Clinton’s loss shows Democrats need to reconnect with working-class values
Political rules are often cited and frequently ignored.
Former Gov. Neil Abercrombie was fond of advising almost all who would listen that “voters don’t vote for you because of your reasons, they vote for or against you because of their reasons.”
In the case of Abercrombie, the irony is that his decisive crash in the 2014 primary election ended in failure as hubris replaced his own sound political counsel.
Last week we saw what happens when politicians like Hillary Clinton think voters will pick them because of the reasons outlined by Clinton. She was telling voters to “take your medicine, keep quiet and keep it down — it will be good for you,” thinking that was all she needed to say.
Instead, Clinton found that the voters had their own reasons to vote for or against her.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who just won a full, six-year Senate term and is Hawaii’s senior senator, said he started thinking about that last Tuesday night, as one Clinton firewall after another collapsed. First Florida, then North Carolina and then the Rust Belt states, until even Wisconsin toppled.
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Donald Trump may be — as President Barack Obama described the GOP billionaire — “temperamentally unfit” and “unqualified to be America’s chief executive,” but he still won the presidency.
Schatz dismisses the idea that Trump was leading a mandate for change.
“Clinton won the popular vote, more people voted for her than Trump,” Schatz said in an interview.
That popular vote number, of course, is not the whole story because after Tuesday, Republicans will control 32 state legislatures and 33 governorships. Besides showing who has the majority, those numbers show that the GOP will control the congressional reapportionment lines in 2020.
For the Democrats, Schatz said, the thinking must go much deeper than just the numbers.
“I thought back to the time I lost my campaign for Congress. It was the people who said they didn’t think I was ready to serve, so I refocused on my own passion for public service,” said Schatz.
Looking at the surprisingly strong campaigns and platforms of both Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Schatz said the public didn’t have any trouble believing what they said.
For others, Clinton included, Schatz said, “the professional Left took over.”
Part of the reason why Clinton lost, Schatz opined, is that a lot of the Democrats’ political class spends a lot of time talking to itself and not learning about the people, the voters.
“Democrats in Washington have become an echo chamber; there is too much groupthink and too much poll testing.
“We have got to do some quiet reflection on who we stand for and what we are.
“We have been too incremental; it is time for people to start doing what we believe in.
“When we say we are for the working class, I don’t think people really believe it. We need to reconnect with our values,” Schatz said.
Interestingly, Schatz sees the path to a Democratic revival triggered by what could be a firestorm over Trump making good on campaign promises.
“Trump is going to help us because now we have real adversaries,” said Schatz.
“There is a lot of pain and frustration out there, but if the new administration turns out to be George Bush on steroids and they turn over the economy to the people who created the last crisis, then they will discover they have no mandate.”
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
12 responses to “Clinton’s loss shows Democrats need to reconnect with working-class values”
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This is as dumb a thing as ever and only in Hawaii when one of the most interesting elections ever just happened. Schatz may be as dumb as everyone says he is after all. He sounds, as per this column, at least as narcissistic as his ex president, Barry from Punahou, who didn’t deliver the bacon back home or fire up the gravy train that sputtered out of steam when the late great Dan Inouye walked on. Is Brain smart enough to figure out how to replace the billions Dan diverted to the state that actually were meant by congress for native Hawaiians (not Hawaiians)? Isn’t Schatz a settler from back East who married a local Asian girl?
Hypocritical jibberish from our empty suit senator. When he blames his party’s trouncing on being too incremental, he exposes why he is so out of touch with the working middle class, which soundly repudiated the extremism of fringe characters such as Sanders and Warren. And pronouncing “Trump is going to help us because now we have real adversaries,”…, Schatz promises a continuation of the same kind of hate and divisiveness fomented by our current President.
“Schatz dismisses the idea that Trump was leading a mandate for change. “Clinton won the popular vote, more people voted for her than Trump,” Schatz said in an interview.”
Mr Schatz seems unwilling or unable to learn from what just happened.
If the DNC had let their voters pick a candidate via a fair and open primary, they would be celebrating the victory of President-elect Bernie Sanders. As it is, they undermined an immensely popular candidate, disenfranchised their base with the “more equal than others” superdelegates and replaced a populist candidate of change with an unlikable, insider. I have never seen a group work so hard to shoot themselves in the foot.
Mr Schatz’s unwillingness to accept the mistakes and change his party and instead grasp onto the “but we won the popular vote… in California” and “all those millions who took off work and stood in line and voted for Trump (many of whom had previously voted for Obama) based on his promises don’t really want him to do any that” is a sure path to repeated failure.
If you guys want success, you need to listen to voters instead of telling them what’s best for your banker and insurance executive friends.
Bingo! The DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are a large part of the reason for Hillary’s loss.
brian;
american voters rejected the entrenched democrat culture of corruption represented by obama and the female felon.
american voters rejected the selling of america’s resources and influence peddling as represented by the congenital liar’s criminal money laundering operation run as her personal slush fund.
american voters rejected obama’s attempts at diminishing america’s leading role in international politics and the female felon’s promise to continue obama’s policies in international politics.
american voters rejected the female felon’s mishandling of classified information, the obstruction of justice in destroying evidence and hindering the investigation.
american voters rejected democrat’s condescending patronizing attitude towards gruber and deplorable voters.
american voters rejected democrat “rigging” of primary and general elections with the media, shared debate questions, manipulations by wasserman-shultz, brazile and abedin.
american voters rejected the female felon’s numerous attempts to hide information on her steadily deteriorating personal health issues that related directly to her inability to perform the duties of president.
american voters were no longer interested to merely elect a “first” only to discover they selected another “worst” just to be politically correct.
tulsi gabbard would have provided more critical insight as to why democrats failed to win an election that could not be lost.
The North Korean leaders and Duterte must be laughing at us.
Laughing? I don’t think so. Duterte song changed a lot last week, knowing President Trump would be unlikely to put up with his bluster and tantrums. Trump would be unlikely set a policy regarding the Philippines and allow Duterte to not to tow that line. In the case of North Korea, I am sure that the possibility of President Trump turning North Korea to a radioactive parking lot should Lil’ Kim thinks he can pull a fast one, is weighing on everyone’s mind in the PRC and NK!
Bill, Hillary and Barack are all big corporate Democrats who think that they need huge sums of money from big corporate interests to get elected. They lost touch with millions of working class people who saw their jobs move overseas. Trump won because he promised to alleviate the economic pain that millions of Americans without college degrees are experiencing.
Like in the Korean drama s Please go listen and live with your people the commoners ..not lobbist and washington smooth talking types …and one day /one hour /short interaction is not enough …
The only way they know how to reconnect is to get more Union workers! No jobs, just workers!
Hillary still refuses to accept the fact her willful failure to use secure government email contributed to her election loss.
Crying like a step child, she blames FBI Director Comey for her loss. Sorry Hillary he did not make up your email debacle. You did.
All you had to do was look the camera in the eye and admit what we all know, you willfully failed. Accept responsibility, quit blaming others and move on.
Hey! I hear Walmart is looking for door greeters.
Richard, I respect you as a journalist so I will assume that it was an editor who used the trope “Working Class” in the headline.
What exactly does “working class” mean in 2016? Is it an actual construct or is it incendiary shorthand for the “Un” working class or the “under” working class?
When my grandfather ran away from home at 14 in 1912 and first became a shill in a carnival, then loaded redwood rail ties on lumber schooners, and worked in Oregon sawmills until a blade broke and blinded him in one eye, he was a member of the “working class” Later, during WWII, he operated a drill press in a steel mill. He was a member of the “working class.” Does that “class” still exist? My grandfather became a member of the IWW after he was fired for not being able to see because the mill had a defective blade. Was he a member of the “Working Class?”
The Democratic party certainly got it wrong during this election. They got it wrong not because they forgot the “working class” which may or may not exist anymore in America. They got it wrong by not understanding change. The changes that have happened in our country.
I would argue that you and I are the working class also. We have worked for advanced and professional degrees, we put in 70 hour weeks or more and there are others who fix our autos, build our walls and teach our children. We are all the working class.
To have a working class presupposes that there is a “Leisure Class.” I would argue that it no longer exists except on TV shows like ET.
At any rate, I object to the header on your article that uses the buzzword “working class.” We all work and work very hard as evidenced by world-wide data. Perhaps your editors might have better referenced the “Disaffected Class.”