Actually, looking at Clinton's campaign, I think she did a lot of things right. The DNC went off without a hitch. She handled the debates beautifully and did the things democratic candidates are supposed to do to win. Overall, her strategy appeared to be working. She was solidly ahead in the polls for most of it, and in spite of all the hand wringing about how out of touch the Democrats are with working-class America, there was no real reason to believe the polls and the projections about who the likely voters were weren't going to be as accurate in 2008 and 2012. There was all that crap with the e-mails, but that die was cast already.
It's all 20-20 hindsight now, but Trump was the one who was screwing up right left and center, breaking every rule of campaigning and common decency. Who would have thought a man who would say one thing one day and another the next, who lied openly and unrepentantly, who threw tantrums on social media, who belittled disabled people, who said people from Mexico were rapists and criminals, who wants to resurrect internment camps for Muslim immigrants, who professed admiration for a man as disgusting as Putin, who bragged about sexual assault, who called women pigs and dogs and worse (and is very open about his opinion that women who aren't young and beautiful have no value), who locked horns with an extremely popular Pope, who has pretty much insulted everyone who wasn't just like him, would squeak out a victory?
I don't blame Clinton and the other dems for their overconfidence. This whole election has been surreal, like one of those dreams that starts out weird and gradually morphs into a genuine nightmare. I've always had this fear that this could happen at the back of my mind, because I know logically that American exceptionalism is silly, and there's no reason why an unqualified, populist demagogue can't win the vote here.
But there were lots of logical reasons to think Trump would go down, go down big, even, and my heart wanted to believe he would too. I thought better of people, and I'm not going to join the Greek chorus of Dems beating themselves for that.
People say Trump won because the white people in those red states (and the red parts of those swing states that narrowly broke for him in the end) are desperate, clutching at straws and angry at both parties. I'm sure this is true (though I still think that whole "anti PC" thing so many of his supporters say they liked about him is a dogwhistle for racism etc.)
But what has me gobsmacked is that these people didn't pick one of their own to be their champion. They chose a billionaire from NYC who didn't even make his own fortune (they're so big on bootstrapping, yet Trump was born rich). And they picked one who's made it very clear his presidency will be all about making his own businesses as profitable as possible and getting revenge on anyone who stood against him. This man is their populist champion who will make America work for the little guy again? That makes NO sense at all.
At least the angry, white, Christian voters of the late 19th century picked William Jennings Bryan as their champion, not one of the robber barons who was fleecing them.
I've had a lot of discussions online recently about why we think Trump was able to get as many votes as he did. As heartbroken as I was because I feel that hate won, which I truly didn't think should be possible in this country (I still feel very, very strongly that there was absolutely zero reason anyone should have voted for him based on the misogynistic, racist, divisive, etc. things that he said, particularly when added to his nuclear proliferation statements, lack of experience, tendency to do things like intentionally declare bankruptcy to avoid paying people, the court cases against him, etc. etc. Zero).
I think that a lot of people weren't voting for him
because he's anti-PC (which bothers me because being PC is, in essence, just being respectful of others), but because they either felt that the democrats were ignoring their situation while Trump was promising things like keeping jobs, fixing the economy and so on, and because they
had to explain away the cognitive dissonance of a candidate who was so flawed and against their morals.
Now, the former situation I can understand, even if I find it an incredibly flawed logic. Trump has never shown any concern for the poor and the experts have outright said that his policy suggestions would not only harm the economy, increase the national debt, and dis-proportionally harm the poor. But I can understand how having someone say, "I'll do this," could be appealing.
I think the other issue is potentially the one that harmed Hillary more than anything else. This is my theory and obviously isn't scientific. It's based on my experiences and observations. I grew up in the Bible Belt. For many people in that area, the republican party is quite literally the party of God, and the democrats are, again quite literally, influenced by Satan. Yes, there are democrats in that area, but for many of the republicans, there is an assumption that their party is upstanding and has the moral high ground, particularly as more recently the republican party has moved further and further right and courted the Evangelical vote. I grew up hearing from honestly everyone around me, not simply my family, that democrats were evil, should be prayed for, and voting for democrats was a sin.
Donald Trump is the most unethical, immoral, anti-family values candidate who has probably ever run for president, at least in recent years, by the standards of these same people. Someone who has been divorced numerous times, cheated on his wife and bragged about it, been in favor of abortion rights, doesn't attend church (or even know enough about the Bible to know how to properly say the names of the books), etc. This is without looking at the fraud, rape, sexual assault accusations, etc., but those should also have played a factor in decision making.
So you have your party, which is the party of God and the other party is being influenced by the devil and voting for them is a sin, but your candidate is an immoral person. What do you do? How do you vote? How can you reconcile those facts? For some people, they were able to look past everything and vote for Hillary, or vote third party. But I've heard an awful lot of really surprising explanations for why Trump should be supported in spite of everything. I had family members trying to convince me that I should vote for Trump because even though he was a flawed person, we should still vote for the party "God would want you to vote for." That the party line mattered more than the person in charge of it. That the negative stuff about Trump was just a media campaign to destroy him. That Trump was a Christian, but he was "flawed" and still learning to be a good Christian. That even though he was a bad person, if we just prayed for him he'd make the right choices. Etc.
There really wasn't anything to back any of these arguments that I heard. There was no reason to expect that Trump is a Christian or holds any Christian values, or that he even really cares about anyone else, or that he would change once in office (after 70 years?), or that the media was trying to destroy him--particularly considering you just had to look at his own words.
I couldn't say how many people this was a factor for, but I do definitely think that a lot of republican voters were finding ways to justify voting for Trump that weren't always logical to get around the cognitive dissonance that voting for him created. I think that having Hillary on the other side, a person that for many is the epitome of all that is wrong with the democrats/establishment made it even harder. I'm honestly angry at the people I know who voted for Trump by justifying his flaws, particularly when the ones I know where also the ones trying to take the moral high ground, but I do believe that this contingent made a big difference for him, and I think it speaks to just how flawed our two-party system at this point in time is.
If you look at maps from thirty or forty years ago, you can see that many voters were willing to switch sides as they felt right. That just doesn't really happen as much anymore. There are many republicans who will
never vote for a democrat because of the reasons outlined above, and that has increased in recent years as the republican party has taken on the role of the moral party for the religious right and our political divisiveness in general has increased. I'm sure that there are democrats who look at the current place of the republican party and say that they would never vote for a republican.
I had a great graphic awhile back that I can't find right now that actually showed how, over time, we have become less a compromising country, and become more politically divided instead. I honestly believe that it's unsustainable. The more partisan we become as a country, the more difficult it is going to be to have a functional government or to vote based on who the best candidate is. Trump was certainly not the best candidate in this case. There has yet to be a single argument that I've heard to explain why he was that would stand up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny or fact-checking--other than "he's not Hillary", which goes right back to the problem, IMO.
How many people voted for someone they thought was best? And how many voted because they were voting against the other person? We need to change the system to give us a way of being able to vote for candidates that we believe are best, and we need to find a way to come to the center and value compromise again and get beyond this ridiculous notion that everyone on the other side is wrong/evil/racist, blah blah blah. Personally, I think getting rid of the electoral college would be a great start, but more than that, I think having rollover voting would be an even better start.
Sorry for the book. This turned out much longer than I anticipated, but it's just my take on the situation. I want to find ways that we can improve this so it doesn't keep happening. I'm concerned that a Trump presidency is going to make things worse, and honestly I think it probably should because he has been so extreme that he shouldn't be allowed to get things done. He campaigned as the tea party on steroids. But maybe that in and of itself will bring people back to the center. Maybe people will start to see value in third parties, in changing our system. I don't know that it will. I honestly have a feeling that in a few months, most people will just accept the way things are until the next election when everyone complains about how awful the system is again, but I'd rather not forget, and I'd rather find ways to work toward making things better if it's possible.
