The left created Trump?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

I'm off this week so I'm enjoying some free time to read all of the news and opinion sites I don't always have time to get to.  One particular article on Politico absolutely nails, IMO, why Trump was elected.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/how-the-left-created-donald-trump-214472

Of course, I've been saying similar things this entire year so of course my opinion on this article will be a bit biased.  That being the case, I'd be interested in your opinions on this piece.

[Benton]

(11-22-2016, 03:49 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'm off this week so I'm enjoying some free time to read all of the news and opinion sites I don't always have time to get to.  One particular article on Politico absolutely nails, IMO, why Trump was elected.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/how-the-left-created-donald-trump-214472

Of course, I've been saying similar things this entire year so of course my opinion on this article will be a bit biased.  That being the case, I'd be interested in your opinions on this piece.

Sort of agree, sort of disagree.

I think Democrats have been (and in the presidential election, were) focusing on the wrong issues. As the article points out, the economy is the #1 concern. It's not Bush-era bad, but it's not good. And it's still leaving a large number of people behind.

Trump presented no plans for turning the economy around, but he played on a similar message as Obama: hope and change. He focused a lot of that conversation on playing on what people wanted to hear without providing details: it's not your fault, it's the [businesses, system, Mexicans, politicians, Muslims, Clintons, Democrats, Republicans, journalists, immigrants]. While Trump made headlines for blaming everyone (which is what people want to hear, that somebody is going to get called out), Clinton made headlines for a litany of problems the majority of people weren't caring about (gun violence, crime reduction, college tuition reform, foreign policy). While Clinton was being asked and offering conversations on issues, Trump was talking about how things weren't fair. It's a simple message, but people understand it. They don't understand the power structure in the Middle East and how it effects their gas price, they just want someone to say "It's not your fault gas is $3, and I'm going to fix it."

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

I thought much of the article was off base. It began with the falsehood "when the GOP went all-out Trump," it didn't. Then finished with, "In the years to come, when we look back on Trump’s victory, this is why it will be remembered less as a win for Republicans than as a failure for the Democrats."  The author discusses how liberals dismissed Trump and ultimately falls into the same trap of dismissing Trump's victory as a failure on the part of the Democrats.

This election involved the the two most unpopular Presidential candidates in history. According to exit polls, 90% of Republicans voted Republican, 89% of Democrats voted Democrat. Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won the Electoral College.  Christ, Trump University was being sued for defrauding members of the middle class trying to better themselves through education by emulating his formula for success while discussing how he would protect the middle class from "crooked" Clinton.

Trump isn't even a conservative, but he said what they wanted to hear, motivated enough of them to vote, and played the Electoral College game better.

[xxlt]

B&B (Benton and Breech) offered excellent assessments.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

I'm a bit disappointed that neither of you actually addressed the article's point. That being that the attitude of the far left the past few years pushed many voters towards Trump that otherwise may not have voted for him. I personally know may people who, while not maybe voting for Trump, would absolutely not vote for Hillary due to this exact phenomena. Anecdotal to be sure, but that seems to be stock and trade of the media right now so please forgive me.

[treee]

What happened, if you want to boil it down, is the shittier "grass-roots" candidate won the election due to DNC corruption. Everyone knows that Bernie Sanders should be our president right now.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(11-23-2016, 01:21 AM)treee Wrote: What happened, if you want to boil it down, is the shittier "grass-roots" candidate won the election due to DNC corruption. Everyone knows that Bernie Sanders should be our president right now.

A not unheard of viewpoint.  While I don't share your optimism re. Sanders, I just don't see a"Communist Jew" becoming POTUS, he certainly would have been a more legitimate candidate.  At the very last I think the EC vote would have been closer.

[Benton]

(11-23-2016, 01:20 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'm a bit disappointed that neither of you actually addressed the article's point.  That being that the attitude of the far left the past few years pushed many voters towards Trump that otherwise may not have voted for him.  I personally know may people who, while not maybe voting for Trump, would absolutely not vote for Hillary due to this exact phenomena.  Anecdotal to be sure, but that seems to be stock and trade of the media right now so please forgive me.

I dont really see it. Votes fell pretty well along party lines. Each candidate spoke primarily to their own parties and didn't really bring a large number of moderates or the other side across.

did Clinton's reputation, gender and the dems agenda hurt her? Yes. But so did trump's statements, business dealings and the GOP agenda.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(11-23-2016, 01:29 AM)Benton Wrote: I dont really see it. Votes fell pretty well along party lines. Each candidate spoke primarily to their own parties and didn't really bring a large number of moderates or the other side across.

did Clinton's reputation, gender and the dems agenda hurt her? Yes. But so did trump's statements, business dealings and the GOP agenda.

Fair enough, I don't agree though.  I think the rhetoric of the last 2-3 years really pushed a lot of voters right.  I guess the 2018 elections will show us more in that regard.  Unless Trump really blows it the next two years the GOP should make even more gains as the left continues to repeat the mistakes of the past.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

I made the mistake of clicking on the link to the video where the Yale students are crying about not having a safe space... and the second they started snapping their fingers to what the girl said, I wanted to individually punch each one of them in the face and ship them all express to Syria.

That's normal, right? Lol

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(11-23-2016, 01:37 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I made the mistake of clicking on the link to the video where the Yale students are crying about not having a safe space... and the second they started snapping their fingers to what the girl said, I wanted to individually punch each one of them in the face and ship them all express to Syria.

That's normal, right? Lol

Yes, yes it is. 

[treee]

(11-23-2016, 01:37 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Fair enough, I don't agree though.  I think the rhetoric of the last 2-3 years really pushed a lot of voters right.  I guess the 2018 elections will show us more in that regard.  Unless Trump really blows it the next two years the GOP should make even more gains as the left continues to repeat the mistakes of the past.

We both know that Clinton pushed a lot of voters right. This election was based on transparency. Bernie was as transparent as you can get. Some how, the DNC picked a candidate less transparent than Donald ***** Trump. How does that happen?

Edit: At least, Clinton was viewed as less transparent by most people the most individuals with electoral clout.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(11-23-2016, 01:20 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'm a bit disappointed that neither of you actually addressed the article's point.  That being that the attitude of the far left the past few years pushed many voters towards Trump that otherwise may not have voted for him.  I personally know may people who, while not maybe voting for Trump, would absolutely not vote for Hillary due to this exact phenomena.  Anecdotal to be sure, but that seems to be stock and trade of the media right now so please forgive me.

My experience is different than yours. I disagreed with the article's point the far left pushed voters towards Trump for the reasons I mentioned. In my opinion, Trump's campaign connected with people who were pissed off.  That anger motivated them to vote. Clinton seemed to inspire apathy, but still a greater number of apathetic voters voted for her than pissed off voters voted for Trump.  Clinton didn't get the right geographic distribution of apathetic voters vs. pissed off voters. 

Eight years ago, Trump was in favor of gun control, pro-choice, supported universal healthcare, and was against the immigration policy he now promotes. He stood for just about everything his most of his current supportors are angry about. Given Clinton's unpopularity, he could have won the Democratic presidential nomination over Clinton this election if his convictions didn't change as often as his political party affiliation. 

Additionally, the article indicated the economy, not social issues, was the #1 concern of voters. Once again, the author ignores the evidence stating, "A Gallup poll assessing what Americans perceived as the “most important problem facing this country today” helps to explain the disillusionment of this once-faithful constituency: “Economic problems” consistently took the No. 1 spot, while issues like “lack of respect for each other” and “unifying the country” appeared at the bottom of the list."


Sorry for the change in font, I cut and pasted on my phone. 

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(11-23-2016, 01:37 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Fair enough, I don't agree though.  I think the rhetoric of the last 2-3 years really pushed a lot of voters right.  I guess the 2018 elections will show us more in that regard.  Unless Trump really blows it the next two years the GOP should make even more gains as the left continues to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Many voters were turned off by Clinton due to the Benghazi and subsequent email investigation. 

The Benghazi investigation is complete bullshit. There are two stars on the CIA's memorial wall due to Benghazi. The government, regardless of party affiliation, is going to come up with a cover story. If people don't realize that, they're stupid. Plain and simple. 

The email investigation developed out of the Benghazi investigation. The investigation proved little more than she is an idiot, but it continued to promote the "crooked" Hillary story line IOT foment voter mistrust. To quote W., "Mission accomplished." Which isn't actually a W. quote, it was on the sign in the background when he declared major combat operations had ended. But, it serves to reinforce how difficult it is to dispel a cultural myth once it has taken hold of the public psyche; such as social issues, rather than the economy, pushed reluctant voters towards Trump. 

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-was-stronger-where-the-economy-is-weaker/

According to this source, people with less education, less job training, and less job skills who work in the types of jobs which lend themselves to out sourcing voted in favor of the guy sending their jobs overseas and defrauds them with scams like Trump University because they inexplicably think the guy sending their jobs overseas is going to stop sending their jobs overseas.

Because for some reason they believe they can't trust "crooked" Hillary, so Trump was their only realistic option. Even though Trump lies more than Clinton, but plenty of people will disagree because fact checking sources are just more liberal media bias. 

[Bengalzona]

(11-23-2016, 01:20 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'm a bit disappointed that neither of you actually addressed the article's point.  That being that the attitude of the far left the past few years pushed many voters towards Trump that otherwise may not have voted for him.  I personally know may people who, while not maybe voting for Trump, would absolutely not vote for Hillary due to this exact phenomena.  Anecdotal to be sure, but that seems to be stock and trade of the media right now so please forgive me.

I mentioned something similar in a thread a few days ago. I asked some moderately conservative friends of mine on FB how they could hate Trump, but still vote for him (one friend is the daughter of a Japanese immigrant and another has two adopted black children). Their responses were similar to what was in the Politico article: "the Left has become elitist", "the Left ignores the views of many in this country", they couldn't "bring themselves to vote for Hillary", they are "sick and tired of being called racist all of the time", etc.

I don't necessarily agree with all of their reasoning, but I think there is something to this. At some point Democrats stopped trying to convince people of the merits of the Left (yes, some of the stuff they believe in is good and positive) and started playing the insult game with anyone who appeared to have even moderate Right-wing ideologies. This was exacerbated by Right wing pundits who encouraged the insult game, and benefited from that. To make this more clear for people on the Left: Your job was to convince people to vote for your causes, not to insult and berate those who had one or two views which you don't like (i.e. gun rights, religion, "all lives matter", etc.). Democratic leadership completely forgot this.

[fredtoast]

This is like claiming the Civil Rights Movement created the Republican majority in the southern states. It may be true, but that does not mean the Civil Rights Movement was a bad thing.

If Trump was elected because so many people were pissed that homosexuals were granted equal protection under the law or that women are allowed to make medical decisions about their own bodies then **** 'em.

[fredtoast]

(11-23-2016, 01:37 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Unless Trump really blows it the next two years the GOP should make even more gains as the left continues to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The power will continue to shift back and forth as it always has.

If the Republican policies were so superior then they never would have lost control of both the Senate and the House in '08.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(11-23-2016, 11:46 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: I mentioned something similar in a thread a few days ago. I asked some moderately conservative friends of mine on FB how they could hate Trump, but still vote for him (one friend is the daughter of a Japanese immigrant and another has two adopted black children). Their responses were similar to what was in the Politico article: "the Left has become elitist", "the Left ignores the views of many in this country", they couldn't "bring themselves to vote for Hillary", they are "sick and tired of being called racist all of the time", etc.

I don't necessarily agree with all of their reasoning, but I think there is something to this. At some point Democrats stopped trying to convince people of the merits of the Left (yes, some of the stuff they believe in is good and positive) and started playing the insult game with anyone who appeared to have even moderate Right-wing ideologies. This was exacerbated by Right wing pundits who encouraged the insult game, and benefited from that. To make this more clear for people on the Left: Your job was to convince people to vote for your causes, not to insult and berate those who had one or two views which you don't like (i.e. gun rights, religion, "all lives matter", etc.). Democratic leadership completely forgot this.

But, profiling works. Just telling it like it is. 

But, you're right about not selling the merits. Hillary didn't read the tea leave correctly. She didn't sell the merits of how she would improve the economy. The ironic part is Trump is Trump offered few to no stairs about how he was going to make anything great again. He just kept repeating the word great or synonyms of great. 

[JustWinBaby]

But the fact is, Trump beat a deplorable candidate in a year voter turnout was way down.

The bigger story is how and why he won the Republican nomination in the first place.