The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Actual Democratic Electorate

By artappraiser on Wed, 04/10/2019 - 10:33pm |

A detailed look at the voters with the numbers to decide the 2020 Democratic nominee.

This is good from NYT. “The outspoken group of Democratic-leaning voters on social media is outnumbered, roughly 2 to 1, by the more moderate, more diverse and less educated group of Democrats who typically don’t post political content online” https://t.co/q2Hn2bce1V
— Alexi McCammond (@alexi) April 9, 2019

URL:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/08/upshot/democratic-electorate-twitter-real-life.html

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Comments

Excerpts from the accompanying text

Roughly a quarter of Democrats count as ideologically consistent progressives, who toe the party line or something further to the left on just about every issue. Only a portion of them, perhaps 1 in 10 Democrats over all, might identify as Democratic socialists, based on recent polls.

This along with a useful color-coded state map illustration (that isn't in copy-able form) titled Where the rest of the Democratic Party lives/Moderates, passive liberals and disengaged voters as a share of all Democrats

The rest of the party is easy to miss. Not only is it less active on social media, but it is also under-represented in the well-educated, urban enclaves where journalists roam. It is under-represented in the Northern blue states and districts where most Democratic politicians win elections.

Many in this group are party stalwarts: people who are Democrats because of identity and self-interest — a union worker, an African-American — more than their policy views. Their votes are concentrated in the South, where Democratic politicians rarely win.

Nonwhite voters, particularly black voters, are a major driver of this geographic split. Black voters represent around 20 percent of the Democratic electorate nationwide and a majority of Democrats in the Deep South. Mr. Obama’s strength among black voters allowed him to defeat the establishment favorite candidate (Mrs. Clinton) in 2008, in contrast with prior progressive candidates.

The rest of the party poses a challenge for more progressive candidates, and it’s not just about this group’s moderate views.

Less engaged and less ideological voters tend to be cynical about politics. One might think cynicism would translate to support for outsider candidates, and it probably could against an establishment favorite with enough flaws. Instead, it has more often meant skepticism of ambitious, idealistic, pie-in-the-sky liberals and progressives who offer big promises with no record. It has meant an appreciation for well-known, battle-tested politicians who have been on their side or even delivered in the past. This election cycle, Mr. Biden might be the beneficiary of such sentiment.

This group’s lower levels of news consumption mean fewer opportunities for the activist-backed candidates to make their case. A majority of such voters might not even have an opinion about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez (over all, only around half of Democrats do in recent polls). Their weaker ideological predilections mean these voters are often less likely to buy the message, even if it reaches them [....]

by artappraiser on Wed, 04/10/2019 - 10:54pm

As Paul Coats noted in his interview, many blacks agreed wholeheartedly with Bill Cosby's 2004 Pound Cake Speech - which ironically or not helped lead to his downfall - and while there were justifiable objections that some of his statistics were distorted, they weren't that distorted in 1995, just 9 years before, and some of the most self-destructive behavior such as single parenting was still being applauded in 2004 - "you go, girl" empowerment stuff - I remember researching it, including the # of households with single parents and the loss of control & buying power and risk for bankruptcy & homelessness that entailed. But on the internet, it was just that awful thing he'd said, blaming the victim - yet many agreed in private, just like many supported the 199x Crime Bill that both put many blacks in jail but also arguably helped clean up the streets and housing projects (yeah, some will blame it solely on lead paint, etc. - and yeah, i would have decriminalized pot at the same time, that was a dumb wedge to use). But social media consensus drives our dialogue, not what any silent majority might think. Which is also why Bernie's caucus wins carried so much weight - his fans were driving the "current wisdom" memes while most people were going about their business not caught up in all the ruckus.

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 8:33am

The is urban myth that high incarceration rates led to decreased crime. The public in 1994 wanted action taken on crime, but crimes rates were already decreasing.

And if Clinton and Congress reflected the punitive mindset of the American people, what they didn't know was that soaring murder rates and violent crime had already begun what would become a long downward turn, according to criminologists and policymakers.

In hindsight, the 1994 bill destroyed communities

But as Travis now knows all too well, there's a problem with that idea. Researchers including a National Academy of Sciences panel he led have since found only a modest relationship between incarceration and lower crime rates.

"We now know with the fullness of time that we made some terrible mistakes," Travis said. "And those mistakes were to ramp up the use of prison. And that big mistake is the one that we now, 20 years later, come to grips with. We have to look in the mirror and say, 'look what we have done.'"

https://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/347736999/20-years-later-major-crime-bill-viewed-as-terrible-mistake

Link to the study noted above noting the disconnect between incarceration and crime rates.

http://www.vtlex.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/18613.pdf

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 9:41am

The communities were already destroyed - this was 1 of several efforts to try to salvage them.
Yes, locking up murderers and other types of "super-predators" can help improve the ambiance -
but certainly there's much more: creating opportunity, education, normal social functions, baseline amenities,
safe & effective transportation and other infrastructure and services.
Harlem of the 30's had its problems - drugs and crime and what-not - but it also had its culture.
Societies are multi-faceted.

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 9:50am

Again, crime was decreasing before the crime bill was created.

The lack of economic incentives was why many blacks opposed the crime bill. The NAACP thought the bill was an abomination. Because of fears of something worse being offered if the crime bill failed, a majority of the Congressional Black Caucus.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/opinion/did-blacks-really-endorse-the-1994-crime-bill.html

The Harlem that I see is vibrant and has a thriving culture. In fact, I’ve been invited to a wine and food festival in Harlem in May.

Harlem played a major role in ending “Stop & Frisk”.

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 12:05pm

Try this as an exercise - find the saddleback in this graph. What are the two peak years surrounding it (actually 3 looking at '74 & '81, or 4 including '92 & '94). Now if the September 1994 crime bill hadn't passed, would there be a 5th peak? Well, we rightly don't know - there's still quite a bit of debate over how much effect 100,000 more cops and change in police strategies had. Even the incarceration & sentencing are debated - while true the federal law only affected federal crimes & prisons, it influenced the policy of states (including the rise of "Truth in Sentencing" laws that put an 85% minimum time served on sentences).

When the Crime Bill was proposed in 1993, Violent Crime was at an all time high (I assume the concern was not about the decreasing level of shoplifting). Now presumably nationwide police weren't sitting around waiting for the crime bill to pass to do something - they were likely taking actions that were part of the Crime Bill and some that weren't.

And while this debate 3 years ago centered around the "superpredators", lost in it was the discussion about the victims - primarily black youth:

And one reason why 100,000 cops could make a difference is that these killings almost 3x as likely in the city as elsewhere:

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 12:37pm

Violent crime peaked in 1991. 1991 was before the crime bill passed. You make a common mistake that the crime bill was the biggest factor in decreasing crime. People who actually analyze the data in detail disagree with you.

President Clinton claims credit for the bill’s success in reducing crime, pointing to the substantial decline in recent years. But crime rates were already going down before the bill’s passage, in large part due to the waning of the crack cocaine epidemic and its associated violence in the late 1980s. Further, a comprehensive assessment of mass incarceration by the National Research Council in 2014 concluded that incarceration had some impact on crime, but its magnitude “was unlikely to have been large.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/04/11/bill-clinton-black-lives-and-the-myths-of-the-1994-crime-bill https://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/7

I cite different sources to prove at multiple centers reach the same conclusion

Link to the study cited in the article

https://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/7

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:12pm

The old "who you gonna believe, not me? Nor your lying eyes? Did the murder rate go up from '92 to '93 in the chart? When did violent crime peak in the chart?

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:32pm

I provided the analysis done by people who study the issue. The first link I gave included a Clinton era DOJ official

Nicholas Turner is president of the Vera Institute, a nonprofit that researches crime policy. Turner took a minute this week to consider the tough-on-crime rhetoric of the 1990s.

"Criminal justice policy was very much driven by public sentiment and a political instinct to appeal to the more negative punitive elements of public sentiment rather than to be driven by the facts," he said.

And that public sentiment called for filling up the nation's prisons, a key part of the 1994 crime bill.

These days, Jeremy Travis is president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. But 20 years ago, he attended the signing ceremony for the crime bill — and joined the Clinton Justice Department.

"Here's the federal government coming in and saying we'll give you money if you punish people more severely, and 28 states and the District of Columbia followed the money and enacted stricter sentencing laws for violent offenses," Travis says.

But as Travis now knows all too well, there's a problem with that idea. Researchers including a National Academy of Sciences panel he led have since found only a modest relationship between incarceration and lower crime rates.

"We now know with the fullness of time that we made some terrible mistakes," Travis said. "And those mistakes were to ramp up the use of prison. And that big mistake is the one that we now, 20 years later, come to grips with. We have to look in the mirror and say, 'look what we have done.'"

https://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/347736999/20-years-later-major-crime-bill-viewed-as-terrible-mistake

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:49pm

What does any of that have to do with reading a graph?

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 3:16pm

Sigh. The graph says that crime went down. Experts say that incarceration was not the big factor in the decrease in crime. You want to say that there is cause and effect because of incarceration. Multiple studies suggest that is not the case.

Think of it like “Stop and Frisk”. The argument for the program was that it decreased crime. Graphs showed that crime was decreased. Stop and Frisk abused civil rights, so the program was ended. Crime did not go up or stay the same. Crime went down.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/01/new-york-city-stop-and-frisk-crime-decline-conservatives-wrong/

The data for cause and effect is lacking for a decrease in crime with the 1994 crime bill and “Stop and Frisk”.

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 3:41pm

Where did I claim incarceration was the biggest or only factor for the crime rate going down? Answer: I didn't. I said there was lots of outstanding debate : some experts say one thing, others say another.

The graphs say crime went down except the year it went up again, which no coincidence is the year the Crime Bill was written and submitted. I've seen claims that crime started falling in 1980, but that's not what these graphs show. 1993 they were responding to an actual crisis, not a resolved problem. And the decreases from 1993 don't definitively prove or disprove that the measures they started that year had X % of credit for the decrease (certainly X would not be 100% in any case - complex problems usially have complex solutions)

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 3:39pm

The experts have a consensus that the crime bill was not a major factor in the decrease in crime.

Crime did drop in the years after the bill passed, as Clinton said, but he gives too much credit to the crime bill for that. Experts who have studied the impact of the law say forces independent of the law were mostly responsible for the crime drop.

A Government Accountability Office report in 2005 estimated that the 1994 crime bill resulted in 88,000 additional police officers between 1994 and 2001, and that the influx of new police officers resulted in “modest” drop in crime.

The GAO concluded that between 1993 and 2000 the Community Oriented Policing Services(COPS) funds “contributed to a 1.3 percent decline in the overall crime rate and a 2.5 percent decline in the violent crime rate from the 1993 levels.” Still, the GAO concluded, “Factors other than COPS funds accounted for the majority of the decline in crime during this period.”

What were those other factors? Increased employment, better policing methods, an aging of the population, growth in income and inflation, to name a few.

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/04/bill-clinton-and-the-1994-crime-bill/

Pound cakes, stop and frisk, etc. are minor factors.

The truth is that we don’t know why crime is decreasing. We do know policing is not a major factor. Crime has even decreased despite economic stress. The graphs would look essentially the same if we took the crime bill out of the picture.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/what-caused-the-crime-decline/477408/

The crime bill was all about encouraging incarceration. That was the impact on policing in cities.

BTW: When you look at a graph involving biologic oscillators (humans). you will see things fall above and below the mean. You can do least squares to get a rough look at the trend. The violent crime trend has been downward. There will be some variations away from a straight line.

Edit to add:

Like climate change, you may find naysayers who are adamant that their outlier view is correct..

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 5:04pm

While the discussion between you and Peracles on what the facts are about reduction in crime is interesting, when it comes to voters voting on basic security of life and limb, facts don't really cut it. (Or else we'd have a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine long ago.) The point: how many black church ladies and former Black Panthers, etc., are out there that agree with Trump and/or Cosby and various conservative why pipple and not with white liberals, that what black kids these days need is a metaphorical whup upside their head.

I happen to suspect many more blacks agree with this p.o.v. than will say it because it's politically incorrect within their culture. Hence the huge support for the Clintons with little kvetching from the black community until perhaps growing a little with suspicion of Hillary in 2016. I've only seen far left complain about their whole "tough on crime" DLC program until recently.

Same for getting tougher on welfare while expanding earned income credit, I think that was widely popular because a significant number of blacks agreed that was the way to go, that traditional welfare was actually a killer of the culture, ala Daniel Patrick Moynihan study. Bill Clinton was extremely popular with the black church crowd in particular. More conservative in many ways than elite white liberals or even basic liberals in DNC.

Security is the #1 reason for grouping into civilizations and forming governments. It's the main thing. Without it you've got nothing. People do get irrational and emotional about it, the cause and how to fix. Many don't care about graphics and charts and statistics from "the man," who has lied to them so many other times. They judge by whether they feel safe and what makes them feel safe, from the personal experience of what works.

by artappraiser on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 7:22pm

Back on topic? How dare you.

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 10:48pm

The political diversity in the black community is well documented. Because the Republicans are so racist, the Democrats win the majority of black votes.

The Associated Press/NORC Center poll, conducted in February (2018), asked a series of questions on racial issues and surveyed a larger proportion of black adults than most polls do. The poll found, unsurprisingly, that 92 percent of blacks disapprove of President Trump, compared with 7 percent who approve of him. A whopping 84 percent of blacks think Trump is a racist, compared with 10 percent who do not.

The 10% number is close to the 8% of the black vote Trump received. Republicans can’t let go of the racism and the voter suppression. Democrats reap the benefits of Republicans alienating black voters.

Polling done by the Pew Research Center has suggested that among self-identified Democrats, blacks and Latinos are less likely to describe themselves as liberal than whites. Data from this AP/NORC poll comports with Pew’s findings: The majority of blacks say they are moderate (44 percent) or conservative (27 percent), while just 26 percent said that they are liberal.

Facts do cut it. Outreach to black communities is likely to get you a group of voters with a roughly 90% likelihood of voting for the Democrat. Perry Bacon Jr, had a good review at 538

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-diversity-of-black-political-views/

There was a great deal of kvetching about Hillary in the black community.The black community chose Obama over Hillary in 2008. Black turnout for Hillary in 2016 was lower than expected. This may have been impacted by voter fraud, but the issue of super-predators did come up. It wasn’t just the elites talking about the crime bill. Remember, BlackLivesMatter confronted Hillary in 2016.

by rmrd0000 on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 12:42am

yes how Coates explains that whole thing is one part of what I found fascinating about the interview. I have paid a lot of attention to the whole crime/inner cities issue and such since the 1970's. Been there, done that with all the stats and stuff during the Reagan/Clinton years, pre-internet would devour anything I could find. To have him explain it, though, the way he did, the cultural aspect, was really clarifying! To have this come from someone with such extreme lefty passions made it all the more credible.

Did you catch at the beginning they talk about an Edwin that was a Black Panther had become a Trump fan? I wanted to here more about that!

I recognized right away that the interview suggested your arguments about Hillary's Super Predator comment were correct. That it was actually a targeted to get black votes in crucial areas for a primary win, just the opposite of white lefty liberal "wisdom". The only thing was she was unfortunately running against a guy with a skin color that no targeting like that could beat, who also didn't give off a "coddle miscreants" vibe. I think it's a very important point that blacks from black majority communities who vote regularly tend to be conservative about many things.And would have been amen-ing to Cosby's infamous speeches. I got bias confirmation of that from getting friendly with more than one "black church lady" type over the years. To the point of wondering what they think about Cosby now!

by artappraiser on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:07pm

The “Pound Cake” speech was filled with Fox News level inaccuracies.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adamserwer/bill-cosby-pound-for-pound#.oaAvBVWdo

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:23pm

Did I not address some of that? Like various trends 8-9 years before oftostayen stay "current" in our human thinking. And yet stealin cigars in a cinvenience store isn't exactly survival behavior, even if not poundcake.

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:36pm

Cosby needed to have his facts straight.

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:44pm

Yeah, I recognized the Hillary thing, esp among black women, but i'm not absurd - voting skin color was the least risk - *something* good would come out no matter what, even if he'd lost in November. Where it got absurd were claims he'd be a better advocate for women. Oh well, elections are silly season w stickers pasted over.

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 2:42pm

there was a little demonstration as regards "brothas killing brothas" in the da Bronx today

Former and active gang members united during the event to call for a better way of handling their issues.

"Nipsey Hussle was already sitting there bringing the Bloods and Crips together out there," says Aminra Farrah. "He was already sitting there saying, like, you know, us as a people, us as a nation, we don't have to sit there and kill each other. We don't have to sit there and do these things."

One of the main goals of the activists was to show the need to support the city's Crisis Management System, which works to stop retaliation after an act of violence occurs.

by artappraiser on Sun, 04/14/2019 - 9:20pm

This embedded link is interesting, a post election NYTimes piece I missed about the entire electorate:

NEWS ANALYSIS These Americans Are Done With Politics

The Exhausted Majority needs a break.

By Sabrina Tavernise @ NYTimes.com, Nov. 17, 2018

[....] It would be easy to conclude that all of America is hopelessly divided — a land where two angry tribes are at each other’s throats and everybody thinks about politics all the time.

But the reality is far less extreme.

A deep new study of the American electorate, “Hidden Tribes,” concludes that two out of three Americans are far more practical than that narrative suggests. Most do not see their lives through a political lens, and when they have political views the views are far less rigid than those of the highly politically engaged, ideologically orthodox tribes.

The study, an effort to understand the forces that drive political polarization, surveyed a representative group of 8,000 Americans. The nonpartisan organization that did it, More in Common, paints a picture of a society that is far more disengaged — and despairing over divisions — than it is divided. At its heart is a vast and often overlooked political middle that feels forgotten in the vitriol, as if the country has gone on without it. It calls that group the Exhausted Majority, a group that represented two-thirds of the survey.

“It feels very lonely out here,” said Jamie McDaniel, a 36-year-old home health care worker in Topeka, Kan., one of several people in the study who was interviewed for this article. “Everybody is so right or left, and you’re just kind of standing there in the middle saying, “What happened?’” [....]

by artappraiser on Wed, 04/10/2019 - 11:04pm

I took a longer look at the "Hidden Tribes" project mentioned in the above and I like what they are doing, it is a Pew type thing but I think they are doing it much better. They have simplified profiles of each political tribe which they created from studying lengthy questionnaires here on this page, with "Main Concerns" of each group and bullet points on the memes they seem to agree on the most, as opposed to the rest of the public. I have copied the groups and percentages and the single quote they use as a lede for each tribe. I like the wide spread, I believe this is far more accurate about our country than the simplistic Repub. vs. Dem. red vs. blue or liberal vs. conservative etc.:

Percent of Americans who are

1) Progressive Activists 8%

“The deck is stacked against people of color, against women, against people who don’t have the advantages that others have. It’s not an egalitarian society by any means.” ~ 60-year-old man, Indiana, Progressive Activist

2) Traditional Liberals 11%

“I think some people’s situations are challenging, and no matter how hard they work, they can’t get ahead. That’s why I don’t like the Republican Party. They don’t want to help. I think some kinds of people need help, and the government should help them.” ~ 73-year-old woman, Texas, Traditional Liberal

3) Passive Liberals 15%

“I have liberal views, but I think political correctness has gone too far, absolutely. We have gotten to a point where everybody is offended by the smallest thing.” ~ 28-year-old woman, North Carolina, Passive Liberal

4) Politically Disengaged 26%

Well, no luck. …It just didn’t happen for me, you know. I’ve been part-time now for a couple of years. I ran into full-time positions, but they didn’t last long. I never did really play the lottery, so I didn’t hit it big [laughs]. I never did, what’s it called, investment or anything like that, stocks and stuff.” ~ 56-year-old man, Illinois, Politically Disengaged

5) Moderates 15%

“The entitlement, everybody feeling it’s their way or no way. I know people say they are protesting to bring people together, but I believe that a lot of people are just selfish and are worrying about themselves. I just worry about society. I don’t know what it’s going to take to bring things back." ~ 54-year-old woman, New Jersey, Moderate

6) Traditional Conservatives 19%

“The America that I grew up with is gone. And I miss that.” ~ 57-year-old woman, Mississippi, Traditional Conservative

7) Devoted Conservatives 6%

“To me, being patriotic means taking care of your own first, and if the country is not doing economically well [enough] to take care of ourselves, how can we take care of everyone else?” ~ 53-year old woman, New York, Devoted Conservative

After I came out of reading the descriptions, I felt it very wise of them not to even get into the parties! Because what I get from it is that: the discord is partly because the parties don't fit the political tribes that well! Big tent is not working. Might be the case in that as tribes grow ideologically via internet and leave behind old reasons for tribes, they will be smaller and smaller and big tent will just not work anymore at all.

by artappraiser on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 12:49am

So where does Trump get his 42%? It's one of the most politically amazing things I've witnessed, how solid that number is month after month, now year after year.

by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 2:40am

Trump likely gets significant chunks of the Disengaged and Moderates

by rmrd0000 on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 10:27am

Who are they? Get to know your fellow citizens..!

Since hating the Gummint has become the central organizing principle of Republican Party and the Conservative Movement, it is no wonder that coalition which they created would be composed of... Driftglass

    ...Racists, who hate Gummint because dirty, Commie Libtards want take away their munnies and give them to brown people with Obamaphones!

    ...Homophobes, who hate Gummint because dirty, Commie Libtards want to make their kids gay and give them Gummint wedding cakes!

    ...Xenophobes, who hate Gummint because dirty, Commie Libtards want give their munnies to brown people and Commies Over There!

    ...Randites, who hate Gummint because dirty, Commie Libtard taxes and Obamacare are worse than Slavery, which really wasn't so bad when you think about it!

    ...Misogynists, who hate Gummint because dirty, Commie Libtards let mouthy bitches run things instead of shutting them the fuck up like Jebus intended!

    ...Gun nuts, who hate Gummint and need to stockpile enough firepower to overthrow a country because one of these days those dirty, Commie Libtard might gonna tell them they can't stockpile enough firepower to overthrow a country!

    ...Fundies, who hate Gummint when it's run by dirty, Commie Libtards who harvest baby parts to pay for gay wedding cakes and Obamaphonees because Jebus!

    ...Plutocrats, who hate Gummint because dirty, Commie Libtard keep telling them they can't own slaves, or burn all the coal in the world, or dump mercury into people's drinking water.

by NCD on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 12:24pm

Still, there are some good people somewhere in there.

by rmrd0000 on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 1:03pm

Yes, yet almost every Republican I've ever run into hates government to a varying extent, and we get the government only they deserve.

by NCD on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 1:36pm

Every Trump appointee has been trash. Each replacement has been worse than the original. Now we get Moore and Cain suggested for the Federal Reserve, The true Affirmative Action program is the Trump White House. The Republicans are tribalists. Everyone tows the line. The beauty of the Democrats is that organizing them is like herding cats. You get disagreements that have to be worked out. That is how a democracy is supposed to function. Tribes decide to work together.

by rmrd0000 on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 2:09pm

Exactly. Republicans are united under the Fuhrer. He can do no harm, until it hits their wallets, and even then they may stick around. Dems, no. Cats, with policy galore! From nyt:

“The Democrats will issue a 61-page white paper that nobody in their right mind will pass on to their friends,” she added. “He uses a one-sentence slogan, and his voters (believe it) feel emboldened to share it, pass it on.”

by NCD on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 3:04pm

Republicans destroyed the economy of the state of Kansas, poisoned a city in Michigan, wrecked the education system in Michigan and Republican voters want more of the same. They get reinforced by right wing media. They are the 40%

Democrats have to appeal to the 60%. I think that the Presidency can be won in 2020 because a significant chunk of that 60% thinks Trump is a liar, a crook, and a racist. They look at their tax results and the prospect of losing health care and they are pissed.

by rmrd0000 on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 3:23pm

Obama and Hillary are Centrist Democrats who won their primary races. Sanders faces a challenge in being selected in 2020.

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 7:58am

Charles Blow's NYTimes column yesterday was interesting on the small yet significant percentages of minority groups who agree with some or most of Trump's policies and/or voted for him in 2016, and how he sees Trump playing that, and how his campaign might try to use it to win in 2020. I.E. "The Wall" , improvement in black unemployment...etc.:

Trump’s Other Base

In preparation for 2020, the president is focused on the minority vote.

Excerpt to give an idea:

[....] Add to this friction that although Americans often think of Hispanics as monolithic, they are anything but. Hispanics in America come from multiple countries and territories, some born abroad, others born here. Many of the asylum seekers at the border are from Central America. How Mexicans in California, Cubans in Florida or Puerto Ricans in New York feel about the influx may differ.

Furthermore, we like to think of Hispanics as non-white, but Hispanic is an ethnicity, and Hispanics can identify as any color. Many Hispanics identify as white; they do so here and they do so in the home countries and territories. For instance, Puerto Rico is 99 percent Hispanic and nearly seven out of 10 people on the island identify as white.

Also, the longer Hispanics are in the United States, the less they identify as Hispanic. A 2017 Pew study found that while 97 percent of foreign-born Hispanics in America identify as Hispanic, only 50 percent of fourth-generation or higher Hispanics do.

I believe that Trump’s team, if not him, understands the fissures in this immigration debate and is using them.

A Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 54 percent of blacks and 55 percent of Hispanics thought immigrants’ illegal crossing of the border with Mexico was an important problem., Additionally, 31 percent of blacks and 40 percent of Hispanics believed in using the National Guard to patrol the border with Mexico, and 13 percent of blacks and 25 percent of Hispanics supported the building of Trump’s wall [....]

by artappraiser on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 7:02pm

The suburbs have shown themselves to be the heart of the nation's shifting politics. https://t.co/nF6PjrShy6
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) April 12, 2019

by artappraiser on Fri, 04/12/2019 - 1:04am

The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Actual Democratic Electorate

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