How Should The Democratic Party Win Back Less Educated Whites?

Race is yet another demographic factor, of course. Trump's appeal to disgruntled non-college Whites did not extend to non-college Black and Hispanic Americans.

Was Hillary Clinton a problem in the Democratic Party's attempt to retain the allegiance of non-college Whites? Without a doubt!

Any savvy candidate would know that her words would be taken out of context when she pledged, in a CNN Town Hall, to eliminate coal mining jobs.

Consider the essential context and how it was cherry-picked:

"... I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business ...

And we’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.

Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on. "
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The reality is that coal is not the miracle energy source of the future, and the health-ravaging job of mining it will not be a sector of growing opportunity.

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... or, consider the deliberate distortion of her abysmal arithmetic inexactitude:

"... Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
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I regard Trump's "basket of deplorables" - the neo-nazis and white supremacists who hail him as their "Glorious Leader!" - as a small, albeit, enthusiastic minority. Clinton's estimate of "half" was idiotic.

Obviously, if you lose to a crass political neophyte who is heard proclaiming that his celebrity licenses him to sexually assault women, regardless of his promise to replace 'ObamaCare' with "something terrific!" that "covers everybody!" at "lower cost!", you must be a terrible candidate although, again, to contextualize, the reality tv performer had vanquished quite a few far more respectable Republicans to win the nomination.

The death stars aligned for the US.

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Whatever the ethnic or racial designation, the less educated in this nation are generally speaking loyal and life long Dem Party voters.

 

That certainly had been the case until recent years. "Poorly-educated" (to use Trump's characterization) Whites, especially older ones, voted for him in impressive numbers.

 

Interesting. The suggestion that the left is engineering society, or trying to, is amusing. It is the right who wants to control society, who is against any change or anything progressive, who is against the evolution of society, which is a natural and healthy thing. The attempt to control what society is goes both ways, those pulling back in a futile effort to keep it from changing and evolving and those moving forward and embracing inevitable change. If the right does want any change, it is only change they find acceptable, which is the same thing as 'trying to engineer society.'

 

I still think it boils down to the choice of candidates. Since the NYT and CNN didn't break down the so called uneducated by race in 2008 and 2012, I can't tell you how they compare to 2016. The best we can do is compare education. You might find this interesting, history of different demographics by Pew Research. It ends in 2014, but comparing the history to 2016 is rather fascinating.

http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/party-identification-trends-1992-2014/

 

Trump has charisma? OMG I don't think so. That's the last thing he has: his exceedingly repulsive.

 

My god. Someone who still equates going to school with education. Look who voted for the man who visited 56 of the 57 states of the United States.

 

You find the most illuminating surveys. Here is an insightful post-election analysis of the educational bifurcation::

 

Personal opinion noted. But place Trump and Hillary together. Watch the crowd and see which one installs excitement, enthusiasm. Trump had something that energize his supporters to go to the four corners of the earth for him. Hillary didn't excite, ho hum comes to mind. This doesn't mean the those who supported both weren't really, really for them. It's just if one weren't an avid Clinton supporter, she couldn't excite them to support her.

Excite may be the wrong word, close enough though. Compare the rallies, energy and enthusiasm all over the place for Trump. Clinton's were more laid back, lacking zeal. Trump would fire up a room, light a fire under those there. Hillary would get nods. Big difference. Hillary had superior numbers, she had more supporters than Trump. But they weren't as energized or engaged.

In the end, turnout might have been the direct result of energy vs. ho hum. The Democratic base dropped from 37-36% of the electorate from 2012-2016. The Republican base vote grew from 32-33% Blacks portion of the electorate dropped from 13% down to 12%. Worst yet for Hillary, she received 88% of the black vote to Obama's 93%. Not only did less blacks turnout, fewer voted for her and more voted for Trump than Romney. Hillary couldn't ignite that fire Obama did. Trump could and did. Call it charisma or something else, but whatever it was, it was there for Trump and not for Hillary.

 

Hilary really doesn't have anything to do with anything anymore. Trump appealed to the kind of people Hitler appealed to: populism...something that is a rally cry for the simple minded, the angry, the hateful. You can be as educated as ****, but that is often just being able to absorb facts and memorize stuff: real intelligence, real critical thinking, those are something else again.

 

Very possible and if Nate states so, I believe him. I still think there's something in play than just education. Why could Obama win that group and Clinton couldn't? Could it be Trump excites and Hillary didn't? Obama excited them and won them over McCain and Romney. My problem is blaming the uneducated as you put it for Hillary's loss. If one says Trump won because the uneducated voted for him, one can also say that Obama won because the uneducated voted for him. Both would be true.

But there is something more than just education here. Perhaps the ability to excite and install enthusiasm. Sort of being hip or cool. Trump was many thing, but he could excite, Hillary more of the wet mop. Romney and McCain filled the wet mop category while Obama excited, he was more hip and cool.

Those 65 and older went to Bill Clinton twice and to Al Gore, then to Bush, McCain, Romney and Trump. The demographics of this group certainly change over time. Personally, I think it has more to do with the candidates, especially those who aren't hard core GOP or Democratic. Hmm, how's did independents vote?
2016 Trump 46-42
2012 Romney 50-45
2008 Obama 52-44
2004 Kerry 50-48
2000 Bush 48-46
1996 Clinton 44-37
1992 Clinton 38-32
and so on. Interesting that both Obama and Bush won independents when they first ran, but lost them when both ran for re-election.

 

I suppose the bottom line is candidates matter. Our presidential race is a beauty contest. It's to see who can excite the masses the most. Our elections are seldom about competency or the best qualified. They are a version of Miss Universe. Yes, mass appeal does apply and will always apply. Trump had it more than Clinton. Obama more than either McCain or Romney. Wet mops were McCain and Romney, they couldn't excite. Bush over Kerry, neither could excite mush, Bush just a bit more and Al Gore was a statue.

Mass appeal, the beauty contest, works both ways. Mass appeal was fine with you with Obama, but wrong with Trump, Bush too I suppose.

 

If we could get rid of Trump and Bush was the replacement, I'd have him back in a heartbeat. Trump is just the absolute worst misery that has ever been visited upon this country. He was a scum before he became president and he is a scum now. He is so awful it is impossible to describe it....so bad, no other president has ever even come close.

 

It isn't going to happen. Libs are all bloviated talk, but have no substance. In other words in case you don't understand, they are full of themselves. So sad...

 

History will determine what kind of president he was, not your emotions and hatred. I think your team is just too emotionally involved with trump for some reason. I do agree with you that he does grate the nerves, his personality. But that is not what historians will judge him on from the bigger picture view. We know little of the personality of say FDR today. He is remembered for other things. Of course if a future emotionally involved democrat writes history, who knows? ha ha

 

I cite the statistics pertaining to academic attainment. You are free to demean individuals who earn bachelor, masters, and doctoral degrees if you like to.

America's institutions of higher learning are considered vital in the nation's pre-eminence, and those who better themselves through them are considered important assets to their communities.

 

Heis a repulsive human being. It has nothing to do with me, and I resent your making it personal and will report your ad hominem. Saying I'm being emotional is an pathetic attempt to get me to shut up. If you like Trump, then you have the problem, not me. He is ruining this country: anyone who isn't blind can see it. He's humiliating this country and ruining it, he's destroying the office of the presidency. The fact you don't see that doesn't make me emotional. I can't say what it makes you.

 

Political allegiances shift and even flip over time. That one demographic might have a fling and be lured back to its previous alignment is hardly unimaginable.

 

Trump is like the snake oil salesman. He knows how to play to his base. He even said that when he said he loves the uneducated who will defend him if he shoot someone on fifth Avenue. He talks down to them using childish tauts and speaks like them ..they eat it up. They like it. They like when he says what’s on his mind but yet will get upset said if I told a parent who’s kid I had in my class, “I think your child is really stupid and a pain in the ass”..after all I’m just saying what’s on my mind.
He promises them things he knows he cannot keep and he lies to them pathologically and they eat it up because they don’t educate themselves

 

Your own words denote this is very personal. I just observed it and noted it. Emotions choose words that you use, not your rational, logical, reasonable brain. Hell, you learn this is psychology 101 and we used to have examples of it, taken from letters people have written, that appeared in the textbooks. You would have been used in such a textbook, IMO.

Not trying to shut you up, just pointing out that historians in the future will be the final judge of trump, not you. If you can set aside your hatred, emotions for just a nano second, your other brain would understand this. And if you cannot do that, then IMO, your emotions are running the show. And that is all that I am saying. I do not mean to insult you, and I know it can appear to be as if I am. Look, I would not vote for trump. Because I found something unsettling about his personality, his narcissm. But we have had such people before in that office, and they just hid it. IMO. And I understand reality, in that no president these days is independent, and can do what he wants.

 

I don't know about worst, but that is subjective. Especially to partisans. I can't fathom how Trump won the GOP nomination, let alone the presidency. But perhaps people were just fed up, sick and tired of the status quo. Tired of business as usual whether it be by the Republicans or Democrats. Fed up enough they were willing to give a reality TV show host the Oval Office.

I think this came from those in Washington not listening to the folks back home. Over the years one party has moved to the extreme right, the other the extreme left leaving most of middle America without a political party to call home. Perhaps they saw Trump as being more of one of them than the present political elite in D.C. that ignores them.

I don't know, but dissatisfaction with government has been Americans number one problem or issue for a long time. Perhaps it was anyone who would shake up the system. Trump certainly has done that. But Trump is no better than the professional, lifelong politicians in not listening to middle America.

 

I don't think education applies. I do agree that Trump is like the old medicine man who went around the old west selling his snake oil. Now all politicians, candidates promise the voter the world knowing full well they can't deliver. It's all part of our beauty contest for the presidency.

There's no doubt Trump's obnoxious, egotistical, name calling persona or personality turns a lot of folks off. That's probably the main reason Trump has been stuck at around 40% approval since the day he was inaugurated. I haven't seen any presidents who approval rating didn't have big swings, up and downs. Trump's has been fairly steady since day one. Good things happen, it don't move much. Bad things happen, it don't move much. Just a couple, three points above 40 or below 40.

Very strange.

 

Remember most people didn’t vote for him and millions stayed home thinking Hillary was a shoe in

 

I think it’s strictly a con job. How did Obama move to the extreme left?He saved us from a depression

 

Greater New Englanders have always been the crusading types, a fact that defines the modern American left. This spirit leads them to criticise America at seemingly every turn, because it doesn't live up to their semi-utopian expectations. This makes them much more keen to try and engineer society, to remake it in radical ways.

Understand that I'm not moralizing here. That the left wants to remake America is understandable. But you're not facing an opposition that is lesser than you, you're standing against a confederation of subcultures that are just different from you.