If that graph is accurate then it explains a lot. I'd likely fall into the lower right quadrant. I always knew that I held a wide variety of unpopular views, but this certainly answers the question of why no one shows up for my parties.
Fsck me.
I break my own rule about AOC
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If that graph is accurate then it explains a lot. I'd likely fall into the lower right quadrant. I always knew that I held a wide variety of unpopular views, but this certainly answers the question of why no one shows up for my parties.
Fsck me.
I can't keep myself from running a highlighter over that Howard Schultz piece I linked.You're a conservative. It'd be crazy for Democrats to lift a finger to attract conservatives, who are unlikely ever to actually vote for a Democrat even if they despise Trump.
Also, this is a good place for me to reiterate that it's a terrible idea for Democrats to try to water down their message to attract more centristy centrists. If you break down the electorate on social and economic axes, the most sparsely populated political territory is located where the centristy centrists all live:
That lower-right quadrant where there are very few dots contains voters who are liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues. That's where you find candidates like Howard Schultz, who'd like to do for America what he did to the Seattle Supersonics. That upper left quadrant, which includes voters who are liberal on economic issues but conservative on social issues, is Trump territory. Democrats couldn't -- and absolutely shouldn't -- try to out-Trump Trump to attract those voters.
Democrats will have to attract some votes outside that lower-left quadrant, which is where the vast majority of Democratic votes and Democratic energy will come from. But Democrats have to start in the quadrant where their base lives. No conservatives are going to vote for a Democrat that lives solidly in that lower-left quadrant, and Democrats shouldn't kid themselves about this.
After his stint at Starbucks, Schultz decided to buy the Seattle SuperSonics. His friends said to him, "Howard, buddy, sure you made a gazillion dollars persuading people to pay five bucks for a cup of coffee, but what do you know about running a basketball team?" Schultz was undeterred. Through the awesomeness of himself, he reasoned, he'd transform the entire NBA, and in that new Schultzified NBA his Sonics would be a big hit. We know how this turned out: the NBA stayed the same, except that Seattle lost the Sonics. (But Schultz made a lot of money, so woohoo!)
I seem to be the only one who cares about this, but it enables me to shoot at both centristy centrists and rich dilletantes, so it's a twofer.
The best chance Trump has (if he's the nominee again - I think he will have challengers) is for Democrats to run someone in the lower left area of that lower-left quadrant. I know you don't care about the votes of Noodle and me, but there are a lot of us expecting to vote for the Democratic nominee - if we can. I don't want or expect Democrats to run a traditional Republican, but if Democrats want to get the votes of enough of us to beat Trump, they'll run a more traditional Democrat (like Biden or Hickenlooper) rather than a new left Democrat like Warren, Gillibrand or Sanders. While I won't vote for Trump ever, I would be looking to demonstrate my displeasure with the candidates again by voting third party for President.You're a conservative. It'd be crazy for Democrats to lift a finger to attract conservatives, who are unlikely ever to actually vote for a Democrat even if they despise Trump.
Also, this is a good place for me to reiterate that it's a terrible idea for Democrats to try to water down their message to attract more centristy centrists. If you break down the electorate on social and economic axes, the most sparsely populated political territory is located where the centristy centrists all live:
That lower-right quadrant where there are very few dots contains voters who are liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues. That's where you find candidates like Howard Schultz, who'd like to do for America what he did to the Seattle Supersonics. That upper left quadrant, which includes voters who are liberal on economic issues but conservative on social issues, is Trump territory. Democrats couldn't -- and absolutely shouldn't -- try to out-Trump Trump to attract those voters.
Democrats will have to attract some votes outside that lower-left quadrant, which is where the vast majority of Democratic votes and Democratic energy will come from. But Democrats have to start in the quadrant where their base lives. No conservatives are going to vote for a Democrat that lives solidly in that lower-left quadrant, and Democrats shouldn't kid themselves about this.
What person, announced as a candidate (or who is likely to announce) for the Democratic nomination, is a moderate?
But as I questioned above, are there more votes for the taking among disaffected Republicans, or are there more votes for the taking among true believers on the Left who were not sufficiently motivated to leave the house and vote for Hillary? If it's the latter then Goat and Rockfish are correct.
However as I aslo suggested, where these votes reside matters. Winning California by 6 million additional votes doesn't matter if there aren't enough True Believers in PA, OH, WI, etc.
You say I don't care about your vote, but in reality, I don't believe Democrats would ever get your vote -- or perhaps that getting your vote would cost way too many other votes. The data say I'm right about this. That's why I'm saying it.
In 2016 we saw the two most unpopular candidates in polling history. In 2020, Republicans will likely stick with Trump, while Democrats are both highly energized and unusually focused on electability. Trump certainly could be re-elected (we are that stupid), but the board's never-Trumpers are predicting doom and gloom a little early, I think.
Also, in 2016 Hillary was an historically unpopular candidate -- almost as unpopular as Trump -- but she won the popular vote by 3 million votes, while the distribution of 75,000 votes in three states tipped the electoral college to Trump. The main thing Democrats have to do in 2020 is not nominate someone as unpopular as Hillary Clinton.
Nope.
i voted for several Democrats last time around including HRC. And I would vote for Biden this time around, along with a few others whose hats are in the ring. I am also not alone. Charts are nice and all but you can’t distill voters down into a two dimensional portrayal driven by perceived buckets rather than reality.You're a conservative. It'd be crazy for Democrats to lift a finger to attract conservatives, who are unlikely ever to actually vote for a Democrat even if they despise Trump.
Also, this is a good place for me to reiterate that it's a terrible idea for Democrats to try to water down their message to attract more centristy centrists. If you break down the electorate on social and economic axes, the most sparsely populated political territory is located where the centristy centrists all live:
That lower-right quadrant where there are very few dots contains voters who are liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues. That's where you find candidates like Howard Schultz, who'd like to do for America what he did to the Seattle SuperSonics. That upper left quadrant, which includes voters who are liberal on economic issues but conservative on social issues, is Trump territory. Democrats couldn't -- and absolutely shouldn't -- try to out-Trump Trump to attract those voters.
Democrats will have to attract some votes outside that lower-left quadrant, which is where the vast majority of Democratic votes and Democratic energy will come from. But Democrats have to start in the quadrant where their base lives. No conservatives are going to vote for a Democrat that lives solidly in that lower-left quadrant, and Democrats shouldn't kid themselves about this.
[Edit: spelling.]
I think Democrats could make the same mistake Republicans did in 2016: nominatability rather than electability. In fairness, that’s more due to the process than a conscious decision. Is Elizabeth Warren electable? I don’t think so. Biden? Yes. Sanders? Maybe.
I'm not saying no one lives in that lower-right quadrant. I'm saying it's the most sparsely populated territory in American politics, because that's what the data show. The anecdote of your experience doesn't change that reality, even if I preferred that it did.
When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton is supposed to have said, "That's where the money is." If someone could show me that Democrats would get the most votes by nominating Biden, I'd be down with that, if unenthusiastically. (If nothing else, it'd be a field day for The Onion.) That just isn't what I'm seeing right now.
I'm calling bullshit here.
As a preliminary I'll point out that Hick got my vote twice and Bennett once. Both are what I think you would call centristy centrists. I'd seriously consider voting for Hick for POTUS. I don't think I'm alone with this.
The thrust of my point is not aimed at you, but at the graph and data you are using to support your argument. Did you look at the key findings of the report? Really look at them? Here they are:
- The primary conflict structuring the two parties involves questions of national identity, race, and morality, while the traditional conflict over economics, though still important, is less divisive now than it used to be. This has the potential to reshape the party coalitions.
- By making questions of national identity more salient, Donald Trump succeeded in winning over “populists” (socially conservative, economically liberal voters) who had previously voted for Democrats.
- Among populists who voted for Obama, Clinton did terribly. She held onto only 6 in 10 of these voters (59 percent). Trump picked up 27 percent of these voters, and the remaining 14 percent didn’t vote for either major party candidate.
- To the extent that the Democratic Party is divided, these divisions are more about faith in the political system and general disaffection than they are about issue positions.
- By contrast, Republican voters are more clearly split. For the most part, Trump and Cruz supporters look fairly similar, though Cruz supporters are considerably more conservative on moral issues, and notably less concerned about inequality and the social safety net, and more pro- free trade. Kasich supporters are the true moderates, caught in between the two parties on almost every issue, both economic and social.
- In both parties, the donor class is both more conservative on economic issues and more liberal on social issues, as compared to the rest of the party
- Democrats may be pressured to move further left on identity issues, given that both younger voters and the party’s donor class are quite far to the left on identity issues. If so, American politics would become further polarized along questions of culture and identity.
The primary conflict structuring the two parties involves questions of national identity, race, and morality, while the traditional conflict over economics, though still important, is less divisive now than it used to be.
I agree. The two party structure is being organized along identity, race, etc. The traditional political and policy issues are less divisive, not because of general agreement, but because they have shrunk to irrelevancy for many politicians and voters.
The author recognized a "new" politics. To graph his new politics he created two new indexes:
- An economic liberalism-conservatism index (which combines views on the social safety net, trade, inequality, and active government)
- A social/identity liberalism-conservatism politics index (which combines the moral issues index plus views toward African-Americans, immigrants, and Muslims).
What Aloha is saying, and to a lesser extent me, and millions of others, is that we don't want politics to be played in the sand box your link uses. That sand box is of recent vintage. It is organized along the lines privilege, ethnicity, equality, and not along the lines of policy, competence, and the role of government.
People like Hickenlooper, Kasich, Rubio, and other "centristy centrists" don't play in this sand box. It is no surprise that the middle of this sand box doesn't find many occupants. You pointed out one robs banks because that's where the money is. True. Of course that begs the question. The currency of politics these days is different than it was just a couple of decades ago.
I don't know if most of the public resides in this sand box or not. Your study doesn't really address that since it is based on subjective self-report. The question is not that they are residing here, rather, is this a good place for our politics to be. I say no. This brand of politics is a result of divisive identity politics imposed by the candidates and their handlers mostly in this century. The politicians have discovered that it's better to talk about race, privilege, and unfairness than it is to talk about taxes, infrastructure, trade and entrepreneurship. People like Hickenlooper, Schultz, Bloomberg, Klobuchar, and Gappard are the latter, people like Trump, Harris, and Sanders are the former.
Aloha gets this. I would hope the vast majority of us think likewise.
Democrats have gotten my vote many times over the years, just not for President since I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980. I'm primed to vote for a Democrat this time because of Trump, but I won't be voting for a candidate that's all about huge spending programs and policies like Sanders, Warren, etc. I will almost happily vote for a Biden or Hickenlooper kind of Democrat over Trump.
I'm happy to hear it. As I've said before, we'd be much better off if the GOP were dominated by conservatives like you, twenty, and Ranger. Good for you guys.
But the votes are where the votes are, and it'd make no sense for Democrats to nominate a candidate because he'd appeal to disaffected Republicans, because that isn't where the votes are -- even if that's where your vote might be.
You know making you happy isn’t a consideration for my vote, right?
Enjoying the Hoosiers playing well on Senior Day - Go IU!
I guess I don't follow. Are you implying that Sanders or Warren would be more likely to beat Trump than Biden or Hickenlooper? That is not the case I assure you.
I'd contend it depends on how the Dem appeals to disaffected Republicans. He or she would need to go to Iowa and expose the tarrifs as a harm to farmers; to Ohio, to tell the Lordstown workers he betrayed them by loosening the fuel standards that drove small car sales; to WVa to expose the fraud perpetuated on the coal miners; to WI, to demonstrate how the Foxconn factory was a hoax; and finally, to the southern border, to ask why Mexico hasn't yet paid for his wall.
In each of these examples, the Dem should have alternative proposals at the ready, ones that would achieve the benefits Trump promised.
If a Dem took that approach, they'd pull in plenty of disaffected Republicans, and not have to give away the store to do it.
Those are good thoughts, but I think they are more compatible with my current thinking than with the hopeful desires of the #NeverTrumpers. By that, I mean, Democrats should try to win these votes, but not by nominating some bland centrist and expecting these people to flock to him simply because he's generically palatable. Instead, the Dems should, as you say, have alternative proposals ready, and those proposals should be Democratic proposals. Even liberal proposals. They should try to win voters over to their ideas, rather than give up their ideas in order to attract voters.
My thoughts were probably germinated by Eugene Robinson's column I read in the Sunday paper about Promises Made, Promises Not Kept. I don't have time to hunt it up online and link it right now, but it's a worthwhile read.
As the data and graph the fish posted shows, proposals are neither the more interesting nor the substance of politics these days. Proposals might be interesting to people who frequent the Cooler, but we aren't the typical voter. Even with the comparatively well educated Coolerites, most here are more interested in who is doing the proposing rather than the proposals themselves.
The fish link shows us that the two party system is being reorganized along the lines of identity and ethnicity, on one axis and along the lines of morality and equality along the other axis. This is plain to see as the dominant issues of immigration, economics, and energy often are discussed in terms of morality instead of discussed in terms of practical effect. Since this is an AOC thread, I'll paraphrase her. She observed that the most important purpose of policy is to be "morally correct". Millions of people agree with her. I'll take that one step further and suggest that the "moral correctness" does not reside with white males--Bernie being the sole notable exception.
Developing policies that are both practical and morally correct is not unpossible.
No they aren’t. But only one of those gets the attention.
Read the thread on reparations.
Trump thinks his supporters are the most gullible people on earth. Are they really?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.25b92be35e5a
I’ve got the perfect slogan for President Trump’s reelection campaign: “Promises Made, Promises Not Kept, But I’m Betting My Voters Are Too Stupid to Notice.”
I did. In fact I contributed a practical policy proposal that took a moral approach to past discriminatory practices. Not sure that anyone else did. All I recall seeing is wailing and whining and stoopidity.
Question for you. If a Biden, Beto or Klobuchar were to win the dem nomination, would you vote for any of them over Trump?
By all accounts, they are the centrists in the field.
If your answer is no, then I don’t see ANY dem candidate that could sway the type of voter you say you are. I’m with Goat on this one- I just don’t see a strategy that tries to peel off disaffected pubs as one that had much of a chance.
Goat is correct- the party and the country are starting to embrace ideas that drift to the left. That tends to happen when the rules have been rigged long enough to allow massive income equality to happen, and upward mobility is all but impossible. The effects of Reaganism are now apparent- and it didn’t help the vast majority of the country.
Notice I said ideas are drifting left- not necessarily a reflection of more dem party membership. There’s a whole lot of people that now vote R that have no appreciation for just how much they vote against their own interests. Especially when it comes to the financial side.
Do they have any candidates who haven’t been constantly demonized for 25+ years by republicans?
The fact that you'd only "seriously consider voting for Hick" is pretty powerful proof of what I hear Rock saying - that liberals supporting a Democratic candidate for President because they will get Republican votes is a fool's errand. That's not to say that there isn't a calculus for finding a candidate who can appeal to independents, but your chaste flirtation with voting for Hick is exactly why Hick is an unfortunate longshot.
Totally agree. There's definitely a calculus that expands the voter pool a Democrat can pull from, but that calculus shouldn't be "nominate a moderate because it will gets gobs of conservative Republican votes."
Obviously, the calculus is...nominate someone who seems Presidential, can charismatically advocate for policies that have broad support, can generate excitement, and strongly stand up against the inevitable hits against them being immoral socialists.
Good news, Biden used to be considered one of those immoral socialists, but he's now totally palatable. That means the conversation is trending in directions most liberals would support. Four years ago, Bernie was a crazy socialist. Now a solid conservative like Noodle thinks his electability is a "maybe". That's absolutely amazing.
So, Democrats don't need to nominate AOC (I know they can't) or Elizabeth Warren to move things in a positive policy direction when a Amy Klobuchar or Corey Booker or Tim Ryan (backed up by a Kamala or Beto VP pick) will do just fine...both in terms of electability and policy.
The Dems should support Hick not because I would consider voting for him. The Dems should support him because he is likely the most qualified to be POTUS of all the Dems. His qualifications are way ahead of any other Democrat in the race. And in my opinion he has the personality to be a very effective POTUS. The only other one who might come close in terms of personality is Booker; however that "I am Spartacus" stunt took down several slots in my view.
And for those of you who might think Hick is a moderate, you need to think again. I think Hick's liberal unicorns will match up well with anybody in the field. The difference with him is his noticeable lack of arrogance for a politician which permits him to actually reach compromises. Another reason I would vote for him is not cuz he might be a moderate (i don't think he is) but because of his significant non-governmental experience and achievements. This has always been important to me--more important than ideology at the governmental executive level.
Finally, Fish's position which is supported by his data and graph is more along the lines of who would be the best candidate, not who would be the best president. It's really too bad that we put our chief executives through such campaign rigors. That might produce good candidates, but not good office holders. FWIW, the national popular vote movement will only give us worse (worse = divisive and less competent) candidates--again as the Fish's link shows us.
Seriously consider??? Why is that not a slam dunk no-brainer?
In my view, not one point on your list is an important qualification to be POTUS.
Biden never got out of the middle single digits among Democrats in any previous campaign. What makes him totally palatable now?
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good take on AOC.
as for Fox News, they've been that way from the start, as being the media arm of the GOP was the intention from the start.
as for CNN, it's not the Ted Turner CNN any more, and Lemon and Cuomo are as biased as anyone at Fox.
that said, they do allow more opposing opinion than Fox does.
you won't learn the negatives of the Pubs on Fox, or of the Dems on CNN or MSNBC.
you pretty much have to watch both the liberal and conservative networks today, to get the negatives of both sides, as none of big 3 criticize their party of choice.
and while all in for the libs on CNN and MSNBC on social issues, CNN and MSNBC never the less do fight progressive economic policy, and will back the Dem candidate who's progressive socially, but conservative on economic issues, and will fight Bernie and Warren types tooth and nail when it comes down to it.
they still are owned by big mega corporations who love M&A and consolidation and no regs, who align with the Pubs on everything economic.
I could buy that to a large degree. But, qualifications to be a good POTUS was not really what I was talking about.
Great question. You should ask it to all of the Republicans on here who say how they could totally vote for him now.
You're a conservative. It'd be crazy for Democrats to lift a finger to attract conservatives, who are unlikely ever to actually vote for a Democrat even if they despise Trump.
Also, this is a good place for me to reiterate that it's a terrible idea for Democrats to try to water down their message to attract more centristy centrists. If you break down the electorate on social and economic axes, the most sparsely populated political territory is located where the centristy centrists all live:
That lower-right quadrant where there are very few dots contains voters who are liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues. That's where you find candidates like Howard Schultz, who'd like to do for America what he did to the Seattle SuperSonics. That upper left quadrant, which includes voters who are liberal on economic issues but conservative on social issues, is Trump territory. Democrats couldn't -- and absolutely shouldn't -- try to out-Trump Trump to attract those voters.
Democrats will have to attract some votes outside that lower-left quadrant, which is where the vast majority of Democratic votes and Democratic energy will come from. But Democrats have to start in the quadrant where their base lives. No conservatives are going to vote for a Democrat that lives solidly in that lower-left quadrant, and Democrats shouldn't kid themselves about this.
[Edit: spelling.]
interesting graph, and about what i thought was going on.
the red dots on the left side, are the blue collar workers totally abandoned by the Dems when the Dems got bought by Wall St, so shifted all their energy publicly to social issues since they no longer represented the working class economically.
i can only laugh at anyone who thinks either of the Clintons are one bit liberal on economic policy, or support the working class in the slightest.
even Obama wasn't really the guy he campaigned as.
She’s raw. It’s going to happen. She has shined in other hearings (Cohen for example). Being good in hearings is kind of like being good in bed/ the only way to get better at it is to do it. And you’re probably not going to be the best at it at first.
I am encouraged by her and a few other freshman reps treating hearings like... hearings. Far too often reps use hearings not to discover new info or clarify understanding, but instead use them to grandstand. Thinking about the Louie Gohmerts & the Matt Gaetz’s of the Group. Those guys clearly don’t give a chit about anything except for making a point in the hearings.
Again, that’s not really the point of the hearings. The house has devolved over the past few decades. It’s a clown show for the most part. Now, even the security council has succumbed to partisan politics (see Nunes).
