# Who do you blame/credit for Trump's victory? (short/succinct poll) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 7, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487 "2018-07-07T20:41:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/21 "2018-07-08T14:09:09Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > Maybe I should have used the term self described liberals? I was more surprised at your “few fail to realize they sound dumb”, but if that is what you actually meant … ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/22 "2018-07-08T14:27:42Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I absolutely blame the DNC/Hillary. As I have posted before: If someone leaves the door to your house open and a bear gets in and fucks everything up, who do you really get angrier at? The bear, or the person who left the door open? I do hold a slight grudge against whoever think it’s great that there’s a bear in the house even though it’ll destroy everything, shit everywhere, and quite possibly kill everyone, because he thinks it’s funny to see his family members get upset. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/23 "2018-07-08T14:36:43Z")
I blame Facebook. I believe there is a significant segment of voters that get most of their news from Facebook memes. These memes are generally full of lies that can be easily debunked, but for some reason they cannot be reached by logic. Many of these memes are overtly racist, and the rise of the Donald has lit the smoldering kindling of racism in the US, empowering them to come out from under the logs where vermin live and getting energized to vote. Secondly, I blame Hillary. She is the only Democrat capable of losing to him. It isn’t fair, but people just don’t like her. She simply couldn’t overcome over 30 years of smears. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/24 "2018-07-08T15:23:21Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > In my view Clinton and DNC tried to win. They worked hard to win. I’m not sure what they should have done differently, in your view. Maybe they made some mistakes, but hindsight is 20/20.? What they could have done, but didn’t, was pay attention to Bill Clinton. In my opinion, he is the most talented politician of his generation. He warned the campaign that they needed to pay more attention to the Rust Belt, but he was ignored. > [@](#): > > Former President Bill Clinton’s warnings to speak to swing voters fell on deaf ears during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to the authors of “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign,” a new book about purported dysfunction in the campaign team. > **['Shattered' authors: Bill Clinton pushed for different tone in Hillary's...](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/shattered-authors-bill-clinton-pushed-tone-hillarys-campaign/story?id=46974506)** > > He wanted her to meet with swing voters, authors say. > [@](#): > > It wasn’t just one mistake that sealed Clinton’s fate. But if there was one mistake that stands out above all the others, it is the decision by the campaign to ignore the warnings of one Bill Clinton. One odd detail that crops up again and again in the various postmortem pieces about Hillary Clinton’s campaign is the decision to ignore the would-be First Gentleman of the United States when he urged the campaign to spend more time on a message for the white working class voters who had handed her surprising primary losses to Bernie Sanders in Michigan and Wisconsin. > **[The Real Forgotten Man Of 2016 Was Bill Clinton](https://thefederalist.com/2016/11/14/the-real-forgotten-man-of-2016-was-bill-clinton/)** > > If there was one mistake that stands out above all the others, it is the decision by the campaign to ignore the warnings of one Bill Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/25 "2018-07-08T15:40:17Z")
Well, I’ll speak up for the lonely 2 (at this time) votes for the Electoral College: First, a system that systematically gives your votes more weight the emptier the geography where you live is, is increasingly misguided. This was instituted in a time when most people lived in rural areas - in 1790, 94.9% of the population lived in “rural” areas. In 1990, it was 24.8%, and in 2010, it was 19.3%. Demographics and living patterns have vastly changed, yet we are still slave to a system chained to the demographics and living patterns of 200+ years ago. And why is this? Simply because one party benefits from land + people having a much weightier vote than solely people. It is the OPPOSITE of proportional representation and “one man, one vote.” Second, the Electoral College was created for the SOLE PURPOSE of being able to deny the presidency to demagogues who are unfit for office. The Electoral College has repudiated it’s sole purpose by letting a lying, swindling, under-investigation-for-treason conman into office. These two factors are largely responsible for Trump getting into office, in the first sense as a systematic bias towards less populated states counting more, and in the second by the Electoral College failing to do the one thing they were created to do. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/26 "2018-07-08T16:09:39Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > … First, a system that systematically gives your votes more weight the emptier the geography where you live is, is increasingly misguided. This was instituted in a time when most people lived in rural areas - in 1790, 94.9% of the population lived in “rural” areas. In 1990, it was 24.8%, and in 2010, it was 19.3%… You’ve fundamentally misunderstood the system. Washington DC is not rural, but gets a shitload of per-capita electoral college power. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/27 "2018-07-08T17:10:55Z")
The runaway winner is just a tautology which does not answer the question: Everybody knows that procedurally speaking, he won because he got more votes than needed to win. I think the question must be why he got enough trump voters to win the EC. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/28 "2018-07-08T18:18:46Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I blame Facebook. I believe there is a significant segment of voters that get most of their news from Facebook memes. These memes are generally full of lies that can be easily debunked, but for some reason they cannot be reached by logic. Many of these memes are overtly racist, and the rise of the Donald has lit the smoldering kindling of racism in the US, empowering them to come out from under the logs where vermin live and getting energized to vote. > > Secondly, I blame Hillary. She is the only Democrat capable of losing to him. It isn’t fair, but people just don’t like her. She simply couldn’t overcome over 30 years of smears. I should have added “misogyny” as one of the poll options too. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/29 "2018-07-08T18:20:21Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > Well, I’ll speak up for the lonely 2 (at this time) votes for the Electoral College: > > First, a system that systematically gives your votes more weight the emptier the geography where you live is, is increasingly misguided. This was instituted in a time when most people lived in rural areas - in 1790, 94.9% of the population lived in “rural” areas. In 1990, it was 24.8%, and in 2010, it was 19.3%. > > Demographics and living patterns have vastly changed, yet we are still slave to a system chained to the demographics and living patterns of 200+ years ago. And why is this? Simply because one party benefits from land + people having a much weightier vote than solely people. It is the OPPOSITE of proportional representation and “one man, one vote.” > > Second, the Electoral College was created for the SOLE PURPOSE of being able to deny the presidency to demagogues who are unfit for office. The Electoral College has repudiated it’s sole purpose by letting a lying, swindling, under-investigation-for-treason conman into office. > > These two factors are largely responsible for Trump getting into office, in the first sense as a systematic bias towards less populated states counting more, and in the second by the Electoral College failing to do the one thing they were created to do. Absent a Constitutional amendment, Democrats could fix this problem by having millions of liberals move away from California and New York into rural states like Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Alaska, etc. Enough that those rural states would flip blue, but not so much that the Democratic margin of victory in CA and NY would be lost. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/30 "2018-07-08T19:04:34Z")
There’s something I’d like to know with no good idea how to find out. I hear that local soybean farmers are in a dither. The export potential of soybeans has a lot to do with whether planting soybeans is farming or a hobby, But what I’m curious about is the “future’s market” where people bet on the future price of a given crop. There was about a week or so there when it was clear soybeans would be targeted as an economic weapon, then no, they won’t, and now, yes they will. That would have caused fluctuations in the market for soybean futures, an opportunity for the knowledgeable investor to create profit. Well, did anyone make exceptionally well timed investments? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/31 "2018-07-08T19:10:00Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > There’s something I’d like to know with no good idea how to find out. I hear that local soybean farmers are in a dither. The export potential of soybeans has a lot to do with whether planting soybeans is farming or a hobby, But what I’m curious about is the “future’s market” where people bet on the future price of a given crop. > > There was about a week or so there when it was clear soybeans would be targeted as an economic weapon, then no, they won’t, and now, yes they will. That would have caused fluctuations in the market for soybean futures, an opportunity for the knowledgeable investor to create profit. > > Well, did anyone make exceptionally well timed investments? I’m sure no one in the Trump administration would have done so, as that would be unethical. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/32 "2018-07-08T21:36:40Z")
I ended up going with the EC. It was a toss up between that and trump voters but in the end Clinton had enough votes just in the wrong location. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/33 "2018-07-08T22:15:12Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > You missed “All of the above”. There wasn’t one person or group or even responsible. It was a whole pile of things. This. It was a perfect storm of everything. But one big omission on that list though are gun owners. Trump wisely sucked up to the NRA and GOA while the Democrats can’t get it through their goddamned stupid heads that gun control at any level is a losing issue in national elections. Whenever I hear a pol say _“I don’t want to take away anyones guns. I just want to **ban** …yadda yadda yadda”_ they have lost a significant portion of the electorate. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/34 "2018-07-08T23:11:01Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > …Democrats can’t get it through their goddamned stupid heads that gun control at any level is a losing issue in national elections… Well, it was. Yusta be, a Dem candidate had to have his picture taken with a gun, so that people wouldn’t think he was some kind of effete pansy-ass liberal. _Ivory tower_ pansy-ass liberal, which is the worst kind. Kerry was a decorated combat vet, pictures of him wind-surfing and duck hunting, which one did you see most often? Times are changing. Obama can shoot a mean three-pointer, but, so far as I recall, that’s about all he did to publicly scratch his balls and belch. Trump…well, less said, the better. No “Gun control at any level” is a fanatic’s position. Prepare to compromise or get crushed. And the soft guys with the wobbly bits? They aren’t buying it. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/35 "2018-07-08T23:18:46Z")
Hillary. It was always Hillary. Her judgement about many things was so faulty. Her Inevitableness is a very good summary of what went wrong. And if she doesn’t sit down and shut up, if she continues to try and have major influence in the DNC, be a king or queen maker, then she will be a negative factor in the next presidential campaign. The DNC should move on without her but hey won’t because of the money machine that her various foundations provide. The Clintons can not let go of their influence and so the Democratic Party will take a hard left turn and loose, or Trump gets re-elected. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/36 "2018-07-08T23:21:06Z")
Yeah, in arguing “gun owners” were the deciding factor one would have to show pretty conclusive evidence that, for those voters, they would have voted against the party owned by the NRA had any other Dem candidate been nominated. As the spread between party identification among gun owners has been growing since 1976, any trend against HRC would have to be shown exceeding the larger 40-year secular trend against Dems by gun owners. > **[Guns Are Driving American Voters Further Apart](https://www.thetrace.org/2017/07/guns-american-voters-further-apart/)** > > The 2016 election scrambled many pundits’ understandings of the fault lines in American political life. Is the country fracturing along rural-urban lines? The coasts versus the heartland? The young versus the old? A new paper offers a different... ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/37 "2018-07-08T23:22:42Z")
The stay-at-homes/3rd partiers. If they’d just done the right thing, we would not be in this mess today. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/38 "2018-07-08T23:28:47Z")
Whole thing has made me question my disdain for the Satanic faith. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/39 "2018-07-08T23:37:34Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You’ve fundamentally misunderstood the system. Washington DC is not rural, but gets a shitload of per-capita electoral college power. Roughly equal to Wyoming. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487/40 "2018-07-09T00:03:49Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > Roughly equal to Wyoming. 2010 census, DC 601,767 and Wyoming 563,767. A little under 10% more Washingtonians than Wyomingites. I’m tired of hearing this crap about how the infallible founders wanted it this way. In the 2010 census, the largest state was just over 66 times as large as the smallest. In 1790, the total population of Virginia was 747,610 vs Delaware’s 59,094. Thus the largest state was 12.6 times as big as the smallest. That infallible founders didn’t foresee such a disparity in population, else they might have rethought the great compromise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-blame-credit-for-trumps-victory-short-succinct-poll/817487.md?page=3)