So increasing minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, universal health care, protecting/expanding social security, and a bunch of other policies that would help the working class don't count?
The thing is policy doesn't matter. People want 140 characters that make them feel good even if it's bad policy.
It's definitely fair to say a large share of Trump voters went with their emotions as you said, but I think a lot of folks didn't believe Hillary would enact a progressive policy. If you look back to when she established herself as a politician in the 90s-00s (I'm being generous here), most of those issues were not what she was championing.
To someone that doesn't vote with their lizard brain, it's clear that establishment Dems have the wealthy as their #1, just like the GOP. That's the problem.
Maybe a lot of liberal folks thought that. I think there were many Trump voters who assumed that she would and they didn't want to see the country go further in that direction, and some of those voters would have preferred staying home to voting for Trump if they thought it wasn't necessary to vote for Trump to stop the country going further left.
This might fall under "lizard-brain" but you can see it in the kind of more-apocalyptic-than-usual rhetoric many people were using, e.g. "this is the Flight 93 election!!!" People saying that sort of crap aren't going to be feeling the Bern.
I wouldn't have voted for Bernie either but I would have been more likely to follow my initial desire to case a protest vote for a third party candidate.
She pushed Universal Healthcare in 93.
Those are issues that Obama ran on twice...
>but I think a lot of folks didn't believe Hillary would enact a progressive policy.
Did they not realize the alternative?
And then completely failed to enact or really even push (outside of ACA which I acknowledge as an improvement).
> Did they not realize the alternative?
They sure liked her in primary season despite plenty of evidence she was weaker against Trump.
To be honest, no. Those don't count because most of the people who consider themselves to be the "working class" would be hurt by several of them.
A skilled tradesman who is making the equivalent of $25/hr doesn't want the minimum wage to go up. If it does, it dilutes his buying power. His wage isn't going to magically increase by $8.00/hr.
Unions have done themselves a huge disservice, by alienating the people who are not members but still have to work with them.
The ACA has turned off a lot of people from the idea of government managed health insurance. Many people, myself included, saw the quality of their coverage decrease because of the ACA.
It's weird how true this is. The ACA is the one thing that has accomplished the following : there was public talk on the streets about how democrats/Obama suck several times due to the ACA :
the two weeks when employer contribution became effective
then when the plans got changed in California and people had to choose
and finally when the plans were adjusted
In a lot of other places the employer mandate (which cause quite a few people to lose their jobs because their employer was forced to fire them, esp. in small businesses) mattered more. But Obamacare and the incredible cost increases it brought for everyone should be looked at as a failure.
Policy definitely won't matter if the messenger chooses not to make it part of the message.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14848636/hil...
[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/01/13/hillary-clinton-single-p...
Despite what every source of 'truth' that you have self selected has trained you to believe, we don't actually want more bennies. Subsisting on the bennies you decide you can afford for us is not our aspiration.
What would you consider a "pro-worker" agenda?