Hillary lost because she didn't recognize that true people are hurting in the country side; addiction is rampant, and whole rural swaths are in decay with lack of jobs and pollution. But if we abolish the electoral college DC will be a blight on the New Republic of Democrats while rural Oklahoma will rise from the ashes to be that shining city on the hill.

I like how Virginia is part of the noble Flyover Resistance.

Wait, is Keith Ellison being groomed for 2020? I thought they were just going to give him Donna Brazile's job? (fine because he seems alright and it's something that ~1% of voters give a **** about).

If being groomed for President, smh. Dems JFC. Run a populist white Christian male! Next time we need the whole base. We have more guys than they do, so all we have to do is present a smarter, better, nonracist version of Trump and we win, EZ game.

One common post-election hurr hurr derp nonsense is both that Hillary didn't realize the depths of depravity and suffering in the white rust belt and rural areas but also, the electoral system needs absolutely no changes at all because white rust belt and rural America is getting so much from it.

If we really believe white working class rust belt voters that voted for Obama voted for Trump as well, Ellison being black and Muslim shouldn't matter. Those people practically thought Obama was a Muslim and they voted for him anyway out of belief he was better for them economically (like I said, IF you buy the first sentence in my paragraph.)

Seems like a lot of the spousal abuse victim Democrats are back. Some of the 1990s 'please stop hitting me' tics like 'well sure we are utterly dependent on a diverse population of voters but we damn well better make white southerner men the face of the party' stuff have returned in full force. If we can just keep our mugs off of FNC and get Rush talking about something else maybe white people will stop hating us. Remember when they brought home flowers that one time? They still love us, deep down, if we just stay quiet.

I wanted to respond to the "WE NEED A WHITE MALE CHRISTIAN!" post, but I don't even know how lol.

It's like, dude, we just had Obama who absolutely crushed a non-racist version of Trump. Though maybe RMoney is racist and I wasn't really paying attention.

I'm really starting to loath these broad narratives. Exactly how many people in swing states are we talking about here that could gone Democrat to give Hilldawg the win? And what stories exactly would everyone be pushing in that case?

I'm sympathetic to the idea that Democrats need to think about the kind of narrative (read: mythology) about the country and the future that they want to present to voters, and how various issues are best framed. I'm not at all sympathetic to the idea that they simply must be sure to nominate white christian males.

Yeah I don't buy this narrative that had we just nominated good ol' Lincoln Chafee that the Chafe-ster would have gotten all the minority turnout in rust belt states and cruised to 370 Electoral Votes.

The Democratic Party needs to make itself a modern Pragmatist Socialist party and it has to have significant leadership from minorities.

Dems have already abandoned most of their core principles, might as well toss out the notion that blacks/Muslims deserve fair treatment and nominate some white dude from Ohio.

Tends to trend upwards when conservatives are in charge imo.

You mean Dems don't represent your core values.

17k WI, 11k MI, 68k PA, so 96k in three states.

The bigger issue is this map.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...the-right.html

Excitement over the first woman President, worries about gridlock and how she can reach across the aisle without alienating progressives, palace intrigue over the cabinet.

Insofar as my values include a social safety net, stopping the war on drugs, not grabbing my ankles for Wall St. and not shifting the Overton window further and further to the right, then you are correct.

Google is failing me but I keep hearing this. Link?

We're like 2 stutter-steps away from:

"When you see how well it works for Donald Trump, do you think to yourself, oh maybe I should be more racist?"

If I have time later, I may explain the rationale a little bit better*, but you can get a good sense of my frame of mind by reading this op-ed from today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/op...ml?ref=opinion

As for running a Muslim in particular, if there's an Islamic terror attack on U.S. soil during the campaign, then we auto-lose. I know no one wants to hear that ****, but I don't know how not to believe it. If you don't believe it, then idk what country you think you live in. It's amazing to me that people are still citing Obama's margins as if it's racism solved, never have to worry about it in elections again. Like what did we just witness? It's not about 96k votes in those places, it's about more white people jumping ON board for that **** than jumping off. And with four years of Steve Bannon et al in the White House, it becomes only more normalized. We just got told falsely by major news sites that Trump saved some jobs from Mexico. And he's not even President yet!

* Please convince me that I'm wrong. I want to be convinced of that. But you have to do better than DVaut tossing off a bunch of flourishes that sound cool and filled with ennui, but ultimately seem centered on the bad premise that at least the Dem voters will act reasonably and predictably, when the same people couldn't be bothered to turn out against a fascist.

There hasn't been a shift to the right. Democrats have always had varying views on a lot of issues. Southern Democrats have historically been closer to Republicans than northern and Cali Democrats for a long time. The shift is the polarization in the past twenty years made perceptions in this country of its right and left distorted.

The Morning Joe had a pretty decent discussion about an upcoming article in the New Yorker that analyzed the Wisconsin voters and found many without ideology. The exact same voters pulled the lever for Obama, Walker, Baldwin, and Trump. I look forward to reading the details.

If the Dems want to be a relevant party, they need to find a way to get back the white working class.

Problem is if guys like Trump and other bigots become socially acceptable as politicians, the Democratic Party may move further to the right to try and get them back. Then it's a race to who can oppress non-whites the most.

Either that or just wait and hope that Trump implodes so they swoop in come 2018 and 2020 to be the saviors of America.

You think the fact she got barely more votes than a flagrantly racist and sexist reality TV show host is proof that she connected with voters?

Harvard Business Review: What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class

On the admiration for the rich, tax cuts for the "job creators", etc:

Arguing that Democratic policy appeals to the working class are misguided in their targets:

Haven't finished this yet but it seems like an interesting take so far. Trigger warning for Trolly: I see a mention of Hillbilly Elegy ahead!