I keep reading opinion pieces from people on the Democratic side of the aisle and they convince me that Democrats are living in a fool’s paradise. This recent column from E. J. Dionne in the Washington Post is no exception:
Democrats are in danger of moving from complacency to panic. Neither is particularly helpful.
The complacency part is obvious: Until about 9 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 8, supporters of Hillary Clinton (myself included) were certain that Donald Trump’s weaknesses among women, nonwhite voters and younger Americans would prevent him from becoming president.
Here’s another example of complacency: re-electing the same leadership who put you in the fix you’re in.
These responses are predicated on the notion that Democrats’ strategy has been right all along and all they need to do is stay the course and their ultimate victory is assured. Poppycock. That strategy has been losing them votes for eight years.
Now Democrats’ emphasis is on the popular vote for president, an irrelevancy. Their claims are entirely based on the notion that if the rules were different Hillary Clinton would have won, ignoring that she knew what the rules were and lost.
You’ve got to start with this. Trump accomplished his objective. Hillary Clinton did not. From that do you conclude that if a different objective had been required that Hillary Clinton would have won? Or that Trump would have changed his tactics accordingly?
To my mind this is what we’ve seen over the last year. First, Trump trounced the national Republican Party. Its ruins are still smoking. Then he beat the national Democratic Party, doing what was needed to win the presidency. That’s economy of effort not fundamental weakness.
Now the Democrats are busy telling us it’s just a flesh wound (see video above).
Republicans still hold power at the state level with most states having legislatures dominated by Republicans and Republican governors. Democrats are depending too strongly on California and New York. They’re also pointing proudly to an additional 500,000 votes in Texas. That would seem to support my hypothesis that Democratic voters in the upper Midwest have moved south.
The next decennial census will be conducted under the tender mercies of the Trump Administration. Don’t be surprised if the rules under which it’s conducted change to favor his re-election and reduced appointment in Democratic strongholds.
What I think Trump’s victory tells us is that political parties, while important at the state and local levels, are just not enough to win the presidency any more. A candidate must pretend to be a good party member because that’s how our system works. It’s stacked in favor of the two major political parties. But that’s about where it ends, too.
A minor point. There was no contest in Texas for a Senate seat this year. That probably depressed turnout generally, and Republican turnout in particular. Still your point is well taken. The red states are being populated with blue voters.
And the blue states have domestic outmigration.
In Texas Trump also picked up about 140,000 more votes than Romney, and Johnson got 200,000 more votes than he did four years ago. So, Clinton relatively picked up about 250,000 votes. I agree w/ Dave, one can focus too much on the Presidential races. There is a lot of noise at the top of the ticked with personality issues in play.
Down-ballot, Republicans kept 25 House Seats to 11 Democratic seats. I know that the Rs gerrymander these districts, though not as much as North Carolina did, but if there was any Democratic movement, particularly one unanticipated by the mappers, they’d lose a seat. Maximizing the map means creating as many 55% Republican districts as possible.
Economy of effort indeed! The losers outspent him by how many hundreds of millions of dollars?
Basically, two to one. $500 million to $250 million. That doesn’t include groups other than the campaigns themselves. Or the millions, maybe billions in in-kind contributions the Clinton campaign received.
Now, that I think about it, there is a downstate Illinois district that was drawn to be a Democratic seat, and it remained Republican this year again. (It picks up some of the St.Louis metro, minority neighborhoods in Springfield and Decatur, then extends to college campuses of ISU and U of I.)
It looks like the Democrats running in this district are too progressive, for what is a more populist district, and the losing candidates complain about lack of party support. And based upon county vote, it looks like only the counties with large university systems voted for the Democrat.
Thus underscoring the point I made a week or so ago that the objective of redistricting is to gather ethnic, political, etc. minorities together to preserve incumbents (and John Kass’s theory of “the Combine”).