Jump to content


Dems Rebuild


Recommended Posts

That's an awful chart for a number of reasons. For starters, it purposefully magnifies the difference by not starting the y-axis at zero. This is intentionally misleading. Second, votes are still being tallied, and Hillary currently has over 64 million votes.

 

But I don't disagree at all about likability, or even turnout. In states like PA and WI, it certainly seems to be a mix of Democrats not turning out in strong enough force as well as really, really strong turnout -- and conversion! -- from the Republican side.

 

A politician's likability is gendered, I think. That's hard to disentangle. I don't offer it as an excuse, but I do think it's fair to recognize. Whenever racism or sexism is mentioned, the recurring theme in response is the idea that it takes an overt, active sort of person who thinks "Right. This person's [blackness/Womanness/etc], that's too much for me." All politics and 2016 election postmorteming aside, I would say that such requirements serve only to bypass the topic entirely.

 

We can agree it wasn't /the/ deciding factor.

  • Fire 2
Link to comment

 

 

 

Is it possible that Dems don't really need to rebuild? They are going to win the popular vote by over 2 million with a very unlikable candidate that ran a pretty poor campaign. Of course those extra 2 million votes don't matter in winning but if Hillary hadn't ignored the rust belt for nearly all of the election she probably would have won.

They don't hold either house and have very few governors and state legislatures. The republicans ran an absolute pathetic human being as a candidate and they couldn't beat him.

 

They won very very few counties compared to republicans meaning their message this campaign didn't resonate with anyone that lives outside major metro areas.

 

What do you think????

 

#headinsand

It's easy to win elections when you suppress votes and constantly gerrymander districts

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-power-that-gerrymandering-has-brought-to-republicans/2016/06/17/045264ae-2903-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html?utm_term=.26be82b1a8c9

 

https://www.thenation.com/article/there-are-868-fewer-places-to-vote-in-2016-because-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act/

I'm not going to defend republicans on either of those.

 

But....those aren't why she lost.

 

 

Those weren't directed at Hillary's loss.

 

They were directed at the other elections that the GOP has won.

Link to comment

It's a big stretch to say Clinton's gender was not a factor. It's easy to argue it wasn't a major factor, so you should probably stick with that.

 

This is not knowable though. We have a sample size of one election. Short of taking a random poll of voters asking them whether her being female was a factor in how they voted (and then somehow accounting for the fact that most people don't believe themselves to be sexist even if they are and would answer no, and also the fact that her gender could have affected some people's votes on a subconscious level) it's impossible to tell and you can only go with your gut feeling.

 

What has been studied is that people (even women) prefer male bosses.

  • Fire 3
Link to comment

Aside from a gut feeling, where is this gender bias explanation coming from?

I'm confused.

 

We agree that it's not *the* explainer.

 

We agree that gender bias exists. You mentioned all kinds of studies, for example.

 

Where's the controversy? If we agree on these points, then we needn't impose an "outright sexist voter" requirement, and we also don't need to make declarations such as "gender played no role". I suppose perhaps we're merely picking nits at how much that role should be minimized and how much it should be recognized.

Link to comment

 

Rebuild? I don't know. As a whole I think the party is pretty unified.

 

I think they just need to nominate better candidates. Hillary was an easily attackable candidate with a devastating amount of baggage. She was the Dems Jeb Bush.

Hillary was the single worst Presidential candidate the Dems have run (she lost twice after her husband won twice btw) since Humphrey. Carter's second run was a disaster but no Dem could have won that one after the disasterous first term Carter delivered.

 

The Democrat party needs a rebuild but it is NOT the names or faces at the top that is the fundamental problem of course. It is the radical leftist ideology that the party espouses which is just not supported by anything close to a majority of the American people. Even though Hillary may have received a few more popular votes than Trump, she only did so because Trump made the correct strategic decision NOT to campaign in California, Oregon and Washington. Had he made some efforts out there, he would easily have picked up 5 to 8% more of the popular vote. While not winning the electoral votes of those states, he would have swung several million votes and had a popular vote win of a couple million votes.

 

The Democrats have been losing steadily in popularity across the country for decades - this is a long term trend. Evidence is the domination of the Republicans in House, Senate, Presidency, Governorships, state legislative bodies, Mayors, etc. I would submit the Dems have fully lost touch with the great mass of American society that simply does not agree with the radical, socialist agendas being pushed so incredibly hard.

 

To 'rebuild' is not the correct term really. I would suggest perhaps more appropriate would be to 'redirect' and replace the radical agenda with something much more moderate and mainstream. The gap between the two major parties is as wide as it has ever been, despite the Republican party moving to left while the Democrats have moved far left. Today's Republican party is generally about as liberal/left leaning as the Democrat party of Kennedy/Johnson. Today's Tea Party/Conservatives are pretty much in line with the traditional Republican party of the 1960s through 1980s. The mistake the Republicans have made (if one were to consider such) is to veer left. America is more moderate/libertarian and middle of the road that it once was. But it is NOT 'progressive' or socialist and not communist despite the wishes of many of the party's leadership. Dems have been hijacked by the radicals of the 60s.

 

 

Which party has the fervent support of the KKK and Neo Nazi's again?

 

2 Million is a few more?

 

That's hearsay. You have no way of verifying that.

 

You don't think gerrymandering or closing nearly a thousand polling places has anything to do with those wins?

 

You're joking right?

Link to comment

Gerrymandering can't have an effect on a presidential race except in Nebraska and Maine's electoral votes.

 

In order to prove the closed voting places had an effect on the outcome you would have to show they had an effect on outcomes in states that Clinton lost by a narrow margin. I haven't researched it but the only "close" states I know of where this occurred were NC and AZ

Link to comment

 

Aside from a gut feeling, where is this gender bias explanation coming from?

I'm confused.

 

We agree that it's not *the* explainer.

 

We agree that gender bias exists. You mentioned all kinds of studies, for example.

 

Where's the controversy? If we agree on these points, then we needn't impose an "outright sexist voter" requirement, and we also don't need to make declarations such as "gender played no role". I suppose perhaps we're merely picking nits at how much that role should be minimized and how much it should be recognized.

 

This is where this line of conversation started.

 

 

I am one who thinks that in addition to Clinton being a flawed candidate, sexism had something to do with her defeat.

I really don't think this is the case. I think she was looked at as any other politician, regardless of sex. In fact, I'd say the fact that her gender very rarely made a dent in the national coverage of the race shows that gender was almost a non-factor.

 

The biggest factor in Hillary losing was the simple fact that people do not like her. That dislike has nothing to do with her gender.

 

We can say sexism "played a part" but without any data we have no idea how big a part it played. I'm saying I've seen nothing that says it was even the 100th-biggest factor in this election.

 

That's what I'm asking. Where is this conversation even coming from? Because I think if Hillary is even remotely likable, she wins in a landslide. Gender playing little or no factor.

Link to comment

Plenty of scientific studies have shown racial bias is a real thing, in every way you've just mentioned with gender, and we just had a two-term Black president.

Yes, those biases are real. No, those biases do not always affect things.

 

No, gender bias was not a deciding factor in this election.

 

 

The fact that Barack Obama became President has nothing to do with whether or not racial bias affected the elections and his term as President.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We can say sexism "played a part" but without any data we have no idea how big a part it played. I'm saying I've seen nothing that says it was even the 100th-biggest factor in this election.

 

We definitely can say that sexism played a part, for sure. Because that's what science shows us pretty conclusively. But that isn't what you're saying. What you're actually saying is that it played no part whatsoever. That the dislike of her has nothing to do with her gender. It's impossible to prove that it does in one specific case, but since the data shows that it is a real and true thing across the board, and since she's the only female presidential nominee ever, and since women currently make up less than 20% of government positions period, it seems kind of silly to make the claim that it definitely DOESN'T apply to Hillary Clinton. Generally, you start with the general consensus, and then you look for actual evidence to disprove the generalization in specific instances. I've seen nothing that says gender bias didn't play a legitimate part in her campaign.

 

 

You say if Hillary is even remotely likable, she wins in a landslide. I wouldn't disagree with that. However, that still doesn't dismiss any kind of gender bias. Gender bias asserts that Hillary is deemed less likable than she would be if she were a man.

Link to comment

Without any data to connect sexism to this election, all you guys are doing is saying "sexism exists."

 

Yes, it does. Show some data that connects it to this election, or it's irrelevant to this conversation.

 

Sexism exists + Hillary Clinton is a woman + Hillary Clinton lost this election ≠ Sexism was a meaningful factor in Hillary Clinton's election loss

  • Fire 1
Link to comment

Zoogs nailed it. Gender bias may not be the sole reason she lost, but it was a factor. It just is. Those folks that said, "I just don't like her" ... drill down and I'd bet a dollar for more than 50% of them it comes down to her being a woman, or that her skills are perceived as negatives (whereas in a man it would be a positive. An example - a woman is "shrill" whereas a man is "tough". A woman is a "bitch" whereas a man is a hardcore manager".)

 

I won't bother with all the links that nobody actually reads, but gender bias is a very real issue that we face.

 

To add one last point - women also have bias against other women. It's not something we escape just because we are one.

  • Fire 2
Link to comment

Ah, I see. So we do agree that it played a part. I think where this is coming from is that's all somebody said, only to face a lot of pushback. There's a lot of not wanting to acknowledge the subject, and I don't think that's entirely fair. Similarly, I'd agree that it isn't everything.

 

The fact that Hillary gets stuck with labels such as "corrupt", "crooked", "lying", "b****", "c***", "power-hungry", "ambitious", "fake", "cold", and so on, these things are not gender playing little or no factor. It's not everything. It's not below #100. Ref: those studies we both agree exist. Politics is a gendered game. It was created as one. It will change, but only slowly.

 

Hillary grew up in a time when her peers felt she was stealing their rightful spots as men by being a college student or being a law school student. In order to advance she had a narrow mold to fit into, as a successful but sufficiently nonthreatening woman who could eventually build the kind of resume that usually predates a Presidential run. She hewed assiduously to that mold and was generally seen as manufactured for it, from both sides of the aisle. Barack Obama and Joe Biden talked about this. These aren't post-hoc fancies pulled from the nether. They were sustained topics throughout her campaign.

 

I believe one day gender will play little to no factor in determining whether or not a person aspiring to be the most powerful one on Earth is going to be viewed as genuine, likable, or trustworthy. That's not this day. And the winning candidate clearly and obviously played on it (one example). The power of such tactics was no mystery to him, either.

 

Perhaps we can compromise and say it's the equivalent of a Top 20ish, #9wins finisher in the rankings. Not everything. Not nothing :)

Link to comment

 

I am one who thinks that in addition to Clinton being a flawed candidate, sexism had something to do with her defeat.

I really don't think this is the case. I think she was looked at as any other politician, regardless of sex. In fact, I'd say the fact that her gender very rarely made a dent in the national coverage of the race shows that gender was almost a non-factor.

 

The biggest factor in Hillary losing was the simple fact that people do not like her. That dislike has nothing an unquantifiable but likely negligible amount to do with her gender.

 

Better?

Link to comment

 

 

I am one who thinks that in addition to Clinton being a flawed candidate, sexism had something to do with her defeat.

I really don't think this is the case. I think she was looked at as any other politician, regardless of sex. In fact, I'd say the fact that her gender very rarely made a dent in the national coverage of the race shows that gender was almost a non-factor.

 

The biggest factor in Hillary losing was the simple fact that people do not like her. That dislike has nothing to do with her gender.

 

 

Except when they were talking about how "tired she looked", how weak she was, how the white suit looked on tv - whether she had special lighting arranged, her lipstick color ...

  • Fire 1
Link to comment

There's a big, big difference in these two assertions:

 

1. Gender bias did not affect things.

2. Gender bias was not the lone deciding factor.

 

I can agree with #2. I can't agree with #1. But I'm not sure you are arguing that, either.

 

That Barack Obama was able to overcome his own set of biases in 2008 especially should bear little relevance to this outcome. John McCain ran for a third George W. Bush term with Sarah Palin as his running mate, and Obama was and is a preternaturally skilled politician.

 

The first female President will likely also have to be so particularly exceptional, and benefit from favorable circumstances such as running as an outsider in an anti-establishment climate. The next white man after Trump certainly will not need to be. Look at Trump. Similarly, the next Black president will have less to overcome than the first one. The second female President, too. So it goes.

 

Biases are real. They play a role, all the time. They weren't the lone cause, and indeed, it seems folly to look for singular causes.

I don't agree with #1 or #2.

 

I know there is sexism out there that affects outcomes.

 

What I'm saying is that it's nowhere close to the biggest reason she lost. Therefore...not THE reason she lost.

 

Elizabeth Warren would have won in a landslide.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...