– by New Deal democrat
This is a graph I’ve been meaning to comment on, that I saw on Vox.com a couple of weeks ago. It breaks down Obama voters from 2012 based on who they voted for in 2016, and adds in Romney voters who voted for Clinton in 2016:
As an aside, note that the graphs measure opinions per group, and definitely *not* their number. Also, it’s hardly a complete snapshot of voters, since it doesn’t include all the others who voted for Trump. More on that below. But I wanted to make a couple of comments.
First of all, the Obama voters who then voted for Clinton, a third party candidate, or just stayed home all had a pretty similar worldview with the exception of Obamacare. The disaffected voters who abandoned Clinton almost certainly did so because of their views of the candidate, not their views of the issues. For them, Clinton was a warmonger, or a corporate shill, or a crook (because didn’t Comey almost directly say so?), or had some other personal shortcoming.
By contrast, the Romney-Clinton voters were closer to the Obama-Trump voters than to the Obama-Clinton voters on everything except for xenophobia (the two issues furthest to the right on the graph). In short, Romney-Clinton voters were garden variety GOPers who simply could not stomach Trump personally — i.e., the “never Trump-ers.” If Trump is the GOP nominee in 2020, at least some of them will refuse to vote for him again.
Here’s where it’s a shame that the bar graphs don’t include Romney-Trump voters. Because it would be nice to compare them with Obama-Trump voters. My sense is that Obama-Trump voters had a strong positive reaction to Trump’s populism while either not being offended by, or at least not taking seriously, Trump’s xenophobia and racism.
The former Obama-Trump voters are the ideological descendants of the old Dixiecrats: nativist-populists who believe in government programs, so long as those programs benefit *them,* and not ethnic or racial “others.” They probably only voted for Obama because the economy was so bad in 2008, and had improved (just barely enough) in 2012.
The latter considered Trump’s racist campaign comments as “part of the show.” (I read an article about a union official from northeastern Pennsylvania who attended several Trump rallies with his buddies to find out why they were so attracted to him. The “part of the show” line was a direct quote. I wish I had saved the link to the article. Sorry!)
Here’s the bottom line I see: if in 2020 the Democrats nominate a reasonably “safe” candidate, the Obama-third party and Obama-nonvoter voters are probably coming back. Depending on the state of the economy, so are some of those who didn’t take Trump’s racism seriously. (Yes, his racism wasn’t a dealbreaker, but imo this group are reachable with reason).
Unless the economy in 2020 is as bad as it was in late 2008, the Dixiecrats are gone, and I see no reason to try to accommodate them.
As mentioned, this is not based on actual votes but on opinions.
Personally, I think the vast, vast majority of people who say they voted for Obama and then Trump are stone cold liars. Not about their vote for trump, but their vote for Obama.
And quite frankly, anyone who voted for trump because of his populist schtick are brain dead stupid. There is absolutely nothing in his entire life that would make anyone with half a brain think he was a populist. Just an excuse they use to convince others they are not racists.
EM:
There is truth to what you say. How many people leaving the voting booth and doing exit interview questions do you believe would answer a question identifying them as a bigot, a racist, or a misogynist?
You know, it’s actually possible to pose a new issue — a perfect fit with bringing the Democratic Party’s straying blue collars back.
Unions having pretty much disappeared from the American landscape — making them pretty much disappeared from Americans’ mindscapes. We have to deal with the irrational here. The more remote that labor unions become from everyday reality, the more remote seems the possibility of resurrecting them — at least on the mass scale we had them when America was a good country for working people (if they were white).
[snip]
Why Not Hold Union Representation Elections on a Regular Schedule?
Andrew Strom — November 1st, 2017
“Republicans in Congress have already proposed a bill [Repub amend] that would require a new election in each unionized bargaining unit whenever, through turnover, expansion, or merger, a unit experiences at least 50 percent turnover. While no union would be happy about expending limited resources on regular retention elections, I think it would be hard to turn down a trade that would allow the 93% of workers who are unrepresented to have a chance to opt for unionization on a regular schedule.”
[snip]
I think I have come up with the perfecto advertising approach to prove to everyone that regularly scheduled cert/recert/decert elections — as proposed by SEIU’s Strom are the only possible path labor union way back — that no other way can work, maybe not even fragmentally.
Just imagine we were able to make anti-organizing activity a federal felony (no business should be allowed to extort a competing business interest from forming in the first place — it is in fact illegal now, but without functional penalties). Imagine further that we employed not thousands but tens of thousands of federal enforcement agents. What’s to keep millions of business owners from just laughing and challenging: “What are you going to do, lock up all the business managements and owners in the county? Do you really want a labor civil war — that you will lose?!”
Very simply amend the above described Republican amendment to the NLRA. Unions have disappeared in a labor market culture that is so hostile to organization for so many decades that it is impossible to build normal organizing back. So take the Republican led way back.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2723/text
For the millionth or billionth time: why is the Republicans cal thrive throwing out every form of nonsense — and the Democrats wont take the perfect policy path right in front of them, the sensible fork in the road; the more especially perfect because it is just the right move to lead their lost blue collar sheep back into the fold? ?????????????????
Once again, Dennis.
The white blue collars workers are not going to vote Dem regardless of what Dems do for labor. The white blue collars workers have been voting Rep for five decades in state and federal elections while the GOP has destroyed unions to the best of their ability.
Once again EMichael,
Re: How the Obama Coalition Crumbled, Leaving an Opening for Trump By NATE COHN
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html
Keep thinking the same voters vote in every election. Not true at all.
Look at all those rustbelt states Cohn talks about, and notice which party has dominated state elections. You telling me that the white working class that voted for state governments that passed right to work laws in Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan somehow would vote for dems helping labor?
That math does not work at all.