It's looking that way, unless the Dems can extract their heads from their collective fundament and come up with someone credible and now-divisive as a candidate. I'm not sure who that might be?
When will the left, the SJWs, and the hand-wringing liberals learn to look inwardly rather than just shouting "Donald Trump, K-K-K, racist, sexist, anti-gay".
What Supes said, but the reality is that on the sh1t people in flyover states care about Trump is winning big at the moment. The US economy is flying. He is (seen to be) sticking it to the forrins and appropriately batsh1t crazy mentalists are getting appointed to stuff (particularly the Supreme court).
Mueller is nowhere and nothing sort of Trump actually accepting a suitcase full of cash from Putin on video whilst blozzing him is going to hurt him now on that front.
The Dems are nowhere and have nobody that looks remotely like beating him. Warren is an absolute numpty as the DNA fiasco demonstrates. I don't give a sh1t if there any Native American heritage in her or not (and nor frankly does basically anybody else) but this has made her look ludicrous.
Trump would absolutely fvcking thrash Warren and the fact the Dems even have her in the running shows how little they have learnt. They need someone:
Straight talking.
From firmly middle class (in the US sense) origins
Preferably ex military
Under 60 and in good shape/passably photogenic.
Reasonably pro business but with a good story to tell on corporate responsibility and philanthropy.
Who has a genuine Christian faith (Catholic would be awesome because of the cover it gives people on abortion).
If they can find someone with all that who is one or both of female and from an ethnic minority then that would be great, but seriously folks tick the boxes above first. Otherwise you may as well go home.
The main thing is the Dems have to figure out how to win back (enough of) the voters who went for Trump especially in marginal and Southern states. As far as I can see they aren’t doing that - they are doubling down on all the tactics that made them lose.
The Dems used to own the South (till the 60s) and the working classes (till much later) That’s why they had a permanent majority in the House till the mid 90s.
The direction of political travel is different but they need to retake the political space they lost to Trump - kind of similar to how Bill Clinton and Blair managed to win consistently by taking the centre ground away from the Republicans and Tories and outflanking them on issues traditionally owned by the right like crime and law and order.
“We hate Trump” is not a winning electoral strategy for the Dems. It only appeals to their base not the swing and Trump voters they need to convince
Aside from the fact she’s said she doesn’t want to do it, I think Americans will elect a woman but not someone with the surname and baggage an Obama or Clinton has. I think Warren could have beaten Trump in 2016 (and Sanders definitely would have). In 2020 I’m less sure because it will be running against a successful incumbent but Warren has among the best chances of any of the Democrats
The idea that Dems can’t win unless they win the South is utterly risible.
They need Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin back. fook the rest.
Sorry, but anyone who says that the Dems used to own the South are demonstrating a staggering lack of knowledge. The Democrats that used to win in the South were all rabid supporters of segregation and fierce opponents of Civil Right. The Democrats that used to win in the South are all now Republicans. This is so fooking obvious that I can’t believe anyone other than 3-ducks would mention it.
Republicans win because that is their only reason for existing. They cheat and they steal and they lie. They don’t care about governing or policy. They care about winning and power. Democrats loose because they allow Republicans to shame them, to bully them.
Democratic policies are far more popular than those claimed by the Republicans. They just do a shitty job of communicating them.
Democrats don’t need to waste energy trying to win over people who will never vote for them. The Deplorables can all get fooked. Dems need to get their side out to vote. End. Of. They need to ignore all the civility fetishists and the centrist cult. People on RoF need to stop getting their political analysis from the fooking Economist.
"Democrats don’t need to waste energy trying to win over people who will never vote for them. The Deplorables can all get fooked. Dems need to get their side out to vote. End. Of. They need to ignore all the civility fetishists and the centrist cult."
Supes with no animus on my part, I'm afraid you've just demonstrated the veracity of the statement in the OP, and the kind of ideological hubris which will lead the Dems to a justifiable second defeat at Trump's hands.
Supes you’re right that the Dems can probably squeak the White House if they pick up a few swing states. That’s not a really sustainable way to govern a deeply divided country, fighting over a few swing states - or marginals as we call them here.
The rest of it - about Democrats losing the south is just wrong. The civil rights movement was the beginning of the process not the end - I’m sure you’re familiar with the Johnson statement about the Dems losing the south for a generation.
“Control of the south” is a complex question but let’s look at Southern governors as a proxy. I just checked lists of governors of Texas, Alabama Georgia and Tennessee. You see pretty much the same pattern in all of them with slight variations - the Democrats utterly dominate the 20th century with pretty much zero (or near zero) Republicans. There are two big shifts bringing in more Repubs - one in 1979 (15 years AFTER the Civil Rights Act and more to do with Reagan) and another in the 1995-2000 period - Gingrich and Clinton etc - you could probably call it the beginning of the modern era. And of course Republicans have completely dominated for the last 20 years.
It’s simply inaccurate to attribute the Democrats loss of the South to racism and the Civil Rights Act. It was part of the reason and the first big fissure but a far greater reason was that the Dems stopped bein the party of the working classes (especially white working class) and got outflanked by the Republicans who took over that vote bank (yes I know he Republicans are no better objectively for the working class and they’ve got that vote bank on cultural grounds not economic ones - but the fact remains the Dems no longer appeal to that demographic). That process accelerated after Clinton took the Dems more centrist and went into NAFTA etc (it is no accident that Republican dominance in the south began in that period).
Its not a precise analogy but it’s kind of similar to how Blair took the Labour Party more centrist and lost touch with a lot of the core working class vote that later ended up voting for UKIP and Brexit etc.
the “white working class”is a northern or midwestern class. The South is not the white working class that the Dems lost. That is not who Michael Moore was talking about. He was talking about labor, and he was right that the Dems lost labor.
But that is exactly what I am referring to. fook the deplorable hillbilly southerners and the white nationalists in the North and Midwest. Get labor back on side and excited to vote. A Democrat doesn’t do this by being GOP-lite, they do this by fighting work workers rights, for healthcare, for a social safety net, all good progressive left positions. They don’t need to kiss deplorable arse to win these people back.
The Democrats basically just need somebody from somewhere other than the NE or California.
So no Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Cuomo or Kirsten Gillibrand and instead go for a Democratic governor like Hickenlooper in Colorado or Bullock in Montana or a Senator like Klobuchar (MN), Sherrod Brown (OH) or even a mayor like Mitch Landrieu (New Orleans).
Trump's a weak candidate. He attracted 46% of the vote on a 55% turnout. He's loved by his base but his base is probably less than 20% of the electorate and his appeal beyond his base is limited. A substantial part of his vote in 2016 was against Hillary. He attracted protest votes that didn't expect him to win and they weren't voting for him as much as voting against Hillary.
He's already got the lowest average approval rating in history. Take away the FBI's intervention on Hillary's e-mails and replace it with his Russian connections which weren't publicly known at the time and he loses in 2016.
Only two things can give him a chance: the Democrats picking another duff Presidential candidate and the economy outperforming expectation. If they don't happen he probably doesn't even bother standing (assuming he hasn't already been impeached).
There's a statement above to the effect that it wouldnt matter if the Dems picked a woman. I am sorry to say that I really do not believe this. I do not think the US would in my life time elect a woman to POTUS. I said the same before Hillary tried and if she couldn't I don't think anyone could.
I do not approve of this state of affairs ftaod, I just conclude it.
could they nominate Obama again? seem to recall it's a 2 consecutive term limitation rather than an 8 year max but defer to those in the know. a bit Putiny tbf
Obama can’t be elected again. Fantasies about him being VP and people stepping aside are all very well but not realistic. Michelle Obama as she herself very openly acknowledges is not right for the job and the US really doesn’t need another POTUS with the same surname as a previous one.
All it really takes to beat trump is someone who can call him out for the cowardly, corrupt little dirtbag he is. If they really can’t find someone younger then let Joe Biden do it.
Regardless of who was in power it does seem like the world was just such a simpler and less evil place before the events of the eleventh of September.
That date, to me at least, marks more than an atrocious terrorist act which seemed unthinkable at the time, but rather the date when the world became far less innocent and essentially our leaders went mad for revenge. Not a good thing with the kind of military might wielded by them really.
I often wonder if it has been world events that sent me over the edge actually. I can understand why the likes of clergs et al fear the future so much, it's a horrifying prospect given the trajectory of the now from then.
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It's looking that way, unless the Dems can extract their heads from their collective fundament and come up with someone credible and now-divisive as a candidate. I'm not sure who that might be?
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In other news, bear sh*ts in woods
When will the left, the SJWs, and the hand-wringing liberals learn to look inwardly rather than just shouting "Donald Trump, K-K-K, racist, sexist, anti-gay".
still, the latter is easier and self-affirming
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Eh, whoever his opponent is will raise stratospheric amounts of money.
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Trump is obviously going to get elected again. I was offering bets on it at 3:1 last week.
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I am going to do humanity a favour and refrain from making any predictions.
I think any predictions this far out are pointless. If Dems take the House it is a whole different ballgame.
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What Supes said, but the reality is that on the sh1t people in flyover states care about Trump is winning big at the moment. The US economy is flying. He is (seen to be) sticking it to the forrins and appropriately batsh1t crazy mentalists are getting appointed to stuff (particularly the Supreme court).
Mueller is nowhere and nothing sort of Trump actually accepting a suitcase full of cash from Putin on video whilst blozzing him is going to hurt him now on that front.
The Dems are nowhere and have nobody that looks remotely like beating him. Warren is an absolute numpty as the DNA fiasco demonstrates. I don't give a sh1t if there any Native American heritage in her or not (and nor frankly does basically anybody else) but this has made her look ludicrous.
Trump would absolutely fvcking thrash Warren and the fact the Dems even have her in the running shows how little they have learnt. They need someone:
Straight talking.
From firmly middle class (in the US sense) origins
Preferably ex military
Under 60 and in good shape/passably photogenic.
Reasonably pro business but with a good story to tell on corporate responsibility and philanthropy.
Who has a genuine Christian faith (Catholic would be awesome because of the cover it gives people on abortion).
If they can find someone with all that who is one or both of female and from an ethnic minority then that would be great, but seriously folks tick the boxes above first. Otherwise you may as well go home.
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Donny pretty much has it.
The main thing is the Dems have to figure out how to win back (enough of) the voters who went for Trump especially in marginal and Southern states. As far as I can see they aren’t doing that - they are doubling down on all the tactics that made them lose.
The Dems used to own the South (till the 60s) and the working classes (till much later) That’s why they had a permanent majority in the House till the mid 90s.
The direction of political travel is different but they need to retake the political space they lost to Trump - kind of similar to how Bill Clinton and Blair managed to win consistently by taking the centre ground away from the Republicans and Tories and outflanking them on issues traditionally owned by the right like crime and law and order.
“We hate Trump” is not a winning electoral strategy for the Dems. It only appeals to their base not the swing and Trump voters they need to convince
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Michelle Obama?
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Aside from the fact she’s said she doesn’t want to do it, I think Americans will elect a woman but not someone with the surname and baggage an Obama or Clinton has. I think Warren could have beaten Trump in 2016 (and Sanders definitely would have). In 2020 I’m less sure because it will be running against a successful incumbent but Warren has among the best chances of any of the Democrats
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The idea that Dems can’t win unless they win the South is utterly risible.
They need Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin back. fook the rest.
Sorry, but anyone who says that the Dems used to own the South are demonstrating a staggering lack of knowledge. The Democrats that used to win in the South were all rabid supporters of segregation and fierce opponents of Civil Right. The Democrats that used to win in the South are all now Republicans. This is so fooking obvious that I can’t believe anyone other than 3-ducks would mention it.
Republicans win because that is their only reason for existing. They cheat and they steal and they lie. They don’t care about governing or policy. They care about winning and power. Democrats loose because they allow Republicans to shame them, to bully them.
Democratic policies are far more popular than those claimed by the Republicans. They just do a shitty job of communicating them.
Democrats don’t need to waste energy trying to win over people who will never vote for them. The Deplorables can all get fooked. Dems need to get their side out to vote. End. Of. They need to ignore all the civility fetishists and the centrist cult. People on RoF need to stop getting their political analysis from the fooking Economist.
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Lose.
*drops mic ala wangstyle*
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"Democrats don’t need to waste energy trying to win over people who will never vote for them. The Deplorables can all get fooked. Dems need to get their side out to vote. End. Of. They need to ignore all the civility fetishists and the centrist cult."
Supes with no animus on my part, I'm afraid you've just demonstrated the veracity of the statement in the OP, and the kind of ideological hubris which will lead the Dems to a justifiable second defeat at Trump's hands.
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You.Understand.Nothing.
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LOL (quite literally) at Dinesh D’souza.
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https://twitter.com/kevinmkruse/status/1013981446615322624?s=21
If you are getting your history lessons from D’souza then it’s no wonder you are such an ignoramus.
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God Emperor will sweep all before him
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Supes you’re right that the Dems can probably squeak the White House if they pick up a few swing states. That’s not a really sustainable way to govern a deeply divided country, fighting over a few swing states - or marginals as we call them here.
The rest of it - about Democrats losing the south is just wrong. The civil rights movement was the beginning of the process not the end - I’m sure you’re familiar with the Johnson statement about the Dems losing the south for a generation.
“Control of the south” is a complex question but let’s look at Southern governors as a proxy. I just checked lists of governors of Texas, Alabama Georgia and Tennessee. You see pretty much the same pattern in all of them with slight variations - the Democrats utterly dominate the 20th century with pretty much zero (or near zero) Republicans. There are two big shifts bringing in more Repubs - one in 1979 (15 years AFTER the Civil Rights Act and more to do with Reagan) and another in the 1995-2000 period - Gingrich and Clinton etc - you could probably call it the beginning of the modern era. And of course Republicans have completely dominated for the last 20 years.
It’s simply inaccurate to attribute the Democrats loss of the South to racism and the Civil Rights Act. It was part of the reason and the first big fissure but a far greater reason was that the Dems stopped bein the party of the working classes (especially white working class) and got outflanked by the Republicans who took over that vote bank (yes I know he Republicans are no better objectively for the working class and they’ve got that vote bank on cultural grounds not economic ones - but the fact remains the Dems no longer appeal to that demographic). That process accelerated after Clinton took the Dems more centrist and went into NAFTA etc (it is no accident that Republican dominance in the south began in that period).
Its not a precise analogy but it’s kind of similar to how Blair took the Labour Party more centrist and lost touch with a lot of the core working class vote that later ended up voting for UKIP and Brexit etc.
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Sorry, Stru, but that is garbage.
the “white working class”is a northern or midwestern class. The South is not the white working class that the Dems lost. That is not who Michael Moore was talking about. He was talking about labor, and he was right that the Dems lost labor.
But that is exactly what I am referring to. fook the deplorable hillbilly southerners and the white nationalists in the North and Midwest. Get labor back on side and excited to vote. A Democrat doesn’t do this by being GOP-lite, they do this by fighting work workers rights, for healthcare, for a social safety net, all good progressive left positions. They don’t need to kiss deplorable arse to win these people back.
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Draco, you know what else is “all out there”? Flat earth theories, creationism, vaccinations cause autism lunacy.
i would have thought that by now you’d know that just because it is on the internet it doesn’t make it true.
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The Democrats basically just need somebody from somewhere other than the NE or California.
So no Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Cuomo or Kirsten Gillibrand and instead go for a Democratic governor like Hickenlooper in Colorado or Bullock in Montana or a Senator like Klobuchar (MN), Sherrod Brown (OH) or even a mayor like Mitch Landrieu (New Orleans).
Trump's a weak candidate. He attracted 46% of the vote on a 55% turnout. He's loved by his base but his base is probably less than 20% of the electorate and his appeal beyond his base is limited. A substantial part of his vote in 2016 was against Hillary. He attracted protest votes that didn't expect him to win and they weren't voting for him as much as voting against Hillary.
He's already got the lowest average approval rating in history. Take away the FBI's intervention on Hillary's e-mails and replace it with his Russian connections which weren't publicly known at the time and he loses in 2016.
Only two things can give him a chance: the Democrats picking another duff Presidential candidate and the economy outperforming expectation. If they don't happen he probably doesn't even bother standing (assuming he hasn't already been impeached).
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And voter suppression
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I'd taken that as granted rather than as a variable.
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It’s my only concern in the midterms
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There's a statement above to the effect that it wouldnt matter if the Dems picked a woman. I am sorry to say that I really do not believe this. I do not think the US would in my life time elect a woman to POTUS. I said the same before Hillary tried and if she couldn't I don't think anyone could.
I do not approve of this state of affairs ftaod, I just conclude it.
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could they nominate Obama again? seem to recall it's a 2 consecutive term limitation rather than an 8 year max but defer to those in the know. a bit Putiny tbf
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I’d almost want Michelle Obama to run, but I’d rather she be nominated to the Supreme Court
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Could we not just go back to Clinton and Bliar?
Back to the sunlit uplands of a golden age?
Where there was no death- neither sorrow nor sighing
For the former things had passed away?
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Obama can’t be elected again. Fantasies about him being VP and people stepping aside are all very well but not realistic. Michelle Obama as she herself very openly acknowledges is not right for the job and the US really doesn’t need another POTUS with the same surname as a previous one.
All it really takes to beat trump is someone who can call him out for the cowardly, corrupt little dirtbag he is. If they really can’t find someone younger then let Joe Biden do it.
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Regardless of who was in power it does seem like the world was just such a simpler and less evil place before the events of the eleventh of September.
That date, to me at least, marks more than an atrocious terrorist act which seemed unthinkable at the time, but rather the date when the world became far less innocent and essentially our leaders went mad for revenge. Not a good thing with the kind of military might wielded by them really.
I often wonder if it has been world events that sent me over the edge actually. I can understand why the likes of clergs et al fear the future so much, it's a horrifying prospect given the trajectory of the now from then.
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