So, we've discussed recently how Biden's poll numbers are in the toilet, right? And how Trump has a big chance of winning? Well, what's going on that's driving this? I'll tell you what, it's the clinton coalition's chickens coming home to roost.
The democrats have three major factions in their party. You got centrists, progressives and leftists, and a lot of identity politics voters who vote around their identities. While the democrats have had high turnout among blacks, latinos, women, etc, since at least the 1990s arguably, clinton REALLY leaned into such stuff with her own strategy. Keep in mind, parties and electorates are made up of coalitions, and parties are required to keep their coalitions happy to maintain votes.
Clinton herself was a centrist, who primarily appealed to centrist voters, in contrast to Obama and his coalition, which had a lot more working class whites, young people, etc. Clinton had a strategy to help wrest the south from the GOP, after it had been right leaning for the entire past alignment. Now, for me, I looked at states like North Carolina, and Georgia, and Arizona, and Texas, and saw them as a lost cause, maybe by 2030 or later we could compete there, but not in 2016. But Clinton wanted to double down on her centrism by expanding the democratic coalition via trying to appeal to centrists in places like Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, and Phoenix. She saw a coalition cobbled together of upper class suburbanites who were fiscally conservative but socially liberal, and tried to win over those "romney-clinton" voters who were well to do and attracted to the democratic party primarily by its centrism and inoffensiveness, while also winning over the minority vote in these states, with states like North Carolina and Georgia having large black populations, Arizona and Texas having large latino populations, etc.
Clinton also completely and utterly threw progressives under the bus. Her appeal to us was basically "you better vote for me or else" with monumentally more energy being spent on bullying people to vote democrat than actually offering substantive policy concessions.
And as a result, she lost. While she made grounds with centrists and minorities, she lost a lot of progressives and independent voters that Obama was able to somehow win twice.
I am basically an "obama coalition" progressive. I came over during 2012, when romney was some rich frick elitist who wanted to cut unemployment in order to reduce taxes on the rich, and i was completely and utterly turned off by clinton's appeals to me. And given I had only been a "democrat" for one election cycle by that point, I didn't think much of NOT voting for her. I mean, who did she think she was, trying to bully me? I kindly told her ilk to shove it where the sun doesn't shine.
And while her polling numbers looked very good, she lost in the rust belt. Including in my state. Because as it turns out winning pennsylvania isnt as easy as "for every working class voter we lose in western PA, we'll pick up two moderates in philadelphia", which was their entire rust belt strategy.
The fact is, the democrats leaned hard into min maxing certain demographics. They already did well with these demographics, while doing poorly with others, and they thought, well, minorities and suburbanites are already leaning our way, let's drive up those margins and who cares if we lose all of those white male voters to trump?
Well...as it turns out, it lost the election. It also helped spawn a reinvigorated republican party as for every romney-clinton voter clinton's strategy was able to win over, they also lost a lot of obama-trump voters. A lot of these guys were economically populist, and they would've voted democrat for bernie. Like, I dont think that the dems realize it but the coalition of the ascendant was a potential 2016 bernie sanders coalition. And as long as the dems kept the rust belt, and like one other state, even a tiny one like nevada or new hampshire, they couldn't lose the election. The electoral math wouldnt work. I mean, hillary was so overconfident she would win places like michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin, and ohio, that she largely seemed to neglect them, instead focusing on places like arizona, texas, and georgia.
And while in 2020 the dems were able to pull out a win in arizona and georgia, they did so by narrow margins, while also barely holding onto states like wisconsin, pennsylvania, and michigan, (which used to be easy D+5s) and completely losing former bellweather states like florida and ohio, which literally used to decide elections by narrow margins during the bush years.
And now in 2024, we're facing a 5 point deficit since then. Why? Well, in part, it's because a lot of the demographics that the dems tried to min-max aren't as reliable as they thought they were. The reason the dems embraced identity politics was to win over the POC vote in 2016 and 2020. And they did win it over. It always baffled me, because im just like...why? I didn't see clinton as particularly doing a ton for people, so why did they drift toward her over someone like bernie? Well, apparently they're getting fed up too and this is a huge reason Biden is down in the polls.
The Clinton-Biden coalition relies heavily on motivating turnout among black communities, and latino communities, and women, and LGBTQ+, and a lot of them just aren't that enthused with Biden either. And because the dems won by narrow margins when basically turning out like 2/3 of all latinos for Biden (and explicitly losing some demographics like cubans in florida who are more right leaning), and 90%+ of all black voters, now some of these groups are kind of turning on Biden a bit. They aren't seeing their lives improving, and they might not turn out for Biden as strongly next time. And if Biden can't turn them out, then this coalition of theirs that they're trying to forge is going kaput, and the democrats face electoral oblivion in 2024.
The fact is, the democrats dug themselves into this mess. THey've been cynically playing the numbers game and using identity politics to appeal to voters, and if it doesnt work, the dems are screwed.
While in the Obama era, obama won those demographics easily while being much less offensive toward independent voters, and were able to win over some working class whites in larger numbers than they are now, we're kind of in a position where now the democrats lost a lot of those voters to trump, and to be honest, Im no longer sure if they're coming back.
The democrats decided to cynically weaponize wokeism, and as it turned out, it was divisive, it drove voters away, and now the voters they tried to win over with it just arent that interested either. The coalition is fragile, and it's falling apart.
And even worse, this is ruining our society as a whole. I've been hearing it for years now, why are we so divided? Because 2016 drove a wedge between us like god with the freaking tower of babel, and now we're extremely polarized over identity and race. The left is becoming woke and the right is becoming fascist. We literally unlocked a dark sleeping beast in 2016, something that had been sleeping since the 1940s, and now our politics in general are spiralling out of control.
Now, why do i attack the left and not the right? Well, because for the right, this is a WIN. My goal all along was to defeat the right. They're a lost cause to me, I've washed my hands of them, and I largely see them as my political opponents. The right becoming more extreme is actually helping them and bringing back a coalition that was, up to 2016 dying.
And it's coming at the democrats' expense. The democrats can't maintain their coalition as they're losing progressives, they're losing POC, and while they are gaining some suburbanite centrists fleeing from trump, I'd argue their coalition is much weaker now than it was in the Obama years.
In other words, the democrats blew it. They could've had it all. If Bernie expanded on the Obama coalition the way Reagan expanded on the Nixon one, it would've been gg no re. Instead, we've unlocked this cursed dimension to our politics where the GOP is turning fascist and actually has a shot at winning, and the democrats are as impotent as they've been since the 1960s.
Really, I honestly think that the democrats lurching toward superficial wokeness and weaponizing that ended up driving a lot of democratic friendly voters to the GOP, and now the democrats struggle just to maintain the coalition of voters they gained. It sucks all around. And yeah, I just hate modern politics. I really feel like we entered the wrong timeline here because we made the worst possible decisions. And by we, I mean the democrats, but yeah.
Heck, even if this strategy by clinton were successful, she wouldve still thrown progressives and white working class voters under the bus. And that ain't really good for me either.
Honestly, i dont get it. Well, actually I do, centrists wanted to cynically weaponize these politics to make short term electoral gains, and avoid giving progressives power, and the dems ended up reverse unoing themselves.
It sucks. Everything sucks right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment