Yes, these are ancedotes, but since no one seems to really be focusing on why the Dems couldn’t even get the majority of white women to vote for HRC, which we kept being told was a no-brainer, even though plenty of us stated we weren’t all that thrilled about voting for her, here’s what I heard over the course of the election. Yes, I voted for HRC, just like many of these women did, but not because we wanted to.
Every single one of these women had similar issues, they didn’t like the corporate connections that were apparent with Hillary, they didn’t like that she constantly took all sides of every issue and they didn’t trust her to represent them, not as women, but as people. If the Dems want to regain voters, they need to look for candidates that are not tied to corporate America in any way, they need to find candidates that have a consistent history of what their beliefs are and they need to find a candidate that will make a point to fight like hell for us. All of these people, including technically me, should have been people lining up to vote for a woman President. This is why they say that identity politics doesn’t work. People are looking at what politicians are saying, not what they look like.
Now, these are my massage clients, they are women 40 or older, most white, a few POC and one is Romanian. The Romanian voted for Trump, she hated HRC and thought that someone who wasn’t a politician would do better.
None of these women are “uneducated” or diehard Dems or Republicans. They are voters who look at all sides, not just one.
One is a pharmacy tech and absolutely despises what the ACA has done for healthcare as she is on the phone everyday trying to help people pay for medication that has tripled or more in cost. She knows that the problem lies with corporate America, aka drug companies and insurance companies, jacking up rates, but she sees the ACA as forcing people to pay more for less as the rates for the ACA have jumped too. She hated both Trump and Hillary for different reasons. Hillary she saw as a continuation of Obama’s failed policies, a shady insider who spent her time talking to banks instead of listening to people, who because she has been in politics for so long was way too comfy with the entrenched corporate interests and wasn’t believable on any position as she had changed her mind on positions so many times over the years. She hated Trump because he was an asshole but since he has been elected was saying at first to let’s give him a chance, now I think she’s pretty much done with that. I believe she voted for Hillary out of the “well fuck it” frame of mind but she wanted Bernie.
Another client, IT worker, owns her own petsitting business on the side, same general feelings about Hillary. Once again, wanted Bernie. Hated Trump because he was an asshole.
The Romanian I was surprised about due to his immigration stance, but she had a visceral hate of Hillary and didn’t like her policies. She’s not racist or anything like that, she was looking at it as the outsider would be better than someone who has been in the system for so long. She also liked Bernie.
There was a black woman who loved Hillary.
Another friend of mine, she’s 62, hated Hillary, hated Trump, loved Bernie, voted Hillary because she couldn’t stand Trump. Let’s look at numbers.
“ While Clinton did capture majority of female voters—54%, according to exit polling—she lost some key constituencies, including white women, 53% of whom cast their ballots for Donald Trump.
But perhaps even more telling is the yawning gap between male and female Clinton voters. According to the Associated Press, Clinton’s gender gap—the difference between the number of men who voted for her and the number of women who voted for her—hit 13 percentage points. That’s the single largest such gap since the exit poll surveys began in 1972. Al Gore, another Democrat, was the only other candidate to come close to that divide; his was 12 percentage points when he lost the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000.
Throughout the campaign, Trump’s sexism was thought to be a polarizing issue between men and women, but it did not prove to be all that divisive to voters. According to the AP, six in 10 women were bothered by how Trump treated women, compared to about four in 10 men.”
Link
Admittedly Bernie has been a politician for decades too, the difference was he had a history of fighting corporate interests, his message had been the same for decades and he had a very defined message of us against the entrenched corporate interests, which we all can agree are a problem.
I don’t know if Bernie would have won the GE, but I do know that he was the flipside of Trump, they both appealed to those who hate the system Bernie was our outsider, Trump was theirs. Hillary, to many, many people represented the system, not us. That’s what her actions showed and it’s one reason she lost. It is also the reason the DNC will keep losing voters if they don’t wake up and start pushing candidates who fight against the inherent corruption in DC like Warren does.
That should be the biggest wake up call to the DNC. Fight the money, if you don’t you will keep losing elections.
(Oh and FYI for people who like to bash Millenials, they voted for Hillary, not Trump. Check the exit polls. So no, Millenials did not cost Hillary the election, older people did. There is only a 4% difference in white Millenials between Trump and Hillary and the POC 18-29 voted for Hillary in force. So that’s another argument that holds no water. When given the choice, Millenials, who were pro-Bernie more than any other age group, voted for Hillary.)
clinton
|
trump
|
other/no answer
|
18-29
19%
|
55% |
36% |
9% |
30-44
25%
|
51% |
41% |
8% |
45-64
40%
|
44% |
52% |
4% |
65 and older
16%
|
45% |
52%
|
Age by race
|
clinton
|
trump
|
other/no answer
|
whites 18-29
12%
|
43% |
47% |
10% |
latinos 30-44
4%
|
65% |
28% |
7% |
latinos 45-64
4%
|
64% |
32% |
4% |
latinos 65 and older
1%
|
73% |
25% |
2% |
all others
6%
|
61% |
31% |
8% |
whites 30-44
16%
|
37% |
54% |
9% |
whites 45-64
30%
|
34% |
62% |
4% |
whites 65 and older
13%
|
39% |
58% |
3% |
blacks 18-29
3%
|
85% |
9% |
6% |
blacks 30-44
4%
|
89% |
7% |
4% |
blacks 45-64
5%
|
90% |
9% |
1% |
blacks 65 and older
1%
|
91% |
9% |
n/a |
latinos 18-29
3%
|
68% |
white men
34%
|
31% |
62% |
7% |
white women
37%
|
43% |
52% |
5% |
black men
5%
|
82% |
13% |
5% |
black women
7%
|
94% |
4% |
2% |
latino men
5%
|
63% |
32% |
5% |
latino women
6%
|
69% |
25% |
6% |
others
6%
|
61% |
31% |
8% |
24558 respondents