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Reading this comment is a perfect synopsis for this election. The article is about rural america and a bubble and lack of understanding between the 2 circles. Y

Reading this comment is a perfect synopsis for this election. The article is about rural america and a bubble and lack of understanding between the 2 circles. Your comment focuses on the virtues of hiring someone black or a white women versus a poor white man. It's an axe to grind about the left rather than anything related to the article. Why is this guy hiring anyone? What does that have to do with anything? When is a wealthy black man or white woman up for the same job as poor white male? What does that comment have to do with anything? Give me one tangible example how your setup happens in the real world. It's all imagined and fantasy, like somehow liberals have set the world up that this poor white guy from rural America is getting screwed to hire a wealthy black guy or wealthy white woman. Let me guess, Obama is the wealthy black man, Hillary is the wealthy white woman, and Donald Trump is somehow the standin for rural poor white guys everywhere. And what is with the comments about Indians? Are we talking Indians from India or Native Americans. Who is demanding we replace black people with indian people. Where are they over represented? What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't make any sense, the same way Trump made no sense during the debates. You really read 1000 articles? Post them 5 of them, let's see them. You could have spent some time talking about Nafta or free trade or automation or god knows what and made some sense of this election. Michael Moore had a clip about how the free trade and nafta and rural america is hurting and predicted that Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania would go for Trump. It's incredible and relevant. But you didn't. You spent all your time railing against race issues and coastal social elites. And in your effort to rail against those wealthy coastal social elites you elected someone who was wealthy and lived in coastal city. I'm getting tired of the navel gazing over the post election analysis. I have a family member who voted for Trump because they can't wait till he sends Muslim out of the country and sends Mexicans back to Mexico and builds a wall. Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things. In all the analysis I've read, not one person has said that. Here's the Michael Moore clip for the record. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EekI4rBg9_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EekI4rBg9_U

ianai 10y ago
Can we just also add to what you said that...you know, Hilary Clinton actually won the most votes? She just didn't win them in the right areas that send the critical number of representatives to the electoral college to (not) debate and vote on who should be president.
- leereeves 10y ago
  Have they finished counting all the votes yet? It's very close and the lead switched at least once. We won't know who finally won the popular vote until the counting is done.
  - khuey 10y ago
    California has millions of votes remaining to be counted. Clinton won the popular vote, and probably by a million or two.
  - nkassis 10y ago
    it's been getting larger, most of the votes coming in are from larger areas that on average in this election voted for Hillary and 99% of the vote is in (some ballots in some states like California could be counted up to 3 days after end of election if they were postmarked on the day of the election). It's highly unlikely that large pockets of Trump votes would be found to make up 300K+ gap now. What's even crazier to me is trump has yet to pass Mitt Romney vote total. He didn't even beat the last republican candidate but won the election.
    - scaryspooky 10y ago
      Your last statement is wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931386
      - serge2k 10y ago
        It's not wrong until the totals are final. or he passes Romney
        scaryspooky 10y ago
        So... it is wrong and there are still more ballots being counted.
- Malarkey73 10y ago
bduerst 10y ago
^ This is a spot on analysis. The only thing I have to add is that the tangential way they go off on Indians and hypothetical scenarios seems random, but is probably part of one of the misinformation campaigns. Not some evil-motivated, conspiracy laden plot to lie to the public, but stories created by attention-hungry publishers, who are so desperate to trigger outrage for just a moment to get some eyeballs, that they stretch and manipulate information to seem threatening. This is what I think the election has shown: that if you make a person perceive they are threatened, isolate them by telling them other sources of information (other than your own) are biased against them, that you can get them to act in the most irrational ways.
- padseeker 10y ago
  thanks for the kudos. I appreciate it.
actsasbuffoon 10y ago
> Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things. I understand your frustration (I'm right there with you. I felt like a family member died after the election), but I think the statement I quoted is an exaggeration. Trump had a few groups of people that helped him win the election. I'd break them into these groups: * Traditional republican voters who didn't like much of what Trump said, but worried about liberal Supreme Court justices. * White supremacists. Most Trump supporters weren't white supremacists, but most white supremacists were Trump supporters. * People who feel that Washington is deeply corrupt and want to see the existing system torn down. Trump has pledged to introduce term limits for congress people, along with banning certain government employees from becoming lobbyists for a period of time. * Working class people who liked Trump's trade policies. He's pledged to renegotiate certain trade deals in an attempt to lessen our trade deficit. That would make it less appealing to outsource jobs, which union workers found appealing. I voted for Hillary, but I admit that I like his anti-corruption and trade deficit policies. Unfortunately I'm horrified by his policies on muslims, undocumented immigrants, etc. Quite simply, people who think like you and me lost on Tuesday. We lost badly. We need to take some time to figure out where to go from here, because if we run the next election like this one, we will probably lose again. We spent a lot of time being upset about the white supremacists who backed Trump. We didn't spend enough time addressing the concerns of union workers, anti-corruption advocates, and republicans who didn't like Trump. It probably cost us the election.
- akytt 10y ago
  As a bystander I think you lost because of political correctness. Declaring racism and biggotry and all those other things wrong does two things. Firstly, it makes it easy to ignore anyone expressing these thoughts. Because they are simply wrong. Secondly, it effectively hides any other view. You won't even know your colleague is a racist because he knows He cant say it. But political correctness will not change how people think. All of these people without a voice - the racist, biggots, sexists and the stupid - found a voice and voted for him. Guys, half of any population is statistically less smart than the other. You have apparently pissed off that other half and have to live with the consequences. In the land of the free it should be ok to be racist. As a society, you don't have to be but you cannot deny that racist idiot his right to be racist. He should not get his way but he should have the right to speak his mind.
jgalt212 10y ago
> I have a family member who voted for Trump because they can't wait till he sends Muslim out of the country and sends Mexicans back to Mexico and builds a wall. Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things. These people certainly do exist, but not nearly in the numbers the media portrays them to. If so, how did we elect a black man twice and just miss electing a woman to the highest office in the land? I refuse to believe the narrative about how racist rural America is. And to the extent there is racism in rural America I posit a good portion of it is driven by folks looking for someone to blame for their currently undesirable status in the global economy. If NY and CA were struggling, all the racists would be on the coasts and not in WI, MI, and OH, etc.
- projectileboy 10y ago
  You're a little right and a little wrong. It's wrong to paint all rural Americans as foaming-at-the-mouth racists. But if you think that many (perhaps even a majority) of rural Americans aren't racist, homophobic and xenophobic, then you haven't spent much time in rural America.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    I also think that this depends on how you define "racism". Absolutely, rural Americans are "racist" in the sense of not using approved language about people. On the other hand, that is a somewhat different thing than actually hating or despising people because of their skin color (etc). This article was mentioned in previous HN posts: 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... And I think this passage explains this point: If you'd asked me at the time, I'd have said the fear and hatred wasn't of people with brown skin, but of that specific tribe they have in Chicago -- you know, the guys with the weird slang, music and clothes, the dope fiends who murder everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarro nature of the cities, as perceived from afar -- a combination of hyper-aggressive savages and frivolous white elites. Their ways are strange. And it wasn't like pop culture was trying to talk me out of it...
- mcv 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
said 10y ago
> And what is with the comments about Indians? Are we talking Indians from India or Native Americans. Indians from India. Like my parents. > Who is demanding we replace black people with indian people. No one. > Where are they [blacks] over represented? What the hell are you talking about? 1. Sports, including practically all of our nation's most watched television events 2. Music (and despite this, smaller genres of music that don't overrepresent blacks are shamed [1]) 3. Celebrity/gossip news 4. Advertisements, particularly those aimed at boys Blacks are dramatically overrepresented in media consumed by young men, yet these naval-gazing "costal elites" never say, "Hey, we should reduce black overrepresentation and give Indian guys a chance." > It doesn't make any sense, the same way Trump made no sense during the debates. A large group of people see right through you and your priorities for us, and you're calling that a "blind spot". I genuinely hope you'll come around. [1]: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/710-the-unbearable-whiteness-of-indie/ http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/710-the-unbearable-whiteness-o...
- padseeker 10y ago
  The content of your post is completely lacking any substance whatsoever, and is totally unrelated to the post. Your cultural resentment of Blacks is transparent. I now understand your concern about how the "left only cares about replacing white people in popular culture with black people." It all makes sense. It is so obvious you have an axe to grind and that you voted for Trump because of things totally unrelated to his policies. You voted for Trump because there is too much Kanye and Lebron in the media. Not shocking though. I've read and heard a few members of minority groups talk about why they voted for Trump. Women afraid of Brown and Black people. Latinos afraid of Muslims. Muslims afraid of women being in control. You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together. I want to say it's disappointing but it's not totally surprising. Totally divorced from what the substance of this election was supposed to be about. Your axe to grind. The KKK is having a rally in NC to celebrate Trump's victory. You might want to share your concerns with them, you have a lot in common. I'd be very curious to hear how it goes.
  - said 10y ago
    > You voted for Trump because there is too much Kanye and Lebron in the media. Correct. Other "minority groups" (as you put it) are allowed to be resentful about white overrepresentation; Indians are allowed to be resentful about black overrepresentation. Under Clinton, groups like Black Lives Matter would be given more influence and control, and that would make my life more miserable and make me feel more marginalized. > You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together. Let's ignore the fact that Trump has never attacked Indian people, and his white supporters have never once attacked me. At the heart of your post are two assumptions: 1. Indian guys have something to gain by supporting black activism. 2. I haven't tried talking to black activists. Both assumptions are false. Progressive black activists are greedy. They want to take, take, take, take, and take from white people, yet the moment you ask them to consider how it must feel as an Indian guy seeing so many black guys in popular culture, you're a devil. Them: "We fought hard for our representation! Don't appropriate our struggle! You didn't earn any of this—we did! If you want more representation, fight for it yourself!" Me: "Well, I guess that's what I'm doing right by trying to talk to you about this." Them: "Go bother white folk about this—they're the ones holding you down, not us. I don't have the time." As it turns out, white people are underrepresented in many important areas of popular culture, and the white people who are in popular culture are almost exclusively progressives who are happy to keep other white people out. Racial politics are badly broken, but I trust white people over black people to give me a fair shake.
cjwilliams 10y ago
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2822059 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2822059 Here's some interesting data on trump supporters.

ianai 10y ago

Can we just also add to what you said that...you know, Hilary Clinton actually won the most votes? She just didn't win them in the right areas that send the critical number of representatives to the electoral college to (not) debate and vote on who should be president.

leereeves 10y ago
Have they finished counting all the votes yet? It's very close and the lead switched at least once. We won't know who finally won the popular vote until the counting is done.
- khuey 10y ago
  California has millions of votes remaining to be counted. Clinton won the popular vote, and probably by a million or two.
- nkassis 10y ago
  it's been getting larger, most of the votes coming in are from larger areas that on average in this election voted for Hillary and 99% of the vote is in (some ballots in some states like California could be counted up to 3 days after end of election if they were postmarked on the day of the election). It's highly unlikely that large pockets of Trump votes would be found to make up 300K+ gap now. What's even crazier to me is trump has yet to pass Mitt Romney vote total. He didn't even beat the last republican candidate but won the election.
  - scaryspooky 10y ago
    Your last statement is wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931386
    - serge2k 10y ago
      It's not wrong until the totals are final. or he passes Romney
      - scaryspooky 10y ago
        So... it is wrong and there are still more ballots being counted.
Malarkey73 10y ago

bduerst 10y ago

^ This is a spot on analysis. The only thing I have to add is that the tangential way they go off on Indians and hypothetical scenarios seems random, but is probably part of one of the misinformation campaigns. Not some evil-motivated, conspiracy laden plot to lie to the public, but stories created by attention-hungry publishers, who are so desperate to trigger outrage for just a moment to get some eyeballs, that they stretch and manipulate information to seem threatening. This is what I think the election has shown: that if you make a person perceive they are threatened, isolate them by telling them other sources of information (other than your own) are biased against them, that you can get them to act in the most irrational ways.

padseeker 10y ago
thanks for the kudos. I appreciate it.

actsasbuffoon 10y ago

> Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things. I understand your frustration (I'm right there with you. I felt like a family member died after the election), but I think the statement I quoted is an exaggeration. Trump had a few groups of people that helped him win the election. I'd break them into these groups: * Traditional republican voters who didn't like much of what Trump said, but worried about liberal Supreme Court justices. * White supremacists. Most Trump supporters weren't white supremacists, but most white supremacists were Trump supporters. * People who feel that Washington is deeply corrupt and want to see the existing system torn down. Trump has pledged to introduce term limits for congress people, along with banning certain government employees from becoming lobbyists for a period of time. * Working class people who liked Trump's trade policies. He's pledged to renegotiate certain trade deals in an attempt to lessen our trade deficit. That would make it less appealing to outsource jobs, which union workers found appealing. I voted for Hillary, but I admit that I like his anti-corruption and trade deficit policies. Unfortunately I'm horrified by his policies on muslims, undocumented immigrants, etc. Quite simply, people who think like you and me lost on Tuesday. We lost badly. We need to take some time to figure out where to go from here, because if we run the next election like this one, we will probably lose again. We spent a lot of time being upset about the white supremacists who backed Trump. We didn't spend enough time addressing the concerns of union workers, anti-corruption advocates, and republicans who didn't like Trump. It probably cost us the election.

akytt 10y ago
As a bystander I think you lost because of political correctness. Declaring racism and biggotry and all those other things wrong does two things. Firstly, it makes it easy to ignore anyone expressing these thoughts. Because they are simply wrong. Secondly, it effectively hides any other view. You won't even know your colleague is a racist because he knows He cant say it. But political correctness will not change how people think. All of these people without a voice - the racist, biggots, sexists and the stupid - found a voice and voted for him. Guys, half of any population is statistically less smart than the other. You have apparently pissed off that other half and have to live with the consequences. In the land of the free it should be ok to be racist. As a society, you don't have to be but you cannot deny that racist idiot his right to be racist. He should not get his way but he should have the right to speak his mind.

jgalt212 10y ago

> I have a family member who voted for Trump because they can't wait till he sends Muslim out of the country and sends Mexicans back to Mexico and builds a wall. Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things. These people certainly do exist, but not nearly in the numbers the media portrays them to. If so, how did we elect a black man twice and just miss electing a woman to the highest office in the land? I refuse to believe the narrative about how racist rural America is. And to the extent there is racism in rural America I posit a good portion of it is driven by folks looking for someone to blame for their currently undesirable status in the global economy. If NY and CA were struggling, all the racists would be on the coasts and not in WI, MI, and OH, etc.

projectileboy 10y ago
You're a little right and a little wrong. It's wrong to paint all rural Americans as foaming-at-the-mouth racists. But if you think that many (perhaps even a majority) of rural Americans aren't racist, homophobic and xenophobic, then you haven't spent much time in rural America.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  I also think that this depends on how you define "racism". Absolutely, rural Americans are "racist" in the sense of not using approved language about people. On the other hand, that is a somewhat different thing than actually hating or despising people because of their skin color (etc). This article was mentioned in previous HN posts: 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... And I think this passage explains this point: If you'd asked me at the time, I'd have said the fear and hatred wasn't of people with brown skin, but of that specific tribe they have in Chicago -- you know, the guys with the weird slang, music and clothes, the dope fiends who murder everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarro nature of the cities, as perceived from afar -- a combination of hyper-aggressive savages and frivolous white elites. Their ways are strange. And it wasn't like pop culture was trying to talk me out of it...
mcv 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

said 10y ago

> And what is with the comments about Indians? Are we talking Indians from India or Native Americans. Indians from India. Like my parents. > Who is demanding we replace black people with indian people. No one. > Where are they [blacks] over represented? What the hell are you talking about? 1. Sports, including practically all of our nation's most watched television events 2. Music (and despite this, smaller genres of music that don't overrepresent blacks are shamed [1]) 3. Celebrity/gossip news 4. Advertisements, particularly those aimed at boys Blacks are dramatically overrepresented in media consumed by young men, yet these naval-gazing "costal elites" never say, "Hey, we should reduce black overrepresentation and give Indian guys a chance." > It doesn't make any sense, the same way Trump made no sense during the debates. A large group of people see right through you and your priorities for us, and you're calling that a "blind spot". I genuinely hope you'll come around. [1]: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/710-the-unbearable-whiteness-of-indie/ http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/710-the-unbearable-whiteness-o...

padseeker 10y ago
The content of your post is completely lacking any substance whatsoever, and is totally unrelated to the post. Your cultural resentment of Blacks is transparent. I now understand your concern about how the "left only cares about replacing white people in popular culture with black people." It all makes sense. It is so obvious you have an axe to grind and that you voted for Trump because of things totally unrelated to his policies. You voted for Trump because there is too much Kanye and Lebron in the media. Not shocking though. I've read and heard a few members of minority groups talk about why they voted for Trump. Women afraid of Brown and Black people. Latinos afraid of Muslims. Muslims afraid of women being in control. You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together. I want to say it's disappointing but it's not totally surprising. Totally divorced from what the substance of this election was supposed to be about. Your axe to grind. The KKK is having a rally in NC to celebrate Trump's victory. You might want to share your concerns with them, you have a lot in common. I'd be very curious to hear how it goes.
- said 10y ago
  > You voted for Trump because there is too much Kanye and Lebron in the media. Correct. Other "minority groups" (as you put it) are allowed to be resentful about white overrepresentation; Indians are allowed to be resentful about black overrepresentation. Under Clinton, groups like Black Lives Matter would be given more influence and control, and that would make my life more miserable and make me feel more marginalized. > You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together. Let's ignore the fact that Trump has never attacked Indian people, and his white supporters have never once attacked me. At the heart of your post are two assumptions: 1. Indian guys have something to gain by supporting black activism. 2. I haven't tried talking to black activists. Both assumptions are false. Progressive black activists are greedy. They want to take, take, take, take, and take from white people, yet the moment you ask them to consider how it must feel as an Indian guy seeing so many black guys in popular culture, you're a devil. Them: "We fought hard for our representation! Don't appropriate our struggle! You didn't earn any of this—we did! If you want more representation, fight for it yourself!" Me: "Well, I guess that's what I'm doing right by trying to talk to you about this." Them: "Go bother white folk about this—they're the ones holding you down, not us. I don't have the time." As it turns out, white people are underrepresented in many important areas of popular culture, and the white people who are in popular culture are almost exclusively progressives who are happy to keep other white people out. Racial politics are badly broken, but I trust white people over black people to give me a fair shake.

cjwilliams 10y ago

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2822059 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2822059 Here's some interesting data on trump supporters.