> And rather than embrace it, rural and white working-class Americans are twisting and turning, fighting it every step of the way. We will never return to the days where a white man could barely graduate high school and walk onto a factory floor at 18 and get a well-paying job for life. That hasn’t set in for much of the Midwest.
There's the problem and the bubble people are talking about. White men (or any sex and color really) that can barely finish high school aren't going away anytime soon and they still need jobs. Not everyone is capable of more academic work.
They need job skills and few high schools teach them. One of the high schools I went to had a small program with the community college next door for people to learn marketable skills instead of the usual electives. The other had nothing like it.
tl;dr Study beyond high school is not just liberal arts.
My high school was similar but that's all gone now. But this was 15 years ago and not finishing high school was still common. In fact I didn't and later learned programming through a trade school.
I'm pretty sure there are next to no opportunities for anyone following my path today though.
If outsourcing suddenly produced high quality issue free software for cheap tomorrow then we'd all be just as screwed despite having such great skills.
Most job losses were due to automation, not necessarily outsourcing.
And if they have job skills for jobs that don't exist anymore it's as if they don't have job skills at all. But it's certainly not their fault, it's the education system that has to teach job skills, you can't learn that by yourself.
> if they have job skills for jobs that don't exist anymore it's as if they don't have job skills at all.
Exactly this. At the risk of reductio ad absurdum, would anyone consider the ability to write (not compositional writing, just literally the ability to put a pen down on paper and form letters) a "marketable job skill" any more? Not likely, since that skill can be replaced by a $60 printer what doesn't need a salary.
What are those skills? My high schools taught regular academic subjects and electives. What job does that qualify a person to do? They can't fix a car, drive a big truck, or operate specialized machinery. Yes, the unskilled jobs moved. That's why high schools need to teach actual skills now.
Travelling is such an important way for people to grow, but it's so hard to appreciate its value without actually doing it. It's shocking how many people have only left their state to visit Disney Land.
Travel is great, but it's an expensive luxury especially for families with multiple children. Sometimes that one trip to Disneyland is all they can afford.
Even poor families with multiple children can manage to travel on a limited budget, if they really want to.
The bigger impediment is profound lack of interest/curiosity about other places. Take George W. Bush as an example; he certainly didn’t lack for resources. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/102900a.html
> Even poor families with multiple children can manage to travel on a limited budget, if they really want to.
You mean with all that paid vacation time they don't have, after using all 5-10 days of it (if there's any at all) to stay home with sick kids, or holding it in reserve to do same later in the year? Hell, that's a problem for most families period, poor or not. Vacation time is very scarce for most people and will continue to be until some significant minimum is required by law.
Sorry, that was inelegantly stated. Obviously there are folks having a hard time just getting by, and taking long vacations to jet around the world for months at a time is infeasible.
I’m not suggesting that anyone struggling to survive should prioritize travel over eating.
But I know plenty of people who grew up in dirt poor families who managed to take occasional long road trips in their childhood. And I know people who grew up in extremely wealthy families who barely ever left their hometown.
My point was just that means aren’t everything; attitude is also important.
OK, cool, point makes sense. Just wanted to make sure no one was blaming a large portion of the country for having effectively zero actual vacation time, whatever their attitude toward travel might be.
My SO and I visited Thailand way before we met each other. I went to a Muay Thai camp and stayed in a nearby town. SO went with a tour guide, slept and ate in hotels, visited some temples and rode cute elephants.
My impression of the country is totally different from SO's. I could say the same about India and Morocco.
I definitely grew, but not in the way I expected.
Westerners often fall into the trap of multiculturalism and this romantic idea of travelling which feels more like a product. We simply cannot grasp how easy we have it.
Travel is a luxury. My mother taught in a school district in Maine once, where occasionally, her students would talk about "taking a trip down to the big city". They were talking about Skowhegan, a place with about 8500 people and a WalMart.
keep telling middle america how wrong they all are. When they rise up against you at the ballot box, keep telling them how wrong they all are. It'll work eventually!
It goes both ways. Keep telling minorities and the educated that they're not "real" America and we'll just trade whose most angry this election. The hard part is understanding the other perspective and building bridges.
That's been such a winning plan for middle America, hasn't it? They rise up, only to vote for the politician, usually Republican, who panders to them most. That same politician who will then proceed to do absolutely nothing to help them, and often vote for policies that hurt them.
So we can either ignore middle America and let them continue this self-destructive cycle, or can point it out. Which will then make them mad and they'll continue voting in the useless pricks who do nothing to help them.
I know you tried to make your statement sound like a threat. But I live in the rural Midwest. I've seen the politicians voted in at the local level. Politicians like Brownback who have trashed the state. It's cutting your nose off to spite your face, as Mom used to say.
All the votes of 2016 election aren't counted yet, so Trump's votes will come up as more than Romney got 2012. Absentee ballots, provisional ballots and early votes are counted later.
Also, the turnout in 2016 election is 2 % higher than 2012 (56.9 % vs. 54.9 %).
In addition, just like Brexit, I see a lot of people who appear to have completely ignored the concrete results of their actions.
For example, me to Trump voter: "You do realize that you voted to throw your own daughter and my mother off of healthcare? Your daughter couldn't get coverage before Obamacare because she has mild sleep apnea while being middle-aged. My mother couldn't get healthcare before the ACA because she is a breast cancer survivor." Trump voter: "Well, I didn't really want that."
What am I supposed to say at that point?
Please tell me which platform plank of yours is more important than your own daughter receiving healthcare?
Please tell me which platform plank of yours is more important than my mother receiving healthcare?
Really, I want to know this.
And, when you give me your answer about god, guns, gays, mexicans, emails, Benghazi or any other stupid thing that doesn't impact our lives one iota other than to serve as a propaganda vehicle, don't be surprised when I tell you how FUCKING WRONG you are.
Out of interest, how would you summarize your political views?
You are perfectly entitled to your views, but they appear to be so completely different to my own that I am genuinely interested to find out what you believe.
[NB As a bit of background I'm from the UK, strongly in favour of the socialist NHS we have and happy to pay taxes so that everyone in our country can get pretty decent healthcare "free at the point of delivery"]
Edit: I upvoted you because I don't think people should be downvoted just for making that comment.
I applaud your efforts to understand this as I'm eager to also. It's a mentality or similar to one I've found myself in deadlock with before. For example, I asked a relative of mine if they would sacrifice themselves to save the lives of N number of people and there was no value of N they considered worth more than their own life. This relative found it uncomfortably easy to ignore and even justify the suffering of strangers. Not to say that the GP feels precisely this way. I'd hate to ascribe this particular belief to anybody that didn't directly espouse it.
I think that's a completely different argument and one that I'm not sure anyone could come up with a sensible answer unless they were actually put in that position.
However, I can definitely understand the argument that being forced to pay taxes to pay for the healthcare of other people is unfair. I just happen to not agree with it but I don't think its unreasonable that other people don't agree with me on that point.
Let's take that long hard look. What aspects of a woman I never met should be more important to me than things that are in my life, and for bonus virtue signaling, why?
"Eff you, I gots mine" is not the robust survival strategy you might think it is.
I don't know you, but I hope your mother is doing ok, and I hope she will do better under a Trump presidency than I think she will. There's actually plenty of parts of my life that I'd consider giving up or changing if I could guarantee a better future for both your mom and mine, now that your post implicitly asks that question.
My post did not ask the question. I don't care one whit about your feelings for my mother, because you don't know her at all. You don't even know if she's alive or if I even know her. You are simply virtue signaling.
For that matter, although I don't particularly care, your uncharitable and incorrect summation of my view is also just virtue signaling. We get it! You have tremendous morals, the best morals.
No, I actually want to figure out how to live side by side. This shit is terrifying. Please stop talking past me and imagining an enemy that doesn't exist.
(Also: I'm aware your post didn't ask the question. It was implicit... which is why I said implicitly. I do have the best vocabulary, tremendous vocab words folks. A lot of people are saying Trump voters have trouble with bigly words. Sad!)
My point is that you inferred a question that was not asked implicitly or otherwise, not that I needed a definition of implicit. I did not talk past you. I simply deny your arrogant assumption upon which you base your understanding of me.
Your terror is no more my responsibility than your putative mother's health. I don't consider you an enemy. In fact, I don't really consider you, because as a human being I have limited capacity for things like love and I save that capacity for the many people I actually know and deal with in my life.
I think you're confused on the difference between love, compassion and compatriotism. I don't expect you to love me or anyone outside of your own circle, but if you were hoping to make america great again without compassion or compatriotism, I'll enjoy watching the attempt.
Ahh, now if I were a man who liked reading into things people say, I'd go with inferring that you believe I am a trump supporter. You are incorrect if that is the case.
Now, on to the point. I'm dead curious. Here are my words:
> Literally everything in my life is more important to me than any aspect of your mother
Where is the question implied in there? I endeavor to speak precisely, and I have heard it posited that it is incumbent upon the speaker to eliminate misunderstandings in the listener, so let's put it to the test. Demonstrate how that virtue signalling question you inferred from my words comes from my words and not solely your head.
That I did assume - but only because you misused virtue signaling twice in two sentences, which is a Trumpie tell. You might have just picked it up from Twitter?
Also, don't post an excised version of your flagged tweet and then expect me not to catch it. Nice try, troll. Here's your flag, I was game right up until you were intellectually dishonest and sloppy on top of it.
Hmm. This isn't twitter, and I quoted my entire post. What, exactly, are you on about?
Edit: ah wait I see, you think I'm trying to karma bump my sentiment, but to what end? It's parented under the flagged version of itself and I hardly care if I accumulate more internet points. I'm just trying to figure out why you think flogging your morals at me is worthwhile.
There was a category of people [not me, fwiw] for which abortion was the singular issue that made them vote for what they considered a deeply flawed candidate. Everything else paled in comparison.
From the pro-life point of view, it also affects the unborn child who is murdered. For many of them, abortion is literally the same thing as letting people kill their toddlers because they decided that they don't want them for whatever reason. This is the divide.
(I realize that there are other pregnancy complications that don't literally equate to having an inconvenient toddler, and pro-lifers aren't as consistent on how they view those cases, but those are a small minority of abortions.)
It will work eventually. The demographic trends are undeniable. It will take longer because rural areas have, proportionally, a much greater political influence than urban areas, but the white non-Hispanic percentage of the population is going down every year.
You didn't read the article. The author is from middle america and explaining to those who are not from there how wrong we are in our interpretation of what has happened. Read it, please, it's quite informative.
Again - the author is from Middle America; there is no 'they', it's 'we'. And here's just part of what is said:
"To pin this election on the coastal elite is a cop-out. It’s intellectually dishonest, and it’s beneath us.
We, as a culture, have to stop infantilizing and deifying rural and white working-class Americans. Their experience is not more of a real American experience than anyone else’s, but when we say that it is, we give people a pass from seeing and understanding more of their country. More Americans need to see more of the United States. They need to shake hands with a Muslim, or talk soccer with a middle aged lesbian, or attend a lecture by a female business executive.
We must start asking all Americans to be their better selves. We must all understand that America is a melting pot and that none of us has a more authentic American experience."
I can buy into that sentiment, but for one glaring issue: the significant number of incumbents at the House and Senate levels that were re-elected.
If Americans want change, let's start at the levels that ultimately has a larger impact on our day-to-day experiences. Change the course of the failed domestic policy that comes from our govenors, state representatives, and those sent to Congress by bringing in new ideas.
Why is the Executive the only branch of government that is scrutinized to the degree that it is?
Where are the Congressional aspirants' debates that let voters draw their own conclusions after listening to the words that come out of candidates mouths, not just those from the latest attacking radio or TV spot?
Try to engage reasonably with other views, even if you really disagree. For example if you expanded on your first sentence and deleted the first bit 'pure ignorant writing' you're far more likely to have a meaningful conversation with someone, maybe even change their mind.
The author was intentionally writing around the fact that these "undocumented immigrants" are illegal. When someone purposefully obfuscates an issue, I'll call a spade, a spade, and say the writing is pure ignorance.
I'm not so sure of this. There is a significant aspect of loneliness in cities, often more so than in rural areas. And quite some research done on this. Physical proximity does not mean that people actually meet and engage with each other.
Loneliness and access to other residents (be it minority or not) are related but not the same. If you are cloystered inside your city apartment, it will still be hard to avoid people that you must interact with on a daily basis to support yourself. This fundamental level of cooperation creates opportunities for respect to be formed.
Although, if you live in the country, and you were born there, then there is a good chance you know everybody in the community, and are possibly related to a good chunk of them.
While I agree that travel is a great mind expander, telling people that they need to travel is about as effective as just telling people directly that they need to expand their minds. Which is to say, maybe a good nudge for people who were already leaning that way, but otherwise ineffective.
I hope the lesson we all learn from this election is that if we have ideas we want to spread in the near term, the only effective thing to do is engage with people who disagree and respectfully make our case to them and listen to what they have to say.
- I hear a lot from people that issues like gay rights didn't hit home until they became friends with (or realized that they were friends with) a gay person. Similarly with for example Muslims. This article hit home there.
- The point about jobs seems very spot on - jobs have been drying up throughout the Midwest, particularly steady/long-term low-education (i.e. manufacturing) jobs, and national leadership has not done anything to address it. The economic story of the last 8 years has been a recovery for the wealthy and financial sector only, so it's no wonder the rural midwest see no hope from the Democrats. It sounds like Trump's main plan for this is to create jobs for people that destroy the very environment they live in, which is tragic. Long term, I wonder what feasible plan could address the jobs issue besides a basic income, or massive government hiring for jobs like building infrastructure.
This is a bit besides the point, but my understanding is that a lot of the recovery has not been in high-skill jobs, but lower-skilled jobs. Especially in plaecs like Texas.
Though these jobs were not being generated in rural areas
I'm thinking drones help maximize how much distance you can place between workers in some abstract way. Maybe there's a way to use all of our technology to make rural America more relevant. I know you could outsource call center stuff if broadband were more available.
Call centres are the next industry to go. 5-10 years max.
Machine/Deep Learning is rapidly improving beyond anyone's expectations and you only have to look at Microsoft's recent advancements in speech recognition that match humans to see the disruption in action.
Working in a call center is less rewarding than digging ditches. It's a crushing, soulless form of employment, and it will be a great thing for the world when machine learning or AI or Watson can handle all that tier 1-type support.
> The economic story of the last 8 years has been a recovery for the wealthy and financial sector only,
There’s a kernel of insight here, but as stated this is a grossly inaccurate summary.
On the whole the economy is doing radically better than it was during the recession in almost every way. I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
As a whole, sure, but real incomes have still been flat for the last 15 years so. The average American worker can feel that his or her standard of living is no longer increasing:
Here is one interesting plot: national employment-to-population ratio. Try plotting it from 1990 to 2016, it shows a significant drop in '08 which has not recovered very much since.
There are a number of things going on here. You have to break the numbers down to get a fuller picture.
First is that there has been population growth, and a continuing shift in the age demographics of the country. The absolute number of workers is now about 6% higher than before the recession, but there are also a larger number of retirees and other non-workers. In particular the percentage of people in prime “working age” range (25–54) is 5% lower than 10 years ago. The numbers of unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers are all way down since the recession.
Many people decide to retire (either voluntarily or after being laid off) during a recession, with no plan to return to work. So you always get a bit of a “cliff” effect, where people who might have retired over the following several years all get bundled into one group, masking the “natural” shape of the data in absence of the recession.
Many others decide to go to school in the years following a recession. A larger proportion of those in the 16–24 age range are students than before the recession.
The numbers of unemployed and discouraged workers are both down nearly to their pre-recession levels.
The 2014 percentage of people claiming to be not working because disabled/ill is up 1% compared to before recession. The percentage of retirees is up 1.5%. The percentage of students is up almost 1.5%. The percentage not working for “other reasons” is only up 0.3%.
> as stated this is a grossly inaccurate summary. On the whole the economy is doing radically better than it was during the recession in almost every way.
Your assuming "the whole economy" is an accurate measurement of how citizens finances are doing. But those two things are often not related in any way.
In my "flyover-Midwest" community, the stronger the economy does, the worse off real people's lives are here. "The economy" rewards companies whose profits go up and expenses go down. But in much of flyover America, "expenses" represents real people's paychecks, and "profits" represent real peoples bills.
Good jobs rarely come here. These folks don't own stocks or bonds. Many don't have retirement plans. Whenever the economy improves, all that really means here is "someone I know got fired today" or "the price of something I buy just got jacked up".
Just one example: Google claims GM's stock price is at it's highest peak for the entire year. Two days ago, GM laid off 2,000 people in Michigan and Ohio. Wealthy citizens (or "coastal elites") got taken care of nicely, but "rural" Americans who actually work for GM just got yet-another kick to the teeth.
> I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
This is where a lot of the "out of touch liberal ivory tower" insults come from. Telling people who work two jobs and still can't afford rent or childcare that "your wrong, my census data proves your doing just fine" is the kind of tone deaf communication that makes people desperate enough to elect a "human Molotov cocktail".
If your a person who's been suffering for years, and the choices are "just me and my neighbors keep getting screwed" or "everybody in the whole nation gets screwed", a lot of people will take that second option. I don't defend that decision, and it's certainly not the vote I cast. But I'm not so out of touch with my neighbors as to pretend it's unfathomable that so many people chose that.
Here's one example: There's been a lot of talk about how "Trumps supporters are slightly more wealthy than Clintons" (as in, the absolute poor voted more towards Clinton, but the lower-middle-class voted more towards Trump). But I'm not so sure about that.
I know in my town if you are "absolute poor" (below 60% avg income -- roughly $12/hr or less) you are allowed to live downtown in luxury apartments at little cost, because a combination of various government subsidies exist. Apartments that would cost HN readers $1,800/month to rent, cost these folks only $400-$800 (depending on income, family size, etc). These residents also get all the benefits of a gentrifying urban neighborhood without paying for it (crime is slowly dropping, public transit is slowly improving, what few nicer jobs that are being created, usually appear right there, etc).
However, if you "make too much money" (read, $12-16/hr, still poor, but not "absolute poor") you don't qualify for any of this. These folks must pay $700-$1,000/month for run down apartments in the far edges of town. These apartments have effectively zero public transit (everyone here must also own a car) and are not near any "nicer" jobs, but are usually sandwiched between buildings like WalMart and Home Depot.
- - -
If you are sitting in NYC, and do a quick map of "census reported income by zip code across voters by zip code", you'd probably conclude something like "In Michigan, the poorest people voted Clinton, and the middle class voted Trump".
But in terms of real-world wealth here, the "absolute poor" (by income) are actually wealthier (in terms of opportunity, access, quality of life, diversity of neighbors, and amount of paycheck left over they can spend/save) than those who are "lower-middle class" (have slightly higher income) but lack all of that.
The real world is a bit more complicated than just plugging census data into maps -- it's tempting and convenient, but wildly inaccurate to make broad assumptions using that methodology. I don't know how to get all of these factors into easily-usable statistics, but I am seeing these sort of discrepancies happening in person somewhat often.
Are you suggesting that HN commenter spiritofenter is "people who work two jobs and still can't afford rent or childcare"
Anyhow, inre his original
> national leadership has not done anything to address it
Obama and the Democrats have been trying hard to push for more infrastructure spending, improved childcare, more money to bail out struggling state governments, minimum wage increases, more parental leave, continuing fixes to the healthcare system, reduced prescription drug prices, relief for the heavily indebted, etc., but (a) they’ve faced unprecedented obstructionism and deliberate dysfunction from the GOP (for instance states refusing federal money for medicare expansion and trying to sabotage the ACA), and (b) these are difficult problems which can’t be solved by waving a wand and uttering a magic incantation.
The auto industry bailout and stimulus bill and ACA were what they could get passed through congress, not their preferred policy solutions to these problems.
At the state level a number of GOP-controlled states have cut state spending and employment dramatically, closed schools, slashed income taxes for the wealthy and replaced them with sales taxes, undertaken targeted campaigns to destroy local unions (both public and private sector), etc.
Ex-midwesterner, different coast. I did not enjoy growing up in the midwest.
I had a similar experience growing up: completely white town, minorities counted on one hand, zero african-americans. Not a single gay person to be found. Not until I attended college did I meet an african-american, or any non-native english speaker. Muslim? What's that? I was raised to believe african-americans, gays, and communists are bad, evil, flawed, un-welcome.
In junior high school, a friend invited me to attend a church social event near a river one night. Some of the guys put together a big, makeshift cross out of lumber they brought with them and planted it in the ground. We had a small bonfire going, and then they lit the cross. Several of the guys in the church put their Sunday robes on...then they pulled hoods over their faces. Yeah, KKK.
I knew a policeman who drove drunk all the time. I knew a teacher who bought high school students liquor many times. I knew a peer in high school sleeping with that teacher. I knew girls pregnant by 11th grade. I knew domestic violence that happened in my house, in my friends' homes, and in the homes of people I barely knew. In a small town, most of my friends and I experienced separated families through divorce.
My experience could be unique, or it could be quite common. At any rate, by the time I finished college, I needed to leave.
The midwest isn't all bad, but I saw some of the worst it has to offer.
Some things will, others won't. A policeman driving drunk will probably not happen very often in the city, it would be noticed and would have consequences (probably moving him to a rural area). KKK events are also less common in large cities. Wouldn't be so sure about domestic violence, guess that happens everywhere.
That's a class difference, if it exists at all. I grew up in the rural South, and moved to the East Coast in adulthood. There's no more, and no less, virtue to be found in either.
Honestly, that speaks for the repressive force of the culture more than the lack of other minorities. A lack of ethnicity can be somewhat explained by a lack of historic migration. Homosexuality is everywhere.
What year was this? I grew up in a midwest town and when I was young, and there were no black residents, but by the time I left there was. There certainly were other minority racial groups as well as gays as lesbians.
I am also a former small town Midwesterner. In the 90s, A gay couple moved in a house on the same block where I lived. Even though my parents told me to stay away (like they did with all people we didn't know, even in our "demo"), I don't think it mattered much because we eventually started mowing their lawn. In a mid-size elementary school, I remember a chinese and a black (maybe mixed) family. Another mixed family moved in next door around 2002 (black part was Jamaican). I didn't have a problem with any of them, and neither did anyone else that I knew. By the time I left for college, there were plenty of Mexicans.
My dad worked in a prison, which meant he spent his day around thieves, drug addicts, gangsters, murderers, sexual predators, and the like. He gave fear of those kinds of people to the family, and suspected everyone of being one.
I grew up on a farm in Kansas outside of a town of 650 people. No minorities, 7 different christian churches.
One thing that stuck out, we had a gay tennis coach who everyone loved. Easy to hate the unknown, paint a picture of the other, hard to do when there is a friendly face as a counterpoint.
> More Americans need to see more of the United States. They need to shake hands with a Muslim, or talk soccer with a middle aged lesbian, or attend a lecture by a female business executive.
First off, why is this site screwing with my clipboard. Ugh.
Anyway, that's all fair. The people who are making decent money living in cities should go out to Michigan and spend some time looking for a factory job or talking to the workers who have been dealing with a shitty situation for decades.
> If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent apartments to black people. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called Mexicans rapists, drug dealers and criminals. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called for a complete ban on Muslim immigration.
Yes, people did vote for a man who said/did all those things. We can choose to believe these people are just racists/sexists/too dumb to do anything else, or we can ask them why and see what the response is.
You can also ask why the democratic voters just didn't feel bothered to show up. Was this just arrogance? Was it apathy?
> We will never return to the days where a white man could barely graduate high school and walk onto a factory floor at 18 and get a well-paying job for life. That hasn’t set in for much of the Midwest.
The problem isn't the 18 year old who's upset about a factory job he can't get. It's the 50 year old who's job is gone, or under constant threat. It's about the 35 year old who's life hasn't really gone anywhere, because he got caught in the whole thing falling apart.
You tell someone who is living the good life on the coast that it's time to "make america great again!" and they will wonder what wrong with it. Say it to someone in Michigan and they will remember that Detroit used to have the highest per capita income in the country.
It seems like people are completely ignoring that all age groups are involved. It's very easy to say make America great again and capture: the 80 year old that has had there retirement plan disappear from a company going to rust, to capture the 50 year old that wants to help their children through college (but instead needs help themselves), it's pretty easy to capture the people who watch a plant/factory finally get off shored (after its third try of doing so, this time with the only apparent difference of NAFTA).
It's also pretty easy to see the opposite candidate 'playing dirty' against the person who would have been a great help to their child, having secret meetings with the 'type of people'(financial) that helped create a region called the rust belt (that's bigger than all but a handful of countries), and it's pretty easy to see a candidate so unversed with dealing with people unlike her that she can't even properly shame them (while I imagine most people can't shame Trump, better is expected of a candidate. The last one isn't my words).
Likewise grew up in Wisconsin (now in VA), even voted against the nightmare that is Trump. But a lot of people here are lacking perspectives on other parts of the country. they are a lot more similar to their rainbow workforce (perspective, daily problems, expectations, fortune, humor) than they think they are, even if they do differ culturally.
One technical factor I don't see discussed much is that when someone immigrates, they generally choose a specific location with job opportunities. If you look around you and don't see many immigrants, that should tell you something.
There's some truth to that but immigrants also move to cities where people like them already live. To some degree, they also move to cities they have heard of from American TV and movies.
The real bubble is the press. Their unsustainable model of patting themselves on the back and getting in bed with the politicians they're supposed to be shedding light on has them in a downward spiral. Case in point: the front page of the NY Times the day after the election.
The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The fact is, Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her. Just accept it and move on. Accusing people in the midwest of being racists just makes you look like a fool. Take some constructive action like making sure the Democrat party has a less corrupt nominating process.
> Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her
Which is sad because she really truly is more qualified than he is, I think. But she's just so damn unlikeable.
It's not even about the emails or anything. She literally represents everything everyone (including many liberals[1]) wanted to change about The Man. The only thing she had going for her on an emotional personal level was that she's a woman and that having the first lady president would be cool.
Imho Sanders stood a better chance. At least he was [trying to?] giving hope to the same audience as Trump was.
I guess we'll see what happens next.
[1] Here I consider things like "alt hacker propaganda" a la Mr. Robot and movements like Occupy Wall Street as "liberals". Perhaps they're more libertarians, I don't know. But the zeitgeist amongst many young people has been extremely anti-establishment in recent years.
What you say is exactly what happened. If people wanted so much not to elect Trump, they could vote for Sanders, and I am somehow sure Sanders would won the presidential elections. And in my opinion, he would be best bet for America that is shaken by many things right now. Seeing wealthy, white people, from America (mostly artists and to some extent engineers), crying all over the internet how everything is doomed and unfair is making me nausea. Guess what?
My country was destroyed by provoked civil war and NATO bombing after that. (Bill Clinton played big part in that) After that we have chosen new government, everything was going to be better, new economy, new young smart people, then our prime minister (who was the bastion of those changes and reforms) got assassinated. And after that? After that we got same shitty government that was during the 90s (right/extremists, radical party), and now they "are" pro-EU oriented. So much bullshit, country elected the party that was the worst possible choice, that nobody from circles of my family, friends and people I know didn't even dare to think of as a leading party. And it happened. And guess what, you live with it! How? Well, country is people, not one man. Sure it is bad, it hurts, but you live your life following your own internal compass, not somebody else's.
> My country was destroyed by provoked civil war and NATO bombing after that.
Provoked civil war and NATO bombing? I assume you're talking about the former Yugoslavia. Let's review what exactly happened there leading up to the civil war:
1988:
* Yugoslavia is still in one piece, but economic conditions in Serbia are deteriorating and resentment is high among Serbians against the more Western and economically successful republics of Slovenia and Croatia.
* Serbian emigré leader Momčilo Đujić names Vojislav Šešelj as his deputy. Đujić marching orders him to Šešelj are to "expel all Croats, Albanians and other foreign elements from the holy Serb ground".
* Slobodan Milošević, a smalltime Serbian government functionary, gives a speech to a group of Kosovo Serbs, pledging that "no one will beat them". The speech aired on primetime and Milošević gained instant and massive popularity in Serbia as a strongman protector.
* Milošević then proceeds to make a series of fiery, nationalist speeches to vast crowds of Serbians, heightening fears in Croatia and Slovenia.
1990:
* With the Croatian and Slovenian contigents fearful of the Milošević firebrand, the Yugoslav communist party dissolves.
* Democratic elections are held, with the winning party HDZ (Croatian) offering the vice-presidential slot to a Serbian party, but they refuse.
* Croatia Serbs then begin a rebellion against the new Yugoslav government, with low-level conflicts increasing for the rest of the year.
1991:
* Slovenia holds a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia, and almost 90% of the population votes for independence.
* Seeing the rising ethnic violence between rebelling ethnic Serbs and Croats in neighboring Croatia, Slovenia declares independence. Croatia declares independence soon afterwards.
* The Serb-led Yugoslav National Army (JNA) attempts to take back Slovenia but is defeated in the 10-day war.
* However, the JNA meets with greater "success" in Croatia alongside the local Croatian Serb forces, tipping off a lengthy and deadly civil war in Croatia that eventually consumes neighboring Bosnia, where Serb forces will attempt genocide against the mostly secular Bosnian Muslims.
Years later (and after a "peace" lasting a few years), NATO, having done little in the face of the Bosnian genocide, decides to act when Serbia starts a similar offensive against the Kosovar Albanians.
So tell me, by whom was this civil war provoked? Not a fan of the Clintons, but Bill Clinton wasn't even president when your country blew up.
Sadly, in many ways, the situation in the Rust Belt vis-a-vis the booming West and East coast economies reminds me a little too much of the situation in economically depressed Serbian vis-a-vis Slovenia and Croatia, and the focus on the "other" of Milosevic reminds me a little too much of Trump's focus on the "other". Both are strongman authoritarians, with strong populist followings that are/were comprised in a part by extreme nationalists.
The more I read history the more I am fearful for my country's future. I also would have preferred Sanders to Trump or Clinton, but I'm not kidding myself: Trump and a certain core of his followers pose a threat to the future of this republic.
People who voted for Trump do have to own his clearly racist, xenophobic and misogynist behaviour during the campaign.
But equally Hillary needed to have a answer for the real suffering that is happening amongst people who are being left behind by technological advancement and globalisation. And she didn't. And actually neither do the Democrats. And as we will soon learn neither do the Republicans.
Hillary wasn't a poor candidate by herself, but because of a decades long slander campaign against her. The Democrats clearly underestimated how much people were willing to believe the baseless attacks against her. Nominating her was a display of unjustified trust in the voters' ability and willingness to see through the lies.
That too is part of the bubble. Or the two bubbles, perhaps. Completely different views of what reality is like. In one reality, Hillary is a crook, global warming a hoax, liberals evil, racism not an issue, and Trump a great business man and family man without any scandals. In the other bubble, it's the other way around.
You are oversimplifing this. These people are pissed off at Washington and Wall Street and they believe Hillary would be more of Obamas business as usual. And guess what? The emails proved them right.
The DNC is full of incompetent hacks whom were arrogant enough to have allowed this to happen. She dismissed half the country as deplorable, visited Virginia and told the miners there she's shutting the coal plants down. Wore 15 thousand dollar pantsuits to events on poverty. Its not surprising that she lost its surprising that she got as many votes as she did.
I never said I did. She ran a tone deaf campaign and it was made clear she was in the pocket of wall street. Trump at least tried to look like an outsider. That's why he won, like it or not.
> These people are pissed off at Washington and Wall Street and they believe Hillary would be more of Obamas business as usual.
I really question this. It keeps getting said, but looking at the numbers from Wisconsin/Michigan/PA trump did get mroe votes, but really Hillary had a massive drop. He had 1300 more votes in Wisconsin than Romney, Hillary had 250k less than Obama.
So is it really angry white americans who trump stole in droves from the democrats... or a democratic candidate who couldn't get people to show up.
The rest of those red states are pretty much just the states that always vote red + florida (and florida does what florida does).
Obama campaigned on change, people voted for him because they believed him. Many of them were white. Now, when those same people refuse to vote or vote for Trump. They are nothing but racists. The media and democratic party narrative doesn't hold water.
Hillary was a poor candidate because she was a neo-liberal who had nothing to offer to the midwestern working class, and quite frankly took them for granted (she visited Wisconsin exactly zero times during the election, apparently she was too busy visiting The Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard).
It's funny that people are raging at the midwest because it's been, for the past few decades, quite blue. Hillary just assumed that they were With Her (even though she clearly wasn't With Them) and now they are at fault for not giving her the votes she felt she was owed.
This is true. I live in the Midwest, voted for Obama twice, but saw that for the most part the government just kept on screwing the rest of us. Didn't matter who we elected, we never got "change". I didn't vote for Trump, but the people I know who did, voted for him because he appeared to be a serious wrench that we could throw into the machine.
People are tired of bombing campaigns, corporate welfare, and feeling like they don't have a say or don't have control over their government. These states Hillary lost: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, she lost because they didn't feel like she was going to do anything different than her predecessor. And it's true. She wouldn't have.
Though it begs the question, was there anything Obama/Clinton should have done? Why is the onus on the government to bring change?
All I hear from that side of the debate is that somehow the government should restore prosperity to these regions. Why aren't these people moving to do something for themselves if they want change?
If all you can imagine your state being good for is low-skilled labor there is nothing the government can do long term to protect that. Protectionism might bring some "jobs" back but it will come at a long term cost of reducing the USA's competitiveness in the global market (this is exactly why globalisation is a thing).
Personally I think policy in Middle America needs to embrace the state of the world (putting aside petty coast vs interior bullshit) and think about what they can do to compete on a global scale. Then maybe their lives would be better.
Well, what do you think they should do? I'm not proposing a solution, but I do think what I said is true. Even if we equal out everything else, and assume that the government is woefully unable to help poor people or those who have lost jobs, at least one of the candidates is giving those people the illusion of change or hope that things can change. Is that not true?
In regard to the competitiveness of the USA. I'm not schooled well enough in economics to completely understand everything that is going on, or without speaking about specifics argue for or against your point, but if we need to maintain "competitiveness", and the resulting insanely high profits and income inequality across the board, how are we going to ensure that this fortune is spread throughout the country and not concentrated in the hands of the few? If we can't do that, then we also can't begrudge the poor and those left behind by globalization the change to elect people that will enact policies that will benefit them, even if it's to the detriment of people who, quite frankly, don't care about them because they're just a bunch of poor dumb hicks, or poor black people in the ghetto.
Please keep in mind I'm just open for discussion and expressing a view. I respect what you have to say here, and my goal isn't to cause an argument but to listen to what you have to say, ask questions, and state my opinion as well. :)
they're not asking for the gov't to provide answers - they're asking for reduced taxes, reduced red tape, something about breaking up banks that i don't totally understand, and assurance that their guns are safe (i'm sure i'm missing a lot, but it's that sort of stuff). of my perhaps 12 non-liberal friends here, 4 have started businesses (including one that is pretty innovative). none of them went to more than a year of college, none started with well to do parents, they're making solid money by ohio standards, and employing 15 people in total. not sure if they're an anomaly, but the belief is widespread that if the govt loosens the shackles, new small businesses will blossom
i'm not interested in arguing about whether that belief is well founded or self-consistent, or whether their vision of a hands-off gov't is sustainable (i'd argue that neither is sound, but they're not so obviously wrong as to be equivalent to asking for a handout)
Trump understands their fears. He told the Detroit Auto Club that he was going to put a 35% tax on cars from Mexico if Ford moved its plant there. He talked about other manufacturing jobs being outsourced. Doesn't even matter if he can do anything about it but the fact he said it--while Hillary didn't--meant all the difference in the world.
In one case we got audio tapes, the other transcripts from wall street meetings. testimonies in media vs emails. Statement on rallies vs arms deals and handshakes.
What we got is mathematically 4 realities. Both slander campaigns could be more or less true, in which the two most hated candidates in the world was really poor candidates for the two biggest parties in the united states. Both slander campaigns could be wrong, in which the voters where tricked by two political parties which should have known better to not bet a political election on slander. The two remaining options that only one slander campaign is wrong, is really only believed within the bubbles. It is very unlikely that anyone will be converted who already aren't.
>people were willing to believe the baseless attacks against her
Some people read the damaging emails. Other people only read the emails about Hillary getting a creme brulee because that's what her talking points focused on.
There was a lot in there that was very damaging and she refused to address pretty much all of it.
You should click through to the actual emails, I read the emails/links behind the "top 10" and was bitterly disappointed to find nothing juicy at all.
The quotes are out of context, making them seem much worse than when you actually read the surrounding paragraphs.
Good try by author of the site to make these seem interesting but to be honest her emails seem entirely pedestrian and boring.
The open borders thing is pretty much slam dunk evidence that she wanted the TPP.
Trump alluded to this in his last advert about "elites".
Did she try to deny this? No, not really. She only came out against the TPP (weakly) after Sanders campaign hammered her on it and once the email was out in the open she lost all credibility on that.
This was a particularly important issue to the rust belt, where she lost heavily.
Even if you aren't, she was likely aware of all of this which is why she tried to conceal the paid speech where she said it.
I don't see why this is interesting/damaging though.
Sure TPP is bad news but I really don't see why her being weakly in support of it followed by weakly against it is really that damaging/interesting.
Same goes with a bunch of the others.
The one on her "paying" people to disrupt rallies is a bunch of garbage. She received what looks like a newsletter from something called MoveOn, perhaps she even donated money to it. This thing seems to organise people to to protest against things they find reprehensible (which is apparently Trump to these people).
The site tries to make it out that she directly paid people to go and start a riot. In reality it looks like she may have donated money to this thing.
Either way it's still entirely uninteresting, boring, run of the mill stuff.
If there was really damaging emails I am sure they would be at #1.
Hillary was a poor candidate. She lost Michigan by 14,000 votes and she never even brought up that Obama and the democrats bailed out GM and Chrysler thereby saving many of their jobs and livelihoods. She was campaigning with lines like "when they say I'm playing the women card--I say deal me in!"
Meanwhile, Trump was saying things like "remember when the cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico? Now they make the cars in Mexico and you can't drink the water in flint."
Hillary failed to relate to voters. She lost the majority of women and working class, who should be the reliable democratic base. She was the image of robotic boredom and I voted for her. Tim Kaine was a waste of a VP spot and a snub to Bernie. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile made Hillary look completely untrustworthy. Hillary arrogantly expected Obama's coalition to fall in line behind her without offering them anything to rally behind other than again Trump, which clearly wasn't enough.
Democrats have to own this failure and ask themselves what they could have done better.
I certainly agree with you, and thanks for putting to words many of my thoughts.
However I also believe that there is some truth to most explanations for this election in the HN threads and various op-eds. There's too many factors to reduce it to just one party/group to blame.
You nailed it with the VP comment. What the fuck did Timmeh bring to the ticket? VA? Arguably, but that's a low bar to hurdle.
If Hillary was playing to win she should have nominated a true-blue progressive and especially one that could have harness some of the OWS/99% energy (without actually formally supporting either).
Her campaign was about Her. Problem is, many many folks are just busy surviving and didn't see themselves with "Her".
> The fact is, Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her. Just accept it and move on.
This is false. It has nothing to do with Hillary.
> The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The false narrative is that Trump was a strong candidate. On the contrary, I'm betting he knew exactly how to play the game. Democrats have always had a hard time getting a 3rd term. They've only done it twice since 1836. The so-called keys to the White House pointed to a Republican victory. Trump is a sales man, he knew that the average American voter doesn't want to listen to policy, but rather catchy phrases that are vague patriotic ("I like Ike"). He is a weak candidate who knew how to work the system for a win. He's now filling his cabinet with people who shouldn't be there (Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, Rudy Guiliani), because the reality is he doesn't care one bit about policy or being the president. In their desire for "change" voters have managed to elect a person who doesn't care about them and whose apathy is going to do a lot of harm.
It has everything to do with Hillary. Heck, I've listened 2 and half hours of podcast between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan explaining why people should vote for her despite all the horrors they told about her, how ambitious, self-centered, egomaniac, greedy, dishonest, demagogue she is. I'm not american, but they successfully convinced me that in any case, she wasn't any better.
The author may be right about the cultural factors he talks about, but the economic issues, which I suspect are much more significant in the midwest's decision on Tuesday, are being seriously understated.
One sentence only, and a major understatement at that: "Change has not been kind to the Midwest and rural America."
"If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent apartments to black people."
This sentence alone illustrates the very membrane at work that holds together the "intelligentia" bubble. Accusing the dummies of immorality while just employing more advanced tools for your deviseveness does make you the bigger bigot.
When your mind starts copy pasting headlines from the "accusational BS by trolls" folder to your personal "trusted facts" folder thats stupidity at work. But if the passing BS is just allowed if its coming from inside your echo chamber that doesn't make you more elevated. It just elevates your ignorance.
to the degree that you haven't convinced these backwards types of their backwardness, then yes, you have failed to communicate the clearer view you have of the world from your mountaintop. studies of over-intelligent people repeatedly confirm how lonely they can feel in a world where stupid is normal. so what.
you had one job to do (I'm running away with the idea that this is a giant missive about the election results)
and you screwed it up.
you screwed it up by putting on an elitist face that says "we know whats best for you" when the voice speaking it was not a trusted voice nor a voice that actually DID have the concerns of those being spoken to at heart.
The premise of calling the electorate ignorant racist etc is belied by the 2 terms of Obama.
silly presumption. I contend that it was a referendum on elitist pols represented by one of the most unpopular faces in insider quid-pro-quo politics of the last 30 years.
Should have run Sanders, you rich privileged outta-touch bi-coastal self-hating Americans :D
see, you think you have rid yourself of the stench of redneck but your snarky gabby talkshow hosts, your fancy globetrotting cuisine, and your view of the world all belie this by reasserting what really stinks about us Americans:
know-it all, we do it better than anyone else, we have a solution for your backwards ass, heavy-handed, unilateralist, non-listeners who just want to tell people how to live or ideally force them into an uneasy compliance and dependency upon our cultural products.
Hollywood makes lame 1 dimensional propaganda films with the same basic plotline ad nauseam, our dot-com industry makes more mobile phone apps to keep people staring at their choice of hand-held status symbol, and we try to shove GMOs and overpriced pharmaceuticals in everyones face via one-sided trade agreements like TPP. We already are Donald Trump, collectively speaking. We ARE the ugly American so stop pretending that our embarrassment begins with G.W. Bush and ends with Trump. The world has been both in fear of our nuclear arsenal, and laughing at our foibles for decades now. Our polite presidents engender as much amusement as our cowboys, because behind the scenes its the same shitball of unilateralist global empire that should benefit our fat-sofa-asses back at home.
If you unplug the bubble it's this reality that should sink in to both the coasts AND the midwest.
Only then can we confront and tame our inner monster,
as so long as we pretend that our coasts and interior have nothing to do with one another, or that our "liberal" coasts are not also involved in the same "team america, world police" activities, that is basically a lie in service to no one.
We need to own our ugly rump side.
Pretending that our cousins are stupid and backwards while not seeing the oppression we are also part of creating (for example the PC culture of no-platforming, etc. completely goes against the actual principles of the left, of a fair and just society. we have allowed PC culture to hijack the stillborn tiny baby of our nearly non-existent left wing. any leftist movement that forgets labor is elitist and will die or be absorbed as another mask for fascism, which is what our PC culture has become- observe the Hill-bots treatment of Sanders and the creation of "Bernie Bros" as part of their strategy to kill any leftist movement within the DNC, thus handing the victory to Trump as the only populist on the list...)
yeah, if you guys would turn your lens inward that would be great. take a frikkin look in the mirror and then think about how you failed as a communicator.
I am an ugly american. I've started to become ok with it, as the village locals refer to me as "the American" I can joke about it with them in Portuguese...I grew up in the midwest, did 20 years in California and after over a decade of global travel for an odd line of work, find myself on a mountainside in rural Portugal where I realized that the local country folk have more sensible knowledge...
The mental copy pasting that you've done is: Saying Donald Trump is a straight up racist, while your "facts" are headlines, whose actual article's details like
"While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties..."
I suppose linking articles about Judge Curiel, retweeting white supremacists, the Central Park Five, etc. can be explained away as what? "Cherry picking"?
"Despite citing the judge’s heritage as a source of the conflict, Mr. Trump said that as president he would have no problem appointing Mexican-American judges.
“I would love to,” he said. “I would do it in an instant.”"
Doesn't sound racist to me. Also digging this stuff up in the midst of an election is of course a reason for hyperbole. So did the Clintons with the leaked emails about Wikileaks, Russia or the sitting FBI-director.
And for the 1000th time, it is necessary to say, "rural America understands that they are not your priority".
The modern left finds it more virtuous to hire a wealthy black man or a wealthy white woman than to hire a poor white man. Rural America knows.
In fact, and more people are coming to terms with the modern left's perverse priorities. Indian people? Indian people don't even exist to these costal elites. Indians are dramatically underrepresented in popular culture, but the left only cares about replacing white people in popular culture with black people.
People like Mr. Thornton would never dare demand that we replace black people with Indian people where black people are overrepresented.
You can keep lecturing poor white people about how backward and toothless and spoiled they are, while never daring to say a negative word about black people. You can keep telling poor white people to stop being tribal, while fomenting tribalism in every other group (except Indians). You can keep claiming to care about representation, while ignoring everyone but the groups that earn them the most virtue points.
My Thornton, everyone is wising up to your priorities and the priorities of those in your wealthy costal social circles.
It seems both parties are against social support, encouraging smaller, local companies or regulating corporate behemoths to protect citizens.
USA is remarkably weak in supporting its less fortunate citizens.
And just because someone is ignored, called racist and dumb it doesn't mean they aren't. From what I read as an outsider, many US citizens are in fact both. Any country has its share of such people and the US is huge, so of course there will be more.
But now everyone should listen to them and stop calling them names and it's all gonna be alright somehow. The problem is education, and it will take decades to fix, if it can be fixed.
> And just because someone is ignored, called racist and dumb it doesn't mean they aren't. From what I read as an outsider, many US citizens are in fact both. Any country has its share of such people and the US is huge, so of course there will be more.
There are numerous racists on both sides. Among them, those on the left who believe social justice means hiring a rich black person before a poor white person.
There are numerous dumb people on both sides. Among them, those on the left whose arrogance led to being utterly, devastatingly wrong about the election.
We can only wait and see whether Trump was serious about helping middle America. He wouldn't be the first politician who failed to keep campaign promises, nor would his supporters be the first group to be disappointed by their candidate. But to dismiss him before he's even taken office is pure ignorance.
Trump squeaked a win after some very bad PR for Clinton. Clinton was hardly a great choice by the DNC, and it's quite likely the choice wasn't even made fairly.
The best pollsters were very hesitant about Clinton's lead.
There is no arrogance on the left, because the real left were out of the election as soon as Clinton was nominated.
Clinton was a centre-right corporate insider candidate. Trump was a far-right corporate outsider candidate. Neither has any genuine interest in working Americans.
The election was a farce because the only two candidates were crooks - Trump certainly, with his appalling record of failing to pay contractors and his likely mafia ties, and Clinton because of all the emails in WikiLeaks, at least some of which may be genuine.
The only people who will benefit from Trump in the short term are the 1% who will receive some generous tax cuts. In the long term, it's quite likely - or at least a serious possibility - that no one at all will benefit.
So - stop the crowing please. This isn't a sports game, and Trump's election isn't a touch down. The reality is the stadium is on fire, the crowd are about to start panicking, and there's an earthquake and a hurricane on the way.
That kind of hubris was widespread. Numerous unrepresentative polls were published, the media promoted the message they wanted to be true, not the message that was true, and the DNC thought they could push a terrible candidate like Clinton on to the nation.
> Clinton was a centre-right corporate insider candidate. Trump was a far-right corporate outsider candidate.
I'll posit that Mrs. Clinton is centre-left, not centre-right, more authoritarian/right on economics and more authoritarian/left on social issues. But I really don't consider Mr. Trump to be far-right: he was a liberal Democrat for much of his adult life, more authoritarian/left on economics (opposing free trade), and more libertarian/left on social issues.
I really wish that there had been a good libertarian/right Republican this national election, but there wasn't.
Oh i wasnt sure if it was something from somewhere else.
Are you and the top level comment saying that rural/midwestern poor white americans are competing for jobs against wealthy black americans? I'm just trying to understand what this sentiment means, not trying to be combative or anything
I was just repeating the comment, you'd have to ask the author.
Speaking for myself, I'd discuss things like affirmative action in college admissions, whose advocates would admit a wealthy black person from a prep school before a poor white person from a failing rural school who has better test scores, and call that "social justice".
>The modern left finds it more virtuous to hire a wealthy black man or a wealthy white woman than to hire a poor white man. Rural America knows.
Your comment is just as vitriolic and uninformed as the article's author. You complain, rightly so, about Trump supporters being unfairly characterized as uneducated, toothless, incestuous rubes while also generalizing the the modern left.
Criticize the author instead if assuming that he speaks for the entirety of people who didnt vote for Trump.
That comment described an attitude that reaches the very top of the modern left, as the many accusations of sexism against anyone who didn't vote for Clinton show.
Identity politics means judging someone first and foremost by their race, gender, and sexuality. That's the attitude that leads many to "find it more virtuous to hire a wealthy black man or a wealthy white woman than to hire a poor white man".
You'd be correct if identity politics was what it was.
Instead, most threads discussing the Clinton loss describe a class of people who are relegated to corners of the country with inadequate education and dying industries. It's that combination which leads voters in states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to ignore the hatred, the vitriol, the proven lack of business success, and the lack of government leadership in hopes of changing the status quo as it relates to them.
In summary: nearly 50% of voters chose to prioritize personal gain over human dignity.
(I voted for Clinton, but I consider myself solidly independent of any particular party.)
•••
I have no interest in continuing the thread, though, so feel free to get in the last word.
It unfortunately goes both ways, which is why Donald's talk about walls and banning Muslims worked. (And I'm not disagreeing with you here, you are right that the left has plenty of tribal politics, but it's an issue on the right as well.) People react more vigorously to tribalism than to so-called boring topics like, say, investing in infrastructure or increasing R&D.
>That comment described an attitude that reaches the very top of the modern left, as the many accusations of sexism against anyone who didn't vote for Clinton show.
The modern left voted for, donated to and campaigned for Bernie, who also had the accusations of sexism slung at him. That was the establishment lashing out.
They also tested the anti-semitic accusations, though no doubt they fell flat because he was Jewish:
With Corbyn, I don't think anyone needs a "playbook" to be worried about him siding with anti-Semitic and terrorist-supporting figures, and for things like working for Press TV (Iranian government).
That's not anti-establishment, it's just aligning with a different kind of establishment (the ayatollas).
"Not voting for Clinton" is not what is leading to accusations of sexism. It's the voting for two old guys with documented - and often blatantly related - sexist attitudes as well as policy goals.
I assume you mean abortion in particular, but many women do want to protect the lives of the unborn. On that issue, both genders are split.
And...
> 538: Clinton Couldn’t Win Over White Women
> Preliminary exit poll results show that ... Clinton lost the votes of white women overall and struggled to win women voters without a college education in states that could have propelled her to victory.
Why on earth do you think voting for Trump is not voting for identity politics? It is just the identity of a different (whiter) set of people. That is a big reason Trump didn't win among colored people in any state.
You can find his own words but he has said immigrants from mexico were rapist and murderers but some are good and repeated some. Talk about black voters as if they all live in inner city ghettos were walking in the wrong part of town will get you shot. Lauded stop and frisk a measure that was show to lead to racial profiling of African Americans. Selected a VP that believe conversion therapy (or some form of it) is a good way to cure homosexuality. This is a sample.
His exact words are important, to prevent misinterpreting him or taking his statements out of context. Do you think you could find the words you mean? (I could only guess at what you mean.)
> You can find his own words but he has said immigrants from mexico were rapist and murderers but some are good and repeated some.
That was a comment about illegal immigrants, many of whom are rapists, both immigrants themselves and the people who bring immigrants to America.
80% Of Central American Women, Girls Are Raped Crossing Into The U.S. ... Rape can be perpetrated by anyone along the way, including guides, fellow migrants, bandits or government officials [0]
Regarding vice presidency: there was the occasion when VP Spiro Agnew resigned, and Gerald Ford was appointed under the terms of 25th Amendment, and then Richard Nixon resigned, and Ford became the President. So it's not always a dead end.
And considering that Trump is a) hated by quite many and therefore a possible assassination target, and b) oldest president-elect so far, it's distinctly possible that Trump wouldn't serve whole term.
On the other hand, Pence should act as an insurance for Trump against the more militant left: should they assassinate Trump, they'll get Pence as president...
Well, the assassination doesn't sound that likely. Many speculated that Obama would be a target for the white supremacists and extreme right. We haven't seen any openly reported attempts.
Trump wasn't talking about Mexico in general when he made that comment, but Amnesty International was when they wrote:
> Mexico: Sexual violence routinely used as torture to secure “confessions” from women
> Sixty-six of the [100] women said they had reported the abuse to a judge or other authorities but investigations were opened in only 22 cases. Amnesty International is not aware of any criminal charges arising from these investigations.
Trump spoke about an uncomfortable subject in an offensive way, as he often does, but if it opens the door to an honest discussion his un-PC remarks may have some value.
> That's the attitude that leads many to "find it more virtuous to hire a wealthy black man or a wealthy white woman than to hire a poor white man
This is ridiculous on its face. The comparison is nonsensical. If I'm hiring someone for a job, I'm going to pay them the same wage so they're going to be roughly at the same income level.
Also, that's not true. For example, I'm a black man with a white barber. Why? Because he cuts my hair better than anyone else.
> Identity politics means judging someone first and foremost by their race, gender, and sexuality.
Funny. When I was taking part in various equality movements, the whole point was to NOT judge someone based on their race, gender, or sexuality. Looking past the exterior husk and judging someone on the content of their character was the point. I still don't like most people. However, it's not because they are part of some particular group, but because I just find something off-putting towards that particular person and I won't generalize my distaste to a whole group of individuals.
Amongst friends, I make fun of every group under the sun. Racial jokes, female jokes, I throw around racial slurs amongst friends as well. Some of my white friends greet me by saying 'What's up nigga." I'm pretty colorful with my language as well. It may surprise you, but a lot of us grew up with the sticks and stones may break bones, but words never hurt mentality. For me, words only have the power that you give them.
We're not all stereotypical white knight, social justice warriors seeking safe spaces and stifling dissent on college campuses. I'm not going to twitter shame you for making a blonde joke. If you can't look past your own biases and judge people on their own merits rather than taking lazy mental shortcuts, what hope is there?
I never called Trump supporters sexist. I called Trump sexist.
Then I'm with you. That's the attitude I'd like to see from the left.
But it's not the attitude of so many who did call people sexist for voting for Trump, and of Clinton herself who said half of Trump's supporters were "deplorable".
I hope people like you and me can take back the left from "stereotypical white knight, social justice warriors seeking safe spaces and stifling dissent on college campuses".
(And the quote you found ridiculous wasn't from me, but I thought the author meant from a wealthy background vs a poor background.)
Have these unfortunate souls considered moving to closer to where productive economic activity is happening, and performing labor in exchange for money, which may be exchanged for goods and services?
Agriculture jobs aren't coming back, and they weren't sent to China. Automation and productivity gains in agriculture have exploded, and as a result there isn't a lot of call for farmhands these days. Unless we move back to an agrarian existence, the rural poor are going to have to figure out something that doesn't involve a shovel.
There are still millions of jobs in agriculture and construction, but they are now poorly paid because they are performed by people who aren't protected by employment laws and have no negotiating power.
The only change that needs to be made is forcing agriculture and construction companies to obey the law.
Perhaps the removal of an undocumented workforce that requires being paid under the table will force agricultural and construction companies to obey the laws.
I could imagine that illegal immigrants are also a much easier workforce to manage. They won't be forming unions and going to strikes; if you want to terminate the employment, they won't go to a lawyer and sue you. They're humble, they're flexible.
(I don't know that job market so well and I don't even live in the US, but this is the perception I get from the system.)
Oh, well, if you're talking about the jobs lost in the 1800's, I agree, those jobs aren't coming back.
But that graph is relatively flat since 1970, and I seriously doubt they were able to count all the jobs now being performed without documentation and not reported to the government.
Perhaps there is a middle ground? People need food, and being able to grow your own saves money. Small scale production builds community and resilience. Perhaps people need to feel a connection to the land in rural areas. It is not just about food.
Our family owns a farm in Indiana (principle crop is corn) that is small by modern family farm standards (200 acres). We only need one person to manage the entire farm. I imagine only one person would be needed even if the acreage was much, much bigger. There is tremendous amounts of automation in planting and picking corn.
Small scale production might be better for connecting and jobs and whatnot, but that can't compete price wise. Our small farm isn't exactly a huge money maker as it is.
Modern farming is hardly just grunt work, a farmer has to be familiar with the land and the processes involved. It's actually a bit more technical than many may realize. And the salaries for farming reflect that; it is a pretty decently paid profession. People with this skillset won't go away. You just don't need many of these people per acre.
There is such a thing as labor-intensive crops, of course. But I speculate that any replacement for low-paid "illegal immigrant" grunt work would end up being automation in the end.
The farmers I know are doing well for themselves. My sample may be biased because I only encounter ones with an interest in technology, but to a one they don't seem to be hurting objectively (feel like they are hurting? Probably a few).
But these are people making something people want, in an efficient way, and capturing a perfectly-reasonable proportion of the value they create.
That's farmers though.
Rural "workers" I feel sorry for but only so much. I don't know these people like I know the farmers I know--farmers I meet through work, these I know only as extended family, friends thereof, and people I meet in passing while traveling for work--but I have met enough and known enough to know what the deal often is.
The standard story for these dudes tends to be they grew up in town, didn't do that well in high school--and these guys are usually older so they missed the big student loan expansions that changed college from rich kids and smart kids only to something most people had a crack at--but at least back then you really could walk onto the proverbial factory floor (or learn a skilled trade, but those guys' lives have tended to follow a different arc and I skip them here) and wind up with a stable, good paying job.
So the standard story continues with them doing hard honest work and being paid well for awhile--long enough to have settled down and started a family--but of course we all know the story ends once the factory shut down fifteen or twenty years ago.
Since then it has been a long, punishing grind, the city they live in has started falling apart, the good kids leave the area and try to make it elsewhere, the young people who are left are a mix of bad kids (drugs, petty crime), the unambitious, and a handful of saints i both admire and pity (hanging around out of a sense of obligation for a sick relative or similar).
It's a sad story, but to treat them as having had no agency in all this time is profoundly insulting--insulting in a way far graver than any any snark I can make in passing--and I refuse to do so.
The local factory closing and thus derailing your world and the life plans you made in it: that's a tragedy for you and yours, and I am truly sympathetic for the difficulties so imposed.
Failing to better yourself beyond "some high school, worked hard and honest for awhile"? That's on you. Spending multiple decades in the same place, waiting for outside forces to benevolently restore the favorable circumstances of yesteryear? That's on you. Failing to go to where there are actual jobs suitable for the skills they have (often, again being honest, out of a fear of urban life that would be comical if the consequences weren't so unfortunate)? That's on you.
We aren't taking about children here; these are grown men, possessed of automobiles, clean criminal records, and an admirable willingness to do hard, unrewarding work...but they are often also grown men feeling entitled to have that work offered to them in the place and manner of their own choosing, on terms of their own choosing, in accordance with the world they grew up in...and affording them a social stature and respect concordant with their own pride and self image.
With deep sympathy: the ask is too high, the world has been telling them that for decades, and after awhile any sympathy I have for their plight becomes entangled with scorn for failing to take real responsibility for their own lives.
It's hard for me, personally: as a rather more devout person than many on this site I really and sincerely believe that every human being possesses an intrinsic dignity and that we are all truly and equally alike in god's eyes and to love everyone as my neighbor...but it's hard not to slip into scorn and derision for people whose pride had lead them to fail to act like responsible adults and transformed what should have been a mere difficult period int...
I was under the impression they were stuck there due to kids and the fact that moving to the city with minimal education =/= does not lead to much more positive career tracks. A dead end job in the city is a dead end job with highEr in rent, color, taxes, etc.
Fine for the single person who is young but not the older guy with kids. Same with college....hence the rise in online schools or scummy for profits.
Speaking from my own experiences, it can be very difficult to move from a rural area to an urban job center if you are poor. For one, everything tends to be much more expensive. If you aren't particularly educated and don't really have any valuable skills, it's made even more difficult. If you add a substance abuse problem into the mix it becomes almost impossible.
Something that's even harder is moving from a rural area in Mexico when "no tiene permitido para trabajo" and "no hablo Ingles". Yet somehow Mexicans do just fine.
(The same critique applies to "poor" urban Americans who have liberals making similar excuses for them.)
You are right that people who choose to develop a substance abuse problem may have a harder time. So what?
My parents came to this country without speaking any English, my mother and I learned English together watching Mr. Rodgers, so I'm fully aware of the difficulties such circumstances present. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mexican American immigrants and the amount of hardship they go through. I live in an area of LA county that's around 92% Hispanic, speaking from my experience here, I would argue that they aren't doing "just fine". The community in which I now live suffers from many of the same problems I witnessed among poor rural whites, namely domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, crime and gang violence, and a lack of educational achievement.
Your last comment seems needlessly cruel to me. I had a friend in Texas who's parents were drug addicts. His dad was killed in a car accident and sometime later his mom got a boyfriend who proceeded to rape him on a weekly basis from the time he was seven to around the time he was twelve and put into foster care. He ended up bouncing around foster homes, getting deeply involved in drugs until he finally enlisted in the Army, and after a few deployments and a stint at community college he eventually graduated college and is now a geologist.
I'm extremely proud and humbled by his accomplishments, but to be honest, if he had simply turned into a meth head and died under an overpass, I can't say I would be begrudge him considering the circumstances of his youth.
This is true, but being honest if not polite: in many ways, considering poor rural whites stupid is an act of charitable kindness, even if it doesn't seem as such (the connection to your point will become apparent by the end).
To a complete outsider, the situation of poor rural whites summarizes as "sucks, and has sucked for 20-30 years".
One interpretation is that (on average) things are as they are due to lack of capability: in short, "those people" are sufficiently stupid--and consequently also ignorant--that it would be inappropriate to hold them fully-responsible for their decisions and circumstances (in the same way we don't for children or the mentally-handicapped).
An alternative interpretation is that (on average) things are as they are due to lack of character: in short, "those people" are sufficiently sound of mind and body that it would be inappropriate not to hold them fully-responsible for their decisions and circumstances (just as we do for everyone else).
As insulting and demeaning as it is to be thought stupid and ignorant, in this specific case being considered stupid and ignorant is, in fact, coming from a place of (unconscious) charity.
I'm deadly serious here.
Someone cruel and nasty will default to the second interpretation--your life sucks because you suck at life, and moreover it's your own fault for choosing to suck at life, despite having been perfectly capable of not sucking at it.
Someone kind-hearted and generous will default to looking for some other--any other--interpretation (many would say: "excuse"): perhaps your life sucks because of systemic discrimination and structural racism? perhaps your life sucks because of structural economic changes brought about due to unfair trade policies? perhaps your life sucks because your formative years were in a difficult and unstable environment, given inadequate education and surrounded by crumbling infrastructure? or, perhaps, your life sucks because you are simply stupid--and therefore also ignorant--and you thus are simply incapable of effectively navigating the modern world?...
So as patronizing and demeaning as it was to be thought of as stupid and backwards--and to know that's what you were seen as--at least it came from a place of kindness (if you had the eyes to see).
With love and sadness, I don't see that unconscious kindness surviving for much longer: rural america has now commanded the nation's attention and asked to be treated seriously, but will likely find that the consequence of asking the rest of the nation to treat rural america seriously will, eventually, shift the default coastal outlook away from the insulting "those poor morons, too stupid and ignorant to know how to help themselves" and towards "those useless trash, too lazy and prideful to help themselves"...and that this shift will be irreversible once it does get underway.
After all of which, it's time to return to your point: the challenges and difficulties you point out are real...and on top of that, success is not guaranteed, you can move to a larger city, wind up failing, and return home worse off for having even bothered to try.
But, to raise those challenges as anything other than common and mundane--difficult, yes, but similar in nature and magnitude to the problems we all face and deal with, in our own ways, such as our abilities are--is at once to illustrate "I am still living in a bubble" and to engage in what, outside that bubble, will likely come across as "special pleading": it's too hard, my circumstances are special...which I both understand and empathize with, but also makes it that much harder to grant as much respect as one might hope for from within said bubble.
Which is why I am pessimistic: asking for respect and to be taken seriously means people who used to look down upon rural people from a position of ignorance, but also (unconscious) charity and good w...
It's not a "wealthy black man" they hired. It's a qualified black man, or woman, or anyone. Why is it that everyone is totally for the free market until it turns against them?
How about we let the government pay to upgrade your education so you can get qualified like the others? (literally two of the major candidates' platforms)
"NO! that's socialism"
Maybe the government could hire them to build hills and demo hills? Just designate two hill sites per township and have people alternate between goals. It'd create jobs that require no higher education /s
Reading this comment is a perfect synopsis for this election. The article is about rural america and a bubble and lack of understanding between the 2 circles. Your comment focuses on the virtues of hiring someone black or a white women versus a poor white man. It's an axe to grind about the left rather than anything related to the article. Why is this guy hiring anyone? What does that have to do with anything? When is a wealthy black man or white woman up for the same job as poor white male? What does that comment have to do with anything? Give me one tangible example how your setup happens in the real world.
It's all imagined and fantasy, like somehow liberals have set the world up that this poor white guy from rural America is getting screwed to hire a wealthy black guy or wealthy white woman. Let me guess, Obama is the wealthy black man, Hillary is the wealthy white woman, and Donald Trump is somehow the standin for rural poor white guys everywhere.
And what is with the comments about Indians? Are we talking Indians from India or Native Americans. Who is demanding we replace black people with indian people. Where are they over represented? What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't make any sense, the same way Trump made no sense during the debates.
You really read 1000 articles? Post them 5 of them, let's see them.
You could have spent some time talking about Nafta or free trade or automation or god knows what and made some sense of this election. Michael Moore had a clip about how the free trade and nafta and rural america is hurting and predicted that Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania would go for Trump. It's incredible and relevant.
But you didn't. You spent all your time railing against race issues and coastal social elites. And in your effort to rail against those wealthy coastal social elites you elected someone who was wealthy and lived in coastal city.
I'm getting tired of the navel gazing over the post election analysis. I have a family member who voted for Trump because they can't wait till he sends Muslim out of the country and sends Mexicans back to Mexico and builds a wall. Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things. In all the analysis I've read, not one person has said that.
Can we just also add to what you said that...you know, Hilary Clinton actually won the most votes? She just didn't win them in the right areas that send the critical number of representatives to the electoral college to (not) debate and vote on who should be president.
it's been getting larger, most of the votes coming in are from larger areas that on average in this election voted for Hillary and 99% of the vote is in (some ballots in some states like California could be counted up to 3 days after end of election if they were postmarked on the day of the election). It's highly unlikely that large pockets of Trump votes would be found to make up 300K+ gap now.
What's even crazier to me is trump has yet to pass Mitt Romney vote total. He didn't even beat the last republican candidate but won the election.
But the campaigns were run to win electoral votes. If the rule for winning was popular votes, the campaigns would have been run entirely differently and the results would have been entirely different.
What I do think the results indicate is that neither party is effectively capturing the support of a large majority of Americans. The typical observation is that we are a country divided, but I rather think that there are a large number of Americans who would prefer voting for a synthesis of typical Democratic and Republican policies, but that isn't possible. Some of those people fall on the Democratic side and some fall on the Republic side during an election and that changes depending on the candidates.
This is an important point people dismiss too easily. If the campaigns would have had to focus on popular votes, they would have been run differently. Trump would have given more time to California and Hillary would have campaigned more in Texas, for example.
It's obviously impossible to say what the outcome would have been, but the campaigns definitely would have optimized differently.
In a different universe things would be different. This is always true and I agree with you what you mean in pointing it out. From a human level though he still didn't cross the popular threshold. Regardless of constitutionality that leaves a lot to be desired.
Direct voting was intentionally discouraged by some of the founders, to prevent the "tyranny of the majority". The goal was to force a candidate to appeal to as many types of people as possible, and not allow someone to just focus on what the simple majority of people want.
It could be argued that in this election the electoral college technically performed the function it was originally designed to do -- that is, give rural areas a small but possible opportunity to out-compete urban ones in an election despite having less total citizens.
In one sense the electoral college worked as intended. Except that it does not function as intended. As intended it was to be a deliberate body that would debate the candidates and decide the next, best president from all options given. It was meant to be a final review process to make sure a tyrant or despot didn't get through, for instance.
The only thing I have to add is that the tangential way they go off on Indians and hypothetical scenarios seems random, but is probably part of one of the misinformation campaigns.
Not some evil-motivated, conspiracy laden plot to lie to the public, but stories created by attention-hungry publishers, who are so desperate to trigger outrage for just a moment to get some eyeballs, that they stretch and manipulate information to seem threatening.
This is what I think the election has shown: that if you make a person perceive they are threatened, isolate them by telling them other sources of information (other than your own) are biased against them, that you can get them to act in the most irrational ways.
> Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things.
I understand your frustration (I'm right there with you. I felt like a family member died after the election), but I think the statement I quoted is an exaggeration.
Trump had a few groups of people that helped him win the election. I'd break them into these groups:
* Traditional republican voters who didn't like much of what Trump said, but worried about liberal Supreme Court justices.
* White supremacists. Most Trump supporters weren't white supremacists, but most white supremacists were Trump supporters.
* People who feel that Washington is deeply corrupt and want to see the existing system torn down. Trump has pledged to introduce term limits for congress people, along with banning certain government employees from becoming lobbyists for a period of time.
* Working class people who liked Trump's trade policies. He's pledged to renegotiate certain trade deals in an attempt to lessen our trade deficit. That would make it less appealing to outsource jobs, which union workers found appealing.
I voted for Hillary, but I admit that I like his anti-corruption and trade deficit policies. Unfortunately I'm horrified by his policies on muslims, undocumented immigrants, etc.
Quite simply, people who think like you and me lost on Tuesday. We lost badly. We need to take some time to figure out where to go from here, because if we run the next election like this one, we will probably lose again.
We spent a lot of time being upset about the white supremacists who backed Trump. We didn't spend enough time addressing the concerns of union workers, anti-corruption advocates, and republicans who didn't like Trump. It probably cost us the election.
> I think the statement I quoted is an exaggeration.
But none of your points explain why. Trump said terrible things, that he would commit war crimes, restrict the first amendment, he won't respect the election if he loses. He's praised dictators, denied climate change, committed charity fraud, stiffed 800+ small businesses, walks in on underage girls changing and brags about it. He lies about something one day and deflects attention away to blame someone else when called out on it.
It's fascinating that he gets a pass on saying and doing these things. "It's an exaggeration." Personally, I think it's because he was a reality TV star. We expect celebrities to say and do ridiculous things, and then roll our eyes at it.
It wouldn't justify Trump doing it, but I'm curious if you supported blackballing Al Gore after he contested the 2000 election with a lawsuit. I've heard a lot of people complain about the Supreme Court, but rarely complain about Al Gore himself for contesting.
Don't be obtuse. College students painting banners is a far cry from a presidential candidate refusing to concede an election over imagined vote fraud. And there is a strong chance that's what Trump would have done.
I will partially excuse the protestors for that because in any big protest you will always draw people looking for an opportunity to just do something bad. However, with people like Joe Stump advocating violence I cannot believe all of the violence isn't random bad actors.
I'm not sure if we can make that assertion, given the Deep State is safely ensconced regardless of which figurehead is offered up for our worship and ridicule. How does the old chestnut go, something about how if voting made a difference they wouldn't let us...
Oh, I agree that Trump's politics are horrifying. Since I identified 4 groups of Trump voters, I'll try to explain why I think they stuck with him, even though he said terrible things.
* Traditional republicans: A lot of them couldn't stand his rhetoric, but they're worried about the Supreme Court. I think a lot of these people felt horrible about voting for him, but they're playing the long game.
* White supremacists: They loved his rhetoric, so no explanation is required.
* Anti-corruption advocates: It might sound like a cop-out, but I'm blaming this one on the media. According to exit polls, 70% of people who thought both candidates were terrible ended up voting for Trump. I understand why a lot of people didn't like either of them, but this is a classic false equivalence. I think the media spent so much time talking about Hillary's emails that people started to think it was as bad as Trump's talk about nuking people, killing the families of suspected terrorists (war crime), bringing back torture (many troops won't like that), and so many other disqualifying things.
* Working class people: Despite being stalwart democratic voters (this election notwithstanding), many of these people aren't very liberal. LGBTQ rights aren't something they think about much, and I don't think they're big on feminism, environmentalism, or animal rights. They're worried about their jobs, the health of their unions, and off-shoring. Trump promised to punish companies for sending work to other countries, and to gut environmental regulations for the sake of creating new unionized gas/coal jobs.
Also, it's important to point out that voter turnout was terrible in this election. Trump got fewer votes than Mitt Romney did 4 years ago, but he won. Hillary severely underperformed Obama in almost every state. Roughly 50% of eligible voters exercised their constitutional right on Tuesday.
1 in 4 eligible voters went to the polls and voted for Trump, 1 in 4 voted for Hillary, and the other 2 didn't vote at all. That's the real story here. We failed to get people excited about voting for Hillary, so they stayed home.
Clinton represents the status quo for corruption, as evidenced by the continuing questionable practices of the Clinton Foundation, and people who have been upset with the way politics work correctly and directly linked her with that behavior.
How did voting for trump solve that when he's a coastal new yorker that bragged about buying political and is actively stuffing his cabinet with industry lobbyists?
Trump's call may have been about Washington corruption, but that doesn't mean anything is actually going to change.
Dunno, you'd have to ask someone who voted for Trump based on that issue what they expected he would do. I didn't vote for either of the two major party candidates.
Trump gets a pass on those things for the same reason HRC got a pass on voting for the Iraq war,[1] or why JFK is still a liberal icon,[2]: party affiliation overcomes almost everything else.
That is fair. I'll grant you that. I had concerns about Hillary.
And I can appreciate Trump's anti corruption policies. It will be very interesting to see if he does engage in a trade war, slapping tariffs on goods made outside the US. If he passed legislation about charging taxes on carried interest that too would be positive.
However I'm scared as all hell about everything else. If he does anything good that will be a minor miracle. He is a sociopath and a narcissist. His tax plan will blow a hole in the federal budget while maintaining entitlements. There was an article where he asked the generals "why cant we just nuke them" 3 times. It's going to be like Bush but a lot worse.
> Trump had a few groups of people that helped him win the election. I'd break them into these groups:
Don't forget:
* Minorities. Although Trump didn't win their vote outright, more minorities voted Republican this time than last. He even won the Hispanic vote in NYC.
As a bystander I think you lost because of political correctness. Declaring racism and biggotry and all those other things wrong does two things. Firstly, it makes it easy to ignore anyone expressing these thoughts. Because they are simply wrong. Secondly, it effectively hides any other view. You won't even know your colleague is a racist because he knows
He cant say it. But political correctness will not change how people think. All of these people without a voice - the racist, biggots, sexists and the stupid - found a voice and voted for him. Guys, half of any population is statistically less smart than the other. You have apparently pissed off that other half and have to live with the consequences. In the land of the free it should be ok to be racist. As a society, you don't have to be but you cannot deny that racist idiot his right to be racist. He should not get his way but he should have the right to speak his mind.
> people who think like you and me lost on Tuesday. We lost badly.
As far as last count Hillary won the popular vote (though not by much). The election was very close at any rate.
Trump was just better at parroting and promising the things he heard from rural Americans. He listened to them. And he sold them on their own ideas and made them sound tenable. That's all there is to it.
I hear what you are saying, and I agree with it. Thing is the aforementioned family member is not a hard core republican. I'd say more of a conservative democrat. She did not vote against a corrupt system. She voted because of racial resentment. And she wasn't all too happy about a woman president either, despite the fact that she is a woman.
Have you read said's response? I came to learn something, hoping to take something away. This guy said is a member of a different minority group resentful of African Americans overrepresentation in this country, and is an Indian. This is not an isolated incident for me so far, where I've heard from either a member of a minority group or a woman voted for Trump that has no substance, but rooted in resentment against another minority group. This is making me more depressed.
Maybe this is a couple of isolated incidents. But what I'm learning is only making me more depressed.
> I have a family member who voted for Trump because they can't wait till he sends Muslim out of the country and sends Mexicans back to Mexico and builds a wall. Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things.
These people certainly do exist, but not nearly in the numbers the media portrays them to. If so, how did we elect a black man twice and just miss electing a woman to the highest office in the land? I refuse to believe the narrative about how racist rural America is.
And to the extent there is racism in rural America I posit a good portion of it is driven by folks looking for someone to blame for their currently undesirable status in the global economy.
If NY and CA were struggling, all the racists would be on the coasts and not in WI, MI, and OH, etc.
You're a little right and a little wrong. It's wrong to paint all rural Americans as foaming-at-the-mouth racists. But if you think that many (perhaps even a majority) of rural Americans aren't racist, homophobic and xenophobic, then you haven't spent much time in rural America.
I also think that this depends on how you define "racism".
Absolutely, rural Americans are "racist" in the sense of not using approved language about people. On the other hand, that is a somewhat different thing than actually hating or despising people because of their skin color (etc).
If you'd asked me at the time, I'd have said the fear and hatred wasn't of people with brown skin, but of that specific tribe they have in Chicago -- you know, the guys with the weird slang, music and clothes, the dope fiends who murder everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarro nature of the cities, as perceived from afar -- a combination of hyper-aggressive savages and frivolous white elites. Their ways are strange. And it wasn't like pop culture was trying to talk me out of it...
There's clearly not a racist or misogynist majority, but there are definitely still a lot of racists and misogynists in the US. This morning I read about a dramatic rise in racist harassment, Muslims afraid to go outside, Latino-looking kids who got beat up at school, Trump-labeled vandalism.
There are clearly still a lot of terrible people, and they love it that Trump won. They feel that this result proved them right, and allows them to act out their bigotry.
> And what is with the comments about Indians? Are we talking Indians from India or Native Americans.
Indians from India. Like my parents.
> Who is demanding we replace black people with indian people.
No one.
> Where are they [blacks] over represented? What the hell are you talking about?
1. Sports, including practically all of our nation's most watched television events
2. Music (and despite this, smaller genres of music that don't overrepresent blacks are shamed [1])
3. Celebrity/gossip news
4. Advertisements, particularly those aimed at boys
Blacks are dramatically overrepresented in media consumed by young men, yet these naval-gazing "costal elites" never say, "Hey, we should reduce black overrepresentation and give Indian guys a chance."
> It doesn't make any sense, the same way Trump made no sense during the debates.
A large group of people see right through you and your priorities for us, and you're calling that a "blind spot". I genuinely hope you'll come around.
The content of your post is completely lacking any substance whatsoever, and is totally unrelated to the post. Your cultural resentment of Blacks is transparent. I now understand your concern about how the "left only cares about replacing white people in popular culture with black people." It all makes sense.
It is so obvious you have an axe to grind and that you voted for Trump because of things totally unrelated to his policies. You voted for Trump because there is too much Kanye and Lebron in the media.
Not shocking though. I've read and heard a few members of minority groups talk about why they voted for Trump. Women afraid of Brown and Black people. Latinos afraid of Muslims. Muslims afraid of women being in control. You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together. I want to say it's disappointing but it's not totally surprising. Totally divorced from what the substance of this election was supposed to be about. Your axe to grind.
The KKK is having a rally in NC to celebrate Trump's victory. You might want to share your concerns with them, you have a lot in common. I'd be very curious to hear how it goes.
> You voted for Trump because there is too much Kanye and Lebron in the media.
Correct. Other "minority groups" (as you put it) are allowed to be resentful about white overrepresentation; Indians are allowed to be resentful about black overrepresentation. Under Clinton, groups like Black Lives Matter would be given more influence and control, and that would make my life more miserable and make me feel more marginalized.
> You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together.
Let's ignore the fact that Trump has never attacked Indian people, and his white supporters have never once attacked me.
At the heart of your post are two assumptions:
1. Indian guys have something to gain by supporting black activism.
2. I haven't tried talking to black activists.
Both assumptions are false.
Progressive black activists are greedy. They want to take, take, take, take, and take from white people, yet the moment you ask them to consider how it must feel as an Indian guy seeing so many black guys in popular culture, you're a devil.
Them: "We fought hard for our representation! Don't appropriate our struggle! You didn't earn any of this—we did! If you want more representation, fight for it yourself!"
Me: "Well, I guess that's what I'm doing right by trying to talk to you about this."
Them: "Go bother white folk about this—they're the ones holding you down, not us. I don't have the time."
As it turns out, white people are underrepresented in many important areas of popular culture, and the white people who are in popular culture are almost exclusively progressives who are happy to keep other white people out.
Racial politics are badly broken, but I trust white people over black people to give me a fair shake.
So close. Almost agreed with everything you said. Yes, there is a pecking order for the beneficiaries of tech's diversity efforts. But pitting the poor against the blacks is a classic racist strategy. MLK jr even called this out back in the day.
I would give you the benefit of the doubt but the comment history says I shouldn't.
What it really comes down to is that people aren't going to care one way or the other about your social justice causes when they're struggling to put food on the table due to the effects of outsourcing, automation, globalization, and yes, the effects of illegal immigration increasing the pool of low-skilled laborers.
It's astounding that some people still don't get it.
The "modern left" is not some kind of hive mind to which we all belong. It's a very diverse contingent of society, that cannot simply be compared to rural America.
Clearly, if you are an uneducated white man from a small village, your prospects in life are not very good. However, blaming underprivileged minorities, whose prospects and social problems are typically even worse, is highly counter-productive and likely to bring the hone of both those minorities and the more privileged people who live with them.
Something should be done about the impending poverty of rural America. In 2016, uneducated workers are no longer competitive. Factories, farms, even battle ships only require a few people.
Without a concrete economic outlook, the path forward most likely lies in government support through social security, health care, education, i.e. the very policies for which the "coastal elite" tries to vote and pay. However, these policies do create an often-ignored identity crisis: Men want to feel proud of what they are.
Without traditional jobs, or people around them that show them the path to modern jobs, all they have left to be proud of is the values and colour they share with the people around them.
There's a lot of truth to this. There's something in the culture about excluding poor whites from being accepted as an oppressed class. (Literature should soon come out on this.) They're called names. This inconsistency is ruthlessly exploited by the right wing.
The Clinton future was bleak for the working class (not just whites), let's admit it. She ran as the least worst, expecting that'd be enough. While Trump's climate change denial alone is enough to make him more dangerous, and he will probably ruin the white working class way more, there's a reason Clinton lost.
[Edit: not that I agree with everything this person says. White and male supremacy are obviously huge elements. Poor black women are far less privileged than poor white men. But one should listen & understand.]
Where does this myth that people at the coasts are all wealthy come from? There's plenty of poverty at the coasts and in the big cities. In fact, it seems there's quite a lot that big city blacks and rural whites actually have in common (a recent SNL sketch with Tom Hanks pointed that out in a touching way).
And while you're right that Indians are less common in pop culture than black people, Indians are also a much smaller group, and they are still represented in pop culture. I think women have a far worse share; apparently they get about 17% of the movie roles, whether it's in big crowds or for main roles. This is really the first time I've ever heard of the left being somehow against representation of Indians. They are really not.
>Where does this myth that people at the coasts are all wealthy come from?
Such a myth wasn't presented above. The literal quote was:
>priorities of those in your wealthy costal social circles.
I don't think anyone in America or elsewhere believes that all people at the coasts are wealthy. We all know of the social problems and inequality in both coasts of America. I would think what people perceive is the problem here is that a disproportionately large part of the wealth and power is in hands of coastal elites, these "social circles".
I don't claim that's actually true, I don't know it well enough - I'm not even American (I'm from northern Europe); but I'm sure this is how it is perceived by people in what is so arrogantly called "flyover country". Such a language immediately flags to me that there will be a backlash.
"I’m from the Midwest, and I love the Midwest, but it’s not representative of modern America"
This is your political bigotry.
BTW - the issue regarding 'Coastal Elites' not being 'true Americans' is not so much where they live - it's the fact that NYC, LA, SF etc. are highly transient cities - without multigenerational communities - they import culture, or create little bits of fleeting culture on their own.
Large American cities are a new phenom in the West. Even in Frankfurt, Germany, it's still walkabout and people live near their families etc..
> I meant the assumption that 'The Coasts' represent what is 'modern'
They do though. Multicultural, global trade centers, high tech industry.
They are the modern world. That's a big part of the problem, there are places that haven't adapted and as a result are suffering.
For a lot of people (say, the vast number of americans who live there) they are closer to the ideal than living in a town in wyoming or wherever. Same thing is true the other way.
"They do though. Multicultural, global trade centers, high tech industry."
No they don't.
They represent a specific vision of the future.
There are many people living very high standards of living all around Bavaria, Stwitzerland, Netherlands, Scandinavia - that are not part of 'city centres, multiculturalism, or high tech'.
"They had not seen the Apollo moon lander, nor George Washington’s Revolutionary War uniform. And they certainly have not seen the new National Museum of African American History and Culture."
This quote really hit home for me. I spent part of my childhood in rural Texas as a new immigrant to this country. My parents were poor, although not as poor as some around us, and what they lacked in money they more than made up for in love. For this I will be forever grateful.
I had a friend who would frequently have to come over for dinner because her mother was too strung out to pick up groceries. I had another friend who never owned a pair of shoes that fit properly until he enlisted in the Army.
I'm pretty certain both of my friends would have loved to see the Apollo capsule and the assorted museums in DC. They were however, a bit preoccupied in trying to get enough calories throughout the day to maintain a healthy weight.
It's been a while since I read something on the web that made me cry, the condescension displayed in this article has succeeded.
Really? You took a comment about people who lived next door to DC, where he lamented that they had no interest in visiting any of the cultural attractions available despite for them it being easy to do so, and decided to make that into a personal insult about poor families in Texas? That made you cry?
Yes, really. Taken in the broader context and tone of the article and the memories it brought back of my own childhood, I found it dismissive of the struggles many poor people face that might prevent them from partaking in such trips and being exposed to different cultures, particularly as children who have little say in the matter, even if in that particularly case it might have been easy for the author's relatives to do so.
Regarding my being moved to tears, I offer you my sincere apology, I'll certainly try and "man" up to keep my emotions from bothering you.
I think it's important to view this piece in the context of the recent election, where the median Trump supporter had a higher income than the median Clinton supporter.
Yes, rural poverty is a thing and we should provide compassion and assistance to everyone trying to escape it. But that's not the family described in the article (who clearly did have the resources to visit DC), and it's not what swung the election. Trump got the votes of a huge number of middle-class, older white people, who have had many opportunities to venture out of their bubbles, to get to know their country better, to reach out to immigrants and the vulnerable in their own communities, and have just never bothered.
We should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and work to empathize with the "cultural anxieties" driving rural Trump voters, just as they have never worked to understand the anxieties of their coastal/urban counterparts, let alone those of blacks, Muslims, and other persecuted minorities. But we shouldn't idolize them as "real America". They are a part of it, yes, but the real America is a much bigger, more diverse and welcoming place.
the median Trump supporter had a higher income than the median Clinton supporter.
This is exactly it. Small-town America is a very different beast from suburban America. Most small town residents tend to pride themselves on their self-sufficiency ... which is, of course, contingent upon being able to gas up and drive to the nearest "city" (max population: 40,000) a couple times a month for necessary provisions from the big box stores.
Lisa Ling[1] did a great piece where she interviewed people in the largest Radio-Free Quiet Zone[2]. The high-schoolers she talked to spent more time talking about how different (and better) they were from "city people", a fact they were quite proud of.
I agree with this, mostly. I feel that Trump's campaign has already damaged the country in a very profound way that will take years for us to recover from as a people. But, I don't see Trump suddenly being the adult in the room given how he ran his campaign. At the very least, the tone has made people talking to each other very difficult.
I know people keep turning to hard data to try to explain the election. I think that's generally the right way to look at it. However, I think we all know people who have supported Trump. I feel like we should be sharing what they're thinking respectfully, even though it's feels more than likely many of his supporters would not reciprocate, however true or not true that may be. More viewpoints is better after all, right? They perceive us as aloof and disconnected from their problems. So, what do we do?
I don't want another election like this more than anyone else does, but it will happen again if something doesn't change. I have little faith in the protests ability to change people's minds. The people they need to talk to likely have never even been to the streets they're protesting on. All they're going to hear is that the protests in Oregon were deemed a riot and dispersed, and that will be that.
Within my family, not all voted for Trump, but most did and they come from different economic strata. So, I've seen multiple viewpoints on this. I think in order for me to understand the elections, I've made a separation between: 1.) economics, and 2.) race & culture. The people I know that voted for Trump might have responded to the dog whistling (can it really be called that when it's so unsubtle?). But, in their minds it's about 1. and not 2. I think when it comes to changing hearts, the only thing that matters is how you feel, so it's important to make that distinction. They don't see themselves as fomenting racial anxiety, even though the United States is inevitably becoming a more diverse place. They only care about the economy, and Trump made a point of opposing trade pacts that have hollowed away their traditional place in American society.
At home and at work, I feel like I occupy two totally different worlds that don't interact with each other at all. I come to work, and it's nice. It's a diverse workplace, people are kind, we're making money. It's nice. Then I go home and it's like 2008 is rumbling on. It really does feel to me like people don't humanize people they disagree with anymore because they filter their world through cable news & the internet. Maybe changing that might help change this?
But how do we do talk to them? To them it sounds like we're waiting for them to die off, which is profoundly insulting to them but also not true of us, or at least not of me. We aren't waiting for them to die off. To me, or us, it sounds like they're trying to turn back the clock on the progress we've made for a lot of people who have endured a lot of hurt. But to them, they're trying desperately to preserve a way of life. But the world is just changing around them. We're all uncertain about where we're going to from here.
So how do we talk to them about it? How do we make them not feel threatened? I'm really at a loss. I think it's hard for the left (or at least me) to appreciate how divergent our understanding of what constitutes racist/sexist behavior is from theirs too. What's unacceptable behavior to me is locker room talk or just crude humor to them. It's hard for me to not lose my temper about it. I'm not sure how to shrink the empathy gap between the two sides, but I don't see these conversations taking place, so somebody has to start, right? But how do we do it?
I know this is a difficult pill to swallow because it involves entreating people who frighten or even mean ill to our friends (or ourselves). I happen to be in a position of extreme privilege so this post is a little...
I've lived in both places and each one absolutely has it's bubble. But to say that rural America is a special case is wrong. I've met prolific travelers who have gone up and down each coast but who would never think of visiting the interior--something they are quite proud of. "Real America" is frequently the butt of jokes, and the people there are caricatured or casually dismissed as less important.
This is all really unfortunate. US politics won't evolve past a tug-of-war if the sides don't attempt to sincerely understand each other (and that is almost never the case). The worst part of this election for me was seeing how each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other. Since language is rife with ambiguity, that virtually guarantees you see your opponent as consistently wrong, stupid, and evil. If that's what people want to see, that's what they'll see no matter the words. Bubble vision.
Agree. I happen to think that a lot of US domestic issues could be solved if Americans would accept the other side of "population-density" as equal before law.
For example: The acceptance of Gun Laws are directly correlated to density as density makes dense policing more affordable. How is it so complicated arguing about this, when all you'd need is accepting that different areas should be able to loosen/strengthen gun control, as the populace wishes?
How much of that inability to understand each other comes from the fact that media is usually produced in high density areas?
> each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other
This is the frustrating part; there's no dialog, and no one's motivated to have one because it would deflate the polarization which props up the two party system.
This mutual ignorance is greatly assisted by 'traitors' like the one who wrote this article. He trashes his kith and kin because it increases his status with the low information coastal bigots.
He could promote mutual understanding but he chose not to do so.
This is all so interesting and it really is solved with better tolerance. But how do you learn tolerance of something you've never seen or experienced?
The people who live in big cities don't visit the country either. They have never worked on a farm or in a factory. The output of these things just show up at their stores with no thought of the effort to put them there.
I know someone who is pretty racist against blacks... Until his son starting dating a woman with a black child, now not so much. People will always fear or blame those they don't know or understand regardless of whether it is white class rural, illegal immigrants, lgbt, or muslims. The problem is that most people aren't self aware enough to think about their place in the larger world, they only want to live their life and are get scared (and look for someone to blame) when they can't.
Many countries, such as Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, require all males to serve ~2 years of military service (usually not in the field, just training and drills). While there are ways for the most privileged to get out of it, the people who I've talked to have described meeting people from parts of their country that they had no idea about.
I wonder if this idea could be applied to the US, making everyone 18-25 go 6-18 months of basic training and drills. You would certainly get to meet a lot of people you would not have otherwise.
Sure it is possible, and it was there, but the U.S. got rid of the draft after Vietnam war.
And meeting everyone of your age cohort in the army conscription service is a revealing experience, I can assure you. More so than elementary school, because schools are like the areas where the pupils live; there is less diversity. To meet everyone is an experience.
On the other hand, nowadays countries with conscription (like where I live, Finland) are not quite the same. The army here is more picky that before, so you actually don't see everyone. For instance, when I entered service (1986), only 2-3 % entered the alternative civilian service and 1-2 % were disqualified. Now 7 % go to civilian service and 2-3 % are disqualified (for medical reasons, etc).
Thus, you have less pacifists in the army, and drug users and career criminals are excluded. The same would surely apply in the U.S. even if it had conscription.
As Bill Clinton once said (ironically enough): it's the economy, stupid.
Mid-westerners accurately saw this election as a way to do away with job killing trade deals.
If coastal elites were really serious about bridging the divide instead of talking down to unemployed midwesterners about gay rights they'd educate themselves about the TTIP, NAFTA & TPP and stop pretending that "a robot is going to steal those jobs" is anything more than an article of faith.
Edit: kind of figured this would get no coherent response and more downvotes than upvotes :)
If you want the opinion of a fairly educated european white male, we see the rural US as a bunch of Cletus Spucklers. No offense. Trump's victory seems to be only the confirmation to this. I hope I am wrong.
As a fairly uneducated, I have no formal education beyond high school, foreign born non-white American male who had the "luxury" of growing up in both rural Texas as well as a pretty crappy part of Houston and then Oakland, before Oakland was a refuge for well compensated techies seeking escape from high rent in SF, I'm curious how you see poor uneducated urban minorities, and what terms you would use to describe us?
I think you'd find stereotypes of European males similar.
If I may make a suggestion that has proven valuable to me as an American in the deep south: don't project your local politics and assumptions when understanding others. Only when you walk a mile in someone's shoes, do you realize most perspectives have a point and reality is fractally complicated.
Oversimplifying viewpoints or dismissing them is objectifying and othering. We all do it, but the group that does it "for tolerance" is the one that just lost an American election.
No. I believe that we have globalization but basically we don't know much about culture from other parts of the world, or what worries they have. We swim in a sea of misconceptions and archetypes.
I am trying to generate a hyperbole to run my hypotesis. I am most certainly based on misconceptions and prejudices, but not cartoon misconceptions. But you might try to speak with any european and they will talk about how uneducated and backwards rural US is.
Please, don't take me wrong. I am the first coming from a rural part of Spain. The joke is on me. BUT, this is how the world sees the rural parts of USA.
I still live in rural Wisconsin. I wanted to disagree from the title but after reading it I really can't.
And I agree, we're not special. Rural Wisconsin went Obama in 2008. I didn't see a deluge of articles discussing the implications of the rural people. Wisconsin has been pretty close to the US vote, as a whole, for years. If your candidate wants to sway that vote maybe they should travel to the state at least once in the campaign. Well, it's just a thought.
You'd think she would have given that Walker has survived basically an election every other year.
I've spent some time in Wisconsin recently and got the feeling that the people are hungry for something to be proud of (in their humble Wisconsin way).
Something that they can point to (when asked) and proudly say it's a product of Wisconsin, it's people and industrious morality.
As someone also from rural Wisconsin, I can tell you that the ignorance there is more palpable than ever.
I'm not talking about record levels of domestic abuse cases, meth labs, or even leading the nation in DUI's. Rural Wisconsin has always had it's own issues in a charming sort of way.
I'm talking about the sheer gleefulness with which rural Wisconsinites abandoned critical thinking this election. There was always a small spark of anti-intellectualism in rural Wisconsin, but this election was unlike any other in how the misinformation being spread fanned the flames of that rhetoric.
Sorry, I don't follow. Is that an attempt at a Bill Engvall reference? If so, it's not "flag" but "sign". Otherwise, I'm afraid you've rather lost me. In either case, perhaps you'd care to explain in more detail what you mean by this rather cryptic comment.
"I have flagged your comment for moderator review, as you are using a throwaway account and spreading racially charged rhetoric in lieu of engaging in civilized discussion". I hope that makes things clear.
A nearly year-old and fairly active user with a few thousand karma, making a point that you don't agree with via a phrase which you don't like. No doubt the black man from whom I learned it was racist. But of course it's always far easier to reflexively attempt to suppress, than to engage.
I have gathered the impression in my time here that talking about moderation actions isn't really the done thing. In any case, I see no very probable way in which doing so will add value to the discussion, so you're welcome to the last word if you feel the urge to have it.
I don't feel the urge at all, actually, and since you're engaging in discussion now, I'll address you:
I'm certainly willing to engage with you if you make a point that I disagree with - read this thread and my comments in it for proof of that - but that "phrase I don't like" is a racial slur, full stop, and the idea that you "learned it from a black man" fully excuses it's use in every conversation, in every venue and at any time you like going forward is, well, wrong in a way that I don't think you'd ever be able to accept.
Consider editing your initial comment, and reflect on the idea that butting into a thread with a throwaway racial slur is perhaps not the way to get people to engage with you.
What? No, it's not. It's an intra-group epithet describing someone who is perceived to be selling out his people to an oppressor in exchange for individual privilege. It originated among black people, but the concept isn't exclusive to any one race or group of people, and "sellout" just doesn't carry the same weight of contempt.
I don't mention from whom I learned the phrase to excuse my use of it, which I see no need to excuse in any case, but rather as a less direct way of pointing out that I think you're in error to assume racism here. That you misgather the phrase to be a slur would seem to bear that out.
We are going to have to agree to disagree. Can I ask: would you mind walking up to a group of African Americans in your town, saying that phrase in front of them, and soliciting their take? I think you'd value their feedback more than you do mine.
I love the idea you seem to have that I exist in a monocultural, monoracial vacuum. It's not impossible to live that life in Baltimore, but you sure as hell can't do it and use public transit, except maybe when the Orioles are playing at home.
And, no, I'm not going to call a black man "Uncle Tom", of course. On the one hand, as I said before, that's an intra-group term; used across boundaries - especially that boundary - in that way, it not only fails to make sense but takes on a lot of unsavory connotations that it doesn't have when used within a group. Since we here discuss a case where it is used within a group, I fail to see the relevance. And on the other hand, what sense would that even make?
As far as the value of your feedback goes, what of it has there actually been, beyond "that's bad and you shouldn't say it because I say so"? You haven't even attempted to substantiate your claim. You've just made it, repeated it, and even tried to enforce it by means of moderation. At whatever point you decide you prefer to discuss substance, I'll be happy to oblige you.
>"I have flagged your comment for moderator review, as you are using a throwaway account and spreading racially charged rhetoric in lieu of engaging in civilized discussion". I hope that makes things clear.
You've moved on to civilized discussion - which is why I've started engaging with you - but the racial slur and your insistence that it's `totally just a prank brah context brah cmon` is precious.
You seem to understand the idea that this phrase can be used in at least some context without it being a slur, so I ask - does the above thread, where you jumped in to an existing conversation to use 'Uncle Tom' in a one-line comment lacking any substance or nuance- seem like that sort of context?
I am completely comfortable with your assessment of the value of my feedback, throwanem. (Food for thought: not all vacuums are physical. I'm sure you do, as you seem to assert, run into POC when you're on the train and the Orioles aren't playing; this doesn't have any bearing on your use of this term, or your presence or absence in a monocultural thought vacuum.)
No, I'm done. I've made the points I came here to make. I get that you want to read what I wrote in a way that accords with your prejudices, and that you feel no need to defend or even explain those prejudices but just reiterate them over and over - as though that constituted honest engagement, or anything like an argument.
If you want to double down on the same tactics that just this week have failed to elect you a president, that's your lookout, not mine.
Hilarious that you think I've even voted - I was a Bernie supporter and would have been upset with either Trump or Clinton. Please read this thread again when you're in a better frame of mind, if and when that day should come. And when you do, one more time:
>You seem to understand the idea that this phrase can be used in at least some context without it being a slur, so I ask - does the above thread, where you jumped in to an existing conversation to use 'Uncle Tom' in a one-line comment lacking any substance or nuance- seem like that sort of context?
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 250 ms ] threadThere's the problem and the bubble people are talking about. White men (or any sex and color really) that can barely finish high school aren't going away anytime soon and they still need jobs. Not everyone is capable of more academic work.
tl;dr Study beyond high school is not just liberal arts.
I'm pretty sure there are next to no opportunities for anyone following my path today though.
It's not their fault.
If outsourcing suddenly produced high quality issue free software for cheap tomorrow then we'd all be just as screwed despite having such great skills.
And if they have job skills for jobs that don't exist anymore it's as if they don't have job skills at all. But it's certainly not their fault, it's the education system that has to teach job skills, you can't learn that by yourself.
Exactly this. At the risk of reductio ad absurdum, would anyone consider the ability to write (not compositional writing, just literally the ability to put a pen down on paper and form letters) a "marketable job skill" any more? Not likely, since that skill can be replaced by a $60 printer what doesn't need a salary.
The bigger impediment is profound lack of interest/curiosity about other places. Take George W. Bush as an example; he certainly didn’t lack for resources. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/102900a.html
You mean with all that paid vacation time they don't have, after using all 5-10 days of it (if there's any at all) to stay home with sick kids, or holding it in reserve to do same later in the year? Hell, that's a problem for most families period, poor or not. Vacation time is very scarce for most people and will continue to be until some significant minimum is required by law.
I’m not suggesting that anyone struggling to survive should prioritize travel over eating.
But I know plenty of people who grew up in dirt poor families who managed to take occasional long road trips in their childhood. And I know people who grew up in extremely wealthy families who barely ever left their hometown.
My point was just that means aren’t everything; attitude is also important.
My SO and I visited Thailand way before we met each other. I went to a Muay Thai camp and stayed in a nearby town. SO went with a tour guide, slept and ate in hotels, visited some temples and rode cute elephants.
My impression of the country is totally different from SO's. I could say the same about India and Morocco.
I definitely grew, but not in the way I expected.
Westerners often fall into the trap of multiculturalism and this romantic idea of travelling which feels more like a product. We simply cannot grasp how easy we have it.
So we can either ignore middle America and let them continue this self-destructive cycle, or can point it out. Which will then make them mad and they'll continue voting in the useless pricks who do nothing to help them.
I know you tried to make your statement sound like a threat. But I live in the rural Midwest. I've seen the politicians voted in at the local level. Politicians like Brownback who have trashed the state. It's cutting your nose off to spite your face, as Mom used to say.
Fewer votes than Hillary. Fewer votes than Romney's failed 2012 run. Hardly an "uprising".
Doesn't seem like a huge uprising to me, but those numbers certainly have been disheartening all the same.
Also, the turnout in 2016 election is 2 % higher than 2012 (56.9 % vs. 54.9 %).
In addition, just like Brexit, I see a lot of people who appear to have completely ignored the concrete results of their actions.
For example, me to Trump voter: "You do realize that you voted to throw your own daughter and my mother off of healthcare? Your daughter couldn't get coverage before Obamacare because she has mild sleep apnea while being middle-aged. My mother couldn't get healthcare before the ACA because she is a breast cancer survivor." Trump voter: "Well, I didn't really want that."
What am I supposed to say at that point?
Please tell me which platform plank of yours is more important than your own daughter receiving healthcare?
Please tell me which platform plank of yours is more important than my mother receiving healthcare?
Really, I want to know this.
And, when you give me your answer about god, guns, gays, mexicans, emails, Benghazi or any other stupid thing that doesn't impact our lives one iota other than to serve as a propaganda vehicle, don't be surprised when I tell you how FUCKING WRONG you are.
Thanks.
You have other beliefs and other priorities, that's fine with me.
You are perfectly entitled to your views, but they appear to be so completely different to my own that I am genuinely interested to find out what you believe.
[NB As a bit of background I'm from the UK, strongly in favour of the socialist NHS we have and happy to pay taxes so that everyone in our country can get pretty decent healthcare "free at the point of delivery"]
Edit: I upvoted you because I don't think people should be downvoted just for making that comment.
However, I can definitely understand the argument that being forced to pay taxes to pay for the healthcare of other people is unfair. I just happen to not agree with it but I don't think its unreasonable that other people don't agree with me on that point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Might_Is_Right
I don't know you, but I hope your mother is doing ok, and I hope she will do better under a Trump presidency than I think she will. There's actually plenty of parts of my life that I'd consider giving up or changing if I could guarantee a better future for both your mom and mine, now that your post implicitly asks that question.
For that matter, although I don't particularly care, your uncharitable and incorrect summation of my view is also just virtue signaling. We get it! You have tremendous morals, the best morals.
(Also: I'm aware your post didn't ask the question. It was implicit... which is why I said implicitly. I do have the best vocabulary, tremendous vocab words folks. A lot of people are saying Trump voters have trouble with bigly words. Sad!)
Your terror is no more my responsibility than your putative mother's health. I don't consider you an enemy. In fact, I don't really consider you, because as a human being I have limited capacity for things like love and I save that capacity for the many people I actually know and deal with in my life.
I think you're confused on the difference between love, compassion and compatriotism. I don't expect you to love me or anyone outside of your own circle, but if you were hoping to make america great again without compassion or compatriotism, I'll enjoy watching the attempt.
Now, on to the point. I'm dead curious. Here are my words:
> Literally everything in my life is more important to me than any aspect of your mother
Where is the question implied in there? I endeavor to speak precisely, and I have heard it posited that it is incumbent upon the speaker to eliminate misunderstandings in the listener, so let's put it to the test. Demonstrate how that virtue signalling question you inferred from my words comes from my words and not solely your head.
Also, don't post an excised version of your flagged tweet and then expect me not to catch it. Nice try, troll. Here's your flag, I was game right up until you were intellectually dishonest and sloppy on top of it.
Edit: ah wait I see, you think I'm trying to karma bump my sentiment, but to what end? It's parented under the flagged version of itself and I hardly care if I accumulate more internet points. I'm just trying to figure out why you think flogging your morals at me is worthwhile.
(I realize that there are other pregnancy complications that don't literally equate to having an inconvenient toddler, and pro-lifers aren't as consistent on how they view those cases, but those are a small minority of abortions.)
That's not better than "They are idiots" or "Racist sexists!"
"To pin this election on the coastal elite is a cop-out. It’s intellectually dishonest, and it’s beneath us.
We, as a culture, have to stop infantilizing and deifying rural and white working-class Americans. Their experience is not more of a real American experience than anyone else’s, but when we say that it is, we give people a pass from seeing and understanding more of their country. More Americans need to see more of the United States. They need to shake hands with a Muslim, or talk soccer with a middle aged lesbian, or attend a lecture by a female business executive.
We must start asking all Americans to be their better selves. We must all understand that America is a melting pot and that none of us has a more authentic American experience."
That's a far cry from your interpretation.
How do you convince people?
If Americans want change, let's start at the levels that ultimately has a larger impact on our day-to-day experiences. Change the course of the failed domestic policy that comes from our govenors, state representatives, and those sent to Congress by bringing in new ideas.
Why is the Executive the only branch of government that is scrutinized to the degree that it is?
Where are the Congressional aspirants' debates that let voters draw their own conclusions after listening to the words that come out of candidates mouths, not just those from the latest attacking radio or TV spot?
Do we live in a country of immigration laws or not? This author seems to think it's a one world government.
I hope the lesson we all learn from this election is that if we have ideas we want to spread in the near term, the only effective thing to do is engage with people who disagree and respectfully make our case to them and listen to what they have to say.
- The point about jobs seems very spot on - jobs have been drying up throughout the Midwest, particularly steady/long-term low-education (i.e. manufacturing) jobs, and national leadership has not done anything to address it. The economic story of the last 8 years has been a recovery for the wealthy and financial sector only, so it's no wonder the rural midwest see no hope from the Democrats. It sounds like Trump's main plan for this is to create jobs for people that destroy the very environment they live in, which is tragic. Long term, I wonder what feasible plan could address the jobs issue besides a basic income, or massive government hiring for jobs like building infrastructure.
Though these jobs were not being generated in rural areas
Machine/Deep Learning is rapidly improving beyond anyone's expectations and you only have to look at Microsoft's recent advancements in speech recognition that match humans to see the disruption in action.
"Bots" are the next gen automated phone menu.
Human beings are becoming increasingly irrelevant as labor.
There’s a kernel of insight here, but as stated this is a grossly inaccurate summary.
On the whole the economy is doing radically better than it was during the recession in almost every way. I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
http://www.multpl.com/us-average-real-income
Here is one interesting plot: national employment-to-population ratio. Try plotting it from 1990 to 2016, it shows a significant drop in '08 which has not recovered very much since.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
First is that there has been population growth, and a continuing shift in the age demographics of the country. The absolute number of workers is now about 6% higher than before the recession, but there are also a larger number of retirees and other non-workers. In particular the percentage of people in prime “working age” range (25–54) is 5% lower than 10 years ago. The numbers of unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers are all way down since the recession.
Many people decide to retire (either voluntarily or after being laid off) during a recession, with no plan to return to work. So you always get a bit of a “cliff” effect, where people who might have retired over the following several years all get bundled into one group, masking the “natural” shape of the data in absence of the recession.
Many others decide to go to school in the years following a recession. A larger proportion of those in the 16–24 age range are students than before the recession.
The numbers of unemployed and discouraged workers are both down nearly to their pre-recession levels.
http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-4/people-who-are-not-in-t...
The 2014 percentage of people claiming to be not working because disabled/ill is up 1% compared to before recession. The percentage of retirees is up 1.5%. The percentage of students is up almost 1.5%. The percentage not working for “other reasons” is only up 0.3%.
Your assuming "the whole economy" is an accurate measurement of how citizens finances are doing. But those two things are often not related in any way.
In my "flyover-Midwest" community, the stronger the economy does, the worse off real people's lives are here. "The economy" rewards companies whose profits go up and expenses go down. But in much of flyover America, "expenses" represents real people's paychecks, and "profits" represent real peoples bills.
Good jobs rarely come here. These folks don't own stocks or bonds. Many don't have retirement plans. Whenever the economy improves, all that really means here is "someone I know got fired today" or "the price of something I buy just got jacked up".
Just one example: Google claims GM's stock price is at it's highest peak for the entire year. Two days ago, GM laid off 2,000 people in Michigan and Ohio. Wealthy citizens (or "coastal elites") got taken care of nicely, but "rural" Americans who actually work for GM just got yet-another kick to the teeth.
> I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
This is where a lot of the "out of touch liberal ivory tower" insults come from. Telling people who work two jobs and still can't afford rent or childcare that "your wrong, my census data proves your doing just fine" is the kind of tone deaf communication that makes people desperate enough to elect a "human Molotov cocktail".
If your a person who's been suffering for years, and the choices are "just me and my neighbors keep getting screwed" or "everybody in the whole nation gets screwed", a lot of people will take that second option. I don't defend that decision, and it's certainly not the vote I cast. But I'm not so out of touch with my neighbors as to pretend it's unfathomable that so many people chose that.
---
Here's one example: There's been a lot of talk about how "Trumps supporters are slightly more wealthy than Clintons" (as in, the absolute poor voted more towards Clinton, but the lower-middle-class voted more towards Trump). But I'm not so sure about that.
I know in my town if you are "absolute poor" (below 60% avg income -- roughly $12/hr or less) you are allowed to live downtown in luxury apartments at little cost, because a combination of various government subsidies exist. Apartments that would cost HN readers $1,800/month to rent, cost these folks only $400-$800 (depending on income, family size, etc). These residents also get all the benefits of a gentrifying urban neighborhood without paying for it (crime is slowly dropping, public transit is slowly improving, what few nicer jobs that are being created, usually appear right there, etc).
However, if you "make too much money" (read, $12-16/hr, still poor, but not "absolute poor") you don't qualify for any of this. These folks must pay $700-$1,000/month for run down apartments in the far edges of town. These apartments have effectively zero public transit (everyone here must also own a car) and are not near any "nicer" jobs, but are usually sandwiched between buildings like WalMart and Home Depot. - - -
If you are sitting in NYC, and do a quick map of "census reported income by zip code across voters by zip code", you'd probably conclude something like "In Michigan, the poorest people voted Clinton, and the middle class voted Trump".
But in terms of real-world wealth here, the "absolute poor" (by income) are actually wealthier (in terms of opportunity, access, quality of life, diversity of neighbors, and amount of paycheck left over they can spend/save) than those who are "lower-middle class" (have slightly higher income) but lack all of that.
The real world is a bit more complicated than just plugging census data into maps -- it's tempting and convenient, but wildly inaccurate to make broad assumptions using that methodology. I don't know how to get all of these factors into easily-usable statistics, but I am seeing these sort of discrepancies happening in person somewhat often.
Anyhow, inre his original
> national leadership has not done anything to address it
Obama and the Democrats have been trying hard to push for more infrastructure spending, improved childcare, more money to bail out struggling state governments, minimum wage increases, more parental leave, continuing fixes to the healthcare system, reduced prescription drug prices, relief for the heavily indebted, etc., but (a) they’ve faced unprecedented obstructionism and deliberate dysfunction from the GOP (for instance states refusing federal money for medicare expansion and trying to sabotage the ACA), and (b) these are difficult problems which can’t be solved by waving a wand and uttering a magic incantation.
The auto industry bailout and stimulus bill and ACA were what they could get passed through congress, not their preferred policy solutions to these problems.
At the state level a number of GOP-controlled states have cut state spending and employment dramatically, closed schools, slashed income taxes for the wealthy and replaced them with sales taxes, undertaken targeted campaigns to destroy local unions (both public and private sector), etc.
I had a similar experience growing up: completely white town, minorities counted on one hand, zero african-americans. Not a single gay person to be found. Not until I attended college did I meet an african-american, or any non-native english speaker. Muslim? What's that? I was raised to believe african-americans, gays, and communists are bad, evil, flawed, un-welcome.
In junior high school, a friend invited me to attend a church social event near a river one night. Some of the guys put together a big, makeshift cross out of lumber they brought with them and planted it in the ground. We had a small bonfire going, and then they lit the cross. Several of the guys in the church put their Sunday robes on...then they pulled hoods over their faces. Yeah, KKK.
I knew a policeman who drove drunk all the time. I knew a teacher who bought high school students liquor many times. I knew a peer in high school sleeping with that teacher. I knew girls pregnant by 11th grade. I knew domestic violence that happened in my house, in my friends' homes, and in the homes of people I barely knew. In a small town, most of my friends and I experienced separated families through divorce.
My experience could be unique, or it could be quite common. At any rate, by the time I finished college, I needed to leave.
The midwest isn't all bad, but I saw some of the worst it has to offer.
Well, I tried to make that clear...
Honestly, that speaks for the repressive force of the culture more than the lack of other minorities. A lack of ethnicity can be somewhat explained by a lack of historic migration. Homosexuality is everywhere.
They were there; they're just still in hiding.
That was their point, if it wasn't obvious with the part about the KKK.
My dad worked in a prison, which meant he spent his day around thieves, drug addicts, gangsters, murderers, sexual predators, and the like. He gave fear of those kinds of people to the family, and suspected everyone of being one.
There are now smaller minority groups (mostly Mexican/Latino), but that's it. Very small community.
One thing that stuck out, we had a gay tennis coach who everyone loved. Easy to hate the unknown, paint a picture of the other, hard to do when there is a friendly face as a counterpoint.
First off, why is this site screwing with my clipboard. Ugh.
Anyway, that's all fair. The people who are making decent money living in cities should go out to Michigan and spend some time looking for a factory job or talking to the workers who have been dealing with a shitty situation for decades.
> If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent apartments to black people. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called Mexicans rapists, drug dealers and criminals. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called for a complete ban on Muslim immigration.
Yes, people did vote for a man who said/did all those things. We can choose to believe these people are just racists/sexists/too dumb to do anything else, or we can ask them why and see what the response is.
You can also ask why the democratic voters just didn't feel bothered to show up. Was this just arrogance? Was it apathy?
> We will never return to the days where a white man could barely graduate high school and walk onto a factory floor at 18 and get a well-paying job for life. That hasn’t set in for much of the Midwest.
The problem isn't the 18 year old who's upset about a factory job he can't get. It's the 50 year old who's job is gone, or under constant threat. It's about the 35 year old who's life hasn't really gone anywhere, because he got caught in the whole thing falling apart.
You tell someone who is living the good life on the coast that it's time to "make america great again!" and they will wonder what wrong with it. Say it to someone in Michigan and they will remember that Detroit used to have the highest per capita income in the country.
It seems like people are completely ignoring that all age groups are involved. It's very easy to say make America great again and capture: the 80 year old that has had there retirement plan disappear from a company going to rust, to capture the 50 year old that wants to help their children through college (but instead needs help themselves), it's pretty easy to capture the people who watch a plant/factory finally get off shored (after its third try of doing so, this time with the only apparent difference of NAFTA).
It's also pretty easy to see the opposite candidate 'playing dirty' against the person who would have been a great help to their child, having secret meetings with the 'type of people'(financial) that helped create a region called the rust belt (that's bigger than all but a handful of countries), and it's pretty easy to see a candidate so unversed with dealing with people unlike her that she can't even properly shame them (while I imagine most people can't shame Trump, better is expected of a candidate. The last one isn't my words).
Likewise grew up in Wisconsin (now in VA), even voted against the nightmare that is Trump. But a lot of people here are lacking perspectives on other parts of the country. they are a lot more similar to their rainbow workforce (perspective, daily problems, expectations, fortune, humor) than they think they are, even if they do differ culturally.
The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The fact is, Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her. Just accept it and move on. Accusing people in the midwest of being racists just makes you look like a fool. Take some constructive action like making sure the Democrat party has a less corrupt nominating process.
Which is sad because she really truly is more qualified than he is, I think. But she's just so damn unlikeable.
It's not even about the emails or anything. She literally represents everything everyone (including many liberals[1]) wanted to change about The Man. The only thing she had going for her on an emotional personal level was that she's a woman and that having the first lady president would be cool.
Imho Sanders stood a better chance. At least he was [trying to?] giving hope to the same audience as Trump was.
I guess we'll see what happens next.
[1] Here I consider things like "alt hacker propaganda" a la Mr. Robot and movements like Occupy Wall Street as "liberals". Perhaps they're more libertarians, I don't know. But the zeitgeist amongst many young people has been extremely anti-establishment in recent years.
People were rabid to vote against trump. Not so much to vote for Hillary. Turnout sucked.
Compare it to rabid Trump supporters, or Obama.
My country was destroyed by provoked civil war and NATO bombing after that. (Bill Clinton played big part in that) After that we have chosen new government, everything was going to be better, new economy, new young smart people, then our prime minister (who was the bastion of those changes and reforms) got assassinated. And after that? After that we got same shitty government that was during the 90s (right/extremists, radical party), and now they "are" pro-EU oriented. So much bullshit, country elected the party that was the worst possible choice, that nobody from circles of my family, friends and people I know didn't even dare to think of as a leading party. And it happened. And guess what, you live with it! How? Well, country is people, not one man. Sure it is bad, it hurts, but you live your life following your own internal compass, not somebody else's.
Provoked civil war and NATO bombing? I assume you're talking about the former Yugoslavia. Let's review what exactly happened there leading up to the civil war:
1988:
* Yugoslavia is still in one piece, but economic conditions in Serbia are deteriorating and resentment is high among Serbians against the more Western and economically successful republics of Slovenia and Croatia.
* Serbian emigré leader Momčilo Đujić names Vojislav Šešelj as his deputy. Đujić marching orders him to Šešelj are to "expel all Croats, Albanians and other foreign elements from the holy Serb ground".
* Slobodan Milošević, a smalltime Serbian government functionary, gives a speech to a group of Kosovo Serbs, pledging that "no one will beat them". The speech aired on primetime and Milošević gained instant and massive popularity in Serbia as a strongman protector.
* Milošević then proceeds to make a series of fiery, nationalist speeches to vast crowds of Serbians, heightening fears in Croatia and Slovenia.
1990:
* With the Croatian and Slovenian contigents fearful of the Milošević firebrand, the Yugoslav communist party dissolves.
* Democratic elections are held, with the winning party HDZ (Croatian) offering the vice-presidential slot to a Serbian party, but they refuse.
* Croatia Serbs then begin a rebellion against the new Yugoslav government, with low-level conflicts increasing for the rest of the year.
1991:
* Slovenia holds a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia, and almost 90% of the population votes for independence.
* Seeing the rising ethnic violence between rebelling ethnic Serbs and Croats in neighboring Croatia, Slovenia declares independence. Croatia declares independence soon afterwards.
* The Serb-led Yugoslav National Army (JNA) attempts to take back Slovenia but is defeated in the 10-day war.
* However, the JNA meets with greater "success" in Croatia alongside the local Croatian Serb forces, tipping off a lengthy and deadly civil war in Croatia that eventually consumes neighboring Bosnia, where Serb forces will attempt genocide against the mostly secular Bosnian Muslims.
Years later (and after a "peace" lasting a few years), NATO, having done little in the face of the Bosnian genocide, decides to act when Serbia starts a similar offensive against the Kosovar Albanians.
So tell me, by whom was this civil war provoked? Not a fan of the Clintons, but Bill Clinton wasn't even president when your country blew up.
Sadly, in many ways, the situation in the Rust Belt vis-a-vis the booming West and East coast economies reminds me a little too much of the situation in economically depressed Serbian vis-a-vis Slovenia and Croatia, and the focus on the "other" of Milosevic reminds me a little too much of Trump's focus on the "other". Both are strongman authoritarians, with strong populist followings that are/were comprised in a part by extreme nationalists.
The more I read history the more I am fearful for my country's future. I also would have preferred Sanders to Trump or Clinton, but I'm not kidding myself: Trump and a certain core of his followers pose a threat to the future of this republic.
People who voted for Trump do have to own his clearly racist, xenophobic and misogynist behaviour during the campaign.
But equally Hillary needed to have a answer for the real suffering that is happening amongst people who are being left behind by technological advancement and globalisation. And she didn't. And actually neither do the Democrats. And as we will soon learn neither do the Republicans.
Not always
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy
That too is part of the bubble. Or the two bubbles, perhaps. Completely different views of what reality is like. In one reality, Hillary is a crook, global warming a hoax, liberals evil, racism not an issue, and Trump a great business man and family man without any scandals. In the other bubble, it's the other way around.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/8/hillary-clinton...
The DNC is full of incompetent hacks whom were arrogant enough to have allowed this to happen. She dismissed half the country as deplorable, visited Virginia and told the miners there she's shutting the coal plants down. Wore 15 thousand dollar pantsuits to events on poverty. Its not surprising that she lost its surprising that she got as many votes as she did.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-transitio...
You didn't think the US Government could be run entirely by outsiders did you ?
I really question this. It keeps getting said, but looking at the numbers from Wisconsin/Michigan/PA trump did get mroe votes, but really Hillary had a massive drop. He had 1300 more votes in Wisconsin than Romney, Hillary had 250k less than Obama.
So is it really angry white americans who trump stole in droves from the democrats... or a democratic candidate who couldn't get people to show up.
The rest of those red states are pretty much just the states that always vote red + florida (and florida does what florida does).
Obama campaigned on change, people voted for him because they believed him. Many of them were white. Now, when those same people refuse to vote or vote for Trump. They are nothing but racists. The media and democratic party narrative doesn't hold water.
It's funny that people are raging at the midwest because it's been, for the past few decades, quite blue. Hillary just assumed that they were With Her (even though she clearly wasn't With Them) and now they are at fault for not giving her the votes she felt she was owed.
People are tired of bombing campaigns, corporate welfare, and feeling like they don't have a say or don't have control over their government. These states Hillary lost: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, she lost because they didn't feel like she was going to do anything different than her predecessor. And it's true. She wouldn't have.
All I hear from that side of the debate is that somehow the government should restore prosperity to these regions. Why aren't these people moving to do something for themselves if they want change?
If all you can imagine your state being good for is low-skilled labor there is nothing the government can do long term to protect that. Protectionism might bring some "jobs" back but it will come at a long term cost of reducing the USA's competitiveness in the global market (this is exactly why globalisation is a thing).
Personally I think policy in Middle America needs to embrace the state of the world (putting aside petty coast vs interior bullshit) and think about what they can do to compete on a global scale. Then maybe their lives would be better.
In regard to the competitiveness of the USA. I'm not schooled well enough in economics to completely understand everything that is going on, or without speaking about specifics argue for or against your point, but if we need to maintain "competitiveness", and the resulting insanely high profits and income inequality across the board, how are we going to ensure that this fortune is spread throughout the country and not concentrated in the hands of the few? If we can't do that, then we also can't begrudge the poor and those left behind by globalization the change to elect people that will enact policies that will benefit them, even if it's to the detriment of people who, quite frankly, don't care about them because they're just a bunch of poor dumb hicks, or poor black people in the ghetto.
Please keep in mind I'm just open for discussion and expressing a view. I respect what you have to say here, and my goal isn't to cause an argument but to listen to what you have to say, ask questions, and state my opinion as well. :)
i'm not interested in arguing about whether that belief is well founded or self-consistent, or whether their vision of a hands-off gov't is sustainable (i'd argue that neither is sound, but they're not so obviously wrong as to be equivalent to asking for a handout)
Even if manufacturing and coal mining where to increase ten fold, there would be no new jobs for people without a long education, due to automation.
What we got is mathematically 4 realities. Both slander campaigns could be more or less true, in which the two most hated candidates in the world was really poor candidates for the two biggest parties in the united states. Both slander campaigns could be wrong, in which the voters where tricked by two political parties which should have known better to not bet a political election on slander. The two remaining options that only one slander campaign is wrong, is really only believed within the bubbles. It is very unlikely that anyone will be converted who already aren't.
Some people read the damaging emails. Other people only read the emails about Hillary getting a creme brulee because that's what her talking points focused on.
There was a lot in there that was very damaging and she refused to address pretty much all of it.
http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/
The quotes are out of context, making them seem much worse than when you actually read the surrounding paragraphs. Good try by author of the site to make these seem interesting but to be honest her emails seem entirely pedestrian and boring.
So take #2 as an example:
The open borders thing is pretty much slam dunk evidence that she wanted the TPP.
Trump alluded to this in his last advert about "elites".
Did she try to deny this? No, not really. She only came out against the TPP (weakly) after Sanders campaign hammered her on it and once the email was out in the open she lost all credibility on that.
This was a particularly important issue to the rust belt, where she lost heavily.
Even if you aren't, she was likely aware of all of this which is why she tried to conceal the paid speech where she said it.
Sure TPP is bad news but I really don't see why her being weakly in support of it followed by weakly against it is really that damaging/interesting.
Same goes with a bunch of the others. The one on her "paying" people to disrupt rallies is a bunch of garbage. She received what looks like a newsletter from something called MoveOn, perhaps she even donated money to it. This thing seems to organise people to to protest against things they find reprehensible (which is apparently Trump to these people). The site tries to make it out that she directly paid people to go and start a riot. In reality it looks like she may have donated money to this thing.
Either way it's still entirely uninteresting, boring, run of the mill stuff.
If there was really damaging emails I am sure they would be at #1.
She's been trying to be the Democratic nominee for decades, there was a reason she lost every time until now...and her opponent was openly socialist.
Meanwhile, Trump was saying things like "remember when the cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico? Now they make the cars in Mexico and you can't drink the water in flint."
Hillary failed to relate to voters. She lost the majority of women and working class, who should be the reliable democratic base. She was the image of robotic boredom and I voted for her. Tim Kaine was a waste of a VP spot and a snub to Bernie. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile made Hillary look completely untrustworthy. Hillary arrogantly expected Obama's coalition to fall in line behind her without offering them anything to rally behind other than again Trump, which clearly wasn't enough.
Democrats have to own this failure and ask themselves what they could have done better.
However I also believe that there is some truth to most explanations for this election in the HN threads and various op-eds. There's too many factors to reduce it to just one party/group to blame.
If Hillary was playing to win she should have nominated a true-blue progressive and especially one that could have harness some of the OWS/99% energy (without actually formally supporting either).
Her campaign was about Her. Problem is, many many folks are just busy surviving and didn't see themselves with "Her".
This is false. It has nothing to do with Hillary.
> The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The false narrative is that Trump was a strong candidate. On the contrary, I'm betting he knew exactly how to play the game. Democrats have always had a hard time getting a 3rd term. They've only done it twice since 1836. The so-called keys to the White House pointed to a Republican victory. Trump is a sales man, he knew that the average American voter doesn't want to listen to policy, but rather catchy phrases that are vague patriotic ("I like Ike"). He is a weak candidate who knew how to work the system for a win. He's now filling his cabinet with people who shouldn't be there (Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, Rudy Guiliani), because the reality is he doesn't care one bit about policy or being the president. In their desire for "change" voters have managed to elect a person who doesn't care about them and whose apathy is going to do a lot of harm.
Expect all the BushCo. prescience that led to the 9/11 attacks to lead to another one - which the Trump administration will use to launch another war.
Don't think it can happen?
One sentence only, and a major understatement at that: "Change has not been kind to the Midwest and rural America."
This sentence alone illustrates the very membrane at work that holds together the "intelligentia" bubble. Accusing the dummies of immorality while just employing more advanced tools for your deviseveness does make you the bigger bigot.
When your mind starts copy pasting headlines from the "accusational BS by trolls" folder to your personal "trusted facts" folder thats stupidity at work. But if the passing BS is just allowed if its coming from inside your echo chamber that doesn't make you more elevated. It just elevates your ignorance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-h...
But I guess believing in "facts" means I am part of some out of touch intelligentsia.
you had one job to do (I'm running away with the idea that this is a giant missive about the election results) and you screwed it up. you screwed it up by putting on an elitist face that says "we know whats best for you" when the voice speaking it was not a trusted voice nor a voice that actually DID have the concerns of those being spoken to at heart.
The premise of calling the electorate ignorant racist etc is belied by the 2 terms of Obama. silly presumption. I contend that it was a referendum on elitist pols represented by one of the most unpopular faces in insider quid-pro-quo politics of the last 30 years.
Should have run Sanders, you rich privileged outta-touch bi-coastal self-hating Americans :D
see, you think you have rid yourself of the stench of redneck but your snarky gabby talkshow hosts, your fancy globetrotting cuisine, and your view of the world all belie this by reasserting what really stinks about us Americans:
know-it all, we do it better than anyone else, we have a solution for your backwards ass, heavy-handed, unilateralist, non-listeners who just want to tell people how to live or ideally force them into an uneasy compliance and dependency upon our cultural products. Hollywood makes lame 1 dimensional propaganda films with the same basic plotline ad nauseam, our dot-com industry makes more mobile phone apps to keep people staring at their choice of hand-held status symbol, and we try to shove GMOs and overpriced pharmaceuticals in everyones face via one-sided trade agreements like TPP. We already are Donald Trump, collectively speaking. We ARE the ugly American so stop pretending that our embarrassment begins with G.W. Bush and ends with Trump. The world has been both in fear of our nuclear arsenal, and laughing at our foibles for decades now. Our polite presidents engender as much amusement as our cowboys, because behind the scenes its the same shitball of unilateralist global empire that should benefit our fat-sofa-asses back at home. If you unplug the bubble it's this reality that should sink in to both the coasts AND the midwest. Only then can we confront and tame our inner monster, as so long as we pretend that our coasts and interior have nothing to do with one another, or that our "liberal" coasts are not also involved in the same "team america, world police" activities, that is basically a lie in service to no one. We need to own our ugly rump side. Pretending that our cousins are stupid and backwards while not seeing the oppression we are also part of creating (for example the PC culture of no-platforming, etc. completely goes against the actual principles of the left, of a fair and just society. we have allowed PC culture to hijack the stillborn tiny baby of our nearly non-existent left wing. any leftist movement that forgets labor is elitist and will die or be absorbed as another mask for fascism, which is what our PC culture has become- observe the Hill-bots treatment of Sanders and the creation of "Bernie Bros" as part of their strategy to kill any leftist movement within the DNC, thus handing the victory to Trump as the only populist on the list...)
yeah, if you guys would turn your lens inward that would be great. take a frikkin look in the mirror and then think about how you failed as a communicator.
I am an ugly american. I've started to become ok with it, as the village locals refer to me as "the American" I can joke about it with them in Portuguese...I grew up in the midwest, did 20 years in California and after over a decade of global travel for an odd line of work, find myself on a mountainside in rural Portugal where I realized that the local country folk have more sensible knowledge...
The mental copy pasting that you've done is: Saying Donald Trump is a straight up racist, while your "facts" are headlines, whose actual article's details like
"While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties..."
fails to make it into your conscience.
“I would love to,” he said. “I would do it in an instant.”"
Doesn't sound racist to me. Also digging this stuff up in the midst of an election is of course a reason for hyperbole. So did the Clintons with the leaked emails about Wikileaks, Russia or the sitting FBI-director.
And for the 1000th time, it is necessary to say, "rural America understands that they are not your priority".
The modern left finds it more virtuous to hire a wealthy black man or a wealthy white woman than to hire a poor white man. Rural America knows.
In fact, and more people are coming to terms with the modern left's perverse priorities. Indian people? Indian people don't even exist to these costal elites. Indians are dramatically underrepresented in popular culture, but the left only cares about replacing white people in popular culture with black people.
People like Mr. Thornton would never dare demand that we replace black people with Indian people where black people are overrepresented.
You can keep lecturing poor white people about how backward and toothless and spoiled they are, while never daring to say a negative word about black people. You can keep telling poor white people to stop being tribal, while fomenting tribalism in every other group (except Indians). You can keep claiming to care about representation, while ignoring everyone but the groups that earn them the most virtue points.
My Thornton, everyone is wising up to your priorities and the priorities of those in your wealthy costal social circles.
Yeah, I'm bitter.
It seems both parties are against social support, encouraging smaller, local companies or regulating corporate behemoths to protect citizens.
USA is remarkably weak in supporting its less fortunate citizens.
And just because someone is ignored, called racist and dumb it doesn't mean they aren't. From what I read as an outsider, many US citizens are in fact both. Any country has its share of such people and the US is huge, so of course there will be more.
But now everyone should listen to them and stop calling them names and it's all gonna be alright somehow. The problem is education, and it will take decades to fix, if it can be fixed.
There are numerous racists on both sides. Among them, those on the left who believe social justice means hiring a rich black person before a poor white person.
There are numerous dumb people on both sides. Among them, those on the left whose arrogance led to being utterly, devastatingly wrong about the election.
We can only wait and see whether Trump was serious about helping middle America. He wouldn't be the first politician who failed to keep campaign promises, nor would his supporters be the first group to be disappointed by their candidate. But to dismiss him before he's even taken office is pure ignorance.
The best pollsters were very hesitant about Clinton's lead.
There is no arrogance on the left, because the real left were out of the election as soon as Clinton was nominated.
Clinton was a centre-right corporate insider candidate. Trump was a far-right corporate outsider candidate. Neither has any genuine interest in working Americans.
The election was a farce because the only two candidates were crooks - Trump certainly, with his appalling record of failing to pay contractors and his likely mafia ties, and Clinton because of all the emails in WikiLeaks, at least some of which may be genuine.
The only people who will benefit from Trump in the short term are the 1% who will receive some generous tax cuts. In the long term, it's quite likely - or at least a serious possibility - that no one at all will benefit.
So - stop the crowing please. This isn't a sports game, and Trump's election isn't a touch down. The reality is the stadium is on fire, the crowd are about to start panicking, and there's an earthquake and a hurricane on the way.
Nate Silver, for example, once said that Trump was certain to lose the primary and it wasn't even clear that Trump was trying to win.
He seems to have allowed success to go to his head, but to his credit, he's humble enough to rethink when he's proven wrong.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundi...
That kind of hubris was widespread. Numerous unrepresentative polls were published, the media promoted the message they wanted to be true, not the message that was true, and the DNC thought they could push a terrible candidate like Clinton on to the nation.
I'll posit that Mrs. Clinton is centre-left, not centre-right, more authoritarian/right on economics and more authoritarian/left on social issues. But I really don't consider Mr. Trump to be far-right: he was a liberal Democrat for much of his adult life, more authoritarian/left on economics (opposing free trade), and more libertarian/left on social issues.
I really wish that there had been a good libertarian/right Republican this national election, but there wasn't.
What is this referring to? I've seen you say the same thing several times in this thread, is it referring to something?
Are you and the top level comment saying that rural/midwestern poor white americans are competing for jobs against wealthy black americans? I'm just trying to understand what this sentiment means, not trying to be combative or anything
Speaking for myself, I'd discuss things like affirmative action in college admissions, whose advocates would admit a wealthy black person from a prep school before a poor white person from a failing rural school who has better test scores, and call that "social justice".
But you are repeating and justifying this comment up and down the thread.
I can't speak to exactly what the original author of the remark meant by those words specifically.
edit: you answered below
Your comment is just as vitriolic and uninformed as the article's author. You complain, rightly so, about Trump supporters being unfairly characterized as uneducated, toothless, incestuous rubes while also generalizing the the modern left.
Criticize the author instead if assuming that he speaks for the entirety of people who didnt vote for Trump.
Identity politics means judging someone first and foremost by their race, gender, and sexuality. That's the attitude that leads many to "find it more virtuous to hire a wealthy black man or a wealthy white woman than to hire a poor white man".
Instead, most threads discussing the Clinton loss describe a class of people who are relegated to corners of the country with inadequate education and dying industries. It's that combination which leads voters in states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to ignore the hatred, the vitriol, the proven lack of business success, and the lack of government leadership in hopes of changing the status quo as it relates to them.
In summary: nearly 50% of voters chose to prioritize personal gain over human dignity.
(I voted for Clinton, but I consider myself solidly independent of any particular party.)
•••
I have no interest in continuing the thread, though, so feel free to get in the last word.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/womens-rights-and-oppo...
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/page/latinos-for-hillary/
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/lgbt-equality/
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/racial-justice/
This sort of polarization is sort of worrisome in one sense; trust is needed to cohesively run a society. (http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21705831...) If we're becoming a low-trust nation overall, that's not terribly good.
If you keep telling yourself that's what this election was truly about, Trump is already halfway to his second term.
The modern left voted for, donated to and campaigned for Bernie, who also had the accusations of sexism slung at him. That was the establishment lashing out.
They also tested the anti-semitic accusations, though no doubt they fell flat because he was Jewish:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262007/bernie-sanders-and-hi...
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/bernie-sander...
Pretty much every anti-establishment figure gets these attacks.
Our side of the left lost the election that defined the platform for this election.
It should be obvious by now that the last thing the establishment wants is a genuine anti-establishment candidate.
And also, that any candidate who wins cannot truly be anti-establishment.
If Trump was a genuine threat to the establishment, he'd never have had a prayer.
That's not anti-establishment, it's just aligning with a different kind of establishment (the ayatollas).
And...
> 538: Clinton Couldn’t Win Over White Women
> Preliminary exit poll results show that ... Clinton lost the votes of white women overall and struggled to win women voters without a college education in states that could have propelled her to victory.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-couldnt-win-over...
> You can find his own words but he has said immigrants from mexico were rapist and murderers but some are good and repeated some.
That was a comment about illegal immigrants, many of whom are rapists, both immigrants themselves and the people who bring immigrants to America.
80% Of Central American Women, Girls Are Raped Crossing Into The U.S. ... Rape can be perpetrated by anyone along the way, including guides, fellow migrants, bandits or government officials [0]
http://fusion.net/story/17321/is-rape-the-price-to-pay-for-m...
> Talk about black voters as if they all live in inner city ghettos were walking in the wrong part of town will get you shot.
I don't know what you're referring to here.
> Lauded stop and frisk a measure that was show to lead to racial profiling of African Americans.
His exact words are important here. What did he say?
> Selected a VP that believe conversion therapy (or some form of it) is a good way to cure homosexuality.
I agree Pence is terrible, but I've gotten used to terrible vice presidents. It's a powerless position that is usually a political dead end.
And considering that Trump is a) hated by quite many and therefore a possible assassination target, and b) oldest president-elect so far, it's distinctly possible that Trump wouldn't serve whole term.
On the other hand, Pence should act as an insurance for Trump against the more militant left: should they assassinate Trump, they'll get Pence as president...
Well, the assassination doesn't sound that likely. Many speculated that Obama would be a target for the white supremacists and extreme right. We haven't seen any openly reported attempts.
> Mexico: Sexual violence routinely used as torture to secure “confessions” from women
> Sixty-six of the [100] women said they had reported the abuse to a judge or other authorities but investigations were opened in only 22 cases. Amnesty International is not aware of any criminal charges arising from these investigations.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/06/mexico-sexual...
Trump spoke about an uncomfortable subject in an offensive way, as he often does, but if it opens the door to an honest discussion his un-PC remarks may have some value.
This is ridiculous on its face. The comparison is nonsensical. If I'm hiring someone for a job, I'm going to pay them the same wage so they're going to be roughly at the same income level.
Also, that's not true. For example, I'm a black man with a white barber. Why? Because he cuts my hair better than anyone else.
> Identity politics means judging someone first and foremost by their race, gender, and sexuality.
Funny. When I was taking part in various equality movements, the whole point was to NOT judge someone based on their race, gender, or sexuality. Looking past the exterior husk and judging someone on the content of their character was the point. I still don't like most people. However, it's not because they are part of some particular group, but because I just find something off-putting towards that particular person and I won't generalize my distaste to a whole group of individuals.
Amongst friends, I make fun of every group under the sun. Racial jokes, female jokes, I throw around racial slurs amongst friends as well. Some of my white friends greet me by saying 'What's up nigga." I'm pretty colorful with my language as well. It may surprise you, but a lot of us grew up with the sticks and stones may break bones, but words never hurt mentality. For me, words only have the power that you give them.
We're not all stereotypical white knight, social justice warriors seeking safe spaces and stifling dissent on college campuses. I'm not going to twitter shame you for making a blonde joke. If you can't look past your own biases and judge people on their own merits rather than taking lazy mental shortcuts, what hope is there?
I never called Trump supporters sexist. I called Trump sexist.
But it's not the attitude of so many who did call people sexist for voting for Trump, and of Clinton herself who said half of Trump's supporters were "deplorable".
I hope people like you and me can take back the left from "stereotypical white knight, social justice warriors seeking safe spaces and stifling dissent on college campuses".
(And the quote you found ridiculous wasn't from me, but I thought the author meant from a wealthy background vs a poor background.)
There are still millions of jobs in agriculture and construction, but they are now poorly paid because they are performed by people who aren't protected by employment laws and have no negotiating power.
The only change that needs to be made is forcing agriculture and construction companies to obey the law.
(I gave you a net 0, upvoting your comment and downvoting your complaining)
I could imagine that illegal immigrants are also a much easier workforce to manage. They won't be forming unions and going to strikes; if you want to terminate the employment, they won't go to a lawyer and sue you. They're humble, they're flexible.
(I don't know that job market so well and I don't even live in the US, but this is the perception I get from the system.)
I'm going to need a source on that. Here's mine: http://protecttheharvest.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/numb...
What do you think "productivity gains" means? It doesn't mean we need to hire more workers.
But that graph is relatively flat since 1970, and I seriously doubt they were able to count all the jobs now being performed without documentation and not reported to the government.
Small scale production might be better for connecting and jobs and whatnot, but that can't compete price wise. Our small farm isn't exactly a huge money maker as it is.
Modern farming is hardly just grunt work, a farmer has to be familiar with the land and the processes involved. It's actually a bit more technical than many may realize. And the salaries for farming reflect that; it is a pretty decently paid profession. People with this skillset won't go away. You just don't need many of these people per acre.
There is such a thing as labor-intensive crops, of course. But I speculate that any replacement for low-paid "illegal immigrant" grunt work would end up being automation in the end.
Look I will be honest if not polite.
The farmers I know are doing well for themselves. My sample may be biased because I only encounter ones with an interest in technology, but to a one they don't seem to be hurting objectively (feel like they are hurting? Probably a few).
But these are people making something people want, in an efficient way, and capturing a perfectly-reasonable proportion of the value they create.
That's farmers though.
Rural "workers" I feel sorry for but only so much. I don't know these people like I know the farmers I know--farmers I meet through work, these I know only as extended family, friends thereof, and people I meet in passing while traveling for work--but I have met enough and known enough to know what the deal often is.
The standard story for these dudes tends to be they grew up in town, didn't do that well in high school--and these guys are usually older so they missed the big student loan expansions that changed college from rich kids and smart kids only to something most people had a crack at--but at least back then you really could walk onto the proverbial factory floor (or learn a skilled trade, but those guys' lives have tended to follow a different arc and I skip them here) and wind up with a stable, good paying job.
So the standard story continues with them doing hard honest work and being paid well for awhile--long enough to have settled down and started a family--but of course we all know the story ends once the factory shut down fifteen or twenty years ago.
Since then it has been a long, punishing grind, the city they live in has started falling apart, the good kids leave the area and try to make it elsewhere, the young people who are left are a mix of bad kids (drugs, petty crime), the unambitious, and a handful of saints i both admire and pity (hanging around out of a sense of obligation for a sick relative or similar).
It's a sad story, but to treat them as having had no agency in all this time is profoundly insulting--insulting in a way far graver than any any snark I can make in passing--and I refuse to do so.
The local factory closing and thus derailing your world and the life plans you made in it: that's a tragedy for you and yours, and I am truly sympathetic for the difficulties so imposed.
Failing to better yourself beyond "some high school, worked hard and honest for awhile"? That's on you. Spending multiple decades in the same place, waiting for outside forces to benevolently restore the favorable circumstances of yesteryear? That's on you. Failing to go to where there are actual jobs suitable for the skills they have (often, again being honest, out of a fear of urban life that would be comical if the consequences weren't so unfortunate)? That's on you.
We aren't taking about children here; these are grown men, possessed of automobiles, clean criminal records, and an admirable willingness to do hard, unrewarding work...but they are often also grown men feeling entitled to have that work offered to them in the place and manner of their own choosing, on terms of their own choosing, in accordance with the world they grew up in...and affording them a social stature and respect concordant with their own pride and self image.
With deep sympathy: the ask is too high, the world has been telling them that for decades, and after awhile any sympathy I have for their plight becomes entangled with scorn for failing to take real responsibility for their own lives.
It's hard for me, personally: as a rather more devout person than many on this site I really and sincerely believe that every human being possesses an intrinsic dignity and that we are all truly and equally alike in god's eyes and to love everyone as my neighbor...but it's hard not to slip into scorn and derision for people whose pride had lead them to fail to act like responsible adults and transformed what should have been a mere difficult period int...
Fine for the single person who is young but not the older guy with kids. Same with college....hence the rise in online schools or scummy for profits.
(The same critique applies to "poor" urban Americans who have liberals making similar excuses for them.)
You are right that people who choose to develop a substance abuse problem may have a harder time. So what?
Your last comment seems needlessly cruel to me. I had a friend in Texas who's parents were drug addicts. His dad was killed in a car accident and sometime later his mom got a boyfriend who proceeded to rape him on a weekly basis from the time he was seven to around the time he was twelve and put into foster care. He ended up bouncing around foster homes, getting deeply involved in drugs until he finally enlisted in the Army, and after a few deployments and a stint at community college he eventually graduated college and is now a geologist.
I'm extremely proud and humbled by his accomplishments, but to be honest, if he had simply turned into a meth head and died under an overpass, I can't say I would be begrudge him considering the circumstances of his youth.
edited for grammar
Your average white trump voter is rarely going to move to the hood.
To a complete outsider, the situation of poor rural whites summarizes as "sucks, and has sucked for 20-30 years".
One interpretation is that (on average) things are as they are due to lack of capability: in short, "those people" are sufficiently stupid--and consequently also ignorant--that it would be inappropriate to hold them fully-responsible for their decisions and circumstances (in the same way we don't for children or the mentally-handicapped).
An alternative interpretation is that (on average) things are as they are due to lack of character: in short, "those people" are sufficiently sound of mind and body that it would be inappropriate not to hold them fully-responsible for their decisions and circumstances (just as we do for everyone else).
As insulting and demeaning as it is to be thought stupid and ignorant, in this specific case being considered stupid and ignorant is, in fact, coming from a place of (unconscious) charity.
I'm deadly serious here.
Someone cruel and nasty will default to the second interpretation--your life sucks because you suck at life, and moreover it's your own fault for choosing to suck at life, despite having been perfectly capable of not sucking at it.
Someone kind-hearted and generous will default to looking for some other--any other--interpretation (many would say: "excuse"): perhaps your life sucks because of systemic discrimination and structural racism? perhaps your life sucks because of structural economic changes brought about due to unfair trade policies? perhaps your life sucks because your formative years were in a difficult and unstable environment, given inadequate education and surrounded by crumbling infrastructure? or, perhaps, your life sucks because you are simply stupid--and therefore also ignorant--and you thus are simply incapable of effectively navigating the modern world?...
So as patronizing and demeaning as it was to be thought of as stupid and backwards--and to know that's what you were seen as--at least it came from a place of kindness (if you had the eyes to see).
With love and sadness, I don't see that unconscious kindness surviving for much longer: rural america has now commanded the nation's attention and asked to be treated seriously, but will likely find that the consequence of asking the rest of the nation to treat rural america seriously will, eventually, shift the default coastal outlook away from the insulting "those poor morons, too stupid and ignorant to know how to help themselves" and towards "those useless trash, too lazy and prideful to help themselves"...and that this shift will be irreversible once it does get underway.
After all of which, it's time to return to your point: the challenges and difficulties you point out are real...and on top of that, success is not guaranteed, you can move to a larger city, wind up failing, and return home worse off for having even bothered to try.
But, to raise those challenges as anything other than common and mundane--difficult, yes, but similar in nature and magnitude to the problems we all face and deal with, in our own ways, such as our abilities are--is at once to illustrate "I am still living in a bubble" and to engage in what, outside that bubble, will likely come across as "special pleading": it's too hard, my circumstances are special...which I both understand and empathize with, but also makes it that much harder to grant as much respect as one might hope for from within said bubble.
Which is why I am pessimistic: asking for respect and to be taken seriously means people who used to look down upon rural people from a position of ignorance, but also (unconscious) charity and good w...
How about we let the government pay to upgrade your education so you can get qualified like the others? (literally two of the major candidates' platforms) "NO! that's socialism"
Stalemate.
It's all imagined and fantasy, like somehow liberals have set the world up that this poor white guy from rural America is getting screwed to hire a wealthy black guy or wealthy white woman. Let me guess, Obama is the wealthy black man, Hillary is the wealthy white woman, and Donald Trump is somehow the standin for rural poor white guys everywhere.
And what is with the comments about Indians? Are we talking Indians from India or Native Americans. Who is demanding we replace black people with indian people. Where are they over represented? What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't make any sense, the same way Trump made no sense during the debates.
You really read 1000 articles? Post them 5 of them, let's see them.
You could have spent some time talking about Nafta or free trade or automation or god knows what and made some sense of this election. Michael Moore had a clip about how the free trade and nafta and rural america is hurting and predicted that Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania would go for Trump. It's incredible and relevant.
But you didn't. You spent all your time railing against race issues and coastal social elites. And in your effort to rail against those wealthy coastal social elites you elected someone who was wealthy and lived in coastal city.
I'm getting tired of the navel gazing over the post election analysis. I have a family member who voted for Trump because they can't wait till he sends Muslim out of the country and sends Mexicans back to Mexico and builds a wall. Trump said terrible things and people voted for him because he said those terrible things. In all the analysis I've read, not one person has said that.
Here's the Michael Moore clip for the record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EekI4rBg9_U
It's very close and the lead switched at least once. We won't know who finally won the popular vote until the counting is done.
What's even crazier to me is trump has yet to pass Mitt Romney vote total. He didn't even beat the last republican candidate but won the election.
or he passes Romney
What I do think the results indicate is that neither party is effectively capturing the support of a large majority of Americans. The typical observation is that we are a country divided, but I rather think that there are a large number of Americans who would prefer voting for a synthesis of typical Democratic and Republican policies, but that isn't possible. Some of those people fall on the Democratic side and some fall on the Republic side during an election and that changes depending on the candidates.
It's obviously impossible to say what the outcome would have been, but the campaigns definitely would have optimized differently.
Direct voting was intentionally discouraged by some of the founders, to prevent the "tyranny of the majority". The goal was to force a candidate to appeal to as many types of people as possible, and not allow someone to just focus on what the simple majority of people want.
It could be argued that in this election the electoral college technically performed the function it was originally designed to do -- that is, give rural areas a small but possible opportunity to out-compete urban ones in an election despite having less total citizens.
Donald Trump is clearly the President-elect of the United States and will become the chief executive of the country.
But that is different than the election demonstrating that he is the ideological leader of a majority of the country.
The only thing I have to add is that the tangential way they go off on Indians and hypothetical scenarios seems random, but is probably part of one of the misinformation campaigns.
Not some evil-motivated, conspiracy laden plot to lie to the public, but stories created by attention-hungry publishers, who are so desperate to trigger outrage for just a moment to get some eyeballs, that they stretch and manipulate information to seem threatening.
This is what I think the election has shown: that if you make a person perceive they are threatened, isolate them by telling them other sources of information (other than your own) are biased against them, that you can get them to act in the most irrational ways.
I understand your frustration (I'm right there with you. I felt like a family member died after the election), but I think the statement I quoted is an exaggeration.
Trump had a few groups of people that helped him win the election. I'd break them into these groups:
* Traditional republican voters who didn't like much of what Trump said, but worried about liberal Supreme Court justices.
* White supremacists. Most Trump supporters weren't white supremacists, but most white supremacists were Trump supporters.
* People who feel that Washington is deeply corrupt and want to see the existing system torn down. Trump has pledged to introduce term limits for congress people, along with banning certain government employees from becoming lobbyists for a period of time.
* Working class people who liked Trump's trade policies. He's pledged to renegotiate certain trade deals in an attempt to lessen our trade deficit. That would make it less appealing to outsource jobs, which union workers found appealing.
I voted for Hillary, but I admit that I like his anti-corruption and trade deficit policies. Unfortunately I'm horrified by his policies on muslims, undocumented immigrants, etc.
Quite simply, people who think like you and me lost on Tuesday. We lost badly. We need to take some time to figure out where to go from here, because if we run the next election like this one, we will probably lose again.
We spent a lot of time being upset about the white supremacists who backed Trump. We didn't spend enough time addressing the concerns of union workers, anti-corruption advocates, and republicans who didn't like Trump. It probably cost us the election.
But none of your points explain why. Trump said terrible things, that he would commit war crimes, restrict the first amendment, he won't respect the election if he loses. He's praised dictators, denied climate change, committed charity fraud, stiffed 800+ small businesses, walks in on underage girls changing and brags about it. He lies about something one day and deflects attention away to blame someone else when called out on it.
It's fascinating that he gets a pass on saying and doing these things. "It's an exaggeration." Personally, I think it's because he was a reality TV star. We expect celebrities to say and do ridiculous things, and then roll our eyes at it.
Except he's president now, and he isn't acting.
You mean like all the people protesting against Trump?
Peaceful protesters aren't presidential candidates threatening to not respect the vote.
How does that justify giving a pass to the terrible things Trump has said and done?
~~0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kht_qNBXzbU~~ (wrong video)
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpUvZLZ6axM
This is the incident from yesterday that I heard about and was searching for video of:
> Heads roll in the streets of Los Angeles as a large Donald Trump effigy was set on fire by protesters the day after he was elected president.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/11/10/donald-trump-e...
If that was it then you were right. Even European newspapers who rooted for Clinton report looting and fires.
However, that won't be necessary, as Trump can now honestly attest that the elections aren't rigged.
Vs saying weeks before hand that the election is going to be rigged, I can only lose if it is rigged, etc...
* Traditional republicans: A lot of them couldn't stand his rhetoric, but they're worried about the Supreme Court. I think a lot of these people felt horrible about voting for him, but they're playing the long game.
* White supremacists: They loved his rhetoric, so no explanation is required.
* Anti-corruption advocates: It might sound like a cop-out, but I'm blaming this one on the media. According to exit polls, 70% of people who thought both candidates were terrible ended up voting for Trump. I understand why a lot of people didn't like either of them, but this is a classic false equivalence. I think the media spent so much time talking about Hillary's emails that people started to think it was as bad as Trump's talk about nuking people, killing the families of suspected terrorists (war crime), bringing back torture (many troops won't like that), and so many other disqualifying things.
* Working class people: Despite being stalwart democratic voters (this election notwithstanding), many of these people aren't very liberal. LGBTQ rights aren't something they think about much, and I don't think they're big on feminism, environmentalism, or animal rights. They're worried about their jobs, the health of their unions, and off-shoring. Trump promised to punish companies for sending work to other countries, and to gut environmental regulations for the sake of creating new unionized gas/coal jobs.
Also, it's important to point out that voter turnout was terrible in this election. Trump got fewer votes than Mitt Romney did 4 years ago, but he won. Hillary severely underperformed Obama in almost every state. Roughly 50% of eligible voters exercised their constitutional right on Tuesday.
1 in 4 eligible voters went to the polls and voted for Trump, 1 in 4 voted for Hillary, and the other 2 didn't vote at all. That's the real story here. We failed to get people excited about voting for Hillary, so they stayed home.
Trump got more votes than Romney: http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/did-trump-actua... and http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442086/donald-trumps-vo...
Clinton represents the status quo for corruption, as evidenced by the continuing questionable practices of the Clinton Foundation, and people who have been upset with the way politics work correctly and directly linked her with that behavior.
Trump's call may have been about Washington corruption, but that doesn't mean anything is actually going to change.
[1] The Iraq war was such a disaster, that when polled today the majority of Americans won't even admit that they supported the war in 2003: http://reason.com/poll/2014/10/16/poll-reveals-americans-sup....
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096770/JFK-took-vir...
And I can appreciate Trump's anti corruption policies. It will be very interesting to see if he does engage in a trade war, slapping tariffs on goods made outside the US. If he passed legislation about charging taxes on carried interest that too would be positive.
However I'm scared as all hell about everything else. If he does anything good that will be a minor miracle. He is a sociopath and a narcissist. His tax plan will blow a hole in the federal budget while maintaining entitlements. There was an article where he asked the generals "why cant we just nuke them" 3 times. It's going to be like Bush but a lot worse.
Don't forget:
* Minorities. Although Trump didn't win their vote outright, more minorities voted Republican this time than last. He even won the Hispanic vote in NYC.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/e...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/20/donald-trump...
But most are within a similar band.
Liberal arrogance again.
As far as last count Hillary won the popular vote (though not by much). The election was very close at any rate.
Trump was just better at parroting and promising the things he heard from rural Americans. He listened to them. And he sold them on their own ideas and made them sound tenable. That's all there is to it.
Have you read said's response? I came to learn something, hoping to take something away. This guy said is a member of a different minority group resentful of African Americans overrepresentation in this country, and is an Indian. This is not an isolated incident for me so far, where I've heard from either a member of a minority group or a woman voted for Trump that has no substance, but rooted in resentment against another minority group. This is making me more depressed.
Maybe this is a couple of isolated incidents. But what I'm learning is only making me more depressed.
These people certainly do exist, but not nearly in the numbers the media portrays them to. If so, how did we elect a black man twice and just miss electing a woman to the highest office in the land? I refuse to believe the narrative about how racist rural America is.
And to the extent there is racism in rural America I posit a good portion of it is driven by folks looking for someone to blame for their currently undesirable status in the global economy.
If NY and CA were struggling, all the racists would be on the coasts and not in WI, MI, and OH, etc.
Absolutely, rural Americans are "racist" in the sense of not using approved language about people. On the other hand, that is a somewhat different thing than actually hating or despising people because of their skin color (etc).
This article was mentioned in previous HN posts:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on...
And I think this passage explains this point:
If you'd asked me at the time, I'd have said the fear and hatred wasn't of people with brown skin, but of that specific tribe they have in Chicago -- you know, the guys with the weird slang, music and clothes, the dope fiends who murder everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarro nature of the cities, as perceived from afar -- a combination of hyper-aggressive savages and frivolous white elites. Their ways are strange. And it wasn't like pop culture was trying to talk me out of it...
There are clearly still a lot of terrible people, and they love it that Trump won. They feel that this result proved them right, and allows them to act out their bigotry.
Indians from India. Like my parents.
> Who is demanding we replace black people with indian people.
No one.
> Where are they [blacks] over represented? What the hell are you talking about?
1. Sports, including practically all of our nation's most watched television events
2. Music (and despite this, smaller genres of music that don't overrepresent blacks are shamed [1])
3. Celebrity/gossip news
4. Advertisements, particularly those aimed at boys
Blacks are dramatically overrepresented in media consumed by young men, yet these naval-gazing "costal elites" never say, "Hey, we should reduce black overrepresentation and give Indian guys a chance."
> It doesn't make any sense, the same way Trump made no sense during the debates.
A large group of people see right through you and your priorities for us, and you're calling that a "blind spot". I genuinely hope you'll come around.
[1]: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/710-the-unbearable-whiteness-o...
It is so obvious you have an axe to grind and that you voted for Trump because of things totally unrelated to his policies. You voted for Trump because there is too much Kanye and Lebron in the media.
Not shocking though. I've read and heard a few members of minority groups talk about why they voted for Trump. Women afraid of Brown and Black people. Latinos afraid of Muslims. Muslims afraid of women being in control. You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together. I want to say it's disappointing but it's not totally surprising. Totally divorced from what the substance of this election was supposed to be about. Your axe to grind.
The KKK is having a rally in NC to celebrate Trump's victory. You might want to share your concerns with them, you have a lot in common. I'd be very curious to hear how it goes.
Correct. Other "minority groups" (as you put it) are allowed to be resentful about white overrepresentation; Indians are allowed to be resentful about black overrepresentation. Under Clinton, groups like Black Lives Matter would be given more influence and control, and that would make my life more miserable and make me feel more marginalized.
> You would think that after so many minority groups would feel attacked by Trump that they might band together.
Let's ignore the fact that Trump has never attacked Indian people, and his white supporters have never once attacked me.
At the heart of your post are two assumptions:
1. Indian guys have something to gain by supporting black activism.
2. I haven't tried talking to black activists.
Both assumptions are false.
Progressive black activists are greedy. They want to take, take, take, take, and take from white people, yet the moment you ask them to consider how it must feel as an Indian guy seeing so many black guys in popular culture, you're a devil.
Them: "We fought hard for our representation! Don't appropriate our struggle! You didn't earn any of this—we did! If you want more representation, fight for it yourself!"
Me: "Well, I guess that's what I'm doing right by trying to talk to you about this."
Them: "Go bother white folk about this—they're the ones holding you down, not us. I don't have the time."
As it turns out, white people are underrepresented in many important areas of popular culture, and the white people who are in popular culture are almost exclusively progressives who are happy to keep other white people out.
Racial politics are badly broken, but I trust white people over black people to give me a fair shake.
I would give you the benefit of the doubt but the comment history says I shouldn't.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11950452
It's astounding that some people still don't get it.
Clearly, if you are an uneducated white man from a small village, your prospects in life are not very good. However, blaming underprivileged minorities, whose prospects and social problems are typically even worse, is highly counter-productive and likely to bring the hone of both those minorities and the more privileged people who live with them.
Something should be done about the impending poverty of rural America. In 2016, uneducated workers are no longer competitive. Factories, farms, even battle ships only require a few people.
Without a concrete economic outlook, the path forward most likely lies in government support through social security, health care, education, i.e. the very policies for which the "coastal elite" tries to vote and pay. However, these policies do create an often-ignored identity crisis: Men want to feel proud of what they are.
Without traditional jobs, or people around them that show them the path to modern jobs, all they have left to be proud of is the values and colour they share with the people around them.
The Clinton future was bleak for the working class (not just whites), let's admit it. She ran as the least worst, expecting that'd be enough. While Trump's climate change denial alone is enough to make him more dangerous, and he will probably ruin the white working class way more, there's a reason Clinton lost.
[Edit: not that I agree with everything this person says. White and male supremacy are obviously huge elements. Poor black women are far less privileged than poor white men. But one should listen & understand.]
And while you're right that Indians are less common in pop culture than black people, Indians are also a much smaller group, and they are still represented in pop culture. I think women have a far worse share; apparently they get about 17% of the movie roles, whether it's in big crowds or for main roles. This is really the first time I've ever heard of the left being somehow against representation of Indians. They are really not.
Such a myth wasn't presented above. The literal quote was:
>priorities of those in your wealthy costal social circles.
I don't think anyone in America or elsewhere believes that all people at the coasts are wealthy. We all know of the social problems and inequality in both coasts of America. I would think what people perceive is the problem here is that a disproportionately large part of the wealth and power is in hands of coastal elites, these "social circles".
I don't claim that's actually true, I don't know it well enough - I'm not even American (I'm from northern Europe); but I'm sure this is how it is perceived by people in what is so arrogantly called "flyover country". Such a language immediately flags to me that there will be a backlash.
This is your political bigotry.
BTW - the issue regarding 'Coastal Elites' not being 'true Americans' is not so much where they live - it's the fact that NYC, LA, SF etc. are highly transient cities - without multigenerational communities - they import culture, or create little bits of fleeting culture on their own.
Large American cities are a new phenom in the West. Even in Frankfurt, Germany, it's still walkabout and people live near their families etc..
They do though. Multicultural, global trade centers, high tech industry.
They are the modern world. That's a big part of the problem, there are places that haven't adapted and as a result are suffering.
For a lot of people (say, the vast number of americans who live there) they are closer to the ideal than living in a town in wyoming or wherever. Same thing is true the other way.
No they don't.
They represent a specific vision of the future.
There are many people living very high standards of living all around Bavaria, Stwitzerland, Netherlands, Scandinavia - that are not part of 'city centres, multiculturalism, or high tech'.
The future is whatever we want to make it.
This quote really hit home for me. I spent part of my childhood in rural Texas as a new immigrant to this country. My parents were poor, although not as poor as some around us, and what they lacked in money they more than made up for in love. For this I will be forever grateful.
I had a friend who would frequently have to come over for dinner because her mother was too strung out to pick up groceries. I had another friend who never owned a pair of shoes that fit properly until he enlisted in the Army.
I'm pretty certain both of my friends would have loved to see the Apollo capsule and the assorted museums in DC. They were however, a bit preoccupied in trying to get enough calories throughout the day to maintain a healthy weight.
It's been a while since I read something on the web that made me cry, the condescension displayed in this article has succeeded.
Regarding my being moved to tears, I offer you my sincere apology, I'll certainly try and "man" up to keep my emotions from bothering you.
Yes, rural poverty is a thing and we should provide compassion and assistance to everyone trying to escape it. But that's not the family described in the article (who clearly did have the resources to visit DC), and it's not what swung the election. Trump got the votes of a huge number of middle-class, older white people, who have had many opportunities to venture out of their bubbles, to get to know their country better, to reach out to immigrants and the vulnerable in their own communities, and have just never bothered.
We should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and work to empathize with the "cultural anxieties" driving rural Trump voters, just as they have never worked to understand the anxieties of their coastal/urban counterparts, let alone those of blacks, Muslims, and other persecuted minorities. But we shouldn't idolize them as "real America". They are a part of it, yes, but the real America is a much bigger, more diverse and welcoming place.
This is exactly it. Small-town America is a very different beast from suburban America. Most small town residents tend to pride themselves on their self-sufficiency ... which is, of course, contingent upon being able to gas up and drive to the nearest "city" (max population: 40,000) a couple times a month for necessary provisions from the big box stores.
Lisa Ling[1] did a great piece where she interviewed people in the largest Radio-Free Quiet Zone[2]. The high-schoolers she talked to spent more time talking about how different (and better) they were from "city people", a fact they were quite proud of.
.. _1: http://www.cnn.com/shows/this-is-life-with-lisa-ling
.. _2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Q...
I know people keep turning to hard data to try to explain the election. I think that's generally the right way to look at it. However, I think we all know people who have supported Trump. I feel like we should be sharing what they're thinking respectfully, even though it's feels more than likely many of his supporters would not reciprocate, however true or not true that may be. More viewpoints is better after all, right? They perceive us as aloof and disconnected from their problems. So, what do we do?
I don't want another election like this more than anyone else does, but it will happen again if something doesn't change. I have little faith in the protests ability to change people's minds. The people they need to talk to likely have never even been to the streets they're protesting on. All they're going to hear is that the protests in Oregon were deemed a riot and dispersed, and that will be that.
Within my family, not all voted for Trump, but most did and they come from different economic strata. So, I've seen multiple viewpoints on this. I think in order for me to understand the elections, I've made a separation between: 1.) economics, and 2.) race & culture. The people I know that voted for Trump might have responded to the dog whistling (can it really be called that when it's so unsubtle?). But, in their minds it's about 1. and not 2. I think when it comes to changing hearts, the only thing that matters is how you feel, so it's important to make that distinction. They don't see themselves as fomenting racial anxiety, even though the United States is inevitably becoming a more diverse place. They only care about the economy, and Trump made a point of opposing trade pacts that have hollowed away their traditional place in American society.
At home and at work, I feel like I occupy two totally different worlds that don't interact with each other at all. I come to work, and it's nice. It's a diverse workplace, people are kind, we're making money. It's nice. Then I go home and it's like 2008 is rumbling on. It really does feel to me like people don't humanize people they disagree with anymore because they filter their world through cable news & the internet. Maybe changing that might help change this?
But how do we do talk to them? To them it sounds like we're waiting for them to die off, which is profoundly insulting to them but also not true of us, or at least not of me. We aren't waiting for them to die off. To me, or us, it sounds like they're trying to turn back the clock on the progress we've made for a lot of people who have endured a lot of hurt. But to them, they're trying desperately to preserve a way of life. But the world is just changing around them. We're all uncertain about where we're going to from here.
So how do we talk to them about it? How do we make them not feel threatened? I'm really at a loss. I think it's hard for the left (or at least me) to appreciate how divergent our understanding of what constitutes racist/sexist behavior is from theirs too. What's unacceptable behavior to me is locker room talk or just crude humor to them. It's hard for me to not lose my temper about it. I'm not sure how to shrink the empathy gap between the two sides, but I don't see these conversations taking place, so somebody has to start, right? But how do we do it?
I know this is a difficult pill to swallow because it involves entreating people who frighten or even mean ill to our friends (or ourselves). I happen to be in a position of extreme privilege so this post is a little...
This is all really unfortunate. US politics won't evolve past a tug-of-war if the sides don't attempt to sincerely understand each other (and that is almost never the case). The worst part of this election for me was seeing how each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other. Since language is rife with ambiguity, that virtually guarantees you see your opponent as consistently wrong, stupid, and evil. If that's what people want to see, that's what they'll see no matter the words. Bubble vision.
For example: The acceptance of Gun Laws are directly correlated to density as density makes dense policing more affordable. How is it so complicated arguing about this, when all you'd need is accepting that different areas should be able to loosen/strengthen gun control, as the populace wishes?
How much of that inability to understand each other comes from the fact that media is usually produced in high density areas?
This is the frustrating part; there's no dialog, and no one's motivated to have one because it would deflate the polarization which props up the two party system.
He could promote mutual understanding but he chose not to do so.
The people who live in big cities don't visit the country either. They have never worked on a farm or in a factory. The output of these things just show up at their stores with no thought of the effort to put them there.
I know someone who is pretty racist against blacks... Until his son starting dating a woman with a black child, now not so much. People will always fear or blame those they don't know or understand regardless of whether it is white class rural, illegal immigrants, lgbt, or muslims. The problem is that most people aren't self aware enough to think about their place in the larger world, they only want to live their life and are get scared (and look for someone to blame) when they can't.
I wonder if this idea could be applied to the US, making everyone 18-25 go 6-18 months of basic training and drills. You would certainly get to meet a lot of people you would not have otherwise.
And meeting everyone of your age cohort in the army conscription service is a revealing experience, I can assure you. More so than elementary school, because schools are like the areas where the pupils live; there is less diversity. To meet everyone is an experience.
On the other hand, nowadays countries with conscription (like where I live, Finland) are not quite the same. The army here is more picky that before, so you actually don't see everyone. For instance, when I entered service (1986), only 2-3 % entered the alternative civilian service and 1-2 % were disqualified. Now 7 % go to civilian service and 2-3 % are disqualified (for medical reasons, etc).
Thus, you have less pacifists in the army, and drug users and career criminals are excluded. The same would surely apply in the U.S. even if it had conscription.
Mid-westerners accurately saw this election as a way to do away with job killing trade deals.
If coastal elites were really serious about bridging the divide instead of talking down to unemployed midwesterners about gay rights they'd educate themselves about the TTIP, NAFTA & TPP and stop pretending that "a robot is going to steal those jobs" is anything more than an article of faith.
Edit: kind of figured this would get no coherent response and more downvotes than upvotes :)
As a fairly uneducated, I have no formal education beyond high school, foreign born non-white American male who had the "luxury" of growing up in both rural Texas as well as a pretty crappy part of Houston and then Oakland, before Oakland was a refuge for well compensated techies seeking escape from high rent in SF, I'm curious how you see poor uneducated urban minorities, and what terms you would use to describe us?
If I may make a suggestion that has proven valuable to me as an American in the deep south: don't project your local politics and assumptions when understanding others. Only when you walk a mile in someone's shoes, do you realize most perspectives have a point and reality is fractally complicated.
Oversimplifying viewpoints or dismissing them is objectifying and othering. We all do it, but the group that does it "for tolerance" is the one that just lost an American election.
And no, "we" do not all see rural US as Cletus Spucklers. You certainly do.
Save for the people who've actually been to rural America, people's opinion here of rural Americans certainly is very undifferentiated.
but that is a level you are happy with?
"we see the rural US as a bunch of Cletus Spucklers"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cletus_Spuckler
Literally a cartoon stereotype of rural Americans.
I do hope this is just an epic troll.
And I agree, we're not special. Rural Wisconsin went Obama in 2008. I didn't see a deluge of articles discussing the implications of the rural people. Wisconsin has been pretty close to the US vote, as a whole, for years. If your candidate wants to sway that vote maybe they should travel to the state at least once in the campaign. Well, it's just a thought.
I've spent some time in Wisconsin recently and got the feeling that the people are hungry for something to be proud of (in their humble Wisconsin way).
Something that they can point to (when asked) and proudly say it's a product of Wisconsin, it's people and industrious morality.
I'm not talking about record levels of domestic abuse cases, meth labs, or even leading the nation in DUI's. Rural Wisconsin has always had it's own issues in a charming sort of way.
I'm talking about the sheer gleefulness with which rural Wisconsinites abandoned critical thinking this election. There was always a small spark of anti-intellectualism in rural Wisconsin, but this election was unlike any other in how the misinformation being spread fanned the flames of that rhetoric.
Yeah, playing Uncle Tom isn't just for black folks any more.
I have gathered the impression in my time here that talking about moderation actions isn't really the done thing. In any case, I see no very probable way in which doing so will add value to the discussion, so you're welcome to the last word if you feel the urge to have it.
I'm certainly willing to engage with you if you make a point that I disagree with - read this thread and my comments in it for proof of that - but that "phrase I don't like" is a racial slur, full stop, and the idea that you "learned it from a black man" fully excuses it's use in every conversation, in every venue and at any time you like going forward is, well, wrong in a way that I don't think you'd ever be able to accept.
Consider editing your initial comment, and reflect on the idea that butting into a thread with a throwaway racial slur is perhaps not the way to get people to engage with you.
What? No, it's not. It's an intra-group epithet describing someone who is perceived to be selling out his people to an oppressor in exchange for individual privilege. It originated among black people, but the concept isn't exclusive to any one race or group of people, and "sellout" just doesn't carry the same weight of contempt.
I don't mention from whom I learned the phrase to excuse my use of it, which I see no need to excuse in any case, but rather as a less direct way of pointing out that I think you're in error to assume racism here. That you misgather the phrase to be a slur would seem to bear that out.
And, no, I'm not going to call a black man "Uncle Tom", of course. On the one hand, as I said before, that's an intra-group term; used across boundaries - especially that boundary - in that way, it not only fails to make sense but takes on a lot of unsavory connotations that it doesn't have when used within a group. Since we here discuss a case where it is used within a group, I fail to see the relevance. And on the other hand, what sense would that even make?
As far as the value of your feedback goes, what of it has there actually been, beyond "that's bad and you shouldn't say it because I say so"? You haven't even attempted to substantiate your claim. You've just made it, repeated it, and even tried to enforce it by means of moderation. At whatever point you decide you prefer to discuss substance, I'll be happy to oblige you.
>"I have flagged your comment for moderator review, as you are using a throwaway account and spreading racially charged rhetoric in lieu of engaging in civilized discussion". I hope that makes things clear.
You've moved on to civilized discussion - which is why I've started engaging with you - but the racial slur and your insistence that it's `totally just a prank brah context brah cmon` is precious.
You seem to understand the idea that this phrase can be used in at least some context without it being a slur, so I ask - does the above thread, where you jumped in to an existing conversation to use 'Uncle Tom' in a one-line comment lacking any substance or nuance- seem like that sort of context?
I am completely comfortable with your assessment of the value of my feedback, throwanem. (Food for thought: not all vacuums are physical. I'm sure you do, as you seem to assert, run into POC when you're on the train and the Orioles aren't playing; this doesn't have any bearing on your use of this term, or your presence or absence in a monocultural thought vacuum.)
If you want to double down on the same tactics that just this week have failed to elect you a president, that's your lookout, not mine.
>You seem to understand the idea that this phrase can be used in at least some context without it being a slur, so I ask - does the above thread, where you jumped in to an existing conversation to use 'Uncle Tom' in a one-line comment lacking any substance or nuance- seem like that sort of context?