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Can Democrats Make Nice with the ‘Deplorables’?
National Review ^ | July 14, 2017 | Kay S. Hymowitz

Posted on 07/15/2017 5:00:26 AM PDT by Mafe

Since early June, when voters in Georgia’s sixth congressional district rubbed yet more salt in their 2016 election wounds, Democratic pols and sages have been pondering why, as Ohio congressman Tim Ryan put it, “our brand is worse than Trump.” That’s a low bar, given the president’s nearly subterranean approval ratings, but so far the blue party has mostly been turning to an inside-the-box set of policy and political memes: jobs programs, talk of a mutiny against House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and better marketing — or, in Ryan’s words, “branding” — of the Democratic message.

What’s missing from this list is the most important — and most challenging — item of all: solving the liberal “deplorable” problem. The white working class that hoisted Donald Trump to an unexpected victory may not always admire the man, but they know that he doesn’t hate “people like me,” in the pollsters’ common formulation. And they have good reason to think that Democrats, particularly coastal and media types, do hate them: Consider Frank Rich’s snide and oft-cited article, “No Sympathy for the Hillbilly.” It’s possible that white working-class voters would back a party filled with people who see them as racists and misogynists, with bad values and worse taste, because they all want to raise taxes on Goldman Sachs executives, but it seems a risky bet.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: democrats; deplorables; elections; voters
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To: Mafe

Why would we deplorables want to?


41 posted on 07/15/2017 9:30:35 AM PDT by DPMD
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To: Ransomed

Look for the Dems to run Kamela Harris, black and female, plus moderately attractive, to try to repeat the Obama phenomenon.


42 posted on 07/15/2017 9:40:20 AM PDT by SauronOfMordor (Socialists want YOUR wealth redistributed, never THEIRS!)
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To: SauronOfMordor

Yes, another figurehead to get them the levers of power again.


43 posted on 07/15/2017 10:29:03 AM PDT by headstamp 2 (Ignorance is reparable, stupid is forever)
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To: Mafe

Is Frank Rich a relative of the murdered Seth Rich?


44 posted on 07/15/2017 10:37:02 AM PDT by abclily
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To: Mafe

I have met these people over a number of years and they are not very bright. Most of their positions are government but some in the private sector.

Their #1 concern is looking stupid. The conservatives I meet could care less what you think. They know what they are doing.

It is the liberals that live the lie.


45 posted on 07/15/2017 10:42:13 AM PDT by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west))
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To: rod1; SauronOfMordor

A minority candidate sure seems like the way to go for them, but I suspect a male minority candidate might be better than a woman. I’m not sure the male minority vote turns out for a minority woman in massive numbers like they would a male.

Freegards


46 posted on 07/15/2017 10:46:59 AM PDT by Ransomed
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To: blackdog

It’s the same thing as criminals professing how sorry they are when being sentenced.


47 posted on 07/15/2017 10:55:41 AM PDT by Farmer Dean (anything worth doing is worth overdoing,moderation is for cowards)
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To: Mafe
Anything's possible, of course, but I'd be very surprised if anything of the sort happened anytime soon. The Dems are far too deeply invested in class enemies to be able to turn on a dime and incorporate them - us - into a constituency that has been taught to hate from preschool to postgraduate. The tragedy of the party, indeed, the country as a whole, of the early 21st century is that a figure such as Barack Hussein 0bama mitht have managed it had he chosen to. It wasn't in the man, and his administration chose instead to embrace the sort of class and race hatred that has so cost their party, and continues to do so. A figure such as Hillary Clinton might have as well, and she made the same devil's bargain and it cost her the election.

How does one "make nice" with a working-class population that has been told that the candidate is glad they're out of jobs and hopes to make it worse? Offering some pie-in-the-sky retraining aspiration months later wasn't going to walk it back, in fact, only validated the conviction they developed that she was lying her sorry wrinkled ass off. In any case, the rent's due on Wednesday, not in the middle of her upcoming administration when unicorns will graze in the repurposed coal mines.

Celebrating diversity didn't have to become making relentless war on the norm as it has. Nor does any move to "rebrand" consist of anything more than finding a pose that fools the unwashed into voting for someone who will merrily turn around and continue the class war against them once in office. The fact that the majority of this class doesn't have college degrees doesn't mean they're stupid. And they do know their "proper" interests, which center around jobs. "Working" class, get it? A threat to those is an existential threat to the family which is their principal focus. A "Girls Rule!" President who thinks social progress revolves around cross-dressers in the women's crapper is rightfully regarded as an alien species, which is exactly how she regards them.

What could accomplish this ideological sea change in the Democrat party? A leader with a truly inclusive attitude, a staff that works toward that end, donors who support it, and an educational establishment that has banished the hatred against everything that has truly made the country. That isn't going to swing in the course of a single election. It might in the course of a generation.

48 posted on 07/15/2017 11:24:36 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Ransomed

Another question is how would the African black community turn out of one of Indian descent?


49 posted on 07/15/2017 11:39:00 AM PDT by xp38
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To: xp38

It’s all in how they would perceive her. We are talking about people who are deciding to show up and vote or to stay home based on what think a candidate’s racial background is, not what it actually is. Not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed in any case.

Freegards


50 posted on 07/15/2017 11:48:25 AM PDT by Ransomed
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