And they have no idea how to address the "cultural anxiety" and would like it to just go away. So let's do nothing to aggravate the bigots.

and embrace extreme hyperbole when someone disagrees with their simplistic viewpoints and binary thought patterns.

When a person of color whole heartedly agreed with you, you didn't respond. Maybe you will here.

"[Y]ou are both 100% correct and yet 100% wrong.

As much as I would like to think that how we vote decides elections, it does so ONLY if we can get a high enough percentage of white folks to join us.

That, however, has nothing to do with whether your suggestion is the correct one. You could not be more correct. As a party, we should be firmly committed to a goal that every single person of color of voting age be registered to vote, be given the opportunity to vote, and actually vote. It is our moral obligation to do every single thing we can to reverse the ultimate disenfranchisement.

I cannot thank you enough for putting this in terms of it being not just politically advantageous but also morally required.

The thornier question, and, quite frankly, the one that divides our party (not to mention this website), is "Which of the white folks do we think we can get to come along with us to get it close enough for our votes to be the deciding factor?"

Your post answers this question with "Well it sure as heck isn't the white working class.&quot not a real quote, obviously)

What you miss is that, if Hillary Clinton would have pulled the same percentage of white voters as Rob Quist, pulled yesterday, this country would now be the leader of the free world instead of its laughing stock because Hillary Clinton would be our president. As a matter of fact, if Hillary Clinton had pulled the same percentage of white voters across the entire economic demographic spectrum as she pulled from working class voters in states like Michigan (where she actually won among the working class demographic), we would also now be the leader of the free world instead of its laughing stock.

What I am going to say next may not apply to you in the least and I apologize if it does not, but I have a suspicion that many of the folks who ignore this fact do so because they have an ulterior motive in casting working class voters as unreachable. That motive is that they either oppose policies which are favorable to the working class, or (and I suspect this may be more often the case) because such policies could (admittedly) alienate white upper middle class voters and they believe those voters (perhaps because they are a large and likely to vote bloc that is spread throughout the country and not concentrated in particular cities and/or regions) are the key to electoral victory. The voters in THAT bloc, however, are the ones who abandoned Obama in 2012 (after they found out he was black and that the ACA was helping middle and lower class people more than it was helping them) and stabbed Hillary Clinton in the back in 2016. To bring them back to the Democratic Party fold in sufficient numbers to make create what you correctly see as a winning coalition, however, would require us to move to the right and moving to the right is abandoning people of color, the poor, and the oppressed.

I cannot deny that moving to the right worked in 1992 and kept the White House in our hands in 1996. Welfare reform, the Ominibus Crime Bill, the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and other concessions to upper middle class sensibilities kept enough upper middle class white voters in the fold to help us win two elections after we had suffered a string of humiliating defeats with liberal candidates. I can see the argument that such policies were not too great a price to pay for controlling the White House.

However, after Obama . . . after the honesty he brought when he told white people to their face that race and privilege were determinative factors in social "success" . . . after he called out the racism in the criminal justice system . . . after he passed a health care bill which, yes, helped poor people and the working poor more than the upper middle class people we targeted in 1992 and 1996 . . . after his Justice Department led the fight for marriage equality . . . after he stood for people of ALL faiths, including Islam . . . after every thing he accomplished . . .

I, as a black man, as a liberal, as an American, will not move back to the "center." I will stand with working people. I will stand with people of color. I will stand with LGBTQ. I will stand with all the oppressed because in this "glorious" capitalist system there are way more of us than there are of them. "

Thanks.

so here are the few things

1. The real white poor voted for clinton, the people we call WWC are not really poor whites. There is data showing that Clinton won among whites who were actually economically anxious not culturally anxious.

i can find that for you, if you'd like.

2. There were things that went against Clinton that were insane and unlikely to happen again (FBI director intervening, Russian interference). These things happened to her and her only, but did not happen to Quist.

Plus, DJT has been in power, and that changes dynamic (typically the party of the president starts losing power)

3. I believe that supporting economically progressive values would help the white poor as much as the black poor, hence i am not articulating a message of economic conservatism.

4. i am saying that you need to prioritize people who can be easily moved, instead of trying to chase people who don't want you.

economically anxious whites anything other than "working class" is almost indefensible. Everything you just said is absolutely true except that. That's why this is do frustrating.

Why is there such an aversion to calling these people what they are? Is it, as I suggested, because people want us to move to the right to attract suburban voters. Is it leftover resentment from the primaries (where, btw, even though Bernie ran as a champion of the working class, a majority also voted for Hillary Clinton)? I just don't get it.

There is a core of poor white FIRC (fucking ignorant racist - not going to chance an alert but you can guess) who are beyond hope but the majority of working class are solid Democrats and they are still with us, the suburban whites we went after in 1992 and 1996 are not and never will be unless we abandon every gain we made under Obama and go back to some really heinous policies.

Sorry

I was way too accusatory.

That has been consistently hostile to the ideals and moral underpinnings of this party is ridiculous on its face.

Working class white men are already welcome. I'm here - Hi everybody - and I don't feel any pressure to leave just because there are POC and women here as well.

But the people who voted for 45 have shown who and what they are. We should never change who we are to accommodate them, when (if) they realize what the Trump Party truly is - well they can change their priorities and come on over.

We cannot, must not ignore the interests of the people who are the core and strength of our party.

And to be clear, the spine of our party is NOT white working class straight men, it is the other 75% of America.

and i bet they will continue to.

but chasing after culturally anxious whites is dumb.

A majority of working class people VOTED FOR HILLARY. A majority of working class people have almost always voted for Drmocrats. A huge chunk of that "other 75%" you are talking about consists of the upper middle class white women and men who abandoned Obama and who abandoned Hillary almost solely over issues of race and class.

The strength of the Trump Party is white men.

The GOP's core has always been white men AND... White men make up a bit less than 25% of America.

So no. A huge chunk of the 75% are NOT upper class white men, since white men were specifically the fraction of the population I stripped out to arrive at the "other 75%"

It's true a small part of that 75% are upper class white women tho.

So what I am saying is that anyone is welcome in the Democratic Party, but the most reliable and dynamic group here are POC of both genders and women of all races. And that fact is why bending over backwards trying to attract Trumpsters is offensive as well as ineffective

I was a "little" too fired up.

The point I was trying to make is set out more rationally in my long post

Sorry to you as well

Without facial cues and tone of voice it gets quick and easy to start arguing past each other.

Peace

Chasing a specific group only leads to pandering and ultimately results in the alienation of existing members/supporters....

At which point, the probability of a net loss of votes exceeds the probability of a net gain.


Historically, there has always been a large group of non-voters....

These People are up for grabs...
a certain percentage can be reached
(Especially if there is a powerful message)
and converted from non-voters to voters.

It makes no sense to expend time & effort to play tug of war trying to pull existing voters over the line.

Those who would be pulled across will most likely cross over on their own at some point.... and even if they do not... fine.

The objective needs to be increasing market share by tapping into "NEW" customers not currently participating in the market...
not by trying to shift the brand loyalty of the existing market's participants.

Prejudices of varying degrees are part of reality..
both between groups and within groups...
hell, even within families who share DNA & share socio economic status designations...

Throughout any 24 hour period we all shift roles.. from being part of the majority to being part of the minority
depending upon the particular setting we are in at any given moment...
And as such, we are each subject to varying degrees/ expressions of prejudice, privilege, advantage, disadvantage as we participate in all of our various roles ....

This is a social dynamic which should not be present in government policy decisions ....

IOW, government should, first and foremost, protect every person's Constitutional rights and freedoms
to be who they are...
without preference for or opposition of any particular view or group or philosophy or characteristic ....

Beyond that, the government should enact policies which are necessary
to protect the long term sustainability
of the natural, fiscal, and diplomatic
environments and resources upon which we, the People, are all dependent.


But this is just one person's opinion ....

Democratic party has never 'chased' black women. We don't ask for too much. Yet 94% of us voted for Clinton. After that letter delivered to the DNC late last week - that might change.

One thing I've spoken of amongst my circles of activists and politically active - is making sure we give directly to candidates.

Withholding from the Montana Race helps us give more to Watson-Coleman in 2018. More to our Gubernatorial Candidate this year. More to the candidate in the state '23rd' (Asian Woman is running! Squeeeeeeeee!).

We give time, money, votes, rides to the polls, etc. etc. We don't ask for much. We just want to make sure the Democratic party continues to see us and our issues.

How does one pander - to a sure thing?

that WWC voted in the majority for whatshisface.

To actually come to terms with the fact that didn't happen would be cause for some serious self-evaluation.

Facts are people whose top concerns were the economy voted for Hillary.

People whose top concern was immigration or terrorism voted for Trump.

This based on exit polling.

Facts are pesky little things that are ignored out of convenience.