Posted on 11/22/2016 4:57:58 PM PST by markomalley
Some Democrats are beginning to openly wonder if identity politics did them in on election day, and left them watching Donald Trump and congressional Republicans win the White House and keep control of Congress.
The soul-searching seems likely to continue for months, possibly right up until the next election. But less than two weeks after their unexpected election day results, some are saying Democrats might be focusing too much on urban minorities and the targeting of various blocs, while ignoring the economic plight of working class votes in rural areas that the GOP overwhelmingly carried to victory.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who nearly clinched the Democratic nomination himself, expressed this idea openly over the weekend, and seemed to pin the blame directly on Hillary Clinton for ignoring millions of potential voters who might be willing to call the Democratic Party home, despite declining to mention her by name.
"It is not good enough for somebody to say, 'I'm a woman, vote for me.' That is not good enough," Sanders said in what seemed to be a clear reference to Clinton. Throughout the campaign, Clinton leaned heavily on the idea that her victory as a woman would be historic, but Sanders indicated that her theme wasn't substantive enough, and may not have mattered to millions of people with more immediate concerns related to their jobs and their families.
"What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industries," he said.
Sanders' comments were echoed Monday by Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who made waves last week by announcing a challenge to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's leadership position, citing the party's need to modernize and reach out to working class places.
Places like Trumbull County, Ohio, which Ryan represents, are front and center in the discussion. A far cry from Pelosi's district, which encompasses much of San Francisco, Trumbull County supported President Obama by 7 points, but saw a 30-point swing on Nov. 8, and ended up going for Trump by 23 points.
"Those people in that county, the average median household income is $57,000 a year, which means a husband and wife with a couple of kids each make less than $30,000 a year, and they think that Democrats don't care about them, and they went in droves to Donald Trump," Ryan told CNN Monday. "We need to speak to their economic interests, that we get it, that we understand, that we talk about those things and we try to fight hard for those things."
"We need to talk to working class people. We don't talk to everybody anymore. We slice and dice and we talk to subgroups and interest groups," Ryan lamented. "We don't have a unifying message that we can talk about in every room."
Some Democrats pushed back against that characterization of the party's focus, and say Democrats are still able to speak to both working class voters while keeping their eye on minorities and other voting blocs.
"Democrats are trying to say that we spend too much time talking to Hispanics and African-Americans than we do white working class voters. That isn't true," said Lis Smith, a former top aide to former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's presidential campaign and rapid response director for Obama in 2012.
"A lot of Democrats are taking the wrong lessons from this election," Smith said. "Democrats have shown for years that they can walk and chew gum at the same time, and we do not face an either/or change between speaking to the diverse nature of our party and to the white working class."
Still, the idea is now out there publicly — that Democrats at least need to do more to court rural voters, and may have already become painted as the party that cares mostly about certain slices of people, but not the broad band of middle class workers that clearly tipped to Trump on Nov. 8.
Former President Bill Clinton himself seemed to be aware that his wife's campaign was vulnerable, and made a concerted effort to win areas of the Rust Belt that went to Trump. Stories that came out after the results were known indicated that Clinton's advice went unheeded, and that Hillary Clinton's much younger campaign staff wanted to focus on expanding the minority vote.
And over the weekend, it was reported that President Obama's own secretary of agriculture saw the problems Clinton had in his home state of Iowa.
"People in my party don't know how to talk to folks in rural areas," said Sec. Tom Vilsack, who has served as Obama's agriculture secretary since 2009. "It's hard for us to articulate a message that crosses the different silos of a diverse party."
"We've got a message for this group, and that group, and this group," he said, adding, "But if you're not a part of that group, asking what's in it for me, you don't quite get it."
Every comment made by every Democrat named in this article — Ryan, Smith, Vilsack, Sanders — EVERY comment essentially amounts to “we need to do a better job of lying.”
Uh huh. Calling people in West Virginia and Kentucky "Coal People" was his Romney-esque "47%" moment.
The leftist fascists and their main stream media do not recognize or acknowledge facts/truth. They only recognize and acknowledge their party’s political correctness.
I loathe them.
That is extraordinarily insightful. Another exhibition of Democrat stupidity....failure to factor in the fallout of their strategies. They're fanatical about winning no matter who loses.
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The smell of desperation to elect Hillary was everywhere. So all the loyal little Democrats marched in sync w/ the big democrat in the wh.
Obama paraded in millions of illegals to vote en masse and he spread around huge amts of govt money to fix the vote for Hillary. <><> Obama and Congressional Democrats----w/ then-AG Eric Holder----gave NeighborWorks America (formerly ACORN), and blood-thirsty La Raza a huge funding source...our tax dollars. <><> Obama/Holder/Dems extorted banks via DOJ litigation/bank settlements----these nefarious "diverse" liberal organizations got all the loot.
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BACKSTORY Obama and Congressional Democrats----with a huge assist from then-AG Eric Holder----gaven NeighborWorks America (formerly ACORN) and La Raza a huge funding source of tax dollars (to achieve Obama's dream of a permanent Democrat majority).
<><> Obama/Holder/Dems extorted banks via DOJ litigation/bank settlements----into paying off these nefarious organizations.
DOJ went after CitiCorp and ordered them to pay $50 million to La Raza and NeighborWorks America as part of the settlement.
Another clause in the agreement makes it possible for La Raza and NeighborWorks America to rake in even larger amounts of money.
Of the remaining money the banks needed to pay in settlements, the banks were able to contribute additional money to La Raza and NeighborWorks America. For every dollar they contribute, it reduces their debt to the government by 2 dollars. That’s some mighty powerful incentive to give generously.
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Trump should begin the detection/prevention/defunding of massive Democrat voter fraud orchestrated by minority groups.
“my opinion, but I believe Trumps owes his win to the rust belt, blue collar displaced union workers that voted their own interests instead of the union stewards interests. “
I think so. This is how he won states that Obama won.
But, there were whites who switched from Romney to Hillary or no vote.
I read that it ended up that Trump and Romney got the same percentage of the white vote.
So what put Trump over the top was black and Hispanic votes.
Trump got marginally more of these votes, about 2-3% more than Romney.
But the big factor was. Hillary got 6-8% less than Obama and that helped do her in.
Don’t quote me on these specific numbers because I am relating something I read a bit ago.
I can’t say for sure that this is conformed, but I think this is the case. It will be interesting to see when authoritative numbers come out.
“We now realize that using identity politics in a racist country was wrong” - /libtard
Well what else do they have, aside from open socialism?
Diversity: History’s pathway to chaos
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0816/hanson082516.php3
Yep, the average person is tired of having their culture, history, and beliefs crapped on incessantly, by emotionally unstable morons.
It was definitely multi-faceted. Entering the season, one thing I hoped Trump would do is re-align the electorate. It doesn’t serve the interest of the people when large blocks vote against their own interests. Unions workers voting for Dems, Blacks voting for Dems, etc.
To a large extent, I think Trump did that.
I gauged the success of the Trump campaign by the amount of shrill in my mother’s weekly phone calls.
Now she’s refusing to come to my house for Thanksgiving.
Progressives have long known that the white voters, particularly those without the benefit of a college education, are a sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, cis-gendered, white-privileged, racist basket of deplorables. Until recently, progressive leaders have kept this opinion pretty much to themselves, but in 2016 they found the courage to say it loud and proud, not just at private fundraisers among friendly billionaires but in the mainstream media. Unfortunately, whites without a college education are too stupid and uneducated to understand this message unless it is repeated over and over. Progressives need to repeat the message more loudly and disruptively than ever before so that white people will finally get the message that they are sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, etc.
And the GOP was playing much the same game of pandering to groups. They took their base for granted and pandered to Hispanics and other groups and that only cost them support. Then Trump came along and didn’t play that game and gave the GOP one of its biggest overall victories in history.
The Bushes and Rove did the party huge damage with their attempts at identity politics, taking the base for granted and pandering to groups. Hopefully that gang will have no more influence in the future.
Not a chance
Maybe a few are, but the vast majority are still out there calling everyone and his dog a racist.
It's actually very sad, not 'beautiful'. Remember ... "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" ... and the left has wasted an entire generation of minds.
Sad.
~ MM ~
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