Interesting Slate interview here. The amusing thing is that the interviewer even knowing what the author’s thesis is can barely restrain himself from doing the very name calling the author is talking about that alienates the white working class and disrupts communication.
This was also amusing.
Is that what passes for professional writing nowadays? If it’s so easy to write for major periodicals, maybe I’m in the wrong line of work. Like, take this:
Does that mean that she spent way more time talking about jobs than she did talking about Trump, or the reverse?
I don’t recall that being part of the campaign of 2016. Not from Clinton’s camp, anyway.
I haven’t read her book but I was really impressed with an HBR article that Williams wrote which was along similar lines.
Yes! I made a similar point after the election.Hillary did actually use this line of attack effectively in the first debate but it was largely dropped afterwards.
I honestly believe that if they had used this as the primary line of attack and hammered Trump on this relentlessly in the final weeks, Hillary would be President.
Hillary should have also talked a lot more about her father. He was the kind of self-made small businessman who many working class whites respect and aspire to become as compared to the educated professionals who dominate the Democratic party. He not only provided a useful contrast with Trump as in that quote but also would have helped Hillary make an emotional connection with working-class voters particularly men.
Ultimately her campaign was stupid and arrogant enough to believe that they didn’t need these voters and they could win through the “emerging Democratic majority” of minorities and professionals.
I agree. I heard the Republicans saying the Democrats were saying this a lot more than I ever heard the Democrats saying it.
I think the point was not that was the actual explicit playbook strategy but it was the defacto reality of what the white working class heard in the absence for specific messages targeting their concerns.
And quite frankly as a progressive voter but not a big Hillary fan the quote below is an accurate synopsis of the generalized message I heard across the spectrum in liberal media discussions of the election. Whether explicit or not that was the campaign’s primary message. If you say “Well I never heard that!” it makes the author’s point. Liberal’s were not listening and were not interested in a real and respectful conversation with the white working class.
No, Clinton wasn’t willing to tell white men that they deserved more than everyone else. Trump was. A lot of white men decided they liked being told they were special and voted for Trump.
I still disagree. If that’s the message the white working class was hearing it’s because they were listening to what conservatives were telling them the liberals were saying.
White ladies too apparently as 53% voted for Trump. Seriously though it’s arrogant nonsense like this that cost us the election. The white working class is thoroughly disrespected and despised by white liberals and progressives and somehow we think they are too stupid to pick up the clues on this. They’re not and if we do not become more attentive to their concerns losses will continue.
What’s the closest quote from Trump during the campaign to “white men, you deserve more than everyone else”? I can’t recall anything even remotely resembling that sentiment passing Trump’s lips, but I’m wondering if I’m mistaken.
I’m rather certain, especially given the next sentence, that they meant Hillary talked more about jobs than Trump did.
I definitely heard the “Vote for her because she is a woman message”, and I’m not exactly a Fox News viewer. One thing that I find really strange in discussions on these boards is that a lot of pro-Hillary supporters don’t seem to have listened to what the left wing said during the election at all, and tend to willfully ignore a lot of what people actually said during the election times. But there are people that hear the shrill, loud crowd that calls people ‘sexist’ for considering not voting for Hillary, and pretending that the loud, shrill crowd doesn’t exist isn’t doing the Democrats much good in elections.
You don’t recall this?
“Make America great again.” I believe he said it more than once.
Huh. Why do you think she chose “I’m With Her” as her motto, then?
Your mind translated “make America great again” into “white men, you deserve more than everyone else”?
Nope.
But that’s what it meant in the minds of more than a few Trump voters.
You weren’t listening either? Can’t say as I blame you. Got as far as fifteen-twenty minutes, then the demands of mental hygiene took effect. Had to break off for a cuppa chamomile tea, couple tokes and some Twain.
I recall his deft diplomatic engagement with the President of Mexico with wonder and awe. And his admiration and outreach to communities of color, and the frank and open discussion of judicial prejudice among Hispanic federal judges…things like this just add to the lustre of his egalitarian humanism! His deep respect for women is a matter of public record, we need not remind.
Maybe we just got the idea that he only likes white men because he doesn’t seem to like anybody else?
To be fair, he told a lot of Muslims that they were “special”, too. But hey, this thread is about Hillary. Isn’t if funny how such threads tend to veer off on discussions about Trump. Which is symptomatic of the problem, ironically enough.