US Presidential election 2016

[Bilo]

25 pages, tl;dr. Someone summarise please. Much appreciated.

Nobody agrees with anyone and Renegade isn't racist because Trump isn't Hitler.

That's basically it.

 

[Renegade]

25 pages, tl;dr. Someone summarise please. Much appreciated.

https://twitter.com/dbaron46/status/796200546558427136

 

[Bilo]

I don't want to find that funny.

 

[Stevencc]

 

[.V.]

Interesting article on the disenfranchised and Trump.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

 

[johnnytodd]

I think the police need to twat some of these PC wankers who are protesting........shameful bastards

 

[silkyman]

It's hilarious. There were Trump supporters calling for armed insurgency if he lost. Now they think a few students with banners is a disgraceful affront to democracy.

 

[johnnytodd]

It's hilarious. There were Trump supporters calling for armed insurgency if he lost. Now they think a few students with banners is a disgraceful affront to democracy.

And the people marching are supporters of an establishment who have killed more people than the black death.

 

[SALTIRE]

Donald Trump wants them all to come together in peace, he's a caring guy...

 

[Nilsson]

Hillary Clinton set to receive more votes than any US presidential candidate in history except Barack Obama

 

[Blitzballer]

From Nigel Farage about 50 mins ago

It was a great honour to spend time with Donald Trump today. He was relaxed, and full of good ideas. I'm confident he will be a good President. His support for the US-UK relationship is very strong. This is a man with whom we can do business.
I was especially pleased at his very positive reaction to the idea that Sir Winston Churchill's bust should be put back in the Oval Office.

 

[Stevencc]

Donald Trump wants them all to come together in peace, he's a caring guy...

He OzzyOsbourned that poor Dove two seconds after the photographer lowered his camera.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

From Nigel Farage about 50 mins ago

This is probably the worst photo ever. Likely unsurpassable in its awfulness.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

I'll always be grateful

 

[Abertawe]

From Nigel Farage about 50 mins ago

What a year he's had, an absolute G. From fringe political loony to ballin' with the billionaire president elect. Our Nige is all the way up.

 

[Bobbin']

I don't want to find that funny.

I found this one far funnier than I should have.

 

[Aber gas]

I think the police need to twat some of these PC wankers who are protesting........shameful bastards

 

[Aber gas]

And the people marching are supporters of an establishment who have killed more people than the black death.

 

[Habbinalan]

Thanks for prompting me to re-read my copy of the St Cleve Chronicle & Linwell Advertiser. The content is as relevant today as it was when it was published. However, I recommend http://www.stcleve.com/ if you want up to date comment on the developing situation.

I await Gerald Bostock's revelations on Jeremy Corbyn's little mentioned Black Sea weekend on a yacht with Putin and Trump.

 

[Modernist]

What a year he's had, an absolute G. From fringe political loony to ballin' with the billionaire president elect. Our Nige is all the way up.

Hopefully he'll stay in America.

 

[Habbinalan]

With thanks to Russell Razzaque

"Richard Rorty, a Princeton Professor who died in '07, wrote this back in 1998. Talk about nail on the head..."

 

[Captain Scumbag]

It doesn't really mean anything other than the meaning that someone wishes to apply to it at any given time. Trouble is, it's pretty much always used as a pejorative; something to be mocked and dismissed. Is any concept (thinking also political correctness, perhaps multiculturalism) largely defined by those who oppose it really very useful at all, I wonder?

Hmm… I think some terms are problematic because different people have different ideas about what they mean, which leads to much useless 'debate' because people effectively start out talking at crossed purposes. With multiculturalism, for example, I think there are two very different conceptions, namely (1) multiculturalism as a lived experience (i.e. enjoying many aspects of living in a culturally diverse territory), and (2) multiculturalism as a state-sponsored political ideology (i.e. the political and legislative expression of cultural relativism within that territory). My objection is to the second kind, but I think the first kind is the one most people work from; ergo, the onus is on me to do some clarifying groundwork, to draw the above distinction and hone in on the second type.

The dynamic is different with political correctness and identity politics because those are largely defined by their opponents, meaning the onus is on their defenders to push an alternative concept and argue why it's desirable, beneficial, etc. It's a tough ask with identity politics, though, because the term is used so loosely and therefore is so hard to break down. So perhaps it would be better (with a view to improving public discourse) if both sides discarded the term and instead used pre-existing terminology to more precisely convey their concerns? So, from the wicked conservative PoV, why complain about ‘identity politics’ when the actual objection is to cultural relativism? I'm sure the other side could 'hone in' in a similar way.

No doubt all this reads as messily as it exists in my head, but I suppose the crux is that ‘identity politics’ strikes me as one of those terms that tends to needlessly get in the way.

What makes me feel a bit queasy about some of the objections to and focus on identity politics is that they largely seem to perpetuate a myth that this is only a feature of left wing politics or it's only minorities or their allies who behave like this (which is arrant nonsense). Much of the bigotry experienced by minority groups often stems from a perceived threat to the identity and status of the majority (and what is that if not identity politics?)

A perfectly understandable and valid concern, IMO. There is definitely a growing tendency among the populist right to use "identity politics" tactics – particularly of the reductive and self-serving victimology variety – that, frankly, are straight out of the progressive SJW playbook. And, yes, there's a tonne of potential downside to that.

I honestly don't know to what extent it can blamed for Trump's victory (I didn't follow the campaign with great attention, and I remain mindful that he did lose the popular vote against an atrocious establishment opponent), but generally speaking it's a worrying but entirely predictable development – an always likely consequence of a left-liberal politics that adopts a needlessly aggressive and condescending tone and which seems hell bent on breaking society down into competing victim groups based on unalterable identity characteristics. At some point the white working class (perhaps "white precariat", to co-opt Guy Standing, is better?) were going to react and begin to imagine themselves as a victimised minority group, which of course makes them more receptive to right-wing demagoguery à la Trump because, if nothing else, it offers them the chance to vote on the solidarity of identity. This is why all the stuff about “deplorables” or “bigoted little Englunders” or whatever is so pernicious. The "Othering" can work both ways, can't it?

To be honest, I think the idea that the left is overly preocuppied with this stuff at the expense of trying to effect real socio-economic change, is a load of baloney. I think it would be truer to say that the political class (politicians on the left and right) have been slow to cotton on to people's anger and frustration with the system, but that's hardly unusual.

With respect, I think this is a distinction without a meaningful difference. If the system you have in mind is neoliberal global capitalism (correct me if I'm wrong) and your view is that the political class has been slow to react to the growing discontent with said system, then what precisely is the manifestation of that sluggishness? What form could it take other than neglect of the socio-economic effects and the related concerns?

And with certain effects and concerns – e.g. high levels of migration, declining job security, deindustrialisation via outsourcing, etc. – I think the problem goes beyond sluggishness. The problem is a repeated and ongoing failure to offer any consolation or solution. "Don't blame industrious migrants for the effects of untrammeled neoliberal capitalism" is a perfectly reasonable response when White Van Man complains about "the fucking Poles stealing our jobs"; but unless you couple the rebuke with some concrete ideas about what could be done better, it's politically useless. The concerned voter is more likely to turn to a Trump or Farage for the simple reason that phony consolation and flawed, over-simplistic remedies are better than none at all. The massive Brexit vote in the North of England is perhaps best understood in this context.

P.S. I will respond to Ian’s points (and fulsome footnotes!) sometime later this week, probably at the weekend.

 

[nousername]

^ Certainly agree with the first sentence. The Left have been particularly complicit in promoting globalisation, immigration, trade deals etc. to the detriment of the working class types they claim to represent. We're now seeing the political backlash from this. (From what I recall, voters in the Rust Belt states have realised that they've effectively been abandoned by the Democrats and turned to Trump...)

Edit: in response to Habbinalan's post.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

There's an understandable tendency for people to approach massive, seismic political events like this and claim "actually this was caused by that thing I've been hammering on about forever". I know I do it. A good previous example was people saying the Tories won in 2015 because Ed Miliband wasn't left-wing enough. I think something similar is the case here.

That tendency certainly exists and one should be wary of it; however, since I didn’t argue that left-wing identity politics was the cause in any definitive sense (and in fact explicitly dismissed such an idea as reductive), this point seems unnecessary. I challenged your confident, pithy rejection of the ‘left-wing identity politics caused Trump’ hypothesis, not because I think that hypothesis is 100% correct but because I think it touches on ideas that warrant further discussion.

Left-wing identity politics is good and I reject some of your characterisation of it in your first and third para. Fundamentally, identity politics is an attempt to understand how race and gender (alongside class) unconsciously shape social, economic and political interactions, not about casting people as villains.

That may be the intention; and, taken on those terms, I have no quarrel. On the contrary, that sort of discourse can be useful. I know reading or hearing certain feminist arguments has made me re-think the way I handle certain social situations and problems with my wife. Some of it will no doubt influence how I raise my daughters.

But there’s a bit more to any type of politics than the starting intention, isn’t there? The distressing truth is that everyone in politics – even the most demonstrably dangerous and unhinged lunatics – mean well. They are all heroes in their own story. The fact that “left-wing identity politics" is used pejoratively by a large section of the population, most notably by the sort of people its proponents should be the keenest to convince, suggests something has gone awry, that between the idea and the reality has fallen a rather large shadow.

I know some people believe the problem isn't the content but the tone or style of delivery (the student ‘clumsiness’ you acknowledge in your footnotes), the basic idea being that the average chap would be more receptive to left-wing identity politics if the main points were made calmly and cogently by people who are actually disadvantaged rather than obnoxiously by some uber-privileged squawking halfwit like Laurie Penny. There is definitely something in that. Certainly, people are more likely to listen to new or counterintuitive ideas if they aren’t being excluded or insulted in the process.

But it’s not just about awful rhetoric. Another problem is that, while all this very sensible and worthwhile stuff about seeking to understand how identity characteristics unconsciously affect X, Y and Z is fine, it almost invariably goes hand-in-hand (or leads to) ideas that go completely against the grain of how most people think. Cultural relativism, for example, is not unpopular because people see it as a threat to their privilege. It's unpopular because most people like the idea of equality before the law. People don’t get exasperated with political correctness because it prevents them from insulting ethnic minorities with impunity. They dislike it because it’s a cowardly form of politics that elevates motive over consequence and consolation over truth – something that runs completely counter to the post-enlightenment liberal tradition.

I’m not saying the counterintuitive nature of these ideas makes them wrong. Far from it. However, put the two aforementioned things – the bad rhetoric and the deeply counterintuitive ideas – together and it’s not hard to understand why many people (most of them completely harmless) feel confused and alienated by that sort of politics, and gravitate towards politicians who offer something very different. I think this is what Alty meant by the “identity politics rabbit hole”.

Any form of identity politics that doesn't ignore the problems causes by rapidly expanding global capitalism** is fundamentally worthless and not left-wing.

Did you mean “ignores” rather than “doesn’t ignore” here? If not, I don’t understand.

Equally a left-wing politics that refuses to acknowledge that problems caused by capitalism has more severe impacts on marginalised groups is of limited value.

Agreed, but the white working class, especially men in de-industrialised or de-industrialising regions, ought to be included among those marginalised groups. And while some people on the left are cognisant of that, it’s more common for them to be omitted; or, much worse, lumped in with the rest of the cis-gender white males that supposedly sit at the top of the hierarchy of oppression. Greater care is needed there.

The people who get most worked up about campus no-platforming, safe spaces and trigger-warnings seem to be self-described left-liberals (though in truth the "left" is more a self-perceived identity than a description of their politics).

I dunno. I think the average conservative gets incredibly wound up by that stuff. Also, while all the stuff about safe spaces and trigger warnings is annoying, I think the bigger problem is what I was discussing with Bilo in the EU thread, i.e. the almost instinctive demonisation of opposing views, the unthinking assumption that any disagreement with their worldview is only understandable as an expression of hate. In the US election this amounted to the “Othering” (to borrow PP’s term) of Trump’s supporters as a herd of hopelessly ill-educated, racist morons.

There are signs of a growing conflict within the left regarding this sort of thing, but I do wonder whether it’s fundamentally a dispute over electoral tactics rather than principle. You know? The latest example of ‘pragmatic’ centrists getting annoyed with hard-left ‘purists’ because they think the latter’s unguarded honesty will make it harder to get elected? I dunno. Not my problem!

Maybe this is the difference - left-wing identity politics would adopt a position of something like this: "unconscious sexism is a problem even within left-wing groups so it's important to be aware of how sexism comes into play when criticising Hillary - and hence do so with care" versus the liberal position of "everyone who criticises Hillary or supports her male opponent is a sexist regardless of their reasons or their gender". I tend not to view the latter as identity politics because it's self-serving, opportunistic and selectively applied.

I think the problem for the left – or for proponents of the left-wing identity politics you champion, at least – is that the term “left-wing identity politics” is, justiably or not, much more synonymous with that “liberal” type you’ve identified, i.e. the selective, opportunistic and self-serving sort. The “anyone who voted Trump is a fascist and a bigot and a big, bad poopy-head” sort that probably didn’t dissuade a single fucking person from voting for him, and which should be included in any “how the fuck did Trump win” analysis for precisely that reason.

 

[Blitzballer]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=777164779114257

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

But there’s a bit more to any type of politics than the starting intention, isn’t there? The distressing truth is that everyone in politics – even the most demonstrably dangerous and unhinged lunatics – mean well. They are all heroes in their own story. The fact that “left-wing identity politics" is used pejoratively by a large section of the population, most notably by the sort of people its proponents should be the keenest to convince, suggests something has gone awry, that between the idea and the reality has fallen a rather large shadow.

I know some people believe the problem isn't the content but the tone or style of delivery (the student ‘clumsiness’ you acknowledge in your footnotes), the basic idea being that the average chap would be more receptive to left-wing identity politics if the main points were made calmly and cogently by people who are actually disadvantaged rather than obnoxiously by some uber-privileged squawking halfwit like Laurie Penny. There is definitely something in that. Certainly, people are more likely to listen to new or counterintuitive ideas if they aren’t being excluded or insulted in the process.

But it’s not just about awful rhetoric. Another problem is that, while all this very sensible and worthwhile stuff about seeking to understand how identity characteristics unconsciously affect X, Y and Z is fine, it almost invariably goes hand-in-hand (or leads to) ideas that go completely against the grain of how most people think. Cultural relativism, for example, is not unpopular because people see it as a threat to their privilege. It's unpopular because most people like the idea of equality before the law. People don’t get exasperated with political correctness because it prevents them from insulting ethnic minorities with impunity. They dislike it because it’s a cowardly form of politics that elevates motive over consequence and consolation over truth – something that runs completely counter to the post-enlightenment liberal tradition.

I’m not saying the counterintuitive nature of these ideas makes them wrong. Far from it. However, put the two aforementioned things – the bad rhetoric and the deeply counterintuitive ideas – together and it’s not hard to understand why many people (most of them completely harmless) feel confused and alienated by that sort of politics, and gravitate towards politicians who offer something very different. I think this is what Alty meant by the “identity politics rabbit hole”.

I agree with these points. These are complex, and often quite challenging ideas that are frequently poorly explained.

Unfortunately, some of the people that these ideas are threatening towards are the liberal commentariat. This is because they are essentially include demands that the people who professionally speak for the poor and voiceless actually let the poor and voiceless speak for themselves. Between that and conservative red-baiting, the ideas don't get a particularly fair hearing in media and political discourse. And even if these ideas do break through, they're appropriated in selective and self-serving ways.

As such, there is a vested interest in misrepresenting these ideas though, in the same way that "loony leftie" councils of the eighties were demonised for promoting LGBT rights and anti-racism. So the bits of them that are complex are twisted into nonsensical and the bits that are challenging are twisted into ludicrous and unfair.

Did you mean “ignores” rather than “doesn’t ignore” here? If not, I don’t understand.

Yes, that's a typo.

Agreed, but the white working class, especially men in de-industrialised or de-industrialising regions, ought to be included among those marginalised groups. And while some people on the left are cognisant of that, it’s more common for them to be omitted; or, much worse, lumped in with the rest of the cis-gender white males that supposedly sit at the top of the hierarchy of oppression. Greater care is needed there.

Yeah, there's truth here. Our society has an inbuilt class-system and obviously anything that seeks to act against racism is going to affect white working class people more than economically secure white people (e.g. ending employment discrimination has a disproportionate affect on the job-prospects of white working-class people). That's why I believe that anti-racism (and anti-sexism) that is not anti-capitalist is doomed to failure.

That's because you're seeking to improve one group of people's prospects at the expense of another in a zero-sum game. The system may be fairer - among the working classes, but you're still making swathes of the working-class worse off. The solution, is, of course, to advance an anti-racism that seeks economic justice for all (and positions anti-racism/anti-sexism as a necessary component of any anti-capitalist programme)*.

I think possibly more important as a process, though, is the way conservatives drive and stoke this resentment, by constructing myths about how easy life is on benefits for an explicitly racialised urban working class. By creating folk-devils - the people who live the high-life off the tax-payers dollar; the welfare queens; the migrants who get a free council house and benefits - while at the same time restricting access to those services for everyone - a climate is created where white working-class people perceive that they are discriminated against.

I dunno. I think the average conservative gets incredibly wound up by that stuff. Also, while all the stuff about safe spaces and trigger warnings is annoying, I think the bigger problem is what I was discussing with Bilo in the EU thread, i.e. the almost instinctive demonisation of opposing views, the unthinking assumption that any disagreement with their worldview is only understandable as an expression of hate. In the US election this amounted to the “Othering” (to borrow PP’s term) of Trump’s supporters as a herd of hopelessly ill-educated, racist morons.

There seem to be two political responses - either to assuage people's racism by promoting anti-immigration policies or to insist that working-class anti-migrant, racist, or xenophobic sentiment is entirely a symptom of economic anxiety. I think both are unsatisfactory.

There's a balance, I think, between legitimising racism and trying to understand where people are coming from. I think it's really unhelpful for politicians to stoke a racist climate and then say "listen to the genuine concerns of the people we've been inciting", but equally anyone who simply ignores racism/xenophobia/anti-migrant sentiment and puts it all down to economics is being pretty dishonest with themselves - predominantly white, rural communities are intrinsically pretty racist (I grew up in one), even when people are doing ok economically.

* Here's a piece from Arundhati Roy where she talks about Naxalites insurgents and feminists in India, and how the decoupling of struggles for economic justice and gender equality has made both goals less likely.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

Hmm… I think some terms are problematic because different people have different ideas about what they mean, which leads to much useless 'debate' because people effectively start out talking at crossed purposes. With multiculturalism, for example, I think there are two very different conceptions, namely (1) multiculturalism as a lived experience (i.e. enjoying many aspects of living in a culturally diverse territory), and (2) multiculturalism as a state-sponsored political ideology (i.e. the political and legislative expression of cultural relativism within that territory). My objection is to the second kind, but I think the first kind is the one most people work from; ergo, the onus is on me to do some clarifying groundwork, to draw the above distinction and hone in on the second type.

The dynamic is different with political correctness and identity politics because those are largely defined by their opponents, meaning the onus is on their defenders to push an alternative concept and argue why it's desirable, beneficial, etc. It's a tough ask with identity politics, though, because the term is used so loosely and therefore is so hard to break down. So perhaps it would be better (with a view to improving public discourse) if both sides discarded the term and instead used pre-existing terminology to more precisely convey their concerns? So, from the wicked conservative PoV, why complain about ‘identity politics’ when the actual objection is to cultural relativism? I'm sure the other side could 'hone in' in a similar way.

No doubt all this reads as messily as it exists in my head, but I suppose the crux is that ‘identity politics’ strikes me as one of those terms that tends to needlessly get in the way.

Sounds very reasonable. No objections here.

A perfectly understandable and valid concern, IMO. There is definitely a growing tendency among the populist right to use "identity politics" tactics – particularly of the reductive and self-serving victimology variety – that, frankly, are straight out of the progressive SJW playbook. And, yes, there's a tonne of potential downside to that.

I honestly don't know to what extent it can blamed for Trump's victory (I didn't follow the campaign with great attention, and I remain mindful that he did lose the popular vote against an atrocious establishment opponent), but generally speaking it's a worrying but entirely predictable development – an always likely consequence of a left-liberal politics that adopts a needlessly aggressive and condescending tone and which seems hell bent on breaking society down into competing victim groups based on unalterable identity characteristics. At some point the white working class (perhaps "white precariat", to co-opt Guy Standing, is better?) were going to react and begin to imagine themselves as a victimised minority group, which of course makes them more receptive to right-wing demagoguery à la Trump because, if nothing else, it offers them the chance to vote on the solidarity of identity. This is why all the stuff about “deplorables” or “bigoted little Englunders” or whatever is so pernicious. The "Othering" can work both ways, can't it?

Yes, I would agree that it can. To a large extent I agree with your assessment - I'd generally hold that denouncing those belonging to a particular political tribe as racists, bigots, general ne'er do wells etc without trying to engage with them is supremely unhelpful and counterproductive. And yet how to respond to Trump? The man's a sociopath, a sexual predator, seemingly devoid of empathy and with no respect for the values and institutions essential to a properly functioning liberal democracy. I don't think the majority of people who voted for him did so on the basis of a racist policy platform, and I do think the wider context - an awful lot of people feeling neglected and let down - is important, but I do also find it profoundly depressing that so many were willing overlook the racist, misogynistic and homophobic part of his pitch. And I suppose that that's why I bristle slightly when a preoccupation with "identity politics" is lazily invoked as a major failing of the left (not suggesting you're guilty of this by any means). When women and minorities justifiably fear a rolling back of rights - be it women's reproductive rights, LGBT rights, the right of Muslims and racial minorities to be treated as equal citizens - this seems to me to be an unhelpful sentiment at best, especially when the "good kind" of identity politics can be said to have helped significantly level the playing field. If the left have done a miserable job of addressing the concerns of white working class voters - clearly true to an extent - then I think that's something that can be addressed on its own terms. By all means let's have a renewed focus on class and the socio-economic problems experienced by the white working class, but I believe it's important to resist the temptation to play marginalised groups off against each other and think we ought to reject calls to abandon any kind of focus on minority issues (no matter how aggressive and condescending some of our SJW friends might be).

For what it's worth, although there's been a lot of focus on the white working class and their role in Trump's victory, I'm not sure to what extent this particular narrative holds true. On the whole it was the higher income groups that favoured Trump (as one might expect) and whilst he did attract a greater proportion of lower and middle income earners than was the case in previous elections this might have owed more to depressed turnout than anything else - turnout was down across the board and Obama clearly appears to have been a lot better than Clinton at mobilising support among those who might not ordinarily vote. What is interesting and very stark is the urban/rural split in the USA. Clearly some of the inhabitants of these rural communities feel left behind and its clear that deindustralisation is often a factor, but I also think it's worth examining the extent to which prejudice is rife in these communities, and they're by no means all poor, economically disadvantaged places. City dwellers are frequently derided as metropolitan elites, out of touch with the concerns of "ordinary" middle America, but I would have thought this is something of a two way street. There are some who feel they know those rural communities a bit too well and, having felt stifled and ostracised, got out while they could.

With respect, I think this is a distinction without a meaningful difference. If the system you have in mind is neoliberal global capitalism (correct me if I'm wrong) and your view is that the political class has been slow to react to the growing discontent with said system, then what precisely is the manifestation of that sluggishness? What form could it take other than neglect of the socio-economic effects and the related concerns?

And with certain effects and concerns – e.g. high levels of migration, declining job security, deindustrialisation via outsourcing, etc. – I think the problem goes beyond sluggishness. The problem is a repeated and ongoing failure to offer any consolation or solution. "Don't blame industrious migrants for the effects of untrammeled neoliberal capitalism" is a perfectly reasonable response when White Van Man complains about "the fucking Poles stealing our jobs"; but unless you couple the rebuke with some concrete ideas about what could be done better, it's politically useless. The concerned voter is more likely to turn to a Trump or Farage for the simple reason that phony consolation and flawed, over-simplistic remedies are better than none at all. The massive Brexit vote in the North of England is perhaps best understood in this context.

P.S. I will respond to Ian’s points (and fulsome footnotes!) sometime later this week, probably at the weekend.

Yep, don't disagree and I ought really to have elaborated further in my original post. I sort of think it's interesting how the political landscape and the public mood can seem to shift quite rapidly. It wasn't very long ago at all that we appeared to have something approaching a consensus and that people were insisting that elections can only be won from the centre (I mean, hell, most of the parliamentary Labour party still seem to be under this impression). The idea of a sort of authoritarian strongman figure like Trump becoming President in the US would have seemed quite inconceivable. Of course, things are often a lot more complex than they appear on the surface and all of the things that you cite ring true. The financial crisis probably ought to have been a wake up call on this front but things reverted back to normal pretty rapidly.

In all honesty I don't think the left has ignored these realities - not sure any self proclaimed lefty who is unconcerned by economic inequality is any sort of lefty at all - but it's probably fair to say that it's not yet come up with a compelling, marketable remedy. And quite honestly I don't think there are any easy answers (think the solutions might be more readily apparent - at least superficially - when it come to race, gender etc so it's easy to get the impression there's an undue focus on such issues). Even if I had a surefire solution to these problems I'm not sure how I'd know how to sell it. When there's no regard for facts, when campaigns can be won on the back of lies and misinformation and the victor is the one who appears most obnoxious and abusive I can't help but feel that we've all lost.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

For what it's worth, although there's been a lot of focus on the white working class and their role in Trump's victory, I'm not sure to what extent this particular narrative holds true. On the whole it was the higher income groups that favoured Trump (as one might expect) and whilst he did attract a greater proportion of lower and middle income earners than was the case in previous elections this might have owed more to depressed turnout than anything else - turnout was down across the board and Obama clearly appears to have been a lot better than Clinton at mobilising support among those who might not ordinarily vote. What is interesting and very stark is the urban/rural split in the USA. Clearly some of the inhabitants of these rural communities feel left behind and its clear that deindustralisation is often a factor, but I also think it's worth examining the extent to which prejudice is rife in these communities, and they're by no means all poor, economically disadvantaged places. City dwellers are frequently derided as metropolitan elites, out of touch with the concerns of "ordinary" middle America, but I would have thought this is something of a two way street. There are some who feel they know those rural communities a bit too well and, having felt stifled and ostracised, got out while they could.

We don't yet know the turnout in 2016, but projections suggest it's not down much on last time (projections indicate somewhere around 0.5% at the moment, but it could still be higher).

There's a lot of trends here to pick up on - the collapse of social democratic/liberal projects, the morphing of US fascists from a fringe group of racist conspiracy theorists to a fringe group of racist conspiracy theorists that somehow control the White House something more akin to a European fascist movement - that'll probably keep political scientists and sociologists busy from now until President Trump purges them all sometime in 2018.

One of the simplest analyses, though, is that Clinton fucked it. Yeah, she's the most unpopular presidential candidate in history, but 1.3m more people voted for her than Trump. She had the votes, but her campaign was so wildly incompetent that they drove turnout places they didn't need it and barely looked at Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - all states she ended up losing by razor-thin margins.

The scale of her incompetence in this shouldn't be understated.

 

[johnnytodd]

We don't yet know the turnout in 2016, but projections suggest it's not down much on last time (projections indicate somewhere around 0.5% at the moment, but it could still be higher).

There's a lot of trends here to pick up on - the collapse of social democratic/liberal projects, the morphing of US fascists from a fringe group of racist conspiracy theorists to a fringe group of racist conspiracy theorists that somehow control the White House something more akin to a European fascist movement - that'll probably keep political scientists and sociologists busy from now until President Trump purges them all sometime in 2018.

One of the simplest analyses, though, is that Clinton fucked it. Yeah, she's the most unpopular presidential candidate in history, but 1.3m more people voted for her than Trump. She had the votes, but her campaign was so wildly incompetent that they drove turnout places they didn't need it and barely looked at Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - all states she ended up losing by razor-thin margins.

The scale of her incompetence in this shouldn't be understated.

I say again what about the 4 million UKIP voters who get what representation in parliament ?

 

[silkyman]

1 - They lost. Get over it.
2- They ultimately got what they voted for anyway.