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Post election thoughts and possible future trends


Carrie Mathison
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I realize this new thread is a bit of a vanity project, but I wanted to get out of the bickering of the old thread and get one going on ways forward, so forgive me for this. Of course, if the mods see fit, this can be merged with the election thread and so be it.

 

Here are some assorted thoughts on the election and future trends, now that we've gotten a moment to catch our breath (and realize, that yes, the world will keep turning and the four horsemen aren't coming down from the sky)....

 

1. Polls were wrong

 

That being said, they weren't that wrong. 538 had something on this earlier- the polling miss was actually within the margin of error. So it's not like they were off 20 points or something. But what is remarkable is that they were all wrong, albeit only by a couple points. Why is this? Not sure. Lots of speculation, probably most of it baseless, for months to come. Open to any suggestions/thoughts people have on this, because at the moment, I've got nothing. I probably would've put Clinton winning at about 3-1 odds going into election night. Maybe the odds actually weren't that, or perhaps we just hit that 1 in 3.

 

2. Demographics actually didn't matter

 

One of the very interesting things about this election that doesn't seem to be talked about much is that Trump actually improved on Romney across the board with Blacks and Hispanics. His margins with women were respectable, and he outright won white women. We can attribute some of this to decreased minority turnout, sure, but something that will have Dems scratching heads for months going forward, is why didn't the supposed evil Hitler drive up Hispanic turnout by double digits? As it turns out, they didn't actually care that much. Why is that?

 

3. Identity politics backlash

 

There's a lot of Democrat postmortem analysis going on right now, some of it good, and some it way off the mark. There's a really simple explanation to this election. When you have someone in the middle to lower-middle classes in Rust Belt areas that is in a dead-end job paying $40k/year that hasn't seen a pay raise in 20 years, has friends that have been laid off from closing factories and have had to work at a freaking Wal-Mart, and is wondering how they're gonna pay for the kids to go to school, and you have one candidate promising to bring the jobs back and make America great again (no matter how realistic that is), and the other candidate saying "you better vote for me or you are racist evil Hitler" and choosing to focus on things like the BLM movement, what do you expect to happen? Did anyone really think that message was going to be convincing?

 

Now we have to be clear here, we're not talking about redneck crazy voters in Alabama or something- those voters were all going 99% Republican no matter who was on the ticket. Trump flipped blue counties in blue states, some having not voted for the GOP since the 80s. We're talking about people who voted for Obama. This is where Trump won. He didn't win by picking up Alabama. He won because Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin flipped. These are not "South Will Rise Again!" voters. These are just average dudes trying to make a living, who have voted Democrat for years, but have seen their party abandon the working class after sapping all the money out of their communities and then decide that the only people they care about are clickbait bloggers, have seen the GOP establishment hoodwink them on false promises to roll back social policies while also sapping all the money out of their communities. Well, when you're a guy that's backed into a corner and you no longer have anything left to lose, all you have left is to spit in the face of the people who have screwed you over. And that's exactly what happened.

 

This election exposed a lot of things about the Democrats (and the GOP establishment, for that matter), and if they're smart, they'll use this as a wake up call. You can only push identity politics so far before there is a backlash. You can call someone sexist a million times, but that's not going to convince them to vote for you when the other guy is telling you he'll bring back jobs. At the end of the day, that's all that really matters. Having a stable job that pays the bills. Somehow Democrats forgot that. As much as Democrats demonized these voters, at the end of the day, most of these people again- are just average dudes. We're not talking about KKK members here. I don't how much I can emphasize this, but we're talking about people that voted for Obama in places like Michigan. Does some subtle racial bias exist in them? Probably. But then again, it probably does in everyone, to at least some small degree. But when you treat this person like he's not even a worthwhile member of society, he's essentially sub-human and basically akin to the worst evil to come across the world since Hitler, when all he really wants is a job that pays more than $15/hr, what do you think will happen?

 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the Dems are getting the message on this one. Already, I'm seeing some writers out there doubling down on this line of attack- articles out there like "The Misogyny Apocalypse: Turns Out Being White and Male Counts More Than Intelligence, Grace, and Decency," from Salon and "This Is What White Supremacy Looks Like" (from the Nation)... leave me scratching my head. Do you still not get it? This is what drove these voters to Trump in the first place! These are not people burning crosses or something, it's just your everyday guy down at the local Jiffy Lube that may have some concerns about immigration or whatever, but he's not reading up on Mein kampf on his free time... he's probably just playing xbox and watching Netflix. But... I mean, feel free. Don't listen. Just keep calling half the country racist because they want a pay increase and for the government to do something about immigration.

 

4. What policies should Trump push first?

 

Going to the future then- we have cabinet choices to talk about and also policy choices. There's going to be some push for immigration immediately, and also Obamacare, but I actually think the best move is trade. First, it's one of the issues we know Trump actually cares about. He's flip flopped on damn near every issue, but one he's consistently held since the 80s, is his generally anti-trade, nationalist stance. Re-negotiating some of our trade deals is something he wants to do, wants to put energy into, and it's something I think he'll find it easy to strike a bi-partisan deal on. I was listening to Bernie Sanders on CNN earlier, and he even conceded that this is an issue that he wants to work with the GOP on and that he'd find a lot of allies with in the progressive lobby. It's an issue that a lot of people want to see movement on, from both sides of the aisle, and it would signal that a) Trump is rewarding the rust belt for his support; and that b) he is committed to bi-partisan deals and getting DC working again. A big early win on trade could really set the tone for the rest of his presidency, increase his popularity ratings and make it easier for him to begin tackling something much harder, like immigration.

 

5. Cabinet picks

 

I have to put a little more thought into this before I write much more, but the most interesting picks for me are White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Council, and Attorney General. Lot of names going around out there- Gingrich, Christie, Rudy, and so on... more on this later (it's late and I'm tired).

 

Also in my next post- Best Dem candidates for 2020

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The white women thing was amazing. I think the stat I had was 54% of white women voters went Trump.

 

Identity politics is what is leading to some of the weirdest things though. All these people in the street protesting. I feel like it's an angrier version of the Occupier movement which went no where and enforces what the actual winning party wants.

 

I don't think Trump has political capital. I'm not sure of what he will do beyond being the punching bag for the GOP to use as a scape goat. I do know that it will be interesting to see what happens with a GOP House and Senate.

 

His cabinet will be where his political capital comes from. Poor Christie will be snubbed again!

 

Kinda tired so I don't wanna elaborate but nice interesting post. Will probably think about it this weekend. I don't write long posts but I do like to read others thoughts. Thanks for sharing.

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I totally get, and agree, with what you are saying about identity politics. I don't think Trump is as sexist or racist as he comes across-- but I think the news pieces you refer to are less of a reaction to just Trump, and more about who he has empowered.

 

The KKK is out there in bigger force than they have in decades. Trump could make zero moves against social causes that Dems want to call him a Nazi over-- but I do think the racist, sexist, homophobic (and proud of it) contingency does exist, and Trumps campaign has empowered them.

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There are a lot of white elephants that weren't being talked about, that resulted in the elephant getting back in the white house, and congress as well.

 

Hillary was just a s**ty candidate for the Dems. Period. Good grief, where do I begin?

 

Was it her support for all kinds of regressive legislation that she promoted back when her husband was POTUS? Welfare reform? The crime bills? NAFTA? The repeal of Glass-Steagall? Was it her support for all kinds of regressive legislation during the Bush years as senator? The invasion of Iraq? The Patriot Act? The 2006 border fence legislation? (!) Or maybe it was the fact that she managed to be an even hawkisher secretary of state than even the Bush neo-cons? Did this chick ever meet an arms dealer or a military intervention she didn't like?

 

Of course, the creme-de-la-creme was the sheer sense of entitlement to the oval office that she and her countless shills in the media brazenly displayed. How about her incredibly tasteless and condescending "Bernie Bro's" meme that she used to paint up Sander's young male supporters as being a bunch of ass swatting frat boys, and then subsequently referring to them as "basement dwellers." Congratulations, Hilary ... you just proved that victim blaming, condescending dog-whistling is a game both parties can play! Good job willfully playing up identity politics to defeat Sanders, who may well have been able to defeat Trump and bring about America's first ever and long needed Socialist president.

 

F**king b*tch. Rot in hell.

 

I can't honestly think of a US presidential election I would have actually voted GOP in, until now. And now I find out two days after Trump wins that the Trans Pacific Partnership will not be ratified by congress. That can rot in hell too.

 

The SJWs are displaying the staggering levels of lacking self awareness we all knew they would. Go ahead and burn Portland to the ground, jackasses. And the tears on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. There'll definitely be a glut in the global salt market for the foreseeable future. Faux angst and identitarian virtue signalling helped get Trump to the White House. That, more than anything, is what will keep him there.

 

On a more fundamental level, I think we're seeing some kind of global political realignment. First brexit, now this, now the dead TPP. Next, some of these anti-immigration parties are going to win elections in Europe. It's a different world, folks. It's more like nationalist vs. globalist - carved out largely along class lines, rather than liberal vs. conservative now. I've been talking to people ranging from Christian evangelical street preachers to tenured Marxist college professors, and they've been telling me the same kinds of things: they're kinda-sorta glad Trump won.

 

As am I.

 

What remains to be seen is what he'll actually be able to deliver on.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I realize this new thread is a bit of a vanity project, but I wanted to get out of the bickering of the old thread and get one going on ways forward, so forgive me for this. Of course, if the mods see fit, this can be merged with the election thread and so be it.

 

Here are some assorted thoughts on the election and future trends, now that we've gotten a moment to catch our breath (and realize, that yes, the world will keep turning and the four horsemen aren't coming down from the sky)....

 

 

 

Actually, I kind of like the idea of this remaining a separate thread. The election is over at this point, and your points are different from what was said in the Post GOP Autopsy and Gen Election 2016 threads.

 

1. Polls were wrong

2. Demographics actually didn't matter

3. Identity politics backlash

 

 

I did not see this coming. At all. I was sure Clinton would have it. Basically, I was convinced Clinton would win in a decisive electoral victory, but the popular vote being close. I was way wrong!

 

Just as an aside, in my class last night (It's a class that has nothing to do with politics), the instructor, who is some social/cultural analyst who does all kinds of qualitative research and numbers crunching quantitative stuff, went over how the polls were so wrong. He even said last week, it might be a GOP victory (the guy is way, way lib, but he is all about methods and numbers). He had consulted months before the election some colleagues who were political analysts, who didn't look at who was running at all, and simply did an analysis of how long the incumbent party was in power, the economy, and other variables, and came up with a GOP victory ranging between 47% to 53%, depending on the person he talked to. The percentages were high, and only were the popular vote. In a way they were correct (GOP won), but did not predict that Hillary getting (slimmest of margins to be sure) the popular vote. Still, it was interesting, because people were telling them how wrong they were, they were idiots, etc.

 

He then critiqued the polls, and without getting too into it (this is just the general gist, really, it is beyond me, I'm not a research guy), but basically the polls were skewed because it didn't account for the fact that the majority of those who voted for Trump were not degreed or only had some college, and white. Often they were rural, maybe didn't have the same access to technology to respond to polls, and didn't trust pollsters and would either not participate at all, or gave inaccurate answers. Which left a large swath of people unaccounted for. So, those who responded to the polls, were more urban, college educated, and had skewed the results. Also, the minority vote, and female vote did not turn out like they did for Obama, in 2008. Essentially this was a white election, where old, white people got their asses to the polls, and the young (the ones in the streets protesting now), and minorities stayed home.

 

I'm not a numbers guy, but very interesting stuff. I have seen a lot of this said in the post election analyses , though maybe stated in slightly different terms. So I guess long story short, it could in fact be compared to the Brexit, on some levels. Which again, I thought couldn't happen (only mention it because I said it in another thread).

 

4. What policies should Trump push first?

My unqualified opinion is this: Trump should lay low until January. Let the dust settle. I think the first order of business should be something he said he was going to fix, but that isn't as controversial (IE building a wall, pissing in the Chinese' Wheaties, etc): fix Obamacare. I think both sides of the aisle, especially the people getting hit with premiums that doubled will welcome anything that helps them. Trump shouldn't push to repeal it, but to modify it. If he tries to repeal it, he will not only piss off the dems, but there are republicans who want Obamacare around too, but just aren't vocal. If Trump pushes for repealing it, he could make enemies of both sides. He should help work to introduce legislation to break down the state line limitations on health insurance so that health insurance premiums will be lowered. Also, to work with congress to remove or change other unnecessary restrictions, and maybe simplify Obamacare. If he did that, and it were successful, he would gain some backers on both sides in Congress, as well as the public.

If Trump wanted to go after some low hanging fruit to pick up quick support, he ought to open a massive investigation into the VA, and fire and even prosecute bureaucrats who have caused all kinds of wait times and covered them up. It would take little effort on his part, but would be good press coverage. It would also be something he could point to that Obama didn't do.

Trump ought to open some big trade talks with Cuba. Even if it is for show, and the US doesn't benefit that much, it would be an olive branch of sorts to the Latino community.

What I would WISH he would do, and I know he will probably do the opposite, is halt the construction of the XL pipeline through Native American lands, and call for the companies involved to find another route, that would be less impact on the water table, and doesn't impact the Native Americans in that area.

5. Cabinet picks

God, I have seen reports (really it's pundits wish lists) wanting to make Newt Sec of State, Sarah Palin, Sec of the Interior, Christie Sec of Treasury, Rudy the Attorney General.

The ONLY one on that list I would agree with is Rudy, since he was an associate Attorney General who helped bust up the mob. It's like a who's who of people who didn't win in the primaries. I think that would be a serious mistake to appoint the rest of them. It would be even worse than what was perceived as a compromise when Obama made Hillary Sec of State. Plus, what if Bridgegate comes back to bite Christie. Trump doesn't need any scandals. Newt? I wish he would go away, and just be some history professor somewhere. Palin, I wish someone would just put her on that proposed Osiris-Rex mission and leave her on that effing asteroid!

If Trump wants to keep his word and change things, he needs to not nominate anyone who ran in the 2016 primaries. I don't really have anyone in mind, but he was sent because he was fresh blood. What is the sense in bringing in all this old, and mostly failed blood?!

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2. Demographics actually didn't matter

 

There is one thing that's ultimately satisfying about what happened election night it was seeing the narrative that Trump lost because Latinos came out in droves to vote against him deflate before our eyes. At the beginning of the night, that was the one big story (followed by the gender gap). It was set up to be shoved into Republicans' noses once again that they can't win EVAR because Latinos don't like them. And we would be hearing nothing except how the party is doomed and we need open borders or else. I can't tell you how many stupid articles and people there were out over the past four years there claiming that Republicans couldn't possibly win a presidential election without getting the Latino vote up to around 40%.

 

Politics is a lot like sports. If you win, your mistakes are forgotten. If you lose, you have your mistakes magnified. Tom Brady throws two bad picks in Super Bowl 49. If they'd lost the game, he would have been excoriated as having an off-night and even choking. But he engineered a comeback, won the MVP, and all we remember about that game is that he was awesome and Seattle should have handed the ball to Beast Mode (even though throwing the ball on that down made sense from a time management perspective).

 

Similarly, Clinton was within 1.3 points of Trump in Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Just a little better of a day for her and she wins by pretty much the same margin as Trump did, and there would be no Democrat post-mortem to speak of. She'd be hailed right now for her steady campaign.

 

Networks REALLY wanted to run with that narrative that Trump lost because of a big Latino surge for Democrats. This despite the exit polls already being out that were showing Trump's margin among minority groups was better than Romney's. But, by the end of the night, the narrative had disappeared.

 

And that's a good thing. Because, yeah, I do think there's been a backlash against the narrative. The whole concept of Democrats taunting whites as being powerless over the last 8 years definitely contributed to the Trump rise in the first place, and an increase in racial tensions in general.

 

Of course, Trump himself won, so the feeling of powerlessness is going to swing in the other direction. Worse, as Driver pointed out, the overtly racist have been empowered. Funny thing though, I do think that Trump is oddly well-equipped to bridge the divide a bit and reach out to "the blacks" as he'd say. He did make his "New Deal for Black America" a fairly large part of his campaign the last few weeks. I don't know, in his awkward way, he might be able to shake up at least a little bit of the status quo in a black community that desperately needs a switch away from near monolithic identity politics. For themselves more than anyone.

 

If I could advise Trump on anything to do with improving race relations, that's where I'd start. Keep working the black community like he did the last few weeks of his campaign with a message of "What have you got to lose?" and to make some of his policies geared towards them legislative priorities.

 

In the end, it couldn't hurt for him to try.

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Some great posts, and I'll try to reply to some of the longer ones later this weekend when I have a chance. Some quick replies:

F**king b*tch. Rot in hell.


LK, you know I love you. And you know I desperately hate SJWs and Clinton was not my candidate. But that being said, the election just happened and it's still raw for some of her supporters here. Let's be civil in this thread man!

I totally get, and agree, with what you are saying about ide Tory politics. I don't think Trump is as sexist or racist as he comes across-- but I think the news pieces you refer to are less of a reaction to just Trump, and more about who he has empowered.

The KKK is out there in bigger force than they have in decades. Trump could make zero moves against social causes that Dems want to call him a Nazi over-- but I do think the racist, sexist, homophobic (and proud of it) contingency does exist, and Trumps campaign has empowered them.

Is that really true (that they're a bigger force) though? Statistically? I mean, I don't know.

 

Let's assume it is though. And let's even assume that he has empowered them (maybe true). This is missing the point! And what I spent the majority of my post writing about. Trump did not win because of these people. These people were already voting 99% Republican. They would've voted for Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, hell, even a literal bag of feces, against any Democrat.

 

He won, again, by flipping blue counties, in blue states, that are not in the South. He did better in the North than any GOP candidate since 1988. The people that flipped him these states aren't KKK members, they're average middle-class people in places like the Pittsburgh suburbs that voted for Trump not because they hate women and not because they resent the fact that we had a black guy in the White House, in fact, the opposite- these were people that voted for Obama!!!

 

Until the Democrats understand this, they can't begin to analyze why they lost this election and where to go from here. The tendency is going to be to do the opposite (as indicated by some of the articles I referenced), that it was because of some unholy alliance between the KKK, Nazis, misogynists and what not. The uncomfortable truth is much simpler- that the Dems just lost touch with a lot of average Americans and if they double down on the same strategy, then Trump is gonna win again, in his words "big league." Recall that states like Minnesota and New Hampshire were within 1%. Unless Trump is a catastrophe (this is certainly possible), then he'll have the incumbent advantage and has a good shot at picking up those states. Dems can't run with the same playbook. I'm hoping that they get this, but early signs appear that they do not (outside of a couple of earnest writers out there... Thomas Frank had a good piece, and heck even Michael Moore gets it):

 

"Everyone must stop saying they are "stunned" and "shocked". What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren't paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all "You're fired!" Trump's victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that."

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Great pic. The font would suggest NYT, but I'm not sure.

 

Reinforces the point I'm making. LOT of green up in blue counties, in the north. Increasing the vote share by some 40% (!) in some cases.

 

Did Trump win racists? Yes.

 

Did Trump flip the states he needed to and win BECAUSE of racists? No.

 

Was the Democrats strategy of grouping everyone that was thinking about voting for Trump in with the racists and trying to shame them into voting for Clinton helpful? No.

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Yeah I thought it was NYT just going by look. Found it in the comment section on one of the Gawker sites.

 

Very illustrative of your point, which I think was articulated better than I've seen it by nearly anyone to this point, by the way.

 

The teeth-gnashing from the Left has been... something. Annoyingly so. I'm pretty firmly anti-Trump and I do have concerns, but good god, get a grip people.

 

One of the reasonable arguments for Trump was always "he'll run it like a business, he'll surround himself with smart people." Reports of Carson/Palin/Giuliani/Gingrich et al making up the cabinet put a damper on that, but nothing is official of course.

 

By the way, I definitely recommend people reading this from the Washington Post. It's a long read, but very worth it.

How Donald Trump Won the 2016 Election: The Insiders Tell their Story

It's in oral history format which works/doesn't work for some people, but there's a lot of interesting things in there from both camps.

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I would put an unsung hero in all this as Mike Pence. I know Carrie had her doubts about him, but there's little doubt in my mind that his closing message to wayward Republican voters to "come home" probably netted a lot of votes from traditional Republican voters who didn't like Trump or didn't believe that he was qualified (only 38% of voters believed he even met the "qualified" threshold) or has the temperament (only 35%).

 

I can easily imagine his margin of victory came directly from people who said, "Why not?" while standing in the voting booth.

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I ridiculed the Mike Pence choice (being a Hoosier). I just didn't, and still don't really, see how he'd attract anyone that wasn't already voting Republican. I understand your point, just not sure i agree yet.

 

Semi-related: I was positive Pence was going to lose re-election in Indiana. However, given the events of Tuesday (Trump win, Republicans keeping Senate, Evan Bayh losing decisively, Pence-lite Eric Holcomb winning decisively)... I think I missed massively on that too.

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I ridiculed the Mike Pence choice (being a Hoosier). I just didn't, and still don't really, see how he'd attract anyone that wasn't already voting Republican. I understand your point, just not sure i agree yet.

There's a distinction that I think you need to consider: voting Republican versus traditionally vote Republican. Pence didn't really draw anyone who isn't a Republican, but he helped settle many people who may have voted third party or abstained completely. It didn't have to be a huge number, as we saw in many states he won by slim margins, so keeping a few thousand people convinced that they have a place in the GOP was vital.

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I would say that this election was won or lost not so much on the swing voters, but on the base. Hillary couldn't excite a lot of Obama's base, where Trump was able to get most of the Republican base on his side.

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Some great posts, and I'll try to reply to some of the longer ones later this weekend when I have a chance. Some quick replies:

 

F**king b*tch. Rot in hell.

LK, you know I love you. And you know I desperately hate SJWs and Clinton was not my candidate. But that being said, the election just happened and it's still raw for some of her supporters here. Let's be civil in this thread man!

 

I totally get, and agree, with what you are saying about ide Tory politics. I don't think Trump is as sexist or racist as he comes across-- but I think the news pieces you refer to are less of a reaction to just Trump, and more about who he has empowered.

 

The KKK is out there in bigger force than they have in decades. Trump could make zero moves against social causes that Dems want to call him a Nazi over-- but I do think the racist, sexist, homophobic (and proud of it) contingency does exist, and Trumps campaign has empowered them.

Is that really true (that they're a bigger force) though? Statistically? I mean, I don't know.

 

Let's assume it is though. And let's even assume that he has empowered them (maybe true). This is missing the point! And what I spent the majority of my post writing about. Trump did not win because of these people. These people were already voting 99% Republican. They would've voted for Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, hell, even a literal bag of feces, against any Democrat.

 

 

FBI statistics show that the KKK and other skin head organizations have grown in last decade. The disenfranchisement of emasculated white males makes them appealing. A kind of boys club where they can vent. On some level I think Trump appealed to some voters because even though his businesses failed he presented to people who used to have things to want that again a path to that halcyon years they used to have. (God, not worded well but I've been working on report cards all day and my brain is mush).

 

And angry Kurgan is nice to see. :thumbsup:

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FBI statistics show that the KKK and other skin head organizations have grown in last decade. The disenfranchisement of emasculated white males makes them appealing. A kind of boys club where they can vent. On some level I think Trump appealed to some voters because even though his businesses failed he presented to people who used to have things to want that again a path to that halcyon years they used to have. (God, not worded well but I've been working on report cards all day and my brain is mush).

One wonders how many of these emasculated white males there really are on the grand scheme of things, though. Some, to be sure, but enough to decide elections?

 

Also, the big question with these types boils down culture vs class. Are they mad because women and minorities are on the rise, or are they mad because of the loss of economic opportunity? After many months spent deep in alternative political circles, I still can't see any real definitive answer to this question, but I suspect it's more the later than the former. I think these types of people could be quite liberal, radical even, were it not for the urban progressive establishment's disdain for them. And there's another question of class vs. race: does the progressive establishment despise the white working class for being racist, religious or reactionary? Or are their motives darker (no pun intended) - do they look down on the lower classes of their own ethnic group, and use the lower class's alleged racism and misogyny as a legitimizing rationalization for their own underlying prejudice and hypocrisy? Is it okay and understandable for dark skinned people to be tribal and superstitious, but white people ... they really should know better? Do the urban hipsters project the racism inherent in this line of thought, and the guilt they feel due to their own very real privilege onto a Cletus caricature they've constructed in their own ideological echo chambers? Is their stridency and militancy compensation for their own nagging inner doubts?

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1. Polls were wrong

 

That being said, they weren't that wrong. 538 had something on this earlier- the polling miss was actually within the margin of error. So it's not like they were off 20 points or something. But what is remarkable is that they were all wrong, albeit only by a couple points. Why is this? Not sure. Lots of speculation, probably most of it baseless, for months to come. Open to any suggestions/thoughts people have on this, because at the moment, I've got nothing. I probably would've put Clinton winning at about 3-1 odds going into election night. Maybe the odds actually weren't that, or perhaps we just hit that 1 in 3.

I still think Nate Silver and 538 are the best stats analysts out there. He wasn't wrong. There were a lot of fluctuations in the odds over the entire campaign, and Silver's method of calculating odds has "fat tails", where the probability of unlikely events is greater than that of a normal probability distribution. I believe he caught some flak from other news outlets and bloggers for having such "unrealistic" probabilities for Trump's winning (ha!). No matter what, even low probability events will occur. The last estimate for the election outcome I had before election night was a 1-in-3 chance of Trump winning. That's not a low probability at all. Evan McMullin winning the presidency - now that was a low probability event.

 

I'm not optimistic about this Trump administration. In general, Republican administrations are not good for science and research. There are likely to be cuts in funding at NSF, NIH, NOAA, and the Department of Energy, all of which are already pretty stingy when it comes to grants. It doesn't help that Trump has demonstrated a disregard for science and academia in general. He'll probably be as bad as Nixon was when it comes to science. NASA is likely to lose its Earth science funding in favor of human space exploration programs, assuming Trump is in favor of such a thing.

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Naw, Kurgan, not enough to sway the election but more in reference to the growing ranks of the KKK and other "Whites" only organizations. A lot of the Aryan Nation can't vote anyways as they're more than likely felons.

 

People are feeling the pinch though. Insurance rates rising, just trying to buy a house is an ordeal unless you have stellar credit, the cost of raising a family have all put the squeeze on dudes who vote and in this case women too. Americans have had it easy for decades but since 2008 it's harder to run a small business and jobs that are good are fewer and further between. In this case I think it came down to people who just want to live comfortably and people who are SWJs as you guys call them and the people who just want to live and run businesses unimpeded won. By unimpeded I mean cake shop owners who don't want to be sued to death because they balked at baking a gay mans cake for example. Or a restaurant who's got to provide a gender neutral bathroom for cross dressers and transvestites.

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To pavonis' point, I was amazed at the blowback fivethirtyeight got, despite articulating multiple times why Trump wasn't in a "helpless" position like most polls had him. They addressed the possibility of an EC/Popular vote split very early on, and took note that the "blue wall" was a dubious proposition at best.

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Here is an interesting piece that anecdotally talks about first time voters over 35 turning out for Trump. My little insight going back to the primaries was that Trump was going to pull people out of the trailer park and into the voting booths for the first time. I hope we get some data around this at some point. http://digg.com/2016/revenge-of-the-forgotton-class

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I totally get, and agree, with what you are saying about ide Tory politics. I don't think Trump is as sexist or racist as he comes across-- but I think the news pieces you refer to are less of a reaction to just Trump, and more about who he has empowered.

 

The KKK is out there in bigger force than they have in decades. Trump could make zero moves against social causes that Dems want to call him a Nazi over-- but I do think the racist, sexist, homophobic (and proud of it) contingency does exist, and Trumps campaign has empowered them.

Is that really true (that they're a bigger force) though? Statistically? I mean, I don't know.

 

Let's assume it is though. And let's even assume that he has empowered them (maybe true). This is missing the point! And what I spent the majority of my post writing about. Trump did not win because of these people. These people were already voting 99% Republican. They would've voted for Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, hell, even a literal bag of feces, against any Democrat.

 

Sorry if I wasn't clear-- I didn't miss your point at all-- I was just tangent-ing off something you said. Like I said, I followed you, and think you said a lot of smart things. My point was a separate one.

 

Are they out in force more than usual? Seems like it--or maybe hate crimes are just being reported more because it makes sense post election night. We'd have to see some statistics to be sure.

 

But it certainly does seem like a lot of things are happening. It could just be post election fervor-- like that black woman shouting on the news about how she'd never have to pay taxes again after Obama was elected. Myopic nationalism always hits a fever pitch in the weeks after an election.

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The media is also in the business of making money, and people want to believe that the other side is pure evil, so painting all Clinton supporters as rioters and all Trump supporters as members of a lynch mob just makes sense.

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But it certainly does seem like a lot of things are happening. It could just be post election fervor-- like that black woman shouting on the news about how she'd never have to pay taxes again after Obama was elected. Myopic nationalism always hits a fever pitch in the weeks after an election.

 

She shouldn't have to pay income taxes anymore, at least. If the president(-elect) doesn't, why should anyone? ;)

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Has anyone noticed the urban/rural voting percentages? The rural people (who I have been telling you all for a long time that you don't even begin to understand) are getting completely fed up with being called retarded redneck backwoods cave-men. They hate what they see as subsidizing a bunch of programs for minorities in cities while the rural white/brown/black alike struggle a little harder every year and the debt goes higher. I heard a cheer come up when people heard the #Calexit thing.

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