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This is utter madness. If we're lucky, this wheels fall off this whole enterprise and these people are discredited before they do too much harm. It's deeply fr
by acjohnson55 10y ago
This is utter madness. If we're lucky, this wheels fall off this whole enterprise and these people are discredited before they do too much harm.
It's deeply frustrating to hear so much crap analysis of what's been going on. If we're really honest with ourselves about what's happening, we're seeing a massive vote for protectionism of a particular demographics that have long enjoyed it.
People talk a lot about the forgotten white working class voter. And while that's a real thing, that's only half the story. The Trump voters are on the whole wealthier than the Clinton voters. That means there are a whole bunch of people with real money who've decided they can stomach the open bigotry of Trump's campaign because they think ultimately his policies are what they want. That's why the incumbents of the GOP largely never fled his side, no matter how obscene his personal conduct.
To be really blunt, Trump's entire track record says "if you're white and wealthy, I've obviously got your back", and his words have said, "if you're white and struggling, it's brown people who stand in your way". In that way, he's managed to get an extremely energetic white vote.
This election will be forever remembered for just how lurid it has been. From the very beginning of the Republican primary, it's been Trump who continually lowered the bar. God help us all if we do in fact end up with literally the least qualified Commander in Chief of American history. Going to sleep now, deeply discouraged.
- hubert123 10y ago> To be really blunt, Trump's entire track record says "if you're white and wealthy, I've obviously got your back", and his words have said, "if you're white and struggling, it's brown people who stand in your way". In that way, he's managed to get an extremely energetic white vote. yeah and exactly because of this kind of insane, bogus "analysis" you lost. When or if you find back the connection to reality, you will realize how Trump actually won. By talking about real issues that nobody else even dares to touch.
- dibstern 10y agoWhat 'real issues' are you talking about? What was anyone else scared at all to touch?
- problems 10y agoI assume he's referring to a lot of blue collar workers getting the shit end of the stick on trade deals. It's the rust belt that carried him to the presidency after all.
- SolarUpNote 10y agoWhat's an issue that Trump talks about?
- M_Grey 10y agoThe only pleasure I'm going to take in this mess, is that people who think like you are representative of the population who will be crushed under Trump and the GOP congresses' boots. You think it's bad now, wait until you see what's coming.
- tobltobs 10y agoBut those simpletons will then not assign blame to the new overlord or to themselves. The culprits will be immigrants, jews, muslims, environmental activists, journalists or whatever they don't like.
- victorbojica 10y agoyeah, like NATO disruption and how he admires Putin ?
- teekert 10y agoI think admiration goes a bit far, but and even if he does, it's far better than the default "Russians are bad mmmkay" attitude that most politicians have. There is a real opportunity for nice relations with Russia here. As a European I prefer it much to the war mongering of Kelly that damaged Russian and European business and relations and just fosters hate.
- zn44 10y agoBy nice relations you mean: sure take Ukraine and we don't care about Baltic states?
- rdtsc 10y agoWhy doesn't EU take care of that? They are closer, it is right in their backyard it affects them more?
- teekert 10y agoThe EU is already taking Ukraine. Not by force but by politics, we already helped Poroshenko in place there. too bad some countries prefer not to associate with corruption ridden Ukraine [0]. But hey, EU leaders usually don't care what voters think (we got the Treaty of Lisbon after we voted no on the EU constitution). [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35976086 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35976086
- zn44 10y agoEU surprisingly did take strong position when Ukraine crisis started. Only way EU countries can stand against Russia is if they have backing of NATO. Without this noone will take the risk.
- dancryer 10y ago
- victorbojica 10y agoyeah, like NATO disruption and how he admires Putin ?
- pmoriarty 10y agoSince when were American politics about issues rather than image? People who voted for Trump clearly liked his bombastic asshole style, and want to stick it to the "liberal elite". There happened to be more of them this time around than there were people afraid enough of a Trump presidency to vote for a relatively subdued and conventional candidate. That's, of course, given that there wasn't enough voting fraud to make a difference, which with electronic voting machines in the mix isn't really a given.
- inimino 10y agoClinton underperformed her polling pretty consistently across the country. That pretty much rules out any kind of voter fraud as an explanation.
- pmoriarty 10y agoPollers have been spectacularly wrong before.. coming out with some really sorry and unbelievable excuses for their errors. Voters somehow seem to swallow them, however. So the spectacle continues.
- hubert123 10y agoWith some glee I have saved a screenshot from the huffpo website, confidently putting Trump's chances at about 1.7% I think it was.
- paulddraper 10y agoPlease share.
- tutts 10y ago>Since when were American politics about issues rather than image? Since today, apparently.
- reitanqild 10y ago
- Scarblac 10y agoThose are the real issues that were discussed. People talk as if it's normal that blacks and latinos mostly vote as a block, well now white working class does as well.
- rdtsc 10y agoExactly. And now it is wrong that blue collar workers from fly-over states have voted as a block. Yet nobody questions Hillary for organizing a rap concert to attract African American voters and expecting them to vote as a block. Most of all, I think they would be surprised to find out how many Bernie Sanders supporters have switched to Trump. Some I imagine will never admit it to their co-workers or friends, but I know many have never forgot being back-stabbed. The funny thing is, the Democrats could have easily win this. They screwed up so badly, multiple times in a row, despite all the media help, and all the money donated to them, all the help from the DOJ and POTUS.
- neaanopri 10y agoWell the image of the establishment lining up against trump was one of his greatest gifts.
- digler999 10y ago> They screwed up so badly, multiple times in a row I hope one of the things they learned about this was that negative campaign ads dont work. I dont want to hear what shocking, Bad Thing the other guy said. In a 30 second radio spot, tell me what you're going to do, why that will help, and how its better than the way the opponent will handle it. You can only smear dirt on a surface once.
- denzil_correa 10y ago> By talking about real issues that nobody else even dares to touch. Curious - What were these real issues?
- ubernostrum 10y agoWhen or if you find back the connection to reality, you will realize how Trump actually won. Trump won by appealing to people who historically felt they were and deserved to be the in-control majority but now feel they are the not-in-control minority, and he won by claiming he would make them feel like an in-control majority again. It is that simple. It is also simply the case that the people who historically felt they were and deserved to be the in-control majority were white men. Populism in American politics is nothing new. Nor is populism oriented on racial lines. There is no secret "untouchable" issue lurking behind it. You pick a large group, capable of forming a powerful voting bloc, a group that believes it has reason to feel resentful, to feel cheated out of power that's rightfully theirs, to feel that "elites" are conspiring against them to ruin the country, and you tell them they deserve power and you're going to give it back to them. Exactly 120 years ago, William Jennings Bryan ran on a similar platform of "restoring" political and economic power to people who felt they once had it, lost it, and deserved to have it once again. In the process he delivered one of the objectively greatest political addresses in American history (the "Cross of Gold" speech). The only difference is Bryan lost the electoral college by about the same margin Trump won it by.
- hubert123 10y agoWell you're wrong, what else can I say. You think you are so right that anything that disagrees with your position must be a racial power issue. It just isn't like that. It is definitely part of it - dont get me wrong, but the much much bigger part is actual policy issues.
- ubernostrum 10y agoWell you're wrong, what else can I say. An articulate and well-reasoned rebuttal. You think you are so right that anything that disagrees with your position must be a racial power issue. I think I've read my history book. I think this has happened before. I think the economic system that working-class white people without college degrees favor is one that only worked so long as people with the "wrong" skin color were either held in literal bondage or legally prohibited from competing with people who had the "right" skin color. I think the past century has seen an enormous effort to tear down the system which protected those white working-class non-college-educated people from competition, on grounds that this sort of protectionism is morally odious. I think the "economic anxiety" of Trump voters is nothing more than a yearning for a return to that sort of protectionism. I think it's possible many of them are viewing history through extremely rose-colored glasses in order not to see the magnitude of the evil that had to be perpetrated to maintain their position, but that doesn't excuse it.
- komali2 10y agoTrump won because: >I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about n*, and they stomped the floor. -George Wallace He took a very simple road. He appealed to the fear of the Other.
- sharemywin 10y agoThe problem with your analysis, he didn't pull any more voters than Romney. He didn't win, Hillary lost.
- discardorama 10y ago> Trump actually won. By talking about real issues that nobody else even dares to touch. Like Obama's birth certificate? Or Benghazi?
- popmystack 10y ago> By talking about real issues that nobody else even dares to touch. Please enumerate them in a coherent fashion.
- jkestner 10y agoThis election will be forever remembered for just how lurid it has been. I hope you're right. That'll mean it's an exception.
- vatotemking 10y ago> In that way, he's managed to get an extremely energetic white vote. Does this mean the majority of Americans are secretly inherently racist? Note: I am not from the US and this a genuine question and no offense meant.
- hueving 10y agoThis is what Hillary supporters would like to portray about any Trump voter, and it's frankly the reason they got such a surprise. They failed to even attempt to understand why people voted for Trump. Just wrote everyone off as racists and bigots.
- CalChris 10y agoRacists, bigots and misogynists. You left out misogynists. Well, that and y'all have got a serious hardon for Putin.
- throwaway-hn123 10y ago> Just wrote everyone off as racists and bigots. Not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist and a bigot. BUT, anyone who is a racist and a bigot voted for Trump.
- umanwizard 10y agoMaybe true but how is that relevant to GP's point?
- throwaway-hn123 10y agoIt's pretty obvious. I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself.
- hueving 10y agoCute sound bite, but there is no proof of it, unless you are subscribing to the 'only whites are racist' definition of racism. Anyone who believes in quotas for hiring is a racist/sexist and they likely voted for Hillary.
- hueving 10y agoPoor rural people voted for Trump. I'd like to see a citation showing that trump voters had a higher income.
- croon 10y agoHere you go [1]: Income Clinton Trump Under 30K 48% 32% 30K-50K 44% 38% 50-75K 37% 44% 75K+ 41% 49% [1] http://www.investors.com/politics/ibd-tipp-presidential-election-poll/ http://www.investors.com/politics/ibd-tipp-presidential-elec...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- qyv 10y agoDisclosure: Canadian here. Trump won because the Democrats railroaded their best candidate in favor of someone who is profoundly unlikeable and untrustworthy. Regardless of if she is truly a criminal, or not, the Democratic party choose a candidate who is under investigation by the FBI instead of a candidate that had real honest to god connection with the working people of the country. The voters have literally said that even Trump is better than what the Democrats have tried to ram down their throats this election. This election was lost, not won.
- problems 10y agoYou're not kidding. Wikileaks posted this on twitter just earlier. They even wanted to be up against Trump: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cwy_92NWEAAwyqe.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cwy_92NWEAAwyqe.jpg:large Well, guess that worked out great for them. The DNC is the biggest screw up of this whole election I think.
- waterphone 10y agoI wonder how the people who dreamt up that scheme and manipulated the media into pushing Trump so they could go up against him are feeling this morning.
- pedalpete 10y agoAlso Canadian (damn, we sound so smug now), I've been saying the same thing. But seems Americans think Socialism is a bad word. They've forgotten the opportunity they had with Bernie. On the flipside, seems the "potentially" closest candidate to Bernie in this election is Trump. He actually has talked about controlling Wall Street, bringing back manufacturing jobs, less military, and if you look at money raised during this election, I'd say he has won the Presidency without bringing tons of big dollars in to politics (I could be wrong on some of these). Of course, their methods are completely different and they differ hugely on other issues. I'm not suggesting that Trump is a good replacement for Bernie, but you can see how Bernie supporters would see him as a better alternative than Clinton.
- deleted 10y ago
- orthoganol 10y agoSincerely, I am confused by this analysis. All the media outlets have talked ad-infinitum about how Trump supporters are predominantly uneducated whites, typically from rural areas, and how college educated whites support Clinton. Hillary without question had Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the DC circuit behind her, which are large epicenters of wealthy white, elite people. There is without doubt a terrifying aspect of white nationalism behind Trump, but unless you have statistics I am not aware of, the white elites, maybe outside of Texas, were not behind Trump. EDIT - to add what I believe is a hopeful note, Trump's election isn't a great reading of the pulse of the nation; Bernie Sanders could have been in my opinion, easily, the president elect. The DNC selected the less competitive candidate as the result of a dishonest primary.
- rdtsc 10y agoI think there are many hidden Trump voters. They might never disclose at work or among friends their choice, but I suspected many did. I was watching both the Hillary and Trump Reddit channels, and on Trumps' channel there was a constant stream of educated people (doctors, programmers, lawyers), a large number of non-whites, LGBT, ex-Bernie people there and so on. On Hillary's side there was a constant -- "Ah look at those stupid sexists, hating us for wanting a a woman President" type of complacency. So the result was surprising, but not too surprising at the same time. > Bernie Sanders could have been in my opinion, easily, the president elect Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump, no doubt.
- orthoganol 10y agoYet a significant portion of the hidden Trump voters were more anti-Hillary than happy about Trump. Sam Altman declared support for Hillary because he was anti-Trump; likewise people supported Trump because they were anti-Hillary. I believe if you have no identity politics affiliations, if you read WikiLeaks, it is challenging to keep supporting Hillary, unless you have strong beliefs that Trump is still the worse of the two.
- jessedhillon 10y ago
- hellofunk 10y ago> "if you're white and wealthy, I've obviously got your back" What disappointments me more than anything is how all the minority American citizens will feel knowing that the majority of the people they know preferred a man who has for many months publicly and explicitly insulted their own race and ethnicity. How do you reconcile that? I have no idea.
- Lich 10y ago"I think alot of people feel like that, uh, America told them exactly - African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, you name it...Asians...I think alot of people tonight are feeling like, you know, [the] United States told me exactly what they think of me." - James Carville, after Trump's win.
- hellofunk 10y agoI've never disagreed with Carville. He did something similar in 1992 and knows what he's talking about.
- chillacy 10y agoI'd think that latino voters in particular would be offended most by trump, but according to exit polls, a whopping 31% of latino voters went to trump in Florida: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/08/politics/first-exit-polls-2016/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/08/politics/first-exit-polls-2016...
- hellofunk 10y agoMost latinos in Florida are not of Mexican descent, and Trump's comments were most hurtful for Mexicans, so that might partly explain it.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y agoFlorida's Latino population is unusual (relative to the rest of the country) because of all the people who settled there after fleeing Cuba. It's typical for them to vote and identify heavily Republican based on issues around US-Cuba relations (Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are both of Cuban ancestry, for example).
- imcrs 10y agoI'm not agreeing or disagreeing -- but Trump actually got less than Romney did in 2012 among white voters. Race is certainly a part of this election, like it is all elections in the USA, but not all.
- jesusthatsgreat 10y agoIf there's a huge racial divide as you're making out, with white people outnumbering all others, why was Obama elected twice? Trump literally lives in a gold skyscraper with his name in large lettering on it so he's not exactly someone people should be able to relate to or vice versa but people like him because he doesn't talk down to them and doesn't schmooze his way around the celebrity and political circuit trying to cultivate an image of presidential perfection. He speaks off the cuff, he knows how to draw a crowd, he tweets his mind and he's worked his ass off to get around to as many locations as possible and people also respect that. They're sick of pre-prepared speeches, evasive answers, lies and pure corruption. Trump is a big wrecking ball that the people have chosen to smash up the current political system. The majority of politicians today are career politicians, detached from reality and detached from normality.
- machbio 10y ago> He speaks off the cuff, he knows how to draw a crowd, he tweets his mind and he's worked his ass off to get around to as many locations as possible and people also respect that. They're sick of pre-prepared speeches, evasive answers, lies and pure corruption. Number of Press Conferences - Trump 17+ Hillary 0
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]