Thread by @Nate_Cohn

A few extra thoughts on this thread, mainly responding to various questions, criticisms, etc.

One overarching point, which I think is fairly obvious but worth stating: this is not a comprehensive account of everything that led to Trump. It's account of the effect of an inaccurate electoral narrative, which is hardly the only thing that helped Trump!

To take one obvious example: Clinton's unpopularity, emails, sexism, etc., does not get mentioned once. That is not because it's unimportant! It's because it's a different issue; it does not stem from bad exit polls or something.

One thing that I should have mentioned, though, is the effect of overestimating racial demographic shifts on the right--not just the moderate GOP

It exacerbated concerns about immigration or a possible 'minority-majority' America. In doing so, it heightened the salience of race at the very moment that the GOP estab would try and moderate on the issue. Trump exploited it in his campaign.

A second issue: did the Democrats really ignore the white working class post-2012?
Most of the critiques center on race/immigration, and basically say that the Dems continued to embrace moderate rhetoric and policies, no the left. I think that's largely true. But...

The traditional Democratic message to the white working class on economics--especially the kind of industrial-era messaging of the Democratic Party, which is the source of their strength in the Midwest--basically evaporated

Obama ran on the autobailout. He attacked Romeny as a rapacious plutocrat who would outsource jobs and help corporations. Bain Capital It's hard to remember now, but for 40 years Dems ran on outsourcing in the Midwest

That aspect of the Democratic Party--in many ways the foundation of the late twentieth century Democratic Party in the northern US--simply disappears, and that's before talking about TPP

It creates an opening for Trump, who gets to run on all of those issues. He runs against trade, runs against China, etc.
Clinton has nothing, and basically just has the fundamentally liberal 'stronger together' take

I don't know what the counterfactual looks like: I don't know what it would look like if Obama's second-term was predicated on the recognition that he won with northern working class voters, with a traditional working class pitch. What I know is they went the *opposite* direction

Not only is there no messaging to the white working class on those kind of issues, the second Obama term leads off by emphasizing all of their worst issues for this group: immigration, guns--and that's before ISIS, refugees, BLM/race/policing add to the challenge

All of this plainly added up to a huge weakness for Democrats, that Trump was obviously exploiting by June 16
nytimes.com/2016/06/30/ups…

Another set of questions mainly relates to the future for Democrats, in particular. My own view is that the changes from 12-20 are largely baked. The idea that Iowa's going to lean Blue again, or that Dems are going to 60% in the Mahoning Valley, seems far-fetched

There are lots of reasons. Things are really polarized; it's harder to go back than get here. D coalition has changed in ways that make it almost comical to go back, too. That's not to say there's nothing Dems could do to soften the edges, but nothing fundamental is available

But maybe most of all, the Democrats don't really have a credible set of economic messages for the Midwestern working class anymore. That will probably provoke a whole new thread of criticism, but I'd just consider Obama '12 for a moment

Think about what Obama ran on in 2012: outsourcing, private equity, protecting the autoindustry.
This is not twentieth century welfare state liberalism, it's not industrial unionism. It's defensive job protection in an era of globalization

The rise of globalization, an intra-national race to the bottom stuff, automation, and environmental regulations (like getting rid of the coal industry) are basically eliminating the old industrial base of the democratic party, here and across the western world

As far as I know, there are no credible policies to really address that.
For a long time, Dems got by with general anti-corporatism, opposition to outsourcing, etc.
They were aided in that by the GOP being the ones in power, presiding over steady manufacturing job losses etc

Even if Dems did go back to that message, it wouldn't be as credible as it was, their contrast w GOP wouldn't be as clear, it wouldn't have as broad of a base of people to buy it, and they'd have the added challenge of having moved left on other issues since '12

And even if the Dems did go back to that message, there's no way it could be as central as it was. It's not 2004 anymore--there are other groups and states that Democrats have to address now.

I said a few days ago that a lot of political commentary is fantasy politics, and I'd say that for anyone who thinks the Democrats can *actually* go back to their 2004-2012 messages and numbers. There are a few issues where... maybe. But it's usually a little ridiculous

Since a few people have misread this aspect of the thread, I'd like to explain how my emphasis on an economic message here interacts with the fact that Democrats have plainly lost ground because of cultural/racial issues

Let's start by noting what question I'm addressing: can Democrats *win* white working class voters back? That's actually not the same as why did Democrats *lose* white working class voters over the last decade.

Lots of people act like those are the same thing. They seem to suppose that Democrats would suddenly snap back among white working class voters, if only race became less salient in politics or if Democrats would start talking to white rural folks

But undoing and preventing losses are really not the same thing. Now that the GOP *has* won these voters, Democrats wouldn't rebound back to '12 levels even if no one talked about race for the next three years. The old bonds of Democratic loyalty and identity are gone

And that's entirely leaving aside the possibility that new bonds of Trumpy loyalty has taken hold, which would probably be impossible for Democrats to overcome.

To rebound, today's Dems wouldn't merely need to avoid alienating these voters on racial issues. They would need a real message to win them back.
And that message would have to be an economic message.

Any reasonable historical analysis would find that Democrats *win* white working class voters on economic issues, even if they lose them on race/culture/etc.
If Dems don't have as strong of a message as they had in '12--and I don't think they do--they don't have anything.