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No flame war here, but as someone who has friends and family in Appalachia and middle America who voted for Trump, I tire of the "Trump won, and we didn't fores

by JPKab 9y ago

No flame war here, but as someone who has friends and family in Appalachia and middle America who voted for Trump, I tire of the "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" narrative. I dislike it because if Hillary had won, nobody would be looking into this at all. They would simply accept that in a free republic, policing what people hear is impossible, and you have to just trust the voters to not be fucking morons. But she didn't win, so we on the collective left have decided we can't trust voters to not be morons, and need to clamp down on the source of these people's misinformation. Does anyone here know a single person who switched their vote from Hillary to Trump? I don't. Trump didn't magically get votes that Romney didn't. Instead, the data shows that Hillary didn't get black voters to turnout in the numbers that Obama did. She got them to turnout in the numbers that John Kerry did, and subsequently lost. Is this because she's white, and a significant minority of black people who voted for Obama simply choose not to participate when a non-black candidate is nominated by the Democrats? Nobody has the guts to ask that question. We on the left need to get off of the "Trump stole the election with Russia's help" narrative, and get on the "Hillary doubled Trump's spending, had 5 times as much campaign staff, and according to Donna Brazille hijacked the DNC and the primaries, and still lost" narrative. We have two corrupt political parties in this country, not one. And both sides act like the other party is the only one.

calimac 9y ago
Good point, you're right on. It amazes me how otherwise intelligent people can think so illogically consequently creating an echo chamber drawing in an entire segment tech culture. There are redpills amongst us but, for the most part, they remain silent. Scott Adams of Dilbert articulates this phenomenon well.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cvwright 9y ago
> Trump didn't magically get votes that Romney didn't. Instead, the data shows that Hillary didn't get black voters to turnout in the numbers that Obama did. It was even worse than that (for HRC and the Dems). Did she even visit Wisconsin during the campaign? Also there are reports that Trump received a higher fraction of the black vote than Romney got.
- cholantesh 9y ago
  Per the Vox article linked in a sibling comment, 95% of black women who voted in 2016 voted for Hillary.
TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
> Instead, the data shows that Hillary didn't get black voters to turnout in the numbers that Obama did. It also shows voter suppression by Republicans hurt Democratic turnout in critical states (Wisconsin).
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Take Wisconsin's 10 EC votes and give them to Clinton and she would still lose. As a side note, I find it interesting how one man's voter suppression laws are another man's voter integrity laws.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
    “Voter fraud” is just a pretext. It happens at negligible rates whereëver it's been studied, and Republican legislators have actually been caught red-handed conspiring against likely-Democrat demographics, it's not just speculation.
colemannugent 9y ago
As someone who also has friends and family in middle America I honestly believe that the best way to ensure that Trump gets re-elected again in 2020 is maintaining the "only redneck bigots voted for Trump" argument. Roughly half of Americans voted for Trump, to insinuate that they are all bigots is to insult half of the country. Obviously most of the bigots voted for Trump, but they are still a very small minority. To win the next election Democrats need to convince Trump voters to switch sides by demonstrating that they care about middle America, which is 95% of what Trump's campaign was.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Considering that over half the country chose to field these two terrible candidates in the election, I'm perfectly fine with insulting half of the country.
- existencebox 9y ago
  I normally avoid arguments about this, but factually you're incorrect. There was approximately 61.4% adult voter turnout. Not only that, trump LOST the popular vote with only 46.1% of the ballots. What this comes out to is that roughly 30% of eligible voting adults supported Trump. This is _nowhere near_ "roughly half of Americans". (I'd add the additional factor that only ~130[EDIT: 250] million of the ~323 million US population is even eligible to vote. I don't mean this in terms of "Oh secretly all infants liked Hillary" but that it seems disingenuous to portray the numbers as an overwhelming popular mandate in the way you're suggesting. The data is simply not that comprehensive.) EDIT: As newlyretired correctly pointed out I conflated the total eligible # (250m) with total voted # (130m) That being said, I still stand by the crux of my post.
  - newlyretired 9y ago
    The actual number of eligible voters was about 250 million in the last presidential election, up from 235 million in the 2012 race. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...
  - 9y ago
0xfeba 9y ago
> "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" I disagree that is what the narrative is. I agree, though, that it's not likely any significant number of people (if any) switched votes. To me, the narrative is that Russia was, and is, sowing discord into politics. They are just trying to incite more civil strife and divide us more. And that is what seems to be working. The recently publicized ads, for example, all just reinforce right and left-leaning stereotypes. They don't try to get anyone sitting on the fence.
bodono 9y ago
Unbelievably Trump even won overall with white women, he got 53% of that vote. Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/20/14061660/women-march-washington-vote-trump https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/20/14061660/w...
hsod 9y ago
> "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" strawman. Some other theories about why black turnout was low this election: Voter suppression: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppressio... Russian-funded fake social media activism specifically targeted at black people: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/559113232/russian-operatives-secretly-ran-websites-to-emphasize-divisive-issues-in-u-s https://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/559113232/russian-operatives-... https://thinkprogress.org/black-matters-us-site-90625b18f262/ https://thinkprogress.org/black-matters-us-site-90625b18f262...
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  What effect do you think Russian propaganda and voter suppression had on the black turnout for HRC? And what effect did simply not fielding a historical black candidate have on the enthusiasm to vote among the black population? Also, how does black targeted propaganda and state-wide "voter suppression" laws explain that HRC lost big on the black vote relative to 2012, but Republicans came out equal or perhaps even better in the black vote, despite the media screaming constantly that Trump is racist.
  - hsod 9y ago
    > despite the media screaming constantly that Trump is racist This stuff is really, really not conducive to good discussion. > Also, how does black targeted propaganda and state-wide "voter suppression" laws explain that HRC lost big on the black vote relative to 2012, but Republicans came out equal or perhaps even better in the black vote A few things here: * Can you cite a source that says Republicans did better in the black vote relative to 2012? * Since the starting proportions were so skewed, you would expect lower black turnout to disproportionately impact Democrats (due to simple compositional effects). * The propaganda was specifically anti-Hillary (not anti-voting), so you would expect it to disproportionately impact Democrats.
    - googlryas 9y ago

by JPKab 9y ago

calimac 9y ago

Good point, you're right on. It amazes me how otherwise intelligent people can think so illogically consequently creating an echo chamber drawing in an entire segment tech culture. There are redpills amongst us but, for the most part, they remain silent. Scott Adams of Dilbert articulates this phenomenon well.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

cvwright 9y ago

> Trump didn't magically get votes that Romney didn't. Instead, the data shows that Hillary didn't get black voters to turnout in the numbers that Obama did. It was even worse than that (for HRC and the Dems). Did she even visit Wisconsin during the campaign? Also there are reports that Trump received a higher fraction of the black vote than Romney got.

cholantesh 9y ago
Per the Vox article linked in a sibling comment, 95% of black women who voted in 2016 voted for Hillary.

TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago

> Instead, the data shows that Hillary didn't get black voters to turnout in the numbers that Obama did. It also shows voter suppression by Republicans hurt Democratic turnout in critical states (Wisconsin).

oh_sigh 9y ago
Take Wisconsin's 10 EC votes and give them to Clinton and she would still lose. As a side note, I find it interesting how one man's voter suppression laws are another man's voter integrity laws.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
  “Voter fraud” is just a pretext. It happens at negligible rates whereëver it's been studied, and Republican legislators have actually been caught red-handed conspiring against likely-Democrat demographics, it's not just speculation.

colemannugent 9y ago

As someone who also has friends and family in middle America I honestly believe that the best way to ensure that Trump gets re-elected again in 2020 is maintaining the "only redneck bigots voted for Trump" argument. Roughly half of Americans voted for Trump, to insinuate that they are all bigots is to insult half of the country. Obviously most of the bigots voted for Trump, but they are still a very small minority. To win the next election Democrats need to convince Trump voters to switch sides by demonstrating that they care about middle America, which is 95% of what Trump's campaign was.

craftyguy 9y ago
Considering that over half the country chose to field these two terrible candidates in the election, I'm perfectly fine with insulting half of the country.
existencebox 9y ago
I normally avoid arguments about this, but factually you're incorrect. There was approximately 61.4% adult voter turnout. Not only that, trump LOST the popular vote with only 46.1% of the ballots. What this comes out to is that roughly 30% of eligible voting adults supported Trump. This is _nowhere near_ "roughly half of Americans". (I'd add the additional factor that only ~130[EDIT: 250] million of the ~323 million US population is even eligible to vote. I don't mean this in terms of "Oh secretly all infants liked Hillary" but that it seems disingenuous to portray the numbers as an overwhelming popular mandate in the way you're suggesting. The data is simply not that comprehensive.) EDIT: As newlyretired correctly pointed out I conflated the total eligible # (250m) with total voted # (130m) That being said, I still stand by the crux of my post.
- newlyretired 9y ago
  The actual number of eligible voters was about 250 million in the last presidential election, up from 235 million in the 2012 race. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...
- 9y ago

0xfeba 9y ago

> "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" I disagree that is what the narrative is. I agree, though, that it's not likely any significant number of people (if any) switched votes. To me, the narrative is that Russia was, and is, sowing discord into politics. They are just trying to incite more civil strife and divide us more. And that is what seems to be working. The recently publicized ads, for example, all just reinforce right and left-leaning stereotypes. They don't try to get anyone sitting on the fence.

bodono 9y ago

Unbelievably Trump even won overall with white women, he got 53% of that vote. Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/20/14061660/women-march-washington-vote-trump https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/20/14061660/w...

hsod 9y ago

> "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" strawman. Some other theories about why black turnout was low this election: Voter suppression: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppressio... Russian-funded fake social media activism specifically targeted at black people: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/559113232/russian-operatives-secretly-ran-websites-to-emphasize-divisive-issues-in-u-s https://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/559113232/russian-operatives-... https://thinkprogress.org/black-matters-us-site-90625b18f262/ https://thinkprogress.org/black-matters-us-site-90625b18f262...

oh_sigh 9y ago
What effect do you think Russian propaganda and voter suppression had on the black turnout for HRC? And what effect did simply not fielding a historical black candidate have on the enthusiasm to vote among the black population? Also, how does black targeted propaganda and state-wide "voter suppression" laws explain that HRC lost big on the black vote relative to 2012, but Republicans came out equal or perhaps even better in the black vote, despite the media screaming constantly that Trump is racist.
- hsod 9y ago
  > despite the media screaming constantly that Trump is racist This stuff is really, really not conducive to good discussion. > Also, how does black targeted propaganda and state-wide "voter suppression" laws explain that HRC lost big on the black vote relative to 2012, but Republicans came out equal or perhaps even better in the black vote A few things here: * Can you cite a source that says Republicans did better in the black vote relative to 2012? * Since the starting proportions were so skewed, you would expect lower black turnout to disproportionately impact Democrats (due to simple compositional effects). * The propaganda was specifically anti-Hillary (not anti-voting), so you would expect it to disproportionately impact Democrats.
  - googlryas 9y ago