Can Our Democracy Survive This?

[_Mayan Elephant]

And how does one conclude that Democrats are more popular and win more votes? That's insane.

Senate, House, governors, state legislatures. Overwhelmingly controlled by republicans.

And you generally prove my conclusion about your racist positions. Strategies need not be based exclusively on demographics. The us v. them foundation of your ideas are rooted in racism where it is assumed that all rural people are one way and that the race demographic subsets are automatically slotted into the Democrat column.

Hillary didn't lose because of the alt right Boogeyman. She lost because of this same racist demographic carving up of people. She lost because women and minorities voted against her or didn't vote for her. The same racist BS that suggests the party should pander to the rural voter (or block them) because the minority vote is automatic, is exactly the racism and condescension that got this party here. And it is the same racism that feels good because it is on the smart and intellectual and condescending side and not ugly and naughty like that crap Maxine enjoys.

[_EAllusion]

And how does one conclude that Democrats are more popular and win more votes? That's insane.

You can use the obscure method of actually counting votes to see who wins more votes. For example, despite losing the house (by a lot), senate, and presidency, Democrats actually got considerably more votes in 2 of the 3 in 2016. They won the national house vote by a substantial margin in 2012 while being down a ton of seats. They just have a large efficiency gap in where those votes are located. The same pattern has happened at the state level.

My comment on popularity is backed by polling data that you have been rather insistent in rejecting as a valid means to know things.

Senate, House, governors, state legislatures. Overwhelmingly controlled by republicans.

Yep. There's the problem from a Democrat perspective, no? They win majority votes and get crushed in outcomes. Seems like a problem to be fixed.

And you generally prove my conclusion about your racist positions. Strategies need not be based exclusively on demographics. The us v. them foundation of your ideas are rooted in racism where it is assumed that all rural people are one way and that the race demographic subsets are automatically slotted into the Democrat column.

Huh? I said rural voters tend to go Republican and because rural voters are disproportionately powerful, this is a main problem for Democrats. One, race wasn't even brought up. Two, this is factually correct. Three, understanding demographic trends is not racism.

Appealing to people is not necessarily pandering. It can be, but the bigger story here is that you don't appear to understand what racism is.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Young people are overwhelmingly liberal and Democrat, though Doc. The alt-right just has a weird fringe group of young people with a much louder voice than their numbers suggest because of online presence. And among that fringe subculture, there are a lot of manosphere sympathetic nerdy types who very well might be some of the A students of the world.

One of the ways American authoritarians and Trump differ from 1930's fascists is that in the 1930's Hitler and friends were the party of youth. Trump, on the other hand, is only popular among the very old. Right-wing media such as Fox News skews very old. That's not coincidental.

I can't really argue against your point because you're on solid ground. However, due to the results of the last election I can argue against the ineffectiveness of the Democrat approach to ideas and energizing enough voters to swing back their way in the states that we must win moving forward. I'm not sure waiting for old people to die off is the best approach. Lol...

Hillary Clinton had a very solid plan with focusing on infrastructure and gentrifying the Rust Belt. Her problem was one of communicating in a form and manner that, frankly, made it worth the effort to log off one's cell phone and go to the polls.

I think it's easy to ascribe everything to racism, but it's lazy and removes responsibility for one's failures as a governing body. I'd strongly recommend spending 15 minutes and watch this video I saw on Facebook regarding the Millennial paradox, and what we have to do to relate to them:

https://www.Facebook.com/deltaprotectiv ... 106040640/

- Doc

[_Mayan Elephant]

Oh. Democrats win more votes and lose more elections which makes them more popular? Mmmmmmkay.

And polls show they are more popular but elections don't? Uh great. That's a special kind of special.

I happen to know very well what is racism. I don't summarily reject institutionalized racism and the elitist condescension and call it something else. I don't think calling people names is bad but locking up a measurable percentage of the population in prisons is good. I don't think unequal education standards is acceptable and find it more racist than ignorant name-calling which is also unacceptable. I don't find comfort in seeing communities exploited for their labor rates. I think that your racism and that of the democratic party and especially the DNC as a campaign machine is more damaging than the unacceptable language from Maxine (who I called an Idiot.)

And about the polls. Polls don't Trump elections. A sample does not Trump the whole. Polls are synthetic means of confirming one's own bias and are never more valuable than real data - elections. Polls are dildoic.

[_Mayan Elephant]

I think it's easy to ascribe everything to racism, but it's lazy and removes responsibility for one's failures as a governing body.
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- Doc

Not sure who was the target audience for that line, but I like it and can see how it could and does apply to me.

I don't sit back and look at the racism in our lower and higher education systems and think ----- hmmmmm, took a lot of racists to hate a lot of black folks to get us here. I look at it and think, hmmmmm, we sure had to be lazy and complacent and assume black folks had no better options and then just exploit them for votes.

I think our collective failures are significantly more racist than the obnoxious voices of a few extreme groups or individuals.

[_Kevin Graham]

Oh. Democrats win more votes and lose more elections which makes them more popular? Mmmmmmkay.

And polls show they are more popular but elections don't? Uh great. That's a special kind of special.

Why is this so hard for you to grasp? That's why they call it the popular vote. The polls were fairly accurate this election especially if you consider the margin of error.

And about the polls. Polls don't Trump elections. A sample does not Trump the whole. Polls are synthetic means of confirming one's own bias and are never more valuable than real data - elections. Polls are dildoic.

You seem to have serious issues understanding the difference between an election based on popular vote and an election based on the electoral college. If someone wins an electoral college this doesn't mean they're more popular and it doesn't mean the loser couldn't be more popular.

[_The CCC]

Clinton won more votes in the popular vote count by about 3,000,000.

[_EAllusion]

If more people vote for Democrats, say they support Democrats, and are more favorable to Democrat policy, it's safe to say Democrats are more popular. What Democrats have to reconcile is the fact they're getting crushed nationally while remaining nationally popular.

It's a problem of clustering and gerrymandering.

[_Kevin Graham]

Trump won by 74 electoral votes and some people seem to think this means it was a blowout and that the Democratic party cannot connect with the American people, etc. But this is nonsense. Like EA has been saying, more people vote Democrat, by a lot. But that alone doesn't guarantee election victories.

Trump won four states by less than a 1.5%. Two of them were won by less than a 1% margin.

Trump won Wisconsin by .8% or just 20,000 votes out of nearly 3 million.

Trump won Michigan by .3% or just 11,000 votes our of nearly 5 million.

Trump won Pennsylvania by 1.2% or just 60,000 votes out of nearly 6 million.

Trump won Florida by 1.3% or just 120,000 votes out of nearly 10 million.

Is it really so crazy to think that the Comey letter benefited Trump by at least 2% when the polls clearly showed a huge swing in his favor? Hillary only needed two or three of these states to win, depending on the combination.

[_The CCC]

But what are the chances that the economy will be doing well in 2020 despite the horrendous, widespread corruption that Trump and his new administration are brazenly and openly ushering in?

Between slim and none. The upside is that the US has a very large economy that takes time to change in any real sense. So we may have one to two years before all Hell breaks lose on the economic front. The down side is the POS's that he is putting in are very good at destroying economic things.