But none of your points explain why. Trump said terrible things, that he would commit war crimes, restrict the first amendment, he won't respect the election if he loses. He's praised dictators, denied climate change, committed charity fraud, stiffed 800+ small businesses, walks in on underage girls changing and brags about it. He lies about something one day and deflects attention away to blame someone else when called out on it.
It's fascinating that he gets a pass on saying and doing these things. "It's an exaggeration." Personally, I think it's because he was a reality TV star. We expect celebrities to say and do ridiculous things, and then roll our eyes at it.
Except he's president now, and he isn't acting.
* Traditional republicans: A lot of them couldn't stand his rhetoric, but they're worried about the Supreme Court. I think a lot of these people felt horrible about voting for him, but they're playing the long game.
* White supremacists: They loved his rhetoric, so no explanation is required.
* Anti-corruption advocates: It might sound like a cop-out, but I'm blaming this one on the media. According to exit polls, 70% of people who thought both candidates were terrible ended up voting for Trump. I understand why a lot of people didn't like either of them, but this is a classic false equivalence. I think the media spent so much time talking about Hillary's emails that people started to think it was as bad as Trump's talk about nuking people, killing the families of suspected terrorists (war crime), bringing back torture (many troops won't like that), and so many other disqualifying things.
* Working class people: Despite being stalwart democratic voters (this election notwithstanding), many of these people aren't very liberal. LGBTQ rights aren't something they think about much, and I don't think they're big on feminism, environmentalism, or animal rights. They're worried about their jobs, the health of their unions, and off-shoring. Trump promised to punish companies for sending work to other countries, and to gut environmental regulations for the sake of creating new unionized gas/coal jobs.
Also, it's important to point out that voter turnout was terrible in this election. Trump got fewer votes than Mitt Romney did 4 years ago, but he won. Hillary severely underperformed Obama in almost every state. Roughly 50% of eligible voters exercised their constitutional right on Tuesday.
1 in 4 eligible voters went to the polls and voted for Trump, 1 in 4 voted for Hillary, and the other 2 didn't vote at all. That's the real story here. We failed to get people excited about voting for Hillary, so they stayed home.
Trump got more votes than Romney: http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/did-trump-actua... and http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442086/donald-trumps-vo...
Clinton represents the status quo for corruption, as evidenced by the continuing questionable practices of the Clinton Foundation, and people who have been upset with the way politics work correctly and directly linked her with that behavior.
Trump's call may have been about Washington corruption, but that doesn't mean anything is actually going to change.
[1] The Iraq war was such a disaster, that when polled today the majority of Americans won't even admit that they supported the war in 2003: http://reason.com/poll/2014/10/16/poll-reveals-americans-sup....
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096770/JFK-took-vir...
You mean like all the people protesting against Trump?
~~0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kht_qNBXzbU~~ (wrong video)
This is the incident from yesterday that I heard about and was searching for video of:
> Heads roll in the streets of Los Angeles as a large Donald Trump effigy was set on fire by protesters the day after he was elected president.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/11/10/donald-trump-e...
If that was it then you were right. Even European newspapers who rooted for Clinton report looting and fires.
However, that won't be necessary, as Trump can now honestly attest that the elections aren't rigged.
Vs saying weeks before hand that the election is going to be rigged, I can only lose if it is rigged, etc...
Peaceful protesters aren't presidential candidates threatening to not respect the vote.
How does that justify giving a pass to the terrible things Trump has said and done?
Don't forget:
* Minorities. Although Trump didn't win their vote outright, more minorities voted Republican this time than last. He even won the Hispanic vote in NYC.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/e...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/20/donald-trump...
But most are within a similar band.
Liberal arrogance again.
And I can appreciate Trump's anti corruption policies. It will be very interesting to see if he does engage in a trade war, slapping tariffs on goods made outside the US. If he passed legislation about charging taxes on carried interest that too would be positive.
However I'm scared as all hell about everything else. If he does anything good that will be a minor miracle. He is a sociopath and a narcissist. His tax plan will blow a hole in the federal budget while maintaining entitlements. There was an article where he asked the generals "why cant we just nuke them" 3 times. It's going to be like Bush but a lot worse.
Have you read said's response? I came to learn something, hoping to take something away. This guy said is a member of a different minority group resentful of African Americans overrepresentation in this country, and is an Indian. This is not an isolated incident for me so far, where I've heard from either a member of a minority group or a woman voted for Trump that has no substance, but rooted in resentment against another minority group. This is making me more depressed.
Maybe this is a couple of isolated incidents. But what I'm learning is only making me more depressed.
As far as last count Hillary won the popular vote (though not by much). The election was very close at any rate.
Trump was just better at parroting and promising the things he heard from rural Americans. He listened to them. And he sold them on their own ideas and made them sound tenable. That's all there is to it.
I understand your frustration (I'm right there with you. I felt like a family member died after the election), but I think the statement I quoted is an exaggeration.
Trump had a few groups of people that helped him win the election. I'd break them into these groups:
* Traditional republican voters who didn't like much of what Trump said, but worried about liberal Supreme Court justices.
* White supremacists. Most Trump supporters weren't white supremacists, but most white supremacists were Trump supporters.
* People who feel that Washington is deeply corrupt and want to see the existing system torn down. Trump has pledged to introduce term limits for congress people, along with banning certain government employees from becoming lobbyists for a period of time.
* Working class people who liked Trump's trade policies. He's pledged to renegotiate certain trade deals in an attempt to lessen our trade deficit. That would make it less appealing to outsource jobs, which union workers found appealing.
I voted for Hillary, but I admit that I like his anti-corruption and trade deficit policies. Unfortunately I'm horrified by his policies on muslims, undocumented immigrants, etc.
Quite simply, people who think like you and me lost on Tuesday. We lost badly. We need to take some time to figure out where to go from here, because if we run the next election like this one, we will probably lose again.
We spent a lot of time being upset about the white supremacists who backed Trump. We didn't spend enough time addressing the concerns of union workers, anti-corruption advocates, and republicans who didn't like Trump. It probably cost us the election.