Liberals are still obsessed by Trump's victory

[twonabomber]

Like they really needed to tell us this...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/05/opinio...ion/index.html

Timothy Stanley is a historian and columnist for Britain's Daily Telegraph. He is the author of "Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between LA and DC Revolutionized American Politics." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

By Timothy Stanley

On November 8, thousands of Americans say they will mark the anniversary of Donald Trump's election by meeting across the country to "scream helplessly at the sky." The Facebook page for the event in New York says 2,500 will attend and 15,000 are interested. I'm skeptical: The mood seems ironic, and the cool weather might put people off. But Trump would love it. He lives for division, he succeeds by driving his opponents mad. Screaming is a concession of defeat.

The emotions implied are understandable. Not only was Trump not supposed to win in 2016 on account of his personality and views, but also, by some counts, he didn't win. He lost the popular vote and captured the electoral college so narrowly that but for 80,000 people in three states, he would've lost.

To the liberal mind, he triumphed by error, by accident, by Hillary Clinton's own fault -- forgetting to campaign properly in Michigan the same way that you might forget to fasten a window and, damn it, you let a burglar in. These are the tantalizing "what-ifs" of history that keep us all living on a knife edge. What if James Comey hadn't announced that the FBI was looking at some emails related to Hillary Clinton just days before the election?

The answer is that he did, so deal with it. The Democrats' constant, tortured analysis of what went wrong, howling at the moon in anger or jest, is not only backward-looking but an insult to the voters who made the rational decision to switch to Donald Trump.

They aren't all racists. They weren't all duped. They weighed up the candidacies of Trump and Clinton and concluded, on balance, that one represented change and the other continuity.

Having Clinton constantly on TV a year later -- like some exiled monarch, still furious with the peasants that threw her out -- only reinforces the sense that the Democrats are less angry with Trump than they're angry with the voters. And that is no way to win a future election.

It's a false analysis. Trump didn't win by luck and, although it's too soon to say for definite, I don't think he won by conspiracy either. He won because he identified with the despair of enough people in precisely enough parts of the country.

And the very fact that the inspiration for the liberal scream fest came from a Boston Facebook group, now shut down, points to the challenge that many liberals simply don't live in the parts of the country that feel this existential pain.

That's not a judgment on liberals: Not everyone who voted for Clinton was a rich, white college student. On the contrary, she won comfortably among those demographics who probably have the strongest claim to be alienated, marginalized and in real need of help, although not as convincingly as Barack Obama did.

Meanwhile, Trump, the outsider, managed to identify the concerns of powerful constituencies in the heartland: rising crime, bad infrastructure, war and job loss. Were his solutions the best? Most of the country thought not. Has his time in office begun to turn things around? Slowly, maybe, we hope. But the point is that on that November 8, 2016, Trump spoke to many Democratic voters in a way that the actual Democratic nominee failed to do. Rather than being frustrated at the Republicans for that, it makes more sense to scrutinize the Democratic Party.

This is happening: It feels like there might be a reckoning over the charge that Clinton and the DNC "rigged" last year's primaries. But where is the new generation of candidates to challenge Trump in 2020? What is the answer to Trump's new direction in foreign policy and trade? Is there a center-ground to fight on in the culture, a safe space from both televangelists and gender-bending radical pronouns?

Trump's popular support has slipped since last year, narrowing and solidifying on the hard-right of American life. The Democrats have to both energize the left and occupy the center, which is very hard to do. But screaming publicly or internally won't help. Liberals risk becoming as obsessed with Trump's election victory as he is -- locked in a never-ending debate about the past, while the rest of the country dreams of moving on.

[Von Halen]

She didn’t forget to campaign properly in Michigan. She took the arrogant and ignorant approach. She thought the Union voters would carry her in this State. She was wrong. She lost the Union vote. Yes, the Union talking heads were pushing Clinton onto their members, but the members weren’t buying it. Well, that’s not entirely true. They bought it in a sense that their Union dues were wasted by the Union leaders’ monetary contributions to that failed campaign. Unfortunately for Clinton, the Union members themselves voted for Trump. It was a major flub by Clinton, and the Democrats. They banked on tradition and ignorance, only to be proven they were the ignorant ones.

[Kristy]

Oh, PLU-EEEZE.

If liberals are obsessed with anything (other than themselves) it's the environmental, social, political, and financial damage Trump is initiating. If you weren't too poor to know the difference I wood elaborate more on the subject.

Stupid hippie.


Snot 1: "Say, what's that you're reading?"

Snot 2: "Some conservative Commie rag that blames liberals for everything."

Snot 1: "They should be blamed for everything but that article looks like it was written for poor people - particularly poor people of Ohio."

Snot 2: "My GAWD! You're right! Full of distortion and lies. Perfect for the population of Ohio who are all poor and stupid hippies."

[Nickdfresh]

I'm obsessed with masturbation...

[Nickdfresh]

She didn’t forget to campaign properly in Michigan. She took the arrogant and ignorant approach. She thought the Union voters would carry her in this State. She was wrong. She lost the Union vote. Yes, the Union talking heads were pushing Clinton onto their members, but the members weren’t buying it. Well, that’s not entirely true. They bought it in a sense that their Union dues were wasted by the Union leaders’ monetary contributions to that failed campaign. Unfortunately for Clinton, the Union members themselves voted for Trump. It was a major flub by Clinton, and the Democrats. They banked on tradition and ignorance, only to be proven they were the ignorant ones.

And don't forget we have noncritical thinking retards like VonHagarGina that believe whatever "fake news" from Russian trolls because it feeds into their overall stupidity...

[Terry]

It was no secret that the middle-of-the-road, establishment, corporatist, centrist wing of the Democratic Party wanted Hillary to run in 2016 as far back as the day after the 2012 election. The advocates of this faction of the party were publicly saying so, the essence of which was: we don't want a divisive primary, Hillary's immediate post-2012 election approval ratings were polling at close to 70%, she'd be a shoo-in, make it a done deal.

Nobody stopped to think as to how Hillary got elected to the Senate in 2000 in the first place, basically via a sympathy wave for her husband's indiscretions and as a result of her being essentially handed the primary and competing against a virtual nobody in the general. She won in 2006 by, again, running against a virtual nobody in the general.

The first strong competitor she ran against, in 2008, she lost to.

In 2016, Hillary had no vision for the country beyond that of her being elected and her not being Trump. She never articulated a grand vision for the voters.

I'm not of the opinion that the majority of Trump voters were ignorant, sexist, racist white people. I'm not going to, by extension, claim that Trump didn't express, infer and imply a bucket load of racist, nativist, sexist things during his campaign. Mostly because he did. Doubtless that resonated with some of those who voted for him. As full of shit as Trump was in terms of his resolve or intent to follow through on his campaign rhetoric, Trump DID offer a simple, grand, strategic vision for America. Hillary did not. She offered a third Obama term via her as the proxy. And her and her husband's decades of baggage caught up to them. People had issues with Hillary in terms of character and trust, and those issues had a legitimacy to them. The Clintons had a long history of progressive campaign promises and a paltry amount of accomplishments in terms of legislation. Along with 2 decades of money-grubbing and pay-to-play access. These concerns weren't all spun up out of nothing via Rush Limbaugh, but spun up from the behavior of the Clintons.

2016 was a reckoning for Hillary Clinton.

To be sure, the Electoral College, decades of gerrymandering/redistricting, sexism, hyperbolic right wing mud slung at her, weak turnout from Obama voters, WikiLeaks, her e-mail server issues, Comey, the Russians and the like all helped contribute to her defeat.

It was Hillary's job as a candidate to persuade people to vote for her. It was her campaign's job to make sure she made her case in person in the areas of the country that would be the most crucial to secure an Electoral victory. It wasn't the duty of previous Obama voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania to automatically vote for her.

Hillary and her campaign failed to do what needed to be done. Short of wholesale proof that votes were actually stolen from her - as opposed to voters being influenced not to vote for her - she lost the election fair and square. None of this "she should have won" biz amounts to anything short of verifiable voter fraud: if she should have won she would have won.

[Von Halen]

Terry, how dare you speak the truth to people like NickDickless. But you better be careful, he might get violent on you. I’d hate to see you be yet another victim of Liberal on Liberal crime.

[Terry]

I'm of the feeling that Trump, as erratic as he is and as third-rate as many of the people he has surrounded himself with - in his Cabinet and his Administration - are, has inflicted damage to this country. Imagine how much more he could be inflicting if he were focused, competent, coherent and had a strong ideological core...like, say, Mike Pence could.

The problem is that the Democratic Party has failed to coalesce in the face of their defeat. They're basically an extension of the "I'm not Trump" argument Hillary unsuccessfully tried to ride to victory last year. They're somehow hoping to at least retake the House next year, but with Pelosi and Schumer at the helm of the party basically playing a waiting game (as in, let's wait and see what Mueller comes up with, let's wait and see if Trump blows it), their chances of retaking the House are just that: a hope. A hope without a real strategy and any sense of coordination with the DNC in terms of funding state and local candidates. Maybe that hope will end up paying some dividends in 2018. If it doesn't, where will the party go from there with only 2 years at that point before the 2020 presidential election?

The Democratic Party isn't being honest with itself as to why they have been losing state, local and national elections for the last decade. The Party isn't being honest with itself as to why Hillary lost last year. If this is a function of the corporatist elites within the party trying to deflect blame from themselves so they can keep control of the apparatus (and their hands in the till) or genuine cluelessness (or both) I can't quite figure out.

[Terry]

Terry, how dare you speak the truth to people like NickDickless. But you better be careful, he might get violent on you. I’d hate to see you be yet another victim of Liberal on Liberal crime.

Nah, nah, nah: it's nothing specific to Nickdfresh, in terms of if my views align or oppose his and my expressing them.

I've (and I'm not alluding that Nickd ever was) never been particularly enamored by either of the Clintons, and I've never been thrilled with the 1/4 century practice of the Democratic Party watering down their views (e.g. supporting conservative policies) to broaden their appeal to Republican moderates to win elections.

If you want to appeal to Republicans by crafting policies that tend to lean more toward the conservative end of the spectrum, fine. If that's what you believe, then switch parties and call yourself a Republican. Don't do that stuff and call yourself a 'New Democrat' or some such bogus self-anointed label.

[FORD]

Hillary DID have some votes stolen from her, by the Kristopher K. Kobach voter suppression database. Of course, if she and her minions had not alienated half the voters already by blatantly stealing the Democratic primary, the Kobach theft wouldn't have been enough to flip the electoral vote. Hillary deserved to lose, from the moment she committed a hostile takeover of the DNC in 2015 (as was recently confirmed by Donna Brazille - who is no "Berner" by any stretch of the imagination)

That doesn't mean Cheeto deserved to win. But when you have two shitty choices on a ballot, there's no outcome that isn't shitty.

[Nickdfresh]

Terry, how dare you speak the truth to people like NickDickless. But you better be careful, he might get violent on you. I’d hate to see you be yet another victim of Liberal on Liberal crime.

I agree with everything he said, dicklick. The Dems have a lot of problems and a tendency towards self-destruction. But then again, Trump takes the cake on that one...

[Nickdfresh]

Nah, nah, nah: it's nothing specific to Nickdfresh, in terms of if my views align or oppose his and my expressing them.

I've (and I'm not alluding that Nickd ever was) never been particularly enamored by either of the Clintons, and I've never been thrilled with the 1/4 century practice of the Democratic Party watering down their views (e.g. supporting conservative policies) to broaden their appeal to Republican moderates to win elections.

If you want to appeal to Republicans by crafting policies that tend to lean more toward the conservative end of the spectrum, fine. If that's what you believe, then switch parties and call yourself a Republican. Don't do that stuff and call yourself a 'New Democrat' or some such bogus self-anointed label.

I liked Bill, but you'll have a hard time finding any positive comments I've made about Hillary other than she was a decent senator for NY and brought home the bacon...