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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 23 2016 23:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Post Mortem
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the election since Nov. 8 trying to figure out what the hell happened, and this post summarizes my thoughts on it. These are just my subjective impressions - I’m not an authority on this stuff or anything like that, so I could be very off base.
Trump’s Support – Trump was able to win because he mobilized a group which doesn’t normally vote in high numbers, without significantly hurting his support from traditional Republicans. His support can be divided up as follows:
- “The Deplorables” – This group includes white nationalists and authoritarians, and played a large role in Trump winning the primary. His slogan “Make America Great Again” was a direct call out to the white nationalists. This group feels a great deal of nostalgia for a time when white people, even poor ones, were not only the focus of American political rhetoric on both sides of aisle, but also the focus of popular culture. They are uncomfortable with the demographic changes in the United States, and support policies which keep brown people out and down. Authoritarians, on the other hand, want an active federal government to protect them from “the other,” i.e., brown people. There is a lot of overlap between the two groups, though authoritarians are more likely to support a strong military presence abroad, and the suspension of civil liberties so that the government can “keep us safe.”
- “Change Voters” – The other group which contributed to Trump’s primary win. They wanted to give a big “fuck you” to the GOP establishment, and Trump was the perfect vehicle for this.
- “Traditional Conservative Voters” – This group includes traditional Republican voters such as the religious, and people who want tax cuts and a small federal government. The big question of the election was whether this group would come home to Trump. Many of them didn’t like or support him in the primary, and a larger than usual group was undecided until very close to the election.
- “White Low Information Swing Voters” – This group tends to be lower middle class / working poor, and it turns out they feel a lot of resentment towards the truly poor [brown] people who they perceive as getting a lot of government benefits. For example, they are really pissed off that poor people get Medicaid while they are forced to spend a lot of money on inferior health care plans on the exchanges.
Hillary’s Strategy & Why She Lost – People in this forum have been very critical of Hillary since the campaign. Justifiably so, because she lost. However, I think it’s important to try to evaluate her strategy without the benefit of hindsight, and during the campaign it seemed to be working.
- “Identity Politics” – The critique of Hillary’s campaign that I find the most frustrating is that she relied too much on “identity politics,” i.e., she talked about issues which are important to groups besides white people. ALL politics is identity politics. That’s why poor white people vote for Republicans who want to cut taxes for the 1%, and de-regulate the financial sector. Trump relied on identity politics by characterizing black communities as war zones, and Hispanic immigrants as criminals and gang members. His strategy was laser focused on getting white people to vote based upon their identities as white people, and it worked.
Hillary used a similar strategy, but focused on different demographics. For example, she couldn’t rely on African Americans to turn out like they had for Obama, so she had to spend a lot of time talking about issues which are important to African Americans. This had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the success of Trump’s strategy, but her campaign felt it was necessary in order to turn out key groups in the Democratic coalition.
- “Playing to the Center” – The Deplorables and Change Voters discussed above were always going to vote for Trump, but Hillary’s campaign believed they had a good chance of picking off the Traditional Conservative Voters if they focused on the abnormality of Trump as a candidate. If this had been successful, Hillary may have been able to win in a landslide. As a result, she focused on attacking Trump rather than playing up her own policies, which Traditional Conservative Voters would not have supported. Based upon exit polling, this seems to have worked to an extent. Something like 60% of voters believed Trump was unqualified to be President. Many of them just voted for him anyway which is the primary reason Hillary lost. Traditional Conservative Voters came home to the Republican party despite not thinking Trump would make a good president. More than anything else, I think the failure of Hillary’s strategy to get Traditional Conservative Voters to defect or stay home explains her loss.
Unequivocally, Hillary’s strategy failed. However, it’s unfair to be too critical because it seemed to be working during the campaign. Polls seemed to give her a comfortable lead throughout the campaign, and even members of Trump’s own team seemed to believe she was going to win. If the polls had been more accurate her campaign would have likely tried something else. They just didn’t realize they needed to.
- “Other Factors” – To a greater or lesser extent, the following factors help explain the outcome of the election:
The media – the “MSM” spent 3x more time covering stories related to Hillary’s email than it did covering policy issues. I don’t know how much of an effect this had on the outcome of the election, but hopefully we can all agree that the media did a terrible job giving people a sense of the policy stakes of the election.
Fake news – troubling, but probably didn’t affect the outcome. People sharing stories about Hillary’s child sex pizza ring probably weren’t going to vote for her anyway.
Russian hacks – Hillary has a lot of baggage, to put it lightly. As a result, the emails dribbling out were perceived as evidence of massive corruption even though I am of the opinion that nothing surprising or damning turned up. If Hillary was a different politician without the public’s ingrained perception of corruption I don’t think the hacks would have mattered. She wasn’t such a politician however.
Comey’s letter – It’s impossible to say whether Comey’s letter changed the outcome. However, we do know that a lot of people were undecided until the last weeks of the campaign, and that a lot of those people decided to vote for Trump at about the same time Comey’s letter came out. I think it’s likely that the letter caused an impact, and it certainly hurt Hillary. I don’t know whether it was decisive though.
Would Bernie Have Won? – The short answer is I don’t know. He certainly had advantages over Hillary which have been played up recently. He also shared some of her weaknesses, however, and had some all his own.
- “Bernie’s Strengths” – Bernie enjoyed significant strengths relative to Clinton. I think it’s quite probable that in such a close election these strengths would have proven decisive:
Perception as an outsider candidate – I think this would have been Bernie’s biggest advantage over Clinton. He probably would have been able to pick up some of Trump’s Change Voters, as well as some of the White Low Information Swing Voters.
Less baggage – nuff said.
Would have mobilized the left wing.
- “Bernie’s Weaknesses” – Despite his strengths, Bernie also was a weaker candidate than Clinton in a lot of ways:
Policy – Bernie’s policies weren’t as well-articulated as Clinton’s were, and they weren’t even that popular among the people who voted for him in the primary. For example, a large majority of his own supporters didn’t support his tax plan. This factor was decisive for me, and is why I supported Clinton. However, I think it’s reasonable to think this wouldn’t have mattered in an election against Trump. People on both sides care more about identity than policy.
Traditional Conservative Voters would have HATED him – This group of voters really hates taxes. They may have taken one look at his platform and turned out in record numbers to prevent “socialism” from taking hold in the US.
Middle class and working poor white people MAY have hated him – as discussed above, this group of voters doesn’t like social welfare programs which benefit the really poor [brown] people. This may have been enough for this group to support Trump in large numbers over Bernie.
Identity politics – I think Bernie would have had to use a strategy similar to Hillary’s to get minority groups to turn out for him. We saw this during the primary. This would have reinforced Trump’s white identity politics strategy the same way that Hillary’s approach did.
With hindsight we know that Hillary lost to Trump, so I was wrong during the primary and the Democrats should have nominated Bernie. However, there is no guarantee that he would have won.
Future of the Democratic Party – People are probably going to take issue with this, but I think a candidate with less baggage than Hillary using her exact same strategy would have won. It was a very close election, and just small nudge in the other direction would have been decisive. As a result, I’m not sure it’s clear that the Democratic party needs to significantly adjust its strategy in order to win elections going forward.
That said, I don’t think it would hurt for the party to refine its strategy in a few key ways.
- “Identity Politics” – I believe it is important for the Democratic party to continue speaking to the interests of minority groups other than white people. As much attention as the WWC gets, that demographic is still generally better off than African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. However, this should be done in a broader based manner. One criticism I read about Hillary’s campaign is that she spoke to Hispanic groups about Hispanic issues, spoke to black groups about black issues, spoke to women’s groups about women’s issues, etc. Rather than this compartmentalized approach, I think future candidates should speak about the same issues messaged for a broader audience. For example, instead of only talking to African Americans about police brutality candidates can talk about strategies to reduce police violence which are race neutral. Campaign Zero’s platform is a good example of this (google it, it’s a great website). This would hopefully signal to African Americans that the candidate takes their issues seriously, without alienating white voters quite as much.
- “Fix the Primary System” – Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people, particularly on the left wing, believe that the primary was rigged unfairly in Hillary’s favor. I disagree, but this doesn’t mean that changes can’t be made to improve the way Democratic presidential candidates are chosen:
Get rid of super delegates – The only purpose super delegates serve is to overturn a popular vote in the primary that the establishment doesn’t agree with. Doing this would be a disaster for the party. Therefore, we shouldn’t bother having super delegates. A few weeks ago my dad (who voted for Trump) told me that he had heard that Hillary only won the primary because of super delegate support. This was wrong, but a lot of people believe it anyway. Getting rid of the super delegate system will get rid of the perception that a few elites get to choose the Democratic candidate.
Require registration as a Democrat to vote, but allow same day registration – I think this strikes a good balance between making sure primary voters are invested in the Democratic party, while ensuring that the primary is reasonably democratic.
Make sure people don’t have to wait in line for hours to vote – this was embarrassing, and a fair critique of the primary process. Similarly, I would get rid of the caucus system. It’s stupid to make people wait all day listening to speeches in order to vote for their candidate, and this gives too much power to small groups of true believers.
Thanks for reading if anyone made it this far : ) Happy holidays!
Tldr:
- Trump won because traditional Republican voters came home to the party.
- Hillary lost because her strategy to appeal to traditional Republican voters didn’t work.
- Bernie may have been a better candidate than Hillary, but this is far from certain.
- In the future Democrats should not shy away from identity politics, they should just do it better.
I appreciate the genuine attempt at analyzing the failures of the Clinton campaign this time around. I think that this represents a perspective that is likely to be comparable to what could come out of the Clinton camp, if it were a bit more honest about the reasons it lost. However, I have a few key disagreements with the conclusions here. I will talk about some key flaws in this analysis, not as a point-by-point response in full (I've gotten quite tired of treatise-posts myself), but with a consideration of many of the main ideas.
Let's start with "the deplorables" first. Certainly, there was an element of "cultural restoration" that went into Trump's victory. It's a populist campaign, what did you expect? He says what a lot of them thing - that PC culture is stupid, that there is nothing wrong with Merry Christmas, that Americans should come first, and so on. Yes, he was a candidate who really rallied that base. But the "basket of deplorables" comment cut quite deeply into what was wrong with Hillary and her campaign. It was a comment that highlighted a willingness to write off voters that she felt just didn't conform to her idea of what the voterbase should be. She was, by proxy, saying, "people who don't vote for me are just faggots, and they can fuck off." Any number of people were rightly offended by that, except the part of the base that has so strongly bought into her interpretation of events that it came off as perfectly normal. Comparable to Romney's "47 percent" in that it just very strongly epitomizes what people despise about the candidate in question.
Then, let's talk about who really makes up Trump's main voter base. We can start with the conservatives, who in the end decided that, you know, we really don't like Trump, but we hate Hillary Clinton more and we can't let Hillary Clinton get elected so we will go with Trump. The Republican base largely failed to create a viable mainstream candidate so Trump was able to stage a coup of the party with a plurality of the votes, despite the fact that a lot of people really didn't like him. The main base was an interesting mix of left-leaning Republicans (he had a blowout in New York for example), poorly educated and rural folk, and a various spattering of other voters that just went along with him over his pathetic challengers (Jeb Bush was the establishment pick and people just heavily noped him out). While the establishment Republicans didn't really get behind him, ultimately the late deciders (especially the third party right-leaning voters) ultimately bit the bullet and voted Trump.
Most important of all, as many mainstream analysts failed to predict but a lot of the more notorious candidates this election called, the rural vote came through for Trump. Those who have been shafted by globalization and simply had no other choice went for the one candidate in the general who was aggressively anti-trade and pro-rural-development. No one, not her supporters, not the establishment, and certainly not the opposition, bought Hillary's so-called "transformation" on TPP. Rightfully so because it was a pretty blatant lie that she backed down on it. You miss the problem with the WWC in your analysis: they aren't mad because they are the poorest, they are mad because they see a consistent, substantial, and lasting decline in their quality of life as their jobs are lost to globalization of the economy (and technology improvements for that matter) and they fail to be "compensated by the spoils of globalization" for their losses. The wealthy become wealthier but they become poorer, and they soon drop from middle class into the poor. Trump offered them the best chance they had of sending a message and perhaps getting help.
Identity politics. I have to say that I completely disagree with you on this one. The problem isn't minority rights, or being treated properly, or anything of the sort. The problem is epitomized by commentary such as, "a beautiful brown wall will keep Trump out of the White House" or, "women who don't vote for Hillary go to hell" or, "I'm a woman, I can't be part of the establishment." These comments are completely and utterly disgusting, and there is nothing okay about the identitization of various political issues. Indeed, it's more about getting people to identify with their "identities" than about making things better for those groups. If there are flaws in the social laws, we should fix them, but we should not be dividing people by their "identities" because that is the exact opposite. This perception is what makes people who aren't interested in that game feel completely and utterly sickened by its use - including some of the minority voters here.
Playing to the center. There are three main problems here that Hillary failed to address. First of all, probably most important, is the neglect of the Bernie Sanders base. He had a genuine, impressive movement, and his voters rightfully felt neglected, and the DNC leaks justified their sentiment. Second of all, related to the first, misjudgment of swing groups. By focusing on identity politics, Hillary (not alone, but Trump did otherwise) judged that the most important swing group was the Hispanics, another identitarian focus. Turns out they just didn't like her enough, for a wide range of reasons, to vote for her. Related to that is the idea of "demography will kill off people who don't vote for us and then we will be victorious." That hasn't been a reality and frankly whitey isn't really going anywhere (many "Hispanics" are just those of partial white ancestry who ultimately identify as white in the end). These two issues led to a Kaine choice for VP, who was not the right one. Third of all was the idea that traditional Republicans would come through for Hillary, which might explain campaigns in Texas and Arizona. Ultimately it seems they decided, "you know, Trump is a shitbag, but you're an even bigger shitbag so we will vote for Trump."
Circumstances. The media and "fake news" are not matters I care to talk about; we have gone on and on in circles about how valid those claims are, and while I ultimately would conclude that "the media" was Clinton-favored enough that she shouldn't be bitching, that fake news exists but that it is a boogeyman that the leftists mostly use to avoid blaming her for her loss. But we have and will continue to go on about that. Hax: the leakers played to the fact that people just despise Hillary Clinton, plain and simple, and she played the "Russia did it" deflection that no sane people bought into as an explanation for the contents of the leaks. Comey's letter was unfortunate but as I have read, he seems to have made a principled choice in a no-win scenario with an incompetent, untrustworthy attorney general with clear pro-Hillary sentiment.
Finally, Bernie Sanders and a very important bit of miscellania. I would have to say that Bernie Sanders would have won, plain and simple, with very little doubt about that. Not because people like him so much, but because people just would not be capable of hating a principled, if often stubborn and mule-headed, socialist as much as they hate Hillary Clinton. I know a lot of Sanders>Trump>Clinton voters who don't like Sanders but say "better an honest socialist than a crook or a demagogue." However, what I am very much not certain of is whether or not people would ultimately buy into his leftist view of the world. I think he would ultimately fail to push for what he wanted because the sentiment of the Western world is very much not in his favor.
The problem here is this: there is a substantial and sustained rightward pressure in the political system of all the Western nations. You can see this in the populist revolutions all across Europe. Like in the US, people see nationalism above globalism as their desired focus, and they do not want the liberal view of the world to become a reality. I'm sure most people support some of Bernie Sanders' policies: campaign finance, anti-trade, dovish foreign policy, arguably even universal healthcare and socialized education. But people as a whole simply don't buy into liberalism as advocated by Bernie Sanders. They see the refugee crisis in Europe, they see that Hillary Clinton says, "let's import that shit into our country" and they nope out of it. They see Brexit and the collapse of liberalism in Europe, and see that Bernie Sanders and his core base opposes that, and they really are not on board with a liberal outlook of the world. He would have won but I do not think he could have stood against the rightward trend in any meaningful way.
And yes, sooner or later the Republican establishment will see its reckoning for the dirty politics it played in the past years. The rightward pressure exists but that doesn't mean that the Republicans inherit the future. Trump's primary victory against Republican establishment wishes is a testament to that disdain for the party. For now, they get a big victory, but they will have to cater to a decidedly more populist than desired base to stay in power. Trump is a headache for them in a lot of ways and he will break shit within the Republican ruling apparatus before things stabilize again.
However, as it stands now, the Democrats proved by nominating and pushing Hillary Clinton, that their supposed moral high ground was made of sand, and they will have to rebuild first. I have not given Obama his fair share of criticism for his failure to properly secure the future of his policies, but I will say that this defeat is rooted in Obama, who is charismatic enough to win but not charismatic enough to make people enable the Democrats. Hillary Clinton manages to lay bare what people despise about the party in a way that Obama was able to mask. The local losses are a testament to that fact.
Looking to the future starts by looking inward into the idiotic system that propped up Hillary Clinton, outward to the troubles in Europe that resemble those on this side of the world, and a proper cleansing that will remake the party into something that is more reasonable. We can look forward to a decade of rather dramatic change in the world order and the Clinton/Obama "centrist status quo" candidates are on the losing side of history in that regard.
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I'll say one thing - I'm eager to see the results of Trump's changes. If shit goes south, I hope those who voted for him learn the lesson that you can't vote for people like Schwarzenegger, Ventura, Palin and Trump.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Speaking of Schwartznegger, I was in LA just a little while ago and I saw that he was taking Trump's place as the host on Celebrity Apprentice. Little to say there except "lol" really.
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Donald Trump’s team has struggled to line up prime talent to perform at his inauguration, and he’s reportedly livid as a result.
Mark Burnett, who created and produced The Apprentice, is overseeing the inauguration festivities, and even he seems to be grasping at straws. So, he brought in talent recruiter Suzanne Bender, who is a former booker on Dancing With the Stars and American Idol, to help. Her arrival is seen as a “hail mary” shakeup to satisfy the “unhappy” Trump mere weeks before the inauguration, which can’t boast any A-list acts at this time.
A number of top-list performers, including Garth Brooks, Elton John, and Andrea Bocelli, were asked to take part in the Inauguration festivities but declined. Bocelli seemed to be on the verge of saying yes but reportedly passed after pressure from fans. This does appear to be a common concern among performers, as they don’t want to “normalize” Trump and alienate their own fanbase. Dixie Chicks manager Simon Renshaw clued The Wrap in about Trump-related fears for performers: “If anyone does do it, I hope that the check that they get is in the nine figures. Because it’s probably the last check they’re ever going to get.”
Despite their difficulties, there are apparently a few acts that will participate. Consequence of Sound reveals that the lineup includes the following acts: The American Gentleman; The Reagan Years (“one of the HOTTEST ’80s cover bands”); wedding band The Mixx; DJ Freedom; and The Star Spangled Singers. In a late breaking bit of news, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints announced that The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be performing during the festivities. So, it’s shaping up to be a rocking party.
Yahoo
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On December 24 2016 02:29 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 23:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Post Mortem
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the election since Nov. 8 trying to figure out what the hell happened, and this post summarizes my thoughts on it. These are just my subjective impressions - I’m not an authority on this stuff or anything like that, so I could be very off base.
Trump’s Support – Trump was able to win because he mobilized a group which doesn’t normally vote in high numbers, without significantly hurting his support from traditional Republicans. His support can be divided up as follows:
- “The Deplorables” – This group includes white nationalists and authoritarians, and played a large role in Trump winning the primary. His slogan “Make America Great Again” was a direct call out to the white nationalists. This group feels a great deal of nostalgia for a time when white people, even poor ones, were not only the focus of American political rhetoric on both sides of aisle, but also the focus of popular culture. They are uncomfortable with the demographic changes in the United States, and support policies which keep brown people out and down. Authoritarians, on the other hand, want an active federal government to protect them from “the other,” i.e., brown people. There is a lot of overlap between the two groups, though authoritarians are more likely to support a strong military presence abroad, and the suspension of civil liberties so that the government can “keep us safe.”
- “Change Voters” – The other group which contributed to Trump’s primary win. They wanted to give a big “fuck you” to the GOP establishment, and Trump was the perfect vehicle for this.
- “Traditional Conservative Voters” – This group includes traditional Republican voters such as the religious, and people who want tax cuts and a small federal government. The big question of the election was whether this group would come home to Trump. Many of them didn’t like or support him in the primary, and a larger than usual group was undecided until very close to the election.
- “White Low Information Swing Voters” – This group tends to be lower middle class / working poor, and it turns out they feel a lot of resentment towards the truly poor [brown] people who they perceive as getting a lot of government benefits. For example, they are really pissed off that poor people get Medicaid while they are forced to spend a lot of money on inferior health care plans on the exchanges.
Hillary’s Strategy & Why She Lost – People in this forum have been very critical of Hillary since the campaign. Justifiably so, because she lost. However, I think it’s important to try to evaluate her strategy without the benefit of hindsight, and during the campaign it seemed to be working.
- “Identity Politics” – The critique of Hillary’s campaign that I find the most frustrating is that she relied too much on “identity politics,” i.e., she talked about issues which are important to groups besides white people. ALL politics is identity politics. That’s why poor white people vote for Republicans who want to cut taxes for the 1%, and de-regulate the financial sector. Trump relied on identity politics by characterizing black communities as war zones, and Hispanic immigrants as criminals and gang members. His strategy was laser focused on getting white people to vote based upon their identities as white people, and it worked.
Hillary used a similar strategy, but focused on different demographics. For example, she couldn’t rely on African Americans to turn out like they had for Obama, so she had to spend a lot of time talking about issues which are important to African Americans. This had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the success of Trump’s strategy, but her campaign felt it was necessary in order to turn out key groups in the Democratic coalition.
- “Playing to the Center” – The Deplorables and Change Voters discussed above were always going to vote for Trump, but Hillary’s campaign believed they had a good chance of picking off the Traditional Conservative Voters if they focused on the abnormality of Trump as a candidate. If this had been successful, Hillary may have been able to win in a landslide. As a result, she focused on attacking Trump rather than playing up her own policies, which Traditional Conservative Voters would not have supported. Based upon exit polling, this seems to have worked to an extent. Something like 60% of voters believed Trump was unqualified to be President. Many of them just voted for him anyway which is the primary reason Hillary lost. Traditional Conservative Voters came home to the Republican party despite not thinking Trump would make a good president. More than anything else, I think the failure of Hillary’s strategy to get Traditional Conservative Voters to defect or stay home explains her loss.
Unequivocally, Hillary’s strategy failed. However, it’s unfair to be too critical because it seemed to be working during the campaign. Polls seemed to give her a comfortable lead throughout the campaign, and even members of Trump’s own team seemed to believe she was going to win. If the polls had been more accurate her campaign would have likely tried something else. They just didn’t realize they needed to.
- “Other Factors” – To a greater or lesser extent, the following factors help explain the outcome of the election:
The media – the “MSM” spent 3x more time covering stories related to Hillary’s email than it did covering policy issues. I don’t know how much of an effect this had on the outcome of the election, but hopefully we can all agree that the media did a terrible job giving people a sense of the policy stakes of the election.
Fake news – troubling, but probably didn’t affect the outcome. People sharing stories about Hillary’s child sex pizza ring probably weren’t going to vote for her anyway.
Russian hacks – Hillary has a lot of baggage, to put it lightly. As a result, the emails dribbling out were perceived as evidence of massive corruption even though I am of the opinion that nothing surprising or damning turned up. If Hillary was a different politician without the public’s ingrained perception of corruption I don’t think the hacks would have mattered. She wasn’t such a politician however.
Comey’s letter – It’s impossible to say whether Comey’s letter changed the outcome. However, we do know that a lot of people were undecided until the last weeks of the campaign, and that a lot of those people decided to vote for Trump at about the same time Comey’s letter came out. I think it’s likely that the letter caused an impact, and it certainly hurt Hillary. I don’t know whether it was decisive though.
Would Bernie Have Won? – The short answer is I don’t know. He certainly had advantages over Hillary which have been played up recently. He also shared some of her weaknesses, however, and had some all his own.
- “Bernie’s Strengths” – Bernie enjoyed significant strengths relative to Clinton. I think it’s quite probable that in such a close election these strengths would have proven decisive:
Perception as an outsider candidate – I think this would have been Bernie’s biggest advantage over Clinton. He probably would have been able to pick up some of Trump’s Change Voters, as well as some of the White Low Information Swing Voters.
Less baggage – nuff said.
Would have mobilized the left wing.
- “Bernie’s Weaknesses” – Despite his strengths, Bernie also was a weaker candidate than Clinton in a lot of ways:
Policy – Bernie’s policies weren’t as well-articulated as Clinton’s were, and they weren’t even that popular among the people who voted for him in the primary. For example, a large majority of his own supporters didn’t support his tax plan. This factor was decisive for me, and is why I supported Clinton. However, I think it’s reasonable to think this wouldn’t have mattered in an election against Trump. People on both sides care more about identity than policy.
Traditional Conservative Voters would have HATED him – This group of voters really hates taxes. They may have taken one look at his platform and turned out in record numbers to prevent “socialism” from taking hold in the US.
Middle class and working poor white people MAY have hated him – as discussed above, this group of voters doesn’t like social welfare programs which benefit the really poor [brown] people. This may have been enough for this group to support Trump in large numbers over Bernie.
Identity politics – I think Bernie would have had to use a strategy similar to Hillary’s to get minority groups to turn out for him. We saw this during the primary. This would have reinforced Trump’s white identity politics strategy the same way that Hillary’s approach did.
With hindsight we know that Hillary lost to Trump, so I was wrong during the primary and the Democrats should have nominated Bernie. However, there is no guarantee that he would have won.
Future of the Democratic Party – People are probably going to take issue with this, but I think a candidate with less baggage than Hillary using her exact same strategy would have won. It was a very close election, and just small nudge in the other direction would have been decisive. As a result, I’m not sure it’s clear that the Democratic party needs to significantly adjust its strategy in order to win elections going forward.
That said, I don’t think it would hurt for the party to refine its strategy in a few key ways.
- “Identity Politics” – I believe it is important for the Democratic party to continue speaking to the interests of minority groups other than white people. As much attention as the WWC gets, that demographic is still generally better off than African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. However, this should be done in a broader based manner. One criticism I read about Hillary’s campaign is that she spoke to Hispanic groups about Hispanic issues, spoke to black groups about black issues, spoke to women’s groups about women’s issues, etc. Rather than this compartmentalized approach, I think future candidates should speak about the same issues messaged for a broader audience. For example, instead of only talking to African Americans about police brutality candidates can talk about strategies to reduce police violence which are race neutral. Campaign Zero’s platform is a good example of this (google it, it’s a great website). This would hopefully signal to African Americans that the candidate takes their issues seriously, without alienating white voters quite as much.
- “Fix the Primary System” – Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people, particularly on the left wing, believe that the primary was rigged unfairly in Hillary’s favor. I disagree, but this doesn’t mean that changes can’t be made to improve the way Democratic presidential candidates are chosen:
Get rid of super delegates – The only purpose super delegates serve is to overturn a popular vote in the primary that the establishment doesn’t agree with. Doing this would be a disaster for the party. Therefore, we shouldn’t bother having super delegates. A few weeks ago my dad (who voted for Trump) told me that he had heard that Hillary only won the primary because of super delegate support. This was wrong, but a lot of people believe it anyway. Getting rid of the super delegate system will get rid of the perception that a few elites get to choose the Democratic candidate.
Require registration as a Democrat to vote, but allow same day registration – I think this strikes a good balance between making sure primary voters are invested in the Democratic party, while ensuring that the primary is reasonably democratic.
Make sure people don’t have to wait in line for hours to vote – this was embarrassing, and a fair critique of the primary process. Similarly, I would get rid of the caucus system. It’s stupid to make people wait all day listening to speeches in order to vote for their candidate, and this gives too much power to small groups of true believers.
Thanks for reading if anyone made it this far : ) Happy holidays!
Tldr:
- Trump won because traditional Republican voters came home to the party.
- Hillary lost because her strategy to appeal to traditional Republican voters didn’t work.
- Bernie may have been a better candidate than Hillary, but this is far from certain.
- In the future Democrats should not shy away from identity politics, they should just do it better.
Show nested quote +I appreciate the genuine attempt at analyzing the failures of the Clinton campaign this time around. I think that this represents a perspective that is likely to be comparable to what could come out of the Clinton camp, if it were a bit more honest about the reasons it lost. However, I have a few key disagreements with the conclusions here. I will talk about some key flaws in this analysis, not as a point-by-point response in full (I've gotten quite tired of treatise-posts myself), but with a consideration of many of the main ideas.
Let's start with "the deplorables" first. Certainly, there was an element of "cultural restoration" that went into Trump's victory. It's a populist campaign, what did you expect? He says what a lot of them thing - that PC culture is stupid, that there is nothing wrong with Merry Christmas, that Americans should come first, and so on. Yes, he was a candidate who really rallied that base. But the "basket of deplorables" comment cut quite deeply into what was wrong with Hillary and her campaign. It was a comment that highlighted a willingness to write off voters that she felt just didn't conform to her idea of what the voterbase should be. She was, by proxy, saying, "people who don't vote for me are just faggots, and they can fuck off." Any number of people were rightly offended by that, except the part of the base that has so strongly bought into her interpretation of events that it came off as perfectly normal. Comparable to Romney's "47 percent" in that it just very strongly epitomizes what people despise about the candidate in question.
Then, let's talk about who really makes up Trump's main voter base. We can start with the conservatives, who in the end decided that, you know, we really don't like Trump, but we hate Hillary Clinton more and we can't let Hillary Clinton get elected so we will go with Trump. The Republican base largely failed to create a viable mainstream candidate so Trump was able to stage a coup of the party with a plurality of the votes, despite the fact that a lot of people really didn't like him. The main base was an interesting mix of left-leaning Republicans (he had a blowout in New York for example), poorly educated and rural folk, and a various spattering of other voters that just went along with him over his pathetic challengers (Jeb Bush was the establishment pick and people just heavily noped him out). While the establishment Republicans didn't really get behind him, ultimately the late deciders (especially the third party right-leaning voters) ultimately bit the bullet and voted Trump.
Most important of all, as many mainstream analysts failed to predict but a lot of the more notorious candidates this election called, the rural vote came through for Trump. Those who have been shafted by globalization and simply had no other choice went for the one candidate in the general who was aggressively anti-trade and pro-rural-development. No one, not her supporters, not the establishment, and certainly not the opposition, bought Hillary's so-called "transformation" on TPP. Rightfully so because it was a pretty blatant lie that she backed down on it. You miss the problem with the WWC in your analysis: they aren't mad because they are the poorest, they are mad because they see a consistent, substantial, and lasting decline in their quality of life as their jobs are lost to globalization of the economy (and technology improvements for that matter) and they fail to be "compensated by the spoils of globalization" for their losses. The wealthy become wealthier but they become poorer, and they soon drop from middle class into the poor. Trump offered them the best chance they had of sending a message and perhaps getting help.
Identity politics. I have to say that I completely disagree with you on this one. The problem isn't minority rights, or being treated properly, or anything of the sort. The problem is epitomized by commentary such as, "a beautiful brown wall will keep Trump out of the White House" or, "women who don't vote for Hillary go to hell" or, "I'm a woman, I can't be part of the establishment." These comments are completely and utterly disgusting, and there is nothing okay about the identitization of various political issues. Indeed, it's more about getting people to identify with their "identities" than about making things better for those groups. If there are flaws in the social laws, we should fix them, but we should not be dividing people by their "identities" because that is the exact opposite. This perception is what makes people who aren't interested in that game feel completely and utterly sickened by its use - including some of the minority voters here.
Playing to the center. There are three main problems here that Hillary failed to address. First of all, probably most important, is the neglect of the Bernie Sanders base. He had a genuine, impressive movement, and his voters rightfully felt neglected, and the DNC leaks justified their sentiment. Second of all, related to the first, misjudgment of swing groups. By focusing on identity politics, Hillary (not alone, but Trump did otherwise) judged that the most important swing group was the Hispanics, another identitarian focus. Turns out they just didn't like her enough, for a wide range of reasons, to vote for her. Related to that is the idea of "demography will kill off people who don't vote for us and then we will be victorious." That hasn't been a reality and frankly whitey isn't really going anywhere (many "Hispanics" are just those of partial white ancestry who ultimately identify as white in the end). These two issues led to a Kaine choice for VP, who was not the right one. Third of all was the idea that traditional Republicans would come through for Hillary, which might explain campaigns in Texas and Arizona. Ultimately it seems they decided, "you know, Trump is a shitbag, but you're an even bigger shitbag so we will vote for Trump."
Circumstances. The media and "fake news" are not matters I care to talk about; we have gone on and on in circles about how valid those claims are, and while I ultimately would conclude that "the media" was Clinton-favored enough that she shouldn't be bitching, that fake news exists but that it is a boogeyman that the leftists mostly use to avoid blaming her for her loss. But we have and will continue to go on about that. Hax: the leakers played to the fact that people just despise Hillary Clinton, plain and simple, and she played the "Russia did it" deflection that no sane people bought into as an explanation for the contents of the leaks. Comey's letter was unfortunate but as I have read, he seems to have made a principled choice in a no-win scenario with an incompetent, untrustworthy attorney general with clear pro-Hillary sentiment.
Finally, Bernie Sanders and a very important bit of miscellania. I would have to say that Bernie Sanders would have won, plain and simple, with very little doubt about that. Not because people like him so much, but because people just would not be capable of hating a principled, if often stubborn and mule-headed, socialist as much as they hate Hillary Clinton. I know a lot of Sanders>Trump>Clinton voters who don't like Sanders but say "better an honest socialist than a crook or a demagogue." However, what I am very much not certain of is whether or not people would ultimately buy into his leftist view of the world. I think he would ultimately fail to push for what he wanted because the sentiment of the Western world is very much not in his favor.
The problem here is this: there is a substantial and sustained rightward pressure in the political system of all the Western nations. You can see this in the populist revolutions all across Europe. Like in the US, people see nationalism above globalism as their desired focus, and they do not want the liberal view of the world to become a reality. I'm sure most people support some of Bernie Sanders' policies: campaign finance, anti-trade, dovish foreign policy, arguably even universal healthcare and socialized education. But people as a whole simply don't buy into liberalism as advocated by Bernie Sanders. They see the refugee crisis in Europe, they see that Hillary Clinton says, "let's import that shit into our country" and they nope out of it. They see Brexit and the collapse of liberalism in Europe, and see that Bernie Sanders and his core base opposes that, and they really are not on board with a liberal outlook of the world. He would have won but I do not think he could have stood against the rightward trend in any meaningful way.
And yes, sooner or later the Republican establishment will see its reckoning for the dirty politics it played in the past years. The rightward pressure exists but that doesn't mean that the Republicans inherit the future. Trump's primary victory against Republican establishment wishes is a testament to that disdain for the party. For now, they get a big victory, but they will have to cater to a decidedly more populist than desired base to stay in power. Trump is a headache for them in a lot of ways and he will break shit within the Republican ruling apparatus before things stabilize again.
However, as it stands now, the Democrats proved by nominating and pushing Hillary Clinton, that their supposed moral high ground was made of sand, and they will have to rebuild first. I have not given Obama his fair share of criticism for his failure to properly secure the future of his policies, but I will say that this defeat is rooted in Obama, who is charismatic enough to win but not charismatic enough to make people enable the Democrats. Hillary Clinton manages to lay bare what people despise about the party in a way that Obama was able to mask. The local losses are a testament to that fact.
Looking to the future starts by looking inward into the idiotic system that propped up Hillary Clinton, outward to the troubles in Europe that resemble those on this side of the world, and a proper cleansing that will remake the party into something that is more reasonable. We can look forward to a decade of rather dramatic change in the world order and the Clinton/Obama "centrist status quo" candidates are on the losing side of history in that regard.
Thanks for the well though out response. I actually agree with a lot of what you say, though I do have a few quibbles/clarifications.
I agree totally that Clinton shouldn't have used the deplorables term, and your comparison with Romney's 47% line is spot on. Both comments reaffirmed the negative narrative people had bought into for the respective candidates. I used it as shorthand for a subgroup of Trump's supporters but I'm not campaigning for office : )
Regarding the rural vote I agree that they perceive that they have been screwed over by globalization. I just don't think that that perception is accurate. Some communities may have been harmed by increased trade, but I think on balance the country has benefited. The United States manufacturing industry is as robust as it has ever been (in absolute terms rather than relative terms at least) it just doesn't employee as many people.
![[image loading]](https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/mfg1.jpg)
I think automation is a better culprit than globalization for explaining the drop off in manufacturing employment. It is important to talk about policies to address this, and both parties have failed. I just don't think Trump's harping on trade deals is applicable.
Regarding identity politics, I wasn't arguing that I think it's good that people vote based on their identities. I would love it if people researched policies and listened to experts on all sides of issues before deciding who to support. They don't though. People vote based upon their identities. It's just how our brains are wired. This helps to explain why many people in rural communities who need Obamacare's Medicaid expansion to survive still voted for Trump.
If you disagree I'd be curious to know what you think primarily motivates people to vote for a particular party/candidate. It certainly isn't policy preferences...
Regarding fake news, hacking, etc., I'm happy to not discuss these things further as contributing factors to Hillary's loss. However, I think it's absolutely vital to talk about these issues so we can be more vigilant in the future, and hopefully our government will start paying attention to cyber security. Whether or not Russian interference contributed to the outcome, it's appalling that they tried.
On a somewhat related note, this is one of the more depressing poll results I've seen lately:
Republicans once prided themselves on their rock-solid opposition to the Soviet Union and blasted Obama for trying to “reset” relations with Russia. That party now likes Putin more than it likes Obama, viewing a murderous foreign strongman (-10) more positively than it sees a twice-elected American president (-64).
Source
I largely agree with the rest of your points. The Democratic party consolidated too quickly around Hillary, and it would have been better for everyone if they had given other candidates a more impartial look.
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Yeah the Republican shift toward Putin just because their candidate benefitted from him is pretty disturbing. The real lesson of this election, for both sides, should be the influence of bias on our thinking.
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Trump Surrogate Wishes Death on Obama, Says Michelle Should Live in Africa With Apes
A Buffalo politician said in an interview Friday that he wanted Barack Obama to die of mad cow disease, that Michelle Obama was once a man, and that she should go live in Africa with gorillas.
Western New York newspaper ArtVoice asked a series of Buffalo politicians and public figures what their wish list for 2017 was. Former Republican gubernatoral candidate and chairman of the Donald Trump New York campaign Carl Paladino responded that he wanted Obama’s death.
“Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford [sic],” he wrote them. “He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret [sic], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady [sic] cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.”
Paladino was then asked who he wished would “go away” in 2017. “Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he said.
Paladino confirmed to The Buffalo News that he made the comments, explaining that he didn’t care for the president. “Yeah, I’m not politically correct. They asked what I want and I told them,” he said.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-surrogate-wishes-death-on-obama-says-michelle-should-live-in-africa-with-apes/
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On December 24 2016 03:50 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +
Trump Surrogate Wishes Death on Obama, Says Michelle Should Live in Africa With Apes
A Buffalo politician said in an interview Friday that he wanted Barack Obama to die of mad cow disease, that Michelle Obama was once a man, and that she should go live in Africa with gorillas.
Western New York newspaper ArtVoice asked a series of Buffalo politicians and public figures what their wish list for 2017 was. Former Republican gubernatoral candidate and chairman of the Donald Trump New York campaign Carl Paladino responded that he wanted Obama’s death.
“Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford [sic],” he wrote them. “He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret [sic], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady [sic] cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.”
Paladino was then asked who he wished would “go away” in 2017. “Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he said.
Paladino confirmed to The Buffalo News that he made the comments, explaining that he didn’t care for the president. “Yeah, I’m not politically correct. They asked what I want and I told them,” he said.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-surrogate-wishes-death-on-obama-says-michelle-should-live-in-africa-with-apes/
this is the problem with the media setup today. It's all about finding the craziest dumbest guy and quoting him.
and then that gets passed around.
That said, I wonder what the guys he beat out for the job looked like.
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Leading Republicans in Congress have vowed that even if they repeal most of the Affordable Care Act early in 2017, a replacement won't hurt those now receiving benefits.
Republicans will seek to ensure that "no one is worse off," said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in an interview with a Wisconsin newspaper in early December. "The purpose here is to bring relief to people who are suffering from Obamacare so that they can get something better."
But that may be difficult for one big reason: Republicans have also pledged to repeal the taxes that Democrats used to pay for their health law. Without that money, Republicans will have far less to spend on whatever they opt for as a replacement.
"It will be hard to have comparable coverage if they start with less money," Gail Wilensky, a health economist who ran the Medicare and Medicaid programs under President George H.W. Bush, said in an interview.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/23/506616208/if-republicans-repeal-health-law-paying-for-a-replacement-could-be-tough
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On December 24 2016 03:58 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 03:50 Nevuk wrote:
Trump Surrogate Wishes Death on Obama, Says Michelle Should Live in Africa With Apes
A Buffalo politician said in an interview Friday that he wanted Barack Obama to die of mad cow disease, that Michelle Obama was once a man, and that she should go live in Africa with gorillas.
Western New York newspaper ArtVoice asked a series of Buffalo politicians and public figures what their wish list for 2017 was. Former Republican gubernatoral candidate and chairman of the Donald Trump New York campaign Carl Paladino responded that he wanted Obama’s death.
“Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford [sic],” he wrote them. “He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret [sic], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady [sic] cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.”
Paladino was then asked who he wished would “go away” in 2017. “Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he said.
Paladino confirmed to The Buffalo News that he made the comments, explaining that he didn’t care for the president. “Yeah, I’m not politically correct. They asked what I want and I told them,” he said.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-surrogate-wishes-death-on-obama-says-michelle-should-live-in-africa-with-apes/ this is the problem with the media setup today. It's all about finding the craziest dumbest guy and quoting him. and then that gets passed around. That said, I wonder what the guys he beat out for the job looked like.
I dunno, paladino is more important than just some guy on facebook. In the intersection of importance and outrageous comments, this is about as high up as you can be without actually being elected to a federal position. The fact that he was the GOP nominee for governor in NY has actually always baffled me, but they did do it.
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On December 24 2016 04:08 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 03:58 zlefin wrote:On December 24 2016 03:50 Nevuk wrote:
Trump Surrogate Wishes Death on Obama, Says Michelle Should Live in Africa With Apes
A Buffalo politician said in an interview Friday that he wanted Barack Obama to die of mad cow disease, that Michelle Obama was once a man, and that she should go live in Africa with gorillas.
Western New York newspaper ArtVoice asked a series of Buffalo politicians and public figures what their wish list for 2017 was. Former Republican gubernatoral candidate and chairman of the Donald Trump New York campaign Carl Paladino responded that he wanted Obama’s death.
“Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford [sic],” he wrote them. “He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret [sic], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady [sic] cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.”
Paladino was then asked who he wished would “go away” in 2017. “Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he said.
Paladino confirmed to The Buffalo News that he made the comments, explaining that he didn’t care for the president. “Yeah, I’m not politically correct. They asked what I want and I told them,” he said.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-surrogate-wishes-death-on-obama-says-michelle-should-live-in-africa-with-apes/ this is the problem with the media setup today. It's all about finding the craziest dumbest guy and quoting him. and then that gets passed around. That said, I wonder what the guys he beat out for the job looked like. I dunno, paladino is more important than just some guy on facebook. In the intersection of importance and outrageous comments, this is about as high up as you can be without actually being elected to a federal position. The fact that he was the GOP nominee for governor in NY has actually always baffled me, but they did do it.
could be because they didn't think they could win? sometimes if a race seems over before it started you get weird nominees. I know nothing about NY politics at all just wondering.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 24 2016 03:49 Doodsmack wrote:
Yeah the Republican shift toward Putin just because their candidate benefitted from him is pretty disturbing. The real lesson of this election, for both sides, should be the influence of bias on our thinking.
At this point Putin is basically the face of the nationalist movements across the world. Don't think it's the hacking that made it happen, it's just that Russia is the one nation taking a principled stand against a lot of things that populists hate. I see where the Putin fandom comes from in the West.
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On December 24 2016 04:12 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 03:49 Doodsmack wrote:
Yeah the Republican shift toward Putin just because their candidate benefitted from him is pretty disturbing. The real lesson of this election, for both sides, should be the influence of bias on our thinking. At this point Putin is basically the face of the nationalist movements across the world. Don't think it's the hacking that made it happen, it's just that Russia is the one nation taking a principled stand against a lot of things that populists hate. I see where the Putin fandom comes from in the West.
populists hate journalists that don't mysteriously dissappear?
User was warned for this post
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On December 24 2016 04:08 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 03:58 zlefin wrote:On December 24 2016 03:50 Nevuk wrote:
Trump Surrogate Wishes Death on Obama, Says Michelle Should Live in Africa With Apes
A Buffalo politician said in an interview Friday that he wanted Barack Obama to die of mad cow disease, that Michelle Obama was once a man, and that she should go live in Africa with gorillas.
Western New York newspaper ArtVoice asked a series of Buffalo politicians and public figures what their wish list for 2017 was. Former Republican gubernatoral candidate and chairman of the Donald Trump New York campaign Carl Paladino responded that he wanted Obama’s death.
“Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford [sic],” he wrote them. “He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret [sic], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady [sic] cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.”
Paladino was then asked who he wished would “go away” in 2017. “Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he said.
Paladino confirmed to The Buffalo News that he made the comments, explaining that he didn’t care for the president. “Yeah, I’m not politically correct. They asked what I want and I told them,” he said.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-surrogate-wishes-death-on-obama-says-michelle-should-live-in-africa-with-apes/ this is the problem with the media setup today. It's all about finding the craziest dumbest guy and quoting him. and then that gets passed around. That said, I wonder what the guys he beat out for the job looked like. I dunno, paladino is more important than just some guy on facebook. In the intersection of importance and outrageous comments, this is about as high up as you can be without actually being elected to a federal position. The fact that he was the GOP nominee for governor in NY has actually always baffled me, but they did do it.
he's also far less important than someone actually running something real.
It's not uncommon for crazies to get picked if noone real wants to run.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 24 2016 03:30 Mercy13 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 02:29 LegalLord wrote:On December 23 2016 23:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Post Mortem
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the election since Nov. 8 trying to figure out what the hell happened, and this post summarizes my thoughts on it. These are just my subjective impressions - I’m not an authority on this stuff or anything like that, so I could be very off base.
Trump’s Support – Trump was able to win because he mobilized a group which doesn’t normally vote in high numbers, without significantly hurting his support from traditional Republicans. His support can be divided up as follows:
- “The Deplorables” – This group includes white nationalists and authoritarians, and played a large role in Trump winning the primary. His slogan “Make America Great Again” was a direct call out to the white nationalists. This group feels a great deal of nostalgia for a time when white people, even poor ones, were not only the focus of American political rhetoric on both sides of aisle, but also the focus of popular culture. They are uncomfortable with the demographic changes in the United States, and support policies which keep brown people out and down. Authoritarians, on the other hand, want an active federal government to protect them from “the other,” i.e., brown people. There is a lot of overlap between the two groups, though authoritarians are more likely to support a strong military presence abroad, and the suspension of civil liberties so that the government can “keep us safe.”
- “Change Voters” – The other group which contributed to Trump’s primary win. They wanted to give a big “fuck you” to the GOP establishment, and Trump was the perfect vehicle for this.
- “Traditional Conservative Voters” – This group includes traditional Republican voters such as the religious, and people who want tax cuts and a small federal government. The big question of the election was whether this group would come home to Trump. Many of them didn’t like or support him in the primary, and a larger than usual group was undecided until very close to the election.
- “White Low Information Swing Voters” – This group tends to be lower middle class / working poor, and it turns out they feel a lot of resentment towards the truly poor [brown] people who they perceive as getting a lot of government benefits. For example, they are really pissed off that poor people get Medicaid while they are forced to spend a lot of money on inferior health care plans on the exchanges.
Hillary’s Strategy & Why She Lost – People in this forum have been very critical of Hillary since the campaign. Justifiably so, because she lost. However, I think it’s important to try to evaluate her strategy without the benefit of hindsight, and during the campaign it seemed to be working.
- “Identity Politics” – The critique of Hillary’s campaign that I find the most frustrating is that she relied too much on “identity politics,” i.e., she talked about issues which are important to groups besides white people. ALL politics is identity politics. That’s why poor white people vote for Republicans who want to cut taxes for the 1%, and de-regulate the financial sector. Trump relied on identity politics by characterizing black communities as war zones, and Hispanic immigrants as criminals and gang members. His strategy was laser focused on getting white people to vote based upon their identities as white people, and it worked.
Hillary used a similar strategy, but focused on different demographics. For example, she couldn’t rely on African Americans to turn out like they had for Obama, so she had to spend a lot of time talking about issues which are important to African Americans. This had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the success of Trump’s strategy, but her campaign felt it was necessary in order to turn out key groups in the Democratic coalition.
- “Playing to the Center” – The Deplorables and Change Voters discussed above were always going to vote for Trump, but Hillary’s campaign believed they had a good chance of picking off the Traditional Conservative Voters if they focused on the abnormality of Trump as a candidate. If this had been successful, Hillary may have been able to win in a landslide. As a result, she focused on attacking Trump rather than playing up her own policies, which Traditional Conservative Voters would not have supported. Based upon exit polling, this seems to have worked to an extent. Something like 60% of voters believed Trump was unqualified to be President. Many of them just voted for him anyway which is the primary reason Hillary lost. Traditional Conservative Voters came home to the Republican party despite not thinking Trump would make a good president. More than anything else, I think the failure of Hillary’s strategy to get Traditional Conservative Voters to defect or stay home explains her loss.
Unequivocally, Hillary’s strategy failed. However, it’s unfair to be too critical because it seemed to be working during the campaign. Polls seemed to give her a comfortable lead throughout the campaign, and even members of Trump’s own team seemed to believe she was going to win. If the polls had been more accurate her campaign would have likely tried something else. They just didn’t realize they needed to.
- “Other Factors” – To a greater or lesser extent, the following factors help explain the outcome of the election:
The media – the “MSM” spent 3x more time covering stories related to Hillary’s email than it did covering policy issues. I don’t know how much of an effect this had on the outcome of the election, but hopefully we can all agree that the media did a terrible job giving people a sense of the policy stakes of the election.
Fake news – troubling, but probably didn’t affect the outcome. People sharing stories about Hillary’s child sex pizza ring probably weren’t going to vote for her anyway.
Russian hacks – Hillary has a lot of baggage, to put it lightly. As a result, the emails dribbling out were perceived as evidence of massive corruption even though I am of the opinion that nothing surprising or damning turned up. If Hillary was a different politician without the public’s ingrained perception of corruption I don’t think the hacks would have mattered. She wasn’t such a politician however.
Comey’s letter – It’s impossible to say whether Comey’s letter changed the outcome. However, we do know that a lot of people were undecided until the last weeks of the campaign, and that a lot of those people decided to vote for Trump at about the same time Comey’s letter came out. I think it’s likely that the letter caused an impact, and it certainly hurt Hillary. I don’t know whether it was decisive though.
Would Bernie Have Won? – The short answer is I don’t know. He certainly had advantages over Hillary which have been played up recently. He also shared some of her weaknesses, however, and had some all his own.
- “Bernie’s Strengths” – Bernie enjoyed significant strengths relative to Clinton. I think it’s quite probable that in such a close election these strengths would have proven decisive:
Perception as an outsider candidate – I think this would have been Bernie’s biggest advantage over Clinton. He probably would have been able to pick up some of Trump’s Change Voters, as well as some of the White Low Information Swing Voters.
Less baggage – nuff said.
Would have mobilized the left wing.
- “Bernie’s Weaknesses” – Despite his strengths, Bernie also was a weaker candidate than Clinton in a lot of ways:
Policy – Bernie’s policies weren’t as well-articulated as Clinton’s were, and they weren’t even that popular among the people who voted for him in the primary. For example, a large majority of his own supporters didn’t support his tax plan. This factor was decisive for me, and is why I supported Clinton. However, I think it’s reasonable to think this wouldn’t have mattered in an election against Trump. People on both sides care more about identity than policy.
Traditional Conservative Voters would have HATED him – This group of voters really hates taxes. They may have taken one look at his platform and turned out in record numbers to prevent “socialism” from taking hold in the US.
Middle class and working poor white people MAY have hated him – as discussed above, this group of voters doesn’t like social welfare programs which benefit the really poor [brown] people. This may have been enough for this group to support Trump in large numbers over Bernie.
Identity politics – I think Bernie would have had to use a strategy similar to Hillary’s to get minority groups to turn out for him. We saw this during the primary. This would have reinforced Trump’s white identity politics strategy the same way that Hillary’s approach did.
With hindsight we know that Hillary lost to Trump, so I was wrong during the primary and the Democrats should have nominated Bernie. However, there is no guarantee that he would have won.
Future of the Democratic Party – People are probably going to take issue with this, but I think a candidate with less baggage than Hillary using her exact same strategy would have won. It was a very close election, and just small nudge in the other direction would have been decisive. As a result, I’m not sure it’s clear that the Democratic party needs to significantly adjust its strategy in order to win elections going forward.
That said, I don’t think it would hurt for the party to refine its strategy in a few key ways.
- “Identity Politics” – I believe it is important for the Democratic party to continue speaking to the interests of minority groups other than white people. As much attention as the WWC gets, that demographic is still generally better off than African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. However, this should be done in a broader based manner. One criticism I read about Hillary’s campaign is that she spoke to Hispanic groups about Hispanic issues, spoke to black groups about black issues, spoke to women’s groups about women’s issues, etc. Rather than this compartmentalized approach, I think future candidates should speak about the same issues messaged for a broader audience. For example, instead of only talking to African Americans about police brutality candidates can talk about strategies to reduce police violence which are race neutral. Campaign Zero’s platform is a good example of this (google it, it’s a great website). This would hopefully signal to African Americans that the candidate takes their issues seriously, without alienating white voters quite as much.
- “Fix the Primary System” – Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people, particularly on the left wing, believe that the primary was rigged unfairly in Hillary’s favor. I disagree, but this doesn’t mean that changes can’t be made to improve the way Democratic presidential candidates are chosen:
Get rid of super delegates – The only purpose super delegates serve is to overturn a popular vote in the primary that the establishment doesn’t agree with. Doing this would be a disaster for the party. Therefore, we shouldn’t bother having super delegates. A few weeks ago my dad (who voted for Trump) told me that he had heard that Hillary only won the primary because of super delegate support. This was wrong, but a lot of people believe it anyway. Getting rid of the super delegate system will get rid of the perception that a few elites get to choose the Democratic candidate.
Require registration as a Democrat to vote, but allow same day registration – I think this strikes a good balance between making sure primary voters are invested in the Democratic party, while ensuring that the primary is reasonably democratic.
Make sure people don’t have to wait in line for hours to vote – this was embarrassing, and a fair critique of the primary process. Similarly, I would get rid of the caucus system. It’s stupid to make people wait all day listening to speeches in order to vote for their candidate, and this gives too much power to small groups of true believers.
Thanks for reading if anyone made it this far : ) Happy holidays!
Tldr:
- Trump won because traditional Republican voters came home to the party.
- Hillary lost because her strategy to appeal to traditional Republican voters didn’t work.
- Bernie may have been a better candidate than Hillary, but this is far from certain.
- In the future Democrats should not shy away from identity politics, they should just do it better.
I appreciate the genuine attempt at analyzing the failures of the Clinton campaign this time around. I think that this represents a perspective that is likely to be comparable to what could come out of the Clinton camp, if it were a bit more honest about the reasons it lost. However, I have a few key disagreements with the conclusions here. I will talk about some key flaws in this analysis, not as a point-by-point response in full (I've gotten quite tired of treatise-posts myself), but with a consideration of many of the main ideas.
Let's start with "the deplorables" first. Certainly, there was an element of "cultural restoration" that went into Trump's victory. It's a populist campaign, what did you expect? He says what a lot of them thing - that PC culture is stupid, that there is nothing wrong with Merry Christmas, that Americans should come first, and so on. Yes, he was a candidate who really rallied that base. But the "basket of deplorables" comment cut quite deeply into what was wrong with Hillary and her campaign. It was a comment that highlighted a willingness to write off voters that she felt just didn't conform to her idea of what the voterbase should be. She was, by proxy, saying, "people who don't vote for me are just faggots, and they can fuck off." Any number of people were rightly offended by that, except the part of the base that has so strongly bought into her interpretation of events that it came off as perfectly normal. Comparable to Romney's "47 percent" in that it just very strongly epitomizes what people despise about the candidate in question.
Then, let's talk about who really makes up Trump's main voter base. We can start with the conservatives, who in the end decided that, you know, we really don't like Trump, but we hate Hillary Clinton more and we can't let Hillary Clinton get elected so we will go with Trump. The Republican base largely failed to create a viable mainstream candidate so Trump was able to stage a coup of the party with a plurality of the votes, despite the fact that a lot of people really didn't like him. The main base was an interesting mix of left-leaning Republicans (he had a blowout in New York for example), poorly educated and rural folk, and a various spattering of other voters that just went along with him over his pathetic challengers (Jeb Bush was the establishment pick and people just heavily noped him out). While the establishment Republicans didn't really get behind him, ultimately the late deciders (especially the third party right-leaning voters) ultimately bit the bullet and voted Trump.
Most important of all, as many mainstream analysts failed to predict but a lot of the more notorious candidates this election called, the rural vote came through for Trump. Those who have been shafted by globalization and simply had no other choice went for the one candidate in the general who was aggressively anti-trade and pro-rural-development. No one, not her supporters, not the establishment, and certainly not the opposition, bought Hillary's so-called "transformation" on TPP. Rightfully so because it was a pretty blatant lie that she backed down on it. You miss the problem with the WWC in your analysis: they aren't mad because they are the poorest, they are mad because they see a consistent, substantial, and lasting decline in their quality of life as their jobs are lost to globalization of the economy (and technology improvements for that matter) and they fail to be "compensated by the spoils of globalization" for their losses. The wealthy become wealthier but they become poorer, and they soon drop from middle class into the poor. Trump offered them the best chance they had of sending a message and perhaps getting help.
Identity politics. I have to say that I completely disagree with you on this one. The problem isn't minority rights, or being treated properly, or anything of the sort. The problem is epitomized by commentary such as, "a beautiful brown wall will keep Trump out of the White House" or, "women who don't vote for Hillary go to hell" or, "I'm a woman, I can't be part of the establishment." These comments are completely and utterly disgusting, and there is nothing okay about the identitization of various political issues. Indeed, it's more about getting people to identify with their "identities" than about making things better for those groups. If there are flaws in the social laws, we should fix them, but we should not be dividing people by their "identities" because that is the exact opposite. This perception is what makes people who aren't interested in that game feel completely and utterly sickened by its use - including some of the minority voters here.
Playing to the center. There are three main problems here that Hillary failed to address. First of all, probably most important, is the neglect of the Bernie Sanders base. He had a genuine, impressive movement, and his voters rightfully felt neglected, and the DNC leaks justified their sentiment. Second of all, related to the first, misjudgment of swing groups. By focusing on identity politics, Hillary (not alone, but Trump did otherwise) judged that the most important swing group was the Hispanics, another identitarian focus. Turns out they just didn't like her enough, for a wide range of reasons, to vote for her. Related to that is the idea of "demography will kill off people who don't vote for us and then we will be victorious." That hasn't been a reality and frankly whitey isn't really going anywhere (many "Hispanics" are just those of partial white ancestry who ultimately identify as white in the end). These two issues led to a Kaine choice for VP, who was not the right one. Third of all was the idea that traditional Republicans would come through for Hillary, which might explain campaigns in Texas and Arizona. Ultimately it seems they decided, "you know, Trump is a shitbag, but you're an even bigger shitbag so we will vote for Trump."
Circumstances. The media and "fake news" are not matters I care to talk about; we have gone on and on in circles about how valid those claims are, and while I ultimately would conclude that "the media" was Clinton-favored enough that she shouldn't be bitching, that fake news exists but that it is a boogeyman that the leftists mostly use to avoid blaming her for her loss. But we have and will continue to go on about that. Hax: the leakers played to the fact that people just despise Hillary Clinton, plain and simple, and she played the "Russia did it" deflection that no sane people bought into as an explanation for the contents of the leaks. Comey's letter was unfortunate but as I have read, he seems to have made a principled choice in a no-win scenario with an incompetent, untrustworthy attorney general with clear pro-Hillary sentiment.
Finally, Bernie Sanders and a very important bit of miscellania. I would have to say that Bernie Sanders would have won, plain and simple, with very little doubt about that. Not because people like him so much, but because people just would not be capable of hating a principled, if often stubborn and mule-headed, socialist as much as they hate Hillary Clinton. I know a lot of Sanders>Trump>Clinton voters who don't like Sanders but say "better an honest socialist than a crook or a demagogue." However, what I am very much not certain of is whether or not people would ultimately buy into his leftist view of the world. I think he would ultimately fail to push for what he wanted because the sentiment of the Western world is very much not in his favor.
The problem here is this: there is a substantial and sustained rightward pressure in the political system of all the Western nations. You can see this in the populist revolutions all across Europe. Like in the US, people see nationalism above globalism as their desired focus, and they do not want the liberal view of the world to become a reality. I'm sure most people support some of Bernie Sanders' policies: campaign finance, anti-trade, dovish foreign policy, arguably even universal healthcare and socialized education. But people as a whole simply don't buy into liberalism as advocated by Bernie Sanders. They see the refugee crisis in Europe, they see that Hillary Clinton says, "let's import that shit into our country" and they nope out of it. They see Brexit and the collapse of liberalism in Europe, and see that Bernie Sanders and his core base opposes that, and they really are not on board with a liberal outlook of the world. He would have won but I do not think he could have stood against the rightward trend in any meaningful way.
And yes, sooner or later the Republican establishment will see its reckoning for the dirty politics it played in the past years. The rightward pressure exists but that doesn't mean that the Republicans inherit the future. Trump's primary victory against Republican establishment wishes is a testament to that disdain for the party. For now, they get a big victory, but they will have to cater to a decidedly more populist than desired base to stay in power. Trump is a headache for them in a lot of ways and he will break shit within the Republican ruling apparatus before things stabilize again.
However, as it stands now, the Democrats proved by nominating and pushing Hillary Clinton, that their supposed moral high ground was made of sand, and they will have to rebuild first. I have not given Obama his fair share of criticism for his failure to properly secure the future of his policies, but I will say that this defeat is rooted in Obama, who is charismatic enough to win but not charismatic enough to make people enable the Democrats. Hillary Clinton manages to lay bare what people despise about the party in a way that Obama was able to mask. The local losses are a testament to that fact.
Looking to the future starts by looking inward into the idiotic system that propped up Hillary Clinton, outward to the troubles in Europe that resemble those on this side of the world, and a proper cleansing that will remake the party into something that is more reasonable. We can look forward to a decade of rather dramatic change in the world order and the Clinton/Obama "centrist status quo" candidates are on the losing side of history in that regard. Thanks for the well though out response. I actually agree with a lot of what you say, though I do have a few quibbles/clarifications. I agree totally that Clinton shouldn't have used the deplorables term, and your comparison with Romney's 47% line is spot on. Both comments reaffirmed the negative narrative people had bought into for the respective candidates. I used it as shorthand for a subgroup of Trump's supporters but I'm not campaigning for office : ) Regarding the rural vote I agree that they perceive that they have been screwed over by globalization. I just don't think that that perception is accurate. Some communities may have been harmed by increased trade, but I think on balance the country has benefited. The United States manufacturing industry is as robust as it has ever been (in absolute terms rather than relative terms at least) it just doesn't employee as many people. I think automation is a better culprit than globalization for explaining the drop off in manufacturing employment. It is important to talk about policies to address this, and both parties have failed. I just don't think Trump's harping on trade deals is applicable. Regarding identity politics, I wasn't arguing that I think it's good that people vote based on their identities. I would love it if people researched policies and listened to experts on all sides of issues before deciding who to support. They don't though. People vote based upon their identities. It's just how our brains are wired. This helps to explain why many people in rural communities who need Obamacare's Medicaid expansion to survive still voted for Trump. If you disagree I'd be curious to know what you think primarily motivates people to vote for a particular party/candidate. It certainly isn't policy preferences... Regarding fake news, hacking, etc., I'm happy to not discuss these things further as contributing factors to Hillary's loss. However, I think it's absolutely vital to talk about these issues so we can be more vigilant in the future, and hopefully our government will start paying attention to cyber security. Whether or not Russian interference contributed to the outcome, it's appalling that they tried. On a somewhat related note, this is one of the more depressing poll results I've seen lately: Show nested quote +Republicans once prided themselves on their rock-solid opposition to the Soviet Union and blasted Obama for trying to “reset” relations with Russia. That party now likes Putin more than it likes Obama, viewing a murderous foreign strongman (-10) more positively than it sees a twice-elected American president (-64). SourceI largely agree with the rest of your points. The Democratic party consolidated too quickly around Hillary, and it would have been better for everyone if they had given other candidates a more impartial look.
My earlier rural development post: Link. That says everything that needs to be said on rural folk.
People vote for a wide range of reasons, some more important than others, but there is no simple answer to your question. A simpler question, what tipped the election, would probably have the answer of "trade policy." Looking at the demographics of voting it seems that rural WWC tipped the election far more than Hispanics, the group most courted by the Clinton campaign.
Obamacare as implemented is a fragile and ineffective slop of compromise. Let's not sugar coat it, it was not successful at overhauling healthcare in a useful way. People may be misinformed on its consequences but that people oppose it is not undeserved. I myself would back universal healthcare as a replacement.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 24 2016 04:16 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 04:12 LegalLord wrote:On December 24 2016 03:49 Doodsmack wrote:
Yeah the Republican shift toward Putin just because their candidate benefitted from him is pretty disturbing. The real lesson of this election, for both sides, should be the influence of bias on our thinking. At this point Putin is basically the face of the nationalist movements across the world. Don't think it's the hacking that made it happen, it's just that Russia is the one nation taking a principled stand against a lot of things that populists hate. I see where the Putin fandom comes from in the West. populists hate journalists that don't mysteriously dissappear?
No but they do hate random unjustified deflections that add nothing to the political discourse.
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On December 24 2016 04:20 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 04:16 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 24 2016 04:12 LegalLord wrote:On December 24 2016 03:49 Doodsmack wrote:
Yeah the Republican shift toward Putin just because their candidate benefitted from him is pretty disturbing. The real lesson of this election, for both sides, should be the influence of bias on our thinking. At this point Putin is basically the face of the nationalist movements across the world. Don't think it's the hacking that made it happen, it's just that Russia is the one nation taking a principled stand against a lot of things that populists hate. I see where the Putin fandom comes from in the West. populists hate journalists that don't mysteriously dissappear? No but they do hate random unjustified deflections that add nothing to the political discourse.
point taken. do you think they choose to overlook/don’t care about the human rights issues or just aren’t aware of them? Cause it just seems weird to me.
suppose it could be like certain people on the left and Cuba.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
NYT had a pretty good article on the demographics of voting they just came out with: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html?_r=0
On December 24 2016 04:26 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 04:20 LegalLord wrote:On December 24 2016 04:16 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 24 2016 04:12 LegalLord wrote:On December 24 2016 03:49 Doodsmack wrote:
Yeah the Republican shift toward Putin just because their candidate benefitted from him is pretty disturbing. The real lesson of this election, for both sides, should be the influence of bias on our thinking. At this point Putin is basically the face of the nationalist movements across the world. Don't think it's the hacking that made it happen, it's just that Russia is the one nation taking a principled stand against a lot of things that populists hate. I see where the Putin fandom comes from in the West. populists hate journalists that don't mysteriously dissappear? No but they do hate random unjustified deflections that add nothing to the political discourse. point taken. do you think they choose to overlook/don’t care about the human rights issues or just aren’t aware of them? Cause it just seems weird to me. suppose it could be like certain people on the left and Cuba.
A mix of looking past them and realizing that Western media exaggerates the issues to push anti-Russian sentiment.
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On December 24 2016 02:10 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 01:28 RvB wrote:On December 23 2016 22:57 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 23 2016 20:15 RvB wrote:On December 23 2016 19:22 Gorsameth wrote:On December 23 2016 15:14 Sermokala wrote:On December 23 2016 14:29 Mohdoo wrote:The entire idea of privatized prisons is just so fucking foul. Definitely one of the big blemishes of our country. Edit: Is this something conservatives disagree with? Are there people on TL cool with privatized prisons? Private prisons I think are a great thing in concept and potential, its just terribly directed and executed. Right now the only thing private prisons care about is keeping the slaves fed watered and in a half decent sleeping environment. If we instead directed theses corporations to take in the raw material that is Joe criminal and deliver a product of a fully functioning member of society it'd be good. Concentrate on factors such as their propensity to re enter a jail and their ability to find a job and the quality of that job. Would save the government money and would probably make money in the super long term. Private corporations exist for profit. The best way to generate profit is through repeat business. Turning criminals into productive citizens takes away repeat business. You want a private corporation that actively tries to limit its source of revenue. It does not work. That's because there's the wrong incentive. They get paid for every prisoner. If you'd pay them instead for succesful reintegration they'll focus on that instead. You could make it so that they get paid for every year a prisoner is out of prison for 5 / 10 years and doesn't commit a crime again. If there's no interest in the private sector for such a system there is always the public sector to fall back on. On December 23 2016 19:40 Acrofales wrote:
I don't quite understand Sermokala's point. A public prison system is bad, because wasteful. But the current private system is worse, because it's modern slavery with no intention at all of reforming the prisoners and rehabilitating them back into society, because that would reduce the number of slaves available. So we should make private prisons act more like public ones, by forcing them to change their business model. Why not just admit that private prisons are an abject failure and the public model works better? Either the government pays so much that private prisons have the same goals as public ones do, in which case you can cut out the middle man and save on paying the shareholders a bunch of profits. Or your private prisons don't have the right goals and you keep slave labor camps instead of rehabilitating prisoners. The question is if the public prison system actually works in the US. I don't think that's true. Both the public and private prison systems seem to be more for punishment than reintegration. I don't see a problem with a combination of private and public prisons as long as there are the correct incentives and there's a minimum standard. If they're paid to keep people out of prisons why rehabilitate at all? Revolving door that shit and maximize profits Then increase the amount they get for every year they are out? For example 100k in total with 5k first year, 10 2nd, 20 3rd year etc. It's not 100% thought out but I'm sure there are plenty of solutions for such a thing. And how do you manage this without being more expensive then public prisons? And lets not forget that this will mean that such private parties will start putting pressure on police departments to keep ex-convincts on the street even if they commit another crime. Can you make it work? Maybe but it would be a hell of a nightmare to do so. Much easier to leave prisons to the public sector who have less worry about profit or incentives.
You can calculate the costs of a prison inmate in a public prison and then give them less than that. Let's say the average prison inmate costs 100k. You can pay the private prison 90k.
How would they put pressure on police departments to keep ex convicts on the street? Isn't it the judge who decides whether someone goes to prison? THe most reliable way to keep ex convicts on the streets would then be to change the law to make it harder to get in prison. But that would be counterproductive since laws are for everyone and then you'd have less first time offenders getting into prison as well.
I don't see why it's a nightmare to do so. It's less work than running a whole prison. Changing incentives is also something that happens all the time via regulation and taxes.
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On December 24 2016 04:26 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2016 04:20 LegalLord wrote:On December 24 2016 04:16 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 24 2016 04:12 LegalLord wrote:On December 24 2016 03:49 Doodsmack wrote:
Yeah the Republican shift toward Putin just because their candidate benefitted from him is pretty disturbing. The real lesson of this election, for both sides, should be the influence of bias on our thinking. At this point Putin is basically the face of the nationalist movements across the world. Don't think it's the hacking that made it happen, it's just that Russia is the one nation taking a principled stand against a lot of things that populists hate. I see where the Putin fandom comes from in the West. populists hate journalists that don't mysteriously dissappear? No but they do hate random unjustified deflections that add nothing to the political discourse. point taken. do you think they choose to overlook/don’t care about the human rights issues or just aren’t aware of them? Cause it just seems weird to me. suppose it could be like certain people on the left and Cuba.
most people are terribly incompetent idiots and fools, with horrific bias. They also do'nt know a lot of stuff, are relying on provably false and incomplete [information and understanding of things], and aren't aware that they don't know stuff.
But if you get enough of them together, those effects average out some and the results aren't nearly as dumb as any individual would produce.
edit: in hindsight, this isn't really on point, it's more a statement about democracy than about your question specifically.
though it may help explain why it seems weird to you.
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EPT
