All very true.
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Man, that criticism really reminds me of…something…
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I think your analysis is incorrect. You are looking at composition of the electorates, whereas what you should look at is differentials with previous elections.
Trump ran as a Republican - thus, his appeal was mostly to Republicans, who tend to be wealthy and white. Regardless of how racist or pro-economy he was, therefore, his support was largely going to be wealthy and white. Clinton ran as a Democrat, with the corresponding results.
Here is a graph of demographics comparing Trump and Romney (using the same Roper Center poll from Cornell):
From this you can clearly see that Trump gained support from lower-income voters and lost support from higher-income voters compared to Romney. He also lost support amongst whites and gained support amongst African-Americans and Hispanics.
Romney, while definitely a representative of the white establishment, was never accused of running as a racist, nor was racism seen as a main source of his support. It is therefore difficult to argue that Trump is somehow being buoyed by a comfortable white establishment when his numbers are tilted away from that direction compared to Romney.
Since Nixon do you think there is a reason it skews wealthy AND white?
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I am fine with the argument that the Republicans have historically been a racist party. What I dispute is that Trump is unique, and that his racism was instrumental to his victory. If this is true, it is no more so than for any other Republican in the past generation, and thus doesn’t seem directly relevant to understanding his victory, especially given four out of the last six Presidential terms have been Democratic.
To be fair, that’s only pretty recent, historically speaking. They USED to be the party of abolitionism, of course.
I also agree that Trump isn’t unique. He does employ far less dog whistles and more air horns with regards to race. He really has amped it up, starting with his first speech to announce his candidacy (with him claiming that Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists, when immigrants, legal or not, have a much lower rate of criminal behavior than native born Americans). His attempts to appeal to African Americans was hamfisted and rife with racist stereotypes. Even his assumption that a “Jewish lawyer” is better has a good deal of antisemitic sentiment attached to it. I would argue that he WAS more racist than the last GOP president, George W. Bush, who had a much better position on immigration, and although he failed with Katrina (and his mom made some racist remarks about it), at least he didn’t go after a rapper for making an album, which his father did.
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Hillary would have been 1000x better than Trump hands down, especially for the rights of women and minorities.
I don’t agree with this. Neoliberalism has done a great deal of damage to rights around the world, as well as in the US. That’s why we have a “gig economy” instead of a real economy. While Hilary gives lip-service to the interests of minorities and women, advancing the interests of capitalists and promoting extreme inequality are a thundering step in the opposite direction.
Trump delivered on one thing for sure: we are not participating in the TPP. I don’t think the same would be true of Hillary, and I don’t think you can necessarily argue that the effect on the real lives of women and minorities would not be worse.
This is the crux of the debate, I think: some people assert that her loss was primarily because she was a woman, others assert that her loss was primarily because she was a neoliberal. I tend to the latter; it’s not clear that Clinton actually lost much support overall because she was a woman running against a horrific misogynist (Trump lost about as many women voters compared to Romney as Clinton lost male voters compared to Obama).
Also, there’s the small fact that she actually won the popular vote, which sort of obviates this whole discussion…
I don’t disagree about her troublesome political views (neoliberalism). That’s why I didn’t support her in the primaries. But the fact that she won the popular vote and that she wasn’t appealing to progressives doesn’t mean that there wasn’t misogyny at work, too. There just was. Just like there was some obvious racism aimed at Obama. It’s a fact of life for women, and people of color, regarding racism.
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And yet the Democratic platform incorporated the most leftward economic points in ages (healthcare, education, family support) and the candidate won by almost 2.9 million votes in the popular vote. The “secure” states where she didn’t get the electoral vote were also those where Republicans blocked voters in blue districts at the last minute (Wison’s a great example) or those with the least secure electronic voting (Pennsylvania). Some had both (Florida, of course). Even that might not have worked without Comey’s little turd of a letter, so nicely timed. Her prospects were actually back on the rise by election day and would likely have continued rising … had there been enough time.
As for your contention that “lower-income Dems” didn’t vote for her, that is just not true. They did. It was upper-middle class and higher white Democrats who went to Trump.
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Well, you’ve recapitulated how a rabid Bernie supporter behaves, lest anyone had forgotten.
Her platform grafted on a lot of Sanders’ values.
So, Bernie’s platform also had a lot of Bernie’s values-- which means he also would never adhere to it.
I challenge you to read her wikipedia page. She kind of did a few goddamn things.
And: “Short” political career? Can you count?
I could continue, but why bother.
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It would be nice if you dared to explain “insecure”. Because
In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy.
from the Wasington Post.
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If Hillary had five kids by three husbands and cheated on all of them, slept around with porn stars and paid hush money to cover it up, had been accused of sexual harassment by dozens of different men, joked about banging teenage and pre-teen boys, and even bragged about committing sexual assault on tape then she wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere NEAR the nomination and you know it.
So don’t tell me sexism wasn’t one of the biggest key factors in Trump’s win.
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Sure. I’m just suggesting there might be a positive alternative to use of the first name in this case. She herself opted to use her first name for her campaign ads and logo.
I’m a little baffled at the insistence that the tradition of giving up the name you had since birth is not sexist, but not just going by the husband’s name is.
I didn’t say that. As a tradition, it’s sexist, so is the entire institution of marriage and all of society for that matter. Do you think we’re unaware of that fact?
The point is the choice of doing so. We have no idea what the conversation was about their decision for her to take his last name (and not entirely giving up last name). There are plenty of reasons someone might decide to change their name that doesn’t include tradition.
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Trump is pretty unprecedented in this regard. If Mitt Romney had done any of those things, he would have been out of there, even running against Clinton. I think the difference is that most candidates would regard these revelations as shameful to them and the country and would withdraw to preserve their dignity and the nation’s. Trump has no dignity, and the electorate was willing to look past his indignities.
I think many Trump voters were dismayed by his horrific misogyny - the “grab them by the pussy” remark was pretty damaging to him, and he probably would have lost the election on those grounds if not for Comey’s ill-timed revelations blurring the public’s short-term memory.
In any case, none of this has any bearing on Clinton - all it demonstrates is that the public had no qualms voting for a horrifying person in favor of her, it does not tell us the reason. “Well, he may be a total asshole, but at least he’s not a woman” still seems less likely to me than, “Well, he may be a total asshole, but who better to stick it to those assholes in Washington?”; this is also more in agreement with what Trump voters say in interviews on this subject.
Then why the vehemence in rejecting my original post, which is just pointing out that there might be a sound feminist reason for her campaign’s decision to use her first name?
All I’ve done is gently offered what I think are reasonable positive alternatives, and you guys are attacking me for it.
Of course it relates to Clinton, because it’s a pretty blatant example of how the standards that they were being held to were light-years apart from each other. Swap the candidates’ genders and the race would have been a non-starter.
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I don’t agree. There is no politician in recent history who weathered scandal after scandal like Trump did, male or female. Male politicians are routinely felled by reports of infidelity. What this demonstrates is Trump’s exceptional ability to thrive politically despite (or even because of) his personality - Trump supporters routinely say they voted for him because he was so odious to the establishment, and they enjoyed the idea of sticking a boor amidst the glitterati. As for your counterfactual, I frankly think the electorate could have been happy to hear of Clinton’s infidelity, given her husband’s dubious history.
Trump successfully attacked Hillary over her husband’s infidelity, because apparently it is a bigger sin for a female candidate to be cheated on than it is for a male candidate to be a serial philanderer.
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