So it's not really surprising he won, and the margin isn't surprising either.
(I suspect the problem, of course, is that the newfound prosperity is not shared evenly amongst the population.)
And there are many examples like these, where he's quoted WAY out of context, and that kind of stuff. If you believe that for years and at one point learn that it's actually bs and he didn't say that or the context reveals he was quoting someone else, or negates the comment the next sentence, etc, you start to question ALL your beliefs.
They pushed too far, fabricated just a BIT too much, and people caught on.
Yep, it's an own goal. Similar shit has led to the rise of right-wing populism all across the world, time and again. Yet they never learn. They never realize that shitting on the average Joe is not how you get power in a democratic setup.
this is regardless of whether the redneck bigots are in rural Kentucky or rural Bulgaria.
The other side calls themselves socialists, some of them are proudly communists. This isn't a slur, this is literally what many on the left call themselves. The right don't think of themselves as bigots, they just want less immigration. (You might think that's bigoted)
The Dems are terrified of accidentally seeming too left. Republicans have no problem embracing the more extreme right, whereas Dems would rather cowtow to the imaginary swing voter and lose than get called the S word.
Admittedly the US had a choice between someone unfit for office and a lawfully convicted felon, I don't envy this situation.
This is why democracy is broken, because not everyone gets a voice.
That isn't how statistics work. Sample size reduces your error relative to the population you are randomly sampling from.
When you don't have a random sampling, then you sampling method is what determines how generalizable your findings are. A good sample size with a bad sampling method tells us little to nothing about the general population and only informs us about the specific sub population for which the sample can be considered a random selection from.
With significant differences in voting rates across many different demographics, votes are absolutely not a representative sample of the overall population.
And most people would say that would categorize you as mentally deficient. Voting against your own best interests because you feel people are mean to you isn't usually seen as very intelligent.
Obviously I don't buy it, hence the reason I asked if studies had been made.
It surprises me that I see so many different reason here in the comment why people think others chose trump, when it's clearly their own reasoning.
You say they voted trump because they are fed up of being called bigot, just like YOU would do. Well that's the issue, some Americans might have say fuck them I vote trump but I honestly believe it is marginal.
I believe most cared about the election economy first, but I could be biased and that's literally the reason I asked if studies had been done, beyond the usual blablah.
I'm not a Yank nor do I vote or care to ever vote, but if I were and all I ever saw was every mainstream source of news and media, including sites like Reddit and apparently even HN, calling me a retard (which funnily enough is a pretty bigoted insult coming from the supposed moral & good side) and a bigot non-stop I'd probably say "fuck it" and vote for the guy too.
From where I'm sitting across the pond, the Republicans want stricter border control, smaller government, lower taxes, free speech (which itself is a loaded term that means different things depending on who's saying/hearing it), which is basically what the populist parties across the EU are promising as well.