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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Race, class issues asside, the cold reality is that if there is to be any hope of prying the government away from Republican hands, some of the people who did not vote or voted Trump are going to have to be convinced to flip. Those voters happen to be largely rural whites.
We should absolutely not bow down to bigotry but it's going to require dealing with the "I voted for Trump for economic reasons" people as people with valid problems who made a bad decision, not the eternal enemy. The enemy sits in his golden tower on 5th Avenue, and in Congress. Treating the swing voters as the enemy is playing into his hands.
edited 18th Nov '16 11:43:20 AM by Elle
So Trump won with less votes than Romney won with. Since a good chunk of Trump's voters were blue dog Democrats that means an even larger chunk of Republicans didn't vote for him.
A lot of them were vocal opponents of Trump and endorses Clinton, but I'm willing to bet just as many stayed home on election day. Any chance of courting the rest of them into the fold?
Remember when Trump bragged that he could shoot someone dead in broad daylight, and people would still vote for him? He was absolutely right. We're in a post-truth society, even more than we were already, and even if people don't like Trump, they love the idea of Trump.
Which is why I feel like we basically need a Good Counterpart to Trump. Someone who can outdo him in terms of political showmanship and charisma, yet is actually, you know, not an absolutely detestable human being. And we also need Trump to seriously fuck over his own voters, in ways that not even they can ignore.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."![]()
There's always Kanye West...
Wouldn't stop him from running against Trump. Especially if he's absolute trash in his first term.
edited 18th Nov '16 11:47:59 AM by DingoWalley1
I think in terms of showmanship, Bernie has similar amounts of charisma as Trump. If he reworks his policies into something more functional next time around, he could provide a strong opposition.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Even if he can't run, Obama can still put his charisma and popularity to good use if he turns to activism - which I pray on my knees that he does. Don't abandon us, Obama. You're the only one who can find Trump's Horcruxes.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Sanders may be old but I doubt he'd have run for President if there were any near-term worries about his health. And he's not currently ruling out 2020 although it's a long shot (he compared it to the chances of him going to the moon, then pointed out that Elon Musk is working on sending people to Mars so the chance shouldn't be underestimated.).
edited 18th Nov '16 11:57:21 AM by Elle
The Democrats basically have a ton of guys waiting to fight back against the worst excesses of the Trump Presidency and the Republican Congress.
The only reason they haven't shown up before is Clinton's political machine would of steamrolled them.
edited 18th Nov '16 12:00:01 PM by PotatoesRock
I just hope it's enough.
If Obama winds up kicking some ass once he's out of office - you know how I've been comparing Trump and the GOP to Voldemort and the Death Eaters this entire time (because it's a completely apt comparison)? This is going to be like when Dumbledore's Army finds out Harry Potter is still alive.
Also, it would be darkly karmic if Trump wound up keeling over from stress. Although then we get President Pence. Hooray.
edited 18th Nov '16 12:00:48 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."That's not an especially new phenomenon, either.
Even before Trump, working class America has routinely supported the GOP because they enshrine the 50's america values and society, which is what the GOP represents to them. They view the democrats as "communists" and elitist snobs, which ignores the fact that
a) while liberal smugness might be something of a valid complaint, they're still more liable to help them then the GOP. The GOP has routinely shown that it cares more about making money and remaining in power.
They do not care about improving the conditions of rural or working class whites whatsoever. They care about profiting off the big business that routinely screws over those people and only helps to make an unequal society more unequal. The measures that the democrats at large propose like social security, better access to health care, etc would do a lot to help them, but they're essentially in denial about the fact that "pulling yourself by your bootstraps" sounds nice but many people just can't do that no matter how hard they try because we don't live in an equal society.
The GOP have also displayed a short-sighted greed in regards to the environment, showing that they live in willful ignorance or complete apathy to the idea that they're accelerating a climate change that would cause problems to human society at large.
b) The society and time they're lionizing was morally bankrupt. The 50's sucked for anyone who wasn't white or straight.
edited 18th Nov '16 12:06:18 PM by Draghinazzo
The only reason they haven't shown up before is Clinton's political machine would of steamrolled them.

edited 18th Nov '16 11:39:50 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised