red states rule
11-12-2016, 02:31 AM
Excellent reading for folks like Gabby and OCA as they try and pick up the pieces of their shattered party
President Trump. A handful of syllables still hard to get one's mind around. How on earth did this happen?
There's no single reason. Any number of factors were involved, and it wouldn't have taken much for things to have turned out differently. If the Republican Party had been slightly less willing to be stolen by a populist demagogue; if James Comey and the Federal Bureau of Investigation hadn't waded in (twice) so clumsily; if Wikileaks hadn't supplied a constant stream of reminders about the hypocrisy and venality of the professional political class; if the professional political class had been a bit less hypocritical and venal in the first place; if any of these things and who knows what else had been different, then Trump the outrageous outsider might have lost.
Still, two things seem to loom large. First, that Hillary Clinton was an objectively bad candidate. Second, that having chosen so poorly, Democrats came up with yet more ways to repel a large segment of the electorate. If I'd been asked to advise them on how to lose an election to a manifestly unqualified opponent, I'm not sure I could have been much help: They had it covered.
From the outset, many voters were clearly fed up with Washington and all its works. Up and down the country, the political establishment was cordially detested. Step forward, Hillary Clinton, wife of an ex-president, champion of the downtrodden, somehow wealthy, trailing scandals, friends in all the right places, anointed after a rigged nomination -- in short, the complete representative of politics as usual. Yet if Clinton was a bad candidate, Trump was so much worse. Even many of his supporters acknowledge his unfitness. And remember, the election was close. Something else (aside from the design of the Electoral College) was needed to put Trump in the White House.
The crucial extra ingredient, I think, was the way the case against Trump was framed (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-22/trump-s-opponents-are-helping-him-win). Clinton's goal should have been to detach a slice of his support. The best way for her to do that, issue by issue, would have been to acknowledge the particle of truth in his claims, if any, and say why her approach to the problem was better. Instead, she and her supporters refused to grant the validity of any part of Trump's pitch. Even that wasn't enough. Trump was a racist and a fascist, they said. Support him, and you're no better: Either that, or you're an idiot for failing to see it.
Apparently it takes more than four years of college to understand this: You don't get people to see things your way by calling them idiots and racists, or sorting them into baskets of deplorables and pitiables (deserving of sympathy for their moral and intellectual failings). If you can't manage genuine respect for the people whose votes you want, at least try to fake it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-11/revenge-of-the-deplorables
President Trump. A handful of syllables still hard to get one's mind around. How on earth did this happen?
There's no single reason. Any number of factors were involved, and it wouldn't have taken much for things to have turned out differently. If the Republican Party had been slightly less willing to be stolen by a populist demagogue; if James Comey and the Federal Bureau of Investigation hadn't waded in (twice) so clumsily; if Wikileaks hadn't supplied a constant stream of reminders about the hypocrisy and venality of the professional political class; if the professional political class had been a bit less hypocritical and venal in the first place; if any of these things and who knows what else had been different, then Trump the outrageous outsider might have lost.
Still, two things seem to loom large. First, that Hillary Clinton was an objectively bad candidate. Second, that having chosen so poorly, Democrats came up with yet more ways to repel a large segment of the electorate. If I'd been asked to advise them on how to lose an election to a manifestly unqualified opponent, I'm not sure I could have been much help: They had it covered.
From the outset, many voters were clearly fed up with Washington and all its works. Up and down the country, the political establishment was cordially detested. Step forward, Hillary Clinton, wife of an ex-president, champion of the downtrodden, somehow wealthy, trailing scandals, friends in all the right places, anointed after a rigged nomination -- in short, the complete representative of politics as usual. Yet if Clinton was a bad candidate, Trump was so much worse. Even many of his supporters acknowledge his unfitness. And remember, the election was close. Something else (aside from the design of the Electoral College) was needed to put Trump in the White House.
The crucial extra ingredient, I think, was the way the case against Trump was framed (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-22/trump-s-opponents-are-helping-him-win). Clinton's goal should have been to detach a slice of his support. The best way for her to do that, issue by issue, would have been to acknowledge the particle of truth in his claims, if any, and say why her approach to the problem was better. Instead, she and her supporters refused to grant the validity of any part of Trump's pitch. Even that wasn't enough. Trump was a racist and a fascist, they said. Support him, and you're no better: Either that, or you're an idiot for failing to see it.
Apparently it takes more than four years of college to understand this: You don't get people to see things your way by calling them idiots and racists, or sorting them into baskets of deplorables and pitiables (deserving of sympathy for their moral and intellectual failings). If you can't manage genuine respect for the people whose votes you want, at least try to fake it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-11/revenge-of-the-deplorables