November 8, 2017

Did Gillespie get any Bernie supporters? Populism or death, in the Trump era

GOP Establishment candidate Ed Gillespie lost the Virginia governor's race by nearly twice the margin that Trump lost the general election, showing that whether or not Virginia likes Trump, they really can't stand the same ol' Republican bullshit.

Perhaps the partisans have forgotten already, but you don't win elections by adhering to the same losing base. You have to either drive up the turnout of your existing base, or you have to convert people who voted for the other party last time. These are not kneejerk partisans you are converting, but the large chunk of independents.

Trump won the election by flipping Obama voters from high-population counties in states that have been blue for decades. These were largely white working-class, as well as the exceptions among college-educated suburban whites who aren't worthless yuppie parasites, and who don't want to see the working-class get flushed down the toilet.

According to exit polls, Gillespie did somewhat better than Trump among non-whites, but somewhat worse than Trump among whites -- and contrary to incessant propaganda, minorities are still in the minority in this country. Losing a small percent of a big number is worse than gaining a small percent of a small number.

Gillespie tanked relative to Trump among families with incomes of $50-100K, which is working and lower-middle class.

He did worse than Trump among Democrats, who are the largest group by party affiliation. He also did worse among liberals and moderates, although better among conservatives.

And although he did as well percentage-wise as Trump in the Appalachian west of the state, turnout was way down, giving the hill and mountain people less impact against the suburban Swamp dwellers in the north.

All this points to a failure to mobilize the Trump coalition -- the white working class, and anyone sympathetic to their plight (the shrinking pool of responsible steward elites).

According to post-election data, Trump won 10-15% of Bernie Sanders voters. See this analysis from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, as well as the American National Election Studies (web interface here). The ANES shows only 3% of Hillary primary voters going for Trump, and I couldn't easily find out what the CCES says -- but presumably small there too, given the Sanders-Trump voters not being Democrat partisans and not being big fans of Obama or identity politics.

If the GOP tries to convert the type of people who supported Hillary in the rigged primary, they will keep losing. They will do about 4 times better percentage-wise going after Bernie supporters, and since the popular vote was fairly even between Bernie and Hillary, the sheer numbers will be far greater as well.

Three of the Democrats who helped to sweep the VA House of Delegates were endorsed by the Bernie organization Our Revolution, in a state where Bernie lost the primary no less. So clearly the Bernie wing is energizing and turning out voters. Wouldn't it be nice if enough of those voters chose the Our Rev candidates for the House, but then the GOP candidate for Governor?

But -- who are we kidding? The Republican party is as likely to court Sanders supporters as Elizabeth Warren is to hold a pow-wow with Trump supporters.

Fully one year after the historic upset Trump victory, the GOP still refuses to re-align itself to be a populist rather than elitist party, or a nationalist rather than globalist party. So what if Gillespie spoke harshly about MS-13 and crime -- where was he saying that immigrants, legal and illegal, drive down wages for the working class, and drive up the cost of housing? Where was he saying that we need to pull our military out of most of the rest of the world and begin spending that money rebuilding America rather than rebuilding Afghanistan? Where was he saying that China and Mexico are eating our lunch on manufacturing vs. poverty-sustaining agriculture? ("All we send them is beef.")

He's a dyed-in-the-wool Republican corporate globalist sell-out traitor, so of course he's not going to go against the GOP orthodoxy on any of those issues, let alone all of them together like Trump did.

And on the populist issues, where was Gillespie saying that the government should pick up the tab so that poor people won't be "dying in the streets" because they can't afford a hospital bill? Or that we need to negotiate drug prices from Medicare D, and tell the drug companies who've "taken care of" our politicians to go suck it?

If you can't even muster the populism level of Eisenhower or Nixon, don't bother running. Stay home and just kill yourself.

Which is exactly what the Republican party is intent on doing -- riding out their terminal decline with as much phony honor as they can to numb the pain.

That goes for the would-be insurgents within the GOP, too -- if you're not going to say all the things Trump said during the campaign (re-jiggering NATO, Saudi Arabia is ripping us off, give the poor free healthcare, bring back manufacturing plants by the boatload), don't even bother running. Putting on a fig-leaf of wanting tougher "border security," even "a wall," is not going to cut it. Trump just got the ball rolling with toughness on immigration. It was a much broader theme of "America first" in every domain of society, from the military, to the economy, to the government itself.

If you're not for "America first" across the board -- what do you offer to weary independent voters? They will just choose the party of comfy stagnation rather than suicidal chaos.

Unlike most Trump voters, I was actually ecstatic last night that the GOP got clobbered all around the nation. They refuse to submit to the re-alignment, so they are officially a party not just without an electorate -- but actively hostile toward it. (See also George W. Bush insulting all Trump voters as racist bigots. We still need to send his ass over to the Arabian desert where he can get beheaded on video by his jihadist buddies.)

The more the GOP wastes, the more the New Second Party grows.

22 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for this, Ag!

    Unfortunately, I was unable to follow this race, but I thought it so odd that polls showed Gillespie had a chance just based on my cursory knowledge... We're under going an alignment, yes? So why is the GOPe guy with cuck economics and running a fear-based cultural campaign in a purple state within a shot of winning? So, turns out he wasn't after all.

    Surely this is way too hippie-dippie for you, Ag, but I tuned into the race yesterday for the first time, and upon reading an anti-Trump, fiercely pro-Gillespie guy wax on about real men eating foie gras, I was like, "screw these people". Can't do it. What a microcosm of blinkerism and sociopathy that is the neocon GOPe.

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  2. Happy Trumpversary!
    I don't know why "liberal tears" is so triggering. And why were so ate up with it, but enjoy!!!

    https://youtu.be/GuSQFRN-UNM


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  3. Monty Python and the Holy Trump... It's too much winning, I can't, I just can't. And when you expect Trump to say, "MAGA," he instead says, "trigger the snowflakes...," severe threat of MAGA coma. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!����������

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  4. I'm a grown ass woman, but I can't stop watching Monty Python and the Holy Trump and I'm crying!!! God be with me...

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  5. I agree with most of what you said above, but I think you are missing one of the motivations for why GOP elite do not go populist--because doing so would hurt their wallets down the road....if you are a gop politician or gop party leader, if you go populist, the big corporations are not going to give you the cushy sinecure positions that are essentially bribes to politicians who have left office, are no longer in power etc...for example, seats on boards etc, lavish book deals etc...these are the delayed payoffs that the corporations and plutocrats give to powerful people who play the game their way...and gillespie is looking to cash in even if he loses...but he cannot cash in if he goes populist...why? Because white populist politics hurts the rich in the wallet...

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  6. Speaking of Saudi Arabia, it looks like the Saudis (i.e. Mohammed bin Salman) are intent on dragging Israel -- with likely little resistance -- into war with Lebanon to oust Hezbollah. KSA for all intents and purposes kidnapped the Lebanese PM (a Sunni Saudi puppet in a majority Shia country) and forced him to resign as a way of creating political instability so they'd have a reason to go in.

    This goes back to your "Saudi Arabia is ripping us off" line there because the obvious worry would be, then, that Iran gets pulled in to try and support Hezbollah and then the we get dragged into this quagmire as well. If the Pentagon allows us to get dragged into war of any sort with Iran, I really don't see Trump getting re-elected and hell maybe he doesn't even finish out his term if the results are especially disasterous... which I very well could see. Hezbollah and the Iranians have been fighting in Syria for years, these are some experienced and battle hardened guys whereas Israel's been bombing rocket launchers and children on beaches and the vaunted modern KSA army can't even deal with goat herders in Yemen or whatever they are.

    I really hope Trump's able to keep a level head and get the Saudis and Israelis to hold up on this crap or, if they do decide to go in, have the sense to keep us out of it. But I worry that the traitorous Praetorians in the Pentagon, the neocon weasels that infest the GOP and media and guys like Tillerson won't allow that. They'll get the Iran war they've long dreamt of and it'll completely blow up in their (and Trump's) faces.

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  7. It's a lot worse than that -- Roger Stone says from inside sources that the Saudis are preparing military strikes on Shia mosques within their own country.

    The plan being to tie the Shia to Iran / Hizbollah, and re-frame "radical Islam" and "radical Islamic terrorism" as coming from Iran rather than Riyadh. Then we will get a whole 'nother round of the "War on Terror" -- but now focused on Iran and other Shia regions.

    The Shia are already under regular attack from the Wahhabi extremists in KSA, their clerics executed every now and then. Now they're going to get blasted in their own religious buildings.

    Plus they live in the oil-rich coastline along the Persian Gulf, so there's plenty of oil to grab while they're there.

    That will be the "nope" point for me. If we're involved in the broadening of a war against the Shia, who are the moderate influence in the ME, we're going to get involved in more countries than we are already, and ones where we will get bogged down or wasted in.

    And for what? To prop up the Wahhabi fanatics in Riyadh? Fuck that.

    I won't vote for Trump again if there's a pointless War on Terror 2.0. Nice guy, great guy, absolutely phenomenal ideas -- but can't control the elite factions of his suicidal party.

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  8. Sabre-rattling is fine, if annoying. The Mike Flynn wing of the nat-sec apparatus is vehemently anti-Iran, but they're not trying to start a War on Terror 2.0 with them.

    The mainstream of the nat-sec industry has thrown in with the Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman. He is a psychotic extremist who's going much farther than bluster, and hitching our wagon to his falling star has been the most suicidal decision of our foreign policy establishment perhaps in its history.

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  9. The same goes for the Bannon-approved insurgents. If the Establishment blocks them from building a wall, or deporting millions of illegals, or other nationalist goals at home, then what are they left with?

    Conservative culture war stuff -- take it or leave it, depending on the topic.

    But more importantly, they will be left with where they are in agreement with the Establishment -- cutting taxes and ramping up a War on Terror 2.0 against Iran.

    If that's what the likely outcome is of choosing, say, Josh Mandel for Senate in Ohio, as much as I hate to do it, I'll vote for the incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. Mandel is one of the supposed Trumpian insurgents, but I haven't heard him say much about economics and trade that would appeal to Trump / Bernie supporters. And as much of a flaming liberal as Brown is, at least he has a nationalist voting record on trade and manufacturing.

    If we could elect a yuge number of Trumps and Mandels at the same time, then they *would* have political capital and could get good things done. They would recognize the capital of one another, and if they were numerous enough, that'd be enough to start a revolution.

    But if it's only one or two guys, they will get boarded, taken hostage, and de facto co-opted by the Establishment. Can't let that happen either.

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  10. It really seems like economic stuff, bringing back jobs and the like, has taken a backseat to everything else which is sad because I think it's the one surefire winner the Trumpians/America First crowd can use to bring over Bernie supporters and other such types. Not quite to the same extent on certain things, a lot of them (at least ones I know) are still very involved in culture stuff too, but at least to the same level of not-lunacy that a Tulsi Gabbard might possibly or eventually possess.

    There's a line you had in a post some time back about farm subsidies and the propping up of Big Agriculture in regards to NAFTA that went "they destroyed our factories, we destroyed their farms". Framing America First, hardline immigration, etc. in terms like that would I think reach people more. The idea is that we don't hate Mexicans or Guatemalans or whoever per se but that they too are victims of globalization. That Central Americans are forced to come to the United States to take the farm jobs that they should have and wouldn't it be better if we had factory jobs that we can work in the United States and the Mexicans had farms they could work in Mexico to help make both countries better off? Maybe your hypothetical liberal is big on the environment? Just show them pictures of China with all of its free wheeling and non-existant regulation and wouldn't it be better if those factories came here to the much saner United States where, even with a gutted EPA (that exists more to enact byzantine laws that only environmental lawyers can suss; a bureacracy employing and enriching itself), we would be much better equipped to handle industry and the resultant pollution?

    Of course the foreign policy and no foreign wars are a big tool as well. As America Firsters, we do not want our military involved in pointless foreign conflicts or nation building. Let the Middle East handle its affairs while we keep our noses out of it and keep to ourselves (hurray for isolationism). The liberals, of course, will love that.

    It goes back to your earlier post about framing the left/right dichotomy instead in terms of information vs. material wings. So long as we're stuck in traditional left/right modes of thinking then we'll be stuck fighting traditional left/right battles using traditional left/right troops (the cultural left of college commies, feminists, race hustlers and such vs. the cultural right of evangelical God warriors). How are we to advance as a nation and grow stronger if we're not evolving the way we look at politics? Sure a lot of that cultural stuff like PC culture and microaggression crying is annoying but I also see it as a symptom of a diseased state; things have become so bad on the larger fronts of things like economics and foreign policy and we've been made to feel so helpless against the elites that we instead turn on one another over petty things. Solve the large problems and the smaller ones will solve themselves.

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  11. "I won't vote for Trump again if there's a pointless War on Terror 2.0. Nice guy, great guy, absolutely phenomenal ideas -- but can't control the elite factions of his suicidal party."

    They are so utterly blinkered, seen it up close for nearly 2 decades. Perhaps this stubbornness is the downside of their brand of machismo? Other?
    I'm not holding my breath.

    I worry about people turning into hawks because it's our side. I worry about "our side" being rewarded at the ballot box *because* of a rallying effect of this.

    When Trump bombed Syria, I had a breakdown, but was mostly alone in that. The Left/McResistance didn't care, the neocons loved it, and most Trump supporters were like Bill Mitchell.

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  12. Speaking of cultural conservatism... I found this about three weeks ago, Ag. Admit, it's one part creepy, one part brings-back-fond-memories of being in my mid-teens and madly in love with a man nearly twice my age (unrequited, though!)
    I remember hanging out with my 15 y/o friend and her 30 something boyfriend in the early 90s, with parent's permission, and though I wasn't crazy about it personally, it wasn't that unusual. My aunt was a teen bride to a much older man as was my mom to my dad (though she was 19). My niece married at 16 after being engaged for a year...

    I hate when this Jerry Lewis stuff comes up.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aWhn0Hc8ps

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  13. Jerry Lee Lewis

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  14. Reminder that conservatives are r-selected, and so more likely to come from sub-cultures where teenagers dating is NBD, even if to older guys (with parents' permission). These are niches where there's low population density and relative abundance of resources per person, and therefore where starting reproduction early pays off:

    http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2017/03/rk-theory-conservatives-r-liberals-k.html

    Liberals are K-selected, and benefit from delaying courtship, marriage, and children until they're set in their career in an over-crowded niche that takes a long time to reach.

    The allegation about sexual molestation sounds made-up, but Moore does admit to having dated teenagers with permission when he was in his 30s. If that's what it amounts to, urban liberal soccer moms are going to find out how little the conservative culture cares about getting started with life's milestones earlier on.

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  15. Boomers, who're not by any means behaviorally conservative, concocted all kinds of excuses for not having kids....And hey, what particular "value" did they promote after 1980? A scourge of statutory rape hysteria and enforcement, to the point that some areas eventually had to pass laws protecting 17-18-19-20-21 year old males from being prosecuted for relations with 14-17 yr old girls.

    The Boomers demonized the idea of of precious wittle teen girls being "preyed" on by older males,.

    The Boomer's own kids and subsequent generations grew up in a world where we keep extending "immaturity" and adolescence. These days, 14 year olds are treated like 9 year olds, and 21 year olds are treated like 16 year olds.

    At first glance this does seem like a sheltering issue....But. It also seems like a striving issue. Boomer and Gen X mommies and daddies don't want their Lydias to be corrupted by a prole loser, and distracted from the all important mission of becoming a career warrior. Hell, even their Kristens back in the 80's and 90's were supposed to gird up their status from a young age and eventually find Mr. Right when they were "mature" (as in oh, their late 20's or even early 30's).

    Note also that under-protected Gen X-ers also were at a younger age when society began heavily enforcing dogma about "protecting" youngsters from sexuality in the 80's . Boomers as we all know live vicariously through their kids, and if Boomers themselves were hellbent on not being stuck with a family at too young an age which would spoil all the fun to be had, then naturally their kids ought to do the same. It's really a contrast from an earlier low-striving time, when G.I.s and Silents fell in love with home town sweet hearts and went thru basic milestones very fast. And G.I.s and Silents weren't driven to try and reshape the meaning of innocence and maturity, like Boomers insisted on doing. As Strauss/Howe point out, The Boomers in every phase of life have re-defined the issues important to that phase. As middle-aged parents, they commenced campaigns to pedestalize their "innocent" children, and egged on over-zealous prosecutors and judges to go after those who ostensibly threatened the kids. Credulous and vain Boomers gave us crap like Satanic Panic and baseless prosecutions of pre-schools.

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  16. "The allegation about sexual molestation sounds made-up, but Moore does admit to having dated teenagers with permission when he was in his 30s. If that's what it amounts to, urban liberal soccer moms are going to find out how little the conservative culture cares about getting started with life's milestones earlier on."

    I thought it was kind of plausible, but really "out there". Unfortunately, I haven't had time to look at it, but last night heard an 18 y/o was featured in the story which doesn't make sense...
    I'm starting to wonder if this isn't Sabrina Erdely and Jackie-Rollingstone all over again, but again, haven't had time to look at it. And as a general rule of thumb, I have a bias against sex and other scandals when launched at the end of a campaign (unless there is some proof): not fair to the voters and everyone else and I see the work more of cut-throat hacks than desperate victims just wanting to be heard, typically, in this kind of stuff.

    UVA rape on campus story was so much fun working on, great memories.

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    1. Just found this:

      "Purportedly Moore’s main accuser Leigh Corfman has had three divorces, filed for bankruptcy three times, and has been charged with multiple misdemeanors.

      Posts on Moore's FB page indicate that Corfman, has claimed several pastors at various churches made sexual advances at her."

      If this is really true, totally legit, checks out, we may have another case of a Borderline personality spinning a yarn to gullible reporters that they wanted to hear.

      I'd be a little cautious with this one...

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  17. The GOP isn't going to win as long as it tries being a "middle"(read: professional class), "pro-business" party.

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  18. We're headed for a very toxic month with this hysteria, I fear. People are unironically calling for George H.W. Bush to be shelved as well as trying to make Joe Biden-Sexual Predator happen.

    No backbone can be found to push back? Too many vested interests? Dirty, dirty...

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    1. Ag, did some reading on the Moore stuff... "Sexual assault" is being thrown in with "liked teens," "20 year-old felt watched all-over" "18 years-old"....

      I go back to what my spidey sense has been telling me for nearly a year: the bourgeois upper middle-class woman is fully in the driver's seat on the Left...
      (If they could get away with ratcheting the age of consent and marriage to 26, they would.)

      Sorry Bernie.

      I remember back in April, I think, telling someone that trying to get the Democratic Party to be more pragmatic about abortion in certain races would be a seriously hard undertaking, harder than one could imagine. This has been proven correct.

      Bottom line: I think the populists on the Left are in more trouble than the Right's.
      Where were the tears in the US for that working class Labour pol who committed suicide after being let go and not told what the allegations against him were? Posthumously, we are being told it was groping and rude talk. I couldn't find a single partisan Left voice denouncing what happened to him.

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  19. I mean at this point it's pretty obvious that Moore's a creep. His defenses of why he would never have dated a girl in her teens are pretty weak and even 40 years ago creeping on teenagers is still skeevy as hell. No clue what to make the rumors of him being banned from a local mall.

    That's not to say that Moore's Dem challenger is any better being a bog standard open borders type and such and neither were his Republican opponents any better, just that I wouldn't be surprised if Moore was a holy rolling David Wooderson. The more sanctimonious, the more skeletons they're hiding or, in the case of muslims, the more openly degenerate they are.

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  20. Ag,
    The topic of older men and teens has come up time and time again in the manosphere and now during this hysteria...
    When this dies down, probably in December, I'd love to do a guest post on it from my perspective or if you'd introduce the topic...
    I see much that the manosphere gets wrong, but that the current witch hunters are as well.

    My experience: I was a teen in the 90s and worked at the mall at Hallmark which was a very popular hangout for people with stuff going on in their lives, plus people who wanted empathetic female companionship; I thrived in this environment and loved being there for people: moms who lost babies, lonely guys with unrequited love, newly engaged couples, etc. And yes, some of them included men who liked teens. But we didn't see them as predators back then, but instead "immature" "late-bloomers" and "a little stunted". Ultimately, I quit my job after a year and a half because of a stalker, 40s-50s, who made me fear for my life. He was very stunted.

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