Jonathan Pie explains it

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Another Brit has a similar take, Clive Crook:

Clinton did just that. Large numbers of mainstream Republicans denounced Trump. Some (including Mr Republican George Wills) resigned from the party.

But let's stop ignoring what all these 'after action' pundits still do not understand. Go out into the hinderlands. About half a radio dial is right wing extremists talk show hosts claiming America is dying. No facts say that. Growth that was so destroyed by an administration in 2000-2008 was restored. Companies are hiring. Products are being exported. A massive debt created by the Cheney extremists is being reduced. Hate against minorities was being eliminated. American military is more powerful than the next 5 largest militaries combined. And America is finally telling other allied nations that they first must address issues in their own region. America is not your 911 Policeman. Many are finally getting it.

That is not what the god on AM radio says. Plus, some industries have not innovated in over 40 years. So many workers in rust belt regions are getting screwed by business school graduates (which includes George Jr and The Donald). AM radio gods tell them to blame Washington.

Washington does not create jobs. Never will. Washington can destroy jobs - as George Jr did. But jobs can only be created by innovation.

All that is too complex for many only educated by spin doctor radio. Easier is to blame the establishment. Ironically, nobody seems to notice that. Do they not drive out to the hinderlands to scan the air waves? Apparently not. We know many only believe the first thing they are told. Then get angry or adversarial when a reality is stated later. Out there where jobs are less numerous (especially in the anti-innovation American coal and steel industries), large numbers are so hyped angry as to vote in numbers never before seen.

Out there, logical discussion is rare. Anger and emotions hyped by talk show extremists is about half the radio stations. And so the turnout, driven by emotion, was massive.

Did Donald understand that? Of course not. He simply did what is usually does - demean, attack, and insult others. It played well in the hinderlands where talk show radio says everything is bad - despite facts and numbers that say otherwise.

Easy is to blame Washington using emotion and sound byte logic. Especially when the local media is mostly promoting it. Amazingly, pundits looking for reasons to explain their confusion do not

[xoxoxoBruce]

I agree with tw on this one. It's easier to generate hate with a sound bite than explain reality.

[Clodfobble]

Just think, if Michelle Obama does run in 2020, the Obamas will have taken what she wanted twice. Then all that needs to happen is for Sasha to outbid her on a summer house in Florida, and Malia to take a job that Chelsea was supposed to get, and finally Chelsea's kid and Malia's kid will be ready to be star-crossed lovers.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You imagination is running wild. When Obama leaves office he Will be rich, no need to drag his family into the quagmire of politics.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Just think, if Michelle Obama does run in 2020, the Obamas will have taken what she wanted twice.

This... Oh my ....

[sexobon]

Here's a sound bite for you:

Clinton blames FBI director James Comey for her defeat.

[DanaC]

Not the reason but almost certainly one of them.
The timing of his announcement clearly had the potential to impact early voting. It was a hugely damaging blow. The hardline hilary haters already considered her criminally corrupt - with that announcement those prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt were offered apparent evidence that there really is no smoke without fire - right before they were expected to cast their vote.
By the time the fire was revealed to be merely a smoke machine the damage was done.

[tw]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Not the reason but almost certainly one of them.

That would make sense if what was on the ground (literally) was ignored. Visit the hinderlands of FL or PA. Those Trump signs were everywhere. Trump signs outnumbered all other candidates combined. Those signs were there long before Comey made his comments.

Clinton's comments would be based in data that was clearly flawed. She can only blame what her data would explain.

For example, many did not see 'the wall' as necessary to keep out immigants - legal or illegal. Many families in the hinderland are suffering from major heroine problems mostly traceable to opiate addiction. A problem created by big Pharma that is now more interested in profits than the product. 'The wall' is viewed as a solution to their major problem.

Did Clinton's grass root operation and data structure identify these problems?

A major change in America is productive jobs moving to big cities - mostly coastal cities. Farming and other rural communities no longer create new jobs. People who graduate with higher educations leave for the big cities.

Auto jobs are gone from a mid west industrial belt - directly traceable to a motor industry that stopped innovating ten and thirty years ago. Jobs created today could only exist if innovations were being created ten and more years ago. Neither coal nor steel does necessary innovation in the past 40 years. So jobs losses become major today.

Even a white appliance business is not being downsized since MBAs have now taken over and merged those companies in the name of cost controls. Samsung and LG are now preferred products.

Where did Democrat data reflect a severe cultural depression in these hinderland? It doesn't. Hilary can only blame what her data sees. It apparently does not see what exists, why it exists, a stagnant living standard, and propaganda routinely repeated daily in the hinderland to enhance anger.

Her data should have seen a tidal wave combined with cheapshot anger that was growing in the hinderland. Her data apparently did not explain all those Trump signs months ago combined with an anger behind them. Comey did not create that discontent.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by DanaC

... The hardline hilary haters already considered her criminally corrupt - with that announcement those prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt were offered apparent evidence that there really is no smoke without fire - right before they were expected to cast their vote.
By the time the fire was revealed to be merely a smoke machine the damage was done.

That's not quite the way it works here. Only the Clinton supporters want to draw the line at whether or not a crime was committed.

Americans do not have a right to a security clearance. As an American, if your country is in conflict with another country (or subset group) and you marry a member of that group, it's not a crime; but, you can lose your security clearance. If you have substantial gambling debts, it's not a crime; but, you can lose your security clearance. Just about anything you do that makes you susceptible to detrimental influence (e.g. extortion), that's not a crime, can cause you to lose your security clearance. If your job requires a security clearance, you lose your job. If your job doesn't require a security clearance, like the Presidency, you still lose your ability to function.

The mere fact that additional copies of Clinton emails turned up somewhere not yet accounted for did her in with many. Who knows if and where they'll turn up in the future. Who knows if they'll be redundancies; or, if there'll be something new. Who knows if more turn up, that someone won't want something from a president Clinton in return for not making waves; or, worse.

Even when government employees are authorized to use personal assets for government work, there are conditions. The personal assets have to meet or exceed government requirements and come at no cost to the government. Any problems associated with the choice to use personal assets become the sole responsibility of the person who chose to do so. How much has the government, funded by the taxpayers, had to pay for the aftermath of Clinton's decision?

These conditions apply to all levels of government service. As an SF O&I NCO I was issued a photographic equipment set AND I was authorized to use my personal equipment. If my performance suffered because my personal equipment wasn't serviceable to military standards, I could be disciplined. If my personal equipment was lost or damaged in the line of duty, the government had no liability. Even though I was taking photographs with my personal equipment, they had to be handled in accordance with government regulations. Everything was FOUO (For Official Use Only) with tentative higher classifications (e.g. confidential, secret, top secret) required as appropriate until they could be reviewed by a classifying authority.

Clinton felt she was above all that just because she was in the top strata of government. She was right in that she could get away with it with her peers and superiors. She was wrong in that she could not get away with it with the public. Clinton's actions put the onus on FBI Director Comey to deal with the adverse ramifications of her poor judgement as they developed. She bears full responsibility for the consequences and their timing. He just did his job. Clinton blaming Comey just makes her a scoundrel.

[Undertoad]

I need all your help here. I am a little bit under-informed.

I can remember several Trump policy proposals, because they were popularly repeated and heavily debated.

What would you say was Hillary's most memorable, popularly repeated and heavily debated policy proposal?

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Democrats are big on diversity. But Tyler Cowen claims their view is too narrow. I agree with him, I hear a lot more bitching about those bastards on the other side of town, the next town/county, or in the state capitol, than racial/ethnic groups, although sometimes they coincide.

The Democratic Party today is more likely to stress the relevance of ethnic and racial diversity, if the talk is about diversity. (Gender diversity too, but that requires its own post, maybe later to come.) Non-Democrats are more likely to count other forms of diversity for more than the Democrats do. I see Democrats as somewhat concentrated in particular cities and also in particular occupations, more than Republicans are. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is another way in which Democrats are less diverse.

When it comes to views about the relevant forms of diversity, the views of non-Democrats are more diverse than the views of Democrats, I would hazard to guess. A non-Democrat is more likely to focus on something other than racial and ethnic diversity, compared to a Democrat.

Correctly or not, many Americans do not think racial and ethnic diversity is the diversity that should command so much attention. That is one place to start for understanding why so many 2012 Obama voters switched to Trump this time around, or maybe just stayed home.

More here

[Undertoad]

You would think that a former General would really understand all that in tremendous detail.

[sexobon]

There's a very old saying in the military that once they pin on that second star, they stop being a soldier and become a politician. Some align themselves with other politicians who think they're above it all. That's how we get the Powells and Patraeuses.

I seem to remember it was Colin Powell who did the presentations to convince the world Saddam Hussein had WMD. He was Dubya's toady. Didn't expect much more from him at that stage of his career.

[Undertoad]

It's going to be a two-term Presidency because of this.

Trump Racism: You Are Still Crying Wolf

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16...l-crying-wolf/

Trump made big gains among blacks. He made big gains among Latinos. He made big gains among Asians. The only major racial group where he didn’t get a gain of greater than 5% was white people. I want to repeat that: the group where Trump’s message resonated least over what we would predict from a generic Republican was the white population.

Nor was there some surge in white turnout. I don’t think we have official numbers yet, but by eyeballing what data we have it looks very much like whites turned out in equal or lesser numbers this year than in 2012, 2008, and so on.

The media responded to all of this freely available data with articles like White Flight From Reality: Inside The Racist Panic That Fueled Donald Trump’s Victory and Make No Mistake: Donald Trump’s Win Represents A Racist “Whitelash”.

I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he’s “the candidate of the KKK” and “the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement” is made up. It’s a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. That it came to dominate the election cycle should be considered a horrifying indictment of our political discourse, in the same way that it would be a horrifying indictment of our political discourse if the entire Republican campaign had been based around the theory that Hillary Clinton was a secret Satanist. Yes, calling Romney a racist was crying wolf. But you are still crying wolf.

[glatt]

I dunno about that.

He's comparing the percentage of voters in this election to the percentage of voters in 2012, but I feel like that's comparing apples to oranges.

I read in numerous places that Trump won because many Obama voters stayed home when confronted with Hillary on the ticket. Those Obama voters are not being counted in his analysis, but they are out there and will show up again if a future candidate motivates them.

I can't find the statistics, but let's crunch numbers based on figures that are available.

We know there were 124,326.830 total voters this year and according to NYT, 12 percent of them were black. That works out to 14,919,220. And of those, 8 percent voted for Trump. That works out to 1,193,538 black Trump voters in 2016.

In 2012, there were 126,849,299 total voters and 13 percent of them were black. That's 16,490,409 black voters. Of those, 6% voted for Romney, or 989,425 black voters for Romney.

Huh. More actual blacks voted Republican this year, not just percentages of voters.

OK.

Let's go back to Obama's first election.
In 2008, there were 129,446,839 total voters. Of those, 13% were black, or 16,828,089 black voters. Of those, 4% voted for McCain, or 673,123 black votes for McCain.

673,123 to 989,425 to 1,193,538.

The number of black Republicans steadily increases each election. So let's look at the trend for Democrats to see if population growth is skewing things.

In 2008, there were 15,986,684 blacks voting for Obama
In 2012, there were 15,336,080 blacks voting for Obama
In 2016, there were 13,128,914 blacks voting for Clinton

And now I'm not even sure what this post means. I'm contradicting myself. I think my calculations are somewhat flawed where percentages of voters are used to calculate number of voters. The percentages are given by NYT as nice whole numbers, but they have to have been rounded off, and the margins are so small, I think the rounding could be leading to misleading numbers. One thing is clear though, black Democrats who came out for Obama's first election have been staying home more and more with each election, and at the same time, the number of black Republican voters has been steadily increasing.

WTF