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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
"“There’s a lot of wasteful spending, so cut other places,” Moreno said.
Payton suggested that if the government wants to cut budgets, it should target “Obama phones” provided to low-income Americans. (In fact, the program predates President Barack Obama and is financed by telecom companies rather than by taxpayers.)
Yet Democrats gleeful at the prospect of winning penitent voters back should take a deep breath. These voters may be irritated, but I was struck by how loyal they remain to Trump."
"Judy Banks, a 70-year-old struggling to get by, said she voted for Trump because “he was talking about getting rid of those illegals.” But Banks now finds herself shocked that he also has his sights on funds for the Labor Department’s Senior Community Service Employment Program, which is her lifeline. It pays senior citizens a minimum wage to hold public service jobs.
“This program makes sense,” said Banks, who was placed by the program into a job as a receptionist for a senior nutrition program. Banks said she depends on the job to make ends meet, and for an excuse to get out of the house.
“If I lose this job,” she said, “I’ll sit home and die.”
Yet she said she might still vote for Trump in 2020. And that’s a refrain I heard over and over. Some of the loyalty seemed to be grounded in resentment at Democrats for mocking Trump voters as dumb bigots, some from a belief that budgets are complicated, and some from a sense that it’s too early to abandon their man. They did say that if jobs didn’t reappear, they would turn against him."
"Elizabeth Hays, 27, said her life changed during her freshman year in high school, when four upperclassmen raped her. Domestic Violence Intervention Services rescued her, she said, by helping her understand that the rape wasn’t her fault.
She’s profoundly grateful to the organization — yet she stands by Trump even as she is dismayed that he wants to slash support for a group that helped her when she needed it most. “We have to look at what we spend money on,” she said, adding, “I will stand behind my president.”"
How do you reach these people? They would literally rather die or screw themselves over royally than vote Democrat.
edited 4th Apr '17 9:59:33 AM by NoName999
Thanks. I was referencing the "Obama phone lady" earlier and couldn't find that article.
But yeah, I don't know if the people quoted in the article are representative of all Trump voters, nor am I unsympathetic (people should have good jobs and good healthcare even if they are horribly misguided), but this is why I have such a problem with Bernie Sanders framing it as the Democrats "abandoning" people versus saying that the Democrats have good policies that should be more progressive and they should do better at selling those policies.
Because the abandonment narrative feeds into and excuses the prejudices of those voters.
edited 4th Apr '17 10:02:25 AM by Hodor2
Short answer: you do not reach them. Which is to say, you leave the door open and speak your piece if they are willing to listen, but you plan on not having these people vote for you, ever. The best you can hope for is them to sit home or vote third party, but most of them are going to vote Republican every election until the day they die, full stop. The fruits of 40+ years of highly effective propaganda and indoctrination, administered through methods the Democrats cannot match without becoming the GOP in full.
edited 4th Apr '17 10:03:28 AM by ViperMagnum357
I don't think they're unreachable. (I do think that'll use up resources better used mobilizing the Dems own base, basically for that
reason).
edited 4th Apr '17 10:08:44 AM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our livesI think Democrats can and should be better about selling their policies to these voters. Good thread discussing this
. Also reminds me of this article talking about how while the Obama administration did good things it wasn't good enough at taking credit for them, due to too much wonkish language.
But yeah, I think this is why it's probably better not to depend on the votes of this demographic of people and rather run on progressive policies and seek to maximize the votes of non-Trump voters, and then hope that you'll pick off some Trump voters or that they'll eventually come around when they benefit from policies.
That's not what that video was about. It was about connecting with them.
Many of them are racist but there are ones that aren't that just feel plain ignored.
And there were Trump supporters in that crowd that voted for Bernie too because he actually did listen to them and didn't talk in legalese
If they can vote for Bernie then they can vote for a Democrat.
You can. Not everyone in West Virginia is on the verge of joining the KKK.
You guys gotta stop treating Trump supporters like they're a bunch of unreachable Neo Fascists when a lot of them are just gullible, misinformed or plain ignorant.
At the least, you can get the Obama voters back for the next election.
I don't even want to appeal to them but I don't want 4 more years of Trump.
And it seems like a lot of you want to burn bridges and try to win without getting the "Unicorn Brigade" and the Democrats who went to Trump back. So much for being the pragmatic part of the wing.
edited 4th Apr '17 10:50:31 AM by MadSkillz
To which they'll respond that O'Reilly isn't a real conservative and the fact that you think so just proves that you're a fascist liberal so far gone that you can't see reality.
Yes, actual dialogue from some of his fans.
How to Talk out of Both sides of Your Mouth—Introductory Lesson
That time when Karen Handel lobbied for Obamacare protections
“The status quo — Obamacare — is not acceptable,” Handel said recently.
...as a top lobbyist for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the breast cancer-focused nonprofit...Handel lobbied Congress and federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services on aspects of Obamacare as it was being implemented. The filings say Handel was lobbying specifically on “patient protection provisions,” aka the law’s so-called “essential health benefits,” which became a focal point of the House GOP’s repeal effort last month.
Handel insisted that her lobbying on portions of the law – which included ensuring that mammograms were covered under insurance plans available on the Obamacare exchanges, her campaign said – was not akin to her supporting the underlying statute:
“Obamacare was passed months before my first day at Komen. I thought it was bad legislation in 2010 and I support full repeal and replacement of the law today. My time at Komen has been well publicized and scrutinized, especially my departure over the funding of Planned Parenthood. A small part of my job at Komen included advocating that mammogram screenings be covered under plans available on the exchanges —just as they are covered in other plans in Georgia. I think we can all agree that women deserve access to life saving, early detection procedures.”
edited 4th Apr '17 10:57:48 AM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our livesEvery time I hear news of how Trump's policies are screwing his supporters, my little orchestra of tiny violins starts playing. Every time I hear news of how the idiots see how Trump is screwing them over and doesn't give a damn about them, but still support him, just makes me want to bang my head against the wall at the sheer suicidal stupidity.
The only way the Democrats can win the Trump supporters voters is if Trump screws so much to the point they are feeling existentially threatened by Trump's policies and completely deluded by Trump and Co. But their stupidity and capability for self delusion is big enough to make the task simply not worth it.
Another way to win some of Trump's voters is by presenting an unifying threat to them which they can rally behind, however the challenge will be finding one that doesn't throw minorities and immigrants under the bus to please them. The issue is that Trump managed to pull this very well during the election, his hammering of immigrants and Islam managed to create a caricature of a foreign threat capable of rallying a lot of insecure WWC behind him under bullshit bring them back promises and those immigrants are stealing our few jobs along the radical Islam is an existential threat to American values. I don't really think the Democrats should go to that route unless they manage to convince that the Republican establishment and Trump are the enemies of the common American.
Or at least have the Democrats to be slick enough to address to the WWC fears and woes without giving the impression to the racist elements of the WWC that anything that benefits them will also benefit the minorities they despise.
It is up to debate but I think the Democrats should try to find the salvageable share of the Trump supporters and remind the apathetic voters that every time you don't vote someone like Trump in the White House happens.
Maybe instead of attacking directly and ridiculing Trump supporters, ridiculing and putting to scrutiny Trump and Republicans would be better. Not with some complex and long messages but quick and catch terms like, mostly around the blunders and broken promises.
Like reminding them that Trump's policies aren't going to MAGA, how he delivered the government on a silver platter to the corporations and power groups he claimed he wouldn't answer to because he was already rich, how he claimed he'd work for the common worker but in practice reduced even more their protections and didn't bring any jobs back, how he repeatedly stated how privacy was being undermined by the government but made corporate data gathering completely legal and passed laws to spy even more on the American public and the biggest blunder of all after 7 years complaining how Obamacare was awful, after spending so much time claiming his replacement ideas are much better and even after having both the Executive and Legislative under their control the Republicans completely failed to give an viable alternative to ACA and even repeal it.
Inter arma enim silent legesYou know I'm not really surprised this particular conversation is still going on about a day later. It's been going on more or less since the election, and I don't expect it will go away any time soon. It's really frustrating for me, and I can tell it's frustrating for most of you.
I think a major source of this frustration has to be the fact that ultimately, none of us really have any surefire idea of how to go forwards; the closest historical parallel to the modern political landscape is the 1930s, and that's at best a very imperfect analogy given how much has changed since then.
Many of them are racist but there are ones that aren't that just feel plain ignored.
And there were Trump supporters in that crowd that voted for Bernie too because he actually did listen to them and didn't talk in legalese
If they can vote for Bernie then they can vote for a Democrat.
Let me stop you here: They applauded him because what he said sounds nice. That's it.
Here's what they didn't: vote for him. They vote for guys like Joe Manchin. Red State Dems because at the end of the day, free healthcare sounds nice, before they double back on death panels, socialism, killing grandma, and my money going to people who sit on their ass all day. It's a common thread.
You have to ignore Bernie's lukewarm reception at Liberty University, his utter failure when Ted Cruz of all people stomped him into a debate when Bernie was petulant with audience members. The man does not react to challenges well when he can't just pontificate. Bernie's beliefs are not obscure and ephemeral things and even in the primary, a large amount of his voters preferred Trump.
You guys gotta stop treating Trump supporters like they're a bunch of unreachable Neo Fascists when a lot of them are just gullible, misinformed or plain ignorant.
At the least, you can get the Obama voters back for the next election.
I don't even want to appeal to them but I don't want 4 more years of Trump.
And it seems like a lot of you want to burn bridges and try to win without getting the "Unicorn Brigade" and the Democrats who went to Trump back. So much for being the pragmatic part of the wing.
No. You can't. Let's talk about this right now. You're strawmaning immensely with this claim of "You're treating everyone in WV like they're..." Here's what I am saying: WV is an incredibly white state and an incredibly racist one. No, not everyone there is ready to lynch black people, but a number of them hold views that "those" people sit about and leech off the government, that "those" people get preferential treatment. That they're the 'real' Americans and people in the 'inner cities' don't work as hard. You cannot talk about the decline of the Democrats in WV without putting race in the center of your analysis. It's not just race: it's homophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, anti-enviromentalism, Christian supremacy and yes, the failure of neoliberalism and Democratic policies to address the genuine decline in the state's economy, or the perceived issues there.
If you want to solve the problem, you need to acknowledge that it can't be solved by just a folksy chat about the benefits of Universal healthcare.
And do NOT talk to me about how the 'progressive wing' needs to be brought back in when they slap off every attempt to reach out. Now they've made Tom Perez, a genuine champion of labor rights and civil rights an evil neoliberal sellout.
edited 4th Apr '17 11:20:39 AM by Lightysnake
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Well yes, I absolutely agree with Silas there; people getting pissed at Sanders and others for trying to find common ground with Trump's base in swing states and with people who stayed home out of frustration (getting annoyed at him seemingly being in denial about the extent to which racism was a factor in the election is another matter) aren't really articulating where exactly we should be looking to make up for the lost votes.
Policywise, I'm not sure what we can actually do about the regressive attitudes that dominate in many parts of the country; policy can be enacted to mitigate the harm such attitudes cause, but you can't determine how people think by passing a law.
edited 4th Apr '17 11:59:27 AM by CaptainCapsase
And yet we pass laws to help establish what we consider to be appropriate social behavior. The baseline standard thus created can be used as a measuring stick for whether someone is on the wrong side. Over time, the harmful ideology fades out as it is no longer "cool" for successive generations to adopt the attitudes of the previous ones.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
You don't get to have it both ways.
At which point have you actually posited an outreach program for the WWC that doesn't involve implicitly telling anyone from the working class who isn't white to shut up about their own concerns?
When have you explained how to defend universal healthcare to your rural WWC type the moment someone points out that people of color get the same access to it as they would?
Have you ever considered that "class explains everything!" might not be a cure-all for political messaging?
Trump is at 49% approval with white men
.
I'm not arguing that class is the root of everything, I'm arguing that there is something that can be done policywise to mitigate the support for demagogues like Trump in terms of the economic factors, whereas the social factors will only be mitigated by time and generational shifts. While the people who switched from voting Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 probably are at least somewhat racist (or at least ignorant), the fact that they voted for Obama suggests that they can be convinced to vote for democrats in spite of those regressive attitudes. Considering how tight the margins were for Clinton's loss, it doesn't have to be a shift on the scale of the post-goldwater party realignment, you just need a percent or two, and especially in the case of the people who formerly supported Obama and Union voters, I think there's a strong case to be made that a platform with greater emphasis on the economic issues facing lower class Americans of all backgrounds could be effective at winning back those lost voters in addition to disillusioned left wing voters.
edited 4th Apr '17 12:13:50 PM by CaptainCapsase

God, O'Reilly is such a colossal ass. I am far from surprised that he's the target of these accusations. He really believes that his shit doesn't stink and that he's anointed by God to deliver The Truth to the unwashed masses.
Every time someone on the right accuses liberals of being arrogant and condescending, I will ask them if they've ever watched TOF.
edited 4th Apr '17 9:54:13 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"