People who voted for Trump saw right through them and through all the "we're just neutral and just trying to get people to vote" attempts.
I mean, obviously people should go to vote and should be encouraged to vote. It's just that it was pretty much an open secret that the reason all of these tech companies and Silicon Valley people were suddenly "so involved" in getting people to vote, is because they thought most of the people they'd reach would vote for Clinton. And it's another open secret that most of Silicon Valley companies wanted Clinton to win.
I, for one, would've welcomed attempts to fix the real democracy issues in the U.S. (which are far bigger than just low voter turnouts), and attempts to fix the real problems that got half of the country to vote for Trump.
Hint: it's not just because of racism, but also because people are sick and tired of polished-up, corrupt politicians. Trump may be a very poor, or one of the worst possible alternatives to that, but at least he was an alternative.
These people really don't get it why Trump and Sanders saw such a rise in popularity. Tuesday's Reuters poll shows black and white why. I'll just copy the results here:
- 75 percent agree that "America needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful."
- 72 percent agree "the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful."
- 68 percent agree that "traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me."
- 76 percent believe "the mainstream media is more interested in making money than telling the truth."
- 57 percent feel that "more and more, I don't identify with what America has become."
- 54 percent feel "it is increasingly hard for someone like me to get ahead in America."
When I read those early elections polls from Reuters I knew that Trump was winning or going to be far closer than anyone in the MSM imagined. Those are results of a very angry population at the status quo.
The simple answer comes down to, the DNC (champion of unions and jobs), nominated an individual tied to killing jobs through out sourcing, etc, with no answer to "my town is dying".
This is exactly right. And to add, this is the result of pretending income inequality is not a big deal. It's a big deal because it results in a pissed-off population looking to change things up.
One upside: Peter Thiel on the Supreme Court is a sorely needed perspective on so many levels. Every current justice went to the same groupthink law schools and never worked outside the system.
We lost months ago, when the DNC rammed Clinton through over Sanders.
EDIT: You simply cannot say it was the peoples' fault for not voting for her (pick someone electable next time); she had her choice between picking between what was best for her and what was best for the country, and we all lost because she was selfish.
I hope Sanders supporters step up and begin purging DNC incumbents in down ballot races. It is the only way forward.
It would have been about left vs. right if Sanders had been the nominee, since neither of them was a status quo candidate. Sanders has ardent supporters, but not very many of them.
Both Wisconsin and Michigan went for Sanders in the primary, both very unexpectedly, and then went heavily towards Trump in the general. Sanders would've easily won.
The people who were funding Trump/Hillary were funding them equally. Is doesn't matter who won, they banks, oil companies and large media conglomerates still control the country like they have for the past several decades.
I see in our future ... the exact same presidency. More US led wars. More predator drones. More CIA guns and money to fund revolutions that we then fight with out predator drones. Just remember the election is like Whose Line is it Anyway, the points are all made up and none of it matters.
>The people who were funding Trump/Hillary were funding them equally. Is doesn't matter who won, they banks, oil companies and large media conglomerates still control the country like they have for the past several decades.
Yep. That's what makes it so hard for third party candidates. The donors fund both sides so they don't get left out in the cold if their guy loses. They have to believe you'll have a chance to win to fund you, and if they don't it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
eh..that has less to do with funding and more to do with the First Past the Post system. Look at Australia's order of preference with instant run-off (you literally can't throw your vote away; plus voting is mandatory. There's a fine if you don't at least pretend to cast a valid ballot) or New Zealand's MMP. Both are a lot better at representing the public in parliament.
The US system was actively designed to not be democratic. That's why we have an electoral college; the vote was (and still is) the peasants suggestion box.
But the idea the US system wasn't designed to be democratic is a pretty gross exaggeration. You can't win without votes from "the peasants" no matter how much you spend to convince them. Otherwise Jeb Bush would be president-elect today.
It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend.
The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is for economic reasons or just plain bigotry is something for the sociologists to study and not something I can pontificate on.
Also people seem to care a LOT about immigration and preserving their culture. Instead of patronising these people it's time we tried to understand their concerns and try to assuage them.
There is no genuine leftist alternative. It's a choice between center-right "left" that's sold out to the establishment and the far right.Economists need to stop acting like priests in the medieval ages who justified the existing order . The rural voter who lost his job doesn't care about the theory of comparitive advantage.
If this trend holds this will soon take hold in France and other European nations. This is a return to the world of the 1920s. Not gloom and doom but a much more unstable global order with every country for itself. Not what we need when we face planet scale threats like global warming.
Get out of your bubble. Hang out more on subreddits you don't agree with.
> A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population.
The globalisation project is a consequence of:
1. People move: they have legs.
2. Technology has made moving easier and faster.
3. Technology has made keeping in touch in a decentralized network easier.
So it is not the elites, it is technology. You can try to stop it, by force, but you will not succeed and you will create lots of suffering.
When law opposes fundamental human rights, like moving around, and working honestly wherever you want to, giving your best and fighting for your chances in any place in Earth that you decide to call your home, that law is unfair.
That's a great strawman you've got there. None of us would advocate such a law.
The fact is that while they sell you on "moving around", they also remove the market barriers that keep you employed and help you earn gas to move and a house to live in. That's the part of the thing you're not addressing.
So you tell me that they use tricks to sell you one (good) thing and implement another (bad thing)? And you think they are not going to continue to do that? Specially with somebody at the helm that has been privately doing exactly that for a long time?
The USA will need to compete in the global market to sell its products. That means the USA will need to use globalization in order to find the best place to produce with quality and to be able to compete in price.
So, retreating from globalization is not an option. You can avoid people entering the country, but this is not going to make your country any richer. And that is for sure not going to guarantee that inequality is going to decrease.
For that, you need to tackle inequality directly, by collaborating internationally to avoid loopholes (double Irish and such crap) that steals revenue from countries and concentrates in the hand of the global financial elite.
Trump is going to do whatever it is he does before getting impeached--the sooner, the better.
What I'm driving at isn't just for the US--it's for all the countries. You can't bootstrap your economy by opening yourself to being exploited by multinationals, by shipping your resources off in the form of trinkets, regardless how many factory shirtmaker jobs it produces.
The problem of globalization is that it allows advanced economies to entrap developing markets, shipping them goods they don't develop locally--similarly, it guts advanced economies which are unwilling to compete (read: leverage externalities like polluting the air) with developing economies in certain sectors.
It also tends to end-run around local government by way of "harmonizing" accords, and makes governments subservient to the global market instead of the local people who they are supposed to govern.
Which of the free trade agreements and IP and copyright rulings have hurt the masses, and which have helped? Which economic policies of globalization are helping Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Greece?
The folks passing those agreements are the "elites" by any stretch of the term.
The trade agreements are not to blame: they have increased trade, which should be good for everybody.
The opposing force, making globalization unfair for the masses, is unchecked capitalism, which has increased inequality by allowing financial elites to concentrate capital.
Trump, May et al are not goint to put any fight against inequality, so you will be surprised how little borders are going to help the poor.
An excellent post, but just to ride the coattails a little and expand on a point:
Folks, this is what happens when you ignore and ostracize and most importantly mock the downtrodden. Let's assume (and this might be an incorrect assumption) that this election was decided by undereducated white males.
What has been the positive messaging from the Left and even the intelligent Right for those folks?
Which of the angry tweets decrying evil white men helped encourage them to cross party lines? Which of the Ted talks (other than one or two) recognized their plight as a respectable thing they could fix instead of a talking point? Which of the reddit posts refrained from calling them manchildren during GG? Which media posts failed to paint them as bigoted and racist?
The fact is, they've had it rough, and the Left failed to show that they would have a place at the table, that they would have any dignity in the future.
And so, they lashed out and here we are. Hopefully some of us are paying attention.
I understand the white working class' response in supporting Trump. That doesn't explain 47% of the vote.
There's something else going on and I can't put my finger on it. I personally know people who aren't part of the white working class who voted for Trump but would otherwise find him appalling. Maybe now that the election is over I can ask them in order for me to better understand where they're coming from. For now, I remain perplexed.
Michael Moore nailed it: it's a rust belt brexit [1]. Four blue states in the Great Lakes rust belt -- MI, OH, PA, and WI -- all typically blue, all appear to have voted for Trump.
Since I'm from that area, what Moore points out and the free traders refuse to acknowledge is free trade has been absolutely devastating to the region. Sure, maybe you can buy cheap appliances that don't last that long anyway. But all the GM workers and steel workers and so forth are just SOL and education doesn't do a damn thing for them. They're not going to be making iphone apps (not that apps are all that lucrative anyway).
Economists / policymakers have lied to us; there's few benefits to globalization and there's a total lack of a meaningful employment policy to replace lost jobs with jobs of equal quality. But hey, Walmart may be hiring! And we wonder why people who worked in manufacturing, at Carrier [2], or at Oreo [3], aren't enthusiastic about free trade or its promoters.
There are benefits in globalization. There are big problems with inequality.
Do not conflate one with the other: globalization is unstoppable, because technology is unstoppable. The whole world must slowly converge to a uniform (richer) standard of living.
But that will help few people if we allow those riches to be concentrated in very few hands.
Fighting globalization is fighting the wrong enemy: if you (by some miraculous change) are able to remove your country from the globalized world, your country would become poorer. And there is no guarantee that the wealth will be better distributed: the early eighteen centuries economies were not globalized and inequality was a big issue too (bringing about the theory of communism, for example)
Globalization does not require inequality. Non globalization does not guarantee shared wealth.
We need to fight for globalization and wealth distribution, which is what will guarantee the best standard of living for the whole population.
Instead of patronising these people it's time we tried to understand their concerns and try to assuage them.
If you understood their concerns you wouldn't try to "assuage" them. You would join them.
But anyway, this thread is flagged and dead so who cares. I remember when Obama won and reddit had his victory post at the very top for 48+ hours. Now there's just some shit about Canada's immigration website. And the beat goes on.
Yes, the big, looming problem is global warming. It seems at some point there will be a take-over. The only way to force these uncomfortable things on a population who can vote for comfort.
There are some important advances in today's world versus the 1920s.
For one, the average human is more easily connected to one another. Within the next hour I could order a crazy amount of raw materials from around the globe. Or donate it to feed a family.
Another is we're generally better educated, especially in the western countries. We teach the basics of relativity in public school, whereas it was still being hotly debated at the highest levels, barely within view of the general public.
Maybe this is way off, but the wave of "privatization" has seen quite a bit of financial power in the hands of staunch progressives. Control of the higher education, much of the modern economy. The urban areas are largely anti-Trump and make up the bulk of the population.
Sam Altman, Tim Cook, etc...you have the power here: Invest in technology to do as OP suggests... listen to and understand "these people", and help them feel whole again.
It looks as though we'll have little progressive voice in government. Trump White House, probably two Supreme picks, with control of both sides in Congress, and a hamstrung, red taped up the ass bureaucracy getting in the way of government workers doing legitimately beneficial work. Little representation of progressive ideals.
All the above said; This may be a bit reactionary, and I am a bit tipsy, but progressives largely control the modern economy and innovation pipeline. All those tech workers at Google, Apple, YC, financial workers. Left leaning types predominantly control urban government offices in these areas. The most progressive leaning states pay more in Federal dollars than they receive versus conservative states, and have healthier economies. There's a tremendous amount of power there. I hope it's wielded for the benefit of the many. But a coordinated rejection of too conservative an agenda could be called for.
Honestly it's impressive -- how do you lose to Donald Trump? Failed businessman and mediocre reality TV star. You've gotta be pretty good at what you do to fail over this guy.
To be devil's advocate, Trump lies all the time. Has he ever handled classified information? Are you confident he will handle it properly? Is he corrupt? Probably evidence that he's done some bad stuff (not paying contractors).
So perhaps they are both failures and both the same, Hillary just did it on a bigger (more important) stage.
I understand that this place is 99% liberal and that you went as far as to petition to kick Peter Thiel out because of his trump support, but please realize most Americans agree with trump. That's how you lose to him. Make jokes all you want, we won.
This is the problem, though - there's no data that agrees with you. Nor is there any that disagrees with you. Because we've seen today that all the polling data was a load of complete nonsense.
It could be that Trump won because most Americans agree with him. The popular vote totals would suggest this is not the case. Rather, a majority of Americans in swing states either agree with Trump enough, or disagree with Clinton enough, to vote they way they did. It's going to take a long time to get to the bottom of which combination of those factors is what.
"You" won four years of someone completely inexperienced in politics and foreign affairs to represent your country on the world stage. The rest of the world is cringing.
I would love to know what you actually agree with Trump on, as it's been shown again and again Trump doesn't really say anything of substance. Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aFo_BV-UzI
Through a history of corruption, self-created scandals, elitism (with an arrogant sense of "you can't touch me"), and a track record of terrible political decisions. That almost ought to do it. Throw in a stone-like personality in the mix, against a more charismatic character that simulates real understanding of the people, and it should seal the deal.
That's selective reading of what Trump is. He's incredibly media savvy, and he wasn't ashamed of playing to people's base instincts (including bigotry) in order to win them over.
Clinton was a fine candidate to beat Trump, but she wasn't the candidate that matched the mood of the electorate. It's worth pointing out that the popular vote remains incredibly close, and Clinton may win it yet.
I think Mark Zuckerberg's comments show both ways we can react to this election. You've got to decide:
will you be constructive or destructive?
"We can't create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country
because they back a political candidate ... There are many reasons a person might support Trump that do not
involve racism, sexism, xenophobia ..."
I didn't vote for either candidate. So I'm not advocating either way. But I think America really, really needs to decide how it wants to take this and how it wants to move forward. We, by our actions and state of mind, choose whether this is a good or bad thing. Take control. Be constructive. Do good.
America decided it wants to move forward with the candidate it just elected for President. I may not agree with the candidate, but that's the decision that was made. That's how America decided to move forward.
Perhaps you meant that the left needs to decide how it will move forward given this result.
> But I think America really, really needs to decide how it wants to take this
as a non-US-resident I'd say the US did already decide its action. Thats what the vote is for. In my opinion the people who need to take an honest look at themselves aren't the american voters, but the intelligentia, the "juste millieu". Not just in the US, but the whole West.
I've tried to follow the news coverage here in Germany for almost the entire election this time, including primaries. The utter biasedness of journalism made it unbearable. I could switch between American, French, British or German TV channels - none of the channels did even bother to keep a disguise of "neutrality". Trump was pure evil, his voters deplorable and so on.
I've kept telling people: "Don't underestimate his chances" and now I've never felt so sorry for being right.
If Clinton would have been a little tougher on immigration it wouldn't have even been close. That was one issue Trump supporters cared about most. If she spoke a little tougher on that she would have won.
The sad thing for Trump supporters is Trump wants visa slaves and fruit pickers just as bad as liberal elites. I predict no changes on immigration policy over the next few years.
Really sad to see so many members of the technical community act like brats on social media over the result. Whatever happened to respecting the viewpoints of others? Whatever happened to being humble in victory and respectful in defeat?
Democracy means you don't always get what you want. Be excellent to each other, whether you voted for Trump, Clinton, a third party candidate, or nobody. It's tragic seeing people isolate themselves into echo chambers of ideological refuge.
What happened to Peter Thiel in the media and probably in more private circles was really shameful. Zuckerberg's counter-argument to that is probably the one time in the past few years when I agreed with him on something.
If you are a blue collar worker in the rust belt who lost his or her job because your factory moved to Mexico or China, there was no way you were voting for Clinton. And here we are.
The echo chamber of CNN, MSNBC, NYT, et al., is deafening. If you've been watching these outlets you know that they have been calling the election for Clinton for more than six months. The arrogance is just stunning. And here we are.
Now let's talk about the DNC. These folks are so crooked they literally colluded to steal the nomination from Sanders. How can that possibly sit well with anyone? Frankly, Bernie would have won vs. Trump. And here we are.
And for these reasons and a host of others, here we are.
Definitely encrypt all your communications. The Republicans are hardcore about violating any privacy rights (or any Bill of Rights) that they can, and will make sure to expand the NSA to spy on the US citizens communications. (it's currently illegal for the NSA to spy on US citizens comms..)
Under Obama, the Snowden leaks reveal that there are filters that remove communications from US citizens from NSA mass collection, to comply with law. Remember that this was a classified program that was leaked, so they were still being compliant when no one was looking.
lol at all the people here pretending like they saw this coming. this is a surprise for everyone. the NYT and every other major news outlet had Clinton winning with a chance of over 80%. the silent majority won.
One can understand distaste for washington, globalization, politicians and middle america wishing for manufacturing jobs to come back, but to think Trump will fix any of those things is beyond comprehension.
116 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 191 ms ] threadI mean, obviously people should go to vote and should be encouraged to vote. It's just that it was pretty much an open secret that the reason all of these tech companies and Silicon Valley people were suddenly "so involved" in getting people to vote, is because they thought most of the people they'd reach would vote for Clinton. And it's another open secret that most of Silicon Valley companies wanted Clinton to win.
I, for one, would've welcomed attempts to fix the real democracy issues in the U.S. (which are far bigger than just low voter turnouts), and attempts to fix the real problems that got half of the country to vote for Trump.
Hint: it's not just because of racism, but also because people are sick and tired of polished-up, corrupt politicians. Trump may be a very poor, or one of the worst possible alternatives to that, but at least he was an alternative.
These people really don't get it why Trump and Sanders saw such a rise in popularity. Tuesday's Reuters poll shows black and white why. I'll just copy the results here:
- 75 percent agree that "America needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful."
- 72 percent agree "the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful."
- 68 percent agree that "traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me."
- 76 percent believe "the mainstream media is more interested in making money than telling the truth."
- 57 percent feel that "more and more, I don't identify with what America has become."
- 54 percent feel "it is increasingly hard for someone like me to get ahead in America."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-mood-idU...
And if you're not convinced, or you still don't quite get it, listen to Michael Moore and Jimmy Dore explain it in more colorful terms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOcstHhtL4Y&feature=youtu.be...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZNwvXZbAfg
The simple answer comes down to, the DNC (champion of unions and jobs), nominated an individual tied to killing jobs through out sourcing, etc, with no answer to "my town is dying".
They messed up, as did Hillary.
Things will be interesting.
The rising tide better actually lift all boats.
Genius.
I'm pretty sure the "rust-belt" middle class doesn't see how their situation could get any worse. They might be right.
The man doesn't believe in democracy and thinks the country went wrong when women got the vote.
EDIT: You simply cannot say it was the peoples' fault for not voting for her (pick someone electable next time); she had her choice between picking between what was best for her and what was best for the country, and we all lost because she was selfish.
I hope Sanders supporters step up and begin purging DNC incumbents in down ballot races. It is the only way forward.
EDIT 2: Sanders vs Trump polling: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/ge...
http://www.270towin.com/maps/sanders-trump-electoral-map
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/...
And regardless how useless polling appears to be, its impossible to say that Sanders was a less liked candidate than either Clinton or Trump.
This was never about left vs. right but about overturning the status quo.
I see in our future ... the exact same presidency. More US led wars. More predator drones. More CIA guns and money to fund revolutions that we then fight with out predator drones. Just remember the election is like Whose Line is it Anyway, the points are all made up and none of it matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig
Yep. That's what makes it so hard for third party candidates. The donors fund both sides so they don't get left out in the cold if their guy loses. They have to believe you'll have a chance to win to fund you, and if they don't it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The US system was actively designed to not be democratic. That's why we have an electoral college; the vote was (and still is) the peasants suggestion box.
But the idea the US system wasn't designed to be democratic is a pretty gross exaggeration. You can't win without votes from "the peasants" no matter how much you spend to convince them. Otherwise Jeb Bush would be president-elect today.
The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is for economic reasons or just plain bigotry is something for the sociologists to study and not something I can pontificate on.
Also people seem to care a LOT about immigration and preserving their culture. Instead of patronising these people it's time we tried to understand their concerns and try to assuage them.
There is no genuine leftist alternative. It's a choice between center-right "left" that's sold out to the establishment and the far right.Economists need to stop acting like priests in the medieval ages who justified the existing order . The rural voter who lost his job doesn't care about the theory of comparitive advantage.
If this trend holds this will soon take hold in France and other European nations. This is a return to the world of the 1920s. Not gloom and doom but a much more unstable global order with every country for itself. Not what we need when we face planet scale threats like global warming.
Get out of your bubble. Hang out more on subreddits you don't agree with.
The divide is bridged one person at a time.
Life goes on.
EDIT: Its a shame they killed this thread.
And since we buy this, we oppose legislation which is going to put limits to our about-to-come rich-me.
The globalisation project is a consequence of:
1. People move: they have legs.
2. Technology has made moving easier and faster.
3. Technology has made keeping in touch in a decentralized network easier.
So it is not the elites, it is technology. You can try to stop it, by force, but you will not succeed and you will create lots of suffering.
The fact is that while they sell you on "moving around", they also remove the market barriers that keep you employed and help you earn gas to move and a house to live in. That's the part of the thing you're not addressing.
The USA will need to compete in the global market to sell its products. That means the USA will need to use globalization in order to find the best place to produce with quality and to be able to compete in price.
So, retreating from globalization is not an option. You can avoid people entering the country, but this is not going to make your country any richer. And that is for sure not going to guarantee that inequality is going to decrease.
For that, you need to tackle inequality directly, by collaborating internationally to avoid loopholes (double Irish and such crap) that steals revenue from countries and concentrates in the hand of the global financial elite.
Trump is not going to do any of that.
What I'm driving at isn't just for the US--it's for all the countries. You can't bootstrap your economy by opening yourself to being exploited by multinationals, by shipping your resources off in the form of trinkets, regardless how many factory shirtmaker jobs it produces.
The problem of globalization is that it allows advanced economies to entrap developing markets, shipping them goods they don't develop locally--similarly, it guts advanced economies which are unwilling to compete (read: leverage externalities like polluting the air) with developing economies in certain sectors.
It also tends to end-run around local government by way of "harmonizing" accords, and makes governments subservient to the global market instead of the local people who they are supposed to govern.
The folks passing those agreements are the "elites" by any stretch of the term.
The opposing force, making globalization unfair for the masses, is unchecked capitalism, which has increased inequality by allowing financial elites to concentrate capital.
Trump, May et al are not goint to put any fight against inequality, so you will be surprised how little borders are going to help the poor.
You mean, besides all the multinationals setting office in Ireland and opening positions? (and not only a "mail office")
The Earth belongs to everybody.
The country where I live has been built by lots of people, not least immigrants.
Folks, this is what happens when you ignore and ostracize and most importantly mock the downtrodden. Let's assume (and this might be an incorrect assumption) that this election was decided by undereducated white males.
What has been the positive messaging from the Left and even the intelligent Right for those folks?
Which of the angry tweets decrying evil white men helped encourage them to cross party lines? Which of the Ted talks (other than one or two) recognized their plight as a respectable thing they could fix instead of a talking point? Which of the reddit posts refrained from calling them manchildren during GG? Which media posts failed to paint them as bigoted and racist?
The fact is, they've had it rough, and the Left failed to show that they would have a place at the table, that they would have any dignity in the future.
And so, they lashed out and here we are. Hopefully some of us are paying attention.
Can we start by not calling them un/under-educated? A high school education should be more than enough for most people.
There's something else going on and I can't put my finger on it. I personally know people who aren't part of the white working class who voted for Trump but would otherwise find him appalling. Maybe now that the election is over I can ask them in order for me to better understand where they're coming from. For now, I remain perplexed.
Well put!
> Hang out more on subreddits you don't agree with.
Better yet, get off the Internet and seek face-to-face conversations with people around you from different perspectives!
I hear a lot of people after every election saying they don't know anybody who voted for the other side. That's a problem.
Since I'm from that area, what Moore points out and the free traders refuse to acknowledge is free trade has been absolutely devastating to the region. Sure, maybe you can buy cheap appliances that don't last that long anyway. But all the GM workers and steel workers and so forth are just SOL and education doesn't do a damn thing for them. They're not going to be making iphone apps (not that apps are all that lucrative anyway).
Economists / policymakers have lied to us; there's few benefits to globalization and there's a total lack of a meaningful employment policy to replace lost jobs with jobs of equal quality. But hey, Walmart may be hiring! And we wonder why people who worked in manufacturing, at Carrier [2], or at Oreo [3], aren't enthusiastic about free trade or its promoters.
[1] http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/
[2] http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44548/in...
[3] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-ore...
There are benefits in globalization. There are big problems with inequality.
Do not conflate one with the other: globalization is unstoppable, because technology is unstoppable. The whole world must slowly converge to a uniform (richer) standard of living.
But that will help few people if we allow those riches to be concentrated in very few hands.
Fighting globalization is fighting the wrong enemy: if you (by some miraculous change) are able to remove your country from the globalized world, your country would become poorer. And there is no guarantee that the wealth will be better distributed: the early eighteen centuries economies were not globalized and inequality was a big issue too (bringing about the theory of communism, for example)
Globalization does not require inequality. Non globalization does not guarantee shared wealth.
We need to fight for globalization and wealth distribution, which is what will guarantee the best standard of living for the whole population.
If you understood their concerns you wouldn't try to "assuage" them. You would join them.
But anyway, this thread is flagged and dead so who cares. I remember when Obama won and reddit had his victory post at the very top for 48+ hours. Now there's just some shit about Canada's immigration website. And the beat goes on.
Agree. Protip: you don't even have to make a lot of noise - just discuss the things that are within reach.
I disagree with a significant number of you guys here in a number of cases, yet it seems people mostly like me.
For one, the average human is more easily connected to one another. Within the next hour I could order a crazy amount of raw materials from around the globe. Or donate it to feed a family.
Another is we're generally better educated, especially in the western countries. We teach the basics of relativity in public school, whereas it was still being hotly debated at the highest levels, barely within view of the general public.
Maybe this is way off, but the wave of "privatization" has seen quite a bit of financial power in the hands of staunch progressives. Control of the higher education, much of the modern economy. The urban areas are largely anti-Trump and make up the bulk of the population.
Sam Altman, Tim Cook, etc...you have the power here: Invest in technology to do as OP suggests... listen to and understand "these people", and help them feel whole again.
It looks as though we'll have little progressive voice in government. Trump White House, probably two Supreme picks, with control of both sides in Congress, and a hamstrung, red taped up the ass bureaucracy getting in the way of government workers doing legitimately beneficial work. Little representation of progressive ideals.
All the above said; This may be a bit reactionary, and I am a bit tipsy, but progressives largely control the modern economy and innovation pipeline. All those tech workers at Google, Apple, YC, financial workers. Left leaning types predominantly control urban government offices in these areas. The most progressive leaning states pay more in Federal dollars than they receive versus conservative states, and have healthier economies. There's a tremendous amount of power there. I hope it's wielded for the benefit of the many. But a coordinated rejection of too conservative an agenda could be called for.
So perhaps they are both failures and both the same, Hillary just did it on a bigger (more important) stage.
This is the problem, though - there's no data that agrees with you. Nor is there any that disagrees with you. Because we've seen today that all the polling data was a load of complete nonsense.
It could be that Trump won because most Americans agree with him. The popular vote totals would suggest this is not the case. Rather, a majority of Americans in swing states either agree with Trump enough, or disagree with Clinton enough, to vote they way they did. It's going to take a long time to get to the bottom of which combination of those factors is what.
I would love to know what you actually agree with Trump on, as it's been shown again and again Trump doesn't really say anything of substance. Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aFo_BV-UzI
Clinton was a fine candidate to beat Trump, but she wasn't the candidate that matched the mood of the electorate. It's worth pointing out that the popular vote remains incredibly close, and Clinton may win it yet.
Perhaps you meant that the left needs to decide how it will move forward given this result.
If the right can't see past itself to be graceful in victory and try to understand the left's anxiety and worries it'll only make things worse.
> But I think America really, really needs to decide how it wants to take this
as a non-US-resident I'd say the US did already decide its action. Thats what the vote is for. In my opinion the people who need to take an honest look at themselves aren't the american voters, but the intelligentia, the "juste millieu". Not just in the US, but the whole West.
I've tried to follow the news coverage here in Germany for almost the entire election this time, including primaries. The utter biasedness of journalism made it unbearable. I could switch between American, French, British or German TV channels - none of the channels did even bother to keep a disguise of "neutrality". Trump was pure evil, his voters deplorable and so on.
I've kept telling people: "Don't underestimate his chances" and now I've never felt so sorry for being right.
Democracy means you don't always get what you want. Be excellent to each other, whether you voted for Trump, Clinton, a third party candidate, or nobody. It's tragic seeing people isolate themselves into echo chambers of ideological refuge.
https://s13.postimg.org/ohe1sci6f/mmexport1476831885441.jpg
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12739582
The echo chamber of CNN, MSNBC, NYT, et al., is deafening. If you've been watching these outlets you know that they have been calling the election for Clinton for more than six months. The arrogance is just stunning. And here we are.
Now let's talk about the DNC. These folks are so crooked they literally colluded to steal the nomination from Sanders. How can that possibly sit well with anyone? Frankly, Bernie would have won vs. Trump. And here we are.
And for these reasons and a host of others, here we are.
A. He probably has no retirement savings.
B. The fat-cat on Wall Street that cost him his job probably lost a lot more.
I'd be more worried about the rights of minority's and lgbtq people though. Oh and women.
Trump obviously would remove those filters.
Like... Obama did?
SCREW THE TRUMP GOVERNMENT. I"M DOING EVERYTHING IN BITCOIN.