This is tone-deaf. This is why you lost. Democrats created (or at least thought they did) a culture where such things were reprehensible. That is the problem, because it assume your pet issues matter more than basic human needs. That is why they got blind-sided this election. That is why every poll said Trump was gonna lose, because what this suggest is what people assumed.

Hillary lost because of the Rust Belt, and Rust Belt flipped because they believed her husband fucked them over with NAFTA. Her opponent could have been David Duke and she still would have lose these states, because your pet issues do not trump food on the table and NOT raising your children in poverty.

Yes, we need to work towards that society, however we need to also remember the fucking basics. Food, jobs, and not losing narrativism battles to dumbfoundingly straightforward nativist because the party is too easily shown to be the one that acquiesces to neo-liberal economic policy.

This lesson HAS to be #1 to democrats right now, anything else is astoundingly tone deaf.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/3/a-bad-economy-fuels-racism.html

When resources seems scarce, you start looking out for you and yours. How thats defined differs, and it doesn't necessarily manifest as being actively violent or hostile. But indifference is pretty fucking bad as well.

President Trump: How & Why...

Agreed. If trump had been your basic ultra conservative with a heaping helping of racism, sexism and xenophobia on top, he would not have won. He won because people are fed up with a broken system, and enough people are pissed off enough to let the -isms slide in the hope that, "this is so crazy, it just might work!" It's a Hail Mary Pass into the end zone, but the only receiver there is an ass-clown too busy mugging for the crowd to possibly make the catch.

You are right that the Democrats ought to draw this lesson, but unfortunately it won't happen that way. They will most likely double down and continue to repeat the same worn-out platitudes, while also continuing to hang out with their buddies / sugar daddies on Wall St. They will just assume that they got unlucky and in 4 years time (or whatever) it will somehow magically get better.

Strange how the better option part is so easily dismissed. We've had discussion after discussion on this site about how Green is not an option and we need to vote for the lesser evil. Hasn't it occurred to you that those same conversations were happening on other sites with party and candidate switched around?

Is racism an issue in America? Despite the question mark, no question. But Trump's entire voting bloc didn't cast their vote with the purpose of being racist. For many of them it was simply a matter of voting for what they perceived to be the lesser evil based on their personal issues and priorities. It's divide and conquer. Again, and again, and again.

Get rid of First Past The Post voting, focus the majority of your political efforts on economic justice for all. And then, when a significant portion of the population hasn't been resource starved and pointed at each other's throats, maybe you'll have a shot at solving racism, sexism, and all the other isms. A common cause might even help the isms sort themselves out in the process. But for now? No, most people are going to do what they think is best for themselves and their tiny little social circles and they'll sacrifice the causes of others to do it.

And if you think it's bad now, wait till the climate change migrations begin happening in earnest.

I'm curious about your definition of 'economic justice'

I'm not innovating anything new, just carrying the torch. Before MLK Jr. was assassinated he was leading the way with the Poor People's Campaign a movement ultimately centered around the idea that a person's right to existence should not be dependent on their economic station. There are plenty of ways to go about it, but as we see technology cutting into jobs at a faster and faster rate I've begun to heavily lean towards Universal Basic Income as a means of lifting the floor we should consider the minimum standard of living to be. Single payer healthcare or medicare for all to cover survival beyond food, water, and housing. And then, for the resources for people to give back to society, overhauling the public education system, free community college and possibly subsidizing trade schools. I've got plenty more I'd personally like to see, but as a bare minimum platform, that would probably cover it.

Cheers for clarifying. It was one of those terms that could mean almost anything depending on the listener.

There is one problem with your plan. So let's say everyone has at minimum enough to eat, sleep and go to the doctor. Doesn't matter how. Then you have two parties saying that the real reason 2 in 10 Americans don't have a car is because the other guy has such a horrible plan. And if we would only do this that or the other thing then we would have better food for our children and there children. So there is always more that can be done. Why not vote how you feel? And not tell anyone? And anyone who says it is a wasted vote doesn't matter?

There is one problem with your plan. So let's say everyone has at minimum enough to eat, sleep and go to the doctor.

That would be a really good problem to have. The bare minimums are covered for and people are arguing how to make it better? I would be ecstatic at having to face that problem.

I agree. In fact I think everyone would agree and that is the point. You have to have two warring sides to have 5 24/7 news stations, grass roots organizations and money for campaigning.

Putting a chicken in that pot is how you stop them from blaming those people. See Germany, WW2 as for why you should fix that before it gets worse.

Not just stopping the blame. (thank you, milkman666) Economic security literally makes people less racist.

Pumping the water out of their flooded houses every season may make people feel like they're accomplishing something, but personally, I would rather build a dam.

Every chance they've ever had to ensure those chickens, they've thrown them away rather than let a brown person have equal access. Fuck them.

Trouble is, "fuck them" also means "fuck their votes". As we've just learned, we can't afford to do that.

You want Hitler? This is how you get him. (Forgive me, Godwin.)

Post-election, post-mortem since clearly this needs to be said.

So here is why the democrats lost, and I hope that these lessons take real root.

A) Super-delegate fuckery.

-I am not under the impression that Sanders was going to win the primary. However, stacking the deck in Clinton's favor definitely caused people not to bother to keep fighting for Bernie. It was a paper-tiger, but that paper-tiger had deleterious effect.

B) Debbie Shultz and the DNC

-Like it or not, they did help Clinton and there is proof of that. It was not nearly as over the top as claimed by some sectors of the media and social networking spheres, but it was real and real enough that you could not just brush aside the people upset by it as "sour grapes."

C) The selection of Tim Kaine as running mate

-Progressives were already devastated by Bernie's loss and the DNC playing favorites. The one thing that could have been done to salvage more of them back to the cause was to not select a middle of the road, dyed in the wool, establishment democrat.

D) Bill Clinton

-And this is perhaps the nail in the coffin more than anything else. The Rust Belt was lost, and these are the areas the NAFTA hit the hardest. Deserved blame or not, those who had their livelihoods up-ended by NAFTA blamed Bill Clinton. Obviously, Bill is not Hillary, but to the mind of someone who lost their job years ago, and to the children they raised in poverty because of it... that is a minor distinction.

E) The attitude of the average Democrat.

-Getting back to the Rust Belt, and why you lost it... social justice is important, women's rights are important, LGBTQ rights are important... but what is more important is food on the table, and the idea that more will be there tomorrow. The democrats did not fight hard enough to keep Unions alive, and it should be no surprise that the places that once were both Democratic stronghold and Union strongholds flipped this election. Frankly, it was just a matter of time, and running someone named Clinton was just the catalyst for those disenfranchised to finally say enough was enough.

Yet, this never occurred to democrats, and they never considered that these states were in real play... because they assumed that their pet causes were more important to people than the basic truth of economy.

Feminist got mad when it was suggested that Clinton was poor on these grounds, claiming we were feeding a narrative that undermined Clinton's campaign. Well, how do you feel about that now? Do you think that a Clinton run as historic as it was, was more important for women's rights than securing a victory that ensures that those rights continued to be protected? Trying to make history with the wrong candidate is exactly what cost victory.

However valid or invalid you believe the issue of Clinton on free-trade might be, what no one seemed to understand is that it does not matter if you are right or wrong about that. What matters is what people believe about it. And these people believed Bill Clinton sold them out and they were never going to vote for his wife because of it.

The people in the Rust Belt used to be the heart and soul of the Democratic party. Now they are the dagger twisting in it's back... and there is no one to blame but the Democrats themselves.

The election was such a close race that any number of hypotheticals could have dramatically changed the result.

But the larger question was why it ended up being close at all. Trump was accused of sexual assault. He lost all three debates. His wife posed nude for a magazine. He managed his own Twitter account. He lied. Half his own party practically disowned him. His campaign team was inexperienced and disorganized. The media utterly savaged him.

Hillary ran a near-flawless campaign.*

Yet it was still a close race.

Which means, in my opinion, that Dems were destined to lose this one.

*there was one huge tactical mistake. Fighting Bernie, her campaign tacked way too far left, and stayed liberal-pleasing, politically-correct soft left until the very end. To too many people in America, it came across as both inauthentic as character and undesirable as policy. She should have channeled Thatcher, gutted Bernie and strung him on a lamp-post, and then gone and ripped Trump's tiny dick off. By that I mean he should not have been allowed to own the center-right ground on immigration, trade, security, and economy like he was able to, but pushed out instead to the wingnut fringe where he belonged. Bernie bros would have been livid, and Hillary followers dismayed, but this election was destined to be won by the person who seemed most willing to piss people off...

Her campaign was not flawless. Tim Kaine being VP after a huge disappointment to progressives does not encourage them to come out for you. It tells them that your party is trying to sidestep them. Granted, she adopted a hell of a progressive platform, but the damage was done and that is clearly obvious from the votes.

These people didn't vote for Trump because he is a hateful man. At least, not most of these people. That is not by and large how this area of America works. This was solidly blue for very long, and those principles are shared by many-to-most. The problem is they have watched their livelihoods go unfought for in the name of other causes. That breeds resentment towards those causes in many, and for most while they do not resent women, minorities and the rest for it... they view it as secondary to their main concerns, because they have to. For too long no one made their concerns the important one.

I think you have these listed in kind of reverse order of importance, but I'd amend to E) Hillary Clinton herself. That covers a lot of ground- her lack of political talent, all of the baggage of the Clinton legacy, the perception- true or not- of corruption, the association with the political establishment and Wall Street, and yes, good old-fashioned misogyny. We can't discount that a certain proportion of voters rejected her simply because of gender, considering they chose a candidate who is clearly even more corrupt and far less likable- but male.

Yeah, but in fear of sounding like idiots who claim that because we had a black president racism is over... I kinda feel like if Obama could win handily, a woman can and probably would have an easier time. Just not this particular woman, given the baggage.

And yes, it's reverse order. I like to build up my cases from weak to strong most of the time.

If economic issues are the main deal with these voters, why do they all have Republican state legislatures, Republican governors, and vast majority of congressional representation also Republican? They have elected union-busters. Repeatedly. Their representatives did everything they could to keep Obama from doing any infrastructure spending, which would have meant jobs for these very voters.

Obama saved the auto industry in spite of the obstruction which these voters put in the way. If these voters are so keen on putting food on the table, why do they keep voting against it? The Democrats are the only ones who've ever done anything for their economy.

You are trying to apply rationality to an unrational choice. These people acted out of desperation. They are the people who suffered from NAFTA now once or twice removed (the children or grandchildren of factory workers out of work.) The Rust Belt has been electing more and more Republicans over the years, though at a trickle. Now that you ran someone named Clinton, it was a deluge. That is not a coincidence.

They elected people against their better interest, because the party that was supposed to watch their better interest basically to their point of view sold them down the river to fight for glamorous causes. Standing against racism, sexism, and the such is great and feels great, while fighting for economic causes is in the grand scheme of things boring. I think the sharpest focus I can put on that was a news report from the middle of an election where a woman in Indiana cried her eyes out about the suggestion of voting for Trump as racist. Her response was "we are not racist, we are desperate."Sadly I can't find the article since googling "crying woman trump not racist" is pretty much garenteed to give you a shit load of stuff from more recently... but that's the basic gist of it. These people don't agree with the racist, mysognist bullshit. They simply saw no other choice, because to them Clinton was not a choice.... for much the same reason she wasn't a choice for me.... either their parents or grandparents got hurt, and they grew up in poverty hearing tales of how it used to be better.

This is what I mean by the attitude of the average Democrat. You are not wrong, HoZay, you're just not listening. You underestimated the resentment because you think logically that they wouldn't vote like they did since they should be on your side given their concerns. But your side is the one that fucked them over, and then demonstrated you didn't just not care about their plight, you openly mocked it (to their mind) by nominating the wife of the person who ruined them and their families. This is what I mean when I said your side lost the narrativism battle to blisteringly ignorant nativist. These people lost their jobs to Mexicans, and Trump is promising to do something about it... and he is NOT named Clinton. That need to settle in, guys. It's not that you are wrong... it's that you are not listening.

They were voting republican already, when Obama was trying to get them relief. They voted against unions in Wisconsin, it was a big deal, with thousands demonstrating. Didn't even have anything to do with the federal government, they voted to punish people who had good union jobs. They've not been ignored by Democrats, they've slapped away any help that was offered.

Again, because the democrats FAILED them. That is why it started, as I clearly said:

it should be no surprise that the places that once were both Democratic stronghold and Union strongholds flipped this election. Frankly, it was just a matter of time, and running someone named Clinton was just the catalyst for those disenfranchised to finally say enough was enough.


and

The Rust Belt has been electing more and more Republicans over the years, though at a trickle. Now that you ran someone named Clinton, it was a deluge. That is not a coincidence.

They were already pissed, this just gave them their "come to Jesus" moment.

It is imperative that this be understood by people if those of us on the left plan to fix this shit. We can not currently win a presidential election without the Rust Belt, not unless we can get 40 odd electoral votes from the south or midwest.... good luck with that.

How come the white people are so desperate they're voting against their own self-interest, but not the black and brown people?

Do you have any arguments that are not centered around whitey the blue eyed devil?

Welcome to SE, total stranger.

Because of privilege. Black people don't have the privledge of voting against their own self interest and being able to assume they will be more or less okay/not too terrible off in the end. That is cultural, they vote in bloc.

As for brown people, take a look at the percentage of latino/latinas Trump got. 29%, sir. And those are people he DIRECTLY threatened.

I am not saying racism isn't in play, privilege is obviously part of the issue. What I am saying is that to the people in question that concern HAS to be secondary, because the fact it has been primary is part of why they feel ignored.. and they are not entirely wrong.

The lady in your anecdote probably believes she's not a racist, but almost everybody believes that. Trump campaigned on race-baiting, blaming all the non-white groups for victimizing the whites, and that's what they responded to. Trump's MAGA slogan - America was great back in the Happy Days and the Wonder Years. Great for white people.

I think the white folks are voting their self-interest, but it's cultural, not economic. It has very little to do with Nafta, and everything to do with other groups wanting the same cultural privilege. Black Lives Matter? Not to Trump, and not to his voters.

And this attitude is going to lose the next election. It's not that you are wrong, it's that you are dismissive. This is why they flipped. To me, and to you, voting for Trump was tantamount to tacit approval of racism. I get it, we agree.

The problem is ignoring the fact the same place NAFTA left a wasteland is the same place that cost the election. This is not an accident. I can personally tell you I had to make a promise to my grandfather to never vote for Clinton because of this. The sentiment is real, it is very real and you do a serious disservice to the ability to correct it by pretending it's not the issue in play. However right you are about racism, sexism, and the like that doesn't mean anything. Because that argument will not win them back. These people have been marginalized and ignored while people chased the flashier, feel good issues. Important issues, yes, but not the most important one.

Study the beginning of WW1 and WW2 some time. You will find a similar theme is present. The disenfranchised and desperate act out and will take the promise of madmen against their own interest. They will succumb to hate and mistrust. They will buy into conspiracy. Every -ism you want to stop is best stopped by first getting to the basic fact... a secure economic future is the foundation of progress. Without it, we get exactly what we just did.

I'm stumped, buddy. What do you offer the WWC that they haven't already rejected?

Well, the first thing we can do is not brush them off. That's what created this mess where they don't even want to come to the table with you. Even bringing back unions probably wont help in of itself, since at the end when unions became toothless, to most they were just an extra tax with no benefit. Frankly, at this point I am not even sure how to fix it because it first involves overcoming massive resentment.

We need to give unions teeth, and we have to make sure we are running candidates with an actual chance to win, and we have to prioritize the issues correctly. The first step in that is not simply to say "well they are wrong and if they really believed in x,y,z they will vote our way!"

It's about messaging as much as the message itself. There is a perception problem that must be overcome before the points you make (that I agree are valid) can even be approached. As to how to overcome that... I am afraid I am at as much a loss as you are. It's why I want people to start talking about this, because the left needs to figure out how to address this as the way we have been doing it, clearly isn't working so that is why I am making the stink. We have to stop doing THIS, though what we start doing is still what I a struggling with.

Here are the top 10 reasons why Clinton lost.
1. Emails.
2. The media.
3. Emails.
4. Emails.
5. Lack of enthusiasm and corresponding decrease in turnout.
6. White people.
7. Emails.
8. The FBI.
9. 30 years of Republican attacks.
10. Not campaigning hard enough in the Rust Belt.

A and B had little to do with her loss, except to the extent they fed into 5. C was not a net factor either way: the votes Kaine lost from progressives were shored up by older Democrats who were reassured by having a man on the ticket. It's sexist, but it's true.

D is interesting, because Bill worried the campaign wasn't spending enough time in the Rust Belt campaigning, shoring up support there. So while I think he was a drag due to his negatives being imbued on Hillary, I also think he tried to mitigate them as much as possible. Hillary's nuanced positions on trade didn't help either.

I think you misread E because of your feelings about the race, much the way that Clinton's die-hard supporters misread the race because of how they felt about her. Clinton was popular among Democrats going into the race, with a 60% approval rating among all voters in 2014. It got crushed as the campaign went along (EMAILS SMASH!). But the average Democratic voter still turned out for Hillary Clinton.

That wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for the average Democratic voter to turn out: the marginal Obama voters of 2008 and 2012 didn't show up, much like they didn't show up in 2010 and 2014. And turnout among Republicans was high.

The emails were just a means to an end, a way to justify being in a camp with deplorable assholes.

The media got it wrong. The media got it very wrong. They were calling it for Hillary even as they plastered bullshit about her left and right. They want ratings, and they don't want to look like incompetent idiots. But in the end, they will keep the cameras rolling even as the world burns down around them.

The FBI was definitely part of it, but they don't account for the lack of support Hillary needed from the camps that would not be swayed by such a thing. The young today are pretty well informed (having google in your back pocket is an amazing thing.) All the FBI did was give people who already used the excuse of emails to be associated with asshats to keep being associated.

Yes, Republican attacks were part of it...but dude, this is an election? Of course they are rabidly on the attack. That doesn't explain why the stronghold states fell. It's because these people lost the faith.

I agree that the Rust Belt fell because the voters didn't turn out for Clinton.
I agree that Clinton's positions on trade hurt her in those areas.

But where I disagree is in how that hurt turnout. Those problems didn't stop the average Democratic presidential voter from voting for her. The average Democratic voter still turned out and voted for Clinton.

But that simply wasn't enough to win in those Rust Belt states. The votes she didn't win are roughly the same demographic as Reagan Democrats were in the 1980s. They went for Barack Obama in 2008 and did so again in 2012. But they didn't turn out in 2016 for Clinton, and she lost a number of them to Trump.

But it wasn't just for economic reasons that she lost voters. The single biggest driver for Trump's support was immigration. People who lived in areas with a large Latino influx were far more likely to support strongly support Trump than areas with smaller increases. And we're seeing expressions of that post-election throughout the Rust Belt: in DeWitt, Michigan; in Royal Oak, Michigan; in Milwaukee, WI; in York, PA; and I could go on but I'm too dispirited to continue.

I think you're right that these people lost the faith. I don't think that economic anxieties were the only thing to blame on that. They played their part, and it was a major role, but there were more facets to it than just that. I remember you telling me you just didn't trust Clinton, and that was a core part of other conversations I had with others about this election. And trusting Clinton came down to more than just policies.

When I told you that I didn't trust Clinton, it was specifically on economics. I am sure you recall that as well. The sad truth is that everywhere in this country is an undercurrent of racism and resentment. It's not just the Rust Belt having expression of this. This happening all over the place, though yes, specifically there as well. There is a direct correlation between poverty and racist views. However, you're wrong to think that's the majority viewpoint in the area. Right now, those idiots just feel empowered, and I can only hope there is a strong condemnation from both sides and counter-actions from both sides that put these people right back into the shadows they came from.

You and I agree there is more to this than just economic policy. Where we disagree is where the focus needs to be strongest, I think. I am a constant student of history, and I can tell you poverty breeds this more than privilege. Privilege lets you ignore it. Privilege is why those who couldn't vote for Clinton could vote for Trump and justify it to themselves. You fix this from the economy first. Then there is less excuse to pardon extremist views.

I think that part of why you didn't trust her on economics was because you didn't trust that what she said were her views were actually her views, or that she would act upon the promises she made. That kind of mistrust was part of other conversations I had about her with others.

I agree that we need to fix the economy, but unfortunately, those who are to blame for the current state of the economy aren't being blamed. The Republicans in Congress have insisted on tax cuts and spending reductions even though it continues to limit economic growth and activity. The only thing that President Obama could have done was have a larger stimulus in the first place, and that just wasn't politically possible at the time.

But we can't ignore that this is about more than just economic policy, or we risk it happening again and again and again. Economic anxieties and the politics of racial resentment are intertwined, and have been throughout most of American history. Big government and social programs are opposed not because people think they are unfair, but because they believe the help goes to those who don't deserve it. It is the racialization of government efforts on behalf of those with lesser economic means.

Whether it is welfare, food stamps, federal housing loans, or something else, the end result is that the implicit reason to oppose the policy becomes people of color. Linking the Affordable Care Act with Obama was not mistake - Obamacare was coined to link it explicitly with the President, much the way Hillarycare was back in the 1990s. And we continue to see it back into the 1950s. Why did the Rust Belt vote for Reagan? It was because of a racialization of Democratic social policy that convinced white working class and middle class voters to support supply-side economics. If your tax dollars are going to be redistributed to (undeserving) black people, then go nuts with tax cuts and stick it to them instead. The welfare queen is getting a Cadillac and we can't allow that.

It isn't poverty that makes people racist. My father and his brother both grew up as poor white trash in the South. My uncle is a millionaire and voted for Trump (he particularly liked his immigration policies). My father is middle class and married a woman of color and is a yellow dog Democrat.

I haven't seen a single study that that correlates economic status and racist beliefs or attitudes. The few I have seen (like this one) indicate that other factors, like ideology, are much more important.

I don't think racist attitudes are a majority viewpoint in the Rust Belt. It is a majority viewpoint in some areas in the South, which went more overwhelmingly for Trump. I should have seen it coming, though, especially after my last visit to Michigan. I heard some comments about the neighborhoods changing with Latinos moving in. If you're afraid for your job, you're not going to want the government helping the illegals down the street get their papers.

And you can blame it on religion, like Thomas Frank does -- anything but race, but you know what? Religious people tend to be more racist too. The Bible Belt is the Racist Belt.

Privilege does let you ignore it. But it's not just economic privilege, it's racial privilege. White privilege. It's knowing that even if you're hurting, you managed to stick it to someone else who is less deserving than you. We can't ignore that's a factor if we want our preferred economic policies to succeed.

I think we have to drag these things out into the light. Appeals to economic self-interest will continue to fail so long as we fail to openly confront the way that racial resentment has been used weaken support for the social safety net.

Most Americans don't want to believe they're racist. They don't want to be racist. But that doesn't mean they aren't acting with implicit racial biases. Even my uncle sincerely believes his support for Trump wasn't motivated by any racism on his part. So how do we counter it? We have to bring it into the open.

We need to talk about our values, and why programs that help the least among us help the most in healing our divides. We need to consciously speak to the conflicts between those values and the racial attitudes that we have that we wish we didn't. We can discuss why poverty reduction efforts ultimately reduce crime, inequality, and are good for the economy until we're blue in the face, but it won't win votes. But we can also say, I am my brother's keeper, and we have responsibilities to those in need, regardless of who they are, and you can win two elections even though you're a black man.

We can't just sweep it under the rug anymore. Or once again, conservatives will be abstractly saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger..." along the way to winning another election.

Not a single one, huh? Have you looked? Because history openly acknowledges this. It's happening also in Greece right now.

Look, we don't disagree on most this. I am not saying to sweep racism under the rug like it doesn't exist. What I am saying is that there are two factors in play, and both are answered with the same thing. America becoming more progressive after World War 2 was not a weird anomaly. The mobilization of industrial sector coupled with a shared struggle started to ease those views down.

Did we still have racism? Of course we did. It wasn't solved overnight, and we had a lot of problems since. This issue is answered by doing both: fixing the economic situation that created it in the first place, and keeping the narrative on racism and sexism in the spot light.

It was not solved by declaring everyone deplorable and calling it a night. That's never helped anyone. The Rust Belt went for Regan... just like EVERY FUCKING STATE DID. You can claim up and down it was this or that, but the answer is clearly the bullshit that went down it the Iran Hostages, and you know it... and frankly I am shocked that you would think you could sneak that by someone even mildly familiar with history.

The Republicans are the party to blame for most, if not entirely all of what happened to the Rust Belt. But do you understand how the average person reacts to betrayal? It is not to sit there and think it out logically. They react with their gut. What should terrify us is that someone tapped into that feeling and directed it towards minorities while promising to deliver on the failed promise of those who these people felt betrayed them.

I am not going to make excuses for the South. Because they aren't the ones we can't win without. That fact needs to sink in. Unless these electoral points can be regained somewhere else on the map, we have to start figuring out how to win these people back and it's going to be done by tying them over and over to racist reactionaries even though that is what feels good to us to do. Because I promise, the same thing is happening on the other side of this conversation elsewhere. They are tying every protest that gets out of hand to every last one of us on the left and saying it just proves their point for them.

Does it change your opinion on how you feel about politics and elections when confronted with that? Or, does make you want to double down and state emphatically that no, that's not fair and not representative? What is good for the goose, is good for the gander. Right?

Yes, the privileged I am speaking of is racist. So is the resentment. I fully acknowledge the racism inherent to what we are discussing. I am also pointing out that pointing that racism out didn't help, did it? We need a better message than that. Not because the message is wrong, but because it's not effective. I want to solve the problem, not inflame it further.

Trump won because of the horrible alternative. Hillary in her own words said that she has her public and private stances. She then stands in front of everybody says these are the changes i want to make.

1. Why believe her when the things she wants to change are the opposite of what she has stated in the past. i.e. tpp
2. She has been in office long enough that she should have been able to enact more change than she has.
3. She may be the better choice in terms of experience, but by voting for her people feel that they are sending the message to washington that the status quo is ok and people are really tired of the corruption of not just her but politics in general. Trump is the blank slate.

"...by voting for her people feel that they are sending the message to washington that the status quo is ok and people are really tired of the corruption of not just her but politics in general."

I find this laughable. Even someone who just arrived on this planet from another galaxy should see that Trump is anything but a "blank slate." Even now, his transition team and most likely picks for his cabinet are lobbyists and wealthy corporate hacks who have no interest in what the voters claim they wanted out of a Trump administration. They took everything they said they didn't like about Hillary and are handing power to someone who'll be many times worse for workers, jobs, the economy, etc. I mean, Peter Theil is taking Chris Christie's job for Trump.

Given his picks and views on the environment and regulation, Flint, Michigan will probably be able to market its tap water as a health drink, and compared to other municipalities, eventually it will be.

Unless one is so wrapped up in hoping some "other" group is going to be "hurt" by Trump and that fills their hearts with glee, no working-class person should have voted for him if they were truly interested in bettering their lot. They voted against someone they claim would've been a fox guarding the henhouse in favor of a farm-oriented arsonist whose friends own a fried chicken restaurant chain.

Never Go Full Retard


I think we can all take this proud POC's words to heart.