Fixed it for you. Last two Dem winners were elected by not alienating the middle. The fact is that Hillary was flawed enough to lose votes across the political spectrum. (moderates, independents, liberals) the middle is shrinking, if it disappears, the country will be basically done.

(Because of a small electoral and partisan advantage, the GOP can win with a "play to the base" strategy right now. That may be temporary.)

The Democrats can't win the because, like you, can't see the base in front of y'alls face. The very idea that they chase the middle proves that. The middle are indecisive or disinterested, most likely both. These are not voters to be courted or chased because they don't care and don't vote. The middle doesnt vote.

The margin of victory is so small that the middle actually does matter. It may only be a couple percent, but that's more than enough to sway an election.

Trump only won because he appealed to the middle more than any traditional Pub. Hillary moved leftward and lost. The middle Obama voters didn't all die between 2012 and 2016.

Well played :)

I am a lefty and of you y think she moved left than you don't know the political landscape. The low voter turn out proved Trump won off his base. In a low voter turn out election the middle aren't the ones who turn out in greater numbers.

I am the Democratic base you think you know but don't. Hillary and the Democrats abondoned us so we went else where stayed home.

Your entire argument is built on this past election which was a massive outlier, Looking at previous candidates (Clinton/Bush/Obama), all of them had the ability to draw moderate and undecided voters. Take away 2016, and you don't have a case.

BTW, "Hillary and the Democrats abandoned us ... " has to be taken with a grain of salt, given 58% approval rating for Obama (and 90% among Democrats). In the past 9 years, no one here has ever made a believable case that Clinton and Obama differ on policy one iota (and I've continually asked that exact question). If folks are going to believably diss Hillary and the Dems so much, they need to hate on Obama a whole lot more. When they do that, your argument will be a lot more logical.

He won because he said populist things that weren't usually true and made populist promises that he can't keep but his supporters still wanted to believe. Hillary lost for a number of reasons but her "moving left" was not one of them. Bernie was further left than her and most likely could have beat Trump.

Outlier? Explain Trump then. How did he get the nomination if everything was normal?
Times have changed.

Obama was an Outlier. Obama was that once in a generation mountain of chrisma. His personality out shined his actual accomplishments.

By the way which way do you lean?

That's the point. 2016 was NOT normal. Building your case exclusively on it is myopic.

Why was it not normal is question. An Obama or a Bill Clinton swayed the masses with hope and sexappeal. Trump swayed them with fear and hate. Whybdid that happen? Why did the Democrats drop the candidate that had a chance to win for the worst candidate in history? These aren't outliers this is a change.

I think the short answer is because: no one has central control. I think that's clear in both parties. If there was some perception that there are party kingmakers who can decide who gets to run in some smoky back room over cigars and whiskey, I think that perception has had a Viking funeral. The leaked DNC emails which were supposed to reveal evidence of that sort of kingmaking mostly revealed how ineffectual they were. Bernie "went viral" and there wasn't a damned thing the DNC could do about it. The only reason he lost is because Hillary was popular with urban black voters - and the purported kingmakers get no credit for that as far as I'm concerned. His influence pushed Hillary left which was seemingly a tactical error (and she was unconvincing at it), and she was abandoned by some key voters.

The RNC was equally blindsided by Trump. If there were kingmakers they were exposed to be limp-dick cucks.

For 2020 I don't envy the RNC. They're going to have to decide whether to go all-in with Trump (presuming things don't get worse than they are now, and presuming he'll want to run again). Or subvert the sitting President for an entire year prior to the election by backing alternative candidates. I bet they're hoping they can "make a deal" with Trump for him to start gracefully start backing Pence (or someone) around 2019 so they don't have to make the decision to start a public (metaphorical) bloodbath. I think they're secretly hoping for like a Pence-(Kasich/Sasse/Chaffetz/Huckabee) type ticket. But it's just hope. There's no strong central control anymore as far as I can tell.

The DNC are lucky in that they can push the reset button now that Hillary and Bernie are done (hopefully!). There are some young, energetic and (so far) undamaged candidates lining up.

You keep saying she went left and she didn't. I am guessing you are Republican because you keep trying to tell me she went left. She lost because she a right winger. I know the local Democrats and Democratic Socailist actvists and they all bailed from the party when Berny got his walking papers. It wasn't because they couldn't get the middle it was because the base split. I watched the offices close. I had friends who lost a shot load of voulnteers and funding. The Democrats have fucked it up because they are not an opposition party any longer.

Analytical and pragmatic, yet militant leftist.

What I mean is she started adopting a lot of Bernie's rhetoric and issues when she started getting her ass handed to her in a lot of areas, e.g. college students. In areas like student debt, influence of Wall Street. She was unconvincing, and was called out on it. So I don't mean she turned into a true leftist.(Though her lifelong record is pretty consistently liberal/progressive, with some exceptions, flip-flops)

Fwiw, regarding your accusation that I'm Republican, I don't consistently identify or vote with either major party. Though I'm much closer to a libtard than a Pub on many issues, I couldn't stand Bernie nor the blind populism he inspired.

The Republican party hasn't changed in 50 years. The always represent the interests of the wealthy and the Corporations. If they ran on that, only about 2% in the whole country would vote Republican. They have to find diistractions to get voters to vote against their own interests.

Trump is just the biggest and best lying Republican ever. He has a life long history of screwing his workers. Now he's the savior of the working man. Right?!

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

I understand what you are saying here, and I'm not saying Hillary moving left is what solely cost her the election. It was more a function of both candidates' strategies. The fact of the matter is that Trump took many former Obama voters and Hillary took relatively fewer former Pub voters. Trump made efforts to steal from Hillary's base, and Hillary made no effort (that I'm aware of) to steal from the Republican base.

Edit: Also, I don't think Hillary was convincing as a true believer leftist, and I think she underestimated the vengefulness of the Bernie supporters.

“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” Chuck Schumer

The Democrats tried to get the Republicans at the expense of the base but Republicans are going to vote Republican. Again it's all about your base. Trump picked up some more right wing Democrats because he talked about how fucked up the country is, the only truth he told, while Clinton was talking about how the nation was already great. The push for the Republicans on behalf Democrats isolated their traditional base, the Left. All of this talk about HIllary going left is a myth. She made zero attempt to get the left. The Clintons have always ran right and as a result lost the heart of the party. Schumer said it himself. They were chasing the mythical moderates.


This worked for Bill because he was the once in a generation charisma bomb that blinded the Left to his move right. Hillary does not have any charisma so everyone saw what she was doing bright and clear.



https://theintercept.com/2016/11/14/chuck-schumer-the-worst-possible-democratic-leader-at-the-worst-possible-time/