I tepidly agree. While I want to see opinions informed by (good) data, my confidence in what the data says has been quite shaken this year. I feel like pre-election polling is especially suspect in having garbage data, but doubled with the idea that folks didn’t want to say they were voting for Trump for fear of being ideologically hassled really made it a crapshoot. Time to be even more skeptical I guess, if one can muster the energy after such a depressing end to the last 12-18 months.
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Oh, so THAT’S what all that pizza shit on Reddit is about! Thank you, I was sooo confused that some sub-reddit about pizza was talking about pedophilia. I’m never not surprised by how gullible people really are as long as it justifies their existing world view.
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This seems like a lot of bullshit. The Gallup poll didn’t ask “which of Trump’s positions most impacted your decision to vote”, it asked what voters heard the most about in the media.
Most Trump supporters I heard from disliked his sexist/racist comments but thought the media was biased by “spending too much time on them” in comparison with his economic positions.
So basically they’re dumb assholes who thought his economic policy was in their self interest and were willing to ignore his seething hatred and advocacy of violence toward minorities.
This analysis seems designed to exclude any possibility that there were legitimate flaws with Clinton as a candidate–an incredibly foolish position to take.
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Racism and sexism definitely played a part. So did people feeling left behind in our current (past, what, decade+? Two decades?) economy. So did fear. So did our fake Facebook news/journalistic inability to say that facts are real/massive media coverage for Trump/social echo chambers. How about voter education about basic civics? All the people who voted for Trump for “change,” but continued to re-elect members of Congress who are arguably a bigger part of the problem than the President, who, let’s face it, actually can’t do by him/herself a lot of the things that they promise on the campaign trail? It’s all a part, and recovering and moving forward will require more than one path and more than one solution.
Everyone wants there to be an easy answer. Then there is only one problem for us to solve, and we can NOT DO that dumb thing again and move on and WIN next time. Yay. But it’s not that easy.
That said, I appreciate everyone who is looking at data and trying to figure out what went wrong. All of their info is going to be a piece of the puzzle that will hopefully make things better.
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My take: The voters were given a choice in the general election between Elephant shit and Donkey shit. They voted in Elephant shit, mainly to fling at the Donkeys. Serves the Donkeys right for pretending to represent these voters for nearly forty years while in fact undermining them the entire time.
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“We came, we saw, he died…HAHAHAHA”
“TPP, the gold standard for trade agreements”
“…Basket of DEPLORABLES…”
Clinton did have her flaws.
Bill Clinton’s gift of NAFTA and killing Glass/Steagall just keeps on giving too.
Another factor: My son is in the Navy. He told me that there was a collective sigh of relief on his base after the election results. No one liked Trump, but they took very seriously Hillary’s saber rattling against Russia and the very real (in their opinion) possibility of Nuclear war. That is a big bullet to dodge.
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White identity
Please make it go away, PLEASE!
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And it’s true, he’s a temporarily embarrassed millionaire about to become a billionaire again.
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I love that both the “left” and the right decided that we deserve Trump, and all should suffer.
Lessons never learned. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Don J “we should use our nukes more” Trump?
For fucks sake.
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Don’t live your life in such a vacuum.
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Looks like Paul Ryan will be running everything while Trump flounders around trying to staff a government.
This scares the shit out of me.
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It’s not too far off, but I think that xenophobia is a more accurate description of the problem than racism. At issue I think were some classic examples of racism, such as disenfranchisement of blacks. But also many referred to as racism Trump’s positions on Mexicans (a nationality) and Islam (a religion).
It is not only white people who don’t buy into white identity. What is a white American culture? The traditions of white ethnicities are exemplified by European culture. The ethics of Christianity are from the Levant. And by the classic “one drop” rule, hardly anyone of the U.S. qualifies as white. So it comes off as a sort of affinity group, a professed identity with minimal core values of its own. I think that what USians propose as “white identity” is being actually an appropriation of an idealized European culture by people who have never been there. YES - not only does the U.S. appropriate from other cultures through its imperialism, but their own cultural identity is an appropriation as well.
Of course, whatever the professed or actual nature of U.S. cultures and identities may be, none of this prevents them from acting out problematic xenophobic and sexist ideologies.
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Hillary promised a no-fly zone over Aleppo. Making a no-fly zone over Aleppo involves war with Russia. Either Hillary was for a rousing game of Global Thermonuclear War or she was lying through her teeth and causing tensions with a nuclear power to gain cheap “I’m tough” points. Neither option endears her to the electorate.
She’s also appears to be a supporter of B61m12 warhead, and the F35 and ballistic shield[1] delivery systems. This is a strategy that might work against an incompetent Russian government but against a competent one or an aggressive and insane one (pick your own interpretation of Putin) would invariably lead to nuclear war. MAD doesn’t work against stealth and/or short-range attacks.
Trump, for his many many many many bad sides, said he wants to peacefully cooperate with Russia.
Fun nightmare to contemplate: What if Annoying Orange, by being elected, saved human civilization? Chills the blood, doesn’t it? Like one of those things in Saw where you have to cut something off to free yourself.
[1] I know ‘shield’ sounds all defensive and peaceful, but there’s not really any significant difference between missile shield installations and short-range ballistic missile installations. One software patch and they can fling nuclear bombs straight into Russia with no possibility of retaliation. This makes nuclear war “winnable” which means Russia has to go back to a preemptive strike strategy. Why do you think that at the height of Cold War the embattled sides easily agreed to ban short and medium range missiles?
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I think they do in fact care, but are hamstrung by the reality of American politics: running for office requires money, lots of money, and lots of money means corruption and a reliance on marketing strategy focus-group bullshit. It means they have to play ball as best they can according to how the system works, it means they have to walk a tightrope appealing to big moneyed interests while trying to sneak some form of relief to the rest of us. I think they do care but they aren’t allowed to act on it except in bits and pieces (Obamacare is a good example-- Obama wanted something a lot more socialistic and game-changing, but had to settle for a small step forward.)
Consider this: if the DEMs were the 100% progressive socialistic party that took no money from corporate entities, then they would simply cease to have even the modicum of power they have now. The GOP would outspend them by several magnitudes and we would be ruled by oligarchs.
None of this will ever change until money is removed from the equation.
The one important point of Ramachandran’s argument it’s that economic issues weren’t a very big factor with voters, but then racism alone or sexism alone weren’t necessarily the deciding factor by themselves either, it was a combination of those plus media bullshitting over non-scandals, and probably some other stuff he doesn’t mention (like all the free publicity Trump got by being outrageous, and the fact that so few eligible voters still don’t vote-- a perfect storm of sorts.) Focusing only on economic issues is an illusion, and won’t help in future elections.
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So, what’s the plan? If people voted as they did because they are irredeemably evil, what’s the Left’s plan? Death camps? Mass disenfranchisement? Civil war? What?
See, I think that whatever the reasons individuals had to vote Trump, they have to be changeable because math being what it is, these same people once voted for Obama. They can’t be that invested in White Supremacy if they looked at a black guy and said “Yup. Looks like presidential material to me.” And that the best option for winning America back might be changing those factors.
Maybe stop throwing actual left-wing values under the bus, repeatedly? Just a thought. Start fewer wars. Y’know. Wean yourself off that stuff. Maybe one war per President or something.
Or you can blame the deplorables, and snuggle in the safe, comforting knowledge that you needn’t change a thing, nor do anything difficult. Sure. Great idea. I mean, what’s eight years of Trump compared to the warm glow of self-righteousness.
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(loads of problems with that movie, yet this remains a powerful scene)
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Not sure how Clinton was “saber rattling” against Russia. She seemed to just want us to keep our distance from them, as opposed to, you know, kissing Putin’s ass at every available opportunity.
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Understanding comes first. Planning comes second.
Have you heard of the OODA Loop? Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
Observe - we’ve seen the result of the election, and are still trying to make sense of the disconnect between expectations and reality.
Orient - face the new reality, consider possible courses of action, plan them in detail, and game out their consequences. This is only practical if you’ve properly observed.
Decide - select a course of action, having weighed the pros and cons and considered the avialable resources and the aim you’re trying to achieve. Or select a main course of action, along with subordinate and supporting courses of action
Act - carry out that plan.
Each step is crucial. We’re still in step 1 Observe. Why are you demanding that we leap straight into Step 4? Do you want the left^ to fail?
^ ‘left’ in terms of the US’ Overton Window
That’s just not necessarily true. Since the last election in 2012:
- 16 million Americans have had their 18th birthday and become eligible to vote.
- 10 million Americans have died and therefore dropped off the rolls
- Some millions more have emigrated and immigrated
- 4 million fewer folks voted in 2016 compared to 2012
The electorate is not a monolithic, unchanging entity. Even if everyone who voted for Obama in 2012 had voted for Clinton in 2016, Trump could still have won due to changes in the electorate. Understanding this is exactly why Observe is the first step.
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Racists and misogynists believe it IS in their own self-interest to elect a straight white male.
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