5 ms·

It's Not Orwell, It's Brave New World

37 points by fmihaila 10y ago

angersock 10y ago
No, you stupid uncritical fucks, it's Fahrenheit 451. Not a single goddamn mention of Bradbury on the entire page, and his work (and arguably Heinlen's in If This Goes On and Friday) showed us exactly where we ended up. Seriously, kind and gentle folks of HN who are outraged at Trump and the alt-right and everything else, go read the goddamn book. Order it off of Amazon. Here's the dirty secret that it covers and 1984 and Brave New World don't: We do this to ourselves, because we're too goddamn lazy to deal with conflicting views and too offended by the past, constantly looking for the succor of a softly-lit screen giving us the faded third-hand synthetic afterglow of existence. TV was the start, and the current social web the reasonable conclusion. Like, seriously, have a goddamn quote: Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that!... Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did.(54) And the funny thing is? This post is going to be rank-banned and thrown at the bottom of this comment section. Sure, upvote the submission here, but don't be blind to the glaring hypocrisy of the site you're doing it on. EDIT: Here, go read some selections from the work here:: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 EDIT 2: The "you" in that first paragraph is in regards to the authors of the submission, not our readers here on HN. I've different words of disapproval for us. :P
- applecrazy 10y ago
  Well said, you get an upvote. I completely agree but I think your tone will be unappreciated by many here on HN. But in all honesty, don't you think each book predicted a different aspect of our lives? For example, 1984 describes the government while F451 describes the sentiment of the crowds, and finally Brave New World describes our behavior as a society.
- pc2g4d 10y ago
  I did downvote you, because you wrapped your meaningful contribution ("don't forget Fahrenheit 451") in insults.
  - multinglets 10y ago
    I did upvote him, because your downvote deserves to be canceled because that is stupid.
    - malynda 10y ago
      Do you have any more intelligent response than "because that is stupid"? Yes, a good point was made. But, also, let's try to remember to maintain some level of professionalism here! If you want to troll someone, go to Twitter.
      - thtoesubd 10y ago
        It's well established in multiple threads that people downvote and flag views they find unacceptable and has nothing to do with guidelines.
        grzm 10y ago
        The world will always include bad actors. That doesn't mean we should encourage or tolerate bad behavior.
        thtoesubd 10y ago
        Whatever gets you through the night. HN commenters are turning this place into another safe space. Contrary views are not tolerated.
        grzm 10y ago
        Considering the animated discussions from a wide variety of positions, I'm not seeing what you are. I do see strong bias against overly aggressive and uncivil behavior. I also see a few members who have a hard time seeing beyond their own bias. It's natural to be more aware of behavior against your own "side". It's just one of our cognitive biases we need to be aware of and guard against. Comment and submission data is available via the HN APIs. Put together an analysis and share your methodology and results. Regardless of your findings, I know I'd be interested in seeing them. I'm sure a lot of other HN members would be, too.
- jameskegel 10y ago
  You make a good point.
- myowncrapulence 10y ago
  And the funny thing is? This post is going to be rank-banned and thrown at the bottom of this comment section. Sure, upvote the submission here, but don't be blind to the glaring hypocrisy of the site you're doing it on. From the Hacker News comments guidelines: "Avoid gratuitous negativity." "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted. " You're yelling at no one. You'd do better to get attention for your cause by not treating everyone on this site like a demon.
  - thtoesubd 10y ago
    Pish posh. HN mods regularly violate their own guidelines, play favorites, and outright ban views they find unsettling.
  - angersock 10y ago
    Thank you for you observations, but I've been on this site twenty-times as long as you have (according to your profile) and am quite aware of what I'm doing. > "Avoid gratuitous negativity." The submission was talking about how apt 1984 and Brave New World are for describing our current predicament, and my comment was explaining how they didn't quite catch it either. Gratuitous negativity is a decent way of describing the zeitgeist of the times, sorry to say. >"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." >"Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted. " As a matter of fact, it does work on occasion, but again if you read my post the thing I was complaining about was the practice of rank-banning. In case you're a little unfamiliar (with a 90 day old account, that's expected) the deal is that one of HN's ways of dealing with undesirables is to give them a "rank ban", which will cause their posts to fall more quickly to the bottom of a list of subthreads. There are other banning mechanisms. > You'd do better to get attention for your cause by not treating everyone on this site like a demon. I don't particularly care whether you pay attention to my "cause" or whether you find it too coarsely worded for your delicate sensibilities. Some folks will get it, some won't, and most will be too busy with other random stuff on here to notice either way--the point is to say something, in my own voice, for my own reasons. And hey, you should totally feel the same way about your own posting. :) EDIT: Removed slightly douchey remark about "wet behind the ears".
- projektir 10y ago
  I don't see you actually arguing your point, beyond a heavy dose of pathos. The reason this kind of approach gets downvoted is that you're replacing any sort of argumentation by just trying to attack the issue on an emotional level, and a very manipulative one at that ("people who don't agree with me are uncritical hypocrites"). I don't know if it's terribly useful to argue which book is more relevant. There seems to be some truth in all of them, but then also a lot of assumptions and unfounded claims, and they all honestly feel very dated. I think I've seen a lot of the same ideas better expressed on blogs. My preferred author is actually McLuhan. If we're going to talk about TV's, the internet, and social media, I think he covered that whole subject a lot better, and with a much more interesting point than "people suck": that technology can have effects we cannot predict, and that we're letting reality shape us as opposed to us shaping it. "We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us." We're currently in a time where any sort of philosophy that implies large systemic effects that override will is rather unpalatable (talk about avoiding controversy) to most people, but that's not an assumption we can buy on faith if we want to talk about how and why things are. The first thing that really needs to be proven in all these sorts of discussions is whether or not the development is somehow unique and extra-bad. I'm not convinced that the current state is so much worse (for whom?) than a time when certain minorities had to deal with more than having their toes stepped on. I really don't know what to do with that statement since the two things are very related. We were huge dicks to certain minorities for millennia. We're now trying to be considerate, and perhaps overdoing it. But what do you propose, not doing it? Maybe this avoiding stepping on toes is a sign of something else, something bigger, something older? Or was that not the point? Unfortunately, you haven't clearly stated yours, you just quoted an author. Yeah, people get offended. They get lazy. They live in ways that are not fashionable. When is somebody going to ask why? "People suck" is such a lazy (haha), boring answer, it's a nonanswer. People haven't magically changed, why do they "suck" all the time? Anyone want to answer that? I don't think anyone wants to, since the answer is rather grim, and it doesn't have anything to do with minorities.
HoppedUpMenace 10y ago
Isn't this article purely an opinion piece? I don't mind, but if it is, it should be labeled as such and not passed off as investigative journalism. That being said, you could argue that its both or any number of things, for example: news supression/distortion -> Orwell class system of superiors/inferiors -> Brave New World Could even possibly throw Citizen Kane into the mix but that may be a stretch.
- norea-armozel 10y ago
  So Brazil minus the ducts?
tronreg 10y ago
"the average weekly screen time for an American adult – brace yourself; this is not a typo – is 74 hours"
jamesmcintyre 10y ago
Throughout this entire election and transition I've been wondering if Neil Postman's son is going to remind people of his father's warning in "Amusing Ourselves to Death". It's truly surreal that this detailed prediction I read years ago, written two years before I was born, has been playing out in such a spectacularly... real way. There's this feeling you get when you understand what we're in the grips of yet you also observe and experience just how overwhelmingly impossible it is for everyone to confront the same realizations in order for us to course-correct and avoid what increasingly feels like an inevitable disaster. Neil Postman was both somewhat deterministic in his beliefs about our future and then reluctantly optimistic when pushed. In an interview he jokingly qualified his optimistic statement with "but remember I'm an American which means I'm eternally optimistic". I think he was also very struck with this feeling, that it is all so clear what is happening yet the dance continues and to warn people, to educate, to improve things in a systemic way that'd be sufficient enough in capacity to combat these omnipresent machinations is so overwhelmingly difficult and complex that one feels a bit hopeless. In that same interview he said "..to the extent that there would be a serious conversation among Americans about these issues I think we could pull through." (Link to end of interview: https://youtu.be/FRabb6_Gr2Y?t=27m https://youtu.be/FRabb6_Gr2Y?t=27m) Because this problem is so complex and deeply-entrenched in so many facets of our existence whatever course-correction can be made will have to be the result of a phenomenon which I'd describe as very much "emergent". And that phenomenon will be an amalgamation of shifts in thought and behavior spanning all facets of culture and society. You could say "organic movement" but I am not even so hopeful as to think one or a few "organic" movements would suffice. I believe the shift would have to be systemic but also cultural, only a shift in our beliefs- in what our culture deems valuable would provide enough motivation to re-center ourselves around a new definition of civic duty. Ever since I wanted to be a web developer my dream was to start a successful startup that would allow me to then fund the development of a web technology, likely a platform of some sort, that would help solve some of these bewilderingly complex problems primarily rooted in education. I am always trying to think of how a web technology could fit into the puzzle. However, if a the American people do not start a discussion about this problem (not one facet of the problem like "fake news" but an acknowledgement of it's deeply-entrenched, multi-faceted nature) than we cannot give it a name and fight it. We cannot begin to plan solutions if we do not first have most people on board which the fact that the problem exists in the first place. If you've read this far maybe you too are interested in this problem and maybe a couple web developers slowly ideating and iterating over time could be a valuable contribution? Feel free to hit me up: james.checks.his.email at gmail dot com. *edited to add link to interview.
gozur88 10y ago
>At Forbes, one contributor wrote that the book “may help explain the otherwise inexplicable”. It's only inexplicable if you live in a coastal bubble where everyone thinks the same way you do. It can't be that your values were rejected by people you deride in "flyover country" (and still not by a majority of the country). No, it must be that they've been brainwashed by television! But somehow the purveyors of this theory have remained untouched by the corrupting influence of mass media.
- flukus 10y ago
  To add to this, I bet most people here would think that the immigration changes are universally loathed, but most Americans support them: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-poll-exclusive-idUSKBN15F2MG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-poll...
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  Other than flat panel TV's and cell phones, a lot of people in "middle America" have gotten absolutely shit out of the last 20 - 30 years. Work's more for less and no advancement. The future is ever more uncertain. Healthcare's gone from expensive to unachievable. Illegal immigration has produced considerable downward pressure on lower-end jobs as well as non-wage benefits (illegals have no leverage with respect to benefits, and this places additional pressure on everyone else to give up on them). My cousin's little old farm town in the middle of Nebraska has become significantly "hispanified." And while many of them are nice enough, a significant fraction are not. Regardless, it has produced a very significant, dramatic local social and cultural shift. Which many remaining voters find quite disruptive. Republican as well as Democratic "internationalists" turned their backs on these potential voters and with varying forms of rhetoric about "the greater good." Well, there's only so much personal sacrifice people are going to put up with. Trump... well, whatever you think about truth and falsehood with respect to him and the people immediately around him (campaign, advisors, talking heads, opportunists, hangers-on... oh, and his family), he gave this demographic a message to vote for. In the U.S., social cohesion has always been limited and reinforced significantly through force and intimidation rather than cooperation. But, in a politically significant while not / no longer economically and popularly dominant demographic, it wore thin enough to engender this disruption. The "internationalists" forgot the first rule of politics and of social stability: To take care of your own. Well, they came to mis-identify "their own" in terms of their personal economic benefit as opposed to the polities they formally represented. Having watched my own little economic sector, tech., get run over by outsourcing and ageism, I have very little sympathy for them nor for the economic friends they thought they were representing. P.S. I'm no Trump supporter. I'm simply saying, neither am I surprised by what's happened. Except, perhaps, than he actually achieved the Presidency. The Clinton camp and the DNC can hang that one squarely around their necks. P.P.S. I'm not particularly defending the Trump voter, either. A lot of nastiness and short-sightedness and myopic self-interest in that camp, too. Nonetheless, they are voters -- members of society -- and trying to quietly flush them down the drain was not a particularly astute political strategy. P.P.P.S. There is also another -- and perhaps the dominant -- side to Trump support: People who believe simply that you get what you deserve. Regardless of circumstances. They are doing ok -- well, even. And that they entirely deserve credit for that. Anyone else? Not their problem. And if the other person's circumstances leave them down and out: Well, they deserve that. Some of these people: They will take and take. I experienced this personally, this past year, trying to help one of them out of difficult straights. As their circumstances improved -- not insignificantly through considerable dint of effort on my part -- they became less grateful rather than more, and a criticism of others that I thought they were initially beginning to see past, returned in full force. Direct kindness ultimately had no influence on their perspective and behavior -- no matter what words and attitudes they used to initially solicit and gain support. And THIS really scares me, more than a bit. Or divests me somewhat more of my own apparently mistaken ideals. Some of these people, are simply intractable. There is no compromise with them, no coming to a mutual understanding. Were the "internationalists" right, simply to try to leave them behind? No -- even if they are intractable, simply ignoring them is short-sighted, in its own fashion. Anyway, I've glued enough P.S.'s onto this comment that reflects my continuing struggle to find my own way through these set of personalities written wholesale onto our current politics.

37 points by fmihaila 10y ago

No, you stupid uncritical fucks, it's Fahrenheit 451. Not a single goddamn mention of Bradbury on the entire page, and his work (and arguably Heinlen's in If This Goes On and Friday) showed us exactly where we ended up. Seriously, kind and gentle folks of HN who are outraged at Trump and the alt-right and everything else, go read the goddamn book. Order it off of Amazon. Here's the dirty secret that it covers and 1984 and Brave New World don't: We do this to ourselves, because we're too goddamn lazy to deal with conflicting views and too offended by the past, constantly looking for the succor of a softly-lit screen giving us the faded third-hand synthetic afterglow of existence. TV was the start, and the current social web the reasonable conclusion. Like, seriously, have a goddamn quote: Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that!... Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did.(54) And the funny thing is? This post is going to be rank-banned and thrown at the bottom of this comment section. Sure, upvote the submission here, but don't be blind to the glaring hypocrisy of the site you're doing it on. EDIT: Here, go read some selections from the work here:: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 EDIT 2: The "you" in that first paragraph is in regards to the authors of the submission, not our readers here on HN. I've different words of disapproval for us. :P

applecrazy 10y ago
Well said, you get an upvote. I completely agree but I think your tone will be unappreciated by many here on HN. But in all honesty, don't you think each book predicted a different aspect of our lives? For example, 1984 describes the government while F451 describes the sentiment of the crowds, and finally Brave New World describes our behavior as a society.
pc2g4d 10y ago
I did downvote you, because you wrapped your meaningful contribution ("don't forget Fahrenheit 451") in insults.
- multinglets 10y ago
  I did upvote him, because your downvote deserves to be canceled because that is stupid.
  - malynda 10y ago
    Do you have any more intelligent response than "because that is stupid"? Yes, a good point was made. But, also, let's try to remember to maintain some level of professionalism here! If you want to troll someone, go to Twitter.
    - thtoesubd 10y ago
      It's well established in multiple threads that people downvote and flag views they find unacceptable and has nothing to do with guidelines.
      - grzm 10y ago
        The world will always include bad actors. That doesn't mean we should encourage or tolerate bad behavior.
        thtoesubd 10y ago
        Whatever gets you through the night. HN commenters are turning this place into another safe space. Contrary views are not tolerated.
        grzm 10y ago
        Considering the animated discussions from a wide variety of positions, I'm not seeing what you are. I do see strong bias against overly aggressive and uncivil behavior. I also see a few members who have a hard time seeing beyond their own bias. It's natural to be more aware of behavior against your own "side". It's just one of our cognitive biases we need to be aware of and guard against. Comment and submission data is available via the HN APIs. Put together an analysis and share your methodology and results. Regardless of your findings, I know I'd be interested in seeing them. I'm sure a lot of other HN members would be, too.
jameskegel 10y ago
You make a good point.
myowncrapulence 10y ago
And the funny thing is? This post is going to be rank-banned and thrown at the bottom of this comment section. Sure, upvote the submission here, but don't be blind to the glaring hypocrisy of the site you're doing it on. From the Hacker News comments guidelines: "Avoid gratuitous negativity." "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted. " You're yelling at no one. You'd do better to get attention for your cause by not treating everyone on this site like a demon.
- thtoesubd 10y ago
  Pish posh. HN mods regularly violate their own guidelines, play favorites, and outright ban views they find unsettling.
- angersock 10y ago
  Thank you for you observations, but I've been on this site twenty-times as long as you have (according to your profile) and am quite aware of what I'm doing. > "Avoid gratuitous negativity." The submission was talking about how apt 1984 and Brave New World are for describing our current predicament, and my comment was explaining how they didn't quite catch it either. Gratuitous negativity is a decent way of describing the zeitgeist of the times, sorry to say. >"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." >"Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted. " As a matter of fact, it does work on occasion, but again if you read my post the thing I was complaining about was the practice of rank-banning. In case you're a little unfamiliar (with a 90 day old account, that's expected) the deal is that one of HN's ways of dealing with undesirables is to give them a "rank ban", which will cause their posts to fall more quickly to the bottom of a list of subthreads. There are other banning mechanisms. > You'd do better to get attention for your cause by not treating everyone on this site like a demon. I don't particularly care whether you pay attention to my "cause" or whether you find it too coarsely worded for your delicate sensibilities. Some folks will get it, some won't, and most will be too busy with other random stuff on here to notice either way--the point is to say something, in my own voice, for my own reasons. And hey, you should totally feel the same way about your own posting. :) EDIT: Removed slightly douchey remark about "wet behind the ears".
projektir 10y ago
I don't see you actually arguing your point, beyond a heavy dose of pathos. The reason this kind of approach gets downvoted is that you're replacing any sort of argumentation by just trying to attack the issue on an emotional level, and a very manipulative one at that ("people who don't agree with me are uncritical hypocrites"). I don't know if it's terribly useful to argue which book is more relevant. There seems to be some truth in all of them, but then also a lot of assumptions and unfounded claims, and they all honestly feel very dated. I think I've seen a lot of the same ideas better expressed on blogs. My preferred author is actually McLuhan. If we're going to talk about TV's, the internet, and social media, I think he covered that whole subject a lot better, and with a much more interesting point than "people suck": that technology can have effects we cannot predict, and that we're letting reality shape us as opposed to us shaping it. "We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us." We're currently in a time where any sort of philosophy that implies large systemic effects that override will is rather unpalatable (talk about avoiding controversy) to most people, but that's not an assumption we can buy on faith if we want to talk about how and why things are. The first thing that really needs to be proven in all these sorts of discussions is whether or not the development is somehow unique and extra-bad. I'm not convinced that the current state is so much worse (for whom?) than a time when certain minorities had to deal with more than having their toes stepped on. I really don't know what to do with that statement since the two things are very related. We were huge dicks to certain minorities for millennia. We're now trying to be considerate, and perhaps overdoing it. But what do you propose, not doing it? Maybe this avoiding stepping on toes is a sign of something else, something bigger, something older? Or was that not the point? Unfortunately, you haven't clearly stated yours, you just quoted an author. Yeah, people get offended. They get lazy. They live in ways that are not fashionable. When is somebody going to ask why? "People suck" is such a lazy (haha), boring answer, it's a nonanswer. People haven't magically changed, why do they "suck" all the time? Anyone want to answer that? I don't think anyone wants to, since the answer is rather grim, and it doesn't have anything to do with minorities.

HoppedUpMenace 10y ago

Isn't this article purely an opinion piece? I don't mind, but if it is, it should be labeled as such and not passed off as investigative journalism. That being said, you could argue that its both or any number of things, for example: news supression/distortion -> Orwell class system of superiors/inferiors -> Brave New World Could even possibly throw Citizen Kane into the mix but that may be a stretch.

norea-armozel 10y ago
So Brazil minus the ducts?

tronreg 10y ago

"the average weekly screen time for an American adult – brace yourself; this is not a typo – is 74 hours"

jamesmcintyre 10y ago

Throughout this entire election and transition I've been wondering if Neil Postman's son is going to remind people of his father's warning in "Amusing Ourselves to Death". It's truly surreal that this detailed prediction I read years ago, written two years before I was born, has been playing out in such a spectacularly... real way. There's this feeling you get when you understand what we're in the grips of yet you also observe and experience just how overwhelmingly impossible it is for everyone to confront the same realizations in order for us to course-correct and avoid what increasingly feels like an inevitable disaster. Neil Postman was both somewhat deterministic in his beliefs about our future and then reluctantly optimistic when pushed. In an interview he jokingly qualified his optimistic statement with "but remember I'm an American which means I'm eternally optimistic". I think he was also very struck with this feeling, that it is all so clear what is happening yet the dance continues and to warn people, to educate, to improve things in a systemic way that'd be sufficient enough in capacity to combat these omnipresent machinations is so overwhelmingly difficult and complex that one feels a bit hopeless. In that same interview he said "..to the extent that there would be a serious conversation among Americans about these issues I think we could pull through." (Link to end of interview: https://youtu.be/FRabb6_Gr2Y?t=27m https://youtu.be/FRabb6_Gr2Y?t=27m) Because this problem is so complex and deeply-entrenched in so many facets of our existence whatever course-correction can be made will have to be the result of a phenomenon which I'd describe as very much "emergent". And that phenomenon will be an amalgamation of shifts in thought and behavior spanning all facets of culture and society. You could say "organic movement" but I am not even so hopeful as to think one or a few "organic" movements would suffice. I believe the shift would have to be systemic but also cultural, only a shift in our beliefs- in what our culture deems valuable would provide enough motivation to re-center ourselves around a new definition of civic duty. Ever since I wanted to be a web developer my dream was to start a successful startup that would allow me to then fund the development of a web technology, likely a platform of some sort, that would help solve some of these bewilderingly complex problems primarily rooted in education. I am always trying to think of how a web technology could fit into the puzzle. However, if a the American people do not start a discussion about this problem (not one facet of the problem like "fake news" but an acknowledgement of it's deeply-entrenched, multi-faceted nature) than we cannot give it a name and fight it. We cannot begin to plan solutions if we do not first have most people on board which the fact that the problem exists in the first place. If you've read this far maybe you too are interested in this problem and maybe a couple web developers slowly ideating and iterating over time could be a valuable contribution? Feel free to hit me up: james.checks.his.email at gmail dot com. *edited to add link to interview.

gozur88 10y ago

>At Forbes, one contributor wrote that the book “may help explain the otherwise inexplicable”. It's only inexplicable if you live in a coastal bubble where everyone thinks the same way you do. It can't be that your values were rejected by people you deride in "flyover country" (and still not by a majority of the country). No, it must be that they've been brainwashed by television! But somehow the purveyors of this theory have remained untouched by the corrupting influence of mass media.

flukus 10y ago
To add to this, I bet most people here would think that the immigration changes are universally loathed, but most Americans support them: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-poll-exclusive-idUSKBN15F2MG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-poll...
pasbesoin 10y ago
Other than flat panel TV's and cell phones, a lot of people in "middle America" have gotten absolutely shit out of the last 20 - 30 years. Work's more for less and no advancement. The future is ever more uncertain. Healthcare's gone from expensive to unachievable. Illegal immigration has produced considerable downward pressure on lower-end jobs as well as non-wage benefits (illegals have no leverage with respect to benefits, and this places additional pressure on everyone else to give up on them). My cousin's little old farm town in the middle of Nebraska has become significantly "hispanified." And while many of them are nice enough, a significant fraction are not. Regardless, it has produced a very significant, dramatic local social and cultural shift. Which many remaining voters find quite disruptive. Republican as well as Democratic "internationalists" turned their backs on these potential voters and with varying forms of rhetoric about "the greater good." Well, there's only so much personal sacrifice people are going to put up with. Trump... well, whatever you think about truth and falsehood with respect to him and the people immediately around him (campaign, advisors, talking heads, opportunists, hangers-on... oh, and his family), he gave this demographic a message to vote for. In the U.S., social cohesion has always been limited and reinforced significantly through force and intimidation rather than cooperation. But, in a politically significant while not / no longer economically and popularly dominant demographic, it wore thin enough to engender this disruption. The "internationalists" forgot the first rule of politics and of social stability: To take care of your own. Well, they came to mis-identify "their own" in terms of their personal economic benefit as opposed to the polities they formally represented. Having watched my own little economic sector, tech., get run over by outsourcing and ageism, I have very little sympathy for them nor for the economic friends they thought they were representing. P.S. I'm no Trump supporter. I'm simply saying, neither am I surprised by what's happened. Except, perhaps, than he actually achieved the Presidency. The Clinton camp and the DNC can hang that one squarely around their necks. P.P.S. I'm not particularly defending the Trump voter, either. A lot of nastiness and short-sightedness and myopic self-interest in that camp, too. Nonetheless, they are voters -- members of society -- and trying to quietly flush them down the drain was not a particularly astute political strategy. P.P.P.S. There is also another -- and perhaps the dominant -- side to Trump support: People who believe simply that you get what you deserve. Regardless of circumstances. They are doing ok -- well, even. And that they entirely deserve credit for that. Anyone else? Not their problem. And if the other person's circumstances leave them down and out: Well, they deserve that. Some of these people: They will take and take. I experienced this personally, this past year, trying to help one of them out of difficult straights. As their circumstances improved -- not insignificantly through considerable dint of effort on my part -- they became less grateful rather than more, and a criticism of others that I thought they were initially beginning to see past, returned in full force. Direct kindness ultimately had no influence on their perspective and behavior -- no matter what words and attitudes they used to initially solicit and gain support. And THIS really scares me, more than a bit. Or divests me somewhat more of my own apparently mistaken ideals. Some of these people, are simply intractable. There is no compromise with them, no coming to a mutual understanding. Were the "internationalists" right, simply to try to leave them behind? No -- even if they are intractable, simply ignoring them is short-sighted, in its own fashion. Anyway, I've glued enough P.S.'s onto this comment that reflects my continuing struggle to find my own way through these set of personalities written wholesale onto our current politics.