More specifically I'd also add this ...

Consider a "celebrity" VP pick. Oprah. The Rock (Dwayne Johnson). Will Smith. Not even joking.

This is politics and drumming up enthusiasm is part and parcel of the game now.

Populist messaging (similar to Bernie Sanders) + celebrity VP.

Hilary Clinton was just too dry, too boring, no personality. If not any of the above, then consider Michelle Obama as a VP pick. I don't think she wants to run for president, but I think she could be coaxed into a VP spot.

Soundwave said: LurkerJ said: Republicans won't "obstruct renovating the infrastructure" bills now, will they? That's one major positive Trump has in his pocket already. People will see a difference being made with their eyes. "Bring back jobs" promise we'll be fulfilled, not in the way he was describing it, because those manufacturing/mining jobs are not coming back. But renovating the infrastructure will create tons of jobs. Deporting undocumented illegal low-wage workers will increase the minimum wage naturally, the 2nd palpable positive. He will win the 2020 elections because he'll run with a lot of positivity in the atmosphere. I also hear foreign aid will see major cuts. There is no path for democrats in 2020, no matter how much you will disagree with Trump on everything he does. The DNC fuck'ed so bad it's making Obama viscerally sick.   1. Every politician runs that "we need to invest in our infrastructure" line .... does it ever happen? Bush and Obama said that too. Who the hell is going to pay for that? Government run jobs is not steady career work ether, like ok a highway may need to be fixed ... and then what? The next project might be something completely different and require maybe 1/3 the workers, meaning 2/3rds of those guys are now unemployed again. 2.Democrats can win with a more charismatic candidate that doesn't have the baggage of NAFTA tied to him/her. Clinton still beat Trump by a rather large margin in the popular vote, every 4 years the demographics shift more in their favor too (more old people die, more young people, 50% of whom are now a minority, grow older). Just run the Bernie Sanders playbook and you'll win in 4 years IMO, Sanders would have beaten Trump this time most likely because he would've held Pennslyvania/Michigan/Wisconsin and potentially also taken Ohio and Iowa where his populist message resonated. Time to embrace populist messaging ala Sanders, "middle of the road 1990s" liberalism doesn't work anymore, it doesn't excite the Democratic base (especially millenials).

1.

You & I know that. But that's not how it goes (I hope I am wrong). The working class in 2020 will have benefited from an "infrastructer" related bill passed under Obama reign, and possibly more bills passed during Trump presidency. Not to mention, that deporting low-wage immigrants will increase the minimum wage thanks to the simple law of supply and demand. Come 2020, the working class will think positively of Trump presidency. Obamacare problems were aknowledged by both candidates and it's gonna get better regardless of who won. 

Trump will get positive reception because he picked up lots of low hanging fruit:

- no more immigrants (that's something a lot Americans actually want, browning of America isn't sitting well with a huge part of the demographic)

- increased minimum wage (thanks to deporting and taking less if any new immigrants = supply and demand)

- infrastructure bills will create jobs for the working class, I know they are not permanent jobs, but I don't think Americans who love occupying these sort of jobs think that much ahead. 

- better healthcare insurace for everyone.

The end result is that The mantra will be "I made more money under Trump presidency, my health insurance is much better, he's awesome".

2.

A lot of Trump supporters are aware of his personal baggage, and they don't like it. But he touched on two real issues: mass immigration and trade deals. (three if you add obamacare and healthcare that was always a mess in the US).

Demographics alone don't win you presidency. Yeah people are ok with gay marriage, they think abortion is ok, they want more liberalism in their country but non of that matters of you don't talk about  the real issues that's affecting people's lives.

I don't understand why you some of you is accusing white voters of being dumb, sexist, or simply voting to Trump out of anger. They are aware of his personal baggage, ffs that was most of Hillary's campaign about, "LOOK HOW HORRIBLE AND RUDE TRUMP IS", and guess what? they don't care.

Trump was the first to bring up and talk about the real issues that were affecting many Americans: Immigration and trade deals. He even talked about these things before Bernie gained a cult following. You could've leaked a tape of him having a sex with a 16 and it wouldn't have mattered to his voters.

Hillary started talking about trade deals after Bernie pushed her to the left. After Bernie, she still wanted to open MORE DOORS for immigrants. Americans DON'T WANT THAT.

More immigrants = more supply = lower wages. It's that simple. Especially for the working and middle class.

Add to that the #neverHillary among democrats, and some have very good reasons.

Like it or not, Trump talked about REAL ISSUES. He rarely went over the details, true, but his voters were happy with the direction he was taking that NO ONE ELSE in the game was taking. 

Nymeria said: 4. Get your priorities straight and stop purity tests. Look, I hate sexism and other forms of hate and am not saying we shouldn't defend against them. However, in the past decade it has felt increasingly like pockets have begun tilting at windmills to find sexism. This repetition hit home when it stopped having affect and became white noise. When you say, "all men are sexist, all white people are racist" you remove all meaning from such words that should hold power. When I, as someone who favors feminism, was called a misogynist because I had "internalized self loathing" due to not being thrilled with Clinton it made the point to me at how little these words hold meaning. Is it any surprise that a chauvinist could take power when people think, "well, they say he's sexist, but then they called me sexist too and I know I'm not, so not such a big deal".

Well put, thank you OP. 

I've been reading an article over article and no one has put the way you did. 

Racist, sexist, misogynist; All are labels people tried to detach themselves from in the past because they meant something horrible. The power of the meaning is diluted now. The current definition of those terms is so wide that it includes most, if not all, individuals. In addition, the extreme push for diversity and how major companies are publicly shamed for not hiring more black, more asians, more gays didn't help at all.

Diversity should be about ideas, and what different additions your new employee may add to your company and make it truly diverse. 

Somehow, diversity nowadays means you hire based on race, religion, or sexual orientation. Which couldn't be more superficial.

No company should release annual diversity reports, it's non of your freaking business who and how they hire. 

LurkerJ said: I don't understand why you some of you is accusing white voters of being dumb, sexist, or simply voting to Trump out of anger. They are aware of his personal baggage, ffs that was most of Hillary's campaign about, "LOOK HOW HORRIBLE AND RUDE TRUMP IS", and guess what? they don't care. Trump was the first to bring up and talk about the real issues that were affecting many Americans: Immigration and trade deals. He even talked about these things before Bernie gained a cult following. You could've leaked a tape of him having a sex with a 16 and it wouldn't have mattered to his voters. Hillary started talking about trade deals after Bernie pushed her to the left. After Bernie, she still wanted to open MORE DOORS for immigrants. Americans DON'T WANT THAT. More immigrants = more supply = lower wages. It's that simple. Especially for the working and middle class. Add to that the #neverHillary among democrats, and some have very good reasons. Like it or not, Trump talked about REAL ISSUES. He rarely went over the details, true, but his voters were happy with the direction he was taking that NO ONE ELSE in the game was taking.

 

You mean aside from Bernie Sanders who was talking about that plus single payer health care which the majority of Americans agree with and low cost college which I would assume a lot of Americans support also. Trump ironically piggy-bagged some liberal ideas, the Republican party hasn't given a shit about the middle class for ages, "Reaganomics" is basically the beginning of the end of the American middle-class concept. Liberals haven't pushed issues too far to the left for fear of being called a communist, but lo and behold Trump is basically saying some of the same things. Though I bet even though his Republican "colleagues" are currently grinning, they are going to come under massive lobbying pressure from corporations to nix a lot of these ideas. Problem is he won't get any of this stuff done. Demonizing trade deals is a narrow, myopic view of the situation. The bottom line is at the end of the day there are 10 Chinese people willing to make anything any American can make for 1/5 the salary, with no vacation time, willing to work weekends, no medical, no dental, and no "trade adjustment" to NAFTA or anything else is changing that. Beyond that, in some industries, they don't even need cheap overseas labor, machines can work 24/7 and don't need a lunch break. And American consumers are hypocrites themselves. How many of them buy American made clothing even when the option is made available to them? Nope. They'd rather pay less for their clothes. And when they are willing to spend more ... they don't want some shitty Ford or Calvin Purse .... they want a German BMW and an Italian Prada purse.

LurkerJ said: I don't understand why you some of you is accusing white voters of being dumb, sexist, or simply voting to Trump out of anger. They are aware of his personal baggage, ffs that was most of Hillary's campaign about, "LOOK HOW HORRIBLE AND RUDE TRUMP IS", and guess what? they don't care. Trump was the first to bring up and talk about the real issues that were affecting many Americans: Immigration and trade deals. He even talked about these things before Bernie gained a cult following. You could've leaked a tape of him having a sex with a 16 and it wouldn't have mattered to his voters. Hillary started talking about trade deals after Bernie pushed her to the left. After Bernie, she still wanted to open MORE DOORS for immigrants. Americans DON'T WANT THAT. More immigrants = more supply = lower wages. It's that simple. Especially for the working and middle class. Add to that the #neverHillary among democrats, and some have very good reasons. Like it or not, Trump talked about REAL ISSUES. He rarely went over the details, true, but his voters were happy with the direction he was taking that NO ONE ELSE in the game was taking.

Just as an aside, probably not the best idea to claim that its wrong to call someone dumb and then use "is accusing" in the same sentence.

Anyway, now that I'm done taking advantage of harmless spelling errors, I feel the need to call out a few things in the three posts above.

Firstly, Sanders was talking about trade deals, and created his "cult," long before Trump did. Sanders' announced his candidacy nearly a full two months before Trump did, and arguably started reeling in his cult long beforehand as a senator. You can argue that Trump make remarks about immigration before Sanders became a "mainstream" candidate, but that's another point altogether.

Secondly, the blanket statement of "Americans don't want more immigration" is misleading at best. Some Americans don't want that. 46% don't, according to a Rasmussen poll from August (and those were the most favorable numbers for that position I could find), compared with 47% that do. 

Thirdly, issues like abortion and gay marriage very much impact significant portions of the country; roughly 3% or so of Americans for homosexual marriage and any woman (as well as some men) who are sexually active and without the resources/wishes to care for a child. The number of Americans' whose jobs are genuinely impacted by illegal immigration/trade deals is relatively minute; immigrants rarely compete for jobs that even lower class Americans would take and trade deals largely affect manufacturing, and the share of manufacturing jobs in the industry has consistently been on the decline from about 48% in 1948, to 35% in 1960, to 24% in 1980, to 13% in 2000, to the 8% it is now. The manufacturing sector has been shrinking in the United States over the past half century regardless, and as technology allows for manufacturing jobs to become more and more replaceable, that will only shrink more and more. Point in all of this is that immigration/manufacturing jobs don't really affect all that many Americans in the first place; but people are convinced they do nonetheless, and, more importantly, they're convinced that these jobs will somehow return if stricter trade laws are put in place.

And this really is Clinton's biggest failure in my opinion (besides an idiotic attempt to rig her own primary). Clinton goes after Trump for his various controversies, but rarely for his policy positions (except to try and solidify support within her own group, mentioning how he's pro life, anti gun control, terrible for Democrat policies, etc.). It's very easy to debunk the claim that higher trade restrictions would lead to a significant amount of jobs, because recently, due to rising wages and much higher land costs in China, a number of Chinese companies have begun to open factories in the United States. These factories are heavily automated, however, and hardly created any jobs at all.

Like it or not, America's become a service based economy, and service based economies tend to benefit greatly from fewer trade barriers since they export almost nothing. Increasing trade barriers, meanwhile, does raise costs on goods that most of us take for granted, such as clothing, packaging, anything with plastic, and technology. It remains to be seen what the effects of Trump's economic policies are, but it'd be difficult to imagine them drastically impacting the average American since so few of them are really directed at the sectors where the vast majority of Americans work.

MTZehvor said: LurkerJ said: I don't understand why you some of you is accusing white voters of being dumb, sexist, or simply voting to Trump out of anger. They are aware of his personal baggage, ffs that was most of Hillary's campaign about, "LOOK HOW HORRIBLE AND RUDE TRUMP IS", and guess what? they don't care. Trump was the first to bring up and talk about the real issues that were affecting many Americans: Immigration and trade deals. He even talked about these things before Bernie gained a cult following. You could've leaked a tape of him having a sex with a 16 and it wouldn't have mattered to his voters. Hillary started talking about trade deals after Bernie pushed her to the left. After Bernie, she still wanted to open MORE DOORS for immigrants. Americans DON'T WANT THAT. More immigrants = more supply = lower wages. It's that simple. Especially for the working and middle class. Add to that the #neverHillary among democrats, and some have very good reasons. Like it or not, Trump talked about REAL ISSUES. He rarely went over the details, true, but his voters were happy with the direction he was taking that NO ONE ELSE in the game was taking.  Just as an aside, probably not the best idea to claim that its wrong to call someone dumb and then use "is accusing" in the same sentence. Anyway, now that I'm done taking advantage of harmless spelling errors, I feel the need to call out a few things in the three posts above. Firstly, Sanders was talking about trade deals, and created his "cult," long before Trump did. Sanders' announced his candidacy nearly a full two months before Trump did, and arguably started reeling in his cult long beforehand as a senator. You can argue that Trump make remarks about immigration before Sanders became a "mainstream" candidate, but that's another point altogether. Secondly, the blanket statement of "Americans don't want more immigration" is misleading at best. Some Americans don't want that. 46% don't, according to a Rasmussen poll from August (and those were the most favorable numbers for that position I could find), compared with 47% that do.  Thirdly, issues like abortion and gay marriage very much impact significant portions of the country; roughly 3% or so of Americans for homosexual marriage and any woman (as well as some men) who are sexually active and without the resources/wishes to care for a child. The number of Americans' whose jobs are genuinely impacted by illegal immigration/trade deals is relatively minute; immigrants rarely compete for jobs that even lower class Americans would take and trade deals largely affect manufacturing, and the share of manufacturing jobs in the industry has consistently been on the decline from about 48% in 1948, to 35% in 1960, to 24% in 1980, to 13% in 2000, to the 8% it is now. The manufacturing sector has been shrinking in the United States over the past half century regardless, and as technology allows for manufacturing jobs to become more and more replaceable, that will only shrink more and more. Point in all of this is that immigration/manufacturing jobs don't really affect all that many Americans in the first place; but people are convinced they do nonetheless, and, more importantly, they're convinced that these jobs will somehow return if stricter trade laws are put in place. And this really is Clinton's biggest failure in my opinion (besides an idiotic attempt to rig her own primary). Clinton goes after Trump for his various controversies, but rarely for his policy positions (except to try and solidify support within her own group, mentioning how he's pro life, anti gun control, terrible for Democrat policies, etc.). It's very easy to debunk the claim that higher trade restrictions would lead to a significant amount of jobs, because recently, due to rising wages and much higher land costs in China, a number of Chinese companies have begun to open factories in the United States. These factories are heavily automated, however, and hardly created any jobs at all. Like it or not, America's become a service based economy, and service based economies tend to benefit greatly from fewer trade barriers since they export almost nothing. Increasing trade barriers, meanwhile, does raise costs on goods that most of us take for granted, such as clothing, packaging, anything with plastic, and technology. It remains to be seen what the effects of Trump's economic policies are, but it'd be difficult to imagine them drastically impacting the average American since so few of them are really directed at the sectors where the vast majority of Americans work.

 

No US politician has the balls to say this but it's the truth.

Miguel_Zorro said: Trump will be the oldest first term president ever elected at age 70. Sanders will be 79 when the next election rolls around. He'll likely be too old to run, but who knows. 1. Pick an exciting candidate. Somebody who believes in what they're saying and comes across that way. 2. Run on actual issues. The "I'm With Her" slogan implied that we should vote for the candidate simply because she's a woman. The campaign kept coming back to that. If you run a campaign as a personality contest, the person with the bigger personality will win every time - Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Trump. Like them or hate them, the more charismatic candidate always won. If you're not the most charismatic, you need to run a different kind of campaign. 3. Campaign hard for reform. Make getting big money out of politics a major platform blank. Make reforming the electoral college another. Be careful with the second item, because the swing states currently have disproportionate clout and they won't want to lose that. 4. Talk about ideas, every day. Talk about what you're actually going to do. Be specific.

Trump was neither charismatic nor specific. He was the furthest thing from specific. But overall I agree with your points.

53 percent of white women voted for Trump. And the question is... how the hell did that happen? Without a doubt, women knew of Trump's sexist and misogynistic tendencies, but why wasn't that a deal breaker?

The truth is, it would have been had Democrats not pandered to women on that fact. The left has got so caught up with character assassination that people are just fed up with it. You've cried wolf on racism, sexism, homophobia, etc so much that people don't care to listen to you - especially when you do very little on substantive details of what your policies really stand for.

The Clinton campaign tried to win by focusing exclusively on Trumps negatives. People just don't tolerate that behavior anymore. There's more to it than showing the bad in the other side, you have to make a compelling, specific case on why your policies are best for people independent of whether your rival is a sinner or a saint.

fleischr said: 53 percent of white women voted for Trump. And the question is... how the hell did that happen? Without a doubt, women knew of Trump's sexist and misogynistic tendencies, but why wasn't that a deal breaker? The truth is, it would have been had Democrats not pandered to women on that fact. The left has got so caught up with character assassination that people are just fed up with it. You've cried wolf on racism, sexism, homophobia, etc so much that people don't care to listen to you - especially when you do very little on substantive details of what your policies really stand for. The Clinton campaign tried to win by focusing exclusively on Trumps negatives. People just don't tolerate that behavior anymore. There's more to it than showing the bad in the other side, you have to make a compelling, specific case on why your policies are best for people independent of whether your rival is a sinner or a saint.

You have a point but it's clearly much simpeler:

Clinton -> Wicked Mother-in-law

Trump -> Wicked Alpha male

Most V*gina's women always go for Alpha since like the stone age.