Timex
3958
There’s truth to the suggestion though that folks don’t really know who will beat Trump. A lot of the “electability” centers around two things:
- Looking like past presidents, which means being an old white guy
- Being someone you have already heard of
That second one is important, because for most folks… they don’t follow this stuff. They don’t know who anyone in politics is. Even if you ask them if they know who someone is, a bunch of the folks who don’t know? They’re gonna lie, because they don’t want to seem dumb. But they ARE dumb. Or, at least, poorly informed.
All that being said, what needs to be done in terms of primary voting, isn’t really some vague appeal to “electability”, but rather a more concrete consideration of how things may appeal to the broader range of voters in a general election.
Some large portion of that is simply personality. Tons of folks vote based on nothing more than their gut instinct, with no regard for policy positions.
And then some portion of the voters will naturally shy away from anything they see as extreme change… especially in the situation where we are now, where things are generally pretty good for most folks. The economy is generally good, and folks feel good about it. While our healthcare system is all fucked up, MOST voters do in fact have healthcare… so you need to be gentle when talking about it.
If you want to move things left, maybe do it slow, because you’ll get less resistance. It’s the slow blade that cuts deepest!
Hence mentioning the closeted racist, misogynist, oh and i forgot, homophobes that put Trump in power. If you want to double dare those motherfuckers to vote Trump they will do.
CraigM
3961
Racist fucks are going to vote him anyhow. Pandering to the shit stains of humanity is a losing plan.
And if that would be the only way to beat Trump, then time to split the country up.
I don’t want my comment about Sanders above to be construed as meaning that I want Biden. Sure, I’ll hold my nose and vote for him in the general if he’s the nominee, but I want Warren as our standard-bearer.
I think name recognition is important if you’re trying to win a primary, but by the time the general comes around, everyone who is likely to vote will recognize the names of the two candidates. That’s what campaigns do.
Timex
3964
Vote blue, no matter who!
I believe there are centre right who would vote against Trump, but are Never Woman or Never Black or Never Gay. Again, this is about being ruthlessly pragmatic and cynical, not doing the right thing. I don’t think the society that voted in Obama exists any more, it’s been killed by propaganda, culture war and shifts to the extremes.
Timex
3966
I don’t think so.
The kind of voter who would actually refuse to ever vote for a woman or minority is going to be all in on Trump, because Trump gives them a license to be a bigot.
That’s one of Trump’s greatest appeals to these people. When so much of society is telling them to give up their past bigotry, Trump says, “You don’t need to! You don’t need to change! We’re just going to change the world back to the one you grew up in! The problem isn’t you, it’s them!”
You’re never gonna get those voters away from Trump. They’re his core demographic.
I disagree there. I think there are plenty of people who would rather vote for an old white guy who isn’t so abrasively aggressive with his racism and bigotry because it will make them feel better about their own failings.
That’s the conservative way. Sweep it under the mat until no one’s around and then let it out behind closed doors and hope you don’t get caught. The ones who are out there with it are 100% evil where those people are more like 65% and they would vote against Trump in the right scenario.
Good article by a guy who knows his shit.
There’s also a good chunk who don’t consciously think that, but unconsciously absolutely mean it. As usual, Alexandra Petri says it best:
… I have to say, I’m a little frustrated that we keep putting forward this specific woman who really grinds my gears. Not because she’s a woman. I would know if that were why. It is not that. It’s just — ugh, her , you know? She just doesn’t excite me, and I feel that she is too compromised. That’s not a woman thing, though. It’s just a her thing. I would have that issue with anyone who had her baggage, that same difficult-to-pin-down sense that something about her was fundamentally tainted…
In general, I am excited to vote for a woman, maybe even in 2020, though I do, I have to say, worry that maybe other Americans are not so ready, and we wouldn’t want to make that mistake in a year with such high stakes. Not me — I was born ready! I was given birth to by a woman. So it’s clear where I stand…
A woman, sure, but — Kamala Harris? Elizabeth Warren? Kirsten Gillibrand? There are specific problems with each of them, entirely personal to each of them, all insurmountable. We need someone fresh. Someone without baggage. Joe Biden, maybe. But female! If you see.
I can’t wait to vote for a woman in 2020. A nameless, shapeless, faceless woman I know nothing about who will surely be perfect.
EC map if counting “Did not vote.”
Why don’t people vote? I don’t know, but presumably they don’t vote because they don’t think it matters who ends up winning (I think that’s largely by design, i.e. who benefits from this?) Democrats need to change that calculus - register them and then come election day call them, and drive them to and from the polls. Red states (and some purple states) do as much as they can to make voting harder (purging voter rolls, removing polling stations, cutting back on early vote availability, photo ID etc et al.) These are obstacles that can be overcome (albeit not easily.)
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership really want to chase after the “swing” or “moderate” voter. That explains her refusal to start impeachment and her efforts with trying to curtail the prominence of AOC and prevent AOC from becoming the face of the Democratic party. I don’t know if she’s right or if this is the winning strategy. Democrats have tried the centrist approach before and only Bill Clinton (and maybe Obama with his hope and change message) managed to pull it off (Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, HRC all failed, more so from lack of personal charisma than anything else probably.)
IMO either road is a risk. I think Biden guarantees similar numbers (non-voters) but might sway enough voters in the suburbs (specifically married white women) to make a difference; conversely Harris (or maybe Warren) might energize the non-voters more. Who knows? I think it’s largely a crap shoot.
All this means that when people vote in the primaries they should vote for the person they actually want and not who they perceive other people want.
(The only thing that guarantees a trump loss is an economic downturn.)
And those who won’t vote for a woman not because they won’t vote for a woman but because they think other people won’t vote for a woman. It’s not them, you see. They’re perfectly happy to vote for a woman. It’s those other people who are the problem, and as long as those other people won’t vote for a woman, we can’t risk a vote for a woman.
Pelosi misunderstands why the Dems won the midterms so big. It was a vote against Trump and Trumpism, but she thinks it was a vote about moderate Democratic policies.
Also, even among those who did go and vote in 2016, in the swing states, the number of people who left the top of the ticket blank was larger than the difference between the candidates. The margin of victory was less than the number of voters who showed up but did not choose either candidate.
Matt_W
3974
Gary Johnson received more votes than the winning margin in WI, MI, PA, AZ and FL. Jill Stein received more votes than the margin in WI, MI and PA. It’s interesting how Stein is never brought up as a spoiler in 2016, but if all of her voters had voted for Clinton, Clinton would have won the election.
magnet
3975
I think it might be more complicated than that. AOC has built a reputation as a Democratic vanguard who is not afraid to defy the leadership. If Pelosi wanted to help her, she would give AOC an opportunity to defy her. Which is exactly what she did.
Was that unintentional? We are all assuming that Pelosi wants full compliance from AOC, but I think she understands the value of a “good cop/bad cop” strategy. If so, their public disagreement might be in everyone’s interest.
KevinC
3976
95% or more of people I know that don’t vote feel this way. They feel like it doesn’t matter, everyone is corrupt, and “both sides” are bad. Especially the last part.
The outlier to that group is a friend of mine who has never voted. There’s definitely some “both sides” stuff in there, but he also feels that he’s not smart/informed enough to vote intelligently so he doesn’t vote instead. I’ve pointed out the problem with that, in that people even less informed than him vote all the time. It also probably doesn’t help that neither party really represents his views. He’d like to see more of a social safety net, better/cheaper access to healthcare, sees climate change as a serious issue, but he’s also very pro-gun and government stay out of my life type. Ultimately, he’s white and living in Utah, so realistically his vote doesn’t matter one way or another, which likely contributes to not voting as well. I vote out of conscience so I can at least try to do my part, but my vote has been meaningless in every election I’ve engaged in.
Honestly, people would have been far more accepting of Hillary if she wasn’t a Clinton and did not have all the sleaze and baggage that comes with it (including her own).
On the other hand, if Hlilary wasn’t a Clinton, she would have just been some unknown person with centrist policies that no one would have voted for.
Effectively, the thing that got her on the radar was also the thing that ultimately limited her ability to win.
