Why did Hillary lose? The anti-war vote

Why did Hillary lose the 2016 election? Misogyny? Jill Stein? Russia?

Or was it that voters in crucial swing states got weary of sending their children off to pointless wars?
A new study says the latter.

In this paper we empirically explore whether this divide—the casualty gap—contributed to Donald Trump’s surprise victory in November 2016. The data analysis presented in this working paper finds that indeed, in the 2016 election Trump was speaking to this forgotten part of America. Even controlling in a statistical model for many other alternative explanations, we find that there is a significant and meaningful relationship between a community’s rate of military sacrifice and its support for Trump. Our statistical model suggests that if three states key to Trump’s victory – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – had suffered even a modestly lower casualty rate, all three could have flipped from red to blue and sent Hillary Clinton to the White House.

Let's forget for a moment that Trump was totally lying about his foreign policy, because no one knew that for sure until after January.
What this study indicates is one thing that we all knew already - that no one likes wars when a loved one gets maimed or killed in it.
However, the study goes deeper and looks at more than just the 2016 election. It looks at long-term trends.

“[M]ore than a quarter of counties had experienced a casualty rate more than 3.5 times greater, and 10% of counties had suffered casualty rates of more than 7 deaths per 100,000 residents. Voters in such communities increasingly abandoned Republican candidates in a series of elections in the 2000s.”

Thus at least part of the reason the Dems won in 2006 and 2008 was because the GOP condidates were war hawks.
On the flip-side, at least part of the reason the Dems lost in 2016 was because Hillary was a war hawk.

“The significant inroads that Trump made among constituencies exhausted by fifteen years of war – coupled with his razor thin electoral margin (which approached negative three million votes in the national popular tally) – should make Trump even more cautious in pursuing ground wars.
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Make bigly promises to get elected, forget every one of them once the office is attained. He won't worry his orange head one bit about what some of his supporters think, the loons will still be with him.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@lizzyh7
There's nothing like losing a loved one to shake one's faith in the goodness of wars and the people who start them.

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Pricknick's picture

Michigan is a heavy recruitment state for all branches of the military and as such usually suffers a greater incidence of casualties. Many small and large cities have higher than average unemployment. The main reason I joined in the 70's was because there were no jobs.
Perfect fodder areas for TPTB and they like it that way. The all volunteer force is made up mainly by those in need.
Rich or well off kids need not apply unless it's to the academies.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

snoopydawg's picture

but it doesn't seem to matter much how many soldiers are killed in the wars, they continue to support the military.
Many truly believe that the military is keeping us safe from the people who want to kill us, especially Al Qaida and ISIS.

Many people blame Obama for what is happening in Iraq because they think that he willing pulled the military out instead of keeping it there.
It doesn't matter how many people explain how it was Bush's status of forces agreement that made the military have to leave.
Obama did try to keep us involved in Iraq, but the Iraqi government told him that they would only be allowed to stay if Obama agreed to let the Iraqi government be in charge of war crimes.

Hill Air Force base is located 10 miles from my house and many people have family stationed there or working there. I used to work with many people who had family in Iraq and they supported the war because of the freedom and defense malarkey. I just couldn't get through to them.

The military worship in this state is just as high as police worship.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg
is that it matters when it's your friends and/or loved ones.
Those military worshipers probably don't know anyone who got killed or maimed in one of our wars.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@gjohnsit

I think the point here is that it matters when it's your friends and/or loved ones.
Those military worshipers probably don't know anyone who got killed or maimed in one of our wars.

Don't count on it, gjohnsit! There are plenty of folks out there, especially around our military community, who brag about their people who got killed or maimed in one or more of our wars, and still insist we support said wars!

The Stupid, it is quite strong in some places..... Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Wink's picture

@thanatokephaloides
I live 10-15 miles from an Army base that regularly rotates troops in and out of the sandbox. The stupid is strong here.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

@Wink
of the military have a bit more control over the news media their troops are exposed to?

It seems to me that used to be the case, but now with the internet, can that control still be in effect?

Military people always seem a bit too ... uniform. To me, anyway.

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snoopydawg's picture

@gjohnsit many of my co-workers had gone to their friends son's funerals. There were 5 funerals within days of each other. The community was rocked because of how many soldiers were killed from one unit.
They knew that it could have been their sons lying in those caskets.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@gjohnsit many people who lose a loved one in a war desperately need to believe that loss had a real purpose. To lose a lived one, and have it be utterly pointless, would bring unbearable pain. Most of these people become incredibly invested in the establishment propaganda, to avoid that pain. Telling these people the war was pointless only drives them in deeper. The establishment knows this, and uses these people ruthlessly.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@snoopydawg

Hill Air Force base is located 10 miles from my house and many people have family stationed there or working there. I used to work with many people who had family in Iraq and they supported the war because of the freedom and defense malarkey. I just couldn't get through to them.

The military worship in this state is just as high as police worship.

snark:
Come be my neighbor, snoopydawg! Within a 30-mile "crow flies" radius, I have:

Fort Carson (US Army)
Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base (the only US Air Force base in the nation without a military airport of its own!)
Peterson Air Force Base
Schriever Air Force Base
US Air Force Academy

There hasn't been a predominant civilian industry here since my early childhood (I'm 58 years old). And the predominant view here is "to support the troops, support the wars!".
/snark

I must say that in my experience the Army community at Fort Carson doesn't generally share that appetite for forever war. Must have something to do with having to fight up close and personal rather than from 30,000 feet away or even sitting at a drone control console here in the States (US Chair Force).

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

snoopydawg's picture

@thanatokephaloides if this country is targeted by some big bombs. I actually wouldn't mind, especially if they were nuclear. Who wants to die from radiation?
One big light show and it's over.
Smile

Do you have jets flying over your house day after day?
I grew up in the flight path of the base and they flew for hours over my house doing touch and goes.
I live further out, but they still fly over my area. They are higher so not as noisy.
Hill is home to the F-35. Bigger noise, yeah. Go team!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@snoopydawg

Do you have jets flying over your house day after day? I grew up in the flight path of the base and they flew for hours over my house doing touch and goes. I live further out, but they still fly over my area. They are higher so not as noisy. Hill is home to the F-35. Bigger noise, yeah. Go team!

Not jets every day; but choppers, both military and police. We do occasionally get the jets; and when we do, they're right on top of us. Of the bases I listed, the closest to my home is the US Air Force Academy. You can tell when Air Force has a home game or a graduation; the windows rattle for days on end! (And the Chocolate cat disappears!)

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Creosote.'s picture

@thanatokephaloides
They hated these sports events -- it was a huge mess, with officers coming in from everywhere on the public's dime, and often ignorant about flight protocol.

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and it's a neoliberal that does it.

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I'm not sure if it was peer-reviewed. I'm not familiar with SSRN.

We used to have an anti-war movement. It was co-opted by Democrats. Things have only gotten worse.

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@psychodrew It's not a long paper, so I read the methodology part. The authors did find a significant relationship between the casualty rate and Trump's performance. They were able to statistically control for a number of other factors that would account for the effect and they still found the relationship. That said, I'm skeptical of how they measured their dependent variable. They used the difference between Trump's and Romney's share of the vote. If this is a backlash against the elite, why not look at the change in Democrat's vote share as well. There is also some concern about using a change score in the manner they used it. Based on the statistics provided in the paper, I'm not convinced that the vote share really made a difference. The effect was significant, but quite small.

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Wink's picture

@psychodrew
connection either. There likely are some Repub voters that voted For the anti-war candidate - Trump - this time, but I doubt it was enough to swing the state. I suspect most voted for Trump becuz they were more anti-Hillary than anti-war, but I could be wrong and your mileage may vary.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

@psychodrew Trump won some states by a small amount. But thanks for the commentary on the study. Not everyone can offer a reasoned critique on these things.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

gulfgal98's picture

for why I could not vote for Hillary under any circumstances was her war mongering. I stated the very same before the primaries ever began. I had decided that I would either vote third party or not at all if Hillary was nominated.

Rural and financially distressed communities are the one who have been making the greatest sacrifices for the oligarchs in their wars of imperialism. The people are waking up.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

thanatokephaloides's picture

@gulfgal98

My number one reason for why I could not vote for Hillary under any circumstances was her war mongering. I stated the very same before the primaries ever began. I had decided that I would either vote third party or not at all if Hillary was nominated.

Exactly what I did as well.

Bernie Sanders' anti-war credentials may not be the best, but one would have to work full time at it for many months to have a worse set of them than Hillary Clinton does.

Rural and financially distressed communities are the one who have been making the greatest sacrifices for the oligarchs in their wars of imperialism. The people are waking up.

And they're not in the best of moods.....

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides anti-war creds are thin, I don't think it escapes him that making domestic economics healthy must, sooner or later, lead to the circumstance of war-making's ruin of our resources.

Any time a politician goes directly against the lunatic war, they make enemies of both parties plus the media.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

@gulfgal98 But I was #NeverHillary when she emerged as a force behind the invasion of Libya. Her shifting views on everything, her sense of entitlement, and her cozying up to Wall Street only solidified my thinking.

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Big Al's picture

Nah, still wouldn't have worked. Too many pictures of her with red devil horns on the internet. That was probably the biggest reason.

But it's clear, all Clinton and the democratic party have to do is become antiwar for the 2018 and 2020 elections and they'll win back the house and senate and make Hillary the first woman president after all. And they all lived happily ever after.

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Bollox Ref's picture

just about covers it.

The policy 'details' and warmongering just made things worse.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Wink's picture

@Bollox Ref
reason. I just knew the "Breaking the Glass Ceiling" Tour would have been Way long and Way unpleasant. That tour would have gone deep into May with MSLSD right on her heels covering every nuance.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Wink

Was pretty much my reason. I just knew the "Breaking the Glass Ceiling" Tour would have been Way long and Way unpleasant. That tour would have gone deep into May with MSLSD right on her heels covering every nuance.

I've never had any acid which did Hillary Clinton to my mind.

Maybe what MSDLC needs is a good stiff dose of Owsley or SANDOZ Delysid!

Wink


source

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

earthling1's picture

over Syria put me off. But when Trump said he wanted better relations with Russia, I knew then and there I woundn't be voting for her.
Didn't vote for Trump either. But definitely wasn't voting for her.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1 made in public when she was SoS put me off. She can't have made life any easier for American diplomats in the ME.

I decided not to vote for her under any circumstances for two reasons:
1. Her war mongering, and
2. Her support for the biotech industry. Two weeks before she announced her presidential candidacy, she gave a major speech to a biotech industry convention in which she recommended that biotech companies should do a better job of propagandizing (my word, not hers) the public on behalf of their products. The same super lobbyist who managed to get DoJ to shut down its antitrust suit against Monsanto was bundling contributions for her.

Plus, her demonstrated terminal incompetence.

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Mary Bennett

@Nastarana but then I read Chris Hitchens' "The Trials of William Jefferson Clinton" as well as some other books that were much more damning of Democrats in particular. "Bailout" by Neil Borofsky, both of Mike Lofgren's. Then Thomas Frank and "Listen Liberal" just cemented it for me - it is the outright betrayal of everything my stupid ass thought they stood for that made my final decision. She already was a turn off to me personally, just the way she speaks and the look on her face, and I don't think there's anything remotely sexist in that assessment. I'm sure there are quite a few women who would say so, but after being in the Army and then private industry working for both women and men, I believe I can honestly say I'd recognize good old fashioned sexism when I see it. The kind where there is a real victim and not some whiner wailing about not making the C suites.

Then reading all I do and have here about her history? My God, I have one friend I know voted for her and we'll never see eye to eye there. I do think I've maybe helped that friend see the light though on Hillary's blatant and cynical use of misogyny as the excuse for her loss to a cartoon character with everything stacked in HER favor. We had a good discussion about pink pussy hats and just why I found them so offensive from the first minute I saw them.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Nastarana

2. Her [Hillary Clinton's] support for the biotech industry. Two weeks before she announced her presidential candidacy, she gave a major speech to a biotech industry convention in which she recommended that biotech companies should do a better job of propagandizing (my word, not hers) the public on behalf of their products. The same super lobbyist who managed to get DoJ to shut down its antitrust suit against Monsanto was bundling contributions for her.

Have you noticed the recent crop-up of commercials by lawyers suing Monsatan because Roundup exposure is now suspected of causing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in those exposed?

Imagine what such a person's life would be like under President Hillary Clinton.... shudder!!

Sad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

earthling1's picture

by just standing up and saying: "I'm a homeless bisexual Satanist that wants peace on earth and bring our troops home and keep them here".

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Wink's picture

@earthling1

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

dervish's picture

I think that observation has merit.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

orlbucfan's picture

Floridumb is military. State went for hairballed brain. Both my BIL and hubby's nephew joined the military cos of job, furthering their education, travel. BIL is retired Air Force, and cannot stand the FRightwingnuts. Nephew (actually my hubby's 3rd cousin) has just graduated from high school. He enlisted for the job and the travel. He hasn't quite figured out politics yet (18 yo). Interesting diary. I didn't vote for either rotten candidate. I was sick and tired of seeing the quality of POTUS continue to deteriorate. Hope something (accidentally) better emerges in 2020. Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

@orlbucfan I hope the Floridians realize they are soon about to be washed into the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. I would be looking for a house on high ground NOW before the RE guys buy up everything in sight.

"Floridumb" I love it!

"Frightwing"? I am so using that. I hope you don't mind.

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Mary Bennett

gulfgal98's picture

@Nastarana as Floridiots. Blum 3

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

dervish's picture

but Her wasn't just any doofus, she was an industrial grade uber-doofus.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."