My fear

I don’t know why you think Trump beats Sanders.

waterfield wrote:

Thought I explained why. This election will be identical to 2016 in that it will be decided by electoral votes not on the plurality. Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania based on the blue collar vote and that put him into the Presidency. As I wrote above no matter how much those people believe Trump failed them I don’t think they will do anything different than they did in 2016 if to do so they would have to vote for what they consider to be a “socialist”. They will give Trump another try at fulfilling his promises to them in 2016. OTOH if its Biden he can draw their vote as he does have appeal with the blue collar voter.

Of course this is all my opinion and to be honest I don’t really care who the democratic nominee is as long as he or she can beat Trump.

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Well, there’s big problems no matter who the corporate-dem-party selects. If its Biden then the progressives may very well vote green-party or stay home. You dont seem to put that in your calculations. Do you not agree about that?

And of course if the dems choose Bernie, the centrists might stay home or vote trump or whatever.

And no matter who wins, the Senate and House and everything else is in the pockets of the Rich/Corps. So its a Hindenburg no matter what happens.

Trumps got a good chance. So does Biden. So does Bernie. Its like the Rams, Saints, and Chiefs. Hard to predict how all the algebra is gonna add up.

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Don’t be so sure that Trump completely failed the blue collar workers in the rust belt. As a result of Trump’s dumb tax cuts my middle class family got a thousand dollar refund in 2019. In 2018 I had to PAY $600 to the federal gov’t.

I have 3 young kids so doubling the child tax credit made a huge impact. Blue collar families might remember that in 2020.

I tend to think Trump will be easy to beat because Hillary was a crap candidate for those 3 states (and the rest of the US!) and he’s such a moron. But I do worry about the economy.

It will be interesting decide what those places decide next time around.

Something that really, really frustrates me . . . I suspect the Dems in power know this, but the rank and file seems not to:

Elections aren’t about policy. Which means you can’t be “too far left” on those. If elections were about policy, the GOP would never win a single national election, because their policies are forever unpopular. Trump never described his. He won anyway.

Elections are all about “stories,” sales teams and united fronts. The side that tells the best stories, sells them, and keeps a united, confident front, wins.

American voters really aren’t all that sophisticated. Most pick a team and stick with it. The red or the blue team. Doesn’t matter who the nominee is. They stick with their team colors. The persuadables (who haven’t chosen yet) go on best story, best sales job and most confident, united front. So the Dems could easily sell Sanders or folks well to his left if they backed them unconditionally, with sales skilz, vigor and confidence. They’d keep their lifers regardless, and add the persuadables, if they have a better story than their opponent, etc. etc.

IMO, it really is that simple.

Cal wrote:

Don’t be so sure that Trump completely failed the blue collar workers in the rust belt. As a result of Trump’s dumb tax cuts my middle class family got a thousand dollar refund in 2019. In 2018 I had to PAY $600 to the federal gov’t.

I have 3 young kids so doubling the child tax credit made a huge impact. Blue collar families might remember that in 2020.

I tend to think Trump will be easy to beat because Hillary was a crap candidate for those 3 states (and the rest of the US!) and he’s such a moron. But I do worry about the economy.

It will be interesting decide what those places decide next time around.

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On that note, 89 year-old wv-mom who lives on a small fixed income, told me she got more money under trump than Obama. I cant remember if she meant at tax time or in general, but I know she benefited in some way under Trump. So there’s that. And its very big to her.

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Zooey wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Elections aren’t about policy. Which means you can’t be “too far left” on those. If elections were about policy, the GOP would never win a single national election, because their policies are forever unpopular. Trump never described his. He won anyway.

Elections are all about “stories,” sales teams and united fronts. The side that tells the best stories, sells them, and keeps a united, confident front, wins.

I agree with that entire post, not just the part I copied here for emphasis.

This is what I have been saying. The Dems need to sell the Green New Deal as a job and wage-building investment that will lead to the coolest hi-tech world you can possibly imagine…while saving the planet from climate change.

They can sell that vision.

The “pragmatic” Baby Steps approach Biden et al offer is not going to get people out to vote.

The essential thing about that three-legged chair is this: A great “story,” told by a great salesperson, backed by a unrelenting sales team, inspires people to vote who would normally stay home. In 2016, roughly 105 million Americans did just that.

So, not only does this approach work on the fence-sitters . . . it gets out the base and expands it. The highest percentage possible. And because the Dems’ base is bigger than the GOP’s, the Dems win that kind of election. The reason the GOP wins, more often than not, is that its strategy of telling those stories (without any talk about actual policy), and selling them really, really well, maximizes their base . . . while the Dems seem to counter with wonky stiffs and no unified party front.

“Centrists” are boring. They inspire no one. Moderates are boring. They inspire no one — except for the donor-class, whose total votes aren’t enough to matter.

Yes. The Green New Deal is a great way to “get out the vote,” and it’s excellent policy too. Ironically, it’s a thousand times better for those “blue collar” voters than anything Biden would do, and X times a thousand times better than Trump.

Just in case what I’ve said comes across as waaay too cynical and manipulative.

I’m saying that Americans have been sold truly horrifically bad shit since Day One. Mostly via those stories, marketing, etc. etc. Very little “good stuff.” Almost always shit. And it’s had a tremendously ugly cumulative effect. It’s also been coupled with stories, marketing, etc. etc. telling Americans that really great ideas (socialism, real democracy, egalitarian systems, social rights, human rights, environmentalism, civil rights, the end of war and empire, etc. etc), that would be fantastic for us and the planet, are “dangerous,” “anti-American,” blah blah blah.

It’s all fiction. None of it is true. Not the sales job to push through terrible policies — wars, genocide of indigenous peoples, coups, environmental destruction, etc. etc. — or the lies and demonization of the really good stuff that would make lives better for everyone.

So when I say we need to counter those fictions with our own stories, effective sales teams and unified fronts . . . I’m not saying that we engage in “manipulation” via lies. We don’t have to. We can tell the absolute truth, unlike our enemies. They can’t tell the truth if they want to win. We can.

But without truly compelling narratives, narrators and unified fronts, we’re not going to be able to defeat their lies and demonization. We won’t defeat them simply with “the truth.” We need to make the truth “sizzle,” relentlessly, and with, as the young kids used to say, mad skilz.

waterfield wrote:

“Elections aren’t about policy”

Not sure about that. Was the democratic victories in 2018 all about policy- namely the issue of health care ?

I agree. Most of you just don’t agree with the policies that republicans vote for.

Republicans vote for 1. Making abortion illegal. 2. Protecting people’s access to guns. 3. Making abortion illegal. 4. Cutting taxes. 5. Protecting corporations because they drive the economy supposedly. 6. Having a strong military to fight terrorist so 9/11 doesn’t happen again.

Like most of you, I don’t believe these priorities lead to good government. But there’s millions of people who vote based on their religious beliefs. Or their love of guns or the American military.

This is certainly the minority of people in America. But these people show up and become the majority since only 75% of the population shows up to vote anyway.

And Trump has delivered on a lot of these promises it seems to me. Republican voters got what they voted for to a large degree.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Cal.

Can anyone name a Republican president who won on policies? I can’t remember one after Ike.

Reagan avoided talking about them like the plague. So did Dubya. So did Trump. They all made it about “vision,” and told stories enough voters really liked. They connected on an emotional level with enough voters to win.

Kennedy, Clinton and Obama did this too. They won because they told stories and presented a vision enough people liked, and they mostly stayed away from wonky discussions of actual policies. They mostly remained in the abstract. Not quite to the degree of a Reagan, a Dubya, or a Trump. But not all that far from them.

Voters choose their team colors and stay with them, usually for life. The percentage that doesn’t generally goes with the person/party that moves them emotionally. We may tell ourselves we vote “rationally.” But few Americans really do. The “rational” thing would be to reject both major parties, and choose persons or parties who actually represent us, not their donors, not the super rich.

And about those 2018 elections? The Dems who won told the best stories about health care, etc. They reached voters on an emotional level. If all they had were white papers and wonkiness, they lost. It’s kinda like the difference between a truly boring, overlong text book and a rip-roaring novel . . . . or one of those junior high (deadly dull) health documentaries, or a great movie.

It’s sales. It’s connection. It’s emotion. Dull rarely sells, even if it has the best policies. Exciting usually wins, even if it has the worst.

waterfield wrote:

WV “hey dont CARE about winning the progressive way. They’d rather lose, i suspect than win ‘that’ way. Ask Waterfield ”

Your kidding of course! I’ve written before that at this point I don’t care who the Dems nominate as long as he or she beats Trump. And I want the one with the best odds of doing that.

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Yeah, thats true. I got carried away 🙂

You think a centrist like Biden/clinton/obama/gore/Kerry has the best chance.

I wonder which matters more — the Dems winning the Presidency, or what happens in the Senate. What are the chances the Reps lose enuff senate seats to make a difference?

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This poll is, of course, way too soon to matter all that much, but given the likelihood that the economy will be worse in 2020 than it is now, it may well hold:

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3638

Quinnipiac

August 28, 2019 – All Top Dems Beat Trump As Voters’ Economic Outlook Dims Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Dem Primary Stays Stable With Biden Holding The Lead

Trend Information
Sample and Methodology detail

If the 2020 presidential election were held today, 54 percent of registered voters say that they would vote for former Vice President Joe Biden, while only 38 percent would vote for President Trump. Matchups against other top Democrats show:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders topping Trump 53 – 39 percent;
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren ahead of Trump 52 – 40 percent;
California Sen. Kamala Harris beating Trump 51 – 40 percent;
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg leading with 49 percent to Trump’s 40 percent.

Looking at all of the matchups, President Trump is stuck between 38 and 40 percent of the vote. These low numbers may partly be explained by a lack of support among white women, a key voting bloc that voted for Trump in the 2016 election. Today, white women go for the Democratic candidate by double digits in every scenario. Though it is a long 14 months until Election Day, Trump’s vulnerability among this important voting group does not bode well for him.

Biden isn’t the only candidate who can defeat Trump, by any means.

nittany ram wrote:

I think Bernie, Biden, or Warren could beat Trump. They could lose too.

I wouldn’t put too much stock in the polls. The polls had Clinton beating Trump pretty handily. Clinton was up by 7 points a month prior to the election.

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2390

That’s why I prefaced it with the “way too soon” part. It’s kinda like doing a mock draft for 2020 at this point.

As for those polls in 2016? In my view, they would have been right if not for Comey announcing that Clinton was back under investigation, eleven days out. I’d bet a gazillion in virtual money that she would have won the election if Comey had remained silent . . . or, if he had said, publicly, he was investigating Trump.

America really didn’t like either candidate — and rightfully so. They had record level unfavorables. But I think it’s safe to say, America would have picked the highly disliked Clinton over the highly disliked Trump, if not for Comey’s last second revelation. Which leads to this as well, in my view:

It was truly stupid of the Dems to run someone under investigation to begin with. They should have known it was possible that it would come back to bite them — again. And she had other baggage, of course . . . like the other Clinton. If not for his sexual history, Trump couldn’t have gotten away with the “He did it too!!” shtick after the Hollywood Access tapes came out. I think that would have ended Trump’s run for good. It almost did even with Clinton being such an easy (counter)target. Another candidate wouldn’t have given him that opening.

In short, the polls weren’t as off as the narrative goes. Take away Comey’s public revelation and Clinton is the president right now. Of course, I’m betting she would have been impeached early on by the Republicans. Not sure about her removal. But the GOP would have started impeachment proceedings in the first few months, I’m betting.

It’s really, really time for an end to the duopoly.

Look at Michigan. In 2016 222,000 people voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Jill Stein increased her total from 22,000 in 2012 to 51,000 in 2016.

Thirty thousand people didn’t switch from the Democratic candidate to Jill Stein because of Comey’s announcement. Those people switched their votes from Obama to Stein because Hillary was a phony.

I don’t know why 170,000 people voted for a libertarian when typically those candidates receive 25,000 votes.

Anyways, approximately 200,000 people made a protest vote in a state Hillary lost by 11,000 votes. Just 11,000. I don’t think she lost those protest voters because of the FBI investigation. Many of those people, much more than 11,000, switched from Obama votes in previous Michigan elections and voted Libertarian or Jill Stein because Hillary was a shitty candidate even before Comey’s announcement.

Consider this as well:

We learned after the election that the FBI was investigating Trump too. Comey and the FBI didn’t let the public know that until after the election.

He made sure to tell the public on two different occasions that HRC was under investigation, while keeping it secret that Trump was as well.

IMO, no objective person can honestly say this wasn’t a huge factor. And in my view it also tells us, point blank, slam dunk, that the entire right-wing narrative that the so-called “deep state” was trying to take Trump down is absurd. If they had really wanted to do that, if they had really wanted to throw the election to HRC, they would have reversed things. They would have kept silent about the Clinton investigations and gone public with the Trump investigation.

It’s not rocket science.