Apparently Democrats still haven’t figured out why they lost the last election. I still hear about a surge of white racist voters throwing Trump over the top. That isn’t what happened.
For starters, there was no surge of voters for either candidate. Both Trump and Hillary under-performed Romney and Obama. Hillary under-performed worse with a -2.9% to a -1.1% for Trump.
Who did worse seems to be the story here.
It’s true that Trump gained among white men, but Hillary lost far more white men than Trump gained. Where did they go? Gary Johnson, the non-racist Trump-alternative candidate, of course.
Not to worry though, because Hillary, a master magician of strategy, accounted for that and made up the difference with white women. Hillary’s gain among white women was greater than Trump’s gain among white men.
However her loss among white men, who didn’t go to Trump, hurt her.
Yes, the non-racist white men, the independent libertarians, cost Hillary. I’m sorry, I’ve said this repeatedly, but you can’t win an election without libertarians.
Attacking Rand Paul and giving him five broken ribs doesn’t help either.
What is even more important than that, however, is that Hillary lost almost as many black men as she lost white men; Trump even gained some of them. Hillary’s loss among black men was almost as great as her gain among white women and even greater than Trump’s gain among white men.
Hillary lost far more than Trump gained.
Even if Hillary had not lost any white men, and kept her gains among white women, her loss among black men would have caused her to lose more than Trump gained.
Which is precisely why Bernie would have done worse, and not better, than Hillary; she destroyed him with black voters. But it still wasn’t enough against Trump.
That’s the bottom line.
It isn’t that Trump won through a gain in white male turnout, but that Hillary lost through a loss in black male turnout.
I guess, in the end, you should really be blaming Colin Kaepernick and BLM, instead of Richard Spencer and the KKK, for the loss.
In any case …
If Democrats want to regain their numbers they have to figure out how to help black men; and by that I don’t mean with stupid slogans like “black lives matter”, but with actual policy like, for example, ending the war on drugs, decriminalizing victim-less crimes, eliminating police involvement in traffic violations, and so forth.
They should also try to return to a more classical liberal platform if they expect to regain the white men that left them for the libertarian candidate.
But as long as they keep their head up their a**, and continue to blame racist white men and Trump for their loss, which they seem to be intent on doing ..
Sucks to be them, I guess. ?