Frankly, the Trump supporters are people who didn’t do their homework in High School, didn’t go to college, and struggle along in their home towns. I left all that behind decades ago, and so did my current friends, because I have an education, profession, and career; I research and understand a lot of issues and the history behind them. The ones who voted Trump don’t read or follow the news - they just linked discredited articles to each other in an echo chamber of ignorance. None of this was secret.
People in this country are angry and have been for over 8 years. Obama was not able to harness that energy and neither was Clinton, because IMHO they are actually out of touch with the concerns of what political pros call ‘blue collar’ whites. I suppose they were expecting demographics to win this for them?
But it’s easy to put this out after the fact. Where was this analysis 3 months ago? It could easily have been written then. And there’s no prescription, either. People care about principles, not competence.
If I’m reading Judis correctly here, I’d say he’s trying to point out he felt her campaign focused on Trump’s bad attributes too much, or more than she focused on her own vision. Unfortunately for Hillary, the vast majority of Trump’s supporters (and, yes, some who had been Obama voters) interpreted his talking points as policy proposals. I think Judis has a point with candidates from the party in power tend to have difficulties in these elections (where the sitting president served two terms) due to a build-up of grievances. Even if the current situation isn’t really the doings of the current administration, per se, it doesn’t matter – the ownership is always the current WH occupant and his/her party.
All of that said, Trump did the same thing, if not to a comically-exaggerated level–focus on Hillary’s ‘negatives.’ But, to his advantage, she was running on a campaign of (basically) a continuation of the Obama years.
“Obama was not able to harness that energy and neither was Clinton, because IMHO they are actually out of touch with the concerns of what political pros call ‘blue collar’ whites.”
Well from all the evidence it seems pretty clear that the overriding “concern” of these blue collar whites is with denying power to women and minorities. That makes it just a tad difficult for Hillary Clinton or Obama to “harness” their energy.
Dear John Judis, Hillary lost because of the antiquated Electoral Collage. It’s that simple. She has nearly half a million more votes than Trump, yet he will be president. We must work to abolish the Electoral College, so that we can have democracy.
I think that this facile answer disrespects a great number of good people instead of trying to win them over by actually addressing their issues. ‘Vote for me or you’re a racist’ not attractive.
This isn’t a political slogan-- it’s an analysis of what happened. Have you looked at studies and analyses of what’s motivating Trump voters? There is overwhelming evidence that for many, though not all of them, their “issue” is the color of the president’s skin and the gender of the Democratic nominee. You think it’s “facile” to recognize that? And serious analysis involves pretending that Trump voters are just good people left behind in the global economy?
Trump may indeed be more “successful” than we would like in the short run. It will be easy for him to achieve flattering coverage until he is actually President and on taking office he can probably do some popular things. That said, unless he radically changes his course on climate policy he cannot be anything other than a profound threat to the future of human societies across much of the globe. Recent research indicates that the climate is likely more sensitive to higher carbon dioxide concentrations at warmer temperatures–this means that we may likely be facing very high end temperature increase scenarios this century unless we take immediate action. In other words, the US has just elected a man who seems likely to be the very worst possible President on climate at the very worst possible time for all of us. Some infrastructure projects won’t change that.
Wait till the Republicans pass a national Voter ID law. Wait till Kris Kobach is let loose to purge the election rolls in every state. Wait till they move to restrict who can vote by requiring people to live for 5 years in their residence.
Evangelicals, dominionists, bigots, and the tea partiers dive head first into the abyss–dragging the rest of the nation with them. We can try to put a brave face on it, but what comes out after the meat is ground is anyone’s guess. Whatever happens, it probably will not be at all pretty and we are likely set back more than a generation.
In the grand scheme, I don’t think the outcome could have been worse. It is collective insanity.
Will Trump be able to achieve a semblance of bipartisan unity and, as he promised, end the gridlock in Washington?
He doesn’t need bipartisanship. He has a majority in both houses of congress and McConnell will nuke the filibuster at the first chance. Gridlock is over, and the Republicans now have a free hand to do as they please. Add to that, the 2018 map for the Democrats in the senate is positively brutal. Forget it, he and the Republicans have the whole enchilada, or Taco bowl as he might prefer, the Democrats are forever irrelevant, they may as well pack it in. They will be a token opposition party that will have no say or power.
“Frankly, the Trump supporters are people who didn’t do their homework in High School, didn’t go to college, and struggle along in their home towns.”
Those are some of Trump’s supporters, yes. But rather than comforting yourself with a partial explanation you might consider a fuller look at the demographics of the Trump supporters. The fact is he won with EVERY group of white voters, except for college educated white women (and even there Hillary only won by 6 points–51-45). The fact is college-educated white men, people with “an education, profession, and career” just like you supported Trump by a margin of 54-39.
