after watching that maniac on the campaign trail for 18 months, then a authoritarian/aristocracy will fill the void by default. We are morphing into a much different country now.

I just don't see the point of worrying ourselves about people who rarely give a lefty thought the time of day. Better to create more voters than to waste our time.

In 2013 Supreme Court decision which struck down a key provision in the voters rights act.

14 states added new voting restrictions just in time for the 2016 election:

http://www.brennancenter.org/voting-restrictions-first-time-2016

North Carolina would have been included in that list, but last minute court rulings were able to get voters who had been removed from the voter registration list reinstated:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-carolina-naacp-voter-suppression_us_5817634fe4b064e1b4b385df

Problem in North Carolina was many of those voters did not realize they could vote in time.

Those voting restrictions which started in 2013, where not in place in 2008, and 2012, and they were definitely aimed at African Americans.

Losing the Presidency was bad enough, but losing the Senate was a disaster

two decades.

(R) turnout was lower than (D) turnout:


Turnout went up for Obama's first election and in response to Bush II--something to vote for, something to vote against--but down in 2012. Less to vote for. It was down in 2014 because it wasn't a presidential election.


This year, a lot of voters didn't see much to vote for. (D) voting was depressed. (R) voting was, too.

As for voting rights and disenfranchisement, the only actual decent study that's been done said more people were disenfranchised by the perception they wouldn't be able to vote than by not having the ID necessary to vote. In other words, they had the ID but had it drummed into their heads by pessimists and wrong-headed activists more out to score rhetorical points than actually enable democracy that they certainly did not have the right ID (so why bother even checking?).

It's a secular trend, with the occasional countermovement in the trend line. (Secular: of or relating to a long term of indefinite duration. Not from "seculum" meaning &quot this present) world," opposing Christ's "not of this world, but "seculum" meaning "age" or "century".)

and North Carolina were in there. North Carolina removed thousands from the voting rosters, and even though the NAACP won to have those names reinstated, it was late in the game, and a lot of those voters didn't participate

Voter suppression was not a small issue. This is way under-valued as a reason for low turnout.

Or some other country.

These fuckers would attack the chinese working in those sweatshops for those jobs while saYing nothing of white owners who hire in China

White elitist owners preaching make America Great Again. While shipping jobs away. Deplorable.

Just hate those brown workers not the people who chose to hire those workers knowing they are undocumented most of the time and stiffing these angry people in their own community.
Nope those people are just fine because they have businesses, money and white skin and probably sit next to each other in church.

He likes to gloss over shit when it comes to race so he wont seem 'angry'. He has to. Shit would hit the fan if he did not parse his words at times or go into purple prose at others. Him keeping it real would drive his haters to extremes

Did you know that many rural voters voted for Hillary? Are those people stupid and racist too?

Did you also know that Obama, a black man, won the rust belt? We need to be asking ourselves how to win enough rural votes again to take the white house, not go around saying that rural voters are stupid racists. Dear God that's a perfect recipe to make our Party EXTINCT

Why would you think I was?

How much shit from the nasties do I (me, a black person)need to suffer to make your political dreams come true?

If people keep talking about rural voters in this way we are DEAD as a party

... at what point do we hold them responsible for being this ignorant?

Thx in advance

You know why? Because they only do the racist shit to people who look like me so you can pretend it dont happen since it dont happen to YOU. It still happens to me and its not so bad as rural California. If rural california made me lose my mind and helped me learn the hard fucking way about neonazis and blue state KKK, then I shudder to think what rural Indiana blacks suffer through. But I guess none of that shit matters.

Now which states can we flip since Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are full of rural areas. The problem is Hillary won 15 states! Where can we as a party make up for those lost votes? Keep in mind 200 counties went for president obama twice who flipped this time. Maybe we should at least go back to those counties next election and talk to them.

We lost by less than a million. We can make that up. Especially after four years ofTrump. He is not starting out well

You made very good points.

They really need to get off Faux Snooze.

Can you think of anything to say to them other than outright lies? Nobody is condemning ALL rural voters just the ones that have voted for a guy that is ridiculously unqualified and continue to vote Republican for EVERYTHING ELSE. Why do they need hand holding to understand that we are all in this together? Do they not understand that if you give people that, work against your interests, to just about every official office in the country you're going to get policy that works against your interests? The president is one person with power checked directly by the other two branches of government and not so directly by state governments and the people that hold those positions.

Part of the reason they are where they are is that they while they might have voted for Obama A Black Man, and Hillary:A Woman. Instead they've uniformly voted for Republican:Strip their rights for everything else. Furthermore they have been doing so for a long damn time and will continue to do it without nary a clue as to why things keep getting worse for them. Perhaps, if they would have put more Dems, Indies or even Repubs that wouldn't willingly steal everything from them into power over the last 50ish years they could've kept/returned some prosperity to their areas as well as the rest of the country too.

Don't worry the party is going to go extinct anyway when we can't breath the air, fish the fisheries and drink the water. All of this is going to happen because people can't be bothered to get involved or the fickle Rural Voter(this does not include ANY of the rural people that see the bullshit for what is and vote for people that actually give a damn) keeps putting people in power that doesn't care about anything as long as they get theirs. For those people I simply do not give a flipping fuck if they join us in trying to save this flying rock pile or not. They will NEVER join us in trying to save things until the shit has absolutely covered the entire fan... and it's no longer spinning.. and we are all dead.

The one's we CAN reach are already voting with us. The rest want the restoration of an America that is long gone. One where those uppity brown people know their place, and those fags have the shame to hide their sinful behavior (this is sarcasm, of there is any doubt).

In short, they are diametrically opposed to the progress of many of the oppressed groups that Democrats champion.

Nope, fuck 'em. The good guys are already with us.

What we need to do is get our natural supporters to give a shit and come out.

Many of them are lulled into a stupor of celebrity gossip and other pop culture bullshit.

Many more are simply struggling to live... working long hours and they are simply disengaged from the process.

And WAY too many people are lulled into the bullshit narrative that all politicians are bad and it doesn't matter who gets elected. Guess who that narrative serves?

We need to find some way to actually get these people to care about what is going on in politics.

And no, I'm not talking about getting people "inspired" or "excited." I will settle for informed and determined.

went to the OrangeAnus. They made no bones about their hatred of Clinton and Obama.

BTW I thought the rust belt was mostly city, not rural.

Keep that argument up, and Trump will be a two term President. Trump can thank people like you for his success.

Exactly.

We may have won the popular vote but we lost the Presidency and we were pummeled at every level. Maybe it's time we focused on being inclusive instead of spewing hate for those who think we don't represent them.

We don't need backwards, hateful people with outdated views on life in our party. Yes, there are some rural whites who are not bigoted and are fully accepting of modern America; however the vast majority of rural whites are still living in the past and are filled with bigotry. We don't need them in our party.

Let them eat cake

It's my private joke. Prolly not as funny to everybody else

When is the last time Dems won the rural vote nationally? I have time.

The white rural vote for Obama was less than it was AGAINST HIM. Both times.

Do you think all rural voters are idiot members of the KKK? Am I dreaming or did Obama win enough rural votes to win twice? We need to start figure out how to do that again, because this whole "rural voters are the enemy" thing is suicide

They certainly have shown a fancy for the ignorance propagated by Republicans in economics, science and law. He campaigned on bigotry and taking away their health care. They still voted for him in record numbers. If that's not proof of their own bigotry or stupidity, then I don't know what is.

Obama lost the rural vote overwhelmingly, just not as badly as Clinton did. By no means can you infer from that a majority of rural voters support Democrats or our values. These people vote for Republicans up and down the ticket and have done so for decades. We are better off going after suburban voters than rural voters. They are easier to reach and they have experience with Democratic politicians and values - even if it's just the mayor of the nearby big city.

Rural voters, by and large, are a complete waste of time for us to pursue. They do not share our values and their continued support of Republicans for no logical reason at all speaks significantly about their lack of character and interest in moving this country forward instead of backward.

I would rather lose with honor instead of selling our souls to the devil.

I'm certainly not saying to invite them over to your house or get chummy with racists/homophobes/xenophobes/anti-Semite/Islamophobes/misogynists.

But you can find areas where you agree with them and build coalitions. Labor is a good start. This is a poor people's uprising as much as a fascist one. Rural America is pretty impoverished. Their poverty has only come up in lived memory. A lot of them blame Bill Clinton's NAFTA on factory closings. The Democratic Party needs to wake up and realize the Clinton's are soooo '90s. Even though Hillary wasn't president, her husband's policies helped set the stage for 2016. We used to be the party of labor. MLK was killed marching for labor with black sanitation workers, for God's sake. Sure that's aligning with the left's greatest aspirations for justice and equity for all people.

I get that you don't want to appease them. I'm a woman and it makes me sick that 53% of women voted for that sexual predator. I would like nothing better than to ignore them. But I know that when I ignore problems in my personal life, those problems usually just grow until them become ugly and unavoidable. That's why ignoring them won't work. We need to educate them* when we want to slap them because ignorance begets ignorance.


*I am using "we have to educate," here, as a white person, about white people, to white/privileged people. Of course it's not PoC's job to educate anyone unless they choose to do so.

The first valid point to come out of the mouth of a LA Lakers fan.

Nobody actually answers it

Because both of you voted for Obama in 2012. Something obviously changed for them.

Obama didn't even break the bank on the white vote in the rustbelt when he WON the rustbelt. He won by having a diverse coalition and historic participation among AA voters, winning in the cities and suburbs, and younger voters. He has never won the white rural vote. In lots of places romney edged him out with whites even in suburbs. I see no need to rewrite history.

What do you think the demographics of the counties that flipped to Trump are on the graph on NPR is provided? The ones in rural Wisconsin and Michigan?

interested in knowing if any of those counties suffered a population loss between 2008, 2012, and 2016. If so, its possible that a lot of Dem voters moved to nearby cities for better opportunities.

you will see that is wishful thinking. The sheer numbers of counties are overwhelming

If Dem turnout dropped so much to swing counties as much as 25 points we have a bigger problem

in most of those counties were small, in the single digits.

The issue is that that article is talking about counties, not people, those who would vote for Trump wouldn't have voted for Obama anyways. I would even say having lackluster Republican candidates in 2008 and 2012 lead to many Republican voters staying home.

Its a lot of counties, true, but not necessarily a lot of people.

then what you are saying is we had a lackluster candidate and everybody stayed home. While I think she wasn't the greatest candidate she sure wasn't one that made Dems stay home. Because the overall vote totals are roughly 3M for 2012 and 2016.

And if nobody who voted for Obama voted for Trump, by your philosophy, it means FAR less Dems turned out in 2016 than 2012. Clinton got slightly over 200K less than Obama. 200K is about 12.5% of Obama's 1.6M. So Dem turnout was down 12.5% when facing a threat like Trump? Give Clinton ALL of the third party vote and she is still 100K less than Obama

Again - if you are right and I am wrong - I think that is worse.

If there were so many voters who switched from Obama to Trump, and the cognitive dissonance they displayed would have been staggering, there weren't a lot of them, and most likely not as many as the margin of loss we are talking about. And again, in many of those rural counties, how many young people, mostly Dems, left to go elsewhere such as California or other blue states and/or cities for better jobs in the past 4-8 years? That can also make a difference. If the demographics in those counties shift to become older due to this, that would also help explain a Trump win, he got a lot of the angry white boomer vote, their kids, not so much.

Look at this data:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Wisconsin,_2012#Results

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/wisconsin

She got about 200k less votes than Obama in 2012, and Trump didn't gain any new voters either. It was people staying home or population loss.

exclusively on. Seems to me youare taking the black vote for granted by never seeming to care about how to reachus and get us to try to make up that less than a million vote difference we need. We are reliably democrat. Why not focus on getting more dems out and less on bashing the party for not loving Trump voters enough.

Of exclusuon. You'd have us end up a regional party who can't win nationally in no time. That's where the GOP was headed until we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory yet again...

I have no time for pandering to idiots who buy the bullshit Trump sell. If I see too much of itI stay my ass home eating sandwiches and watching the black vote to see if we are all on the same page. We usually mostly are.

I'd say that the only way the democrats are going to reach white rural America is to get the control of the radio waves in these small towns.

Even if these people don't listen to hate radio themselves, they are influenced by it.

Many conservatives that I talk to will say "I don't watch Fox News very much" and they aren't lying, they get their right wing talking points in social settings where people that they know and respect listen to Fox News.

That should be the goal, try to get equal time, not by passing a law of anything, but by intelligently investing in the media.

My local TV political talk show has republicans disagreeing with republicans. The powers that be have apparently just given up.

... we should've done 20 years ago ... very low hanging fruit here.

Where are the liberal billionaires who are willing to fund these shows and get them out there?!

Reaction to bush years set the stage for Obama. Fell apart when they weren't needed. I can't think of a better reason for revival, to give voice to dissent and rally progressive troops, than this incoming disaster. All I want for Xmas is Air Obama!

Portland Oregon lost its progressive radio stations a few years after they started. There is only one remaining and its a low power very local station.

For some reason progressive radio really never catches on. If it dosent have a chance in progressive Portland, what chance is there in rural america?

To me, he looks like a response to Rush Limbaugh.

I don't care for him. When I say control the airwaves, I don't mean spend a whole bunch of time complaining about what the republican party is doing.

They need to talk about interesting things, not necessarily politics. White rural America is angry because their anger has been stoked. Take that anger away and they'll be able to recognize the cognitive dissonance that is so prevalent in the conservative message.

Emotional people are difficult to reason with. I've never listened to liberal radio, but I'm not interested in the opinions of blowhards, regardless of which party they are blowing hard for.

And grow an audience that can attract serious advertising revenue, then there is a chance.

Time will tell.

No, what we need is a reasonable voice. A voice that points out when the republicans do bad things, and when the democrats do good things.

We aren't going to get white rural Americans to just turn on their radio and hear that they've been wrong for years, and change.

We'd probably accomplish all that we need if we could replace hate radio with music. If the radio wasn't making them angry every day, they could be reasoned with.

One of the things that kept rural Americans conservative years ago, was Paul Harvey. He wasn't overly conservative, but he was conservative. We need something like that. A calm voice forwarding a progressive agenda. A voice appreciating the arts and sciences, speaking admiringly about technology and intelligent people.

Progressive radio works.

The powers that be do not want it to work.

Nothing will change them. It doesn't even matter who is running - they were born republicans and they do not really like liberals. They are suspicious of liberals - and democrats are liberals. I was in an aerobics class and a fellow classmate came up to me out of the blue and said "Obama is a baby killer."

So, over the past 20 yrs, in moves all the retired artists and liberals to the outskirts of this town of under 2,000 people. Also south of the town, the richer people make a gated community on what had been a large ranch. Everyone was getting alone pretty good until Trump won. People are civil but there is a huge under currant. I have heard that some of their conservative pastors are telling them to pray for us wayward liberals.

... the conservatives treat their money towards these areas as investment for lower taxes.

We could do a kickstarter type thingy if somebody has time. We would need good hosts tho. I Find many a bit whiny or boring.

... that can be done gofunded.

Is that Liberal radio will never get the corporate backing that Conservative radio will.

Promise all the factories are coming back and we'll forsake the future of energy so that they can mine coal? What jobs has the Republican senators, house members, governors, state legislators produced for them? They vote for them as the default despite getting nothing in return except heart ache.

Why do the Dems need to beg and plead for them to leave their abusers? Cmon, tell me WHAT jobs can they realistically tell these people about? And then when it doesn't happen and they crucify the Democrat who told them about these nonexistent jobs? Do you think they are going to turn over on Trump and the Republicans when they are in the same shitty boat with holes after this whole mess is over?

They will not, they'll vote in another Republican overlord or feign allegiance to making things better just like they did with Obama. I want to know how rural voters on our side feel about their neighbors constantly voting to us all down the drain feel?

I hope you enjoy the fact that we're ALL going to hell in a handbasket now.

... "rugged individualism", and they mostly perceive the government as taking from the deserving and giving it to the undeserving.

If they get SS or Medicare benefits, it's because "they paid into it."

It's probably hopeless to shake them out of it, but Democrats might win over some of them if "corporate welfare" is mentioned more often. Conservative propagandists work hard at avoiding that issue.

For example, I heard a conservative on the radio a few years ago complaining about aid to Egypt. He quoted the correct amount, but he was deceptive about the reason. He said something like, "This is what the Democrats do! They send YOUR tax dollars overseas to help people who'd like to kill us!"

The real reason for the "aid" to Egypt was to funnel money back to our corporate weapons makers! It was aid for Egypt to buy our USA-made weapons, and Republicans supported the idea!

In truth:
1. It wasn't aid to help the needy.
2. It was aid that promoted the means to kill.
3. USA companies who made the weapons got the money, with Egypt acting as an intermediary.

They live in an alternate reality and anything we say just makes them more sure that they are right. No matter what, they oppose what we do. Even if it helps them

We need to energize and inspire like-minded voters ... there is nothing we can (or should want to) do/change in order to capture the racist, bigot, misogynist, xenophobic vote ... I do not want to be part of a party that panders to this group of people.

I am not saying every rural voter is a racist, bigot, misogynist ... what I am saying is that we are not going to reach the voters that want to 'round up 'illegal immigrants' , " that want to ban an entire religion from our country ... that are fine with depriving the "other" of their constitutional rights

This idea that we need to completly change our message and goals because of this cycle is not smart at all.

You said it.

Trying to change peoples minds is a wast of time and condescending to them as well. Focus on the future, and the people who are progressive.

Remember the 2012 autopsy the repubs did and what it said? Instead of trying to pander to minorities and women, the repubs doubled down on their racism and sexism. That is what works for them, and it shows they have a core set of rather repugnant principles that they stick to.

Democrats also need to stick to their principles, no matter the stakes. If a democrat ever said they would start a registry of a religious group - even if that candidate offered free health care for all, free college, free child care, etc, I would vote against them. And I'm not religious.

we cease to be the democratic party for all practical purposes. I think we all understand that we need to reach enough people to win elections, but we won't by pandering to deplorables.

Beside which, who is deciding what "rural whites" are? There isn't a monolithic group that fits that role. I have many rural white relatives who always vote and vote republican. Most are well educated and have decent if not really good jobs. They didn't lose a slot at college because of affirmative action or lose out at a job because a minority received a boost, and they don't claim that ever happened. A significant portion of them live in all white rural areas where they have no interaction with anyone other than whites. They are evangelicals and their religion dictates how they vote. Their support for trump in particular was based on some namby pamby freedom of religion crap that supposedly the democrats were going to yank out from under them. Unless the democratic party wants to support god in schools, outlawing all abortions, and putting gays back in the closet or in front of a firing squad, we will never see these folks in our tent.

I also live in a mostly white rural area. I ran across many of the poorly educated, marginally employed if working at all, and not one of them was going to vote. They may talk about economic issues or how AAs or immigrants make their plight worse, but they have little or no interest in how elections can or might change their lives. Case in point, my daughter's ex complains constantly about how hard he has to work to pay extra taxes to support the immigrants who don't/won't work. The man is poor and head of household so he not only doesn't pay income taxes, he gets a huge earned income credit (which is NOT welfare, mind you). He thinks trump is the bees knees but he has never bothered to register to vote. Even if by a miracle we lured some of these folks to our big tent it wouldn't help win elections because they.don't.vote.

Just a sample. There are many "rural whites" and we can't lump them into any particular category to go win over. I don't propose ignoring voters who might be attracted to our message, but we are crazy if we alienate a big and growing part of our party to do so.

What I notice up here, is that people seem to think that nothing from the cities has any effect on their lives, until they need the services we offer, like, emergency rooms, shopping centers, cheap necessities, etc.. They see themselves as rugged and hardworking, and we are, for the most part. But many here 'just want to be left alone', but still want SS, medicare, federal monies to build and maintain our highways (we could not POSSIBLY build roads without fed monies or maintain this HUUUGE state on what we take in), all of this, with no income tax.

And when shit gets tough, they immediately look to blame the poorest, never looking at the new fifth wheel they purchased for fishing and camping, or the snowmachines that sit all summer and the four wheelers that sit all winter. We want it all. We just dont want to pay, and especially don't want to pay for 'those people'. People up here see BLM as worse than the KKK.

Best to grow our base.

One of my poor, uneducated clients fits this description. He has a sixth-grade education, is on disability, his daughter gets WIC and Medicaid, and they get SNAP. He lives with his wife and daughter in a very dilapidated mobile home, and has one or two other children out there somewhere that he doesn't support.

He is a hard worker - he works off the books chopping firewood, raises chickens, keeps the home warm with firewood, and takes great care of his daughter who has special needs along with the mother.

He has a Trump/Pence sign in his yard still. During the summer, he said he could never vote for Trump because he made fun of a disabled person. Well, he's honest - he didn't vote for anyone because he didn't bother to vote. Yet he told me Hillary was (fill in the blank). He must hear this stuff from his friends or family, because the only thing ever on TV is video games.

There is no way you can sway this person to either vote or vote for a Democrat. Never happening. Aim to get the vote of young, urban voters in each state.

nt