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

[Valissa]

Some interesting articles on the tough shape the national Dem power structure is in right now...

Chris Cillizza from WP… The next generation of Democratic leaders is, um, nonexistent https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/the-next-generation-of-democratic-leaders-is-um-nonexistent/

On the nitty gritty issues of power in the House... The Daily 202: Generational divide fuels nascent Democratic revolt in House https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/11/16/daily-202-generational-divide-fuels-nascent-democratic-revolt-in-house/582bb5f3e9b69b6085905df4/

More on the lack of up and coming Democrats here (not a deep bench, barely a stool)...

Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only big election loser http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-hillary-clinton-obama-lost-election-20161115-story.html
Democrats basically have no minor leagues to develop experienced, savvy top-tier candidates at state levels. Starting with the anti-Obama tide of 2010, Republicans have built a stranglehold on state legislatures and governors’ offices. They now control 33 governorships to Democrats’ 15. The GOP will control 69 of the country’s 99 state legislative chambers, including every one across the South. They will control both legislative chambers and the governorships — the so-called trifecta — in 25 states. Democrats will have trifectas in only six states. That not only drives the Republican Party’s conservative agenda but grants priceless experience and name recognition to future rising stars. In the Nov. 8 election, the GOP captured blue-collar workers, once a key Democratic component.
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[TonyL]

Col,

Great advice. If I were running the Democratic Party, that would be my goal, and sucking up to our brothers/sisters is a right way to persuade them. I am independent so it is a dontcare to me if they keep sucking up to the Borgs.

[kao_hsien_chih]

They are part of the "stability" I'm talking about. A lot of things that are kept artificially inexpensive (like food) may not add much "monetary value" (b/c they are kept inexpensive, duh!) but are indispensable for a peaceable society. The citizens of Paris and Cairo (in different centuries) rose up in revolt when grain was no longer subsidized (enough).

[kao_hsien_chih]

Yeah. Many of us who think we pay attention to "data" and "analysis" fell for that. We couldn't say that all the number crunchers are "wrong" categorically, just that "we think you're off here and there." and hedge the bet by saying 1/3 chance that Trump will win or some other ass pull (guilty myself). Sometimes, going all in on the gut feeling, especially when backed up by data-inspired suspicions, may not be a bad thing.

[Lemur]

But immigration will be tightly restricted by Trump. A lot of these votes cast for Clinton aren't 'real' because they're from Hart Celler "Americans". California would be reliably red if the US hadn't started accepting non European immigration.

Your point liberals are emptying out of swing states for extant liberal population concentrations is an astute observation. As the values of the country continue to diverge (gotta thank Soros for his help in polarization), we should see more of this self-segregation. We'll bail up those who want to demographically replace the Historic American Nation in their multiculti coastal utopias that offer no path to translating increased population into electoral seats.

When did everything start going so right for the right? These are halcyon days.

[Valissa]

GCP, your comment is a perfect example of liberal arrogance and disdain... and a great example of why the Democratic party lost the presidential election to the "boorish" (because he directly and purposefully challenged your notions of political correctness) Trump.

How the Left Created Trump - Nov. 8 represented an explosion of anger on the right at years of smugness and disdain by liberals. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/how-the-left-created-donald-trump-214472
Well before Donald Trump declared he was running—to the amusement of the liberal media and Washington establishment, who didn’t stop laughing until Nov. 8—and long before Hillary Clinton dismissed half of Trump’s supporters as “deplorables,” the right had gotten used to being looked down upon by liberals. The general attitude of the left was: Disagree with us? You’re probably racist, xenophobic, sexist, bigoted or all of the above. Indeed, for many liberal Americans, these prejudices have come to be seen as inseparable from identity of the Republican Party itself. And when the GOP went all-out Trump, it only confirmed to many liberals that their ideological opponents were no longer worthy of respect. …

Trump’s rise to power evolved out of this frustration, as Clinton’s campaign increasingly became an extension of liberal America’s smug-style of debate—an attitude that no longer disputed on grounds of policy or intellectual differences, but on the issue of the integrity of the right altogether. …

Herein lies the problem with the left’s “by any means necessary” style of social activism: When any challenge to the prevailing liberal doctrine, cast under the wrong light, can forever cast one as a “racist,” those with dissenting opinions are left with only two options: concede, or retaliate. Trump appealed to the latter by forming the populist right-wing counterpart to the left’s stubborn ethos.
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From NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof earlier this year...
A Confession of Liberal Intolerance http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html

[Thomas101st]

@ Gulf Coast Pirate:

Give me a break. The economy of the east coast of the US is based on the Federal Government and Wall Street, both parasitic institutions which get their money skimming off the productive people of the country. The money the east coasters pay in taxes comes from money they obtain from flyover country. The west coast isn't much better with its' economy based on toys produced in Silicon Valley.

The heartland would do quite well without what is produced by the coastal areas (e.g. ETFs and video games). I don't think the effete urbanites of the coastal areas would fare well without that produced in the heartland (e.g. food and energy).

[kao_hsien_chih]

I thought about a different group of settlers--in the West Bank. It is one thing to try hard to assimilate to the local culture (and that is not easy to pull off). Forcibly trying to assimilate the locals to the "superior" culture or putting up barriers and live in a world cut off from the locals both strike me as recipes for disaster.

[BillWade]

GCP, Thailand is approaching 1st world status now, like us - they import workers, mainly from Burma and Cambodia to do the jobs that Thais never really liked doing.

What can the Dems do:

Try to find some jobs for inner-city young African Americans, a lot smarter than giving them a cell phone.

Stop promoting "Gay Culture" so heavily, people that don't like it notice and then like it even less so.

Peace, not war works better for us deplorables who pretty much staff the military.

Don't make people like me lose just shy of 10% of their fixed income over a period of 8 years (the last 8, that is).

Don't call us racists for voting for Trump, a lot of us voted twice for Obama.

Tell your buddies in the MSM to stop marginalizing good people like Ron Paul. Dems need to understand, the more you marginalize people, the more we start to like them. Witness President elect Trump.

Don't let people like Hillary Clinton tell young heavy debtors that she'll get their student loans off the books, laughing here as she must have been when she told that big lie.

We may live in the sticks but we're also often near borders, we WANT them secure.

A lot of "deplorable" have served in the military in real 3rd world countries, we DO NOT want to be 3rd worlders.

I could go on...

[steve]

The GOP has controlled public office, except for POTUS, for several years now. They will need to actually produce the jobs, and jobs with good wages they have been promising, and do it soon. If they can't, the Dems will return to power. Since I don't really see the Dems offering much right now, that is the only path back to power I see. Fortunately for them, I don't see much chance of the GOP formulating cogent plans.

Steve

[Valissa]

A friend who is too busy with her career and family obligations to do her own political research and typically asks me to answer her key questions recently asked me what the real scoop is on Steve Bannon. Though a loyal Democrat she is beginning to suspect that the MSM throwing the racist label around so much, and having such an over-the-top hissy fit about him, might be more propaganda than truth.

So I sent her the following articles on Bannon...

Ringside With Steve Bannon at Trump Tower as the President-Elect's Strategist Plots "An Entirely New Political Movement" http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747
What he seems to have carried from a boyhood in a blue-collar, union and Democratic family in Norfolk, Va., and through his tour of the American establishment, is an unreconstructed sense of class awareness, or bitterness — or betrayal. The Democratic Party betrayed its working-man roots, just as Hillary Clinton betrayed the longtime Clinton connection — Bill Clinton's connection — to the working man. "The Clinton strength," he says, "was to play to people without a college education. High school people. That's how you win elections." And, likewise, the Republican party would come to betray its working-man constituency forged under Reagan. In sum, the working man was betrayed by the establishment, or what he dismisses as the "donor class."

To say that he sees this donor class — which in his telling is also "ascendant America," e.g. the elites, as well as "the metrosexual bubble" that encompasses cosmopolitan sensibilities to be found as far and wide as Shanghai, London's Chelsea, Hollywood and the Upper West Side — as a world apart, is an understatement. In his view, there's hardly a connection between this world and its opposite — fly-over America, left-behind America, downwardly mobile America — hardly a common language. This is partly why he regards the liberal characterization of himself as socially vile, as the politically incorrect devil incarnate, as laughable — and why he is stoutly unapologetic. They — liberals and media — don't understand what he is saying, or why, or to whom. ...

And this, in the Bannon view, is all part of the profound misunderstanding that led liberals to believe that Donald Trump's mouth would doom him, instead of elect him. ...

Bannon, arguably, is one of the people most at the battle line of the great American divide — and one of the people to have most clearly seen it.

He absolutely — mockingly — rejects the idea that this is a racial line. "I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist," he tells me. "The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f—ed over. If we deliver" — by "we" he means the Trump White House — "we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed.
----------------

For Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, fiery populism followed life in elite circles https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-trump-adviser-stephen-bannon-fiery-populism-followed-life-in-elite-circles/2016/11/19/de91ef40-ac57-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html

[GulfCoastPirate]

kao_hsien_chih wrote:

'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.'

With all due respect you didn't answer my question. Exactly what compromises do you think should be made? There is already a good deal of redistribution which is keeping many of those people afloat. How much more do you want and do you think Trump and the Republicans are going to give it to them? Ryan is already talking about privatizing their Medicare. Do you think that is what they voted for with Trump?

You can't simply criticize me for asking questions. You have to have some answers.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Tyler wrote:

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

Be specific if you don't mind.

[GulfCoastPirate]

turcopolier wrote:

'Your problem is that you are powerless to change the structure of the Republic and therefore are at the mercy of the Deplorable ruffians.'

I can't say I disagree with this.

'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.'

Is that what history teaches us? Or does it teach us that the country will eventually decline to the level of the 'deplorables' (your word, not mine)?

[turcopolier]

mike allen

I don't want you to go anywhere. As a Lefty Marine you are an important boutique constituency. Hell, my Dear old Dad was a Wobbly as a sergeant in the cavalry. You know, with horses? pl

[Origin]

My thought is it will only take an election cycle or so for Trump to convince the Deplorables they have been had. The already steep Gini coefficient will grow greatly in the next few years. Here is a start at it. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/opinion/build-he-wont.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Trump says he is going to cut the number of government employees who have cushy jobs and he will succeed. What this really means is that he is going to shift governmental tasks away from the public sector to employ more contractors. It adds the overhead and profit of the contracting companies to jobs now done with no profit. The work has to be done and a larger share of the benefit of that work will go to the few. Trump will get his wish based upon his observation that American wages are too high. Wages will fall, not grow. Jobs will migrate to the robots run by the coastals in cities far from the heartland or from foreign shores.

Give it some time. The Deplorables will eventually wake up, but it may be too late for them. In the interim, the Deplorables will be entertained with fake issues to distract them from seeing how they are being had as they succumb to works of the shills and the false ideas of identity politics and triumphantism at "beating" the coastals.

In the meantime, China will suck up the Pacific rim prosperity as the US loses its control over the basics of world trade. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2048008/stalled-us-led-trans-pacific-pact-puts-china-free-trade

Were I the Chinese Premier, I would be courting Mexico and offering unlimited financing so that Mexico could suck the heart out of General Motors and move it all to Mexico. Japan, Australia, New Zeland, South Korea and the other southeast Asian are already negotiating a trade deal that puts China at its lead.

As long as the Deplorables reject globalization, the US will more quickly lose its standing in the world. The price of socks at Wal-Mart will increase. Those in the rust belt will have to move or eat more beans and rice.

Europe will grow again and gain its real independence as it is finally forced to stand up on its own without US. It will integrate more closely with Russia, leaving the US with less and less influence on the continent. With visions of the US being badly run by the Trumpists, the EU may not Brexit and if they do, they will remain in the sphere of the EU. As soon as Russia reconciles with the EU, NATO and all of our glorious arms sales contracts with Europe will vanish from our shores. We may even be looking at an European Asian Union soon with free trade, but limited migration.

By refusing the trade packs, the US is ending its dominance and the oligarchs will take our money and move to wherever is most fun. Perhaps, the government will issue the Deplorables UHaul-2-the-Coast internal visas so they can get the boring manufacturing jobs on the coasts the robots have not yet learned to do.

One thing is sure, the Deplorables lost not only the election, but probably the nation's premier place in the world. The Republicans, unhindered by visionaries like Obama, are about to tear apart the interests of the Deplorables in a real feeding frenzy for the rich. Our country will never be as good again.

Thanks Tyler.

[Larry Kart]

Pardon me if this has been posted before, but this is from the the late philosopher Richard Rorty’s 1998 book “Achieving Our Country”:

“[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

“At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. …

“One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet….

“The cultural Left has a vision of an America in which the white patriarchs have stopped voting and have left all the voting to be done by members of previously victimized groups. This Left wants to preserve otherness rather than ignore it….

“This world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no more sense of community with any workers anywhere than the great American capitalists of the year 1900.”

“[Though we intellectuals] ourselves [are] quite well insulated, at least in the short run, from the effects of globalization, outside the academy, Americans still want to feel patriotic. They still want to feel part of a nation which can take control of its destiny and make itself a better place.”

[Valissa]

"he's the Hegelian man of the zeitgeist"

Brilliant! That really says it all... puts to words my intuitive sense of his historical importance (what some might call destiny or fate or wyrd). I had the thought a few months ago that Trump reminded me of the character of The Mule in The Foundation Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series I always knew he would win because it was his time... all the signs and portents were there ;)

Eric Idle is the Hegelian Bruce here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WRFJwGsbY

[kao_hsien_chih]

First, I don't do advocacy as a principle, so here's what I think is unfolding.

There are two possible, mutually exclusive paths forward for the Democrats. This was already the difference between Sanders and Clinton, and is captured by the following quote (paraphrased) from Chuck Schumer: "for every vote from the working class going to Trump, we (the Democrats) will get two votes from suburban Republicans."

This did not work enough for HRC in this election, but the trends are telling: HRC gained significantly among the wealthiest bloc of voters (among 100k+)--in fact, I believe this was the only block where she gained voters relative to Obama in 2012 on natinoal scale. Many of these gains were in the currently or recently Republican states--Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, to the degree that the first two are actually fairly competitive. She also gained among the highest income blocs in the very Democratic states--California, Massachusetts, New York, and I believe Connecticut. In contrast, Trump gained not only in the Midwest, but also throughout the East--enough that Democratic voteshares in Connecticut and New Jersey were halved. Some states moved in both directions--Staten Island vs. Manhattan, for example. The blue vs. red state is yesterday's politics. It's increasingly the divisions within the same states, or even cities--Manhattan vs. Staten Island. Bakersfield vs. San Francisco. West Texas vs. Dallas/Houston/Austin (Dallas, if the trend continues, will be a Democratic city within a decade).

The big picture is really this: the Democrats, through Hillary Clinton, is trying very hard to become the party of the rich, of the Manhattanites, and succeeding; the Republicans, being dragged kicking and screaming by Trump, is becoming the party of the middle class and below, of the State Islanders, and again is succeeding, at least for now. And this is taking place within EVERY FREAKING state. So we are not talking about NY subsidizing KS. You are really saying that Manhattan should not put up with Queens. I can't really answer your question, in part because I don't know if there is an answer to your question. Does Manhattan need Staten Island? Will it affect San Francisco if everything to the east of Berkley disappeared? I actually don't think it'll affect them much. Maybe some Uber drivers will be gone, but they were due to be replaced by driverless cars anyways. To the 1%, 99% of humanity, quite frankly, is irrelevant, whether they die or live.

Maybe the 99% will rise up and try to overthrow the 1% maybe whatever means they have. Maybe they'll succeed, but I'll imagine that they'll be more likely shot down by the machines controlled through SkyNet or something. And the truth is, who knows? maybe in a few decades, the 1% can simply declare the rest of humanity obsolete and decide to eradicate us all as vermin. Is this overblown? I actually hear some Silicon Valley types joke about scenarios like this. That gives me chills.

[kao_hsien_chih]

I think somewhat less rambly way of addressing your question is the following:

Essentially, you are asking whether George Bailey is worth more dead or alive.

"Facts and figures" say that Bailey is worth more dead than alive. I don't think I can dispute that unless I twist the facts and figures.

I also think these "facts and figures" are the right metric for addressing the larger unstated question(s) behind the values question.

You might ask--I bring this up because I thought about this myself--whether the same rationale might justify us taking in refugees and illegal migrants and other ills of the world. If the Manhattanites don't think they should "subsidize" Staten Islanders, why should they? I think that is fundamentally a good question. If the Manhattanites don't think Staten Islanders are the same people as they are, maybe they shouldn't be in the same city, or the same country, and maybe they are better without each other.

[Jack]

All

The last time the GOP cavalry rode in with a POTUS, Field Marshall Rove told us that history is bunk as they create history. And while we analyze, they will be creating new history. We saw how that turned out. That created the opening for Mr. Hope & Change. Only many were left with only change. Now, we have someone that is only nominally partisan. Let's see how that turns out and the results of the 2018 elections.

In a duopoly political power is cyclical. Not too long ago the Democrats owned the south, just as the Republicans had strength in California. Now things are changed. IMO, political parties are not conducive to maintaining a republic. And especially when it is a duopoly. Party always comes before nation.

I favor the repeal of the 17th amendment and return to the principle that we are a union of states. I also favor the drastic reduction in the size and scope of the federal government. I will be quite happy if the federal role was limited to defense, interstate matters including infrastructure, national law enforcement and treasury. And of course the setting of common standards and managing relationships with other nations. I also dont see any reason why entitlement programs can't be devolved to the states. In concert with this devolution of power to the states, I would favor the devolution of political power from state capitals to counties. IMO, counties should be chartered with the primary provision of government services to citizens. I favor decentralization as the central principle of our political organization.

[JohnsonR]

"Your problem is that you are powerless to change the structure of the Republic and therefore are at the mercy of the Deplorable ruffians."

But if they can't change the structure of the Republic, they do have the power to irrevocably change the people of the United States, by mass immigration of third worlders with overriding race and cultural concerns to which they can pander.

This is the Democrat "dissolve the people and elect a new one" strategy the GOP elites have been trying to collaborate in for years, until they were blown away by Trump. Remains to be seen whether the Trump victory is just a blip in the inevitable demographic triumph long predicted by Democrat strategists and GOP establishment collaborators like the Bush dynasty, or a permanent halt.

[Pitch Pole]

We most likely wouldn't be having these arguments if the democrats had run anyone else. It was a demonstration of their complete blind arrogance, hubris and self dealing when they nominated HRC. Could there be a more perfect example the disconnect of the borg from the great unwashed? She couldn't visit the rust belt states - her schedule was full with $100k a plate dinners in every moneyed enclave across the country. If someone else had run - Biden, maybe Bernie - we'd still be talking about the end of the Republican party.

Those crowing about the election should remember the truism "beware of what you want, for you shall surely get it." So far I don't see anything but retreads of the same system and policies that got us where we are today. Trump is busy walking back so much of what he said or promised during the campaign - fine, he didn't mean it, but will everyone who voted for him be ok with that? And those who disagreed with him and his campaign, his rhetoric, and what he leveraged to win - they're free to exercise their right to free speech and peaceful assembly. If they turn violent, I'm sure the police will indeed kick their asses and deservedly so - but until then, they're within their rights.

It's going to be a long four years, no matter which side of this you are on.

[John Minnerath]

There seems to be the idea floating around among some here that the densely populated coastal cities carry the burden of supporting the rest of the country.
The hinterland, the vast flyover country populated by a deplorable section of society are a drag on their greatness.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Read the comment by "Thomas101st" above.
In there is the fact of the matter.

Most of the food stuffs, energy, and raw materials come from that deplorable region.
Billions in subsidies generated there go to support the disfunctional cities.
There is wailing of burdensome subsidies poured into the flyover country to keep it afloat.
Some of the "farm subsidies" are screwed up, mismanaged, and mishandled. Much of that was created by the democrats originally anyway, but much more in subsidies gets poured into the urban areas to keep their infrastructure operating.
Many of the great manufacturing facilities near the coastal cities sit idle and abandoned, also due in part to actions by the left.

It's time for the people existing in those crowded cities to wake up and realize just what does keep them going.

[Eliot]

GulfCoastPirate,

I would abandoned the culture wars at the national level and focus on economic issues instead. As it stands, the party is antagonizing voters who might otherwise support them.

- Eliot