Revolution!

I find this relentless discussion of "how to win" a little worrying.

There are lots of ways the Democrats could win. They could sink to unimaginable depths of moral darkness, appealing to prejudice and fear so bleak they would make Goebbels shudder. They could make hundreds of behind-the-scenes deals with bent businesses. They could run a moral smear campaign against all opposition based on outrageous lies.

The goal shouldn't be winning. It should be representing the desires of voters and making useful decisions on their behalf. Watching these idiot politicians scurry around wondering how they can convince voters they care about them carries a nakedly obvious follow-up conclusion: that they don't. It misses the reason voters jumped ship so readily: an absence of trust, based on experience.

EVERY president promises to safeguard jobs and bolster social security and make healthcare work. And let's be real: Hillary wouldn't have done anything. She wouldn't have exhibited any radical changes in the situation of the working poor, the overstuffing of private prisons, our endless war entanglements, because she was a business as usual candidate - just like Trump is proving to be.

Winning isn't good enough. Everybody has had a turn to win and none of them have accomplished what a president should. If you're in Washington to win then you're part of the problem.

Also this year I had to make Thanksgiving dinner for my mom, AND for my mother-in-law. How I PINED for a moment alone in my onanistic gaming aerie, or even better, to be paid to write things like "onanistic gaming aerie."

Not going to happen, Clinton Democrats are crony Capitalists too and they see Bernie Sanders as a threat to their own financial interests.

Hardcore Hillary supporters brutally reject voices from both camps but wanted to raise more liberalism from people other than themselves. Ironic.

So obviously PLUTOCRATIC is capitalist America now that only tens of millions of angry working class people in the streets can " save " democracy. Just which bourgeois scholars discovered that capitalism is forever, that history has ended ? What obtuse thinkers.

The professional politicians who-after the Hillary Clinton shocking defeat- don't understand the case against fatuous " identity politics " lack any emotional ties to the real American working class. They fail to grasp the ABCs of " class struggle ". Dividing the white working class from everybody else with a special claim for " justice " is an old ruling class trick. In short, Karl Marx was right.

Look the discussion shouldn't focus on who screwed who and who could of done better. Where there is broad agreement is that Democrat's have to change how they play the game and it starts with the primaries. Make the primaries open, get rid of the caucuses, keep Iowa/ New Hampshire as the first places but instead of going South (where Dem's do poorly in the General) go to the Rust Belt (OH/ PA/ WI/ MI) then swing down South and on Super Tuesday hold NY and Cali ... that way you can end early, represent a wide set of demographics from the primaries and raise funds. Get rid of super delegates since it is undemocratic, and leads to impression of corruption when you don't know what promises a candidate is making to secure the vote. Also the party has to change how they raise funds. Maximize the small donor funds by reaching out to the grass roots. When voters have a financial skin in the game there's an incentive to vote and get there friends to vote as well as volunteer. With that said I think the finances of running billion dollar elections is the trickiest needle to thread. The reason is because big donors raise the stakes of impropriety but small donations isn't always reliable, might not be sustainable, and might not compete with elections drowning in dark money. Dem's have the following 2 years to try out a way of getting big donor support but without the attachments of quid pro quo or even the appearance of it. Somewhere along the way Dem's forgot about unions ... find them and protect them since they employ all kinds of blue collar worker. Whatever you do don't go to there neighborhoods and say hey I'll have a retraining program ready for you when you eventually lose your job. No 54 year old has time to waste retraining they need the job now. Therefore communicate how you'll save the job or at worst how you'll delay the the oncoming trouble for the next 4 years. If there is nothing of note then speak to how there community will specifically benefit economically from your plans; emphasize the jobs everything else minimize.

Next the argument about identity politics is moot. Economic interests is the top basic need of voters and everything else is secondary. Social change needs to be attached to an economic benefit that leads to advancement. Also what is more disrespectful is dismissing the white voter as if they don't matter like the Clinton team were doing. You have to travel the communities and talk with the people. I remember the things that made Bernie awesome like going to Liberty University and speaking with young conservatives, I remember Bernie going to progressive news outlets the Hillary team shied away from.When you don't even speak to them and called them racist, misogynist, sexist ... well your going to have them come out and vote against you just out of spite.

Perhaps Democrats could have pushed economic issues more, but your article omits the fact that often when Obama and congressional Democrats tried to do things that would help average people who are struggling economically, Republicans have blocked them. Since the GOP controls Congress, that's a big deal. Now the economically disadvantaged, at least those who are white, are mad at Democrats for not helping them and overwhelmingly voted for Republicans, the very people who prevented Democrats from helping them. It's odd to blame the Democrats for that failure.

Which party consistently opposes raising the minimum wage?
Which party opposed the ACA and still in many states refused to expand Medicaid under the ACA, which would help millions more people have health care coverage?
Which party opposed Obama's new overtime rules to step the exploitation of low earning salaried workers, leading to Obama changing the rules via execution action, a move recently struck down in court?
Which party has repeatedly blocked Obama's infrastructure spending plans, bills that would help provide jobs for people who are struggling, not to mention start fixing our ailing infrastructure? Oh, and watch this same party vote for Trump's infrastructure spending to do the same thing so they can take credit for it.

The list goes on. Again and again attempts to help those who are struggling economically are blocked by the GOP. Then many of those same struggling people once again vote for Republicans. /facepalm

What you're saying is we should blame the Democratic Party for not caring about the white working class enough when in fact they've tried to help numerous times in recent years and been blocked by Republicans.

So is your complaint primarily about the Democratic Party's messaging? Are they not talking enough about their numerous proposals to help the economically disadvantaged? I didn't have any trouble finding out about these proposals, but I think far too many people rely on getting their news from right wing propaganda outlets. More ever, in this election, far too many people once again fell for the old racially charged right wing rhetoric of undeserving, grasping minorities taking from virtuous, hard working white folks. I don't know what the answer to that is when many millions of people aren't even operating with the same set of facts due to their "news" sources.

realistically, the complaint is specific to the great lakes region. nobody is trying to convince rural southern baptists in arkansas or methodists in south alabama to vote democrat. republican jesus won't let them do that.

however, the michiganders, pennsylvanians, and wisconsonites do care very much about their economic situation, to say nothing of bellweather Ohio. and the people up there have very little allegiance to political parties when it comes to their personal predicaments. they know perfectly well that clinton is more qualified to operate the presidency than trump, but they also know that a split-party federal government did next to nothing for them. And yes, a great many of them know that the republicans in congress carried much of the blame for blocking programs the democrats wanted to enact.

but when it comes down to it, they also know they don't want both political parties to keep jerking them around while their opportunities decrease and people in washington posture over how rosy the outlook is for the economy while they're personally fighting over the scraps of the past 35+ years's international trade deals.

trump acknowledged this mentality, and vowed to change it. does he empower and enable shitty people who think nationalism or racism will help them in life? yeah... but it's not like the great lakes population is exclusively full of bigots and neo-nazis. that's ridiculous. will he actually change it? no, of course not... but then the great lakes region can stop blaming "washington" and "squabbling" and start blaming "republicans" and "trump" for their personal woes.

personally I think that rationale for voting trump is insane, but it makes much more sense when you're using your vote to say "yo, over here! we're getting shit on! please stop with the SJWs and wall street and pay attention to us, too." and really, if you're voting purely because you think wall street ruins the american dream, you're probably about 50% as likely to vote against clinton as you are to vote against trump. I think the vote tallies MAY reflect this.

It would behoove you not to dismiss the South wholesale.

but then the great lakes region can stop blaming "washington" and "squabbling" and start blaming "republicans" and "trump" for their personal woes.

We shall see.

I'm a home-grown Atlanta boy. I'm extremely well-acquainted with the South. There aren't enough large cities and/or enough population density and/or college education to fight a political party battle in the south. RTP, NC is an outlier plus having charlotte, raleigh, and asheville plus all the universities is the only reason NC isn't just as red as SC, TN, AL, MS.

Atlanta is the only reason GA even contemplated turning purple, else it would be in the same rural/agri/military base scenario the rest of the south is in.

Hello fellow Atlantan.

That Cobb County turned blue means something; if suburban Atlanta can go along with the urban voters, then purple Georgia becomes more plausible. It could've been moderate Cobb Republicans seeing Trump as a step too far, it could've been continual revolt against the Braves' stadium deal...but maybe there are Democratic inroads there. Dunno.

Gwinnett county too. Life is changing in metro atlanta. I'm going to laugh and laugh when they put the Barack Obama park next to the Ronald Reagan park near Snellville. I think it is definitely more black households and more ethnic households of all kinds - Asian, Hispanic, Indian. I definitely don't think it was "moderate" Republicans, a beast as fabulous as the unicorn. They don't exist.

all the white people either left Cobb or took out life-long mortgages to move to east cobb. yes, this is hyperbole. it's also mostly true. of the ones who were left, the rich white women didn't like trump's vulgarity so I believe he only got around 40% of that demographic. yes, that's also hyperbole.

there is no guarantee that cobb stays blue if republicans put up another mccain or romney or reagan. personally I think gwinett has a better chance of turning blue first.

Jesus. It's not the WHITE working class that we're calling on the Democrats to focus on, it's THE Working Class. Ever since Bill Clinton adopted Reagan-era, trickle-down, Neoliberal economics as part of his "Third Way" strategy, the Democratic party stopped being a party for the people and became a party for money. Yes, things are better now than during the recession, but they're still not great. Banks and Wall Street got their bailout and are doing splendidly. However, costs of food, health care, tuition, etc., continue to rise. Wages have failed for decades to keep up with the cost of living. Since 1980, food has increased over 200%, health care has increased over 600% and college tuition has increased over 1100%. Meanwhile, income for the bottom 90% of Americans (those making less than $250k a year) has only increased about 15%.

Yes, there are MANY issues in our country concerning race, gender, sexuality, and overall equality. Those issues NEED to be focused on as well. The economy affects ALL of those groups. Will fixing the economy fix those issues? No. Will it provide more resources to fix those issues (as unfortunately, money is power) - yes.

So again, it's not about the WHITE working class. It's about ALL Americans, who are still struggling to keep up with terrible Neoliberal economics that were championed by Reagan, and have continued by every administration since.

That's a bit of an "all lives matter" argument. Yes, all lives matter, but protestors are saying black lives aren't mattering enough. The point of the article is that yes, all the working class matters, but the left is losing the white working class from the equation because of some of the racial rhetoric dominating the conversation.

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. I'm not saying don't say Black Lives Matter. I'm not saying that equal pay for equal work isn't important. I'm not saying that the LGBTQ community doesn't deserve equal rights. I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss those issues. Those issues are important, and should be discussed.

However, the entire middle class (of all colors, genders, sexualities, etc) have been forgotten by both major parties. The continuation of Neoliberal, trickle-down, Reagan-era, supply-side economics has failed the working class. It's not just White people who have been left behind. It's not just white people who didn't vote for Hillary. 8 million fewer people voted for Hillary than President Obama. Those are people of all colors, genders, sexualities, etc.

So my point, is that these articles are wrong. It's NOT the white working class that is the "problem" because they've been forgotten. It's the ENTIRE working class. When you have to choose between Neoliberal economics and Neoliberal economics, you're being forgotten.

I findamentally agree that the whole working class should be the focus, but the reason that the white working class is the focus is because Hillary won the votes of the non-white working class, and that's mostly, the argument goes, because she focused on identity, not economics.

In other words, she didn't focus much at all on economics. But she still won the non white working class for reasons other than exonomics. And THAT is why she lost the white working class.

But but but but if it's just the WHITE working class then the liberals can continue to kludge a nonsensical racial frame around the whole thing that pretends that class and race are opposing causes and the call to lift up the WHITE working class is also a call to put all the working-class non-whites (whose class issues are, presumably, entirely different from those of whites, which is why helping the poor in such a way that some whites benefit is in some way exclusionary and therefore racist) "in their place".

This, of course, buries class issues under an imposed taint of racism, and makes it difficult to build a class movement, which is just what the (neo)liberals want.

What amazes me is that for all the sound and fury the left makes about white privilege and male privilege, you never see that analysis reflected in their politics. They've told us over and over again that those with privilege can afford not to vote for their candidate and address their pet issues because we can simply walk away, and yet it never seems to occur to them that if we simply walk away, THEY LOSE. And then they put us down, blame us for everything, dismiss our issues as selfish whining, and expect us to stay because if we don't they'll claim it proves that we were really racists and sexists the whole time.

Well, we started walking away this year. Fine, call me racist, call me sexist. Whatever. Enjoy President Trump, you hateful, screeching pieces of shit.

"It is totally fine that Clinton, who had secured the nomination through a skewed primary contest"

Or by earning more votes, but hey, you do you, hack.

Or both. DNC was obviously skewed to Clinton, but you are totally right that she won more votes. I voted for Sanders, but I accept that Clinton won. Problem for me was that after the convention was over, Clintonites were doing something Obama never did in 2008 - operating like Sanders voters were still their enemies. In my opinion, Clinton's loss was not really ideological. It was tactical, a matter of not securing their voters. Leslie Wimes of Women on the Move in FLA has written about this; Emma Roller's piece on Wisconsin in the NYT contained the, for me, shocking news that the Clinton campaign never contacted the Dem Mayor of Madison - and I can't help but think this was revenge for his support for Sanders in the primary. The result was that Clinton lost by only around 70.000 votes. That is heartbreaking. And a damning indictment not so much of Clinton, but of the campaign people she hired. They should never work for a Democratic candidate again.

Did you miss the whole DNC emails hack, the bias was on full display. The fact is Sanders could have won the general election easily, Clinton couldn't. There is ample evidence that fingers were placed on the scales at every opportunity to ensure Clinton won the primary and the rest of us paid the price for that. When you forget the DNC is equally corrupted by wall street and the monied interests you forget why Clinton was unable to defeat Trump. People will not vote for these same old moneyed hacks, we have no faith they will solve our problems because they do not even recognize they are problems. Yes the poor "White working class" is still much better off then minorities, but the standard of living for those of us in it is rapidly declining. We want equality but in the sense of the disadvantaged raised up to our former level. You will get no support for the ideas of Clinton that mostly revolve around putting us all on the same bad footing, equality is not enough if the outcome is bad for everybody.

I voted for Clinton because I live in NV and my vote counts, but I had zero faith she would fix anything, I just figured she wouldn't do the same level of damage that Trump would. Most people stayed home rather than vote because she provided no hope. Less awful doesn't motivate people.

She got the most votes in the primary. Start from there.

The "fingers placed on the scales" huffing and puffing would have more merit if Bernie didn't benefit from an undemocratic caucus voting system in many of the states he won.

Google "superdelegates". Sanders never had a chance no matter how many primary votes he got. But you do you, ignorant.

Plus he had that Jew thing goin against him.

You know this...how?

Supers were always, and will always, go with the popular vote. It's what made them switch from HRC to Obama in 2008, when Obama started winning primaries...even though the popular Democratic vote margin that year was razor-thin.

Bernie didn't win enough of the popular vote, hence the supers went against him. Like they should've. Ironically, some Bernie-or-busters were the ones who wanted to subvert the democratic process by having supers flip at the convention, as nonsensical of a plan as that was – but hey, they said it, not me.

(disclosure: I voted for Bernie in my state's primary.)

No, the supers were going the way the party establishment wanted them to. Remember when DWS got fired? Or how Donna Brazile fed the Clinton campaign debate questions? Sanders never had a chance.

Why did Bernie lose?
Superdelegates!
But he lost the popular vote too.
Well...the superdelegates would've cheated anyway!

Interesting "logic"! Here's some of my own: As long as they're with us, superdelegates may have more clout than the average voter, but they will never, ever overturn a popular vote. Ever. They've never done it before, they won't ever do it. If it happens in the future, I'll owe you a quarter.

I remember when DWS got fired for being a snippy asshole in emails. Eh. I would've fired her long ago for her proximity to loan scammers and for being ineffectual.

Yes, Clinton would've been totally PWN3D had Donna Brazile not informed her some general topics that were going to be covered. She has no knowledge of issues whatsoever.

Hey, you wanted Hillary? You got Hillary. Congratulations.

It would've taken you five seconds to scroll up and see that I voted for Sanders.

And if the Bernie or Busters had prevailed, Trump would not be the president elect. But yes, you can take solace that the less popular Democratic candidate secured the nomination and went on to lose because that protected the "democratic process". SMH

Uh, yeah, I do take solace in democratic processes. Should I not?

The evidence that Bernie would've automatically won is...tenuous. Vermont elected a Republican governor. Zephyr Teachout and Russ Feingold both got their clocks cleaned. A progressive message didn't automatically win in 2016.

Also, keep in mind in your alternate universe scenario that millions upon millions of voters who voted for the primary winner – many of them voters of color – would've had their winning votes thrown out because of....well, some opinion polls and feeling. Do you think those people automatically get behind Bernie?

You keep fighting the battles, but you already lost the war. And the fact remains the DNC did everything it could to prevent Sanders from getting his message across to voters during the primary. The lack of debates, the horrible schedule, and constant negative messaging from DNC leadership(remember the block on sanders for supposedly inappropriate voter record access?) The cheating was widespread and blatant, and it cost the country dearly. You can say what you want about Sanders, but we know for a fact that Clinton couldn't beat the most unpopular candidate in history, you protesting that Sanders would not have had a better shot falls on deaf ears for those of us looking at actual persecution under president Trump.

I'm a "those of us" too, FWIW.

I'll say no more other than to note that Bernie supporters put a ton of stock in the number of debates; Trump coming just shy of crapping his pants in the three he had with HRC and still winning the electoral college tells me that most voters do not.

That has more do with Clinton then voters caring about debates. But the simple fact is more means more airtime and putting them during hours people actually watch instead of when football games are on has an effect as well. Like I said, the effort by the DNC leadership to influence the result is obvious to anybody who cares to look. You can argue about the effectiveness of that campaign as much as you like, but the fact is they did everything they could to sway the election in the direction it went in. And that direction turned out to be a disaster.

You know, 2008 had Democratic debates deep into that primary, and all it ended up doing was turning people off of both candidates, temporarily. The media had figured it exhausted actual policy debate, so we got nonsense about flag pins and Jeremiah Wright. I can see why the DNC didn't want a repeat of that. And as someone who did watch all the Democratic debates, Sanders/Clinton were talking over each other toward the end.

Did the DNC leadership seek to influence the result? As power brokers in the party in a primary being challenged by an outsider? Sure! Not sure why this was a surprise. Did they straight up rig the thing? Nah. There were other reasons for Sanders' downfall in the primary. If we are to move forward in a post-Trump world, he and his supporters should also be asking tough questions of themselves. (Hopefully for his sake Bragman isn't typical of this lack of self-awareness, but I have my doubts.)

Not really, everything went exactly as Sanders supporters predicted it would. Our ideas were rejected by an incredibly small part of the population and that small part seems to be horribly out of step with the rest of the country. Those who supported Clinton and didn't demand she step down when her previous stupidity became headline news over and over again(the private email server was an idiotic attempt to dodge public records requests.) There is no self reflection to be done, Clintonistas need to look inward and as you are demonstrating they simply refuse to do that.

I voted for Sanders.

Have a pleasant afternoon.

I didn't say you were one of them, but fact is the neoliberal wing of the party really needs to be rooted out. There is no room for failed economic policies and war mongering in the 21st century. Those policies never worked, and will continue to be failures as long as we allow our leaders to suggest them.

nobody is saying clinton received fewer votes than sanders. what they are saying is that the DNC is corrupt, values itself higher than what's right for America, and absolutely loves using superdelegates before a single primary vote has been cast to play favorites.

obviously once the votes are cast, your party would be insane to say "great job voting guys, but we're going to go with this other candidate instead."

but at the same time, clearing the aisle of any serious competition during the primary and then using "but he's not even a democrat?!" against the only person willing to run on an economic-restructure platform leads to a weak choice in the general... in this case, clinton.

You and I are in agreement that the supers should be eliminated. As much as I see the point behind them – no Trump-esque takeovers of the Democratic Party, essentially – they do give the feel of scale-tinkering, if not the wholesale actuality.

I am OK with closed primaries, provided the state gives a clear and accessible method of registering for a party. (For what it's worth, I live in a semi-open primary state that Sanders lost.) I wish Sanders would've also called for the abolition of caucuses; it's a shame that some of his primary post-mortem called for reforms that would've helped him win as opposed to reforms that were good objectively.