The 2016 United States Presidential Election

So forget the article. I still think it's important to understand how Trump supporters came to feel as they do, because the article is right: Even if Trump is no longer around in four years, the people who supported him will be, and if they still feel alienated and disenfranchised then they'll still be looking for ways to send a message.--Percy

I grant that RAZD's politics can be a bit tough to follow, and I don't get the bit about Bernie, either. I'm sorry if you didn't like it and that I caused you to waste your time, but your criticisms are so far out of alignment with my own reading that I'm wondering where you found the "distortions and epic stereotypes and racism."--Percy

Johnny Carson's once said something like "It isn't funny if you have to explain it," and I think the same applies for much sarcasm, hyperbole, exaggeration, etc. So if the parts you quoted don't work for you then I don't think there's anything I could say to make them work for you, but I do have some comments/questions.

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What's newsworthy about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer?

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Here's the fuller context:

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"Nothing that happens outside the city matters!" they say at their cocktail parties, blissfully unaware of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you'd barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and doing an astounding $125 billion in damage.

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No sports team = no fucks given.

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But who cares about those people, right? What's newsworthy about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer? New Orleans is culturally important. It matters.

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Sure, the part you quoted is an "epic stereotype", but if it wasn't just a comedic device that was part of a larger point made in an entertaining way, then what was it? If you don't see Wong as making the point that people matter who don't live in culturally important cities, then what do you think he's saying?

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you know, the guys with the weird slang, music and clothes, the dope fiends who murder everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarro nature of the cities, as perceived from afar -- a combination of hyper-aggressive savages and frivolous white elites

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This is another "epic stereotype". Again, if you don't see this as a comedic device employed while describing how Chicago seemed to him when he lived in the hinterlands, then what do you think he was saying?

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Where I'm from, you weren't a real man unless you could repair a car, patch a roof, hunt your own meat, and defend your home from an intruder. It was a source of shame to be dependent on anyone -- especially the government. You mowed your own lawn and fixed your own pipes when they leaked, you hauled your own firewood in your own pickup truck.

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How deep into an urban environment must one be embedded before one doesn't know anyone this describes?

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When you don't own anything, it's all somebody else's problem.

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There's no context for this one, so here's the whole paragraph, it's relatively short:

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Not like those hipsters in their tiny apartments, or "those people" in their public housing projects, waiting for the landlord any time something breaks, knowing if things get too bad they can just pick up and move. When you don't own anything, it's all somebody else's problem. "They probably don't pay taxes, either! Just treating America itself as a subsidized apartment they can trash!"

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If this isn't another "epic stereotype" employed to be entertaining while making a point about how people in the city can seem to people in the country, then what is it?--Percy

I can't recall much if anything being written in this thread about the importance of the two sides understanding each other's concerns. And I've maybe seen a couple editorials about this. If you're bored of the subject, fine, we know now, you can stop telling us. Who thinks you have to apologize? People rarely love all the same books, plays or TV shows. I thought it was entertaining and insightful, you didn't, no big deal.But it would be very interesting if you could provide links to the attempts making the same point that you didn't find ham-fisted and silly. And if they're also entertaining then all the better. --Percy

So maybe other people in this thread haven't seen what else has been written (that you won't link to), and so maybe they'd like to read that article and discuss it, and so maybe you should stop being a humbug and see if a discussion happens. If you want a fight that's your business. You're being an incredible wet blanket about the article and the subject and making it clear that you're going to be as negative and unpleasant and difficult as possible to anyone who thinks otherwise. You don't want to discuss this and you found the article horrid, fine. We know now. Now go away. You have immense problems comprehending anything that's not literal. It was a light comedic piece containing a serious point. There's no rule saying all political commentary must be written in the style of the New York Times, and even it has been known to wax comedic from time to time. I know it isn't possible for you to lighten up and have some fun, but that's no reason to spoil it for everyone else.--Percy

Whoa, a second response to my post. Did not happen to notice before I wrote my preceding post.Thank you for the links, but only one is making the same point as the Wong article (yes, I read them all, not just your excerpts). Wong is characterizing how alien each side seems to the other (this is where you interpreted his comedically employed stereotypes as crude and inaccurate). He's giving reasons why the countryside feels much more alienated than the cities (the countryside was hit much harder by the recession and then didn't share in the recovery). This is different from the links you provided, except for the one.Your articles tended to just describe the divide, while Wong tries to explain *why* there's a divide. He claims credibility on the topic because at different times in his life he's been on both sides of the fence. Not that this is unique, but whether you like his style or not (you *do* realize, I hope, that he writes for Cracked) he does have a very compelling and articulate voice.The one article that addressed the same concerns as Wong was Taking Trump voters’ concerns seriously means listening to what they’re actually saying. It considered and rejected Wong's theory of alienation based upon feeling left out of the mainstream economy and ignored by the country at large, saying:

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There is absolutely no evidence that Trump’s supporters, either in the primary or the general election, are disproportionately poor or working class. Exit polling from the primaries found that Trump voters made about as much as Ted Cruz voters, and significantly more than supporters of either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

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If true, then Trump supporters are not suffering from Wong's understandable alienation but from being butt-ugly mean gun-toting haters (that's a comedic stereotype not intended to be taken literally, and you don't have to tell me, I already know I'm not skilled at employing humor in my writing). I don't believe that and would much rather believe something like that the people at Trump rallies are just those who had time because they didn't have to hold down three jobs just to make ends meet. Regardless, the article goes on to describe surveys that found that Trump supporters tended to be more racist and feel more threatened by nonwhites.It later challenges the liberal media conclusions from that data and suggests an alternative view that is very similar to Wong's, that they're victims of forces outside their control:

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So it becomes very, very tempting to just ignore this evidence and insist that Trump supporters are in fact the wretched of the earth, and to connect them with every possible pathology of white America: post-industrial decay, the opioid crisis, labor force dropouts, rising middle-age mortality rates, falling social mobility, and so on.

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But in the same paragraph it dismisses this possibility:

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This almost always fails (globalization victims and labor force dropouts are less likely to support Trump, per Rothwell), but if there’s even a small hint of a connection, as when Rothwell found a correlation between Trump support and living in an area with rising white mortality, you’re in luck. If you can squint hard enough, the narrative will always survive.

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The article goes on to consider and discard other possibilities, but in the end it concludes that, "Trump’s supporters’ concerns are heavily about race." That they're just racists is a dismaying answer, because if the goal is to engage them in dialog to find common ground, racism isn't something the other side would ever find acceptable. "Oh, you're racist, well, let's just take that into account in future policy decisions." Won't happen.This leads to a different conclusion than Wong's, that reconciliation through understanding isn't possible, that the ancient racism of the South has risen again to freely roam the countryside, and that anyone not like themselves can just go back where they came from, or else. Bletch.--Percy

Clinton's position is that a Syrian no-fly zone to save lives would only be implemented through negotiation:

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This would take a lot of negotiation and it would also take making it clear to the Syrians and Russians that our purpose is to provide safe zones on the ground.

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The negotiations would fail. What Clinton would do next is anyone's guess, she hasn't said. A Syrian no-fly zone seems impractical for several reasons, including the one you mention, so hopefully she wouldn't do it anyway.Changing the subject, I wonder if staffing the White House, including cabinet positions, would be like a season of The Apprentice?--Percy

Here's a more recent NYT article: Voter Registration Effort Spurs an Inquiry in IndianaIndiana secretary of State Connie Lawson has made two charges:

• That the Indiana Voter Registration Program was submitting registrations with incomplete and inaccurate information. Lawson charged them with voter fraud. They were shut down in early October.
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• That the Indiana Statewide Voter Registration System, the database Lawson used to check the alleged fraudulent registrations, contains "an unusually high number of date of birth and first name changes." Lawson claims this is also voter fraud.

So Lawson found irregularities in voter registration forms by checking against the state database that she says is also full of irregularities. Nice work!--Percy

An unlikely and unplanned event dictated the flow of political power in pre-WWII Germany. Might this latest email revelation be as fateful as the destruction of the Reichstag? A little alarmist, I know, but the parallels *are* alarming: a populist demogogue with contempt for true democracy who is willing to mold the institutions of government to his will takes advantage of circumstances to achieve complete power. True, Trump has much more of the ignorant buffoon about him, but he's a determined and persistent buffoon who's proven very effective at getting his way.--Percy

I think many people care less about democracy and more about their way of life. Political institutions are just the means to maintain or improve a way of life. Trump supporters are responding to threats to their way of life and see Trump as willing to do whatever's necessary to save it, no matter that his means are undemocratic as well as politically, economically, internationally and militarily destabilizing. Trump supporters see human rights concerns as just an excuse for emphasizing the plight of minorities and 3rd world peoples at the expense of themselves. If it takes a trade war or a real war or whatever else to put their white lives back on track, then so be it, and hang the consequences on others.Most notable in these primary and election threads has been the tepid support for Hillary. Obviously some regions are rabidly pro-Hillary, but I think tepid support is more the rule than anything more enthusiastic. If she wins it won't be for what she represents but for who she isn't.--Percy

Oh, do say more about our suppression of the Axis of Evil so that we can just run wild.--Percy

You should have provided your link just once instead of seven times, because now you'll have to fix it in seven places. You evidently cut-n-pasted the abbreviated link text from your old message, instead of the link itself. The correct link: On Hillary Clinton, Sexism, and U.S. Foreign PolicyWhen you first posted that Hillary Clinton's opponent was Bernier Sanders, a credible potential President, but now it's Donald Trump, who has no experience at statecraft and is temperamentally unfit for office. We know what Trump would be like as President because we've already seen it on the campaign trail.--Percy

Exactly. Probably not many people's first choice, but she sure beats the alternative.--Percy

It doesn't take a genius, or a Democrat, to understand that the man isn't fit to lead, and many Republicans have enough sense and conscience to agree. There's a lack of thought and analysis in those houses.I have a theory explaining Trump's Republican support: Get him elected, get him impeached and convicted (shouldn't take long for him to commit an impeachable offense), then inaugurate Mike Pence and voil, the country has a Republican president who isn't stark raving mad.--Percy

In today's NYT Paul Krugman asks Is There Life After Trump? Some excerpts:

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The 2016 presidential campaign has revealed dark and disturbing things about not only Donald J. Trump but also the party that nominated him.
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But if these forces are not defeated...the Republican Party will continue to inflict great harm on our republic.
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[Sarah Palin] has become the proud personification of thoughtlessness...A party that produces Ms. Palin as its vice-presidential nominee and Mr. Trump as its nominee is at war with reason.
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Over the years a large number of Republicans...embraced a style of politics characterized by unceasing combativeness, intemperance and a deep hostility toward compromise and temperamental moderation.
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Particularly since the election of Barack Obama, we have witnessed on the Republican side the rise of fear, anger and apocalyptic rhetoric.
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Mr. Trump’s success has emboldened ugly forces within the Republican Party that had been confined to its fringes. Demonizing people of other races, cultures and faiths succeeded; demeaning women and war heroes succeeded. The fact that we’re now so familiar with his offenses shouldn’t inure us to how damning they are.
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But in the end, [Republicans] were all caught up in Mr. Trump’s ethical confusion and moral corruption. They didn’t pull him up; he pulled them down.
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When you are part of a political movement that chose Donald Trump as your nominee, some serious self-reflection is in order.
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Republicans need to wrestle with more fundamental questions first: Will their party choose as its leaders people who respect democratic institutions and traditions, or not; who conceive of America as a welcoming society or as one that is racially and religiously closed; who are committed to helping or exploiting the weak and vulnerable; who admire or oppose tyrants; who respect truth or view it in purely utilitarian ways; who abhor ignorance or embrace it? Will Republicans gravitate toward leaders who have authoritarian tendencies, who incite violence in their followers, and whose personalities are vindictive, cruel and disordered?
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Can it make its own inner peace with living in an increasingly diverse and nonwhite America? Does it conceive of its role as tamping down or inflaming ugly passions? Does it believe in a just social order or not?
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The next few months will tell us a lot about whether Mr. Trump and Trumpism were an anomaly or are now the new norm of the party that Lincoln helped create.
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The next few months will tell us a lot about whether Mr. Trump and Trumpism were an anomaly or are now the new norm of the party that Lincoln helped create.

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Even simple decency seems to be victim, as some posts in this thread reflect.--Percy