Path Forward for Democratic Party?

[MTZehvor]

vivster said:

MTZehvor said:

As you yourself noted later on, voters tend to respond to logic less than buzzwords, catchy slogans, and, most importantly, the relatability of the candidate. Trump won despite a myriad of what would have in any other year been campaign ending gaffes because people simply didn't care enough to vote for Hillary. Even the prospect of a Trump presidency wasn't motivation enough for many liberal independents and even Democrats to vote for a candidate they were so disenthused about. And this was with the Supreme Court, the future of the ACA, how the Syrian conflict is handled, all at stake.

Short of Trump bulldozing the Lincoln Memorial and setting up a new hotel in its place, I'm not sure it would be possible for him to be any less appealing to most Americans in four years. If this election has shown anything, it's that you need a candidate that can relate to some significant portion of Americans. Having a candidate that's merely less offensive than the other isn't going to cut it, because those people either stay home or vote for a third party or a dead gorilla. Democrats can't afford to simply choose any politician or party leader; it needs to be someone that has appeal for and is seen as relatable to a large group of Americans.

This is contradictory. As you correctly pointed out the reason Trump won is not because so many people voted for him but because so many people who would have given their vote to Hillary didn't vote at all.

I'm sure that after 4 years of Trump even the most apathetic liberal will get their ass to the voting booth this time. Considering a lot of people didn't go because they thought trump wouldn't win anyway. Now that it has come to pass there should be a lot more voting enthusiasm in the next election. That means Trump doesn't even have to do anything, his presidency alone is a great motivator for apathetic people to go to the polls.

It's not contradictory at all. Boiling it down to its simplest level, my argument is that if people see both candidates as great enough "evils," they will reject both and vote for neither. Many people (largely the liberal independent crowd) that considered Trump worse than Hillary didn't bother voting, because they were so disenthused with the alternative to Trump. In other words, if you do not have a candidate that is relatable and is merely "less appaling than Trump," it will be insufficient, especially given how many people found Trump's message relatable. Regardless of how awful the other guy is, you need someone who is at least appealing in some way. Otherwise people spend their time simply complaining about how awful both candidates are on social media.

The whole "after four years of this candidate, we'll be sure to get enough people out to win" was fairly similar to arguments made about George W. Bush after he won the White House in 2000. While Bush was by no means the circus that Trump is, the logic is similar; Democrats felt that they could simply let Bush beat himself. That didn't turn out so well, even with the extremely controversial invasion of Iraq well underway by the time the election took place.