Austrian rant about demographics, Democrats, the smug right and the alt-left

[ApatheticAustrian]

Time for panic?

Finding myself on the losing side of this election (congratulations to the EC winners) and having done my own soul-searching even before election day, i have the feeling nearly everyone else got crazy.

Obviously the Dem party lost a lot of OBAMA DEMOCRATS (stop the "reagan democrats" nonsense, this is a rebuke of Reagan-ism and those people voted Obama, while the original ReagDems stayed with the Pubs, obviously) - and it hurt her plenty in a couple of key states, which haven't voted R for so long, that calling them swing states was more a theoretical title.

PA/MI/WI are similar and different in many ways and winning 2 of them by a hyper-close margin is god's way of humour....minimal input, maximal output.... congratulations to the Trump campaign or, to be more specific, to the Trump message....the campaign did everything to sabotage itself but this is another matter.





Nothine like a post-election knife massacre!

Do you know what i hate most about close elections? The tedency inside some factions of the losing party to throw everything out of the window, flip the table and start again at zero, even if you got 9/10 of the path correctly. This kind of crypto-analysis emerges specially Day 1 after election day, when there is no safa data files and everyone is forced to guess what went wrong.

This general problem is accelerated massively by the US election system, which makes it necessary to invent a different strategy for different parts of the country. Another piece, the Dem coalition, which is - different from the republican base - a real coalition of very different people working for more or less similar goals, also makes finding a clear message more difficult, while making sure, that dem Dem party stays the big-tent-party. So far, so bad - in terms of political power-building and questions of allegiance and motivation.


What really irritates me is the following thing:

- we have talked an ENDLESS amount of time (in shape of articles and videos) this time about the struggles of white, working class voters in the Rust Belt


- we have not talked AT ALL about the people who actually voted for HRC or have voted for Dem the first time or doubled down on it this year.


Over 60 million people, still counting, have voted for both candidates, on course for groundbreaking results.

A minority of those 120+ millions....let's say 2-3 million shared through PA/MI/WI....either stayed home this time, voted third party or changed their vote from Obama in 2012 to Trump 2016....very small number compared to the whole US electorate but big result in key states, maximum effect - oney again, kudos to the Trump messaging.





Common non-wisdom!



Which brings me to my main point - raging about "common wisdom" regarding electoral majorities demographic change which is always fate and always fatalistic:


1) The thesis of the last 8 years was, that the "rising majority" is fate and that Dems are - if they hold the current course and the Republicans don't adapt - "doomed" to rule national politics for years and years to come, getting more dominant each cycle. (Ignore that this thesis at this point was - underlined in 2010 and 2014 -  ignorant to begin with, since most of those voters only materialized every 4 years, which is great for show but makes actual governing nearly impossible)


2) The anti-thesis, which was created in 2009 and changed in 2010, 2012, 2014 and especially 2016, was, that republicans are more attractive for well-integrated immigrants, the Democrats are forgetting their own working-class voters, the republicans either need to do immigration reform...or not?, "those people never vote anyway", the republican message helps everyone and finally: We need a wall.


I obviously didn't buy the thesis and i am buying the anti-thesis even less...both concept are imho overhyped, especially in a country as big as the US, with such diverse voting blocs, a state-centered system of deciding elections instead of an individual-vote-centered one and the unproportional spreading of those, imho also overhyped, much-talked immigrant voters of the 50 states. (And i am not even talking about the fact, that immigrants/some minorities vote even less frequent than the working-class white base-electorate.)


While we are still in freak-out-mode, still counting votes, still not sure who voted for whom and how the racial lines are running and why exactly who has done what....the smug right in general and the alt-left of the progressive-materialist Sanders movement without Sanders overlap regarding their assesment what went wrong for Dems.

3) The synthesis, at this early point, is something like that:

THE DEMS HAVE OVERLOOKED THE STRUGGLES OF THE RURAL WHITE WORKING CLASS AND TALKED TOO MUCH ABOUT IMMIGRATION AND OUTLOOK, WHILE LOSING THE BACKBONE OF THEIR COALITION!

Obviously while the smug right ist totally sure that this is a rebuke on social issues (gay rights, female "pet projects", minority rights....), the alt-left (say classical left or classical progressives if you don't like this term) says this is just a rebuke on material issues and the Dems disappointed regarding wealth transfer and postponing the death of industrial America.


And once again:

I don't buy either of those arguments for face value - but agree, that there is some truth to both of them, even if both groups IMHO miscalculate the influence or factual base of their claims.





Permanent majority!!1!!1!!!!!!!!

Let's start with the "thesis" from above......it's true that the US are changing and changing fast, culturally, economically demographically.......but mostly in some states and mostly to the economical disavantage of other states.


As someone has pointed nearly half of the inhabitants of the US live in a small minority of the counties.....and miss Clinton lost afaik over 80% of all counties in the US.


Which means.....the "ascending" minority....if seen as a tool to invade the South of the US......could lead to ever more lopsided PV margins, while giving up the EC for an unknown amount of time, if the current trend from 2010 forward is a real "trend" and not just the usual backlash against the ruling party.

Since the republicans have been able to kill the democratic midwest this year...even with the closest of margins.....the initial outcome of doubling down on working-class white identity politics for the republicans (while forgetting about their own social-religious pet projects) has been an instant hit....while the democratic South project won't bring fruits for cycles to come and seemingly can be easily countered with local adaption, see exhibit A: Texas.

Result Number 1: The thesis is superficial and not very deep to begin with and can the racial and educational majority is the key for cycles to come. I think it's a good long-term plan but i reject the notion it should be a national platform or campaign priority at this point. This Damocles' sword won't help the Democrats anytime soon and only a smug and incompetent campaign would put faith into it right now. Nothing wrong with putting Nevada, Colorado and maybe soon Arizona into the blue column but losing the midwest and especially MI/PA/WI is a net loss of 50% of EC votes in the best case scenario...

Bill Clinton got it right, courting a few 1000 white voters or even black voters in some key states was the answer this time in a system like the US.



If you wish reaaaally hard, demographics change.....


While thinking any leftist drinking the kool-aid about thesis at this point was naive, i think, if possible, the anti-thesis is even more short-sighted and silly, but i won't make fun of it, since i am convinced the republican party is struck with an ideological illness, unable to adapt and cut of its reganite solutions to all possible problems. While religion gets less influential in the US, the GOP becomes more religious regarding its own beliefs. The tea party is the tragic hero of this way of thinking, in my opinion, first eliminating the establishment for not givint them 100% of their demands and then paving the way for nationalist rockefeller republican, the anti-thesis of their reagan-fetishism.

If not inspiring more young people, the GOP is going to lose the future, if not creating a new consensus regarding minorities, the classical minority-friendly and small-l liberal GOP is going to reject natural allies, if not changing its reagan gospel in some areas or at least update it, the economical answers of the GOP are never going to fit the current problems......but, since i can't tell with even the notion of honesty which way trump is going to take finally and how the GOP is going to react to his decisions, I won't make predictions about this at this point.


Result Number 2: The GOP is on a dangerous path and not sure about its own goals and ideological convictions right now but its possible demise is concentrated in some states who either are Democratic to begin with or won't change the EC for years to come.....while the biggest fruits, Texas and Florida, are even more complicated and still more republican than the whole country. At the same time, alienating the coasts, alienating the ever-more-democratic state isn't helping and forgetting cities is not different at all than Democrats "forgetting" rural areas. Hoping the other side is going to fail even more is just a bet - you didn't build that and there is nothing to be proud about.

[ApatheticAustrian]

While it became necessary, to kill the Democratic Party to save it.....


While i think that the thesis was silly cause, at this point, it only works with a charismatic democratic candidate and the anti-thesis isn't better at all cause it veils that the Republican party is working against its own long-term interests and seems more inclined to buy a whole new set of values instead of softening the old ones even a little bit, i am right now quite solid in my belief, that the emerging sythesis is the least honest of them all.


As I stated, the “alt-left” and the right in general, recently united again in common schadenfreude about liberal desperation, agree that the Democrats “don’t get it”. “Don’t get what?” – you may ask, but most critics would prefer you don’t do it cause if you are forced to single out specific reasons for failure instead of patronizing “know it all”-placebos, you must get real too.

While the argument coming from the right, seeing the whole election as a rebuke of the “progressive”-pro-minority-rights agenda, gets a lot of attention, I think the position of the alt-left could be more dangerous to the Democratic Party in the long run…..since it’s a dispute inside the party itself.


Rejecting the general notion of conservatives, that Joe Sixpack is digusted to read about congressional debates about gay rights and the sorrow of refugees, while the local economy tanks, is easier and sounds more like the conservatives in case have hold pretty racist opinions about the rural US electorate itself. I won’t believe, without some pretty deep evidence, that the Americans voting for Trump are so simple-minded – neither racist in general nor sexist. Just got hooked by better messaging and the promise to flip the table, since just re-arranging the furniture didn’t seem to change anything.


At this point, I would like to congratulate the GOP:  Promising to make Obama a one-term-president, blocking and doubling down, did the job on the long run and prevented the agenda of the twice elected president to be tested even partially after 2010, besides some easily revoked executive orders. It’s the exact opposite of all assumptions about the future of the GOP in 2008 and 2012 and it worked…..which just confirms these pieces from Sean Trende, Hero of 2016 predictions: If you win elections – it’s pure chance, quite often…


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/08/13/are_elections_decided_by_random_chance.html


and remaking your whole party is usually unnecessary and ineffective.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/08/15/what_if_party_makeovers_dont_work_119606.html


So yeah, take it from the “doubling down”/obstructionist-crowd who changed nothing at all till the 2016 debates and then threw all their small-gov “convictions” out of the window, since winning is more important than anything else. They would love to see a humbled Democratic Party in a civil war against itself, alienating new voters …..don’t act like they talk, act like they do.





A change election we can believe in.....


The far left, on the other side, is split into those who want a materialist-centered populist movement, without the hipster-progressive social pet projects or the combination of both progressive and OWS/BLM-takes – allied in their wish to purge the party from Wall-Street donors and remove it from the political center, mostly inhabited by Democrats alone during the last 6-7 years. I personally believe that the classicall social democratic shtick is atm the best weapon of Dems against Trump, especially since Trump re-activated many voters with old-school populist talking points and promises about trade and jobs and wages and the end of globalism.


Otherwise, I am convinced – watching the success of Trump’s approach - that Democrats have made big mistakes during the last years, under-valuing their efforts to get shoot done in the republican-controlled congress and got blocked by the same guys now promising to get similar reforms done….one of the many mistakes visible now, but Obama never has been a street fighter or any kind of LBJ-like hardball politician. If there is any lesson in 2016 then that the Democratic long-term platform is still a smashing success….if played and used in the right way.



To clear some things which, imho, got misinterpreted often during the last week:

a)   2016 HAS NOT been a low-turnout election. We have cleared the 2012 mark today, with million more votes to go. https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/798378557688938496?lang=de



b)   2016 has been a REAL realignment election and far worse than the results show. Exhibit A: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252624.msg5394931#msg5394931

Most right-wing-results in 19 states since decades. I don’t think I need to cite all the other discussions and tidbits, proving that (white) rural regions all over the county voted like mad for Trump.


If there was big city with subs in a state, it sometimes out-voted the rurals or cancelled their high turnout through a high urban turnout of their own. Obviously everyone doubled down this time, in terms of electoral math and obviously doubling down on rurals is, right now, the winning strategy, since there have been enough pro-Dem rurals in some key states to swing those, while the amazing victories of Dems in red state cities and subs are net-neutrals or cycles too early.


If only about 115k voters in MI/WI/PA would have voted in a different way….
https://twitter.com/varadmehta/status/798534486015217664


……we would talk about the permanent majority again, the blue wall and how Trump was doomed to begin with. And it would be as wrong and far from truth as now talking about Democratic demise and new permanent Republican majorities.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Hot takes for everyone!


Building on that knowledge, that Democrats lost MANY MANY million Obama Democrats this cycle (some of them to the sidelines) but also won MANY MANY million new voters, I want to argue from 2 positions why the “alt-left” is, imho, wrong, if they want to burn the house down to build something new.


1)   Mathematical take: Democracy is not a zero-sum game, even not in the US. While America is one of the few modern democracies where many votes “disappear” (through being outvoted) without leaving any lasting impression, only about half of the potential electorate actually voted. Even while losing the election for the first time since decades in the essential states WI/MI/PA, democratic turnout was up in some (urban/student) counties and down in others…..win some, lose some and create a majority out of it.


The current Democratic message is a strong one, winning a popular majority for the 6th time in 7th elections, even while the economy was down and against a naturally skilled populist. Even a strong message DOES NOT secure a victory, especially with interfering factors like the EC. Which is NOT a call to abolish it or change the rules like now, even if the difference between EC and PV is – cause of polarization - more visible right now than in the past decades.

Democrats won some new voters and lost some old voters – the only point clear atm is, that PA/MI/WI are going to be the central battleground states of 2020, against a President Trump who has shown what he has got. If Democrats are able to hold their new voters, reactivate those who didn’t vote this time and at least win back a few Obama Democrats they have, OFC, a great shot to win all three states again.

If they take this close loss seriously and don’t act like it’s a fluke. Winning back governorships in the meantime could help with that and showing strength in 2020 is going to help with re-districting anyway, which finally would bring the House back in play again.

To make this thing work they must hold the voters they got RIGHT NOW – going full, no prisoners, social-populist, maybe brings back some rurals (not secured if the GOP stays Trumpie), loses some subs-support (like the WI WOW-counties who stepped to the left this time) and doesn’t help in the long run. This is all about balance and the last thing the Democrats need are Bannons of the left, who prefer burning houses to stale water.

There is no “silver bullet” in terms of counting votes, since this is – as I stated before – no zero-sum game and there are endless possibilities how to achieve a majority. The real lesson of 2016 is not to take any state for granted and ignore no possible constituency at all.






Help the Democrats: Kiss a hipster!


2)   Moral take: Everyone is talking since nearly a year non-stop about the sorrows of the white working-class voters. The forgotten voters, the suffering voters, the regions without jobs, the region with drug-problems and all kind of negative outcomes. And this is fine.

Some parts of the country are older than the rest, some regions haven’t been able to adapt, some regions are running out of jobs and are in general decline….shouldn’t be forgotten, should be supported to find a new….let’s say…”better way” and come to terms with a changing reality.

Imho the Democrats tried during the last 8 years to improve the financial situation of those who went through bad times, even while getting blocked to do so most of the times by Republicans, but this is not the point. (And, ofc, Democrats disagreed to postpone the death of coal, which killed them in Appalachia for 1 generation anyway, even while it’s a call the Republicans usually would to do, since Mister Ryan is all about “long term profitability”.)


Democrats have been on the top of the ticket for 8 years, some major problems couldn’t be solved, even while majorities for liberal pet projects have been accessible and the progress which was made, like Healthcare, either was incomplete or got dismantled anyway….which means: Democrats couldn’t fulfill their social democratic wishes to help those in need and especially areas of decline….which is, imho, one of the major reason, rural voters, especially in the Rust Belt, have been ready for a new voice.

And ofc the media echo and the war shouts of conservatives are correct: No one SHOULD take these voters for granted…..and Democrats need to win at least some of those back in 2020, to be competitive or they must need a full new alliance…which is not a very realistic scenario.


On the other hand…and I feel like this is getting ignored on a massive scale cause of the specifics of the EC:



Why the hell should dozens of millions of urban voters being taken for granted by anyone? HRC is, I guess, maybe the most urban and sub candidate ever, maximizing her votes in both areas and getting so dominant she now even pushed Trump again under Romney’s share of the votes.


https://twitter.com/johnfund/status/798507093032476672


In this HIGH TURNOUT election a giant number of people voted for HRC and as we know they did so because they wanted to vote FOR her, while many of Trump’s voters preferred voting AGAINST her. Whole areas of this country – especially the West Coast and parts of the general West, stood up in nearly unseen fashion, even in safe states, to vote against Trump mission of the USA and cause they supported HRC’s positions and they absolutely, IMHO, shouldn’t be ignored and shouldn’t be mocked cause they got outvoted by the EC.

(This doesn’t mean that I want to whine about the EC, I accept Trump’s victory. Its “landslideness” just says more about the different sub-cultures and their concentration inside of today’s America than about Trump’s national appeal.)

Like stated inside my mathematical take, Democrats should try to court or convince all kind of voters and try to compete everywhere – but don’t go as far as to alienate their existing supporters who despise Trump’s vision but may be attracted by another less religious and more “tolerant” Republican. Republicans may not go into cities for some cycles, cause they don’t need them right now and are mocking urbanites anyway, but Democrats must – especially cause of the EC – compete everywhere to build a working alliance. Extremism is a narrow path for the Republican party and a non-existing one for the Democratic.


It should be proud of its voter base and don’t ignore it, cause it doesn’t build every increasing majorities in the short run. Respect is a second lesson of this election I think, and respecting yourself and your accomplishments is one of the first step to be able to respect others too.





Center-Populist?


Imho the biggest problem for the Democratic party during the next years is going to be, if Mister Trump is serious about classical-left deficit spending and if the Republican congress is going to fulfill all of President Trump’s wishes. Should Trump steamroll the GOP congress and force it to reverse itself, I think Democrats could have some serious problems in 2020, since massive infrastructure spending, which has been blocked by the GOP before, is going to be a massive boon to some regions in the short run and would be “visible change”.

In that case, it could become necessary to single out especially conservative House members who opposed Trump’s infrastructure plans and attack them for voting against their own constituencies. If Mister Ryan doesn’t drop dead and fights President Trump all the way regarding Medicare privatization and infrastructure, I think there is going to be a big opening for Democrats in 2018 and running against the “divided house” government in 2020.


Regardless of this outcome, Democrats should start working today to re-connect with the “missing” Obama voters of 2008/2012 and fine-tune their message, without entering a state of permanent civil war like the British Labour Party. Even if being center-left is less fun than being far-left sometimes and the mature party loses elections too, the Democrats are still the more reasonable choice for this country - if they can convince “Joe Biden voters” (of all colours) that they still mostly fight for them.

If not, they only have themselves to blame – there is no place in politics for fairness and pity, like HRC learned rather recently and this is imho the last big lesson of 2016: Get real – or get out.

[Virginiá]

I read it all, and I just wish you organized it a little better:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

See, you don't know that. No one knows that right now. What elections are labeled "realigning elections" are usually born from hindsight. All those voters that allowed Trump to rack up large margins in many states where the margin in a close election would generally be smaller, or even negative for him (rustbelt, etc), are not permanently with the GOP now and if Trump's presidency does not deliver, they will probably be easily taken back by a credible Democratic challenger. Trump is already moving towards the path of disappointment by draining the swamp right into the White House and this has the potential to foster an image problem in the next 2 elections. If he gets a recession under his watch, something that history says is likely, it could destroy the fragile understanding he has with many of these voters.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Is it? Midterm electorates are diversifying, but slower. There seems to be something of a 6 year delay (in that, 2014's midterm was just as diverse as 2008's electorate and 2018 will be like 2012, etc)

Demographic changes provide ongoing benefits for Democrats, but for people to assume all the party needs to do is wait is stupid. The idea also relies on Democrats not losing much more ground with white voters, or else it just extends the amount of time it'll take for demographic changes to overwhelm the GOP's white voter advantage.

Clinton managed to let those voters slip because she embodies almost everything this election was against. Whereas Trump was viewed as vulgar and offensive, Clinton ended up with this image of corruption, criminal behavior, elitism, indifference to working class problems and a huge deficit of authenticity. Trump is still disliked by the vast majority of this country and as you stated, had a large number of people voted for him to vote against Clinton. This is not the sign of a man who has permanently brought new voters into their party.

My point is, demographic change is still a big issue for the GOP long-term, but I think people need to stop drawing the wrong conclusions from it (eg: permanent Dem majority). The white vote share is still constantly shrinking and within the white electorate, older conservative whites are being pushed out by more liberal/Democratic whites. It's an aspect of this conversation that I don't think gets the attention it deserves.

-----

You had some other good points, but I just wanted to respond to a couple.

[Tender Branson]

Plz post more in the Austrian Presidential thread, rather than posting yours rants here ...

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

"my side lost"

You don't have a side. I was glad Brexit got pushed through, but I wasn't "on the leave side."

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Plz post more in the Austrian Presidential thread, rather than posting yours rants here ...

You should do as tender says before he gives you the dreaded basement treatment.

Also I was so worried this was going to be from a self-deceived Austrian Economist saying that if we had a gold standard none of this would have happened.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Australian rant about the US election then:

A cashed-up bogan named Donno with a head like a dropped pie managed to beat a bonza chick named Hillary who had more email issues than a centipede has sock drawers.

"Struth!" she compained, "The guy is a dead-set drongo!".

"Turn it up" he replied.

Donnos' campaign went troppo like a frog in a sock at a mad womans' breakfast and he took the piss out of everyone known to mankind.

Trumpys' polls said he had 'Buckleys Chance' (next to none) of winning the election because, without a doubt, he was as popular as a rattlesnake in a lucky dip contest.

But on election night, there was a turn up for the books. The results were up and down like a brides' nightie until the final quarter.

'Donny Drongo' with 5 minutes left on the clock, had been behind all game, rose above the pack and pulled off a screamer.

He went back, and from 50 out, slotted a 6 pointer to snatch it.

"Good onya, mate! You beauty!" he quiped.