Saturday, October 6, 2018

On the viability of progressive populism

Pablo Nagel has a good FB post on this. It's why I frame the way I do, using what might be considered course and low-brow language from the POV of the highly educated and/or developmentally inclined. That's the language of the rust belt workers who flipped their votes and it gets through to them. I'm not framing for the smart or elite, or to show off my superior developmental level. The latter is how you turn off such voters and get Dump re-elected.

For those that don't use FB, he said: 

How *not* to get Trump re-elected:


Well, let’s look at how he was elected in 2016. What can we learn? Fact: Rust belt votes, lots of them (millions and millions, around 10 mil) that twice went to Obama in 08 and 12 went to Trump instead of Clinton in 2016. This is per numerous county by county exit polls and election results. (See links in comments). If they voted twice or once for Obama they aren’t racists. Had Sanders been the nominee these former Obama voters who swung to Trump may well have gone to him, and that’s not speculation, given that Sanders performed excellently in the Midwest in the primaries . This rust belt swing in the general election from Obama to Trump, bypassing Clinton, was the deciding factor demographically for the entire election. It was the fatal blow. The whole election, the very close national popular vote in 2016 came down to the rust belt and Clinton’s massive failure there to hold the Obama voters who swung. The point is, there are many non racist voters there for the taking back in 2020 if liberals stop and Dem party stops sounding like Clinton and starts sounding more like Sanders, ie, with a more populist and class based approach appealing to the working class and the underclass and the poor everywhere, and appealing less to educated elites who feel they and only they are entitled to don the mantle of virtue. A lot of folks out there will vote progressive populist /new deal/FDR type politics if you give them half a chance. Progressive populism (not to be confused with regressive or right wing populism a la trump and Brexit, but a left wing populism a la Sanders and Corbyn (who are themselves flawed but at least for starters may be seen as representatives of progressive populism), that is, a progressive populism that focuses on socio economics and the suffering of the immiserated everywhere, a campaign cutting across fixed party and ideology lines, a trans-ethnic appeal to the immiserated plight of the person suffering below, whether they are black, brown, or white, whether they are on the border, the heartland, or the cities. You create a common appeal based on socio-economics instead of culture war. That I think is how you don’t get Trump re-elected.”

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