On the Eve of Disruption: Final Thoughts on the 2016 Election

The overall picture is grim.  A President of peerless dignity yields to one about whom vulgar is the best one can say. The Republican Party is dominant.  Anti-tax sentiment and resentment of beneficiaries of government aid (if it's not you benefiting) are powerful.  Neither our revulsion nor Clinton's popular vote win can conceal that the GOP dominated not only Congress (51.4% of the national vote) but state legislatures and governors mansions.  We are still waiting for the great demographic payoff by the youth and minority voters.

Thee will be big policy defeats for us as the Electoral College formalizes our defeat and the most reactionary administration since the civil war takes hold.  John Judis spells it out. -gwc

On the Eve of Disruption: Final Thoughts on the 2016 Election
by John Judis

***The more significant vote may have been that for House candidates. Nationally, Republicans won 51.4 percent of that vote. By comparison with Trump, the House Republicans did five points better among college-educated whites and one point better among non-college educated whites, and three points better in the suburbs. What these results suggest is that a Republican presidential candidate like, say, John Kasich would have done better among college-educated whites (one of the constituencies that appeared turned off by Trump) and in the suburbs, and held his own among working class whites. If so, such a candidate might have defeated Clinton more decisively than Trump did.

Some Democrats argue that Bernie Sanders would have done better against Trump than Clinton did. I doubt whether that’s true. Clinton’s campaign was abysmal, but Sanders’ proposals for Medicare for all and free tuition at public colleges, which played well in the Democratic primaries (and I supported him and these proposals enthusiastically), would have hit a tax-and-spend brick wall in the general election. Most voters who are not on the liberal/left wing of the Democratic Party will not support anything that calls for higher taxes, even if the proponents argue that in the long run these proposals will save them money.

In Colorado this November, voters had to decide whether to back a single-payer system for the state, dubbed ColoradoCare, that was a state version of Sanders’ Medicare for all and that he came to Colorado to campaign for. Worried about the tax bill, leading Democrats as well as Republicans opposed the initiative, and it lost by 79 to 21 percent in a liberal state that went for Hillary Clinton. Trump would have hung Sanders out to dry on proposals calling for higher taxes. Vice President Joe Biden might have beaten Trump by winning Pennsylvania and Ohio, but I don’t Sanders would have stood a chance.***