One “compelling argument”(btw, why the dismissive condescension?) is that a major reason Trump scraped through in the Electoral College in ’16 was that the Democratic establishment and the Clinton-Kaine campaign left the progressive wing of the party totally out in the cold in terms of who had a say in the messaging and strategy of that campaign. The overwhelming majority of Sanders voters who came to the polls did vote for the Clinton-Kaine ticket, and by a higher percentage than Clinton supporters had voted for Obama in ’08. Those who stayed away-and I was one of the people begging them to go to the polls and vote for the Clinton-Kaine ticket, even while that ticket did all it could to antagonize and alienate progressive by, for example, refusing to allow platform language specifically opposing the Trans-Pacific-Partnership trade deal, a deal the overwhelming majority of the U.S. working class opposed-did, in my view, because the Clinton-Kaine campaign’s messaging basically acted as though the the Sanders phenomenon had never occurred-the Clinton-Kaine ads never mentioned the Sanders items in the platform, never acknowledged that the Sanders message had brought huge numbers of new voters into the process, and essentially reduced its pitch to these three useless messages:
- “Defend Choice”(which ANY Democratic candidate would have passionately done)
- “It’s Time For A Woman”(a statement which was true, but irrelevant)
- “Trump is a Womanizing Scumbag”(which was also true, but which the party already knew the voters didn’t care about).
After being treated like that, and after the message was reduced to nothing but those three points, it’s no wonder that not only some Sanders votes, but huge numbers of voters in the long-term Democratic base would stay home and cause Trump to scrape through in the “firewall states”. The voters who stayed home were not to blame-the party that treated them like they didn’t matter and as though their candidate had no right even to have run for the nomination, and as though all their ideas, most if not all of which had solid majority support, were beneath contempt. The Democratic establishment reaped what it sowed. And the lesson is clear: to increase turnout, the party needs to treat the voters it knows the ticket needs with respect and come to THEM, acknowledge the issues they care about in the general election message, and respectfully ASK for their votes, rather than just pounding a fist on the table and demanding them or trying to guilt-trip or shame those people into voting.
Dismissiveness doesn’t build loyalty.
