Go back to previous topic
Forum nameGeneral Discussion
Topic subjectRespectfully, I think you're suffering from partisan blinders.
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13342507&mesg_id=13342694
13342694, Respectfully, I think you're suffering from partisan blinders.
Posted by stravinskian, Sat Aug-10-19 06:03 PM
>
>Saying he wouldn’t touch the safety net doesn’t
>wipe out the other right wing shit he was slangin.

This isn't an issue of your opinion versus mine. There is very clear data on this.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/196064/trump-seen-less-conservative-prior-gop-candidates.aspx

It wasn't just his false promises on medicare and SS. He said he wanted an infrastructure deal, which has been a Dem priority for decades. He said he'd cut taxes for the middle class and raise taxes for the wealthy and corporations. He said he supported LGBT rights. He said the NRA had too much influence, for God's sake.

He didn't just say he was gonna kill Obamacare, he said Obamacare was "failing," an uncontroversial view at the time as it's what the press had reported for years. But he said he'd find a way to give people "terrific" health care and he specifically said "we're gonna preserve preexisting." He didn't even know what the word meant but he knew he had to promise it. He benefited a lot from vagueness, and he gave people the impression that they'd just revert to the pre-Obamacare system with the only change being that everyone would get coverage.

Clever people like you and I were able to see through those patently false promises. But the overall voting public, on average, saw a non-politician, running against his party's longstanding priorities, "telling it like it is." They also saw a billionaire who couldn't have become a billionaire without being a genius negotiator, who has enough money that he "can't be bought."

Voters are fucking idiots. Being the reality-based party, we will always be forced to contend with this unfortunate reality.



>The Dems whole strategy was that Hill would
>be the more reasonable candidate and pick up
>suburban GOP votes.

There was a "two lane" dynamic where the public was seeing Hillary as the candidate who spoke in a more reasonable way while also seeing Trump as the candidate who would be less partisan. And a lot of voters decided they didn't care how Trump talks.

But the problem for the campaign was: there just wasn't a way for them to break this dynamic where Trump was seen as less partisan. Trump could speak against base priorities without offending his base. Hillary could not. 'Conservatives' were hungry after being out of power for eight years, and progressives were complacent and thought the world had actually changed when it most certainly had not.

The campaign blared every day that they had the most progressive platform in history. The small number of voters who considered themselves progressive loved it. Even the Bernie voters, who I'll admit largely did fall in line thanks to the party jerking them off. The much larger group of voters who didn't consider themselves progressive got worried.

This is classic political strategy -- you run to the center in the general election. Trump was allowed to run to the center and Hillary was not. That wasn't a Hillary thing, or a Trump thing, or a Bernie thing. It's just the dynamics of one party holding the presidency for eight years.

Faced with this major disadvantage, the Clinton campaign did what they could, they ran as the campaign with less partisan rhetoric when they couldn't escape the fact that they had a significantly more partisan platform. And of course it didn't work, but it was the best they could have done.


>From immigration, to torching Obamacare, to Iran,
>Etc- He was right wing with a populist bent.
>
>That said, did anyone even believe him on not
>touching the safety net?

Yup. Voters are stupid.

But by the way, he didn't touch the safety net. Paul Ryan wanted it. He had a bill all written up. They held all three branches of government, and nothing happened. Trump will run on that in 2020. He'll say he protected Medicare from Paul Ryan but these Democrats want to destabilize it by throwing ten times as many people at it. And people will fall for it. And in this case, it won't be entirely untrue.


>Hillary was the safe choice- the continuity.
>
>
>And even if you really believe that Trump was the
>moderate in the race- there’s no way in hell he’d
>be the moderate in 20.

When I first read that from you, I rolled my eyes at your naive optimism in the American voter. However it appears there is at least some data to back it up and it was key to the blue wave in 2018.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voters-think-trump-has-moved-to-the-right/

But remember, in 2018, the Dems who won ran on dividing power to check the executive branch, and preserving Obamacare. The platform being lined up for 2020 by every plausible candidate except Biden is to promise things that assume monopolized power again, including taking away most people's health care.


>He’s spent his admin essentially being president
>to his base and his base only.
>
>He doesn’t even pretend to give a fuck about
>anyone else.
>
>
>The Dems would have to go left as fuck to make
>Trump seem moderate.

Warren, Sanders, and Harris have all said they would nationalize one of the largest industries in America; one that, however reviled, is directly connected to people's very survival. There is very little room further "left as fuck" than that (though Warren, the candidate who more than any of the rest of them, honestly knows better, has already promised it in about a dozen ways). You're right, we SHOULD be able to run as the sensible, honest, pragmatic, thoughtful party. But we're not, and it looks like we won't see the light on that until 2024.