Hillary Clinton didn’t just lose the Electoral College. Donald Trump won it.
He won it with a message of naked bigotry.
So when you’re planning Dem comeback strategies for 2020, explain to me how you win more white voters without deemphasizing issues important to PoC.
Example Florida — according to the exit polls (which generally imo overstate nonwhite support for Trump), Trump’s win came based on increasing the margin among white voters from 24 in 2012 to 32 in 2016.
I suppose some of you want to believe it was the Dem’s mushy message on economics and trade. Certainly that is the gospel according to Bernie Sanders.
I don’t think there is much evidence for that but tell me your message that you think will bring enough white voters back to Dems. Does it exclude anti-immigrant sentiment? In Florida Trump won anti-immigrant voters 87-13. They were 30% of the electorate. Clinton won pro immigrant voters by 40. What’s your message for that 30%?
On criminal justice reform, 45-42 the electorate said criminal justice system “treats all fairly.” So how do you appeal to the 45% (they voted Trump by 69-27)? On whether the system favors whites, 58% of the electorate said it did not and they vote Trump in overwhelming numbers. What’s your progressive message to them?
So maybe you have more confidence that the Rust Belt is ripe for your economic message. Do exit polls agree? Wisconsin exit polls don’t support this view. The numbers are strikingly similar to Florida. And that’s with less nonwhite voters.
I don’t pretend to have the political answers but I do want people to face the right questions — white voters embraced Trump’s bigotry. That’s a fact. Tell me how you deal with that politically.
Pretending it ain’t so won’t make it go away.