No, but probably once removed. I still like the term, it’s an elegant way of describing a common tactic used on different sides of several arguments. I’ve heard people here and on other sites say that rural whites are privileged because blacks in the same context would have it worse. That’s true, but it’s missing the point.
People will not vote altruistically if they feel that their security is threatened. Clinton didn’t even have to convince Trump voters (who gave her the lowest bar to win in a long time), just all the people who decided to stay home on Tuesday.
Is there any kind of reasonable discussion that liberals and conservatives can have in America today regarding politics?
Nope. And the fact that the left is now trying to blame itself for the toxicity and divisiveness the right had been pumping out into the culture for the past four decades* means that this discussion is always going to be dead on arrival.
–
The “We were mean to them so they voted Trump” hand-wringing I’m seeing now is more of the self-destructive bullshit the left always engages in. They were going to do it anyway. They were just waiting for the right demagogue to come along.
And it’s not just economics and policies- Clinton was also culturally tone-deaf to to start with going way back. I’m sure I’m not the only person who remembers “I’m not one of those Stand By Your Man women”-gate, in which she mocked fans of one of the most popular songs by one of the most popular singers of one of the most popular genres, while simultaneously missing the point of the song. She was never going to appeal to the white working class and rural america with shit like that hanging from her.
In 2004 I would have voted for Bush over Kerry and didn’t vote at all. 12 years is a long time and a lot of life experience. At that time I wouldn’t have laughed at you but I would have thought calling gay marriage something else for the legal protection would have been acceptable.
Refusing to work the system in place will without a doubt keep you marginalized, and just throwing a vote at the system every few years is a big step but not enough to foster a progressive movement in the US. I get your bitter, I know a lot of people like you in that way.
There’s an important point being missed: turnout. The biggest faction in the American electorate is non-voters, mostly working class.
In order to win the election, you don’t need to convert the opposition’s voters; encouraging them to stay home while you turn out your own, different set of voters works as well or better, as Trump just demonstrated.
Were the working class people who voted for Trump racist? Yes; voting Trump was an act of racist aggression in and of itself. Was racism their only motivation? No. Are all working class people racist? Hell no. Is racism required to attract working class voters? Also no.
There are a large pool of working class non-voters out there. They don’t vote because they accurately perceive that neither party represents their interests.
Trump managed to activate the racist subset of them by pretending to care about their interests and adding bigotry as a sweetener. Bernie was activating a different subset of them by actually caring about their interests.
The assorted Dem-establishment figures pushing the Jim Webb line of “we need to tolerate racism if we want working class votes” are acting as if the existing electorate are the only voters available, where each Trump voter was a potential Clinton voter and vice-versa, and no other potential voters exist. This just isn’t true,
Racism is not required to attract the working class. Actually representing their economic interests is a better solution…unless you’re one of the 1%ers running the DNC, who stand to lose money when wages rise.
I didn’t mean to belittle you or your point, By all means keep lurking & typing.
No, not monsters. But empathy is hard to come by for people who:
voted for Trump for ‘change’, yet re-elected their representative and/or Senator
voted for someone (at least 1 in 10) they believed was ‘not qualified to serve as president’
were bothered ‘a lot’ by his treatment of women (1 in 20), but voted for him anyway
voted for someone they (1 in 8) felt ‘did not have the temperament to be president’
All the stats above are among people who specifically voted FOR Trump.
I find those behaviors somewhat at odds with notions of abject desperation. More like persons who have chosen to empower someone based on party affiliation or at the urging of the Pied Pipers of outrage, some even in spite of their own observations.
This is one of the reasons why I was so reluctant to vote for Hillary Clinton. This is someone who only came out in favor of gay marriage in 2013, which is after gay marriage began to poll mostly favorably in the US. Would I really want to vote for someone who thinks that me having rights is an extremist position until a poll shows otherwise? Then she has the stones to masquerade as a champion of progressive values, when all she’s ever done was jump on the bandwagon after everyone else has. She disgusts me, and the only reason why I voted for her was because I absolutely had to.
If she had atoned for being on the wrong side of history not once but many many many times, and had a real come-to-Jesus moment, and surrounded herself with the right people and not Kissinger and Negroponte and Tim fucking Kaine, then I would have felt better about her. But that is not in her nature. Pandering and schmoozing and showing contempt for progressives and real people is in her nature, and the Beltway elite want to know why Midwesterners didn’t vote for her. Hint: it’s not because we’re uneducated hayseeds.
I do work within the system in place, and I do more than just throw a vote at the system every few years. I vote in the local elections without fail, because there is still a democracy at the state and local level, and I actually talk with my state reps fairly regularly. I do everything I’m supposed to do and then some.
I’m bitter because politicians who are on the wrong side of history think they know better than me, even though my side wins out eventually. Reality has a liberal bias, after all. Then being told that if I don’t like something I should vote and not complain, or something silly like that, when I do far more than vote, and I complain because I’ve well earned that right.
The data strongly suggests it was Bernie Sanders’ voters, who decided to vote third party. That was the only major demographic shift since the Obama/Romney election.
She called out millennials on her program repeatedly and broadly.
Are you even familiar with the contents of her broadcasts when it came to Sanders supporters? I really doubt it or you wouldn’t be making this argument.
You don’t win wars by educating every soldier in the finer nuance of their reason for fighting. It would be nice, but that’s not how it works. And you don’t recruit soldiers by calling them names or saying “the things you care about don’t matter and you’re stupid for believing that.” Does that seem like a winning approach for disaffected 20-somethings?
Do you think Trump won with carefully educated voters who took time to consider?
Continuing to simplify and cartoonify them like that just isn’t going to work. They used to be on our side, and that kind of caricature is part of what drove them to the other side.
Sorry, I don’t have more to say but I feel like this was a positive discussion. I agree Clinton came around too late, but I disagree that she is as robotic as she is portrayed. Her actual diplomatic efforts go unnoticed and she was the single most scrutinized politician in office, but she did toe the party line because she was one of the ones who drew it but I think she chose Kaine to be safe and not to lose seats in congress.
I also think that she overestimated the willingness of people to vote against Trump because it was just so obvious to her just like many others (including myself) and just like the data represented. It doesn’t surprise you on the ground, and it doesn’t shock me even if I thought she would win a close election.
I just worry about people saying they want change and are unwilling to take action for change and then wonder why they are never courted. Right now there is enough upset to get what you want, but not voting is literally the worst way to protest a political party there is (and I realize you are not a part of that group).
What data are you referring to? Links? For the record I was a Bernie voter (and donor) who was also a rather adamant voice backing Clinton once the primary was over since avoiding a Trumpocalypse was a very, very important political goal to me. I’ll give you that some on the far left who were Green/Wikileaks zealots did poison some dialogue, but all the data I’ve seen points to former Bernie backers eventually backing Clinton. AFAICT the problem wasn’t defectors but turnout, and that failed turnout was from the general populace who weren’t very invested in politics, rather than Sanders backers who are by and large more invested.
Yes, I remember before I was born selecting parents who were Christian in a Christian-dominant country so I could choose my religion. While that’s clearly how it works for everyone, it does create some theological complexities, doesn’t it?
They used to be on our side, and that kind of caricature is part of what drove them to the other side.
No. That’s bullshit. Stop making excuses for them. No one wants to admit that they have relatives, friends, and neighbors who have values that align with the worst elements of our society. But they do share those values and you’re going to have to accept that it makes them “not always good people” no matter how polite Neighbor Ned is at the mall.
Trump won because his message spoke to more people than Hillary’s did. That’s it. No one chased them away with a Tumblr gif.
(Edited to remove bit that was confusing some poor soul)
By whom? I am also a white cis male, I haven’t felt like this once. Not once. Not from the media, left, far-left, none of it. And my circles are way out.
