Coastal vs Midwestern Dems

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you are conflating "rural" and "Midwestern".

If you understand anything about demographics and the electoral college, you realize the distinction doesn't matter. Cities across the Midwest are deep blue, but they can't carry their states in federal elections forever. See OH, PA, MI, WI. The party can't just rely on a handful of Midwestern cities to bring them over the top anymore. They have to help the party faithful in those states carry the message across the states, starting with local and state elections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who still chooses to live in flyover country is a dumbass.

Coastal cities are where the economy is. That's where the jobs that matter are, where policy is made, and where people with talent will gravitate.

The middle of the country is the sump that collects the lazy, the stupid, those without ambition, and anyone else too obtuse to figure out where to be.

Democrats are the party of science, learning, education and betterment. By that definition, if you call yourself a Democrat, and subscribe to those values, you live on the coast, either in the northest, or the west coast.

If you call yourself a Dem and live in .... I dunno, someplace I'd never be caught dead in, then guess what? You're an idiot.

It's pretty simple.

This.

The way I see it, landlocked states pretty much cost us the election. I have exactly zero love for red states, or Democrats that choose to live in red states. They should know better. And if they can't figure out that the blue states are where the future is, where the jobs will be, where the growth and investment will be, then they are no smarter than their dumbass trump voting next door neighbor. They all need to be written off.

We need to focus on two things - 1) voter turnout in urban areas. 2) immigration, and bringing new Democrats to America. 3) making sure voter ID laws are struck down in the courts whenever they are passed by racist thug state legislatures.

That is how we will win. Not by courting dumb people who can't figure out they should move

This is one major reason no one wants to vote for your team. So many of you are utterly insufferable.

Right? Believe it or not in Cincinnati we have telephones, computers and high-speed internet access, along with a major R-1 university, cultural institutions and affordable housing. We also have more Fortune 500 companies per capita than any city in the country and the state of OH is 5th overall. Facts are fun! I've lived in DC where housing is way over-priced and coastal flooding/sea rise is going to continue to raise insurance costs. I also have access to cars and airplanes for travel. (Wowza - we have an international airport!!)

http://fortune.com/2015/06/15/states-most-fortune-500-companies/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:m'eh, she's not saying anything I haven't read here a hundred times already.There is a visceral disdain for middle America among many people here. So much, and so common, that I can't tell if it's a legit post or not. Look at some of the pics in some of the other threads about toning down the hostility. There's actually a photo of a guy holding a sign that says F*ck Middle America". That seems pretty legit to me.

Yeah, how do you tell if it's a troll or not, haha? You can see the same stuff in virtually every post that touches anything related to class, Ivy schools, even driving habits! Urbanites are some catty mofos that like to cast asparagus on people from flyover country.

That's a flipping hilarious autocorrect, I think.

"I toss my asparagus at you, peon."

On another note, there seems to be a concerted effort to cast the Democrat Party as snide and superior elitists. Dems have their problems, but this does not describe not the bulk of the party.

Does anyone have any leads on whether this is a concerted part of Republican talking points? I'm serious -- it has really ramped up, both with overgeneralization criticisms and apparent sockpuppets.

What's up?

Dem from Cincinnati here. The party has abandoned rural parts of the state, period. It's true. Activists on the ground are trying hard to find decent candidates to put up against the R's but the county and state parties are a fucking disorganized nightmare and national basically says sorry we can't help you. Then they expect our cities to carry the whole state and flog us when we lose. THAT'S what's up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP. Did you even read the article in the OP? It talks about exactly this. Urban communities feeling forgotten and so apathetic about both parties. I'm not sure I fully understand all of their grievances, since Clinton did visit Flint and make specific promises there, but I'm willing to listen.

FWIW, I grew up in a rich and very red suburb of Detroit. Like, I didn't even really think normal people could be Democrats until I was in HS red. I'm not sure I agree with OP's assessment that this is a coastal Dem vs. Midwestern Dem issue, but everything in the article made perfect sense to me. I think it's more elite Dem vs. working class Dem (a rift that's happening in the Republican party as well, BTW). In the Republican primary, Trump ironically talked to the working class, and he won the nomination and Presidency. Sanders played a similar role in the Democratic primary, but Clinton won...though ironically I think she would have governed in a much more progressive, albeit incremental way. Trump is unabashedly governing to benefit the elites.

My observation based on the fact that I think Hillary had by far the most well thought out and implementable platform that would have measurably improved the lives of working class Americans...but it didn't radically shift the status quo, and she is a terrible campaigner. I wanted to like Sanders, but I disagreed fundamentally with some of his policies and I don't think their effect would have matched his rhetoric.

Ultimately, to me, 2016 revealed some very fundamental rifts in America, most of which do split along racial lines. I know that's the canard that supposedly lost Clinton the election, but I don't think papering over the fact that POC experience America so differently than white people will change that reality. It will just kick the can down the road. I'm as elite as can be, and I'm also brown-skinned. I have experienced bigotry, and I have been haunted my whole life by the specter of not being a "real American". I'm not complaining about my lot in life, but it's the reality. The people quoted in the article did not benefit from my parents' wealth and education, and so they have been truly forgotten in America. Trump did not speak for them, and IMHO Hillary did not connect with them. To me, though, those communities are the natural Democratic base that's been left behind by the Democratic party since the 90s. I don't even think this base cares about trade, since right now their issues are fundamental. Government barely recognizes these people at all, except to criminalize them.

I see no one is interested in touching this.

I touched it in the Jennifer Rubin thread. . .mosey over there b/c I'm not in the mood to repeat myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Illinois and Minnesota off the hook in these screeds about backward, conservative Midwesterners?

Give them time. It may be that at some point Chicago and Minneapolis can no longer carry the states for Dems in national elections, and then they'll get to be on our short bus team, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My original post was to learn what, if anything, is being done to unite people under the Democratic banner. Even if I agreed with ACA, in whole or in part, the way it was passed was divisive, and ultimately counterproductive as efforts were/are under way to throw the baby out with the bath water. The way it was handled was a huge turn off to me as a voter. GOP has done similar, and they don't get my vote either.

I think that to answer your question, one needs to understand what you dislike about the ACA's legislative process and specifically the Democrats handling of it. From my perspective, the Dems spent 15 mos trying to negotiate with Republicans (and in many ways watering down the bill), only to have the Republicans to whom they offered explicit concessions still refuse to vote for it. The only alternative to the way the bill was passed would have been not to pass any healthcare legislation at all. The Republicans did not have an alternative then, and they don't have one now. But your originally argument that it was rushed through without bipartisan discussion and debate and without the opportunity to see what was in the bill is simply not true. I was working on the Hill for a Democrat at the time (not on healthcare issues), and while I personally dislike several aspects of the ACA the one criticism that just does not hold water is that the bill was rammed through without discussion. That's what is currently happening with the AHCA.

You may be arguing that the Democrats should not have passed healthcare legislation as long as the Republicans were going to refuse to vote for any attempt to do so, including the bills that reflected their own amendments. That is not an unreasonable position. But it is a position that is unlikely to lead to much happening in Congress.

Amen to all of this. Unbelievable how people who were so up in arms about the legislative process around the ACA are like "meh" at the fact that McConnell is LITERALLY writing their bill behind closed doors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:m'eh, she's not saying anything I haven't read here a hundred times already.There is a visceral disdain for middle America among many people here. So much, and so common, that I can't tell if it's a legit post or not. Look at some of the pics in some of the other threads about toning down the hostility. There's actually a photo of a guy holding a sign that says F*ck Middle America". That seems pretty legit to me.

Yeah, how do you tell if it's a troll or not, haha? You can see the same stuff in virtually every post that touches anything related to class, Ivy schools, even driving habits! Urbanites are some catty mofos that like to cast asparagus on people from flyover country.

That's a flipping hilarious autocorrect, I think.

"I toss my asparagus at you, peon."

On another note, there seems to be a concerted effort to cast the Democrat Party as snide and superior elitists. Dems have their problems, but this does not describe not the bulk of the party.

Does anyone have any leads on whether this is a concerted part of Republican talking points? I'm serious -- it has really ramped up, both with overgeneralization criticisms and apparent sockpuppets.

What's up?

Dem from Cincinnati here. The party has abandoned rural parts of the state, period. It's true. Activists on the ground are trying hard to find decent candidates to put up against the R's but the county and state parties are a fucking disorganized nightmare and national basically says sorry we can't help you. Then they expect our cities to carry the whole state and flog us when we lose. THAT'S what's up.

The voice of reason. Be prepared to be attacked, or at least called wrong.