The Democratic Party in 2017

 

What part of this arithmetic do the Democrats not comprehend?

Seats in the Senate	48 / 100
Seats in the House	186 / 435
Governorships	18 / 50
State Upper House Seats	836 / 1,972
State Lower House Seats	2,344 / 5,411
Territorial Governorships	2 / 6
Territorial Upper Chamber Seats	31 / 97
Territorial Lower Chamber Seats	0 / 91

 The Republicans have 51 seats in the US Senate.  After a run-off on December 11 they will, IMO, have 52 seats. The advantages in state governments grows steadily.  The disadvantage carried by the Democrats as coastal city dwellers operating within the federal republic created by the agreement among the states that is the US Constitution cannot be overestimated.

That is why they lost the latest elections and are likely to continue to lose elections across the board until they reconcile themselves to the idea that the multi-culty beliefs of their Obama style gurus will not bring them power on a regular basis.

Perhaps they need a different country.   pl  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)

Comments

[walrus]

Safe spaces and group hugs are the likely responses. I particularly liked the allegation that a challenge to Nancy Pelosi is "sexist". Says it all, really......

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/264852/sexist-democrats-turn-pelosi-daniel-greenfield

[kao_hsien_chih]

I think a fundamental problem that Democrats have is that they misread Obama's winning coalitions in 2008 and 2012. In both coalitions, white working class in the Midwest provided a significant minority of his voters. (and this is a big reason why polls were wrong--especially in retrospect--in 2012. Obama beat the polls by as much as Trump did in 2016, possibly because of the very same voters.) They wanted Obama to be a "pure" multicultural, "progressive" hero, so they ignored how he maintained at least some appeal to the old Democratic Party voters. Without that appeal, Democrats keep losing, losing, and losing, except in the multicultural niches. The trouble with the Democrats is that they are not diverse enough--at least, they lack the right kind of diversity.

[GulfCoastPirate]

So the coastal city dwellers who pay the majority of the bills are supposed to plead with the folks in the middle areas to please come into the 21st century? Or should we just allow ourselves to be swept downwards into their poverty and we can all live in their version of 18th century poverty forevermore? What, exactly, is it you think the Democrats should do?

They need a different country? What would the rest of the country look like without their subsidies? Bolivia? Poland? Thailand? Is that what you want?

[turcopolier]

GCP

I have seen your argument before and understand it. Your problem is that you are powerless to change the structure of the Republic and therefore are at the mercy of the Deplorable ruffians. Your only hope is to change the mind of the aforementioned Deplorables and therefore you will have to suck up to them, something you do not wish to do. pl

[Cortes]

The tactic for success in the Rainbow World ((C) moi) will be to migrate right-thinkers into the heartlands to sway the vote.

Said as someone who observes the same process in the U.K.: gales of "inblown" voters from more populous areas to make a difference.

[shaun]

All will be well since Trump will return to torture. Its us Lefties that are confused.

[kao_hsien_chih]

That line of argument sounds like the old stereotype of the upscale Republican: money overshadows all things and entitles those who have it to dictate to all. I thought we left it behind in 1930s. People as diverse as Bismarck and FDR saw that, for sake of social stability, a bit of redistribution paired with compromise, even if they might seem shady and unprincipled, are necessary. I'm finding it strange that I am saying this to someone who is supposed to be a liberal Democrat.

[turcopolier]

shaun

(irony) Not to worry, there will be room enough in the camps for you all. pl

[turcopolier]

shaun, GCP Are you listening to this comment of Cortes? Good advice! This could be something like sending free soilers into Kansas in the 1850s. That worked out well.

shaun. I heard the ex-American Israeli ambassador Dermer praise Trump and Bannon today. How could he do that? Bernie and Pelosi say they will work with Trump on issues of common concern. How can they do that? pl

[Tyler]

The attempt of the Dems to import a new people is quickly looking like its going to be blown apart.

In the spirit of Napoleon's "Never interupt an enemy when they are making a mistake" I recommend the Dems double down on blaming everyone but themselves and continue to insist everyone who doesn't agree with them is a Deploreable.

You'll shame those voters into pulling the lever for you any time now.

[Tyler]

GCP,

You should probably look up who is using what at higher per capita rates, my friend.

[Sam Peralta]

GCP

But...the MMT folks will be here soon to tell you that the coastals are suckers. They don't need to pay any taxes or foot any bills. Didn't you know that government creates standard of living magic by printing infinite amounts of currency?

[eakens]

Why do the coastal city dwellers pay a majority of the bills? Is it their intelligence, or their ignorance?

[Lemur]

My understanding was that a lot of these subsidies went to support vital sectors of self sufficiency - like agriculture.

[Fred]

GCP,

"What, exactly, is it you think the Democrats should do?"

I would recommend not doubling down on condemnation and contempt.

[Cold War Zoomie]

Below is my election analysis I posted here back in September before changing my mind based on "the data" and joining the DC groupthink club...

"Trump will win because:

1. The Democrats under Bill Clinton abandoned the blue collar middle class workers, signing NAFTA and falling in love with Wall Street and "triangulating" for short-term political gain. Meanwhile...

2. Young voters and left leaning Liberals who were part of the Obama coalition got a middle-of-the-road northingburger president who's biggest accomplishment is a Rube Goldberg contraption called the ACA that will likely implode, and nothing much more. Meanwhile...

3. The Democratic Machine pushed across the primary finish line the absolute worst candidate imaginable. Meanwhile...

4. Trump's supporters will crawl over hot coals to vote for him. No amount of "gaffs" and inside-the-DC-bubble analysis by TV talking heads is going to change that. Meanwhile...

5. Hillary will be over-rehearsed and a cut-out caricature of the consummate DC insider during the debates. And it will be all over at that point.

To paraphrase a line from 1994: It's the enthusiasm gap, stupid!

The House will stay Republican, as well as the Senate. But the Senate will be a squeaker with 51R to 49D. Pundits won't understand how Trump became president or why the GOP did not implode as predicted because they're too far gone inside Beltway groupthink."

I should have stopped while I was ahead. Number 5 was a bit off - she did better than I expected. But all the other problems still remain for Democrats. Howard Dean recommended a 50-state strategy over a decade ago to combat the consistent erosion at the state level like we see today. He was ignored in DC. The "economic anxiety" that supposedly was a driving force for Trump supporters is directly related to Clinton's policies. Hillary never bothered to address that. She hardly visited the Rust Belt.

Democrats need to stop focusing on the presidential elections and more on rebuilding a party that represents all working classes. They abandoned their core constituency in the 1990s to be "Republican Light." And this is where that got them.

[Clueless Joe]

Ironically, it's the Liberal flight from red country to the progressive coasts that is worsening the situation.
If Dem voters had stayed in their fly-over states for the last 15 years, odds are that Clinton would be president-elect, considering it's merely a few tens of thousands of voters in a handful of States that shifted the (quite sizable, unlike 2000 debacle) majority to Trump.
As the Colonel said, with the majority of Congress and, more importantly, States, specially less populous ones, in the hands of the GOP, things won't improve much for the Democrats, specially any hope of "fixing" the Electoral College, which would require majority of the Sates to approve.
At this point, Dems either should stay in swing States until they're sure they can be a majority, or they should hope that Texas (and optionally Florida) will eventually turn blue due to immigration and liberals moving in its cities - though this might depress even more the Democrats' position in swing states.

[Fred]

Cortes,

You mean empty the pubic housing projects by using section 8 housing vouchers in the bedroom communities and ex-urbs? That does help empty said housing projects which can then be sold off to the lowest bidder for redevelopment - along with massive tax exemptions for connected Oligarchs - to create such things as hockey rinks and basketball arenas? See Baltimore and Detroit as examples. It also shifts the crime problem out of the inner city too and allows the Feds to use the DOJ to take ever more control of local police forces when the inevitable abuse of those whose lives matter are unjustly injured in the commission of a crime peaceful activities they were engaged in. Of course the results of the latest election kind of put a damper on all that. I can't wait to see Trump direct an audit of section 8 voucher program recipients.

[Sam Peralta]

Recommend President-elect Trump's message to Americans.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-21/trump-says-he-will-issue-executive-order-first-day-office-withdrawing-us-tpp

Let's hope he resonates with his discussion with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard this morning and nominates her to his foreign affairs team.

http://gabbard.house.gov/index.php/press-releases/655-gabbard-statement-on-meeting-with-president-elect-donald-trump

[Mark Logan]

I suspect they need a clue myself, but nothing can deliver a hint better than a good butt-kicking can.

They are already starting to wonder if maybe they missed something. Here's a snip from the NYT openly pondering what was very recently imponderable:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html?_r=0

"In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing."

May both parties discover that "man does not live by identity politics alone" and the sooner the better.

[Hood Canal Gardner]

I caught Obama from Peru last night. Rather subdued. I'm wondering about his pretty consistent 'let Trump have some space/time to get up and running' advice to all. And, that if he's a trouble maker "I'll speak out." IMO here's a fair chance if he does get after Trump's actions say 90-120 days out/early summer, someone from the Alt Right/KKK will pop him and the "game's on." Just what the Deep Pockets here and abroad have in mind is beyond me. It's beginning to sound/read like they want a Beirut or two or three here.

When Trump shouts "drain the swamp" and his supporters repeat/shout "drain the swamp" what they don't understand (IMO) is that they are "they are the swamp." Trump is talking about them: the cockroach poor, the congenitally unemployed, the homeless, sick, social security leaches..he's 110% for "braceros" that show up on his call/go home on command. Hello: Trump is not talking about the 1%/his and their WDC minions.

Come on/get real.. "That's All Folks."

[mike allen]

"Perhaps they need a different country."

Sorry Colonel, you won't get rid of me that easy. But perhaps I'll take Cortez' advice. SWMBO's doctor wants her to move to a dryer climate so perhaps I'll move to Tyler's fair state and help turn AZ blue.

[Swamp Yankee]

Colonel,

Still feeling the Bern here in SE Mass. I believe Bernie's answer -- focus on uniting the have-nots in this society, across every color and creed, as Roosevelt and Truman did -- is the correct one. He will now face holy hell from the corporate capitalist/identity politics wing of the party.

Let me say that I don't consider myself a liberal as the term is presently understood; I'm an Old Democrat of the Party of Roosevelt, Truman, Jackson, Jefferson. I live in a permanently red section of one of the bluest states. So I often find myself talking across big cultural and political differences. I am in networks with a number of modern liberals, and they have not yet begun to absorb their defeat. I know people from literally the wealthiest ZIP Codes in the country who, when presented with the real material grievances of their fellow citizens, wave it away as imagined, like some Dickensian caricature of an upper class twit, kicking the poor. Indeed, their constant game is to "kick the hick"; they are then surprised when the country people kick right back. You can't build a culture of total contempt and sneering at your fellow citizens and not see electoral results of that attitude. Their conduct is infuriating, and they show no signs of learning that, in the final analysis, if you build an economy that leaves most of the country behind, people will punish you at the ballot box. It's as simple as that. People know when their kids are dying of heroin, or they find themselves living in the woods, and no amount of propaganda from the worthies at MSNBC can convince them, with Doctor Pangloss, that it really is "the best of all possible worlds."

But most of these liberals are very well-off and have no idea what it is to be hungry. I think they are about to come to an increasingly difficult reckoning with material reality. They may have more defeats in them yet.

Meanwhile, I keep talking with my friends and neighbors, many of whom were for Trump, many for Clinton, and many of whom didn't vote, and agree or disagree, but go on about life as people do. The clam diggers are still out there at low tide, and their backs still get sore. The metropolitan elites really do live in a different universe.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Do the Lefty people, as you call them, in the United States advocate further devolution of power to the states within the Federal structures of the United States?

In other words, do they stand for the expansion of the power of the states - in contradistinction to the power of the Federal one?

Do you know?

[Lemur]

But you see they HAVE to reject catering to white working class voters because they're so deeply mired in left wing identity politics. Now they've imported the legions of the global south, they've gotta stick with the patron-client electoral model that plagues countries like Brazil. Problem is, the colours of the Rainbow Coalition start to clash with one another after the vibrancy crosses a certain threshold.

By contrast, all the GOP has to do now Trump has showed them the way is unify the white vote across all classes, and depress black and Hispanic turnout through propaganda campaigns designed to discredit dems. We're seeing increasing homogeneity on the right wing, while Team Diversity Is Are Greatest Strength breaches the event horizon of irreconcilable tribal interests among their constituents. Looks like under Bannon's reform capitalism we're also going to integrate the non-retarded anti-globalist leftist elements like Tulsi Garbbard fans and reasonable Berners into the nationalist coalition. We've stolen a march on the left they'll never recover from.

Furthermore, if you examine post-election behavour of the losing party in the US, you generally see a doubling down on the losing policies and attitudes. The discredited leaders are dethroned by the grassroots blaming insufficient ideological purity for the defeat. Just look at that vibrant they're now promoting for senate leader or something. Steeped in third-worldist anti-white thinking.

Hence why Trump will win in 2020. Not to mention he's the Hegelian man of the zeitgeist.