yeah and exactly because of this kind of insane, bogus "analysis" you lost. When or if you find back the connection to reality, you will realize how Trump actually won. By talking about real issues that nobody else even dares to touch.
yeah and exactly because of this kind of insane, bogus "analysis" you lost. When or if you find back the connection to reality, you will realize how Trump actually won. By talking about real issues that nobody else even dares to touch.
Trump won by appealing to people who historically felt they were and deserved to be the in-control majority but now feel they are the not-in-control minority, and he won by claiming he would make them feel like an in-control majority again.
It is that simple. It is also simply the case that the people who historically felt they were and deserved to be the in-control majority were white men.
Populism in American politics is nothing new. Nor is populism oriented on racial lines. There is no secret "untouchable" issue lurking behind it. You pick a large group, capable of forming a powerful voting bloc, a group that believes it has reason to feel resentful, to feel cheated out of power that's rightfully theirs, to feel that "elites" are conspiring against them to ruin the country, and you tell them they deserve power and you're going to give it back to them.
Exactly 120 years ago, William Jennings Bryan ran on a similar platform of "restoring" political and economic power to people who felt they once had it, lost it, and deserved to have it once again. In the process he delivered one of the objectively greatest political addresses in American history (the "Cross of Gold" speech). The only difference is Bryan lost the electoral college by about the same margin Trump won it by.
An articulate and well-reasoned rebuttal.
You think you are so right that anything that disagrees with your position must be a racial power issue.
I think I've read my history book. I think this has happened before. I think the economic system that working-class white people without college degrees favor is one that only worked so long as people with the "wrong" skin color were either held in literal bondage or legally prohibited from competing with people who had the "right" skin color. I think the past century has seen an enormous effort to tear down the system which protected those white working-class non-college-educated people from competition, on grounds that this sort of protectionism is morally odious. I think the "economic anxiety" of Trump voters is nothing more than a yearning for a return to that sort of protectionism. I think it's possible many of them are viewing history through extremely rose-colored glasses in order not to see the magnitude of the evil that had to be perpetrated to maintain their position, but that doesn't excuse it.
Isn't that just called 'voting'?
Hillary did not have a convincing plan and mostly wanted to continue and see where things go. Trump has promised a lot of fairy tales. It seems to me that the only concrete things that Trump has promised to do is to backpedal on the equality rights.
He didn't have to. The amount of vitriol directed at him and his supporters by almost every journalist, academic, intellectual, and establishment politician told the voters everything they needed to know.
One thing that shouldn't be overlooked either is that while some view Trump's platform as racist, his supporters see him as the exact opposite. He's hard on illegal immigration but otherwise has no particular bias towards Mexicans on a personal level. In fact he has sympathized with them on why so many of them are fleeing for their lives to the USA, something nobody is willing to talk about.
As a sidenote, I catch myself expecting that _all_ minorities should vote 100% for Clinton. This is another example of the kind of complacency that led to this win in the first place. Trump was going on and on about how "democrats feel entitled to black votes without doing anything to help black people". Now, a policy specifically designed to help black people will get waves of criticism from Breitbart, but the point stands, and I think that Democrats shouldn't feel entitled to votes just because they aren't terrible.
He want's to remove tax loopholes he takes advantage of. Presumably one of the largest ones would be loss declaration and a few other larger breaks.
He also published a tax plan earlier in the election that was an interesting read: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/tax-plan
People who voted for Trump clearly liked his bombastic asshole style, and want to stick it to the "liberal elite". There happened to be more of them this time around than there were people afraid enough of a Trump presidency to vote for a relatively subdued and conventional candidate.
That's, of course, given that there wasn't enough voting fraud to make a difference, which with electronic voting machines in the mix isn't really a given.
Since today, apparently.
In this way it can actually be seen as a win for American democracy that the very well-funded Clinton campaign lost against what seems more like a movement.
Trump spent $367 million vs Clinton's $534 million. The next most well funded candidate, Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party, spent only $10 million.[1]
So money still plays a huge role in American politics. I'm also pretty sure not all of that money is spent on getting candidates elected, and that a lot of back scratching goes on and favors bought.
Even if this election was a win against money in politics, and a boon to democracy in that sense, it's a major loss in many other ways. Trump is pretty clearly an egotistical anti-democratic dictator in the making, who has nothing but contempt for the democratic process (ex: he stated he'd only accept the election results if he won). Now that he's won, expect a steamrolling over his perceived enemies in the very antithesis of democracy.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
How many Americans are aware that most of that money isn't Trump's, I'm not sure. But he's a billionaire! and he's against special interests! So how would a man like that just turn around and take contributions?
sigh.
There are good things that can come from this, however. We shall wait and see. My prediction is that Trump is the most bombastic, blowhard of a president, but his actual policies end up being mild.
Obama popular vote 2012: 65.9 million
Hillary popular vote 2016: 63 million, maybe
That's why Hillary lost, the rather lame turnout by Democrats.
Somehow, though, I don't think they'll learn any lessons. They've dropped the ball for too long, and played the role of the appeasers for too long. They've cozied up to the Republicans and moved their party far to the right, occasionally talking the talk but rarely walking the walk. This is what they get.
Hillary on the other hand is a classic globalist, backed by Wall Street and an endless parade of billionaires. She was the establishment in an anti-establishment election.
Further, if Sanders had gotten the Democratic nomination, the debates, issues, and media coverage would have been far different, perhaps even swaying those who had wound up casting an anti-Clinton vote by voting for Trump to instead vote for Sanders.
One other thing to keep in mind that the turnout for Trump may have been much smaller had his opponent not been Clinton.
Why do people only seem to consider TWO candidates. There was a third on the ballot to be considered. I wonder if these people did that at all.
Note: My point only is did they consider the third candidate. Not that they should have voted for him.
The DNC Chairperson, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had to resign after showing blatant favouritism towards Clinton at Sanders expense[1]. It wasn't Sanders' unconventionality that was the issue, it was the clear favouritism towrds one candidate over the other.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Wasserman_Schultz#2016_...
Not necessarily. All of the Trump voters I know (in the low double digits) are either single-issue voters on abortion, but who hate Trump- or they are single-issue voters on obamacare, angry because their premiums shot up, but who hate Trump.
Never underestimate peoples' desire to vote based on feelings instead of the big picture.
Since when did these things become mutually exclusive?
>I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about n*, and they stomped the floor.
-George Wallace
He took a very simple road. He appealed to the fear of the Other.
Most of all, I think they would be surprised to find out how many Bernie Sanders supporters have switched to Trump. Some I imagine will never admit it to their co-workers or friends, but I know many have never forgot being back-stabbed.
The funny thing is, the Democrats could have easily win this. They screwed up so badly, multiple times in a row, despite all the media help, and all the money donated to them, all the help from the DOJ and POTUS.
I hope one of the things they learned about this was that negative campaign ads dont work. I dont want to hear what shocking, Bad Thing the other guy said. In a 30 second radio spot, tell me what you're going to do, why that will help, and how its better than the way the opponent will handle it. You can only smear dirt on a surface once.
What was anyone else scared at all to touch?
Curious - What were these real issues?
So you poked the bear without having any way to contain it, and you shouldn't be surprised that people blame you for it having razed the village.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-nato-steps-idUSL114...
As for Eastern Ukraine - I feel like Russia doesn't need it per se - just as distraction and zone of destabilization in order to protect Crimea.
As for the Eastern Ukraine - best case scenario - securing a terrain pass to Crimea. Worst case scenario - destabilisation of the the country and more 'ground' during negotiations over any deal. Almost like taking hostages.
Baltics don't have such values.
Having ships under frozen water is the same as not having ships at all.
Easter Ukraine? It is were the industry of Ukraine is. It is very near Russia and as most of Russia is plain, it is very easy to invade the country(Russia) from it.
Russia wants to have a buffer around their country in the same way the US does not let anybody to have military bases and missiles near the country, like in Cuba.
First, historic precedence. Russia has attacked & occupied the baltics multiple times. Imperial Russia occupied Estonia during 18th - 20th century, and Soviet Russia once again occupied for half of the 20th century. During this time they sent the natives to Siberia, while importing Russians here and imposing other forms of russification [1] to obliterate our culture. It's more than just about land, it's about the survival of our culture which has been under systematic attack by Russia for the overwhelming majority of the last 300 years. The current Russian regime isn't much different and holds a strongly anti-Estonian view, so of course self-preservation is the #1 political issue for us.
Second, there is both strategic significance and resources here. We're talking about the previously western border of the Soviet union here. Uranium mining, nuclear submarine bases, missile silos. Better access to the Baltic sea, and closer reinforcement to Kaliningrad.
Again, I'm not trying to say that "big scary bear" is actually teddy bear. I just cannot imagine Russia being able to invade any country in EU. It's like saying there's a chance Russia would invade USA. Is it worth uranium and some bases? Doubt so. Does Russia have any resources or technical capabilities to confront EU? Doubt they ever will.
Also, about self-preservation - look at your emigration proportions [2] (shame they don't show trends - just pie charts :( ). Only this year trend is positive, but still estonians flee the country.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans [2] http://www.stat.ee/277526
Germans have been very cautious after WW2. They haven't been acting aggressively, they haven't been holding parades to celebrate Nazis as heroes, they don't have statues of Hitler in the middle of their cities.
Meanwhile Russia still celebrates everything Soviet as the biggest heroes that have ever lived, and have an amazing number of Stalin statues/paintings everywhere. Then they fund & organize attacks on Georgia [1], and annex Crimea [2]. Then, as recently as 2014, the FSB came into Estonia and abducted one of our intelligence agents. [3] This agent was denied contact with anyone, and was given premission to only use a Russian appointed lawyer. In a charade of a trial he was quickly sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was later exchanged for a FSB agent who was sitting in our prison. [4]
So you see, it's not only about precedence, but it's also about the continuation of the theme and actual real events that keep happening.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru...
Because Baltic states were part of Russian empire once and USSR later. Putin would be forever glorified in Russia and could rule till the end of days if he'd manage to "restore the glorious Russian Empire". Another reason is that Baltic countries stand as a gate to (old) Europe for Russia in both economical and military meaning.
How Baltic countries gate from Russia in "economical meaning"?
Or maybe Russia damaged relations with EU itself by invading Ukraine and occupying it's part (Crimea)?
It's not that you side with someone that's relevant. It's on what grounds and with whom you do.
Like Obama's birth certificate? Or Benghazi?