Dear Democrats, Read This If You Do Not Understand Why Trump Won | Hacker News Reader

Dear Democrats, Read This If You Do Not Understand Why Trump Won

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69 pointsJ0rdanVa1dez97 comments

> This is the problem with America today, the technology that was supposed to bring us together actually isolated us into echo chambers and drove us further apart.

Everybody knows where the other echo chamber is. As a democrat, you are free to watch Fox or read Breitbart. The hard thing is to read it open minded. The average democrat HN visitor probably looks there and stops after two sentences. Then leaves ranting about the bullshit there.

The crux is that this the same in reverse. If a Trump supporter watches CNN, he stops after two sentences. Then leaves ranting about the bullshit there.

I have no idea how to fix this.

Thanks for reminding the obvious. That's very helpful nowadays.

I recently switched to Wall Street journal and I have been impressed by their reporting on politics. I felt like they reported objectively on this election, at least to the point where a bias was not distinguishable.

Their tech news are also really good - you end up reading lots of stories that will be on the front page of HN throughout the day.

Business journalism typically comes with less partisanship when it comes to reporting politics. But my partisan, naive assumption would be that they cover subjects like TPP, the DAPL, and social security privatization from a very biased point of view.

Yes you are probably correct there.

That is true, and the card to play against that scenario is reading something like the Economist.

"Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever."

> I have no idea how to fix this.

I think this is the responsibility of "the media". They should be the ones looking at the "truth" from all sides and presenting a equidistant picture.

It's just that we don't have "media" anymore, they're all just tools for delivering advertising.

Media has moved to the Internet - "social media" which doesn't yet have a clearly defined role/goal in society.

It has an impact allright, but not necessarily intended, it just kind of happened by itself.

Now the responsibility is on these Internet companies to implement the proper information dissemination algorithms, otherwise we might end up with civil wars all over the world.

For example, if you follow a "democrat" leader, Facebook should force you to follow a "republican" leader too.

In general, whenever there's something divisive, these tools should "push" opposing views to you as well, in order to avoid the formation of "echo chambers".

>I have no idea how to fix this.

I don't either, but I'd love to get some brainstorming started.

Some naive solutions (and, please, feel free to point out why each of them won't work -- any maybe what you'd change to get closer to a solution!):

1. News "aggregator" sites that pull from both sides of the spectrum -- though people would probably just pick and choose which articles they read and which they raged over (assuming they didn't just revert back to CNN/Fox immediately)

2. Some neutralizing layer on top of all news sites that pulls out glittering generalities, biased phrasing, etc -- though you'd still have the issue of which stories are being reported on, and those "neutered" articles could easily be less interesting to read (and of course this would be difficult to get right, but I don't think difficulty to implement should be a barrier to trying something)

3. Some gamification of understanding and debate, that rewards people for taking the time to read posts from the other side and thoughtfully sharing their opinions on why they agree/disagree, or pairs people up with someone in private to have a discussion over it (just saw something on HN the other day for this), or something else to facilitate seeing things from someone else's POV

4. A more traditional game (as in, actually a game) that mirrors the real world (in the same way the Stock Market Game mirrors stock market prices) in which you play as someone with a different point of view (e.g. you're given a fictional character and role-play as them) and try to make compromises with other players to achieve peace in an evolving fictional world

One other question is this: how do we get people to want to escape their echo chambers? Many people enjoy or are just fine being surrounded by people that agree with them. Lots of people actually go out of their way to remove those who disagree with them (as is popular on e.g. Facebook and G+ right now). How do we convince people that, yes, sometimes it's good to hear dissenting ideas?

I see so many people upset right now, and it's clear there's a myriad of deep-set problems at work that can't be fixed with a simple bandaid solution. It's frustrating when you see a problem like this and have no idea how to fix it.

> 1. News "aggregator" sites that pull from both sides of the spectrum -- though people would probably just pick and choose which articles they read and which they raged over (assuming they didn't just revert back to CNN/Fox immediately)

The million-dollar questions are: How do you combat the addictive effects of anger (it is a very addictive emotion), and the human predisposition towards tribal conflict (e.g., the us vs them dynamic)?

If we had a good answer to those questions, then we could craft a media environment that, while still biased, presented a good sampling of viewpoints[1].

After which, we would need to figure out how can that be made economically sustainable?

I would be very interested to tackle those problems, but fear the economics.

[1] Right now, most media outlets present "the other side" solely as a strawman/weakman argument to be knocked down.

Gamification reminds me of prediction markets, though I don't believe this is something for the masses.

For this election the prediction markets were just as wrong as the polls and pundits. (Thanks to everybody who bet against Trump, you gave me great odds ;)

This is why I read both, although it gets painful at times, and that goes for both sides.

If you can not understand somebody, if you can not speak and understand their language, if you can not use words they way they do, then you have no chance of communicating with them.

I voted for Trump. The majority of my media is CNN, NPR, and occasionally progressive radio (when I'm trying to figure out what narratives are important to the left).

I do not listen/watch/read Breitbart, Alex Jones, Fox News, Drudge. I don't consider Fox to be a "conservative news outlet" either; I put them in the establishment propaganda bucket.

> Everybody knows where the other echo chamber is.

Brilliant. Thank you for that excellent summation, and no, I'm not being the least bit sarcastic. That's awesome.

> I have no idea how to fix this.

Neither do I, really, but let's not jump to the solution before we're done with the diagnosis. Here's an idea: critical thinking is overtaught. Yes, over. I know the common belief is that there's not enough critical thinking out there. I've said it myself many times, but it's a bit of a "little knowledge is dangerous" kind of thing. I see a lot of people, especially in tech, who know just enough critical thinking to pick apart someone else's argument, find its logical flaws, name its fallacies, then dismiss the whole thing. What they never did - what they've never been taught to do - is listen. Yes, it's a skill, and thus learnable. Very little of what people say is completely right or completely wrong. None of it comes without context. Take the OP, for example. There's sure a lot of Bernie butthurt there, but it's there for a reason and there are other nuggets of truth to be gleaned from it as well. Even the most deplorable Trump supporter has something to teach us, though perhaps unintentionally. Critical thinking is awesome, but sometimes we need to put off the critique of falsehood until we've looked for some truth.

Listening to the other side is part of critical thinking, so I do not see how a lack of it may result from overteaching critical thinking. It might be a result of superficially teaching critical thinking, which could result in people being able to name fallacies but not be able to see them.

Where did you get the idea that listening - really listening, not just mining for quotes you can refute - is part of critical thinking? Where is it taught that way? Where is it practiced that way? They're both valuable and important skills, but they're pretty much independent of one another and too rarely both present in the same person.

Ha! - if you are suggesting that I mined your post for something to refute, I would argue that you presented that point as being central to your reply to the second quote that you picked from Qznc's post (and I also think it was central to that reply, so I don't think I am taking it out of context.)

I actually went so far as to do a little search into how others defined critical thinking, and they uniformly included being informed and fact-based. It seems unlikely to me that one can participate informedly in a debate without having really listened to the other participants.

Given how prevalent and easily accessible that view of critical thinking is, I am curious as to what informed your apparent view that this is not part of critical thinking.

> if you are suggesting

I am doing no such thing. There was nothing in what I said to suggest that it was directed at you specifically. This would be a very bad time to construct a strawman.

> hey uniformly included being informed and fact-based

"Informed and fact-based" is not the same as listening to one's opponent. I wasn't talking about what tools can be used to rebut another's argument; I was - pretty clearly - talking about listening to it before the rebuttal starts. You've pretty much just proven my point.

If I had unconditionally stated that you had suggested that, you might have a small point, but I think it is a plausible possible reading and that there's nothing wrong with getting it out of the way, one way or another.

Your response to my position misses my point. You questioned where I got the idea that critical thinking encompasses listening, and what you wrote or thought you were saying up to that point is immaterial to that question. You distinguish between an initial time of listening and a subsequent time of rebuttal, but listening itself involves thinking, whereby one understands and evaluates the information, and it is from that that any rebuttal begins.

BTW I agree with much of what you have written recently about the election, especially your point that Bernie also lost, and with regard to the idea that markets are the solution to everything.

One of my (current) favorite quotes:

"And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."

- Kurt Vonnegut

This has been fixed many times over in history...start you own news/media outlet. It's much easier these days.

It's super easy to be open minded about it once you realize it's all bullshit everywhere.

The problem is that the "other echo chamber" isn't making arguments that are based on facts, not true facts at least. You can't have an argument with a climate change denier. It's unpossible. If we can't agree on a common set of facts then there's nothing else to talk about.

The way to fix it is to force anyone that broadcasts a video signal over cable or the airwaves or the internet to have a few hours a night of commercial free news. If they publish something that's patently not true then the government should revoke their license to broadcast on every medium. The only problem with that is that it would be very easy to get state run media in that situation.

I see a lot of people blaming the technologies, and I think that's a problem.

The technology is just a tool. Tools that we choose how and when to use.

If an echo chamber exists, it's only because we, as individuals, create it. We like and comments on posts on Facebook that agree with our existing opinions and we unfollow the people who have different opinions. Our own actions create the echo chamber.

We also get our news from one or two sources, and we avoid the sources that lean the other way. Not all media has a liberal bias - there are many media outlets with conservative views, we just choose not to read them.

The tools aren't to blame - we are. The result we see and the America we live in are direct consequences of our actions. To rid ourselves of the echo chamber, we have to change our own actions. We have to specifically search out information that challenges our beliefs. We have to interact with people who have different values.

When Hillary lost to one of the worst candidates ever in Trump, then its her fault. But from what I seen in social media, Hillary's supporters are just blaming everyone else for the loss rather than finding fault in their candidate.

I have even seen tweets claiming all Trump's voters (60 million people) are sexist, racist etc. It could just be a simple fact that people value other things more than just sexism and racism.

Trump just sold people a better future to this voters than Hillary did. Whether he is going to solve any issues of his voters, is a different thing.

How Trump won is a different question from whether Trump's voters are directly responsible for the harm that will be caused to minority groups in the next 4-8 years. Hillary can be an awful candidate and Trump's supporters can have caused harm towards people on the basis of race and gender - it's not an either/or.

Can't wait to see - the voting rights act is effectively dead, I wonder how effective Pence will be in pushing conversion therapy on the LGBT community.

You make these statements as if they are a certainty. If you would step from the echo chamber for just a moment, perhaps you might see that many of the accusations thrown at the Republican candidate were trumped up by the media. I'm optimistic that he's not half as bad as CNN would lead us to believe.

While I'm sure that sexism and racism does play a role for some voters, I believe (anecdotally, without data-based evidence) that its influence is overstated. Commentators who simply point to those factors are demonizing the "other" and perversely, are making it even harder to achieve consensus on issues. After all, how can you respect your opponent if they're sexist or racist?

That aside, broadly, Hillary lost because she:

- Represented the establishment

- Was uninspiring

- Was followed by the aura of 'scandal' (Benghazi and the email server are the two I've heard the most)

I think people were simply tired of establishment politicians who they felt never listened to them and never worked for their interests anyways - and just wanted someone radically different. It also helped that Trump's message "Make America Great Again" is trivially inspiring and broadly resonates. People feel that there's something wrong - that the social contract is gone, and they want to be part of a future where that greatness and their part in it exists again.

I am from India and I have seen middle class people talking about sexism, racism as major points while discussing candidates.

But when people are worried about leading a respectful life and make the future of their children safer, you cannot expect them to vote on sexism and racism as major topics in an election. You need to sell them a future.

And Trump sold them a future with "Make America Great Again". And Bernie was also selling people a future where corporations don't decide ur life. Hillary was basically telling America is great already. Think of people who are anxious economically hearing that.

About half of Trump's supporters were women; which sex are sexist against?

I guess

https://twitter.com/search?q=treats%20women%20from%3AHillary...

Hillary was definitely an incredibly weak and flawed candidate. I'm of the opinion that Sanders would've walloped Trump. But I do have some input regarding the racial dimension of things...

>I have even seen tweets claiming all Trump's voters (60 million people) are sexist, racist etc. It could just be a simple fact that people value other things more than just sexism and racism.

I see a campaign that ran on hate and anger for the 'other'. A campaign that white nationalists have called a blessing. A candidate endorsed by the KKK. A candidate that tweeted out a picture of Hillary Clinton with a Star of David affixed to her.

Trump relied upon a lot of economic anxiety as well but much of that was codified in racial terms: that Obama was serving the interests of black folks more, that white people were being marginalized in the culture, that brown rapists are coming for their jobs and their daughters. How can a vote for Trump not be seen as sexist, racist, and xenophobic? I'm sick of this shit saying we need to understand the other side and find out why they are so angry. I think it's pretty clear why Trump supporters are so angry. I've been to Trump rallies, I've talked to supporters, and you know what most of it comes down to? They want 'their' America back. They say they want to end corruption and take down the political establishment, but they voted for a candidate who is stacking the whitehouse with slimeball careerists like Pence, Gingrich, and Christie. But that seems to be okay with them, because it's 'their' side i.e. white revanchists.

In a country with such charged racial history as the US, is it really unbelievable that millions have regressive views regarding race? Look at how awful Obama is treated by some of these people - that he's a muslim, he secretly hates America and funds ISIS. And even if the voters themselves aren't racist, they are complicit in voting for a man who undoubtedly is. Where does that leave them?

But still you can't label 60 million people just because they voted for Trump. There will be few who are racist. But by labelling everyone, you are basically ignoring the reasons they voted for Trump and increasing the divide. Trump took advantage of the many people's anxiety.

What should be done is take steps for an inclusive growth including people who are anxious, dis-enchanted with establishment. But by labelling them, you are basically discriminating them and pushing them further away.

I've talked to plenty of people who voted for Trump. To be completely frank, many of their reasons boil down to emotional garbage like "he tells it like it is" / he "speaks for the common guy". But who is this common guy? In America, it's a white guy.

The people who voted for Trump voted for him despite the obvious and endlessly apparent evidence that he is sexist, racist, and generally an awful person. What can be said about that? Again, if these voters are so disenchanted with the establishment, why did they reelect so many incumbent senators and representatives? Why did they vote for a guy who is stacking his WH with careerists?

To be honest, I think this whole 'disenchanted with the establishment' narrative is missing the focus on the establishment it seems they really hate - the establishment of the first black president.

From whether it's saying things like "Oh Tim is so well spoken, not like his other black friends" or viewing any black male as a potential criminal, Americans, as a whole, are incredibly racist even if they don't "mean" to be. Trump's election is proof of that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/opinion/coates-the-good-ra...

Trump's election != racist america. I voted Johnson because i couldn't stomach voting for trump and there was no way i was going to vote for Hillary. The Dems could have run literally ANYONE other then her and they would have had an easy win.

Same goes for the Rep's they could have run anyone (well maybe not cruz) other than Trump and had an easy win against Hillary.

Anecdotally i know many people that voted for Trump and not one of them was happy about doing it.

This election the majority of voters on both sides voted against the other candidate verse for their candidate.

>Anecdotally i know many people that voted for Trump and not one of them was happy about doing it.

But they still did it. They still voted for an outspoken racist and sexist. They voted for a man who wants to register every Muslim in a database. What does that say about them?

>They voted for a man who wants to register every Muslim in a database.

But the NSA already registered every Americans in a database. It would be racist to exclude Muslims from it. We must be inclusive in our surveillance of U.S. citizens.

>They still voted for an outspoken racist and sexist.

Accusation without evidence. Not an argument.

>But who is this common guy? In America, it's a white guy.

No. That's YOUR definition of the common man. Their definition of the common man is themselves, a person who have lost his job, because all the companies in his town have sent all the jobs oversea.

This election has nothing to do with racism. For many Trump supporters, having a job so you can feed your family is the most important issue. You're attributing too much to the racism stuff. Just because racism is an important issue for you doesn't mean Trump supporters cares about it.

They just wants their jobs back.

The thing is, anxiety or dis-enchantment and racism and sexism aren't mutally exclusive.

If you vote for someone how is racist and sexist, then you are part of the problems that racism and sexism are. Sure you vote for diffrent reasons, but you effectivly say "It's okay to be a racist as long as you help me to feed my kids"

Your reasoning works equally well when referring to Hillary Clinton.

If you vote for someone that only serves her own interests and uses disenfranchised minorities as a stepping stone for personal power and flaunts rules that the rest of us would be put on trial for breaking, then you are part of the problem that corruption, bribery, and dishonesty are. Sure, you vote for different reasons but you effectively say "It's okay to step on everyone in your path, lie, and cheat, as long as I get what I want."

It doesn't sound like a fair argument now, does it?

Your reasoning implies there is only Client and Trump.

You believe Hillary supporters are wrong and you are right.

Hillary supporters believe you are wrong and they are right.

That you see, is the problem.

I didn't vote for either, so I'm well aware of the other options. Most people are not though.

> people value other things more than just sexism and racism

I think the point is, that most people have a rather extreme picture of being a sexist or racist.

No you don't have to run around and rape women to be a sexist

No you don't have to shave your head and batter blacks to be a racist.

It is enough if you simply accept people being that way.

And if you voted for Trump you didn't just accept that he is sexist or racist, you even approved for it by giving him something despite him acting like that.

The simple fact is, now people think it's okay to propagate hate if you get enough out of it.

Falsely accusing Trump and Trump supporters of being racist was the reason why Trump won the Primary.

Doubling-down on the racist accusation was why Trump proceeded to win the President.

Now, you're going to triple-down on it?

LOL. Some people never learn.

> Trump just sold people a better future to this voters than Hillary did. Whether he is going to solve any issues of his voters, is a different thing.

Really I found what he sold was doom and gloom. Death of America if he wasn't elected.

Seriously asking because I guess I am blind but what future is he selling besides we all would cease to exist as a country and a democracy if he lost?

His underlying message was almost the same as Bernie Sanders', i.e. "the establishment is not serving you, but the corporate overlords". That's not doom and gloom. It's the reality of much of America. The people living that reality blame the Clintons (and Obama, and to a lesser degree the two Bushes) for making it happen.

That's ultimately why he won.

He got some bonus votes from racists and other kooks, and he wrapped his core message in the typical right-wing xenophobia that resonates well with the base of the modern GOP.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contract/

See "actions to protect the American worker", essentially, isolationism. Anti NAFTA, anti TPP, anti China dumping, anti UN regulations (ie. anti climate change, or at least anti economic impact from climate change).

In the last section there's something about working to punish people employing illegal immigrants, which is a very sore point with poor Americans.

These are not going to be very popular actions on Hacker News, but is it that hard to see that there's a TON of poor Americans this would resonate with ?

None of that is a positive motivated promise. Everyone of them come from a negative stopping promise. Also he won't get but a few dfinished of those things done. AKA Term Limits in Congress LOL

Also we became the number one energy producing nation, under Obama, in the world he is acting like we have been holding off of trillions of revenue.

I hope I wrong but none of that is a future this is fixing yesterdays problems.

His voters were mostly middle income. They rightly feel that the benefits of trade have mostly accrued to coastal connected elites and not them.

The issue that the democratic party should probably be taking a look at is how Clinton set herself up as the presumptive candidate even before the primaries.

I immediately stop reading when i see sentences like "The Media Lied To Us About EVERYTHING". This is stupid and i don't trust the author anymore. It's a huge red flag. Did the NYTimes ever openly lie (That's not publishing false information)? I only read it for american/international news, but they always seemed very trustworthy and many trustworthy people declared it trustworthy (the guardian and my favourite newspaper, the german sueddeutsche Zeitung are all working with it).

I know about the emails and the investigation, that's nothing new. Please don't write articles about how everybody forgot about wikileaks and how much leaked emails you were posting in social media, because i don't care. These are not facts, they don't help me understand how trump won.

Also it was a very, very close race. Especially in Florida, i was glued to the screen.

EDIT: i read the whole article. Its clickbait. It never even starts trying to explain how hillary lost. It just states things not supported by facts like "Bernie Sanders Would Have Beat Trump". I would like to see Bernie beating Trump, but it is 100% opinion. No facts supported this claim. A third of the article is a positive outlook for the trump-presidency, which has nothing to do with the headline and what i expected to read. Also the first third is all about the leaked wikileaks emails, but no facts are presented that support the conclusion that they were even that important. I doubt it, of course it's a scandal, but the candidates were too different to let the emails be the decisive factor.

I want to understand how hillary lost, but i want facts, polls, interviews, data and experts analysing the data. Not somebody rambling about how he knew it all along.

She "stole" the PEOPLE'S CHOICE?!!?! Bernie.

Just another sore loser who's own echo chambre prevents him from realising most democrats voted for clinton, and no preference the DNC staffers had changed that.

Um...yes, it did. They manipulated everything they could to limit his exposure and got a decent number of African American voters to fill out absentee ballots towards the beginning of the primary before they had any idea who the other candidates were.

Yes, cause Bernie had the AA. vote in his pocket.

Yep, hindsight is 20/20, and now people are going to come out of the woodwork explain how "inevitable" a Trump victory was.

The fact is there was always a margin for error and probabilities involved here. Clinton having an 89% chance of winning did not predict a victory. Also, we obviously don't have a model for how many democrats are going to sit on their asses and not vote in any given election.

Looking back, the thing that signaled something weird was going on was the fact that Trump could say literally any offensive dumb-ass idea, roil the media and all his opponents, and come out unscathed or even stronger. He did this a dozen times or more throughout the campaign. I suspect that really understanding that dynamic will explain how Trump won.

Okay. As a Trump supporter, I'll help you to understand. Which part were you confused about?

>...the fact that Trump could say literally any offensive dumb-ass idea...

Okay. You're gonna have to be more specific than that. Which idea did you thought was dumb?

I think you'll find out soon enough.

I was in Michigan just after caucusing for Bernie at home, and the sheer amount of people for Bernie or bust among the White, Asian & Black communities was palpable. 10 million less people turned out to vote compared to 2008, and those were nearly exclusively 10 million Obama voters.

Voters like this African American gal I met in eastern Michigan who did not vote after Bernie lost, or that of this great group of young Asian Americans who also supported Bernie but switched or did not vote after his loss due to extended family & friends (from the west coast nonetheless) telling them Trump was the only option.

We all made a decision and we all have to live with it. That gal decided at the time to do what is best for her future.

I don't disagree that we have to live with the outcomes of our decisions, but I doubt that decision to not vote was in her best interest. She did make me want to spend some time in Northern Michigan & Traverse City, wish I had a few weeks back out there.

>10 million less people turned out to vote compared to 2008, and those were nearly exclusively 10 million Obama voters.

This is crazy. Neither Hillary nor Trump even received as many votes as John McCain did back in 2008 (60M) [1], who still lost to Obama by another 10 million votes. It's crazy to actually see how many fewer people voted this election compared to the past two, for whatever reasons.

[1] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/npA9xOL8_g_akHquHjzBBFn1RS...

I mean shit, I would vote for McCain if he had been an option this election. He is a very honorable man, and a goddamned national hero, and I say that as a person who conflicts with most of his beliefs.

His tireless opposition to torture is something I wish Obama had, and I truly can respect a person who can stand up and say essentially "I was tortured in Vietnam, how DARE we do this to others. We are not them!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F-YIA-lhQ0

Given two of the worst presidential candidates in recent history compared to 2008 when you had two great candidates (and I say this as a hardcore leftist), it's not that surprising people stayed home.

Damn straight, if I could have the choice I would have thrown my vote away on John McCain this election, I might not agree with most of his positions, but you can definitely respect him. His enduring fight to end and prevent our use of torture is quite heartening, even as a bleeding heart, housing first progressive.

A) People thought it was in the bag. I live in PA and it was a 6 to 8 point lead.

B) Seriously heard and had emails saying that there would be Trump supporters watching our polls (I live int he third largest city in PA)

C) Very little enthusiasm for Hillary compared to the Super Star Status of Trump.

D) People don't understand that the Democrats had little national power besides the White House and didn't take the election seriously

E) Facts and truth was thrown out the door so there was little to no dialog between the parties. The demonizing of Democrats was unreal. People really believe Hillary is a Satan Worshiper and that Obama is secretly helping ISIS.

I live in the third largest city in PA (when there's a home Penn State football game) and I agree whole-heartedly with your points. Since State College is surrounded by rural areas, it was clear that the excited voters (as a potential measure of which people will head to the polls) were for Trump.

I find it a bit ironic that there are protests against Trump in the cities as for years, the cities in PA have determined how the state voted. In an election where the rural constituent was finally mobilized, it's like they're throwing tantrums because they didn't get their way.

As a US citizen, I have to trust the system and believe that, while I didn't vote for Trump, he's exactly what the people want. I don't like his rhetoric but I do understand the anger of the "common man", who's watched policy driven by the self-appointed elites drives them from the middle class.

Until now they haven't stood a chance - corporate money buys policy and ensures increasing corporate profits while making the former middle class poorer. I won't say that there's not a race war going on, but I believe that part of the problem is that there's an underlying class war simmering out-of-sight.

YOUR THE 4th size city still :) The Penn State community boasts that during home games at State College the stadium is the 4th largest city by "population" in the state. It follows Philadelphia (1,517,550), Pittsburgh (334,563), Allentown (118,032), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Stadium

I worked the polls for 5 hours. I asked everyone going in to the gym to play basketball if they voted. I got two responses from the players. A) "Of course I voted" B) F* that B

The majority of the white voters were for Trump and would vocalize there displeasure with Hillary.

Yes ... the stadium itself is the 4th largest city. State College Borough itself has around 40k residents and there's obviously overlap between those residents and those sitting in the stadium. I've heard estimates that there are 15k people that show up just to tailgate on nice days (that seems high to me). In any case, it's an interesting statistic.

Note that Allentown is relatively safe from State College ever passing it as the Borough itself is small and mostly developed. There are 5 surrounding townships that actually contain most of the area's population.

I don't expect this to be popular, but maybe one route out of this meme-driven, post-truth, clickbaity echo chamber political dystopia is that we get over the idea that it's terrible to pay (or charge) for news. Twenty years ago it seemed great that the net was disrupting traditional news outlets. Now we've played that out a bit, it seems like we miss the kind of work you can do if you have revenue that isn't coming from advertisers or lobbyists.

>Now we've played that out a bit, it seems like we miss the kind of work you can do if you have revenue that isn't coming from advertisers or lobbyists.

Isn't a lot of the print outlets' revenue generated through advertising, though?

Uh, does this guy not care about the candidates policies? People who went from sanders to trump don't make sense to me when you consider their positions on many major policies.

I'm not in America, but I am English and have watched similar events happen with Brexit and the impression I get is this is about rejecting the status quo, not about what comes in its place.

Sanders said "Take power from the 1%". Trump said "Make America great again". Hillary said "America is already great".

Which of those statements will resonate with the people who have been struggling for years and can't see much hope for their children? Which of those statements gives the impression that the candidate doesn't understand that so many people are actually struggling?

bingo

I think the top portion here is key (in Bernies own words):

“Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer."

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sander...

The bit about corporate news being biased towards Hillary makes little sense. In so far as corporates are profit-seeking, Trump is a much better circus to cover. He gets attention, and attention is advertisement dollars. So if you're going to favour someone, it should be Trump. Heck he'll now provide interesting soundbites for years.

Also you cannot dismiss EVERYTHING as being lies. It's just not how lying works. A lie is a slightly modified truth, not a complete fiction. It's also pretty much the same as the hysteria that is being written about, to claim that everything is a lie.

The real story of why he won is a lot less exciting than everyone makes it out to be. He basically said he'll fix everything that's wrong, somehow. Especially whatever is wrong about the job market at the lower end. Economics seems to have gotten buried amid all the name-calling during the campaign, but not in the ballot box. And economics has been the major topic in every election, and every election an establishment candidate has been elected and turned out not to fix the issues.

Hillary wanted to talk about all sorts of things that aren't economics: racial equality, gender issues, foreign policy, experience in government, Trump being himself, and so on. Well, she got Trumped because people didn't care that his style is a bit narcissistic, didn't care that he has zero experience, and didn't care that he has no actual plan. People took a punt on Trump because why buy more of the same thing that doesn't work?

On Bernie, I agree with the article. He talked about a real economic alternative, and would have had a chance.

Dear Sanders supporters (like the author and BTW like me as well). He also lost. You also need to get off your high horse, talk with people who are unlike you instead of talking down to them, and learn something from what happened. That's what Sanders himself is doing. "I told you so" looks no better on you than it does on the Trump supporters. In fact, it looks the same.

This notion, Bernie would have definitely beaten Trump is just a ludicrous assumption. 66% americans view socialism very negatively and Trump would have the same message against Bernie that he hadn't done anything in the last 40 years of public service. Only thing that would be going for Bernie would be his "trustworthiness".

The DNC is an organization that's rotten from the inside out. Don't forget about Wasserman being the fall man for all of their shenanigans.

If there is one thing made clear - there is no such thing as journalistic objectivity. It's just a feel good myth we all tell ourselves as we consume our value affirming sources in a feed back loop.

This guy should have just sent this letter directly to Thiel. Would have been a much faster way to ask for a job.

That's exactly the problem. It's uncivil if I do it, but justified if they enforce it. Double standards much?

To be clear: I don't give a flying f* about what you do with your body, but don't fire me if I happen to use a personal pronoun that doesn't match your feeling.

You had no problem in disregarding my opinion, and felt the need to protect their views.

Please take the time to view this video

https://youtu.be/kasiov0ytEc

And don't you dare cut me off of my right to free speech because you don't agree with me.

I won't be offended if you ignore me.

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