While that's true, he didn't win because of a huge population of racists and xenophobes - he won because he was able to win Midwest states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
This is important - any competent Democratic candidate should have at least won both Michigan and Wisconsin. Michigan hasn't go Republican in a presidential election since 1988 (George H.W. Bush), and Wisconsin hasn't gone Republican since 1984 (Reagan's re-election). In Wisconsin, Clinton got almost what Romney got in 2012, which is utterly pathetic. In Michigan, those who voted for Jill Stein (of the Green Party) went up by 30,000, which is a substantial amount, much of that due to the voters' dislike of Clinton.
In Pennsylvania (which hasn't gone Republican since 1988), Clinton got edged out (Stein got almost 30,000 more votes than she got in 2012 also), and she got blown-out by an 8.3% margin in Ohio (which "went" Republican in 2004, if you believe that type of thing).
Obama won all four of those states both times, yet Clinton was such an incompetent candidate that should couldn't even manage to win a state like Wisconsin, which has a strong progressive backbone (and partially, that's why she didn't win the state, as Clinton wasn't a progressive).
The point is that Trump may have used racist rhetoric to his advantage - I'm not disputing that. But he won due to two reasons: 1) He was against the TPP and bad trade deals, which Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were both well-known for supporting (look at NAFTA, for instance) and 2) the Democrats nominated one of the weakest possible candidates to go against Trump, and that's after a clearly rigged primary, so people knew how corrupt Clinton was.
I maintain that while Trump had atrocious policies, he was nowhere near as corrupt as Clinton, and I also maintain that most people in the US saw this. They may not have been fans of Clinton, and they may still have voted for her (though deeply unenthusiastically, as she lost so atrociously), but they knew the type of candidate she was.
Trump was able to beat Clinton because his message was a populist one against the TPP, whereas Clinton's message was "Stronger Together" and "I agree with Obama about everything, except I'm even more to the right."
He won the midwest with his consistent talk of the TPP, period. So to be fair, while Clinton was bad, other candidates running would have been too, such as Chafee, who, despite his mostly progressive ten-point platform, also supported the TPP.
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Dungbeatle (282)
8 years ago
He won with the help of Russian interference.
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JigsawX (265)
8 years ago
And yet, Clinton still lost four states that she should have won easy. Given that Russia didn't tamper with voting numbers, that simply is not an acceptable full answer to as why Clinton lost. The policies mattered, and the main reason Clinton lost was because of her atrocious view on the TPP, which Trump, and most working class Americans, opposed.
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Destinata (3326)
8 years ago
My guess is that if you asked most voters what the TPP was, they wouldn't really be able to tell you.
The majority of people just didn't like the direction the country was going, and that in general terms. That's why the Dems lost from the local level up to the White House. You can't keep telling people they're racist scum after they voted for the first black President and expect them to like you. You can't keep telling people that we're winning against ISIS -- you know, "the JV team" -- when we manifestly weren't. You can't keep telling people that Obamacare is a good thing, when they know they didn't get to keep their doctor or their healthcare plan. And you can't keep telling people they're better off now than ever before, when they know they're not.
The cherry on top was all the precious snowflakes that people just got tired of hearing whine as they ran to their safe spaces. They wanted change from the top down to just make it stop. I personally think they got the wrong man in there to effect the change, and they need to boot a few more of the House and Senate leaders out before they'll get anything of importance accomplished. But I don't think most of middle America -- or America in general, for that matter -- knew or cared that much about the TPP.
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JigsawX (265)
8 years ago
I think many working class people who have lost either hours or jobs to atrocious trade deals know exactly what the TPP is, even if they can't go over every little thing about it.
The problem is, if everything you said was right, that still does not explain why a Democrat could lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
Keep in mind, Obama has consistently had an over 50% approval rating. When Trump was elected, Obama's approval rating was something like 52% or so. It does not follow that while a Democratic president has an approval rating over 50%, the Democratic candidate (who is aggressively backed by Obama) cannot win four states in which Obama won twice over. Something is missing from your equation.
If the majority of people didn't like the way the country was going, then Obama likely wouldn't have that high an approval rating. But he did.
I'm not disagreeing with some of what you say - obviously, the Democratic Party had absolutely no idea how to actually connect to the average American (well, progressive Democrats did, but as there were no progressive Democrats running, that doesn't mean much). But I do feel that in the Rust Belt states, economic concerns (including trade) was an important reason 9% of registered Democrats voted for Trump.
Hope this finds you well.
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Destinata (3326)
8 years ago
"The problem is, if everything you said was right, that still does not explain why a Democrat could lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio." They didn't like the way the country was going, and they didn't like the party that was taking us there.
"Keep in mind, Obama has consistently had an over 50% approval rating." Not true: http://www.gallup.com/poll/202742/obama-averages-job-approval-president.aspx
"Barack Obama finished his tenure as president with a 47.9% average job approval rating. He ranks below eight presidents and ahead of only three -- Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman -- in Gallup's polling history." Even ending on a high note didn't help Obama much.
I don't think Obama "aggressively" backed Hillary. In fact, he seemed to keep out of it until the end, and wasn't exactly tirelessly campaigning, then. But then, since his overall rating wasn't the best, I don't think it would have helped her much.
It is said that Bill Clinton told Hillary to try to connect with the Democrat base, which he saw as poor to middle-class whites. That would have targeted the exact voters in the rust belt. But Hillary thought that Obama had put together a new base, and she was playing to them. From what I read, she did well with them, too -- the big city Democrats that voted, that is. But I think a lot of them listened to the polls that said Hillary was going to win in a landslide, and they just didn't go out and vote. The Republicans and the disaffected Dems who thought they weren't being listened to had something to prove, so they voted. Maybe they weren't going to win, they figured -- everyone was telling them so -- but someone would hear that they didn't like what they were seeing.
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JigsawX (265)
8 years ago
You are correct, I should have sourced my information.
Insofar as Obama's approval rating, I use Gallup (this link in particular: http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx).
I should have been clearer. I meant consistently during the 2016 campaign, not during his eight years as a whole. During June through November 2016, Obama's approval rating, according to Gallup, was between 49% - 57%. Even the link you posted said, "His 32nd and final quarter job approval average of 55.7% was his third-highest as president," and it was this I was referring to. I apologize for not being clearer.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, June through November, aside from two weeks, he had over a 50% approval rating based on Gallup polls (from the link I first posted). The reason he wasn't able to help much with Clinton was because most people had already formed an opinion on her, and Democrats who didn't like her (such as those in the Rust Belt states) weren't going to be swayed by Obama. Obviously, this doesn't mean they switch over to Trump - some just didn't vote.
And I've heard the same thing about Bill telling Hillary that. She relied on Obama's base in order to get elected, which failed miserably. I also agree that many thought it was going to be a landslide from the get-go, and didn't vote, which shows that the media ironically helped Trump win by prepping up Clinton as the inevitable winner.
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