“Voting against a black man is like masturbation for the conservative base.” — Addicting Info
“Call it a thumping. Call it a shellacking.”–Sam Stein and Ryan Grim
So today is two days after Election Day. Democrats lost. They lost the Senate; they lost Governor’s races they expected to win. How could they lose to Brownback in Kansas and Scott in Florida? What does the Democratic Party do now?
Funnily enough the answer comes from a far right wing news site, the Washington Examiner. In their article, Voters Verdict Explodes Democratic Myths, they offer five points as to why Democrats lost and they won. I’m going to use their points to explain why this isn’t the travesty it is being made out to be.
Here are their points that they say exploded the Democratic myths and led to Republican triumph:
1)?The election wouldn’t be a referendum on President Obama.?
Democrats are, as we all know, their own worst enemy. Republicans are always using every opportunity to create, use, and manipulate propaganda. Democrats, on the other hand, tend to try to market to “demographics” meaning they reach out for the black vote, gay vote, women’s vote, etc. To quote the President, “We should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.” ?To keep reaching out to groups while not also having a “unifying theme” as Republicans do is a recipe for disaster. ?Secondly, when you have groups spending billions to make the election a referendum on the President, no matter how much you wish it away, the election is going to be a referendum on President Obama. To which I direct to the quote at the top of the page from Addicting Info.
2)?Obamacare wouldn’t matter.
“”In our polling, [Obamacare] continues to be just as hot as it’s been all year long,” said a source in the campaign of Tom Cotton“–Byron York
I dislike using the words Orwellian or Kafkaesque to describe a situation but the words exist for a reason. Go back to point one. The Republicans have successfully propagandized their base into being “against” Obamacare even while those same voters use the ACA (Affordable Care Act), like the ACA, and don’t want to give up the ACA! Propaganda works. It can be used for good or ill but unless we regulate truth in the media we must accept the market for what it is.
3)?An improving economy would limit Democrats’ losses.
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Democrats, especially our lovely Rachel Maddow, have been crowing about jobless claims going down, unemployment rates going down, and the stock market being it’s “highest ever” (said in her upbeat charming voice). But, even the most uninformed voter we know can feel that this is a lie. A job that pays you just enough to be poor isn’t a job, it’s legalized slavery. The stock market has been propped up by endless rounds of Quantitative Easing and companies borrowing money to buy their own stock back. Our economy has so fully been captured by the rich that we no longer know what the real asset price of our assets are! ?Millenials aren’t going to show up and vote for a party that doesn’t represent them in any way.
4)?Women would save Democrats.
As the?Examiner article, Exit Polls Showed that Democrats Won Women by Seven points, While Republicans Won Men by 13 Points?says,?Even with Tom Udall of Colorado running ads specifically targeting the right to choose, many women still chose Cory Gardner. I don’t think this is because of choice. To quote a saying made popular in President Clinton’s first campaign, “It’s the economy stupid.” The Democrats need to start being very clear about how their economy will be different from the Republican economy. Which they not only haven’t done, they have, in many cases, simply presented “Republican lite” versions of the disastrous policies we currently have!
5)?The ground game would power Democrats to victory.
In the past couple of election cycles, Democrats mobilized an effective “get out the vote” strategy to win elections. No matter the rosy stories the media told about voters voting, “in spite” of voter ID laws the truth is in many states voters didn’t get to vote. ?In Florida alone, if one more percent of non-Cuban Latinos had voted Rick Scott would have lost. ?So perhaps reneging on the promise to “do something” about undocumented persons wasn’t the best approach to victory since many “undocumented” have relatives, friends, and family who could vote but chose not to.
But there is also a silver lining to all of this: The Republicans had to spend record amounts of money, engage in what should be criminal voting restrictions, possibly do their usual vote rigging with the touch screen ballots, and who knows what else they did all to win seats in states that traditionally vote Republican anyway. The real results we should be taking from this is that in two years, a Presidential election year, if Democrats run a Progressive they can easily capture the Senate back and possibly even the House. ?I say that because in two years there are twenty-four Republican seats up for grabs with the ten Democratic seats relatively safe.
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Source Articles: Addicting Info?|?Washington Examiner?|?The Guardian |Huffington Post
