The left created Trump?

[Dill]

(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.

Well I'm not running for office so I don't mind telling you why I disagree with the article's point.

When even mainstream press articles can unproblematically refer to a few college students and BLM as "the far left" then the Faux news right has securely defined the terrain of US political discourse.

Conservatives have been complaining about the smugness of universities and students ever since the late 19th century, when they turned from the Bible and became research universities.  When unpacked, "liberal smugness" turns out to be a preference of science over Biblical doctrine and climate denial, and a penchant for targeting racism and sexism as something bad. It was during the Nixon administration that Republican leadership began defining the press as a de facto opponent of the Republican party and therefore mouthpiece of the Democrats--a cry reaching its crescendo when Nixon was investigated for ordering and then covering up break ins.  

 The right wing complaints described in the article are just the latest round of charges against something called "the far left" (a designation which baffles our European and Asian friends) and the complicity of the press with the party that tends to side with science, environmental protection, Wall Street regulation, and civil rights--I.e., the public interest. "The establishment isn't listening when we want to kick blacks off welfare, ban Muslims and deport dreamers." This to the party that fights to protect their social security, supports their unions, and bailed out the auto industry after the recession (while the other party said "let it fail").

White nationalists are not celebrating Trump's victory as a victory for the economy.  Trumpsters chose the party most supportive of the free trade policies they think harmed them and most likely to destroy their Medicare and Social Security, because that party's leader welcomed their darkest impulses, constructing a narrative of white victimization with the appropriate "non-American" scapegoats. It buttressed this narrative with fantasies of an all powerful authoritarian leader who would "drain the swamp," crush foreign enemies and "take their oil," and end NATO welfare starting day one--all aimed at a base with little sense of Constitutional limits on the presidency or the complexities and history of foreign policy, but angry at smug liberals who would be taken down a peg by a politician whose racist and sexist statements marked him as unfiltered and therefore "sincere."  I doubt any Trumpsters who aren't college students give a flying fig whether professors on some campus talk about "trigger warnings", other than to spin this into their narrative of illiberal liberals and privileged media elites. 

The article is correct to point out such voters cannot be reached by the message "America is great because it is good," but, any discussion of what went wrong with Dem messaging needs to take into account that this election was primarily thrown by whatever foreign power hacked the DNC and turned over the pirated emails to the vengeful Julian Assange. What might a hack of the RNC or the Trump campaign have yielded--especially Steve Bannon's account? We may never know, unless Trump disappoints Putin. Running a close second here would be the Fox News driven Benghazi investigation which, as Kevin McCarthy noted, tremendously damaged Clinton's poll numbers even before it discovered the private email account and server.

The right-wing media manipulation of white, working-class anger (with the complicity of Russia) has delivered that class to the Ryan budget--many in that group being the same people who claimed they were tired of being fooled by establishment Republicans in the past.  And no Dem running for office can really explain this to these angry voters without appearing even more smug.  But I am not terribly worried about this conundrum as I expect Trump will soon be driving enough of these angry voters back to the Democratic party to secure the next election. Dems should be preparing an explanation and welcoming message which eases the transition.