American Politics the 2016 edition

Dean wrote: To this election, while Micky's analysis is faultless if the campaigns were being fought along traditional voting lines, there is nothing about 2016 thus far that has followed any tradition or trends, or lived up to any pundited predictions.

Where to start with that.

I think that whole aspect has completely been over...yes.. overrated.

This election cycle is different, it will be historic. I meant (strongly believe) that this election will be one that will be talked about 100 years from now. But for different reasons perhaps that the upside-down... throw everything you know or think out the window aspects some think it has become.

In short.. we are watching the death throes of a major American political party. Something that hasn't happened in 150+ years. That Dean.. is why you are seeing a campaign that hasn't followed any trends or traditions.  Not a living soul in the US has seen anything like this. It's uniqueness.. is the death of US major political party.. and the interesting part... so few recognize it as it is happening in front of all of our eyes. Both Party's leaderships know it.. one plans for it...an era of Democratic dominance while the fallout flies ..the other dreads it for they have no way out. See the head scratching actions of Paul Ryan. Trapped they are...with no easy way that doesn't involve committing short term political suicide. Alienating the very voters that gave the leaders their cushy jobs...

First and foremost. There is a large... sh*t.. that understates it. Primary and the general election campaigns are alternative universes.

Trump was benefit of a large field that never coalesced around a alternative to him.  In that.. for all the grief the DNC gets.. they did their job in not letting an outsider (Sanders) hijack the party.  The RNC failed in that.. and Trump is what they got. Not comparing the two in terms of their suitability to become President.. but definitely comparing the two in their inability to win a general election where they have to appeal to more than their supporters to WIN. More on that as I go... 

As I've been posting for ..70 odd pages.. the Republican Party is dying.  It can not remain viable appealing to white voters when the white share of the overall vote is declining.. at a rate of 2% per cycle all while appealing ot those white voters based on fear and hate of just that growing aspect of the US population. It is a trap the Party is in, and they know it, but in order to appeal to the changing demographics they have to do a 180 on the fear and division tactics that they have successfully used since 1988 when Willie Horton turned a election.  They are vicitims of their own success. The only way to change that is to burn the Party down. Disown the very core of the party as it exists now.

I digress.  Where this cycle, this election is different Dean is one of our two political parties is showing for all to see, what many suspected would happen, a very real implosiion and the first major Party destruction since the 1840's.

What hasn't changed.. is in a general election. Democrats support the Democratic nominnee..  Republicans support theirs and the fight is for the squishy center or those less Partisan.  Unless Trump does a 180 he will get crushed. He has to win Democratic votes.. not the working class 'democrats' that have been voting Republican.. but take away from teh Obama coalition to have ANY chance to win. White votes just are not there anymore... he is losing white voters in terms of pure numbers even from what Romney had in 2012 where he crushed Obama in winning the white vote. .and still got crushed himself. Trump has to pull like 74% to 75% of white voters to win.  Considering that whites don't all belong to the GOP... and even those Republicans.. those that are especially the college educated.. politically KNOWLEDGABLE.. recognize he is a candidate that shouldn't be within a mile of the White House and either are voting Hillary. or for Johnson

Regardless how strange Trump has been as a candidate.. the basic political reality has not changed.  A republican candidate has to win Democratic votes.. the same ones that voted for Obama to win.  Trump isn't doing that.. and for 2020.. it is hard to see any that will... their fatal weakness is they can not appeal to the voters they need to offset the demographic shifts going on. Trump is only making what was hard, next to impossible not just this year.. but in election to come. Remember.. Trump is gone in 3 months.. those voters that put him there will still be there...


Edited by micky - August 02 2016 at 17:30

Oh, wait, there's more!

two interesting things to leave off with for the evening.. one old.. one new.

Both sort of hitting on the points I've been making. The first.. the hard reality of the numbers.. the 2nd.. the real reality. Some do realize it, the problem is those in power can't just do what that woman did.. for they have to face the very voters that put Trump where he is. As I've said.. the Republicans created the monster to win elections and get out the vote,.. fear and hate are powerful motivations. but they lost control of the monster.. and with the demographic changes..  it will take a political martyr to sacrifice his career to say what needs to be said... the Party has no clothes...  and say goodbye to the votes and support of the hate/fear/anger filled bible beating... evangelical 'christians'  and the substantial (unfortunately) residue of our own racist and bigoted past that thing this country is and should forever be.. white..and hetrosexual

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/17/the-republican-myth-of-the-untapped-white-voter.html

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/maria-comella-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/index.html


Edited by micky - August 02 2016 at 18:12

Vompatti wrote: This was before he posted a picture of himself eating KFC. Now that the African-Americans know he loves their culture, they have no reason not to vote for him.

Dean wrote: Democrats have to be aware that no election is a foregone conclusion until all the votes are counted so they must not be complacent - they still have to cast their vote for her to win.

I agree, blacks not supporting Trump means nothing. The reason the US has had a stalemate congress is because black voters either failed, or were prohibited/dissuaded  for voting for Democratic congressmen and senators after helping to place Barrack in the White House. I'd like to return to this post in the not  too distant future and expand on it in greater detail.

Edited by SteveG - August 03 2016 at 07:45

Trump's hispanic polling has been in the single digits. 

rogerthat wrote: ^^ I agree. When Modi was made the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate three years back, the media dubbed it a majestic isolation, meaning he would alienate too many from the minority to win. Unfortunately, the majority counts in a democratic system fundamentally based on majority vote. However the demographic may change, the majority is still the majority and someone who can mobilise them could confound media expectations as Modi did two years back. I can't tell if Trump is that person. BUT.... I want to talk about DuPage county, IL here. I have been there - not all of it but Woodridge, Naperville, Bolingbrook - and to my third world eyes it looked like a middle/upper middle class area. It is apparently a pretty well off area by American standards too. Even so, according to some 2011 news report I saw on YouTube, it has 60000 families living below the poverty line. The number may have gone down now but they showed once middle class families now seeking welfare services which were overwhelmed by demand they had never seen before. IF this problem is observed across the nation, it is something a shrewd politician can tap into. I'd have hoped Sanders could have been that politician and I sure hope it won't be Trump but politics is full of surprises.

Edited by JJLehto - August 03 2016 at 10:12

JJLehto wrote: Yeah, Sanders was simply the first to say out loud what many Americans have been thinking, the middle really is in dire straits. The number has shrunk, and yes some have gone on to higher but many have slipped lower, and middle class income has fallen. I have said this story many times before, my family went from a 1 job family that was doing pretty solid, to a 4 job family which at one point cut all unnecessary spending out, and was still doing worse. Things were real bad after the recession when my father lost his job and his new was at a lower wage, but it goes long before that, since 2001 basically each year seemed a bit worse off. By 2006 already both parents were working full time and I was working 25-30 hours a week and we were barely getting by.  What you described in DuPage county is indeed a nationwide problem.  The working class have it worse, and it was noted early in this campaign that white working class Americans, especially males, have seen a huge spike in obesity, hard drug use even suicide. Was even alluded to in one of the Democratic debates. It's a shame much of this has manifested in the form of Trump...while he's deplorable he is absolutely tapping something real, something Sanders did as well though he was actually sincere

number of the day!

64,000

Approximately 8.6 million Latinos in the United States are eligible to vote, but have not yet registered; every month, nearly 64,000 young Latino citizens turn 18 and become newly eligible

that is why Arizona is coming into play.

The GOP lost the Black vote many decades ago... if they lose the Latino vote and this more than anything is where Trump, not merely the voters responsible for putting him there, could kill the Republican Party. They only took 30% in 2012.. I'll be blunt... if anything thinks the GOP is going to even get THAT in 2016 they are f**king high or have no knowledge or understanding of politics in this country. If they lose the Hipanics the way they lost the blacks. For all time ... they are finished as a national party. Again goes back to what I said.. the only way they can do that... is to burn the party down for it is party whose cornerstone on fear and hate of Latino immigrants. The loss of the 'white' America...

In fact... Republicans are privately discussing the unthinkable.  The turning of Texas from Red to Blue in the near future..


Edited by micky - August 03 2016 at 14:27

yep...

that is storyline #2 in my thoughts of this election.

It isn't who is going to win...Trump has already for all intents and purposes blown it.  He needs to win a bunch of blue states.. he'll be lucky to win 1.. he is hemoranged GOP voters.. and sure as HELL not winning over Democractic voters.

What is important from this election isn't as much teh result... but the fallout from it from the GOP implosion. Both will tell if the party is getting a bullet to the head... or merely if its throat was cut...

Do the Libertarians become a true 3rd major party for 2020...  death.. a quick death IMO for the GOP.

Does anyone in the GOP hit eject before they alienate the Latino demograph so completely that it becomes a another, but FAR larger and still growing, Black demographic in which a a good year is cracking 10% a great year..20%. again.. Death for the GOP at a national level.  They won't see the Presidency for a generation or more... unthinkable? Perhaps.. but again.. we are heading into territory polically we have perhaps never seen.  Anything is indeed possible..