# Non-Racist Trump voters wondering why they're getting shit about racism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 14, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963 "2016-11-14T14:57:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/161 "2016-11-23T12:41:33Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Nice try on the blame deflection, but nope. The people who voted for Trump got Trump elected. They bought it, they own it. Yup. All the “It’s Clinton’s fault that Trump won” nonsense is the same breastbeating that the Republicans went through in 2008 and 2012. “There’s nothing wrong with our platform or our understanding of what the populace wants - the problem is that we didn’t nominate a pure enough candidate! But _next time_…” The problem with the Democrats isn’t that they nominated Hillary. It’s that they assumed most Americans were as repulsed by Trump as they were. And if they don’t take the time to consider **why** Trump appealed to so many people - and figure out either how to co-opt it or counter it - they’ll lose the next few elections as well. But it does mean that the people who did vote for Trump have to take responsibility for his presidency. You bought that horse and you’d better be able to ride it home, bitches. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/162 "2016-11-23T14:20:11Z")
I think we’re going too hard on the Trump voters, may of whom are righteous well-intentioned people just too stupid or ignorant to vote rationally. However the Republicans who absurdly deflect the blame for Trump’s elections onto Democrats are annoying. > [@Gyrate](#): > > All the “It’s Clinton’s fault that Trump won” nonsense is the same breastbeating that the Republicans went through in 2008 and 2012… > > The problem with the Democrats isn’t that they nominated Hillary. It’s that they assumed most Americans were as repulsed by Trump as they were… It’s as though they’re saying “We’re too stupid to do anything but pull the (R) lever. We needed the D’s to save us from ourselves.” This may be valid for the Republican base, who really _are_ that stupid, but what about the (R) leaders who were happy to turn the keys to the Nation over to the short-fingered sociopath for venal partisan reasons? > [@Gyrate](#): > > Powell deliberately went against the security protocols he was repeatedly told and used an **AOL account** to conduct state business. Clinton used a secure server which didn’t involve an unsecured third party ISP. Yet somehow you think she’s worse. 😕 You’re not from around here? 😕 Just look at their names: Colin Powell (R) Hillary Clinton (D) Pay special attention to the parentheticals. (If needed, select the Zoom option from the Chrome menu.) Yes, it really is no more complicated than that. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/163 "2016-11-23T15:16:03Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > It’s that they assumed most Americans were as repulsed by Trump as they were. They were. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/164 "2016-11-23T15:18:48Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > They were. Just not strategically placed. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/165 "2016-11-23T16:42:02Z")
Non-Racist Trump voters = Vichy Republicans Putting party and expedience ahead of the welfare of the country. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/166 "2016-11-23T20:05:58Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > As has been pointed out on this board, several times that I recall, that no one is fit or qualified to be President until they actually are one. Not interested in your “opinion” at this point. But if we want to talk about unhinged, mentally undeveloped, spoiled, narcissistic sociopaths, who don’t know anything and are proud of that, and who can’t seem to finish ONE thought or sentence, then Trump is your boy. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/167 "2016-11-23T20:07:37Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > … it does mean that the people who did vote for Trump have to take responsibility for his presidency. You bought that horse and you’d better be able to ride it home, bitches. Damn right. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/168 "2016-11-23T20:18:05Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > The problem with the Democrats isn’t that they nominated Hillary. It’s that they assumed most Americans were as repulsed by Trump as they were. And if they don’t take the time to consider **why** Trump appealed to so many people - and figure out either how to co-opt it or counter it - they’ll lose the next few elections as well. He appealed because he’s a bigoted, psychopathic liar, and that’s what his supporters _wanted._ Even if the Democrats could win by running like someone like that, it would be pointless; “winning” by turning into the other side is just losing by another name. Mainly, the Democrats lost because their base stayed home. And \*that \*largely happened because the Democrats were so deferential to the Republicans, refusing to call the Republicans out on their blatant bigotry and condemning their own candidate when she made small gestures in that direction. So the people who might otherwise have supported them stayed home, since they didn’t see any reason to vote for people who put the feelings of white bigots over their own lives and freedom. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/169 "2016-11-23T20:26:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > He appealed because he’s a bigoted, psychopathic liar, and that’s what his supporters _wanted._ Even if the Democrats could win by running like someone like that, it would be pointless; “winning” by turning into the other side is just losing by another name. > > Mainly, the Democrats lost because **their base stayed home.** And \*that \*largely happened because the Democrats were so deferential to the Republicans, refusing to call the Republicans out on their blatant bigotry and condemning their own candidate when she made small gestures in that direction. So the people who might otherwise have supported them stayed home, since they didn’t see any reason to vote for people who put the feelings of white bigots over their own lives and freedom. That narrative is not necessarily true. hHw much is the pro-Clinton margin in the popular vote so far? 2 million? And they aren’t all counted yet? And then there are registration/election/etc irregularities which have recently triggered calls for an audit of the election. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/170 "2016-11-23T22:00:53Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > That getting more votes than the other guy don’t mean shit. Its starting to sound like you don’t believe in democracy. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/171 "2016-11-23T22:00:55Z")
They’ve got the lawyers, guns and money, it will stand. And things are going to get a lot tougher for a lot of people. A _lot_ of people. Gonna have to focus on how to help them get through, which means begging the Forces of Darkness for whatever table scraps we can. Course, the more the Trumpiviks screw the pooch, publicly and loudly, the more they will start to get nervous and glancing at the calender. We need to gently encourage them in this burgeoning enlightenment. Threats come later. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/172 "2016-11-23T22:02:20Z")
> [@HeweyLogan](#): > > You’ve said this in about ten posts so far. Care to explain how you’d do it differently? The insinuations get tired when you don’t propose or express what you’d want to supersede it. So say it, do you want the electoral college dissolved and the popular vote to take over? It depends, which one will get his candidate elected this year. THATS the system he wants. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/173 "2016-11-23T22:02:23Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Its starting to sound like you don’t believe in democracy. I know what I believe, hazard a guess you do, too. An insincere scolding is a butterfly fart. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/174 "2016-11-23T22:34:13Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I used to book speakers for events. No, nobody really cares that much about the content of the speeches. Mostly they’re ego boosts for people for whom being able to pay a stupid amount of money to spend two hours in the same room as [famous person] and maybe shake their hand at some point makes them feel important and special. > > But if _anyone_ can see the content of the speeches the audience don’t feel special anymore and don’t go. This is not rocket science here. That’s rationalization for not releasing the contents of the speeches. Noone buys it but people who are already inclined to overlook pretty much everything that Hillary did wrong. If the contents really don’t matter why does the availability of the contents of last year’s speech matter? She isn’t recycling last year’s speech verbatim for $250,000 is she? Its these sort of unprincipled defenses Clinton’s behaviour that makes all the legitimate defenses seem unprincipled as well as if you just happened to stumble on on an excuse with some basis. > [@](#): > > This is a ludicrous rationalization. Clinton released her tax returns going back decades. Trump refused to. And her refusal to release the contents of her speech gave him cover. > [@](#): > > And why not “keeping his tax returns secret gave Clinton license to keep her speeches secret”? Because she was asked for the speeches before his tax returns became an issue. > [@](#): > > Again - why is the burden on Clinton to give her opponent everything he asked for when he’s not budging an inch? This is the same bullshit that demanded that Obama release his birth certificate, and then his long-form birth certificate, and then his college transcripts - it’s just looking for an excuse to claim a lack of transparency while not remotely holding the other side to anything like the same standard. No, its not. The notion that Obama was not actually born in the USA was racist bullshit. The notion that Clinton might have said something politically damaging during those speeches turns out to be entirely accurate. Its these sort of defenses that make all your other excuses for her behaviour seem shallow. Like you would find a way to defend pretty much anything she did no matter how far you had to stretch. > [@](#): > > And yet Trump openly and repeatedly contradicted his policy positions multiple times throughout the campaign. One more metric by which Trump was far worse, and nobody cared. Its one of the things that made him so beatable and yet Hillary couldn’t manage that simple task. She couldn’t beat Donald Fucking Trump! That’s how bad she is. Whatever fuckgin excuse you come up with, this country elected a black man bamed barack hussein obama TWICE and you have to make excuses about why Hillary couldn’t beat donald fucking trump. > [@](#): > > And that’s somehow relevant because…? I mean, I’m no fan of DWS by any means but I have a hard time getting too upset because the DNC preferred the actual Democrat to the carpetbagging independent. [ Yes, you seem to have a hard time getting upset about anything to do with Hillary except the fact that she lost. > [@](#): > > In fact the RNC tried to sandbag Trump in the same way and for the same reasons. Does that make him a “better candidate”? Or should we start blaming Rubio and Cruz too? Blaming Rubio and Cruz for Trump? Sure. I can agree with that. I blame the Republican party for carefully and deliberately molding their base to walk right up to the edge of blatant racism and sexism without losing plausible deniability and then acting shocked (SHOCKED I tell you) when a charlatan like Trump realizes that he can win just by crossing that line. And Hillary lost to THAT! > [@](#): > > Not by Trump so much, but certainly amongst the anti-Clinton crowd. I think the Benghazi hearings helped her. I remember thinking that it would really help Bernie if the Republicans held congressional hearing to question him about socialism or pedophilia or fucking anything. > [@](#): > > I’m seeing a lot of insinuation here and little in the way of evidence. “People were saying”. Lots of insinuation that she opened herself up to. You say its all smoke. Well people said that about her speeches too until her speeches got hacked and released and it turns out she was telling the bank of brazil that she believed in open borders. Lots of smoke you say. People were saying that about the DNC and how she was basically cheating during the primary too. All Smoke. Until they hacked Donna Brazile’s emails and found out that Hillary was being fed debate questions. The argument that its all smoke doesn’t hold water with this sort of history. > [@](#): > > Powell deliberately went against the security protocols he was repeatedly told and used an **AOL account** to conduct state business. Clinton used a secure server which didn’t involve an unsecured third party ISP. Yet somehow you think she’s worse. > > [The timetable isn’t quite so clearcut as that](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-investigation.html), but please keep repeating this if it makes you feel better. What was in the powell emails and what was in the hillary emails? You’re right, she just wiped it with a cloth. > [@](#): > > There’s certainly a lot of ignorance or deception here, but it’s not on my part. Rice didn’t use email much so there’s no comparison to be made but Powell did, while using an unsecured account and while admitting that he got tired of being told not to do this and decided to do it anyway. So tell me again how it’s Clinton who thinks the rules don’t apply to her. Tell me again what were the contents of Powells emails? How much of it was classified at the time or even afterwards and compare that to Hillary’s emails. > [@](#): > > So she was the better candidate after all? Once you establish she’s a cheater, who gives a shit. > [@](#): > > Well, that, and a [few other things](http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/11/07/michigan-dems-add-to-voter-suppression-claims.htm). You can claim anything. > [@](#): > > Again - as opposed to whom? Where is the righteous candidate who would have slain the Trumpian jabberwocky? Sure, I have a list 20 names long. Biden, Rendell, Bloomberg, Bernie, Warren, etc. Any and all of them would have done better than Hillary. But they just couldn’t beat her democratic machininations in the primary. > [@](#): > > And yet he defeated the entire GOP “deep bench” quite handily. Were they all liars and cheats? Was every single one of them so deeply flawed that “even Donald Trump” beat them? And do you really think Bernie Sanders - the self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” - would have beaten Trump? Because I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have. So now the narrative is that Donald was an unbeatable candidate? Seriously? He beat the other republicans because he out-Republicaned them. > [@](#): > > The sad truth is that the zeitgeist is swinging back into reactionary and xenophobic territory, and Trump was the right man to seize upon it. We’ve seen similar shifts in the UK with the Brexit vote, in France with the current election, and even in places like Turkey. It is a narrative that the media have been eager to promote, and that the voters have been eager to embrace. And it’s not Clinton’s fault that this is so. The zeitgeist didn’t move from electing Barack Obama to electing Trump because the pendulum has swung back hard. Society didn’t change, they just rejected Hillary and for reasons that are entirely Hillary’s fault. When you lose to Donald Trump, you don’t get to blame anyone else. If you find yourself saying that Trump was basically unbeatable, you might want to check some of your underlying assumptions about why Hillary lost and how electable she was to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/175 "2016-11-23T22:38:14Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If I understand it correctly, it was done to placate the smaller states (and slave states) who were concerned that presidential candidates would focus on larger states and cities without the EC. Slave states? You mean like Virginia? The largest state in the union and a slave state? Why did THEY want the electoral college again? Slavery is the reason for everything in the constitution that liberals don’t like, isn’t it? > [@](#): > > Candidates might spend most of their time in big cities to try and get as many votes as possible, but why is that worse than never going to big cities? Big cities have the most people in them… shouldn’t general election presidential candidates spend at least some of their time campaigning in the biggest population centers? You don’t think Democrats go to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cinncinnati, cleveland, miami, etc? Swing states have cities too. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/176 "2016-11-23T22:48:49Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > What made her a horrible candidate was 30 years of right-wing smear manufacturing, lies, and conspiracy theories. What made her a horrible candidate was the right-wings complete lack of inhibition when lying about her. What made her a horrible candidate was the media narrative of her “lack of charisma” (which, as we saw during the debates, was also kind of a crock of shit). What made her a horrible candidate was the appearance of malfeasance, despite very little actually occurring. Wait, so she didn’t give that speech to the bank of brazil? Wait, so Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who she hired after she was chased out of her position at the DNC) and Donna Brazile weren’t in the bag for her? Wait, so she didn’t erase emails after a subpoena was issued? Oh that’s right, she wiped it with a cloth. Wait, so she didn’t lose to Donald fucking Trump. Seriously, this makes that story arc in DC comics when Lex Luthor won the presidency seem mild by fucking comparison. > [@](#): > > I honestly don’t see how you could argue that Clinton would be a horrible president. Leaders have to get people to follow. She might make a good bureaucrat but what has she ever done that makes you think she would be a good president? She never won an election where the skids weren’t greased for her benefit. Seriously, if she wasn’t Bill Clinton’s wife, she would be a wealthy but relatively anonymous partner at a law firm somewhere helping corporation do whatever corporations need to do. > [@](#): > > Well, barring a truly bizarre upset in December, this election would be special in that it fundamentally proved the electoral college incapable of achieving the one _laudable_ goal it has - preventing an unqualified and dangerous demagogue running on unworkable populist ideas from achieving the highest office of the land. Funny, I remember hearing the same thing in 2008. > [@](#): > > Right now, it’s being offered quite possibly the _best_ opportunity to prove its worth: it could reject the unqualified and dangerous demagogue who lost the popular vote by around 1.5%. If it fails to do that, then there is simply no good reason for its existence. Democracy is best (but only if my candidate wins). amirite? > [@](#): > > But just in general, the idea that someone living in Wyoming has a vote worth almost four times that of a person living in California _should_ be enough to raise a few hackles. And the idea that a person living in Florida essentially has a vote worth, at times, _thousands_ of times as much as the vote of someone living in California (compare how much impact their vote had on the election, and how many more votes were needed to shift the result) should be outright disgusting to anyone who doesn’t live in one of the “swing states”. If I live in a solidly blue or red state, my voice basically doesn’t matter. If I live in Florida, my voice is _incredibly_ important. That’s… kinda messed up, right? I mean, talk all you want about Clinton “running up the count in blue states”, but you’re telling millions of people, literally _millions of people_, that their vote doesn’t count because they live in California, or Texas, or Massachusetts, or Louisiana. That… can’t possibly be right. That is the system we have had for 250 years and you want to chuck it because you don’t like who won this time? How is an elector literally ignoring the vote any better? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/177 "2016-11-23T23:40:46Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Slave states? You mean like Virginia? The largest state in the union and a slave state? Why did THEY want the electoral college again? The “three fifths compromise”; they wanted to be able to count their slaves as supporters, and the EC let them do that. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/178 "2016-11-23T23:58:47Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > The problem with the Democrats isn’t that they nominated Hillary. It’s that they assumed most Americans were as repulsed by Trump as they were. And they were right. 74% of eligible voters did not vote for Trump. 30% of eligible voters actively voted against Trump. ~2 million more people voted for Hillary than voted for Trump. Trump didn’t win on any strength of his, or real weakness of Hillary’s. What he won on was apathy and overconfidence. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/179 "2016-11-24T02:04:55Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Bullshit[sup]2[/sup]. The urban legend (crafted and nurtured over the course of a quarter of a century) about Hillary is the reason the nation lost. Partly but not entirely. Bill Clinton really did have some odd ideas about economics that were far to the right of the New Deal Democratic Party. And he did let lots of local businesses disappear while he aligned himself with Robert Rubin. Pocketbook issues matter, maybe matter most of all. And Ivy Leaguer Baby Boomers like the Clintons managed to throw them away. > **[How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/)** > > In the 1970s, a new wave of post-Watergate liberals stopped fighting monopoly power. The result is an increasingly dangerous political system. If small businesses in America had been able to recover from Reagan, instead of Bubba signing on to continue the damage, I expect we could have put up with gays in the military and all that. And the billionaire malcontents who said stuff about the Clintons probably would have continued to just be seen as crank billionaires. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963/180 "2016-11-24T02:09:25Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > How was O’Malley the fringiest of the fringe? > > (That’s not me being argumentative; I just genuinely don’t know much about the guy. As far as I knew, O’Malley had been a Mayor for eight years, and then a Governor for eight years, and _wasn’t_ – well, gay, or Muslim, or a Vietnam-era draft dodger, or some wild-eyed socialist talking about free college for all; or about how cool it would be to legalize marijuana, or to pay massive reparations to the descendants of slaves, or whatever; didn’t he just have a ton of positions in common with Hillary Clinton, only with nobody screaming about who got people killed at Benghazi, or chanting about who should get locked up for deleting the damned e-mails?) Martin O’Malley seemed very non-fringe to me. Maybe the poster was thinking of Lincoln Chafee or Larry Lessig? I mean, those guys seem pretty moderate, but I guess that might be “fringe” to a partisan Democrat. That said, O’Malley might never live down the mass arrests. He was a bad candidate because of that stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-racist-trump-voters-wondering-why-theyre-getting-shit-about-racism/771963.md?page=10)