11-13-2016, 10:18 AM
(11-13-2016, 12:03 AM)gabrielle Wrote: Since playwrite seems to be getting especially viscious, I think now's the time to remind him and the other smug establishment Democrats that they LOST BIGLY. That means you went wrong somewhere. Think about it a little bit. Maybe Shaun King can help you out with that. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics...-1.2866238
Besides, I don't know why you should be attacking Odin, considering he did exactly what you wanted--he "fell in line" and voted for Clinton in the general (at least I'm assuming he did, judging from his posts leading up to the election). I did too.
Quote:The Democratic Party is having an identity crisis. While the groundswell of grassroots support in its base is anti-police brutality, pro-environment, pro-immigrant, anti-war, pro-$15 minimum wage, for the legalization of marijuana, and strongly against the Dakota Access Pipeline — the party in general, and Hillary Clinton in particular, lack core convictions on all of these issues and it shows. I’d be that nearly every single activist and leader in each of those niche communities will tell you that they feel like strangers in the Democratic Party.
Although it already seems like ancient history, you must remember that the head of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, left in a shroud of scandal surrounding emails that were derogatory towards Bernie Sanders and only confirmed the anti-Bernie bias many of us knew existed for more than a year. Three other top officials from the DNC were fired for the very same thing.
Longtime Democratic operative, Donna Brazile, was brought in to replace Wasserman Schultz. It seemed like a smart move, but further email leaks have only showed us that she, too, was a part of the problem as she continually fed the Clinton campaign questions that Hillary would receive for debates during the primary. The move has all but eroded trust in her leadership from progressives who were already deeply skeptical of the party.
Before the Democratic primaries even began or any of the candidates had their first debate, Hillary Clinton and her team had already sowed up commitments from hundreds of career politicians to serve as her superdelegates — building her what often looked like an insurmountable lead. Even in states where Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton by a landslide, party operatives routinely pledged their support to her anyway — all but ignoring the reality that Bernie was building the very type of populist movement that could have actually defeated Donald Trump.
As we now see, this election was not about high-skilled political operatives, polls or even national campaign experience. Trump had none of that. This campaign was about large crowds, big events, momentum, tone and social media. Bernie did those things well. Bernie was the anti-Trump. Trump lacks integrity. Bernie is known for his. Trump is a shady billionaire who has stiffed tons of everyday people. Bernie has spent his whole life fighting for working class folk. Trump is a liar and Bernie is known for his straight-to-the-point honesty.
Hillary Clinton was an absolutely terrible matchup for Donald Trump. I said as much in May when every poll that was released showed Bernie crushing Trump, but Hillary consistently struggling against him. Time and time and time again, polls showed Hillary struggling against Trump. Instead of taking the time to truly understand them, expert pundits and pollsters opted to repeatedly dismiss the validity or methodology of those polls. Clearly, polls like the LA Times/USC poll, which consistently showed Trump ahead, but was widely dismissed as junk science as a result, were on to something.
But that was the M.O. of the Democratic Party from the time the primaries began until we were all gobsmacked by a Trump victory — dismiss all evidence that says anything other than Hillary Clinton was inevitable. But here we are.
The Democratic Party can no longer ride the coattails of President Obama. The Democratic Party truly needs to start over from scratch and put people at its core. It clearly has no idea what it’s doing and has, as a result, put us all in danger.
The Democratic Party is stuck in a bubble. It's not just their tone-deafness in the presidential campaign, but also it's complete, utter lack of attention to state and local races.
The Dems have three huge problems right now. One is that they need to get out of the "every populist is McGovern 2.0" mentality that was behind the antipathy to Sanders. Another is that the Dems have to go back to compromising on social issues in more conservative areas, the main ones being abortion and guns. The last is that the party needs to drop the sneering elitism you see oozing from the liberal intelligentsia that sees white Middle America as "a problem" to be neutralized rather than a demographic to be courted.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain