I agree. And yet, I read a number of stories about how those folks overwhelmingly felt the government failed them and didn’t do enough to help them. Aren’t these the same folks who say government isn’t the solution to our problems?

This is what I’m wondering too. I’m not sure how a guy like Trump becomes a champion for these downtrodden people in the rust belt. Trump is the very embodiment of the rich, white factory owners who left these people behind. His party stands in direct opposition to everything that will benefit these people (decent…

That’s true too (and the union vote in Ohio and Michigan went something like 50/50 so you’re definitely not wrong). But in NC the klan is out celebrating in full regalia today, so it’s a little from column a and a little from column b.

It is a lot easier to determine the point of the switch. Working class rust belt whites have seen their communities getting worse while the rest of the country bounced back.

Right, we get that. But its not all this one thing or all this other thing. Its in somewhere in the middle, like it always is.

It’s entirely possible for people to be suffering economically and to feel legitimately ignored by the political class, and to also be fucking bigots. The former does not excuse the latter.

Continuing to ignore that core truth. there have been several articles over the last few weeks that stressed the reality that this was not about the economy. The people voting for Trump were mostly employed and not low income.

A willingness to embrace absurdly false worldviews was prevalent during the election, especially on the right (hence The Wall Mexico is totally paying for), but that isn’t a good excuse. Hillary offered alternative industry proposals, but that wasn’t what they wanted to hear even if it is the only real path forward.

I think the issue is that Hillary didn’t speak to them specifically as white people. Because she should not have needed to. Those ppl weren’t the only communities in the rust belt suffering. People in the next neighborhood over were going through the same thing, and worse.

By claiming racism, sexism, xenophobia, or other fun castigations, you are completely missing that these communities are reacting to their situation continuing to get worse.

two opposing views can be equally true. He’s racist sexist and xenophobic. So are the rust belt voters who voted for him. Their situation is also not getting better and Hillary could not speak to their concerns.

You mean those people who have a lower unemployment rate than black people are “hard hit” by the economy? Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit. This election was tribalism. They wanted one of their own and got that. There is no policy to debate or discuss.

So it was a pushback against the “establishment,” huh? Then can you explain to me why nearly every incumbent Congressperson running was re-elected?

Van said it was a combination of factors, including the ones you mentioned. He just said that they weren’t discussing race as a factor even though it was.

Again with this economic issues nonsense.

They were tarred as dumb racist idiots who were voting against their interests when they voiced their displeasure.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but America isn’t going to change whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump becomes President”

Dude. No.

Oh, yeah, there’s a lot of, “Why didn’t Bill Clinton do X?” where X took 25 more years of social progress to become even feasible, or would have required a completely cooperative Congress and a world where Newt Gingrich did not exist. Or looking at her single vote for the Iraq War without considering the context of…

And also ignoring the historical context of Bill Clinton’s presidency, which came very soon after Reagan’s popular presidency had moved the country significantly to the right economically and socially, in which much of the country became convinced that small government and low taxes were virtues in their own right.