How We Got Here: A 2016 Postmortem

INTRODUCTION
Last night ended one of the most contentious presidential elections since 2000’s Bush v Gore. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fought a hard battle to the finish line. They were two completely different candidates, coming from completely different experiences and worldviews. Neoliberal versus unpredictable nihilistic anti-establishment tornado. All in all, it was recipe for political disaster and realignment. And nobody saw the result coming. Well, sort of. More on that later.

This was also a battle of parties. The Democrats in the waning days of what could be considered a middling Barack Obama presidency, much of its squandered promise tempered by unprecedented Republican opposition and a stay-the-course policy with regards to foreign policy and economic policy. The Republicans were seemingly in the political wilderness, but nominated a candidate that shocked their party establishment.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
In one corner, there was Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was the Establishment candidate, tempered by relentless political battles from her time with her husband as governor of Arkansas and two-term President, the Senator from New York, and Secretary of State.

Clinton, as the establishment candidate, had every institutional advantage under the sun. She had full control and loyalty of the Democratic National Committee. After all, they were remnants from the first Clinton presidency and fellow Neoliberals, New Democrats, and Centrists
.
She was the first woman to capture the nomination of a major party in the United States. She was, quite probably and literally, the most famous woman on the planet. Through the Clinton Foundation and her political connections, she gained a reputation across the world (for better or for worse). Her 20-plus years in the spotlight made her the most vetted political figure in American history.

But it wasn’t without setbacks. She lost the 2008 Democratic presidential primary to a political shooting star in the form of Barack Obama, after eight years of a disastrous George W. Bush presidency and an economic crisis on par with the Great Depression. Clinton represented a return to the steadiness of the 1990’s. Obama represented hope and change. Nostalgia for Clintonism didn’t save her. And Obama, reconciler as he was, brought her into his cabinet as an olive branch after their emotionally charged contest.

After her time in Obama’s camp, traveling the world as an ambassador for women all over, and with even more experience under her belt, this should have been her contest to dominate. Unfortunately, the world continued to move on from the neoliberalism that she represented.

THE FALL OF NEOLIBERALISM AND THE DNC
Events around the world and domestically spelled the death knell for Clinton’s candidacy before it even began. The political unrest in Greece over the European Union and International Monetary Fund’s attempt to install an austerity regime, which led to the rise of the anti-neoliberal Syriza Party. The rise of Podemos in Spain. The shift to the left in South America and Iceland. And the cherry on top, the shocking BREXIT vote that no one saw coming.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the rise of Occupy Wall Street surprised a complacent and ignorant Establishment. There was a legitimate reason for that complacency. To the Establishment, the reforms that President Obama installed were good enough to help them maintain their way of life. Outside of the DC-NYC Interstate 95 corridor however, it was different story. Americans outside of elite circles were still hurting from crushing income inequality because of policies dating back to Ronald Reagan. The idea that the entire system was rigged for a select view proliferated in Middle America’s cul-de-sacs, small towns, and exurbs. And it culminated in the rise of Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy Wall Street put the fear of God into the elites. They literally had no idea that the plebs were that angry. Cloistered away (aware or otherwise) from the struggles of the everyday American, they could not understand that anger. So, they did what any reasonable (to them, anyway) society would do to something that questioned everything they knew and held dear—they crushed it underneath the police state that they owned. OWS wasn’t a liberal rebellion against austerity and establishment. It was more of an anarchistic reaction to a system that completely ignored their struggles. While the elites toasted the end of OWS, people across the country saw what happened and grew even angrier.

While President Obama’s run may have staved off a global recession that could have lasted longer, he didn’t address the resentment that working class white people felt. They had pensions, good paying jobs, and enjoyed a degree of privilege which kept them insulated from the problems minorities already experienced—crushing debt, the loss of their homes, and various states of poverty. But that insulation was gone.

The jobs lost from NAFTA and WTO policies that neoliberals like Bill Clinton’s DNC championed were never coming back. Banks were stealing their homes. That angered populace found scapegoats in the wrong form—immigrants, women, people of color, LGBTs. Meanwhile, the establishment was on television claiming that things were okay. They obviously weren’t.
It was the middle of 2015, and the neoliberals in control of the Democratic Party thought they had a bulletproof candidate, a bulletproof strategy for a post-Obama world, and a bulletproof strategy to roll out an unopposed Hillary Clinton out to the world again. But they didn’t pay attention to their audience. Neither did their opposing party, the Republicans.

DONALD TRUMP
In the other corner was Donald Trump. He was what many in the establishment considered to be a joke candidate. He was called a carnival barker, a reality show star, and a fraud. Maybe he was some of that, all of that, or none of that. But he managed to galvanize a Republican base that was tired of the Mitt Romneys, the John McCains, and the Marco Rubios of the world.

Trump was already a celebrity, a questionable giant in real estate, one of the faces of the Greed is Good decadence of the 1980s. He had a successful reality show in The Apprentice (and its spinoffs), possessed of one of the more memorable catchphrases of the past decade, “You’re Fired!” He traveled in the same circles as the establishment, but he didn’t appear to be one of them.

Listening to his speeches, he used a method of pentameter and vernacular that captured the hurt that his base—the white working class—felt after eight years of being ignored, ridiculed, and outright vilified by mainstream media. His speeches could be sort of hypnotic and empathetic at the same time. He was frighteningly good. To the establishment, it seemed like rambling. To a certain segment of the populace at large, his simple style of speech and barebones policy prescriptions spoke right to their fears and anxieties in a rapidly changing world that was leaving them behind.

THE FALL AND RISE OF THE REPUBLICANS
At the beginning of the Republican primary, things were status quo. The Republican Party was in control of most state houses and governorships, and had enough power on the federal level to check any move that President Obama wanted to make. After 2012 it was all gridlock, all the time. 2016 was fast approaching, and the Republicans had the opportunity to nominate a candidate that could propel them out of the political wilderness. They just didn’t predict what was coming out of their crowded primary.

Trump was the natural result of the Republican establishment not in tune with their party’s base. Their base was a combination of Economic Conservatives (Wall Street and Corporate America), the Religious Right (end-of-times Dominionists and Evangelicals), and the Neoconservatives (the Warmongers). They worked often at cross purposes, but they shared the same base values. After being rolled in 2008 and 2012 by Barack Obama because the establishment ran conventional candidates, the base wanted something new and different.

The party didn’t even take the clue that seemingly fringe elements such as Dr. Ben Carson, Michelle Bachmann, Rand Paul, and Trump were catching the attention of the electorate during their primary crammed with also-rans that they expected to dominate, as they did in the past. The Republican Party establishment even tried to force Rick Perry and Jeb Bush into the nomination, with hilariously and predictably disastrous results.
When the dust settled, Donald Trump was the last man standing, sending shockwaves throughout the establishment, in both major parties. Unfortunately for both the Republican Party and Democratic Party, they could not have predicted the ultimate result.

THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Once the dust settled from the contentious Democratic and Republican primaries, we were left with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They were two of the most unpopular figures in American politics in history. Sky-high negatives for the pair of them, yet they survived to face each other. Both candidates took decidedly different approaches to campaigning.

Clinton won her primary through a heavy thumb on the scale from the Democratic National Committee. She defeated Bernie Sanders through dubious means, quite frankly. The debate schedule, the control of the media, and a myriad of other machinations led her to victory. Her attempts to unite the party were practically nonexistent outside a few ersatz fig leaves during the convention. But she had serious weaknesses.

Her main weakness was appearing to be inauthentic. Her wonkish nature led her to deliver lawyerly, meandering, and ambiguous answers to simple policy questions. Her ties to her donors and her neoliberal ideology prevented her from taking any populist positions. Hence the long answers that said nothing. It made her look fake. The constant attacks on her for decades created a negative image for her that was difficult to shake. And that’s all before her lack of campaign theme.
Hillary Clinton didn’t have a coherent, direct message. It was always “I’m with Her.” And that’s it. Her policy prescriptions were ignored in favor of a race run by weaponizing identity politics and racial/economic intersectionality. Looking at her advertisements, there was nothing that spoke to the needs of the populace that felt that they were being left behind in the post-2008 Recovery.

Where were, the commercials touting her debt-free college education plan? Why didn’t she go to North Dakota to stand with the Standing Rock Tribe? Why didn’t she show up in Detroit outside of a photo op in the wake of the lead crisis there? Where was she during the Moral Monday protests in North Carolina? Why didn’t her campaign try to absorb the popular ideas that Bernie Sanders brought to the mainstream? Why did her surrogates spend time hippie-punching anyone to the left of her who didn’t 100% fall in line?

She was already unpopular, yet didn’t attempt to make herself likeable to more of the populace? Why did they focus solely on pointing out on how bad Donald Trump was?

And that’s before the FBI and Clinton Foundation scandals, artificial or otherwise. She could have gotten in front of the situation and owned it, yet her camp decided to do what the Clintons always did—they kept hiding from the press and made what should have been an easily manageable crisis into a full-blown fiasco. She actively avoided the press, both mainstream and independent. Her people arrogantly thought they could drag her across the finish line. They kept calling Trump a monster—but didn’t know how to fight the monster.

Hillary Clinton instead became a victim of her own hubris. And, most importantly, she was also a victim of misogyny. There is no way around it. The misogyny was a super strong culprit in a crowd of culprits.

Trump won his primary through sheer force of will and personality, powered by his base’s inherent racism, sexism, homophobia, and resentment of intellectuals and the elite classes. He didn’t speak like the typical Republican. Some elements of his party establishment even abandoned endorsing him, some going as far as endorsing Clinton. This had the unintended result of emboldening his supporters.

The supporters at his rallies may have frightened the establishment in their displays of aberrant behavior, but at home his supporters were eating all his populism and nihilism up. They loved him. It was probably the first time they saw a candidate who they could directly relate to and understand, even though Trump was wealthy and well removed from their daily struggles. He spoke their language, and that’s all that mattered.

He may have had a seemingly insurmountable number of gaffes, scandals, and outbursts, but he managed to overcome all of that. He was the “No Filter” candidate. His shoot-from-the-hip style made him immensely popular to the point where no matter what controversial comments he spoke, he was bulletproof.

Trump’s general election strategy was simple. Attack, attack, attack. Attack the incumbent president’s policies, talk about issues white working class voters cared about, and attach himself to the emotions of that populace. He attacked NAFTA, immigrants, and economic policy, and he surprisingly hijacked elements of Occupy Wall Street’s “the system is rigged” rhetoric. He, unlike Clinton, had a message, and he relentlessly ran with it. Most importantly, he ultimately succeeded in channeling the backlash from victories for women’s rights, LGBT rights, and civil rights into a victory forged from white male resentment that leaves the country’s future in an uncertain place.

In a presidential election, a candidate must have a clear message. In 2008, Obama won with “Hope and Change” against McCain’s “Stay the Course”. 2016 was about, “What is next after Obama?” Trump answered the call. Clinton completely ignored the question. The population decided to change everything and through a potential chaos agent into the White House. So here we are.

THE FUTURE
A Donald Trump presidency is going to lead to a lot of things that Democrats, liberals, and leftists are not going to enjoy. Republicans are going to love him. What can we expect?

THE BAD NEWS
First, the bad news. The repeal of Obamacare. The attempt to reverse any marijuana legalization that passed. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (if it doesn’t pass in the lame duck session). Wall Street deregulation. Social Security cuts (and the Social Safety Net in general). Mass deportations that will make Obama’s already horrific immigration policy seem like child’s play. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Protections for LGBT people will be eroded at a frightening level.

Overseas tax holiday and repatriation for US-based multinational corporations ($4.2 trillion dollars at last estimate). Further gutting of the Voting Rights Act. The potential end of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Supreme Court. The Republicans now control all three branches of government—legislative, judicial, and executive.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. There’s no sugarcoating that. Things are going to get very bad. Sorry.

THE GOOD NEWS
If the right people get organized, this will be a one-term presidency. The last time Republicans got everything that they wanted, they wrecked the planet, they wrecked the economy, and they were run out of the White House and Congress. The Republicans have gotten used to being obstructionist, and are rubbish at actual governing (because of what they want). This will become evident rather quickly. This is a good thing.

The Clinton controlled Democratic National Committee is over. This was their last shot. They’re done, opening an opportunity for a non-neoliberal to sweep into power. It’s going to take organization at the local level on up to affect a proper change in the organization. It can be done.

The midterm elections in 2018 should be promising, depending on who the Democrats nominate. If they go the route of bringing in retreads like Evan Bayh and Patrick Murphy, there’s no hope of retaking the House and Senate. If bring in candidates from the left end of the spectrum, a lot of the damage that Trump will do in his first two years can be seriously curtailed, and in the next two years slowed down to a crawl.

Finally, they should have put their support behind Bernie Sanders, who would have obliterated Trump last night. The Democratic Party committed political malpractice on a cosmic scale, and we’re all going to pay the price for their colossal mistake.

CONCLUSION
A Donald Trump presidency is nothing anyone expected. Yet here we are. The future is uncertain, domestically and overseas. 2016 has proven to be the darkest timeline. But things will get better. Light at the end of the tunnel and all of that. America has had darker days and emerged stronger than ever. Everything will eventually be okay.
We can only hope.

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Comments

detroitmechworks's picture

I find the fastest way to piss someone off is to completely ignore them, and dismiss their concerns completely.

Clinton and her ilk dismissed the very real concerns of Americans with "-ism" accusations.

Then replied with "Where else you gonna go?" arrogance.

And they really need to stop inviting John Bon Jovi to play victory concerts. It never ends well.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

ggersh's picture

FUNDRAISING

Where were, the commercials touting her debt-free college education plan? Why didn’t she go to North Dakota to stand with the Standing Rock Tribe? Why didn’t she show up in Detroit outside of a photo op in the wake of the lead crisis there? Where was she during the Moral Monday protests in North Carolina? Why didn’t her campaign try to absorb the popular ideas that Bernie Sanders brought to the mainstream? Why did her surrogates spend time hippie-punching anyone to the left of her who didn’t 100% fall in line?

She was already unpopular, yet didn’t attempt to make herself likeable to more of the populace? Why did they focus solely on pointing out on how bad Donald Trump was?

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

a victory forged from white male resentment that leaves the country’s future in an uncertain place.

A closer look at the actual data would be enlightening.

It's language like this that really flushed Hillary's campaign down the toilet. Try it again next time; I'm sure results will be completely different.

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cardboardurinal's picture

overstated the racial aspects of this, I don't believe that he is wrong. There is a reason that Hillary lost non-college educated white men by nearly 50%. Of course it isn't because they are racist, but as a block, their interests are not being responded to by either party and they just gave the establishment a big "fuck you."

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But a lot of people want the story to be, "Trump won because white men can't stand to lose their special privilege over brown people," as I heard on PBS last night. (Special privileges such as, dying faster than any other demographic group in any developed country, I presume.)

In any case, the data doesn't support the notion. Trump didn't perform any worse than Romney among minorities. The gender gap was smaller in most demos than people predicted. Although, a work colleague just told me that all the women who voted for Trump did so because they were that kind of dumb married woman who just does whatever their wife-beater husband tells them. So there is that.

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cardboardurinal's picture

it allows them to continue living in their bubble. The idea that this is happening challenges their paradigm in a way that they cannot comprehend so denial/vilification is much easier for them.

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I think the isms played a role with the GOP, but those people wouldn't have voted for a Clinton anyway. The Independents and Bernie supporters didn't give a damn about her isms. They wanted free education, single payer, and a big does of income equality.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Raggedy Ann's picture

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

cybrestrike's picture

I definitely missed the problem in the primary where Clinton and her people basically said, "No, you can't have that" to anyone in Bernie's camp and anyone who wanted some ounce of liberal policies. And that was part of Clinton's lack of policies that failed to get Democrats (most especially disaffected ones) in the ballot booth. Hell, even if she broke ranks with Obama on marijuana would have added potential voters who stayed home.

I'm going to have to write up some more stuff on how the primary affected the reduced Democratic base turnout and get some numbers on that. Especially how this worked out in the black community outside of the Black Misleadership Class.

This is a mess that we're going to be dissecting for months.

Okay, time to get drunk again.

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Right, dkmich! Elsewhere in this discussion I posted links to Jimmy Dore's and Mike Figuredo's campaign post-mortems, and although they were mostly talking about different issues, the one thing they both said is, don't tell us to vote against something / someone -- we want to vote *for* positive goals. (Just as a purely practical campaign matter, telling voters to vote against your opponent doesn't tell them to vote for you...they could decide to vote for someone else entirely.)

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Clinton was the "Stay the course" candidate, and Trump the "Change" guy. You can complain all you want that Trump is mostly BS, but you can't beat something with nothing.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…as the departing President, they are by default running on a "more of the same" platform. Party loyalty is the driving force, here.

The only distinction between the these two cars on the Party Train would be one of style. Obama was gravely damaged by Clinton's criminal war policies and murderous actions while she was SOS. This forged them into a single entity.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Roger Fox's picture

CONCLUSION
A Donald Trump presidency is nothing anyone expected.

Speak for yourself. 18 months of polling showed us multiple lead changes. I never felt certain that Clinton could beat Trump.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

but believed Trump had the momentum. A lot of people voted for him even though they can't stand him.

Trump was a NO vote, not only No to Hillary but for the whole ball of wax that's been screwing us over for at least 40 years.

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Deja's picture

It was "her turn", after all. *snicker* Smile

And, she did it so blatantly in the primary. Maybe Her Heinous actually considered how doing it again would literally cause rioting. It's actually hard to believe she'd even give a damn, but for some reason, she and her crooked little minions didn't cheat - or didn't cheat enough.

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skod's picture

I don't believe that Stein actually got less than 1% nationally. I think they stole a lot of Stein votes- and still lost anyway. Pity...

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Deja's picture

And, according to the numbers, she took Ft Bend County, Texas (mentioned in a Stephen D Fraction Magic essay regarding electronic election fraud).

The head election guy for the county, tonight on the local news, said it was very odd, and was not seen in either of the Obama-win elections. He claimed Hispanics did it, except the news mentioned something like 120k Hispanic voters (might have been 120k "new" Hispanic voters, which would make it more believable).

Anyway, I think she stole Ft. Bend County, Texas. But, I guess she didn't want to be as obviously blatant as in the primary, and just didn't steal enough.

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Roger Fox's picture

for anything thats not business as usual. People are pissed, we didn;t get real change, and were told to exchange our hope for pragmatism at the gate.

Or simply put, its the year of the populist. Because fuck that whole ball of wax.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

I agree with you about the bad news. It always is bad when Republicans control the government.

With respect to the nominee, I think there are five factors you overlooked. Those five factors are: Honduras, Haiti, Libya, Syria, and The Ukraine. I submit that the public, whether white working class males or the rest of us, has no further appetite for foreign interventions and regime changes. Who was next on the Clinton hit list? What I read was a prime candidate for the HC treatment was Eritrea. You have heard of Eritrea, the little country that could which doesn't accept foreign aid and kicked out a passel of NGOs? Demonization has been in place for at least a year, with misbehaving refugees being labeled Eritrean no matter where they were from.

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Mary Bennett

cybrestrike's picture

Because I don't know what foreign policy the Republicans will go for once Trump sits behind the Resolute Desk. Outside of "Invade everyone with natural resources", that is.

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tapu dali's picture

an Eritrean won the NY Marathon last Sunday.

Clearly, we can't have that kind of insouciant lese-majeste.

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

Pluto's Republic's picture

Those five factors are: Honduras, Haiti, Libya, Syria, and The Ukraine. I submit that the public, whether white working class males or the rest of us, has no further appetite for foreign interventions and regime changes.

But, I'm the only single issue/first priority voter I know.

In other words, if bringing the current US international murder spree to a full stop, immediately, is not the number one goal of a presidential candidate, then the US offers nothing I want to be part of.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
SparkyGump's picture

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

...that blaming the voters is a losing campaign strategy.

(Note: This is not a comment on the diary's analysis. This is about what not to do with such information if one is campaigning, i.e. this is part of the post-mortem analysis of the Clinton campaign.)

Mitt Romney: "...47%..."
Hillary Clinton: "...deplorables..."
Hillary Clinton's campaign" "...Bernie Bros..."

If you are a candidate attempting to win an election -- which means you need more votes than the other candidate -- you run against the other candidate, not against the other candidate's voters. You can say, about the other candidate's platform or words or behavior, "That's racist" or "That's misogynist". Then invite the other candidate's voters away from that, not by chastising them, but by convincing them your way is better.

When Clinton said "deplorables", I said, "oh shit". She just gave Trump supporters their rallying cry. They are going to wear that as a proud label. And that's exactly what they did. Let's be very clear: It wasn't because they were proud of being racist or misogynist or *ist. It's because they were sneered at and dismissed. As I said at the time, over in TOP, "deplorables" was their "Yankee Doodle", and my prediction was fulfilled almost immediately, as Trump supporters changed their social media handles to include "deplorable", put it on T-shirts and signs and bumper stickers, used it in speeches,... That one word, all by itself, appears to have poked Trump supporters' and Trump leaners' "What did you just call me??" button. Again, this is not an *ism: It is normal human psychology. Words sting, disdain stings, and it is very hard not to have a negative reaction against the person dissing you. If one is already inclined against the candidate, getting dissed by them just cements the feeling. How many more people did that tip over to get up and stump for Trump or vote for Trump? By the evidence of the response at the time, plenty -- maybe enough to tip a close race.

So here's another principle: If you are a candidate, do not do the other candidate's recruiting and get-out-the-vote work for them.

I've seen candidates who get these principles instinctively, because they are just plain empathetic people. They don't need the above as technical campaign advice. As an example, although he's not a candidate, look at Michael Moore's Trumpland -- that's a model for how to acknowledge the concerns and pain points of the other candidate's voters, without either pandering or sneering. It was a valiant effort, but was too late in the election cycle to make much difference, and its message was, unfortunately, undermined by the Clinton campaign's own messaging. I'd have to say...if empathy doesn't come naturally to a candidate...at least, to a candidate on the left...maybe they are in the wrong business. But still, if a candidate is empathy-challenged, they can still recognize that dissing the other candidates voters, handing them a rallying cry, and thus energizing them, are not good campaign strategies.

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cybrestrike's picture

After the Clinton camp dropped that gem, they were all over mainstream media touting how rad that speech was. They constantly ignored the real world while trapped in their bubble. Deplorables put Trump over the top. It was her "Let them eat cake" moment.

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I saw a pic of a baby with a onesie on that said "I'm an adorable deplorable". It made me chuckle.

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Not only did they fail to recognize the problem, and begin immediate damage control, starting with an apology, but they doubled down on it. Clinton fans were crowing about it.

How could they fail to understand plain old ordinary *normal psychology*? What it said to me was that they regarded Trump *voters* as *adversaries*. They were *not* thinking of them as *human beings*. That attitude flowed down from the head, and the followers...followed, without thought.

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I am sure that my friends and DINOs will blame me for the election. The fact is that Clinton and her organization lost the election.
As a progressive I really felt that she was including me among her deplorables. The other fact is that many Americans are tired of more and more war. Hillary's love affair with the "bomb" was downright scary.

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mouselander's picture

and they will always be shit. Anyone who thinks the Trump revolution can be swept away by a re-tooled, leaner and meaner Democratic Party is suffering from massive delusion. The neoliberal train didn't jump the tracks as the result of the (s)election of George W. Bush, and it won't as a result of Trump either. There is a veritable lattice work of highly placed and inter-connected operatives in government, industry, media, and on K Street who have a huge vested interest in preserving the status quo, even if it means being consigned to the "loyal opposition." Good luck in breaking that up in the space of four years. And it's not as if it hasn't been tried before.

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inactive account

Thank you for the most thoughtful recap I've read today. You stimulated great discussion as well.

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[The Elites] literally had no idea that the plebs were that angry. Cloistered away (aware or otherwise) from the struggles [and experiences] of the everyday American ...

The serfs use this???

During 1992 Presidential Election campaign, challenger Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas attacked the incumbent president George H. W. Bush as not doing enough to assist the working middle-class and being “out of touch” with the common man. A gaffe–overhyped by media–played right into Clinton’s hands on February 5th, when the president visited a national grocer’s convention in Orlando, Florida.

There Bush expressed amazement at new grocery store technology, first reported by Andrew Rosenthal in the New York Times. (Rosenthal wasn’t even there at the convention. He based his article on a two-paragraph report filed by the lone pool newspaperman, Gregg McDonald of the Houston Chronicle, who wrote that Bush had a “look of wonder” on his face.) Though it is still disputed what Bush expressed amazement about, it was widely reported at the time that Bush’s amazement was over the checkout scanner-technology widely used by grocery stores since 1980, the very year Bush, a career bureaucrat, moved into the vice-presidential mansion.

Failing to be familiar with this technology made Bush appear to be an elitist who didn’t even have to go to the grocery store, and thus someone who was unable to feel the financial pinch facing ordinary Americans. It sank his re-election campaign. However, it was also argued that Bush was impressed by new scanner technology that could weigh groceries and read damaged bar codes. The Times refused to retract.

Above photo by Barry Thumma/Associated Press

Emphases mine to enhance my point about Clueless Hillary Should Have Known.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

The last time Republicans got everything that they wanted, they wrecked the planet, they wrecked the economy, and they were run out of the White House and Congress.

The GOP now have certain legal instruments they didn't really have the need to exert before. They can now impose their version of Gleichschaltung to homogenize the new ruling clique and suppress all others, using such laws as the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and some of Obama's own Executive Orders, like this one. They aren't about to risk losing power again, not when they have the public ready to act as their Brown Shirts. Not when the FBI is ready to act as the American Schutzstaffel.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

Great post, but if I may, would like to point out that the TPP and automatically Fast-Tracked other 'trade bills' which are vehicles for offshoring control of domestic law in involved countries, via 'legalized' extortion', already include 'law' against regulation of involved business/industry by the public and instead allow for these self-interests to regulate the public obligated to provide them with their self-anticipated maximized future profits, to be drained out of the rest of the world right to the last drop of blood one way or another.

This Bush-initiated, Clinton-promoted, Obama-pushed privately agreed illegal and unconstitutional hostile corporate takeover already includes that copied below and anything else potentially affecting guaranteed profits for The Right People, regardless of whoever TPTB place in office to enact their policies and law. (This is why I believe that they no longer need more than one party to play against the other and doubt that any pretense of electoral choice will long be maintained.)

... THE BAD NEWS
First, the bad news. The repeal of Obamacare. The attempt to reverse any marijuana legalization that passed. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (if it doesn’t pass in the lame duck session). Wall Street deregulation. Social Security cuts (and the Social Safety Net in general). ... Massive tax cuts for the wealthy. ...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Repeal Obamacare? It's a big time looser, it's repeal will be met with dancing in the streets - until we realize how bad a Trump replacement will be. It may take another 20 years to get single payer, but if repealing Obamacare is the only way to get there so be it. That one's on Obama. The TPP? Trump wants to be idolized, not burned in effigy - no way. The same with Social Security - and besides, the FICA tax is the biggest wealth destroyer in our society, like Obanacare, its repeal will be seen as a positive , until we see the need for something better. Pot? Like SS, who's base do you think is a stoner?
Now Wall Street dereg and tax cuts, there you got me.

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On to Biden since 1973

Steven D's picture

But it is more thoughtful and engaging and nuanced than what TOP is putting up. As for misogyny, that doesn't explain the fact that fewer women voted for her than Obama, a black man constantly vilified because of his ancestry. Yet he managed to win white working class votes in larger margins in the rust belt states in 2012 than Clinton did in 2016.

This electoral result smacks of desperation by people struggling mightily with income inequality, despair and alienation. People desperate for change who were given the choice of a deeply distrusted and elitist corporate promoted status quo candidate that as soon as she won the nomination discarded the base of her populist opponent as so much toxic waste in order to court Republican votes or a failed reality TV star.

However, Trump continually hammered Clinton on the trade agreements, the fact that our economy doesn't work for anyone other than the one percent, and so despite all his baggage he was seen by many of them as a better option than the candidate everyone knew was in the pockets of Wall Street. They saw Trump as the lesser of two evils, and Hillary never gave them a good argument as to why they were wrong.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Here is Mike Figueredo's post-mortem on the campaign. Well worth listening to...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxe1a5BUHZg]

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