Regarding those Obama voters who allegedly voted for Trump...

Since I see so many posts about Dems who voted for Trump and how they can be brought back, I want to remind folks about this article that I posted months ago: Why Did Some White Obama Voters Go For Trump?

Trump gave them a choice between multiracial democracy and white primacy.

During the 2008 election, FiveThirtyEight relayed an anecdote from the campaign trail:

So a canvasser goes to a woman’s door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she’s planning to vote for. She isn’t sure, has to ask her husband who she’s voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, “We’re votin’ for the n***er!” Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: “We’re voting for the n***er.”

We assume that the relative lack of racial violence over the last generation is because of a change of heart and attitude. And surely that has happened to some extent. But to what degree does it also reflect an erstwhile political consensus wherein leaders refused to litigate the question of multiracial democracy? Absent organized opposition to the idea that nonwhites were equal partners in government, there was no activation in the broad electorate. It wasn’t an issue people voted on, because they couldn’t.

Donald Trump changed that. With his tirades against nonwhites and foreign others, he reopened the argument. In effect, he gave white voters a choice: They could continue down the path of multiracial democracy—which coincided with the end of an order in which white workers were the first priority of national leaders—or they could reject it in favor of someone who offered that presumptive treatment. Who promised to “make America great again,” to make it look like the America of Trump’s youth and their youths, where whites—and white men in particular—were the uncontested masters of the country.

Increase Democratic turnout, or try to convert Trump supporters?

Which one?

I don't think the Democratic Party can do both, and I'd say the latter is a fool's errand.

One might suggest that it depends on where the candidate is running, but I think running against your party's national platform can cause substantial problems and make re-election pretty damn difficult.

Can't most all of us agree that the Democratic Party needs to make some major changes?

A lot of folks seem to get quite upset when Democrats - or the party as a whole - are criticized. While there can be honest debate about what changes need to be made, I would expect most of us to agree that changes need to be made.

Given Republican majorities in so many state legislative bodies and governorships, as well as Republican control at the federal level, why would anyone conclude that the modus operandi of the Democratic Party doesn't need to change--and pretty drastically?

"Democrats Neglect People of Color While Failing to Woo White Trump Voters"

An interview worth listening to: https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/31/billion_dollar_mistake_democrats_neglect_people

A couple quotes from Steve Phillips:

So, the challenge the Democrats face is to focus on the math, and not on the myth, of what happened in 2016. And so, the myth is that all of these Democratic voters, all of these working-class white voters who had supported Obama, defected from the Democrats and then flocked to Donald Trump’s campaign and backed him, and that’s what the—that’s why Democrats lost, and that’s why they have to pursue them to be able to actually try to reassemble their power and get back into positions. But that’s not actually what happened, and it’s certainly not why they lost the election.

We had unprecedented—or, unprecedented in 20 years, black voter turnout drop-off. More than a million fewer black voters came out. And you had a splintering of the progressive white vote. And you had a larger increase of voters for Johnson and Stein—I sometimes call the JohnStein voters—than you did for Trump. And if you look in a place—Wisconsin is where it’s clearest. Trump got fewer voters in Wisconsin than Romney did. So it wasn’t like everybody flocked to him. It’s that the progressive votes splintered and was depressed. And that’s the challenge that the Democrats face, is how to reinspire, bring back out African-American voters, bring up Latino vote and bring back the whites who defected to third and fourth party.

The country is under conservative assault because Democrats mistakenly sought support from conservative white working-class voters susceptible to racially charged appeals. Replicating that strategy would be another catastrophic blunder.

There are 2 narratives that the Democratic Party absolutely must change.

No more so-called "respectability politics." No more playing nice with the devil in hopes that the devil will finally reciprocate. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 10,000 times...enough already.

Trump, Republicans in Congress and Trump's cabinet pose a clear and present danger. If Democrats can't engage in smash-mouth politics even now, all hope is lost.

For far too long, Democrats have been utterly ineffective in combating the following 2 narratives:

1) government as a bogeyman

2) "liberal media"

As we all know, Republicans have done all they can to make government dysfunctional, and then they bash the monster of their own making to support their ideology. This is, admittedly, made easier by Democrats not doing enough to stand up to the hijacking of government by multinational corporations. Government is, at least in theory, a body of the peoples' representatives. So, in that sense, Trump talking about taking power from the government and giving it back to the people is nonsensical (but it's also going to resonate with the Republican Party base and Libertarians). It needs to be pointed out repeatedly that Trump and Republicans in aggregate are out to destroy "government of the people, by the people and for the people." It needs to be pointed out repeatedly that Trump and other Republicans have corrupted their way into government jobs (via voter suppression, dark money, corporate media, gerrymandering and foreign government intervention), all the while bashing the government that they've made dysfunctional. The hypocrisy, lies and contradictions must be pointed out repeatedly. Such as Trump claiming he'll drain the swamp while surrounding himself with Wall Street tycoons and lobbyists. We must not lose sight of the fact that Trump ran a fraudulent "University" for which he was successfully sued, and is now engaged in numerous conflicts of interest. Trump committing and bragging about sexual assault, a crime, must not be allowed to leave public consciousness. The overt bigotry of Trump and those he surrounds himself with must be kept under the spotlight. It must be pointed out that Trump is the father of the Birther movement and that tens of millions of Americans subscribe to patently false beliefs that are too absurd for words, because - as Obama said - the GOP has been "feeding its base all kinds of crazy for years."

And those things must be pointed out repeatedly every time Democrats appear in the media or at rallies. Meanwhile, Democrats should point out that a responsible media, the bulk of which is now owned and operated by just a handful of giant corporations, once existed to a much greater extent than it does now. Democrats should point out that a responsible media wouldn't promote false equivalencies, refuse to fact-check, obsess over spectacle, kowtow to corporate sponsors, or need Democrats to come on the air to point out that which the media should be reporting because it's their professional duty to do so.

Yes, I'm advocating that Democrats bash the media via the media. Republicans have been doing it for decades and it's paid dividends.

Yes, I'm advocating that Democrats call out the Republican Party for engaging in dog whistle politics and for influencing its base to subscribe to bullshit. The vast majority of those who make up that base are never going to vote Dem regardless, so trying to appeal to or go soft on Republicans is in error. Some of the more reasonable Republicans (an increasingly rare species) might become embarrassed enough to stop supporting the cra cra. Meanwhile, some of those who don't usually vote would probably appreciate a bit of brutal honesty. Democrats need to reach out to that enormous percentage of folks who never or almost never vote.

Lastly, Democrats should talk about all that constitutes "the commons" (public parks and infrastructure, a stable climate, clean air and water, etc.) and why Republicans threaten that which we all benefit from and rely upon.

"The Narrative of Normalization"

My apologies if this has already been posted: https://medium.com/being-liberal/the-narrative-of-normalization-a7ea8d3c4d0c#.s52ply8lw

Follow the link to read the whole piece, but here's an excerpt:

From a Salon article:

In no way do I wish to turn this discussion into a focus on Bernie Sanders, and I'm hesitant to even bring this up, but I think the following quote from a Salon article is instructive:

Will everything from the Postmortem forum be lost, or can threads be moved?

I'd really like to see the following thread get moved to General Discussion before the Postmortem forum is deleted:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512677264

Ungovernable 2017

For those who have not yet seen this: https://www.ungovernable2017.com/

Did Trump actually do better than Rubio or Bush or Cruz or Kasich would have done?

Popular is the notion that Trump made for a much worse candidate than some of the mainstream Republicans who sought the nomination. I question that assumption. Although we'll never know for sure, I can't help but wonder if turnout for Trump was actually substantially higher than turnout would have been for a different Republican candidate.

As one author put it, "Trump’s appeal is cultural, rather than economic. It’s a mix of anti-elitism, anti-political correctness, and white identity politics, not carefully cultivated policies. The fact that we’re talking about the white working class, instead of just the working class, is a pretty big clue."

Simply put, Trump's appeal is extremely strong (cult-like) among the Republican electorate. As Obama had said during the campaign, the GOP has been "feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years."

For another thing, Trump was able to dominate the news cycle day after day, week after week, month after month. And I doubt the negative press turned off many (if any) of his supporters--in fact, it probably inspired them. So, when the media wasn't talking about Clinton emails, it was all Trump all the time.

Lastly, neither the anti-trade nor the anti-establishment narrative really holds up to scrutiny, as I've written repeatedly. Major proponents of the TPP won even more easily than Trump did, those backed most strongly by Sanders did worse than Clinton, the re-election rate of incumbents was even higher than normal, and so on.

In other words, I don't think Trump's appeal is as rooted in anti-establishment sentiment as some would have us believe. I think his appeal is much more visceral than that.

Again, did Trump perhaps do better than any of the other Republicans would have done? I think it's possible, if not likely.