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Comment by lelanthran | Hacker News Reader

> What the hell is going on there guys? Are you just voting for the person who promises the most "interesting" times, for better or for worse?

I think the name-calling really hurt them.

Calling half the voting population bigots of some type just makes that half dig their heels in to give you a bloody nose.

If your main priorities, when running in a political race, does not match the main priorities of the voting masses, it's easier to change your main priorities than to change the main priorities of the voting masses.

For a long time now, the Dems have been trying to change the priorities of the voting masses instead of aligning with them.

They are so used to preaching at their voter base ("This is what a real man is, not what you think it is") that they forgot what the aim of running is - to win.

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Good on the Dems for trying to change the world instead of accepting the hateful and unfair place it is. Hopefully they will get somewhere eventually.

> Good on the Dems for trying to change the world instead of accepting the hateful and unfair place it is.

You can't change the world by losing.

Their primary goal should have been to win. The primary way to do that is to (ugh) pander to the voters' will.

It's because they are so out of touch that we are seeing the result that we see. Politicians that are disconnected and disengaged from the voting masses deserve to lose.

Dictator on day one in the land of the free with the biggest military of the world — but on the other hand the libs were really mad, so that was worth it, right?

> I think the name-calling really hurt them.

This was also the biggest problem of the Remain camp pre-Brexit.

It was too easy to label Leavers as stupid/racist/xenophobic, and that was a huge mistake.

Not everyone who voted for Brexit was a racist, but every racist voted for Brexit. - Bill Bragg

Pretty sure this would work with "Trump" instead of "Brexit".

> Pretty sure this would work with "Trump" instead of "Brexit".

What do you want racists to do? Not vote? They're gonna vote for somebody after all.

No, they get a vote, obviously. You've focussed on the vote part of the quote when the important information was in the racism. It's racism that must be constantly pointed out, that people must be educated about, and racism should be rooted out when found. I'm not saying you support racism in any way, of course, I really don't think that. I just think you misunderstood what needs doing to prevent these unforced errors (Brexit was an unforced error of the UK government).

> It's racism that must be constantly pointed out, that people must be educated about, and racism should be rooted out when found.

As I pointed out in a different post, trying to shame people into silence doesn't magically change their vote.

Unfortunately, when you are going to call every Rep supporter a racist with no evidence other than who they voted for, they are going to stop answering your polls honestly.

Still not gonna change their vote though...

Racists don't need shaming into silence. They need to understand what's wrong with their beliefs.

Going back to the original quote, you need to see that it's not calling all voters a particular thing. There's a simple Venn diagram, one circle of racists inside a larger circle of a particular block of voters.

Educating people out of racism, and removing racism from your society, will change votes as racism is only one aspect of a person's beliefs.

> Racists don't need shaming into silence. They need to understand what's wrong with their beliefs.

They already know, they don't care, because that specific belief is not rooted in reason or rationality.

> Going back to the original quote, you need to see that it's not calling all voters a particular thing. There's a simple Venn diagram, one circle of racists inside a larger circle of a particular block of voters.

> Educating people out of racism, and removing racism from your society, will change votes as racism is only one aspect of a person's beliefs.

I somewhat agree with the first part[1], but vehemently disagree with the second: I don't think that eradicating racist thoughts will move the needle on who gets elected, as there are, IMO, simply too few racists around to influence an election.[2]

[1] IOW, I don't believe that education will change a racist's belief, but I do see value to society in eradicating discriminatory stereotypes and discriminatory actions, of which racism is merely one.

[2] There aren't even enough racists to form a party of their own, so I doubt that them moving from red to blue is going to be any difference from statistical noise.

Turns out people don't like it when the sitting American president calls them "garbage" or when they are called deplorable.

I don't get this argument, since Trump has called tens of folks nasty names, called Harris a communist, marxist, etc. and called Democrats the "enemy within". Why is the standard different for Dems?

>I don't get this argument, since Trump has called tens of folks nasty names, called Harris a communist, marxist, etc. and called Democrats the "enemy within". Why is the standard different for Dems?

I dunno how relevant it is to say "Well, Trump gets away with it" because he stayed on message with his name-calling: the economy. Calling someone a communist is just a hyperbolic way of saying that they don't care for the economy.

OTOH, calling half the voting population stupid has nothing to do with the platform the politician is running on.

I mean, as stupid as it sounds, something like "They're coming for yer guns!!!" is still platform-relevant, while "They're threatened by strong women" isn't.

I guess the takeaway is that targeted and on-topic insulting works but random digressions into personal attacks that have no relevance to the platform don't?

Trump is namecalling politicians, the Dems are namecalling the voters.

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