U.S. Democratic Primary

[Ten oz]

On 4/4/2019 at 9:16 PM, iNow said:

Representative Tim Ryan from Ohio jumped in today. 

I don't know much about Tim Ryan. I haven't been impressed thus far by what I seen of him but it is earl.

In terms of people I wasn't too familiar with impressing me right away Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, and Kristen Gillibrand. Buttigieg seems at ease answering questions and comes across as authentic, Andrew Yang has a clear purpose, and Gillibrand seems well prepared (studied/eager). Those I was already familiar with who have most impressed thus far are Julian Castro and Cory Booker. Castro seems very knowledgeable and confident while Cory Booker comes across as very likable. Kamala Harris is from my hometown and I was already familiar with her and she's perform about as expected. Warren has under performed in my opinion but it is early. Everyone else not listed above I wish would just go away, lol. With the exception of O'Rouke (whom I would happily vote for) everyone else not listed above would cause me a lot of pause in the voting booth. 

Edited April 6, 2019 by Ten oz

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 4/6/2019 at 8:43 AM, Ten oz said:

I don't know much about Tim Ryan. I haven't been impressed thus far by what I seen of him but it is earl.

In terms of people I wasn't too familiar with impressing me right away Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, and Kristen Gillibrand. Buttigieg seems at ease answering questions and comes across as authentic, Andrew Yang has a clear purpose, and Gillibrand seems well prepared (studied/eager). Those I was already familiar with who have most impressed thus far are Julian Castro and Cory Booker. Castro seems very knowledgeable and confident while Cory Booker comes across as very likable. Kamala Harris is from my hometown and I was already familiar with her and she's perform about as expected. Warren has under performed in my opinion but it is early. Everyone else not listed above I wish would just go away, lol. With the exception of O'Rouke (whom I would happily vote for) everyone else not listed above would cause me a lot of pause in the voting booth. 

I don't know if he has a real chance but this guy certainly has interesting ideas and speaks them well.

[iNow]

Rep. Eric Swalwell from California is now in. 

[CharonY]

And Joe Biden is in.

[iNow]

We're rapidly reaching a point where it would be faster to begin sharing who's NOT thrown their hat into the race.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Biden can certainly fund raise...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/politics/biden-first-day-fundraising/index.html

6.3 million on first day

[CharonY]

5 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Biden can certainly fund raise...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/politics/biden-first-day-fundraising/index.html

6.3 million on first day

His strength is that he appeals to the establishment, which could work in his favour come election. His weakness is that he appeals to the establishment, which could hurt him in the primaries.

[MigL]

Lot of people have won the primaries, and lost the election.
Democrats need to keep their eye on the goal.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Lot of people have won the primaries, and lost the election.
Democrats need to keep their eye on the goal.

Despite what I said earlier, there is the challenge that populism carries a lot of power in both parties. Trump won the electoral college with a populists platform built on racial resentment. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

8 hours ago, CharonY said:

Despite what I said earlier, there is the challenge that populism carries a lot of power in both parties. Trump won the electoral college with a populists platform built on racial resentment. 

Unfortunately there are elements of that that came along with it, but I don't believe that was the root cause. (certainly there was resentment)

Also keep in mind Biden is at a disadvantage, in part, for the Democrat primaries for both racial and sexist reasons, as he is white and male. (one could throw in age as well and say old white male but I think that one, age, is a valid concern...though hardly disqualifying)

[iNow]

26 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Unfortunately there are elements of that that came along with it, but I don't believe that was the root cause. (certainly there was resentment)

What do you think was the root cause?

Resentment, grievance, demagoguery,  scapegoating, false promises, fear stoking... these and many more things all played a role, but what do you classify as root cause of Trumps win?

[J.C.MacSwell]

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

What do you think was the root cause?

Resentment, grievance, demagoguery,  scapegoating, false promises, fear stoking... these and many more things all played a role, but what do you classify as root cause of Trumps win?

I'm not going to pretend I know it exactly, but loss of way of life for blue collar America...job losses through both technology and foreign trade 

I think Trump is a symptom of that.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Unfortunately there are elements of that that came along with it, but I don't believe that was the root cause. (certainly there was resentment)

I highlighted that part as analyses indicated that these elements were the most consistent trait among the voter base. Economic hardships were fairly low on the list, somewhat surprisingly (below indicators of sexism). I.e. the economic anxiety assumption does not seem to hold.

[J.C.MacSwell]

19 hours ago, CharonY said:

I highlighted that part as analyses indicated that these elements were the most consistent trait among the voter base. Economic hardships were fairly low on the list, somewhat surprisingly (below indicators of sexism). I.e. the economic anxiety assumption does not seem to hold.

What analyses was this?

[iNow]

5 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

What analyses was this?

I won’t respond on behalf of CharonY, but here’s one that came immediately to mind for me (summarizes: all of the analyses):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fbc1c7e52145

Quote

The Associated Press wondered what “Trump’s success in attracting white, working-class voters” would mean for his general election strategy. On Nov. 9, the New York Times front-page article about Trump’s victory characterized it as “a decisive demonstration of power by a largely overlooked coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters.”

There’s just one problem: this account is wrong. Trump voters were not mostly working-class people.

During the primaries, Trump supporters were mostly affluent people

<...>

many polls showed that Trump supporters were mostly affluent Republicans. For example, a March 2016 NBC survey that we analyzed showed that only a third of Trump supporters had household incomes at or below the national median of about $50,000. Another third made $50,000 to $100,000, and another third made $100,000 or more and that was true even when we limited the analysis to only non-Hispanic whites. If being working class means being in the bottom half of the income distribution, the vast majority of Trump supporters during the primaries were not working class.

<...>

Among people who said they voted for Trump in the general election, 35 percent had household incomes under $50,000 per year (the figure was also 35 percent among non-Hispanic whites), almost exactly the percentage in NBC’s March 2016 survey. Trump’s voters weren’t overwhelmingly poor. In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy.

<...>

among white people without college degrees who voted for Trump, nearly 60 percent were in the top half of the income distribution. In fact, one in five white Trump voters without a college degree had a household income over $100,000.

Observers have often used the education gap to conjure images of poor people flocking to Trump, but the truth is, many of the people without college degrees who voted for Trump were from middle- and high-income households. That’s the basic problem with using education to measure the working class.

In short, the narrative that attributes Trump’s victory to a “coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters” just doesn’t square with the 2016 election data

<...>

What deserves to die isn’t America’s working-class communities. It’s the myth that they’re the reason Trump was elected.

 

Anyway... this is supposed to be the democratic primary thread. Perhaps we can avoid feeding the all trump all the time narrative that’s seemingly conjured a spell lately on everything government or politics related. 

Edited April 29, 2019 by iNow

[CharonY]

There are numerous studies looking into voter characteristics. Too many to name them all but  here are some key references to start reading, if you cannot find a particular lit I can help with the full citations. The focus on these studies range from identifying factors that are predictive for voting behaviour as well as prevailing attitudes in Trump supporters. The studies pretty much paint a rather similar image, which is remarkable considering the different approaches and focus of the respective studies. However, it rather clearly shows that economic hardships, despite how commonly it is brought up, was not the most important factor in the 2016 election. As I have mentioned earlier, things like status threat, related racism and sexism far more prevalent and predictive for Trump supporters and voters.

 Schaffner et al. Political Science Quarterly, 2018 

Mutz, PNAS, 2018

Valentino et al., Publich Opinion Quarterly, 2018

Major et al. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2016

Knowles and Tropp Soc Phys Pers Sci 2018

Luttig et al Res & Pol, 2017

Ratliff et al. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2017

Smith & Hanley, Crit. Soc., 2018

 

There are many more, but these cover the main issues quite well and can be used as a decent starting point. It should also be noted that quite a bit of the political polarization is based on the fact that folks reject the prejudices of Trump and his supporters. You can also find numerous reports in a variety of journals and newspapers contextualizing these findings. But in short, many Trump supporters are feeling threatened by minorities, regardless of whether they experienced economic hardships or not. It is the consistent feeling that if "they" are becoming part of the establishment, the Trump supporters would somehow lose their status. And considering that the GOP is whistling hard this sense of persecution is not going to be alleviated by actual showing that there is no threat of even an economic benefit to them. This is why meaningless measures which are entirely symbolic (such as the wall or cruelty towards asylum seekers) is so useful and powerful. It also shows the prevalence of attitudes in the society which we often consider to be marginal, simply since we consider them to be distasteful in principle. However, when one actually looks at it, it becomes clear that we all have our biases and prejudices. The Trump campaign just managed successfully to harness them to a sufficient degree. 

 

 

 

 

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

I won’t respond on behalf of CharonY, but here’s one that came immediately to mind for me (summarizes: all of the analyses):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fbc1c7e52145

 

Anyway... this is supposed to be the democratic primary thread. Perhaps we can avoid feeding the all trump all the time narrative that’s seemingly conjured a spell lately on everything government or politics related. 

Thanks for the link.

I don't think CY's commenting on Trump was off topic. The Democrat Primaries are to a significant degree aimed at beating him in 2020. I was just questioning it's accuracy (and did not claim it was entirely wrong)

On 4/27/2019 at 10:54 AM, MigL said:

Lot of people have won the primaries, and lost the election.
Democrats need to keep their eye on the goal.

 

+1

Edited April 29, 2019 by J.C.MacSwell

[CharonY]

14 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Thanks for the link.

I don't think CY's commenting on Trump was off topic. The Democrat Primaries are to a significant degree aimed at beating him in 2020. I was just questioning it's accuracy (and did not claim it was entirely wrong)

 

+1

That is what I meant. The issue is that talking economics won't sway (most) Trump supporters, as many feel less threatened by the economic outlook per se, but rather connect it to the rise of minorities (i.e. status threat). If one wants to address their demands, one would have to go into anti-immigrant /-minority policies. Indirectly, the Democrats have done so in the past by promoting stricter sentencing, for example. However, their platform has shifted to a more inclusive message and using that is likely a non-starter.

[iNow]

The 21st person joined the Democratic primary today. His name is Michael seriously dude enough is enough go the hell away Bennet. 

[Raider5678]

Starting to wonder if Russia is paying people to join the Democratic Primary Race......

[CharonY]

18 hours ago, iNow said:

The 21st person joined the Democratic primary today. His name is Michael seriously dude enough is enough go the hell away Bennet. 

Remember when we joked about the GOP hopefuls last year? I think reality is just taking all the jokes and runs them to the ground.

[rangerx]

3 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Starting to wonder if Russia is paying people to join the Democratic Primary Race......

Which people?

If so, under what guise? Operatives or agents? Unwittingly or by collusion?
 

[iNow]

At least they all come to where I live to introduce themselves. It’s pretty cool

[iNow]

Montana Governor Steve Bullock is now running in the Democratic primary, too

[CharonY]

... why?