Can a good person vote for Trump?
why is the country so polarized? How were voters so easily conned? Why do people believe things that are objectively untrue?
Partisan news and fake news. When did that really take hold? With the birth of Fox News.
Plus hate radio. We can trace the hate to late-80's, early 90's as both these outlets flourished. Let's not forget what they tried to put Bubba through.
ml1 said:
What happened? Fox News happened.
tjohn said:
I haven't heard anybody from the whining loser contingent explain to me how we got from Bill Clinton's electoral map of 1996 to HRC's electoral map of 2016.
ml1 said:
why is the country so polarized? How were voters so easily conned? Why do people believe things that are objectively untrue?
Partisan news and fake news. When did that really take hold? With the birth of Fox News.
I don't disagree, but we need to find an antidote.
Bill Clinton survived and flourished. Obama survived and flourished. It is telling that Hillary Clinton did not.
Lesson is that candidate choice matters.
Hillary Clinton as a candidate reminds me of Martha Coakley, being so bad a candidate she loses what should be a slam dunk (though the Democratic party in Mass made the same mistake with Coakley twice).
ice said:
If DJT is even moderately successful at improving the lives of average citizens, particularly those in the inner cities, the Dems know they will be doomed for a generation. You can practically smell their fear.
That an intelligent person like ice can even imagine such a thing as Trump improving the lives of inner city residents shows the wide gap in perceptions of reality among Americans.
Trump has appointed a person with no experience in the field as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He has appointed an opponent of Public Schools as Secretary of Education. He has appointed a Southern opponent of Civil Rights as Attorney-General, a Global Warming denier as Secretary of Energy, an opponent of Environmental Protection as head of Environmental Protection and an enemy of the Working Class as Secretary of Labor.
From my point of view that can only make life worse for the average American and much worse for inner-city residents.
BUT, if one is a "Conservative" then one believes that inner-city residents will be better off when there are no housing subsidies or public housing so they are no longer "dependent", when there are no longer Public Schools so that they all have vouchers to choose among various "for profit" schools, when the Police are free to "stop and frisk" every young male member of the community which, they believe, will reduce crime, and when "the Job Creators" are free of Government regulation so that they can create jobs for everyone in the inner cities.
GL2 said:
Agree. 46% of the public made a bad choice. A dangerous choice the likes of which we've never seen in our lifetimes.
48% of the people voted for an experienced, if flawed, solid sane candidate. Geez, have any of DJT's decisions since the election made anyone feel better about the really bad decision of Trump voters?
Maybe 46% voted for their idea of what Government should be and 48% voted for their idea of what Government should be. Or maybe lots of people were confused.
Or maybe Putin stole the Election.
Or maybe we are all on Candid Camera.
She got almost 3 million more votes than Trump. Polarization defeated her more than her opponent did.
ska said:
Bill Clinton survived and flourished. Obama survived and flourished. It is telling that Hillary Clinton did not.
Lesson is that candidate choice matters.
Hillary Clinton as a candidate reminds me of Martha Coakley, being so bad a candidate she loses what should be a slam dunk (though the Democratic party in Mass made the same mistake with Coakley twice).
ml1 said:
why is the country so polarized? How were voters so easily conned? Why do people believe things that are objectively untrue?
Partisan news and fake news. When did that really take hold? With the birth of Fox News.
The first Republican President said:
"You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time".
Of course to win an election you just have to fool some of the people for a few weeks.
A) so, as a person who voted for HRC despite her not being my first choice, and as a person who immediately realized the worst of the candidates on the RNC side was Trump, who watched as he won primary after primary by appealing to racist, sexist, vile right wingers, I'm supposed to be conciliatory to the fine people who didnt realize that was what they were voting for?
Hell no. The people who voted for Trump will NEVER vote for a democrat. The answer is not to appeal to these people, the answer is to appeal to the people who did not vote, and get them out to vote.
2) Don't discount as well as Fox news the many millions spent on think tanks like Heritage Foundation and other shill organizations funded to consolidate power and influence constituencies. Dont discount the fake news, internet, social media and dont discount the churches influence in the states that always vote against their self interests.
ml1 said:
She got almost 3 million more votes than Trump. Polarization defeated her more than her opponent did.
And therein lies the answer. What was Hillary's margin in California? Perhaps this is no longer one united country and we ought to realize that and begin the process of separation.
What is Fox News and hate radio going to do? They no longer have President Obama or HRC to drive their "news" and rile up their viewers/listeners.
bettyd said:
What is Fox News and hate radio going to do? They no longer have President Obama or HRC to drive their "news" and rile up their viewers/listeners.
they'll go back to their GWB playbook and push whatever the meme of the week is for the republican party.
Privatize SS, Medicare, Vouchers for education, nominate the worst of the worst for the SC. They'll be plenty busy.
Lets hope it doesnt include drumming up support for war.
LOST said:
ice said:
If DJT is even moderately successful at improving the lives of average citizens, particularly those in the inner cities, the Dems know they will be doomed for a generation. You can practically smell their fear.
That an intelligent person like ice can even imagine such a thing as Trump improving the lives of inner city residents shows the wide gap in perceptions of reality among Americans.
I think Trump improving the lives of inner city residents is far from a certainty, but yes I can "imagine" it, however moderate the real or perceived improvement might be.
Given how bad things are perceived to have gotten (just look at the gun violence rates in Chicago for example), and given the extent to which many inner city residents feel the last 8 years haven't served them well despite all the promises of hope and change (why did all those black people stay home Nov 8, and why did Trump get more black votes than Romney?), there is a real possibility that at least the perception of quality of life could change, and it wouldn't take all that much.
If gun violence declines (even if it is through more aggressive policing), if the economy improves and some jobs are created, if some parents who have their kids on waiting lists for charter schools can get them out of failing inner city public schools, etc.... there is absolutely a path to improvement, real or perceived. And you know Trump will find a way to take credit for anything that does seem to get better.
I'm not a fan of Trump... but unlike some of you, I have a grasp on how and why he got elected (it's not that all his voters are hating sexist racists BTW). Also, unlike many of you, I am hoping he can make positive changes. I'm not hoping for his failure so we can return to the policies and results of the last eight years. Probably the first time ever that Kanye West and I see eye to eye on something.
dude, we got 2.6 million more votes than Trump. 100k votes in the right places and we'd be having a completely different discussion. That's equivalent to rounding error.
Or are you too innumerate to realize that?
anyway, we arrived at this terrible state of affairs (ie, the anomoly of the electoral college result) by a combination of years of witch hunts against Hillary and James Comey perfidy and an utter failure of the media .
None of this excuses the Trump voter from having made a spectacularly obvious catastrophic decision.
tjohn said:
There is no bigger loser in the world than the person who loses a contest and blames the winners. Winners, on the other hand, reattach their butts after a bad beating and figure out how to win next time.
You, Drummerboy, are a complete loser. Look at Bill Clinton's electoral map from 1996 and look at HRC's map from 2016 and explain to us, without calling Trump voters contemptible, how we arrived at this rather terrible state of affairs.
drummerboy said:
I would just like to state that my contempt for the Trump voter has only grown since the election. It may take decades to recover from what they did. People that stupid should stay home on election day.
**** them.
I wish we could have two separate countries. The other evening when I said this to my husband, he pointed out how a disunited States of America could probably have not defeated Hilter.
LOST said:
ml1 said:
She got almost 3 million more votes than Trump. Polarization defeated her more than her opponent did.
And therein lies the answer. What was Hillary's margin in California? Perhaps this is no longer one united country and we ought to realize that and begin the process of separation.
ska said:
Bill Clinton survived and flourished. Obama survived and flourished. It is telling that Hillary Clinton did not.
Lesson is that candidate choice matters.
Hillary Clinton as a candidate reminds me of Martha Coakley, being so bad a candidate she loses what should be a slam dunk (though the Democratic party in Mass made the same mistake with Coakley twice).
THIS. Although I supported her and thought she was far more superior to Trump as a candidate, I didn't have the same enthusiasm for her as I did for Obama. She made some mistakes; she can be prideful. But no matter her faults, she's not a Trump, not even close to his rhetoric, behavior and lack of knowledge, and I thought for certain that the majority of Americans would clearly see that. I would not ever vote third party because she didn't give me goosebumps. She is definitely highly intelligent, analytical and savvy. Many, for whatever their reasons, didn't feel she was trustworthy. Which is NUTS because the dude who won lies incessantly, refuses to release his taxes and makes horrible business deals. How he is more trustworthy than her is one for the books.
Also think that those who opposed her husband were lumping her with him. Fair minded thinkers, both Dem and Rep could separate the two but many could not and it hurt her.
drummerboy said:
dude, we got 2.6 million more votes than Trump. 100k votes in the right places and we'd be having a completely different discussion. That's equivalent to rounding error.
Or are you too innumerate to realize that?
anyway, we arrived at this terrible state of affairs (ie, the anomoly of the electoral college result) by a combination of years of witch hunts against Hillary and James Comey perfidy and an utter failure of the media .
None of this excuses the Trump voter from having made a spectacularly obvious catastrophic decision.
tjohn said:
There is no bigger loser in the world than the person who loses a contest and blames the winners. Winners, on the other hand, reattach their butts after a bad beating and figure out how to win next time.
You, Drummerboy, are a complete loser. Look at Bill Clinton's electoral map from 1996 and look at HRC's map from 2016 and explain to us, without calling Trump voters contemptible, how we arrived at this rather terrible state of affairs.
drummerboy said:
I would just like to state that my contempt for the Trump voter has only grown since the election. It may take decades to recover from what they did. People that stupid should stay home on election day.
**** them.
You are still a loser. When you start coming up with plans to win back political power, we can consider removing that label. Otherwise, you are and will remain a loser.
even in Chicago, despite a blip over the past year or two, crime rates have been trending dramatically lower over the past two decades. Things have already been improving on that front.
And if anything Trump and the GOP do over the next four years appreciably improves the economic standing of poor people in urban areas, or poor people in rural areas for that matter, I will be absolutely delighted to come back here and admit that I was 100% wrong. But I think there's almost a zero percent chance that I'm going to be wrong. Lessening regulation, repealing the ACA and giving tax cuts to wealthy people is unlikely to do the trick.
ice said:
LOST said:
ice said:
If DJT is even moderately successful at improving the lives of average citizens, particularly those in the inner cities, the Dems know they will be doomed for a generation. You can practically smell their fear.
That an intelligent person like ice can even imagine such a thing as Trump improving the lives of inner city residents shows the wide gap in perceptions of reality among Americans.
I think Trump improving the lives of inner city residents is far from a certainty, but yes I can "imagine" it, however moderate the real or perceived improvement might be.
Given how bad things are perceived to have gotten (just look at the gun violence rates in Chicago for example), and given the extent to which many inner city residents feel the last 8 years haven't served them well despite all the promises of hope and change (why did all those black people stay home Nov 8, and why did Trump get more black votes than Romney?), there is a real possibility that at least the perception of quality of life could change, and it wouldn't take all that much.
If gun violence declines (even if it is through more aggressive policing), if the economy improves and some jobs are created, if some parents who have their kids on waiting lists for charter schools can get them out of failing inner city public schools, etc.... there is absolutely a path to improvement, real or perceived. And you know Trump will find a way to take credit for anything that does seem to get better.
I'm not a fan of Trump... but unlike some of you, I have a grasp on how and why he got elected (it's not that all his voters are hating sexist racists BTW). Also, unlike many of you, I am hoping he can make positive changes. I'm not hoping for his failure so we can return to the policies and results of the last eight years. Probably the first time ever that Kanye West and I see eye to eye on something.
unfortunately, unless your a 1%er, you are a loser too. in fact if you are a minority of any sect? loser. female? loser.
muslim? loser. working class? loser. liberal? loser. conservative? loser.
we've all lost.
and I point my finger directly at those Pennsylvanian idiots, those Michigan idiots, those Floridian idiots and those Wisconsin idiots. They will suffer along with us all and its of their own doing.
the more I look at the maps of where Trump dominated, and the more it's clear that the more sparsely populated the area, the more likely to go for Trump, the more I realize we're in trouble. The rural folks seem to hate and resent those of us who live near cities or in cities, and they've been told for years by the likes of talk radio hosts and Fox News that the "liberal elites" are looking down on them and hold them in contempt. But most people I know seem pretty well aware that life is rough in small towns where the factories and mines and mills have closed. And a lot of us vote for policies that we think will help them. Some good thoughts from Krugman's blog:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/fast-food-damnation/?emc=eta1
Compare that with affluent liberals — say, my neighbors on the Upper West Side. They aren’t nearly as rich as the plutocrats that will stuff the Trump cabinet. What’s more, they vote for things that will raise their taxes and cost of living, while improving the lives of the very people who disdain them. Objectively, they’re on white workers’ side.
But they don’t eat much fast food, because they believe it’s unhealthy and they’re watching their weight. They don’t watch much reality TV, and do listen to a lot of books on tape — or even read books the old-fashioned way. if they’re rich enough to have a second home, it’s a shabby-chic country place, not Mar-a-Lago.
So there is a sense in which there’s a bigger cultural gulf between affluent liberals and the white working class than there is between Trumpkins and the WWC. Do the liberals sneer at the Joe Sixpacks? Actually, I’ve never heard it — the people I hang out with do understand that living the way they do takes a lot more money and time than hard-pressed Americans have, and aren’t especially judgmental about lifestyles. But it’s easy to see how the sense that liberals look down on regular folks might arise, and be fanned by right-wing media.
Losers are those Democrats who don't recognize that Democrats have approximately no say on the national stage right now AND are not figuring out how to regain some political power. Whether or not any of what you say is true or not is irrelevant because it is not part of regaining political power.
hoops said:
unfortunately, unless your a 1%er, you are a loser too. in fact if you are a minority of any sect? loser. female? loser.
muslim? loser. working class? loser. liberal? loser. conservative? loser.
we've all lost.
and I point my finger directly at those Pennsylvanian idiots, those Michigan idiots, those Floridian idiots and those Wisconsin idiots. They will suffer along with us all and its of their own doing.
ml1 said:
The rural folks seem to hate and resent those of us who live near cities or in cities, and they've been told for years by the likes of talk radio hosts and Fox News that the "liberal elites" are looking down on them and hold them in contempt.
There have been more than few posts on MOL expressing contempt for red state residents.
tjohn, you're deflecting to a different point. you want democrats to concentrate on winning strategies, and I think that is what will happen, but I'd caution you to remember that even with a "losing" strategy, the democrat won the popular vote by millions.
thats a win. I'd think one great strategy for democrats would be to fight as hard as they can to repeal and change the voting suppression laws put in place by republicans. get out the vote next election even more that last one.
the demographic of the country are changing and there is no going back.
I can state with certainty that the Trump voter is never going to vote for a democrat. these people are going to die off eventually and in their wake will be more enlightened folks, looking for their American dream.
with certainty, eff the Trump voter. they own it.
because they voted for a lying, narcissistic sociopath for president. It's not as though you see lots of threads here making fun of small town people for being poor.
tjohn said:
ml1 said:
The rural folks seem to hate and resent those of us who live near cities or in cities, and they've been told for years by the likes of talk radio hosts and Fox News that the "liberal elites" are looking down on them and hold them in contempt.
There have been more than few posts on MOL expressing contempt for red state residents.
The strategy can't be to appeal to the people in rural areas of PA or MI who voted for Trump. They resent us, and they resent that we don't want their religion to dictate how people should live their lives.
There are real problems in this country and the Democrats need to come up with ideas that can realistically alleviate some of them. College debt is crushing. There's too much wealth and income inequality. Secure jobs are too rare. Health care, even after the ACA, costs too much. Plans to deal with those issues can appeal to young voters and urban and suburban voters who didn't come out to vote in 2014 and 2016. There's no reaching a person who gets their news from Fox, talk radio and their friends' emails. They think the Democrats and the "liberal elite" are literally destroying "their" country. Give up on those voters, and try to get young people and people of color more engaged in the process. In PA, a couple of percentage points better turnout in Philly, Pittsburgh and their suburbs would have given Clinton the state. Same in Detroit, Milwaukee, Madison, Miami, Tampa, etc., etc.
hoops said:
tjohn, you're deflecting to a different point. you want democrats to concentrate on winning strategies, and I think that is what will happen, but I'd caution you to remember that even with a "losing" strategy, the democrat won the popular vote by millions.
thats a win. I'd think one great strategy for democrats would be to fight as hard as they can to repeal and change the voting suppression laws put in place by republicans. get out the vote next election even more that last one.
the demographic of the country are changing and there is no going back.
I can state with certainty that the Trump voter is never going to vote for a democrat. these people are going to die off eventually and in their wake will be more enlightened folks, looking for their American dream.
with certainty, eff the Trump voter. they own it.
hoops said:
tjohn, you're deflecting to a different point. you want democrats to concentrate on winning strategies, and I think that is what will happen, but I'd caution you to remember that even with a "losing" strategy, the democrat won the popular vote by millions.
thats a win. I'd think one great strategy for democrats would be to fight as hard as they can to repeal and change the voting suppression laws put in place by republicans. get out the vote next election even more that last one.
the demographic of the country are changing and there is no going back.
I can state with certainty that the Trump voter is never going to vote for a democrat. these people are going to die off eventually and in their wake will be more enlightened folks, looking for their American dream.
with certainty, eff the Trump voter. they own it.
The Democrats have very little political power right now. That's a loss. That fact that HRC won the popular provides hope for the future, but today we are looking at quite a loss.
And I would think that we want to recover those Trump voters who voted for Obama in either 2008 or 2012. Why losers want to write them off is quite beyond me.
I agree with Dr. Martin Luther King that the “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”, but would prefer to keep that arc as short as possible.
democrats stayed home in Wisconsin according to this:
and also has some pretty true story telling stuff about the so-called conservative movement and how we got here.
I'd say anyone but Clinton would have won in the rust belt. The failure here was not in the democratic platform but in its choice of leader.
how many of those people are there really? A few hundred thousand out of 130 million votes cast? How do you craft a message to appeal to a voter segment that has no apparent ideological anchor?
the strategy should be to get turnout back to where it was in 2008 among young voters and African American voters, not to try to appeal rationally to a group of voters who don't vote rationally.
ml1 said:
The strategy can't be to appeal to the people in rural areas of PA or MI who voted for Trump. They resent us, and they resent that we don't want their religion to dictate how people should live their lives.
There are real problems in this country and the Democrats need to come up with ideas that can realistically alleviate some of them. College debt is crushing. There's too much wealth and income inequality. Secure jobs are too rare. Health care, even after the ACA, costs too much. Plans to deal with those issues can appeal to young voters and urban and suburban voters who didn't come out to vote in 2014 and 2016. There's no reaching a person who gets their news from Fox, talk radio and their friends' emails. They think the Democrats and the "liberal elite" are literally destroying "their" country. Give up on those voters, and try to get young people and people of color more engaged in the process. In PA, a couple of percentage points better turnout in Philly, Pittsburgh and their suburbs would have given Clinton the state. Same in Detroit, Milwaukee, Madison, Miami, Tampa, etc., etc.
I think on some of the wedge issues (i.e., gay marriage) time is on our side. On other issues such as guns, I think that gun control advocates need to either start a movement like the prohibition movement or be quiet, because trying to push gun control through the White House has proven to be ineffective while damaging Democratic prospects for winning.
Something needs to be done to counter the Fox message that we resent the rural parts of America - we could start by jumping all over people on MOL that say just how much of a joke flyover America is.
Beyond that, I believe that that the Democratic platform should have appeal to rural, suburban and urban voters.
Time will tell. If Trumpism works over the next four years, Democrats are screwed. If, as I suspect will happen, it doesn't work, then we have a road back.
What I think we will have is an ultra-conservative government with a reality T.V. veneer as Trump runs around claiming he is winning. That is the thing that we need to counter.
ice said:
LOST said:
ice said:
If DJT is even moderately successful at improving the lives of average citizens, particularly those in the inner cities, the Dems know they will be doomed for a generation. You can practically smell their fear.
That an intelligent person like ice can even imagine such a thing as Trump improving the lives of inner city residents shows the wide gap in perceptions of reality among Americans.
I think Trump improving the lives of inner city residents is far from a certainty, but yes I can "imagine" it, however moderate the real or perceived improvement might be.
Given how bad things are perceived to have gotten (just look at the gun violence rates in Chicago for example), and given the extent to which many inner city residents feel the last 8 years haven't served them well despite all the promises of hope and change (why did all those black people stay home Nov 8, and why did Trump get more black votes than Romney?), there is a real possibility that at least the perception of quality of life could change, and it wouldn't take all that much.
If gun violence declines (even if it is through more aggressive policing), if the economy improves and some jobs are created, if some parents who have their kids on waiting lists for charter schools can get them out of failing inner city public schools, etc.... there is absolutely a path to improvement, real or perceived. And you know Trump will find a way to take credit for anything that does seem to get better.
I'm not a fan of Trump... but unlike some of you, I have a grasp on how and why he got elected (it's not that all his voters are hating sexist racists BTW). Also, unlike many of you, I am hoping he can make positive changes. I'm not hoping for his failure so we can return to the policies and results of the last eight years. Probably the first time ever that Kanye West and I see eye to eye on something.
+1
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The current occupant of the WH is a man of mixed race, Every time Black people have made significant progress it has been followed by a backlash. Check out the end of Reconstruction. Check out the Civil Rights 60s followed by the "Law and Order" 70s and 80s.
There are a million explanations for the results of the Election. We can each take our pick.