8.Talk to White Evangelicals. One of the most surprising 2016-election statistics was that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. In 2018, Pew Research found that 75 percent of white evangelical Christians voted for Republican candidates (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/07/how-religious-groups-voted-in-the-midterm-elections/ ).
Writing in the Washington Post, Sociologist Janelle Wong explains Donald Trump's hold over this segment of his base: "I find economic anxiety isn't [their] primary reason for supporting Trump. Rather, white evangelicals fear losing racial status. White evangelicals' perceptions they're the targets of discrimination -- more so than other groups -- influence far more than simply their votes for Trump."
There's no simple strategy for appealing to white-evangelical Christians except to find ways to talk to them and seek common ground. We know that conversations about Trump, immigration, and feminism are unlikely to succeed. Possible positive topics are health insurance (pre-existing conditions), education, and infrastructure-related jobs.
9.Anticipate Trump's fear initiative. Trump's go-to strategy is to appeal to fear. At the conclusion of the 2018 election campaigns, when Trump thought that Republican control of the Senate was in doubt, he invented an immigrant "invasion," blew it out of proportion, and used this fear to motivate his base to vote.
Why didn't the Democrats anticipate this? Why didn't they come up with an effective counter measure?
10.Counter Trump's Tweet of the Day. It's part of Trump's persona to dominate the news each day. Usually with a series of early morning tweets but sometimes with impromptu news conferences. Heading into the 2020 presidential election, Democrats have to find a way to counter this. (Sigh.) Democrats have to have more message discipline.
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