Question about Hillary Clinton and the white working class

[Willie Pep]

If I remember correctly Hillary Clinton was actually pretty popular with white working-class voters back in 2008 during the primary against Obama to the point where she was strongly identified with this demographic group. Fast forward to 2016 and this is apparently no longer true.

What explains such a large change? I am not sure if racism and sexism can explain the shift because many of these people were enthusiastic about Clinton (a woman) in the 2008 primary then voted for Obama (a black man) in the general election.

I wonder how Clinton went from being a popular figure with WWC voters in 2008 to being so unpopular in 2016. Any thoughts?

[Skittles]

1. repuke / Russia propaganda

[MrsCoffee]

2. She was so unpopular that she won the popular vote.

And by probably much more than our "official" tally.

[Willie Pep]

4. I am thinking of voters in areas like the Rust Belt.

Clinton ran up the score in states like California but that didn't do her any good with regard to the Electoral College.

[emulatorloo]

6. She lost in the rust belt by razor thin margins. some people thought those states were "safe"

They weren't

[ananda]

11. Yes. And she probably won those swing states ..

.. that were hacked by the Russians.

[ImpeachTheGOP]

3. A white woman is preferable to a black man.

A white, racist man is preferable to a white, non-racist woman.

It's pretty simple.

Plus Тяцмр put everything in simplistic slogan terms and Secretary Clinton was well thought out and realistic.

I think we should stop with the thoughtful nuance and just boil the rhetoric down to simpleminded lyimg slogans and unrealistic but popular themes. Then just govern the way we want.

That's what Republicans do. They win an awful lot of elections.

[msongs]

5. election results indicate a white OR black man is better than a white woman nt

[Ninsianna]

7. Only when you weight those votes. When you look at the actual numbers

that doesn't holdup. A white woman won more votes against the black man and the white man in the primaries, and against white men in all of her elections.

Obama had a better delegate strategy in 2008, but she got more votes.

She won both delegates and votes against Bernie.

She won more votes than Trump, with a whole of GOP vote suppression and other chicanery in selected states. The incomplete hand recount in MI proved that, and had they bothered in WI, PA and FL that would have shown what happened.

They didn't need to hack the entire system, just a few areas in a few states. Hence the razor thin margins and the large amounts of votes not counted in Democratic areas.

[jalan48]

8. Highly paid speeches to Wall Street banks.

Hard one to explain to folks trying to make ends meet.

[LonePirate]

10. But a "billionaire" with a fondness for bankruptcies and cheating hard working Americans was better?

I'd say those folks trying to make ends meet have some screwed up priorities.

[emulatorloo]

12. You have any exit polling/post-election analysis to back that up?

As you know from the ACTUAL data, Clinton won voters whose top concerns were Jobs and the economy.

You can authoritively assert any tired false narrative you'd like from the pundit class. Doesn't mean it's true though.

[Eliot Rosewater]

15. But ATTACKING Hillary as the poster did is easier

[jalan48]

16. It's my opinion-if you can find data showing working people liked it let me know.

[emulatorloo]

18. Oh you 'felt' that way, even though you don't have a damn thing to back it up.

“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

[jalan48]

20. Let's run someone again who has made a lot of money giving speeches to Wall Street

and see how that sells to voters.

[emulatorloo]

22. Let's have you prove your original assertion before you try to distract with hypotheticals

Either put up or shut up.

[jalan48]

24. A question was asked and I gave my opinion.

Democrat's who make millions giving speeches to Wall Street is a good thing? You really think so? Deal with it.

[jalan48]

30. Adios.

[lapucelle]

41. If you can find data that supports your claim...

let me know.

[Eliot Rosewater]

14. Nah

[oasis]

19. But Deplorables admire Trump for his sharp business sense.

Doesn't add up.

[BeyondGeography]

21. Plus 35 years in the power bubble

David Remnick has a good take on her tone deafness and how Trump (of all people) was able to benefit in the most recent New Yorker:

Time and investigation will tell whether Donald Trump or his surrogates colluded in any foreign interference in the election; what is entirely clear is that he was, with his penchant for exploiting an enemy’s weakness, eager to add weight to the heavy baggage that Clinton, after thirty-five years in public life, carried into the campaign. Trump, who lives in gilded penthouses and palaces, who flies in planes and helicopters emblazoned with his name, who does business with mobsters, campaigned in 2016 by saying that he spoke for the working man, that he alone heard them and felt their anger, and by branding Hillary Clinton an “élitist,” out of touch with her country. The irony is as easy as it is enormous, and yet Clinton made it possible.She practically kicked off her campaign by telling Diane Sawyer that the reason she and her husband cashed in on the lecture circuit on such an epic scale was that, when they left the White House, in 2001, they were “dead broke.” As earnestly as she has worked on behalf of women, the disadvantaged, and many other constituencies, Clinton does not, for many people, radiate a sense of empathy. A resident of a bubble of power since her days in the Arkansas governor’s mansion, she makes it hard even for many supporters to imagine that her feet ever touch the ground. In “What Happened,” she describes how, when considering whether to run again in 2016, she had to consider all her negatives—“Clinton fatigue,” the dynastic question, her age, the accumulated distrust between her and the press—and then says that she completed the deliberative process by going to stay with Oscar and Annette de la Renta at Casa de Campo, their retreat in the Dominican Republic. “We swam, we ate good food, and thought about the future. By the time we got back, I was ready to run.” This is perhaps not a universally relatable anecdote. Nor did she see much wrong with giving twenty-odd million dollars’ worth of speeches, including to Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions, conceding only that it was, in hindsight, bad “optics.” (“I didn’t think many Americans would believe that I’d sell a lifetime of principle and advocacy for any price,” she writes. “That’s on me.”)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/25/hillary-clinton-looks-back-in-anger

[jalan48]

23. Exactly

[leftstreet]

25. +1

[JI7]

37. Trump campaigned by saying he still kick out brown people. White people who voted for him

Did so because of that.

[FiveGoodMen]

27. That gets my vote!

As if those banks didn't expect anything in return for those big bucks except the privilege of listening to someone talk for half an hour.

[jalan48]

29. Sometimes the obvious is the hardest to see....

[JHan]

32. Where in her platform did she give banks an ease?

I'll wait.

There's a speech she gave where she talked about better representation for women in corporate world - and what else..

[JHan]

31. point out where the fuck in her platform she was giving banks an ease...

Wall Street gave more to Barack Obama in 2008 and he implemented dodd frank.

Seriously, this meme even some on the left parrot makes the GOP's job even easier.

[JI7]

35. Nothing. That's why those same people voted for pro wallstreet republicans

They also voted against feingold.

[JHan]

39. You know in all the bullshit rationalisations ...

Few want to touch on the post election data showing some ugly motivations among the WWC

[JI7]

40. Just look at how the one thing that angers them of everything trump has done

Is that he may allow undocumented immigrants who came as children and know no other home to stay.

[JI7]

34. Nope . Those same white people voted for pro wall street republicans

[MrsCoffee]

43. Gee, where have we heard this ridiculous shit before?

Will you be going on about her emails next?

[LonePirate]

9. Her GE opponent constantly insulted her. A subset of her PE opponent's base constantly insulted her.

Cumulatively, things took a toll on her popularity.

[11cents]

13. In 2008, you're talking about relative popularity amongst the motivated DEMOCRATIC electorate

Clinton was more popular than Obama amongst WWC voters that were motivated to vote in Democratic primaries. That's not synonymous with "WWC voters" as a whole.

[Eliot Rosewater]

17. You do, you wonder?

[StevieM]

28. HRC was popular among the WWC in 2008 and she was also popular with them when she was Secretary of

State. She left office with 69 percent job approval and 66 percent favorability.

Many Americans just couldn't imagine that the GOP would blatantly exploit and lie about Benghazi. By the time they realized that the GOP could do that she had already been softened up for the fake email scandal. Then they couldn't imagine that there would be a big FBI investigation for no reason.

This was Comey's election. The FBI dominated it from beginning to end. HRC's poll numbers would have recovered from the lies about Benghazi and the fake email scandal if the FBI had not become totally corrupted.

[JI7]

33. She was running against a black man.

By 2016 she was someone who supported and worked for the black man

[JI7]

36. Why did so many west virginia democrsts vote for a prison inmate over Obama

[JI7]

38. I wish people would stop making excuses for whites that voted for a bigot

And campaigned openly on the bigoted platform.

I know many white people think only white people can be working class but non white working class found nothing appealing or pro working class about trump.

[lunasun]

42. Yes I do have some thoughts.

[Awsi Dooger]

44. Obama steadily turned off white working class voters and Hillary inherited the plummet

That's not opinion. It was glaring as early as 2014. There were countless ominous articles regarding white voting trends and how it would impact 2016. Whether it was Obamacare or a combination of variables, white working class voters became increasingly angry and shifted in meaningful percentage away from us.

The astonishing aspect is that Hillary and the Democratic Party were somehow unaware or unconcerned.

After the 2014 midterms I handicapped 2016 as a likely narrow defeat for Hillary. Everything pointed in that direction, given the situational trends that I favor. My intention was to pay no attention at all during 2016 because I knew the outcome would make me sick. Only after the GOP nominated Trump and he began to naturally implode did I perk up and think Hillary might narrowly get away with it.

But it was always going to be narrow. Hillary had no upside. Her peak was maybe 50% if everything went perfectly.

The interesting question is what would have happened with that white working class group if Hillary had been our nominee in 2008, as I preferred, and became president. Any Democrat would have prevailed in 2008 given the situational edge with Bush stuck in 32-42% approval for 3+ years post Katrina.

I suspect we would have suffered some leakage but not close to the Obama level. Perhaps half. But that's mostly a guess and I don't like to guess. Applying the situational variables allows me to have an edge minus guesswork.

Hillary would have come across as a tough woman in office, and those white working class voters would have had to respect it. A white woman pursuing and catching Osama bin Laden would have received far more praise and benefit of a doubt than Obama did.