US Presidential Election 2020 Thread II - Judgement Day(s)

listermint

Quin_Dub wrote: »

It's a little more nuanced than that though.

Yes , the progressive candidates did do well , but there is no question that the existence of those progressive candidates damaged the more moderate candidates in Red States.

Granted, it was driven largely by an irrational "red under the bed" style fear , but the impact was real.

They need to do a better job of breaking down that fear among Moderate/Slightly right voters that they are not going to ban religion etc. etc. etc.

Yes , obviously and objectively they are not , but the GOP have done frankly a brilliant job of smearing the entire Democratic party with this "Radical left" brush.

And surely that better job is on the senators battling those races, Evidently they are not funding local activities like the progressives are.

They simply arent getting the message across. Sitting back and waiting for major funding to save them with ad campaigns...

Gbear

The Raging Bile Duct wrote: »

And one that got the most votes of any presidential candidate ever.

I'm not sure this has as much value as a statistic as people keep pointing out. For one, the population keeps increasing. One would expect that turnout will increase over time.

The other one, is that Trump is historically unpopular, but also historically popular - it's a matter of massive polarisation. He drove turnout as much as anything. With Trump generally lagging Republicans across the ticket, it seems that ticket splitting was pretty common for never Trump Republicans, or those he simply wore down.

The overall question is difficult to answer, because you have to account for what kind of seats progressives won and lost (how blue/red was their district), whether they had incumbency advantage, whether their opponent did, and only then can you try to unpick how progressive they were and how likely it was to effect their race.
Florida shows how tricky such an analysis could prove, with them simultaneously supporting a fascist, and also a $15 minimum wage.

What does seem to be fairly consistent everywhere, is that progressive social policy is less popular than progressive economic policy. Black and Latino voters (men especially), could be theorised to have supported Trump in greater numbers for this reason - they're more conservative than the average American.
If I were Labour in the UK, or the left wing of the Democrats, I'd focus solely on the economic policy in messaging and stop talking about progressive social policy entirely. It wouldn't mean they'd have to stop making meaningful change on that front, but it doesn't seem to be much of a vote getter so I'm not sure it's worth talking about. Hopefully the lefty supporters would get the message and shut the **** up.

I think they need to mirror the Republican party. Where the Republicans pay for their tax cuts with political capital earned from social issues, the Democrats needs to pay for their social issues with political capital earned from their economic policy.

Carfacemandog

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Democrats as a whole need to do be willing to accept blame. 2022 isn’t that far away and the republicans have increased their seats this time around and will be looking to take back control of the house. The democrats need to focus and try and work as one party, albeit with different groups in it because if the republicans take back the house and if they keep the senate this time around then whatever agenda progressives or as you call them corporate democrats won’t be getting any of it through.

To be fair, your initial post seemed to be willing to place blame on the progressive wing in the assumption they didn't do well in their races. It's a little inconsistent to move from that to "everyone's fault" when pointed out that these candidates did quite excellently and the more moderate/corporate wing were quite a flop.

I would also place most of the 'not working as one party' blame on the moderate/corporate wing, as many of them are very quick to jump on side closer to Republicans if the alternative is anything that might be damaging to their donors and the likes. MSNBC put this on full display back in February I believe it was when Sanders was leading in the primaries, literally likening him and his supporters directly to nazis on repeated occasions, which was in especially bad taste considering how many direct family members Sanders lost to the holocaust. There were even open murmurings about wanting truno to win over sanders if it came to it, for fear of people being beheaded in the streets by the regime under a Sanders presidency. Around the same time, that eejit Hillary Clinton also decided to wade in and partake in attacks in Sanders along the same lines.

That is toxic to an outright extreme and its very difficult for progressives to fully trust in people who push this type of stuff against you, yet the 'moderate' (kind of hard to use that term given what is outlined above) side of the democrat party and media who lean in that direction were more than happy to do so and potentially cause an irreperable schism in the Democrats if that is what it took. Had the progressive wing of the party had this kind of influence and exerted in such a way, we would rightly not hear the end of it for a very long time.

In terms of the election itself, it does seem that Biden was the stronger candidate as he basically maxed out his performance in most cities due to hatred of Trump, but also clawed back nicely in deep red areas where he still lost by a wide margin, but those 65/35 losses instead of being 80/20 likely played a huge role in key states like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. So that worked out as removing Trump was the biggest issue. But on top of only helping to push the Overton window even further to the right (for the umpteenth time since the 1980s), the moderate/corporate end of the party have an awful, awful lot to answer for in terms of their behaviour over the last 10-12 months and did an awful lot to help fire up the baseless "progressives are communists who want to enslave us all!" narrative pushed by Republicans in this election.

Carfacemandog

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Granted, it was driven largely by an irrational "red under the bed" style fear , but the impact was real.

Perhaps the likes of MSNBC shouldn't have been pushing that same narrative against those same progressives through the winter and spring then, and prominent national democrats should have been coming out across the country to condemn them when they did in calls for party unity.

Yet many were happy to sit back and let it unfold at that stage if they felt it would assist them (or their 'wing' of the party) in the primaries.

rossie1977

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

That's the type of issues that they should be focusing on but they won't as they are becoming the party of the rich. Then they are shocked that they are losing votes to the Republicans.

They have no policy to benefit normal people. The traditional voters of the democrats are leaving them. Same as Labour in the UK, become the party of the middle class and you loose a lot of voters as you aren't addressing their concerns anymore.

Well let's see last decade or so..

* Student loan affordability act. Every single Republican voted against it, every Democrat voted for it

* Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Funding, all but one Republican voted against it, all Democrats for.

* Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013, all but one Republican against, all Democrats for.

* Paycheck fairness act, all Republicans against, all but one Democrat for.

* End the bureau of consumer financial protection, all but one Republican for, all but one Democrat against.

* American Jobs Act of 2011 - $50 billion for infrastructure projects, all 48 Republicans against. 50 Dems for, 2 against

* Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension act. All but one Republican against, All but one Dem for

* Reduces Funding for Food Stamps. All Dems against. 13 Republicans against, 33 for.

* Minimum Wage Fairness Act, all but one Republican against. All but one Dem for

I will admit the media and Republicans have done a great job convincing the public the Democratic party no longer care about normal people (it's basically been their strategy for nigh on 40 years now) but even a little research shows the opposite is clearly true.

Christy42

Right so we have Biden is unpopular and only won because Trump is more unpopular. Also we have the fact that Trump is so popular that Republicans can't move against him and are willing to go along with his current ravings since they can't afford to lose his vote.

This started as a sarcastic statement but actually makes sense with how divided the US is.

Both parties have some work to do. For all the talk of what cost the Dems more seats. The primary one is the split of states. They can't win a true majority of votes and have no avenue to do so. Either they stick with unpopular Trumpism or lose their base. Their advantage in the electoral college with respect to % votes is growing but relying on that is a risky business.

For the Dem side one side of their big tent is being slandered due to the other. Moderate dems are being linked with the left of center extremists like AOC. However many people also believe in these beliefs. Should New York not have their beliefs represented properly simply to increase the odds of a Democrat in Ohio? That goes against the union of states thing imo since Ohio shouldn't be changing New York's representatives.

The progressive wing can't be the problem given their message resonates with people where they live. They need to be able to show that democrat candidates are more right wing in places where they are more right wing.

BlitzKrieg

Christy42 wrote: »

They need to be able to show that democrat candidates are more right wing in places where they are more right wing.

You'd almost want to actually have them be different parties state by state who just form into a coalition on the federal level.

L1011

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

You'd almost want to actually have them be different parties state by state who just form into a coalition on the federal level.

Well, that does exist to some extent in some areas - Minnesota Democrat Farmer Labor Party for instance.

But its nowhere near Canada levels where there's basically different parties at federal and state level across the board.

Quin_Dub

Absolutely a topic for another thread , but there is no coincidence that the countries with the most polarisation and the more right-wing governments are those with a FPTP electoral system.

You don't need to win a majority , you just need a plurality or you just suppress the vote such that a small % of the actual populace are enough to sneak you over the line.

FPTP is fundamentally detrimental to actual participative Democracy.

VinLieger

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Absolutely a topic for another thread , but there is no coincidence that the countries with the most polarisation and the more right-wing governments are those with a FPTP electoral system.

You don't need to win a majority , you just need a plurality or you just suppress the vote such that a small % of the actual populace are enough to sneak you over the line.

FPTP is fundamentally detrimental to actual participative Democracy.

Indeed, many argue its the two party duopoly in the US that is at fault and there needs to be better 3rd parties or more bipartisanship etc while ignoring its all just a symptom of the absolute undemocratic farce that is FPtP

Brussels Sprout

The question of whether the progressives had a good general election or not misses the point. The real election for the progressives wasn't last week, instead it happened months ago across many different dates. Several years ago progressives realised that the best strategy for them to get representation was to target safe Democrat seats where the electorate would be more receptive to their message.

In 2018, for example, AOC's real triumph wasn't winning the general election in November but winning the primary against party grandee Joe Crowley in June of that year. Another member of The Squad, Ayanna Prestley didn't even have a General Election challenger in MA-7 after she had defeated 20 year veteran Mike Capuano in her primary.

In a similar light, Jamaal Bowman's real victory this year was toppling 16-term incumbent Eliot Engel in the NY-16 primary. Cori Bush's real victory was beating 20 year veteran Lacy Clay (whose father had held the seat for 32 years before that) in the MS-1 primary. At the same time 3 of the 4 squad members held off challengers in primaries and Green New Deal co-author Senator Ed Markey held off a challenge from Joe Kennedy in the MA primary.

So I think this years elections were good for the Progressives but it was probably at the expense of some centrists, both who lost to them in primaries and also those who had progressive messaging used against them in general elections.

Retr0gamer

Christy42 wrote: »

For the Dem side one side of their big tent is being slandered due to the other. Moderate dems are being linked with the left of center extremists like AOC.

And there's a good example of the GOP slander working on you. Only someone listening to their slander would call a moderate like AOC an extremist. An extremist is a neo-nazi, communism, white supremacist, the fecking taliban. Even calling her a 'left of center extremist' is a total oxymoron. Left of center is moderate. Always has been.

pixelburp

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Absolutely a topic for another thread , but there is no coincidence that the countries with the most polarisation and the more right-wing governments are those with a FPTP electoral system.

You don't need to win a majority , you just need a plurality or you just suppress the vote such that a small % of the actual populace are enough to sneak you over the line.

FPTP is fundamentally detrimental to actual participative Democracy.

I'd go further and suggest it's equally the countries that have lionised or mythologised their own constitutional structures that are most vulnerable to subversion by authoritarianism. The dogmatic are often the easiest to steer emotionally. The Founding Fathers and that flimsy document they wrote is positively worshipped to a degree that prevents critical assessment and amendment many European social democracies take for granted (not least because their codified constitutions are younger, or born from conflict like Germany; a good example of a functioning, healthy federal structure). Nobody sober in Ireland would suggest Originalism for our own constitution, as evident by our continuing evolution of it

BluePlanet

I saw a compilation of GOP attack ads this election on twitter and the most common theme was tying the Dem candidate to Nancy Pelosi.
Basically stating that such and such Dem candidate will vote whatever Nancy tells them to.
Nancy has been built up into a GOP hate figure similar to HRC.

Some videos had AOC and the Squad in the background, some prominently featured Ilhan Omar (wearing hijab) in the background.
One could argue those attack ads were targeting progressive policies but i tend to think they were just another racist dog whistle.

Brussels Sprout

MJohnston wrote: »

I wish Arizona would hurry up and count their ****ing votes - the sooner there’s an insurmountable Electoral College gap between the two candidates the better.

17k votes were counted there since yesterday. Trump got a slim majority (~53%) but lost track in terms of what he needed to catch up. He now needs to win 76.3% of the remaining 22.5k votes to bridge the 11.6k vote margin. That's not going to happen.

Only a matter of time before that gets called by those organisations who haven't called it already.

StringerBell

BluePlanet wrote: »

He is squeaking by against an unpopular President in the middle of a pandemic that Trump has failed to manage.
How much of a tailwind does Biden really need?

If Biden was popular, can you explain why Dems are loosing down ballot races?

Well, assuming you mean losing and not loosing, one likely reason would be that the polls showed such an overwhelming victory assured for Biden (and in fairness it had been a decisive victory though it appears tighter due to the counting process) that moderate Republicans or Independent voters who would have been happy to see a Biden Presidency but wary of what it may bring if the more liberal elements of the party are putting pressure on and they had total control of Congress to enact certain changes that the moderate Republicans/Independents wouldn't have been thrilled about wanted a check on that power and voted for Biden at the top of the ballot but hedged their bets down ballot.

Jo jo the eskimo

The good news is most of the unreasonable people have been rounded up and put in a separate pen.

If someone supports a politician like Sanders and AOC, they do so because they believe they are the best chance of better healthcare or the best chance to get the money out of the political system or for some other completely reasonable reason.
True you are more likely to find a small amount of unreasonable people under progressive tent but the numbers are small and irrelevant,so you just gotta hold your nose for the greater good...

BluePlanet

StringerBell wrote: »

Well, assuming you mean losing and not loosing, one likely reason would be that the polls showed such an overwhelming victory assured for Biden (and in fairness it had been a decisive victory though it appears tighter due to the counting process) that moderate Republicans or Independent voters who would have been happy to see a Biden Presidency but wary of what it may bring if the more liberal elements of the party are putting pressure on and they had total control of Congress to enact certain changes that the moderate Republicans/Independents wouldn't have been thrilled about wanted a check on that power and voted for Biden at the top of the ballot but hedged their bets down ballot.

Which is largely what i posted from the article earlier
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=115265177&postcount=5902

Republicans basically put Biden in the Presidents seat.
The Democratic Party have failed in 2020 (again).

And they will fail again at midterms if they don't start adopting Progressive policies.
FL voted for a $15 minimum wage, that is a progressive policy.
Marijuana ballot initiatives win every time they are put to vote, another progressive policy.
How could these not be included in Dem platform?
Medicare for All is popular https://pbs.twimg.com/media/El7sbBXWkAg_gG1?format=jpg&name=small

Carfacemandog

Retr0gamer wrote: »

And there's a good example of the GOP slander working on you. Only someone listening to their slander would call a moderate like AOC an extremist. An extremist is a neo-nazi, communism, white supremacist, the fecking taliban. Even calling her a 'left of center extremist' is a total oxymoron. Left of center is moderate. Always has been.

It might not be GOP slander, or exclusively GOP slander, when national television figures on left leaning channels like msnbcs chuck Todd and Chris Mathews openly engage in this nonsense carry on as well.

Some examples of what we were seeing in MSNBC for much of the earlier part of the year.

(bit of a soundbite supercut version on this particular video)

BluePlanet

Carfacemandog wrote: »

Some examples of what we were seeing in MSNBC for much of the earlier part of the year.

You'll never see the Democratic party show more energy then when they are punching left.

jam_mac_jam

rossie1977 wrote: »

Well let's see last decade or so..

* Student loan affordability act. Every single Republican voted against it, every Democrat voted for it

* Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Funding, all but one Republican voted against it, all Democrats for.

* Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013, all but one Republican against, all Democrats for.

* Paycheck fairness act, all Republicans against, all but one Democrat for.

* End the bureau of consumer financial protection, all but one Republican for, all but one Democrat against.

* American Jobs Act of 2011 - $50 billion for infrastructure projects, all 48 Republicans against. 50 Dems for, 2 against

* Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension act. All but one Republican against, All but one Dem for

* Reduces Funding for Food Stamps. All Dems against. 13 Republicans against, 33 for.

* Minimum Wage Fairness Act, all but one Republican against. All but one Dem for

I will admit the media and Republicans have done a great job convincing the public the Democratic party no longer care about normal people (it's basically been their strategy for nigh on 40 years now) but even a little research shows the opposite is clearly true.

I completely agree with you, they are much better for normal people then the republicans but that's not what they are focusing on.
I cannot understand why anyone who is not a millionaire would vote republican. That's not what they are campaigning on.

They should be focusing on medicare for all, debit forgiveness, fair rights for workers. For medical care know Obama did try to address and Hillary years ago. But they need to stop being scared they are going to be called communists as the republicans will do that anyway. They are going further towards republican light. Biden said in the campaign that affordable health care was a right for all, not healthcare.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Gbear wrote: »

I'm not sure this has as much value as a statistic as people keep pointing out. For one, the population keeps increasing. One would expect that turnout will increase over time.

From what I understand, the turnout increased at a greater rate from the last election than the population did.

everlast75

Notwithstanding all Court applications are bogus, there is light beginning to appear between GOP heads and Trump...

5 days ago

https://twitter.com/Stapleton_MT/status/1325174324781670401?s=20

Today

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1326881094600454145?s=20

StringerBell

BluePlanet wrote: »

Which is largely what i posted from the article earlier
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=115265177&postcount=5902

Republicans basically put Biden in the Presidents seat.
The Democratic Party have failed in 2020 (again).

And they will fail again at midterms if they don't start adopting Progressive policies.
FL voted for a $15 minimum wage, that is a progressive policy.
Marijuana ballot initiatives win every time they are put to vote, another progressive policy.
How could these not be included in Dem platform?
Medicare for All is popular https://pbs.twimg.com/media/El7sbBXWkAg_gG1?format=jpg&name=small

My apologies, I hadn't seen your subsequent post before I responded.

eire4

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Democrats really need to work on the fact that, despite having larger numbers of registered voters than Republicans in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan, they control none of those legislatures. A massive voter drive, and associated voting education , such as was led by Stacy Abrams in Georgia, has to be a huge priority now. Re-districting and gerrymandering that have been the hallmarks of the last decade have got to be managed and voter suppression and disenfranchisement battled at every turn.

In addition, HONEST internal examination of why Dems did not convert a Biden win into Senate and House improvements is needed. Blaming one wing of the party or the other will just alienate and frustrate. Was a considerable amount of Biden's vote attributable to Reps who could no longer hold their nose(s) and vote for Trump? Failure to understand why those of Cuban and Venezuelan heritage voted for Trump, along with many of Mexican heritage in more rural areas of Texas will hold them back next time as well, and many other times thereafter. The GOP messaging that frightened folks in those areas away from Democratic policies needs attention. Clear education as to what elements of Democratic Socialism and other hot-button issues are supported by the Party needs to be simply explained. Their messaging has been all over the place on these, which allowed the GOP spin doctors to spin the confusion against Dems, as spin doctors are paid to do.

I would say that sounds about right to me. Unfortunately I do not see it happening or at least not to the extent it needs to. Just as an FYI overall Biden won roughly 65% of the Latino vote which is the same as Clinton last time. The narrative he did badly there is not true. He did lose Latino votes in certain areas in Florida and Texas but overall Latino's supported Biden in similar numbers to previously.

eire4

BluePlanet wrote: »

He is squeaking by against an unpopular President in the middle of a pandemic that Trump has failed to manage.
How much of a tailwind does Biden really need?

If Biden was popular, can you explain why Dems are loosing down ballot races?

In fairness Biden is not squeaking by when all votes are counted he will have won the national vote by about 6% I think. But that is simply due to the mentality that the current president must be ousted at all costs which included Republicans even voting for him.
The reality though is the Democrats offered little positive other then getting the president out and suffered for it down ballot as you say. They will likely not win both senate run offs in Georgia so no senate. They lost 8 seats in the house so their majority their went from 31 down to 15. They did not flip a single state legislature while the Republicans flipped New Hampshire and Montana and now have total control of both those states. This also means when redistricting comes up next year Republicans because they control most state legislatures will control most redistricting. So get ready for some hardcore gerrymandering in a bid to win back the house in 2022 by Republicans there. Republicans have total control over 24 states Democrats 15. In addition Republicans control both state houses but not the Governorship in 31 states the Democrats 18.
The above does not include the voter suppression laws that will be on steroids now and get the nod from the stacked Republican supreme court and likely what's left of the voting rights act will be gutted. All in all a pretty sobering vista and sadly one I do not see getting better as the US needs an FDR Democratic party right now and instead still have a corporate Democratic party which they have had since Reagan and which has played its part in the economic decline of the majority of Americans and the massive growth in income and wealthy inequality in the US.

eire4

Quin_Dub wrote: »

It's a little more nuanced than that though.

Yes , the progressive candidates did do well , but there is no question that the existence of those progressive candidates damaged the more moderate candidates in Red States.

Granted, it was driven largely by an irrational "red under the bed" style fear , but the impact was real.

They need to do a better job of breaking down that fear among Moderate/Slightly right voters that they are not going to ban religion etc. etc. etc.

Yes , obviously and objectively they are not , but the GOP have done frankly a brilliant job of smearing the entire Democratic party with this "Radical left" brush.

No question your right there. The Democrats be they progressive or Corporate have long been terrible at messaging and sloganizing while the Republicans have been brilliant in that regard. That needs to change no question.

eire4

Carfacemandog wrote: »

To be fair, your initial post seemed to be willing to place blame on the progressive wing in the assumption they didn't do well in their races. It's a little inconsistent to move from that to "everyone's fault" when pointed out that these candidates did quite excellently and the more moderate/corporate wing were quite a flop.

I would also place most of the 'not working as one party' blame on the moderate/corporate wing, as many of them are very quick to jump on side closer to Republicans if the alternative is anything that might be damaging to their donors and the likes. MSNBC put this on full display back in February I believe it was when Sanders was leading in the primaries, literally likening him and his supporters directly to nazis on repeated occasions, which was in especially bad taste considering how many direct family members Sanders lost to the holocaust. There were even open murmurings about wanting truno to win over sanders if it came to it, for fear of people being beheaded in the streets by the regime under a Sanders presidency. Around the same time, that eejit Hillary Clinton also decided to wade in and partake in attacks in Sanders along the same lines.

That is toxic to an outright extreme and its very difficult for progressives to fully trust in people who push this type of stuff against you, yet the 'moderate' (kind of hard to use that term given what is outlined above) side of the democrat party and media who lean in that direction were more than happy to do so and potentially cause an irreperable schism in the Democrats if that is what it took. Had the progressive wing of the party had this kind of influence and exerted in such a way, we would rightly not hear the end of it for a very long time.

In terms of the election itself, it does seem that Biden was the stronger candidate as he basically maxed out his performance in most cities due to hatred of Trump, but also clawed back nicely in deep red areas where he still lost by a wide margin, but those 65/35 losses instead of being 80/20 likely played a huge role in key states like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. So that worked out as removing Trump was the biggest issue. But on top of only helping to push the Overton window even further to the right (for the umpteenth time since the 1980s), the moderate/corporate end of the party have an awful, awful lot to answer for in terms of their behaviour over the last 10-12 months and did an awful lot to help fire up the baseless "progressives are communists who want to enslave us all!" narrative pushed by Republicans in this election.

Very well said I very much agree with you there. I have long said the Democrats need to return to being the party of FDR not the corporate controlled party they have been since Reagan got in and currently are.

eire4

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Absolutely a topic for another thread , but there is no coincidence that the countries with the most polarisation and the more right-wing governments are those with a FPTP electoral system.

You don't need to win a majority , you just need a plurality or you just suppress the vote such that a small % of the actual populace are enough to sneak you over the line.

FPTP is fundamentally detrimental to actual participative Democracy.

Totally agree. Terrible system and when you combine that with the utter corruption and dysfunction of the American system you can see why they have lurched so far to the right as a country politically.

eire4

Retr0gamer wrote: »

And there's a good example of the GOP slander working on you. Only someone listening to their slander would call a moderate like AOC an extremist. An extremist is a neo-nazi, communism, white supremacist, the fecking taliban. Even calling her a 'left of center extremist' is a total oxymoron. Left of center is moderate. Always has been.

Very well said totally on the money.