Voronwë the Faithful wrote:On the other hand, the Democrats last great failure was Hillary Clinton, who for all the baggage she brought would have certainly won that election but for the sexist nature of a significant portion of the electorate that would have voted for a candidate with the exact same qualities that she had, if she was a man.
I know you have said this before but I have never seen any actual evidence to back up the assertion. I certainly see no reason to think that a man with all the piles of baggage and problems that Hillary brought would have been able to weather them any better. Men's campaigns have certainly been detailed by far less than her problems.
I also think that if Michelle Obama had decided she wanted to jump in, she would almost certain be the Democratic front runner, and would likely beat Trump easily.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
And you are not wrong, either. Nor are your two points unconnected, to the extent that part of the reason that the election was not "free and fair" was that a foreign adversary used a sophisticated social media disinformation campaign to specifically turn so-called progressive voters away from Clinton in order to help ensure the election of a candidate that at the least they thought would be more amenable to them and potentially was (and is) compromised by them for financial and perhaps other reasons.
x-posted with yov.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
We do not know what effect, if any, foreign internet trolling had on the last election, whereas we do know that hundreds of thousands of votes were suppressed by Republican secretaries of state in three swing states that Trump carried by narrow margins. I have not read anything that suggests that the problem of voter suppression in Republican-controlled states has been addressed; but then, it isn't nearly as sexy as the idea of an evil foreign adversary having coercive power over a hated President.
Now, if the Democrats trying to make political hay with Trump hearings would turn their attention to election integrity, who knows what could be achieved. But we all know that won't happen, so I think it is reasonable to assume that the 2020 election will be no freer or fairer than the last one. And that doesn't even take into account hackable voting machines whose proprietary information belongs to Republican partisans.
Avatar photo by Richard Lykes, used with permission.
Cerin wrote:I have not read anything that suggests that the problem of voter suppression in Republican-controlled states has been addressed
Michigan voters passed an anti-gerrymandering referendum by a large margin in 2018. The GOP-controlled state legislature, which is only GOP-controlled thanks to said gerrymandering, basically said "screw the voters, we ain't doin' it" (they said the same thing to the minimum wage ballot measure). They keep losing in court, but it was just announced today that they're appealing to the US Supreme Court.
I think it’s easy to overestimate the importance of ideology to electability. Or, for that matter, people who follow politics closely and have strongly-held and consistent ideological views can overestimate the importance of ideology to politics generally.
I’ve started calling this the Goldwater-Reagan effect – Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan would have landed fairly close to each other on a political positions test, yet one won one of the greatest-ever victories in a presidential election and the other suffered one of the worst-ever defeats.
The other factor is that the electorate’s receptibility to certain views changes over time and in step with events. They were more ready for Reagan’s conservative-libertarian message in 1980 than they were in 1964. Similarly, Jeremy Corbyn did far better than expected in the last U.K. election running on a platform that had been dismissed as completely unacceptable to mainstream voters since Labour’s infamous 1983 defeat.
You can see some of this in Democratic primary opinion polling. There are a lot of people for whom Biden is their first choice and Sanders their second, and visa-versa. They clearly haven’t ranked the candidates by ideology and numbered them off.
I found this article interesting, though I dislike the method of linking the man with the time. Too often they say things like “When he took his first Senate seat, whites still approved of segregation” which feels like an implication that those were his values. I have no idea if they were or weren’t but it feels dishonest.
Nate Cohn (the author of that article) is a statistician, somewhat in the Nate Silver mode, so it is not surprising that he would look at things through the lens of statistics (e.g., "When Joe Biden first ran for Senate in 1972, 40 percent of Democrats believed that whites had a right to segregate neighborhoods.)
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
Yes, that was a bit frustrating. I used to be able to read Washington Post articles without paying.
Biden has a very long voting record, coming down firmly on the side of banks, the wealthy and the war machine, so I don't think he will have much traction with the activist base. I guess we'll see if someone can win the nomination without them.
Avatar photo by Richard Lykes, used with permission.
No paywall for me. Sure you haven't just used up your allotment of free articles for the week/month/whatever? If so, just switch on anonymous mode or the equivalent.
Hugh Hewitt is among the last people I would expect to agree with, and there is much in this piece that is off base in my opinion, but his basic point is accurate, I think, particularly after today's better than expected job numbers. If the economy continues to be strong, Mr. Trump will probably win reelection, despite everything else. It pains me to say that because I think he is terrible for the United States and the world (and even for the Republican Party), but I think it is the truth.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
I do think it would be best for the Dems to shut up about Mueller, and really about Trump, and focus on what they are for and not what they are against. The left's strongest position sure has to be that Trump and the Reps did absolutely nothing to improve health care because they have no ideas. The left has ideas and should be focusing all their energy on getting that message out there.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
I agree with you, yov, but in addition to the Mueller distraction, the Dems are busy with infighting between the establishment Dems and the progressives. The sad truth is (imo) that the establishment Democrats really don't stand for anything other than continuing the corporate status quo, and so, there is no message to put out there. I think they would rather the whole ship go down than have the progressive wing triumph.
Avatar photo by Richard Lykes, used with permission.
Cerin wrote:I agree with you, yov, but in addition to the Mueller distraction, the Dems are busy with infighting between the establishment Dems and the progressives.
I'd say this was about the same during the last Rep primaries when a zillion candidates, both moderate and far right, were vying for attention. Then one candidate eventually gets picked and the party rallies around that choice.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
Now I think, it's possible that being up against a bunch of opponents may have played in Trump's favor. With Bernie as the only serious competition, Democratic vote was split pretty evenly, and he hung on far too long and had done far too little to consolidate the party behind Clinton. Despite his progressive rhetoric, many of his followers weren't all that bothered by Trump.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
Nor are your two points unconnected, to the extent that part of the reason that the election was not "free and fair" was that a foreign adversary used a sophisticated social media disinformation campaign to specifically turn so-called progressive voters away from Clinton in order to help ensure the election of a candidate that at the least they thought would be more amenable to them and potentially was (and is) compromised by them for financial and perhaps other reasons.
Part of the problem is that that Democrats failed to get a coherent message across. Or, any message, frankly.
