2016 Postmortem
Showing Original Post only (View all)A few observations on "progressives" I've noticed from this election [View all]
Last edited Tue Dec 20, 2016, 09:44 AM - Edit history (2)
this is from many Facebook friends and interactions with people on Facebook who say they are progressives in the past year.
they are white, lower middle class, perhaps struggling a bit financially, 30-60 years old
they appear to be very liberal on social issues, the environment
very anti-war, especially US imperialism
very anti-big banks
they are atheist or not overtly religious
they act as if they are not prejudiced but display some racial insensitivity
they are huge Bernie supporters and invariably think the primary was stolen from him
they lean into the camp of both parties are the same, they have plenty of criticism of Democrats
they appear to have fairly impractical political positions or solutions, have unrealistic expectations of how politics works
they say they would vote for a new FDR
they thought Hillary was horrible, flawed, crooked, they ate up every anti-Hillary piece they could find, many didn't vote for her
they were not big fans of President Obama.
many times they claimed they were Democrats or registered Democrats, but wouldn't be voting Dem anymore
they didn't recognize ( or minimized) the huge danger of Trump and could not bring themselves to vote for Hillary, because their "conscience"
they are a big factor why the Democrats are in the position we are in now.
the question is whether these people can be reached, won over for Dem elections. They are nominal Dems, but are a weak coalition.
And like Bernie Sanders himself, these people are feeling vindicated by the defeat of Hillary, and are pushing that their politics is the right way -- which is questionable!!!