Nate Silver, whose name I shall never again disparage, had an article a few weeks back that seems to think that, while Clinton certainly made some bad choices, the determining factor might just have been demographics.
You really need to read the whole article. It’s got graphs and things and my quote doesn’t really cover it.
Silver suspects the big difference is that the Rust Belt states went for Donald’s messaging on “working class whites”. Silver doesn’t really put it in those terms but that’s what it comes down to. Silver also doesn’t address the baggage of Donald’s appeal to bitter white people or the transparent falsity of Donald’s promises to them. But really that’s all beside the point.
Non-college educated white people liked what Donald was selling. That’s why Hillary lost, according to Silver.
I’m sure that many good constitutional issues could be raised and a good debate could be had about the fundamental nature and purpose of democracy. Many would object on principle to any sort of dual-tier citizenship. But the fact remains that you’d have a very different country if the large majority of voters were reasonably informed. It’s hard to argue that it would not be a better one. The public interest is not generally served if election outcomes are based on widespread beliefs in lies or the randomness of ignorance. The idea is not without precedent: immigrants wishing to become citizens must pass a citizenship test.
My wife and I were watching her on Bill Maher the other day. My wife, who only recently has started paying much attention to politics (other than informing herself enough to vote well), said of this lady, “She’s not very bright, is she?”
The economy was not good enough to support a “more of the same” campaign, which is what HRC ran. And the economy was downright terrible in Michigan and had been for years, so “more of the same” just wasn’t good enough. If Bernie had been the nominee, and if he’d run against the GOP majority in Congress, framing them as the incumbents and therefore to blame, it might have worked. But Hillary was stuck with the baggage of her husband’s legacy, which was actually not that friendly to middle-income job creation.
Not that many people voted for Trump. A lot of the Democratic base, having been burned by Bill Clinton and Barry Obama on economic, pocketbook issues, failed to turn out for Hillary. When I say pocketbook issues, I do *not *mean taxes, conservatives and some liberals tend to get get this wrong. The USA didn’t have good industrial development in the interior, but many politicians apparently thought that cheap fossil fuels and a robust stock market would be enough—which they were not.
The way Democrats were bragging about the unemployment rate and the stock market was bewildering. Reminded me of the old GWB quote: “You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”
Reaganomics included free trade. Trumponomics does not.
What proposal did Clinton have to deal with the pain of the working and middle classes? If she had one it got drowned out by her attacks on Trump and she did nothing to combat the perception that she simply did not care.
Nomani says she’s concerned about health care. Who do you think would have done a better job of reforming health care? Hillary Clinton, who led a major health care reform effort in the nineties? Or Donald Trump, who didn’t know health care was complicated?
Nomani is also a Muslim who acknowledges that there was a lot of anti-Muslim talk in the Trump administration. But she was willing to ignore that because she figured it was just campaign talk and the administration would pursue a more sensible policy when they were in power. She thought they’d have a nuanced program that distinguished between Muslim terrorists and ordinary Muslims like herself. I wonder if she still felt that way after January 25?
Not speaking for Little Nemo, but I addressed that in post #78.
IMO, it isn’t rational to be a single issue voter when so many of your core issues are at odds with the policies of the candidate you support, i.e. women’s issues, freedom of expression, etc…
You don’t know? You said it first, yes? If you say its a “rational argument” and someone else says it isn’t, why is it up to them to define “rational”?
And the poor that are hurt by high energy prices or anyone that has had their land effectively seized by the government without compensation because they can’t build on it now that some rare bug was discovered on it.
Personally, I think the poor are more hurt by water tables contaminated by fracking and lung disease caused by coal burning electric plants than they are by energy prices. Hey, we saved you $5 a month on power! Enjoy your cancer! And poor people don’t have land to worry about their building plans by endangered species laws.
He was simply pointing out that compassion and concern for the less fortunate is the very beating heart of Republican politics. Like “clean coal”, ya gotta believe!
Riiiiight…because that’s exactly what’s on Republican minds when it comes to the environment. More like those poor business owners who have to pay extra so they don’t poison the environment as much. But wait, they won’t have to anymore.
Enjoy your pipeline oil cocktail…and don’t mind that hanging cloud of coal emissions. You can pass the effects off to the next generations.
For many voters, “pissing off the opposing side” is an item which they identify as important. So if someone wanted to piss off the Hillary/establishment/media/pundit/SJW/Democratic/elite side, that may have been part of what propelled them to vote Trump.