It is not and has never been a homogeneous party. These differences have always existed. If you're just now realizing this after the election, you are either very young or have not been paying attention. There was a former KKK member in congress representing the party as recently as 2013.
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CNN : Biden: Clinton never figured out why she was running
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It is not and has never been a homogeneous party. These differences have always existed. If you're just now realizing this after the election, you are either very young or have not been paying attention. There was a former KKK member in congress representing the party as recently as 2013.
Chie Satonaka
Member
I didn't make a blanket denouncement. I said how I felt about political talking heads and people who claim to be allies willing to throw minority issues under the bus for the benefit of the white working class. The more substantive point I made (which people seem to agree with) is that we should be doing both, because there's no need for anyone to be left out. Of course, that's not what we're here discussing, because that point didn't mean enough for you to comment about.
Hmm.
Thanks for acknowledging my youth, but I'm not new to this. I've always known that the Democratic party is a diverse coalition that, indeed, includes conservative voices. I believe that's what makes the Democratic party strong and, ultimately, the future of our country.
My post is for the liberals who consider themselves "progressive" but then turn around and say some absolute bullshit like the first major candidate for President to openly and repeatedly discuss minority/gender issues "had no clear message."
Oh really...
I agree with you there. Maybe I'm just an idiot but the part I'm having a hard time with is teasing this all out from innuendo, such as the last part in this post. What are you implying about me exactly?
Right- so I think it's important to not lump these criticisms together, of having no message and of being too liberal (not endorsing either one, just saying).
TestOfTide
Banned
I think Hillary's campaign TRIED to have lots of clear messages, but they tried to focus on so damn much that they ended up not having enough focus on anything, which meant that if you were the average voter who doesn't follow politics for hours every day, you wouldn't know much about Hillary's policy proposals.
This was of course made worse by the media choosing to waste most of their time reporting on campaign drama instead of actual policies.
The Shadow
Member
A bit? If GAF is any indication, it's pretty much everywhere in the Democratic party.
Father_Brain
Banned
Instead of just asserting that we're full of shit, why don't you actually tell us what that message was? Y'know, if it was so obvious and all.
And no, listing off policies she proposed doesn't count, sorry. Nor does discussing racism, white privilege and gender issues, as important as those issues are, equate to a message unifying them together.
This is all true, but I also can't recall a single campaign where the press was any good at covering policy. There was no reason for anyone to expect better in that particular respect.
So, listing her policies doesn't count as a message.
But if I were to list her slogans, as I have done before, she'd be accused of sloganeering.
Sorry, but if you failed to pay attention to Hillary's policies, that's on you. We can argue that she didn't do enough to elevate her policies out of the mud, but her policies were her message. And that's what we SHOULD WANT out of a poltician's message: concrete plans.
Father_Brain
Banned
Five words that succinctly explain why Democrats lose. That's simply not how voting works for most voters, and it never will be.
Obama was an incredibly charismatic candidate with a strong message who also happened to be a policy wonk. The latter was secondary at best for both his electoral victories.
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
Hillary simply didn't convey her message clear enough. Most Hillary supporters I met only talked about Trump instead of their candidate. I feel like a ton of voters only voted for her because they didn't like Trump. Not because they legitimately supported her ideas. I was never once torn between the two sides of the election on issues. Hillary had no issues that resonated or enticed me to vote for her. Neither did Trump, but at least he conveyed a message about bringing Jobs back and "Making America Great Again". That slogan won him the campaign. Hillary's was just "I'm With Her". Like, what? I'm with her? Shouldn't she be with me? It's your turn? What about my turn? I'm voting for you because you think it's your time to be president? What about being OUR president? It came off snobby, and elitist. I don't care if it's your turn.
When you looked at Trump you saw the stuff he wanted to do in a clear, and organized matter. I can't at all remember what Hillary proposed to do, but I can remember Sander's ideas. His were like Trump -- clear and to the point. Hillary probably said a bunch of ideas, but they're just so damn hard to remember. She didn't have the "change" aspect or the "BUILD THE WALL" aspect that Obama or Trump had. She had no punch. No real reason to be genuinely excited except she was going to be the first female president.
"Love Trump's Hate" was a horrible slogan btw
When you looked at Trump you saw the stuff he wanted to do in a clear, and organized matter. I can't at all remember what Hillary proposed to do, but I can remember Sander's ideas. His were like Trump -- clear and to the point. Hillary probably said a bunch of ideas, but they're just so damn hard to remember. She didn't have the "change" aspect or the "BUILD THE WALL" aspect that Obama or Trump had. She had no punch. No real reason to be genuinely excited except she was going to be the first female president.
"Love Trump's Hate" was a horrible slogan btw
TestOfTide
Banned
Look, you are right when it comes to those that would call themselves "political junkies".
But while I'm not one of those So-called-progressives who are just looking for democrats to hate, I do realize that Hillary's campaign fucked up in the following way:
Trump had the wall and the Muslim ban. Bernie had the free college and free healthcare. Hillary had......what? Yes I know that you and I and every political junky knows the answer, but the average voter is not a political junky. They needed Hillary to actually focus commercials not on how much Trump sucks but what Hillary's plans were.
Did you vote for Trump?
I personally wouldn't qualify her candidacy as being about racial justice, more of a just "I'm not Trump platform" at least based on the ads.
I mean she spoke about it, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's what her whole campaign was about. The thing I remember more than "I'm with her" is "you can read about it on my website".
Frankly, both of those mean nothing. MAGA is dumb as hell, but at least you get what the fuck he's says he's trying to do in five words are less.
People are making it out like she's like some sort of civil rights icon of 2016. 8 years ago she was talking about how she was a better candidate than Obama because she had the support of "hard working white Americans".
And you could argue that the message didn't resonate thst strongly with PoC communities anyway, since turnout was down and she received a smaller share of the PoC vote than Obama in 2012... When he ran on a liberal version of Trumps message, saying Romney was an elite that would destroy American jobs.
Angelus Errare
Banned
But did she march with MLK and get herself chained to a tree with a black woman?!
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
Voted Jeff Boss my man! I'm from a hard blue state, so I didn't really have a care to vote. My parents voted Trump, and my brother voted Hillary though. Group of friends decided to vote for Jeff Boss as a joke.
Quoting this for truth, or incase my post is seen differently. I'm trying to express this too.
No?
My point is that social justice Hillary is a relatively recent invention.
Last time she ran for president she was gun shooting, candidate for hard working white Americans in coal country that race and Muslim baited her black opponent for a year.
I don't know if people here are too young to remember that or not, but social justice Hillary never rang true to me.
This shows a lack of understanding if how popularity works in politics . It's not only about your policy . It is very much about how you present it also . Both go together . You enter a debate competition with twenty facts supporting your case but don't know how to form them into a cogent argument you won't win . You enter politics with good policy is not the complete job done you have to also make people understand and want those . And since you're not going to be spending an hour with every voter one on one having a unifying message helps
Yup this man gets it . Obama was both . That's rare ... Obama in General is a weird outlier combination of factors I doubt well see again soon . He just is that unique .
Fox Mulder
Member
You can tell she hates people. She puts up with decades of shit and all that for the power and money that comes with it.
Trump and Obama got their people excited, while Hillary just expected your votes. I only voted for her because of Trump and even on election day felt like not voting because she sucked and it was supposed to be a blowout anyways.
Zantetsuken
Member
Wholeheartedly agree with the elitism aspect.
She essentially seems to go where the tides take her on the public front . I think in private she has some great ideas and aims but in public shell just try to hide herself and go with the flow . The flow for liberals was try and be like Obama plus social justice etc .
She's just not very good at projecting what seem to be her best points in how she's done work for children and families .
I mean fuck given 5 minutes of thought I can think of the American family as being a message where she can catapult her work for women children and families and also extend it to include tolerance for all Americans irrespective of race gender orientation etc as they're all the American family . Plus you can also stuff in any anti tpp into that . And so on ... Her messaging was too diffuse .
It's kind of sucky she had so many good polices got lost . Had some bad stuff emails / thursworthness got magnified
Trump had so much shit it all got diffused over the place . Had an unified appealing message which resonated .
Narpas Sword0
Member
She won though
Dash_Riprock
Member
Still can't get over how horrible a slogan "I'm with her" was.
Not by the rules of the game.
Not by the rules of the game.
Fox Mulder
Member
the insignificant popular vote.
Narpas Sword0
Member
If shes a clueless campaigner that no one likes then she loses outright
She almost got more people to come out for her than Obama did in 2012
She almost got more people to come out for her than Obama did in 2012
I think they know why the democratic party lost.
What I think we are all having trouble understanding is why Trump won. How can anyone say they have standards while voting for Trump? How can you call Hillary untrustworthy and then turn around and vote for Trump? How can you trust Trump to bring back jobs? How can you trust Trump to stand up for the little man? How can you trust Trump to keep us safe? How can you relate to Trump? How can Trump relate to you? How can the party of family values support Trump? How can the party of the ultra religious support Trump?
If Americans have the option between a douche and a turd sandwich, how can you eat the turd sandwich when you know the turd sandwich is also laced with cyanide, HIV, anthrax, and the plague?
And for everyone saying Hillary was terrible, just remember:
For every voter who wanted Trump to become president, there is one who wanted Hillary to become president.
And, once you get through all the trump voters, you still have nearly 3 million Hillary votes to go through.
The fact that it doesn't matter speaks volumes about how shitty our system is. Hillary had 3 million more people behind her than Trump, despite being a "terrible" candidate, despite being "corrupt." And yet, Trump is the "winner."
I'm just so disappointed in my country.
It's hard to imagine a worse candidate than Donald Trump. It's hard to imagine a worse person than Donald Trump if you look at the aggregate of his life's actions. There isn't any aspect of him I would consider admirable. I can't believe that so many people were on his side. I mean, politics be damned, I don't see how anyone who considers themselves a decent human being can look past all of his faults and cast a vote for him.
What I think we are all having trouble understanding is why Trump won. How can anyone say they have standards while voting for Trump? How can you call Hillary untrustworthy and then turn around and vote for Trump? How can you trust Trump to bring back jobs? How can you trust Trump to stand up for the little man? How can you trust Trump to keep us safe? How can you relate to Trump? How can Trump relate to you? How can the party of family values support Trump? How can the party of the ultra religious support Trump?
If Americans have the option between a douche and a turd sandwich, how can you eat the turd sandwich when you know the turd sandwich is also laced with cyanide, HIV, anthrax, and the plague?
And for everyone saying Hillary was terrible, just remember:
For every voter who wanted Trump to become president, there is one who wanted Hillary to become president.
And, once you get through all the trump voters, you still have nearly 3 million Hillary votes to go through.
The fact that it doesn't matter speaks volumes about how shitty our system is. Hillary had 3 million more people behind her than Trump, despite being a "terrible" candidate, despite being "corrupt." And yet, Trump is the "winner."
I'm just so disappointed in my country.
It's hard to imagine a worse candidate than Donald Trump. It's hard to imagine a worse person than Donald Trump if you look at the aggregate of his life's actions. There isn't any aspect of him I would consider admirable. I can't believe that so many people were on his side. I mean, politics be damned, I don't see how anyone who considers themselves a decent human being can look past all of his faults and cast a vote for him.
The media's job is to get eyeballs to sell ads, not inform people. That has become more obvious as they've had to compete more with the internet.
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
I voted for her and I can't remember what her slogan was
I'm with her, I think. Or better together. One of the two
I'm not disagreeing, I'm merely saying that she wasn't lazy, just arrogant. She just assumed that they'd vote for her because she isn't Trump. It was arrogant to take their vote for granted and she paid dearly for it. I guarantee that whoever runs into 2020 for the dems will remember to campaign in those states.
FalsettoVibe
Member
Really wish Biden would have ran.
broncobuster
Banned
Stronger Together
Hopefully that'll be all that's needed once Trump policy goes into full effect. Benefits are lost, income gap widens, and people suffer.
Really dems must do everything to actively make a Trump presidency force people to suffer. The alternative of a racist, fascist demagogue making lives better for the base that voted him in has a far more bloody resolution farther down the line.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
Not everyone has time to go read a bunch of white papers on someone's website so they know what their plan is. I paid way more attention to this election than most people but I don't really know what her opioid plan was.
MAGA was a message. It is a terrible, bigoted message and it's an indictment of our country that it even won a primary race but it's a message. It doesn't give you policies, but Trump's policies feed into the message. Brown people are scary and there's way too many of them now, so vote for me so we can have some good white nationalism. Rich people in Washington moved your manufacturing job to China, so vote for me so I can get your manufacturing job back.
I'm With Her says...side with Hillary Clinton? None of her policies feed into it and so it becomes a confusing mess. Being not Trump was good enough to get a two point popular vote victory, but her messaging wasn't clear about what her broad goals were, other than Obama third term.
This is actually where Sanders is really good even though people make fun of him for always going back to his stump speech. No matter what was really going on in the campaign or who you were, you probably knew Bernie Sanders wanted big economic upheavals for the benefit of the working class, because he was clear and on message. You can criticize that message, but basically everyone knew what it was and no one who voted for Sanders wasn't sure what his deal was. I don't think this is just a white people thing, since the under-45 collapse of black voter turnout in spite of her social justice themed policies show that she couldn't communicate that message clearly or authentically enough.
No doubt, but they swallowed their pride to vote for the black muslim
I'm FROM the working class brother. You haven't seen the things I've seen.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
Thinking back to her opioid focus just makes me sad how she'll never be president. Just thinking about all those people with addiction problems she met with, getting hope that something was going to be done about the issue.
If you know anything about democratic philosophies you can probably guess what the plan was. Government programs to help addicts, government regulations to stop them from becoming addicted in the first place, and acknowledgement that jailing drug addicts is not the answer.
Problem is no one really cares unless they or a loved one suffered that same problem, or they're policy wonks like me nitpicking over it not doing enough to regulate advertising of the drugs. Nitpicks which are so frivolous now.
PartTimeWarrior
Banned
It wasn't a slogan. Just a picture of her trying to dab
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
And they did that by voting for a president that doesn't give a shit about that.
More Fun To Compute
Member
Nobody is simply just a racist as even if they are less educated or worldly they are still capable of having a lot of different views and changing their minds. The problem is when people push explosively divisive issues to the front so nothing else can be considered. When issues like this are pushed in their face front and centre every day by the media and social networks. In a sense they are being cheated by the system as much as anyone else.
Er, no, that's not how it goes.
This is very true. Almost ever Hillary voter I know voted for her because they either did not like Trump or because that is what Bernie said to do. There was no excitement. They never mentioned any of the issues she was campaigning on. In PA I saw 2 yards with Hillary signs in them. Trump signs were all over. People kept telling me I was crazy when I thought Trump would win PA.
rokkerkory
Member
In Hillary's defense (she is no perfect candidate i know) is that 2.9m more people got her message and did get out to vote for her. Trump won based on winning a few counties only. I wont get into the whole EC discussion but we cant forget this.
Yeah hindsight is 20/20 she should have done more in places like Michigan and PA period. She should have given us something to be excited for but she wa hit time and time again unfairly by emails esp FBI crap 9 days before election.
Yeah hindsight is 20/20 she should have done more in places like Michigan and PA period. She should have given us something to be excited for but she wa hit time and time again unfairly by emails esp FBI crap 9 days before election.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Is it really hindsight when people who pointed out the major problems were shouted down? When Biden and Obama and Bill warned Hillary and her campaign about just such a thing? How about when the people running the Democratic campaigns asked for help and got none? Are these things hindsight?
Don't look at Trump as a politician. Most that voted for him don't give a shit. Look at him as a way of saying "Fuck you" and then you realize why people voted for him. Immature and irresponsible? Absolutely. But not without purpose or reason.
Rumblebones
Banned
Sanders been saying this and all most people did was call him an out of touch racist fossil.
Presidencies aren't won on platforms of social justice, they're won on economic platforms. Not everyone will understand why it's important to protect LGBT rights or to combat systemic racism, everyone understands the need to eat and provide.
Bernie's records on social justice should have spoken for itself. The man didn't deserve to be attacked simply because he understood the concept that fed mouths don't do much complaining; i.e. focusing on economic issues would help social justice issues in the long term.
Too many dems were impatient and didn't understand. They wanted to be right more than they wanted to win and it's cost us all dearly.
Presidencies aren't won on platforms of social justice, they're won on economic platforms. Not everyone will understand why it's important to protect LGBT rights or to combat systemic racism, everyone understands the need to eat and provide.
Bernie's records on social justice should have spoken for itself. The man didn't deserve to be attacked simply because he understood the concept that fed mouths don't do much complaining; i.e. focusing on economic issues would help social justice issues in the long term.
Too many dems were impatient and didn't understand. They wanted to be right more than they wanted to win and it's cost us all dearly.
aorange999
Member
Liberals have lost their mind recently. The old political cliche Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line is so patently true it's sad. American politics is a team sport that the Republican rank and file seems to understand way more than the dem rank and file. Especially the educated elite branch of the dem rank and file. You guys want to take your ball and go home at the first sign of adversity.
Biden is right, Hillary was playing through the process of running because she felt like it was her duty to run but not because of power and money like some are saying, she already had plenty of that. Trump is finding out right now exactly how much duty is involved and getting shellshocked. Winning the presidency is not a prize, even though it's an honor.
Biden is right, Hillary was playing through the process of running because she felt like it was her duty to run but not because of power and money like some are saying, she already had plenty of that. Trump is finding out right now exactly how much duty is involved and getting shellshocked. Winning the presidency is not a prize, even though it's an honor.
Kid Kamikaze10
Member
History has shown that to be bull fucking shit. Fool's gold wait your turn shit.
Neither Bernie's nor even Hillary's social justice platforms were enough to really galvanize the black base.
But yeah, a guy like Biden, one of the creators of the crime bill, talking economics over social, is REALLY gonna do it.
Sources pls.
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