Democrats who can unite the Country
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Author Topic: Democrats who can unite the Country  (Read 5756 times)
Beet
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« Reply #50 on: August 17, 2017, 11:51:16 PM »

We need a horrific crisis to unite this country. Think of the Great Depression/WWII, the Civil War (which ended with mixed results), or the Revolutionary War. It has to be something that shakes us so much to our core that we're forced to put our differences aside and come together. Nearly 3,000 Americans died on 9/11 and the polarization was only halted for a couple years then we went right back to our divided selves by 2004-2006. So a national crisis would have to shake us more than 9/11 did in order to bring us together.

As it stands, no Democrat can unite us. There's nothing they can do to rally the country together in the current circumstances.

No, we don't "need" a horrific crisis. Better one person die in Charlottesville than another 9/11. And don't forget that the country was not very polarized in the 1920s, except for a tiny segment left over from the Civil War. There isn't really any example of a crisis "healing" polarization. Usually one side totally wins and the other loses.
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Beet
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« Reply #51 on: August 18, 2017, 12:12:45 AM »

We can't even agree on reality or what a "fact" is for Christ's sake. How is one suppose to unite the country with a clear mandate absent a national crisis in this kind of environment? It does not happen.

I didn't say the Democrats would unite the country in 2020. I just said even a major crisis isn't likely to unite the country in that way. After all, look at the Civil War. It was a major crisis if there ever was one, one side had a decisive victory if there ever was one, yet.... here we are, still debating Confederate statues 150 years later.

The last very polarizing era in American politics was the 1960s. How did that end? Well, it just sort of fizzled out. The center retook control in the early 1970s and the radicals were ridiculed into oblivion. All that's needed is for centrism to reassert itself.
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Beet
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« Reply #52 on: August 18, 2017, 12:26:56 AM »

The GOP actually moved to the center in a lot of ways in 2016. They toned down their hawkishness, their religious conservatism, and their small-government ideology. In every area of policy, they moved to the center, and that is why they won. It was the classic Bill Clinton strategy.

The Democrats, on the other hand, rushed to the left, and this hurt them. It is true, in some ways, the Democratic program on the left is becoming more popular-- but this is mainly in the realm of economics. In the realm of social issues, it is not so. The SJW left must be relentlessly attacked and crushed, and if it is I don't see an internal conflict. The Democratic media establishment has been fanning the flames of identity politics for years, and bear the bulk of the blame for where we are today.
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GoTfan
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« Reply #53 on: August 18, 2017, 12:37:59 AM »

John Delaney (the first democrat to announce a run for the presidency in 2020) and Joe Machine. That's pretty much it.

Manchin cannot unite the party. If he were to get the nod, then there would be a left-wing third party challenge, likely from Sanders or Warren that would cost him the election.
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« Reply #54 on: August 18, 2017, 01:06:01 AM »

The GOP actually moved to the center in a lot of ways in 2016. They toned down their hawkishness, their religious conservatism, and their small-government ideology. In every area of policy, they moved to the center, and that is why they won. It was the classic Bill Clinton strategy.

Trump? Yes. GOP congressmen? Ehh no. And GOP senators did just as well if not better than Trump in most of the swing states. Rubio crushed his opponent in Florida, Johnson performed better than Trump did in Wisconsin, Ayotte and Toomey more or less performed the same as Trump in NH and PA, McCain crushed it in Arizona, Burr outran Trump in NC, Grassley far outran Trump in IA, Portman outran Trump bigly in Ohio, etc etc.

Plus the House GOP won the PV while Trump did not.


The point is that it appears as though Trump's unorthodox positions may not have been what drug him over the finish line. If anything you could argue that savvy GOP congressmen saved him and not the other way around looking at the senate results of swing states along with the congressional results.

Given that Clinton very publically targeted suburban Republicans (without much success), it seems more a case of her dragging down the whole party.
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BlueSwan
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« Reply #55 on: August 18, 2017, 01:42:38 AM »

Uncle Joe, but he's too old.

Maybe someone like Amy Klobuchar, but I think she is too boring to actually get elected.
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AN63093
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« Reply #56 on: August 18, 2017, 05:07:04 AM »
« Edited: August 18, 2017, 05:11:50 AM by AN63093 »

We can't even agree on reality or what a "fact" is for Christ's sake. How is one suppose to unite the country with a clear mandate absent a national crisis in this kind of environment? It does not happen.


The last very polarizing era in American politics was the 1960s. How did that end? Well, it just sort of fizzled out. The center retook control in the early 1970s and the radicals were ridiculed into oblivion. All that's needed is for centrism to reassert itself.

Well, I think Techno Timmy's 'generations/economic systems' theory actually has a pretty good answer to that.  With the caveat that I don't want to put words in his month (so please, correct me if I'm wrong TT), but my understanding is he argues that neo-liberalism essentially emerged as the solution to the economic problem of the day (i.e., stagflation), and after a couple decades of strong growth, became the prevailing economic system for both parties.  This paralleled the ascendancy of the Boomers, who coming into peak power during a time of economic consensus, naturally shifted to the culture wars/social issues.

So I guess it 'fizzled' in a manner of speaking, but I think that sorta obfuscates the fact that it didn't just happen out of nowhere, like an unpredictable weather pattern or something.  But rather it was the confluence of certain factors given the times.

I think one thing you're missing (and again, I don't wanna speak for TT here), but at least when I'm saying a crisis has to happen, I'm not advocating for one (and I assume TT isn't either).  But rather I'm making an observation about what I think would be required to disrupt the system to the degree necessary in order to change the current consensus.

Let's take Trump for instance.  Yes, you are right that his positions were not just unorthodox, but in some ways opposite from the "Reagan GOP," but consider this- first, he had to fight the establishment tooth and nail on these issues (and they still hate him), and second, I don't see some seachange in the way business is done.  Neo-liberalism as the consensus economic ideology is very much alive and well, Trump or no Trump (and quite frankly, whether Clinton had been elected as well).  So the battle lines are drawn on the social issues instead.

You talk about how the Dems drive identity politics, and while they are certainly focused on that (I won't disagree with you there), I think you're putting the cart before the horse a little.  Are identity politics prevalent because the Dems push it, or do Dems push it because identity politics are such an important issue for the base?  See what I'm getting at?  Dems push these issues because they are the issues a lot of folks in the D base are emotional about and they're the issues that matter so much to them.  Now in a world where there wasn't such an economic consensus, or where some other catastrophic crisis was center stage, then perhaps that's where the fault line would be, but since that's not the case, the fight is currently one of primarily ethnic identity and related sub-issues, and I don't see that disappearing anytime soon.  The Dems are very much the yin to the GOP's yang- they may not agree on much, but what they do agree about is what to fight over.

This may all sound very pessimistic, but I'm a realist.  Hyper polarization is here to stay my friend.  I wish it would just 'fizzle,' I really do.  But I don't think that's in the cards.
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« Reply #57 on: August 18, 2017, 05:46:06 AM »

You can unite your party. You can unite your base, but there is no way one can unite the country.
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uti2
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« Reply #58 on: August 18, 2017, 01:45:19 PM »

We can't even agree on reality or what a "fact" is for Christ's sake. How is one suppose to unite the country with a clear mandate absent a national crisis in this kind of environment? It does not happen.

I didn't say the Democrats would unite the country in 2020. I just said even a major crisis isn't likely to unite the country in that way. After all, look at the Civil War. It was a major crisis if there ever was one, one side had a decisive victory if there ever was one, yet.... here we are, still debating Confederate statues 150 years later.

The last very polarizing era in American politics was the 1960s. How did that end? Well, it just sort of fizzled out. The center retook control in the early 1970s and the radicals were ridiculed into oblivion. All that's needed is for centrism to reassert itself.

True, though unfortunately we appear to be headed more towards internal conflict ala 1860 rather than having an external enemy to rally behind and to defeat (1941 and 1776). That's a very somber path to be headed down given that the national mood and fallout of the civil war was much more detrimental than the other two crises we had as a country.

Centrism will not reassert itself. The GOP lost control on that front by 2016 and the center-left Democrats are about to be taken over by the left. One could argue that one of these forces will win out and unite the country gradually but I highly doubt that the losing side will just cede defeat without putting up a nasty backlash. Trump could be that final backlash; or he could be the beginning of something nastier. I guess we'll see but I don't think Charlottesville will be a mea culpa for a lot of Americans.

Now do you understand why I suggested that Hillary should've won in 2016? She should've beaten a normal republican, while Trump would've made his voice heard akin to Fillmore '56 or Roosevelt '12 as a third party candidate. Then, come 2020, you would've had a unifying GOP candidate similar to someone like Cotton who would've capitulated to some Trumpian positions on trade, immigration and some centrist positions on healthcare.
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Coolface Sock #42069
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« Reply #59 on: August 18, 2017, 10:45:09 PM »

Someone who couldn't make it out of a D primary.
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JA
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« Reply #60 on: August 19, 2017, 12:23:41 AM »

We can't even agree on reality or what a "fact" is for Christ's sake. How is one suppose to unite the country with a clear mandate absent a national crisis in this kind of environment? It does not happen.

Wouldn't that also imply that, if a national crisis occurred, we couldn't even agree with our interpretation of it? For example, if another 9/11 type event occurred, then we'd have divisions over the proper response (military vs. diplomatic, immigration restrictions vs. their opposition, etc...), the cause ("they hate us for our freedom" vs. "we provoked them by being in their lands"), and perhaps even the details of the event (inside job/conspiracy theory vs. acceptance of government/news reports). That similar division could be applied to practically any crisis, whether it's terrorism, natural disaster, economic crisis, or whatever.

So, no, there is no Democrat, Republican, or anyone that could unite Americans.
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Shadows
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« Reply #61 on: August 19, 2017, 04:09:16 AM »

Someone like Sherrod Brown or Tammy Baldwin. Midwestern progressives with establishment connections. Cory Booker has no chance with the activist base (Despite the borderline Republican beliefs of Blue Dog Moderate, who seems fine with Democrats being right-wingers). Same goes for people like Manchin (who's nomination WILL trigger a left-wing third party challenge).

But even then, it'd be an uphill battle for them. There are always going to be unsatisfied people.
"Borderline Republican" lmao that actually made me laugh. I didn't know I pissed you off that much that you have to follow me around and take a piss on Cory Booker (who many sensible Democrats can support) but Joe Manchin at the Presidential Level? Sorry for not blindly subscribing to Sanders' """revolution"""" that appeals to a very small, but loud, political minority in the Democratic Party.

Bernie Sanders it the base of the Democratic party. He has 80%+ favorability & 80%+ of the base agrees with his issues. And most of the them are sensible common sense issues implemented in major Western countries around the world.

You however are an extremist. You were hailing Steve Bannon & wanted him to tame his social views & join the Democratic Bandwagon. Forget Big Pharma sellout Cory Booker (who can appeal to Moderates) but supporting a Climate Change denier like Joe Manchin automatically makes you a radical extremist. Future generations would look at such people the way they look at Ann Coulter or Donald Trump.

@ Topic - No-one. There is too much ideological, racial, cultural polarization. No Democrat or Republican has united the country in almost 30 years. And it is just not possible now. Perhaps in 2024 with a Sanders like personality, but not anytime soon.
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Shadows
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« Reply #62 on: August 19, 2017, 04:21:34 AM »

Given that Clinton very publically targeted suburban Republicans (without much success), it seems more a case of her dragging down the whole party.

Isn't that always the question though? Did somebody win because they were a good candidate vs. winning because they ran against a poor candidate.

There were other tests we saw in 2016 that showed either progressives didn't show up or weren't a large segment. California's prop 61 failed, as did single payer in Colorado and a noted progressive in Feingold lost in Wisconsin of all places (even losing the 18-24 year olds to his republican opponent).

If Clinton brought down turnout among progressives because she spent too much time and energy courting moderate republicans then it kind of goes to show that the GOP have an advantage with ginning up turnout. The GOP didn't need a good candidate to save their senate and house majorities (as evidenced by swing state senators and he House GOP outperforming Trump)  whereas the Democrats do apparently need a good candidate to gin up turnout for both their down-ballot measures and candidates.

Again context is important. You can't pick & chose data here. Minimum Wages hike won huge in ballot measures. Marijuana won big in ballot measures. Coloradocare failed because close to half of the party (Clinton/Obama wing) didn't want to abandon the ACA (The Gov, Senator came out against it, they were Dems). And it was worded poorly & financing was also not done well. There were some taxes on seniors & so on. I know many diehard Bernie supporters who opposed Coloradocare in its present form. And state wide Single payer is probably harder to implement for a smaller state especially when Dems are campaigning on ACA.

Prof 61 got 45% odd votes which is good considering Pharma spend 120M $ on negative ads & it was an insurgency campaign. None of the Dem establishment came out for it big. The Bernie wing was reeling under the loss & Sanders was everywhere, campaigning for multiple issues. Our-Revolution was not even born. 45% with little support from Dems was a good result. Next time, it possibly would win.

Change never comes in 1 day. The Tea party didn't win 1 fine day. Slowly establishment GOP embraced them. A large chunk of establishment Dems will also have to embrace the left wing ideology (Today 75% of the Dem caucus support a 15$ Min Wage as an example). Feingold didn't tun a great campaign but the DSCC pulled ads when they saw him leading big while he was up against 100M $. Clinton never campaigned for him. He won more counties than Clinton did but never had some of the high margins in core Dem counties of Clinton (those voters didn't bother & turn out to vote for him).

Progressives haven't swept the slate but I don't think they will either. It will be a gradual process & by 4 years, the Dem party will be a LOT different compared to 2016 (& it already is to a large extent). You have to judge for a longer duration.
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uti2
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« Reply #63 on: August 19, 2017, 10:26:45 AM »

We can't even agree on reality or what a "fact" is for Christ's sake. How is one suppose to unite the country with a clear mandate absent a national crisis in this kind of environment? It does not happen.

I didn't say the Democrats would unite the country in 2020. I just said even a major crisis isn't likely to unite the country in that way. After all, look at the Civil War. It was a major crisis if there ever was one, one side had a decisive victory if there ever was one, yet.... here we are, still debating Confederate statues 150 years later.

The last very polarizing era in American politics was the 1960s. How did that end? Well, it just sort of fizzled out. The center retook control in the early 1970s and the radicals were ridiculed into oblivion. All that's needed is for centrism to reassert itself.

True, though unfortunately we appear to be headed more towards internal conflict ala 1860 rather than having an external enemy to rally behind and to defeat (1941 and 1776). That's a very somber path to be headed down given that the national mood and fallout of the civil war was much more detrimental than the other two crises we had as a country.

Centrism will not reassert itself. The GOP lost control on that front by 2016 and the center-left Democrats are about to be taken over by the left. One could argue that one of these forces will win out and unite the country gradually but I highly doubt that the losing side will just cede defeat without putting up a nasty backlash. Trump could be that final backlash; or he could be the beginning of something nastier. I guess we'll see but I don't think Charlottesville will be a mea culpa for a lot of Americans.

Now do you understand why I suggested that Hillary should've won in 2016? She should've beaten a normal republican, while Trump would've made his voice heard akin to Fillmore '56 or Roosevelt '12 as a third party candidate. Then, come 2020, you would've had a unifying GOP candidate similar to someone like Cotton who would've capitulated to some Trumpian positions on trade, immigration and some centrist positions on healthcare.

1. The House GOP won the popular vote last year - Trump did not.

2. Virtually every single GOP swing state senator outran Trump last year be they Burr in NC, Johnson in Wisconsin, Portman in Ohio, Rubio in Florida, whoeverthef**k in Iowa, etc. Only Ayotte and Toomey ran the same margins as Trump.

So given the above I'm HIGHLY skeptical of this notion that Trump's centrism secured him the win when in reality "normal" Republicans did far better than he did at the state and congressional level in 2016. Who exactly does Rubio lose the general election? Even if he falls short in PA and MI he would've won Wisconsin since A. It came within a fraction of voting for Bush and twice and B. Has been Scott Walker Tea Partified into GOP hegemony. And he likely wouldn't have done so piss poor with Hispanics and could've snatched Nevada as well.

He lost latinos overall in his FL senate race, he got defeated by the same standard margin w/ non-cuban latinos GOP normally gets (lost by two-thirds). Even in the primary, he couldn't even win NV hispanic republicans, he lost them to Trump of all people. As has been pointed out by others, Hillary purposely implemented a GOP outreach strategy her own DNC warned against, on top of that, in the states she targeted like TX and AZ she was effective in improving margins, which suggests that had she focused on WI instead, she could've held it. Hillary normalized Paul Ryan w/ her strategy.
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uti2
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« Reply #64 on: August 19, 2017, 10:59:03 AM »

We can't even agree on reality or what a "fact" is for Christ's sake. How is one suppose to unite the country with a clear mandate absent a national crisis in this kind of environment? It does not happen.

I didn't say the Democrats would unite the country in 2020. I just said even a major crisis isn't likely to unite the country in that way. After all, look at the Civil War. It was a major crisis if there ever was one, one side had a decisive victory if there ever was one, yet.... here we are, still debating Confederate statues 150 years later.

The last very polarizing era in American politics was the 1960s. How did that end? Well, it just sort of fizzled out. The center retook control in the early 1970s and the radicals were ridiculed into oblivion. All that's needed is for centrism to reassert itself.

True, though unfortunately we appear to be headed more towards internal conflict ala 1860 rather than having an external enemy to rally behind and to defeat (1941 and 1776). That's a very somber path to be headed down given that the national mood and fallout of the civil war was much more detrimental than the other two crises we had as a country.

Centrism will not reassert itself. The GOP lost control on that front by 2016 and the center-left Democrats are about to be taken over by the left. One could argue that one of these forces will win out and unite the country gradually but I highly doubt that the losing side will just cede defeat without putting up a nasty backlash. Trump could be that final backlash; or he could be the beginning of something nastier. I guess we'll see but I don't think Charlottesville will be a mea culpa for a lot of Americans.

Now do you understand why I suggested that Hillary should've won in 2016? She should've beaten a normal republican, while Trump would've made his voice heard akin to Fillmore '56 or Roosevelt '12 as a third party candidate. Then, come 2020, you would've had a unifying GOP candidate similar to someone like Cotton who would've capitulated to some Trumpian positions on trade, immigration and some centrist positions on healthcare.

1. The House GOP won the popular vote last year - Trump did not.

2. Virtually every single GOP swing state senator outran Trump last year be they Burr in NC, Johnson in Wisconsin, Portman in Ohio, Rubio in Florida, whoeverthef**k in Iowa, etc. Only Ayotte and Toomey ran the same margins as Trump.

So given the above I'm HIGHLY skeptical of this notion that Trump's centrism secured him the win when in reality "normal" Republicans did far better than he did at the state and congressional level in 2016. Who exactly does Rubio lose the general election? Even if he falls short in PA and MI he would've won Wisconsin since A. It came within a fraction of voting for Bush and twice and B. Has been Scott Walker Tea Partified into GOP hegemony. And he likely wouldn't have done so piss poor with Hispanics and could've snatched Nevada as well.

He lost latinos overall in his FL senate race, he got defeated by the same standard margin w/ non-cuban latinos GOP normally gets (lost by two-thirds). Even in the primary, he couldn't even win NV hispanic republicans, he lost them to Trump of all people. As has been pointed out by others, Hillary purposely implemented a GOP outreach strategy her own DNC warned against, on top of that, in the states she targeted like TX and AZ she was effective in improving margins, which suggests that had she focused on WI instead, she could've held it. Hillary normalized Paul Ryan w/ her strategy.

Yeah because running as a progressive helped Russ Feingold soooo much in Wisconsin.

So good to see that "If only she ran more progressive she wouldve won!" Narrative being screamed 24/7 while the Democrats were already on the verge of being in the weakest position they've been in at the local, state, and federal going into 2016 since the 1920's.

Such a great realigning President Obama was wasn't he? Putting his Party in an ungodly weak position not seen in 4 generations. Jesus Christ at least Reagan had southern Democrats who were friendly towards 80-90% of his agenda. Democrats don't have jack sh*t and are relying overwhelmingly on Trump's scandals and unpopularity to maintain the bits and pieces of his legacy.

2008 will never be a consideted a realigning election.

Actually, Trump is willing to sign any GOP bill, the problem is that the GOP itself can't send any such bill to him since the GOP is effectually unable to govern due to the internal contradictions in the party, which if anything, suggests that they were not supposed to placed in a position of governance to begin with.

I'm sure you have taken a look at the actual post-election data.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/upshot/the-obama-trump-voters-are-real-heres-what-they-think.html

There have been a number of studies that have concluded the median swing voter to essentially be economically liberal + culturally conservative. The GOP establishment plan for 2016 was to run the opposite platform, Kasich was the only candidate who tried to rehabilitate compassionate conservatism and appeal to centrism.

The GOP establishment model was to run a hardcore Ryanite platform on economic issues, and then run to the cultural left on immigration + political correctness/police brutality issues, etc.

So yes, running as a progressive on econ issues is preferable to praising paul ryan and rehabilitating ryanism, actually.

Maybe you should look at how the GOP actually won 1920-1932, they won by appealing to hardcore nativism, which no GOP candidate was wiling to do besides Trump. The Southern Strategy actually started in the 1920s.
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uti2
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« Reply #65 on: August 19, 2017, 02:17:43 PM »

We can't even agree on reality or what a "fact" is for Christ's sake. How is one suppose to unite the country with a clear mandate absent a national crisis in this kind of environment? It does not happen.

I didn't say the Democrats would unite the country in 2020. I just said even a major crisis isn't likely to unite the country in that way. After all, look at the Civil War. It was a major crisis if there ever was one, one side had a decisive victory if there ever was one, yet.... here we are, still debating Confederate statues 150 years later.

The last very polarizing era in American politics was the 1960s. How did that end? Well, it just sort of fizzled out. The center retook control in the early 1970s and the radicals were ridiculed into oblivion. All that's needed is for centrism to reassert itself.

True, though unfortunately we appear to be headed more towards internal conflict ala 1860 rather than having an external enemy to rally behind and to defeat (1941 and 1776). That's a very somber path to be headed down given that the national mood and fallout of the civil war was much more detrimental than the other two crises we had as a country.

Centrism will not reassert itself. The GOP lost control on that front by 2016 and the center-left Democrats are about to be taken over by the left. One could argue that one of these forces will win out and unite the country gradually but I highly doubt that the losing side will just cede defeat without putting up a nasty backlash. Trump could be that final backlash; or he could be the beginning of something nastier. I guess we'll see but I don't think Charlottesville will be a mea culpa for a lot of Americans.

Now do you understand why I suggested that Hillary should've won in 2016? She should've beaten a normal republican, while Trump would've made his voice heard akin to Fillmore '56 or Roosevelt '12 as a third party candidate. Then, come 2020, you would've had a unifying GOP candidate similar to someone like Cotton who would've capitulated to some Trumpian positions on trade, immigration and some centrist positions on healthcare.

1. The House GOP won the popular vote last year - Trump did not.

2. Virtually every single GOP swing state senator outran Trump last year be they Burr in NC, Johnson in Wisconsin, Portman in Ohio, Rubio in Florida, whoeverthef**k in Iowa, etc. Only Ayotte and Toomey ran the same margins as Trump.

So given the above I'm HIGHLY skeptical of this notion that Trump's centrism secured him the win when in reality "normal" Republicans did far better than he did at the state and congressional level in 2016. Who exactly does Rubio lose the general election? Even if he falls short in PA and MI he would've won Wisconsin since A. It came within a fraction of voting for Bush and twice and B. Has been Scott Walker Tea Partified into GOP hegemony. And he likely wouldn't have done so piss poor with Hispanics and could've snatched Nevada as well.

He lost latinos overall in his FL senate race, he got defeated by the same standard margin w/ non-cuban latinos GOP normally gets (lost by two-thirds). Even in the primary, he couldn't even win NV hispanic republicans, he lost them to Trump of all people. As has been pointed out by others, Hillary purposely implemented a GOP outreach strategy her own DNC warned against, on top of that, in the states she targeted like TX and AZ she was effective in improving margins, which suggests that had she focused on WI instead, she could've held it. Hillary normalized Paul Ryan w/ her strategy.

Yeah because running as a progressive helped Russ Feingold soooo much in Wisconsin.

So good to see that "If only she ran more progressive she wouldve won!" Narrative being screamed 24/7 while the Democrats were already on the verge of being in the weakest position they've been in at the local, state, and federal going into 2016 since the 1920's.

Such a great realigning President Obama was wasn't he? Putting his Party in an ungodly weak position not seen in 4 generations. Jesus Christ at least Reagan had southern Democrats who were friendly towards 80-90% of his agenda. Democrats don't have jack sh*t and are relying overwhelmingly on Trump's scandals and unpopularity to maintain the bits and pieces of his legacy.

2008 will never be a consideted a realigning election.

Actually, Trump is willing to sign any GOP bill, the problem is that the GOP itself can't send any such bill to him since the GOP is effectually unable to govern due to the internal contradictions in the party, which if anything, suggests that they were not supposed to placed in a position of governance to begin with.

I'm sure you have taken a look at the actual post-election data.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/upshot/the-obama-trump-voters-are-real-heres-what-they-think.html

There have been a number of studies that have concluded the median swing voter to essentially be economically liberal + culturally conservative. The GOP establishment plan for 2016 was to run the opposite platform, Kasich was the only candidate who tried to rehabilitate compassionate conservatism and appeal to centrism.

The GOP establishment model was to run a hardcore Ryanite platform on economic issues, and then run to the cultural left on immigration + political correctness/police brutality issues, etc.

So yes, running as a progressive on econ issues is preferable to praising paul ryan and rehabilitating ryanism, actually.

Maybe you should look at how the GOP actually won 1920-1932, they won by appealing to hardcore nativism, which no GOP candidate was wiling to do besides Trump. The Southern Strategy actually started in the 1920s.

Man running progressives was all the Democrats needed all along? I guess that makes sense if you ignore 2010, 2014, and 2016 entirely.

Also you never even bother to address that a noted progressive in Feingold lost in Wisconsin, the House GOP winning the popular vote last year, or the fact that virtually every single "Ryanite" (whatever the hell that means) senator outran Trump in the swing states.

But sure if we're gonna live in make believe land where the Democrats don't get relegated into the smallest minority they haven't seen since he 1920's, Trump loses in 2016, the GOP don't make big gains in 2010 and 2014, and the fact that normal Republicans far outperformed Trump in almost every swing state then sure...Obama in those circumstances did realign the country.

But in reality he did not. Your insinuation that 2008 was a realignment is complete and utter garbage when looking at the state of the Party itself.

Trump can't sign laws? Dems can't do sh*t so wow such accomplishment for the realigning majority party huh?

Those seats lost during 2010 and 2014 were mostly blue dog seats, and guess what? They were replaced by Tea Partyers. Why would seats held formerly by moderate democrats go to the hardest of right republicans? It's because the motivation for voting for those Tea Party candidates was never about their economic positions, it was about their cultural positions.

If you praise Republicans as a campaign strategy to distance them for their nominee, does that not rationally suggest that such a strategy would have outsized impact on the downballot? Why was the DNC so concerned about Hillary trying to distance Trump from the GOP?
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uti2
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« Reply #66 on: August 19, 2017, 02:30:05 PM »

^
Wasnt there a study that said alot of people voted for Congressional GOP candidates because they all figured Hillary would win.

Also, Hillary has under-preformed every election she ran in. It was like Conway vs Bevin on the Federal level.

This was a campaign refrain used in GOP congressional campaigns, and it was further emboldened by the Clinton campaign itself which suggested that 'normal republicans' were good, and that Trump was a unique evil.
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uti2
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« Reply #67 on: August 19, 2017, 03:38:11 PM »

^
Wasnt there a study that said alot of people voted for Congressional GOP candidates because they all figured Hillary would win.

Also, Hillary has under-preformed every election she ran in. It was like Conway vs Bevin on the Federal level.

This was a campaign refrain used in GOP congressional campaigns, and it was further emboldened by the Clinton campaign itself which suggested that 'normal republicans' were good, and that Trump was a unique evil.

If anything, I'd say 2016 was a one off. First, Hillary was a lousy candidate who depressed Democratic turnout but was a source of never vitriolic hatred among the GOP voters. I cant think of a single Dem that could of been run that year that would have motivated the hysterical hatred among Republicans. Hillary was walking red meat. Second, the primary obviously damaged Hillary and left half the party hating her. Third,  according to Demographic experts, the following state legislative victories showed that 2016 was a one off because quite alot of +30% to +40% Trump districts flipped Dem. This means no realignment happened.

My guess is that while Trump will never lose his cult like followers, those people only compromise 60% of the GOP and that's not alot of people. Trump has pretty much been a miserable failure at governing (along with the GOP) so nothing will really get done in the end. On top of this, there is an almost 100% chance of a recession in his term. By 2018, America will have gone its longest period in history of not having a recession and were due for one. Trump is too stupid to legislate effectively to stop the recession and the GOP is too useless. So all signs point to Trump being a one termer and no amount of race baiting is going to help him

To be fair, Obama inspired even more or at least just as much hysterical hatred.
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uti2
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« Reply #68 on: August 19, 2017, 06:47:46 PM »

Those seats lost during 2010 and 2014 were mostly blue dog seats, and guess what? They were replaced by Tea Partyers. Why would seats held formerly by moderate democrats go to the hardest of right republicans? It's because the motivation for voting for those Tea Party candidates was never about their economic positions, it was about their cultural positions.

If you praise Republicans as a campaign strategy to distance them for their nominee, does that not rationally suggest that such a strategy would have outsized impact on the downballot? Why was the DNC so concerned about Hillary trying to distance Trump from the GOP?

Of course Democrats in the most vulnerable seats ended up losing those seats in 2010 and 2014. That's not groundbreaking stuff. Was the supposed Obama 2008 realignment only powerful enough to keep already deep blue seats safe in 2010 while losing swing districts? Because that's not impressive and is quite a letdown.

It's a fact that normal Republicans outperformed Trump at the congressional and senate swing state level by running as Reaganite Republicans who often times distanced themselves from the populist in Trump. Your "2008 realignment" theory has no way of reconciling that. How did Obama end the Reaganite era when Reaganite Republicans are so powerful right when he leaves office? Why was Obama's signature accomplishment a centrist healthcare plan that was crafted as a conservative alternative to single payer/a public option? Where's the Reagan/Rooseveltin style agenda that revolutionized our politics?

Is this what Obama realigned us into? Being more polarized, more unequal as a country in terms of inequality/income, banks bigger than prior to 2008, etc. Is this the Obama realignment? Because if so it's really pathetic and looks a lot more like Reagan's vision of the country than any self respecting progressive's vision.

He ran as a progressive populist - after he abandoned that agenda, the GOP responded with the populist Tea Party movement. You had a ton of Koch-bankrolled candidates pretending to be populists as a response. This contradiction exists to be exploited (like it was by Obama who was relatively more economically populist than his opponent) because the establishment/Kochs refused to give concessions on economic issues.
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uti2
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« Reply #69 on: August 19, 2017, 07:02:52 PM »

^ By the way, in 1920, Mcadoo was the progressive running, Cox ran as as conservative dem who distanced himself from Wilson and we know Davis in 1924 was a conservative as well. In contrast, Hillary was basically running as an extension of Obama, she had fully embraced his platform.

Making comparisons to 1920 doesn't work because Hillary didn't run on her '08 platform, she ran as an extension of Obama.
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uti2
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« Reply #70 on: August 19, 2017, 07:40:01 PM »

I have to ask at this point are you being paid by Obama or some Democratic Party official to justify why Obama and Clinton were secretly these totally awesome political figures who revolutionized politics? Are you just here to defend the carnage the Democrats experienced the last 6 years?

What I'm saying is that relative to who they would be against, they would be well-positioned. They would struggle against even centrist-adjacent republicans like Huntsman/Kasich, and Obama's team was particularly worried about Huntsman in 2012, but relative to the crop of right-wing tea party republicans, their positioning is easier to take.
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uti2
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« Reply #71 on: August 19, 2017, 07:42:32 PM »

^ That's why pre-Lehman Brothers, Mccain polled much better swing state wise than Romney ever did.
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houseonaboat
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« Reply #72 on: August 19, 2017, 08:10:29 PM »
« Edited: August 19, 2017, 08:13:00 PM by houseonaboat »

I think any notion of "uniting the country" has to come with the understanding that the primary electorate does not equal the general electorate, and that most Americans aren't a.) all that passionate about politics or b.) particularly ideological. Someone like Booker, at least in terms of messaging, would do extremely well with a general electorate and fare poorly with an activist base, whereas Sanders/Warren would do extremely well with the Democratic base but poorly with the general electorate.

I'll chip in and say that I think Sasse (not a Democrat, obviously) would do extremely well in a general election, particularly with people who don't vote.
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Medal506
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« Reply #73 on: August 22, 2017, 07:17:58 PM »

Someone like Sherrod Brown or Tammy Baldwin. Midwestern progressives with establishment connections. Cory Booker has no chance with the activist base (Despite the borderline Republican beliefs of Blue Dog Moderate, who seems fine with Democrats being right-wingers). Same goes for people like Manchin (who's nomination WILL trigger a left-wing third party challenge).

But even then, it'd be an uphill battle for them. There are always going to be unsatisfied people.
"Borderline Republican" lmao that actually made me laugh. I didn't know I pissed you off that much that you have to follow me around and take a piss on Cory Booker (who many sensible Democrats can support) but Joe Manchin at the Presidential Level? Sorry for not blindly subscribing to Sanders' """revolution"""" that appeals to a very small, but loud, political minority in the Democratic Party.

Bernie Sanders it the base of the Democratic party. He has 80%+ favorability & 80%+ of the base agrees with his issues. And most of the them are sensible common sense issues implemented in major Western countries around the world.

You however are an extremist. You were hailing Steve Bannon & wanted him to tame his social views & join the Democratic Bandwagon. Forget Big Pharma sellout Cory Booker (who can appeal to Moderates) but supporting a Climate Change denier like Joe Manchin automatically makes you a radical extremist. Future generations would look at such people the way they look at Ann Coulter or Donald Trump.

@ Topic - No-one. There is too much ideological, racial, cultural polarization. No Democrat or Republican has united the country in almost 30 years. And it is just not possible now. Perhaps in 2024 with a Sanders like personality, but not anytime soon.


If Bernie Sanders has an 80% approval rating (which he doesn't) why did he lose to a woman (Hillary Clinton) who had a 57 percent disapproval rating who then went on to lose to a guy (Donald Trump) who had in June of 2016 a 70 percent dissaproval rating?
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Medal506
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« Reply #74 on: August 22, 2017, 07:23:07 PM »

Given that Clinton very publically targeted suburban Republicans (without much success), it seems more a case of her dragging down the whole party.

Isn't that always the question though? Did somebody win because they were a good candidate vs. winning because they ran against a poor candidate.

There were other tests we saw in 2016 that showed either progressives didn't show up or weren't a large segment. California's prop 61 failed, as did single payer in Colorado and a noted progressive in Feingold lost in Wisconsin of all places (even losing the 18-24 year olds to his republican opponent).

If Clinton brought down turnout among progressives because she spent too much time and energy courting moderate republicans then it kind of goes to show that the GOP have an advantage with ginning up turnout. The GOP didn't need a good candidate to save their senate and house majorities (as evidenced by swing state senators and he House GOP outperforming Trump)  whereas the Democrats do apparently need a good candidate to gin up turnout for both their down-ballot measures and candidates.

Again context is important. You can't pick & chose data here. Minimum Wages hike won huge in ballot measures. Marijuana won big in ballot measures. Coloradocare failed because close to half of the party (Clinton/Obama wing) didn't want to abandon the ACA (The Gov, Senator came out against it, they were Dems). And it was worded poorly & financing was also not done well. There were some taxes on seniors & so on. I know many diehard Bernie supporters who opposed Coloradocare in its present form. And state wide Single payer is probably harder to implement for a smaller state especially when Dems are campaigning on ACA.

Prof 61 got 45% odd votes which is good considering Pharma spend 120M $ on negative ads & it was an insurgency campaign. None of the Dem establishment came out for it big. The Bernie wing was reeling under the loss & Sanders was everywhere, campaigning for multiple issues. Our-Revolution was not even born. 45% with little support from Dems was a good result. Next time, it possibly would win.

Change never comes in 1 day. The Tea party didn't win 1 fine day. Slowly establishment GOP embraced them. A large chunk of establishment Dems will also have to embrace the left wing ideology (Today 75% of the Dem caucus support a 15$ Min Wage as an example). Feingold didn't tun a great campaign but the DSCC pulled ads when they saw him leading big while he was up against 100M $. Clinton never campaigned for him. He won more counties than Clinton did but never had some of the high margins in core Dem counties of Clinton (those voters didn't bother & turn out to vote for him).

Progressives haven't swept the slate but I don't think they will either. It will be a gradual process & by 4 years, the Dem party will be a LOT different compared to 2016 (& it already is to a large extent). You have to judge for a longer duration.



That's a complete flat out lie! The establishment GOP has never once embraced the tea party! The establishment Republicans hate the tea party and always have.
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