2016 loss shows Democrats the need for white male voters

[TexasTowelie]

Upper St. Clair Township, Pa. — When he moved to Pennsylvania about five years ago, it was a coin toss which party Brian Heitman would register with.

No longer.

Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Heitman, who is 42 and white, has become a reliable Democrat. Last week, he voted for the Democratic candidate in a special state Senate election in Pittsburgh’s affluent southern suburbs.

“A decade ago I probably wouldn’t have even noticed this election was happening,” Heitman said, “but I’m making a point in voting in every one I can nowadays.”

The Democrats’ 2020 presidential primary may feature a historically diverse field of women and minorities, but in some ways it is testing how the party appeals to white men such as Heitman. Many Democratic politicians went into the last presidential campaign cycle taking little account of those voters, and banked on a coalition of women and minorities to carry them to victory. Trump’s victory proved that thinking wrong.

Read more: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/07/democrats-white-male-voters/39314679/

[machoneman]

1. Hello? This is news????

Gimme a break! Sure in 2016 this was true and even true today. But then how does one explain our sweeping House victories in late 2018?

No party should solely consider only a few segments of the voting population. I'd be the first to agree that we need more white males like me to vote for Democrats at all levels. I do think that the various platforms that have been advanced for years now should appeal to this group yet another specter raises its head.

The idea that white males are threatened by women, minorities, immigrants and more is balderdash yet the the Repubiscums have played this canard for years. And it has worked. Yet little is ever mentioned that it seems to have worked primarily with those who ALREADY leaned right, came from winger parents, the South, heavily industrialized towns that have lost all semblance of well-paid jobs and a few other qualifiers. The 'Scums have heavily played up how everybody else was at fault for their loss of income, prestige, sense of self and more.

We need to fight back with more than just the truth. Job creation is a start.

[ArizonaLib]

9. I agree emphatically

Knowing we are correct or have the truth on our side is probably the biggest reason behind lack of voter turn out for liberals. Liberals don't always feel they need to reprove how awful the other side is because it is so apparent. The other side doesn't care. They just want to win. The other side keeps their base so angry, afraid, anxious, feeling so helpless that they cannot wait to vote. This is why after the votes are counted, even if they win, their media tells them that they could have won more - the candidates who lost were not conservative enough. They crank up again right away - no rest.

It is not enough to know we are decent, that the other side is ridiculously all-time lying, selfish, hateful and corrupt. We must vote and activate. Every election has consequences up and down each ballot that affects each of us for life times. Each mix of politicians that get voted into office puts their fingerprint of their actions/policies on our lives. Even as those fingerprints fade over time, they take a long to fade, if ever.

Each court appointment plants the seed of another supreme court justice - as Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Spencer Roane, had a power over the Constitution like "wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. "

Elections are about EVERYTHING, EVERY TIME.

[brush]

2. Progressive white men and women were in 2016 and are a part of...

the Democratic Party coalition. Why is this untruth being pushed? We need and welcome white voters but we certainly don't want to alienate others of our coalition by moving to the right to try to pull trump voters.

And btw, the election was stolen. I still don't buy that the 77k tally for trump in three states was untamperred with.

[Aristus]

3. I'm a white male Democrat.

I don't think there's a chance in Hell of getting new white male voters into the Democratic circle. If they're not already voting Dem, they're never going to.

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

4. Why?

I am a middle-aged, middle class, white, male Democrat. I find that my core beliefs of civil liberties and inclusion keep me voting for the Democrats. Why would those same ideals not be attractive to other white men?

I do think that our party needs to be careful of not demonizing white men by painting us with the same broad brush as the current administration. But I am against broad brushes in general. I think individuals may be implicated in their own wrongdoing without saying all who share a characteristic or two with them are equally culpable.

Why do you think the Democrats cannot bing in new voters like us?

This is not a rhetorical trap. I am honestly interested in your thoughts.

[Aristus]

5. I think there's too much resentment out there among middle-aged white men.

(I'm fifty).

Whether that resentment is genuine, caused by isolated personal factors (they gave that black man my job just because he's black), or a more abstract resentment, jealousy, suspicion, or mistrust of the kind that AM hate radio exists to nurture. People who feel that way (and turn to hate radio for validation of their beliefs) probably aren't amenable to any sort of rational corrective. Too many people embrace their hatred with pride and make it part of their identity. (In fact, there are right-wing organizations out there in which 'identity' is prominent in the name; 'Christian Identity', for example.)

Changing one's mind, if it involved a change of self-perceived identity, is almost impossible. Even people who have never benefited materially from white privilege have at least comforted themselves in their poverty, loneliness, lack of fulfillment, whatever, by reminding themselves that they are white, and therefor inherently 'better' than anyone who isn't. That sort of poisonous comfort is too addictive to give up easily.

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

6. Hmmm ...

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. (I am a few years older than that.)

I hope you are wrong.

I would hope that there are enough individuals that voted for the President in 2016 that can now see he is actively working against their own interests. I would hope that either rational self-interest or anger at the personal consequences of bad policies and tax hikes for the middle class will bring them to vote against Trump in 2020, even if they do not consider themselves Democrats.

I would like to see one thread of a multifaceted campaign communications strategy include maddening personal tale after heart wrenching individual tragedy from Trump voters who recognize how he has directly damaged them and why they will vote against him.

If there is wide scale anger and resentment among white men, let's focus it at the man who has made their lives noticeably worse.

Or so it seems to me.

[Aristus]

7. I hope I'm wrong, too.

But a look at his voting base doesn't bear that out. It seems the more filthy, squalid things he does, the more they love him.

Even people who admit suffering as a result of is policies continue to express their support for him. Some of them admit to a sort of political inertia (I've always voted Republican), while others see the greater suffering of others, and consider that an acceptable trade-off for their own suffering.

[brush]

11. Some white women came around in 2018 for the blue wave and...

I hope that remains for 2020. trump's base however seems to be holding strong despite the tax sham resulting in smaller refunds and even tax payments to make. FOX and hate radio keeps them drinking the Kool-Aid.

Maybe their wives can influence them but the constant preaching of resentment and racism by broadcast media and the reinforcing of it on social media 24/7 is hard to overcome.

We can still win though if we repeat what we did in 2018.

[MicaelS]

13. Great post and dead on.

I wish I had written it.

[Aristus]

14. That's nice, thank you.

18 years at DU has made me a better thinker and writer.

[Blue_Tires]

8. Yep, pieces like this are as predictable as the fuckin' sunrise

Just like in 2016, the election of 2020 is REALLY clear-cut...

The party is not going out of its way to kiss the collective asses of all the emotionally insecure white bros in the great midwest, no matter how many of this bullshit hot takes get published.

[lagomorph777]

10. Sell the economic message, but fuck the racists. Do not be shy about that.

Let them choose between their financial security and their little snowflake egos.

[lagomorph777]

12. 2018 victory shows Democrats the need for black female voters

See how that works when you apply currrent information?

I'm so fucking sick of the meme that we need to fellate old white male voters (and by the way, I happen to be one).