4 ms·

I didn't get that sense from the article. It was all about influence. False stories influence people's opinions, and that may have encouraged voters to turn out

I didn't get that sense from the article. It was all about influence. False stories influence people's opinions, and that may have encouraged voters to turn out or not for their candidate. There was a lot of false and misleading information distributed online during this election, and literally spoken by the candidates (one more than another). The biggest lie is actually at the heart of Trump's campaign, that he can bring back the jobs. Those jobs he's talking about haven't just been outsourced to other countries, in many cases they have been automated into oblivion. Trump promised to bring these back, but how can you bring something back that doesn't exist? Mind you the Dems and Clinton had no substantial story to weave for the people that are hurting from the lack of these jobs. So people chose the fiction over no substantive story. It's an uncomfortable thing to tell people that everything they know is irrrelevent in the modern economy.

ThomPete 10y ago
I dont' believe he can bring them back either but it wasn't based on a lie and I am pretty sure he means it which is why he wants to dig into the resources and rebuild infrastructure. That does not make it a lie anymore than "yes we can" does.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  Trump relied on one of the worst aspects of the Human existence, that someone else will fix your problems for you. Giving people optimism about the future, bettering yours and everyone's existence is motivating for everyone. I believe this for anyone I've ever managed, and for any project I've ever worked on. People work better when they are optimistic. "Yes, we can" is a motivational statement encouraging people to try. Trump's "make America great again" is based on some misguided notion of nastalgia. When is this period that that statement harkens back to? Remember, the decades after WWII were great for the US because literally every other industrialized nation had been bombed so badly that they could barely make anything at all. America did well during this period because we had no competition. So how do we go back to that?
  - talmand 10y ago
    >> Trump relied on one of the worst aspects of the Human existence, that someone else will fix your problems for you. All politicians rely on this. Some of them deliver, most do not.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    The people who voted for Trump disagree with you. It gave the exactly the hope that Obama gave in 2008.
a_humean 10y ago
Except to be fair to the Dems and the Clinton campaign, they did have proposals and white papers addressing exactly these communities. For example, a proposal to invest $30 billion into coal mining communities within the Appalachia regions with promises for infrastructure investment and private business investment, and retraining former and current miners into new skilled occupations. Of course all of this pales in comparison to Clinton's emails, while Trump's incoherent economic message of howling pain to reopen all the mining operations gets all the air time it needs.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  Hillary also was resistant to the $15 minimum wage which would make a _huge_ difference for a lot of folks in the countryside. Hillary of course wanted to treat them like second-class citizens with only a $12 minimum. Who's going to go read white-papers after that sort of offer?
  - brightball 10y ago
    The $15 minimum wage would have devastated the countryside. I'm all over something like a minimum basic income that would effectively do the same thing as doubling the minimum wage, without putting the cost burden on businesses that can't afford it. The perk of a national $15 minimum wage is to remove any incentive US only businesses that may consider relocating to less expensive parts of the country. I'm sure it seems perfectly reasonable in a high cost of living area, but outside of that it's a jaw droppingly bad proposal.
    - Pokepokalypse 10y ago
      The problem with a straight-up $15 minwage is that it goes against what is becoming a huge force in this country: inequality. Minwage is meant to somewhat try to address inequality. But in fact, the difference between rural and urban cost of living is huge. So minwage needs to be sensitive to this. The issue really needs to be completely depoliticized, and the minimum wage should really be set to some kind of local/regional indicator, and indexed to inflation. But if we did that... politicians wouldn't get to flip this card out every 10 years to play it.
AJ007 10y ago
Whether Trump or anyone can bring back jobs is subjective, and that is the biggest problem with separating "real" from "fake" - I don't believe it is possible to do without in any objective way at all. The policies being proposed mean that the next time there is a leak, or stolen/hacked e-mail, the party involved can simply deny it is real and then the publisher would have to take the story offline or face some sort of negative weight or ban in Google and Facebook.
randomdata 10y ago
> how can you bring something back that doesn't exist Quite simply, you take away labor protections. Automation does not eliminate jobs, it competes for them. If people are cheaper, businesses will opt for people, even in the presence of automation. Robots won't work for free; people have proven time and time again that they will. There is some evidence[1] that Trump supports this method, at least to the point that he can push the blame onto lower levels of government if jobs don't materialize. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/09/donald-trumps-excellent-economic-idea-abolish-the-federal-minimum-wage/#df25c2775463 http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/09/donald-tr...

ThomPete 10y ago

I dont' believe he can bring them back either but it wasn't based on a lie and I am pretty sure he means it which is why he wants to dig into the resources and rebuild infrastructure. That does not make it a lie anymore than "yes we can" does.

bluejekyll 10y ago
Trump relied on one of the worst aspects of the Human existence, that someone else will fix your problems for you. Giving people optimism about the future, bettering yours and everyone's existence is motivating for everyone. I believe this for anyone I've ever managed, and for any project I've ever worked on. People work better when they are optimistic. "Yes, we can" is a motivational statement encouraging people to try. Trump's "make America great again" is based on some misguided notion of nastalgia. When is this period that that statement harkens back to? Remember, the decades after WWII were great for the US because literally every other industrialized nation had been bombed so badly that they could barely make anything at all. America did well during this period because we had no competition. So how do we go back to that?
- talmand 10y ago
  >> Trump relied on one of the worst aspects of the Human existence, that someone else will fix your problems for you. All politicians rely on this. Some of them deliver, most do not.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  The people who voted for Trump disagree with you. It gave the exactly the hope that Obama gave in 2008.

a_humean 10y ago

Except to be fair to the Dems and the Clinton campaign, they did have proposals and white papers addressing exactly these communities. For example, a proposal to invest $30 billion into coal mining communities within the Appalachia regions with promises for infrastructure investment and private business investment, and retraining former and current miners into new skilled occupations. Of course all of this pales in comparison to Clinton's emails, while Trump's incoherent economic message of howling pain to reopen all the mining operations gets all the air time it needs.

wavefunction 10y ago
Hillary also was resistant to the $15 minimum wage which would make a _huge_ difference for a lot of folks in the countryside. Hillary of course wanted to treat them like second-class citizens with only a $12 minimum. Who's going to go read white-papers after that sort of offer?
- brightball 10y ago
  The $15 minimum wage would have devastated the countryside. I'm all over something like a minimum basic income that would effectively do the same thing as doubling the minimum wage, without putting the cost burden on businesses that can't afford it. The perk of a national $15 minimum wage is to remove any incentive US only businesses that may consider relocating to less expensive parts of the country. I'm sure it seems perfectly reasonable in a high cost of living area, but outside of that it's a jaw droppingly bad proposal.
  - Pokepokalypse 10y ago
    The problem with a straight-up $15 minwage is that it goes against what is becoming a huge force in this country: inequality. Minwage is meant to somewhat try to address inequality. But in fact, the difference between rural and urban cost of living is huge. So minwage needs to be sensitive to this. The issue really needs to be completely depoliticized, and the minimum wage should really be set to some kind of local/regional indicator, and indexed to inflation. But if we did that... politicians wouldn't get to flip this card out every 10 years to play it.

AJ007 10y ago

Whether Trump or anyone can bring back jobs is subjective, and that is the biggest problem with separating "real" from "fake" - I don't believe it is possible to do without in any objective way at all. The policies being proposed mean that the next time there is a leak, or stolen/hacked e-mail, the party involved can simply deny it is real and then the publisher would have to take the story offline or face some sort of negative weight or ban in Google and Facebook.

randomdata 10y ago

> how can you bring something back that doesn't exist Quite simply, you take away labor protections. Automation does not eliminate jobs, it competes for them. If people are cheaper, businesses will opt for people, even in the presence of automation. Robots won't work for free; people have proven time and time again that they will. There is some evidence[1] that Trump supports this method, at least to the point that he can push the blame onto lower levels of government if jobs don't materialize. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/09/donald-trumps-excellent-economic-idea-abolish-the-federal-minimum-wage/#df25c2775463 http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/09/donald-tr...