Silvanus said:
Runic Rogue said:
Actually, that is partially the point I am making, yes.
Considering the dem's now run on a platform of moral superiority as demonstrated by using outrage every 5 minutes, it is more the problem with hypocrisy coming from the people seen as ineffective bullies. Trump looks like an idiot, and is excused for his failings in some respect because he is seen as an idiot.
It ends up a case of trump is expected to behave in that fashion, while the dems are expected to be better as viewed by their voters. When they aren't, they lose the people who would vote for them on that basis. This compounds when they look at trump as a fool being attacked by hypocritical and corrupt politics and still succeeding in spite of it. Thus they are more likely to listen to his rhetoric, if not agree with some of his statements, especially if he too is calling out the behavior on the left. The first part costs the dems voters, the second increases the chance of them siding against them.
Both parties assert moral superiority (if not explicitly, then implicitly). This has been the case, also, since the advent of democracy. Parties decry the moral and ethical impact of their opponents' policies so routinely, that this is in no ways unique. Moral argument is a foundation of public debate (as it should be).
The only differentiating factor is that recently, people seem to have a greater problem with the tone from the Democratic Party than in the past. Yet their campaign ads and public statements remain less moralising and less condemning than those from the Republican Party.
Here's the problem though, what people see as justifying claims of greater morality has changed a lot and rapidly in the democratic party compared to the standard core ideas of "old fashion american first values" that the republicans have hitched their wagon to time and again. Lets go back a few years to the Bush era. Back then democrats railed against the war, his invasion of freedoms with things like the Patriot act, they hated the questionable way he won Florida by supreme court overrule, they disliked his corporate ties and his aiding of shipping manufacturing jobs overseas, they openly decried his aiding of banks and corporations over the average citizen, they opposed his stances on gay marriage and rights, and they absolutely loathed the political scumbag machine that Bush and his friends seemed to represent. This created the very anti-establishment view that made Obama's grassroots efforts so effective, and why his campaign beat hillary for nomination, and beat McCain for election. The very idea of hope and change. That was why made people support the democratic party at the time, and it was the lack of delivering that made people cool off when the second term came around. By the time it came to hillary versus trump, the dem's had swapped their positions on most of the issues from 8 years ago. Hillary herself being a horrible candidate openly caught sabotaging her opponent in the primary, actively seen as an elite, out of touch, unlikeable harpy of a person, who was entitled to the job and who's sneering contempt of those who didn't like her or were unlikely to support her actively drove people not just away in apathy, but into the arms of the most powerful opposing party.
Which brings it all back to my point from the start.
Both parties sell themselves on morality, this is true, but the dem's have changed what is or is not acceptably moral stances on far too many issues too fast for a lot of their supporters. Lets compare.
Trump comes off as a fool, but one who wants to put america first in all the usual ways that republican base cares about (immigration, crime, manufacturing jobs, american values of being the best). Even the less traditional stances he has (his infidelity opposing the religious aspects of the base, his stance on gay marriage opposing the core) are more easily dismissed or outright ignored in part because of how the left demonized him for it (his infidelity making him look more repentant when the media tries to demonize him for it, and the media's fear-campaign about trump grinding up gay people and sprinkling them into volcanos actually making it less likely to believe he was really pretty progressive about his acceptance of gay marriage).
The net gain/loss here is that while some of the harder lines core religious wont vote for him, most of the usual core will, and some of the independents will. He was about where any other republican candidate would be in terms of numbers.
The dems on the other hand, changed their values faster then their voters would accept. What was once railed against in things like over-reaching executive powers, the ongoing wars in the middle east, and constant political machine helping corporate and bank interests and harming the common man, are now seemingly championed by the party. Hillary herself making blunder after blunder in her desperation to guarantee her candidacy and then victory, instead drove party members away as the political underhandedness toward bernie disgusted core dem supporters, her disregard for manufacturing and working class concerns, including ignoring "safe" states in the midwest while hosting expensive donor dinners making her feel like a corporate stooge, and the party's own continued involvement in the middle east 8 years after running a campaign on getting out. The party leading with a very "support her even if you dislike her" attitude, to say nothing of the demonizing and attacks at those who disliked her, such as the blame on the "bernie bros", further helped alienate voters and make them feel like the morality they held that shaped their positions on those topics was abandoned by the party as they "let the mask slip" so to speak. After the election loss, even things they formerly had as positives, such as "unlike the republican's, we didn't waste time and effort on pointless obstructionism" have also been lost.
The net loss/gain here is hillary lost a lot of support that had voted obama before and became more and more jaded by the lack of results they wanted. Independents had no incentive to support her (opposing Trump not counting as that is opposing him, not supporting her), and even long-time core dem supporters were often viciously attacked and demonized, with a feeling of "shut up and tow the party line" about the whole thing leading to many actively opposing the party just to spite the corrupt system and hope it broke instead. The loss was a chunk of the core and a lot of people in the middle, as well as a few blue bastion states all together. The gain was nothing of value.
That was a few years ago. Since then, things have gotten a lot worse for the dem's as their constant hypocrisy and the way the party still seems to circle wagons around the unpopular hillary like she is some martyr only increases this effect. Trump's arguments for morality, for all the dislike of them people may have, are at least consistent with a positive ideal: America is good, lets make it better". It is a very simple ideal, but effective with people tired of political double-speak, international agendas, or entitled ego projects. The dem's, in contrast, have only a very negative ideal: Stop trump. And do keep in mind I don't mean those ideals are positive and negative in a moral sense here (your personal opinions vary person to person after all), but rather the concentration of effort into building something or destroying it. Trump wants to build (hell, even is often criticized positions are building, such as walls), where as the dem's are exclusively destroying Trump's efforts.
Runic Rogue said:
Also, for all the demonizing, Trump came out as the far lesser of the two evils in the last election in all those respects. His campaign was very negative, but he still championed issues such as immigration fixes, bringing back trade and jobs, and dealing with isis, with the media and opposing politicians trying to tear him down because of those stances helping reaffirm them as things he was championing.
I cannot even begin to take this idea seriously...
Of course you can't. And that is why the dem's lost in 2016, and likely why they will again in 2020.
His campaign was known for a lot of things, such as "build the wall", defeating isis, bringing back coal and manufacturing, and dealing with north korea. This on top of his mudslinging at hillary and obama. But the very thing his campaign sold itself on, was "make america great", the idea of improving things and building them up.
Hillary's was seen as near-exclusively attacking trump, and it is easily what nearly everyone remembers most. That is not say that was all she had, but that is all that stuck in popular consciousness. Even at best, her position was "status quo" at a time when people were sick of it and the lack of change happening, on top of her rigging the primary and screwing Bernie over unnecessarily.
And even now, long after the election, people still refuse to see that and the problem it was. Even worse, the dem party itself seems incapable of self-examination, let alone the outright required public jettisoning of Hillary as the dead-weight she is. Instead they, like yourself, will continue to ignore the people who once voted democrat trying desperately to let the party know what they need to fix to have a chance again, to instead hang-up on how much you dislike trump.
At the end of the day, Trump won largely because Hillary and the democratic party gave it to him by their incompetence, greed, and entitlement. Everything they have done since shows they have not learned a damn thing. This is why he is likely to win in 2020 unless they do something to change.