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"This is why people don't trust institutions."

Too bad there's no HN gold. :)

While its possible there is something to it, even if there is it irritates me to see so many people harp on Cambridge Analytica and Russia and such for why Trump won. Trump won because he was the only one who really ran on the collapse of the interior as an issue. I am not convinced Russian trolls or CA had much to do with it. At the very least I think without the rust belt he would have lost badly.

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The term collapse of the interior is a good one I think to adequately describe the problem. There really is very little meaningful work.

It's a mistake to look for the single reason someone won an election. There are always many causal factors, all working together, which result in the outcome.

He wasn't the only one, but he was the one that managed to avoid being quashed by the party he was running under. And yes, the numbers bear out that assumption about the rust belt. It was Democratic voters in key states staying home that cost Hillary the result. Many, for instance, were black working class voters that felt hopeful for change under Obama and found that after 8 years, nothing really had changed for them. So they didn't turn out to vote. Hillary and the DNC assumed too much about their support, ironically stereotyping them under a demographic instead of seeing them as people who were still struggling.

>Trump won because he was the only one who really ran on the collapse of the interior as an issue.

I feel that while this is why Trump won, Bernie ran on a similar platform. However, Bernie didn't end up becoming the nominee, and we all know what happened next.

Stats show Trump won more based on culture than economics; Clinton won handily with low income voters.

Low-income voters are disproportionately minorities, who often likely couldn't bring themselves to vote for someone with an overtly racist/nativist platform. For me, the surprising number is how many (especially hispanic voters) actually did vote for Trump. It was an eye-opener when my (black) mother said that she was going to vote for Trump early on in the election cycle, although I'm fairly sure she didn't in the end (I think she chose to leave her presidential pick blank.)

Clinton had the distinct "cultural" advantage IMO, although evangelical voters united fairly monolithically behind Trump; the marketers of culture lined up pretty solidly behind Clinton. It's also important to remember that the culture of white dudism only represents about 1/3 of the country, although it represents a bit higher percentage of voters, and there were a lot of young defectors this cycle.

This statement is not supported by the facts.

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-group...

Hillary A) won the popular vote B) won voters who considered economics an important issue C) won voters making less than 50000.

... what do you think your link says?

There was another, but he was to old and too male to be allowed to run...

It was purely political, he’s barely older than Clinton and gender isn’t the reason they picked someone from the in crowd over an outsider.

But their pick tried to run on gender issues during a prolonged recession...

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