We don't need them or their votes. We're happy just as we are.

We just have to make the effort to get them to vote. And that's not going to happen if we spend our time and resources dragging people who hate them into the party.

But Trump got more of the Black, Asian, and Hispanic votes than Romney.

Here is the breakdown according to Exit Polls published by the NYT:

White
Romney- 59%
Trump- 58%

Black
Trump- 8%
Romney- 6%

Hispanic/Latino
Trump- 29%
Romney- 27%

Asian
Trump- 29%
Romney- 26%

Other
Romney- 38%
Trump- 37%

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html

Given this info, why is there thread after thread blaming white people for the 2016 results?

White people elected Trump. White people chose Trump by a huge margin. People of color voted for Clinton by huge margins.

White people are clearly responsible for electing Trump.

The OP is pointing out that the Democrats can't turn our backs on the core constituency that actually supports Democrats.

Oh wait...

White people chose Romney by huge margins. It looks to me like the voter suppression the Republican controlled states have imposed over the past four years worked. In North Carolina, there was a sustained effort to prevent black people from voting. Same thing across the nation. Looks like enough people of color were kept from the polls for Trump to eke out an EC win.

Embracing the white supremacists who will never, ever vote Democratic is not a good strategy for Democrats.

Whites who voted for Obama twice are still with the Coalition in higher numbers in 2016 than in 2012. So why all the focus on white voters only? We need to be asking ourselves why we lost so many non-white voters.

Or better yet, why not leave voters of all races alone, and focus on coming up with better candidates

Trump was elected on a wave of white supremacy.

he got 1% LOWER white voters than Romney did. How did a wave a white supremacy get him elected? Meanwhile, he got MORE black, hispanic and asian voters than Romney did. Why are you blaming whites?

As white people, we own this.

for trump getting LESS white voters than Romney just as I take no responsibility for trump getting MORE black, asian and hispanic votes. Your premise is ridiculous.

Thanks to voter suppression, fewer African Americans were able to vote in 2016 compared to 2012. Trump got fewer black votes than Romney.

I haven't seen them at all. How whites (less of whom voted for trump than romney) are responsible for trump is not clear.

I don't own shit.

Read here:

It was a brilliant tactical strategy and frightening. The democrats had no answer to this:

"We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans. Trump’s invocation at the debate of Clinton’s WikiLeaks e-mails and support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to turn off Sanders supporters. The parade of women who say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton and harassed or threatened by Hillary is meant to undermine her appeal to young women. And her 1996 suggestion that some African American males are “super predators” is the basis of a below-the-radar effort to discourage infrequent black voters from showing up at the polls—particularly in Florida."


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside-the-trump-bunker-with-12-days-to-go

by texting.


*facepalm*

Stick to the platform. Ignore race.

BLM though I think hurt us all badly because of our media. We have to remember the media!!!

Yes, of course... rational thought and reason works effectively with idiots and bigots.

the Dem party, not all white people.

Let's get a grip, folks. We have no obligation to welcome people into our party who vote for racists.

Clinton clearly won the most voters over. Trump only "won" because FBI, Putin and Assange misinformation, underhandedness and hacking drew enough aforementioned whites who welcomed Trump's racist dog whistles.

No, we don't want them.

The rust belt white blue collar workers being bashed all over the place as supposed racists didn't have any problems voting for Obama twice but Democrats lost a lot of them to Trump this time around. If they were REALLY racists they sure as hell would not have voted for Obama, now would they? People need to dig their head out of their rectum and stop attacking voters. IT IS OFFENSIVE!

There was much vote suppression that kept many POCs from voting.

And I'm not one to excuse people for voting for a clearly racist campaign, even if they were allegedly desperate.

People of color know what desperation really is and don't succumb to voting for racist dog whistling candidates.

Many of the white rural voters in the rust belt voted for Obama twice but voted for Trump this time. How on earth does it make any kind of sense at all that these voters are racist?

Obama, they can't be bigots.

First of all, we don't know that these people voted for Obama. Some of them say they did, but I have no reason to believe them. Most of them don't make such a claim, however.

Moreover, racists and bigots vote for black people sometimes, if they think it's in their interest. Sometimes they do it to prove they're not bigots. Sometimes they do it for other reasons.

Voting for Obama does not make someone not a bigot. Voting for an avowed racist who is supported by the Ku Klux Klan DOES make one either a bigot or someone who is perfectly comfortable with bigotry and doesn't give a shit about the impact that bigotry has on people of color.

So please stop with the "The voted for Obama so they can't be bigots."

Then it's equally ridiculous to assume that they must be racist if they voted for Trump. You're making an assumption based on what you want to be true. It's simplistic thinking.

There's at least a good case for saying if a group of people voted for Obama they aren't overt KKK level racists. As such, even if they are subtly racist, why shouldn't we reach out to the part of them that was willing to vote for a black guy? We just saw what happens when they don't feel like we care about them. It isn't exactly a favorable outcome.

Racists can vote for a black person if they think it's in their interest to do so.

Racists hire black people. They live next to them. They do business with them. Hell, racists have been SLEEPING with black people for centuries. They certainly also can vote for them.

But that said, most Trump voters did NOT vote for Obama, so that argument is a red herring ...

from voting and that made the difference. Why do you think repugs put all that time and effort into vote suppression on all levels from gutting the voting rights admendment to ID requirement laws that weren't in place before to caging to misinformation campaigns as to voting date and polling location to cutting out early voting and drastically cutting polling locations in POC communities and to cutting the number of voting machines in the reduced number of polling places which created long voting lines which discouraged many from standing in hours-long lines.

Repugs do that stuff because if works. It decreases the vote in Clinton voter neighborhoods. They also make sure there are plenty of polling places and voting machines in white areas. They pull all the dirty tricks in the book and you should be aware of that.

I believe Trumps racist dog whistles also bought out many whites who didn't vote before, and who wanted "their country back", as has been said many time before.

And then there is a distinct possibility that voting machines were hacked, which is why Jill Stein, of all people, is asking for recounts (she's actually trying to appease people so they won't call her the new Ralph Nader as her votes would have put Hillary, who got her share of white voters, over the top, even with all the repug machinations.

When it came time to choose whom to line up with, they chose to line up with other whites.

Now why do you think that is?

Racism is not an either or - it's a continuum.

It's too bad that you're so offended because I am calling certain Trump voters racist. If you didn't vote for Trump, I'm not really sure why you are so defensive of those who did - while you seem to be totally oblivious to how offended people IN YOUR OWN PARTY are at being told over and over and over that we must shut up, move over and make room for people who have demonstrated that they their interests conflict with ours. And people who vote for a man who so blatantly told the world what he thinks of us AND who don't seem to care that they have aligned themselves with the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis have no one but themselves to blame if people now believe they are bigots or so tolerant of bigotry that they might as well be.

Why are you so quick to line up with Trump voters while completely ignoring what many of your fellow Democrats are saying? Why are you so offended that THEY might be offended but you don't seem to care at all about how WE feel about all of this?

As I said, spare me - I'm tired of it and I'm not going to sit quietly while the people in my party treat me and people like me like crap and tell us that WE have to be careful not to offend people who consistently offend us. And I am OFFENDED by ANYONE who voted for Trump. Period.

Not one of those threads EVER said ALL whites, rural or otherwise were racist.

People who voted for Trump voted, knowingly, for hate.

It didn't say racist whites, republican whites, etc...is just said whites.

You deleted the post. It was here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512634533

say untrue things, as neither IT nor I ever said ALL whites

I removed it because I am being harassed

I was not the only one who found it offensive. This is not Latest Breaking News, so if you post an inflammatory article like that was you should have used a different thread title and not put it in the thread title like it was.

I have never in my life made an absolute statement like that when it comes to any racial group. and the article did not do so either.

That title was FAR less offensive than many other threads that I did NOT post.

such as

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512622203

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2635581

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2629002



You are erecting a strawman to batter me with, a strawman that is based on an pure falsehood, and also slurring me. You are harassing me over something I did not do.

Go ahead and write it in the message field (Not in the post title because it will anger people if it's there).

Actually, nevermind...I looked in my browsing history and found it.

This was the title of your thread and the title of the article:

"Identity politics didn’t cost Democrats the election. White people did."

Nowhere does that title say Trump voters or white Republicans cost the election. It says "White people did." Not some white people. Not a few white people...just "white people."

it never said ALL

you are really beyond the pale with this harassment, and I feel, given the subject, that it tinged in bad ways

I will not be browbeaten into submission over something I never did

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/310531/identity-politics-didnt-cost-democrats-election-white-people-did/

Your thread title was "Identity politics didn't cost Democrats the election. White people did."

When a group is blamed for costing Democrats the election and it does not specify then it implies ALL of the group.

Imagine the outrage if someone started a thread entitled "Terrorism didn't cause 9/11. Muslims did."

You do NOT lump people together and expect people not to get offended and pissed.

You should have just gone in and edited your damn OP to change the title and then note that the title is offensive to some but you wanted to share the article. That would have prevented people getting offended, but instead you argued with people as if they were wrong for being offended by the thread title. You brought that ire onto yourself by not handling the outrage properly.

You are obviously wilfully ignoring the article in toto and bending language to try to put words in my mouth. Also, the arrogance of you suggesting you are "correcting me" is complete rot. The title is totally valid given the article, i already posted the very heart of it.

And if you honestly believe that debating and discussing an issue on a discussion forum is harassment then perhaps you should either stick to reading only or stop responding to my posts.

I'm not feeling charitable either. I have never voted for a Republican, ever. Texas is legalizing fetus funerals, we are talking mass deportation, national stop and frisk, a Muslim registry, and I am supposed to cry for people who no longer make $20 an hour with a high school education? I made $6.25 after getting a Masters in 1997. I don't remember them voting to help me.

Love you. I am tired of their whine.

So tired this month. Thinking of you too. xo

I am so very tired too. Hugs Starry

yet don't give half a shit about how deeply these people offend US. Instead, they tell us to shut up about it already, we're making too much noise and might drive them away.

Talk about OFFENSIVE...

Are they really Dems? I doubt it. Anyone that rolls over like a puppy and gets their bellie scratched and soothed by a misogynist, sexist, racist, xenophobic POS is no democrat, Fuck them.

At their racist shit.

I'm actually preaching Democratic unity, not division. I'm saying that Democrats should support and reach out to Democratic voters instead of running around trying to convince Republican voters to come over to our side since the reason they're not voting Democratic is because they don't like a significant segment of the people in the Democratic party. And the only way to get them to vote Democratic is to jettison those people they don't like.

Nonstarter for me.

You may think you aren't. Color wars keep everyone down.

I'm not engaging in "color wars" - and I am sick and tired of people accusing black of doing so when we finally stand up and call bullshit. Color wars have been played for decades ON US, not BY US. And this last election was Color Wars personified. WHITE PEOPLE put a racist into the White House. Not all white people, of course, but a significant number of them did. And they did it with full knowledge that he is a racist, that he is supported by racists and that he fully intended to inflict his racist policies and attitudes on people of color.

And now you come around wringing your hands and saying, "Oh, please be sympathetic to them. They're just concerned about their jobs." BULLSHIT.

So do not come in here and tell me that *I* am engaging in color wars. If you want to line up with and and sympathize with and defend bigoted white Republicans against your fellow Democrats, that's your prerogative. But recognize that that is the very essence of the "color wars" of which you complain.

Identity politics, indeed... on full display on DU by supposed progressive Democrats... Very sad.

You are much more than the color of your skin. We're all concerned about our jobs. We all want to survive. We all care about the survival of our children and our grandchildren.

...it is a tragic fact of life. Denying it is WRONG

Racists reduce us PoC, no matter how accomplished, intelligent, successful, to EXACTLY that, our colour. They think we are illegitimate at every level simply because we are non white.

White supremacists are literally on the march. They just helped elect the most unqualified presidential candidate in our country's history.

As white people, we don't get to claim that the country is post-racist. We have to face this problem.

into the Dem party. Their views will be 180 degrees different from ours.

Is that what you're advocating?

It sure sounds like it.

Some may have voted for him for economic reasons, not racial.

Which ones should we welcome in?

The ones too stupid to know that Trump is not bringing their job back or the ones who liked his racist views?

I don't want the stupid ones or the racist ones.

The "stupid" ones, like Trump, came from a household where it was okay to brag about the fact that they don't care about reading, or being informed. That's a hard bunch to reach. not hopeless, though. Someone took them for a ride.

Stop with the misinformation. You've got to know this, the repug party is the one defined by race.

Newsflash: IT'S THE WHITE PEOPLE'S PARTY, 95%, and many are racists. That is now really news to most of us.

That's the beginning of the misinformation. Would you like to exclude anyone who is not multi-ethnic?

Most people on this site know that the repug party is the one that defines itself by race.

It's 95% white, the party where all the dixiecrats (racists) retreated too after the 1964 Dem convention didn't work out in their favor.

What does this even mean?

"That's the beginning of the misinformation. Would you like to exclude anyone who is not multi-ethnic?"

I know you think if we'd only stop being the party for black people, we'd get more votes, "color wars". But it wouldn't work. Adopting strategies to look like the GOP never works. Why would they abandon the real GOP for the fake one? The answer is they wouldn't, because the GOP is good at what they do. They only find other ways to dupe them into sticking with the real deal. Stick with the base.

If this were about economics, black voters in their class and situation would have voted for him, too.

They didn't vote for him because of economics. They voted for him because he promised them to restore the social order they have come to rely upon - that no matter how low they are on the totem poll, they will always be superior to certain other people.

You can argue economics all you want. But there is NO way that any sentient human being could possibly vote for a man who is so blatantly racist, misogynistic, Islamaphobic, etc., who has been so enthusiastically endorsed by the KU KLUX KLAN and NAZIS, whom countless people of color BEGGED THEM NOT TO VOTE FOR BECAUSE HE WAS DANGEROUS TO US purely for economic reasons.

As I said, they are either racist or they are comfortable tolerating racists and have no problem putting a racist in the White House. I don't care what's in their hearts, so I don't care if they are personally racist or just don't give a shit enough about people like me not to put the KKK's candidate into the White House - the effect is the same and the blame is deserved.

They want their business interests to thrive. That's the way it goes. I agree withwhat you're saying about the totem pole. We, on the lower levels, are multi-colored. Trump is a danger to mankind. It is happening here.

working class voters are. But THEY didn't fall for Trump's economic argument.

They're not Republican. They're Democrats and they voted overwhelmingly for Hillary while the vast majority of white voters in their same situation voted for Trump. THEY saw through Trump's crap. Why didn't the white voters? Unless you think they're just stupid, you have to figure that something else was at play.

That something else was race - the only one of the things that wasn't like the others . . .

They don't think about the welfare of the community. They watch Fox News.

Hard to say, because some are family members and friends.

It is madness, IMHO, to ask PoC to go colourblind when the dominant white culture is clearly not only NOT colourblind, but indeed has vast, power-laden parts of it that are overtly and covertly hostile to colour.

not speaking up when they came for this group or that.

Survival, my left foot. We either have principles or we're shitheel Republicans. No thanks.

Good grief.

RW'ers are spouting the same shit all over the internets.

If only black people would stop making everything about race!1!!

Move on along with that shit.

but because their hands were bigger than his. Or something.

Clinton did worse amongst African Americans, Muslims, Women, Millenials, and Hispanics than Obama. Fuck 'em all, they're all racist?

Cookpolitical.com shows she now has nearly as many votes as Obama did in 2012, and votes are still being counted. This is despite a large increas in voter suppression this year (documented many places) and a much larger vote for third party candidates in 2016 vs 2012.

The question now is what strategy does the Democratic Party use going forward. We are hearing calls for the Democrats to align with white supremacists. The OP disagrees. I do too.

By the way, I'm white.

The OP directed their post to people that voted for Trump.


If you don't want to be divided from people that voted for Trump I would suggest you find somewhere else to post.

who put racists into the White House than they do to their fellow Democrats of color.

I don't think that a person voting for a Democrat necessarily means they want to be an active member of our Party. Would you say the people who voted for Obama and not Clinton are racist?

Nazis is either a bigot or is perfectly comfortable aligning themselves with them - which has the same effect. And I don't want them in my party.

Again,would you call those who voted for Obama and not Clinton racists?

anything in return. And what they want is for the Dems to stop embracing us. Otherwise, they would already be voting Democratic.

And yes, I think that people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump are either racist or don't care that a racist is going to be president, virtually indistinguishable characteristics.

Racists vote for black people sometimes. Just like racists have black friends sometimes. And racists have sex with black people sometimes. Voting for Obama does NOT make someone not racist.

These people already know that Democrats are better for their economic interests than Republicans. They don't care because they have other interests that are more important to them - their fears, their desire to maintain the privilege and supposed superiority their race provides them. THAT's the only thing that Republicans are offering them that Democrats don't. So if Democrats want to attract them to our side, we have to compete with Republicans on that score. We have to convince them that we're not going to engage in what they - and too many Democrats - refer to as "identity politics" but what is really the politics of inclusion, which scares them to death.

And the only way to convince them of that is to make clear to them that THEIR concerns will be paramount - and those concerns are completely in conflict with the concerns of black and brown and female people in the Democratic party. That means our concerns will have to be subordinated. We will have to be quiet. Stop talking all that race stuff. Stop talking all that equality stuff. Stop "complaining." Focus only on class. Leave race out of it.

In other words, we will have to give up our seats so that the people who vote for bigots can have a nice cushy place to sit.

Do they?
Did we make the argument well and clearly enough?
Maybe, in the spirit of this forum, we didn't. We ASSUMED that because, as passionate partisans and vastly more knowledgeable about politics than average, that our argument (that Hillary was better for the blue collar/non college educated/economically disadvantaged voter) was prima facie obvious, when it was only obvious to you and I.

Just because YOU and I know this, hell just because we see it as an absolutely fucking OBVIOUS fact, doesn't mean that we (the Democratic party and anyone who didn't want to see Trump elected) made the case.

Not saying that your initial and main point isn't valid, but a salesperson can have a better product, at a better price, and still lose the 'sale' to a lying bullshitter who gets their message across better. As you say, even racists will vote for the PoC (and presumably a female) *IF* they perceive it as being in their own best interests....

If they don't get it by now, telling them again louder and more slowly won't make any difference. And if they are that stupid that they haven't figured it out yet, even if they eventually DO get it, they're not going to suddenly grow a new crop of intelligence. They are going to consistently have trouble grappling with every concept and issue the Democrats put forth and each time is going to require a yeoman's effort to help them understand what we're doing.

We don't have that kind of time, energy and resources to handhold people who are this thick. Again, I say, leave them to themselves and focus our efforts on cultivating our base and helping remove the barriers that keep them from voting. And if those folks on the other side, after watching us move forward together, decide they want to join us, that's fine - they're welcome to come on over and join up under our rules and our principles. But chasing around after them, trying to figure out what they want and wooing them over to our side like desperate heartstruck teenagers is not acceptable.

better. They have no idea Trump and Company want to take away SS, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. They have no idea the WIC and SNAP benefits they get are because Democrats fight cuts every day. They don't know that Obama inherited a crap economy from Bush and performed miracles with one hand tied behind his back.

They know they "always" vote for Republicans, that abortion is a sin, that homosexuality is a sin, and dammit, they want their guns.

I'm a white woman in a sea of red. It's disheartening.

berating people who voted for a different candidate and telling them to f off. It's a bit odd calling people racist who voted for a man with the middle name Hussein not once but twice. Wouldn't it be more productive to listen and research? If people have concerns with the direction our party is going, should we not hear them out? Remember, at the end of the day we are all here because we generally agree on policy issues. That policy can never be implemented, and people's lives will not get better unless we don't welcome and reach out to those who have angered and disappointed us in the past.