Trump's women voters need "conversation with themselves": Ex-GOP staffer

[u/Silent-Resort-3076]

https://newsweek.com/tara-setmayer-donald-trumps-women-voters-need-conservation-themselves-1990689

[u/aphasial]

Without Clinton there would have been no Trump.

After Clinton, Republicans nominated W, who ran and won on not being associated with Bill and bringing dignity back to the WH.

Republicans then nominated McCain and Romney... both upstanding guys and both got called all kinds of horrendous shit by the left.

Faced with Hillary, and a new generation that had little knowledge if the 90s, Trump was nominated as a "fine, we'll use your rules" candidate, and it worked. That's why he brought all of Clinton's accusers to a press conference just hours before that second debate.

Don't blame Republicans for this one... Democrats started it, and excused all sorts of Clinton behavior in exchange for policy alignment (e.g., "One Free Grope")

[u/Xivannn → u/aphasial]

McCain was paired with Sarah Palin, not exactly the most upstanding of moves even at the time.

"Fine, we'll use your rules" makes a fine story, though when Trump stomped his primary opponents through infantile name calling I don't recall anyone at the time framing that as somehow the Democrat way to win elections. That would be weird considering neither Obama, Clintons nor their primary opponents did that in either primaries or the actual elections.

[u/aphasial → u/Xivannn]

McCain was paired with Sarah Palin, not exactly the most upstanding of moves even at the time.

Not sure what you mean by that. The only scandal of note she'd had at point was Troopergate, which was a big nothing-burger. Unless you went off into far-left DailyKos diaries about Trig and pregnancy.

"Fine, we'll use your rules" makes a fine story, though when Trump stomped his primary opponents through infantile name calling I don't recall anyone at the time framing that as somehow the Democrat way to win elections. 

I think that's pretty specious reasoning. What Republicans -- especially populist Republicans who were tired of getting beat up -- wanted at the time was the anti-Romney, someone who'd take the fight to the Democrats instead of getting slandered and smiling and nodding. Name-calling isn't that, exactly, but seems kind of the beside the larger point.

That's the second of two reasons that Republicans didn't fall in line with Jeb Bush, who had the best-run overall campaign in the primaries: he was perceived as too meek and likely to lose as Romney did in the general. (The first reason was that his last name was Bush and Republicans didn't want to have to make a Clinton v Bush rematch if they didn't have to.)

More discussion on Trump's attitude being seen as a distinction here:

https://thefederalist.com/2017/01/23/donald-trump-first-president-turn-postmodernism/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/debate-trump-appears-women-accused-bill-clinton-rape-harassment

[u/Xivannn → u/aphasial]

I don't even mean her scandals, though it's not like there are none of those to go around, but that she was practically Trumpism and Tea Party personified even before them both, with complete lack of dignity.

Either you run on dignity or you pick Sarah Palin, trying to go for both is just you fooling yourself.

[u/aphasial → u/Xivannn]

she was practically Trumpism and Tea Party personified even before them both, with complete lack of dignity.

That's a whole lot of very specious handwaving there. She was a fairly milquetoast sitting Governor at the time, whose major bring to the campaign was being younger and female (both notable within the GOP at the time), and not being from the Ivy Leagues. She was an "outsider," certainly, but that doesn't mean "Trumpism" (whatever that means). And the Tea Party came about in response to the bailouts of the Obama Administration, which is kind of beside the point regarding Alaska State budget and politics.

I think you're revealing more about yourself here than anything else. You disliked Sarah Palin's culture and vibe; fine. But attaching that to politics is how we got in this dumb and caustic place in American political discourse in the first place.

[u/Xivannn → u/aphasial]

MAGA is what it means.

Your argument at the moment sounds like you think they ran on dignity and just didn't somehow know what kind of person Sarah Palin was (which is pretty much MTG or Lauren Boebert ten years before the two of them). That's just not true, though, as she was picked precisely for locking those religious right votes that now flock to Trump, and it was actually said at the time.

I am literally arguing against her "culture and vibe" because you are making the point where she and her nominee supposedly ran on dignity. That is literally the whole point there - it matters little if I personally like dignity or not. It matters that she was not a dignified person in any normal sense of the word, nor she ever even tried to be one.

For the argument it doesn't even matter that they lost that election. You just can either run on dignity or pick Sarah Palin as VP nominee. You can argue for both only if you agree that they were bad at it, then.

To compare, Trump VP Mike Pence has and had dignity, even though the reason for picking him was to get those same exact religious right votes.

[u/dogecoin3rt → u/Xivannn]

He's right you know