the story of 2016 is rust belt and midwest manufacturing and assembly industries breaking for trump in a big way on promises of returning jobs and a lack of enthusiasm from DNC minorities who felt they didnt need to vote because it was in the bag

aka trump told midwest people he needed them direly, and HRC told the whole nation it was over and trump stood no chance.

this was so subtle that I, a politically active centrist in Wisconsin, was still bamboozled the morning after.

you forget how many votes unions like the UAW have until a thing like 2016 happens. i know there's surburban whites and other factors, but that was the big wildcard.

I'd be disappointed at this point after all the Daddy trump memes if there isn't Mommy Kamala.



Milquetoast as in if we compare ourselves to any other functioning 1st world country we are behind by actual decades. Almost everything he advocates for is just rational shit in every other country. Maybe a few things here and there stand out, but nothing to the degree people act like it does. Its mostly super reasonable stuff if you have some general amounts of empathy for the common man. Hes a soc-dem. So pretty much a vanilla mother fucker.

I don't actually advocate for Communism though. It doesn't fit within the framework of our country and given this is the USA it could only be brought about through violent revolution. More importantly revolution that the proletariat could win, which is pretty much -1000% chance of ever happening. It isn't inherently evil anyways, but its worth stating my stance.
A market socialism approach that decommodifies basic necessities, slowly over long stretches of time is the only one with a chance in hell of happening and even that is super pipe dream. The main goal at the moment would be to improve our existing system and its the only thing that is electorally viable currently as well because of the red scare baked into the brains of our country from birth. Starting most importantly with schools and access to adequate healthcare, two of the biggest blights on poor people.




Don't worry, no matter how uneducated you are I'll still advocate for you.

As a coastal, urban/suburban, university educated white, I'm exactly the demographic that has been moving towards the Democratic party.

My issue with the left is entirely philosophical.

Thats fine. I'll keep advocating for you.
I'm sure outside of posting here you work hard to do things that bring you happiness and put food on the table.

Yes, the left has some pretty terrible ideas. However, the intellectual right has been purged and the GOP runs purely on emotion now. The demographics that support the GOP are a dying one. To me, it seems more prudent to join the Democrats to prevent the progressives from gaining more power.

This explanation that the voter realignment of 2016 only came down to the rhetoric of the two candidates falls completely flat once you look beyond the United States. Fact of the matter is that the same trends have been playing out all across the industrialized world. In Europe, Australia and even Japan, you see the same trends in recent years: working-class and rural voters trending toward conservative parties, particularly nationalist and/or populist ones; and college-educated voters from upscale regions trending toward the left-wing or green parties.

The common denominator, in my opinion, is that the political sphere is increasingly polarized between those who benefit (economically and culturally) from globalization and those who are hurt by it. Societies have already been divided by winners and loser of globalization, and now, this trend is also seeping into politics.

I think this is definitely the case. Hell, there may be a tangible net benefit for them but the perception undoubtedly exists. I can't speak for other countries, but there has always been a lose coalition between the various factions of conservatives. How do evangelical Christians partner up with business tycoons? It seems to be a marriage of convenience and that's pretty dangerous if you're about to get your ass kicked in an election. I think Democrats are a bit more united in the sense that they have the same overall goal, it's just that the road to get there differs.

You'd fit right in at one of those think tanks that assumes their conclusions before they start their research.

The arguments from Trump supporters here have been kind of laughable. It's something like "Things couldn't go on as normal. Trump had to expose the corruption of the two parties. He had to shake things up ideologically and otherwise."

First off, Trump is the most blatantly corrupt politician I've ever seen in my lifetime. So that talking point is ridiculous. How does openly embracing corruption somehow deal with the normal corruption in Washington?

Second, how exactly does Trump's corruption, massive incompetence, and intentional divisiveness help "shake things up"? Trump isn't focused on some massive ideological realignment. He's focused on dividing the country. He's focused on minimizing a pandemic because he thinks it hurts him politically. He's focused on destroying dissent in his own party, not on ideological grounds, but in fealty to him and his corruption/incompetence/behavior.

These arguments aren't actually a defense of my criticism. It's sidestepping the issues I brought up.

Edit - This all seems to be defending the idea of Trump, not the reality. Trump could've actually shook things up in Washington in a good way. He could've sought some middle ground with his tax bill to get more money from the super wealthy(something he said he would do in the primary). He could've made a deal on immigration to protect dreamers and get wall funding. He could've passed an infrastructure bill. He didn't do these things because he's not an actual populist... he's governed as a normal Republican with few exceptions, just in a more mean and evil way.

This post was edited by IceMage on Oct 28 2020 04:55pm

Back in the days of Reagan, when Christian conservatives became one of the main power center of the GOP, the alliance made a lot of sense. Back then, evangelicals sought to preserve the social status quo, business tycoons wanted to preserve the economic status quo. Hence, a philosophy of "preserve the status quo" satisfied both factions and served as a coherent framework behind which they could rally.