**** Elections thread *****

[wufwugy]

Trump, Brexit, Dueterte, Colombia's vote for peace, whatever else I'm not aware of - what gives? I've been looking around for an explanation. (if you only read one, the first one is probably the best)

Anthropologist right after Trump secured the nom

https://zeroanthropology.net/2016/05...united-states/

Guy on Quora

https://www.quora.com/Are-people-who...usty?srid=iqSO

This back and forth on a reddit sub, the post before this one read

"The (likely false) promise of jobs and a sense of economic security. All these people saying "the freedom to be racist" need to go back and fucking read that link or liberals will continue to lose horribly in important contests."

https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDr...y_the/d9t7ix6/

This commentary

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commenta...election-2016/

And this one

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/...son-of-brexit/

I think they're all close to the central issue with the Dems and Hillary dropping the ball so hard. Oh and the pollsters, and the betting markets, and the statisticians, and the media, and pretty much everyone that wasn't trying to Make America Great Again.

When your bubble pops as hard as it did Tuesday night, you assess the debris, not quickly blow up another and hop in. NPR still hasn't learned its lesson. It's still trying to paint Hillary supports as righteous and Trump supporters as racist and what not. This morning they said that Trump supporters prayed in demonstrations, while Hillary supporters protested in demonstration.

It all really crystallizes a lot that I've been hearing from NPR for the past year+. I remember when they were obviously supporting Hillary during the Bernie run, doing things like introducing bernie's comment in an interview where he uh's and um's and then cutting to Hillary's pseudo-response during an upswell of soaring rhetoric during a rally. Whatever, that's all fine and good, I'd think, but I really wish they'd just all admit once in a while that they're all Hillary supporters.

Or in other instances when NPR would constantly talk about racial divides in America and then cut to Shanker Vidantham (wrong spelling) with new discoveries in social science, Shanker? "Oh yes, Steve, what we've discovered is that your prejudice against women/other races/other religions is unconscious and invisible to you always. The only thing there is for you to do is to always work to make amends for the original sins of racism and sexism and whatever else research discovers tomorrow."

It does seem like there's a sense on the left that you tow-the-line lest you become otherized and demonized. And why would you want to be otherized from the side that gets Global Warming? The side that sympathizes with those out of power? The side that cares for the world in 10 generations? The side with the open mind? Especially when the others want to drill-baby-drill, cling to their guns and bibles, and forget the world beyond the horizon?


https://youtu.be/D96LstZ2KEM



I didn't see Trump's support because I didn't look. I trusted clever media to see the world for me and bring it to me as it actually was. And they failed, so utterly and completely, that I see that I was trapped in just like those republicans with their fox news during the last two presidential elections. Sad!

That you recognize this so quickly after the election, shows that you are indeed an intelligent person.

[Poopadoop]

That you recognize this so quickly after the election, shows that you are indeed an intelligent person.

The problem is people don't get objective news from anywhere because there's no such thing and never will be. People don't watch 'the news' they watch 'the news they want to hear'. If you liked Clinton you probably watched MSM or liberal youtube channels cause they told you Clinton would win. If you liked Trump you got your news from places that said Trump would win. The truth is, none of those media people knew for a fact who was gonna win because the votes weren't counted yet ffs. People who have the arrogance to think they can read the minds of 100 million people are not smart, they're fools.

For example, when i was watching the Young Turks coverage of the election on youtube, they started out all 'haha Trump's an idiot he'll never win' and i'm thinking 'why are they being so smug? There's lots of ways he could win'.

And sorry, but I don't understand why so many people are shocked by what happened. It's not like she was up 50 points or anything, it was close. Some polls even had Trump winning. Maybe it's just for the reasons I stated above, because they only watch the news they want to see.

Edit: There's also a degree to which I think people tend to assume that a majority of the populace share their own experience and perceptions because they, the person doing the thinking, are 'right'. When you take a step back from that idea and realise that people all have different experiences and different interpretations of what goes on, it's a lot easier to understand how they can think and do things that seem so 'wrong' to you.

[wufwugy]

And sorry, but I don't understand why so many people are shocked by what happened. It's not like she was up 50 points or anything, it was close. Some polls even had Trump winning. Maybe it's just for the reasons I stated above, because they only watch the news they want to see.

I think it is that as well as the media told them that Trump can't win because Trump is Literal Hitler and there's no way America is Evil Enough to elect Literal Hitler.

I attend one of the more conservative and "respectability culture" universities in the country (though it is in the Pac NW, so it can't be that conservative), and we had protest marches the night Trump won. There has since been a surprising amount of crybabying to the administration, students claiming oppression and whatever bullshit. Even though I don't know the exact story, signs are pointing to a dude in one of my classes getting expelled because of an altercation the night of the election. So many people here are shocked. Why? Maybe because they've been hoaxed by the media into thinking Trump is Evil Incarnate, and now they're confronted with the "reality" of their world being Nazi Germany Viet Cong Gulag and don't know how to deal.

[Poopadoop]

I think it is that as well as the media told them that Trump can't win because Trump is Literal Hitler and there's no way America is Evil Enough to elect Literal Hitler.

I attend one of the more conservative and "respectability culture" universities in the country (though it is in the Pac NW, so it can't be that conservative), and we had protest marches the night Trump won. There has since been a surprising amount of crybabying to the administration, students claiming oppression and whatever bullshit. Even though I don't know the exact story, signs are pointing to a dude in one of my classes getting expelled because of an altercation the night of the election. So many people here are shocked. Why? Maybe because they've been hoaxed by the media into thinking Trump is Evil Incarnate, and now they're confronted with the "reality" of their world being Nazi Germany Viet Cong Gulag and don't know how to deal.

I agree there is a fair bit of overreaction going on. A couple of points though:

1. It isn't just the media that portrayed Trump as the bad guy. He did say some things that could be construed as a tad extreme, or at the very least inappropriate.

2. It's hard to argue hypotheticals, but I'm not sure the scene would have been any less ugly had Clinton won. There might have been less than a gracious acceptance from the other side too.

[wufwugy]

I agree there is a fair bit of overreaction going on. A couple of points though:

1. It isn't just the media that portrayed Trump as the bad guy. He did say some things that could be construed as a tad extreme, or at the very least inappropriate.

2. It's hard to argue hypotheticals, but I'm not sure the scene would have been any less ugly had Clinton won. There might have been less than a gracious acceptance from the other side too.

I agree with #1. I think he suffered a lot because of it, too. But I think the media went way overboard too.

#2 I also agree with, but I do think there would have been less of it in the same line that the amount of violence during the election was much higher on the Clinton side than the Trump side.