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Democrat Strategy vs. Trump

Started by Sylar, March 01, 2017, 09:24:13 PM

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Sylar

I came across an article today that I'd like to share; it details what a strategy to defeat Trump would entail.

Below is an excerpt of article:

Quote from: What Hasn’t Worked

So far, Trump’s opponents have used three relatively ineffective strategies.

Attempting to portray Trump as temperamentally unfit for the presidency, the approach primarily adopted by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, clearly didn’t work. Continued attacks on Trump’s character, intellect, or ignorance about government are a waste of energy at best and counterproductive at worst, since they could simply amplify the class resentments between Middle America Trump supporters and the coastal and urban elite.

Attacks on Trump’s conflicts of interest have also failed, and will keep failing until or unless they are tied to particular actions that are seen to harm his supporters. Until then, his supporters will simply that assume all politicians are corrupt and that Trump’s wealth somehow insulates him from such conflicts.

Since Trump’s inauguration, the opposition has taken a third approach: arguing that Trump has broken American democratic norms. Given what has happened with similar leaders in other countries, this line of attack is unlikely to have much effect on Trump’s political standing (at least in the short term, and unless he ventures much, much further from such norms).

Understanding Trump’s Pillars of Support

The loyalty Trump has earned from some of his supporters may be virtually unbreakable, resulting from appeals that Democrats cannot and should not seek to match. But to win in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election, the opposition does not need to convince everyone who voted for Trump. It does not even need to convince most of them. Democrats just need to peel away Trump’s marginal voters without losing the support of the majority of Americans who voted for other candidates. To do so, they need to understand the four reasons those marginal voters supported Trump: heightened partisanship (which led Trump to receive the support of 89% of registered Republicans); hostility to the Washington establishment; Trump’s rhetorical abandonment of the normal tropes of Republican politics; and his image as a successful businessman. The first two of these are probably nonstarters for Democrats, but the third and fourth represent vulnerabilities they could exploit.

Trump took advantage of the fact that standard elements of the Republican catechism, particularly support for tax cuts on the wealthy and lower spending on almost everything except defense, had little popular appeal, even among Republican voters. Republican majorities in Congress remain at least rhetorically committed to that agenda, however, and Trump’s cabinet nominees, who for the most part are traditionally conservative Republicans, are likely to want to move it forward, despite its lack of appeal to his voters. Trump’s image as a businessman who can “get things done” and who was not captive to normal politics helped him get elected, but is fundamentally at odds with both that agenda and the chaos of his initial weeks in office.

This creates an enormous opportunity for those opposed to Trump: Every time he proposes a conventional Republican policy, win or lose, Trump will be pushing ideas that his supporters mostly oppose and that seem like exactly the sort of generic Republican they rejected by electing him. Whatever type of policy he pushes, if he is seen to fail, the opposition will get a double triumph, on the issue and by showing that his aura of competence is a false one. The less Trump seems to be someone who can get things done, the less his marginal voters will believe in him. The less they believe in him, the weaker he gets. The weaker he gets, the more likely his next defeat becomes, weakening him still further and creating a vicious cycle that might lead to his political collapse. (A similar cycle, beginning with American struggles in Iraq and intensified by the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the financial crisis, is what caused George W. Bush to limp out of office, in 2008, with members of his own party keeping their distance from him.)

But for this to happen, the opposition needs to understand three things:

  • The opposition should focus on winning over the marginal Trump voter â€" not the fervent ones who appear at Trump rallies, but the ones who might be persuaded to switch their votes, or even to stay home on Election Day.
  • Marginal voters are generally characterized by exceptionally low levels of knowledge about politics and pay little or no attention to policy debates and the tactics used by the two parties.
  • This low level of knowledge about politics means that the president is often the only government official many voters can identify (in 2011 only 43% of voters could name the Speaker of the House; during the election only 40% of voters could name either candidate for vice president, with marginal voters disproportionately represented among those who could not). So voters tend to attribute all outcomes, positive or negative, to the president, regardless of what actually happened.

Read more: https://hbr.org/2017/02/if-democrats-want-to-challenge-trump-they-need-a-new-strategy

I especially enjoyed the insight about president being the end-all of outcomes. Success or failure, it's the president's fault regardless of the why.

ACA is an example of this. ACA was adapted from Republican health care plan, Romney's. The GOP worked tirelessly to block it, to make Obama fail at enacting health care legislation that they wanted to enact just so they can prevent him from scoring political victory. When they failed at blocking ACA, they inserted so many poison pills into the bill that resulted in higher premiums and higher deductibles, among other problems. Who gets the blame? Obama. It was a win-win situation for GOP -- they ensured Obama legislation would ultimately fail, and they reaped the political benefits of this failure being attributed to Obama.
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." --Oscar Wilde

fencerider

there is no such thing as an attack on Trump's intellect. He really is that stupid.

Tax cuts on the wealthy has yet to produce any benefit for regular folk.

I read the ACA. Some things seemed kinda dumb until I learned that the idiot democrats allowed insurance companies to write most of it. The 80/20 rule for medical insurance is a good thing. It should also be applied to hospitals. Without prosecuting big pharma for profiteering and putting price controls on their crap, there will never be affordable health care. It is also about 90% improbable that we can have affordable health care while insurance companies are given a seat at the table when fixing the health care laws.

The investigation of Trump's connection to Russia that started before the election are still on going. Eventually Congress may become suspicious enough to order him to hand over his tax papers. Not going to count on that though. Paul Ryan said a couple weeks ago that he wasnt required to release his tax papers and that they wouldn't ask him to. If he is forced to release his taxes, it could be a game changer for his reelection
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

Cavebear

Trump will collapse in a year.  His supporters just haven't have time to experience the reality of of it yet.  The terrible truth will sink in as they see his friends get richer as they get worse off.  And as they realize that Trump The Fake Billionaire is not their friend.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Sylar

#3
Quote from: fencerider on March 02, 2017, 12:39:23 AM
there is no such thing as an attack on Trump's intellect. He really is that stupid.

Perhaps, but attacking him will do nothing to help us win an election. He was attacked the most during the campaign and because of that he received more on-air minutes than anyone else. He rode that wave to victory.

People think he's more trustworthy than MSM -- go figure, a pathological liar is more trustworthy than an entire class of journalists who are well-established in the profession, regardless of their own biases.

Quote from: fencerider on March 02, 2017, 12:39:23 AMTax cuts on the wealthy has yet to produce any benefit for regular folk.

Agreed. Trickle-down economics is a sham, and has been proven not to work over and over again. Supply-side economics ruined the balance in American economy since Reagan, and the only ones who benefited are the billionaires who fund GOP (Democratic party, too, if we're being honest here).

Quote from: fencerider on March 02, 2017, 12:39:23 AMI read the ACA. Some things seemed kinda dumb until I learned that the idiot democrats allowed insurance companies to write most of it. The 80/20 rule for medical insurance is a good thing. It should also be applied to hospitals. Without prosecuting big pharma for profiteering and putting price controls on their crap, there will never be affordable health care. It is also about 90% improbable that we can have affordable health care while insurance companies are given a seat at the table when fixing the health care laws.

In general, ACA is a solid piece of legislation but it does have shortcomings and rather than repeal and replace, we need to make it better, or transfer to a single payer health care system. GOP do not care about making it better, they worked tirelessly (a successful political strategy if I may add) to make sure the legislation will fail, but too bad now they are tasked with coming up with a better alternative. The problem is that there is no better alternative that satisfies the politics of GOP! The only better alternative is a single payer health care system -- the ACA-lite version they just released is just shy of political suicide; it preserves the fundamental architecture of the law, repeals typical conservative ideological bits (such as funding for Planned Parenthood), provides massive tax cuts to wealthy, delays cutbacks until 2018 or 2020 that may cost them dearly. Democrats need to capitalize on this law, if it passes, rather than attack character of Trump.

Quote from: fencerider on March 02, 2017, 12:39:23 AMThe investigation of Trump's connection to Russia that started before the election are still on going. Eventually Congress may become suspicious enough to order him to hand over his tax papers. Not going to count on that though. Paul Ryan said a couple weeks ago that he wasnt required to release his tax papers and that they wouldn't ask him to. If he is forced to release his taxes, it could be a game changer for his reelection

Some of Trump's tax documents were leaked, I thought, and that didn't help. People nowadays, especially those on social media, live in their own world -- they have tunnel vision, with news outlets and op-eds that confirm their own biases. If it's a news channel you do not like, you won't watch it, so instead you focus on a channel that's friendlier towards your own beliefs.

What I think is important to defeat him in 2020:

1) Winning local and state elections. In 2020, new census will be happening which means redistricting, and in 32 states (if I recall correctly) it is done by state legislatures. Having access to state legislatures means we can redistrict favorably to Democrats (now GOP has ~40-60 seats because of partisan gerrymandering). Winning state legislatures and governorships also means rolling back voter suppression legislation by GOP.

2) Making Trump plans fail in Congress, that means winning in 2018 midterms.

3) No cooperating with Trump admin or GOP controlled Congress in any manner whatsoever.

4) Encourage and increase voter turnout, especially in swing states.

As a person, I've never really been a fan of partisanship, especially on local and state elections. I've always been an independent who did some research about candidates or ballot measures, and then voted according to who I think will do a better job. That is still true locally, but on state level if it's not a Democrat it's not a good option. Lucky for me, I live in California so blue have upperhand here.

What do you think about this excerpt from the article? It aligns with my point #3:

Quote from: Trump-Specific Popular Policies
A perfect example of this is an infrastructure bill. Democrats have been trying to pass an infrastructure bill since early in the Obama administration. If Trump proposes one, should they cooperate with him to pass it â€" both because they actually support the policy and because they would get credit with voters for bipartisanship?

If marginal Trump supporters are the Democrats’ target, what will they think of this? Marginal voters pay little or no attention to politics, so they won’t give Democrats credit for being bipartisan. They probably won’t even know about it. Only 36% of Americans can correctly identify which party controls the House and Senate. Among registered voters, that number only increased to 41%. Marginal voters do, however, give credit to the president for all political outcomes. So if they see construction being done in their neighborhoods, or heavily broadcast on Trump-friendly media, they will give the credit to the president, regardless of whether the opposition cooperated.

On the flip side, if Democrats successfully block an infrastructure bill, marginal Trump voters are not likely to blame Democrats for that opposition â€" they will just blame the president for failing to get things done. This central insight was what drove Mitch McConnell’s (in my opinion, the finest Senate tactician since Henry Clay) strategy of uniform opposition, which helped lead to today’s unprecedented Republican dominance of all levels of government. If Democrats want to erode Trump’s base of support, popular policies that are unique to Trump are the ones they ought to oppose most strenuously.

Weak as they are, though, Democrats would have to ally with Republicans to defeat these policies. The Republican margin in both houses of Congress is small enough that Democrats don’t have to flip many Republicans to succeed. Successful opposition to any of Trump’s policies would, as long as Democrats stay unified, require joining with only one of many factions within a deeply fractured GOP (such as, in the case of an infrastructure bill, deficit hawks), and each new policy initiative opens up opportunities to ally with different factions. Trump’s own approach in the campaign means that he will have little or no ability to use party discipline to try to maintain the cohesion of the Republican caucus. He will have to rely on Republicans’ fear of being defeated in a primary by a candidate he supports, a fear that will ebb along with his popularity.
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." --Oscar Wilde

Sylar

#4
Quote from: Cavebear on March 02, 2017, 04:44:04 AM
Trump will collapse in a year.  His supporters just haven't have time to experience the reality of of it yet.  The terrible truth will sink in as they see his friends get richer as they get worse off.  And as they realize that Trump The Fake Billionaire is not their friend.

It's already been established that Trump is a PR genius. Whatever he does, no matter how positive or negative the impact on his supporters is, he'll spin it and it'll come out positive. If it's negative, he'll minimize the impact until his supporters can confidently say "well, it doesn't matter because he did so, and so, and so, and so happens to be positive".

The strategy needs to break that confidence by making Trump fail at delivering what his marginal supporters expect.
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." --Oscar Wilde

Baruch

Until the D party purges itself of the Clintons and Obamas ... they are still going down.  Until you do that, you are bitches for Goldman Sachs, just like everyone else.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Sylar

Quote from: Baruch on March 10, 2017, 07:50:51 PM
Until the D party purges itself of the Clintons and Obamas ... they are still going down.  Until you do that, you are bitches for Goldman Sachs, just like everyone else.

The D party likes to kiss us first ;-).
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." --Oscar Wilde

Cavebear

Quote from: Sylar on March 10, 2017, 07:42:36 PM
Perhaps, but attacking him will do nothing to help us win an election. He was attacked the most during the campaign and because of that he received more on-air minutes than anyone else. He rode that wave to victory.

People think he's more trustworthy than MSM -- go figure, a pathological liar is more trustworthy than an entire class of journalists who are well-established in the profession, regardless of their own biases.

Agreed. Trickle-down economics is a sham, and has been proven not to work over and over again. Supply-side economics ruined the balance in American economy since Reagan, and the only ones who benefited are the billionaires who fund GOP (Democratic party, too, if we're being honest here).

In general, ACA is a solid piece of legislation but it does have shortcomings and rather than repeal and replace, we need to make it better, or transfer to a single payer health care system. GOP do not care about making it better, they worked tirelessly (a successful political strategy if I may add) to make sure the legislation will fail, but too bad now they are tasked with coming up with a better alternative. The problem is that there is no better alternative that satisfies the politics of GOP! The only better alternative is a single payer health care system -- the ACA-lite version they just released is just shy of political suicide; it preserves the fundamental architecture of the law, repeals typical conservative ideological bits (such as funding for Planned Parenthood), provides massive tax cuts to wealthy, delays cutbacks until 2018 or 2020 that may cost them dearly. Democrats need to capitalize on this law, if it passes, rather than attack character of Trump.

Some of Trump's tax documents were leaked, I thought, and that didn't help. People nowadays, especially those on social media, live in their own world -- they have tunnel vision, with news outlets and op-eds that confirm their own biases. If it's a news channel you do not like, you won't watch it, so instead you focus on a channel that's friendlier towards your own beliefs.

What I think is important to defeat him in 2020:

1) Winning local and state elections. In 2020, new census will be happening which means redistricting, and in 32 states (if I recall correctly) it is done by state legislatures. Having access to state legislatures means we can redistrict favorably to Democrats (now GOP has ~40-60 seats because of partisan gerrymandering). Winning state legislatures and governorships also means rolling back voter suppression legislation by GOP.

2) Making Trump plans fail in Congress, that means winning in 2018 midterms.

3) No cooperating with Trump admin or GOP controlled Congress in any manner whatsoever.

4) Encourage and increase voter turnout, especially in swing states.

As a person, I've never really been a fan of partisanship, especially on local and state elections. I've always been an independent who did some research about candidates or ballot measures, and then voted according to who I think will do a better job. That is still true locally, but on state level if it's not a Democrat it's not a good option. Lucky for me, I live in California so blue have upperhand here.

What do you think about this excerpt from the article? It aligns with my point #3:

I think that the major failure of the Clinton campaign was that they assumed they had the States to win the Electoral College by a wide margin.

And that the reason they didn't get that was that they they assumed voters were rational.  They aren't in the States where there are more Electoral votes than voters should have.  And those are the States Trump won.

Hey, even HE was shocked!

Basically, US elections favor low-populace States. 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Sylar

Quote from: Cavebear on March 14, 2017, 04:57:32 AM
I think that the major failure of the Clinton campaign was that they assumed they had the States to win the Electoral College by a wide margin.

And that the reason they didn't get that was that they they assumed voters were rational.  They aren't in the States where there are more Electoral votes than voters should have.  And those are the States Trump won.

Hey, even HE was shocked!

Basically, US elections favor low-populace States.

I do not think there is a single major failure, but there are several failures all of which contributed to the loss. I do agree with you, though.

I would add:
  • Friendlier relations with Cuba alienated Cubans in Florida, where more than half voted for Trump.

  • Comey letter in last week of election negatively affected Clinton.

  • Spread of click-bait fake news websites on social media, most of which vilified Clinton based on no facts at all.

  • Obama's neglect of state Democratic parties played large role in loss of state legislatures, congressional seats, and ultimately swing states.

  • Clinton herself was disliked -- I personally disliked her, she came off as smug and insincere to me, even though I ended up voting for her (my vote doesn't matter - CA).
I do hope this loss was a wake up call for DNC to get off its ass and start implementing strategies that work.
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." --Oscar Wilde

Cavebear

Quote from: Sylar on March 14, 2017, 06:21:57 PM
I do not think there is a single major failure, but there are several failures all of which contributed to the loss. I do agree with you, though.

I would add:
  • Friendlier relations with Cuba alienated Cubans in Florida, where more than half voted for Trump.

  • Comey letter in last week of election negatively affected Clinton.

  • Spread of click-bait fake news websites on social media, most of which vilified Clinton based on no facts at all.

  • Obama's neglect of state Democratic parties played large role in loss of state legislatures, congressional seats, and ultimately swing states.

  • Clinton herself was disliked -- I personally disliked her, she came off as smug and insincere to me, even though I ended up voting for her (my vote doesn't matter - CA).
I do hope this loss was a wake up call for DNC to get off its ass and start implementing strategies that work.
''I most understand the idea that Hillary Clinton was smug.  She thought she had the election won.

Well, I did too.  She thought the voters could not really go for Trump; an idiot, sociopath, compiracy-minded lunatic who can't tell what is in his self-oriented mind from reality.

Election night was a shock to me.  I expected an easy Clinton win.  I consider that the electoral college is completely out of balance.  Trump didn't get more votes than Clinton (though he thinks he did).  He has little connection to reality.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

Quote from: Cavebear on March 02, 2017, 04:44:04 AM
Trump will collapse in a year.  His supporters just haven't have time to experience the reality of of it yet.  The terrible truth will sink in as they see his friends get richer as they get worse off.  And as they realize that Trump The Fake Billionaire is not their friend.
Nah, I expect him to throw them just enough bones to keep them giving him the benefit of the doubt, and keep them blaming the democrats.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Drew_2017

Quote from: Cavebear on March 02, 2017, 04:44:04 AM
Trump will collapse in a year.  His supporters just haven't have time to experience the reality of of it yet.  The terrible truth will sink in as they see his friends get richer as they get worse off.  And as they realize that Trump The Fake Billionaire is not their friend.

I didn't vote for Obama but I did hope he was successful. I did vote for Trump and I hope he is successful. A successful president is good for the country. Isn't the good of the country more important than politics?
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Albert Einstein

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jex6k2uvf9aljrq/theism.rtf?dl=0

Baruch

Quote from: Drew_2017 on March 21, 2017, 11:04:54 PM
I didn't vote for Obama but I did hope he was successful. I did vote for Trump and I hope he is successful. A successful president is good for the country. Isn't the good of the country more important than politics?

No, being right, and pissing on your enemies, that is what is important (sarc).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Sylar

Quote from: Drew_2017 on March 21, 2017, 11:04:54 PM
I didn't vote for Obama but I did hope he was successful. I did vote for Trump and I hope he is successful. A successful president is good for the country. Isn't the good of the country more important than politics?

The term 'successful' is a relative term. Successful at what? Trump's agenda contradicts Obama's, so if one wished Obama to be successful in his endeavors, one cannot wish Trump to be, because that is a contradictory position to take. If one supported ACA, one cannot support its repeal -- in other words.
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." --Oscar Wilde

Cavebear

Quote from: Sylar on March 22, 2017, 12:57:34 AM
The term 'successful' is a relative term. Successful at what? Trump's agenda contradicts Obama's, so if one wished Obama to be successful in his endeavors, one cannot wish Trump to be, because that is a contradictory position to take. If one supported ACA, one cannot support its repeal -- in other words.

Yeah, Obama had goals.  Trump has opposite goals.  You can't really hope for both sensibly. 

I AM hoping Trump GROWS into the job.  Some unlikely Presidents have (Truman comes to mind as does Teddy Roosevelt).  But I doubt that Trump is capable of much change.  Trump is a real WYSIWYG.

BTW, the week's Congressional inquiries and new stuff coming out on the news channels suggests Trump is involved directly or indirectly with Russian involvement.  I suspect he will be impeached, and for the 1st time in our history, for very good reasons.

It is never a good thing for a President to be impeached, but I think it is going to happen.  Yeah, I'm a Progressive and all that, but this isn't politics.  I suspect Trump is contaminated by Russian influence and we simply can't have that. 

I don't like Pence politically either, but I think he is clear of that. 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!