With the anti-voter laws this year, the "it's dem voters' fault for NOT voting" line is BULLSHIT.
All over the country, the most likely dem-leaning voters(the Rainbow, the elderly, working-class women, union members, the poor) TRIED to vote and were blocked from doing so by the "voter id" laws.
This defeat was the PARTY's failure at the top. Our core voters are blameless. They tried to vote and mainly weren't allowed to.
So give the "if dem voters don't vote, dem candidates don't win" meme a rest. It's racist, sexist, classist, and totally bogus. IT's also just plain meanness to those who have nothing, being expressed by those who are generally priveleged.
It's on the party to fight to overturn voter id laws and, if it can't, to make sure that the core voters can get what the need to NOT be turned away from the polls by the New Jim Crow. Dem voters can ONLY vote if the party defends their RIGHT to vote-as it refused to do this fall for fear of offending those(imaginary)"centrist suburban independents" who don't want to see the peasants at the polls.
Blame the powerful-not the powerless. The powerless TRIED to cast their ballots and the oppression machine stopped them-and our party did NOTHING to try to stop that.
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Lithos
(26,403 posts)Many Dems didn't vote because they just didn't.
However, I agree that the voter laws did affect those who did.
My take - those who could vote should have stood up for those who couldn't.
L-
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)On edit:
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)We're seeing people on the Beltway Right of the party starting the "Dem voters don't show up at the polls, so we owe Dem voters nothing" meme.
Never mind that that meme is based on the attitude that caused a lot of non-voting in the first place.
Eko
(7,281 posts)" Our core voters are blameless. They tried to vote and mainly weren't allowed to. "
Can you give us some context on this? Some links? I've yet come across anyone saying that democratic core voter's were mainly (for the most part) blocked from voting. I am all against the voter ID laws but I believe you engaged in a bit of hyperbole.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)in many states, the fact that the difficulties in getting id on your own if you're a working person(taking time off during the workday to go to the DMV, having to stand in line there for hours, DMV's and other government agencies being forbidden to tell people who were there for other reasons about being able to get id there and at other government agencies)and other problems faced by core-Dem voters, such as in finding someone to watch your kids if you're a young mother trying to squeeze in a visit to the polls and a long wait in line there into your day, did, in fact, severely restrict and effectively block, as we are now discovering, millions of such voters from being able to vote.
And our party didn't do a damn thing about this, even though its leaders had known for two years that we'd be facing a massive array of anti-voter, anti-democracy measures in 2014. They should have been spending millions on making sure people in the key states knew the forms of id the law required of them and, if need be, helping them freaking GET those forms of id.
No hype. It's the reality. A huge number of people wanted to vote, tried to vote, and were effectively unable to do so.
Eko
(7,281 posts)how most of our core voters were blocked the right to vote. Do you have numbers to back this up with some kind of evidence?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)In any case, it clearly can't be put down to potential Dem voters being slackers will all the restrictions of voting that were put in place.
And I can't understand why you would want to defend the Beltway/MSM narrative about voters just not showing up when they could have.
Please don't belabor your point...you're only helping the right wing in hairsplitting here.
Eko
(7,281 posts)say anything about why the voters did not show up, now you are projecting.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It doesn't have to mean a majority of potential Democratic voters were blocked to be valid.
Another massive contributing factor was that the party basically conceded the House from the start-even though there was widespread public anger about what Boehner and Co. were getting up to that we could have mobilized to build our vote in many states and, if nothing else, at least prevent further losses.
We can't really expect people to vote when our party gives up at the start of the race.
Eko
(7,281 posts)is 316 million. 17% of registered voters are solid liberals which would be about 48 million voters. Are you saying that over 24 million liberal voters could not vote and if so provide some evidence please.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The voting restrictions were aimed at people of color, women, the elderly, and the young. Those were the groups that were going to have the toughest time getting id or getting to the polls if they could ONLY vote on Election Day.
THAT is what matters.
Eko
(7,281 posts)You said "Our core voters are blameless. They tried to vote and mainly weren't allowed to. " using the word "mainly" which is a quantifiable word, I am asking you to back that up or say the word was a poor choice. I am a liberal, making it harder to vote which the republicans have done for a while now is a very real and horrible travesty of justice, but we shouldn't lower our standards of thinking to their hyperbolic forms of reasoning.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)What matters is that people of color, women, the elderly and the young were blocked by the voter laws. Whether it was a numerical majority of Democratic voters doesn't matter(we were never going to get 100% turnout, so insisting that it has to be a majority of possible Democratic voters for my point to be valid is holding me to an unfair standard).
Being a stickler about the word "mainly" is petty and hairsplitting. "Mainly" doesn't have to mean a majority.
Eko
(7,281 posts)Mainly = more than anything else. Words have meaning. So yes, in order for you to be correct, the majority of core liberals would have to have had their vote blocked. The numbers so far just don't back that up. Sorry to hold you to what you say, no, not sorry. We need to be better and to not rely on scare tactics and made up facts like the republicans do. Not sorry at all.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Turnout problems were not the fault of the voters themselves, and the party has no right to lash out at them when the party itself and its completely failed "strategy" made it impossible for us to do well this fall.
And "more than anything else" doesn't have to mean a majority...just more than any other single thing. And we can say that voter suppression was more to blame than any other single thing. I didn't rely on "scare tactics" either. Just reality
So back off.
More than anything else is a majority. Cant believe I am arguing this point with a liberal, could see it with a far right person but a liberal?
assigned any fault to anybody, once again projecting.
Eko
(7,281 posts)= majority. Politics hinges on one word, one meaning, because words have meaning and when you say something it means something. When you say something and someone questions what you say and then you respond by using an ad hominem attack and then deny a words meaning while saying it means the same thing, you are falling to the dark side. It doesn't matter if you call yourself a liberal, you are not using liberal principals in your argument.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If a certain factor among several variety of factors contributing to a particular outcome is determined to be 29% responsible for that outcome, that factor can be said to be "more responsible than any other factor" if no other factor is determined to be more than 28.9% responsible for the outcome in question. "More than any other single thing", therefore, still applies if voter id laws caused 29% of the turnout problems and no other single factor was responsible for more than 28.9%.
Of course words have meaning. But they don't have to mean what YOU want them to mean. You are not the Cosmic Arbiter of Objective Truth. You are just one person with one viewpoint out of many, as am I.
As to what you called "ad hominem", I responded out of irritation because you've refused to let this go.
Eko
(7,281 posts)noun, plural majorities.
1.
the greater part or number; the number larger than half the total (opposed to minority ):
the majority of the population.
2.
a number of voters or votes, jurors, or others in agreement, constituting more than half of the total number.
3.
the amount by which the greater number, as of votes, surpasses the remainder (distinguished from plurality ).
4.
the party or faction with the majority vote:
The Democratic Party is the majority.
5.
the state or time of being of full legal age:
to attain one's majority.
6.
the military rank or office of a major.
So, what percentage of core liberal voters were mainly stopped by voter suppression and what was a higher factor?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)"majority" always means, by the definition you quoted, MORE THAN HALF.
I don't have the numbers because they still haven't been calculated yet. I'm not responsible for producing them while there are still, in fact, votes being tabulated in some places.
Clearly, voter suppression and its more-passive corollary, voter discouragement caused by the sense that people wouldn't be able to vote, played a larger role about the groups I mentioned(people of color, the elderly, women, and youth)than any other factor you could mentioned. A lot of people weren't able to vote, another large group gave up because they assumed they wouldn't be allowed to vote, others tried to vote and gave up because the lines went on too long and they had to be someplace else(sometimes, they had to pick up their kids).
Eko
(7,281 posts)The amount by which the greater number, as of votes, surpasses the remainder (distinguished from plurality ). Say 40%= A, 10%=B 10%=C, 10%=D 30%=E, A is the Majority by definition. Plurality also means
plurality
[ploo-ral-i-tee]
Synonyms
Examples
Word Origin
noun, plural pluralities.
1.
the excess of votes received by the leading candidate, in an election in which there are three or more candidates, over those received by the next candidate (distinguished from majority ).
2.
more than half of the whole; the majority.
3.
a number greater than one.
4.
fact of being numerous.
5.
a large number; multitude.
6.
state or fact of being plural.
7.
Ecclesiastical.
the holding by one person of two or more benefices at the same time; pluralism.
any of the benefices so held.
Look at number 2, more than half of the whole. You still have not given any numbers to show that it was mainly on any level and you have not shown where "mainly" in any sense of core liberal voters were denied the vote, Exactly what percentage of liberal voters that were denied the right to vote do you mean by Mainly? Answer that to defend your use of mainly.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I've proved that "mainly" doesn't have to mean "more than half".
And I seriously doubt that most people on DU would accept the argument that majority and plurality mean the same thing.
Please move on already. This is annoying and pointless.
apparently mainly means maybe 3% of core dems to you unless you want to be more forthcoming?
Eko
(7,281 posts)mainly core Democratic voters believe aliens have visited our world. Too funny.
what percentage of core Dems could not vote because of voter suppression? What is mainly percentage wise and give us some cold hard numbers to back this up? Or can you not?
Renew Deal
(81,852 posts)Eko
(7,281 posts)about ad hominen attacks?
Renew Deal
(81,852 posts)Eko
(7,281 posts)about something that is not the subject matter at hand, yeah, personal attack.
Renew Deal
(81,852 posts)Eko
(7,281 posts)How you voted is one of the most personal and protected rights, seriously? For your info I am a long haired hippie tree loving liberal that just happens to believe in logic, so whatever buddy.
Eko
(7,281 posts)attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument.
Yeah whatever, try again buddy.
Renew Deal
(81,852 posts)Eko
(7,281 posts)why would you want to know that except to attack me on that record? That would be a personal attack, attacking someones character. Why do you want to know?
Renew Deal
(81,852 posts)That reply was to someone else.
Response to Renew Deal (Reply #33)
Post removed
TBF
(32,041 posts)You've been posting here since 2011 and this is your comment on DU? Why are you here?