Post by Harkovast on Nov 11, 2016 3:07:11 GMT
Okay, so Trump won.
I was a bit surprised by that, as I think many of us were.
I made the foolish mistake of trusting the polls.
It turns out trusting polls is somewhere between trusting astrology and sacrificing a chicken to Zeus and looking in its guts for answers.
The entire industry, we now learn, is just people making shit up, using unscientific methods and treating your own bias as fact.
So that's one group that has lost all credibility right off the bat.
What's weird is that I knew all the reason Hillary would lose, and I expressed a lot of them on the forum, but when I kept hearing that statistically she was still firmly ahead, I assumed everyone else was ignoring or oblivious to the problems I could see.
Turns out not.
So in a way this vindicated my fears. I should have stuck with my gut and not let the prevailing wisdom sway me.
A lot of people are responding to the situation by saying Trump won because of racism.
I think this is dangerously simplistic way to look at it.
We need to understand what happened here if we don't want this situation to happen again.
For that reason I am going to break down all the problems and misconceptions in Hillary's campaign that led to her defeat.
Now this is not to say that Trump ran a perfect campaign, but I don't want to talk about his side right now.
Whole libraries have been written about how doomed his campaign is, and he still won, so I think its time to turn the focus onto the losing side and work out what they did to lose such a sure thing.
This is going to be pretty long, but stay with me, it should be interesting stuff.
This is just what I think, I might be wrong. There are a lot of factors here and it's hard to say which were or weren't important, but I want to put it out there so we can all chew it over.
First off, let me explain way racism is not the reason Trump won.
Obviously Trump has dropped some pretty dodgy race related comments and I have no doubt that actively racist people would vote for him, but was that the main factor explaining his rise?
I would say no based on a few factors.
Firstly, several of states that went for Trump, went for Obama two times in a row.
If these states are dominated by racists, why didn't they vote against the black guy?
The fact these states could be flipped shows that people who previously supported Obama, now supported Trump. Did they all turn racist on mass during Obama's second term?
Another sign that race was not as big a factor as people are saying is the numbers.
Here is a chart of the voter break down by race comparing Romney and Trump.
Trump actually got a lesser percentage of the white vote and a higher percentage of the minority votes. This does not fit with the idea that racism fuelled his rise.
Saying Trump is a racist and his followers are racist and its all a big racist race war feels good and is nice and simple to shout to make yourself feel better. It also completely fails to get to the heart of what went wrong.
So what were the causes of Hillary's defeat?
1- Hillary has literally no charisma.
Seriously, this woman is not suited to public speaking!
She's boring, awkward and unlikeable.
Listening to her speak feels like you are being patronised, like she explaining something to a three year old.
Trump is a good public speaker. He's funny and charismatic. What he's saying might be nonsense, lies or weird boasting, but he's entertaining to listen to. There's a reason he was a reality TV star. In this regard Hillary simply couldn't compete.
Having Obama and Michelle campaign for her just made the problem worse. When they spoke before her, full of charm and likeability, and she comes out like a stiff manikin reciting talking points the contrast made her look even more irritating than before!
Her speeches sound like a list of insincere talking points that she doesn't really care about, mainly because that's exactly what they are.
Worst of all are her idiot slogan that she loves to announce really slowly with a big dumb grin her on face like she's doing some genius put down.
"I call that Trumped up, Trickle down."
"If that's the woman card, than deal me in."
"Love trumps hate"
She tested about 85 of them with focus groups to pick the ones to use.
No really, that's a real thing. Check it out.
These were painfully cringey and would put my teeth on edge every time she awkwardly show horned one into what she was saying.
She was incapable of just talking to her audience like a normal human being. It was all unnatural, rehearsed and insincere.
2- Going low
One of her shit slogans was "when he goes low, we go high"
Other than being yet another embarrassing catch phrase, Hillary undermined this messaged by getting very down and dirty in the campaign.
She was constantly attacking Trump as sexist, racist, hateful, evil, dangerous, deranged and pretty much anything else her comity of speech writers could think of.
There is an old saying- Don't wrestle a pig. You get covered in mud and the pig enjoys it.
She came down to Trump's level, while trying to paint herself as above him.
She promised to take the high road over his base and disgusting campaign, but instead she looked like a hypocrite.
I remember hearing her say that before talking about how Trump once called a beauty queen "Miss Piggy". This was at a time when Trump was talking about the 20% rises in costs people were facing under Obamacare.
She came down to Trump's level and blurred the distinction between who was the serious politician and who was the grand standing mudslinger.
Lowering peoples opinion of Trump was futile. People who didn't like him because of how crass he was had been against him from the start. But by engaging in that contest she made it seem legitimate when he did it back. Since she was trying to present herself as rising above him, the mud stuck a lot more and did more damage.
3- Democrats hate poor white people
Looks lets just be honest about this. It aint pretty but we need to face it.
The democrat party, and by extension the political left in America, don't like poor white people.
Poor whites are red necks, hill billies, ignorant, racist, stupid, religious fanatics and basically everything that's wrong with America.
Rich liberal elites living on the coast view these people with contempt, when they acknowledge them at all.
People in poor, rural communities have been hurting badly for some time.
Wages stagnate or fall, jobs disappear, crime goes up, but liberals don't care.
These are a demographic that gets only derision.
When they speak about their pain, they are mocked, or told that they are too privileged to have any real problems.
What's especially hilarious about this is that liberal political thinkers often puzzle over why poor whites don't vote democrat. After all, left wing policies would favour poor people, so why would these people vote against their own economic interest?
I can answer that question by turning it around.
Black people in America are on average pretty socially conservative. They attend church a lot and on average are against gay marriage more than the overall population. So why don't they vote republican? It sounds like they should fit right in.
The answer to both questions is exactly the same.
Because people notice when you hate them.
When you view a group of people with contempt, they pick up on that pretty quick and they won't vote for people who see them that way.
Poor white people with little education turned out for Trump in big numbers.
Its easy to laugh at them and dismiss them ("Hur hur, only stupid people with no education vote Trump!") but that is my point exactly! These people KNOW that they are seen this way, they KNOW that people make those jokes. They KNOW that they are a group its okay to mock on TV and no one thinks its offensive. They KNOW that Tom Hanks can dress up as one of them to act the buffoon on SNL and that's treated as entirely okay.
Are their problems real? Are other people worse off then them? Do they deserve sympathy?
I think that asking that is to miss the point entirely.
Their problems are real to them, they feel marginalised and they are acting accordingly.
Trump found the language and the message to speak to these people and they came out in force for him.
Ironically, during the Primaries, Bernie Sanders was criticised that his message about economic equality would only appeal to white people and didn't directly address minority communities (who I guess dont' have a problem with the rich taking all the countries money? Who knew?) With hindsight, he had exactly the kind of message that could have reached poor white voters, but this was cast asside in favour of a different political theory....
4- Identity Politics and why it's bullshit
The left has become obsessed with identity politics, to the point that it is the filter through which they see things.
Hillary's main campaign point was that she was a woman and becoming the first woman president would somehow empower women across the country by inspiring them or something.
It was assumed that seeing a woman to vote for her hearing her call Trump a sexist would bring women out in force.
Results now show she did little better amongst women than Obama.
Democrats played up Trump as a racist and monster (to the point that the phrases started to lose all meaning...they called Bernie Sanders a sexist before hand for goodness sake!) but gained very little from it. While some people may have not voted for Hillary becuase she is a woman, is this really a serious issue for most? Most people have female superiors at work and there are many women in government and leadership roles throughout society. The idea that a female president is some line in the sand that can never be crossed appears to have been invented out of whole cloth. Yes some people used gendered insults at her, but that's just the way people insult women they don't like in our society, it doesn't mean they wouldn't also insult a man.
Consider which candidate had their appearance, hair, skin colour and mannerisms mocked the most in this campaign? Hillary or the "orange anus".
Black people came out to vote for her less than for Obama and Latino people on average vote less than other demographics so while these groups are growing parts of America they did not deliver as many votes as expected.
The attempts to fit people into neat categories based on race or gender comes across as insulting to the out group and patronising to the in group.
Ironically, for people who criticised Trump for only targeting white voters, the democrats attempts to appeal to different demographics were clumsy and often embarrassing and are a big part of why they alienated so many poor whites that could have been brought into the fold. She flirted awkwardly with Black Lives Matter, which just served to bring to light her own poor record on race relations and tied her to that groups excesses and misdeeds. Many white people found the group frightening, and it probably cost her more votes than it gained.
She tried to present herself as the candidate for gay rights, but her total ignorance of the gay rights struggle and active opposition to it until only a few years before made this seem insulting. I personally found myself getting angry to hear her acting as if the struggles of gay people was of any interest to her for any reason other than political gain.
Identity politics has been tried and failed a few times in 2016.
The Ghostbuster reboot tried to market itself based on this, hoping to draw in women by staring women and shaming anyone who said they didn't like it until they...decided to go see it I guess?
That film bombed.
Hillary's campaign went the same way. Aggressively that she was a woman and you were a traitor to women if you don't love her and if men don't like her they are sexist...all the way to total defeat.
As a political idea, I hope this one has now run its idiotic course.
Related to this...
5- Political correctness has become bullshit.
Don't say racist stuff, don't be a dick to people, don't be sexist....these are principles we can all agree on.
Unfortunately the political left have taken these ideals to a weird, puritan extreme, branding anything and everything offensive.
People have grown tired of constantly changing definitions and rules for what is or isn't offensive.
When Trump got up and just said whatever was on his mind, it felt refreshing to a lot of people. It was a breath of fresh air in a culture that had started to feel stifling.
When the left were shocked and outraged (and they always were) they just aided Trump's appeal. The reason people liked it was that it was showing disregard to the self appointed sensors of society.
What the left don't understand is....most people don't care about this stuff.
To the left saying the wrong word or misusing a pronoun is a cardinal sin that must be shamed and punished. This issue is important and serious to them, so they assume everyone else seems it that way. When someone isn't concerned that Trump said a woman was a pig or said illegal immigrants are rapists, the assumption is that they must be filled with hate and desperate to do evil...and for some this is true.
But for a lot of them, they just don't care about. It isn't an issue that matters to them.
Most people who aren't into social justice or gender equality just don't give this thing much thought. If you say something rude that's bad, but its not a big deal.
The left was trying to get people upset about their own pet peeves.
It would be like a man with a fear of heights standing in an air port trying to convince people not to fly because its too scary.
The liberal elites working in the media reported each outrage but large numbers of people just shrugged and said who cares?
When Trump was heard saying he could grab women by the pussy, lots of people just heard a man boasting and making crass jokes.
It wasn't good, but lots of people say worse stuff when they are alone with friends.
To the left words have become connected to actions so strongly that insulting people is viewed as a form of violence, so when they heard Trump bragging they saw it as proof that he is attacking women.
But to a great many people, it just sounded like a man bragging about what a chick magnet he thinks he is. Some even found it humanising, showing he's a normal guy with normal flaws and weaknesses.
The left couldnt (and actively didn't want to) understand these voters and continued to push stories that would never resonate except with their own base.
Worst of all, the things Trump did wrong (insulting POW's, mocking the disabled etc etc) all amounted to just him talking. He said rude stuff.
Attacks on Hillary involved her doing things. The iraq war, Libya, Syria, the email scandal, her foundation etc.
To the left, so focused on policing language, this distinction was invisible.
But to a great many people, Trumps failures seemed like trivial details, and actually made him more likeable as a no nonsense guy who says what he believes regardless.
6-Clinton stands for nothing.
Trump's campaign said a lot of whacky things, but it had a central vision.
The country has gone wrong, Trump was going to fix it.
It was compelling, and it spoke to people.
What was Hillary campaigning for?
To make herself the first female president.
One of her slogans was "I'm with her".
Literally saying that the purpose of her campaign was to help her.
Even in her concession speech she mentioned that she had hoped to be the first female president.
A rich woman, who had lived a privileged life, wanting to achieve a historical achievement that would put her name in the history books.
How inspiring! I can't figure out why this didn't resonate.
She had specific policy ideas, but they were just tweaks and adjustments, there was no grand plan or vision.
There was a vague sense of bringing about unity and equality, but nothing meaningful.
The only other angle she had was insulting Trump and telling everyone how bad he was.
I call this the "John Kerry" strategy, as he used it against George Dubya Bush in 2004. The idea is that you are totally lame and no one likes you so you focus attention on your opponent and how bad they are.
Basically you aren't giving people anything to vote for but just someone to vote against.
It worked for Kerry about as well as it did for Clinton.
Her campaign was utterly empty and, even worse, it was horribly out of touch with the mood of the people.
While Hillary was trying to appeal to different demographics, she didn't seem to grasp that this was an election about change. The people who voted for Obama and now voted for Trump did so because both offered change but Obama had never delivered on it.
The idea of offering more of the same with slight difference was ridiculous.
On top of this, in such an environment her years of experience and time in government turned into a stone around her neck.
She was the most establishment candidate imaginable.
The best her supporters could offer was "she's a woman as president! That's progressive!" in another attempt to appeal to identity politics, which sounded like some kind of parody of feminism rather than a serious suggestion.
7- Hillary is a horrible, incompetent person.
Hillary's record is dreadful.
Even without the desire for change in the public, it was a mess.
Supporting wars that had all gone bad, her ridiculous handling of her emails, standing by her husband when he was accused of assaulting women, actively opposing gay marriage till 2013, calling black men super predators that needed to be brought to heel and helping pass laws to lock a whole generation of them up...the list goes on!
Anyone who looked into her record would find a trail of disasters for which she was having to apologise (before getting back to telling us that Trump is sexist and racist)
Her weaknesses were known to her and her party but they pushed her anyway. The party because she was an establishment candidate who would give them what they want and Hillary because of a selfish desire for glory. She could have stepped aside and let Bernie Sanders, a man perfectly suited to the mood of the nation, take the lead. But that wouldn't put her in the history books as the FIRST, so that would never even be considered.
She will now be remembered as a two time loser who couldn't win despite the entirety of her party establishment lining up to hand it to her and the back of almost the entire media.
The media shot themselves in the foot with their love affair with Hillary. The ignored her failures and weaknesses but the problem was...everyone could see and hear her. Calling an awkward lame speech inspiring didn't make it any more inspiring, it just made the media look like liars.
Some actively announced their bias for her, wearing it like a badge of honour, proudly announcing it like they were taking some moral stand.
They over played their hand and soon everyone could see just how biased and corrupt they were and their credibility was destroyed, meaning they lost what ever influence they had.
Combined with the rise of alternative news sources from the internet, people could go to other sources. Those sources may have been biased the other way, but certainly seemed no more biased than the supposed mainstream media.
Hillary deserved to lose.
She and those around her assumed the election was a formality.
They bought their own hype and believed everyone saw things the way they did.
They put personal gain and the power of the party higher ups before doing what was needed to win.
Democrats have lost the presidency, the senate, the house and will soon lose the high court.
They have gone from coasting to victory to utter disarray.
Hillary Clinton and the democrat leadership were not destroyed by Trump. Their party was destroyed from within by their own hubris.
Trump was just the one to sweep aside the wreckage.
I was a bit surprised by that, as I think many of us were.
I made the foolish mistake of trusting the polls.
It turns out trusting polls is somewhere between trusting astrology and sacrificing a chicken to Zeus and looking in its guts for answers.
The entire industry, we now learn, is just people making shit up, using unscientific methods and treating your own bias as fact.
So that's one group that has lost all credibility right off the bat.
What's weird is that I knew all the reason Hillary would lose, and I expressed a lot of them on the forum, but when I kept hearing that statistically she was still firmly ahead, I assumed everyone else was ignoring or oblivious to the problems I could see.
Turns out not.
So in a way this vindicated my fears. I should have stuck with my gut and not let the prevailing wisdom sway me.
A lot of people are responding to the situation by saying Trump won because of racism.
I think this is dangerously simplistic way to look at it.
We need to understand what happened here if we don't want this situation to happen again.
For that reason I am going to break down all the problems and misconceptions in Hillary's campaign that led to her defeat.
Now this is not to say that Trump ran a perfect campaign, but I don't want to talk about his side right now.
Whole libraries have been written about how doomed his campaign is, and he still won, so I think its time to turn the focus onto the losing side and work out what they did to lose such a sure thing.
This is going to be pretty long, but stay with me, it should be interesting stuff.
This is just what I think, I might be wrong. There are a lot of factors here and it's hard to say which were or weren't important, but I want to put it out there so we can all chew it over.
First off, let me explain way racism is not the reason Trump won.
Obviously Trump has dropped some pretty dodgy race related comments and I have no doubt that actively racist people would vote for him, but was that the main factor explaining his rise?
I would say no based on a few factors.
Firstly, several of states that went for Trump, went for Obama two times in a row.
If these states are dominated by racists, why didn't they vote against the black guy?
The fact these states could be flipped shows that people who previously supported Obama, now supported Trump. Did they all turn racist on mass during Obama's second term?
Another sign that race was not as big a factor as people are saying is the numbers.
Here is a chart of the voter break down by race comparing Romney and Trump.
Trump actually got a lesser percentage of the white vote and a higher percentage of the minority votes. This does not fit with the idea that racism fuelled his rise.
Saying Trump is a racist and his followers are racist and its all a big racist race war feels good and is nice and simple to shout to make yourself feel better. It also completely fails to get to the heart of what went wrong.
So what were the causes of Hillary's defeat?
1- Hillary has literally no charisma.
Seriously, this woman is not suited to public speaking!
She's boring, awkward and unlikeable.
Listening to her speak feels like you are being patronised, like she explaining something to a three year old.
Trump is a good public speaker. He's funny and charismatic. What he's saying might be nonsense, lies or weird boasting, but he's entertaining to listen to. There's a reason he was a reality TV star. In this regard Hillary simply couldn't compete.
Having Obama and Michelle campaign for her just made the problem worse. When they spoke before her, full of charm and likeability, and she comes out like a stiff manikin reciting talking points the contrast made her look even more irritating than before!
Her speeches sound like a list of insincere talking points that she doesn't really care about, mainly because that's exactly what they are.
Worst of all are her idiot slogan that she loves to announce really slowly with a big dumb grin her on face like she's doing some genius put down.
"I call that Trumped up, Trickle down."
"If that's the woman card, than deal me in."
"Love trumps hate"
She tested about 85 of them with focus groups to pick the ones to use.
No really, that's a real thing. Check it out.
These were painfully cringey and would put my teeth on edge every time she awkwardly show horned one into what she was saying.
She was incapable of just talking to her audience like a normal human being. It was all unnatural, rehearsed and insincere.
2- Going low
One of her shit slogans was "when he goes low, we go high"
Other than being yet another embarrassing catch phrase, Hillary undermined this messaged by getting very down and dirty in the campaign.
She was constantly attacking Trump as sexist, racist, hateful, evil, dangerous, deranged and pretty much anything else her comity of speech writers could think of.
There is an old saying- Don't wrestle a pig. You get covered in mud and the pig enjoys it.
She came down to Trump's level, while trying to paint herself as above him.
She promised to take the high road over his base and disgusting campaign, but instead she looked like a hypocrite.
I remember hearing her say that before talking about how Trump once called a beauty queen "Miss Piggy". This was at a time when Trump was talking about the 20% rises in costs people were facing under Obamacare.
She came down to Trump's level and blurred the distinction between who was the serious politician and who was the grand standing mudslinger.
Lowering peoples opinion of Trump was futile. People who didn't like him because of how crass he was had been against him from the start. But by engaging in that contest she made it seem legitimate when he did it back. Since she was trying to present herself as rising above him, the mud stuck a lot more and did more damage.
3- Democrats hate poor white people
Looks lets just be honest about this. It aint pretty but we need to face it.
The democrat party, and by extension the political left in America, don't like poor white people.
Poor whites are red necks, hill billies, ignorant, racist, stupid, religious fanatics and basically everything that's wrong with America.
Rich liberal elites living on the coast view these people with contempt, when they acknowledge them at all.
People in poor, rural communities have been hurting badly for some time.
Wages stagnate or fall, jobs disappear, crime goes up, but liberals don't care.
These are a demographic that gets only derision.
When they speak about their pain, they are mocked, or told that they are too privileged to have any real problems.
What's especially hilarious about this is that liberal political thinkers often puzzle over why poor whites don't vote democrat. After all, left wing policies would favour poor people, so why would these people vote against their own economic interest?
I can answer that question by turning it around.
Black people in America are on average pretty socially conservative. They attend church a lot and on average are against gay marriage more than the overall population. So why don't they vote republican? It sounds like they should fit right in.
The answer to both questions is exactly the same.
Because people notice when you hate them.
When you view a group of people with contempt, they pick up on that pretty quick and they won't vote for people who see them that way.
Poor white people with little education turned out for Trump in big numbers.
Its easy to laugh at them and dismiss them ("Hur hur, only stupid people with no education vote Trump!") but that is my point exactly! These people KNOW that they are seen this way, they KNOW that people make those jokes. They KNOW that they are a group its okay to mock on TV and no one thinks its offensive. They KNOW that Tom Hanks can dress up as one of them to act the buffoon on SNL and that's treated as entirely okay.
Are their problems real? Are other people worse off then them? Do they deserve sympathy?
I think that asking that is to miss the point entirely.
Their problems are real to them, they feel marginalised and they are acting accordingly.
Trump found the language and the message to speak to these people and they came out in force for him.
Ironically, during the Primaries, Bernie Sanders was criticised that his message about economic equality would only appeal to white people and didn't directly address minority communities (who I guess dont' have a problem with the rich taking all the countries money? Who knew?) With hindsight, he had exactly the kind of message that could have reached poor white voters, but this was cast asside in favour of a different political theory....
4- Identity Politics and why it's bullshit
The left has become obsessed with identity politics, to the point that it is the filter through which they see things.
Hillary's main campaign point was that she was a woman and becoming the first woman president would somehow empower women across the country by inspiring them or something.
It was assumed that seeing a woman to vote for her hearing her call Trump a sexist would bring women out in force.
Results now show she did little better amongst women than Obama.
Democrats played up Trump as a racist and monster (to the point that the phrases started to lose all meaning...they called Bernie Sanders a sexist before hand for goodness sake!) but gained very little from it. While some people may have not voted for Hillary becuase she is a woman, is this really a serious issue for most? Most people have female superiors at work and there are many women in government and leadership roles throughout society. The idea that a female president is some line in the sand that can never be crossed appears to have been invented out of whole cloth. Yes some people used gendered insults at her, but that's just the way people insult women they don't like in our society, it doesn't mean they wouldn't also insult a man.
Consider which candidate had their appearance, hair, skin colour and mannerisms mocked the most in this campaign? Hillary or the "orange anus".
Black people came out to vote for her less than for Obama and Latino people on average vote less than other demographics so while these groups are growing parts of America they did not deliver as many votes as expected.
The attempts to fit people into neat categories based on race or gender comes across as insulting to the out group and patronising to the in group.
Ironically, for people who criticised Trump for only targeting white voters, the democrats attempts to appeal to different demographics were clumsy and often embarrassing and are a big part of why they alienated so many poor whites that could have been brought into the fold. She flirted awkwardly with Black Lives Matter, which just served to bring to light her own poor record on race relations and tied her to that groups excesses and misdeeds. Many white people found the group frightening, and it probably cost her more votes than it gained.
She tried to present herself as the candidate for gay rights, but her total ignorance of the gay rights struggle and active opposition to it until only a few years before made this seem insulting. I personally found myself getting angry to hear her acting as if the struggles of gay people was of any interest to her for any reason other than political gain.
Identity politics has been tried and failed a few times in 2016.
The Ghostbuster reboot tried to market itself based on this, hoping to draw in women by staring women and shaming anyone who said they didn't like it until they...decided to go see it I guess?
That film bombed.
Hillary's campaign went the same way. Aggressively that she was a woman and you were a traitor to women if you don't love her and if men don't like her they are sexist...all the way to total defeat.
As a political idea, I hope this one has now run its idiotic course.
Related to this...
5- Political correctness has become bullshit.
Don't say racist stuff, don't be a dick to people, don't be sexist....these are principles we can all agree on.
Unfortunately the political left have taken these ideals to a weird, puritan extreme, branding anything and everything offensive.
People have grown tired of constantly changing definitions and rules for what is or isn't offensive.
When Trump got up and just said whatever was on his mind, it felt refreshing to a lot of people. It was a breath of fresh air in a culture that had started to feel stifling.
When the left were shocked and outraged (and they always were) they just aided Trump's appeal. The reason people liked it was that it was showing disregard to the self appointed sensors of society.
What the left don't understand is....most people don't care about this stuff.
To the left saying the wrong word or misusing a pronoun is a cardinal sin that must be shamed and punished. This issue is important and serious to them, so they assume everyone else seems it that way. When someone isn't concerned that Trump said a woman was a pig or said illegal immigrants are rapists, the assumption is that they must be filled with hate and desperate to do evil...and for some this is true.
But for a lot of them, they just don't care about. It isn't an issue that matters to them.
Most people who aren't into social justice or gender equality just don't give this thing much thought. If you say something rude that's bad, but its not a big deal.
The left was trying to get people upset about their own pet peeves.
It would be like a man with a fear of heights standing in an air port trying to convince people not to fly because its too scary.
The liberal elites working in the media reported each outrage but large numbers of people just shrugged and said who cares?
When Trump was heard saying he could grab women by the pussy, lots of people just heard a man boasting and making crass jokes.
It wasn't good, but lots of people say worse stuff when they are alone with friends.
To the left words have become connected to actions so strongly that insulting people is viewed as a form of violence, so when they heard Trump bragging they saw it as proof that he is attacking women.
But to a great many people, it just sounded like a man bragging about what a chick magnet he thinks he is. Some even found it humanising, showing he's a normal guy with normal flaws and weaknesses.
The left couldnt (and actively didn't want to) understand these voters and continued to push stories that would never resonate except with their own base.
Worst of all, the things Trump did wrong (insulting POW's, mocking the disabled etc etc) all amounted to just him talking. He said rude stuff.
Attacks on Hillary involved her doing things. The iraq war, Libya, Syria, the email scandal, her foundation etc.
To the left, so focused on policing language, this distinction was invisible.
But to a great many people, Trumps failures seemed like trivial details, and actually made him more likeable as a no nonsense guy who says what he believes regardless.
6-Clinton stands for nothing.
Trump's campaign said a lot of whacky things, but it had a central vision.
The country has gone wrong, Trump was going to fix it.
It was compelling, and it spoke to people.
What was Hillary campaigning for?
To make herself the first female president.
One of her slogans was "I'm with her".
Literally saying that the purpose of her campaign was to help her.
Even in her concession speech she mentioned that she had hoped to be the first female president.
A rich woman, who had lived a privileged life, wanting to achieve a historical achievement that would put her name in the history books.
How inspiring! I can't figure out why this didn't resonate.
She had specific policy ideas, but they were just tweaks and adjustments, there was no grand plan or vision.
There was a vague sense of bringing about unity and equality, but nothing meaningful.
The only other angle she had was insulting Trump and telling everyone how bad he was.
I call this the "John Kerry" strategy, as he used it against George Dubya Bush in 2004. The idea is that you are totally lame and no one likes you so you focus attention on your opponent and how bad they are.
Basically you aren't giving people anything to vote for but just someone to vote against.
It worked for Kerry about as well as it did for Clinton.
Her campaign was utterly empty and, even worse, it was horribly out of touch with the mood of the people.
While Hillary was trying to appeal to different demographics, she didn't seem to grasp that this was an election about change. The people who voted for Obama and now voted for Trump did so because both offered change but Obama had never delivered on it.
The idea of offering more of the same with slight difference was ridiculous.
On top of this, in such an environment her years of experience and time in government turned into a stone around her neck.
She was the most establishment candidate imaginable.
The best her supporters could offer was "she's a woman as president! That's progressive!" in another attempt to appeal to identity politics, which sounded like some kind of parody of feminism rather than a serious suggestion.
7- Hillary is a horrible, incompetent person.
Hillary's record is dreadful.
Even without the desire for change in the public, it was a mess.
Supporting wars that had all gone bad, her ridiculous handling of her emails, standing by her husband when he was accused of assaulting women, actively opposing gay marriage till 2013, calling black men super predators that needed to be brought to heel and helping pass laws to lock a whole generation of them up...the list goes on!
Anyone who looked into her record would find a trail of disasters for which she was having to apologise (before getting back to telling us that Trump is sexist and racist)
Her weaknesses were known to her and her party but they pushed her anyway. The party because she was an establishment candidate who would give them what they want and Hillary because of a selfish desire for glory. She could have stepped aside and let Bernie Sanders, a man perfectly suited to the mood of the nation, take the lead. But that wouldn't put her in the history books as the FIRST, so that would never even be considered.
She will now be remembered as a two time loser who couldn't win despite the entirety of her party establishment lining up to hand it to her and the back of almost the entire media.
The media shot themselves in the foot with their love affair with Hillary. The ignored her failures and weaknesses but the problem was...everyone could see and hear her. Calling an awkward lame speech inspiring didn't make it any more inspiring, it just made the media look like liars.
Some actively announced their bias for her, wearing it like a badge of honour, proudly announcing it like they were taking some moral stand.
They over played their hand and soon everyone could see just how biased and corrupt they were and their credibility was destroyed, meaning they lost what ever influence they had.
Combined with the rise of alternative news sources from the internet, people could go to other sources. Those sources may have been biased the other way, but certainly seemed no more biased than the supposed mainstream media.
Hillary deserved to lose.
She and those around her assumed the election was a formality.
They bought their own hype and believed everyone saw things the way they did.
They put personal gain and the power of the party higher ups before doing what was needed to win.
Democrats have lost the presidency, the senate, the house and will soon lose the high court.
They have gone from coasting to victory to utter disarray.
Hillary Clinton and the democrat leadership were not destroyed by Trump. Their party was destroyed from within by their own hubris.
Trump was just the one to sweep aside the wreckage.