Predict the US midterm results.

[Dinner]

JM, that is very similar to my take. Be color blind, hardly mention race at all, and run on a new New Deal. Sadly, identity politics is such an engrained part of the party now I do not think they could stop even if they wanted to.

[Kidlicious]

Hirono told men to "just shut up" (when you get falsely accused of rape by more than one person).

She probably thought that didn't go over horribly with everyone but her base.

Basically Ds have a big problem that is going to get worse.

[Kidlicious]

I think the politics part of Identity politics came from a partially unconscious attempt to marry white liberal concerns to racial minority concerns. But racial minorities often are not so interested in identity politics and are more interested in standard economic/social needs and the end to racial biases in the justice system.

JM

No. It's a way for you all to smear people. It has been working, but if that's all you got it's possible that it could backfire big time.

[Jon Miller]

The left's identity politics are also considered a bit of 'turn about is fair play'. After all, a lot of the right in the country is based on identity politics (it use to be WASP, now it is white... and it is creating groups like 'hispanic' which don't exist (I admit that I thought that hispanic existed until I went to Chile, there is more diversity in 'hispanic' than there is in 'European').

However,

Obama's Hope and Change and belief in white American worked. Even in 2012 when the racists had been inflamed against him.
Hillary's I am with Her and It is Her turn did not in 2016. And won't in 2020 and maybe would never work.

But despite my problem with Identity Politics, that isn't what is driving the Republicans to vote for Trump or Trump-like politicians. Rather it is primarily Racism, Polarization and Propaganda.

JM

[Dinner]

Florida is have several manditory recounts including on hand recount because the results are so close.

[Jon Miller]

JM, that is very similar to my take. Be color blind, hardly mention race at all, and run on a new New Deal. Sadly, identity politics is such an engrained part of the party now I do not think they could stop even if they wanted to.

I don't think we are at a point where 'be color blind' will work. I thought we were getting close to there in 2008, but I was wrong... and I think we are further from being there now than we were in 2008.

We do need voter protections. We do need police accountability.

Despite that I support Black Lives Matter, the above does not need to be done by emphasizing identity politics. Police accountability hurts poor whites too... and while the point about Black Lives Matter is important in some sense there should be a general push.

It does appear that the attacks on voters in the south east and midwest is done primarily on minorities, but that can also be done in terms of justice/fairness instead of identity. After all, Florida despite being 50/50 on D/R was 60/40 in favor of returning voting rights to felons on the principle of fairness/justice (not, I think, on the principle that a greater percentage of felons are racial minorities).

JM
(And as I said, I don't think this is the biggest problem for why Rs are picking Trump/Trumpians... Rs could pick other sorts of Republicans after all)

[Dinner]

The left's identity politics are also considered a bit of 'turn about is fair play'. After all, a lot of the right in the country is based on identity politics (it use to be WASP, now it is white... and it is creating groups like 'hispanic' which don't exist (I admit that I thought that hispanic existed until I went to Chile, there is more diversity in 'hispanic' than there is in 'European').

However,

Obama's Hope and Change and belief in white American worked. Even in 2012 when the racists had been inflamed against him.
Hillary's I am with Her and It is Her turn did not in 2016. And won't in 2020 and maybe would never work.

But despite my problem with Identity Politics, that isn't what is driving the Republicans to vote for Trump or Trump-like politicians. Rather it is primarily Racism, Polarization and Propaganda.

JM

Oh, it is certainly not the only reason but dems do have a problem with more and more whites simply not voting for them. This is a trend which gets worse with each election cycle. My suggestion (not the only one) is a good place to start is to stop insulting them if you want them to vote for you. After that is where good policies can come in but if you start by insulting them then they will not listen to what you have to say.

Sadly, Dems have dug themselves into a huge hole and it is going to take a long time with consistent effort to get out of that hole.

[Jon Miller]

I actually think it is less Ds and more media Ds (which is white liberal Ds).

JM

[Kidlicious]

The left's identity politics are also considered a bit of 'turn about is fair play'. After all, a lot of the right in the country is based on identity politics (it use to be WASP, now it is white... and it is creating groups like 'hispanic' which don't exist (I admit that I thought that hispanic existed until I went to Chile, there is more diversity in 'hispanic' than there is in 'European').

However,

Obama's Hope and Change and belief in white American worked. Even in 2012 when the racists had been inflamed against him.
Hillary's I am with Her and It is Her turn did not in 2016. And won't in 2020 and maybe would never work.

But despite my problem with Identity Politics, that isn't what is driving the Republicans to vote for Trump or Trump-like politicians. Rather it is primarily Racism, Polarization and Propaganda.

JM

This is nothing but you smearing us. People normally don't vote Republican because of racism. We also don't constantly smear people. There's no fair play here. You're all a bunch of false accusors

[Jon Miller]

Not true, I can point to a large number of my relatives. And other people I have met, even in liberal Chicago.

JM

[Kidlicious]

I mean most people voted for Trump because Democrats are so bad. But you say that's racism, sexism etc. You're tone deaf or something. Or maybe you just think this is a winner for you.

[Kidlicious]

Not true, I can point to a large number of my relatives. And other people I have met, even in liberal Chicago.

JM

That's your relatives. I'm pretty sure that I know more Republicans than you. People are Republican for two reasons 1) they prefer the policies 2) the Democrats scare the F out of them.

The third group is a small minority, but you focus on them. That's a smear.

[Jon Miller]

Pretty much all of my relatives vote R. Same with the people I grew up with.

Those groups make up a large portion of the people I know, especially well enough to know how/why they vote.

JM

[Proteus_MST]

I agree that there may be good people among the republicans ... just look at California (Arnold Schwarzenegger & Co which did good politics) ... but I guess most of them didn't vote Trump in 2016 (and most probably also aren't among the crowd that chant MAGA or "Lock her up" in Trump campaign rally events)

[Jon Miller]

Sometimes I have a hard time saying that some of the people who vote R because they vote R are good people, but usually I can.

See here, roughly 25% of the electorate is happy voting for a Neo-Nazi if they are R:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/ct-letters-arthur-jones-nazi-lipinski-20181107-story.html

I would expect that roughly 50% of those are big R racist (instead of little r racist, that is very common (the, I am not a racist, I have a black friend, group)). That is a big group of Republicans, 10-30%.

JM
(I have family members, in the presence of I and my wife, would call Michelle a monkey and make money noises at the TV, and would (at Christmas dinner) not look at or shake my wife's hand, and would wear neo-nazi paraphernalia: multiple examples of many different people and some of the most enthusiastic Trump supporters I know)
(Primarily vote in Iowa and Missouri)