Re: Immigration
 

Dude, she should have won with 400,000 third party voters. Bernie swung the populists to Trump, whose economic arguments resembled Bernie's more than Hillary's.

You don't get it, and I doubt you ever will, but the reality was, we had a three party race. Only it wasn't Hillary v. Trump v. Gary Johnson or Evan McMullen. It was Hillary v. Trump v. the Ghost of Bernie. And while Sanders finally, grudgingly, campaigned for Hillary, his Ghost -- all the arguments he had made which were identical to Trump's, remained.

Two economic arguments aligned, quite compellingly. Those were Trump's and Bernie's "Bring America back and give the working stiff a shot!" platforms. Hillary had what? Three hundred nuanced policy prescriptions.

I remember watching Bernie and Hillary debate and thinking, "He fucking smoked her." It's all about emotion, candor -- feeding the lizard brain. Bernie and Trump were geniuses at it.

You believe what you like Hank. But the reality is a lot more complex.

Re: Immigration
 

It gets simpler here.

Minorities who used to vote for Republicans on occasion or regularly are moving to the Democrats and will increasingly look almost as solid as the African-American vote. A lot of Indian and Chinese folks I know who are pretty middle of the road fiscally, and quite well off themselves, are no longer playing around with the Republican party, even with Charlie Baker here in Massachusetts.

Age is also more defining than ever. Young people as a whole don't watch Fox and don't vote Republican. That holds true across the country. The few white men who do are sickos.

Re: Immigration
 

No, Hank's right. It's your fault.

Re: Immigration
 

I don't disagree with any of this, but Adder has a point when he suggests that motivating and turning out the people who are going to vote for you is maybe more important than appealing to the thin slices of voters who might change their mind.

Re: Immigration
 

I think you're discounting the salience of race and gender, an odd thing to do when so many Democrats are fired up by Black Lives Matter and #metoo. Or did you just mean that race and gender are not as important to white male voters?

Re: Immigration
 

We pay attention to #metoo. The average American does not. It's not going to be statistically significant. Whatever it gains, it gains in areas already dependably blue.

Race is much bigger, but does largely the same thing.

Identity politics is dangerous shit. There's no choice but to engage in it, as Trump started it all. But the actions and reaction cycles in that type of politics are really fucking ugly. And not as certain to bring about an exclusively blue future as one may think.

I see a 2018 election that favors Democrats. No doubt about that in the least. But I also see a bubble in terms of media cheerleading for it, and audiences for such cheerleading (us) who have no clue about what the average American voter is thinking.

We're clueless here. Me as much as an anyone else.

Re: Immigration
 

YMMV. Not in PA they don't. I've a bunch of Middle Eastern, Indian, Latino, and Asian clients. Most are small business owners, a number of them in r/e. I don't ask, but from statements offered (usually to my chagrin, as I don't care), all Trump voters.

Deciding factor: $$$. Nothing else.

Idk about everywhere else, or other class demographics, but minorities making a few bucks here seem to be fine with Trump, for economic reasons. (Keep in mind, to small biz owners, it's not whether Trump actually passes anything... It's just that he's not likely to pass any new taxes, or aggressively fund efforts to collect taxes.)

Re: Immigration
 

Just wanted to put these two next to each other.

Re: Immigration
 

This may turn out to be true, but one obvious group that could swing large numbers of votes toward the Dems is white women. An appalling number of them voted for Trump.

Bold prediction, dude.

Re: Immigration
 

Not the ones benefiting from, or who think they’re benefiting from, the tax cuts.

The Dems already had all the high earning W-2d white women.

Race and class - only together - are the unknowns that could make this a tidal wave, rather than a typical midterm wave.

If Trump were smart, he’d tout the benefit of doubling the standard deduction for middle class demographic. But he’s not smart, and nor are most voters. This election will be idiot tribalism. Like every one you’ll see from now on. And that is Trump’s fault.

Re: Immigration
 

Of course. This obscures the context, in which I applied the first to dumb voters and the latter to people like you, a smart voter who grasps nuance.

If you wish to lump us all together, go for it.

Re: Immigration
 

This, in a vacuum, sounds really great. But tilting at windmills when you have absolutely no ability to institute the policy at issue does not cement the Latino vote in your favor. When it comes down to it, Republicans will vote, as a block, to screw Dreamers. Democrats will vote, as a block, to help them. Closing the government to make it look like you're even more in favor of Dreamers is stupid.

I don't care if you're Latino, white, black, or Asian. If you decide you're not going to vote Democrat in the midterms because they didn't fight the party that controls all three branches of government hard enough, you are a moron.

People who live in the suburbs in states like OH, MI, PA, etc. do not want a protracted government shutdown, even if they are in favor of Dreamers. And if you think that, given how close the last election was in those key states and jurisdictions that went overwhelmingly for Obama, those votes aren't important, you are (again) a moron.

Finally, given how many faithful Democratic voters actually work for the government, shutting it down and putting them in real economic peril to show some fight over an issue you can't win is ridiculous. If you are ready (as Hank says) to shit on those kind of people (who vote with you faithfully every chance they get) as political theater, I can't say it enough, you are a moron.

Win back Congress and the Presidency and steamroll Republicans on your way to implementing your agenda.

TM

Re: Immigration
 

All politics are identity politics. It only gets labeled "identity politics" and is deemed "dangerous" when people who aren't white are asking for equal treatment. Every single political issue is framed in such a way to appeal to the white male voter. When someone else says, "Hey! We want some of that too," all we hear is there go those minorities, women and/or bleeding hearts with their identity politics.

TM

Re: Immigration
 

Your examples, which always seem to suit whatever your current argument is, just sound made up.

I know exactly one minority who supports Trump. And he's a gun fanatic (and in The Sunken Place, generally, but what're you gonna do?). Absolutely everyone else I've come into contact with who supports Trump, is a white man.

TM

Re: Immigration
 

Only on one side, my friend. Because only idiots find Trump to be a kindred spirit given how fucking incompetent and corrupt he is. Everyone else is voting against that idiot tribe.

TM