2016 United States Election

[Frelga]

Which, if true (I didn't click), does nothing to invalidate dozens of reports I've seen today.

[RoseMorninStar]

I find it very difficult that anyone can support a racist, sexist, bigot for the highest office in the land and then claim they are not racist, sexist, and bigoted. They are supporting it and condoning it. Not much difference.

This attitude is a recipe for utter disaster for our country going forward, imo. You're saying that the only legitimate way to react to Trump is the way you reacted to him; anyone who looks at the world differently than you do -- there is something wrong with them. What is bigotry? It's identifying a group of people without knowing them as individuals, making assumptions about them because they're members of that group, and deciding they're beneath you. There's only one place this attitude can lead -- to more polarization and more hatred. Do you even care to understand why vast numbers of your fellow countrymen voted for Trump? Or do you think you already know? Or doesn't it matter to you, because they're obviously scum, not human beings?

There are pretty much only 2 political parties currently in the US, although I have voted 3rd party. There is only so much 'choice' one has. No matter which party one votes for there will be items that we do not personally agree with or support. I get that. And yes, there are people who look at the world differently than I do. I get that.

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.

Agreed. But it isn't racism alone that concerns me. It's larger than that. Sexism, homophobia, control of religion, and so many other 'isms'. He has expressed hate & mistrust not only for illegal immigrants, which I feel people have a right to be concerned about, but judges who are legal citizens who were born here of immigrant parents (which, his own mother was. but she was white, so I guess that makes it OK). The way he denigrates anyone who does not fall in line & agree with him is frightening. The way he is so easily flattered by the likes of Putin is scary. The way he idolizes dictators is terrifying.

And I agree, it was an awful election cycle all the way 'round.


I do not always vote Democratic, but part of the Democratic platform includes access for women to contraceptives and reproductive health care including abortion. Many, MANY people vote (for and against) based on this single issue alone. I do not advocate that approach, but many people consider ALL Democrats to be 'baby killers'. I have a different view. While I would never have had, nor encourage anyone to have, an abortion, I am grateful that it is available safely for those who find themselves in difficult circumstances. It should never be taken lightly. I prefer to compassionately address the issues that lead to such measures; poverty, homelessness, drugs, crime (rape/incest), assistance, etc.. and reduce abortion in that fashion. I have had several miscarriages (of very much wanted pregnancies) and have had people accuse me of 'doing something' to cause the miscarriage. No woman should have to go through such accusations, public scrutiny, & condemnation, which I feel a complete ban on abortion would produce. Criminal prosecution for miscarriages--it has happened. Making birth control illegal is just ridiculous.

I also believe that hyper-focusing on one issue is short sighted. Balancing my ... justification(?) for legal abortions I feel there are many 'pro-life' issues that get completely overlooked by those who consider themselves 'pro-life'. One of those issues is affordable health care. If someone is 'pro-life' for a fertilized embryo, but (for example) doesn't give a damn if that embryo/people suffer or die for lack of affordable health care, or that there are people who cannot afford to eat, is hypocritical. This is something I have to weigh and accept and be accountable for when I vote Democratic.

Trumps MAIN draw is founded on racism/sexism/bigotry/control. It isn't just something he's hinted at or skirted around.. it's front and center. It's not just a small part of his platform. It colors nearly everything he says. For example, (hyperbole or no) he claims 'every department store will say 'Merry Christmas' when he is president, none of this 'Happy Holidays' stuff. If comments like that don't send a clear message of what he stands for and what 'as president' he and his followers should expect, they must be hearing someone else speaking. He generally doesn't say much of substance nor does he generally speak in full coherent sentences. Read transcripts of his speeches. I don't know how people watching him can miss it, but if you read the transcripts it's obvious. The man has an attention span of a gnat and he is all over the place, often changing policy/his opinion from one speech to the next--sometimes even in the same speech! I don't know of any speech in which 'The Wall' and 'Deportations' have not been brought up--especially if he is challenged with questions about policy. There may be people who voted for Trump based on other issues, but I find it hard to believe that they did not very knowingly accept and by way of accepting, condone, his hate, bigotry, sexism, etc..

I read the comments on online news articles. On Facebook. Most of my neighbors & (extended) family members voted for Trump. I have no illusions on why they voted for him. They may not like Hillary/the Clintons, but they were perfectly fine with Trumps racism; his bigotry, his hate-mongering, his exclusivity. Because they are white. And Christians. It doesn't affect them.

[Frelga]

Which, if true (I didn't click), does nothing to invalidate dozens of reports I've seen today.

For example
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/us ... ities.html

[Voronwë the Faithful]

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.

It is also beyond doubt that a lot of people picked Trump for reasons that had nothing to do with race. A lot of these people might have been in play for Clinton if her message had been better, if she had spoken to their anxieties about the future.

Here's the thing, and I think most here will not believe it, but I think it's absolutely true. I think the explanation for Trump breaking through the blue wall and winning Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania is encapsulated in the first twenty minutes of the first debate. As I watched I thought he won those first twenty minutes -- resoundingly, easily. He had a resonant, populist message centered around trade and the decay of traditional blue collar jobs. He pretty convincingly tied Clinton to unpopular trade policies. And Clinton had no effective response to this. She had no populist message of her own that could appeal to people anxious about their economic future.

And then the next 70 minutes of the debate happened, which was the usual shitshow for Trump. He was baited into emotional, unfocused and sometimes offensive responses and he had no command of the facts. By the end of the debate Clinton had won overall. I thought so, and the experts thought so, and even the public, apparently, thought so. The poll movement after the debate seemed to confirm this.

And yet -- and yet -- it seems clear now, in hindsight, that this populist message of Trump's did resonate. It was implicit in his campaign slogan. It was implicit, also, in his promise to build a wall, since people who come to this country illegally would potentially be in the same job pool as them and their children, and harm their economic prospects. And then Trump was relatively disciplined over the final two weeks of the campaign, giving people who were turned off by his usual offensiveness an opening to come back to him. And many of them did. Clinton never gave them a reason not to. And that's why she lost.

I agree with this, and I think it is very well said (as always). That doesn't mean I don't agree with what others have said as well, but the Democratic Party would do well to heed this message. (Maybe they should hire you as an advisor, Faramond. Not that you would want the job. )

[yovargas]

Does that mean trade was the only thing you were going to bring up too?

It means that since you have declared that facts will have no impact on your beliefs, there would be no point in me providing links to articles, even if I were willing to spend time doing your research for you. Which I'm not.

That's funny, I don't recall ever "declaring" that.

I think it is dangerous and wrong to assume that everyone who voted for Trump is a bigot and/or condones bigotry

Voting for a bigot is condoning bigotry. That's a simple truth. I will not apologize if that makes his non-bigot supporters uncomfortable.

The thing about calling Trump voters racist is that it's counter-productive.

I don't think we should call Trump voters racist. I do think we should call racists racist. And I do not think that is counter-productive. At the very least, calling people out on their bigotry has made open bigotry socially unacceptable, something that the targets of bigotry would not find insignificant.

[narya]

The half of the nation that voted for Trump was rejecting the status quo -- the global corporate agenda, an economy that works only for the wealthy elite.

The irony here is that Trump said he would draw from his Wall Street buddies to fill his cabinet slots, thus cementing that oligarchy that works only for the wealthy.

And as for leaving, perhaps we need to stick around because we have a responsibility to our beloved country and countrymen to keep it from getting any worse. We who have privilege need to continue to speak out for those who are a combination of poor, brown, black, immigrant, LGBT, non-Christian, young, and/or female. And we need to do what we can to salvage what are promising to be appalling policies on the environment, climate change, guns, health care and nuclear proliferation.

He was baited into emotional, unfocused and sometimes offensive responses and he had no command of the facts.

This worries me, if it happens during meetings with foreign heads of state.

I find it very difficult that anyone can support a racist, sexist, bigot for the highest office in the land and then claim they are not racist, sexist, and bigoted. They are supporting it and condoning it. Not much difference.

We have short memories. Red-lining - the federally funded program of only allowing whites to have a path to financial wealth through home ownership, was supported at all levels of society and government (well, at least if you were white). There were many other policies that excluded blacks and/or women as late as the 60s and 70s. Would we have said that Kennedy was a racist, sexist bigot, voted into power by racist, sexist bigots? My mom voted for Kennedy - did that make her a misogynist? Of course, Trump is no Kennedy, but I think we do have to cut the majority of the Trump voters a little slack, the ones who may well have been extremely focused on only one issue: promise of jobs, anti-abortion justices, wanting someone to "shake up" government, insurmountable dislike for Hillary personally, etc. Very few of them, in my experience, are the noisy ones the media focuses on. Rose, I know your experience is different than mine, and it must be troubling to live with people that express themselves that way.

I've learned, in the past two days, that when you pull the rug out from under me, it feels exactly like clinical depression (which I had for many years, so I know what it feels like). Because I'm an optimist at heart, and when you slam the Hope door shut, it kills me inside. I am no longer, fundamentally, me. But fortunately, this time I was able to bounce back, roll up my sleeves, and get to work. I'll be manning the Crisis Line phone line tomorrow morning. On Veterans Day. Should be interesting.

[Túrin Turambar]

Okay, looking at the actual numbers: Trump got roughly the same number of votes Romney lost with, but Hilary got 5 million fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.

The results didn't come about because tons of people changed parties, or because rural voters were determined to send a message, or any other of the punditry being bandied about. Democrats simply didn't vote for Hilary, whether because they were meh about her, or GOTV failed, or they thought they had it won. Period, full stop.

The raw numbers don't tell the whole story. There's many different possibilities, as the county-by-county results will show when they're finalised. Many people who voted for Obama in 2012 didn't vote this time. Certainly people who voted for Romney didn't vote this time (like the Bushes, who didn't vote for either candidate for President). Some Romney voters voted for Clinton. Some Obama voters voted for Trump. And some people voted for both candidates who hadn't voted last time, or who hadn't voted at all.

Otherwise I pretty much agree with everyone who says the result really isn't about bigotry, racism, sexism, and the like. There are people deeply concerned about illegal immigration and border security who aren't racist. There are people who don't like free trade and globalisation who aren't racist, either. There are people who aren't racist but don't like the way the word 'racist' is thrown around. If the movement which propelled Trump to power is to be defeated, the Democrats must actually go out and identify why people voted for Trump and what they can do to assuage their concerns (which would include not telling them they belong in a 'basket of deplorables'). Some will certainly do that. Others will write angry articles on the Guardian US edition about sexism and racism. The former will make more of a contribution to another Democratic victory than the latter.

[Alatar]

Jonathon Pie is an online persona who does staged political rants. Very NSFW language, but his points resonate.

https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieRep ... f=NEWSFEED

[yovargas]

If the movement which propelled Trump to power is to be defeated, the Democrats must actually go out and identify why people voted for Trump and what they can do to assuage their concerns (which would include not telling them they belong in a 'basket of deplorables').

How do you assuage the concerns of the vast swaths of Americans who still believe Obama is a secret Muslim or that climate change is a liberal conspiracy? How do you assuage the concerns of people whose concerns have such a tenuous connection to fact and reality?

[Cerin]

It means that since you have declared that facts will have no impact on your beliefs, there would be no point in me providing links to articles, even if I were willing to spend time doing your research for you. Which I'm not.

That's funny, I don't recall ever "declaring" that.

This is the statement I was referring to:

The only thing I hear people talking about is trade but I absolutely believe that Trump could have said literally anything or nothing about trade and it wouldn't have changed one single damn thing about what happened.

You previously admitted you’d been uninformed of the facts: You were unaware that one of the central themes of Trump’s campaign was to restore jobs to the forgotten, despairing people of the Midwest, whose livelihoods have been outsourced over the past several decades. Having admitted to being uninformed, you then went on to state that your beliefs about this election are so absolute, that knowing the facts about the election could have no possible impact on those beliefs. This is not a promising foundation for discussion.

I would add that because we know you to be such an excellent person, even extreme statements from you can be taken without causing much alarm. But I ask you to consider the implications of such an attitude, were it were expressed, for example, by someone who has an uninformed hatred of Muslims.

Voting for a bigot is condoning bigotry. That's a simple truth.

That is a simple truth. And here’s another one: Not everyone perceives Trump to be a bigot. Therefore, they were not condoning bigotry when they voted for him.

[yovargas]

You previously admitted you’d been uninformed of the facts: You were unaware that one of the central themes of Trump’s campaign was to restore jobs to the forgotten, despairing people of the Midwest, whose livelihoods have been outsourced over the past several decades.

I also never said this.

[Lalaith]

Voting for a bigot is condoning bigotry. That's a simple truth.

That is a simple truth. And here’s another one: Not everyone perceives Trump to be a bigot. Therefore, they were not condoning bigotry when they voted for him.

That is mere semantics. Just because a person doesn't perceive something doesn't give them a pass if they support it. Perceptions can and often are wrong. If there is a solid definition of a thing, in this case bigotry, and a person fits that definition, well, who cares if I don't think that person is a bigot? He's still a bigot, and, if I support him, I am, at the very least, tangentially supporting bigotry. If a rose is a rose, but I think it's a daffodil that doesn't make me right. That makes me ignorant, and I spread my ignorance by going around telling others about my daffodil that is, in fact, a rose.

I think it would serve logic better for you to argue that, bigotry aside, many people voted for Trump because ___________________ (fill in the blank with something besides his bigotry). If they can't correctly identify the fact that he's a bigot, then they are either ignorant or they deliberately chose to close their eyes to it because there was an issue that was more important to them. The majority of people I know who voted for Trump fall into the latter category. They could recognize that he is a horrible person, but they had issues that were more important to them than his character. Sadly, their vote did support a bigot, whether they wanted it to or not.

[Cerin]

I also never said this.

Alright. Let's just agree that I misunderstood you, and leave it at that.

[yovargas]

I think it would serve logic better for you to argue that, bigotry aside, many people voted for Trump because ___________________ (fill in the blank with something besides his bigotry). If they can't correctly identify the fact that he's a bigot, then they are either ignorant or they deliberately chose to close their eyes to it because there was an issue that was more important to them. The majority of people I know who voted for Trump fall into the latter category. They could recognize that he is a horrible person, but they had issues that were more important to them than his character. Sadly, their vote did support a bigot, whether they wanted it to or not.

Exactly.

I hate to make this comparison - it's against internet debate rules for a good reason! - but I do not bring up Hitler because I think Donnie* is going to be the next Hitler, only because Hitler's rise is a commonly known touchstone that everyone is familiar with. And the truth about Hitler is - he didn't rise to power because he was a bigot. To quote wikipedia:

Brüning's austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular. Hitler exploited this by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been affected by the inflation of the 1920s and the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.

Perhaps Nin, who is surely far more familiar with this history than me, could comment more thoroughly but I would bet that many, many German's had no problems with the Jews and other non-Aryans. There were likely many who supported him who perhaps found all the angry race rhetoric stuff pretty distasteful. But they voted for him anyway because he "spoke to their concerns". And I, for one, do not give any of those people a pass for one second. They do not get to abdicate moral responsibility on what they did. They may have had no issue with the Jews but by electing Hitler, they are culpable for the Jewish persecution. Maybe some people think those "nice" Germans shouldn't bear their share of the blame but I think history proves those people wrong.

Again, Donnie is NOT Hitler and I am not trying to say he is. My comparison isn't between those two "leaders" but between the voters who put him in power. Voters who probably mostly just wanted someone to help with their tough economic situation but were willing to support bigotry in order to get it.


(*Like Prim, I'm having a hard time even typing our next president's name so I'm going to just call him Donnie for now.)

[Frelga]

Again, Donnie is NOT Hitler and I am not trying to say he is. My comparison isn't between those two "leaders" but between the voters who put him in power. Voters who probably mostly just wanted someone to help with their tough economic situation but were willing to support bigotry in order to get it.

My grandfather's family was murdered in the Warsaw ghetto, and all four of my son's grandparents have lost huge parts of their extended family. I take Godwin's Law with the utmost seriousness. But I also have been reading up on Germany in the 30s for family research reasons.

Thing is, when the Germans voted for Hitler, they didn't vote for Hitler, the person who would be the definition evil for the next ninety years. They didn't know that they just started on the road along which would rise an industrial complex of mass murder, and that would lead to Dresden torched by allied bombers and Berlin split by a wall. And I'm sure they had valid economic hopes, and let's face it, Hitler delivered - for a while. But I think what made Hitler so attractive was the message that their misfortunes was the fault of people not quite like them and that it was OK to punish those people.

I'm just going to quote Yonatan Zunger, because he already said and I don't have to retype it.

Right and wrong have not changed since yesterday. An "accommodation" which goes in the face of that is not an accommodation, it is collusion in a moral wrong which does not gain any innocence by the defense of "I had to" or "those were the orders."

If you are making excuses for a leader's bigotry because of whatever imagined economic advantages it may bring, then you have decided that the people who will be hurt by it are acceptable casualties and you are as personally culpable as the perpetrators. Specific you.

[yovargas]

And I'm sure they had valid economic hopes, and let's face it, Hitler delivered - for a while.

Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Unemployment fell from six million in 1932 to one million in 1936.

[Cerin]

That is mere semantics.

No. Semantics is not the same thing as perception. We cannot assume that people perceive the world as we do, or interpret words as we do, and we cannot hold other people responsible according to our perceptions and interpretations.

Just because a person doesn't perceive something doesn't give them a pass if they support it.

This really makes no sense. A person can’t be said to be supporting something they haven’t perceived. What you seem to be saying here is that, yes, you do hold other people responsible for your perceptions and interpretations of the world.

I think it would serve logic better for you to argue that, bigotry aside, many people voted for Trump because ___________________ (fill in the blank with something besides his bigotry).

This is a good example of the above. You cannot say what you think would better serve my logic; you don’t know what my logic is. This is what serves your logic – the logic of someone who thinks it is so obvious and inarguable that Trump is a bigot, that he can’t legitimately be seen any other way. But the way you’ve seen Trump is not the only way he has been seen. The question is, are you willing to allow that other interpretations of Trump can be legitimate, even though you don’t understand how anyone could view him differently than you do? Or do you hold that your view of Trump is the only legitimate one a person can have?

Right now there is a sizable segment of the population that is disallowing any interpretation of Trump but their own. They are condemning to judgment anyone who doesn’t share it, and condemning the results of the election – not because they say the election was improperly conducted, but because they consider themselves the sole arbiters of truth. This is worrisome -- moreso, imo, than many of the other worrisome things coming our way. (I don’t recall if there were street protests after Obama was elected.)

[Dave_LF]

I keep thinking of this comic whenever I encounter people arguing about why Trump won.

It was 50/50, like every other nationwide election we've had recently, and it would be a mistake to read too much into the results. If random factors had pushed things a tiny bit in the opposite direction, we'd have a completely different narrative right now, even though the population would be exactly the same. Here's what 538 has to say on the subject.

[axordil]

The raw numbers don't tell the whole story. There's many different possibilities, as the county-by-county results will show when they're finalised. Many people who voted for Obama in 2012 didn't vote this time. Certainly people who voted for Romney didn't vote this time (like the Bushes, who didn't vote for either candidate for President). Some Romney voters voted for Clinton. Some Obama voters voted for Trump. And some people voted for both candidates who hadn't voted last time, or who hadn't voted at all.

I will bet you cash that when the numbers get fully broken down, all of the other shifts will be a small fraction of simple voter non-participation.

[eborr]

Looking on as an interested observer and probably repeating what other people have said, the issue is the failure of left wing politicians, to address the needs of for want of a better word the dispossessed.

If you look at the broad sweep of history from 1945 to 1980 - in the developed world, there was a consistent movement towards more equality, in terms of wealth, opportunity and power.

Following the accession to power of people support Neo-Liberal economic agenda's this process has been reversed and wealth and power have been increasing consolidated. Rather than fight this. politicians on the "left" have engaged with it, either through ignorance of cynical opportunism or ignorance.

Rather than fighting for the most damaged and vulnerable groups in our societies politicians have been distracted by other disadvantaged groups, thinking if they can do something for them it will be sufficient for their "progressive" credentials. It's taken nearly 2 generations but the dispossessed are beginning to fight back through the ballot box, and are supporting anyone who attacks the "establishment".

Bereft of any real representation people turned to demagogues like Trump and Farage, who use a message heavily reliant on scape-goating. They at least offer a solution.

Sadly for progressive politicians, older white males, possess a vote, and after years of neo liberal economics they have seen their standards of living, their feeling of security, their possibilities for having fun limited, and all the progressives can offer is more of the same, so their hope was taken away from them.

Sadly when Trump and others like him offer them hope, it's a fraud and a false hope.

The neoliberal economic model is and was fundamentally flawed, the notion that you can model human society and government in terms of simple supply and demand with free competition being some kind of benign guardian is just plain wrong.

The so-called economic miracle of the Thatcher Govt is anything but. It was and is being sold to the public as an unpleasant but necessary medicine. That is now being to bought into question. Even if you ignore the social damage that the destruction of the primary and manufacturing sectors and it''s communities in the 1980's and 1990's(there are obvious parallels with the Rust Belt here), it is now becoming clear that even the so-called economic benefits didn't happen. A recent study by Sheffield University has calculated that in economics the long term damage to the economy of was on the order of £50-£60 billion, or about 50% of the current account deficit.

In other words we could have retained our coal and steel sectors, and our manufacturing industries, offering millions of well paid jobs, and have a deficit of only half the size it is now.

My generation and social class for want of a better word, have failed, we had the intellect and the power to challenge what has being going on, but instead we have adopted an "I'm alright Jack" attitude, and let our leaders get away.

We have no right to criticise people who voted for the demagogues, we didn't offer an alternative.