Despite the title, this article is not advocating for people to crash into Trump voters’ cars…as tempted as some Americans might be, so they could stop them and finally ask them face-to-face:
No, this is absolutely not about encouraging dangerous and self-destructive behavior, especially since many Trump voters are so much better at that (you’d never win that game of “toppers” against them).
This is about an experience I had that turned my general perception of Trump voters into a more concrete recognition.
Many people have already seen the videos of Trump supporters going mental at Starbucks, Michaels, etc., on an emotional hair trigger and set off by virtually nothing to rant and rave about what victims they are, how they’re being treated with prejudice because they have to wait for their coffee like non-white people or be told by a non-white clerk that the store doesn’t have free bags big enough to hold the large item they’re purchasing. We shall overcome…over spiced pumpkin lattes at Starbucks!
This is kind of like those occurrences but perhaps even a bit more symbolic overall about many who are Trump voters.
Last week, I was driving down my usual street to pick up my daughter from school. It’s a four lane city street (two lanes each way) but not a major artery. I changed lanes from behind an SUV, from the left to the right lane and suddenly saw that there was road construction equipment and workers in my quickly-to-be blocked off lane and it was coming up very fast.
I turned on my blinker and as soon as I did, a pickup truck in the left lane sped up to cut me off. My choice was to slam on my brakes, risk skidding into the construction and workers or possibly skidding into other driving or parked cars or continue changing lanes and hope the speeding pickup would let off the gas and let me over.
The pickup continued it’s speed and as I merged as gradually as I could in the brief time I had, I heard honking and a sudden grinding noise. I had changed lanes and avoided a collision with the construction area but I had just had minor contact with the pickup.
After the very slight impact, in my rear view mirror, I could see him flailing an arm and screaming. As I drove slowly to find a very public area to stop and deal with him, I considered what he did, what had just happened and how disturbed this guy very possibly is.
He had seen that I was headed towards a collision with construction workers and equipment, if my car wasn’t able to stop in time, people could be seriously hurt. My car could have caromed off the road working equipment or skidded if I had to slam on the brakes and I could have smashed into his pickup anyway. What would have avoided any accident was simple common decency and consideration for the lives of other people…and himself and his own property…but none of that, even damaging his own pickup and risking his own injury “trumped” his emotional need to make sure that I didn’t get in front of him and “stole” the road ahead of him that he viewed as his.
The metaphor this represented to me, with Trump voters who voted to risk damage to their own interests to elect Trump, out of resentment towards the minorities, women, gays, educated, etc. who they see as trying to get ahead of them and take their lane of power and supremacy, seemed quite applicable.
Did he have any awareness that he was putting himself at risk? That not only could his pickup be hit if he kept speeding up but the collision could knock him into oncoming traffic and even result in his fatal injury?
Like some Trump voters, I don’t think that at the time, his mind generated the concept of actions producing real and possibly severe consequences. He seemed just to have anger and resentment bubbling inside of him and once he could vent that on someone else, when he could identify “an enemy” who wanted to take something away from him, he had only one reaction, “No fuckin’ way!” (which would make a good motto for the Trump era, in every sense of the phrase).
I pulled over in a parking lot along a very busy street (I wanted witnesses to concern him if he had any inkling of getting physical…or at least be able to prove that I didn’t throw the first punch). As expected, he came out of his pickup screaming in full blown outrage and victimhood. “Are you crazy?! What the fuck is wrong with you! You cut me off, you almost ran me off the road, asshole!”
He was a little shorter than me, with coarse salt and pepper hair and the weathered face of someone who has worked outdoors a good part of his life. The initial assessment I needed to make was completed swiftly once he stepped out of his pickup, I figured that I could probably take him if I needed to. With that conclusion and knowing that someone who did what he did, shouting that he’s been victimized because I didn’t go along with his plan of running me into a bulldozer and workers (who could have been him), I just said to him matter-of-factly, “Do you want to yell or do you want to deal with this?”
He kept ranting like the Trumpsters in the videos, in self-pitying anger. I interjected just a couple of times, “All you had to do was show a little common courtesy and let me in instead of speeding up to cut me off,” which was met with a predictable mocking of the words, “Common courtesy?!” (Yes, this really was his response.)
I met his howling and blame-flipping with a response intended to disorient him, “Look, I’m sorry and I’ll take care of it.” I had already concluded that there was no possibility of reasoning with him and assumed that our insurance companies would never bother to get to the bottom of what really happened, they judge things swiftly in very standard terms, I was the one who changed lanes so I was the one they’d say caused the accident.
His response then caught me by surprise. “You’ll take care of what?” I explained, “The damage to your truck.” I came over with him to look at the front of his truck, there were severe and deep white scrapes on his right front fender all the way up to his hood…my car could never reach that high and all I heard and felt when the cars hit was a small, quick bump.
He said, “You didn’t do that. I’m not an asshole.”
That was interesting. Running another driver into construction workers and equipment because they would have gotten in front of you was one thing but blaming that driver for damage to your pickup they didn’t do, only an asshole would do that.
I know that bad guys don’t think they’re bad (“The blacks love me”) and assholes don’t think they’re assholes (“The Mexicans love me”), they “know” they’re justified in throwing tantrums and causing car accidents over imagined ownership of sections of public roads. He may cause accidents, he may show total disregard for the safety of everyone around him and even his own property and well being…but come on, he’s not an asshole.
It does show however that he still had a sense of right and wrong, as conditional as it had become. And that is what Trump should (but won’t) worry about, that eventually, after Trump has wronged and exploited his supporters long enough, it will finally cross a line for them.
From seeing the damage to the front of his pickup, it was clear to me that this wasn’t the first time he’d caused an accident. If that damage had been another driver’s fault, he would have been able to have it repaired with their insurance paying for it. Since it wasn’t repaired, he was likely responsible for that accident too. Reminiscent of some Trump supporters, he’s his own worst enemy when it comes to the condition of what he relies on most in his life.
Trump voters feel like they’ve been screwed in life, I get it. Many of us feel that things have happened in our lives that are unfair and just plain fucked up. But many Trump voters, like this pickup driver, are so unaware as to how they steer themselves into one scrape after another while constantly blaming others for their predicaments.
It absolutely does suck that so many high paying manufacturing jobs have evaporated from the country. What most of these Trump voters don’t understand though is that the workers who have replaced them are not mostly Mexican or Chinese, they are robots, machines and computers that don’t take sick days or lunch hours, don’t need pensions or health insurance and don’t take two week vacations to EPCOT. Those jobs are gone. Full stop. They are never coming back, they are waiting in line behind the typewriter repairman and abacus salesmen to come back. The present state of technology is not an elite liberal policy that Trump can wave a magic wand and reverse, time passes, change happens and the Earth keeps turning in the same direction no matter how Trump may guarantee that he can make it spin backwards (how ridiculous, only Superman can do that).
THE ONLY WAY TRUMP CAN BRING BACK MANUFACTURING JOBS
Instead of believing that Trump is a Time Lord who can take them all back to the 1950’s before business was globalized and robotics were widespread, what Trump voters should have been and should be demanding is training for newer industries that need workers.
Sorry, coal jobs are not coming back because it just doesn’t make economic sense anymore, just like hoping that the whale oil market picks back up is a little “overly optimistic”. For energy companies, unfortunately, fracking is far easier, cheaper and more profitable than coal mining and the cost of coal for energy isn’t competitive in today’s energy marketplace. Coal companies have been closing down left and right, not due primarily to the EPA or pollution restrictions, it’s simple economics, it’s not as profitable a business as it used to be.
All these bogus promises by Trump on jobs are so obviously cynical and seem doomed to eventually bury him with these voters in the end. However, Trump voters should not have been hypocritically expecting the government they demonize as useless and the problem, to somehow make all their jobs return under Trump. They voted for the con man who has lied to them that spilt milk can be easily returned into its pitcher as long as he is President. Instead, they should have shown the self-sufficiency they claim to believe in and changed their path on their own towards careers and jobs that already exist and are growing.
When I was young, I was taught about defensive driving, that whether driving or picking a parking spot, avoid being close to cars with damage, the odds are higher that those drivers are more careless and accident-prone.
Some Trump voters, because they act more on emotion than reason, are prone to making choices that gratify themselves in the short term at the cost of their own and others’ well being in the long run. They act against their own interests out of emotion. For example, many of them rely on Obamacare for their medical insurance and care but in voting for Trump, they support it being repealed because it was passed and signed by Obama and benefits people of color too. Yet now, many Trump voters are realizing that preventing others from having healthcare by killing Obamacare, means they could lose their Obamacare insurance as well. It’s spite towards others first, reality about how it affects them a distant second.
The pickup driver came over to look at my car with me, I was puzzled by this appearance of concern and even more so by the fact that we didn’t see any damage. “I don’t see anything,” he said, “You got lucky!”
I suppose that in an instance where someone intentionally causes an accident in trying to deny another driver the ability to escape a serious collision and that driver’s car somehow escapes both the collision and damage to their car and the other car, that is lucky. Never getting into that situation in the first place would have been much luckier though I’d have never have known how lucky I was to avoid that situation because it never would have happened.
This is the same kind of luck that I think we need to embrace over the next four years. We can’t prevent Trump from trying to cut us off and drive us into disaster but we can keep our resolve, keep our hands on the wheel and steer back in the direction that we need to go to protect ourselves. There will be plenty of blame thrown at us for the resulting friction and lots of lies and outrage but Trump and the Republican politicians supporting him will be the ones who end up driving away four years from now in a vehicle that is severely damaged and warns to others to steer very clear of them in the future.
AdLib, I usually just toss the magazine that comes with my AAA membership as soon as it arrives, but for some reason an article caught my eye in the last one and I just had to read it. It was about aggressive driving. A AAA survey indicated that almost 80% of drivers report having engaged in aggressive driving practices at least once over the last year! I find that jaw dropping! And I’m so sorry to read that you were on the receiving end of the bad behavior of one of that 80%. (That little habit of speeding up to close the gap for drivers needing to merge into traffic is a favorite prank of Ohio drivers as well. It seems to be popular all across the nation — unfortunately.) I’m so glad that neither you nor your daughter were hurt.
But — to the point of your article — your comparison of this guy to a Trump voter is very apt. In fact, I would wager a lot of $$ that he was a Trump voter!
This pervasive anger (which seems to be more than just an American phenomenon) is one of the most troubling aspects of the 21st century. I found a long, but very perceptive article on the topic in The Guardian. If you (and all the Planeteers) have a spare moment, it’s a good read:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/08/welcome-age-anger-brexit-trump?CMP=share_btn_link
But while anger is understandable in some situations, it really doesn’t justify such a foolish and self-defeating move as a vote for this Goldman Sachs Golden Boy known as The Donald.
When it comes to enlightening the ignorant, though, few people are more masterful (and respectful) than Bernie Sanders. Here’s a two minute video of him showing a Trump supporter the error of her ways without making a fool of her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMlbiiqP1_k
I think this is a fantastic example of meeting people where they really are, listening and then presenting them with reasonable alternatives.
Kes, I think the root of all this anger in society stems from the dissatisfaction and pressure most Americans feel in their lives…primarily due to the squeeze they’re in because of the economic inequity the wealthy have instituted.
Why are so many people driving around, when you’re often alone and have time to think about things in your life…angry?
If you asked most people, I don’t think they’d attribute it to their personal finances, they probably wouldn’t be able to put their finger on it. But it makes sense in an America where more college graduates are living with their parents and can’t find good paying jobs, those parents may need to be taking care of their elderly parents who need financial and medical assistance, and meanwhile, those parents’ paychecks have hardly increased (if they haven’t lost their jobs) in 20 years while inflation has decreased the value of that pay.
The standard of living is continuing to decline in America while the wealthy are hording disgusting amounts of money. The atmosphere on the streets of America is one of stress and anxiety, one can understand the spill over of that when people are driving as well as in many other areas.
The excellent Guardian article you linked to addresses this and other factors that may be contributing to this widespread anger. I do think that this is at the core of it though, the growth of nationalism and bigotry, civil disintegration and intolerance of facts and opinions that dispute some people’s beliefs.
I don’t think this changes until the anger is rightly turned against the plutocrat class and governments and societies are refocused on serving the needs and futures of the majority.
As for the video of the Trump supporter agreeing with Bernie, what I saw was an ignorant person trying to whine about her own victimhood but with no real knowledge, insights or facts to support what she claimed (as is usual for Trump supporters). So when Bernie validated her victimhood (along with that of the majority) by the wealthy, she seemed off balance but ready to grab onto that.
Trumpsters like her are clearly upset and feel like victims but have no understanding of what has caused this. So when Trump pandered to them and confidently told them all the races and nationalities that were to blame, they grabbed onto that and him.
When they eventually realize that Trump lied to them, that just saying “Believe me!” after claiming only he can magically make their lives better in every way, is only a con, this woman and many Trump voters like her will turn some of that anger towards him.
AdLib, I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long to reply to your amazing comment. (Some of the factors in your analysis were major reasons for my delay in replying. As in — “caring for elderly family members…”? 😉 )
There’s not a single point in your observations that I could disagree with. I wish there were a way to help people to sit down and take a sober look at the true causes for their “free-floating” anger and anxiety. As you say, Trump has already given them all the false ones.
Economic factors are a huge part of their stress in many cases. And as we know — it ain’t “the gummint” that is the culprit here. So many generations have been “educated” to believe that unregulated capitalism is “self regulating” and that the marketplace will always sort things out in the “right” way, due to the mysterious workings of that legendary Invisible Hand. (With its middle finger sticking up?)
As you noted, Trump voters are about to get an object lesson in just how totally supply side economics are indeed “voodoo” economics. Amazing as it is that this bitter lesson still has gone unlearned — even after the Crash of 08 — that seems to be the case.
What a shame that we all have to ride this ship right down to the bottom with them as they drown in the trickle of venom that will inevitably come gushing from the top. A very tough way to learn.
Great analogy, AdLib, even though it had to come at an unnecessary price.
Yes, Mr. Reckless SUV, you certainly are an arsehole for not caring about the welfare of other drivers just to satisfy your own needs. Your own ego.
I’ve been asking the same question. What happens when the penny finally drops for the trump voters?
For someone who railed against Clinton’s connections to Wall Street, and then fills his cabinet positions with millionaires and billionaires, you would think that the realisation should have already begun. Even someone from Goldman Sachs who were responsible for causing the worldwide financial crisis in 2008 that President Obama worked so hard to fix. Scumbags! His withholding of his tax returns just weeks before his “inauguration” should have set off alarm bells way before now, but no, the hate is too great to control.
I’m with you 100% on the need to fight the insane coming 4 years with resistance. Absolutely a must to vote in the midterms to relieve Congress of its growing rubbish heap. To not vote is letting down democracy in America as much as the repubs have and trump plans to do.
Even though he was defeated in a less than honest fashion, Bernie Sanders has never stopped working to get Progressives elected to the Senate and the House. He is 74, and has more passion and energy than most Dems in Congress. They should be ashamed of themselves, and if they don’t work harder for the citizens who elected them, they should be voted out of office.
These two recent articles have their fingers on the pulse too.
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Trump can’t wait to sell out his base
E.J. Dionne Jr
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-cant-wait-to-sell-out-his-base/2016/12/11/6633636c-be4a-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html
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Real America’ is its own bubble
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/real-america-is-its-own-bubble/2016/12/12/e8ba60c2-c09f-11e6-b527-949c5893595e_story.html
—-
This third one is a trump supporter with regrets.
Buyer’s remorse begins
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/02/1606422/-Buyer-s-remorse-begins
Your encounter with the arsehole last week was handled perfectly by you, and I’m grateful that it didn’t turn out to be a crazed trump supporter with a gun.
Hey Kalima, it’s always happened in the past. Eventually, the rubes who vote against for a Repub who cons them finally realize they’ve been lied to. They will turn on the one that they feel betrayed them but because they’re not so bright, they will just look for a new Republican con man to tell them the same lies that they want to believe.
One would wish they’d finally recognize that the Repubs are only about lying to them to get their votes but you can’t teach a dog that votes against its own interests, new tricks.
Thanks for the articles. I don’t think it comes as any surprise that as he has always done, once he is done with what he can get out of someone, he tosses them aside to get what he can out of someone else.
Trump supporters will look like the most foolish and ignorant voters in American history as he has already turned his back on them and filled the swamp he claimed he would drain with more swamp creatures than we’ve ever seen. And I don’t think they’ll like being played as such utter fools.
It will take time, they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, but eventually they will see that their lives have only gotten worse and no amount of Trump propaganda will be able to convince them all is well when they can’t afford healthcare when they’re sick, food when they’re hungry or lose their house to foreclosure.
The end of Trump love is on the way…once they realize they haven’t been loved by him, just groped.
If it wasn’t such an unpalatable prospect of seeing trump’s fat, wrinkled arse sitting in the Oval Office tweeting insults and upending the lives of millions more who were not trump voters, I would be gleefully rubbing my hands together hoping to see him implode. As it is we will just have to wait until “his cluelessness” trips up. And trip up royally he will. 2017 will certainly be a challenge but continuing protests have toppled many around the world. The most recent being the corrupt president of S. Korea. Nothing is impossible; except for maybe the sun moving around the earth in a circular orbit.
Thinking about the “inauguration”, I have to cringe at the possibilities of shadows and smoke filled entrances to the sound of Queen’s “We are the champions”, a 16 round wrestling match with the repubs he defeated in the primaries, or worse.
Kalima, as long as there’s nothing else we can do about it, why not be anxious to see Trump damage the lives of his base? It’s inevitable, his base is so brainwashed they have no compass anymore on truth or propaganda, until they are suffering badly, they won’t have anything to shake them out of their cult mentality.
What else can I do but look forward to Trump stomping on the base that elected him (and they will get the worst of it)? The sooner those suckers realize they’ve been had, the sooner the landslide against him will be assured.
The global instability does continue and it is perverse that it seems mostly the product of plutocracy enveloping the world and global economies and the response isn’t to turn on the plutocracy but to turn on the remaining portions of their democracies. It’s like a rat keeps sneaking in and eating most of the food that a poor family has and instead of trying to catch and exterminate the rat, they just fight over what little food is left.
Eventually, there will need to be an uprising against the wealthy who are keeping 99% of the world down, this is a side effect and this reaction of nationalism to protect what the plutocracy hasn’t taken away yet is so short sighted and self-destructive.
This is what they want, populations divided in each country so they can’t stand united against their true enemies. One can only hope that this small minded reaction evolves when the right kind of populist comes along and re-directs the anger where it belongs.
You are right. If that’s all we have then let’s watch the demise of the demigod, and the admiration he so longed for. Many of his businesses are not doing well, so I hope it hurts him where he’ll feel it the most.
As for the suffering of his supporters, I wish that I could feel sorry for them, but I don’t. Their selfish and destructive behaviour has put millions in danger of falling through the cracks. For that alone, I wish them the same too.
Protests always make the government uneasy, and not all countries send out their armies to shoot people in the streets. Protesting is s democratic right. Use it often, wisely, and without violence and it can move mountain. Every journey starts with the first step.
Kalima, it’s not being vindictive, it’s just accepting what has to happen between now and 2020. Anyone with any sense knows Trump has lied constantly to the country and will of course continue to do so.
Unless one believes all of Trump’s obvious BS, then it is inevitable that bad economic and social times are coming, especially for the rubes who voted for him.
Reality dictates that he has no course but to fail them and they have no choice but to be crushed by his sociopathic decisions. So why pretend they’re not going to suffer, right?
On jobs, the economy, health care, etc., they will be the ones who suffer most. And they do deserve it but the majority of Americans who opposed Trump do not.
It’s not satisfaction that I’ll get from watching Trump voters suffer, it is confidence that they will be on the path to breaking the cult-like mindset of theirs and finally start questioning and turning on the con man who they so anxiously and strongly embraced.
‘When the people Trumps lying to and treating like moronic rubes finally catch on to how he’s been using them,’ I sincerely hope you are right but I have very little faith in those blind followers of hate. Once unleashed they seem to be very easily manipulated ! When so many absolutely do not believe our intelligence and only believe a congenital liar like Trump we are not in a good place.
gyp46, I can’t blame you for your skepticism. I do think that they will continue in their denialism over Trump’s conning them for quite a while but I’m basing my predictions on their past behavior.
When they were the core of the Tea Party, they held up people like Paul Ryan as who they’re behind but as the years passed, they turned on him and others because they didn’t deliver on all the BS they promised their voters.
That was the whole thing behind their voting for Trump, they turned on the rest of the GOP for not delivering what they promised and wanted an outsider who “says what he thinks” to “shake things up”.
When they discover it was all a sham as has been pulled on them by Repubs time and time again? I think they’ll react as they have in the past, turning on Trump and turning to the next phony that tells them what they want to hear.
They’re not that quick, being saps who are fooled the same way again and again, but after awhile, they finally catch on.
Ahh, optimism, well I guess that’s better than the opposite way of thinking. I am seeing denial so strong from them, they will not believe even our intelligence briefers. Now a bit of scepticism is OK, but taking the words of a complete novice like trump over the CIA, IS THE EPITOME of ignorance. I have even had replies from retired military calling our guys Liars and defending Russia!! Never have I in 70 years heard that!
gyp46, I wouldn’t say that it will be quick or easy too break through the tightly locked minds of these Know Nothings. Just that erosion is a fact of nature, it may take a while but eventually, as Trump’s promises and assurances dissolve away, some will realize that they were conned.
As you say though, some will stay locked in a bunker of denial and insist that Trump is Jesus no matter what happens.
The good thing is that Dems don’t need the hardcore Trump supporters to switch to them, just the wrongheaded, emotional indies and Dems who aren’t as vested in Trump being omnipotent.
Retired military defending Russia and attacking America’s intelligence forces? If they’re retired, they lived through the Cold War and have seen Putin’s aggression. How desperate are these core Trump supporters to embrace even tyranny to justify their support of Trump?
I agree, those types aren’t going to be as likely to wise up but thankfully, we don’t need them too defeat Trump in 2020.
I’m retired and 70, not much of this will affect me personally, it is the outright ignorance I can not fathom! Democrats and working class did this to ourselves. Hopefully by 2018 enough voters will step up to at least take the senate. Nice conversation today, maybe there is hope!
Same here, gyp46, great conversation!
I’m with you, I am pretty floored by the degree of ignorance that’s out there among the public. It seems virtually celebrated, so many seem to bask in their ignorance.
It’s something we have to come to grips with in this country. A big segment of Americans/voters are confident in their ignorance and are oblivious to how it makes them tools for the far smarter wealthy interests that exploit it.
The ignorant white conservative voter is on its way to extinction but as this election proved, they’re still populous enough to win a national election.
They will be an even smaller demographic by 2020 which can only help in defeating Trump.
Good story, Adlib. First off, your story is exactly why I often find my blinker fluid is empty. Years ago, before I was thrown (of my own choice) in to a commuter traffic situation, I gave a guy I worked with a ride back to Walnut Creek from a meeting we attended in the city. As we got to the tunnel that separated the east bay from the valley, I turned on my blinker to merge in to the lanes the tunnel allowed. Right away, people sped up and would not let me in. My passenger, who lived in Mill Valley and commuted to WC every single day, told me “you never put on your blinker, just slowly cut in front of them”. It drives my husband crazy but I find my blinker fluid empty a lot of the time lol.
Your little accident is a great analogy of the Trump voter and I think, even if they finally realize they were grifted, they will still not ever admit it. The next four years are going to be hell and right now I still believe Republicans will win again in 2 years, 4 years, 6 years and that is because Democrats don’t vote, especially in mid terms. Republicans also have the voter suppression tactics down to a science, too bad that science does not extend to a clean environment. I try not to be so Debbie Downer but it is what I see. And in this election, there were the third parties that further mucked it up. The DNC needs to go back to it’s roots but it won’t come from many in Congress. The DSCC could not even manage to support the Dem in the Louisiana Special Election. I am not feeling so good about the DNC.
Thanks Sue and great to see you!
Unfortunately, here in LA, I find the blinker thing happen often here too, having a blinker on can make many drivers intentionally speed up and prevent a car from changing lanes. However, in an urgent situation like I described or if your car’s running out of gas on the freeway, etc., you really need to hope the blinker and the consideration of fellow drivers will work.
I am with you on being very unhappy about the DNC and the incompetent way they’ve run elections for the party. Pres. Obama’s wins stemmed from him and his brilliance as a campaigner. Nearly everything the DNC has touched in the last 8 years, they have lost. They are an establishment elitist group in a bubble, more about retaining and enhancing their own personal power (tilting the primary to electing Hillary because she was one of them, they knew that if she was elected, they would get cabinet positions and other valuable appointments…which wouldn’t have happened if one of their own didn’t win the nomination). There is no vision, passion or even an intelligent game plan in evidence at the DNC over 4 elections in which Dems lost ground every time. They need to go and someone like Keith Ellison is needed to bring the vision and enthusiasm that’s needed. Tim Kaine then Debbie Wasserman Schultz, two conservative, corporate Dem hacks, only succeeded in gutting the Dem base and losing in nearly all elections under them (except Pres. Obama’s which wasn’t thanks to them). We’ve seen what failures the DLC types in the party have been, definitely time to turn the page on them if we want to win elections we should win.
I have to disagree though about the permanency of Republicans in national office. It is unfortunately more typical that the party in power is less motivated to come out for mid term elections but it’s not a Dem thing. Remember that Dems came out big and took back the Senate in 2006 when Repubs were in power. The last two midterms were while Obama was President and fitting the pattern, Repubs came out in bigger numbers while Dems had low turnout.
That pattern is generally consistent throughout American history and makes sense. Those who feel that all is fine with the leadership of the country would naturally be less motivated to turn out and vote than those who are very upset about who is leading their country and desperately want a change. Though Dems will be defending many more Senate seats in 2018, I expect that Dem turnout will be very energized and after Trump’s inevitable failures and oppression over 2 years, I imagine that the motivation to vote Repub will decline. And in 4 years, after the proof is in the pudding over all of Trump’s con jobs on his voters, many will be less motivated at least and many Dems who voted for Trump will have reason to swing back to vote Dem (as long as the Dem candidate is an appealing one).
You know the old saying, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” We’re in for very dark times with Trump but the pendulum always swings away from extremes, it’s happened without exception in the country’s history and it will happen again because that is the way of human nature.
Trump received less votes than Mitt Romney, Hillary received less votes than Obama. Both were heavily disliked and distrusted candidates. The advantage for Dems is that in 2020, Repubs are stuck with their widely disliked/distrusted candidate as the face of their party (who will only become more disliked/distrusted as time goes by). If Dems field a strong candidate that is generally viewed positively, he/she will win.
When you boil it all down, Trump was a horribly flawed candidate who lost the popular vote and squeaked by with an electoral win. He will only be worse in 2020 (and will no longer be the outsider who can campaign on lies alone, he’ll have an ugly record tied to him) so getting the DNC cleaned up is a priority. It needs to change so it isn’t just a tool of conservative, establishment Dems, so it functions as it’s supposed to in fielding competitive candidates around the country and supports Dem voters to choose their own candidates in primaries (instead of pre-selecting the nominee before the primary even begins and shaping the primary to protect that choice). That’s how you end up with a candidate that generates enthusiasm, letting voters decide who they support rather than offering a fait accompli and telling them, “Trust us, this candidate is best for you.”
Trump’s win has shaken the faith of many in our system and in the sanity of a swath of voters. It’s hard to be objective when you’re in the middle of a nightmare like this but it’s important to remember that this is pretty much the same voter base that elected Obama twice and gave both houses to the Dems. In fact, it’s less white and conservative than in those previous elections and will be less so in 2020.
The FBI and Russia were in cahoots with Trump and the GOP to barely win this election. Even a similar push by such a sick collaboration won’t be enough to change the results of an election with a slightly bigger margin.
I’m confident that Trump goes down “bigly” in 2020 as long as Dems get their house in order and keep the Dem Establishment’s meddling hands out of the primary process, allowing all candidates a level playing field so the base can fairly choose who they enthusiastically want to lead their party and the country.
The bad thing is that we have to wait 4 years to get rid of Trump. The good news is that due to our usually-annoying marathon election system, it’ll only be 2 years or so until the Dem primary for 2020 unofficially starts (right after the midterms). We’ll have candidates rising up for us to get behind and focus our energies on and as the beginning of the end for Trump, it will be very energizing.
A very smart guy commented that without Obama we would not have a Trump. I believe that is true. Somewhere along the line one party in our two party system decided that ‘common courtesy’ was not politically viable. Hence we have what we have today, massive anger at conditions that evolved through the actions of companies being what they are: FOR PROFIT ENTITIES. Representatives of manufacturing companies claim that right now in America there are over 300,000 openings available. BUT, always a but in there somewhere, those jobs require way more education than the old style assembly line work. Training in computers and robotics is mandatory to fill those positions and it seems many underemployed or flat out unemployed will not or can not learn the necessary skills, so anger is the result in many cases. ABLIB is spot on about Trumps promises, those unskilled high paying factory jobs will never return to America.
gyp46, that is the real bait and switch going on, primarily being done by Trump and Repubs but Dems don’t have clean hands on this completely either.
Training for the new tech economy is critical to helping those workers who used to make a good living from manufacturing jobs. Dems haven’t made that a top focus and Repubs lie like psychotics to those people, promising that if the wealthy get wealthier, all those jobs will suddenly reappear.
And once Trump and the Repubs hand the wealthy huge tax cuts and those jobs don’t reappear? Will those people just forget about what they were promised? I don’t think so, they will turn angrily on Trump and Repubs.
“Common courtesy” is basically a result of respect for other people. Trump’s attack on the concept of politically correct was a liberation for some of his voters from the concept of mutual respect. All those angry people received permission to act as if only they deserved respect so of course their bigotry and hatred towards others was unleashed.
Common courtesy and mutual respect are cornerstones of a healthy society. The destruction that Trump has promoted of this social contract endangers us and the future of our society. The only consolation is that what goes around, comes around. When the people Trump’s lying to and treating like moronic rubes finally catch on to how he’s been using them, that same attitude spurning common courtesy will drive them to attack him mercilessly as well.