Where do we go from here?

Yes, this is about the result of the election. If you want to know my opinion, looking at my new avatar should give you a pretty clear idea. Knowing the kind of young people who hang around this site, I don't doubt most of you feel similarly.

I believe this topic deserves it's own thread- and implore this section's moderators to open this discussion separate from the General US Politics thread- because it's a very specific, deeply complicated issue that I believe needs to be answered if the United States has any hope of moving forward as a country. More personally, I'm searching for a way to understand this turn of events myself, and I've come to a bit of a crossroads.

I've recently noticed a dichotomy in a lot of recent writing that purports to explain Trump's election. People seem to be crystallizing into two camps that each have a different answer as to why this happened. If one thing is certain, the Democratic Party's historic incompetence was a factor. Judging by the widespread sentiment that mainstream democrats have been discredited by this election result, most people seem aware of that fact. But beyond that, people seem to be divided on whether Trump's ascension is better explained by America's history of racism and bigotry or the present state of political and economic dysfunction plaguing the nation.

There are arguments for both sides, some of which I find quite compelling, and I will admit to being genuinely torn. I'm of two minds, unsure whether to believe in the side that claims Trump's victory stands as a grand revelation of the rotten, festering deficiency of character that possesses a large chunk of the country's population and for which there is no cure, or the side that insists the election is the result of an unprecedented confluence of historical factors that twisted legitimate economic grievances into anti-establishment rage.

Personally, on matters of politics, I'm generally strongly inclined to favor materialist explanations, and I typically consider the likes of, "they're just bad people," and similar arguments to be simplistic, useless and intellectually lazy. However, given the sheer extent to which Trump based his platform on explicit racism- he's certainly the most openly racist presidential candidate to run in decades, a fact which has not gone unnoticed by the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and like-minded organizations- I'm not sure if that's correct anymore.

On the other hand, the big surprise this election in terms of how the electoral college resolved was the states of the Rust Belt- otherwise known as Hillary's much-discussed Firewall- which had been considered Democratic strongholds and which were very solid supporters of Obama. In other words, the people who swung the election for Trump this time were the same people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. This saps accusations that racism was the single greatest deciding factor in this election of much of their credibility. After all, people who put the country's first black president in office not once but twice are not likely to base their choice for who should be president on racial animus.

And even ignoring matters of principle, there's still the hugely intricate topic of what our practical objectives should be. I raised the point in the US Politics thread that I feel I need to repeat here: if we accept the former position, that this election reveals that a sizeable portion of the American electorate are incorrigible bigots, how do we deal with that going forward? If we commit to the paradigm that a large chunk of the population are simply irrational, hateful people, full-stop, the problem is no longer, "How do we tailor our message to best reach these people?" because we've admitted we believe that they are simply immoral, self-serving people who will never agree with us. The problem then becomes, "How do we stop these people from voting?"

I don't think I have to tell you what the problem with this is.

So, in your opinion, what's the right answer? Bigotry? Economic anxiety? Bit of both? Explain your perspective and your arguments for believing in it, and I think we stand a good chance at coming to a better understanding of this event. I intend this thread, in part, to act as a clearing house for information on and analysis of this election and it's consequences. Feel free to share any links on the subject you find elucidating.