
The sneering response to Trump’s victory reveals exactly why he won - erikj
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/sneering-response-trumps-victory-reveals-exactly-won/
======
mc32
I can only imagine the response from the left if Hillary had won and you had
demonstrators chanting "notmypresident" [and other colorful things] and
burning her effigy.

People would be going nuts calling them misogynists, bigots, racists, etc. but
because it's Trump and he's nominally republican, it's alright. This kind of
response only acts to further antagonize and prove his supporters right --they
don't like us and act against us when things don't go their way, why should I
support them when things don't go my way.

Trump, like him or not, be he good or not, won 30% of the Hispanic vote
--despite all the negativity their community spoke against him -and he himself
only lukewarmly campaigning in areas heavily Hispanic... He had more black
votes than Romney and won more white women than Hillary --53% to 43%,
according to Nate Silver, that's astounding, despite her actually using the
"women's" card.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
We've had 8 years of Obama being called that on top of being a 'secret Muslim'
and not a US citizen, which was a claim that was pressed by Trump himself for
years (amongst other claims like climate change being a conspiracy).

The left handled it well enough. I think the idea that the right are these
gentlesirs and the left the hysterics is fairly faulty. If anything, its the
other way around. I can't remember the last time a Democrat claimed the GOP
President wasn't a citizen of the US and spent years building a movement based
solely on that claim. I'm fairly certain it never happened.

The right's treatment of Obama both socially (ridiculous personal claims long
proven false) and politically (massive obstruction by the GOP congress) are
not forgotten and pretending they didn't exist is silly. Criticisms against
Trump are rooted in reality: his birtherism, his denial of climate change, his
far-right social agenda, his comments about women and minorities, etc.
Protesters bringing that up is fair game and frankly, how democracies should
work.

~~~
mc32
I don't recall people demonstrating and burning garbage cans and burning his
effigy and chanting #notmypresident. Do they mean it, do they have another
president somewhere else?

The response has been very vitriolic and visceral. It's not the way to seek
common ground and find a way forward. This is the recipe to antagonize and
seek distance and further fracturing.

~~~
pdkl95
> I don't recall people demonstrating and burning garbage cans and burning his
> effigy and chanting #nomypresident.

The left and right express themselves in different ways. Instead of burning
garbage cans, burning effigies, and #notmypresident, the reaction to Obama was
racist cartoons[1], years of "Where's the birth certificate?" nonsense, and a
sharp rise in the number of right wing militia groups[2].

[1]
[http://media.npr.org/programs/newsnotes/features/2008/10/oba...](http://media.npr.org/programs/newsnotes/features/2008/10/obama_bucks2-47f10ea088ad7e29a9e3a2b10d0c9f534dd42a0e-s4-c85.jpg)

[2]
[http://media.salon.com/2013/03/militiagraph.jpg](http://media.salon.com/2013/03/militiagraph.jpg)

That said, I agree the reaction from the left has been... unfortunate. It's
demonstrating just how badly the left has succumbed to the politics of _fear_.
The growing anti-establishment, anti-globalism/technocrat, "tired of the same
old crap" sentiment has been obvious for years, but the left is acting
surprised that their traditional establishment, "incremental change",
corporate sellout candidate wasn't popular. Instead of recognizing the problem
and changing tactics, _far_ too many people want to give up and leave. _/
sigh/_

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>The growing anti-establishment, anti-globalism/technocrat, "tired of the same
old crap" sentiment has been obvious for years

When isn't this true when people are fed such positions by demagogues? A lot
of Trump voters are middle class and upper middle class people with relatively
cushy lives making decent salaries, have healthcare, and have never been
drafted to war, never begged for food, etc.

Yet somehow these people have been taught that they're country isn't "great"
and that only a radical restyling of things via a strict conservative agenda
will "fix" things. I recall Bush having the same sentiment and tell me, were
you or any of these voters better off after 8 years of Bush?

I also want to point out that right now the unemployment rate is at a historic
low of 4.9% and was nearly double that in 2009. The GDP per capita in the US
is $53,000, literally 8x that in China and 4x that in Russia.

The reality here is that you can have a rational and nuanced view of politics,
society, your country, your economy, etc. Or you can engage in negative
politics and tell people who own homes and two cars that they've been "shafted
by liberals" and that if they only implement various crazy schemes, including
undoing precious regulations that keep our environment safe, that only then
will they be "great."

Do you think, that perhaps, this kind of rhetoric convinces people to vote
against their own interests and the kinds of people who actually will benefit
from a Trump presidency might be the kinds of people who benefited from a Bush
presidency, that's to say the connected upper class? Because that's what it
looks like to me.

edit: I can't reply below but there's a big difference between encouraging
economic growth via traditional methods and a radical restructuring and an
anti-globalization promise that will 'bring factory jobs' back to the
heartland that is literally impossible unless you start paying people $1 and
hour. The former is what every politician promises and latter is what Trump
promises. These are stark differences in how to speak to the electorate and
how to make realistic promises a government can carry out.

~~~
mc32
Maybe you didn't notice, but Hillary had the same take on the economy as Trump
--we need jobs, we need to create well paying jobs --people cannot afford an
American lifestyle, etc.

So, at least in appearances, she bought in to the same line of thought --and
no one more so than Bernie!

------
pcunite
I'm seeing very dangerous rhetoric from the media right now. Namely, that
Trump's "surprise" win was because ... get ready for this ... "white" people.
Unless I'm mistaken, there are more whites in this country than any other
type.

I was so honored to see our nation have a black president. I was so honored
when he suffered no violence. I'm talking about being absolutely proud of my
country here.

I am not going to apologize for being "black" or "white" or any color and I
don't expect others to either.

~~~
danso
I think the complaint is less than the fact that there is a majority white
populace, and more shock that this group voted in a way that is feared to
disenfranchise minority groups.

That said, I think a large lesson can be learned here for the next race and by
the Democrats. I'm an Asian who grew up in the Midwest. I encountered some
racism growing up, but overall have fond memories, and I have a lot of friends
who aren't "open-minded" by some standards, but if I'm only more "open-
minded", it's through circumstance of being in a minority group of <3% of
where I lived.

So I don't see those fellow Midwesterners as "racist" even if they might be
considered that out on the coasts, and they don't see themselves as that
either. While I might prioritize how a candidate seems to view minorities, a
whole lot of people won't, and I can sure sympathize for folks who put the
hope of American jobs over a candidate's perceived viewpoints.

Looking at the electoral map and all the surprise wins for Trump, people
seemed to prioritize their hope in a revitalized American economy over
misgivings of Trump's behaviors. That doesn't mean everyone who voted for
Trump is a bigot or racist. Unemployment is usually a more pressing concern
for people.

~~~
SpikeDad
Except of course Trump has no ability to revitalize any thing. Considering
that the US economy has been on a steady recovery during the Obama years
Republicans will as usually just magically declare their election is the
cause.

Trump is a con man so any attempt to attribute his election to some sort of
optimistic view of "revitalization" is sheer nonsense. The combination of the
normal Republican elite voting, the ill informed Hillary fearful and the
general "White folks that have the chance to reverse their self-viewed
powerlessness" was the combination that defeated Clinton.

As usually people voted against their own logical needs in a US society
because showing their power was more important than electing someone with any
experience in complex government operations.

~~~
DefaultUserHN
>Except of course Trump has no ability to revitalize any thing.

>Trump is a con man...

We don't know that yet. We have to wait and see. What happens every time we
vote for a politician is that we vote in hope that they will be able to
accomplish what they set out to do. Hillary supporters place their hope in
Hillary because they don't believe Trump can do what he said he will do. And
Trump supporters place their hope in Trump because they don't believe Hillary
can do what she said she'll do. We just won't know who can actually accomplish
their goals until 4 years later.

>Considering that the US economy has been on a steady recovery during the
Obama...

This is irrelevant for Trump supporters who lost their jobs, their livelihood.
Obama (campaigning for Hillary), kept telling them the economy is good. "Well,
if the economy is so good, then where did all the jobs go?" It's a bad
argument, and can not win any Trump supporter over. Because at the end of the
day, they still have no jobs, and they want jobs, and Trump is the only one
talking about bringing jobs back, creating jobs, making the economy better,
etc.

------
ankimal
Democracy won. Middle America made their choice based on a hope that Trump
will bring back jobs to America, especially manufacturing to the Middle
American Industrial heartland. What they failed to see was that the dream is,
just that, a dream! One that can almost never (never say never?) come true.

This is so much easier to explain than to convince people that globalization
is a reality and that the only option in many of these cases is to retrain for
a high skilled economy that the US always was, and must continue be in order
to be an economic superpower. No matter which party won, this section of
people would be anti-establishment and unhappy with the present because nobody
can break this bad news to them.

A software engineering analogy is to convince leadership that you have to
refactor your stack in order for it to scale, during which new products would
suffer. BUT, its easier to convince them to hire 10 more engineers who can
build new product on an aging stack, which may not solve the problem, but is
relatively easier to sell.

In 5-10 years, who will explain to the millions of automobile drivers
(taxis/trucks/uber/lyft/..) that their jobs are dying as well? Nobody. Wait
for another anti-establishment election!

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Its certainly doable. The monthly Vietnamese wage in manufacturing is $145 a
month. Middle America would have to learn to live on $145 a month to compete
against them. Oh, did they think factory work with big six figure salaries was
possible here? Gee, I wonder who could have possibly misled them about this?

~~~
ankimal
That will not even meet min. wage requirements.

~~~
soulashell
We'll just get rid of that regulation.

------
gremlinsinc
As a progressive democrat I think the protesting is abhorrent behavior. If the
right burnt Hillary effigies has she won, it would be all about sexism... I
voted for Bernie in the primaries AND the general. I picked my President last
fall when I saw the inspirational message that Bernie Sanders brought.

Trump won, get over it. Don't blame the #bernieorbust crowd, if you want to
blame someone - blame the DNC for giving us a lame racehorse. Hillary lost
because SHE is a Clinton. She lost because of corruption and illegal activity
prosecuted or not. She is a liar, a cheat, and nobody can discount that. She
might as well be a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. The people do not want
to give more power to the establishment, unfortunately the nationalists won
out over the egalitarianists, hopefully though egalitarianism can find it's
way back into America.

The article mentions us 'sheep' being 'stupid' \-- but we're not stupid enough
to NOT see through the lies and falsity that is Clinton.. I honestly think
Trump simply said what he knew Republicans wanted to hear to anger them and
get elected. He might temper and actually be an okay President... or he might
be stunted by congress every step of the way and be the 'break' we need from
Dem control to regroup and put a more progressive front up in 2020.

I know for one thing - change is in the air, that change can be in the style
of Hitler, or the style of FDR, sadly we didn't pick the FDR candidate, but
we'll have another chance in 2020.

~~~
braveo
> I know for one thing - change is in the air,

This is basically my take on it. I preferred Trump over Hilary even though I
think both candidates were terrible, and the reason is because we know what
we're getting with Hilary, we have no idea what we're getting with Trump.

You hope for the best and prepare for the worst, but atleast it's a change.
Obama ran on change and ended up not being the change people voted him in to
be. Maybe Trump will be it, maybe not. We'll find out.

------
taliesinb
I personally find Thomas Frank's way of looking at it quite interesting and
entertaining, and, so far, convincing.

Short article for Guardian post Trump victory:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/donald...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/donald-
trump-white-house-hillary-clinton-liberals)

Longer article in Harpers about establishment response to Sanders, not
directly relevant but uses the same class-based analysis:
[http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-
team-2/](http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/)

Talk about his most recent book "Listen, Liberal":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibDX92b5cnY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibDX92b5cnY)

------
avmich
> The respectable set’s allergy to Trump is fundamentally an allergy to the
> idea of democracy itself.

What those explainers why Trump win don't seem to understand is that the
disgust isn't about changing status quo - it's about the person who offers to
improve that.

Unless you're going to blindly go after whoever just seems different enough,
it seems to be reasonable to think what are the changes proposed - and what's
the person proposing them. If some changes seem irrational after evaluating
them and the person himself leaves the feeling of urge to check one's wallet,
perhaps it's not too un-democratic to wonder if this person should be
seriously trusted.

------
carsongross
The meta-problem here is that the united states is a country without a nation.
There is no underlying unity, pre-rational commitments, history, moral axioms
or ideals. No matter who won this election, nearly half the country, many very
good folks, were going to be irate, depressed and/or scared.

The devolution of sovereignty and peaceful secession is the only solution that
offers hope for all of us to live as we wish. The California secession
movement is perhaps a start in normalizing this idea on the left.

I have sincere sympathy for all people who wish to live under a government
that represents them. I hope we find a way through this.

~~~
acconrad
> _The devolution of sovereignty and peaceful secession is the only solution
> that offers hope for all of us to live as we wish._

That seems right in theory - the past few decades pretty much the same states
have voted for the exact same side. But there have been plenty elections where
that wasn't the case.

For example, pretty much everyone voted for Reagan, and Kennedy. There have
been times when the country was very much for one candidate. So I wouldn't say
we're completely divided all of the time, just in the past few decades.

------
b1daly
I'm already sick of this analysis: the rubes got tired of being looked down on
by the swells, and golly, showed them good.

Not to say that there isn't something to it, it's just that I've read multiple
versions of the past two days. It's just not an interesting analysis.

It masks the fact that there is a pathology of "know nothingism," that runs
deep in the US. Antagonism against marginalized members of society. Nihilistic
acting out has been normalized by the election of a callow narcissist who
cares not a whit for anyone besides himself.

These are the same type of people who grew up hazing fags, mocking black
people, and glorifying mysoginist, rapey behavior behavior by "bros" of all
stripe.

A lot of focus has been put on the economic dislocation experienced by the
working class in the middle of the country. This doesn't ring true to me. I've
seen references to the economic demographics of Trump supporters, and overall
they have have higher incomes, on average, than Clinton supporters.

(Can't find the article right now, this is an article from May that takes a
look)

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-
trumps-...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-
working-class-support/)

This reinforces that this is really a cultural divide. It gets around to that
sophomoric question of whether being intolerant of "intolerant people" is
intolerant.

It's of a pieces with religious conservatives adopting the language of
victimhood to, justify their right to discriminate against gays.

When it comes to being annoyingly self righteous, no demographic has a
monopoly on that. It doesn't mean that the core beliefs of foes in the culture
wars are morally equivalent.

~~~
swissoak
Oh cool, it's another person sneering at Trump supporters who _just doesn 't
get it_. Thanks for all your unfounded vitriol, Trump wouldn't have been
possible without people like you.

~~~
b1daly
huh, your laying the blame for Trump on "people like" me? Generalize much?

------
reitanqild
And swoosh it seems someone wants to flag it off the front page.

~~~
swissoak
Not exactly surprising, HN is heavily people in CA, which is a huge echo
chamber.

------
Grazester
...Except that the US political system was never a democracy and never would
be with the electoral college.

~~~
module0000
Democratic republic(what the USA has) does not equal democracy(what the Swiss
have).

------
tway123
[https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656](https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656)

