Donald Trump, the road that might not lead to the White House!

[extra dry]

Because being POTUS involves a lot of hands-on, blue collar graft, does it?

Actually

it involves a lot of television work, reflecting 'the mood' of the nation after events like national desaters mass shootings, Trump has to fill the role of leader of the nation and national identity. A fair bit of meeting and greeting people thou outside the W.H and IRL. But I guess you know this already, right?

 

[Cheesypoof]

Im still feeling sick. I'm also positive but its still a shock...

 

[bimble]

Isn't he a Muslim terrorist or something? So one of those sandy countries.

On this thing about 70% of republican voters still suspecting that Obama is not an American, just anecdotal but true - my nutty auntie in Floria is one of them. This is partly because she's a racist nutter, but also because she gets all of her information / news from a tiny echo chamber of extremist friends on the internet.
I think that's a part of the story which hasn't received as much attention as it warrants and a defining characteristic of the time we're living in:

The majority of Americans (62%) say that social media is where they go to get their news, with Facebook the number one source of information. This is true of my auntie, and she's 71.
So of course people will be mainly just confirming their bias, sharing with their friends the things that reinforce their existing views.
It's not about stupid its about how the proliferation of information has led to people consuming only very selective views, filtered by their social media networks so their prejudices are reinforced. Which goes for everyone of course, not just republican voters or whatever.
News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016
Facebook’s failure: did fake news and polarized politics get Trump elected?

 

[co-op]

Miss Ann’s Revenge
With 53 percent of white women ages 45 to 64 voting for Donald Trump, was it a deliberate act meant to put blacks in their place?

When I said up thread that despite Trump's consistent and ghastly displays of misogyny, white women chose loyalty to race over loyalty to gender in voting for Trump. This article explains some of that context very well.

Preservation of white women's "purity" has been used as a justification for racist action from lynching to policy on refugees - not just by racist male leaders, but sadly, by many white feminists

I've got to say this article - and I've seen plenty of others along similar lines - is dreadful shite imo. Because all racists voted for Trump, therefore all Trump-voters are racists is obvious bollocks anyway of course but what's with this particular bitch-off thing where "white women" are at fault? I mean even if you accept there's this homogenous group, "white women" (more obvious bollocks), why are they at fault not white men? The author of this piece managed to comb out of the data one demographic of white women who voted over 50% for Trump, why are they sudenly typical of the whole (fictitious) group?

Even the whole 'it was racism what won it' thesis is largely bullshit; Trump won because HRC lost key Democrat states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And what happened (broadly) in those states was that the Republican vote stayed the same but the Democrat vote dropped. In other words many white working class voters who voted for Obama in 2012 and 2008 didn't vote for Clinton in 2016. You can put that down to misogyny if you like, at least there's a bit of evidence there for that, but it ain't racism.

The scale of the meme shite turning up on my facebook page, allegedly generated by African-Americans and slagging off "white women" is almost at a volume where it seems to me likely that some of it is deliberate discord-creation by half-smart right wingers, quite possibly paid.

 

[J Ed]

It appears that even Obama has come to some of the same conclusions as some of us on this thread.

Read President Obama's Remarks From His First Post-Election Press Conference

I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated that I would win Iowa. It was because I spent 87 days going to every small town and fair and fish fry and BFW Hall, and there were some counties where I might have lost, but maybe I lost by 20 points instead of 50 points. There’s some counties maybe I won, that people didn’t expect, because people had a chance to see you and listen to you and get a sense of who you stood for and who you were fighting for.

...

And the key for us — when I say us, I mean Americans, but I think particularly for progressives, is to say, your concerns are real, your anxieties are real. Here’s how we fix it. Higher minimum wage. Stronger worker protection so workers have more leverage to get a bigger piece of the pie. Stronger financial regulations, not weaker ones. Yes to trade, but trade that ensures that these other countries that trade with us aren’t engaging in child labor, for example. Being attentive to inequality and not tone deaf to it. But offering prescriptions that are actually going to help folks in communities that feel forgotten. That’s going to be our most important strategy. And I think we can successfully do that.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

On this thing about 70% of republican voters still suspecting that Obama is not an American, just anecdotal but true - my nutty auntie in Floria is one of them. This is partly because she's a racist nutter, but also because she gets all of her information / news from a tiny echo chamber of extremist friends on the internet.
I think that's a part of the story which hasn't received as much attention as it warrants and a defining characteristic of the time we're living in:

The majority of Americans (62%) say that social media is where they go to get their news, with Facebook the number one source of information. This is true of my auntie, and she's 71.
So of course people will be mainly just confirming their bias, sharing with their friends the things that reinforce their existing views.
It's not about stupid its about how the proliferation of information has led to people consuming only very selective views, filtered by their social media networks so their prejudices are reinforced. Which goes for everyone of course, not just republican voters or whatever.
News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016
Facebook’s failure: did fake news and polarized politics get Trump elected?

Your source doesn't quite say, "The majority of Americans (62%) say that social media is where they go to get their news" it says,

A majority of U.S. adults – 62% – get news on social media, and 18% do so often, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In 2012, based on a slightly different question, 49% of U.S. adults reported seeing news on social media.

Which is still more than I'd have guessed, but it looks like (see also the graphs in that article) only around 1/5 of them are even close to using it as their primary news source, depending what 'often' means vis a vis 'primary news source'

Its definitely something that bears further examination though. I think it's not just frequency, but how much influence a given source has, e.g. in terms of trust etc.

Here's a likely looking source from Reuters - Reuters Institute Digital News Report and I seem to recall there's a fairly recent YouGov survey but am rushing and don't have time to look for it right now.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

And... he said this, later in the same speech.

And you know, what’s clear is that he was able to tap into, yes, the anxieties but also the enthusiasm of his voters in a way that was impressive. And I said so to him because I think that to the extent that there were a lot of folks who missed the Trump phenomenon, I think that connection that he was able to make with his supporters, that was impervious to events that might have sunk another candidate. That’s powerful stuff.

No pat answers. No black and white.

Nuance and complexity, just like always.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Got to be doing it on purpose now. Ignore from now on I think.

 

[J Ed]

And... he said this, later in the same speech.



No pat answers. No black and white.

Nuance and complexity, just like always.

As opposed to all those posters denying that the election of Trump was IN PART BUT NOT ENTIRELY caused by racism as a motivating factor?

Actually what am I even talking about, he hasn't even mentioned racism at all there. What are you even talking about?!

 

[bimble]

Bernie Sanders saying what he thinks went wrong:
Bernie Sanders on US election: 'This is what I think went wrong' – video
Says Trump tapped into the angst and anger of the working class, that the democrats failed because unable to connect with ordinary people, but makes no mention of the nationalism / nativism of the campaign at all, just that Trump knew how to manipulate people and and entertain the media.

 

[roryer]

There are a lot of arguments and opposing views on this thread. But I think everyone can agree this poster is a massive fucking bellend.

I also agree, I fully accept I am a bell-end.

Any chance of you engaging in anything other than ad hominem attacks? My point was simply that the working class revolution is taking place world wide and it seems to be anti-globalist in its aspirations, is this something we should support?

 

[belboid]

I also agree, I fully accept I am a bell-end.

Any chance of you engaging in anything other than ad hominem attacks? My point was simply that the working class revolution is taking place world wide and it seems to be anti-globalist in its aspirations, is this something we should support?

Fuck off you fascist fuckwit

 

[J Ed]

I also agree, I fully accept I am a bell-end.

Any chance of you engaging in anything other than ad hominem attacks? My point was simply that the working class revolution is taking place world wide and it seems to be anti-globalist in its aspirations, is this something we should support?

Most of the US working-class voted for Clinton or did not vote. The median income of Trump supporters is higher than Clinton supporters. Your account is an even more unrealistic and simplistic interpretation than that of Clintonite partisans.

 

[bimble]

Im still feeling sick. I'm also positive but its still a shock...

Me too. where are you getting the positive bits from?

 

[Pickman's model]

Me too. where are you getting the positive bits from?

Even Donald Trump will die

 

[Pickman's model]

I also agree, I fully accept I am a bell-end.

Any chance of you engaging in anything other than ad hominem attacks? My point was simply that the working class revolution is taking place world wide and it seems to be anti-globalist in its aspirations, is this something we should support?

World wide? China? Russia? south georgia? Madagascar? Indonesia? Iraq? Mexico?

 

[J Ed]

Even Donald Trump will die

You assume he won't do the vampire thing Thiel does...

 

[Pickman's model]

You assume he won't do the vampire thing Thiel does...

The secret service are under standing orders to thrust a silver stake through the heart of any president who sustains an apparently mortal wound

 

[Jurrihahay]

Me too. where are you getting the positive bits from?

This currently fashionable emphasis on what people 'feel' has surely got to end before anything can be achieved (if indeed that is possible.)
Solipsism will get you nowhere.

 

[bluescreen]

This currently fashionable emphasis on what people 'feel' has surely got to end before anything can be achieved (if indeed that is possible.)
Solipsism will get you nowhere.

But feels as much as arguments win votes, no?
How do you feel? Don’t ask.

 

[Jurrihahay]

But feels as much as arguments win votes, no?
How do you feel? Don’t ask.

It was more the response to unexpected, unwelcome events that I was referring to. How many months have we had to endure, for instance, of smug Remainers telling us how 'devastated' they 'feel?' Now it's largely the same people doing the same over 'the new Hitler.' Pure self-indulgence.

 

[bimble]

This currently fashionable emphasis on what people 'feel' has surely got to end before anything can be achieved (if indeed that is possible.)

This is true but some people (like me) can't help but have an emotional reaction to things like for instance learning that Breitbart's Bannon has been appointed chief strategist. It's just scary as fuck. And what about the people who feel themselves to be in real immediate danger - of having members of their family deported for instance, or of being attacked in the street for wearing hijabs, are you going to tell them that that they should grow up and stop this fashionable feelings malarkey.

 

[Jurrihahay]

This is true but some people (like me) can't help but have an emotional reaction to things like for instance learning that Breitbart's Bannon has been appointed chief strategist. It's just scary as fuck. And what about the people who feel themselves to be in real immediate danger - of having members of their family deported for instance, or of being attacked in the street for wearing hijabs, are you going to tell them that that they should grow up and stop this fashionable feelings malarkey.

How many of the millions crying about how they feel on social media, for instance, are in any immediate sort of danger? Few of them even seem to have displayed any real understanding of what's happening. We don't even know yet how 'scary' it's going to be. But the main thing is, of course, to be 'scared.'

The world doesn't care how you feel. Or claim that you feel.

 

[Jurrihahay]

And, of course, the more you build yourself a sense of fear, the more likely you'll go running to the usual suspects for protection. Then the whole cycle can begin again.

 

[Treacle Toes]

The fact that this kind of rhetoric is being levelled at people is really sinister IMO. It pretty much mirrors that of the right (put up, shut up, grow a thicker skin, stop being so sensitive). Those themselves who equally aren't and don't feel in any immediate danger telling others what to feel and do and setting themselves up as some ultra evolved feelingless beings that just know best.

The position seems to be don't look down your noses at those who chose Trump because they are fearful of their futures and angry that they have been ignored for so long. Don't think your fear and anger about what is already happening is important, you caused this mess, damn you.

Bizarre.

 

[Jurrihahay]

The fact that this kind of rhetoric is being levelled at people is really sinister IMO. It pretty much mirrors that of the right (put up, shut up, grow a thicker skin, stop being so sensitive). Those who themselves who equally aren't and don't feel in any immediate danger telling others what to feel and do and setting themselves up as some ultra evolved feelingless beings that just know best.

The position seems to be don't look down your noses at those who chose Trump because they are fearful of their futures and angry that they have been ignored for so long. Don't think your fear and anger about what is already happening is important, you caused this mess, damn you.

Bizarre.

Fortunately, those said to be in danger have others who aren't to express their fear for them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How many of the millions crying about how they feel on social media, for instance, are in any immediate sort of danger?

In the US? A fair few.

 

[Jurrihahay]

In the US? A fair few.

Why, what's happening?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why, what's happening?

In places like Keep Running, Mississippi? Oh, nothing at all.

 

[Idris2002]