I have been watching a bit of MSNBC in the last few days. Saw Claire McCaskill, Joe Biden, and Pete Buttigieg on their air in that timeframe. It was interesting looking at through the lens of the political divide on the left. Before I dig into what I heard from them that prompted me to write this diary, a little look back at the political situation that got Trump elected in the first place and a key observation between the Bernie traunch and the rest of the Democrats.
One narrative coming out of 2016
I know one of the key narratives coming out of 2016 largely remain Bernie supporters cost Clinton that election. It just is not true. Maybe the typical rate of supporters of the losing candidate not supporting the nominee could have made the difference, but counting on more than 75% of a primary losers supporters to back the eventual nominee is just unrealistic. It just doesn’t happen. Didn’t happen in 08 (25% of Clinton support went to McCain), in 04 (22% of Deans support went Bush). Only 12% of Bernie voters in the primary went to Trump, another 12% didn’t vote or went 3rd party (mostly to Johnson not Stein by the way. The idea that Greens would otherwise vote for Democrats at all is absurd, most of them are extremely anti-war and they view Democrats as a war party, we are never getting that vote, at least with the candidates the party seems to prefer to put up).
What happened in 2016
I know Clinton handily beat Trump with voters earning less than $50,000 overall, even in the states that flipped to Trump. That said, Clinton lost the support of 1.3 million voters earning less than $50,000 in the states that flipped left us between 2012 and 2016. In most of those states those voters did not flip to Trump either.
In Ohio, more than 400,000 voters earning less than $50,000 stopped voting for us. Trump lost ground with this group compared to Romney too. Here is a chart showing the vote change by vote level to visualize what happened in Ohio.
The problem was not just constrained to white working-class voters (another narrative that came out of 2016), it cut across racial lines as well.
While about 350,000 white people fled our banner in Ohio alone, Ohio is an 82% white state, so the 100,000+ black votes that dropped out of supporting us make up 22% of our lost vote by race even though blacks are only 13% of the population. Rich white people made up most of Trump's growth with white people in Ohio in the end. Gotta get those tax cuts. But Trump also got more black vote than Romney as well. Not many, but still he grew that group while we lost significant ground.
Again, this is not the only state that flipped that showed similar losses with this critical core of people who did use to vote for us. Here is a summary of the 1.3 million people earning less than $50,000 in the states that flipped:
Key differences between Bernie and his surrogates and Clinton and her surrogates
Now, it is not as if Clinton did not understand she had a problem here and that these voters were unhappy going into the campaign. It is just the way these issues were addressed, which she and her campaign rightly identified as important, was pretty tone-deaf. Here is what I mean.
Bernie and his surrogates talked about a failing system causing the 40 years of wage stagnation we have seen for the bottom half of wage earners in this country. I imagine Clinton recognized this too, but, as near as I can tell, they felt they had to thread the needle not to offend Obama adherents, so they did this sort of ‘economy is on the right track, I know your wages suck’ dance that just did not connect. I imagine people whose wages suck (people without degrees were earning less than they were in 2007 by 2016) will never agree that things are on the right track.
They look at anyone making that claim as just out of touch with reality. I get why Clinton felt she had to walk that line, but it probably hurt her with this group that the bottom fell out within the states that flipped.
The most used talking point during the campaign is one that many folks did not see as a difference between what Bernie and his surrogates would say versus what Clinton and her surrogates would say.
Clinton first this time. I can quote this word for word because she and her surrogates said it so often. “I know people feel left behind.”
Bernie’s team also made a similar argument over and over and over again. “I know people have been left behind.”
That one-word difference is the key between the difference in thinking of the campaigns and those that supported them. Saying ‘feel’ is read by people as if what they are experiencing is sort of just in their head. The system works and either you are just imagining the pain and struggle in your life, or you are just a loser experiencing what you deserve somehow. “Have” places the problem at the feet of the system, it does not blame the voter for their experience and how they feel about it. Sure its sort of a subtle difference, but messaging is important and I am dead certain it had an impact given the above data.
It certainly defined the policy distinctions between the two candidates.
So what am I hearing today that need to be fixed on how Democrats message
First off, Claire McCaskill, I think on Lawrence last night, made a key point that delineates the thinking between the Bernie supporters and how mainstream Democrats look at some issues. She basically argued that we need to work to get more people coverage for the healthcare they need. Bernie folks, and people struggling to keep, find or get the healthcare their family needs hear “we can’t cover everyone” when they hear that sort of case being made.
What is appealing about how Bernie addresses the issue is that it is plain as day, he wants to make sure every human being in our country can simply get the healthcare they need. No cost barriers at all. If you are not feeling well, call a doctor. You do not need to decide if you can afford the copay or deductible first or not call at all because you are one of the 10 million people Joe’s team admits his proposals would leave out.
In this time of crisis, if you want to be seen as responsive to the human tragedy unfolding in this country, you need to present an inclusive message in the form of the policy you are promoting, we want to serve everyone to meet their needs.
Joe on Morning Joe. Joe was pretty good this morning. For Bernie supporters, his bit about a leader needing to “take responsibility” rings a little hollow. They view Joe as extremely problematic on that front, and they won’t be the only ones. Just one example. Student debt is such a crushing crisis is because student loan debt is just an anchor that can’t be discharged through bankruptcy because of the bankruptcy bill Joe pushed.
Sure Joe issued a new plan to “ease the burden” of student loan debt by discharging tuition related debt, as if wanting a roof over your head and food to eat while you went to school is just unforgivable or something. He needs to own the mistake of the bankruptcy bill completely and put forward a real proposal to alleviate the ongoing crisis it has caused.
A big hurdle to overcome if you want to keep disaffected Bernie people on board, is that they sort of view Joe as the arsonist that lit most of the fires we as a country must now put out. Figuring out a way to talk about these issues to convince them and the people that abandoned us between 2012 and 2016 that Joe has put down the matches and will be the firefighter.
If you have ever been in a home the day after a fire, you know what that's like. Firefighters take no chances, they address the problem of the fire by total saturation. They don’t just spray a little water on it, they drench it, they pull down the ceiling and insulation and drench it to. The house must be rebuilt to recover from a fire. Sure some things can be salvaged, but the structure largely must be replaced to become a safe home again.
Work, healthcare, racial, social, environmental and economic justice hell our society, in general, all require that treatment. Quench the fire completely, pull down the ceiling and drench that too then rebuild the structure of all the institutions that impact these things. Sure some things can be salvaged, but a significant rebuild is in order. If you just spray a little water on it while maintaining the basic structure it just means the embers in the ceiling will burn the house to the ground eventually. We must avoid that at all costs.
I am not trying to tear down Joe with these observations or comments. I want him to win since it looks like he will be our nominee, but these messaging nuances and policy frameworks must be addressed or he will have a harder time winning. People are fed up with the way things were, this crisis has only revealed the dysfunction of our system in even starker terms. If we go into the fall not addressing the systemic problems created by 4 decades of failed policy we will struggle to win. Our chances of victory are better now with Joe since Trump is proving to be the debacle we all imagined he would be in a crisis, but a win is not yet certain.
Pete Buttigieg actually addressed this well after Joe was on. We can no longer ignore the existing disparities our system has created. “We can’t go back,” he said. He basically argued we must choose a different path. Joe needs to abandon his return to normalcy pitch, listen to Pete, listen to the Bernie wing, pay attention to the data that shows the massive flight of voters earning less than $50,000 in 2016. We must change the system coming out of this crisis. The veil has been pulled away from millions of people's eyes. Even Joe was talking about it this way this morning. I mean he couched it as if he already believed it, but now voters see it for what it is for the first time.
In the spirit of unity I will roll with that assessment, but if Joe believes the veil has finally been ripped away from peoples eyes, now is the time to propose the big structural change this country needs. It is time to end the ideology and policy-making process that allows only legislation that profits some corporations with lobbying power to pass, but focus on policies defined and set by the goal of the policy to serve people first. Legislation should not be required to be hostile to corporate interests, but it must stop being defined by it.