“I would say it’s not speaking to people,” she said. If Democrats want to do better with these voters, she said, it would require spending time with them and asking them what’s on their minds and then listening to their answers. Only then can they try to deliver a message. “There’s so much respect that has to be conveyed to people before they start listening to the message,” she added.
When another person asked why some people seem to vote against their own interests, Cramer again turned the question around. “I’m not claiming people are voting against their own interest,” she said. “We have to be careful about how we define what people’s interests are. . . . The trick is to think about what policies can you offer that people in those positions perceive as in their own interest.”
Cramer noted that the people with whom she has been interacting for nearly a decade were particularly drawn to two elements of Trump’s message. Because they feel disrespected by the urban areas of the state and feel disconnected from government, Trump’s message of division — whether “birtherism” or “build the wall” — resonated, as did his call for dramatic change — his message to “drain the swamp.”
She also said that her post-election interviews in some of these communities revealed a significant lack of confidence that Trump would actually change the lives of people living there. That’s the challenge ahead for the president-elect as he takes office. There are no easy policy ideas to revitalize the economies of these communities.
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