"The big tent will have to include apologists for white nationalism, which is absolutely sickening." OK, I agree with the absolutely sickening part. I just can't get to the rest of that sentence.

Is there any possibility that we could mobilize enough non-voters? Somehow? The ones who maybe thought it wouldn't matter one way or another? Too naive to know what was on the line? Didn't something like 47% stay home?

The other thing we need to do is get rid of the laws that allow voter suppression to happen. How do we do this?

Approximately 41% of registered voters did not vote.

And voting laws that encourage and abet voter suppression do not "happen", they are passed by GOP legislatures. People must vote in every election, and unfortunately GOP voters generally do vote regularly.

the orange turd won Wisconsin by 27,000 votes but 300,000 people were prevented from voting. If that is true, what kinds of things can we do to help those people to vote? I do believe that a certain percentage of the non-voters were involuntarily non-voters. I can't explain the rest, except that perhaps they will see in 2 years that voting does matter. When it hits home, we tend to pay more attention.

I think ... maybe. Honestly, I am so shocked and angry that it's hard for me to come up with any way we can possibly make things better.

I read an article, I believe it was in The Nation, about voter registration in Texas. The GOP has regulated voter registration in such a way as to basically prevent organized registration. That is suppression by another name. So the challenge, in my view, is to reach these non-registered non-voters, and to craft a message to the non-voters who are registered, and convince them that voting can accomplish something.

And where is the mass media coverage of the voter suppression that took place in quite a few states? Except for left wing publications and sites such as DU there is no mention of suppression by the mass media.

Mass media is complicit in spoiling the election and normalizing the evil that it has exposed. Do you think the care about voter suppression? They just want their well-paid jobs. Even NPR has turned.

Why would they start caring?

Trump won by running up the score with WWC who completely lack empathy for POC. May not be white nationalists themselves, but the civil rights of people with darker skin is not a concern for them.

So, we have to figure out how to turn some of those people against Trump, but we're not going to be able to do so by referencing his racism. They don't care.

I don't have answers, just questions. And frustration. And a visceral response to having to live among these hateful people. I'm sorry.

The vast majority of white voters in this country--especially uneducated ones--don't find the moral argument against white nationalism persuasive enough to keep one out of the presidency.

Just shameful. The idea of America is pretty much dead. We're left with a state comprised of two cohabiting nations--a white nationalist one and a culturally pluralistic one.

With no shared values, how the hell do we have a future as a country?

we're in for, the giving more to the rich while taking from them. Once they don't get anything from T, once what is in it for them?

It may take awhile for this 47% to realize Trump's fail though. That's why I am urging all my D's not to work with Trump on anything legislatively. We have to do to him what the GOP did to Obama, so-called "principles" be damned.

I'd be curious to know the exact make-up of this 47% - white, black, Latino, male/female, age, location, etc. so we could better tailor a message and approach to them.

With much of the government at all levels in the hands of the enemy we have a real uphill battle ahead of us. But with a successful resistance at all levels the demographics will kick in and help as time goes on.

for truth, and penetrating to get the message out will be a new challenge, requiring new strategies. It's almost as if we need to fan out and sit in living rooms!

Trump did not do any better with white voters than Romney did. Many of them just vote against the Democrat every year. Clinton did worse this year, imo, because white Bernie supporters were still pissed off. At least enough of them to give Gary Johnson a record vote total.

What was the argument that was made to the White Working Class?

Something like

Don't vote for Trump, he only cares about white people.

or

Trump is awful he puts the interests of white people ahead of everybody else.

or

Trump is a racist because he said X

At least those look like examples of arguments that would not be very convincing to white people who agree with X, quite the opposite.

I mean, heck I remember in the spring when BLM was disrupting Bernie when the story from some parts of the left was about how racist white progressives are. For some reason, some think they can advance their cause by insulting people.

I agree that telling those voters that Trump will favor them at the expense of minorities only makes them more likely to vote Trump.

So the Clinton losses are at least as important as any Trump gains.

To me the key to Pennsylvania and Florida and Wisconsin was the increased number of people who voted for Johnson. 80,000 more in Wisconsin, 90,000 more in Pennsylvania, 162,000 more in Florida (although Florida has apparently gained a fair number of people in just four years). Stein also gained votes in those states. 28,000 more in Pennsylvania, and 55,000 more in Florida.

My working theory is that those are angry Bernie supporters. I could be wrong. Maybe they are Republican voters who were repulsed by Trump.

Not having watched TV lately, I have no idea what Clinton was telling voters around here, or what Trump was. Since then I have seen a number of memes from the left acting like the Trump Presidency is gonna be good for straight white males.

So I stand to lose my health care and it is like my allies on the left do not even care.

What you may be hearing is straight white men stand to lose the least under a Trump presidency, and that his entire movement has as its premise the supremacy of straight white men over the entire planet.

Trump will hurt many straight white men, regardless of whether they voted for him or not. He's an instrument of pure evil.

and we happen to be overdue for one. I don't wish for one, but if it comes, they won't be able to credibly blame it on Democrats.

They're firmly in the repuke camp. But we can win the disaffected WWC voters who feel left behind by distancing ourselves from the corporate Third Way wing of the party and revitalizing the labor movement.

Do you see what the labor movement is trying to do with the service sector? They're trying to unionize retail workers, bringing the labor movement to where the jobs are. Alas, they're facing massive, sometimes violent opposition from big business, but they're making headway, at least in sapphire blue states such as CA and OR on the west coast and NY on the east. This has to be brought to the rust belt.

It is not logical to assume that all Trump voters are white nationalists because some of his voters were not white. Even if one assumes that half of the Trump voters are/were racists, that translates to 12% of the registered voters.

And given that Barack Obama twice was elected with white support, even the 12% figure might be high.

So the challenge, in my view, is to craft a message that speaks to the economic fears of working class voters, the 90%, while also emphasizing social justice and equality.

They may not be white nationalists, but they don't see it as a deal-breaker.

Realistically, vast swaths of the country are dominated by people with little to no empathy for people of color. We can get those voters, but discussions of civil rights generally make them more likely to vote for Trump.

White nationalism is more popular amongst the white working class than is opposing white nationalism.

Majority of WWC voters don't want to hear about the rights of non-white people. Obama started losing them because he said stuff like Trayvon Martin could have been his son.

It's absolutely appalling. But, thanks to the Constitution they have outsized influence on our politics.

We need some of their votes, and appealing to their better nature as proven worthless.

Two Senators per state as well as more electoral college votes proportionate to total population.

And I agree that large numbers of white voters see racial discrimination as a problem that has been solved. I would not say "appeal to their better nature" because self-interest comes first for most people. I would say appeal to their economic self-interest. President Obama tried to do an economic stimulus but the GOP negotiated for a much smaller and less effective stimulus.

things better because they perceive it would help minorities.

The Tea Party movement started over outrage that the government might provide assistance, not to banks, not corporate America, but to underwater homeowners.

Another example of the 1% creating reality. Unfortunately such movements do find fertile ground in some areas of white America.

We throw POC under the proverbial bus...how about convincing the WWC that slavery wasn't really bad, and that maybe bringing it back could be something we should seriously look into

What about women's rights, or the rights of LGBTQ Americans, because it seems to me that a lot of the WWC didn't believe that those two groups were very important either!

By the time we have your plan implemented, we'll have a WWC who will be in the minority, population wise...and the Democratic Party will have gone back to its pre-Civil War roots!

Great idea!

Let the white nationalists rule over us, or figure out how to peel a few of them off so we can govern for the common good.

It's disgusting, but that's because there are an appalling number of voters in this country with disgusting values when it comes to politics.

but de-emphasize the focus on women and minorities when crafting a message for the WWC. A lot of those idiots think POC and women all are given cushy jobs just by asking, passing over them personally and their kin who are so deserving. That's if women and POC even want to work - otherwise they get rich on welfare and cheating.That's how a lot of them think, especially here in the south.

Dems will always fight for women and minorities every chance they get and to the extent they are able to.

We have to use another approach with the WWC. If the GOP can fool them why can't we?

You are ready to roll over on equality because Trump won? Jesus Christ man, that fact should make you want to fight it more aggressively.

But, people in rural Pennsylvania and other places prefer white nationalism to anti-racism.

They'd vote for Trump if he appeared in a Klan hood.

We have to find race-neutral arguments to win at least some members of that disgusting segment of America over.

we are too close right now to this.. I think you need to take a deep breath.

So did my wife, before she got the chance to escape.

They think that only people who drop the N-bomb are racists. And then when someone drops the N-bomb, they go to the "what about what rappers say?" card. "I can't be racist, I like Will Smith movies."

What we recognize as racism and white tribalism is completely normal to people living in small towns and rural areas in the country. People in these communities see what Trump believes and says as completely normal, indeed it's what their friends and relatives and coworkers believe.

So, they take attacks on Trump as a racist as an attack on their communities and families. They interpret anti-racism as a lack of respect for their communities and families.

Trump understands these people better than we ever could hope to, because he shares their brain when it comes to African-Americans, Latinos, and especially Muslims.

People in rural America grow up thinking of all Muslims and Arabs as terrorists. It was that way when I grew up in the 1980s.

But I don't think we have much to gain from pointing out Trump's misogyny or racism. The people who voted for him--the ones we need to either win over or discourage from voting, don't give a anti about misogyny and racism.

give a shit about it.

I don't care to associate with these people either.

They have nothing to say worth hearing that I haven't heard a zillion times before and an actual intelligent conversation with them is all but impossible. They've not an original thought in their head for the most part. I'm lucky if I don't lose my temper with them just discussing the weather.

Yet we have to win at least some of them over to our side,so economic issues are our best angle. The economy does better under Democratic leadership, demonstratively so.We need to show them this with simple terms and a populist message.

I have to say that as a group, their kids aren't near as bad. Many dislike their parents, as adolescents often think they do. If you still believe in statistics you know what they say about these kids and the demographics are improving for us otherwise so.

We need new voters.. These aren't the ones who are going to help.

I can't do it, but somebody needs to.

But we need someone in the party who can do so. It's a really dirty job.

We've got a little while to put together a smart plan and move forward. We don't need to accommodate those "people" just because they are "warm bodies".

the constitution requires us to cohabit with these people. And there's a shit ton of them, and they're very efficiently distributed.

imho, a lot of the people who voted for Trump did so in spite of the shit he said, not because of it. we're talking people who were, or at least see themselves as, displaced by one or more of the infamous "free trade" agreements. they want someone to stand up for them and bring back the jobs they were once proud to have. to assume that they're "perfectly okay" with white nationalism would be jumping the shark, and assuming we can (or should) win them back to the Democratic party with some kind of outreach to apologists for white nationalism would be jumping a whole bunch of sharks. if we can run candidates who present a clear populist message we can turn this thing around without making special allowances for klansmen.

hurt by trade deals, but people looking for foreign scapegoats for all of our problems. It's the Pat Buchanan crowd.

We can make a case against Trump (e.g. Medicare) but it has to be on a narrow set of issues.

There are two kinds of Trump voters: those who found his white nationalism appealing, and those who didn't find it disqualifying even if they disapproved.

Either way, these are people completely unmoved by the moral case against turning the government over to white nationalists.

there will be plenty of heavy foreign, economic, and environmental shit that happens in the next 2-4 years that will be more than enough ground for an opposition campaign without even touching the racist aspects of Trumpism

as long as there are deer to shoot and fish to catch, they're good.

they generally lack interest in what happens outside our borders unless they're told to fear it.

economic stuff can move their votes, but generally only in a negative sense--if something causes fear or pain to those around them, they'll respond to that.

I grew up amongst the archetypical Trump voters. Very tricky to win those people over.

that's actually a huge point in our favor, should we choose to start making it
deer and fish have certain requirements from the biosphere. as Trump continues to wreck the place, the fishing will start to suck.

whether there is a panic-inducing economic issue to vote on remains to be seen, but given that Republicans gonna be running the place, i don't imagine everything will be copacetic.

Not something that crowd understands

All voters will be in a different head space in three years inckuding the many more apathetic voters who sat it this one out. Shying away from civil rights while they are most endangered? Go find another party.
Not putting anyone's civil rights on the back burner. Not going after those voters.

Because it's the right thing to do. But it's not going to win us Congressional majorities or the presidency.

Our core values are our core values. There aren't enough of us who share those values, unfortunately.

We still fight for those values, but we also need to develop a pitch for people who don't share our values but might be persuadeable anyways.

The white working class has bought into identity politics-and there are more of them than there are POC voters. The less they think of race the better, because when they think about it they do ugly shit.

where they grew up. They don't know people who live in cities, or immigrants, or black people, etc. not necessarily white supremacist just no ability to see beyond their small reality.

Shocked seeing this here. And disgusted.

But we have to put together a coalition.

We do not live in the country we thought we did.

And Democrats have always faced this dilemma. The Republicans have a stable party that's predictable.

We depend on fragile coalitions. Even the famous New Deal coalition was fragile.

Right now there aren't enough people in our coalition. Even if Clinton had won the WH the Republicans would be dominating the House and state legislatures.

We need to broaden our appeal. Not necessarily by moving right. But more of the same won't work.

Here's the difference between Hill and Bill: Bill has an organic connection you might say to the deplorable vote by virtue of being a white male from AK, but those infamous 1992 stunts didn't win a majority of US voters. Hillary's high road had a broader appeal and won a bigger share of US votes in a tighter race. The high road wins and demographically that's the future of the party.

who actually was ahead in some early polls.

Running up the score in NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles does us a very limited amount of good. Both the electoral college and Congress provide an advantage to people who live in sparsely populated areas, even in the absence of gerrymandering, which certainly makes things worse.

Ugly truth is that we can't win the presidency, let alone Congress, with only the votes of those who embrace cultural pluralism.

The best argument we will have going forward is Trump's failure to fulfill the promises he made. His failure to deliver change, his failure to reform anything, his failure to bring back jobs, his failure to provide any kind of greatness to America. His failure to take on the Republican Establishment.

Those are where we're going to score our points against him with the swing voters in the battleground states and swing Congressional districts.

"The high road is very pretty, but you'll have a hard time marching your army down it."

with the help of his media handlers. His war with China will be devastating but he will sell it convincingly. And the loss of half of Texas to Mexico will be written off as a clerical error and besides we'll still have the best oil wells.



Anyway as many have expressed it's not the number of voters that's the problem, it's making it possible for them to vote and for their votes to be counted. I have my doubts about those 300,000 new PA voters you've mentioned.

Some of his voters will cut him some slack, others won't.

I'll try to act surprised.

i don't think so. I'm not going to continue on with this Clinton hate fest you've cued up here. Promoting this crap is part of why we lost.


Meanwhile we've got Sanders suddenly wearing blinders to Trumps corruption. strange days.

"keep those people in their place."

That's what Sistah Souljah was all about.

Trump added 300,000 white voters to Romney's total in Pennsylvania, mainly in the more backwards parts of the state.

with Republican Jim Crow voting restrictions. In WI the number of people who could not get an ID is over 10 times the Trump margin!

We will when the republican party badly overreaches starting in #notmypresident's first 100 days in power

People have no idea how bad Bannon/Trump is going to be. The shitstorm starts real soon.

They voted for him because of their pet issues or because they are Republicans who vote GOP. Or because they were more unhappy with the alternative. That means they voted for him IN SPITE of his white nationalism. These are the voters who can be reached. I don't think white nationalists would be happy in the modern Democratic Party -- they of course would have been happy in the Democratic Party of the nineteenth century.

Some of then are persuadeable. But they aren't persuaded by the argument that white nationalism is completely unacceptable.

[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=#009999]People who feel their way of life is dying and no-one cares. Who feel that the Dems and Repubs want to sell them down river for free trade deals and pet issues.

Desperate people will always vote their own "perceived" best interest first

Trump was able to speak to their desperation and they over looked his bigotry.

I don't see it as our future coalitions having to include people "okay" with racism as much as we need a coalition that truly cares about everyone and doesn't dismiss one groups issue just because they are white. This isn't a zero sum game, we can help them while also fighting against bigotry and for social justice.

I feel confident that had we put forth a stronger message of how we would have helped them and worried less about temperament then most of the people would have chosen message over his. I feel that they choose Trump's message they felt they had to for their own survival and as a middle finger to an establishment who they saw as not giving a f*** about them; as opposed to them being okay with bigotry.

But it is possible I am too idealistic when it comes to a majority of the American people.

This year wasn't a right-left contention but a sales pitch to America as to who can help you more...and our messaging sucked. We ignored what the people were saying and paid for our hubris.[/font]

Look at Kentucky--they had one of the best performing ACA exchanges and were enjoying huge benefits from the Medicaid expansion, and they all voted overwhelmingly to get rid of the whole thing.

Counties in Kentucky that had never voted Republican went all-in for Trump.

That dynamic happened all over the Rust Belt.

The truth of the matter is that what they want can never happen--a return to the past, along with factory jobs for products that no longer exist.

Trump promised them the impossible and told them it could be accomplished by punishing immigrants and 'globalists.'

Not fertile ground for a message of inclusiveness, unity, and social justice.

We may have to settle for discouraging a lot of them from voting by souring them on Trump and leave it at that.

these motherfuckers to take you back. Leave the rest of us who are actually being targeted by these scumbags the fuck out of your little cowardly plans.

Clinton crushed Obama's turnout amongst POC in Florida--she beat his total there by over 200,00 votes.

Unfortunately, Trump improved on Romney's count by 500,000 votes.


Unless the number of POC doubles in Ohio, we need to persuade a fair number of 2016 Trump voters to vote for Sherrod Brown in 2018 or he loses.

Math is math.

a guy who's been talking all kinds of shit for years on this site. You sure fold easily. Especially as someone who won't be relegated to second class citizen.

I'm not saying we need to compromise on civil rights. Zero policy changes on race, inequality, justice.

But we do have a big problem with white voters. And getting some of those white voters on board is the difference between Loretta Lynch and Jeff Sessions handling civil rights cases.

talking about catering to bigots. So your comparison is idiotic and one he'll of a reach. One can address economic issues that affect white people along with the rest of us. Like this party used to. Before they started fucking around with that neoliberal horseshit. We've been saying that for years. But we were just looking for ponies or whatever. Now look at Labor and look at the Democrats.

Like I said. You wanna cater to racists. Fucking have at it and see where that gets you. Now fuck off. Have the last word 'cause I ain't wasting my time with your punk ass.

We need complete campaign and voting overhauls across the country. We won't get it with a ruling party like the GOP and their globalist owners.

This is going to be a 50-state uphill war. The only war that will bring the Democratic Party back to majority status again.

Or we might as well keep complicating politics with discussions about winning hearts and minds. That and a bus token will get us across town.

eligible voters sat out this election. I say we have more of a chance of persuading them to vote for our candidates.