2016 United States Election

[Cerin]

There were vast sums of dark money spent on the state and local level, even if it did not play its traditional role in the Presidential election.

[RoseMorninStar]

How do you see Sanders playing to emotions? His speeches were very straightforward, concrete and specific, pointing out inequities of the current system and how he thought they could be remedied. You really couldn't get a much more meat and potatoes speaker than Sanders.

Perhaps a better word for Sanders would be 'passion/passionate'. I would add compassionate. I would definitely not put Sanders in the same category as a demagogue (Trump). Sanders has knowledge and experience and yes, concrete, specific, and humane/concern for all.

[yovargas]

The thing about calling Trump voters racist is that it's counter-productive. Even if you can prove it. Feel free to imagine quotes around *prove*. Big scary ones.

Calling people racist won't shame them into voting differently next time. It will just make them defensive. It confirms the feeling that they chose the side that listens to their concerns over the side that thinks it knows better than them. It confirms the feeling that they indeed have just successfully rebelled against the elites.

This article from vox agrees with your point.

Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them.


Also relevant to that article:

[Alatar]

Love it!

[Lalaith]

That was brilliant!

[eborr]

yep that clip was funny and clever, but again in plays to the identity politics agenda which has be-devilled the left in the light of a lot of people. And the great joke is that coming out of movements that were wholly virtuous identity politics has given birth to a victim culture which has been encouraged selfishness, and underwritten the credibility of those happy to exploit racist and xenophobic feelings.

Earlier I think it was Prim who was talking about the solidarity she felt from her church community, although not a believer it is very clear to me that indifference of many people to religious groups has created a moral vacuum into which people feel it's ethically ok to pursue entirely selfish agenda's, a politicians since the time of Thatcher and Regan have been ruthlessly exploiting this. nb I know politicians have been self-serving from before Solon's time - but the change has been that in the last 30 years, politician have felt sufficiently rampant to discard eve the the flimsiest cod-piece of altruism has been discarded - and we face full exposure.

And we are now faced with the pantomime, to quote Jeremy Corbyn, "of rich white men, like Trump and Farage playing the anti-establishment ticket"

[Túrin Turambar]

It isn't possible to know after one election whether the result represents a trend or an aberration. If 2016 is an aberration, we will probably see more electoral maps in future which roughly resemble 2004, 2008 and 2012. But if the movement of working-class white voters towards the Republican Party continues, and the Democrats are able to build a coalition of urban middle-class white voters and minority voters, then the next Democrat to win the electoral college could do so with a map like this one (based on 270 to win and the demographic options on 538's calculator):



As it stands, Georgia and Arizona were both as winnable for Clinton as Ohio was, and Texas was as close as Iowa.

[narya]

And we are now faced with the pantomime, to quote Jeremy Corbyn, "of rich white men, like Trump and Farage playing the anti-establishment ticket"

Perhaps anti-establishment is a code word for "I want it all, and I don't care how I get it". And that resonates with voters who believe they, too, can only have it all if they can somehow game the system.

But the Right is actually into concentration of power and wealth for the oligarchy at the top of its ranks. That is all. They gain the popular votes they need to win elections and get into power by promising that:
* They are for the little guy (they aren't, they are for the 1%)
* They are against the establishment that keeps out the little guy (they aren't - look at all the privileged Wall Street, lobbyist and congressional insiders who are proposed for the cabinet)
* They are the only pro-life choice (they're not - their tactics kill far more people by promoting poverty, ill health, pollution, global warming, discrimination, unfair housing, unfair job markets, and incarceration)
* They give their constituents financial security (they don't - they are against a living wage, unions, safety nets, affordable health care, Social Security, etc., and they promoted the policies that caused the Great Recession)
* They say they keep us safe (they don't - crime has been going down despite them, and their support of the prison-industrial complex, a continuation of slave labor)
* They say they will cut our taxes and give us more money (actually, the poor and middle class will see very little, while the average 1%er will see a $1M tax cut)

The Right's bottom line message is, "vote for me, and you will get more wealth and power". Not. Only the 1% will.

The Left's bottom line message is, "vote for me, and we will share our wealth, power, and privilege with all". This message does not resonate well with those who are anxious about losing what little wealth, power and privilege they already have. And well they should be. The middle class continues to shrink as the money is siphoned off the top, by the people on top. And this message was muddied by Clinton, who was perceived by many (right and left) as not an open, sharing, type of person.

[eborr]

that's what the left may have said, but the evidence is that they haven't "walked the talk" which is why the core vote has been affected, mainly by apathy, but increasingly desperate people have grasped at the lies of the demagogues

[yovargas]

that's what the left may have said, but the evidence is....

Evidence played next to no part in anything that happened in that past year.

[tinwë]

It isn't possible to know after one election whether the result represents a trend or an aberration.

It certainly is a trend, and one the started nearly 50 years ago with Nixon’s southern strategy, was fixed in place with the coronation of Ronald Reagan as Savior of the Nation, and has continued unabated ever since. The only real aberration was the election of Obama in 2008, following what was one of the most egregiously inept presidential administrations in modern history, one that not only started an unprovoked war of aggression against a country that posed no credible threat to us (and that is still going on, albeit in a different form, making it one of the longest wars in American history), they also took a government budget surplus and turned it into the biggest deficits the country had ever seen, and dragged the country, and most of the world, into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. After that, was it any surprise that the party of a black man with the middle name of Hussein would win not only the White House, but both houses of congress and a (brief) supermajority in the Senate? And yes, Obama was reelected, but only after having lost congress in 2010, and even in 2012 the Republicans solidified their control of congress and state level governments. They not only have nearly complete control of every branch of the federal government now (or will once Trump makes his Supreme Court appointment), they control a majority of State legislatures and governorships. The only places Democrats hold sway are in the municipal governments of large urban centers.

I’d call that a trend.

And I keep hearing that the silver lining here will be that once the poor schmucks who voted for Trump realize they were lied to they will all come running back to the fold. Don’t count on it. People who believe in lies choose to do so because the lies reinforce their own preconceived notions of right and wrong, and those preconceptions don’t go away just because the lies have been exposed. They will still want to believe in them. And one of the defining characteristics of liars is that they, well, lie! And once one lie stops working for them for will just find another lie that does. Count on it, even though they have complete control all branches of the government, and therefore bear responsibility for all of it, they will still find ways to blame the country’s problems on others: democrats, liberals, Muslims, immigrants, gays, elites. Four years from now the same people who lined up to vote for Trump in 2016 will be right there to vote for him again (or whoever takes his place after he dies/resigns/is impeached).

So, how do you fight the mighty triumvirate of anger, fear, and lies? More intense anger? Greater fears? Bigger and better lies? I don’t know. I keep hearing that Democrats need to speak to the concerns of the working middle class and particularly those in rural communities whose lives have been upended by the loss of manufacturing jobs. And sure, we should, nobody should be left out of the political discussion. But what can we say that they will want to hear? Their jobs are not coming back. It wasn’t free trade that destroyed manufacturing in the U.S., it was suburbanism, Walmart, and our insatiable demand for cheap consumer goods. The world has changed, and those jobs are not coming back. The only solution is to adapt, to change, to move on. Hillary, and Bernie, talked a lot about education and retraining, but that’s not what people want to hear. They want to hear how things will be like they used to be. They won’t.

[yovargas]

If I'm not mistaken, Democrat presidential candidates have won the popular vote 6 out of the last 7 times. If not for the electoral college, we would likely have had a Democrat for president from 1992 to 2020. That also seems like a noteworthy trend to me.

So, how do you fight the mighty triumvirate of anger, fear, and lies? More intense anger? Greater fears? Bigger and better lies? I don’t know. I keep hearing that Democrats need to speak to the concerns of the working middle class and particularly those in rural communities whose lives have been upended by the loss of manufacturing jobs. And sure, we should, nobody should be left out of the political discussion. But what can we say that they will want to hear? Their jobs are not coming back. It wasn’t free trade that destroyed manufacturing in the U.S., it was suburbanism, Walmart, and our insatiable demand for cheap consumer goods. The world has changed, and those jobs are not coming back. The only solution is to adapt, to change, to move on. Hillary, and Bernie, talked a lot about education and retraining, but that’s not what people want to hear. They want to hear how things will be like they used to be. They won’t.

This echoes much of my thoughts. I don't think the left can win these votes back and be honest at the same time. Maybe with some Bernie style super progressive but I doubt it.

One thing I don't ever see mentioned on this talk about how globalism has hurt the American worker or whatever is how globalism has affected the globe. I am far from an economics expert but when you hear that globally poverty rates have been dropping for a long time and that many of those mean ol' places that stole "our" jobs now have a growing middle class where none used to exist. Economically, this globalism thing seems like it's been a huge success far as I can tell. (Environmentally may be a different answer.) That may suck to hear if you're an individual who now has a crappier job and a poorer community thanks to jobs going overseas but I would hope that our world leaders can see bigger than that and look for ways to make that individual's life better without being mad that countries far, far poorer than ours are getting a little bit of the wealth our country used to hog all to itself. As someone who has spent time in a country with actual deep poverty, I know that the life of even the very poor here is usually still far better than the average life of people in many countries.

[Cerin]

Globalism is not a huge success. Globalism devastates indigenous communities, transforming local economies and agriculture into ones that serve corporate profit rather than the local community. Globalism is destroying the rainforest. Globalism destroyed small Mexican farmers, leading to the vast increase in illegal immigration to the U.S. Globalism creates a race to the bottom in environmental standards and wages. It is not a net gain if a middle class is destroyed in one country to be created at a vastly lower standard of living in another. Globalism serves no one but the multinational corporations. It essentially turns the entire world into a resource pool for the ultra rich to suck dry.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't think it is globalism, per se, that has done those things. I think it is greed. The reality is that that the world is becoming a smaller, more interconnected place. That doesn't automatically mean that indigenous people and other poor and less powerful people, let alone the environment, need to be devastated as a result. I think there is a way to work in a global economy that is sustainable.

I just don't know what it is.

[yovargas]

Globalism devastates indigenous communities, transforming local economies and agriculture into ones that serve corporate profit rather than the local community.

Serving corporate profit and the local community don't have to opposing interests.

Globalism is destroying the rainforest.

I already acknowledged the environmental difficulties.

Globalism destroyed small Mexican farmers, leading to the vast increase in illegal immigration to the U.S.

The destruction of the small farmer has been going on for literally centuries at this point. It is not, on a global level, a bad thing.

Globalism creates a race to the bottom in environmental standards and wages.

And yet global poverty levels are dropping.

It is not a net gain if a middle class is destroyed in one country to be created at a vastly lower standard of living in another.

But that's not what's happened. Some middle class growth has stagnated/slowed several countries (mostly the extremely rich ones) while others have been created and exploded in growth in other countries (mostly the extremely poor ones).

[RoseMorninStar]

Oh.. as if things weren't depressing enough.

tinwë, I mostly agree. Trump was selling dreams and dreams and wishes are hard to beat. Reality doesn't have that nice patina of sugar coating.

Income inequality is a huge factor and I don't see that being corrected any time soon. The wealthy hold the power.

Here's an interesting list of pros & cons of Globalization from Forbes


eborr, yes, it was Prim who made the warm comment about her church community, and good for her. I am sure there are many good people of faith, but in my experience there is also a lot of hate, exclusiveness, and hard-hearted meanness. As someone who had been a life-long practicing Christian who was driven away by the 'us vs. them' and petty one-up-manship of who was 'holier' and more righteous, I don't think it takes religion or church to keep selfishness at bay, it is belonging to and feeling a part of community. That we are all in this together.

[Túrin Turambar]

It isn't possible to know after one election whether the result represents a trend or an aberration.

It certainly is a trend, and one the started nearly 50 years ago with Nixon’s southern strategy, was fixed in place with the coronation of Ronald Reagan as Savior of the Nation, and has continued unabated ever since. The only real aberration was the election of Obama in 2008, following what was one of the most egregiously inept presidential administrations in modern history, one that not only started an unprovoked war of aggression against a country that posed no credible threat to us (and that is still going on, albeit in a different form, making it one of the longest wars in American history), they also took a government budget surplus and turned it into the biggest deficits the country had ever seen, and dragged the country, and most of the world, into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. After that, was it any surprise that the party of a black man with the middle name of Hussein would win not only the White House, but both houses of congress and a (brief) supermajority in the Senate? And yes, Obama was reelected, but only after having lost congress in 2010, and even in 2012 the Republicans solidified their control of congress and state level governments. They not only have nearly complete control of every branch of the federal government now (or will once Trump makes his Supreme Court appointment), they control a majority of State legislatures and governorships. The only places Democrats hold sway are in the municipal governments of large urban centers.

I’d call that a trend.

It's still too early to say whether the result of one election among particular demographics represents a trend or a one-off. For example, we now know that Obama's victory in Indiana in 2008 was an aberration rather than an indicator the state was turning blue. By contrast, we now know that his victories in Colorado and Virginia were part of a democratic trend in those states. We couldn't know that at the time.

The Democrats lost a lot of state house seats, governorships and seats in Congress between 2010 and 2016. That's not unusual for a party which controls the Presidency. It was downhill for the Republicans after 2004 and the Democrats after 1992. There was a decisive shift in Congress in favour of the GOP in Johnson's second term and in favour of the Democrats in Eisenhower's. The American electorate dislikes one-party government. The Democratic party recovered from the Civil War and it will almost certainly recover in some form from its current malaise, but the question is in what form that recovery will take.

Globalism destroyed small Mexican farmers, leading to the vast increase in illegal immigration to the U.S.

The destruction of the small farmer has been going on for literally centuries at this point. It is not, on a global level, a bad thing.

Globalism creates a race to the bottom in environmental standards and wages.

And yet global poverty levels are dropping.

It is not a net gain if a middle class is destroyed in one country to be created at a vastly lower standard of living in another.

But that's not what's happened. Some middle class growth has stagnated/slowed several countries (mostly the extremely rich ones) while others have been created and exploded in growth in other countries (mostly the extremely poor ones).

I agree with this assessment. Prior to the industrial revolution almost the entire population of the world lived in poverty with basic or non-existent education and healthcare and the constant threat of famine. The industrial revolution in England destroyed a number of small industries, like the cottage textile industry, drove a large number of small farmers from their land, and created a crowd of unemployed and dispossessed people driven to beggary and crime. But it also made a number of consumer goods, like clothes, widely-available for the first time, created steady employment for factory workers and broke the old cycle of famine and starvation which had been the norm for rural people since Neolithic times. Further moves towards economic modernisation and international trade have basically had the same effects, but on the whole poverty rates are dropping and goods and services are getting cheaper. The places where standards of living have been most stagnant and environmental and social problems most serious for the past century have not been in globalised free-trading economies but in isolationist totalitarian (particularly communist and theocratic) countries.

[Maria]

Here's an opinion piece from the NY Times about how facebook influenced the election:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opini ... &te=1&_r=0

[RoseMorninStar]

Gerrymandering and the cherry-picking of districts has become a problem as far as true representation of demographics.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's an opinion piece from the NY Times about how facebook influenced the election:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opini ... &te=1&_r=0

Having been away for a while, I have only just begun to read this thread, so please pardon me if I'm repeating something previously mentioned (I won't be posting much on political subjects, and I shall read a lot more of what has already been said here before commenting further), but on this note, it's interesting to read that Germany, believing the U.S. election to have been manipulated by Russia (partly through the dissemination of fake news), is taking steps to make sure the same thing doesn't happen in their elections next year: Don't Forget It Happened.