Trump

[Phoebe]

[mimekiller]

[Phoebe]

How is it puzzling that anyone running against Obama earned less of the African American vote? I still don't get that. Well, whatever.

[Bonefish]

1980, Ronald Reagan took 14% of the black vote(10% of the voting population) and 37% of the hispanic vote(2%). 1984, Reagan taks 9% of the black vote(10%), and 34% of hispanic(3%). 1988, Bush Sr takes 11% and 30% of the same demographics. 1992, Bush takes 10% of black vote(8%), 25% of hispanic(2%) and 55% of Asian(1%). 1996, Bob Dole takes 12% of blacks(10%), 21% of hispanics(5%), and 44% of Asians(1%). 2000, Bush Jr takes 9% of black vote(10%), 35% of hispanic(7%), and 44% of asians(2%). 2004, Bush Jr takes 11% of black vote(11%), 43% of hispanics(8%), 44% of Asians(2%), and 40% of "other"(2%). 2008, McCain takes 4% of the black vote(13%), 31% of the hispanic vote(9%), 35% of Asians(2%), 31% of "other"(3%). 2012, Romney Takes 6% of the black vote(13%), 27% of the hispanic vote(10%),26% of the asian vote(3%) and 38% of the others(2%). 2016, Trump takes 8% of the black vote(12%), 29% of the hispanic vote(11%) and lacking data on Asians and others.

Again, Trump pretty much performed according to republican candidates for the past 36 years: i.e. slowly declining influence among hispanics, as well as fairly static support among black, bad with women. Bush Jr had an unsual blip among hispanics, which I would say makes sense, considering he has enough spanish skills to talk in it, without sounding like a complete gringo(like..say...me). But what's absolutely astounding is that for one of the most openly racist political candidates in my life-time, He pretty much performed like a republican should have performed. He didn't win his campaign, so much that his opponent lost.

Now, in the face of the most virulent racist of my life-time(short as it may be), I have to ask: How bad was the other candidate, most importantly in the eye of minorities, that they felt either it was better to vote for trump rather than clinton. Or just anybody other than Clinton. Why did so many poor people think that Hillary was worse than trump? Like, how much of a factor was that? Or is race the most important thing people had on their mind when they voted? When they chose between a rich white man and a rich white woman, race was the overriding factor?

Hence the jist of my argument: the racism angle is bullshit. No, that doesn't mean that trump isn't a racist or that some people(a non trivial amount) who support him are racist. Something else happened. The sooner you talk about what really happened, the sooner we can start solving the problem. But as long as you chant "racism" on the sidelines, you ain't doing no good.

[bralbovsky]

At the risk of repeating something I asserted months ago, it's useless to do typical, logical analysis on the last election.

Normal analysis would be able to dis-aggregate the numbers and figure out what ads reached whom, and how folks really felt. Were they voting economics, or race, or fear, whatever. That's tough enough, because logic does not govern most of our decisions. A large enough sample, smooths out the multiplicity of variables.

There are three factors that make this analysis impossible:

It's not the voting, it's the counting. Not particularly vocal (it's dangerous), but clever math folks have suggested that the programming in the machines in a number of states returned strangely coincidental discrepancies from the expected numbers. Examination and forensics of those systems however, was prevented by several lawsuits. This was not the first election this occurred. Now, I'm a regular person. I love the instant replay, especially if it shows me catching the touchdown pass ad-infinitum. If I won, I WANT a recount, because I basically get to win again. I get to gloat again, the whole package. Why would I prevent a recount? Because I'm worried what the instant replay might show.

Domestic voter tampering. Summary disqualifications, intentionally skewed distribution of voting machines, robocalls to tell folks the election was Wednesday. What percentage did the swing the actual vote? We don't care to ask.

Offshore tampering. As had been alleged for months, Facebook finally acknowledged that trolls had placed ads and organized political demonstrations. They invented stories like the pizza shop sex ring, and more subtle campaigns. BTW #trumpknew. This influence and expertise was likely used to amplify the other factors.

Why is any of this important? Republicans in congress have become worried about a 'base' that is not only punching above its weight, but exists more on paper than in person. This is not to say that there are not many, many bandwagon susceptible people for whom belonging is the most important thing, and there's even team swag. But, to behave as if the numbers we saw in the election are reflective of reality, is to miscalculate tremendously.

Lord help us, racists are beside the point, misogynists are beside the point. Until the analysts begin to dig into why, even when it's clear the superbowl winner cheated, they sell even more jerseys, we won't be able to figure out how to unravel it.

[Stan]

[Bonefish]

[Phoebe]

Why is it that every other politician writes a book of drivel and it passes along largely without note, but Hillary Clinton does it and the journalists of the nation rise up, with only minor dissent, shouting "shut up!" Why does Hillary need to atone for the national sin like no one else before her (or contemporaneous with her, like Sanders)?

[WillyGilligan]

It's not that she wrote a book. She's written other books, like It Takes a Village and Stronger Together. I don't recall any major outcry about those. But I also can't recall many election losers writing books AFTER. Beforehand, sure. That's part of the ecosystem, it lets the candidate get more in-depth on their personal story, governing philosophies, and so on. It's also an incentive for candidates that don't intend to get past the primaries, like Newt Gingrich, to make some money, but it's fairly innocuous.

Losers don't necessarily fade away every time. McCain just went back to the Senate, but he didn't write a book about losing and why it's not his fault. Romney has shown up a couple of times, but nothing major. While I haven't done exhaustive research on it, I seriously can't remember this happening before. Can you point me to another losing candidate who published a book to argue the election after the fact?

To be fair, the Republicans have built her up into Satan since the 90s, and some of the crap on their side is just that they thought this was their moment that they finally killed Satan. And now she's back! That parts pathetic, but kind of predictable. This book is something unusual.

[Phoebe]

I think you're right about her book having this explicit focus on recounting the campaign and election. But I thought Bernie just published his new base-rallying book right after the election, and another for teens just recently? Romney came out with a book after he lost, and sadly so did Palin. I've read zero of these books so the difference may be that the others were seen more as future campaigning material and less as rehashing, I don't know. The clamor on the Democratic side for her to go away and shut up is odd, given such a narrow loss and its aftermath. Maybe people don't want her to run again and want to lash out at whatever public rallying she may do, including book? No idea. I didn't want her to run but that's how it was. I don't blame the loss on her even though hindsight shows things. Nobody even knew what her policies were, just Emails and Lockherup, which wasn't her doing.

[Phoebe]

Lord God the Puerto Rico comments. People, people, WTF. This man... Bankruptcy. Debt. I... I really think he could do the proverbial 5th avenue stunt. Base would simply applaud. If he did it, must be ok! Death to Libtards! Lord Jesus, can you imagine what could be going on in Puerto Rico or USVI and other places? And... banks! I just... Why? How do we go on from here with our fellow citizens?

[WillyGilligan]

Sounds like stream of consciousness. I think he recently got a deep dive briefing on the PR situation and hasn't synthesized it yet. So it's a bunch of facts with no priority attached. It's like he's trying to be sympathetic, but can't keep it together.


I think my favorite response so far was someone pointing out how Trump declared bankruptcy and left PR holding $33 million of his unpaid debt. So he's at least partially to blame, though I'm sure he'll claim that it's their fault for trusting him.

I don't know how we move forward, but eventually it will have to settle down or go to civil war. I don't think the Left is ready for that.

[Phoebe]

I don't know why these conservatives are so angry. They won, they control all branches of federal government and most states, they're remolding the nation (and the whole world, thanks to refusing to act on climate change et al.), they have reshaped the courts, they successfully gerrymandered districts... all of it has come to pass. I live under this and witness the real effects all the time, from their war on poor people to their war on women to their war on public education and facts themselves. What the hell are they so angry about? Pretty much everyone else should be angry, except them.

Now we likely get Senator Roy Moore in AL, because the GOP base sure isn't racist. WTF.

[Phoebe]

Back to this, because I was just asking the same question about my (likely) Trump-voter neighbor. Why ARE these people angry? I honestly want to know. My dad has angry friends who love Trump. I have angry relatives who love Trump and so does my husband. There are angry people at work who love Trump. They're all wealthy white people, except for a couple of my relatives who are actually mentally not right, so it's not a shock that their beliefs are totally irrational (e.g. person on welfare will be criticizing people for being on welfare; does not grasp that this applies to self). I feel like white people pretty much have zero to be angry about at this particular juncture. Whenever I probe around a little to find out why they are angry, the answer - and I am not joking or lying about this in the slightest way - is some version of hostility to black or brown people. Immigrants are ruining things, taking the jobs. Black people are on welfare or whatever - maybe now it's athletes taking a knee. They're mad at "snowflakes" and these people are maybe the biggest snowflakes on earth. They're mad about having to pay what they perceive as huge taxes that all go to support lazy people who do not share their culture or background. All of this is, factually speaking, sheer bullshit. I don't know what to say - all you can do is gently observe certain facts without even presenting the facts as rebuttal.

[WillyGilligan]

Conservative anger isn't some Trump thing, really. I'm old enough that I remember Rush Limbaugh being a "new" thing, when I first started hearing LIBERAL! thrown around as a pejorative and liberals equating to communists. They've been pissed at taxes (even when they don't pay them, because some day they might), they've been pissed at political correctness, at the idea that their tax money might be given to the lazy (which isn't a racist position, the racism is in step two where their vision of a welfare cheat is usually black), and they have been angry at the Clintons for decades.

They meticulously noted every speck of potential corruption during the Clinton administration; then most stopped paying attention when Bush took office. They hated Hillary as First Lady because they were offended at how active she wanted to be in politics and her fairly obvious higher ambition - many of them now have a creepy fixation on First Lady Melania Trump because she's hot, but that's a separate issue. The Right loves to do the two minutes of hate on the Clintons.

The religious among them are angry at what they see as attempts to remove God from America. They get irked when the same Godless Left that fights to remove the Ten Commandments from courthouses and force business owners to violate their religious values tries to claim moral high ground on other issues. I don't think all of these are justified, and there has also been a lot of racist fearmongering about minority culture over the years.

Trump didn't create conservative anger at the Left, it's a land that Trump taps for red mana. Bannon and his ilk are currently churning it to focus on speicific issues, but the emotional appeal starts with the belief that liberals are out to destroy America.

[Phoebe]

Your comment is very useful, because yeah, Libruls are trying to destroy America, which is apparently enraging, and those are often white people. Some of it will still cash out as racially motivated (i.e. trying to divert some of the giant tax gift to wealthy people over to others they assume are black or illegally here), but a lot of it isn't. For instance, the Rush Limbaugh crowd hates environmentalists about as much, judging from the rhetoric. So that's a helpful reminder, all the racist stuff going on is not the only stuff. Good to know.

[mimekiller]

Why is it that Hillary constantly surrounds herself with predatory men? Weinstein, her husband, she even attended Donald Trump's wedding

[WillyGilligan]

Predatory men seem to accumulate a lot of wealth and power. Which is why I laugh at the idea that markets are somehow inherently moral. Central planning is usually worse, but let's not kid ourselves.

[Phoebe]

Because once you get into any position of power, you're going to be surrounded by predatory men in some degree. And I mean that if you're the local dog catcher or mid-level manager, you will have encountered some predatory men. It's not always obvious, when they first support you, who they are. When you're an old battleship like me, you just assume and wait to be proven wrong. Insert link here to thread about needing women-only spaces.

In my old age, the age and beauty level of the person putting a hand on my knee has increased/declined considerably, and the better ones among them are putting the hand on your shoulder or arm instead of your knee. But the hand is still there. The hand is always eager to take credit for your work or induce you to do work on its behalf, too.

[bralbovsky]

Having worked for years in education, dominated numerically if not hierarchically by females, I've known my share of predatory women too. Similar goals, slightly different techniques.

Systemically, these abuses are a cancer.
We have to relinquish the insecure idea that without this quarterback, CEO, producer, mogul, we can't win. Sadly, identity, the so-called "great man" of history idea is strong, largely because it's simple and concrete.

Trump pandered to anger and fear and folks who have a hard time with abstract thinking - there, I said it.
They are sad that their local jewelry store is gone, but don't see the connection to Walmart and the Waltons.
They are said their factory is gone, but don't see the hedge fund guys who over leveraged it so they could cash out.
They see the Vietnamese family (maybe they look hispanic) that moved in, whose Dad got laid off before theirs, but he would take ANY job, so he still has one.
They see their house that got foreclosed on bought by some guy who lives out of town, and the rent on their new place goes up as the economy 'improves'.
They know somehow they are being left behind economically, educationally (because of school cuts) and culturally (because they're competing with a billion really hungry people from India), and they need to blame something or someone they can see, and touch and resent, and maybe attack.

So some grifter comes on TV and says they're right to blame those brown people, and that the fight against them is winnable, and that he can make them go away. That he is the guy who bought their house has no bearing. That he is father to the hedge fund guy, no bearing (nobody understands hedge funds anyway) That he is, in fact going to use the power they give him to rob them blind has no bearing. That's how grifters work.

This is all before Putin got involved, which catalyzed everything. Dare I mention that by some estimates, he's secretly the richest guy on the planet, by at least double the next guy.
Not to drag into another discussion thread, but government isn't why we hate government, THESE guys are why we hate government. Because they make rules that apply to us and not them, because they're not even liars who make an effort. They have so little respect for us. This is why abstract thinking is important. It allows you to imagine how the other guy sees you.

We've had a really long discussion about selfishness and dishonesty which we'd all rather not admit is really, simply about selfishness and dishonesty.