8 ms·

Sincerely, I am confused by this analysis. All the media outlets have talked ad-infinitum about how Trump supporters are predominantly uneducated whites, typica

Sincerely, 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Yet 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
    I'm curious what you think a Wikileaks voter would've read that would be as damning as you claim.
    - orthoganol 10y ago
      It's a general portrait. I'm speaking as a Bernie supporter. Probably most salient, which I think was Peter Thiel's decisive issue, is her seeming to be pro-war and the enthusiastic support of the arms industry (biggest arms deal in history to Saudi Arabia, exports doubled under tenure, etc.), and probably the worst here was showing how she, even against the wishes of many Obama insiders, pursued regime change in Libya to have an 'accomplishment' to campaign on. Then, it would probably be the connections with corruption, via "pay-to-play" as they referred to it through the Clinton Foundation while SOS (particularly with Gulf States), and, after revelations of DWS's corrupt actions in the DNC, the seeming impunity to promote her. Maybe a final concerning image to a Bernie supporter was her position as a cog among the big banks (most poignant here was Wall Street's list for Obama's cabinet, who in fact came to be the cabinet). Arguably it's more about the DC establishment than HRC, and this characterization of her should be taken to task, but this was, in my opinion, the portrait left by WikiLeaks.
      - jessedhillon 10y ago
        My point is that almost none of those positions are backed up by any Wikileaks evidence. It's just comforting to know that there's a big pile of "something" out there, and in it is probably something that supports what you believe.
        orthoganol 10y ago
        All of the points I mentioned are backed up by emails from WikiLeaks, directly. I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
        jessedhillon 10y ago
WillPostForFood 10y ago
Trump ended up winning the college educated white vote.
- orthoganol 10y ago
  Are there post election statistics available? Electoral votes from working class, rust belt states - Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin - are arguably the main reason Trump won, as Michael Moore predicted.
  - maxsilver 10y ago
    I think your both saying roughly the same thing. "College educated whites" and "working class rust belt voters who are unemployed/under-employed" are largely overlapping groups in places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
mstade 10y ago
My highly unscientific analysis of the numbers is that Trump won in many rural and less populous districts, whereas Hillary won the more densely populated districts. This by itself probably isn't much of a surprise, and the less populous districts have significantly fewer votes – but there are more of them. Combine a strong Trump performance in these small districts with an underperforming Hillary in the others, along with a number of flipped districts, and it becomes clear how Trump won. (Note: how, not why.) The WaPo map is pretty good: https://www.washingtonpost.com/2016-election-results/us-presidential-race/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/2016-election-results/us-pres... Check the results for Wisconsin for instance, and you'll find a lot flipped districts. In Michigan, the Detroit stronghold saw a drop of 8,6 points compared to the 2012 vote. To be fair, it looks like Wayne County (where Detroit is) according to that map isn't fully counted so this may very well change, but it's at 98.9% reporting so that'd have to be a pretty significant chunk of votes to widen that margin. Again, this is armchair analysis so I may very well be writing bullcrap, but it looks to me that the Trump campaign where confident in keeping the red states and focused pretty hard on flipping some of the states the Democrats really didn't think they could possibly win, along with a strong push to win Florida. Those 29 electoral votes from the sunshine state really opened things up for Trump.

rdtsc 10y ago

I 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 ago
Yet 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
  I'm curious what you think a Wikileaks voter would've read that would be as damning as you claim.
  - orthoganol 10y ago
    It's a general portrait. I'm speaking as a Bernie supporter. Probably most salient, which I think was Peter Thiel's decisive issue, is her seeming to be pro-war and the enthusiastic support of the arms industry (biggest arms deal in history to Saudi Arabia, exports doubled under tenure, etc.), and probably the worst here was showing how she, even against the wishes of many Obama insiders, pursued regime change in Libya to have an 'accomplishment' to campaign on. Then, it would probably be the connections with corruption, via "pay-to-play" as they referred to it through the Clinton Foundation while SOS (particularly with Gulf States), and, after revelations of DWS's corrupt actions in the DNC, the seeming impunity to promote her. Maybe a final concerning image to a Bernie supporter was her position as a cog among the big banks (most poignant here was Wall Street's list for Obama's cabinet, who in fact came to be the cabinet). Arguably it's more about the DC establishment than HRC, and this characterization of her should be taken to task, but this was, in my opinion, the portrait left by WikiLeaks.
    - jessedhillon 10y ago
      My point is that almost none of those positions are backed up by any Wikileaks evidence. It's just comforting to know that there's a big pile of "something" out there, and in it is probably something that supports what you believe.
      - orthoganol 10y ago
        All of the points I mentioned are backed up by emails from WikiLeaks, directly. I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
        jessedhillon 10y ago

WillPostForFood 10y ago

Trump ended up winning the college educated white vote.

orthoganol 10y ago
Are there post election statistics available? Electoral votes from working class, rust belt states - Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin - are arguably the main reason Trump won, as Michael Moore predicted.
- maxsilver 10y ago
  I think your both saying roughly the same thing. "College educated whites" and "working class rust belt voters who are unemployed/under-employed" are largely overlapping groups in places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.

mstade 10y ago

My highly unscientific analysis of the numbers is that Trump won in many rural and less populous districts, whereas Hillary won the more densely populated districts. This by itself probably isn't much of a surprise, and the less populous districts have significantly fewer votes – but there are more of them. Combine a strong Trump performance in these small districts with an underperforming Hillary in the others, along with a number of flipped districts, and it becomes clear how Trump won. (Note: how, not why.) The WaPo map is pretty good: https://www.washingtonpost.com/2016-election-results/us-presidential-race/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/2016-election-results/us-pres... Check the results for Wisconsin for instance, and you'll find a lot flipped districts. In Michigan, the Detroit stronghold saw a drop of 8,6 points compared to the 2012 vote. To be fair, it looks like Wayne County (where Detroit is) according to that map isn't fully counted so this may very well change, but it's at 98.9% reporting so that'd have to be a pretty significant chunk of votes to widen that margin. Again, this is armchair analysis so I may very well be writing bullcrap, but it looks to me that the Trump campaign where confident in keeping the red states and focused pretty hard on flipping some of the states the Democrats really didn't think they could possibly win, along with a strong push to win Florida. Those 29 electoral votes from the sunshine state really opened things up for Trump.