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2. Celebrity beat organization
3. Populist revolt against immigration and trade
This makes sense to me, but somewhat less than Michael Moore.
11 comments
You left out FSB and James Comey. (late deciders broke strongly for Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).
FSB? The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation?
Let’s not forget Bernie Sanders early on…telling his people about vote rigging and making his opponent look like the devil incarnate.
No matter what he did late in the game, that early bullshit soured a lot of young people.
Comey helped reinforce that, as did Trump. All bullshit but they built on the foundation Bernie layed.
I get campaigning but after Clinton cinched the votes to become the nominee, he should have not raised the stakes but helped build a coalition. He did a lot of damage.
re: #2 S’latch
You’re kidding me. Who else do you think pulled the entire Clinton campaign’s emails from secured US government servers and gave them to Assange?
I’ve said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating.
Above all, the 2016 election made clear that America is a nation deeply divided along racial, cultural, gender and class lines.
The strongest correlation for the red vs blue culture divide is country folk vs city folk. If you don’t believe me, then forget maps showing red vs blue by state, and instead check out maps showing red vs blue by county.
While the cultural differences are a problem, they’re not an insurmountable problem. We just need to break the habit of complacently sitting in echo-chambers and engage one another more. But that’s a long-term issue. The biggest short-term problem, which boosted support for Trump and the republicans, is the economic divide between urban vs rural.
The recession hit rural communities hard, costing them alot of manufacturing jobs and bringing business growth in small towns to a crashing halt. But the benefits of economic recovery went entirely to cities. Rural towns have been left behind to rot. How? Obama’s economic recovery plan, which Clinton echoed, focused on building infrastructure and small businesses, a.k.a. service jobs. And while that does stimulate economic growth in cities, it does squat for lower population densities. They need manufacturing jobs.
I’ve seen pundits and commenters on other sites dismiss this by saying “you can’t bring those manufacturing jobs back. You can’t turn back the clock to pre-globalization. It’s just wishful thinking.” Chronically unemployed country folk just rejected that answer quite adamantly. And why shouldn’t they? They’re not exactly swimming in alternatives. Liberals need to offer them more than “don’t cry over spilled milk.” We need to come up with a realistic plan to solve the economic problems of rural communities, and fast. Otherwise, don’t count on unseating our new con-man in chief in 2020.
In my opinion, one of the reasons we lost is because we were in a bubble that we created for ourselves and did not see what was really going on. In my opinion, based on comments here at LGF, some people are still in their bubble.
People did not fail to get enthusiastic about voting for Hillary Clinton and then fail to work hard for her campaign, and then fail to sufficiently get our her vote for her because of some bullshit e-mail scandal or foundation nonsense. People failed to do that because her personality is cold and uninviting, and she appeared to have a sense of entitlement to the position by virtue of her name. Almost everyone knew the e-mail thing was bullshit. It wasn’t her e-mails or her foundation that most people found untrustworthy; it was her personality.
I voted for Hillary Clinton. I was not even depressed about it. I was proud of it. But she is mostly boring and uninspiring. I could never get enthusiastic about her. I tried. I found nothing to latch on to.
She was a status quo candidate in a change year. A big mistake.
When 2020 rolls around, we are not going to be able to run a status quo candidate. We won’t have that option. We better find another agent of change like Bernie Sanders was who is in touch with the pain and the fear that is out there. When we see that candidate appear, we better not get scared of our own shadows.
re: #8 S’latch
Just to be clear, “change” won’t be enough. We’ll need to be more specific. We’ll need a damn good plan for solving rural America’s problems. Otherwise, we’ll lose before we even begin.
re: #5 EiMitch
We’ve come up with an answer. It requires being supported by government rather than “mah own tew hands” so they have actively rejected it.
I fully expect that the factories will come back because the EPA will cease to exist, and I can actually see some of the conservative-owned companies willingly joining Bangladesh in its race to the bottom (for example, there’ll be no Federal minimum wage by this time this year).
However, I also suspect that when robots get cheaper to operate than the 10-bucks-a-day the proud-to-resume-working labourers will be paid, that they’ll be turned out again.
There’s a fundamental problem with the employer–labour model in manufacturing that made it the most likely reason a Communist revolution was ever in danger of proceeding: namely, the employers will always use the closest thing to slave labour available, so as to maximise their profit by minimising the payout to the worker.
And robots in manufacturing, and over the next decade, AIs in the service sector, are going to be perfect slaves, with even no risk of slave revolt unless someone accidentally lets them become sentient and sapient. It’s going to come for all of us who aren’t robot-designers before the end of my natural life. There won’t even be enough make-work jobs that aren’t filled by robots, and most of the world will be fine that way. (And averting this means keeping people in mindless, menial labour jobs that are literally painful to someone should they be intelligent enough, even if they’re in good enough shape physically to carry them out).
But now we get to where their church and their parents have raised them to believe it’s a moral failing to require a handout from anyone, and particularly from government. And that Gawd says that there has to be a division between labourers earning their place in heaven and slackers who will receive a negative reward in the afterlife. So we’ve been telling them for years, “it’s not possible to earn a true living here anymore” but even if we add “but we have a way you won’t have to move to that sinful city”, their response is to reject it as the support is as sinful to them as the city is!
The big deal, though, is that for many there must always be an Other. Even a rising tide lifting all boats wouldn’t be acceptable because that degenerate n-word down the block wouldn’t be their inferior anymore. And I don’t see any way to appeal to him if you do allow said Other to rise to the station Joe Southerner thinks is rightly his, even if Joe Southerner moves up too.
And no, I have no idea how to solve that.
re: #10 Chrysicat
Okay, there’s quite alot to unpack here.
I fully expect that the factories will come back because the EPA will cease to exist,
Slashing taxes, regulations, and wages does not stimulate economic growth, nor the creation of more jobs. The ongoing mess in Kansas is far from the only example proving this.
There’s a fundamental problem with the employer-labour model in manufacturing that made it the most likely reason a Communist revolution was ever in danger of proceeding: namely, the employers will always use the closest thing to slave labour available, so as to maximise their profit by minimising the payout to the worker.
Even Henry Ford figured out in the early 20th century that this is short-sighted dinosaur thinking. That paying employees well is actually good for business. And there are manufacturing businesses in America today that understand this, just not enough atm.
This isn’t an insurmountable problem. New manufacturing jobs were created during the Obama administration thanks to government business loans. We simply failed to direct such manufacturing job growth to rural communities, and complacently focused on cities.
This next is the point where this economics discussion takes a turn into offensive territory.
And robots in manufacturing, and over the next decade, AIs in the service sector, are going to be perfect slaves, with even no risk of slave revolt unless someone accidentally lets them become sentient and sapient. It’s going to come for all of us who aren’t robot-designers before the end of my natural life.
This is about as blithe as Gary Johnson’s “the sun will eventually envelop the earth” comment. While automation will screw up our current economic models in the future, we’re not there yet. Meanwhile, there are people who need help now. So quit with the “in long run we’ll all be dead” crap. It’s just a rationalization for callousness.
But now we get to where their church and their parents have raised them to believe it’s a moral failing to require a handout from anyone, and particularly from government.
While a guaranteed income we can each live on is ideal, the reality is that it’ll be an unprecedented government expense. There’s no easy answer on how to pay for it. It’s a long-term goal, a pipe-dream atm. Meanwhile, there are people who need help now. Welfare payments are crap, nowhere near enough. It’s one of those “better than nothing” deals, but it’s still crap.
I suspect you’ve never been long-term unemployed. That you’re at least one-step removed from this situation.
So we’ve been telling them for years, “it’s not possible to earn a true living here anymore” but even if we add “but we have a way you won’t have to move to that sinful city”, their response is to reject it as the support is as sinful to them as the city is!
You think cultural differences are what keep struggling rural Americans from moving to the cities? Seriously?
Do you not comprehend how geographically huge America is? Moving is expensive. And the further away you move, the worse it gets. “Move to the city” is an option for the well-off. Those in financial need are stuck where they are. They can’t even sell their homes, because nobody’s buying out there. At least not a price high enough to bother with. Not to mention the costs of living go up when moving from the countryside into cities.
Neoconservatives and lassiez-faire ideologues dismiss the problems of the poor with the same “it’s their own fault” derision which you’re displaying now. Again, I suspect you have scant experience with any of this, merely taking your own relative privilege for granted.
The big deal, though, is that for many there must always be an Other. Even a rising tide lifting all boats wouldn’t be acceptable because that degenerate n-word down the block wouldn’t be their inferior anymore.
You’re only assuming they’re racist. You’re taking the worst examples of Trump supporters, and projecting that onto everyone else who voted for him. And don’t tell me it’s because they ignored Trump’s racism. Because liberals also ignored the civilian casualty toll of drone strikes and the legally questionable expansion of mass surveillance under the Obama administration. We’re all human. We all excuse and look away from the faults of “our guy” for the sake of “the greater good.”
The truth is that PoC living in rural communities aren’t discriminated against, because they’re “one of us.” They talk, think, and act just like the rest of the community does. Apparently they even voted Trump like the rest of the community did.
*sigh* I thought I had allowed myself to complacently sit inside a bubble. That political polarization had blinded me. But you take the cake. You think rural Americans can live just fine on entitlement programs, and only pride and racism prevent it. How shockingly naive.
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