18 ms·

The unbearable smugness of the press

163 points by andrenth 10y ago

spiderfarmer 10y ago
As a European, this article on cracked.com (yes, cracked.com) gave me a lot of insight into why / how Trump won. http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on... It's Brexit all over again. Will the politicians in my country (NL) learn to listen to 'the other half', before their campaigns start (next spring)? Probably not.
- helthanatos 10y ago
  Trump won because people are sick of SJWs. He won because people are sick of being called racists when they're not. He won because his opponent was objectively worse. Any other democrat running against him would have probably led to different results, but the bickering between the children turned out in Trump's favor. It's ridiculous that either one ran. All we can do now is hope Trump does well. It really wouldn't be that hard to do "well"; we haven't had a good president for quite many years.
  - mariodiana 10y ago
    It's overall a very good opinion piece, but this little ditty didn't escape my notice: > We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. "Medical problems"? I don't know much about these things, but isn't this what some would call a "microagression"? Eh, I'm going to give the guy a pass. At least he's trying.
    - douche 10y ago
      I think the thrust is, "we don't understand the real problem, lets call it something that we think we know about." All in all, I think it's a pretty solid article, and hits on a lot of the rural-urban disjunctions that I've experienced, as a redneck Mainer from up near the Canadian border having to move out of 1950s-throwback-world.
  - spiderfarmer 10y ago
    According to the article, there is more to it than just hating sucial justice warriors. The fact that rural infrastructure is crumbling, jobs are lost and not returning and the fact that during 8 years with a democrat at the helm didn't change much for them. It is enough for a lot of people to seriously consider the alternative, especially if the (untrusted) establishment hates this alternative.
    - Veen 10y ago
      > The fact that rural infrastructure is crumbling That's what I don't get. Do Trump voters think he gives a flying fuck about the state of rural infrastructure or the lives of poor people? I don't see it. Sure, the incumbent elite are feckless, tribal, irresponsible, greedy, and dishonest, but Trump is worse, obviously so. I guess that's the problem in a two-party system. Usually you choose the better of two bad options. In this case, all the options were so bad that people just said "fuck it".
      - christophilus 10y ago
        I know democrats who voted for Trump. One of the reasons is that he is planning on investing $500,000,000,000 in infrastructure, including rural infrastructure. So yes, I think economics played a large role in his win.
        Veen 10y ago
        But I'd ask myself where is that half-a-trillion dollars going to come from, on top of the increases in military spending, the thousands-of-miles-long Mexico wall, the massively expensive roundups and deportations, and so on. Especially when taxes are apparently also going to be reduced. And asking myself that question, I'd think his promises somewhat empty and opportunistic.
        tzs 10y ago
        Obama pushed hard for big spending on infrastructure from the start of his first term. Not only do we need it in general, but then it also would have greatly helped push the recovery from the recession along. Republicans in Congress were able to block it until they took control of both Houses, and then it was effectively dead. Do they really think Trump has a better chance of getting Congress to pass a large infrastructure bill? I haven't looked into it in great detail, but from what I have seen it doesn't look like the incoming Republican House and Senate are at all inclined to be looser with the pursestrings now. Also, Clinton's plan also called for large infrastructure spending, although only about half of what Trump's plan calls for. That makes it hard for me to understand why a Democrat who voted for Trump would cite infrastructure spending as a reason.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    And here I thought Trump won because of record low voter turnouts. Everyone has a theory.
    - ascagnel_ 10y ago
      The current popular vote total stands at 127MM votes cast, and the Attorney General of California has already announced that they have at least 3MM absentee and provisional ballots to check, so it's expected that turnout will exceed 2012's 129MM votes cast.
      - Spare_account 10y ago
        Forgive me for going off-topic here but I'm curious about your reason for using MM to designate 'million'?
        teh_klev 10y ago
        I think in the financial industry, particularly in the US, MM is often used to signify millions. MM is also one million in Roman numerals (1000(M) x 1000(M)). See also: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/181917/mixing-use-of-k-for-thousands-and-mm-for-millions https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/181917/mixing-us... I don't think there's any hard and fast rules globally how one specifies "millions": https://www.quora.com/What-should-be-the-abbreviation-for-million-M-or-MM?shared=1 https://www.quora.com/What-should-be-the-abbreviation-for-mi...
        ddlatham 10y ago
        Wouldn't it be 2000 in Roman numerals?
        teh_klev 10y ago
        I thought that too, but there's an implied multiplier. I'm guessing it's one of those examples of borrow and abuse things.
  - acqq 10y ago
    > his opponent was objectively worse If he really continues with global warming denial and make real effects based on that idea, I'd like to see who will dare to say that to his kids. Just this single issue is enough to make the whole difference. https://thinkprogress.org/trump-victory-climate-a0c595572299 https://thinkprogress.org/trump-victory-climate-a0c595572299 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_H... That's also the biggest issue that's still not clear in the confused heads of too much US citizens, and where the real action is needed. Misinformation paid by the oil companies sadly worked. The good proof than even the side that sees other manipulations isn't immune at all. As one thinker said: "when you look at somebody and hold your head and think how come the other side just doesn't see the facts, there's a simple answer: you're an idiot, and, by the way, the other side is too. People aren't rational. The proof: almost 50-50 opinions, even among the supposedly "smart" people, on some important subject -- how probable is that to be the reflection of the real rational state of the truthfulness of the issue in question. Effectively zero."
  - pjc50 10y ago
    > objectively worse On what objective metric(s)? Answering this properly is extremely hard.
    - pg314 10y ago
      There is one objective metric on which she definitely was worse: telling lies. And by worse I mean, he told many more of them.
  - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
    That's part of it, but I wouldn't put it at more than 20-30% of the total explanation.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Ummm that article doesn't seem to notice the whole shit ton of blue in the rural northeast. Like the entirety of Vermont and the Berkshires in Massachusetts. The most populous part of Connecticut appear to be the red parts of Connecticut (looks like Bridgeport?). It's hard to tell but the red parts of New Hampshire seem to be around Portsmouth? Which isn't exactly a city in the traditional sense of the word but certainly nowhere near rural. As an aside Portsmouth drivers are seriously the most polite drivers I've ever encountered. The red part of new York is Buffalo which is the second most populous city in new York state! EDIT: now that I look closer it appears Rochester and Buffalo seem to be tiny little blue dots surrounded by red. Does this person think the entire Northeast is a giant city?
  - douche 10y ago
    I don't think you can discount the populations of elderly Democratic voters in these New England rural areas. People that have been voting Democrat since Kennedy or longer. Maine tilted pretty hard, with the rural 2nd District going convincingly for Trump. However, LePage also gets a lot of support and approval from those same regions, even now, with everything he's said and done, so we may just like blowhards.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      I'm not discounting anything just saying the map the author used as proof of his or her hypothesis doesn't follow for the Northeast of the US from first glance. The thing that really stuck out for me was New Hampshire and Vermont. Though it's hard to tell for sure with a tiny unlabeled map. Anyone got a bigger one?
      - douche 10y ago
        With Vermont, it's sort of notoriously infested with hippies. I'm kind of joking there, but there's a kernel of truth to it. Out of the three rural New England states, Vermont is always the farthest left, and in places there, Bernie Sanders would be considered too much of a centrist. I'm not sure New Hampshire really falls into anyplace reasonable on the 1D Republican-Democrat axis, except for a standard deviation one way or the other from the middle, shifting with the winds. If you add in the authoritarian/libertarian axis to make it 2D, NH is pretty far up the liberty scale. No income tax, no sales tax, extremely minimal firearms regulation, hell, you don't even have to wear a seatbelt if you don't want to. The southern parts of the state are starting to turn into commuter satellites of Boston, to some extent, but it hasn't really eroded that "Live free or die" character.
- shaftoe 10y ago
  That article struck a chord with me. I live in a city, but I am not of a city. The no-car, 600-square-foot-apartment, minimalist, trendy-restaurant, latest-social-justice-fashion people that surround me feel like a gang of condescending children. They wave policies with reaching consequences like foam fingers at a sports game. They are mugged and then bend themselves into a pretzel to avoid describing the attacker as black and explain the crime as a symptom of economic injustice. They pretend like Hillary doesn't have 20 years of corrupt history and an attitude that approximates the worst of European nobility. I don't like Trump, but sometimes a giant orange middle finger is needed to break out of a rut.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Does this actually happen? It sounds like a total caricature of what someone thinks city folk are like. I mean, I spent the majority of my life in cities of different sizes and also have friends across the entire Northeast and I travel a lot. Nothing like this actually happens. My extended family are casual racists and complain a lot about Puerto Ricans. Hillary was widely unpopular with everyone I know, liberal, conservative, and moderate. I don't know a single minimalist but know a lot of people who complain they are poor while buying a bunch of junk. When my house was broken into by unknown assailants a friend of mine said "It must be niggers." Nobody really goes around talking about political policies very much, it's almost never a topic of conversation. We are generally just a bunch of normal people and none of us actually do that stuff. We have different culture and mostly different activities than rural Americans but we are not at all like you describe. We do go to restaurants, coffee shops and bars a lot but never because it's trendy. Actually now that I think of it that wasn't big in one of the cities I lived in. >They are mugged and then bend themselves into a pretzel to avoid describing the attacker as black This is absurd and nobody is bending anything. People i know who got mugged said "I got mugged." I do admit i never heard "I got mugged by a black man" but probably because that information isn't entirely relevant but no bending like a pretzel. Unless you believe bending like a pretzel means "not bitching endlessly about an entire race because of the actions of on person."
    - shaftoe 10y ago
- CoolGuySteve 10y ago
  In a way, rural America was a tech bubble. In the 19th century and earlier, factories were in the city or near water. As the interstate system made shipping cheaper, factories moved out of the cities and coastlines for cheaper land and labor. Now container shipping has moved factories into cheaper countries altogether. But we have generations of people that have lived in these rural factory towns which now have no factory. The issue is real and Donald Trump was the only one addressing it. It's just too bad Donald Trump was the only one addressing it.
  - strange_quark 10y ago
    But Trump didn't actually address it. He acknowledged the problem but didn't provide any tangible solution other than "I'm going to bring your jobs back" which is never going to happen. As you said, rural manufacturing was a buble.
    - CoolGuySteve 10y ago
      He said he would renegotiate NAFTA, pull out of the TPP, and do something nebulous involving labeling China as a "currency manipulator". Earlier in his campaign he said he was going to introduce tariffs as well, but I guess that statement didn't count since it's no longer in his "Contract with the American Voter". These are all strategies to add economic friction to importing foreign goods. Then he has his immigration push to block importing cheap labour from abroad. The end result is that American manufacturing and farming done by American citizens will see some improvement but at the expense of the economy as a whole. I'm not sure if he or his advisers really think of the manufacturing decline as a logical advance of shipping technology. When framed that way, they seem like luddites tearing down the cotton mills. But the platform is definitely not as illogical as everyone makes it seem.
      - tzs 10y ago
        > These are all strategies to add economic friction to importing foreign goods. They also add economic friction to exporting US made goods, unless these renegotiations somehow manage to result in deals that are very one sided in favor of the US. The US exports about $310 billion worth of goods annually to Canada, and about $240 billion to Mexico. A lot of US jobs are involved in making those goods. For some reason I don't understand, exports almost always seem to get overlooked when politicians go on about trade.
- enobrev 10y ago
  I appreciated that article, though I hated the headline and the format. I shared it a couple times and had to make apologies for both in order to ensure people would actually read it. The cracked format better serves pop-culture rants. I found this article similarly enlightening, and a far better read. https://www.propublica.org/article/revenge-of-the-forgotten-class https://www.propublica.org/article/revenge-of-the-forgotten-...
jasode 10y ago
As a non-Trump supporter who's frightened that a loose cannon like him can have his finger on the big red nuclear button, I'm disappointed but not surprised that the mainstream media was smug. Here's an example MSNBC video clip showing what the article is talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zL-ip6GH4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zL-ip6GH4c At the 23 second mark in the video, you can see Brian Williams' body language struggling to contain his condescension for Mark Halperin's interpretation of the poll statistics that could point to a Trump victory. Mark wasn't saying Trump will win or even has a good chance of winning. Mark was just saying there's a possible path to winning. Even discussing what's mathematically possible with plenty of hedging, disclaimers, caveats, and uncertainty -- is ridiculed by the mainstream press. Everyone who thinks like Brian was caught up in the same delusion. If they dismiss one of their own professional peers with a minority perspective, it shouldn't be a surprise they treat rural Americans with condescension. (It turned out that Mark was correct in that Trump's late surge would affect the battleground states and that Clinton would misjudge the continued support of previous Obama voters.) Looking back, a journalist could have assessed Mark's interpretation of the data in 2 ways: #1) the poll data is a priori correct (there is no hidden Trump vote missed by pollsters) and therefore Mark sees something in the data because he's sympathetic to Trump #2) Mark is open to the possibility of Trump winning and therefore can see something in the poll data and make (hedged) conclusions about it that all Trump opponents are blind to It may seem like positions #1 and #2 are just rearranging the words but they are stating opposite cause & effect. They have profound differences in reality. Brian and the rest of msm interpreted any favorable Trump conclusions about the data as situation #1. It's the same situation with taking Trump's chances seriously when he's characterized as "a clown" or "he insults women": #1) Trump can't win because he insults women. #2) Trump can win regardless of whether he insults women. The mainstream media and elites focused on #1. The election results proved the actual voters standing in line to choose Trump saw the reality as #2.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  I think against Elizabeth Warren for example the anti-women sentiment would of had a greater effect on the outcome. Hillary Clinton's comments about Monica Lewinsky while first lady and her defence of Bill's actions makes this a bit of a pot kettle black situation. Somebody like Bernie can take the moral high ground on sexism and racism in a way that Hillary's record prevents her from doing so.
aphexairlines 10y ago
No mention of the lower turnout this year (even as the population continues to grow) or that most voters were actually #WithHer. The media are suckers for the overton window, and this is calling for more of the same kid gloves that they used during the Bush/Cheney years. No, thanks.
- helthanatos 10y ago
  That's not true at all
  - chestervonwinch 10y ago
    Using [1], which is still incomplete, and [2], I calculate: Turnout (2016) = 49.43% = (60071781 + 59791135) / 242470820 * 100 Using [3], back to 1932 (for no particular reason), I calculate: Turnout (1932-2012) = 55.64(± 3.92)% Obviously, caveats are that (1) the 2016 percentage will continue increase slightly, and (2) using turnouts back until 1932 was arbitrary choice. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president [2]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00 [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...
- wtbob 10y ago
  > most voters were actually #WithHer. No, they weren't. According to the latest results, Mrs. Clinton received 48% of the popular vote: that means that most voters didn't vote for her. More voted for her than for Mr. Trump, but neither earned a plurality of the popular vote.
  - nkohari 10y ago
    Well.. you're parsing a bit, aren't you? Clinton received the most votes, that is, the votes of most voters. The number of votes she received didn't represent a majority of the votes cast, but she still received the vote of most voters.
nitinreddy88 10y ago
As a outside US person, this article is pretty much nailed it. Clearly explained what's going wrong with US media
- Melchizedek 10y ago
  This might not make Americans feel better but other countries have it even worse. Swedish media has been surreal during this election. You would think the US just elected the literal devil as president. The Bonnier papers (the single company that totally dominates Swedish media) ran a story about how to talk to your children about Trump, instructing parents to tone down the apocalyptic comments in order not to scare the kids too much.
  - return0 10y ago
    Most EU media seemed to have parroted CNN throughout the campaign. In a way, the continental europeans were more shocked tham americans. And they continue to do so, e.g. yesterday's guardian was literally a list of lamentations.
  - lagadu 10y ago
    Not just Swedish, I imagine all European media too; it certainly looked like Danish and Portuguese (the two I follow closely) media thought that their audience was able to vote in the US elections, the way they were attacking Trump.
  - eeks 10y ago
    French medias are a parangon of complacency, all of them.
msravi 10y ago
I don't understand how thick headed the mainstream media (MSM) seems to be in not getting it. This "upset" win of Trump (upset in the sense that it didn't play by the MSM's wishes) was not an isolated incident - it's happened in India (2014), it happened in UK (Brexit), and it has been repeated in the US. The fundamental driver for all three instances has been the removal of all filters on social media. The problem was that for too long the MSM used their power to filter content to its readers/viewers, and the filter was tuned by a group that wanted to script reality in a form that they wished to see come to fruition, even if their stand was hypocritical. So for example, you'd see a huge hue and cry in the MSM about how freedom of expression was being harmed because a right wing outfit threatened someone for speaking out against a majority religion, and yet, when someone spoke out against Islam, and Islamic groups placed a bounty on his head, the same MSM would just go silent. It is this blatant hypocrisy that finally got them. And now, with social media, for the first time people have access to unfiltered news and can form their own opinions. And for better or worse, the hypocrisy of the MSM is glaringly obvious for people who have access to multiple viewpoints on an incident - not just a filtered viewpoint. With the hypocrisy bare, it's basically been a revolt against the established media. And unless the established media takes it upon themselves to be more honest in whatever stand they take, this is going to repeat, because, people aren't fools you know.
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  "yet, when someone spoke out against Islam, and Islamic groups placed a bounty on his head, the same MSM would just go silent." Salmon Rushdie, Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands–Posten all seem to be a cause célèbre of the liberal media even though the liberal media would otherwise despise Charlie Hebdo.
  - lagadu 10y ago
    That was only true until the refugee crisis gained momentum in the news cycles. You'll have troubling finding a peep defending the person and groups you listed in most international, big name media.
- csydas 10y ago
edblarney 10y ago
This is it. There's a huge gap between the press corps today: Ivy League educated, NYC-bubble lifestyle and the rest of the country. The bias is palpable. And I don't like Trump.
- benmcnelly 10y ago
  I think it is funny/sad that almost every comment online or in person, I find myself feeling I need to add "and I don't like Trump" or equivalent qualifiers, for fear of negative bias in interpretation of any statement I make.] What happened to where being able to state your opinion or make a logical argument has to to be qualified so you don't get assumed to be racist, or sexist or whatever. I am going to try and unlearn that behavior and assume the best about people until proven otherwise.
  - edblarney 10y ago
    Ha, I agree. But with politics, it's all biased. I'm not 'in fear' of being called 'racist', but I think it's important to know I have no stake in the game. Political bias is a strong thing. Because 'saying the media is biased' is a trope that you might find over in Trumpland. Even though the are biased about it, they are effectively correct.
jbmorgado 10y ago
Since the beginning it was obvious the people would choose change and it actually looked like they would choose change for the better of you allowed them to (as the Bernie vs Trump polls showed). But Democrat party decided the people knew nothing and they would just make them choose between what looked like change for the worst or for everything to continue the same. And well, people really preferred change non the less. Democrat party should now do some soul searching, stop blaming others for Trump election, and figure out how they allowed Hilary to manipulate so much the DNC in order to push Bernie aside.
- zimpenfish 10y ago
  > (as the Bernie vs Trump polls showed) Those same polls also showed Clinton winning handily against Trump. You can't pick one side as proof of your argument when the other side has been proven wrong in reality.
  - jbmorgado 10y ago
    No, that's incorrect. Those polls showed Clinton leading against Trump by 3 points, and Bernie leading against Trump by 10 points. That's a huge diference.
    - zimpenfish 10y ago
      Ok, I'll remove "handily" - my point still stands that you can't point to polls saying X when they also say Y which has been proven wrong since.
- c0nfused 10y ago
  I think its more a question of discovering how they lost ohio and michigan, which are reliably blue states. What strategic nd tactical choices did they make that cause them to lose in so many states that they thought they had won. Clinton was rated 80%+ to win by everyone at the start of the night. Is it an over reliance on polling? Likely to vote stat seems like a viable arguement A poorer ground game? In the city I live in Trump came, sold out the colliseum, and Clinton sent Kaine who who sold out a middle school gym. This is in a blue city in a blue state. Did they just get played by Trump and spend the entire campaign making it about him instead of about Clinton? I don't know, but at this point they have plenty of time to try to figure it out and they really ought to. After all, it doesn't look like the greens or the libertarians are going to be a viable opposition party in 2 years
QuantumRoar 10y ago
Insulting millions of people serves no other purpose than to point out your own superiority in some way. I can't fathom how much hubris is necessary to do that without feeling ashamed of yourself. How can it be so hard to be nice to others? Everybody disagrees with everybody else on something. Everybody has false ideas about the truth. Do we toss a kid in a meatgrinder when it has a weird idea about society? No, we include it in our discussions because opinions change when they are challenged. But when they cross the age of 16, or is it 18?, then they suddenly become demons that we need to get rid of. The cancer of our society. Where do you draw the line? If you honestly think that you have a moral superiority that gives you the right to tell people what to do just because they are stupid (or pick any other negative attribute), then know that there are a lot of people to whom you are literally stupid (they are more intelligent and know more than you). Would it be okay if they told you what to do? If they tried to silence you? Ignored your desperate calls for help, which they think are stupid and wrong?
- c0nfused 10y ago
  I suggest you read the vox piece from april about this phenomenon in american liberalism. They go in to exhaustive detail. http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... I think that it is far to easy in the modern world to only see, meet and talk to people who think and act like you. It certainly seems that many of my friends think that America looks and acts like their friends from coast to coast. That everyone is the same, and thus that their views are universal. The press really ought to be a place where one can get information from outside the bubble not an extesnion of it. "The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood." Thomas Jefferson
  - matwood 10y ago
    I read that last week, and it's great. I love the part about GWB. I still know people today who call him an idiot, but it is that attitude, and underestimation that helped him win the Presidency twice. The liberal has become synonymous with elite. If you disagree with a liberal you're uneducated, angry, racist, or pick any other disparaging word. It has caused a divide that crosses right/left, and is instead top/bottom. According to a poll NPR quoted, ~40% of registered democrats voted for Trump. That is why Hilary lost. The Republicans AND Democrats have become parties of the elite. The rise of Trump and Bernie came from those people who are rejecting elite regardless of party.
sickbeard 10y ago
The unbearable smugness continues with articles like these
- return0 10y ago
  How true. Someone should tell them to shut up, and start talking for the people, not to the people.
puranjay 10y ago
As a guy who once described himself as "very liberal", I have to say that I'm ashamed at the lack of empathy and the sheer smugness of my liberal friends. There is a disease in modern liberalism about wanting to appear smart, even about things people should have no clue about. This "wink wink, look how smart I am!" posturing is seriously misplaced and seriously off-putting. If you want to know why Trump won, you have to start by dismantling this smugness.
- icu 10y ago
  I mirror your stance in a way... and it is funny how this election has helped me grow as a person. I've rejected labels such as liberal or conservative and consider myself as someone who trys to overcome my natural tendency toward cognitive bias through reason and fact. Until I'm convinced that facts support reason I reserve the adoption of any belief and I always keep an open mind to new facts or stronger reasoning.
  - puranjay 10y ago
    Personally, I've made a rule that for every two pieces of liberal media I consume on an issue, I should seek at least one argument against it from a conservative. Online, the dangers of living in an echochamber are very real
    - icu 10y ago
      I applaud and stand with you in your resolve to seek out views that challenge any narrative, liberal media or otherwise, before making your own judgement.
miguelrochefort 10y ago
It spread to the Canadian press (at least Quebec's) like wildfire. Everything I would hear in the media was unapologetically anti-Trump. It lead to a climate where people would just assume that Trump was crazy/racist/mysogenic/untrustworthy, and further confirm their smug idea that the US is full of rednecks. Most people went along with it, and would casually mention how disgusting Trump is, without being able to name one concrete argument for it. "Trump is bad" became an axiom. I'm sure it's been similar in many other countries (including the US).
- JamisonM 10y ago
  I think that people assumed Trump was "crazy/racist/myogenic/untrustworthy" because there is ample evidence that he really was each and every one of those things. Most of the evidence is in court documents and on tape, completely verifiable. Don't mistake being a "contrarian" for just being wrong. The media reported the facts on Trump and they assumed that facts mattered, but they did not. Or they did but no one cared about the substance of those facts and what they say about what kind of president he might be.
  - miguelrochefort 10y ago
    Perhaps you're right. I might be overlooking these traits because I don't consider these things (except for trustworthiness) very important.
    - JamisonM 10y ago
      If you think trustworthiness is important then I would suggest that Trump's election should be particularly worrisome.
return0 10y ago
Maybe it wasn't the press? Sure, they were completely one-sided, but look, the opponent won with 0 press by his side. So, why do we think that whatever the media said matters so much? Maybe the rhetoric of the democrats was wrong? Maybe every time hillary unconditionally pandered to minorities or women , a switch flipped inside the head of a voter? Anyway, if you want to attribute something to the press it's their inability to doubt themselves. This actually begins in academia, where social sciences have switched from arguments to a war of punchlines. Skepticism is the foundation of science.
- AznHisoka 10y ago
  he won precisely because he had 0 press on his side. when the press exaggerated the idiocy of trump's words and actions, that played right into the anti-establishment sentiment of voters. as a result when trump really did do dumb things, and the press continue to make him look bad, the public would respond by saying "screw you! u elitists want to make us feel this way but we are going to respond by just not caring twice as much!"
- bloat 10y ago
  Whether they were on his side or not, they still printed every single thing he said, often in giant letters on the front page.
  - return0 10y ago
    ... thinking that it would deter voters, because they could not fathom that someone might actually agree with it.
hacknat 10y ago
I was pretty smug about Trump supporters until I started to see a couple things on/after election night: 1. Clinton underperformed Obama's numbers dramatically in the Rust belt. You can certainly still be a racist if you voted for Obama, but it doesn't necessarily follow that you're a racist if you voted for Trump. There seems to be strong evidence that a number of people in the Rust belt have voted for both men. 2. 20% of exit polled Trump voters do not think he is qualified to be president. This was a protest vote by many reasonable(ish) people who are telling the rest of us, "We're doing so poorly right now, it really doesn't matter to us if an incompetent narcissist is President." I honestly don't know what to do next. I've never hated Republican voters, something I seem to be accused of doing by every underlying assumption in articles about division in our country. I suspect that many people are like me, I never hated the other side, but I lost respect for them long ago. I'm going to try to get it back somehow.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  A lot of areas around me that went for Obama in the last 2 elections went Trump this time around. And a lot of the areas that went Hillary around here went a lot less heavily Hillary than they did Obama 4 & 8 years ago. This is in suburban New Jersey.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Im not sure there's much evidence of switching. There are large numbers of people who didn't vote relative to the numbers that separated candidates, so the likely explanation is that people who normally dont vote voted Trump and people who normally would vote Hillary didnt vote. A little bit of those two things would tip it. Which is what we see: high rural turnout; Hillary underperforming/low turnout in urban areas. There's just a group of white people who like Trump, and nobody liked Hillary.
samirillian 10y ago
I feel like this article is also missing the point. How about the unbearable self-flagellation of the press? I voted for Hillary, but goddamn was she an uninspiring candidate! She played not to lose, and that turned out to be a bad strategy. Donald Trump didn't get some surprisingly high number of votes, Hillary just managed to be even less inspiring than we thought. And now the tone has inevitably flipped to "what did we do wrong? Maybe it was our tone of voice?" Absurd and self-absorbed! Be as smug as you like, just don't be just smug! It's not wrong to reduce Trump's appeal to racism because it's smug, it's wrong because it's wrong. It's lazy thinking. There was a lot of positive and maybe even unfair disdain for trump. But that's not why he won the election. There was also a lot of positive and maybe even unfair hatred for hillary, but that's not why she lost. One candidate was able to harness anger (the way Bernie also did) and one candidate couldn't harness any positively motivating emotions. In fact, hillary was, if anything, the fear candidate. Fear of terrorists (guised as foreign policy experience) and fear of trump himself, fear of his racism and his misogyny. And the press fed those fears, and did little else. Be an smug, who cares. Just be smug for something.
mtgx 10y ago
For someone looking from the outside, it seemed like 90%+ of the media were all on Clinton's payroll or had some kind of deal with her. It was disgusting, and one of the reasons why I feared a Clinton presidency. So much of the media being unwilling to criticize her and try to destroy her opponents so easily and so intensely. This coupled with the fact that Clinton herself was paying trolls to make positive comments about her on the Internet to the point where they had full control of one of the largest subreddit's on Reddit (likely with Reddit admins' tacit approval, for the same reason Google and Twitter was banning anti-Hillary hashtags and auto-suggestions) reminded me too much of Putin's Russia (ironically enough) to be comfortable with it. Also, NY Times was bad enough with this, I expected much more from them, but I'll never forgive or forget Washington Post's bias in this election. For a "general purpose" media entity, it was no better than Breitbart or such on the right. And it goes without saying that CNN, and often MSNBC were even worse. Those two I've already forgotten about.
jkingsbery 10y ago
I like how in an article written by a liberal acknowledging how condescending the media can be to conservatives, there is a propagation of the myth that in the Middle Ages people thought sickness and demonic possession were the same thing. In fact, the Middle Ages had physicians, nurses, hospitals, and medicine. Not as advanced as ours, but modern medicine didn't just spring up from nowhere. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals#Medieval_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals#Medieval_... - there were hospitals, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine_of_Western_Europe#Monasteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine_of_Western_E... - medicine certainly involved prayer, but also involved experimenting with different materials to relieve physical symptoms.
dcposch 10y ago
Yes, the corporate press was smug, hubristic, and often hilariously wrong. I think the best journalism came from people outside the normal news. Here are three nontraditional journalists who did excellent work: -- Nate Silver did the best math. His final election prediction is like a crash course in data science. Humble, thorough, quantifies uncertainty, acknowledges that errors may correlate. Explained in plain English and illustrated in a way that would make Edward Tufte proud. He lays out three scenarios (polling average accurate, 3-point error for Clinton, 3-point error for Trump). The latter describes in detail pretty much exactly what ended up happening. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-theres-a-wide-range-of-outcomes-and-most-of-them-come-up-clinton/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-th... -- Chris Arnade got the best stories. He's a former bond trader who now travels the country as a photojournalist, befriending and talking to all kinds of people, mostly working-class and poor. Here's his best work, in my opinion: https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/divided-by-meaning-1ab510759ee7 https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/divided-by-meaning-1ab51075... It was the first thing that really helped me understand Trump voters. -- Finally, Michael Moore nailed it. Months ago, he wrote an essay called Why Trump Will Win, asking his liberal audience to campaign hard and not get complacent. http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ It came true pretty much exactly as written. One of his speeches was taken out of context and edited down into an unofficial grassroots Trump ad. It is the single best pitch for Trump that I have heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDRqeuLNag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDRqeuLNag MM really understands the disenfranchised. So many lessons.
Upvoter33 10y ago
What I love is all the people complaining about "liberals" in such broad, stereotypical strokes - kind of ironic, no?
exabrial 10y ago
What an unbelievably refreshing and honest piece. I have to say it's pretty sad when Wikileaks is doing the job of the press, and the Press is doing the job of paid lobbyists. I'm pointing the statement both sides of the political debate, because it's happened to both.
Icedcool 10y ago
I am really enjoying pieces like this, of a dose of humility with self inspection in the wake of the Trump election. Call his election what you will, but if I see more humble news reporting, I'll call that at least some positive. It's blowing my mind.
overcast 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfS2u-SmoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfS2u-SmoI This basically sums it all up. The news anchor deserves a promotion for saving what little dignity they still have left.
techxit 10y ago
The problem is that we allowed this election to be cast as a clash between Corporate America's superego and its id. The fact that Hillary Clinton came from a middle-class Midwestern background and that, while she's absolutely terrible at optics, she's above-average for ethics and honesty among politicians... got missed. People went for raw id rather than what they perceived as the superego of a corrupt system. I personally think that Hillary is far more liberal than she was given credit for. She's been turned into a cynical pragmatist by 20+ years of bitter experience in politics... and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think her heart was in the right place all along. She'd probably twist arms and threaten careers of people on both sides of the aisle to get a public option passed, and that's the kind of ballbuster the country needs. However, she's the sort of person who does very well in 1-on-1 interactions but fails with rooms and groups. She has grace but no charisma. She let her self be painted as a duplicitous Establishment hack. The irony is that Clinton and Trump voters both voted on the premise of their candidate being radically different from what they'd seen. Clinton voters believed that she was a liberal working within the establishment who'd bring us single-payer healthcare. Trump voters (except for the small percentage who actually are "deplorables", meaning racists and sexists and xenophobes) believed that Trump's dog-whistle rhetoric was just cynical game-playing. It bothers me that people accused Clinton of being "two-faced", while supporting a candidate in whom the best-case scenario is that he doesn't believe half the shit he says. We also have a country where people hate the perceived cultural elite that is occasionally condescending ("flyover country") more than they hate the socioeconomic elite that is actually ruining their lives and that needs, for the good of red and blue staters, to be overthrown. Numbers may explain that. There are more of us in the 4.99% for them to hate than in the 0.01% that something actually needs to be done about (although I doubt that Trump is the solution).
forgottenpass 10y ago
It’s a profound failure of empathy So "empathy" is the only thing keeping people from becoming complete shitstains? Empathy is currently experiencing buzz as a positive value people like conspicuously talking about, but what happened to simple old standards? I don't need to empathize with someone to treat them as human. Maybe this is one the kind of thing that makes people say "everyone should work in the service industry once in their lives" line, because you have to separate seething hatred from evaluating how to behave. I would think that "not be an insufferable know better douche that considers some people beneath them and without redemption" is pretty obvious when your job is ostensibly informing the public.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  In fairness, if your job is to inform the public, feeling that you "know better" is somewhere between a job requirement and an occupational hazard. (Actually, the "sweet spot" is where you actually know more, but don't feel like you do.)

163 points by andrenth 10y ago

As a European, this article on cracked.com (yes, cracked.com) gave me a lot of insight into why / how Trump won. http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on... It's Brexit all over again. Will the politicians in my country (NL) learn to listen to 'the other half', before their campaigns start (next spring)? Probably not.

helthanatos 10y ago
Trump won because people are sick of SJWs. He won because people are sick of being called racists when they're not. He won because his opponent was objectively worse. Any other democrat running against him would have probably led to different results, but the bickering between the children turned out in Trump's favor. It's ridiculous that either one ran. All we can do now is hope Trump does well. It really wouldn't be that hard to do "well"; we haven't had a good president for quite many years.
- mariodiana 10y ago
  It's overall a very good opinion piece, but this little ditty didn't escape my notice: > We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. "Medical problems"? I don't know much about these things, but isn't this what some would call a "microagression"? Eh, I'm going to give the guy a pass. At least he's trying.
  - douche 10y ago
    I think the thrust is, "we don't understand the real problem, lets call it something that we think we know about." All in all, I think it's a pretty solid article, and hits on a lot of the rural-urban disjunctions that I've experienced, as a redneck Mainer from up near the Canadian border having to move out of 1950s-throwback-world.
- spiderfarmer 10y ago
  According to the article, there is more to it than just hating sucial justice warriors. The fact that rural infrastructure is crumbling, jobs are lost and not returning and the fact that during 8 years with a democrat at the helm didn't change much for them. It is enough for a lot of people to seriously consider the alternative, especially if the (untrusted) establishment hates this alternative.
  - Veen 10y ago
    > The fact that rural infrastructure is crumbling That's what I don't get. Do Trump voters think he gives a flying fuck about the state of rural infrastructure or the lives of poor people? I don't see it. Sure, the incumbent elite are feckless, tribal, irresponsible, greedy, and dishonest, but Trump is worse, obviously so. I guess that's the problem in a two-party system. Usually you choose the better of two bad options. In this case, all the options were so bad that people just said "fuck it".
    - christophilus 10y ago
      I know democrats who voted for Trump. One of the reasons is that he is planning on investing $500,000,000,000 in infrastructure, including rural infrastructure. So yes, I think economics played a large role in his win.
      - Veen 10y ago
        But I'd ask myself where is that half-a-trillion dollars going to come from, on top of the increases in military spending, the thousands-of-miles-long Mexico wall, the massively expensive roundups and deportations, and so on. Especially when taxes are apparently also going to be reduced. And asking myself that question, I'd think his promises somewhat empty and opportunistic.
      - tzs 10y ago
        Obama pushed hard for big spending on infrastructure from the start of his first term. Not only do we need it in general, but then it also would have greatly helped push the recovery from the recession along. Republicans in Congress were able to block it until they took control of both Houses, and then it was effectively dead. Do they really think Trump has a better chance of getting Congress to pass a large infrastructure bill? I haven't looked into it in great detail, but from what I have seen it doesn't look like the incoming Republican House and Senate are at all inclined to be looser with the pursestrings now. Also, Clinton's plan also called for large infrastructure spending, although only about half of what Trump's plan calls for. That makes it hard for me to understand why a Democrat who voted for Trump would cite infrastructure spending as a reason.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  And here I thought Trump won because of record low voter turnouts. Everyone has a theory.
  - ascagnel_ 10y ago
    The current popular vote total stands at 127MM votes cast, and the Attorney General of California has already announced that they have at least 3MM absentee and provisional ballots to check, so it's expected that turnout will exceed 2012's 129MM votes cast.
    - Spare_account 10y ago
      Forgive me for going off-topic here but I'm curious about your reason for using MM to designate 'million'?
      - teh_klev 10y ago
        I think in the financial industry, particularly in the US, MM is often used to signify millions. MM is also one million in Roman numerals (1000(M) x 1000(M)). See also: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/181917/mixing-use-of-k-for-thousands-and-mm-for-millions https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/181917/mixing-us... I don't think there's any hard and fast rules globally how one specifies "millions": https://www.quora.com/What-should-be-the-abbreviation-for-million-M-or-MM?shared=1 https://www.quora.com/What-should-be-the-abbreviation-for-mi...
        ddlatham 10y ago
        Wouldn't it be 2000 in Roman numerals?
        teh_klev 10y ago
        I thought that too, but there's an implied multiplier. I'm guessing it's one of those examples of borrow and abuse things.
- acqq 10y ago
  > his opponent was objectively worse If he really continues with global warming denial and make real effects based on that idea, I'd like to see who will dare to say that to his kids. Just this single issue is enough to make the whole difference. https://thinkprogress.org/trump-victory-climate-a0c595572299 https://thinkprogress.org/trump-victory-climate-a0c595572299 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_H... That's also the biggest issue that's still not clear in the confused heads of too much US citizens, and where the real action is needed. Misinformation paid by the oil companies sadly worked. The good proof than even the side that sees other manipulations isn't immune at all. As one thinker said: "when you look at somebody and hold your head and think how come the other side just doesn't see the facts, there's a simple answer: you're an idiot, and, by the way, the other side is too. People aren't rational. The proof: almost 50-50 opinions, even among the supposedly "smart" people, on some important subject -- how probable is that to be the reflection of the real rational state of the truthfulness of the issue in question. Effectively zero."
- pjc50 10y ago
  > objectively worse On what objective metric(s)? Answering this properly is extremely hard.
  - pg314 10y ago
    There is one objective metric on which she definitely was worse: telling lies. And by worse I mean, he told many more of them.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  That's part of it, but I wouldn't put it at more than 20-30% of the total explanation.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
Ummm that article doesn't seem to notice the whole shit ton of blue in the rural northeast. Like the entirety of Vermont and the Berkshires in Massachusetts. The most populous part of Connecticut appear to be the red parts of Connecticut (looks like Bridgeport?). It's hard to tell but the red parts of New Hampshire seem to be around Portsmouth? Which isn't exactly a city in the traditional sense of the word but certainly nowhere near rural. As an aside Portsmouth drivers are seriously the most polite drivers I've ever encountered. The red part of new York is Buffalo which is the second most populous city in new York state! EDIT: now that I look closer it appears Rochester and Buffalo seem to be tiny little blue dots surrounded by red. Does this person think the entire Northeast is a giant city?
- douche 10y ago
  I don't think you can discount the populations of elderly Democratic voters in these New England rural areas. People that have been voting Democrat since Kennedy or longer. Maine tilted pretty hard, with the rural 2nd District going convincingly for Trump. However, LePage also gets a lot of support and approval from those same regions, even now, with everything he's said and done, so we may just like blowhards.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    I'm not discounting anything just saying the map the author used as proof of his or her hypothesis doesn't follow for the Northeast of the US from first glance. The thing that really stuck out for me was New Hampshire and Vermont. Though it's hard to tell for sure with a tiny unlabeled map. Anyone got a bigger one?
    - douche 10y ago
      With Vermont, it's sort of notoriously infested with hippies. I'm kind of joking there, but there's a kernel of truth to it. Out of the three rural New England states, Vermont is always the farthest left, and in places there, Bernie Sanders would be considered too much of a centrist. I'm not sure New Hampshire really falls into anyplace reasonable on the 1D Republican-Democrat axis, except for a standard deviation one way or the other from the middle, shifting with the winds. If you add in the authoritarian/libertarian axis to make it 2D, NH is pretty far up the liberty scale. No income tax, no sales tax, extremely minimal firearms regulation, hell, you don't even have to wear a seatbelt if you don't want to. The southern parts of the state are starting to turn into commuter satellites of Boston, to some extent, but it hasn't really eroded that "Live free or die" character.
shaftoe 10y ago
That article struck a chord with me. I live in a city, but I am not of a city. The no-car, 600-square-foot-apartment, minimalist, trendy-restaurant, latest-social-justice-fashion people that surround me feel like a gang of condescending children. They wave policies with reaching consequences like foam fingers at a sports game. They are mugged and then bend themselves into a pretzel to avoid describing the attacker as black and explain the crime as a symptom of economic injustice. They pretend like Hillary doesn't have 20 years of corrupt history and an attitude that approximates the worst of European nobility. I don't like Trump, but sometimes a giant orange middle finger is needed to break out of a rut.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Does this actually happen? It sounds like a total caricature of what someone thinks city folk are like. I mean, I spent the majority of my life in cities of different sizes and also have friends across the entire Northeast and I travel a lot. Nothing like this actually happens. My extended family are casual racists and complain a lot about Puerto Ricans. Hillary was widely unpopular with everyone I know, liberal, conservative, and moderate. I don't know a single minimalist but know a lot of people who complain they are poor while buying a bunch of junk. When my house was broken into by unknown assailants a friend of mine said "It must be niggers." Nobody really goes around talking about political policies very much, it's almost never a topic of conversation. We are generally just a bunch of normal people and none of us actually do that stuff. We have different culture and mostly different activities than rural Americans but we are not at all like you describe. We do go to restaurants, coffee shops and bars a lot but never because it's trendy. Actually now that I think of it that wasn't big in one of the cities I lived in. >They are mugged and then bend themselves into a pretzel to avoid describing the attacker as black This is absurd and nobody is bending anything. People i know who got mugged said "I got mugged." I do admit i never heard "I got mugged by a black man" but probably because that information isn't entirely relevant but no bending like a pretzel. Unless you believe bending like a pretzel means "not bitching endlessly about an entire race because of the actions of on person."
  - shaftoe 10y ago
CoolGuySteve 10y ago
In a way, rural America was a tech bubble. In the 19th century and earlier, factories were in the city or near water. As the interstate system made shipping cheaper, factories moved out of the cities and coastlines for cheaper land and labor. Now container shipping has moved factories into cheaper countries altogether. But we have generations of people that have lived in these rural factory towns which now have no factory. The issue is real and Donald Trump was the only one addressing it. It's just too bad Donald Trump was the only one addressing it.
- strange_quark 10y ago
  But Trump didn't actually address it. He acknowledged the problem but didn't provide any tangible solution other than "I'm going to bring your jobs back" which is never going to happen. As you said, rural manufacturing was a buble.
  - CoolGuySteve 10y ago
    He said he would renegotiate NAFTA, pull out of the TPP, and do something nebulous involving labeling China as a "currency manipulator". Earlier in his campaign he said he was going to introduce tariffs as well, but I guess that statement didn't count since it's no longer in his "Contract with the American Voter". These are all strategies to add economic friction to importing foreign goods. Then he has his immigration push to block importing cheap labour from abroad. The end result is that American manufacturing and farming done by American citizens will see some improvement but at the expense of the economy as a whole. I'm not sure if he or his advisers really think of the manufacturing decline as a logical advance of shipping technology. When framed that way, they seem like luddites tearing down the cotton mills. But the platform is definitely not as illogical as everyone makes it seem.
    - tzs 10y ago
      > These are all strategies to add economic friction to importing foreign goods. They also add economic friction to exporting US made goods, unless these renegotiations somehow manage to result in deals that are very one sided in favor of the US. The US exports about $310 billion worth of goods annually to Canada, and about $240 billion to Mexico. A lot of US jobs are involved in making those goods. For some reason I don't understand, exports almost always seem to get overlooked when politicians go on about trade.
enobrev 10y ago
I appreciated that article, though I hated the headline and the format. I shared it a couple times and had to make apologies for both in order to ensure people would actually read it. The cracked format better serves pop-culture rants. I found this article similarly enlightening, and a far better read. https://www.propublica.org/article/revenge-of-the-forgotten-class https://www.propublica.org/article/revenge-of-the-forgotten-...

jasode 10y ago

As a non-Trump supporter who's frightened that a loose cannon like him can have his finger on the big red nuclear button, I'm disappointed but not surprised that the mainstream media was smug. Here's an example MSNBC video clip showing what the article is talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zL-ip6GH4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zL-ip6GH4c At the 23 second mark in the video, you can see Brian Williams' body language struggling to contain his condescension for Mark Halperin's interpretation of the poll statistics that could point to a Trump victory. Mark wasn't saying Trump will win or even has a good chance of winning. Mark was just saying there's a possible path to winning. Even discussing what's mathematically possible with plenty of hedging, disclaimers, caveats, and uncertainty -- is ridiculed by the mainstream press. Everyone who thinks like Brian was caught up in the same delusion. If they dismiss one of their own professional peers with a minority perspective, it shouldn't be a surprise they treat rural Americans with condescension. (It turned out that Mark was correct in that Trump's late surge would affect the battleground states and that Clinton would misjudge the continued support of previous Obama voters.) Looking back, a journalist could have assessed Mark's interpretation of the data in 2 ways: #1) the poll data is a priori correct (there is no hidden Trump vote missed by pollsters) and therefore Mark sees something in the data because he's sympathetic to Trump #2) Mark is open to the possibility of Trump winning and therefore can see something in the poll data and make (hedged) conclusions about it that all Trump opponents are blind to It may seem like positions #1 and #2 are just rearranging the words but they are stating opposite cause & effect. They have profound differences in reality. Brian and the rest of msm interpreted any favorable Trump conclusions about the data as situation #1. It's the same situation with taking Trump's chances seriously when he's characterized as "a clown" or "he insults women": #1) Trump can't win because he insults women. #2) Trump can win regardless of whether he insults women. The mainstream media and elites focused on #1. The election results proved the actual voters standing in line to choose Trump saw the reality as #2.

cmdrfred 10y ago
I think against Elizabeth Warren for example the anti-women sentiment would of had a greater effect on the outcome. Hillary Clinton's comments about Monica Lewinsky while first lady and her defence of Bill's actions makes this a bit of a pot kettle black situation. Somebody like Bernie can take the moral high ground on sexism and racism in a way that Hillary's record prevents her from doing so.

aphexairlines 10y ago

No mention of the lower turnout this year (even as the population continues to grow) or that most voters were actually #WithHer. The media are suckers for the overton window, and this is calling for more of the same kid gloves that they used during the Bush/Cheney years. No, thanks.

helthanatos 10y ago
That's not true at all
- chestervonwinch 10y ago
  Using [1], which is still incomplete, and [2], I calculate: Turnout (2016) = 49.43% = (60071781 + 59791135) / 242470820 * 100 Using [3], back to 1932 (for no particular reason), I calculate: Turnout (1932-2012) = 55.64(± 3.92)% Obviously, caveats are that (1) the 2016 percentage will continue increase slightly, and (2) using turnouts back until 1932 was arbitrary choice. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president [2]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00 [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...
wtbob 10y ago
> most voters were actually #WithHer. No, they weren't. According to the latest results, Mrs. Clinton received 48% of the popular vote: that means that most voters didn't vote for her. More voted for her than for Mr. Trump, but neither earned a plurality of the popular vote.
- nkohari 10y ago
  Well.. you're parsing a bit, aren't you? Clinton received the most votes, that is, the votes of most voters. The number of votes she received didn't represent a majority of the votes cast, but she still received the vote of most voters.

nitinreddy88 10y ago

As a outside US person, this article is pretty much nailed it. Clearly explained what's going wrong with US media

Melchizedek 10y ago
This might not make Americans feel better but other countries have it even worse. Swedish media has been surreal during this election. You would think the US just elected the literal devil as president. The Bonnier papers (the single company that totally dominates Swedish media) ran a story about how to talk to your children about Trump, instructing parents to tone down the apocalyptic comments in order not to scare the kids too much.
- return0 10y ago
  Most EU media seemed to have parroted CNN throughout the campaign. In a way, the continental europeans were more shocked tham americans. And they continue to do so, e.g. yesterday's guardian was literally a list of lamentations.
- lagadu 10y ago
  Not just Swedish, I imagine all European media too; it certainly looked like Danish and Portuguese (the two I follow closely) media thought that their audience was able to vote in the US elections, the way they were attacking Trump.
- eeks 10y ago
  French medias are a parangon of complacency, all of them.

msravi 10y ago

I don't understand how thick headed the mainstream media (MSM) seems to be in not getting it. This "upset" win of Trump (upset in the sense that it didn't play by the MSM's wishes) was not an isolated incident - it's happened in India (2014), it happened in UK (Brexit), and it has been repeated in the US. The fundamental driver for all three instances has been the removal of all filters on social media. The problem was that for too long the MSM used their power to filter content to its readers/viewers, and the filter was tuned by a group that wanted to script reality in a form that they wished to see come to fruition, even if their stand was hypocritical. So for example, you'd see a huge hue and cry in the MSM about how freedom of expression was being harmed because a right wing outfit threatened someone for speaking out against a majority religion, and yet, when someone spoke out against Islam, and Islamic groups placed a bounty on his head, the same MSM would just go silent. It is this blatant hypocrisy that finally got them. And now, with social media, for the first time people have access to unfiltered news and can form their own opinions. And for better or worse, the hypocrisy of the MSM is glaringly obvious for people who have access to multiple viewpoints on an incident - not just a filtered viewpoint. With the hypocrisy bare, it's basically been a revolt against the established media. And unless the established media takes it upon themselves to be more honest in whatever stand they take, this is going to repeat, because, people aren't fools you know.

bryanlarsen 10y ago
"yet, when someone spoke out against Islam, and Islamic groups placed a bounty on his head, the same MSM would just go silent." Salmon Rushdie, Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands–Posten all seem to be a cause célèbre of the liberal media even though the liberal media would otherwise despise Charlie Hebdo.
- lagadu 10y ago
  That was only true until the refugee crisis gained momentum in the news cycles. You'll have troubling finding a peep defending the person and groups you listed in most international, big name media.
csydas 10y ago

edblarney 10y ago

This is it. There's a huge gap between the press corps today: Ivy League educated, NYC-bubble lifestyle and the rest of the country. The bias is palpable. And I don't like Trump.

benmcnelly 10y ago
I think it is funny/sad that almost every comment online or in person, I find myself feeling I need to add "and I don't like Trump" or equivalent qualifiers, for fear of negative bias in interpretation of any statement I make.] What happened to where being able to state your opinion or make a logical argument has to to be qualified so you don't get assumed to be racist, or sexist or whatever. I am going to try and unlearn that behavior and assume the best about people until proven otherwise.
- edblarney 10y ago
  Ha, I agree. But with politics, it's all biased. I'm not 'in fear' of being called 'racist', but I think it's important to know I have no stake in the game. Political bias is a strong thing. Because 'saying the media is biased' is a trope that you might find over in Trumpland. Even though the are biased about it, they are effectively correct.

jbmorgado 10y ago

Since the beginning it was obvious the people would choose change and it actually looked like they would choose change for the better of you allowed them to (as the Bernie vs Trump polls showed). But Democrat party decided the people knew nothing and they would just make them choose between what looked like change for the worst or for everything to continue the same. And well, people really preferred change non the less. Democrat party should now do some soul searching, stop blaming others for Trump election, and figure out how they allowed Hilary to manipulate so much the DNC in order to push Bernie aside.

zimpenfish 10y ago
> (as the Bernie vs Trump polls showed) Those same polls also showed Clinton winning handily against Trump. You can't pick one side as proof of your argument when the other side has been proven wrong in reality.
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  No, that's incorrect. Those polls showed Clinton leading against Trump by 3 points, and Bernie leading against Trump by 10 points. That's a huge diference.
  - zimpenfish 10y ago
    Ok, I'll remove "handily" - my point still stands that you can't point to polls saying X when they also say Y which has been proven wrong since.
c0nfused 10y ago
I think its more a question of discovering how they lost ohio and michigan, which are reliably blue states. What strategic nd tactical choices did they make that cause them to lose in so many states that they thought they had won. Clinton was rated 80%+ to win by everyone at the start of the night. Is it an over reliance on polling? Likely to vote stat seems like a viable arguement A poorer ground game? In the city I live in Trump came, sold out the colliseum, and Clinton sent Kaine who who sold out a middle school gym. This is in a blue city in a blue state. Did they just get played by Trump and spend the entire campaign making it about him instead of about Clinton? I don't know, but at this point they have plenty of time to try to figure it out and they really ought to. After all, it doesn't look like the greens or the libertarians are going to be a viable opposition party in 2 years

QuantumRoar 10y ago

Insulting millions of people serves no other purpose than to point out your own superiority in some way. I can't fathom how much hubris is necessary to do that without feeling ashamed of yourself. How can it be so hard to be nice to others? Everybody disagrees with everybody else on something. Everybody has false ideas about the truth. Do we toss a kid in a meatgrinder when it has a weird idea about society? No, we include it in our discussions because opinions change when they are challenged. But when they cross the age of 16, or is it 18?, then they suddenly become demons that we need to get rid of. The cancer of our society. Where do you draw the line? If you honestly think that you have a moral superiority that gives you the right to tell people what to do just because they are stupid (or pick any other negative attribute), then know that there are a lot of people to whom you are literally stupid (they are more intelligent and know more than you). Would it be okay if they told you what to do? If they tried to silence you? Ignored your desperate calls for help, which they think are stupid and wrong?

c0nfused 10y ago
I suggest you read the vox piece from april about this phenomenon in american liberalism. They go in to exhaustive detail. http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... I think that it is far to easy in the modern world to only see, meet and talk to people who think and act like you. It certainly seems that many of my friends think that America looks and acts like their friends from coast to coast. That everyone is the same, and thus that their views are universal. The press really ought to be a place where one can get information from outside the bubble not an extesnion of it. "The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood." Thomas Jefferson
- matwood 10y ago
  I read that last week, and it's great. I love the part about GWB. I still know people today who call him an idiot, but it is that attitude, and underestimation that helped him win the Presidency twice. The liberal has become synonymous with elite. If you disagree with a liberal you're uneducated, angry, racist, or pick any other disparaging word. It has caused a divide that crosses right/left, and is instead top/bottom. According to a poll NPR quoted, ~40% of registered democrats voted for Trump. That is why Hilary lost. The Republicans AND Democrats have become parties of the elite. The rise of Trump and Bernie came from those people who are rejecting elite regardless of party.

sickbeard 10y ago

The unbearable smugness continues with articles like these

return0 10y ago
How true. Someone should tell them to shut up, and start talking for the people, not to the people.

puranjay 10y ago

As a guy who once described himself as "very liberal", I have to say that I'm ashamed at the lack of empathy and the sheer smugness of my liberal friends. There is a disease in modern liberalism about wanting to appear smart, even about things people should have no clue about. This "wink wink, look how smart I am!" posturing is seriously misplaced and seriously off-putting. If you want to know why Trump won, you have to start by dismantling this smugness.

icu 10y ago
I mirror your stance in a way... and it is funny how this election has helped me grow as a person. I've rejected labels such as liberal or conservative and consider myself as someone who trys to overcome my natural tendency toward cognitive bias through reason and fact. Until I'm convinced that facts support reason I reserve the adoption of any belief and I always keep an open mind to new facts or stronger reasoning.
- puranjay 10y ago
  Personally, I've made a rule that for every two pieces of liberal media I consume on an issue, I should seek at least one argument against it from a conservative. Online, the dangers of living in an echochamber are very real
  - icu 10y ago
    I applaud and stand with you in your resolve to seek out views that challenge any narrative, liberal media or otherwise, before making your own judgement.

miguelrochefort 10y ago

It spread to the Canadian press (at least Quebec's) like wildfire. Everything I would hear in the media was unapologetically anti-Trump. It lead to a climate where people would just assume that Trump was crazy/racist/mysogenic/untrustworthy, and further confirm their smug idea that the US is full of rednecks. Most people went along with it, and would casually mention how disgusting Trump is, without being able to name one concrete argument for it. "Trump is bad" became an axiom. I'm sure it's been similar in many other countries (including the US).

JamisonM 10y ago
I think that people assumed Trump was "crazy/racist/myogenic/untrustworthy" because there is ample evidence that he really was each and every one of those things. Most of the evidence is in court documents and on tape, completely verifiable. Don't mistake being a "contrarian" for just being wrong. The media reported the facts on Trump and they assumed that facts mattered, but they did not. Or they did but no one cared about the substance of those facts and what they say about what kind of president he might be.
- miguelrochefort 10y ago
  Perhaps you're right. I might be overlooking these traits because I don't consider these things (except for trustworthiness) very important.
  - JamisonM 10y ago
    If you think trustworthiness is important then I would suggest that Trump's election should be particularly worrisome.

return0 10y ago

Maybe it wasn't the press? Sure, they were completely one-sided, but look, the opponent won with 0 press by his side. So, why do we think that whatever the media said matters so much? Maybe the rhetoric of the democrats was wrong? Maybe every time hillary unconditionally pandered to minorities or women , a switch flipped inside the head of a voter? Anyway, if you want to attribute something to the press it's their inability to doubt themselves. This actually begins in academia, where social sciences have switched from arguments to a war of punchlines. Skepticism is the foundation of science.

AznHisoka 10y ago
he won precisely because he had 0 press on his side. when the press exaggerated the idiocy of trump's words and actions, that played right into the anti-establishment sentiment of voters. as a result when trump really did do dumb things, and the press continue to make him look bad, the public would respond by saying "screw you! u elitists want to make us feel this way but we are going to respond by just not caring twice as much!"
bloat 10y ago
Whether they were on his side or not, they still printed every single thing he said, often in giant letters on the front page.
- return0 10y ago
  ... thinking that it would deter voters, because they could not fathom that someone might actually agree with it.

hacknat 10y ago

I was pretty smug about Trump supporters until I started to see a couple things on/after election night: 1. Clinton underperformed Obama's numbers dramatically in the Rust belt. You can certainly still be a racist if you voted for Obama, but it doesn't necessarily follow that you're a racist if you voted for Trump. There seems to be strong evidence that a number of people in the Rust belt have voted for both men. 2. 20% of exit polled Trump voters do not think he is qualified to be president. This was a protest vote by many reasonable(ish) people who are telling the rest of us, "We're doing so poorly right now, it really doesn't matter to us if an incompetent narcissist is President." I honestly don't know what to do next. I've never hated Republican voters, something I seem to be accused of doing by every underlying assumption in articles about division in our country. I suspect that many people are like me, I never hated the other side, but I lost respect for them long ago. I'm going to try to get it back somehow.

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
A lot of areas around me that went for Obama in the last 2 elections went Trump this time around. And a lot of the areas that went Hillary around here went a lot less heavily Hillary than they did Obama 4 & 8 years ago. This is in suburban New Jersey.
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Im not sure there's much evidence of switching. There are large numbers of people who didn't vote relative to the numbers that separated candidates, so the likely explanation is that people who normally dont vote voted Trump and people who normally would vote Hillary didnt vote. A little bit of those two things would tip it. Which is what we see: high rural turnout; Hillary underperforming/low turnout in urban areas. There's just a group of white people who like Trump, and nobody liked Hillary.

samirillian 10y ago

I feel like this article is also missing the point. How about the unbearable self-flagellation of the press? I voted for Hillary, but goddamn was she an uninspiring candidate! She played not to lose, and that turned out to be a bad strategy. Donald Trump didn't get some surprisingly high number of votes, Hillary just managed to be even less inspiring than we thought. And now the tone has inevitably flipped to "what did we do wrong? Maybe it was our tone of voice?" Absurd and self-absorbed! Be as smug as you like, just don't be just smug! It's not wrong to reduce Trump's appeal to racism because it's smug, it's wrong because it's wrong. It's lazy thinking. There was a lot of positive and maybe even unfair disdain for trump. But that's not why he won the election. There was also a lot of positive and maybe even unfair hatred for hillary, but that's not why she lost. One candidate was able to harness anger (the way Bernie also did) and one candidate couldn't harness any positively motivating emotions. In fact, hillary was, if anything, the fear candidate. Fear of terrorists (guised as foreign policy experience) and fear of trump himself, fear of his racism and his misogyny. And the press fed those fears, and did little else. Be an smug, who cares. Just be smug for something.

mtgx 10y ago

For someone looking from the outside, it seemed like 90%+ of the media were all on Clinton's payroll or had some kind of deal with her. It was disgusting, and one of the reasons why I feared a Clinton presidency. So much of the media being unwilling to criticize her and try to destroy her opponents so easily and so intensely. This coupled with the fact that Clinton herself was paying trolls to make positive comments about her on the Internet to the point where they had full control of one of the largest subreddit's on Reddit (likely with Reddit admins' tacit approval, for the same reason Google and Twitter was banning anti-Hillary hashtags and auto-suggestions) reminded me too much of Putin's Russia (ironically enough) to be comfortable with it. Also, NY Times was bad enough with this, I expected much more from them, but I'll never forgive or forget Washington Post's bias in this election. For a "general purpose" media entity, it was no better than Breitbart or such on the right. And it goes without saying that CNN, and often MSNBC were even worse. Those two I've already forgotten about.

jkingsbery 10y ago

I like how in an article written by a liberal acknowledging how condescending the media can be to conservatives, there is a propagation of the myth that in the Middle Ages people thought sickness and demonic possession were the same thing. In fact, the Middle Ages had physicians, nurses, hospitals, and medicine. Not as advanced as ours, but modern medicine didn't just spring up from nowhere. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals#Medieval_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals#Medieval_... - there were hospitals, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine_of_Western_Europe#Monasteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine_of_Western_E... - medicine certainly involved prayer, but also involved experimenting with different materials to relieve physical symptoms.

dcposch 10y ago

Yes, the corporate press was smug, hubristic, and often hilariously wrong. I think the best journalism came from people outside the normal news. Here are three nontraditional journalists who did excellent work: -- Nate Silver did the best math. His final election prediction is like a crash course in data science. Humble, thorough, quantifies uncertainty, acknowledges that errors may correlate. Explained in plain English and illustrated in a way that would make Edward Tufte proud. He lays out three scenarios (polling average accurate, 3-point error for Clinton, 3-point error for Trump). The latter describes in detail pretty much exactly what ended up happening. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-theres-a-wide-range-of-outcomes-and-most-of-them-come-up-clinton/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-th... -- Chris Arnade got the best stories. He's a former bond trader who now travels the country as a photojournalist, befriending and talking to all kinds of people, mostly working-class and poor. Here's his best work, in my opinion: https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/divided-by-meaning-1ab510759ee7 https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/divided-by-meaning-1ab51075... It was the first thing that really helped me understand Trump voters. -- Finally, Michael Moore nailed it. Months ago, he wrote an essay called Why Trump Will Win, asking his liberal audience to campaign hard and not get complacent. http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ It came true pretty much exactly as written. One of his speeches was taken out of context and edited down into an unofficial grassroots Trump ad. It is the single best pitch for Trump that I have heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDRqeuLNag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDRqeuLNag MM really understands the disenfranchised. So many lessons.

Upvoter33 10y ago

What I love is all the people complaining about "liberals" in such broad, stereotypical strokes - kind of ironic, no?

exabrial 10y ago

What an unbelievably refreshing and honest piece. I have to say it's pretty sad when Wikileaks is doing the job of the press, and the Press is doing the job of paid lobbyists. I'm pointing the statement both sides of the political debate, because it's happened to both.

Icedcool 10y ago

I am really enjoying pieces like this, of a dose of humility with self inspection in the wake of the Trump election. Call his election what you will, but if I see more humble news reporting, I'll call that at least some positive. It's blowing my mind.

overcast 10y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfS2u-SmoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfS2u-SmoI This basically sums it all up. The news anchor deserves a promotion for saving what little dignity they still have left.

techxit 10y ago

The problem is that we allowed this election to be cast as a clash between Corporate America's superego and its id. The fact that Hillary Clinton came from a middle-class Midwestern background and that, while she's absolutely terrible at optics, she's above-average for ethics and honesty among politicians... got missed. People went for raw id rather than what they perceived as the superego of a corrupt system. I personally think that Hillary is far more liberal than she was given credit for. She's been turned into a cynical pragmatist by 20+ years of bitter experience in politics... and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think her heart was in the right place all along. She'd probably twist arms and threaten careers of people on both sides of the aisle to get a public option passed, and that's the kind of ballbuster the country needs. However, she's the sort of person who does very well in 1-on-1 interactions but fails with rooms and groups. She has grace but no charisma. She let her self be painted as a duplicitous Establishment hack. The irony is that Clinton and Trump voters both voted on the premise of their candidate being radically different from what they'd seen. Clinton voters believed that she was a liberal working within the establishment who'd bring us single-payer healthcare. Trump voters (except for the small percentage who actually are "deplorables", meaning racists and sexists and xenophobes) believed that Trump's dog-whistle rhetoric was just cynical game-playing. It bothers me that people accused Clinton of being "two-faced", while supporting a candidate in whom the best-case scenario is that he doesn't believe half the shit he says. We also have a country where people hate the perceived cultural elite that is occasionally condescending ("flyover country") more than they hate the socioeconomic elite that is actually ruining their lives and that needs, for the good of red and blue staters, to be overthrown. Numbers may explain that. There are more of us in the 4.99% for them to hate than in the 0.01% that something actually needs to be done about (although I doubt that Trump is the solution).

forgottenpass 10y ago

It’s a profound failure of empathy So "empathy" is the only thing keeping people from becoming complete shitstains? Empathy is currently experiencing buzz as a positive value people like conspicuously talking about, but what happened to simple old standards? I don't need to empathize with someone to treat them as human. Maybe this is one the kind of thing that makes people say "everyone should work in the service industry once in their lives" line, because you have to separate seething hatred from evaluating how to behave. I would think that "not be an insufferable know better douche that considers some people beneath them and without redemption" is pretty obvious when your job is ostensibly informing the public.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
In fairness, if your job is to inform the public, feeling that you "know better" is somewhere between a job requirement and an occupational hazard. (Actually, the "sweet spot" is where you actually know more, but don't feel like you do.)