to live the life you choose for yourself and the right wants you to live the life they (the right) wants you to live. It may be time to start to talk about separating into two different countries. All I hope is that we can do this peaceably.
4
This article gets it exactly wrong. The problem is that old Democrats have become too much like wealthy, country-club conservatives. They concentrate money is the hands of Wall Street, put minorities in prison, and support a massively dangerous and wasteful military industrial congressional complex. Young Democrats understand that the material conditions, the distribution of wealth, and the priorities of the country have to drastically, radically, and rapidly change to avoid nuclear annihilation or global warming extinction. The Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama pattern of wealth concentration has to come to a screeching halt, right now, or the species will undergo mass extinction. Bernie Sanders, a candidate who understood what is commonly accepted among the nation's scientists, electrified young voters and raised enough small donations to compete. But the establishment Democrats cheated and silenced him. It is the boomer generation's latest, and probably fatal, mistake.
8
Really interesting piece but what about the Democratic Party's relationship to Wall Street? Seems to me that this is a pertinent issue that needs to be addressed to win back the resentful and scared white middle class that went for Trump. Isn't that relationship a total disconnect or anathema to the socioeconomic agenda that the Democrats aspire to? It's why Sanders got so much traction and remains to this day the most popular politician in America. The establishment needs to stop blaming Sanders, and instead focus on the reason why middle americans despise them. Its paradoxical espousal of socioeconomic justice and Wall Street, one of the primary reasons why that socioeconomic chasm is widening.
4
Interesting points. But applying Occam's Razor: Trump won by less than 1 percent in three states. If just net 80k voters in those states vote against Trump next time, he loses. His support since taking office dropped from 45.5 to 37.9 (from five-thirty-eight's average). He had run against an unpopular candidate. And while we will never know the exact effect of the Comey letter, it is reasonable to assume that at least some of those 80k Trump voters were swayed by that.
In my opinion, if an election were held next month with Trump against any reasonably Democrat, the Democrat would win.
6
If, if and if. But Trump did win, and there isn't going to be an election held next month. Trump is dismantling Obama's regulatory efforts and the Democrats seem to be in a trance.
2
Last time I checked, the results of the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections had NOT changed. Hillary, Gore & Obama I & II all out-performed him on election day. He also lost congress after one election cycle; it took Obama three. So why, oh why, do Messrs. Begala, Sosnik & Persily insist he was some great success? Begala was on his payroll, but Sosnik & Presily appear to be unable to interpret simple statistics.
What I remember was Bill Clinton crushing Democratic Speaker Dick Gephardt on NAFTA with a coalition of Republicans and Democrats including Nancy Pelosi. And it wasn't men like Paul Begala, a son of Fortune and scion of wealth and privilege. who were hurt by it. So is it any wonder that the rust belt concluded "Putting People First" meant people other than them?
6
I understand the problem Mr.Edsall is talking about. But he missed certain things. First, Democrats now just relay on identity politics to win everything. It is like nominating a gay, black or women is more than sufficient to win an election. It does not work all the time because normal people are more concerned about economic prospects. Remember KKK had millions of members once upon a time; the whole Democrat Party relied on them like a base. Now, KKK has less than 10,000 members. The same identity politics of white race did not work well for them or for that matter with the Black Panthers movement. Second, it looks like with Trump the GOP is moving towards the working class party. I don't know they will sustain this. Reagen won the working class people in the mid-West and now it is Trump. It is the scariest thing to happen for the Democrats. Yet, the Democrats are more interested in bashing the same voters as deplorables and calling them stupid won't help. Also, Russian conspiracy theories even question the intellect of voters in that region. I don't think it will end well for the Democrats in 2020. Finally, the Democrats are more interested in urban areas. In contrast, GOP has captured rest of the country. No wonder Democrats have lost many elections in various states and local bodies. But the answer from the party is racism, xenophobia and other trigger words. I don't think the angry voters will take those words lightly. Get ready for another 4 years of Trump.
7
While I can identify with if not empathize with the economic dislocation and angst of blue collar workers in the rust belt, I am NOT about to turn the other cheek and feel compassion for Alabamans or any of the old confederacy states, who, generation after generation vote against their economic interests so that they can feel good about themselves by voting for some racist, misogynist, nativist American firster who could care less about them.
The republicans made a calculated bet that by mobilizing aggrieved whites, that they would not need to broaden their constituency to win the presidency; coupled with our flawed candidate, HRC, they were right.
Well then, given the contents of this column, and BTW, the heck with Sosnik and the other so-called "new democrats," let's get about mobilizing our base, the Obama coalition but with a more progressive tilt and win back the presidency. While it is unfortunate that our country has become so divided, this is now about winning at all costs ... the republicans are not about to start singing Kumbaya any time soon, and the Democrats better get on their big-boy pants and start playing to win.
2
I am really sick of bashing Democrats. Gee, I'm really sorry we come in every four to eight years and fix the destruction a Republican president wreaks upon the country. NOT. And don't go telling me Trump is playing chess. Bob Corker just revealed he is not playing "chess" good-cop-bad-cop games with Kim Jong Un, it's just tit for tat tweeting.
5
Not addressed in this piece is the negative effect on the Left of its rampant, often knee-jerk, hypersensitive "political correctness", especially on our college campuses full of coddled "safe-zone" trigger-alerted youth intolerant of anything other than the accepted point of view du jour.
4
Many times I've read comments here complaining that the Democrats need to give up their "identity politics" & their "political correctness" in order to reach out to the mainstream white working class voter.
But the question is HOW?
Are Democrats supposed to pretend that race doesn't matter? that ethnicity & one's place of origin don't matter? that gender doesn't matter?
Unless you really don't believe in equal rights and equal opportunity, then how can they not matter?
And what do Trump supporters believe about race, ethnicity, and gender?
That they don't matter because the issues involved in them don't affect them directly? That they are only about privileged groups demanding "special treatment"? That if you're not white & male & native born you should just shut up & keep your head down & work hard (ie. like they do), & there will be no division & controversy in the country?
Should the Democrats' message to women, minorities & immigrants be something like "for now, just keep quiet and ignore everything we're saying to the white working class, b/c we have to get their votes back before we can do anything else?"
Edsall's piece on how immigration is new & disruptive in small towns & rural areas was highly enlightening to me, since I've lived mostly near urban areas w/many diverse people. That admittedly showed that I live in a 'liberal bubble'. But when people are determined to blame others for their problems, and YOU support those others, how do you win those people back?
4
Makes sense.
We had Obama for most of those intervening years.
One of the most deliberately divisive presidents in history.
4
It's ironic that the Democratic party is blamed for many of the ills that are the fault of Republicans. Offshoring and increasing automation are fostered by mainly Republican and Corporate interests and against the white working classes' interests. The rub is the Republicans are much better at spewing outright lies blaming Democrats for the Republicans' harmful ideas.
We Democratic supporters need to be in your face in confronting the big Republican lie. If not, there will be a whole lot of hurt before people are finally roused out of their intellectual stupor.
In conclusion, I will always feel that Hillary's big mistake was in not picking Bernie as her running mate. Senator Kaine was just way too boring and lacking in charisma. Of course the Democratic Party has set themselves up again for failure by going with the same old same old Pelosi and Shumer.
8
In this article, Mr Edsall, accuses liberal elites being out of touch, while quoting equally out of touch elite academics living in their ivory towers near Palo Alto and Harvard Square. Democratic party’s economic agenda favors non-college educated whites more than Trump’s plan does. Trump’s economic agenda is a cover for crony capitalism and tax cuts for the rich.
May be Democrats have overreached on some social issues. And then there are evangelical Christians who set out the last two Presidential elections but came in hordes to vote for Trump in 2016.
While driving across rural Midwest, I listened to evangelical Christian leaders on radios who implored their followers to come out and vote for Trump. They asked their followers to forgive Trump his sexual escapades, his bankruptcies, his cheatings, and his lies because he was going to appoint a conservative justice to Supreme court. They also have a vision of a 16-year run on White House.
Perhaps the most underrated event that led to Trump's election victory was the death Justice Scalia. That evangelicals could be convinced that a philandering man who boasts of sexually assaulting women is their ultimate savior tells us something about the mindset of these people and the hypocrisy of that movement itself. Studying speeches of evangelical leader and coming up with a counter is likely to be more productive for Democrats.
Democrats' marketing of their message needs fixing not the message itself.
6
"the left’s lack of awareness of the excesses of their own evolving dogma"
Easy to say, but a challenge to prove. What, exactly, ARE the excesses of a 'dogma' that is held by most Democrats? On the one hand, we're constantly being told we're nothing but a collection of disparate 'identity groups' that has trouble articulating common themes that motivate voters, yet at the same time we're being accused of holding on to an 'evolving dogma'??
How about defining 'the Left' before applying labels that don't hold up to scrutiny. Because 'the Left' to me are simply those who aren't victims and simply demand accountability and common decency from anyone claiming to be a 'leader'. The Right seems to have given up on that, as evidenced by the headlines we see every day, across the land. There is no decency in removing due process in policy (immigration) and our politics (refusing a constitutional mandate to consider a presidential nominee for SCOTUS). There is no decency in drawing districts that seek to eliminate the opposition (and any hope of understanding another point of view) and still call it 'democracy'.
If the Left is going to be accused of holding an 'evolving dogma', we deserve a chance to know what that 'dogma' is and debate it!
1
I don't underestimate the appeal of racist politics. Nor do I take for granted, by any means, that the Democrats can make important gains in 2018 and beat Trump in 2020. That said, I think Mr. Edsall's vision is too bleak (though I appreciate his assemblage of insightful comments). Here's why:
1) Democratic pessimism is amplified by the shock of Trump's victory and the reluctance of a Democratic establishment that bet the farm on Secretary Clinton to acknowledge that they chose a deeply flawed candidate.
2) Despite that, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a large margin, even though there were scattered dips in turnout among key groups, and votes were siphoned off to third party candidates (more than in 2008/12).
3) President Trump's popularity is in the tank, despite a burgeoning economy. While I hope the economy booms forever, it will not. And, Trump is not well-situated to deal with the disruptions of a slowdown or recession, particularly one that could be attributed to his own policies on Nafta, for example, or the budget.
4) The GOP's political power has been inflated by gerrymandering and the structure of the US voting system. I give them credit for manipulating the vote in this way, and I don't underestimate their future skill in doing so. The downside for the GOP is that a turn that shifts power decisively to the Democrats will be a turn that represents a much larger political base.
5) Finally, GOP divisions are real and risk cannibalizing the party.
4
The Republicans are going to have internal warfare. The Dems need to start right now running against the Republican PARTY as a whole. Take the entire party down instead of focusing on Trump.
3
If Dems' economic program is to raise the minimum wage and offer "free" college (mostly rescuing millions of middle and upper middle class budgets) they have no chance of winning back the working class. Trump's blather about manufacturing and coal is taken by them to mean that he's on their side. Dems have no counter, because they have shown themselves not to be.
Dems are reaping the whirlwind that they sowed by defining their party as a collection of identities. Ideology is a far smaller part of the Dems message today than it was under Clinton. the endless stream of racial animus coming from all across the left underlined the point. Explicit white nationalism was never a thing in politics until now. Trump noticed. Reps may have used dog whistles. Dems used bull horns.
It's also true that if Trump self-destructs or is removed by the resistance, the one who comes after him could easily be worse (a serious populist, rather than Trump's faux version.)
And don't forget Trump's uncanny ability to troll his opponents. It's the closest to rope-a-dope I've seen since Bill Clinton (not to forget Muhammad Ali.) He's truly brilliant about controlling the narrative, while Dems are forced by their need to flaunt their virtuousness to respond to the smallest provocation.
4
Democrats and Republicans alike must understand that November presidential elections now (and for the forseeable future) are all about the final 10 percent or 12 percent of the electorate who don't have their minds made up, with the majority of these last-mile voters in rural and ex-urb areas in a select number of states. What influences these last-mile voters right before the November election is anyone's guess, but the ultra-liberal way in which the Democrat Party in recent months has been pivoting (i.e. universal health care, possibly over-playing the racial issue to the point of being obnoxious), while good for primary elections (which are all about the political base), doesn't, to me, seem aligned with the concerns of the last-mile voters. By the same token, Trump runs the real risk of alienating these last-mile voters by not following through on the things that made them break for him in November 2016.
3
This well sourced article, and most of the comments, indicate that the US is no longer well served by a 2 party system. I have not belonged to a party since, as a result of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the GOP became the home of almost all racist bigots - forcing me to leave. As a long time Independent, I don't have a party that reflects my values and political philosophy.
What this country badly needs is a major center party - preferably 2, one center-right, one center left. To think that 2 increasingly extreme major parties can adequately represent a country as diverse as the USA, is illogical.
Three or four major parties would bring another advantage - assuring that never again could one party control all three branches of government. This would almost guarantee that politicians would have to compromise (which used to be the "art" of politics).
5
The Democrats abandoned the unions, but only after the unions abandoned the Democrats. The unions are crying that membership is down; I can remember when unions deliberately kept membership down to keep blacks out and to prevent too much competition!
Unions were against minority civil rights, women's rights, environmental sanity, religious freedom for non-Christians, gay rights, and sane regulation of lethal weapons. And for all I know most of the people in unions, or who obviously need to be in unions, still are.
Yes, unions and Democrats still need each other. But the unions and the white working class in general are as much to blame for the split as the Democrats are, if not more so. And like the Democrats they need to change their tune for their own good and the good of the country.
1
As a Trump supporter I am truly heartened by the comments, especially the most "picked" ones.
Liberals have learned absolutely nothing and plan to double down on their losing strategy.
It bodes very well for Trump in 2020.
12
Trump does not have a clear path to re-election. He has a clear path to being removed from office, either via impeachment or threat of impeachment early in 2019 after Democrats have taken over the House.
Not to mention that using medians as you have is a prime example of statistics obscuring the truth. The reason there is more polarization now is that Republicans have moved from the far right to the crazy fringe. Democrats haven't changed all that much.
The re-alignment is that the Democratic party is abandoning the white working class (previously their biggest source of support) in favor of pursuing identity politics. Hillary handed over the white working class to Donald on a silver platter - a gift he gladly accepted.
6
The Dems face a lot of problem but not all of their own making.
Let's not forget that the Russians helped Trump over the bar in three critical states and interfered in some 21 states.
Also we should keep in mind that the congress -- in so far as it represent the public -- began its move to the extreme right in the early 1970s, according to a highly respected study by Rosenthal and Poole. As of 2012, for every move Dems made to the left, the conservatives made six steps to the right.
With regard to Lupia's reference to the Dems: "The excesses of their own evolving dogma." What evolving dogma? That the rich should do more to help the poor? That we need clean air? That we should treat each other with civility? That upon the death of a Supreme Court justice, the president should appoint his successor? That's some "evolution."
As for the Dems finding a candidate more like Bill than Hillary, let's remember that the congress managed to impeach Bill for offenses less offensive than Trump's.
Finally I don't see how the Dems can address their slump, or any other problem, with an opposition that tweets, locks into Fox News, believes Rush Limbaugh, and is now able to spread misinformation instantly over the internet.
Sometimes it seems like analysts and experts are blaming the victim.
"I"m losing patience with how democrats needs to understand [the working class] or empathize with them...If they are unhappy they should vote for different policies."
They did. That's how Trump got elected. Have you noticed? That's kind of the issue here.
5
The postmortem continues. Hillary made her campaign about the glass ceiling, "I'm with her," and identitiy politics. She made some nice speeches about economic policies, but lacked the obvious heartfelt conviction of Bernie Sanders (who, polls showed, would have beaten Trump). Moreover, her campaign skipped blue collar states like Wisconsin, while she spent the month of August 2016 campaigning hard in the Hamptons, and posing for selfies with Justin Bieber. Despite her repeated protests (too much, methinks) to the contrary, Hillary's campaing really was all about her. Just look at her response to losing the night of the campaign. Did she console her disappointed supporters? No, she couldn't even show her face; she sent John Podesta out with the bad news and told everyone to go home. The Democratic Party could have a much easier time of things without her.
6
By the end this article was just too painful to read. The misconceptions and wrong-headed conjectures of political scientists and political strategists are multiple. First off, the main problem of American politics is not race or ethnicity or genderism, it is multiculturalism as political strategy. There is a dominant American cultural identity that has evolved historically and mythologically in a free capitalist democracy, however imperfect. One cannot encourage racial and ethnic identity groups to carve out their own culture within this national identity and expect success. Haven't we already witnessed the shameful segregation of native tribal populations on reservations? How has this really helped?
Multiculturalism is at odds with national identity. It is a failed political strategy because in a country as pluralistic and diverse as the USA, national identity takes precedence. That's what these people wearing MAGA hats are speaking too - not white or male or any other supremacy. The Left just can't seem to get this right.
7
Democratic centrists who tell us that we must move right are repeating the same mistakes over and over again. 30% of the country supports Trump no matter what he does. He could stand on the roof of one of his towers and pee into the street below and they would still vote for him. Why is Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the country? How come his message seems to work? It is the other, non-Trump 70% that need to be motivated to register and vote. Edsall's remarks, no matter how many pundits he quotes, reflects a yearning to return to the good old days of triangulation. It got Democrats elected then, but it continues to snuff out a winning strategy now. The graphs presented in the article describe only Democratic-Republican attitudes. How about the other half of the country?
Same old, same old is a recipe for disaster. That is what Edsall is advocating. There is nothing terribly radical about what the Sanders wing of the country is advocating. To keep calling it "extreme left" is terribly misleading. By that standard Richard Nixon was extreme left.
A recent story in the Times demonstrated racial/immigration concerns drove tRump's election, not economics. (The average tRmp voter had a higher annual salary than the average Clinton voter.) No chess skills required in pushing racial button.
The key to national election victory for Dems is to win back the 11% of progressive Sanders supporters who voted for tRump, and to put back on the voting rolls the one million people in the Great Lakes swing states who were kicked off via biased ID laws.
2
Thoughts:
Racism & bigotry are NOT the same and should not be conflated.
The US wrote racism into its constitution. The US Civil War ended slavery and Reconstruction advanced racism.
US immigration laws from the 1850s - 1960s advanced bigotry.
The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act had the side effect of advancing racism as well as changing regional voting patterns.
The US will soon lack a majority ethnic group which will have major repercussions politically and socially. I like to think the US will survive till then...
As Mickey Kaus, Michael Lind, and a few others have tried to show, moderating legal immigration should be a Democratic Party plank. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has embraced the cheap labor lobby in hopes of cheap votes. The claim that there are "jobs Americans won't do" is profoundly regressive, and the relation of increasing immigration to weakening labor unions, stagnating wages, and increasing income inequality is one of significant causation, not mere correlation. National Academies of Science data ("The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration") show that low skill immigration currently depresses wages and elevates business incomes by around half a trillion dollars a year. Yet the Democratic Party continues to support this redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top of our society.
Yes, President Trump is a dog-whistling racist.
But it is also the case that black Americans are the group most hurt by record rates of immigration.
The Democratic Party needs to reclaim the legacy of the great African American civil rights leader, and champion of moderating (not eliminating) immigration, the late Barbara Jordan. Continuing to support record rates of legal immigration is a recipe for further polarizing our society and giving the worst of the Republican Party an opportunity to remain in power.
3
Trump isn't capable of playing chess or checkers. Both involve entirely too much patience, and he's the child that flips the board at the first sign of adversity.
If he wins re-election, it's because people are essentially stupid, and the Democrats were too idealistic, unwilling or unable to talk down to that cohort. Enough with hillbilly elegies - if those hurt by the loss of manufacturing, policies that favor lobbying corporations, and impotent governance STILL don't realize that Trump is a tumor, will they ever?
Joe Biden is most like Bill Clinton on the Dem leadership horizon.
Why not Joe?
No. No. Trump is playing checkers and Democrats play chess and that's the problem.
Much of the country is not well educated and their racial buttons can be easily pushed with basic resentment politics, dog whistle references to "welfare queens" (most recipients are white); lost jobs to "dirty rapist" immigrants.
Rather than respond in a way voters can relate to, HRC had a 10 point policy plan to prove he was wrong and a 12 point policy plan to address economics. Most vote on gut instinct and are impervious to facts. She herself said she was running a "policy driven campaign to his reality show". She was the preening know it all in high school and he was the cool jock. He won.
Dumb it way down Democrats. I knew it was over at the D convention when for days they paraded one minority after another and talked about their struggles rather than $. I get minority struggle; I am one, but where were the white males which is a huge part of voters?
As Bill Clinton said: It's the economy, stupid. She lost being tone deaf, "unfair and square."
2
Since Hillary won a majority of the votes in the last election despite a massive influence campaign by Russia aided by Facebook and Google, maybe we should think twice about trying to appeal to racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes and science deniers in order to be more like Republicans.
2
You forgot to mention the simple fact that 8 years with a black man in the White House drove Republicans and many working class voters, especially in the South, insane. Further, although HRC ran a relatively poor campaign, with dumb slogans, she DID WIN the popular vote in spite of having much of the media, FBI Dir. Comey, AND the Russians, AND Republican voter suppression working against her. Most Americans voted for HRC, so it's not as if we're starting from scratch here. We need a better candidate and less of all the above.
1
Let's call "racially conservative" what it really is ok? Borderline to outright racism. That's the attitude Democrats are up against.
1
"As a straight, white, married, gun-owning, church-going man, many of my hunting buddies feel like Democrats have contempt for them." FEEL? Dems have gone out of their way to make the contempt plain for all to see......
5
Not sure how racism can be considered chess.
3
The problem which Democrats are not addressing is that it is BIGGER than Trump. They don't control either house of Congress, nor the majority of States. Why? Their voters don't turn out to the polls. Why? Until they stop fixating on Trump as if this "one man" is the problem... they'll never figure out what's wrong with their party and its ethos. As a straight, white male, Republican, who voted Hillary... please figure this out. Here's a tip. The whole ruckus over Transsexual rights - right or wrong - is NOT a way to endear yourself with people who do not have good jobs and whose relatives are DYING in the opiate crisis. Dems focus again and again on trivial, divisive "culture war" issues, and fall - again and again and again - for Trump bait, so they can feel "outraged" at the "idiot" who was elected. Feel goody Liberalism doesn't get them one step closer to a winning message - not just for the Presidency but for other elective offices. And please stop blaming the Electoral College. It is NOT GOING TO CHANGE so stop whining about it, and figure out how to win within it.
5
The Democrats have to stop pandering to the white, racist people. If racism is what these people think will make their country great again, leave them be, we don't need them in the Democratic party. Please remind them that racism is hateful and certainly immoral - hate is always bad, especially when it's based on something like someones skin color being different than theirs. Please Trump voters, stop hating, start loving and we will not look down on you any more. But if you chose to hate, you made your bed.
1
Calling Trump voters racist is why Clinton lost. That's the main point of this story. I am sure Trump voters don't care if you look down on them or not. They did win after all.
4
As a friend told me, "The Democrats need their Bubba." Look at the recent Democratic winners of the presidency (Obama of Illinois being the exception), and the guy who should have won, Al Gore, Tennessee; Bill Clinton, Arkansas; Jimmy Carter, Georgia; LBJ, Texas (yes, a different set of circumstances). The northeast coast and the west coast are largely a given for Dems. The center, south and west is where Bubba is needed.
the attraction of liberalism is to feel good/important about one's self by telling other people what to do. and why people loathe liberals is that liberals just sit around telling other people what to do.
6
Let's see. During the Obama years the Democrats, and the president in particular, found excuses to racialize *everything*. Among other things, they found every excuse to supplant "equal protection under the law" with "disparate impact doctrine". And now they find a racial divide has grown from 2004 to 2017. Quelle surpris!
10
Raw racial appeals are not "chess."
1
Here's a clue...calling everyone else a sexist, racist, homophobe bigot simply because they believe in others' rights to REAL freedom and liberty to live their lives as they see fit and that the federal government should not be dictating every single little minute aspect of everyone's lives is NOT the way to engender support for your cause.
9
The Democrats spent so much time dividing the country by race and ethnicity that they didn't even notice when whites decided to vote as an ethnic group.
8
Thanks for the cheery humor -- to lighten the load! Keep it coming.........................only 10 months in....and there's a long haul ahead!! Looking on the bright side though, this means we're almost 25% into the presidential fake "pouting-phase"!!!
"I wasn't pouting!! I don't pout!! I never pout!! The press just made that whole pouting story up!!! They say whatever they want!!! They should all be fired!!!
1
All I see here is a constantly moving target. Going back 10-12 years shows volatility not hopelessness.
To want such upheaval and disruption in American politics is baffling to me.
I want to know how so many people support Trump's foreign policies, attacks on minorities, allegiance to Nazi organizations...and his unprofessional brash and dangerous mannerisms. Someone below commented it was the minimum wage push. I ask, really? That is where you draw the line on voting for this? While he blows up democracy North Korea is narrowing its scope on the US. Once we know why people want to blow up our democracy, maybe we can begin to figure out how to sway the vote.
Insanity.
2
Thanks for this review of informed opinions. It is an eye-opener as well as a strong argument that a number of specific steps need to be taken regardless of what decisions are announced from the presidency.
After this op-ed, the situation seems clearer and the dog-whistles a bit fainter.
2
These graphs suggest that the Neo-Republican Party supports the money-changers in the temple, and shouts in chorus "Give us Barabbas!" The Republican Party today would recrucify Christ if He reappeared, so at least we apparently do not have to worry about any imminent rapture.
2
There is very little in this analysis that touches upon the major issues confronting the country. And from that perspective, the Democrats have a decidedly strong edge --- if, that is, they can create and hammer home a consistent set of policy prescriptions that appeal to voters no matter their race or economic standing.
Like expansion of Medicare that will, once fully implemented, remove one of the most pressing anxieties of households across the nation: the high cost of even basic health care.
Like job and infrastructure growth that is based upon environmental need, not a continuation of fossil fuel blindness. Investment in alternative energy, smart electric vehicles, extending the benefits of the digital space to rural areas, and so on.
Like skills training not just for labor intensive jobs, but also in information, digital and health science.
HRC touched upon these ideas in her campaign, but the news media paid little attention because Trump sucked all the oxygen out of the political dialogue. A better, more articulate and more courageous Democratic nominee ought to be able to nail Trump and the Congress to the wall for their failure to govern and their dangerously out-of-touch policies, especially their intrusion into the private lives of American women.
Who might fit that bill for the Democrats? Al Franken, for one. Kristen Gillibrand. Chris Murphy are three who come to mind.
Finally, bring Howard Dean back to run the DNC. Tom Perez isn't up to the task.
4
Can you run for President after you've been impeached and prosecuted
and are in jail?
Go Mueller!
3
As long as the Democrats make "diversity" and "affirmative action" the core of their message they will fail.
9
As one commentator nailed it, fear is at the center of the GOPs platform. Fear the one emotion that the Hitlers of this world have used continuously to take power from those who are too busy to vote or take notice. The GOP saw how many of us were disappointed about voting at all so they took the opportunity to exploit that voter void. We do have a problem. Living in the South and Midwest they never saw globalization coming because the GOP, their leaders who made millions off companies going overseas, hid this outcome from their base. It was easy to do so. These people are followers. They love their families, raise them and sit in their rocking chair on their porches to watch the world go by in their old age. This was life to them. It significantly changed and our government became more corrupt. Corruption destroyed any safety net we had in case of a demented puppet Presidential candidate. It will take more than just votes to change our government and more than just helping these folks cope with their shock of loosing it all. Are we willing to take that next step, an all out commitment to rid ourselves of corrupt officials and help our own?
Trump is too dumb to play chess.
As to the Democrats moving too far left, is it to far left to think that old men should not be groping women, or that people of all colors should be treated fairly, or that military weapons should not be sold to civilians, or that health care should be affordable, or that all citizens should pay their fair share of taxes, or that unions should be able to represent workers, or that Russia is a potential enemy, etc...
No, the Democrats problem is not policy, it is communication and the failure to brand the Republicans as the liars that they are.
The Democrats need to educate, resist and vote.
Put a big 'L' on the chests of the lying Republicans. Call out the gutless wonders of the GOP leadership.
4
Why is it that time and again it is up to those on the left to try and find a way to coddle those on the right into voting for us? Intolerance, bigotry, racism, sexism, and close mindedness that stems from religious beliefs are hallmarks of the right but the left is at fault for not finding a way to embrace them? I personally have had enough of this mindset and believe like Seth Meyers, Eminem, and a host of others, like those protesting against the deplorable bigots in Charleston, that the answer is not in trying to find common ground with these narrow minded fools. The answer is drawing a line that says if you cannot find it in your heart to be more open than closed and more tolerant than not then I or we want nothing to do with you. You are an embarrassment to humanity and this country. They need to be marginalized, not embraced. Enough is enough. They are deplorable. If they want to wear a badge that claims they are the fools they wish to be...great! Have at it! In the mean time I will be happy to let them know how I feel about them and will not seek any common ground. I don't have any desire to mingle or break bread with the proudly intolerant.
6
“The answer is drawing a line that says if you cannot find it in your heart to be more open than closed and more tolerant than not then I or we want nothing to do with you.”
^ Is this for real? Can you not hear yourself? The cognitive dissonance is through the charts.
2
Wrong. Donald Trump screams "King me!" every time he opens his mouth.
3
You're being WAY too logical here, James:
"[It] would seem that racism [if] only white americans were not so racist the democrats would be supreme. But ... If racism were in control then Obama would never have won any election."
But, but, but -- if it wasn't racism, or misogyny, or Jim Comey, or the Russians, or [fill in the blank], that might leave only Hillary Clinton as the reason she lost and Trump won. Certainly that can't be the reason, can it?
3
So, to summarize: uneducated white people are still mad about minorities getting basic human rights, and the Civil War is not over. Got it.
4
Check out "Iron Stache", candidate Randy Bryce vying for Paul Ryan's seat.
Trump wants to go to war with North Korea because it threatens the United States, but deep down he would like the U.S. to be exactly like North Korea. Kim Jong-un has complete control over what information the citizens of North Korea receive; thus, they know little or nothing about the rest of the world. Trump also admires Putin, who's Russia is only slightly more open. Trump gets everyone riled up over not standing for the symbol of America, when he rejects the very principles that are America. This is a very sick man who has no business in the White House.
See:
RevolutionOfReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
1
Multi-dimensional chess.
The article concludes that we may need lots of change. That is obviously true. Instead of believing GOP are cold hearted and racist and this is what plagues Blacks, the Dems should look where institutional and systemic racism happens, where it impacts Blacks.
Those areas, primarily, are inner city ghettos that have one thing in common with the poor segregated Black majority enclaves in the Jim Crow south of yesteryear. The government is one party rule by Democrats.
Chicago, for example, for decades has had Democrat controlled City Council and Democrat mayors. They have managed to tax and spend enough to keep the wealthy safe, but do not hire enough police to even apprehend the murderers of Blacks. These murders happen primarily in the ghetto, where the public schools stink, but school choice is not allowed. Just as in the Jim Crow south, Democrats put the welfare of Blacks last. Just as it is appropriate to assess the character and true motives of the dominant majority of a country by how the govern themselves, for example Sharia law or not, it is appropriate to assess Democrats true motives and character by how they govern in cities where for decades they have enjoyed one party rule.
Even though they are a minority in the country, Democrats are in great position to change America for the better. Tax and spend enough at the local level to improve the lives of Blacks and other urban minorities. That is the positive change the Democrats can effect.
Please stop using "conservative" to describe these racists, bigots, and power-mongers. There is NOTHING conservative about them.
1
It's easy. As the one fellow said, Democrats look down their noses at white "working class" who are "low educated." And yes, people know when they are being mocked and dismissed as an irrelavant part of the population, who the Democrats say have "had their turn" and who now have to take a seat at the back of the bus because, as many said last year: "your day is over!" Who would vote for anyone who says that to them? You're promising them not merely no future, but a worse one where you don't count and have no say because, you know, You're a "racist, Islamophobe, xenophobic, misogynist, white working class loser" - you know: deplorable. And the name calling by so-called "progressives" has continued unabated to this very day.
I don't disagree with much of what Mr. Edsall has said here, but the damage has been done. Any slick campaign to try to mollify them is going to be recognized for what it is, and they won't go for it. Yeah: the Democrats think white Americans who are not one-percenters are stupid. They think the same of black people, too, but they keep that under wraps. But black people aren't stupid, either. They see it, and maybe that's why many abandoned Mrs. Clinton last year. If the Democrats treat the majority of the people like trash, the arrogant hypocrites will get around to them before long, too.
6
But Rich, the republicans treat the majority of the people like trash, too, however much they pretend not to. Why do you vote for them?
1
Nope. Chess requires skill, intelligence, planning, restraint, strategy, tactic, visualization, calculation...a brain. He's playing "chicken", trying to out bravado anyone stupid enough(his thought) to take him on while wrapped in Presidential Seal...........
2
The headline is absurd. Chess is cerebral, careful, long-term planning. Mr. Trump and his ilk are grunting savages, howling about anyone who doesn't look just like them. That demographic? The racist, bigoted demographic? If that's the majority of America, we're doomed.
Sure, it's easy to pander to savages. No chess required: just yell a lot.
The biggest problem the democrats have had is a tendency to play "nice". We need to fight the right wing racists because that is what they are. tdump is not playing chess-he is spouting ignorant racist bile when he is not threatening a war. The democrats need to fight and emphasize economics. I had a plumber in my house recently who is aa gun nut racist. There is no way to reach him and maintain your sanity. He is not atypical, but hopefully he is not typical. On the other hand I have several children and grandchildren who are the hope of the future.
Many comments see the situation as zero-sum: either the Democrats continue to advocate for the many individual causes that give energy to their coalition or the Democrats shift their program to appeal to working class whites. The key, however, is to develop largely universal programs that address inequality without apparent favoritism. Democrats, for example, should embrace doubling the standard deduction as part of their own tax overhaul. This would benefit the wealthy not at all, but give working class voters of all racial and social backgrounds a reason to support Democrats -- even those left uneasy by the pace of social change and open to nativist appeals. The latter may always have a reason to vote against Democrats, but they won't always do so when also given reasons to vote for them. But Dems have ceded this arena to the Republicans, and you can't fight something with nothing.
1
I get the feeling that democrats are leaderless and directionless. There is no one who can effectively articulate how awful the republicans are or why democrats are so much better, two plain facts that many voters can't figure out for themselves. If our electoral system, even as flawed as it is, gives Trump a second term, the democratic party might as well disband. Its utter uselessness will have been confirmed.
The idea of the “blue wall” was an acknowledgment that a significant number of Americans voted Democratic only because of union membership (private sector, that is). Without those jobs, these voters’ concerns track those of Republican voters.
1
Why do I read this and think the answer has been staring us in the face the whole time? Make rebuilding America's outdated, decaying infrastructure the centerpiece of the next campaign.
Trump has already shown his hand in this area. He simply wants to privatize and parcel out as much as possible to developers like himself. Who benefits from that? Point that out. Tear it apart. Show working voters why they would be the ones getting the short end of the stick in his world.
Infrastructure jobs don't go offshore and would directly benefit the voters who believe they've been left behind (if done right). Make sure that group knows that's a big part of the plan. Include them. What's not for them to like about it?
I know Republicans blocked Obama's efforts in this area. That was then, this is now. Stop worrying about their response and simply sell the American people on a worker centered approach. Pressure Republicans to talk about it too, and be prepared with better answers. Force them to get on board.
Sound like a plan?
2
As an SU grad, it hurts me to see a Syracuse professor say this:
One approach to “getting Middle America to identify with and see themselves as partners alongside racial and ethnic minorities, environmentalists, feminists, young Americans, secular Americans, and other groups who are squarely in the Democratic coalition,” she suggests, would be a concerted effort to recruit “candidates who represent the slice of middle and working class Americans whose lead they could follow and rally behind.”
So… can racial and ethnic minorities, environmentalists, feminists, young Americans, and secular Americans also be middle class and working class Americans?
According to the SU professor, these are two distinct groups. I disagree.
2
This has been going on for some time. Is anyone surprised?
You know, it's not about leftward and rightward shifts, it's about listening to voters and stop trying to solve all their problems. They want to be able to solve them themselves. That's what it means to be free.
I am a highly educated liberal elitist and take strong exception that because of this I somehow have contempt for blue collar workers. I am also a product of my blue collar upbringing and strongly support working people. I find it incredulous that these often rational thinkers in this article have completely ignored the history of helping working people which has always been championed by elite liberals - whether it was support for unions, reducing work hours, instituting child labor laws, passing laws to make jobs safer, legislating a minimum wage, providing social security and unemployment benefits, making available help with childcare, and perhaps most important providing for universal health care. On the other hand, conservatives, and particularly Trump, have opposed all of these advances.
Yes there is deep frustration for many of us when the majority of these people have turned against these fundamental principles which have historically supported blue collar workers, and in turn have been bamboozled by the siren song of Trump and his allies who do everything in their power to strip away a century of progress for the working class. Clearly there is no simple solution to the problem of winning back the hearts, minds and votes of the white working class. But we cannot give up the fight because, first and foremost, these are the people that need our ‘elitist liberal’ help as much as any oppressed minorities and that is what true liberalism is all about.
4
What the Democrats think are their trump cards are actually Trump's cards. Beating Trump will require much greater savvy and sophistication than has been shown by the Democrats so far.
If this country reelects Trump, we will be doomed - and we will deserve it. At that point we should start a serious conversation about an amicable dismantling of the United States since unity will have become impossible. Let blue states and red states go their separate ways. Blue states could do so much better without having to drag the red states along.
2
This article underscores the enormous, timely opportunity for a moderate third party--the Realists-- to ascend. This includes disaffected Democrats, progressive independents who not "big government" liberal (like me), and those who hold their nose and vote Republican for primarily (self-serving) economic reasons. Europe succeeds because it does not have a crazy 2-party system in any member nation. Unlike today's Republicans and Democrats, the Realist leadership and its members would recognize change and would be willing and able to find workable, reasonable solutions. The Democrats have all but squandered to usurp the role/perception of being the party of responsible government even with the rise of the most incompetent, reckless president in modern history. This is the void that the Democrats continue to lose as they shift further to the left and go "all in" for an untenable, big gov Bernie-style platform. Mike Bloomberg, now is your chance to lead!
1
Although the economics of the polarization Mr. Edsall conjures defies easy political analysis, it is much easier living in red America to espy things that drive religious conservatives to distraction: abortion, radical feminism and gay rights. With them, there is simply no discussion that does not specify what they see as a political attack from Democrats on their lives and way of life. I think this is one (but not the only one) of the reasons Trump finds it so easy to exploit patriotic symbols with such powerful effect. Even so, some of them are beginning to get uneasy about Trump's triviality and irrational behavior, and they also have some doubts about the Republican assault on Obamacare. No serious national Democrat is ever going to listen to me on these issues, but I know this: if the Democrats insist on pushing the radicalism of their cultural agenda, they are going to have serious problems in cobbing together an agenda that can win and govern this country successfully.
1
I guess what I find most shocking and demoralizing is white America's new found acceptance of racism and bigotry. The KKK and the Nazi Party were not considered paragons of virtue when I was growing up. Nobody talked about them being "good people." People who spoke out against them were not considered "leftists" but good Americans. Race is now a wedge issue. In a very short period of time we have normalized bigotry in all it's forms.
Let me be clear. I am not voting for any party that caters to the normalization of bigotry. The GOP have managed to bend the truth on a myriad of subjects until it is barely recognizable. But racism is racism. If this is the way the country is going, if I have to now accept and cater to white supremacy as though it were a valid point of view, the problem is not with me, but with America and what white people in America have allowed themselves to become.
I don't think continually tacking to the middle while the GOP push the country inexorably to the right is winning strategy for the Democrats. If it were Hillary Clinton would be president right now. But even if you convinced me that catering to white racism in America could win us the next election I still would not support it, nor would I vote for any Democratic candidate who gave a nod & a wink to the Neo-Nazis or the KKK. Regardless of winning or losing elections we have to draw the line somewhere. Normalizing and supporting bigotry and racism in America is where I draw mine.
6
"Racially conservative." Way to sanitize racism.
3
I'm glad these "deplorables" have started tagging themselves--makes it easier to avoid 'em.
1
The better metaphor is that Democrats may play for the cerebral mind, Trump plays to reptilian limbic system
4
Stick to your guns, Dems, your policies and programs are bestfor white, working class Americans—far better than the incompetence, ignorance, and nonsense that Trump and Co. have to offer, despite perceptions to the contrary.
At some point, it will be apparent to even die hard enthusiasts that Trump’s a fake. It’s already clear that he’s a fool. Chess? Chutes and ladders, maybe.
2
The headline is misleading. Both parties are obviously playing the same game. The Republicans are playing to win. Moving the pieces. The Democrats are screaming "we are right and they are stupid and deplorable!" at the pieces on the chess board. That won't move the pieces so it won't win the game.
3
You don't need to be the best player to win if you cheat. You can be a lying corrupt hypocrite with a string of bankruptcies who brags about sexual assault. You can even be Donald Trump.
4
I believe now that at this point in America's history, it is quite clear that politics/ideology in the country has become primarily "tribal" in nature in which any compromise or dealing with the alternative "tribe" is no longer workable or even desired. One of the ways many Americans are implementing this strategy is by intentionally moving into communities of like-minded individuals while almost completely avoiding others who do not fall into the same category of thinkers.
With that in mind, despite the fact democrats still make up the majority of registered voters in America, over the last several years the loss of over 900 seats at the federal, state and local levels confirms the parties dismal failure in mobilizing those voters. The message has to change, "big time" since the current crop of corporate/establishment democrats approach of accepting big donors money along with their slow, incremental, centrist approach to public policy is not "cutting it" and it hasn't for some time.
With respect. How you could write all this without mentioning Thomas Frank's work is amazing. Amazing. I know you corporate and Democratic Leadership Council people hate him and his kind, but you have lost the Court, the Congress, the Presidency and 1100 other offices. Keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Good luck.
3
I haven't read through the comments--this may be repeating, but the schism between the left and the right is largely due to the right moving more right, rather than the left moving left. As has been said many times, Nixon could hardly be a Republican for the last 20 years--he was too liberal.
Also, I am truly sick and tired of the word "elite". I never hear about Republican "elites". Most of the 1% are Republicans...and they are the most exclusive "elite" in the country. It's become a meaningless word except for its pejorative connotation.
9
As should have been said many times, Kennedy could hardly be a Democrat for the last 20 years--he was too conservative.
No one seems to remember that he worked to cut tax rates and that he ran to the right of Nixon on defense. No one remembers he ran on overcoming the fictitious "missile gap" with the Soviets.
2
That's because the country had no effective conservative voice in print or TV for decades. What was portrayed as middle ground or Republican was actually pretty Liberal for most of us. We had no voice but now we have awakened and are simply pushing back.
Basically, it seems a lack of common decency is a feature, not a bug, of the typical Trump supporter. And the rest of us, are sitting here wondering, Why? In so many respects our lives are the same, working dead end jobs for too little money while the wealthy rig elections and Congress in the name of 'free speech'. Unlike progressives, however, they prize 'leadership' over policy, making the same mistake that got them where they are in the first place: assuming that "someone else" (how about this trash-talking rich guy on TV?) will handle the policy details they're too busy to follow and keep up with.
They've traded in their basic, human, curiosity, which leads to accountability, for bland platitudes about being 'victims' at the hands of 'evil-doers' who aren't 'like them' and basically need to be metaphorically 'eliminated' from political discourse by whatever means necessary. There are few voices in the GOP that will publicly say otherwise, unlike Democrats. That should be a clue. In fact, the entire process of democracy is being painted as an unnecessary abomination to those who, themselves, accept being "A Deplorable" without questioning why that label even exists. (120 years ago, they were the Know-Nothings) When has that EVER been seen as acceptable behavior in a democracy? And how long can the other side maintain its civility in the face of such hostility?
Yes, wearing the appellation of the 'enemy' can be a unifier. But to what end? It signals lost hope.
2
Thank you Mr. Edsall for pointing out the obvious: liberals believe that any ideology other than their own is not only wrong, but evil. The dramatically leftward & rightward tilt of both parties is a result of economic & political issues that are significantly different for each group. Democrats think that it is all about race but it is not all about race. The vast majority of whites believe in equal rights for blacks and support efforts to expand the economic opportunities of all Americans, regardless of color.
While Trumpism may have temporarily taken control of the Republican Party, the extreme left wing is taking control of the Democratic Party. They are the ones responsible for identity politics, the pitting of one racial group against another. They have no interest in pursuing policies that would appeal to white voters who lack a college education. Immigration is a good example of why the liberal Democrats have forfeited the allegiance of many Americans. Most white Americans want legal immigration but oppose illegal immigration and the failure to enforce the laws. Democrats are perceived to favor illegal immigration and sanctuary cities. Many Americans, of all races, want America to remain the land of economic opportunity and freedom to pursue happiness. Democrats are perceived to want greater government control over economic opportunities and limit the freedoms we now have, through political correctness. And what about respect for our flag & our anthem?
6
For years, the Republicans and Democrats have played the game of taking opposite stands on hot button issues like guns and abortion in order to retain the loyalty of their core voters.
Yet this polarization has led to over half of all eligible voters not voting at all.
It is worth noting that the current Republican president knocked out 15 challengers and attracted a significant number of former non-voters. On the other side, Bernie Sanders won 22 primaries, came close to winning a couple of others, and attracted a significant number of former non-voters.
That is, the mavericks attracted people who had never voted or had given up on it.
The current Republican president used his con man's knack of sensing what his audience wanted to hear, even though he has no intention of doing anything outside the current Republican ideology. Bernie found (to his own surprise, I think) that the social democracy he has espoused for forty years was suddenly appealing to a large percentage of the public.
The Dems can forget about winning Republicans this time around. The road to the White House (and to the all-important 2018 Congressional races) must be paved with an understanding of who the non-voters are and what they need.
I fear, though, that the Dems will force us to accept tame, Establishment types who think their most important job is not to offend the mythical liberal Republicans.
1
I want to once again compliment Edsall on an insightful article.
One of the reasons Hilary Clinton lost is that she spoke to donors about the need for "open borders."
Another was her slogan "I'm with her," and the appearance in campaign events of Gloria Allred.
Actually, more rights for women should be noncontroversial. But Gloria Allred has pushed the envelope, often taking questionable cases that appear to be politically motivated.
The trial of Bill Cosby is an example.
The New Yorker wrote an article suggesting that 60 accusers can't be wrong. But that is a sexist statement, because the accusers are all women, and we all know that 60 people who wanted something from Bill Cosby could have shaded the truth to achieve an end.
The Salem witch trials were not fair. Nor was the trial of Thomas More under King Henry XVIII. In fact, the Tudor monarchs used trials as a means of extorting confessions.
After centuries of jurisprudence, we developed a legal system that was supposed to ensure the accused of a fair trial:
"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."
The media seem to be denying due process. Trials by jury are being replaced by trials by media. That is a slippery slope and reason enough to oppose Hilary.
1
In a deeply divided political duopoly, the most inspiring candidates will be the ones most loathed by the other side. Obama inspired people in a way few candidates ever do, and thus was able to bring to the polls those who seldom, or never, participate, especially black people. So did Trump: Whites who seldom participate politically came out in droves for him.
Bernie Sanders inspired young people in much the same way. At his rallies, there was a passion that was not matched at Clinton rallies. How many sobbing college kids did we see? And considering what people heard about the DNC and how the paymasters all hated Bernie because he represented a threat to their interests -- supposedly in conflict with the interests of the working class -- it's not a surprise that many of these people refused to vote for Clinton in the general election.
The qualities that the educated hate in Trump, such as his vagueness and crudeness, are the very ones that endear him to everyday people. Clinton often spoke in detail about specific problems facing America. Trump's sweeping claims and grandiose promises made people excited. Sanders also had a grander vision for America: huge wage increases, free college, free healthcare, less war.
A minority candidate with a social-democratic agenda could reestablish the Obama coalition. Just because people like me dislike the progressive agenda doesn't mean it couldn't win. But here is a fact: Clinton ran to the left of Obama. Politics is not about policy.
3
As long as we keep talking about how to win and not talking about how to address specific issues, we all lose. This isn't checkers, this isn't chess. This is our lives. Stop playing games and get to work.
4
Thank you, Mr. Edsall, and thank you to the people whose words and research you quote. I feel everything Dems need to understand about Trump voters is in this article. One conclusion is Dems should specifically recruit candidates who have liberal beliefs AND flyover style. Find poor whites who believe climate change, income and gender inequality, corporate power and money-based politics are our biggest problems and have thoughtful solutions. You cite Bill Clinton: yes. Also, consider that Obama was largely raised by flyover grandparents -- I heard that in his speeches, and perhaps unconsciously, others did too -- hence his wins.
But you didn't sufficiently highlight the other challenge -- mobilizing the Obama coalition. Belcher says "when you have between 6 to 9 percent of younger voters of color breaking 3rd Party in their ‘protest vote’ that kills the Democrat’s chance to reach Obama’s margins." If we cannot hold our noses and vote Dem no matter what, we might NEVER get back Congress or the White House again. This article complains about ideological purity (snobbery) alienating Pubs -- well, it hurts us Dems much worse than it hurts the Pubs, by sinking our own candidates. (Thanks, Bernie bros!).
Hillary tried to win the presidency with the assumption that American values meant democratic values, a pluralistic society, and a foreign policy in which we work with economic and diplomatic partners around the world to maintain peace and trade in the world. That's the "America" grown-ups are talking about.
Donald Trump's America is based on the stinted narrow and wrong-headed view that America belongs to white people, those sad men who want to save 1950's-era Confederate monuments.
Appealing to white voters' hatred and smallness is both a dead-end for Republicans and an opening for the Democrats to introduce a leader who honors the time-tested values of equalitarianism, diplomacy, science-- you know, the values of the adult in the room, which America could always be counted on to be-- until now. Voters in our country want a decent night's sleep, one night of sleep! without the national nightmare Trump gives us daily without fail. Scare tactics and appealing to latent race-hatred are not chess moves or checkers moves. They're just the rants of this small and inconsequential president that our people will soon forget-- he will fade faster than George W. Bush.
1
If Bernie Sanders had been the nominee, he would have probably beaten Trump and we wouldn't be having this hand wringing. Democrats just need to talk to people, but ALL the people. They have to have the mindset that they should win in Alabama. They need to persuade, and Hillary persuaded nobody. She was just trying to get her 1996 car to cross the finish on the last fumes of gas.
1
Per another comment: The white working class' own worst enemy is themselves.
This is totally true and I"m losing patience with how democrats needs to understand them or empathize with them. They (and we) are getting the policies they voted for - lower taxes for the wealthy, more tax loop holes for the wealthy, less or no social safety net (that effects the white working class disproportionately). If they are unhappy they should vote for different policies. The issue is that they think the all sorts of "different" and "brown" and "female" people are "taking" something from them. As long as they remain angry and can't or won't apply critical thinking nothing will change
1
True, Debbie, but compromised Dems like Clinton and Schumer can’t tell an honest and compelling story about how these voters have been played. It needs to be graphic (not graph-ridden!). Blaming these voters for having been hoodwinked isn’t going to endear Democrats. We need a passionate storyteller candidate to oppose the cynical histrionics of our Iago-like Liar-In-Chief.
I know I won't be the first person to comment on the following academically dry remark from Ashley Jardina:
"We can see that over time, whites’ racial attitudes have become increasingly linked to their party identity, with more racially conservative whites identifying more with the Republican Party."
"Racially conservative"? Is that anything other than racist? Are the two women proudly claiming their "deplorable" status in the photograph at the beginning of article supporting Trump because he's finally going to do something about all those brown people who are making their lives so hard? Then they are deplorable.
And the notion that the Democratic party should be reaching out to backwater racist for their votes is shameful. If they're too bitter to realize that they SHOULD be talking about economics instead of race, they deserve their sorry lot. Because it's the white people with all the money, not the brown people without it, who are having the most effect on their grim "day-to-day lives," and their beloved Trump is going to do everything in his power to make sure the white people with all the money continue to keep it.
1
Yeah, except it’s not their sorry lot, it’s ours. Complaining about the Deplorables is not a winning strategy.
What the article didn't address is the millions of registered Democrats who sat out the 2016 election. There was no script from my area's leaders directed to people who had not voted in the previous election and/or had not voted in the primaries. Instead, from Mook on down to my town, the emphasis was on registering people regardless of party, and on canvassing only Democrats. Republicans didn't make those mistakes. Dems massively out register Republicans, but Dems sit at home. That has to change or the party of the Presidency won't.
1
The old adage, "united we stand, divided we fall" should be in the brains, and on the lips of all Democrats. We can win, but we MUST unite behind one candidate. We need a national purpose, and "united we stand" should be it.
2
You want a change - you want notice - if enough people close their wallets in protest - you will see change - I have - join me.
How do you make people see what they don't want to see? Trump's "policies," as well as those of the Republican party, actually hurt his voters. Democratic policies would help them. The Republicans are good at distracting voters from this truth by stirring their animus toward those whom they see as benefiting from current policies and "taking their jobs": women, minorities and immigrants. Those voters want to return to a time when those others were held down and they could divvy up the pie amongst their white, male selves.
How do you show them that the pie itself has changed? That the decline in manufacturing jobs is not because of women and minorities in the workforce, but because of automation and outsourcing? They don't want to see it. They just want to throw bombs and make sure that anyone who has made recent gains suffers as they do. That is, they don't want everyone to win; they want everyone to lose. How do you change that mindset?
Edsall continues to propagate a narrative that just isn't so. Economic insecurity was not a significant factor for Trump voters. Nor is the Democratic party made up of rich elites. Much more of the working class voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats did not abandon working class voters of any color, nor did they fail to emphasize economic issues. They did however, have to contend with the big email lie; the news media ran with it, and paid virtually no attention to Clinton's economic platform. A platform by the way which featured an ambitious infrastructure plan which would have provided jobs for people of all colors.
Democrats are not what went wrong with the last election. Voter suppression, the fake email scandal, and Russian propaganda cost Clinton many votes. Still, she won by more than three million votes. Enough with pandering to these white "working class" voters. They will not vote for a Democrat. Their tribal identity runs deep and has nothing to do with their individual economic circumstances or the "sneering" of Democrats. The programming began with Lee Atwater and others, and accelerated in recent years with right wing media.
Democrats can focus on making the economy work for everyone after they get elected. Their strength is their base, which is much larger than the Republican base. We're a little smarter now, thanks to the last election. Hopefully smart enough to abandon the circular firing squad routine.
1
The GOP no longer even pretends to care whether people know its only allegiance is to the wealthy. That horse has left the barn. So how is it the fault of Democrats that the millions of people whose fortunes are quashed by Republican fiscal and social policy continue to vote for those very policies? How is it the Dems' fault that so many people in this country are too dim, venal and/or blinkered to understand that their decline is due directly to the types of legislation the GOP enacts once they're elected by those they manifestly despise? How is it the Dems' fault that, faced with the blatant and utter failure of "the Kansas experiment," many millions of voters go right on voting for Republicans who seek to apply the Kansas technique to the entire nation? When someone can answer these questions for me, then I'll blame the Dems. Not a minute before.
Just from the headline. I don't know what game Democrats are playing, but Donald Trump is playing Roulette -- every day (every hour) spin the ball and "round and round it goes and where it stops nobody knows". I can only hope that he doesn't watch the movie Wargames and decide to play Global Thermonuclear War.
1
The real victory that both Obama and Clinton no.1 achieved was to define a position for ALL of us. One that embraced diversity to include specifically white working class people, who have some more conservative ways. Their governance sometimes ran afoul of this
When Democrats lose, it's often because they allow their own silos to harden. They embrace the tail to the Republican head of the coin. But that coin comes up 55-45 conservative. If you want to win more coin tosses, better find a different coin. One that embraces all, including our more conservative friends and family.
The best way to bring us back on a single team is to treat everyone like they all belong. To give them a vision everyone can share. Better market segmentation results in a more segmented market. This plays into Republican strategy perfectly.
2
You won't like it but you better run a white veteran who owns guns or you will lose again.
1
So long he'll implement universal health care, get Congress to fund our transition to >90% renewable energy by 2030, ends restrictions on women's access to abortion, ends summary executions of African-Americans by rogue law enforcement officers, and ends our wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere that's fine by me.
2
me, fascinating that you regard opposition to summary executions as jeopardizing your safety. We are adversaries.
Video of 2015 police shooting in N. Charleston, SC - https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003615939/video-shows-fatal-polic...®ion=caption&pgtype=article
Our slogan on the Left should be "One America." Where we lay out an economic vision that is inclusive to all Americans. Speak to the heart of America that is inclusive. If we want to win at levels we must broaden our tent and be honest in our ideals and aspirations. A message that resonates across ethnic, gender, and class lines.
Damon, we share a political viewpoint, but what you propose sounds high-minded and boring, frankly. We’ve allowed ourselves to be the stuffy old know-it-alls deploring the Groucho Marx-like antics of the Clown-in-Chief. Guess who gets the last laugh. We need to start telling stories that less committed Republicans who’ve been hurt by Republicans’ winner-take-all greed can identify with. A good start would be dumping the compromised Schumer and his fellow oldsters and coming up with a passionate and angry 40-something Latin Presidential candidate with a charismatic gift for telling stories that make you want to fight. Needless to say, such a campaign would need to be financed by 10s of millions of small contributions, otherwise we’ll end up with more big money Hillaryesque pseudo populists.
Maybe we really have had enough liberalism for a while. Maybe the Dems need to become the minority that the Republicans were for decades and decades. Maybe the GOP needs to burn down to ashes so that it can be reborn again. Same for the Dems.
I am 65. I did everything I was told to get ahead in life. I succeeded. I remember the dire warnings of my high school teachers in the 60s that I would be left behind if I did not get ahead. Apparently millions and millions did not receive that warning or they did not heed it if it were given. How was anyone to know the economic monsters in the 80s and 90s would chew them up?
I think it ain't over until it is over. I think both parties will have an apocalyptic moment. We all sink or we swim. It is Darwin's law. It will happen regardless of Trump or whoever is in the White House. Maybe with a civil war. Maybe Russia takes over. Or China. I took care of myself and my family. It is all I can do.
1
No, Democrats are playing chess while Trump is playing checkers. But the American public is playing tidily winks.
1
It's far too easy to blame voters in a democracy. Unfortunately, it's truly misguided. The population is rational, even if individual members are not.
“Tiddlywinks” (and I am playing spell check).
1
Wish I could agree with you, Michael, but the facts say otherwise. Not voting for a psychological toddler for president was the easiest vote a voter ever could cast. And 60 million people got it wrong. It was the equivalent of voting for 2 + 2 = 5. That's pretty hard to consider "rational." I would say, rather, that it's far too difficult to blame voters in a democracy.
1
I think Mr. Edsall and his sources overstate the case. I live on the coast, but I'm hardly elite. I vote Democrat, though I must admit it's sometimes a vote of terror of what the Republicans are offering.
The first thing: Last election, the Democrats had a terrible candidate. Hillary Clinton may have had good ideas, but her ability to present them was pathetic - made more so by Donald Trump’s ability to monopolize the news cycles. "Go to my web site?" Really?
But I agree that the Democrats need original and workable ideas. Working class people are not stupid. So, "We'll make college easier?" What about the barista you get your morning coffee from who has a graduate degree and is living at his parents’ home? Americans understand basic supply and demand. We're weaned on it. So, join the ranks of baristas?
Trump went backwards. Somehow, he's going to rebuild the rust belt. The Democrats need to come up with a real forward-leaning plan, one that screams opportunity. It must be crystal clear, not "Go to my web site." And it must be believable. And yes, they need to find a way to roll back the rising racism without scaring off the whites. And truthfully, while trying to be a little fair to the world, there's nothing wrong with "making America first" when you're looking for American votes.
The Republican plan for the common person is, and always has been, to feed on him or her like jackals. It really shouldn't be that hard to run against a jackal.
3
Keep up this kind of nonsense democrats, looking at everything through a racial lens. The fact is Americans reject Marxism, and understand it is a failed economic/political system. We understand that the concentration of all political and economic power in Washington leads to tyranny, that that is what democrats stand for.
3
Jaco, the concentration of power in Washington has never been higher. Are you even aware of how many current Republican policies ARE OPPOSED BY A MAJORITY OF VOTERS? You’ve been played! The Republicans have provided you with a “them” to get back at, which is brilliant politicking, but think: we’re in the midst of an incredible nine year long stock market boom. How have you personally benefited?
The Democratic Party has been a centrist organization since the Bill Clinton administration. What has it gotten them? A Republican Senate. A Republican House of Representatives. Thirty-four Republican governors. And President Donald Trump. The Democrats have laid down in the middle of the road and are getting run over. The left lane is the passing lane. If Democrats don't realize this soon, the Republicans will just keep on getting more power.
4
Answering my own question, Jennifer Granholm was born in Canada, not the US:
Article 1, Section 2: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
2
Elections have consequences. Was the "protest vote" worth nuclear war?
2
Democrats are playing by the rules. The Con Don is playing by the no-rules mafia playbook for the International Mafia Robber Barons he works for as their American talking head.
Very simple. The answer is for every one of our five past-presidents and everyone with power who loves democracy and wants to preserve/restore it to work with average Americans and find/make rules to get rid of
The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren right now.
RICO should do it. WE did not have an election. We had a hostile financial takeover by the International Mafia Robber Barons. Putin is just one of them.
2
Fairly soon the "whites" will be a minority in the U.S. and traditional working class jobs will be as rare as horse-drawn buggies. Perhaps the Democrats can win by proposing ways to ensure that the entire working class will be better off in the future-- the ENTIRE working class not just the shrinking portion that is white (60% of the working class today; 45% around 2035).
2
Barely mentioned, and certainly not discussed at length, is the Dems leftward lurch towards socialism.
2
Probably because it hasn't happened. That's about as accurate as saying that the Republicans have taken a rightward lurch towards fascism.
1
I have spent the better part of my day reading the NYTimes, and I have come to a point of emotional and moral exhaustion as a result. There is not just no good news, but the bad news seems to be getting worse and coming at us faster. I don't think I'm imagining that Trump has grown bolder and is destroying with even less concern than usual: attacking the ACA on so many fronts that no one can be expected to counter; criticizing and threatening Puerto Rico; playing "chicken" with North Korea; continuing his war on NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence against young black men and children; threatening a major news network because it criticized him. There really doesn't seem to be time to take a breath when here comes the erudite and respected (certainly by me) Mr. Edsall telling us why Democrats very well might see this terrible man re-elected because the atmosphere of racism and xenophobia he has encouraged is POPULAR!! People like it. This is a long and well-documented essay but the final message seems to be that things are about as bad as they can be and it's not looking good for the home team.
I am once again moved, as I was right after the election, to trade the Times for something less horrifying as my Safari Home Page. If anyone else is reaching burn-out, I recommend the website of a friend of mine. There you will find only beauty. josephraffael.com
1
Wow, you just described many of the reasons why I love my President. I voted for President Trump to do exactly those things that have you so upset. Of course, I see these issues very differently than you because I love America and would never characterize as xenophobic or racist Trump's desire to protect America's sovereignty and implementing policies that seek to help and serve the interests of ALL Americans and LEGAL immigrants regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
2
Braden, I have been a Dem all my life and voted for Hillary. But I agree with you completely. And most of my personal friends are Republicans, not Democrats.
1
So, Dems need a candidate like Bill Clinton (former governor of middle american state) rather than a Hillary (former senator of a elite eastern state). How about Jennifer Granholm?
2
I second the motion on Granholm: she's great. But not because she's like Bill, who ran as Bubba then sold the party to Wall Streel.
Unfortunatly Granholm was born in Canada.
The problem with the article is that Trump lost the popular vote by 2.5%. Second is that these Republicans voted for Trump on the silly notion that Trump was a populist and that he was going to magically transform the economy for their benefit. The areas that decided the election narrowly voted for an aggressive hostile nationalist bigoted approach to immigration. They voted for Trump because they thought that Clinton was going to try to take their guns away from them. The primary beneficiaries of the Trump victory are once again the wealthiest Americans. It seems that plutocracy rather than populism won the election. Clinton did suffer from an elitist indifference to the anxieties of white people that they were losing their position of power in American politics. But the outcome was a dangerous loud mouthed ego maniac won the presidency.
3
Someone with a public voice needs to explain to lower and middle class whites that they share the same concerns that lower and middle class blacks, Latinos, and other ethnic groups. Better and more jobs and upward mobility are goals all these groups share. Racism is alive and well and ruining us.
3
Don't call them deplorable and racist, for starters.
1
I just can't believe the lack of self-reflection in the comments. Most of which amount to "we can't appeal to racists". As if it is just self-evident that half the country, many of whom are tired of the heavy-handedness of progressivism is made up of klan members. Just the fact that so many people parrot this is proof in itself of how long this has been the default narrative in democratic circles.
Is there no sense of irony anymore? How can you make blanket judgments about tens of millions of people with the justification that you abhor those who make blanket judgments about tens of millions of people with non-white skin?
How can it be so difficult to see why this strategy is a failure?
7
Just a shout-out to the columnist Thomas Edsall for his comprehensive discussion of the issue, and his columns in general which flag important socio-political-econmic happenings, and examine them in a generally objective manner (Thomas Piketty's Capital, etc.).
1
The problem with Edsall's analysis is that it ignores a key fact: The Democrats nominated a black college professor for president twice, and he won both times. This casts doubt on Edsall's thesis that, in order to win the White House, the Democrats need to come up with another white good ol' boy like Bill Clinton.
3
Trump isn't playing checkers or chess. Those games are too advanced for him. He's really playing go fish and lying about his hand.
2
The Democrats have not moved to the left at all in the past decades, on the contrary—they have let conservatives set the terms for the debate, even during the Obama years. This is certainly the case on economic issues, that get framed in terms of deficits, "entitlements" etc. So yes, Dems had some small victories, like same sex marriage, but also during the Obama years income inequality kept growing, health care costs kept rising, college tuitions idem ditto. But defense spending could grow unchecked, while banks got bailed out. No wonder the Dems don't inspire enthusiasm.
This whole article completely misses the fact that our representatives, of both parties, first and for all serve the donor classes. That's their real constituency. Don't be fooled by the rhetorics. Obama talked tough on the banks, but half his cabinet came from Wall Street, same with Trump now.
If the Dems want to regain majorities, they should start treating the people as their constituency. That would mean less war, Medicare for all, low tuition or free college, higher taxes on capital gains, sensible climate policies that create new industries and jobs, etc. Look at the polls on the issues and you will see: that's where the majorities are.
Let's not forget: in any normal democracy the current GOP would be a fringe party, with its racism, nationalism, militarism, misogyny and tax cuts for the rich. If the Dems would make a REAL move to the left, they'd enjoy majorities for generations to come.
9
At least one thing is for sure: the Democrats are going to have a real primary this time around where all these arguments about the future (should we be about race or about workers? etc.) will play out.
HRC rigged the primary and robbed the party and the country of a real debate on the left. Bernie did what he could with his hands tied behind his back.
The right on the other hand had a real debate. It led to unexpected places to say the least but it was real.
6
No, it is Trump who is playing checkers while the dems play chess. That is their problem, chess is too difficult for the Trump voter to understand. They don't want a president who thinks, the want one jumping all over the other pieces.
1
Eh, no. Democrats have lost me until they can say two words, and mean it: Social Democracy.
Whoever follows Bernie Sanders, I will follow.
3
I pretty much disagree with this analysis. Playing economics is playing chess. Racial tension checkers will only work for so long. The primary concern of people, e.p. the middle class, is economic. If everyone is doing well economically, the race issue becomes a side issue for conservatives. The middle class has been decimated under Republican and Democratic neoliberal economic policies; race and ethnicity become important when resources for survival are scarce, and people who don't understand economics lash out ignorantly. However, Trump's checker game will be up when people eventually realize that he is not going to get their middle class jobs back for them. Trump ran on an economic agenda far left of the Republicans, eventually people will wise up to this. The problem with Hillary is that with economics she is indistinguishable from the Republicans Trump ran against, carrying Wall Street around her neck like an albatross. Bernie or even quasi-neoliberal Bidden (with his blue collar style) can beat Trump.
2
Two points upfront:
1) Ugh. What an awful piece. (I like Edsall's pieces about half the time. This wasn't one of them.)
2) As a matter of political tactics, I'm with Cornell Belcher.
So why do I think this is an awful piece? Because Edsall doesn't address the nature of the polarization since 2004. What views do liberals hold that are worth holding? Why? What views do conservatives hold that are worth holding? When you look back over the past 100 years (give or take) what do you identify as great achievements? The New Deal? The Civil Rights Act of 1965? Women allowed to vote? Jim Crow? The McCarthy Era? The War on Drugs? The War on Terror? With an eye towards history, what changes to contemporary society are Republicans/conservatives proposing to "Make America Great Again"?
I have become a partisan liberal because when I look at the 100 years of American history all the good things are the work of liberals. I can't point to anything good which was the work of conservatives. That's not to say that all things liberals have done have been good - they haven't been - but it's a safe bet that whatever conservatives are trying to do is awful. I gave up on the Republican party when they purged the liberals. (Oh but for the days of Lowell Weicker, Ed Brooke, and Jacob Javits.) They been a cancer since Gingrich and co came to power in 1995.
4
I think Bob Kuttner's piece in The American Prospect lays out the right path for liberals and the Democratic Party,"White Nationalism and Economic Nationalism"
Link = http://prospect.org/article/white-nationalism-and-economic-nationalism-0
1
It's about time the Democrats who favored NAFTA and other trade liberalization measures - like the Clintons - were told how much damage these treaties have done to the lives of many American workers. And if HRC lost the election in part because Democrats ignored the people who were hurt by these treaties, as they certainly did, then that loss is richly deserved.
The Times interviewed many who attended Trump rallies during the campaign. Time and again these people told reporters the same thing. They said they didn't know if Trump could really bring back the high-paying manufacturing jobs he claimed he could, but that at least he was talking about it, while no one else was. All HRC ever offered was the same policies that have done these people no good in the past. Job re-training. Enterprise zones. Other government programs that require them to do things they can't or don't want to do. What they wanted was their jobs and their communities to come back. She never offered that. I'm not happy Trump won, but HRC absolutely deserved to lose the support of these voters. Why on earth should they vote for someone who offered them nothing that they wanted? Does it really take a degree from Yale to figure that out?
3
Trump's obnoxious conduct makes us so angry, we direct our fury towards his base. After what he's done as POTUS, how can they still support him?? That's not grounds for empathy or reasoned dialogue.
At the point, Democrats should direct their energies towards the huge numbers of eligible citizens who don't bother to vote. They're the ones we need to listen to, engage, and activate.
2
One way to interpret the situation is to think of that Democrat/Republican diagram as representing two mountain peaks.
There are many locations where one can stand and see the two peaks as overlapping each other. These points are on a line that connects the two peaks. Call this line "national interest" or "love of country."
It's possible to find many points far off this line that cause the two peaks to appear widely separated, as in the diagram. These points would also form a line, roughly perpendicular to (in statistical language, not correlated with) national interest. Call this line "party interest" or "love of faction." Faction is inimical to national interest (Federalist Paper #10.)
In this analogy, decades of social fragmentation and wedge issue politics have moved the electorate away from national interest and toward love of faction.
The point is that the so called "polarization" of the electorate is largely created by party and faction propaganda. No one can argue that race relations were better in the 1930's than they are now, yet race was not a polarizing issue in the 1930's because it was subordinated to other concerns.
It is the routine failure of the political parties to articulate policy differences in the national interest, rather than policies in the corporate, factional, regional or ethnic interest, that has energized a polarization that has always existed but was suppressed by higher concerns.
Reading this paper about our president reminds one repeatedly of what Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nikolai had to do and say over 100 years ago...the inevitability of a massive conflict, that is. No one, but no one, in or outside Congress, regardless of their increasingly meaningless political affiliation, can stop the evil momentum of a nukular war. Or so it seems.
1
There are a lot of white, probably straight, people in this article commenting on how Democrats need to stop showing contempt for Trump supporters ... and yet, their racism and xenophobia is appalling; their LGBTQ prejudice unacceptable. If were were dealing with the straight, white, male, gun owner who actually had respect for people of color and LGBTQ people we might meet halfway. That's not who these white supporters of Trump are. They revel in their deplorable-ness, as demonstrated by the photos in this article. Bigotry is their badge of honor which they explain away as being anti-political correctness. Those of us who are queer, people of color, immigrants or other minorities who are the targets of Trumpist grievance have the most to lose. It's not the other way around. If we're fighting a culture war, our only option is to win it. Stop writing this infuriating articles that only takes into account white grievance as if ours is now a secondary concern.
5
In "Mind Insurgent Handbook: Official Field Manual for the Revolution of Reason," I go to great length to explain how the Master Deceiver - which includes televangelists, dictators, and demagogues - use the human belief system to control others. Strongly held beliefs and fixed values cause all manner of mischief in the lives of individuals and leave them open to manipulation by others. It's high time we took a good look at the negative effect of all beliefs and fixed values.
See:
RevolutionOfReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
1
No, Trump is too boorish to play the game of kings, he just smashes the board.
3
Democrats should start by remembering that Bill Clinton won by focusing on "It's the economy, stupid." People want their kids to have jobs, and don't want to die because they got laid off in their 50s.
Try offering a few real solutions... a few real policies that would generate jobs in small towns. Talk about how taking billions out of the heartland to build a wall will not stop immigration, but will keep the government from investing in the heartland. No roads, if you get a wall.
And don't talk about race. Take the rising boats metaphor and use it. Good policy raises all boats, not just some.
And talk about health care - about cutting the thousands of regulations in the ACA and improving the program to cover people who are too rich for help and too poor to afford $1500/ month policies with a $6000 deductible.
There are ways to get the message out that Democrats do not despise the regular guy. They just have to start yelling that message.
2
This article reminds me of those brilliant and complex formulas invented by math wizards to create CDOs and other derivative tools that successfully crashed our economy.
One can spend enormous energy analyzing and re-analyzing what got us here---- but the fact is that Hillary lost the WH by less than a combined 100,000 votes--- and that may not even be true considering the still unexamined influence of Russia or the creative gerrymandering of the past decade.
Still, Ms. Clinton did make an unpardonable sin: she ignored the economic frustration and anger of the white classes, spending most of her energies to "expand the tent."
When all is said and done, it is obvious a significant number of Americans are fed up with the status quo, with what the average politician is saying. It may be instructive to point out that Americans still enjoy lives far better (except for voluntary and omnipresent obesity) than their parents--- but happiness isn't relative in that respect.
It is scary to consider that a misreading of the causes of the election surprise could lead to an even worse scenario: a strong tilt to the right by Democrats, further eroding their power and legitimacy.
Calm, calm my friends. Sometimes the courageous action is just to stay the course (and remember, please: it's the economy, stupid!).
1
This article essentially confirms Trump won because of white racial resentment. There is nothing Democrats can do about that as those folks won’t be happy until more black people are jailed, until the poverty rate among blacks goes up, until blacks’ economic and education gains are rolled back, and until they can openly treat black people like second-class citizens. They want Jim Crow. They want to eliminate the Civil Rights Act. They’d be okay with something like Apartheid. So perhaps we are doomed. Some white people are okay with Trump’s grift, his lack of ethics, his clear incompetence—as long as he puts the black and brown people in their second-class citizen place. Perhaps he’ll get a second term on his terms. Also, could the author please define what “racially conservative” means? Sounds like a euphemism for racist.
4
HRC had many well thought policies available on her web site. Instead of discussing them, the media was covering the antics of a con artist. Trash TV trumps PBS. Good luck America.
4
The Democrats are now perceived as caring more about people that are here illegally than they do US citizens. This is a very dangerous position to be in.
Republicans can completely upset the Democrats' apple cart by taking the Black vote, or at least a more significant slice of it.
We just had a Black Democrat President for 8 years and race relations are worse.
A large percentage of Blacks live in places that have been exclusively controlled and mismanaged by Democrats for decades.
With the current controversy over standing for the flag, Trump could begin a push for a national race reconciliation, work with Black leaders to make progress and show that he cares.
The fake news narrative that Trump is a racist, Republicans are racist, blah, blah, blah, that has been the primary Democrat election strategy, would be virtually useless and the Democrats would be left clueless of how to compete.
This would be disastrous for the Democrats.
2
How do you hope to draw correct conclusions from such false assumptions? Did you get those points from FOX, Breitbart, or Hannity?
Look, you can’t come up with a “rational strategy” for appealing to fearful, uneducated racists. Trump knows this instinctively- that’s why he doesn’t care if his sentences make sense. We have to figure out a way to steer around the Appalachian wreckage.
3
Guess you made his point
Republican voters want no part of the voting blocks that Democrats call their base. They view "people of color" and "diversity" as ethno-tribal dog whistles to people who "aren't them". Democrats make the Republican case when they keep saying that "people of color" are going to over run the place. That was never supposed to happen when the country was founded. One can see why the Democrats are in the wilderness at the state and national level. As they continue to embrace minority groups and their agendas, (BLM, homosexual/transgendered agendas, etc.) they will continue to lose the majority group. Unfortunately for the Democrats and for a country that needs two vital parties, they have no way back now.
2
i’ve read trump’s election as the culmination a perfect storm of a number of factors, including not only some real campaign blunders by the clinton campaign (the “deplorables”comment among them) but also russian subverison, the comey “surprise”, the refugeee/migration crisis in europe, and the fracturing of the dem party (sanders/clinton).
this doesn’t account, though, for how dems lost both houses under obama.
yeah, some soul-searching within the dem party is in order...
2
Obama was not elected to boom the Democratic Party. His duties and policies were clearly defined.were Look to the DNC, who managed to lose almost 1000 seats in 6 years. I am surprised McConnell and Ryan did not pay the DNC Chairperson a bonus!
. . . .(reply to Matthew Carnicelli):
will b upper left edge Pending Approval
If 'unbending dogma' includes wanting to have a reasoned discussion on gun control, & a prompt & meaningful response to climate change, & egalitarian tax reform (economic fairness & accountability), coupled with an expanded social safety net (health, education, & old age) & a defense of public funds for public (not private) schools, & infrastructure, & using diplomacy (instead of bombs drones & psy-ops) as our first line of foreign policy, then yes, I am an unbending dogmatic.
I won't compromise on these.
I will not enter into a polite conversation, with mutual respect, seeking to compromise with a Nazi. & I will not 'look the other way' when our military engages in systematic torture programs & finances genocide. I will not excuse bankers who profit from massive fraud, with no accountability.
What this article describes, in a painfully obvious way, is exactly what the Bernie Sanders campaign was trying to do.
Edsall is right that 'old-school' (Clinton-Obama-Biden-Clinton-Pelosi-Schumer) corporate Democrats need to finally wake up.
It's too bad they didn't do so before the election, & are showing few signs of it even today.
2
what this article misses is that over the last 20 years the meaning of conservative has changed significantly and no longer bears any resemblance to what the terms have been. I am a life long Republican who has always been socially liberal, economically conservative, and pro defense. The GOP used to resemble this when I joined the GOP in the mid 70's. I grew up in Texas and could not stand the southern democrats who were race baiting, pseudochristian, spendthrifts. Now the southern democrats make up the a majority of the GOP and is the new dixiecrat party. Trump speaks to these folks just like wallace did, the tea party was never about spending and always about a black president and trump has morphed it into pseudo-nationalism.
The democrats need to figure out what their new coalition looks like in each state or they will continue to be a minority party. Obama's unwillingness to follow Deans 50 state strategy was the key to their unraveling in 2010-2016 and they need another visionary like howard dean
People who decry that the GOP lies better than the left are fooling themselves. Politicians lie on both sides of the aisle. People left and right, poor and wealthy, have a pretty good idea of what is fact and fiction.
People have notable rejected the far left movement the past eight years, as evidenced by the significant increase in GOP state legislatures, governorships, and in the end Trump. That a candidate as flawed as Trump could win is far more a sign that people are rejecting the far left. Explaining the left's message to them better is not going to change that. The evidence (low growth, historically low labor force participation, doubling of the debt, willingly ignoring existing immigration law) appears to have been the decider.
It's far too simple to couch the issue as angry white voters. Anybody who is low education/low skill fears large influxes of low skill immigrants who will drive down wages. Democrats have cowed to their elites (business owners) who benefit greatly from the influx and ignored the impact on the majority of their constituency. Worse they fail to even acknowledge that high level of immigration depress low end wages, at least for the near term.
A major problem for Ds attempting to enhance their appeal in the middle of America is the contradictory media onslaught they confront. Any Democratic message is up against FOX which is a pervasive Republican conduit and Sinclair with its conservative control of local news (and mandatory broadcasting of pro-right editorial messages). Until this one-sided information lock is broken--and it won't be by a Trump dominated FCC--the Dems. face an uphill battle in the US interior.
1
So much analysis for something that is really pretty simple.
Voters just want somebody to tell them that they are special and that their interests should be placed above those of everybody else.
Trump voters care about three things: religion, guns and jobs. The specific order of those things varies from voter to voter. Evangelicals care the most about religion. Coal miners and factory workers care most about jobs. And, lots of members of both groups care about guns.
Democrats lose the argument on religion and guns from the start. That leaves jobs -- which has often been the Democrats most consistent appeal to voters.
But, the Democratic Party has practically stood by as the Republican Party has pushed Right to Work laws that have busted the unions. Clinton signed NAFTA without ensuring that displaced workers had opportunities in their own communities. The Democratic Party has not done a particularly good job of explaining how immigration helps the country and that has allowed the 'immigrants took your job' narrative to gain traction.
Sure, the Democratic Party wants a $15 per hour minimum wage but that's a solution for an urban or suburban area where there are lots of fast food restaurants and Walmarts. How does that help a small town in the middle of nowhere?
The Democrats had better find a compelling story to tell about jobs and economic opportunity for both rural and urban Americans. Or, they will keep losing elections.
2
My Party, the New Democratic Party of Canada just elected an openly observant Sikh as its head. My party is democratic socialist and does not believe in mixing up church and state. Our first leaders were Christian preachers who did not take their pulpit with them into the political arena.
It was Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather a Baptist Minister who introduced Medicare in Canada. Separation of Church and State does not mean an adversarial relationship. Religion and left wing and centrist politics are not mutually exclusive. I think Pope Francis might say Christianity demands taking care of the least of us.
4
I learned I was the liberal elite in the Bush election of 2000.
I grew up in a blue collar family, first generation in my family to go to college.
I worked my way through high school and college, going to a state university in math and computers which I paid for myself. Saved my money and got a masters in engineering which I paid for myself.
But Bush was the regular guy even though he is third generation multi-millionaire, whose family paid for him to go to Yale and then to Harvard.
And what makes Republicans call me a liberal is that I want to help people less fortunate than myself.
Kind of sounds like a Christian but so many Christians I know go to church on Sunday and say buyer beware Monday through Friday.
I want to pay more taxes to help those factory workers with retraining and health care.
But for them, I am the liberal elite and the bad guy.
Go figure.
Obviously, the Republicans have great marketing. In fact, it is Orwellian.
4
Not all liberals are elite, the leadership and money is. Most I find to be idealistic and sincere in their concerns for the less privileged. Your solutions are usually naive and impractical leading to unintended consequences and any attempt to point that out is dismissed as self centered evil. Both sides pretty capable at playing the label game
Very good article, with a terrible headline that takes a narrowly applied quote out of context. Not sure the metaphor applies, either. Stumbling onto a successful formula and insistently playing the same note over and over again hardly seems chess-like, which to me implies brilliant and strategic. Others don't use the Trump formula not because they have lower IQs but because they have ethical scruples and a firmer grasp on reality. Not anybody is willing to tell farmers that red tape is stealing their water and laid off workers that industry is coming back. Others that are using it successfully (Roy Moore) hardly seem like chess masters.
Anyway, much is likely to change between now and three years. As the cliché goes, the electoral map is like the weather map. if you don't like it now, wait.
2
One point largely ignored is the general disdain for politicians and politics in general. For ordinary people, there is a sense that anyone seeking political power has some fundamental psychological flaw making them unfit as a human being. I believe this was an underlying rationale for voting for Trump over Clinton. But reading these columns also highlights the intense anger and easy bias directed at White men, and this does little to advance Democratic causes as any thinking adult will understand such overt bias can be pointed anywhere over time. Finally, when one reads how CA ought to be left to its own devices, I wonder if denizens of one of the most unstable ecologies in the US will take a moment to ponder where they will get their water and fuel when CO and TX can tell them to pound sand.
3
Try checking out how much oil Kern county produces. You'll be surprised at the self sufficiency of CA in fossil fuels. And, desalination is always a possiblity. It may be expensive, but the ocean is still there. Also, the Sierra snowpack is where California gets most of its water. So, being told to "pound sand" will certainly impact California, but by no means disable it.
Texas is always trying to tell everybody else to pound sand, but the truth is nobody will need them much longer. Then, the rest of us will be telling them to pound their own sand, which they have plenty of.
1
I agree with this entire article, except the title. The democrats aren't playing checkers-- they are just playing games.
I would describe myself as an extremely liberal, educated white male living in Manhattan. I am fiscally, socially, environmentally, and politically conscious.
Certainly some of the conservative readership will paint me as another "liberal elite". Perhaps that is fair: I am a "high" earner, yet I would gladly pay substantially more taxes for socialized healthcare. I work 60+ hours a week, but support Universal Basic Income.
Here is the punchline: For decades, Democratic leadership has consistently failed to represent my views.
Our planet is dying. The wealth gap is tremendous. Nobody I know below the age of 40 has a viable retirement plan, and most people I know can barely pay their rent- no matter what their educational level. The "working class" can't afford to buy anything anymore- a huge problem when the entire economy is floating on consumerism. Big finance falls over itself to saddle everyone with debt.
You know what? Everybody knows that everything is broken. Nobody is happy except the hyper-rich and large corporations.
The Republicans acknowledged this and nominated Donald Trump. I did not vote for Trump-- but whatever the outcome, and whatever his intent, Trump promised to shake up the system.
The Democrats nominated a party-line candidate that ran a campaign implying that the fundamentals are fine and that nothing needs to be shaken up.
2
If I take all of this at face value, I still wonder how long Trump and the GOP can stoke fear and anxiety while delivering nothing. I don't believe that angry white voters are willing to subsist solely on their animus towards the mythical "elite." The danger for the GOP isn't that their base will start to think rationally and abandon the party, but that they'll simply stay away from the polls because promises went unfulfilled.
1
Republican orthodoxy (R) has been grinding right for about 25 years. Democratic orthodoxy (D) has moved left in response to these R insults. Trump does not play chess, he plays "no quarter" football, and both Republicans (Chess) and Democrats (Checkers) are stunned.
The raw nerve of American wage earners (yeah that means all but the 1%) is that the R propaganda is that they can either vote for their employer financial interests (R) or against that employer financial interests (D). Citizens United made the R position much louder than the D positions.
Trump made the claim that employers were not to blame for anything and then blamed immigrants. Desperate low wage earners and the R faithful combined (strange bedfellows) for Trump and the R party. Rs sold the desperate the idea that freedom from Federal Government is American Democracy, while hiding that no one other than Federal Government would care very much if the desperate's freedom meant starvation.
D platforms must use R propaganda to their own advantage. Hammer home the disadvantages R government causes the 99%. Make a list of American products that moved overseas and the put tariffs on them when the ship here. Use the Tariffs as Workers Compensation and Medicaid. Repatriate overseas money based on jobs created here. Etc.
1
You neglected to mention that Bernie Sanders appeals to Trump voters. He channels their anger at elites. He's anti-free trade. He's the candidate (or someone like him) that Bannon's afraid of. But the Times and their writers don't like Sanders.
4
His program is not feasible. You'd have to tax all incomes 100% to pay for the stuff he wants to give out.
4
This is all so clueless. Look, I live in Iowa. Flyover central. My friends, as my wife and I, are all very well educated and in top10% or better economically, with a spectrum of liberal views. I have never, ever heard anyone of us mock the white working class for how they earn a living. I mean, who wouldn't respect the work of people who fix our plumbing, and build our houses and windmills. Here's how it is here in an all-red state, and the fundamental problem: people don't get out much both physically and mentally. Choosing to be open to change is a personal choice, and somehow that is assertively not on many people's radar. Peoples' down-home fears and biases keep them from going out into the world to find that these are often baseless. The news that factory jobs aren't coming back or that there is nothing to fear from other races hasn't filtered through. So it's very easy to imagine some ill-defined mass of "liberals on the coast" or wherever snickering at you. And it's easy to imagine other races and sexual identities outside the "norm" as menacing. But again, many have not taken the responsible first step toward the changing economic times, one that would get them outside the bubble and find that, what do you know, these "others" aren't so bad after all. I'm in my sixties and I've seen this type of divide all my life in many locales and contexts. It's probably intractable.
3
I am quite surprised that Mr. Edsall did not even mention the alienation of Roman Catholics by the Democratic Party's position of abortion on demand. Where I come from and in many, many Midwestern cities, blue collar workers are Catholic, staunch unions supporters and----until recently---- Democrats.
Democrats and unionists lost the Catholic vote on this issue as I am sure research will support. I am a staunch Democrat, a Catholic priest, and (before I was ordained) and active party member: poll worker, county chairman for one candidate.... It is increasingly difficult for me especially after the last party platform and the criticism of those who identify as Democrats For Life to maintain my allegiance. I am stunned---and the
Democratic Party is weakened---- by the absolute intolerance of pro-choice groups. There is very little difference between the NRA and NARAL when it comes to strangleholds on political parties and politicians.
4
"Many liberal elites . . . have little to no awareness of their own blind allegiance to an unbending dogma."
As a member of the professional, progressive "elite," but one who observes my team's excesses with exquisite, painstaking care, this statement was most telling. We ARE easy to troll because many of our apparent obsessions range from unwise to preposterous.
(BTW, Bernie Sanders had the balance right. Thanks, DNC!)
As I watch the easily ridiculed excesses on college campuses, where teaching and thinking have been degraded to Maoist sloganeering; as I watch the silly controversy over Confederate monuments (really?); as I am told daily by NPR and PBS that transgender rights are THE political issue of our time; as Mr. T. Coates tells white people that their only hope for redemption is reparations, or suicide, or both, I see reelection on the horizon for the current WH resident.
He's trolling us with every tweet, and his base loves it. We need to be adults and not indulge in superficial, unbecoming diversions. This country has big problems -- let's address them.
12
"Democrats Are Playing Checkers While Trump Is Playing Chess"
Unfortunately it's more like Trump has kicked over the checkerboard.
2
That's exactly how you win. You don't play the other guy's game. You play your own game, and force him to deal with it.
Since 2010, the Democrat party has gone hard far left and suffered devastating losses.
Going hard left will only increase the share of blue votes in already deep blue metropolitan islands. As far as winning Middle America and regaining lost power, forget it.
1
Believe it or not, it will probably decrease the number of votes in blue states, and may even cause the GOP to take these states.
Look at that slimy but shrewd politician, Andrew Cuomo. He is not going to go left, because he proposes to stay in office.
The premise of the piece is wrongly stated. It's Trump who is playing checkers. The problem for Democrats is that so are the voters.
1
So continue playing chess, feeling superior, and losing.
The solution of the Democratic Party and HRC was free community college education for an exhausted, physically beaten down 50 year old coal miner. The problem with most pencil pushers and politicians is that they have no comprehension of the physical toll of working class life. Having worked on factory fishing boats in the Bering Sea for a number of years to pay for my college education, I can say with confidence that our bodies are not meant to do this type of work into our 50's and 60's. The race issue has long been exploited by Republicans, going back to at least Richard Nixon, but the apparent inability to sympathize with and comprehend and tailor a message that is honest and practical will continue to plague Democrats. I believe that focusing on the dignity of work has to be part of the message but providing work has to be part of the solution. I would support a guaranteed wage of 12 dollars per hour block granted to the lowest level of local government that provides meaningful community service work for the unemployed or underemployed. The nature of the work would need to be part of the local community discussion. Remember the CCC and the WPA, Democrats?
But take a page from the Republican playbook and have it administered at the local level rather than the federal level. That is where the Democrats also get it wrong.
3
So after abandoning the white working class, and then losing, the question for the Democrats is whether to try to get it back.
How can that even be a question? Of course they should try to get it back but it is hard now after calling millions of people racist and other names. They know when they are being insulted, indeed.
The only real proposal about what to do about things that came from the Democrats in the last 11 months was single payer. And that came from Bernie and it was only half supported. The rest was "Russia" and "Trump is bad".
Can we have more straight and brave proposals about what to do about things (like the single payer proposal)? And less fretting about what is the right combination of words we need to say to get votes?
This article vividly illustrates why the Divided States of America should just file for divorce. Our polarized politics is now so extreme that we agree on NOTHING.
So let's just split ourselves into the Red States of America and the Blue States of America, create two separate governments, so the Blue States can move forward and the Red States can move back to the 1950's.
You are so wrong! You are just listening to the MSM and their narrative of the extremes. Get out in the country and you will find wonderful people willing to help their fellow Americans during any period of need. It you and the divisive rhetoric of the elites that are causing America not to reach her potential!
no mention of several driving forces that keep people from voting democratic, including Christianity, taxes, public education and business. there are those who consider business people to be a special breed. there are those who consider public school to be anathema. there those who consider any government to be bad. income inequality is a myth to many, as well as its longer term effects. To show how weak appeals to economics are compared to other drivers, Democrats aren't even good at mobilizing the underclass.
1
I don't consider income inequality to be a myth.
I do consider it not government's function to "solve" it.
Of course all people are by definition "equal" so income inequality by definition is the result of some nefarious force. It can't be differences in innate abilities or effort-levels. To even question the premise is racist.
I'm really tired of hearing about us coastal elites looking down on middle America.We aren't looking down,we are looking to the future and their fears and prejudices are not going to be a big part of that future.First the Democrats have to find candidates who can go on the attack.....capture the voters attention.Bernie Sanders probably could have beaten Trump because he attacked the status quo just as Trump did.He did not yammer on about policy as did Hillary Clinton. Second,it's the young voters who are going to make the electoral difference in the future and that future may be further off than 2018.A creative approach would be for Democrats to encourage high tech industries to open facilities in rust belt states.Solar city is opening a plant in Buffalo to produce roofing tiles that generate solar power. Fourth,we need to focus on the fact that Trump's policies,such as they exist,are not really helping the voters making up his base.I live in rural Trump country and see this first hand.Fifth,we need to focus on economic and educational issues rather than sexual preference and gender.Bannon loves it when we do...he knows he's got us. I grew up in Buffalo,moved to San Francisco and now live and have a business in rural California.I am a west coast elite who is very much in touch with 'ordinary' working people.Your experts are describing the past rather than future.And.....we have to be patient and focused on how to beat Trump rather than obsessing about his ignorant tweets.
2
SolarCity? Buffalo?
Here you go:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4080844-tesla-solarcitys-buffalo-deal-l...
Actually, the hurdle is gerrymandering, which makes it harder for democrats to win even when they earn the majority of votes, which they've earned in four of the last five Presidential elections, and yet have only one President to show for it. The situation described in this article is rule by the minority -- racist whites. If a 38% approval rating for Trump can't be converted into a win for Democrats, than the problem is our system.
5
The choice for the Democrats in 2020 is clear, if they want to win, they need to nominate Oprah.
Millions of working class people, men as well as women, of every ethnicity and race, would happily vote for Oprah.
And she could actually run the country.
"When Trump stands up in front of his audience at rallies during the campaign and tells them he’s going to give them their country back, Trump is having a conversation about race." No No No. He talking about taking America back from the elites who have made things worse for the middle class for decades. It has absolutely nothing to do with race. Only progressives are so fixated on 'race' that they see it everywhere. And if they don't actually see it, they claim it's there anyway.
2
Amy Klobuchar...she has the credentials that are appealing to moderates, in as much as they exist, to help bridge the divide.
1
Thomas Edsall writes consistently excellent columns. His analysis of hyper-partisanship in American politics is on target.
I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. Then I voted for Donald Trump in the general election. I regret voting for Trump because of his inability to put together a competent cabinet, and his unwillingness to admit Obama's successes in foreign policy (like the agreement with Iran), but could not vote for Hillary because she was dishonest about issues crucial to America's future.
Let's take the issues. Obamacare was a half-step to universal coverage. It leaves many holes. Many Americans formerly in the middle class are falling into those holes, approaching middle age or retirement with inadequate coverage to cover chronic conditions. That's why the death rate among poor whites is climbing.
Obamacare was too complicated for Americans to understand. Yet a path to universal health care would have uncovered another problem. Medical costs are going up IN SPITE OF Obamacare. Part of that is demographics.
Politicians of both parties have undercut the Immigration and Control Act of 1986 which was supposed to end illegal immigration. Democratic politicians have declared some cities to be sanctuaries in defiance of American laws. They have featured illegal immigrants in their convention as "worthy poor."
The Podesta emails showed that Hilary argued for "open borders" with donors.
Many Democrats deny the impact of illegal immigration.
2
Medical costs were going up every year before Obamacare. My husband administered his company's health plan for decades. Every year, the bill from the insurance company underwriting them went up with no increase in coverage and with higher deductibles attached. The cost of medical insurance and care just goes up every year, period.
Poor whites could get Obamacare at subsidy costs, which is better than having no care at all. So it makes no sense that their death rate went up because of Obamacare. Their death rate was climbing all on its own, a lot of it due to the opioid epidemic. When working, most people get employer covered health insurance, so why would employer insurance leave them with inadequate coverage? The truth about Obamacare is that it helped many people, but in some cases it's too expensive. Whereas companies like my husband's would pick up most of the tab, affluent self employed individuals were forced to pay the whole bill. What would cost a couple hundred per month as an employee of someone else could be a couple thousand per person for the self employed.
And, that's mostly what the uproar with Obamacare is about. If you don't have an employer footing the bill for your insurance, you rapidly find out just how much it really costs. I wish every American could be forced to pay for the insurance they receive from their employer themselves. Maybe they'd wake up.
2
It WOULD be a good start, though:
"Telling liberals not to mock white, working-class Americans who support Donald Trump is good advice, but it is not a solution."
I continue to be amazed by the dichotomy: On the one hand, Democrats want "white, non-college voters" to support them. On the other hand, they describe those very same people as "blue collar whites" with all sorts of bad qualities when the Democrats' purpose is to explain why those very same human beings voted for Trump.
And WHY, exactly, did those "blue collar whites" vote for Trump? According to those Democrats, they did so because they're "racists" or "misogynists," or both, or any number of other bad things.
That doesn't keep Democrats from wanting those "blue collar whites" to vote Democratic next time, of course: they can move out of the darkness of "blue collar whites" and become enlightened "white, non-college voters" simply by voting Democratic next time. And if they do that, the Democrats will never, ever again call them racists or misogynists or anything else bad. Promise!
3
Well, why not? Their view of inner-city black voters is very derogatory as well, but they gladly accept their votes. The only thing required is empty flattery and a little tokenism.
This isn't one of those chess vs. checkers moments. The Democrats are offering real (and, yes, complex) solutions to people's problems. Trump is preying on people's prejudices, anxieties, fears, and identity-based racism. This tactic of dividing the working class against itself along racial lines is hardly as complex as chess, and it's many thousands of years old.
Trump is playing the far simpler and cruder game, but it's not checkers. He's successfully throwing two pitbulls in a ring, laughing and scooping up the cash while they rip each other apart.
It's the wealthy turning the working class on each other yet again. Some people never learn.
3
Mr. Edsall's interesting columns about the challenges facing Democrats are flawed by his attachment to the fiction that among those challenges is contempt among "coastal liberal elites" for the citizens of red states. Presumably that fiction is shared by those citizens themselves, encouraged by conservative media. But I can assure the august Prof. Lupia that my "elite" friends and I spend no time at all "mocking" Trump voters; we are too consumed with rage at the danger to our future created by their man's viciousness and profound ignorance -- which must surely reflect their own quaities.
2
Would you like to know what this straight, married, church-going Democratic mom is tired of? I am tired of being falsely accused of looking down my nose at working class people ( because I don't). I am tired of being charged with disdain for flyover country (both of my sons lived in the Midwest, and I like it very much). I am tired of being characterized as a member of the coastal elite, because I am educated, and I live on a coast. I am sick of being vilified by a sprawling culture of anti-intellectualism. Oh, and Hillary's slogan was "Stronger Together"; not simply "I'm with Her". And last but not least, I am beyond exhausted by social scientists and "experts" deploying fig leaves to veil the power of racism to divide our people, particularly when employed by profoundly unscrupulous politicians. Truly, divided we will fall; we need to wake up to this existential danger, and hope that shared love of country will somehow save us.
8
Hey, Edna, you've taken the words right out of my mouth. I've been astonished at what a horrible person I am for being an east coast educated liberal.
It's so weird, because going back decades to Nafta, I've been telling my liberal friends that we need to worry about what happens to our working class who used to have strong unions looking after them. Free trade is fine as long you make sure your own citizens don't take a hit. It doesn't take a world class education to figure that one out. And, I don't even care what color our working class is.
The existential danger? It's real, but nobody is going to wake up. We've destroyed our K-12 education, nobody can think straight, and fake news and hate ads dominate civic discourse. Very few people on either side of the divide are willing to admit how much damage right wing hate media has caused because there's really nothing anyone can do about it. So, the pundits come up with stuff we can do something about, like the Democrats putting together better messaging. And, it will work, because Hillary Clinton only lost by 77,000 votes in three states, largely due to third party candidates and disaffected Bernie supporters.
The problem, and we both know it, is that this hatred that's been incited is not going to die down. So, kiddo, we'd better stay in Massachusetts where there's a high likelihood that the person talking with us hasn't been taught to hate us.
3
Well stated.
I don't understand all this hocus pocus about race and immigration. Democrats want government control of everything. Republicans are supposed want small government and individual rights and freedom. End of story. The rest is spin and scare tactics.
I fear that the Democratic party is suicidal. There are real issues! Climate, hunger in our country, need for the overhaul of campaign monies, gun access laws, more access to voter registration, to name a few! Oh of course those are the very things that cause controversy, but there is always controversy! And we have seen monumental natural disasters
for which our government is not prepared. The victims of these wild fires and hurricanes will need help for years. Speak to the survivors in Las Vegas, speak to the humanity that is still in the best of us...there are many issues that effect all.
Belcher: The “protest vote” by millennials — HRC’s significant underperformance with younger voters, particularly younger voters of color ...."
The next successful Democratic candidate is the one who can end the magical thinking of the youth vote and their aging fellow travelers. That thinking says that if I lodge a protest vote with a third party I can drag the Democrats leftward. The actual result, of course, is that the Democrats lose and the Republicans continue dragging our entire political system ever rightward. The only way to move things leftward, which these days means toward the center, is by voting for Democrats. End your magical thinking. Third parties do not win in America. They are bright, streaking meteors that quickly flame out in the atmosphere of American politics.
2
"It’s clear that the Democrats have lost many whites because of whites’ attitudes about race. We can see that over time, whites’ racial attitudes have become increasingly linked to their party identity, with more racially conservative whites identifying more with the Republican Party."
"RACIALLY CONSERVATIVE WHITES"
Please tell us what that phrase means.
2
You know what it means. Best euphemism I've read yet.
Thomas.
I have been saying the GOP plays a better game of politics for many years. My comments never resonated. I was not alone, voices throughout the world understood America was on the wrong path and we needed to go in a different direction.
Nobody in the USA is going to stop the runaway train from going over the cliff. Things are going to get a lot worse before they can begin to get better. I suspect that having left UNESCO the major news before the midterms from the White House will be the USA leaving the UN. America has chosen its path and I wish it well but this Atheist prays every day that our decision to follow a different course does not provoke the kind of reaction leaving an abusive relationship usually entails.
Donald J Trump is your President and there is no remedy to fix a deliberate suicide.
I know the Guardian is a "leftist" newspaper but the sources cited in this article are not in any way left of center and when they say it is time to go in the opposite direction of the USA, as they say in tennis.
Game, set and match.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/11/imf-higher-taxes-rich-i...
1
The title of this piece is exactly wrong.
Checkers = simplistic race-mongering
Chess = serious, effective policy
The problem is, Americans know "checkers" and it is easier to explain in 15 seconds or 160 characters.
Better title: Many Americans like checkers. Dems want to play chess.
1
It's difficult to win when you have a Republican party that can openly BRAG about how they suppress the minority vote and the spineless Democratic party doesn't jump on this with ads and huge billboards shouting "The Republican Party doesn't Want You To Vote! And they will do everything they can to stop you."
1
The Clintons ruined the Democratic Party by trying to take the Party right chasing an elusive middle ground and keeping in mind they needed money, money, money to beat the GOP and so they discarded the white, blue collar working class for the money bags on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Florida. Thomas Frank in "Listen Liberal" details the destruction of the Party by the Clintons.
To get back to winning, the Party has to turn back to its roots of working class voters, unions, devotees of the Bill of Rights and aspects of the New Deal especially infrastructure building. They cannot abandon the growing number of identity voters ( Latinos, Asians, African Americans, Jews ) who will be the majority of voters in the near future.
1
Why do you think these groups are identity voters? Do you think that if you send Latinos, Asians, African Americans, and Jews a $12,000 property tax bill on a $210,000 house, they will say this is great because the Democrats are in office?
I suspect the Democrats are in for a rude awakening.
This analysis means nothing. We know this stuff. We live it every day. The fact that intelligence is not scored makes the whole article irrelevant. If your assessment is wrong, you are wrong. There is really not much more to say than that, but we live in a world where the media gives both sides equal treatment. The end result is that to be a liberal you have to learn, while to be a conservative requires one to believe. Hmmmm!
Actually, it's to be a republican you need to think, to be a democrat you need to feel.
Wait, these were the same 3rd way losers who gave us HRC over Sanders because she couldn't lose and Sanders was too far to the left.
And the cultural posturing is just so manufactured. Voters see right through it. Obama was smart enough to try to drive around in a monster pick up truck. Remember Dukakis in a tank?
Run for a solid progressive platform that emphasizes working and middle class jobs and security. Reach out to everyone but especially your base.
It's sad to say, but it tribal identity politics, you need an enemy, and you need to hit that enemy hard. Here we have one: Wall Street, the super rich, and corrupt plutocrats like Donald Trump who give themselves his own tax cut.
There should be ads, running RIGHT NOW, speculating that Donald Trump will get millions from his own tax cut at the expense of children's health care (chip). These ads should also demand he release his tax cuts so we know how much he is stealing.
Democrats should be running against rich crooks - in the White House and on Wall Street.
5
Point taken: Trump's genius was in acknowledging and empathizing with white cultural and economic anxiety. His slogan was better, his pitch more emotionally connecting, his rallies more engaging, he was flat out a better candidate than Clinton.
So anxious whites voted with their gut, but what are they getting from Trump and the Republicans? On every single issue that affects them (and everyone else), their well being is hurt. The GOP will leave them more poor, their situation more precarious.
But they will have all the guns they want, and can attend rallies excoriating people of color.
The GOP attacks and threatens Medicate and Social Security which is the financial backbone for most of these angry whites! Take away Medicare and SS and see how angrier they get. Yet they vote for politicians who explicitly threaten to undermine these essential programs.
I can understand cultural and economic anxiety, but these voters have been fooled. They are getting high on the rage and rallies while the GOP impoverishes them at every turn.
Feels good to be angry, it's a rush. But what at the end do they have to show for it??
This article neglected to analyze the affects of the GOP's policies on anxious whites. Do these angry people have the critical thinking skills to evaluate what the GOP is doing to them, or don't they care? Perhaps the rush of rage is all they're really after. If this is so, Trump is a genius - give a great rally, then rob these rubes blind.
4
Trump is playing 10 dimensional chess? I must have missed the part where Trump is running rings around those bewildered Democrats with his brilliant strategy. Or is the point that inciting people with crude racism makes you a master of political chess?
108
Let's not downplay the fact that even given everything that transpired during the last election and the run-up thereto, Trump BARELY won -- and of course lost the popular vote by several million. There's a little too much overreaction going on among some liberals, as if a tremendous reorientation of policy priorities and political strategy is paramount.
3
@Matt Actually, I think he's playing tic-tac-toe, a brutally simple game that relies heavily on his making the first move, and his opponents' ignorance, in order to win. Now that the Dems have figured it out the game the best he can ever do is to tie. Time for the Dems to pick the next game; I'm thinking it will be one of those card games where smart players put together a winning hand by picking up key cards from the discard pile. Trump is very careless about what he tosses away. Impulsiveness, bad temper and lack of self control ain't genius in anybody's book.
1
I'm done with this nonsense, this dim augury based on polls and second-guessing the psychology of millions.
It wastes our time and gets us no closer to solving any problems. Reform the districting of America and money in politics.
3
Dems need to sloganize their cause. A few more powerful marches wouldn't hurt either.
I have to laugh when I hear that Democrats have lost whites because of whites' attitudes on race! Democrats have lost whites because of their attacks on whites' jobs, families, churches, and dignity. The idea that all people with white skin are culpable for slavery, racism and oppression in America is absurd, but it is common currency among the Democratic base of Black, Hispanic, LGBTGQ, and feminist urban activist constituencies. A 23 year old in Minnesota is not in any way culpable to a 25 year old in Chicago for anything, anything, but their own views and actions, regardless of skin color, family or the history of the United States. Period. And that logic applies to a huge majority of Americans.
3
Mr. Edsall quotes Ashley Jardina, a Duke University political scientists, who wrote to him that, because of whites' attitudes about race, "more racially conservative whites [identify] more with the Republican Party." I believe that translates to, "more racially bigoted whites identify more with the Republican Party."
2
Great article, except for the headline metaphor. The Democrats are clearly the ones playing chess. Trump is playing that game where you stand on a hill and roll boulders down to see what they crash into.
Trump isn't playing playing chess, he's playing Russian roulette with world.
3
The only way the Republican strategy resembles chess or even checkers is that the game pieces are black and white.
1
saying he's playing chess is a stretch.
This is so sad to read. Being selfish and tribal may be true -- is true -- but it is so sad. A Chistian should not be tribal, and so many of these white non-college voters purport to be Christian. In fact, VP Pence claims his faith is before party. Well he and other true Christians who know the Bible should start following its teachings. But hey, I tilt at windmills, spit in the ocean and do more useless things.
1
Trump won despite losing the popular vote by 3 million , and getting a hail mary from Comey and the help of Russian government. He is 9 months into an exhausting nerve racking candidacy and you writing this article is a waste of ink. The problem for Trump and Republicans is that we now know what they are and beyond the idea of let's give them chance after 8 years of the Democrats.
3
Between 1900 and 2016 Maine has supported Republican presidential candidates 67% of the time.
In 2000 Gore carried the state as did Kerry in 2004.
In 2008 Barack Obama carried Maine's 15 counties including all the most rural but one.
In one of the whitest states in the nation Obama got 56% of the vote.
In 2012 Obama repeated that performance but only received 52% of the vote.
In 2016 Clinton carried only 7 of the 16 counties and none of the most rural ones. Clinton received 47.8% of the vote to Trump's 44.9%.
Maine has a long history of electing women to State and Federal offices so putative misogyny regarding Clinton is a bit hard to support.
There's be a dramatic shift in my small state that seems to mirror much of the country. Economics has played an important role but so-called identity politics may have been even more important.
4
That has to be one of the most ridiculous headlines I've seen in my life. "Democrats sell responsibility, Trump sells crack," gets to the heart of it much more accurately.
5
Trump is not playing chess. The Democrats are not playing checkers. The Republicans stumbled on the sad fact that the majority of their party and, a not insignificant part of the Democratic Party--including the mean and angry deplorables in the photograph--is composed of people who don't care if they live under the thumb of an autocrat and kleptocrat as long as he confirms them in their hate and ignorance.
5
The oddest thing is that the Democratic platform offers more in terms of forward-looking policies for economic reform and job growth. Part of the Republican appeal was that Trump promised a trip back to a time when manufacturing jobs were plentiful, and natural resources were exploited with little concern for the environment. In the 70's people could see where this led: rivers on fire, smog, etc. But that is long past, and people accept the current conditions as the norm -- and take comfort in Trump's denial of global climate change. I wonder what America felt like in the 1930's -- when the country was stuck in the Great Depression, and people turned their backs on events in Europe, including the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. I feel that the backlash spearheaded by Trump is preying on people who are anxious and who do not had access to new skills and new jobs. Instead of offering practical ways for people to gain new skills and find new jobs, Trump is staging a soap opera of anger and emotional distress, and people seem to be buying it. The debate continues as to whether Trump is using chess logic to plan his moves, or whether he is as deluded and senseless as his actions suggest -- does the liar believe his lies, or is the wolf laughing at the sheep?
3
Years from now people will be analyzing why a 30% minority got to run the country, much like prohibition. This article points out the weaknesses of the majority party and majority opinions that have lead to this eventuality. We have a crisis right now of a blatantly incompetent president. Still I don't believe that so many people were so fooled that they would vote for the diminishment of our nation and its goals. Nonetheless, if they perceive the problem to be A and you talk B, and make out that B is stupid, then you lose them and they remain defiant. So understanding B respectfully and explaining A is the challenge. Having an adult conversation about direction and policy has to be the goal of both parties. The Dems have decent policies to bring to the table to hash out with the Reps. This is how problems are solved, consensus, not "I alone....." rhetoric. I firmly believe that all Americans can respond to respectful cogent arguments. However, there is also the language of tribe, which overcame thought last November. To overcome that will require a voice that instills more trust than HRC, whatever that means. Trump is perceived as "strong" in some polls; maybe people faced with uncertainties likely thought his tough, bullying style meant strength. Yet, Obama won just 4 years earlier in a worse time with a better majority and he must have been perceived as intelligent, thoughtful and competent not just black.
4
As a conservative living in liberal California, I think the problem with the Democrats right now is that they promise a lot but deliver a little.
The Affordable Care Act did nothing to make health care affordable to those who pay for it themselves. Our bills go up and up. More people get their bills paid for them, but that only makes our health care problem worse.
Free or less expensive college makes no sense for the majority of people who need an education different from what college offers. We need good jobs for people who are not academically minded, and that is most people.
More government is not the solution for either health care or good jobs. We waste our money on these and other issues (like climate change) putting bandaids on wounds that only get worse. And then there are issues like gender change and police brutality that are certainly important issues to a few people but meaningless to most.
Donald Trump tries to focus on what really matters to everyone. Those things are the same for black and white, man and woman, gay and straight, rich and poor. Good jobs, good health, a feeling of security. The Democrats care about those issues, too, of course, but they seem to care about other issues more. That's the difference.
1
The Democrats will keep losing until they become Democrats again. They do not stand for working Americans. They need wake up and tell Hillary to shut up then find a younger Bernie.
Ending the war on all drugs would also help. We need to get Fentanyl off the streets sure it is poison and legal weed but this war on opioids is just another way hassle drug users.
If Hillary would have ran on legalizing weed she would be President and the opioid problem would just disappear.
1
The real problem... just read the tone of the article and the reactions of NYT readers. Sorry Dems, but people (voters) can tell the difference between having their concerns understood and respected vs. being analyzed for optimal "campaign messaging".
Definition:
Racially Conservative White: Whites fearful of future and “others” as the mix of waning privilege and underachievement threaten their perceived superiority.
2
The white working and middle class is fed a daily dose of lies about the state of the country in general, immigration, socialism, guns, and race. Until Democrats respond bluntly and viscerally, they will continue to lose.
2
You want Democrats to find popularity? Promise to outlaw telemarketers from invading people's homes at will. And jawbone down credit card and bank fees. Do SOMETHING to help people that isn't a giveaway reward to some rich donor.
1
Telemarketers invading homes? Are you living in the 90s?
I don't know anyone who still has a land line!
The biggest change has been whites do not believe they are racist, and that they are not responsible for pulling minorities out of poverty. That think that is the job of those in poverty as it has been throughout all of US history. They do not believe they are responsible for what their parents, their grandparents, or great grandparents did.
The whole article is skewed. Trump appeals to Americans that want the 'old' America, before the national anthem was protested, when cops were respected and when hard work meant getting ahead.
Instead, the author sees plots that just aren't important. I guess if you live in the echo chamber you see things.
IMO it seems like every other week Mr. Edsall now runs a scare article about how Democrats need to appeal to a "resentful" white working class by catering to their racial resentments, no matter how immoral that is.
Meanwhile, in the Washington Post the most popular Opinion article is saying something else: that moderate Republicans (the implication is that they are white) need to say "enough" to Trump, Bannon, and their ilk and vote for Democratic moderate/centrist candidates instead - i.e., forming a new big tent against Trump/Bannon. Imagine something Mr. Edsall never does: disaffected Republican moderates being asked to put country over party.
"The best thing for the country may be to let the party go. Let it become the party of Trump and Bannon, and as fast as possible. Let the 35 percent of the country who believe Trump is a suitable president, or who hate Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama so much that they would elect Mussolini to the White House, have their party. The rest of Republican voters should leave the party until it earns back the right to their support. They should change their registration and start voting for Democratic moderates and centrists, as some Republicans did in Virginia recently, to give them a leg up in their fight against the party’s left wing. A third party of "Good Republicans" is a fantasy."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/faster-steve-bannon-kill-kill/20...
7
The Democrats should make sure they run Mark Warner for President.
1
Oh my God - I can't stop laughing. I didn't get past your headline. Everyone knows Donald Trump doesn't know how to play chess - but it'd be fun to see him try and play against Magnus.
Racism is a tool of the bosses, went the old Marxist shibboleth. Applied here, Republicans are adept at blaming the hardships of the white working class on chimeras like race or immigration, whereas the economic structure is the true cause of everyone's misery. This analysis, however, failed to explain the strength of the emotional attachment to these cultural symbols. Even if we know that constructs like race are just that -- constructs -- nothing in this column really explains what can be done to move past such illusions and to see our common interests.
2
Anyone, and I mean anyone, who can still stomach Trump is beyond hope. If that's elitist (and it isn't) then count me in. Even speaking with well-educated Trump voters I run into a brick wall of ignorance. These people are well beyond hope or reason. Write them off. The Democrats need a young face, preferably of color, who will inspire all the young voters who sat out the last election.
5
The young voters didn't sit out the last election - they 'with' the other septuagenarian Democrat - Bernie. When Bernie got hosed by the DNC/Hillary cabal - they stayed on the sidelines. Can you blame them?
Democrats seem to be rolling over and playing dead! It's time to stop running against Republicans and to start running FOR something that everyone can endorse -- higher wages, investment in forward looking industry (re-name the, "bugaboo" of global warming, for goodness sake!), start, NOW, to ally with industries requiring higher-paying workers, and survey the impoverished areas, with high unemployment, where they might be enticed to locate. GET GOING and develop younger, more attractive and exciting candidates for next year's election in preparation for 2018. I haven't heard of a single one, unless I happen to read some small article in the NYT. Work with Bernie Sanders to find ways to include his base under an umbrella slogan that will work for Democrats AND independents. Stop crying in your soup and DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE -- it has to be done NOW -- it's almost too late, This shouldn't be a secret -- people should learn, now, why Democrats are with them. Groundwork should be swelling, now, and not start just before the next election. For heavens sake, let's stop even mentioning Hillary Clinton -- she's a dead horse, buried last November (even though she earned a majority of votes. Work on why votes don't count!!!!!!!!
1
The two-party system as described in this piece is dead on arrival. We desperately need to scrap it and a whole lot of other political rubbish, like the archaic Electoral College. Problem is, we have a mentally ill brat sitting on the throne--yes, as if he were our tsar--who will inevitably get us into a nukular war starting with North Korea. Because he can.
2
the Democrats are constantly stating that they have lots of great policy ideas that would help the working class. Like what? Transgender surgery paid by the military? Mandatory electric cars? Higher taxes and more regulations? Stamping out racism by shaming whites? Pouring money into union based public schools and stopping inner city kids from going to private schools? Nationalizing healthcare so we can all get the excellent care our Vets get? The biggest gulf between the 2 parties is this: the folks on the left develop their views on life at College while the folks on the right get theirs from life.
Once again the NYT Op-Ed calls out for Sen. Sanders.
Without calling out for Sen. Sanders.
One would think my tears of Schadenfreude would taste better.
Sadly I'm just sad.
3
Trump is not playing anything, The paranoid ramblings he and other demagogues employ have been dangerous since the beginning of time. They appeal to the lowest, primitive instincts and he is a primitive fellow. If the Democrats run a highly skillful candidate who knows how to stand up to a schoolyard bully, they will win. But Trump is a dangerous opponent, with an endless supply of epithets and falsehoods that he delivers with complete sincerity, while changing from one minute to the next.
2
An excellent article. If it were not for what we call the cultural issues, Race, LGBT, abortion, gay marriage etc there would be no divide between the majority of Republicans and Democrats on the economic issues.
Both Party Elites missed what was going on. Globalization has destroyed many lives in the USA. The Republicans with their Chess master Karle Rove have seen the problem and have brought into their party all who are not Left leaning Democrats. That started with the Nixon's Southern strategy, the annexation of the Tea Party whose economic interests are the same as the 99%, after the financial collapse of 2007-2008 and finally Mr. Trump. Both parties are split between their traditional or Elite wings and the new realities in a Global world,
The difference is Karl Rove, the chess master, who saw that 2010 would be a the year to win Gerrymandering rights and went for it. We are back to the future. 100 years there were many Socialists in the Western world. There were the Nationalist Socialists in Italy and Germany that we now call Fascist or Nazis. There were the far "left Socialists" that we call Communists such as the folks in Russia and there were the Socialist Democrats such as FDR who was the only Social democrat, the middle of the road Socialist, who survived the 1930s.
We all know how it ended in Europe. The Nazi and Communists became allies for a couple of years to destroy the Social Democrats. They fought WWll and laid waste to Europe killing 70 million people.
Trump playing chess? The man described in Vanity Fair thusly, "“At first it sounded like hyperbole, the escalation of a Twitter war. But now it’s clear that Bob Corker’s remarkable New York Times interview—in which the Republican senator described the White House as “adult day care” and warned Trump could start World War III—was an inflection point in the Trump presidency. It brought into the open what several people close to the president have recently told me in private: that Trump is “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.”"?
Chess??? We're talking Dr. Strangelove here, not Boris Spassky.
2
I would not equate Trump's stoking racial hatred with the elegant game of chess.
I have an idea. Stop worrrying about a group of voters that is not interested in what we have to offer. Dems are like a scorned lover trying to understand why 'he is just not that into you' anymore. If they want to hook up with someone who is not good for them - let them and accept it. I think Trump is an absolute horror. But please tell me why I need to lose anymore sleep about why Macomb County voted for Trump after voting for Obama twice? Sexism? Xenophobia? Adults. Their choice. What are the rest of us supposed to do about those left behind if we have no power because they don't want us to?
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JMM, very well said. Besides, only 72,000 combined votes in three states swung this election. Won't be hard to win them back after tRump.
3
Try admitting that people are anti-Illegal immigration; that they want immigration controlled for the good of the citizens already in this country; that we actually have the right to national sovereignty and border protection; that there should be consequences for flagrantly breaking immigration laws just as a start let alone the laws that are broken once here.
Continuing to conflate legal and illegal immigration; not even being able to admit that illegal immigration has meant significant costs to middle and working class workers and taxpayers.
Demonizing those negatively effected as lazy, uneducated (read stupid), racist and xenophobic when really they just care that their schools are overcrowded, their taxes keep going up, their healthcare costs are going up and their wages have stagnated.
Then constantly pushing the narrative that all 'immigrants' are inherently superior as if that justifies the total exemption from laws and consequences these same native citizens would be prosecuted for.
And very clearly all for virtue signaling and cynical political advantage.
Watching the protected elites doubling down many times on these same themes only reinforces how out of touch and loathsome they really are.
Not the Democratic Party I grew up with that fought for American workers rights. Get back to the kitchen table.
There is are three years between now and the election of 2020. To predict anything at the presidential level is a fun parlor game, but not real. Trump may still be in office to run again, or may not be. Remember, Trump was predicted to lose and he won. The other side of that coin is just as likely. Trump may be predicted to win and lose. The point is; in politics three years is a decade. I will await an analysis which is only 1 year out, both in calendar years and political years.
1
If quitting to focus on pro-choice, LBGTQ and the immigrant situation is moving right, then I agree with Mr. Edsall. Everyone knows after decades of preaching that Democrats support these people/points of view (as do I BTW). They need to now focus on jobs, jobs and more jobs. Followed by infrastructure that creates jobs, and education that prepares for good jobs. Along with that needs to be something they should have been talking about during the Obama administration, which is how to fix ACA. If it had been made clear what steps had to be taken to fix it long ago, ACA would not be the target it is today.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone accuse Trump of playing chess before.
So... Edsall suggests that Democrats pretend to be dumb, so they can appeal to Trump voters? No thanks.
Party platforms are increasingly irrelevant. The majority of Americans are disgusted by the entire process and don't vote at all because they believe, often correctly, that no candidate speaks for them. Many who do vote base their selection on a single issue, or on their gut feeling of a candidate's personality. Add to the mix foreign manipulation, extreme partisan web sites, and gerrymandering, and many votes just don't count at all. And when huge tsunamis of campaign cash pour through the election process, representative democracy gets flushed right down the toilet.
2
Please just stop. Hillary got 2.8 million more votes than Trump did.
5
In liberal islands that didn't enable her to win.
Dems are getting owned by trump.
Weak and old democratic leadership is their undoing.
1
To summarize: it's still the economy stupid.
Perception is reality. Is the economy better for some, yes. But inequality is at the highest level since the roaring 20's and that didn't end well. Yes Trump is a hateful horrible racist man but he promised to make America great again and to reverse things like NAFTA that people blame for costing them jobs and so they will support him because desperate people have nothing else to lose.
This article is a warning. Democrats need to pay attention. An honest good paying job that puts food on the table, provides healthcare, a retirement plan, and even a little paid vacation is all some Americans need to be happy. Not being able to provide for your family, needing government assistance, relying on food banks is an assault on your dignity that you wouldn't understand unless you have been there.
FDR focused on affordable housing, jobs, food, and stabilizing the banks. Considering he was reelected more times than any other president, clearly he was on to something. Americans are more likely to care about social issues when they feel like they're getting a fair deal with upward mobility. Hopefully Democrats get their heads out of the sand and bring back what works.
2
I love how we go by statistics in predicting how someone will vote 3 years from now. America has woken up, not by what liberals are doing or not doing but because of the silence of Republicans, in the midst of this nightmare Trump. This is not politics as usual so you cannot use the same traditional models to evaluate what's going on. We liberals have dug our heals in for the long battle while you celebrate each little win as if you have successfully won all battles for the rest of time. Dumb
1
Democrats need to lessen their portrayal of Blacks and immigrants as always the victims. Occasionally they need to recognize and pay attention to the cultural problems in those communities that contribute to their problems.
1
Better than the Republicans' portrayal of white straight men as the true victims of society. That is truly twisted.
Trump is a wrecker.. he survives in chaos..
When there is chaos, everyone is for themselves and no one has a time to qualify others.. it's a best way to survive for ever for man like Trump.
1
Sorry, Trump is not playing chess, he is playing checkers, in black and white. His whole game is racism. Muslims, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, black city dwellers, black NFL players...these are the enemies in Trump's world, which is also the world of his white, suburban and rural supporters. The only other target of Trump's ire (and subsequently that of his supporters) are women who can't afford birth control (in his imagination these are all minority women on the dole, who shouldn't be having sex anyway, I'm sure) and anyone else (gay, transgender, etc.) who challenges traditional gender norms. This seems to go hand-in-hand with the racism that is at the core of Trump's support. How do Democrats combat that? We have been working at it, within and without the party, for generations now. Two steps forward, and with Trump, four steps back.
74
. . . . . AND by supporting Democrats who have positions that recognize the inherent racism in our established culture.
Make sure that establishment Dems understand that the status quo is no longer acceptable.
We need REAL change, & not just 'hope'.
Listen to Bernie.
& get out the vote!
First, playing the race card isn't chess. It's just racism.
Second, since it is clear that the Republicans are playing a race card, and it is clear that the country is changing demographically, the issue, not necessarily in 2020, but certainly down the road, will be which party can win the Latino vote. For the Republicans to do that and maintain their base, they will have to convince both Latinos and their white base that Latinos can be admitted into the white "club."
1
Do such commenters really not "get it?"
"Run, Joe, run!"
The "Joe" referred to here is Joe Biden, who will be close to 80 years old in 2020. If he runs (guess what: he won't) and serves two terms, he'll be close to 90 when he leaves office.
As to the line in Sosnik's email about "the perception that the party is controlled by elites on the coasts who look down on the rest of the country" -- isn't it?
1
"Racially conservative" is a euphemism if I've ever heard one. What could possibly make someone "conservative" about race?
4
Democrats do not understand the intricacies of chess.
They base policy on emotion.
1
So is his threat to abandon Americans living on "unfixable" Puerto Rico check or checkmate?
meanwhile in other parts of this paper the reason for the divide is being explained. i.e. russian interference and manipulation on social media. add to that the fox news propaganda machine that has been up and running for over 25 years? bingo. this divide is being engineered by people that wish us ill.
when will we learn? right after i was reading about a fake picture of obama kissing british prime minister cameron? it showed up on FB!
2
What a munch of misleading nonsense these "experts" deliver. The Democratic party, led by the Clintons, has moved significantly to the right, economically. That's why the white working class has rejected Democrats. You can't be a slave to big money interests and look out for the little guy at the same time. When you try to do that, people rightly see you as a hypocrite. Dems have to reject the Clinton model and move to the left, economically. They need to fervently embrace progressive policies, turn their backs on big money and make campaign finance reform their #1 priority.
The urgent question for the Democratic party is how to defeat the proto-fascist, white-nationalist movement led by GOP president, a movement intent on dismantling the institutions required for a functioning liberal democracy. Rather than approaching the matter in this realistic framework, the various experts assume that the country's institutions will remain tickety-boo and that the future of the USA depends on the kind of presidential candidate the Democrats choose for 2020. Talk about chess v checkers.
Edsall: “It’s clear that the Democrats have lost many whites because of white attitudes about race.”
I add: “Democrats have lost many whites because of Democrats’ attitudes about race and a belief that separate races exist.”
I have recently found one American intellectual who would understand my second sentence, Thomas Chatterton Williams, author of “How Ta-Nehisi Coates Gives Whiteness Power”, @ https://nyti.ms/2xY9rGH - an essay bearing directly on Edsall’s analysis.
Williams' final paragraph:
“However far-fetched that may sound, what identitarians like Mr. Spencer (Richard Spencer, founder of the alt Right, my, LL, note) have grasped, and what ostensibly anti-racist thinkers like Mr. Coates have lost sight of, is the fact that so long as we fetishize race, we ensure that we will never be rid of the hierarchies it imposes. We will all be doomed to stalk our separate paths.”
Paul Begala understands that as indicated in the paragraph quoted by Edsall beginning with: “If the life expectancy of, say, Somali immigrants in Minnesota suddenly took a dive , Democrats would fall all over each other…”
Former USCB Director Kenneth Prewitt also understands that and recommends ending use of the archaic USCB system.
I know Edsall does also, so TE start the discussion.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
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Media Reform Conference, 2007: At a panel session I publicly asked Cornell Belcher, then chief pollster for the DNC, a question about poll-votecount disparities and the red shift. Having stated flat out that the red shift could not be attributable to any problem with vote counting (i.e., election theft), he then added this curious observation, which I give from memory: “You know, it’s odd but we have the same problem with our own internal polling: in important races, when our polls show our guy [the Democratic candidate] up by 10%, we’ve learned that we need to regard the race as a dead-heat toss-up.”
Well. What exactly is to be made of that? Such “internal” polls are designed for maximum accuracy; they inform the party where support is needed, not needed, or likely to be wasted—where vital campaign dollars should and should not be spent. When such internal polls are consistently “off” by 10%, all sorts of alarm bells should be ringing. It takes a religious belief in the sanctity of an entirely unseen process (the privatized counting of votes in the pitch-dark of cyberspace), and everything we so desperately want that process to stand for, to be deaf to those bells.
After I pointed this out, Belcher then restated flat-out that the 10% disparity between his internal polls and election outcomes could not possibly be caused by election rigging. It felt like something out of Inherit The Wind or perhaps Elmer Gantry: “Brothers! Sisters! Do ye believe?!”
1
It seems to me that the headline, pulled from Cornell Belcher's quote, has it exactly backwards. The Democrats are playing chess, which is complicated, like real life, and Trump is playing checkers, which is simpler, and easier for those attracted to him to understand and respond to. Unfortunately, even if simpler, Trump is still wrong.
5
The democratic party leaders "are not going to abandon their ideological commitment to immigration and racial equality." They should as to the former and need not as to the latter. Mass illegal immigration from south of our border has been a disaster for the country. Low education. Low skill. Low wage workers, essentially modern day peasants, who compete for jobs at the lowest step on the economic ladder. They block American citizens from those jobs and the progress that, over time, comes from them as labor markets tighten and wages can be expected to rise. The 1965 immigration act was a disaster. Even legal immigration has been too much. We need a pause to immigration. We had one before and the economy soared. Democrats decided to import voters rather than persuade American citizens of their proposed policy programs. They have abandoned middle America for a farce.
1
This brilliant essay confirms the simple truth that you can't get people to vote for you if you insult them. It's that simple. Barack Obama carried 700 counties in the U.S. Trump won back 200 of them last November. This article is as good an explanation of why that happened and will happen again if Democrats don't change their ways. The center must hold again. At current immigration levels, demographics eventually will make the Democrats once again the undisputed party of the majority, as it was between 1932 and 1968. But to succeed in the meantime, Dems must either find a way to stop alienating white working class swing voters, or increase voter registration and turnout. It's simple arithmetic.
1
Thomas B. Edsall frequently casts negative glances at Democrats and this opinion piece is no departure from that practice.
The data presented here is that Democratic voters and Republican voters are finding less common ground. Somehow, this conclusion is laid at the feet of Democrats who are portrayed a becoming increasingly liberal.
Hmmm ... since voting seems to be at issue, perhaps some thought should be given to the impact of gerrymandering and voter registration restrictions -- both of which have been found by courts to be used by state legislatures to increase GOP election "wins." Another factor to be considered is the rise of the omni-presence of Fox News echoed by conservative talk radio and underlined by quasi-religious voices in a number of pulpits.
Ah, well, Mr. Edsall enjoys looking at things through his chosen end of the spyglass.
3
A viable third party would shake up the system. What is left out of this discussion is the fact that hard core Republicans and Democrats together represent roughly half the country. I vote Democratic not because I support Democrats but because I abhor the lying hypocrites on the right. Another important fact left out here is that roughly 90% of the country don't approve of Congress.
We don't have a representative democracy which means most voters are disenfranchised. There is something terribly wrong when 49% of the electorate is nullified in states where the winner takes all. No doubt gerrymandering gives a huge edge to the party who controls the districting.
The race issue is largely an economic issue. If there were a sufficiency of good paying jobs that could support a family or a single person, plus good opportunities for advancement if you work hard, the race issue would largely be mitigated.
There are all kinds of programs and initiatives that could boost the economy but politicians cynically engage in partisan gridlock to gain power. A viable third party could help change the dynamics and ensure that politicians answer to the voter, not the donor. We also need 1) more Representatives in the House; 2) to end gerrymandering; 3) publicly fund elections; and 4) end the Electoral College. Our politics are thoroughly corrupted and there is no mechanism to correct it. That is the core of the problem.
1
Hah!!! Trump? Playing chess??? Are you kidding??? Chess is hard. It requires remembering a lot of rules, using complex strategy, an attention span longer than a minute, the ability to read an opponent's strategy, to analyze possible outcomes and sometimes patience. Trump has proven definitively that he does not possess those skills. Trump is playing chess insofar as he is a PAWN in the game being played by the Kochs, the Mercers and the Russians.
3
Thank you.
Trump also won with affluent whites in the suburbs. The Republican coalition is 60% of ALL WHITES across economic class. Whites represent nearly 70% of the electorate.
Politics right now is all about the white identity voter.
4
Reading this, Al Gore's big mistake in 2000 was not choosing Dick Gephardt as his vice-presidential running mate, even though the Lieberman strategy did carry Florida, which was stolen.
If inequality is the issue, the Democrats would have done better in 2016 with Elizabeth Warren, who chose not to run. She is an expert, and her telling voters that the system is "rigged" to favor the super wealthy over everyone else, especially people who work or are trying to find work, would have come across. There is talk here about "elites". With HRC the perception was that she represented the very rich elitest Democrat donors (she did), not those who were regular Democrat voters.
The real elites, those who have done the work at the University level, whether in economics, social issues, or foreign policy--both the Republicans and Democrats would do well to listen to these people all the time. The biggest issue should be what science is telling us about global warming/climate change, which is also the area with the most potential for economic growth. That the present administration is going to let the United States become a third world economy with respect to this, can only be explained by, that they are extremely myopic or are working for the Russians. Even simple lessons from floods, droughts, hurricanes, and fires; they pretend not to understand.
1
In a way, pieces like this are part of the problem – a bunch of "experts" who have no idea why Trump won. Everyone has a theory, but the theories don't hold up to scrutiny. For example, it has been shown that upper-middle-class suburban whites had more to do with Trump's win than blue-collar rustbelt workers, yet the idea persists that the Democrats' biggest problem is not appealing to downtrodden whites. And where is the evidence that "Democrats [look] down their noses at blue-collar work and flyover country," not valuing the work of pipelayers and windfarmers? There are plenty of liberal-leaning city dwellers between the coasts – most states have them, and I suspect many of them have blue-collar jobs.
I don't know what the problem is – Fox News, racism, anxiety about change? – but for some reason, a large chunk of the voting populace no longer wants meaningful government that uses facts to determine solutions that will benefit society the most. The inordinately disproportionate power of sparsely populated states to control the federal government does not help.
5
I agree--we need candidates who have worked for what they have--not those who have thrived by manipulating money and people. Remember the slogan "he who dies with the most toys wins?" Not really funny. I'd like to see a candidate who has stood in line, and scrubbed a kitchen floor over and over again, while contributing to their community. Those who have power need to realize they need to provide opportunities for every person to feel worthwhile.
The "take home" message from this may be that Democrats are too reliant on facts and data. In 2016, data on the economy looked pretty good for the majority of the country and unemployment was already very low. We thought that topic was moot, based on the numbers. Numbers don't vote.
Edsall doesn't address changing demographics. Time is not on the side of the far-right Republicans. They're older to begin with and they're fading fast. Contrast that with the younger folks coming up. They detest Trump in big numbers and they lean to the liberal side of the charts. Plus, they're getting more active by the year. For the first two elections in which she could vote, my daughter went Republican. In 2016 she not only switched sides to Clinton, she worked for her campaign.
Plus, common sense tells me that as time goes by Trump will continue to unravel mentally and emotionally, becoming more and more of a danger to America. That'll push more and more of his "base" either to other presidential contenders or to the sidelines.
The young people give me hope.
3
At the risk of sounding like one of the coastal elites this piece so rightly critiques, I think it's more that Trump is playing checkers, while the Democrats continue to try to play chess. Chess is a strategic game, requiring long-range thinking over multiple moves. Checkers is quicker and more simplistic: jumping over the opponents' pieces in order to get "crowned" at the other end. In my experience (gained from working in charter schools in impoverished areas of multiple cities), people with economic struggles don't generally have the time or energy for such long-range strategic planning as chess requires. It's much more like checkers: which hoop can I jump through (or over) to get a meal on the table or a check to the landlord right now. The view of the future is tremendously fore-shortened. It's like the difference between playing Hearts (trying to AVOID taking tricks) vs. Bridge--with a bid of No Trump.
1
One point not raised in this article is the need for our next Democratic presidential candidate to understand technology--something Hillary Clinton, who I voted for, did not.
She showed no signs of understanding that the real problem Trump's base faces is technological displacement. If we repatriated every single manuacturing plant that has gone abroad over the decades, it wouldn't help, because they'd be full of robots, not people.
Bernie Sanders didn't get this--he probably writes on a manual typewriter, if not a quill pen--and neither does Trump, who knows nothing about the manufacturing sector and nothing about tech, apart from Twitter.
It also leaves Democratic politicians getting blindsided by the Russians' tech-savvy assault on our democracy on behalf of their agent in the White House.
Clinton is highly intelligent, but she hasn't kept up. Our next candidate needs to be up to speed--on how tech has reshaped both the industrial and the media landscape.
2
Why do these experts consistently ignore the fact that Trump only eked out a win over HRC because he took a position to the LEFT of her on the trade issues?
2
This analysis is spurious for two main reasons: failure to consider non-party-affiliated voters as a separate category, and failure to consider actual policies advocated by candidates, rather than the views of party-affiliated voters.
Mr. Edsall bases his argument on views of Democrats vs. Republicans, without considering independents as a separate group.
He overlooks the fine print in the caption of the first graph, which notes that voters who "lean" toward one party or the other have been lumped with that party. There is no mention of how this was done. Was it just how they voted in the most recent election? If so then the shape of these curves could shift dramatically in 2018.
The meaning of the horizontal axis is also nebulous. How were views classified as liberal, conservative, or moderate? Have the questions changed between years?
But most importantly, Mr. Edsall fails to consider the role of policy vs. viewpoints. The Trump administration's actual policies on numerous issues -- reproductive rights, DACA, a border wall, climate change, public lands -- are well to the right of the population as a whole, and deeply unpopular.
Democrats drew 3 million more votes than Republicans in the 2016 election, even as many independents voted for Trump on the idea that he couldn't be as bad as he seemed. Next time he'll be running on his record, and it's an ugly one. Democrats just need to make sure his record sticks to him like coal tar at every step.
2
While it is true that some in the Democratic Party are elitist, and the party is controlled by coastal liberals, much of the blame goes to those white working class voters who abandoned the party on cultural and racial issues.
Those white working class voters are in a bad spot now. They threw their lot in with the racists and the rich guys who broke their unions, defunded their schooo systems, and let their infrastructure fall apart. Now, they are living in underperforming economies that rely on extractive or metal bending industries that have moved overseas at low wages.
These folks have been offered federal help by Democrats to repair their systems and get with the new economy, but fall victim to the siren song of coal, steel, and assembly lines. The good wages they seek are not going to come from a gauzy retro view of the economy.
Democrats should probably give up trying to help them at the national level and concentrate on retrieving our tax payments from the federal system, so we can continue building the new economy close to home.
1
Let's not forget this:
"For starters it's almost next to impossible to defeat an incumbent president regardless of how much you hate him."
Trump might die or decide not to run again. Either is possible. But if he runs, keep this observation in mind. Jimmy Carter is the only exception that comes to mind. The elder George Bush technically was an exception, but his term really was an extension of Reagan's term, not a "separate" 4-year term.
Once again, an article that identifies the polarization of American voters but offers no answers. Recognizing the value of the blue collar worker will not translate into acceptance of his or her political belief when that worker remains a racist, sexist, climate change denier, fundamentalist and science denier. I am a straight, white, married, prior gun-owner and life long church goer. I do not look down on individuals who possess these same characteristics. I do not respect them, however, when they harbor racial, sexist, science denying and fanatical or absurd religious views.
Edsall correctly notes that candidates who stoke racial animosity will continue to succeed and that "it is not entirely clear what Democrats can do." Trump's election is in large part the result of white voter shock at the fact that a black was elected president of the United States. Democrats are not going to be able to change racial hatred. They should not abandon the Party's principles and should consider running more minority candidates.
An interesting analysis from Edsall, as usual, but it could not have a more misleading headline. In fact, Democrats are playing chess while Trump is playing Pin The Tail On The Donkey. Guess which game the children like best! There is no brilliance to Trump's political strategy, he just picks at every resentment and division in our society for his own political benefit. Textbook demagoguery. It's not that every American couldn't easily identify those same resentments and divisions, it's just that most people of goodwill seek to assuage them not exploit them as Trump does.
Not sure why folks that want(ed) Unions weakened or destroyed THOUGHT(?) it would translate into higher wages for workers,...
But they did.
That and they wanted Free Trade and Tax Cuts.
Well you/we got them.
Nothing was done behind your backs.
All NAFTA and other agreements did was open up our borders and markets, hence we got Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai,...Plants on our shores.
Jobs were leaving our (still great) nation prior to those agreements.
38
Democrats seem to think everything under the sun has a racial cause
2
Had blacks turned out for Clinton as they did for Obama would she have won?
1
BIG, smirking grin. You have no idea and only an inkling. Liberals had better stock up on their xanax...before we remove it from every insurance policy mandate. At least these coastal cities have short piers on which to take long walks. er, that is before the earthquakes.
1
So, how do you appeal to racist, white voters? Or should you even try? If the point of this piece is that there are more racist, anti immigration Americans than not, then you might want to move rather than vote.
1
Am I suffering fro early onslaught of Alzheimers, or is Belcher's prose unnecessarily rocky?
Trump is too mentally lazy to learn how to play chess.
3
The Republican Party has based its message on hate, blame and scapegoating. As long as the rich can control their narrative, they can manipulate the working class and unemployed to buy the scenario that others are to blame, be it the coastal intellectual effete or the lazy welfare (read black) takers. The Democratic Party can’t simply offer love, or worse, scorn, for these voters. They can’t simply say they need more charitable programs either. The democrats need a charismatic leader, like Bernie Sanders (but not him because he is too old) to embrace them in a positive view of their future based on their economic success, and their cultural inclusion. Not everyone who is religious is an idiot, and not everyone who owns a gun is a redneck, and the Democratic Party must recognize this as strongly as they refute the fact that not all black teenage boys are thugs, or that Mexicans are rapists and drug dealers. We don’t need to sing kumbaya to recognize the hopes and dreams of most Americans is to live safely, in decent housing, with enough food for the family, the opportunity of education and affordable healthcare, in a peaceful world. What the Democrats need is a leader who con convey this vision to voters. What our political system needs is honest people who are not just sucking on the coattails of the powerful rich and the zero sum haters whose rallying cry is “if THEY have it, you can’t get it, so go ahead and HATE”.
3
Yes white Americans are racist. They own everything and are rich yet they are intolerant hateful and mean - and these people call themselves christ-stain?
Make America great mean what? Kick black people out? White Americans are losers for 2 reasons: they rules everything and they are hateful toward others.
There never was anything 'great' about America - America sells fake and false promises. Make your money and then get out. That's my plan. Ain't no way i'm stayin' in this place.
Translation for Liberals: You are doomed!
1
Keep on telling yourselves and anyone else who will listen that your failures are due to white racism, comrades. Want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump.
3
1860 was different -- keeping the union together was the correct thing to do. In 2017 there is an obvious need to split the 50 states into two separate countries with two separate systems of government. The Red USA can be a Christian Theocracy sort of like Israel. They can even bring back slavery if they are so inclined (which it seems they are!). The Blue USA can retain the current constitution and other ultra-liberal laws, culture and artifacts.
1
"racially conservative"
Now _there's_ a term of art for you.
7
It appears that reason elicits response or reaction, but rarely thought from a citizenry which has been raised to accept the fictions of our culture without question.
If the Democrats are truly interested in more than regaining control, the party leadership will look to the more youthful and outspoken in their network to carry the only banner under which the future will march. The laws proposed by our present legislative body will benefit themselves and a handful of supporters leaving the rest of our nation, like the citizens of Puerto Rico, without consideration and recourse.
Beyond their similarity to human beings it is difficult to respect the leadership and pundits who support the very similar paths politicians of both major parties presently tread.
The Democrats need a break from the leadership of both Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer who have stronger ties to business than people which is the basis of the game they, like their Republican counterparts, are playing.
2
Racists, bigots, and homophobes were the deplorables, ladies, according to the original quote. Which one are you so proud to be?
2
The "ordinary people" have turned from the party of social security, medicaid, and unions because the GOP knows how to trigger tribalism. The democratic party is very inclusive while most people want to be exclusive. The GOP is expert at playing to this emotion, promising to take america back, throw out immigrants and trade agreements and bring back scads of high paying jobs (on the roofs and in the fields?) to rightful real Americans. Neither party can perform this miracle, it's a new world. The problem is democrats try to devise complex solutions along the lines of job training, freer education, the ACA, and child care, etc. (see H. Clinton) while republicans just lie and promise the moon, no focusing details. Guess who people believe.
9
The key thing is to convince the non-college whites that their enemy is not people of color, but the capitalist elites who care only about the bottom line, their investment portfolios, and lower taxes. It is automation that is behind much of the disappearance of blue color jobs, not brown and yellow people, and not free trade (that is greed moving factories to where the cheap labor is, something that cannot be made illegal). Retraining, a true apprenticeship program similar to that in Germany, and penalizing American corporations that keep their cash overseas and, when they return it, just distribute it to their shareholders as dividends or buy-backs would help, too.
5
This article misses a key element, namely the wide support for Sanders in 2016 and the increasing support for his politics since then, making him the most popular politician in the country.
Without an understanding of the base of this support for progressive economics coupled with outspoken opposition to racism it is impossible to have a meaningful conversation about the future of the Democratic Party.
If the last election taught us anything it was that candidates need to focus exclusively on electoral college votes in the right states which makes almost void the campaigning based upon issues relevant to America as a whole. The obsession and trend towards micro targeting in all areas creates too much reliance on polling and algorithms.
We can also be pretty certain that if Trump remains in the picture, race and immigration will be his go to. So in that respect, the Democrats need to do something they have never done. Namely develop and support a clearly defined immigration policy. HRC did get more votes and a policy which is more 'liberal' or 'progressive' on immigration can be sold and welcomed by voters. I see no reason for Democrats to change their stance on civil rights and racial equality.
If as we have been told not all Trump supporters are racist then appeal to them.
The Democrats can then focus on economics - jobs, jobs, jobs. Under that huge umbrella they can bring in wages, vocational training, new jobs in clean energy, infrastructure, education, tax reform. Even healthcare can be addressed under the jobs umbrella such as lack of movement in jobs due to fear of losing your health plan, etc.
We are only 9 months in and already talking about 2020? Perpetual campaign mode is NOT the way to govern or live. So let's get big MONEY OUT OF POLITICS and define a short and sweet campaign time frame. August 1 to November 8? Same number of TV ads allowed, etc.
1
I would hope that voter participation would dramatically increase in the next election but the truth is it probably won't. The last three social events I went to here in NY and NJ were filled with white, college educated, employed, upper middle class people who all voted for Trump and proudly admitted it. None had any idea how TrumpCare or TrumpTax reform would effect them and none were concerned about war with N Korea. I don't see how they cannot see - but they are all in denial and definitely not paying attention.
3
While this article is spot on in terms of diagnosing the problems of the democratic party, there is an obvious blind spot. Namely, if a "shift to the left" accounts for the exodus of white working class voters from the party, then why is it that white working class voters favored Bernie Sanders over Clinton why such large margins? Even in the states he lost, he tended to have much higher favorability from both independents (by an almost 2-1 margin) and those white-working-class voters this article focuses on. If a self-avowed democratic socialist lost in coastal strongholds like New York and California, yet won 22 states throughout "flyover country," then how can you blame the white-working-class exodus on a "shift to the left?"
Mr. Edsall has spent a few hours compiling and composing a column restating the democratic problem for the next elections. Solutions? None.
NY democratic elites offer the "left behinds" republican trickle-down economic solutions when the need is for expressed understanding of" the psychological certainty that "I have been left behind, isolated, not a member of the greatest state, etc." Bring them back?
On abortion. Not right or wrong. A correct response for a woman who knows she can not succeed in her life if she has to bring up baby on limited means. Get off the 'choice' wagon. On the economy. Anti-monopoly action is needed. Any company--look at Apple, Microsoft, Boeing, all drug companies--that makes extraordinary profits by eliminating local businesses. They must be restrained by extraordinary taxation. The John Deere company and its bretheren should not be able to void warranties of the farmer who repairs his own reaper. The military forces equipment makers to build-in maintenance by high school graduates. Farm and car manufacturers are going the other way, forcing their customers to bear ever more onerous expenses to stay in the fields and roads. Hedge funds and and banks investing for their own accounts take billions out of the economy, raising prices for all. Financial middlemen deserve a cut, but not billions.
On government. Make the expression "I'm from the government; here to help you" a reality, not the joke it is today.
3
Trump actually is playing a very simple game - neither checkers nor chess. He is playing where he tosses a coin in the air while saying, "This is a perfectly fair coin. Heads I win, tales you lose."
3
Putting aside the fact that many people aren't consistently liberal or conservative as those categories are defined in regard to any particular issue, I don't think it a bad thing that the two major parties have distinct identities, rather than being a greatly overlapping porridge as they were in 2004. The Dems need to be more liberal on economics and foreign policy than HRC was. I wouldn't push more liberal on social issues, as they have moved very fast over the past decade. I also wouldn't try to compete with Republicans for the evangelical vote. That isn't possible, it pushes Dems into incorrect policy positions, and it alienates much of the Democratic base. Working class whites will either support the Dems on economic issues or they will continue to go with the Rs on the social/racial issues. Better economics tends to dampen the appeal of the racial issues, but the Rs are very skilled at pounding on racial issues, homophobia, and conservative Christian fears that they are no longer setting the American culture.
1
If the Dems do not win back white, working class voters, they will continue to lose. The happy dream that you could cobble together some agglomeration of minorities and millennials that would provide a majority won't work. Winning people back doesn't require a return to plantation politics or a rightward shift as much as it requires offering policies that help and respect all Americans, not just favored groups.
1
Applying the term "liberal" to the Democratic Party is disingenuous - the party is liberal on social issues but center to center right on economic issues, refusing to embrace liberal economic policy such as a financial transaction tax, single payer (or even a public plan), a livable minimum wage, more progressive taxation, breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks etc.
It's easy to understand why the Times chooses to conflate liberal social policy with liberal economic policy: their target audience is the upper middle class and the wealthy - an audience that is basically Clinton-Obama, pro-business liberal.
Unfortunately for the Democrat's electoral prospects, much of the working class see the Democratic party as elitist.
3
There are some great points in this article. But before we continue to blame the Dems for everything, what about gerrymandering? What about the fact that the Dems won the popular vote with Clinton? Let's face it: there are structural barriers that go beyond the Democrats' failure to connect.
Still, interesting that Obama was from Illinois and B. Clinton was from Arkansas and Carter was from Georgia. Perhaps a presidential candidate should NOT be from New York or California.
2
Reasoned arguments blunted by the cliched comparison of chess to checkers. Checkers always gets the short end but a quick look at chess super GM Ivanchuk on the winner's stage playing checkers with his fingers in space while being awarded first place in an international chess tournament makes it clear the depth and subtlety of a game of checkers. Checkers has its own gambits and sharp openings as does chess.
If you add Bannon to the mix, the image of the two mountains - blue and red - moving apart changes a bit. If he manages to carve off the 'consistently conservative' from the Republican mountain, it will be interesting to see where the more centrist Republicans go. Many suburban flyover state Republican voters - the fiscally conservative, socially liberal - are appalled by Trump and Bannon, but still waiting for their promised tax cut. If the tax cut doesn't materialize, I think we can expect the mountains to move in interesting ways.
No doubt Democrats have incorrectly identified the game being played, however Trump is not playing Chess. Chess is a game known for rewarding players who can compose coherent strategy and act with foresight. Instead, Trump is playing Conkers, the traditional British and Irish kids game involving swinging chestnuts on a string at each other until one chestnut shatters. It involves no strategy, and winning is fundamentally measured by the ability to destroy.
A campaign to strengthen (not "reform," which as we all learned during the Obama-Boehner Grand Bargain, means "gut") Social Security and Medicare would be a winning message for Democrats across the entire political spectrum. Lost manufacturing jobs have translated into dwindling retirement savings for a generation that now faces a penurious existence in old age. The Affordable Care Act -- with its sky-high premiums and deductibles for those over 50 -- only added to the misery for these people. Hence their outrage over "Obamacare," which they perceived as being generous to everyone but them.
Sadly, there are no Democratic Party leaders (except for Bernie Sanders) who are willing to take up this cause, because they don't want to upset their big Wall Street and corporate donors, who are all about "managing expectations" for the rest of us. Since both red-state whites and blue-city millennials see this situation for what it is, the Democrats will continue have a serious electability problem until they come to terms with it.
1
A fundamental issue in polarizing us is not being addressed, namely the deliberate manipulation of voters by the Republicans to get them to vote against their own best interests.
This is done through a very successful strategy of divide and conquer, using propaganda, political circuses to dominate the news cycle, character assassination attacks, scapegoating, the exploitation of wedge issues, fanning & misdirecting voter anger, etc., all with the goal of turning voters against each other.
The Republicans reach these voters 24/7 while Democrats tend to join the battle only in the final minutes of the game during campaign season. Democrats must take on the Republicans in real time and expose their cunning. Democrats must reach the voters who now get their news from Fox, and see them as fellow Americans with legitimate needs.
Because in reality, the vast majority of Americans share many more interests in common than not, namely a desire for decent jobs, affordable health care, housing and good schools, opportunities to advance in life, security in retirement, a healthy and peaceful world, and a bright future for our children and grandchildren.
We need to understand that we have to put aside the differences that are used to manipulate and divide us, and join together to fight for the many more things we have in common. Otherwise, all we will keep getting is lip service while we lose our democracy. And if we don't that we will all lose, Democrat and Trump voter alike.
1
This business of looking at medians tells us that about half of the R's and half of the D's will not consider voting for a member of the opposite party. This is not new, it is called the base. Bill Clinton showed that a moderate (or moderate appearing) candidate could attract a following from the other party. Today, neither major party seems willing to tolerate any candidate other than from the way left or way right. There is no credible middle, and we wound up with the non-Republican and non-party-person Trump, whose base is a mish-mash sidestep from any traditional coalition.
More grist from the Ivory Tower. The statistics presented are interesting but misleading. The truth is independent voters now outnumber both democrats and republicans combined. Furthermore, independents cannot be confined to academic constructs of liberal vs. conservative, much less moderate.
The difference between Trump and Ms. Clinton was that he did not attempt to hide the fact that his candidacy was all about him. In the end, reality triumphed over dogma and mistrust inherent to Ms. Clinton (and Trump's primary challengers). All the number crunchers seem to have missed this point, instead miring themselves in wonky policy debates that have little to do with the real world.
Ity's fair to say that we the people are tired of phony politicians and their enablers regardless of ideology or policy positions. It is apparent that anyone towing a party line these days is suspect. The only statistic that really matters proves this point. People are leaving the two major parties in droves. And this is true because both parties have little to offer beyond worn out dogma. And we wonder why the majority of citizens do not vote?
Edsall, who I normally read avidly, seems a bit lost in this new landscape.
Here, charts and graphs are telling us what we innately know is happening, but fail to account for foreign actors, a runaway blitz via the internet of targeted disinformation, and the reality circus that is a distraction from policy changes happening very, very fast under our noses.
Let's stay focused on holding big media players like Facebook, Google, Twitter et al accountable, let's support efforts like Let America Vote to stop voter disenfranchisement in its tracks, and let's make sure we do everything humanly possible to help get out the vote in the midterms.
2
Believe it or not, many voters DO feel NAFTA hurt them!
Take Canton, Ohio, for example.
Before NAFTA, the Hoover vacuum cleaner company was a very big employer, possibly Canton's largest. A few years after NAFTA, Hoover closed the plant and laid off all the workers -- though all of them were offered jobs (which almost no one accepted) in Hoover's Mexican plant, to which Hoover had decided to shift all production.
Do you suppose any Canton voters perceived a connection between NAFTA and Hoover's relocation of its manufacturing facility to Mexico? Do you suppose that affected any of their votes?
All this is good but, absent gerrymandering and an anti-democratic electoral college system, Hillary would have won in 2016, so let's work on changing those problems while also addressing cultural and economic issues.
2
LA county CA was the majority of the excessive votes that Hillary voters claim won her the popular vote. Do you think the entire country wants LA county to be the only metric to elect the US president. (This also goes for Cook county IL and the NY borough votes)
But you educated democrats never look at facts you just want to spew that she won the popular vote.
If you guys want to take those 7 counties and form your own country, I believe that you would get very little resistance from the rest of the country.
Vote tally: DJT: 3084 counties. HRC:57
I see a deeper problem driving the polarization which is how the interests of various groups are framed, and it comes out here:
"In theory, Democrats could shift to the right to appeal to these white voters, but, Enos points out, party leaders 'are not going to abandon their ideological commitment to immigration and racial equality and they are not going to abandon the nonwhite voters who are a significant part of their constituency.'"
The assumption expressed in the quote above is that the interests of working class whites and nonwhite voters are inherently opposed, and that to respond to the needs of one is to compromise the interests of the other. If Democrats or progressives in general truly believe this, then why be surprised if working class whites come to agree and vote accordingly?
Make a case for a community of interest among all groups. Start with the assumption that working class white concerns are both legitimate and reconcilable with those of other groups. Better yet, consider the radical concept of a color blind approach to issues, where people are considered first as individuals rather as members of competing groups.
Then the Democratic Party might be able to find its way back as a truly national party. But first it has to come to terms with the fact that it has helped to dig the hole which the nation finds itself in.
1
I liked the author's Bruce Cain quote: "Let’s look at how to upgrade vocational schools and training to make it more prestigious, not places where people are relegated to because they cannot compete in a college prep curriculum." This is something the democrats should and could get into and begin a much needed clean-up. In the Twin Cities we've found that some of the two-year colleges offering certificates in certain healthcare fields are quite awful. Big promises, high costs, bad teachers, poor training equipment, authoritarian rules, no placement after graduation and if you fail a class, you're out with no refund. Not quite as bad as Trump U but close.
1
In a hyper-partisan environment, Democrats need to play the partisan game rather than engage in a fruitless policy debate with a mendacious opponent.
If the protest voters on the left haven't gotten the message that their narcissism places at risk civilization as we know it, hopefully they've gotten the message now.
If the Democratic Party in the center hasn't gotten the message that it needs to nominate candidates that minimize the protest vote on the left without alienating the vast majority of Democrats who would vote for anyone with a (D) next to their name, hopefully they've gotten the message now.
1
I disagree with the thesis that it is the perception that eastern elites look down on white working class voters that cause those voters to reject the Democratic party. It is the Democratic support of affirmative action and liberal immigration policies that white working class voters view as against their interests that is a more important factor.
At this time of Americans warring against one another; a mentally unstable president rattling our sabers; minorities soon outnumbering whites and an economic divide dangerously expanded, we've got troubles galore. This OP-ED provides a coherent description of it so we might see a fuller picture. One of the aspects of the Democratic Party's weakness not mentioned here is that its leadership has little kinship with the struggling whites in the mid-west. The party needs to develop policies and candidates in the middle of the country. Connecting and serving young voters is also crucial. Edsall's piece provides a meaty panoply of our problems with thoughtful ways of working them through. He's serves us a meal that can draw us away from Trump's tantrums and get us busy closing some of the divides among us.
I worry that the “breakthroughs” will not happens and the degenerate result will just be the same old human class patterns that stratified the world before the industrial jobs of 20th century America: owners, financialists, artisans, and laborers, only now stratified internationally in a uniform soup.
First, I'm not sure that appealing to our primitive instincts (particularly fear and tribalism) is playing "chess."
Second, Republicans have for generations played to those instincts; it's just that Trump does it more blatantly.
Third, though appealing to another primitive but "positive" instinct -- empathy -- would be a healthy alternative and Democrats should work harder at it, it's unlikely to be successful unless we can expand the tribe for whom we feel empathy to include, at a minimum, a safe majority of people who vote.
Fourth, sadly, appealing to the intellect and reason is unlikely to work as, however much we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, we're not. We're driven primarily by neuro-chemicals which have evolved over eons to assure our survival. The "thinking" part of our brain was the last to evolve and, more often than not, it generally serves to justify our primal fears and wants and to plot how best to achieve our wants and avoid our fears.
Maybe what we need is an alien space invasion then we'd ALL come together as members of the human tribe (see, e.g., Independence Day, the movie).
In other words, one way or another, we're doomed.
Essentially, what the losing party needs to do to win the next election is what the winning party did to win the last election. Once you clean up all the blather about culture and identity and alienation, that's what many of these experts are saying. We really badly want to see some significance to the election of Trump that isn't there: the country has always had a fair year of citizens who would find a Trump appealing and share his bigoted attitudes towards race and gender-- and yes, I do have contempt for them-- but this was the first time they had a chance to vote for one. The Democrats, in turn, nominated the most unappealing candidate in recent memory-- "I'm with her" sounds repellent at times-- who might still have won if not for Comey and the Russians. The biggest mistake the Democrats could make in 2020 is to try to sound like Trump-lite. But yes, for God's sake, build a narrative, a vision, something completely unlike "I'm with her".
1
So please, all you believers in idealism, who've never had to compromise with reality, stop with the circular firing squad. Blaming each other is a losing strategy; forming alliances is more likely to win.
Don't forget with vote cheating: suppression, intimidation, gerrymandering, and, no doubt actual hacking here and there with electronic machines that *still* don't provide a paper trail, owned by Republicans who contribute to campaigns, we need more than a majority. And purity will not provide that.
Blaming Democrats for what Republicans have done is wrong. At take is nothing less than the future of humanity on earth, between climate extremes ramping up and nuclear armageddon right around the corner.
Democrats, democrats, democrats. We can fight out the practical details of how to get what we want later: universal health care, real clean energy, a living wage for all, proper public schools and colleges accessible to all, and real gun regulations (mind you, Bernie's record on the last shows he's not above compromising when his constituents require it, so stop with the idea that yelling about perfection is the one and only true way).
Let's aim all our efforts at getting stuff done, not at fighting with each other!
2
Mind you, Elizabeth Warren is a pragmatist in the true sense of the word. Bernie's ideals are great, but he has a blame the victims problem.
And Thomas Edsall is interested in splitting us up, my opinion..
"Voters who cast Republican ballots last year experience disproportionately higher levels of both cultural and economic anxiety ". I suspect this is because they abhor change. The world is changing and passing them by. As to Democrats, the democrats here in flyover country have little in common with the DNC and coastal democrats on a wide variety of issues including religion, guns, etc. The problem is, in local elections, democrats are tarred with the actions and words of coastal democrats.
1
It's not about party. That's a distraction. My belief and strong hope is that the hard 30% core of the Trump base will turn on the ultra-right 1% now that they are feeling the pain and seeing the actual results of attempts to brainwash them. And it won't be pretty for the brainwashers. It's a trick the ultra-right one percenters can only try once. " Never shoot at the King and miss" goes both ways. I think even the most anxious and frightened Fox believers will remember the way back better than the way into captivity - and there is still time for them to break free. They are lambs to the slaughter unless they wake up. I don't think they are really lambs. They were just distracted and deceived by a bunch of diamond collared criminals.
1
On the face of the editorial it would seem that racism is the reason for the Democrats losing. If only white americans were not so racist the democrats would be supreme. But this position strikes in the face of the two elections of Barack Obama. If racism were in control then Obama would never have won any election.
Underlying the Editorial and most of the comments since the election is that it was FEAR that drove the election of republicans and Donald Trump. But if not because the country is more racist than 8 years ago then it is economic fear.
The position of the editorialists is that all the Democrats need to do is show that their proposed policies should not strike fear in the lower middle class voter. But perhaps the lower middle class voter is more aware of results of the Democrat party's policies than the verbal machinations and contortions to explain why their policies are not the cause and that only good comes from their policies. That if anyone suffers under their policies it is the big bad rich guy and not the little guy.
A big problem with this argument is that under the eight years of Obama the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
4
If I'd agree(d) with your analysis that Obama's Policies(?) caused the Rich to get Richer and the Poor to get Poorer. And I asked which policies are you referring?
That would mean President Bush (Economically) was the worse President in history, yes? And if that's true, why?
Or is a GOP POTUS somehow immune from Economic Data during their tenure?
Do away with electoral college and all this analysis goes down the drain.
5
The Libertarian Party is making big gains because of these issues.
1
What big gains? The Libertarians are as irrelevant as ever, wasting their time and money running sure-loser presidential campaigns every four years while not holding a single Congressional seat (unless you count Rand Paul, but all he's doing is irritating the Republicans).
One of the strategists suggests that the DEMs find a minority candidate to appeal to the Obama coalition of voters. But you have to govern once you win, and we saw what happened with a successful minority candidate became president. On the morning of Obama's first election in 2008, I looked at the vote split across the states. The lines were drawn even then for what cam after - southern states and midwest states were against him, and he had no mandate for the country. And based on the negative campaigning done against him, you could see where the GOP was heading - right down into the toilet of racist anti-president/anti-DEM catcalling. The nonsense spouted by opinion writers that we were now 'post-race' was ridiculous.
For me, born into a blue-collar rural southern family and who now is luckily a white collar DEM, I see a party that still has potential to reach out to the 'little guy' on economic issues. And by golly, go get the rights to some of those Frank Capra movies that showed a diverse group of guys figuring out that they were all Americans - we need remind the white majority that they have a role in making America great - but not by stomping on everyone else.
3
Democrats have to go back to their roots, unions. Nothing correlates better with the decline of the white working middle class, indeed the entire working middle class, than the decline of unionization. Certainly there are many obstacles and contradictions that would be present, but unions are the one thing associated with the Democratic Party that would appeal to the rust belt, that would truly make America great again sans the blight of racism, and that could never be claimed to by the Repluican party.
113
This a correct at many levels and people need to be reminded it was the Republicans and their Right to Work campaign that accounted for much of union demise. When the trade unions were active, thousands of young high school graduates could enroll in apprentice classes and become skilled workers at good wages. Those days are gone. Now it's get a pick up truck learn a little about a trade and try and eke out a living. Another economic factor figuring into job loss issue is the greedy campaign of mergers. I'm sure the Democrats are guilty, too, in passing legislation that helped create the equity groups that are responsible for thousands of lost jobs. When a company or equity group focuses on a successful company and begins the seizure play the target either resists (at a high economic cost) or works out the "merger/sale." Then begins the closure and/or move to another city with a certain loss of the targeted workforce. The winning side doesn't necessarily move anything overseas but liquidates the assets, closes the plant and all is history.
In the blame game of who lost the jobs, the takeover scheme is rarely or never mentioned. This needs to be addressed and presented in a way folks can understand because thousands of jobs were lost through this method. The Democrats need a message, this could be part of it but that's hard because I believe they sat back and let it happen.
1
Maybe you missed what happened in 2016. The union "leaders" voted for Hillary. The rank and file union members voted for Trump.
The problem is the Democratic party is just Republican lite. Pelosi and the rest of the relics need to go. Dems need to move LEFT!
5
I agree MORE than I disagree but the article/OpEd actually states they went too far left; which I totally disagree being the case.
Dems are a lot closer to GOP Lite than too Left.
3
The message, 'sound bites' and optics are important, but until the left has an organization with the reach, funding and strategy of ALEC, they will continue the lose at the state and local level for the foreseeable future.
1
If only the racists were enough to elect Trump, there wouldn't have been an Obama.
Let's not forget how much people disliked and hated Clinton. When Trump won the nomination, I thought that was good because there was no way Clinton could lose to him. I was really wrong.
Trump appeals to emotion. Democrats could concentrate on chess and he would kick the board over. While the article was a great read, Trump could negate it within his base of followers in a single tweet.
The Democrats need to put all the analysis and over-thinking on hold and make finding a charismatic, effective candidate Priority One and Priority Two.
2
Edsall should be required reading for any Democrat running in 2018 & 2020. More than any other columnist at the NYT he has an uncanny ability to perfectly diagnose what ails the party. The biggest question implied (but not answered) by this article is can moderates & progressives co-exist in the same party? Given what has happened in the past 6 years:Absolutely not. Democrats are trying run local campaigns on a national platform that working class voters despise. It's time we face a fundamental truth. The voters we need to win back the Presidency,Congress, The Supreme Court,the majority of governorships & state legislatures, all of which we have lost under progressive leadership, these voters have different values. There’s no way to bridge the gap. I've working class friends who live in the swing states HRC lost in 2016. To them, Progressive means trigger warnings, vile college protests & obnoxious academics who posture as their will on earth. They hate these people to their very core. Why shouldn't they?The far left has been mocking these people for decades. You are bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You are bad for speaking the language of micro-aggressions, patriarchy & cultural appropriation. Enough already. We should be ashamed we allowed it to get to this point. We have to part company with the far left fanatics. The sooner the better. We need to make it very clear they don't represent the Democratic Party. Otherwise all is lost.
73
I disagree. Progressives have not been mocking these people! Conservatives have been telling these working class voters that the "Elitist Left" has been mocking them, and then whispering in their ears that, "by the way, the Left is also trying to give your jobs to illegals, and let Muslims into your community to enact Sharia Law, and take your guns away..." The negative messaging about fake issues is overwhelming.
2
Your version of liberals is a republican caricature. I and many other non-republicans (aka liberals) own guns, eat McDonalds, etc. The mocking seems to come from the right.
2
Bill Brown, a very wise comment. Look at what today's Democrat party stands for, and you understand why it's almost inevitable that Trump and the Republican party will win in 2018 and 2020. What are the issue? Jobs, economic opportunity, the idea that your kid will have a better chance in life than you had, education, immigration, taxes, disrespect for the flag and the anthem on the part of millionaire athletes when your child is serving in Afghanistan, Hollywood hypocrisy, blind hatred and contempt for Trump equals blind hatred and contempt for the people who voted for him, Antifa, cultural disrespect, gun rights. Those are the issues that resonate with middle America. Ask yourself where the Democrats stand on each one of these and the puzzle is solved.
1
While there are excellent arguments being made regarding how Democrats could be far more inclusive of white working class voters, the real elephant in the room is that more than half of eligible voters didn't vote, while one quarter of eligible voters elected the incompetent-in-chief. Gerrymandering and efforts by Republicans to corrupt democracy — party over country — have made voting even more important. Staying home is the most effective way to see Trump reelected. Being horrified at his abject failure as president isn't enough. You have to vote for his opponent and for moderate legislators. It's really that simple.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
4
Does anyone out there really believe Trump could play chess? The only game we knows he plays is golf, and at that, it is widely reported, he cheats.
4
Trump plays "Angry Birds" not chess (Putin's game of choice), but an excellent essay noentheless. Thanks for many truths.
3
Dear Democratic leadership: stop trying to be Republicans. Support labour unions, disband 'Democrats for Education Reform' (read: Dems sticking it to labour unions). Try being real FDR Democrats and stop 'triangulating'. But you won't, because you ARE Republicans. Take the masks off, come out of the closet. We true Dems will support Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as they strive to make things better for working Americans.
3
A core issue for the "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me" faction is an absurd overemphasis on LGBT issues in the Democratic Party, which is not even mentioned in this article. The feeling that working class whites had to repress any discussion of race or sexuality unless it fit into the "approved" script made them suspicious of the left and of Democrats. Indeed, it is the Democrats who are perceived as being Orwellian monsters who will not stand for "impure" thoughts or speech challenging their leftist view of the world. The unintentionally clever reductio ad absurdum of the GOP's "bathroom bills" is really quite hilarious and on point. I do not care about transsexual issues and neither does the overwhelming majority of voting Americans. But the Democrats in state legislatures are out there fighting that good fight. Ridiculous. Much worse is the suspicion that major contributors are subsidizing -- and requiring -- that fight while working class voters are ignored.
Meanwhile, the middle of the country remained in recession as the rest of the US saw slow, steady improvement after 2009, but Democrats did absolutely nothing for working class whites in Ohio, or Kentucky, or Michigan ("Cash for clunkers" was a bailout for auto execs, not workers), etc. But they were all over LGBT rights. Democrats really messed up, and they continue to do so. Chuck and Nancy as standard bearers? God help us.
9
Democrats must field candidates who can directly connect with the people of their districts. No amount of money will elect a clueless man or woman. “A Better Deal” is a pathetic attempt to rally support. Better candidates are the answer. And, please, let’s find challengers under the age of 70!
... Or, we could eliminate the Electoral College, and the Dems will win every national election by four million votes (Clinton’s margin in California).
1
Sure, all you need is 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the states - the very states that benefit from the current arrangement.
The title to this piece is eye catching but thoroughly misleading. How is Trump playing chess?
5
Nah...this is just more of the analytical subterfuge that sent the HRC campaign into an over-engineered calamity.
The fact is that Trump is always playing chess - even when it appears that he's reverted to the temperament of a third grader. If you know anything about President Trump, you know that he boast of his ability to make people underestimate his level of calculation.
If Trump is reelected in three years, it will happen simply because he racked up one accomplishment after the other - while his opponent dutifully appoints Special Counsels.
Throw your studies, polls and statistics out the door - the Left needs to work smarter and work harder. Your next opportunity will be 2024.
2
What can the Democrats do? I fear not much beyond mustering up a circular firing squad with guns aimed at their own feet.
We must stop looking toward the Democratic Party for any hope of stemming the current tide of deranged, dystopian dysfunction from our national government. Indeed, both parties have become sclerotic and geriatric in their respective incapacities to connect with the concerns of ordinary Americans who yearn for nothing more than a sane vision for moving the country forward.
Neither party offers any such thing.
1
Perhaps the best argument yet for secession to be published in the Times. How much more time, energy and treasure are we going to squander in opposing Trump and his red state supporters? Don't we have a moral obligation to create an environment in which our children can thrive? Certainly within two years after the divorce, the 6 New England states, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland (I'd love to have Philadelphia but not the rest of Pennsylvania) could embark on a plan to rebuild our infrastructure that would put us on an economic par with Germany. No more silly constitutional fights over gun control, abortion or separation of church and state. We already have a pretty good handle on how these issues should be adjudicated. Racial animus and immigration? At last, the conversation would be intelligent. Most of the people in red America don't know what they're talking about. But why fight about it? Let them live their lives as they see fit. Not to make a clean break with middle America would be an act of cowardice and a mindless sellout of our kids to some long worn out, slavish devotion to tradition. Time to move on.
1
Telling people in red states that they don't know what they are talking about is what brought Trump into office. You don't get people to vote for you by insulting them. Considering that you only have to change the minds of about 100,000 voters in 3 swing states to regain an Electoral College victory, wouldn't that be easier and less costly to do that than an war of secession? Wouldn't it be easier to just do what Obama did in order to win 200 more counties than Clinton did? Have a compelling message that's heavier with economics than identity politics? Actually act like you care about what people in non-coastal America are going through rather than go around telling them that they've never had it so good, as Clinton did. Maybe tell people being hit with huge Obamacare premium increases what you plan to do to fix the program? A united United States is the most powerful economy in the world. It doesn't need a new constitution. Its opposition party needs a new electoral strategy.
This offering I have just read merely skims the surface of its supposed purpose. There are still far too many assumptions and generalities about people like me, which means that the democrats will wander the wilderness of governmental minorities for many more moons to come.
I would explain these false/insulting assumptions and generalities to you all but why bother, you didn't listen the last million times they were explained and I doubt another will help you finally come to reality.
Lastly, you can't see it and never would admit to it but you are behaving with President Trump in almost the exact same manner in which the republicans behaved towards President Obama.
These behaviors will not have worked either time and it guts me how little we learn simply due to a lack of honesty about an adverse situation where you are your own worst enemy.
Best of luck figuring it all out, you'll need it.
3
The title analogy is backwards. Trump is playing checkers. Americans can't play chess.
3
Quiz for the day:
"Until Democrats can inoculate against some of the heightened angst, most prominently found among blue collar whites, about the changing face of America, they will struggle to compete for white non-college voters."
Quiz question:
Since "blue collar whites" means the same thing as "white non-college voters" (at least when they're standing in a voting booth), when do you use one label rather than the other?
Two-part answer:
1. When you're trying to "inoculate" yourself against some unpleasant but "prominent" characteristic you've identified in such people, you call them "blue collar whites."
2. When you're trying to think of ways to persuade those unpleasant people to vote for you, you call them "white non-college voters."
1
As your analysis clearly shows as a nation we are no longer for whites safely in the majority and the overriding dominant force, comfortable with the second class status of minorities. If current trends continue people of color will outnumber whites in this country and it is logical to expect that all of this analysis will go out the window.
Democrats cannot become Republicans to win votes.
They must, however, take their Democratic message to Republican voters. They must show that they have respect, not contempt, for white, church-going, gun-owning, etc, voters, while not backing down in their commitment to Democratic philosophies and approaches to problems.
The Republicans have done an excellent job of identity politics. They have demonized Democrats and the left and created a group think, victimization mentality that feeds off itself and lets nothing else in among Trump/right wing supporters. And the Democrats and the left have played right into their hands by ignoring or attacking the voters, not the propaganda, lies, and indoctrination that they have been fed by the radical right for so many years.
If the Democrats don't get a clue and start really talking to Republican/right wing voters, showing that they care about them, they will continue to lose support no matter how awful Trump is. So long as they refuse to compete for Republican votes, refuse to take their narrative to them respectfully, refuse to give them reasons why they would be welcomed by Democrats and should identify as Democrats, Democrats will continue to push potential supporters away.
And that is no way to change people's minds and win votes.
2
Thank you, Mr. Edsall. Your essays always give this Democrat course for deep thought.
You are almost certainly going to see a Trump reelection. Rather than taking a hard look at what could make so many otherwise reasonable people vote for such a man, and adjusting to hone the message, we have decided to double down on everything that contributed to it.
Who needs to speak of better, clearer policy or undoing the alienation of middle America? Instead, we can simply write article after article about how awful Trump is. We can mock everything from what aid he is seen tossing, what shoes his wife is wearing, and what National Socialist he is closest to. We can push hyperbole, conspiracy, and one-up each other with insults against all of those who would be fool enough to vote for him.
Why moderate the tone? Instead, we can cheer and justify violent outbreaks against those who voted for him. We can write endless justifications for the stifling of incorrect speech, focus a spotlight on every obscure hate group, no matter how small, as proof that all of those who voted for the man are exactly the same.
Sure the cultural choke-hold did little for Hilary last election, but let's push the narrative to new arenas, so that no sports event, comedy show, or musical can be left without some talking points.
Surely all of this will serve us well for 2020, right? What voter wouldn't respond positively to being demonized, belittled, mocked, beaten, silenced and force-fed ideology?
2
The chess/checkers analogy is a terrible one. Trump is incapable of playing chess - he doesn't have the focus or attention span. Trump is playing circus leader, while the rest of the crowd is playing politics.
2
Democrats have lurched so far left they are unrecognizable anymore. That's why Republicans now control the Presidency, House, Senate, 34 governors, and 31 state legislatures. And as Democrats continue to lurch even further left scrambling to stay relevant, they are on their way to becoming Whigs....defunct.
1
Half my family no longer speaks to us because Fox News told them liberals/Dems lie and hate the United States. They believe that Donald Trump is a workaholic who has a divine mission to restore the country to greatness. They believe he, like them, are victims of an ongoing liberal siege. This is powerful propaganda and no discussion of right and left can be had without factoring it in. Add in gerrymandering and this is the true mountain range the Dems have to traverse. Sean Hannity and grossly deformed districts will hold greater sway over this country's future than anything the Dems message and let's not pretend otherwise.
5
What an optimistic peroration: real "breakthroughs," real "advances." Indeed, unapologetic racism is breaking through again after a few decades of inhibition. And we are advancing: toward irreversible climate destruction, militarized diplomacy, abrogation of treaties and the social contract ... Somehow the awareness of dire crisis escapes these numbers-laden analysts.
I am very old, and I must say that this is the very first time I have ever felt that our country and our Democracy are being threatened from within our own borders. not by some foreign country............
4
I’m tired of reading headlines and stories about Trump winning the next presidential election. Let’s first see if this Dotard makes it through his first term.
As one of the far left leaning Democrats whose in Bernie’s camp, I feel the rage others feel about our nonexistent enforcement of Immigration laws. I think that’s why a lot of Americans are angry and why we have such an incompetent and dangerous man in the WH.
Yes we need to allow lawful and limited immigrants to come to the United States and work and be a part of our communities. The problem is Congress. Americans are only asking for immigrates to follow our laws. For Congress to make laws they are going to enforce. Laws that are beneficial to the United States. Don’t allow companies to fire American workers and replace them with Cheaper foreign HB-1 Visa workers.
The immigration problem is simple to fix. Fine companies and individuals who hire illegal immigrants. We don’t need walls, drones and border patrol.
1
Democrats will not attract increasing numbers of white voters, therefore will not enjoy increased success until America is indeed a minority majority nation, as long as their message is that whites must "pay" (in any number of ways) for the sins of their forefathers.
It's just that simple.
I'm insecure too, but vote for Democrats because they're better for me economically. There's a cultural component, too, but it's not the main driver for me. Historically, all these rightwing "populist" regimes talk about helping the average guy, but always...always....wind up helping the rich or plunging the country into war or depression or both and hurt everyone. White guys like me need to get back to what actually helped us: unions, minimum wage increases, Social Security, Medicare, job training, etc.
3
Playing "the lesser of two evils" game, perhaps this is the true cost for the Democratic party. As the left isn't "left" enough in practice, maybe it is time for another party platform swap, as between it did between the 1860s and 1936. Take the good with the bad. (Myself being black American with a 4-year old son anticipate the bad either way!)
As a white male who believes in pro choice legalization of controlled substances, environment and gun controls and blindly equal opportunity (no affirmative action) which party do I belong to?
There is no party that is a perfect fit, for anyone. Four out of five puts you in the Democratic party.
While Trump was digging coal during the campaign, Clinton had a detailed plan for a comprehensive infrastructure overhaul, which would have created many jobs while slowing climate change. Equal opportunity jobs.
I agree with doing "a better job of mobilizing nonwhite voters in these states and the white voters they still have. There is something to be said for the strategy of nominating a presidential candidate that connects with these voters, perhaps even a nonwhite candidate who mobilizes the Obama coalition."
The reality is that HRC was a HORRIBLE candidate. She lost 3 rust belt states. She never engaged with the young people and seemed not to understand the working people of this country. Her Wall Street purse and elitism was a total turnoff for many. That being said - she did get 2.8 million more votes.
Hopefully, by 2020, people will be so fed up with this racist, misogynidt, foul-mouthed toxic bully, that they will be ready for REAL CHANGE
I think, like Corker, that the game Trump is playing is the reality show, not chess. I also think that Trump can win re-election because the only thing he is very good at is marketing. He has to be to attack NFL players in a country where the sport is so popular. Additionally, Trump has the advantage to be a proven liar, sexual predator and a phony and still win the electoral collages. All the bad stuff is already out or I am an optimist.
Maybe that honest conversation about the challenges that stress millennials and not millennials added to a list of Trump broken promises will work. better.
No, Sir. Trump is playing " RISK". And I do mean playing. This "billionaire " could ruin the only Ice store in the desert. Donald the Destroyer.
2
The horse has long since bolted but Democrats need to get serious about not tolerating illegal immigration, cut legal immigration (though not to the degree prescribed by the "Trumpists"), and yeah, respect and promote hands-on vocational work and training. I'd also be painting the Republicans as the party of the egotistical and misanthropic rich, but hey, that's just me (he jests).
Then there still remains the reforms that would bring the US into the community of modern, civilised and democratic Western nations: universal healthcare, greater access to annual, sick and paternity leave, more subsidised childcare and vocational and university education. Soak the anti-democratic, sociopathic, anti-American rich - in other words.
You REALLY believe the GOP wants to stop Illegal Immigration, yes?
Why haven't they?
Do your own research to see when they had/have Majority: Senate, Congress, and WHouse.
2
GOP? No. Trump? Yes. That's why he won the Republican nomination for president above all else.
When I was a kid, my mom used to hate if we pulled the Monopoly game out. She knew that that particular board game was the one that would result in fights, hurt feelings, and play money flying around the room in anger. Trump isn't playing chess--he isn't even playing monopoly. He's the guy who was playing banker who is mad that nobody else wants to play anymore, flipping the board game and throwing things around the room.
1
This article, like many or even most, can't see the forest for the trees: over 40% of the electorate registers as independent.
I fail to see the "coherent party platform" that Edsall refers to on the Republican side. They've got slogans and soundbites, but the party platform mostly seems to built around hating and trolling liberals. That works great in opposition ("Mitch McConnell is a master legislative strategist!" Not) and apparently for winning elections. But it is not so useful in running a country.
There is a an awful lot of discussion of how liberals look down our noses at the white working class, but much less discussion of the absolute hatred and contempt that conservatives have for liberals. Watch an hour of MSNBC and an hour of Fox News. On MSNBC, you will see anger and disgust at Republicans LEADERS. On Fox News, you will see that directed at Democratic leaders, but you will also see a deep contempt for ALL liberal Americans, an incitement of hatred toward us, and an attempt to deny our American-ness. This does exist on the left.
2
This article demonstrates the problem with many political experts--it ignores the swing vote in every election-- those who define themselves as independents, a group larger than the GOP and almost as large as the Democrats. What do they think? How does the racial dog-whistles play with them? Many Independents seem to be folks who either don't pay close attention to the issues that fascinate pols or they wonder who speaks to and for the independent voter. The Russians targeted these voters in 2016 and there does not seem to be any plan to stop the same thing happening again...and again...and again. Factor in the ridiculous Electoral College and you have continuing recipe for electoral surprises.
1
I hate to see the two nice, somewhat elderly ladies in your picture wearing their "Deplorable" signs. I know it is done as an ironic statement, but tragically underlines the disdain with which one side view the other, when my belief is that far more of us have far more in common, and far more capable of finding reasoned and mutually-acceptable compromises, than our politicians will allow us. The US might be saved by reasoned discourse and listening, but I am not hopeful. Power and the dollar out-shout us all.
Basically by quoting a lot of conservatives the author is saying that if Democrats were more like Republicans in practicing racism, abandoning the equality promised by the Constitution in favor of a whites-only policy, and catering to the insecurities of those who feel that if you care about someone else that can't also care about them, and raising the Democratic hypocrisy to highly polished level pf the Republicans that they too can win the votes of the confederate states of america. Pragmatism and expediency over principal.
The Democrats need to appeal and win by being Democrats with principals of freedom, equality for all not just the wealthy, not less mean Republicans.
3
Wait, I don't understand. Haven't the mainstream media, and the entertainment elite branches of the Democratic party been pounding into our heads for more than a year and a half that Trump isn't smart enough to know how to play checkers?
Bon't tell me they're wrong about DJT, again.
2
White male fear of losing promotions or jobs to minorities is expressed clearly by a member of my family who works a white collar job. He speaks of being told of losing out on a promotion to a minority and how angry he is to this day. He was able to change positions due to education, but many cannot change so easily. He says he fears for his son’s future opportunities. He speaks of his white colleagues agreement with his feelings. He hates trump, viscerally hated Hillary and hopes the entire political culture explodes. Those are his feelings. His racial group is experiencing what women and monorities have always felt and fought against and it’s a frightening reality. My conversations to that past he simply cannot understand. I hope we can somehow turn fear into greater tolerance and understanding.
7
Edsall's editorial is most thoughtful as usual. He talks of a liberal 'blind spot,' but I wonder if there really is one.
I always begin with logic: What are the facts? The facts paint the picture of reality. How does what each side says supported by them? That is, how much is either side in touch with reality?
My personal conclusion is that of James Carville, the title of his book "We're Right, They're Wrong." The Democrats, despite their flaws, are largely on the right side of justice and civilization. The Republicans are a social compact between a corporatist leadership that would squeeze any income possible out of the country, with a racist white nationalist base that aspires to continued dominance. We have one party committed to order and the proper functioning. The other wants to dominate it, rip it off, and is content with the government of a failed state. There can be no false equivalence here.
What has been brewing in Anglo-America can be likened to that of Serbia in the waning days of Yugoslavia three decades ago. It is an ethnocentric beast that yearns to break free of our democratic structure and rampage around the hemisphere, using the Books of Joshua and the Turner Diaries as its compass.
1
"We are playing checkers while Trump is playing chess." Are you kidding me? Trump isn't playing chess - he isn't playing anything. We're *trying* to play chess and Trump and his thugs are taking a baseball bat and smashing the board again and again until the pieces are scattered and the table is in splinters. Neither Trump nor his supporters are capable of playing a game that requires detailed analytical thinking or looking several moves ahead.
Edsall, like all the other media commentators, continue to believe that Trump's appeal was to white working class middle America voters only. As a white, Jewish professional woman, an east coast voter, Trump got my vote. Why? Because I was sick of high health insurance premiums and treating mental health patients for which I, myself, had no coverage. I was sick of how the Obama administration continued to chip away at primary care medicine and watch my husband continue to try to find ways to stay afloat in his solo practice so as not to sell out to the hospitals. I was sick of the racial riots across the country of which I believe Obama incited instead of using his position to inspire and raise hopes. I was against the Iran deal and finally, Trump offered an improved relationship with Israel. Thirty percent of white, Jewish, educated traditionally voting Democrats were lost to the Republican party last year. (If you remember, Obama went out with a bang at the U.N. when he became the FIRST American president to vote against Israel). Ultimately, I placed my feminist ideology on the lower rung of priorities for all of the above. So Democrats ought to think twice Mr. Edsall when they try to figure out to whom to appeal.
1
Wouldn't it be easier to get a moderate Republican elected?
No. If there is one candidate no one would vote for, it is a wishy-washy, me-too, mealy-mouthed Republican. Just look at what happened to Jeb Bush.....
You give Mr. Trump too much credit for the mental ability to play chess.
He is much more at the Rock/Paper/Scissors/Match level.
1
Another brilliant, and deeply troubling analysis.
Some voices in the article are dangerously misguided. Begala's notion that democrats should invest in jobs programs to rehabilitate working class whites is dangerous nonsense. He has no idea what training someone to function in a knowledge economy costs; or he does and is still spouting nonsense. Besides, this segment is too far gone; they will never vote democrat in our lifetimes.
There is truth in the notion that liberal dogma has produced much of conservative dogma. Liberals invented moral equivalence. Some things are immoral, wrong, and bad - not equally compelling alternatives to moral, right, and good. Liberals should own the perversion caused by their pieties and huzzas. And own the far reaching impact of our mocking of "them" produces.
There is a similarly dangerous notion that democrats can win if they attract Millennials to vote, attract non-whites, and women. The former is too engaged in getting their selfies liked. And 6-8% of blacks, and 30% of Hispanics voted for Trump after he repeatedly said he hated them. And 8-10% more white women voted for a confessed abuser than a white women. So what new things are liberals likely to say to each of these segments that would lead them to see error of their ways?
The reported observations are sound, the inferences and therefore the proposed solutions, are dangerous nonsense. If implemented, Trump wins again, this time with a landslide.
Kalidan
"Some things are immoral, wrong, and bad...."
Really? I thought that only right-wing reactionaries thought that way. All the liberal college professors deconstruct values into systems of self-interest.
1
Getting a bit tired of college professors telling me, a community college professor, that we “democrats” need to stop feeling superior and stop ignoring the flyover country.
First, I’m from flyover country and was born working class. I don’t ignore it/them, but I also don’t romanticize it/them. It’s a bit condescending that we progressive folks have to somehow understand those who are not like us – not condescending to the working class, but to ourselves. Like we don’t know this already?
My frustrations lie not with the demagogue de jour who manipulates these people, but with those who can’t tell they’re being manipulated. Like my relatives. Consider my dad, a Reagan democrat who told me several years ago that he believed there should be “limits on how much money people make,” and then proceeded to vote Republican. Or my cousin who said that the school district probably “didn’t check the jig’s [black’s] address” for residency requirement. Here are two smart men making incredibly stupid decisions or statements.
Not sure how my understanding or sympathy of their plight – one comfortably retired, the other retired and drawing a prison guard pension but still working – would help. And given their current place in life, not exactly sure what their plight is beyond an uncentered angst.
What could we offer? Zoloft?
1
There are more librarians than coal miners. There are more nuclear scientists, more hairderssers, more dog groomers than coal miners. If the Democrats cannot find a way to appeal to these groups and get them to vote, we deserve to lose.
Of course, the Republicans will cheat. Perhaps some United Nations coalition could be formed to ensure we have free and fair elections.
1
Edsall's column highlights some of the genuine problems facing the Democrats as they attempt to build a winning coalition for 2018 and 2020, particularly the failure to craft a message that shows respect and concern for the white working class. As at least one researcher noted, Clinton's platform did contain proposals that would have helped this segment of the population far more than would have any of Trump's vague promises. But Trump's mind-numbing repetition of his attacks on immigrants and his depiction of America as a sucker in international relations apparently drowned out her careful explanation of a realistic plan for the country's future.
That said, the column's laser focus on Democratic errors makes the Trump campaign appear flawless by comparison. Clinton did, after all, win nearly 3 million more votes than Trump. Equally important, the researchers' analysis of voter behavior seems shallow. Trump supporters, according to them, easily discerned Democratic scorn for their values, but these same people seemed indifferent to or unaware of Trump's serial lies and his failure to deliver on most of his promises once he took office. Clinton's relatively minor flaws outraged them, while Trump's impossible promises and offenses against basic morality had no impact. Does this represent a plausible analysis of the attitudes of 63 million Americans?
The key question remains: Were voters, on balance, repelled by Clinton or attracted by Trump?
This ongoing narrative of Democrat sin as the cause for the electoral defeat is tedious and wrong-headed. Do you really think that stereotyping and contempt only flow in one direction? Have you forgotten Palin and her "hopey-changey" cynicism? Have Trump, his cronies and the Republican Party not played their part in this war of attrition?
The fact is that people on both sides of the political divide have worked themselves up into a non-stop, hateful lather about their opponents. The most salient and, I believe, most destructive aspect of this is the increasing tendency to engage in symbolic speech rather than authentic communication. Most of us are far more concerned with being "right" than hearing each other out. When we debate, we wheel out cliches, insults and pre-fab put-downs at the earliest opportunity, rather than first seeking solid common ground on which to then stake out detailed and thoughtful dissent.
Let's take care to do away, too, with the conceit that economics and the "left-behind" working class are what lost Clinton the election. The common thread that unites the majority of Trump voters was not class - indeed, on average they were richer than those who voted Hillary - but race. So when you talk about shoring up Democratic support by appealing to "white working class voters", two of those words are superfluous. What you're really talking about is appealing to *white* voters. I guess by now we all know what that means...
2
The only story here is that Trump is a very sick individual who only came to power with the help of our foreign enemy, a compliant media and a fog of disinformation.
What we need from the "white working class" is an apology for taking their sacred voting responsibility so lightly.
In a democracy you can only get a government as good as its people. They need to do better.
Democrats cannot just accept that Republicans actively advocate racial, gender and religious discrimination. Then that attitude becomes the norm. The majority of Americans are not bigots. But Democrats must call out every instance of preferential policy.
One quick example: the attention to opioid addiction is laudable. However, all addictions are illnesses not just the addictions that affect a majority of whites. If the policies for assistance only targets opioid addiction then they are racially based and must be called out.
We are at a moment when Jim Crow, in a new suit, has spread across our nation. The only choice is to call a bigot a bigot, explain why behavior is unacceptable, and be ready to walk away from a relationship. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.
1
I'm interested in what Bruce Cain had to say, about the 'needs to develop a stronger program regarding the job opportunities and economic prospects of these angry white voters'. Sure, better 'opportunities' for all. Yes? Isn't that the 'common good'? Are we actually for that?
I don't want to play 'chess' with Trump. I don't want to become the evil that I see. I don't think we need to 'become' like him to succeed.
We're long down the path of economic polarization and oligarchy. We can't admit that, but it's real. The 'service sector' is a wasteland of terrible jobs with terrible wages and benefits. We can't house our people in decent apartments or neighborhoods.
So, when 'immigration' comes up, that is a real issue: how can we bring in more folks when we really don't care what happens to the ones already here? Right? How can anyone argue that we've sold-out the working-class to raise the upper-class higher. It has become an oligarchy. That's one thing Trump and Putin have in common: oligarchy, plutocracy, whatever you want to call it: we've put the money-mad in charge of us all. Criminal offense by common actions.
The 'race' issue has been so 'fired-up' by Trump and his like, that the poor whites don't see that poor blacks and all other poor are just like them: used and abused by this system of charlatans. Like dividing the sharecroppers from strong cohesion and common bonds, Trump's evil genius is at work, at a high level. It will eventually fall, explode, burn. Soon.
This is yet another thinly-veiled argument for continuing the failed neoliberalism of the Democratic party, a philosophy that has been in ascendance since Bill Clinton.
No mention of Bernie Sanders, of course. No credit given to how he galvanized and inspired the millennials, although they are cited as being the decisive voting bloc this time around. No mention of Bernie's tireless incursions into Trump country since Trump's election and his fearless discussions with Trump voters, which many times received standing ovations.
No, it's the scare tactics used to keep us "middle of the road." I'm surprised the article didn't go on at length about McGovern's loss nearly 50 years ago. It's a red herring that these people use often to warn us not to go too far left. Hilarious. Too far left! We couldn't even bring to justice the Wall St. jerks who brought down our economy under the "liberal" Obama. We were at war in 7 countries under a President who won the Nobel Peace prize. Left, indeed.
Democrats are doomed because they are thick. They will never learn. They are wedded to the neoliberals, with maybe just a few superficial and cosmetic pivots to make them acceptable to the voters they spurned over the years.
They are cowards. I am a Democrat of 52 years running and I quit.
2
Mr. Edsall,
This column is simply a bridge-too-far for me.
You write deeply researched pieces that include a wide range of comments from highly regarded people.
What you do not do is marshal any of the research and commentary into coherent statements about what one party or the other can and should do. It's the tennis-match conception of political commentary: if I can bat the ball back and forth over the net with enough point-counterpoint statements and assertions so that every affirmative proposition is offset by an "on the other hand" I can sound nuanced while only actually making my readers get whip-necked.
I'm tired of being whip-necked.
When you can coherently assert a proposition and defend it with some consistency be sure to let me know. Until then, good luck.
1
I'm surprised so many supposedly knowledgeable writers keep promulgating the myth of the working class white vote. The median Trump voter is better off than the median Clinton voter (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-cla....
And calling appealing to racial animus "playing chess" seems like an insult to the game of chess. Racial dog whistles might be effective but they are not particularly clever.
2
This isn't that hard.
If Trump is "winning" by trying to pit white people against everyone else, then Democrats can win by making an enemy out of the rich. It's not hard, and it's not unfair, considering that they are the reason that the middle class is disappearing and the white working class feels so much anxiety.
We're now an oligarchy, and the rich is maintaining this fraud because they buy politicians and judges. It's time for this charade to stop, and the only reason that the Democrats haven't moved in this direction is because a lot of them are bought and paid for by the wealthy as well. Not as much as the Republicans, of course, but enough for them to want to go soft on Wall St.
The Democratic establishment is going to realize that if they want to survive, they have to represent the people, not corporate interests. Luckily, I think they can survive this without being destroyed, unlike the Republicans, whose own party is currently eating them alive.
1
I am quite tired of hearing that we need to reach out and listen to "the white working class," and I say that as a white bookkeeper. We need to make them listen to us, actually. How hard can it be to send Democrats into the vulnerable areas to sympathize with their fears and explain what the ACA, Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, etc. do for them, and who exactly is trying to steal all that from them? Obama actually went and met with many of these communities and won some of their votes, their fear of disappearing culture and whiteness notwithstanding. The Democrats win on issues, such as the minimum wage initiatives in AZ ME CO WA in the election. Send out real people to talk with real people and hopefully make some inroads that way. A good example is Randy Bryce.
5
Trump playing chess?
I know the title meant he's playing chess proverbially, but it should be obvious to everyone by now that Trump isn't capable of even learning how to move the pieces on a chessboard, let alone learn the strategy and possess the mental prowess necessary to become good at the game. Chess is much to complicated a game for The Donald. He can't control it, and he can't change the rules in order to appear he's mastered it, so, to him, that game is worthless.
This is more like Trump is playing parcheesi and his dice are loaded (with congress) on his every roll.
First and foremost, Democrats need to vote. Every election. The far Right is slaughtering the Left and pummeling the moderate Right in state houses and governor's mansions across the country because they vote. Every election.
Maybe that should be the new Democratic motto: Every Election!
3
The drift I took from the article is that progressives need to dumb down and ignore the the ignorance of those unwilling to accept change. That's a bad idea.
The Dems need to address and identity the real threat to that mythical "white married male who carries to church"; the international corporations that don't need him to labor for them anymore.
Trump wouldn't recognize a chess piece if one walked up to him and punched him in the nose. Keep in mind that those Republicans will be dying off at the rate of around 5,000 a month sooner rather than later. Millennials aren't following in their shoes en masse. The GOP doesn't have any answers when it comes to improving the economic security and standing of the average American; on the contrary, they are intent upon enacting policies that will destroy it all the more. Sooner or later, even the most dense of the GOP supporters will wake up, perhaps just before they die from starvation or their parents are kicked out of the nursing home because Medicaid had ceased and they can't afford to pay $10,000 a month each for care in the facility!
Humans try to discern patterns. All the time.
But thinking the man baby is playing chess assigns reasoned strategy to what is in fact random acts of a deranged mentally ill old man who is in a job he has zero qualifications for.
Every move is based on the whim of the moment, not some "grand strategy."
I don't see a game of chess but rather a food fight with President Bluto Blutarsky leading the charge while his fans cheer him on. For the past 40 years, Republicans have been slinging tax cuts, xenophobia, dirty political tricks, and war and their supporters were happy about that as long as they perceived themselves to be in control. No real legislative accomplishments, no real economic progress for the regular guy, no victories on the battlefield? No worries, we're in charge; to heck with everyone else.
It's not that Democrats have no message, they have been sounding the alarm on these issues, perhaps imperfectly, for decades. Democrats have also, over the decades, offered real solutions and have been willing to govern on behalf of everyone. But when you have a large population of not very bright citizens whose perspectives do not extend much beyond tribal affiliation (and its perceived benefit) and that cannot appreciate that the food fight has been directed at them as well, I'm not sure there is much anyone can do about that. They'll just have to learn to scrape the potatoes off of their faces like the rest of have been doing for centuries.
1
If Trump is "playing chess" as you infer, he doesn't seem to think more than one move ahead. His MO is entirely reactive whether to something unfolding in front of himself or to anything that President Obama did. This isn't chess or checkers, it's childish and superficial.
Oh, and a tip for Mr. Trump, that piece on a chessboard is called a "knight," not the "horsey."
Those that do not want the instantiation of an oligarchy/plutocracy tinged with old time theocratic militarism and bigotry MUST do these things:
(1) take this as the fight for survival for modernity that it is and put your money, efforts, and especially your VOTE were your mouth is
(2) be seriously serious about primaries, voice expectations, and demand that the D Party (the only real alternative to the Putinesque R Party):
(a) runs candidates that are sufficiently generally charismatic - and certainly doesn't stupidly run candidates that historically poll low in popularity
(b) ensures their candidates have a palpable commitment to a "new deal" for America that not only will conceptually resonate positively with most Americans but can be demonstrably achievable; that is sticks to the facts of matters, explains them well, and provides their achievable road maps to a brighter future
(c) avoids counterproductive digressions into the thorny thickets of hyper political correctness and shrill accusatory broad bush social justice warrior activity - that is to say honestly commit to ensure there is not institutionalized inequality, bigotry, or protection of harassment/subservience but don't make your major themes culture wars, wars against all of human nature, or factually debatable so-called inequalities
(d) gets out the vote by whatever legal means possible
1972 landscape way different. Today 42/100% will vote R regardless BUT no more! At over 62% EVTO the Ds can win.
1
Not chess... Trump is playing whack-a-mole which keeps everyone swatting and distracted.... His agenda is to keep everyone off balance, to destabilize and confuse, to hide his systematic dismantling of our regulatory government behind a series of impromptu contrived crises and made-for-tv dramas.
2
Actually, Trump is playing blindfold chess. I could easily beat him at that game. No - he is really pandering to racists, and that is a game I wouldn't play. We can only hope that there are not enough racists and isolationist in the USA to support Trump's fascistic ambitions.
1
Chess? Checkers? Republicans have made a bold move. "Knee to left corner of board" This is no longer a game, the pieces are all over the floor.
Why does the republican 'base' love the idea that Trump is on a fast track to having their sons and daughters nuked? (i.e., the 'base' being the mostly uneducated, gun-toting 30 or so % of the voting American public who voted for Trump wholeheartedly, who still think Trump is the best thing since swiss cheese was invented).
The Trump base seems to enjoy the idea of Trump and his buddies in the Senate and Congress ripping their benefits and federal support that allows them to survive to shreds. And the Trump base will never, ever back down from glorifying Trump no matter what Trump says and does to those 'beneath him' such as the poor, the immigrants, the women, the whatever...
What is it about this particular base that allows them and them alone to decide the fate of America and the rest of the world?
Let us all ponder these questions next local, state and national election, especially those who did not but could have voted in Nov. 2016...
Wow, nothing in here about Russian interference and Fox News. This white northern Democrat doesn’t look down on any hard working individual regardless of their job or where they are from. That is something Republicans have peddled but in fact is fake news. America is being torn apart by a fear of the future. We no longer embrace our destiny but are trying to turn the clock back. That won’t end well.
6
Are candidates like Roy Moore supposed to gain respect from the left? Doesn't Mr. Moore represent all that liberals justly mock in the right? The rust belt is really the corrosion belt.
Mr. Belcher's checkers-chess analogy is wrong. trump is playing Russian Roulette at Putin's behest. Chess is beyond trump's intellect, focus, patience - and ability to follow the RULES. It takes zero intellect to divide and destroy, and there are no rules to accomplish this.
Perhaps the white working class should be taking a knee to protest Republicans' desperate attempts to trash their health coverage and the economy (like in 2008) to give billions to billionaires for doing nothing.
Lupia says the left has a blind spot too. The difference is the left can learn, but the right's blind spot is so dogmatic, to a cult-like extent, is destructive and causes real world harm - they're not merely trolling the left. The left knows the same day to day struggles as anyone on the right does.
I have no sympathy for the cultural anxiety of the right as they try to impose their so called values and morals on others without success, unless they have the government (they hate so much) impose it on us on their behalf. This deserves mocking!
"Why have they rejected us?" Because of Republican false narratives trashing any and all good ideas - even Republican ideas - coming from the left.
Mr. Bebala, show me a straight, white, married, gun-owning, church-going man that does not have contempt for a liberal!
1
Great column! LOVED the contributions by Mr. Lupia and Mr. Cain, who, unlike most Dems, are fair minded and actually seem to understand human nature. Big surprise to Dems and NYT readership - openly insulting the electorate, while mocking their need for safety (from crime) and for some sort of economic security probably won't bring you their votes.
1
Finally, a bit of honesty on the stance apparently held by so many Democrats. What makes the Democratic position worse is that on race they are no less biased than Republicans, as in spite of what they say it is in Democratic strongholds that we find so examples of segregation in schools and residences. UCLA has been tracking school segregation for years and it is in the North that is the worst, while states that use to have legal segregation haven't led the list since 1970. On the issue of violence and guns although Republicans own a majority of firearms when one looks at county level murder rates 9 of the top 10 voted Democratic in the last Presidential election, as even in Red states a number of urban centers are Blue. The hypocrisy just embitters others when they are pointed out as being racists.
Education hasn't really helped when people acknowledge "Many liberal elites, who see right-leaning voters as blindly following the edicts of an unbending dogma on many issues, have little to no awareness of their own blind allegiance to an unbending dogma on many issues." This again is another example of hypocrisy of Democrats.
Just having honest, RATIONAL discussions is a way out of this mess, for both sides, but one first needs to acknowledge that no party is preening angel wings.
So, what they are saying in a nutshell is that Sanders was the Democrats best bet and they blew it. He attracted young voters of all races and marginalized whites worried about the future.
What will the DNC do? Double down on their tone deafness.
1
Trump lacks the smarts to play chess, he is a reality show con man.
Unfortunately, Mr Edsall, your fail to address the true danger that this individual presents to Democracy and the survival of the world.