long post incoming!
I'm perfectly open to making this more about class within the confines of message without feeling compromised. My question then wouldn't be how we failed but, well... when. Was it the lack of mainstream appeal for the democratic front runners (Sanders was far too left and we know how people reacted to Hillary)?
Well, the bolded is part of the problem I think. If we're already prima facie ruling out certain positions as "far too left", and restricting your political imagination solely to what mainstream Democratic candidates (the same mainstream candidates that have been largely losing elections since 2010) how can we hope to ever address anything?
I think people often just throw out the "too far left" as a reflex, and not actually pointing to evidence that a certain policy is actually unpopular (or so unpopular that it'd prevent someone voting for them). We just saw an election where plenty of people voted for someone like Trump in spite of all the terrible shit he supported, so why should be worried about scaring people off due to being "too far left"? We routinely go through elections where 40%-50% of people didn't vote, so isn't it certainly possible that a lot of those people might actually agree (or can be convinced to agree) with some "too far left" positions?
What's even weirder is that sometimes people will argue that Sanders is "too far left" while simultaneously arguing that "Clinton/Sanders are basically 93% the same!"
And as I've mentioned in the past, Clinton/Sanders in this context is just shorthand for the ideological and political differences between two wings of the party. Replace this with Cory Booker/Nina Turner, and it's the same issue. And this is an ideological conflict that goes back years, so as far as "when" it failed, I think
this article points to some indicators of how this started, and
this book also goes into some of the history.
Was it the spoiler candidates? Was it Hillary's campaign?
3rd party candidates seem to have had little to no effect on the election (and most 3rd party votes were for the libertarian, so in theory, they wouldn't have supported Hillary anyway), and there's evidence that
she largely didn't campaign in certain states that could have tipped the scales in her favor. And of course, it's much more difficult to paint yourself as a hero of the working class if you're known for expensive speeches to wall street and are under FBI investigation, so there's a credibility gap as well, whether someone personally thinks that's fair to the candidate or not.
Was it empty promises from before that served as the impetus for the supposed migration toward Trump?
Well yeah, her and her husband vocally supported/pushed through a lot of well known policies that ultimately harmed working class people (in the name of "pragmatism"), so that also makes it difficult to turn around and say "I'm on your side". These were all known factors going into the primary and the general election, so this shouldn't be shocking news to anyone.
Was the failure indeed isolated to the swing states or states democracts specifically lost? Does the fact that she won the popular vote by (as of right now 1.3m?) means that the problem wasn't the message but the EC itself
Yeah, I agree the EC is always a problem, but it was also a known problem, so it's not like that should have caught them off guard. Though I'm all about dumping the EC, and 100% support changing to a popular vote system.
And though losing the swing states were definitely the more direct cause of her loss, I don't think that solely explains the general weakness Democrats have had nationwide when it comes to congressional candidates, statewide candidates, etc. Voter suppression definitely plays a role in this as well, but the losses are large enough that it can't solely be placed on that.
Voter apathy was also a part of it.
Is campaining for the democratic vote something that should be done constantly year after year instead of only when they need us?
Yeah, I think the most successful examples of a way forward are with grassroots movements and protests like the Fight for 15, Black Lives Matter, and Standing Rock that exist outside of the party system. Don't "co-opt" them necessarily and try to force them into being Democrats, but learn how to ride that wave, understand why people are passionate about an issue and tie that enthusiasm into a larger political message within one's own party/campaign. Obama in 2008 took all the antiwar activist energy and people's general hunger for "change" and channeled that into his campaign, even if he didn't actually govern in the same way.
And if we're specifically talking about white people, there are still ways to communicate these left messages in a way that they can understand. You don't need to deny that police violence disproportionately affects people of color, but you can also say that police violence affects white people too. You don't have to deny that a $15 minimum wage would largely benefit people of color while also recognizing it would benefit poor whites as well. But you'd have to constantly tie that together and mean it, and routinely campaign on it, and build credibility and trust, and not just link people to your website and hope they find it. And white people should constantly be reminded that they have far more in common with their fellow laborer than they do with their boss.
But that would mean recognizing and embracing an activist message that is often "
too far left", which, for various reasons, a lot of people that hold power in the Democratic Party are often shy about.
Of course, it's always possible that my preferred approach might not work either, and we're all fucked, but what we do know is that the current approach obviously doesn't work.
Instead of using the alt-right talking point that posits that finger wagging at bigots is how Trump gained more supporters I would rather have a post mortem on the failure of the 2016 democratic campaign, which I'm sure is happening though these talking points in this thread sure as hell distracted me from it.
I agree. That's why I mentioned that some of the arguments get mixed together in threads like this. What I think Democrats as a
party should do going forward is different from what I think individual people should do in 1 on 1 interactions. I'm speaking in terms of political coalitions, not whether I want to be friends with someone or not or cure their racism.
There are some Democratic voters who are anti-abortion
There are some Democratic voters who are homophobic
There are some Democratic voters who are racist
There are some Democratic voters who are sexist
Voting D doesn't absolve them of these qualities on a personal level, but it
doesmean that they can be in a political coalition with others who have the completely opposite views on various issues. And for some Trump voters (and of course, people who just sat out the election completely), I think this can be possible as well. I don't need to like these people, but it's certainly better for me and others if they don't vote for people like Trump.