U.S. Politics: 2016 Election Goes To Overtime

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Clinton affirmed many times the right to own firearms, even while she pushed for background checks, etc. I don't think this disdain for gun ownership appeared to any significant degree in the Democratic power structure, and you haven't demonstrated that it did.

The rhetoric that any regulation of firearms is tantamount to confesscation has been successfully used as a smokescreen by the right.  It's sad.

[Castel]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Which is frightening and played, at least in part, on the tribalism offered by some on the left.  Which is why I ask why it shouldn't be looked at more closely and examined on a practical pragmatic level.

What's pragmatic about hyperfocusing on alleged leftist tribalism when it was Republican partisanship that forced all of them to lock hands behind Trump? It's interesting how you studiously turn this back to leftists.

 And it's not like these tactics and their successes started with Trump no? They haven't suffered electorally at all before and it's not cause Obama was out there riling up the sort of divisive rhetoric Trump was.

You lament the lack of a clear-eyed analysis but this to me is about as clear eyed as trying to explain the sudden suspicious deaths of Muggles in the area and studiously refusing to say "Voldemort". 

"Maybe we should look into the drug war", you say. "It's killed many Muggles before!"

[mormont]

3 hours ago, Commodore said:

Accepting the premise, why was this posture so successful electorally? 

For many reasons, but partly at least because the right have been very successful at promoting a narrative where any problem is either the responsibility of the left, or of politics in general.

We're seeing it right here. Trump got elected and the narrative on these threads has mostly been how this is the fault of the left, or how it's an indictment of politics as usual. Barely a word about it being a failure of the right. He won the Republican nomination, he bullied the Republican party leadership into line, he won the backing of almost every Republican voter, but none of this is discussed as a problem for the Republican party. Their party literally got hijacked and we're talking about whether left-wingers on Twitter are polite enough and whether 'identity politics' made white voters angry. Why are we not talking about the utter silence from Republicans about Trump's conflicts of interest and his cavalier attitude to them?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, Castel said:

What's pragmatic about hyperfocusing on alleged leftist tribalism when it was Republican partisanship that forced all of them to lock hands behind Trump? And it's not like these tactics and their successes started with Trump no? They haven't suffered electorally at all before and it's not cause Obama was out there riling up the sort of divisive rhetoric Trump was.

You lament the lack of a clear-eyed analysis but this to me is about as clear eyed as trying to explain the sudden suspicious deaths of Muggles in the area and studiously refusing to say "Voldemort". 

"Maybe we should look into the drug war", you say. "It's killed many Muggles before!"

Voldemort, to run with your analogy, is playing on the demonization of wizards by Muggles to justify his depredations.  That being the case wouldn't it make sense to deny Voldemort that rhetorical lever point?

[LongRider]

14 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Which is frightening and played, at least in part, on the tribalism offered by some on the left.  Which is why I ask why it shouldn't be looked at more closely and examined on a practical pragmatic level.

I see it differently, he played up the racism, the misogyny and the promise of jobs by beating up on the foreign governments, especially China, who Trump perceived as taking the jobs away.   He hit all the wedge points and turned his rallies into 'us against them' love fests which had the supporters chanting 'Lock her up!' and 'Drain the swamp!' and included egging on a bit of violence too.  What fun!  Beat Clinton's boring wonk-a-thons explaining policy.

In other words, Trump stirred up the base emotions of his base.  

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The rhetoric that any regulation of firearms is tantamount to confesscation has been successfully used as a smokescreen by the right.  It's sad.

I wonder tho, how effective it is these days tho as gun regulations passed in three of the four states that had them on the ballot.  One of the states was Nevada, which surprised me, as there are many gun enthusiasts and gun shows there.  However, I visited a home of a Nevada friend before the election and the NRA was running a TV ad that promised that Hilary would take away all the guns.  I LOL'd because, the NRA has been promising that from Obama for 8 years and guess what?  The gun owners still have their guns. 

[Gorn]

2 hours ago, Castel said:

That is the narrative the politicians on the right are selling, yes.

Take the debate on abortion from the Clinton-Kaine camp. What did you get? "Abortion should be in the hands of the mother" from Clinton and Kaine iirc is more morally ambivalent but stands by the right. 

People will say shit but then, people will always say shit. If you're "abandoned" cause the official ticket is pro-life then...tough shit? Look, the goal of the Democratic party should not be to become the Republican party. They have their constituency and positions too and, while abortion is divisive that goes both ways. It's 50-50. Dem leadership being pro-life is not being abandoned. 

If it's a matter of random assholes talking shit...then yeah, random assholes on the left talk shit, just like the conservative radio talks a whole bunch of shit or the GOP "personalities" had conniptions whenever Obama did something or  how Sandra Fluke was a whore for testifying on birth control for health reasons or some liberal artist said something about...anything. But apparently all of that is a liberal thing. 

This all sounds like a sort of even, hardnosed analysis but it's essentially buying into the GOP talking point which is that, cause liberals care about issues that they don't, they hate people (especially white people). They're very good at selling it.

And your numbers are dubious. There are many reasons the Dems lose elections but it's not necessarily cause they are that much fewer in number. (see this election for that)

You missed my point. It's not that Democrats need to become a pro-life party. I'm saying that pro-life voters need to feel welcome in the Democratic tent. There needs to be space for people who disagree on some issues to make an alliance of shared interests on others.

Republicans enforce ideological purity for their candidates, Democrats enforce it for their voters.

[Castel]

8 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Voldemort, to run with your analogy, is playing on the demonization of wizards by Muggles to justify his depredations.  That being the case wouldn't it make sense to deny Voldemort that rhetorical lever point?

You are in fact ceding the rhetorical high ground to him when you buy into his framing. 

Voldemort will reject any 'demonization" from his side as either being relevant or being representative while simultaneously demanding that you take responsibility for any and all things anyone says, from the actual politicians to the guy on the soapbox doing a comedy skit. If not you're demonizing "real Americans" wizards and being "divisive". 

Not only does this not explain their reaction to say...Obama, letting them set the narrative where it is the sins of one side clearly driving the issue is not only unfair, it is arguably narcissistic. 

It might be seductive to believe you have that much power, to flip things just by being nice, but the Dark Lord has his own goals and whims. Carly Simon Syndrome can be dangerous. (but not uncommon on the Left)

[TrackerNeil]

9 minutes ago, mormont said:

We're seeing it right here. Trump got elected and the narrative on these threads has mostly been how this is the fault of the left, or how it's an indictment of politics as usual. Barely a word about it being a failure of the right. He won the Republican nomination, he bullied the Republican party leadership into line, he won the backing of almost every Republican voter, but none of this is discussed as a problem for the Republican party. Their party literally got hijacked and we're talking about whether left-wingers on Twitter are polite enough and whether 'identity politics' made white voters angry. Why are we not talking about the utter silence from Republicans about Trump's conflicts of interest and his cavalier attitude to them?

Thank you! We've all seen a great deal of attention paid to what Democrats did to bring about a Trump presidency, but what about Republicans? Weren't they responsible for making sure their nominee was not a bullying, dishonest, white nationalist con artist? Or are only liberals at fault?

[Castel]

6 minutes ago, Gorn said:

You missed my point. It's not that Democrats need to become a pro-life party. I'm saying that pro-life voters need to feel welcome in the Democratic tent. There needs to be space for people who disagree on some issues to make an alliance of shared interests on others.

Republicans enforce ideological purity for their candidates, Democrats enforce it for their voters.

If you're a single-issue voter you likely will not be welcome, and there's a massive uphill battle to make you welcome given the way the rest of the base seems to trend. Sorry.  

Just as pro-choice voters likely feel unwelcome in the GOP tent. 

If you're not a single-issue voter...then you might have to deal with the party moving on on certain issues. You are of course free to fight as a pro-life Democrat on a local level but it's a bit much to assume that the presidential ticket (or that of more liberal Democratic states) will change. That's a matter for you locally. 

Nationally...don't be shocked. Parties have platforms. 

[OldGimletEye]

7 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I wonder tho, how effective it is these days tho as gun regulations passed in three of the four states that had them on the ballot.  One of the states was Nevada, which surprised me, as there are many gun enthusiasts and gun shows there.  However, I visited a home of a Nevada friend before the election and the NRA was running a TV ad that promised that Hilary would take away all the guns.  I LOL'd because, the NRA has been promising that from Obama for 8 years and guess what?  The gun owners still have their guns. 

Well, if a Facebook meme said so, it must be true.

You have to love how conservatives get to live in their own little factual world, but yet, the left is supposed to take their fist and start punching themselves in the face.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Longrider,

Trump and his fascist rhetoric.  His brownshirt style rallies are frightening.  It is incredibly frightening that they have apparently succeeded in getting him elected.  What I would love to see is a way to counter him that doesn't necessitate engaging in similarly hateful rhetoric.  That we can beat him by rising above him.

[drawkcabi]

The right won, they don't need to do any post mortem, everything's hunky dory for them at this point. Maybe before the election there was handwringing about Trump and his attitude but now it's mostly been "We won? Oh ok, Yay Trump!" There is no interest in taking responsibility, even if they should.

So if the left wants to win elections again, it's up to us to figure it out how and I don't think pointing fingers at the other side saying "tsk, tsk, tsk" will be all that productive.

[TrackerNeil]

3 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

The right won, they don't need to do any post mortem, everything's hunky dory for them at this point. Maybe before the election there was handwringing about Trump and his attitude but now it's mostly been "We won? Oh ok, Yay Trump!" There is no interest in taking responsibility, even if they should.

So if the left wants to win elections again, it's up to us to figure it out how and I don't think pointing fingers at the other side saying "tsk, tsk, tsk" will be all that productive.

I'd say the left knows how to do it--happened in 2008 and 2012--we just didn't do it this time.

[Sullen]

14 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Thank you! We've all seen a great deal of attention paid to what Democrats did to bring about a Trump presidency, but what about Republicans? Weren't they responsible for making sure their nominee was not a bullying, dishonest, white nationalist con artist? Or are only liberals at fault?

Republicans acted as Republicans would, they voted for the Republican candidate despite everything.

Unless you truly believe it's possible that the change will come from their party, that they will be the ones to fix this mess (protip: they won't), then it's completely pointless to lay the blame at their feet and to try to change them. Democrats had the potential to change, they had the potential to be better, to counter Trump's demagoguery with populist rhetoric and ideas of their own. They didn't though, and Trump was the price to pay.

I'll have to admit that the GOP itself was responsible for Trump's rise, though (but not his victory). They were so disunited and fighting each other that it gave Trump the time to slowly, progressively accumulate power and completely change the discourse of the primaries. I don't think Trump would have done anywhere as well if he had to face one or two "traditional Republicans" instead of the chaotic 18-men free-for-all the GOP ended up with.

[zelticgar]

8 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Thank you! We've all seen a great deal of attention paid to what Democrats did to bring about a Trump presidency, but what about Republicans? Weren't they responsible for making sure their nominee was not a bullying, dishonest, white nationalist con artist? Or are only liberals at fault?

I think the reason there is a focus on democrats is that there is a perception Hillary should have easily won based on how Trump campaigned and handled himself during the election cycle. The over confidence and huge miss on polling has only added to this view. It's also kind of fun to keep bringing it up in here just because there are so many posters who realistically could never see a world where Trump is president.

The post mortem on the GOP side will only matter if Trump's presidency turns out to be a debacle. If he does well it will be less relevant.  At this point we need to wait for the rest of his story to be written. The story of the Democrats in 2016 and Hillary is pretty much done at this point so it makes for more interesting discussion. On the bright side we have 4 years to debate every scandal, misstep and disaster that happens during Trumps presidency. 

 

[TrackerNeil]

2 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

I think the reason there is a focus on democrats is that there is a perception Hillary should have easily won based on how Trump campaigned and handled himself during the election cycle. The over confidence and huge miss on polling has only added to this view. It's also kind of fun to keep bringing it up in here just because there are so many posters who realistically could never see a world where Trump is president.

Yes, it is true that I never imagined that nearly all Republicans would get behind that swaggering bigot. Tells you something about the Republican voter, doesn't it?

I'm glad you'll find something fun about the Trump presidency. That says something else, doesn't it?

[drawkcabi]

5 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I'd say the left knows how to do it--happened in 2008 and 2012--we just didn't do it this time.

I definitely agree with that.

[OldGimletEye]

31 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

 What I would love to see is a way to counter him that doesn't necessitate engaging in similarly hateful rhetoric.  That we can beat him by rising above him.

When conservatives start talking crazy with their fake news and nutty conspiracy theories, my first instinct isn't to be particularly nice when rebutting it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

When conservatives start talking crazy with their fake news and nutty conspiracy theories, my first instinct isn't to be particularly nice when rebutting it.

I don't see it as so much a matter of "nice" as "polite".  There is nothing wrong with choosing the high road.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I don't see it as so much a matter of "nice" as "polite".  There is nothing wrong with choosing the high road.

Nor do I care to be particularly polite when it comes to nuttery.