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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
This is highly dependent on a number of factors.
The alt-right and white supremacists? It's pretty clear they don't give a shit about anything else but being the boot stamping on minorities' faces forever, so they'll vote for him no matter what. (However, while influential, the alt-right probably isn't that large and many of them aren't even old enough to vote. The youth vote is notoriously pretty poor as it is).
However, many Trump voters, according to multiple reports, weren't particularly keen on the racism, but foolishly thought he wasn't serious, while the economic promises he made were enough to win them over. This was important for guaranteeing his win in the swing states, according to what I've read.
Now, their moral deficiency and ignorance are impossible to ignore, but the fact that they're apathetic or ignorant about the racism means that they also aren't going to support him if their economic situation doesn't improve, because while racism and xenophobia might have been factors, they weren't the main cause of their vote. Indeed, one of the reports I read indicated that some of them are willing to turn on him if he doesn't bring back prosperity to them.
The key here is...we don't actually know what Trump is or isn't going to do, but even then, the situation for those people is unlikely to improve much anyways thanks to a variety of factors. Coal isn't coming back, automation is gonna eat up more jobs, etc. One troper has said there are things that can be done to create a bubble and give the appearance of a good economy, but we don't know that he will actually do such a thing as of this moment. While it would be unsurprising if Trump's policies didn't come to pass, if they DID, they'd have very poor effects on the economy and particularly on the white voters that assured his victory.
So come 2020, there is a chance that many of those voters will experience a profound disillusionment with their lack of economic progress, and if that ends up being the situation, they are unlikely to turn up again to vote for Trump since he didn't drain the swamp and he didn't give them their jobs back.
...the propaganda tools are a serious concern though, shitty economic situation or not. I'm worried about them too. And the gerrymandering.
It is important not to give up though. If we give up now, we lose all chance of things getting better, no matter how small it is. Almost every fight worth fighting is an uphill battle, that's just the way things are.
edited 16th Nov '16 10:54:54 PM by Draghinazzo
Thanks, everyone. I'm already a big NPR fan, so I'll be sure to tune in even more, as well as bookmark those sites.
Looking through the 2018 senate maps, things look a little dicey, but not horribly so IMO. Keep in mind I have no clue how popular these Senators are, but it seems like just over half of the Dems up for reelection are in safe blue states, even if the remainder really doesn't look so hot. There are at least a couple senate elections in swing states that could be a little interesting from my completely uninformed perspective, even if a lot of the races in red states aren't looking great.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas EdisonAnd again with disregarding local races. 2018 has also gubernatorial elections. And state legislatures. Myself, I think the Senate will depend on whether the "midterm election effect" or the "favourable map" effect prevail.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanI'm torn about what I hope will happen during the next two years.
I have no illusions that the Trump administration will be anything good. Trump is an unstable amoral bigoted manchild who has no clue how to do the job and has no interest in learning how to do it. He has surrounded himself with the most venally corrupt and incompetent deplorables. The GOP Congress will give him nearly everything he wants in exchange for his rubber stamp on all of the toxic short-sighted selfish legislation they have wanted to pass for decades. He will pick a Supreme Court Justice just as conservative as Scalia if not more.
However, I still don't want things to be a total disaster, since that would mean a lot of people in America and the world are going to suffer. Even if two years of disastrous incompetence and corruption would make the midterms easier for the Democratic Party.
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
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Yeah, that was awesome.
He replied, “Well, Stein, but—” I interrupted him and said, “You’re lucky it’s illegal for me to punch you in the face.” Then, after telling him to have sex with himself—but with a much cruder term—I turned and walked away.
A certain kind of liberal makes me sick. These people traffic in false equivalencies, always pretending that both nominees are the same, justifying their apathy and not voting or preening about their narcissistic purity as they cast their ballot for a person they know cannot win. I have no problem with anyone who voted for Trump, because they wanted a Trump presidency. I have an enormous problem with anyone who voted for Trump or Stein or Johnson—or who didn’t vote at all—and who now expresses horror about the outcome of this election. If you don’t like the consequences of your own actions, shut the hell up.
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Sanders voters proclaimed that superdelegates, elected officials and party regulars who controlled thousands of votes, could flip their support and instead vote for the candidate with the fewest votes. In other words, they wanted the party to overthrow the will of the majority of voters. That Sanders fans were wishing for an establishment overthrow of the electorate more common in banana republics or dictatorships is obscene. (One side note: Sanders supporters also made a big deal out of the fact that many of the superdelegates had expressed support for Clinton early in the campaign. They did the same thing in 2008, then switched to Obama when he won the most pledged delegates. Same thing would have happened with Sanders if he had persuaded more people to vote for him.)
This is important because it shows Sanders supporters were tricked into believing a false narrative. Once only one candidate can win the nomination, of course the DNC gets to work on that person’s behalf. Of course emails from that time would reflect support for the person who would clearly be the nominee. And given that their jobs are to elect Democrats, of course DNC officials were annoyed that Sanders would not tell his followers he could not possibly be the nominee. Battling for the sake of battling gave his supporters a false belief that they could still win—something that added to their increasingly embittered feelings.
edited 16th Nov '16 11:18:19 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."Lately I've had mixed feelings about America's pick of progressives. Even Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, she's a badass. But one of my relatives (a Democrat), who used to work at Wall Street and now works at a mutual fund, is not a fan. She does not appreciate Warren demonizing Wall Street and thinks that Warren's view of banking is too simplistic.
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
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Yeah, I definitely think he has a huge part to play in the low turnout among Democrats. And him asking the superdelegates to overturn the will of the party's voters to personally empower him, in particular canceling out the votes of almost all of the party's black and Latino voters, was just disgusting.
Also:
Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.
Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”
The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.
Your relative sounds intelligent. Warren is dangerously misinformed at best, a cynical liar at worst.
edited 16th Nov '16 11:29:31 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
The Young Turks Hero Worship of Sanders along with their previous devotion to Wikileaks are what convinced me that they're more or less the left wing equivalent of Breitbart. Though to their credit they are more grounded in reality.
edited 16th Nov '16 11:29:02 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedIt's Cenk, his ego would never allow it.
This is like the Red Scare, or maybe the Soros Daily Hate the American Right has, except that there's meat to the allegations. As usual.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotGoddamn, I was happy to leave Quebec largely because I was getting away from the goddamn separatists. No more of this bullshit please, it's idiotic and childish. I know they most likely won't amount to anything, but still.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas EdisonThis election cycle has reinforced my belief that America's centrist politicians are more or less the Only Sane Man. Unfortunately, because they're in the middle, they get attacked by the right and the left. No wonder they keep losing elections.
As long as California depends on other states for freshwater, they're not going anywhere. They'd need to convince say, Colorado and Oregon to join them.
edited 16th Nov '16 11:53:41 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedAre we back on the Bernie hate wagon? Even though he backed Clinton and campaigned for her? Honestly if centre-left people spent less time complaining about Sanders and more time focusing on winning over voters this election might have gone the other way.
Like I get complaining about the Green Party lot (including TYT) who were more interested is feeling morally superior then helping people, but in case you didn't notice Bernie refused to become the Green Party candidate and campaigned for Clinton.
Also what's the issue with Warren? I get why people who work for banks might not like her, when your livelihood depends on destructive institutions you kinda have to look the other way, it's the same reason oil workers don't like people who talk about environmental regulation.
edited 16th Nov '16 11:59:01 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranLook, say what you will about Sanders, but he really did tap into something during the primaries. If he can help mobilize the youth vote and the white working class vote for the Democrats, then by all means, let him come aboard.
Oh God! Natural light!

@Link Like you said, there are NYT and Washington Post. NPR is a big favorite of mine, and local stations may provide you with more local news and issues. Streaming their news centered programs like "Morning Edition" "The Takeaway", "All Things Considered", "On Point" and "On the Media" may be enlightening.
Other news sources include services like the BBC and The Guardian, I love the website Vox although it's certainly not unbiased, it's an unapologetically liberal site, albeit with good fact checking, some different and opposing viewpoints among its staff writers and guest editorials. The Atlantic is a pretty mainstream and prestigious news magazine/website I also go to at times, and they sometimes have very good, (and in some cases, quite long) pieces.
Hope some of that is helpful.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |