Calling a spade a spade isn't an electoral strategy, it's just an important ethical principle. A lot of people are in favor of currying favor with racists by not being so vocal in opposition to them due to the fact that racism is getting more votes nowadays and bigots have become very skilled at shaming liberals into feeling bad about calling them bigots. You wanna cast your lot in with that crowd? Fine.
Oh yeah alt right extremists like Joe Biden and Michael Moore who have correctly pointed out that there's a lot of Obama-Trump voters and that not all Trump voters were racist is such a terrible crowd. I'm guessing you're throwing your lot in with the idiot brigade screaming racist at everything who've managed to fuck up the Democratic Party at a national level.
Yes, he won by minuscule margins in the rust belt in large part because of the economic problems there. So what did he say was the cause of the economic problems? You're supposed to say that Trump lambasted Wall Street and economic elites as the cause of the problems - you know, the "right" bad guys. Well look at his speeches. He blames immigration and foreign trade. This is lite racism mixed with economic illiteracy.
Trade protectionism is xenophobic? Oh Jesus you must be incredibly young and naive. The Democratic Party has used trade protectionism as a wedge issue to keep the rust belt in their column. Obama won the primary in 2008 by attacking Hillary on Nafta and trade and won in 2012 by casting Romney as a rich guy who supports outsourcing.
But it's okay when Obama does it! It's okay when the Democrats use the same strategy for decades by god forbid if Trump copies us! Give me a break.
I have yet to see any evidence that Obama-Trump voters exist to any statistically significant degree. Trump won in those regions by bringing out people who tended not to vote, not by flipping longtime democrats. That's why the polls were wrong - they polled people who were likely voters. Had the likely voters (i.e. people who voted in the past and maybe had voted for Obama) been the deciding factor, the polls would have shown it. Instead what he did was bring out a lot of people who were never polled because they weren't consistent voters, i.e. they probably didn't vote for Obama.
Again, total bullshit. Source. 7% of Obama voters went for Trump this time around. That's over 4 and a half million Obama voters that couldn't stand to vote for Hillary Clinton. And if you look at the county swing map it's crystal clear that the strongest Obama-Trump swings occurred in those rust belt states.
I'm not in the interest of chucking civil rights and egalitarian policymaking on the funeral pyre just because people want to eke out a few more votes. (That'll be what the mainstream DNC wants to do, btw, who I'm going to assume you hate). I'm interested in politics because of ethical reasons, not because I just want my team to win.
Yeah it's so ethical to call a bunch of people racists and throw away any other reason they might have voted for Trump. I doubt any of whom you've ever even spoken to in your little bubble. You are exactly the reason why people don't like liberals and I can't say that I blame them at this point.