
The unbearable smugness of the press - andrenth
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-the-unbearable-smugness-of-the-press-presidential-election-2016/
======
QuantumRoar
Insulting millions of people serves no other purpose than to point out your
own superiority in some way. I can't fathom how much hubris is necessary to do
that without feeling ashamed of yourself.

How can it be so hard to be nice to others? Everybody disagrees with everybody
else on something. Everybody has false ideas about the truth. Do we toss a kid
in a meatgrinder when it has a weird idea about society? No, we include it in
our discussions because opinions change when they are challenged. But when
they cross the age of 16, or is it 18?, then they suddenly become demons that
we need to get rid of. The cancer of our society. Where do you draw the line?

If you honestly think that you have a moral superiority that gives you the
right to tell people what to do just because they are stupid (or pick any
other negative attribute), then know that there are a lot of people to whom
you are literally stupid (they are more intelligent and know more than you).
Would it be okay if they told you what to do? If they tried to silence you?
Ignored your desperate calls for help, which they think are stupid and wrong?

~~~
wcummings
This post-election narrative that liberals hate Trump out of elitist bigotry
is killing me. People _hate_ Donald Trump because they're afraid they'll be
deported, or their friends and family will be deported. This is very real and
very personal for a lot of people, I think it's lame to tell them "calm down,
why can't you be nice?" and other platitudes about uniting the country.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ya, and let's not forget his "grab them in the kittens" remark. There is no
way to explain that away, none! GWB, even though he stole the election, was
much easier to accept than this guy.

We are merely afraid that Trump is as bad as he sounds, whatever the press
said about him is irrelevant to that, and much more concrete than Hilary's
abstract emails.

~~~
emp_zealoth
Seriously, there is no way to explain that remark?

Have you never talked shit off the record? Did you never ever laugh at a
racist/classist/* - ist joke?

I agree that Trump will probably be bad, but thats because he clearly has no
plan whatsoever.

Yet entire Clinton campaign was just shit slinging, manufactured outrage,
meaningless pandering, name calling, avoiding burning issues, more shit
slinging, more pandering

She could have gone out and ripped him to shreds should she have focussed on
actual plans

Instead she just goes out and calls people deplorable everything-phobes
because they dare to oppose PC nonsense. Wanting to deport illegal immigrants
is not racist. Pretending that there are no problems with islam, where you've
got Europe as a control environment (where they harbor and abet proper
terrorists and obstruct law enforcement as hard as they can) is fucking crazy)

~~~
yequalsx
It's not manufactured outrage. Trump said he uses his power status to grope
women without consent simply because he can. He bragged about walking in on
teen constestants whilst they were nude. It wasn't him talking shit it was him
bragging about doing said shit.

~~~
emp_zealoth
Was there any proof? Apart of him talking shit with some other brodudebros
while being stupid enoug to keep the mic on...

~~~
yequalsx
Depends on what you consider proof. I mean, the man himself said that he
gropes women because he can. He said this in a private conversation without
any knowledge of being recorded. I have not reason not believe his claim.
Maybe he was blustering but I don't believe it. He's claimed to walk in on
beauty contestants while they are naked. He didn't mind when Howard Stern
referred to his daughter as a "piece of ass". The totality of what we know
about Donald Trump is such that it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to believe
that he has never groped women.

------
msravi
I don't understand how thick headed the mainstream media (MSM) seems to be in
not getting it. This "upset" win of Trump (upset in the sense that it didn't
play by the MSM's wishes) was not an isolated incident - it's happened in
India (2014), it happened in UK (Brexit), and it has been repeated in the US.

The fundamental driver for all three instances has been the removal of all
filters on social media. The problem was that for too long the MSM used their
power to filter content to its readers/viewers, and the filter was tuned by a
group that wanted to script reality in a form that they wished to see come to
fruition, even if their stand was hypocritical.

So for example, you'd see a huge hue and cry in the MSM about how freedom of
expression was being harmed because a right wing outfit threatened someone for
speaking out against a majority religion, and yet, when someone spoke out
against Islam, and Islamic groups placed a bounty on his head, the same MSM
would just go silent. It is this blatant hypocrisy that finally got them.

And now, with social media, for the first time people have access to
unfiltered news and can form their own opinions. And for better or worse, the
hypocrisy of the MSM is glaringly obvious for people who have access to
multiple viewpoints on an incident - not just a filtered viewpoint. With the
hypocrisy bare, it's basically been a revolt against the established media.

And unless the established media takes it upon themselves to be more honest in
whatever stand they take, this is going to repeat, because, people aren't
fools you know.

~~~
pg314
Yes, there are biases in e.g. the NYT and Washington Post. However, in terms
of objectivity, they are miles ahead of the "unfiltered news" on social media.
The written press try to check their sources, and hedge their statements if
they are not certain. I admit that they do sometimes filter some stories that
go against their beliefs/interests. However, they have things like op-eds that
often contain different perspectives.

If you look at the "unfiltered news" on social media, most of it starts from a
tidbit of information and then twists it to fit whatever narrative they are
trying to promote. On top of that, in the social media bubble, you literally
never get exposed to contrasting opinions. As an example, a week ago Wikileaks
leaked a mail about 'spirit cooking', and tweeted a misleading message. That
got picked up by 'news' stories on social media and turned into some satanic
ritual. It even got mentions on Fox News. If you were trying to figure out
what 'spirit cooking' really was, in the first days the first few pages of
google were only links to dubious websites reinforcing that it was some
satanic ritual (with authoritative sounding names like usapoliticstoday.com).
Only later did you get links to sites debunking the story. I very much doubt
that the average reader of these stories ever even went to Google to check the
background story. You say people aren't fools. I would say people are easily
fooled.

Add to this active disinformation campaigns (alt-right 'news' websites,
twitter bots, troll farms), a constant drip of easily twisted Wikileak emails
and an FBI director putting his whole weight on the scale during the last week
of the election, and you get this disastrous election result.

~~~
msravi
I'll repeat what I said in response to another comment:

I think you're underestimating the intelligence of people. We like to think
that we're much better than the average Joe at separating the wheat from the
chaff, but the truth is that the average Joe just isn't so bad at it either -
or at least, isn't much worse than an editor sitting in _his_ echo chamber.

If I look at my twitter feed now, for example, I have a bunch of tweets
criticizing a new decision of the government to withdraw high-denomination
currencies (I'm from India), and for every such tweet there are others that
are calling out the fallacies of the argument put forth. And vice versa.

Gives me all the viewpoints I need to form an opinion.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I think you are overestimating the intelligence of people. Like anti-vaxers
who believe vaccines give their kids autism. Where does that come from?
Definitely not the mainstream media, they heard some rumors... I imagine this
also applies to India where the rumors can get much crazier.

~~~
6nf
The number of people who actually believe that anti-vaccine nonsense is pretty
small to be honest.

~~~
DanBC
It's hard to know how many of these people believed that vaccines cause
autism, but MMR vaccination rates dropped quite a bit in the UK.

[http://www.sfam.org.uk/en/news-
features/news/index.cfm/mmr-a...](http://www.sfam.org.uk/en/news-
features/news/index.cfm/mmr-and-the-media)

>> In 1998−9, 88% of children had been immunized against measles, mumps and
rubella. By 2003−4, coverage had fallen to 80% and to 61% in some London
areas.

------
puranjay
As a guy who once described himself as "very liberal", I have to say that I'm
ashamed at the lack of empathy and the sheer smugness of my liberal friends.

There is a disease in modern liberalism about wanting to appear smart, even
about things people should have no clue about.

This "wink wink, look how smart I am!" posturing is seriously misplaced and
seriously off-putting.

If you want to know why Trump won, you have to start by dismantling this
smugness.

~~~
icu
I mirror your stance in a way... and it is funny how this election has helped
me grow as a person. I've rejected labels such as liberal or conservative and
consider myself as someone who trys to overcome my natural tendency toward
cognitive bias through reason and fact. Until I'm convinced that facts support
reason I reserve the adoption of any belief and I always keep an open mind to
new facts or stronger reasoning.

~~~
puranjay
Personally, I've made a rule that for every two pieces of liberal media I
consume on an issue, I should seek at least one argument against it from a
conservative.

Online, the dangers of living in an echochamber are very real

~~~
icu
I applaud and stand with you in your resolve to seek out views that challenge
any narrative, liberal media or otherwise, before making your own judgement.

------
spiderfarmer
As a European, this article on cracked.com (yes, cracked.com) gave me a lot of
insight into why / how Trump won.

[http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-
on...](http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-
about/)

It's Brexit all over again. Will the politicians in my country (NL) learn to
listen to 'the other half', before their campaigns start (next spring)?
Probably not.

~~~
helthanatos
Trump won because people are sick of SJWs. He won because people are sick of
being called racists when they're not. He won because his opponent was
objectively worse. Any other democrat running against him would have probably
led to different results, but the bickering between the children turned out in
Trump's favor. It's ridiculous that either one ran. All we can do now is hope
Trump does well. It really wouldn't be that hard to do "well"; we haven't had
a good president for quite many years.

~~~
M_Grey
And here I thought Trump won because of record low voter turnouts.

Everyone has a theory.

~~~
themckman
For a little context, some rough voter totals going back to 2000 (in
millions):

    
    
        2016: 126
        2012: 129
        2008: 131
        2004: 122
        2000: 105
    

While, certainly, there were less votes cast than the last two elections, it
doesn't appear to be a record low.

Edit: Sources are Google for 2016 and Wikipedia for the rest.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Don't forget to factor in population growth (above 18 years of age) from 2000
to 2016. Is it enough of a factor to make 2016 the record low? I don't know.

------
hacknat
I was pretty smug about Trump supporters until I started to see a couple
things on/after election night:

1\. Clinton underperformed Obama's numbers dramatically in the Rust belt. You
can certainly still be a racist if you voted for Obama, but it doesn't
necessarily follow that you're a racist if you voted for Trump. There seems to
be strong evidence that a number of people in the Rust belt have voted for
both men.

2\. 20% of exit polled Trump voters do not think he is qualified to be
president.

This was a protest vote by many reasonable(ish) people who are telling the
rest of us, "We're doing so poorly right now, it really doesn't matter to us
if an incompetent narcissist is President."

I honestly don't know what to do next. I've never hated Republican voters,
something I seem to be accused of doing by every underlying assumption in
articles about division in our country. I suspect that many people are like
me, I never hated the other side, but I lost respect for them long ago. I'm
going to try to get it back somehow.

~~~
GunboatDiplomat
A lot of areas around me that went for Obama in the last 2 elections went
Trump this time around. And a lot of the areas that went Hillary around here
went a lot less heavily Hillary than they did Obama 4 & 8 years ago. This is
in suburban New Jersey.

------
samirillian
I feel like this article is also missing the point. How about the unbearable
self-flagellation of the press? I voted for Hillary, but goddamn was she an
uninspiring candidate! She played not to lose, and that turned out to be a bad
strategy. Donald Trump didn't get some surprisingly high number of votes,
Hillary just managed to be even less inspiring than we thought. And now the
tone has inevitably flipped to "what did we do wrong? Maybe it was our tone of
voice?" Absurd and self-absorbed! Be as smug as you like, just don't be just
smug! It's not wrong to reduce Trump's appeal to racism because it's smug,
it's wrong because it's wrong. It's lazy thinking. There was a lot of positive
and maybe even unfair disdain for trump. But that's not why he won the
election. There was also a lot of positive and maybe even unfair hatred for
hillary, but that's not why she lost. One candidate was able to harness anger
(the way Bernie also did) and one candidate couldn't harness any positively
motivating emotions. In fact, hillary was, if anything, the fear candidate.
Fear of terrorists (guised as foreign policy experience) and fear of trump
himself, fear of his racism and his misogyny. And the press fed those fears,
and did little else. Be an smug, who cares. Just be smug for something.

------
jasode
As a non-Trump supporter who's frightened that a loose cannon like him can
have his finger on the big red nuclear button, I'm disappointed but not
surprised that the mainstream media was smug.

Here's an example MSNBC video clip showing what the article is talking about:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zL-
ip6GH4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zL-ip6GH4c)

At the 23 second mark in the video, you can see Brian Williams' body language
struggling to contain his condescension for Mark Halperin's interpretation of
the poll statistics that _could_ point to a Trump victory. Mark wasn't saying
Trump will win or even has a good chance of winning. Mark was just saying
there's a _possible path_ to winning. Even discussing what's _mathematically
possible_ with plenty of hedging, disclaimers, caveats, and uncertainty -- is
ridiculed by the mainstream press. Everyone who thinks like Brian was caught
up in the same delusion. If they dismiss one of their own professional peers
with a minority perspective, it shouldn't be a surprise they treat rural
Americans with condescension. (It turned out that Mark was correct in that
Trump's late surge would affect the battleground states and that Clinton would
misjudge the continued support of previous Obama voters.)

Looking back, a journalist could have assessed Mark's interpretation of the
data in 2 ways:

#1) the poll data is a priori correct (there is no hidden Trump vote missed by
pollsters) and therefore Mark sees something in the data because he's
sympathetic to Trump

#2) Mark is open to the possibility of Trump winning and therefore can see
something in the poll data and make (hedged) conclusions about it that all
Trump opponents are blind to

It may seem like positions #1 and #2 are just rearranging the words but they
are stating opposite cause & effect. They have profound differences in
reality. Brian and the rest of msm interpreted any favorable Trump conclusions
about the data as situation #1.

It's the same situation with taking Trump's chances seriously when he's
characterized as "a clown" or "he insults women":

#1) Trump can't win _because_ he insults women.

#2) Trump can win _regardless_ of whether he insults women.

The mainstream media and elites focused on #1. The election results proved the
_actual voters_ standing in line to choose Trump saw the reality as #2.

~~~
cmdrfred
I think against Elizabeth Warren for example the anti-women sentiment would of
had a greater effect on the outcome. Hillary Clinton's comments about Monica
Lewinsky while first lady and her defence of Bill's actions makes this a bit
of a pot kettle black situation. Somebody like Bernie can take the moral high
ground on sexism and racism in a way that Hillary's record prevents her from
doing so.

~~~
jasode
_> I think against Elizabeth Warren for example the anti-women sentiment would
of had a greater effect on the outcome._

Sounds plausible but it's very hard to tell with a black swan candidate like
Donald Trump. So many msm articles about Trump insulting blacks[1] and yet, he
got _more_ of the black vote than Romney in 2012[2]. It's another glaring
example of the disconnect between what narrative the msm feeds us and what
actually happened at the voting booths.

[1][https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+insults+blacks](https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+insults+blacks)

[2][https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2016/11/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2016/11/11/trump-got-more-votes-from-people-of-color-than-romney-did-
heres-the-data/)

~~~
jessaustin
ISTM black Americans are used to (I'm not saying "happy about") being
insulted. They meet lots of admitted racists, but also lots of insincere
infantilizing jackasses. Obama was neither of those things. The candidates
this time around? One of each. Occasionally, one might prefer a different sort
of insult...

------
mtgx
For someone looking from the outside, it seemed like 90%+ of the media were
all on Clinton's payroll or had some kind of deal with her.

It was disgusting, and one of the reasons why I feared a Clinton presidency.
So much of the media being unwilling to criticize her and try to destroy her
opponents so easily and so intensely. This coupled with the fact that Clinton
herself was paying trolls to make positive comments about her on the Internet
to the point where they had full control of one of the largest subreddit's on
Reddit (likely with Reddit admins' tacit approval, for the same reason Google
and Twitter was banning anti-Hillary hashtags and auto-suggestions) reminded
me too much of Putin's Russia (ironically enough) to be comfortable with it.

Also, NY Times was bad enough with this, I expected much more from them, but
I'll never forgive or forget Washington Post's bias in this election. For a
"general purpose" media entity, it was no better than Breitbart or such on the
right.

And it goes without saying that CNN, and often MSNBC were even worse. Those
two I've already forgotten about.

------
miguelrochefort
It spread to the Canadian press (at least Quebec's) like wildfire. Everything
I would hear in the media was unapologetically anti-Trump. It lead to a
climate where people would just assume that Trump was
crazy/racist/mysogenic/untrustworthy, and further confirm their smug idea that
the US is full of rednecks. Most people went along with it, and would casually
mention how disgusting Trump is, without being able to name one concrete
argument for it. "Trump is bad" became an axiom. I'm sure it's been similar in
many other countries (including the US).

~~~
JamisonM
I think that people assumed Trump was "crazy/racist/myogenic/untrustworthy"
because there is ample evidence that he really was each and every one of those
things. Most of the evidence is in court documents and on tape, completely
verifiable. Don't mistake being a "contrarian" for just being wrong. The media
reported the facts on Trump and they assumed that facts mattered, but they did
not. Or they did but no one cared about the substance of those facts and what
they say about what kind of president he might be.

~~~
miguelrochefort
Perhaps you're right. I might be overlooking these traits because I don't
consider these things (except for trustworthiness) very important.

~~~
JamisonM
If you think trustworthiness is important then I would suggest that Trump's
election should be particularly worrisome.

------
edblarney
This is it.

There's a huge gap between the press corps today: Ivy League educated, NYC-
bubble lifestyle and the rest of the country.

The bias is palpable.

And I don't like Trump.

~~~
benmcnelly
I think it is funny/sad that almost every comment online or in person, I find
myself feeling I need to add "and I don't like Trump" or equivalent
qualifiers, for fear of negative bias in interpretation of any statement I
make.]

What happened to where being able to state your opinion or make a logical
argument has to to be qualified so you don't get assumed to be racist, or
sexist or whatever. I am going to try and unlearn that behavior and assume the
best about people until proven otherwise.

~~~
edblarney
Ha, I agree.

But with politics, it's all biased.

I'm not 'in fear' of being called 'racist', but I think it's important to know
I have no stake in the game. Political bias is a strong thing.

Because 'saying the media is biased' is a trope that you might find over in
Trumpland. Even though the are biased about it, they are effectively correct.

------
dcposch
Yes, the corporate press was smug, hubristic, and often hilariously wrong.

I think the best journalism came from people outside the normal news.

Here are three nontraditional journalists who did excellent work:

\--

Nate Silver did the best math.

His final election prediction is like a crash course in data science. Humble,
thorough, quantifies uncertainty, acknowledges that errors may correlate.
Explained in plain English and illustrated in a way that would make Edward
Tufte proud. He lays out three scenarios (polling average accurate, 3-point
error for Clinton, 3-point error for Trump). The latter describes in detail
pretty much exactly what ended up happening.

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-
th...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-theres-a-
wide-range-of-outcomes-and-most-of-them-come-up-clinton/)

\--

Chris Arnade got the best stories.

He's a former bond trader who now travels the country as a photojournalist,
befriending and talking to all kinds of people, mostly working-class and poor.

Here's his best work, in my opinion:
[https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/divided-by-
meaning-1ab51075...](https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/divided-by-
meaning-1ab510759ee7)

It was the first thing that really helped me understand Trump voters.

\--

Finally, Michael Moore nailed it.

Months ago, he wrote an essay called Why Trump Will Win, asking his liberal
audience to campaign hard and not get complacent.

[http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/](http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/)

It came true pretty much exactly as written.

One of his speeches was taken out of context and edited down into an
unofficial grassroots Trump ad. It is the single best pitch for Trump that I
have heard:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDRqeuLNag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDRqeuLNag)

MM really understands the disenfranchised. So many lessons.

------
jbmorgado
Since the beginning it was obvious the people would choose _change_ and it
actually looked like they would choose _change for the better_ of you allowed
them to (as the Bernie vs Trump polls showed).

But Democrat party decided the people knew nothing and they would just make
them choose between what looked like _change for the worst_ or for _everything
to continue the same_.

And well, people really preferred _change_ non the less.

Democrat party should now do some soul searching, stop blaming others for
Trump election, and figure out how they allowed Hilary to manipulate so much
the DNC in order to push Bernie aside.

~~~
zimpenfish
> (as the Bernie vs Trump polls showed)

Those same polls also showed Clinton winning handily against Trump. You can't
pick one side as proof of your argument when the other side has been proven
wrong in reality.

~~~
jbmorgado
No, that's incorrect. Those polls showed Clinton leading against Trump by 3
points, and Bernie leading against Trump by 10 points.

That's a huge diference.

~~~
zimpenfish
Ok, I'll remove "handily" \- my point still stands that you can't point to
polls saying X when they also say Y which has been proven wrong since.

------
return0
Maybe it wasn't the press? Sure, they were completely one-sided, but look, the
opponent won with 0 press by his side. So, why do we think that whatever the
media said matters so much? Maybe the rhetoric of the democrats was wrong?
Maybe every time hillary unconditionally pandered to minorities or women , a
switch flipped inside the head of a voter?

Anyway, if you want to attribute something to the press it's their inability
to doubt themselves. This actually begins in academia, where social sciences
have switched from arguments to a war of punchlines. Skepticism is the
foundation of science.

~~~
bloat
Whether they were on his side or not, they still printed every single thing he
said, often in giant letters on the front page.

~~~
return0
... thinking that it would deter voters, because they could not fathom that
someone might actually agree with it.

------
nitinreddy88
As a outside US person, this article is pretty much nailed it. Clearly
explained what's going wrong with US media

~~~
Melchizedek
This might not make Americans feel better but other countries have it even
worse. Swedish media has been surreal during this election. You would think
the US just elected the literal devil as president.

The Bonnier papers (the single company that totally dominates Swedish media)
ran a story about how to talk to your children about Trump, instructing
parents to tone down the apocalyptic comments in order not to scare the kids
too much.

~~~
return0
Most EU media seemed to have parroted CNN throughout the campaign. In a way,
the continental europeans were more shocked tham americans. And they continue
to do so, e.g. yesterday's guardian was literally a list of lamentations.

------
jkingsbery
I like how in an article written by a liberal acknowledging how condescending
the media can be to conservatives, there is a propagation of the myth that in
the Middle Ages people thought sickness and demonic possession were the same
thing. In fact, the Middle Ages had physicians, nurses, hospitals, and
medicine. Not as advanced as ours, but modern medicine didn't just spring up
from nowhere.

See for example
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals#Medieval_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals#Medieval_Europe)
\- there were hospitals, and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine_of_Western_E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine_of_Western_Europe#Monasteries)
\- medicine certainly involved prayer, but also involved experimenting with
different materials to relieve physical symptoms.

------
exabrial
What an unbelievably refreshing and honest piece. I have to say it's pretty
sad when Wikileaks is doing the job of the press, and the Press is doing the
job of paid lobbyists. I'm pointing the statement both sides of the political
debate, because it's happened to both.

------
forgottenpass
_It’s a profound failure of empathy_

So "empathy" is the only thing keeping people from becoming complete
shitstains?

Empathy is currently experiencing buzz as a positive value people like
conspicuously talking about, but what happened to simple old standards?

I don't need to empathize with someone to treat them as human. Maybe this is
one the kind of thing that makes people say "everyone should work in the
service industry once in their lives" line, because you have to separate
seething hatred from evaluating how to behave.

I would think that "not be an insufferable know better douche that considers
some people beneath them and without redemption" is pretty obvious when your
job is ostensibly informing the public.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
In fairness, if your job is to inform the public, feeling that you "know
better" is somewhere between a job requirement and an occupational hazard.

(Actually, the "sweet spot" is where you _actually_ know more, but don't
_feel_ like you do.)

------
sickbeard
The unbearable smugness continues with articles like these

~~~
return0
How true. Someone should tell them to shut up, and start talking for the
people, not _to_ the people.

------
Upvoter33
What I love is all the people complaining about "liberals" in such broad,
stereotypical strokes - kind of ironic, no?

------
overcast
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfS2u-SmoI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfS2u-SmoI)

This basically sums it all up. The news anchor deserves a promotion for saving
what little dignity they still have left.

------
Icedcool
I am really enjoying pieces like this, of a dose of humility with self
inspection in the wake of the Trump election. Call his election what you will,
but if I see more humble news reporting, I'll call that at least some
positive.

It's blowing my mind.

------
techxit
The problem is that we allowed this election to be cast as a clash between
Corporate America's superego and its id. The fact that Hillary Clinton came
from a middle-class Midwestern background and that, while she's absolutely
_terrible_ at optics, she's above-average for ethics and honesty among
politicians... got missed. People went for raw id rather than what they
perceived as the superego of a corrupt system.

I personally think that Hillary is far more liberal than she was given credit
for. She's been turned into a cynical pragmatist by 20+ years of bitter
experience in politics... and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think her
heart was in the right place all along. She'd probably twist arms and threaten
careers of people on both sides of the aisle to get a public option passed,
and that's the kind of ballbuster the country needs. However, she's the sort
of person who does very well in 1-on-1 interactions but fails with rooms and
groups. She has grace but no charisma. She let her self be painted as a
duplicitous Establishment hack.

The irony is that Clinton and Trump voters both voted on the premise of their
candidate being radically different from what they'd seen. Clinton voters
believed that she was a liberal working within the establishment who'd bring
us single-payer healthcare. Trump voters (except for the small percentage who
actually are "deplorables", meaning racists and sexists and xenophobes)
believed that Trump's dog-whistle rhetoric was just cynical game-playing. It
bothers me that people accused Clinton of being "two-faced", while supporting
a candidate in whom the best-case scenario is that he doesn't believe half the
shit he says.

We also have a country where people hate the perceived cultural elite that is
occasionally condescending ("flyover country") more than they hate the
socioeconomic elite that is actually ruining their lives and that needs, for
the good of red and blue staters, to be overthrown. Numbers may explain that.
There are more of us in the 4.99% for them to hate than in the 0.01% that
something actually needs to be done about (although I doubt that Trump is the
solution).

------
aphexairlines
No mention of the lower turnout this year (even as the population continues to
grow) or that most voters were actually #WithHer.

The media are suckers for the overton window, and this is calling for more of
the same kid gloves that they used during the Bush/Cheney years. No, thanks.

~~~
wtbob
> most voters were actually #WithHer.

No, they weren't. According to the latest results, Mrs. Clinton received 48%
of the popular vote: that means that most voters _didn 't_ vote for her.

More voted for her than for Mr. Trump, but neither earned a plurality of the
popular vote.

~~~
sk5t
> neither earned a plurality

You mean a majority, no?

~~~
wtbob
Yes, I'm an idiot.

