DOOM, or The Official 2016 US Election Thread

[Corpsey]

https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class

'Isn’t what happened to Clinton unfair? Of course it is. It is unfair that she wasn’t a plausible candidate until she was so overqualified she was suddenly unqualified due to past mistakes. It is unfair that Clinton is called a “nasty woman” while Trump is seen as a real man. It’s unfair that Clinton only did so well in the first debate because she wrapped her candidacy in a shimmy of femininity. When she returned to attack mode, it was the right thing for a presidential candidate to do but the wrong thing for a woman to do. The election shows that sexism retains a deeper hold that most imagined. But women don’t stand together: WWC women voted for Trump over Clinton by a whopping 28-point margin — 62% to 34%. If they’d split 50-50, she would have won.

Class trumps gender, and it’s driving American politics. Policy makers of both parties — but particularly Democrats if they are to regain their majorities — need to remember five major points.'

 

[Mr. Tea]

While it's almost certainly true that many men, and perhaps some women too, didn't vote for Clinton just because she's a woman, I think it's important not to assert that all right-thinking people must support Clinton for exactly the same reason. I understand the symbolic importance of having someone in charge from a demographic that's never held that post before and is underrepresented in politics generally, but it's vital to remember that it is *only* symbolic. I mean, was the 1980s a golden age of feminism in UK parliamentary politics just because we had a female PM? Did racism in the USA disappear or even significantly reduce because a dark-skinned man has sat in the Oval Office for the last eight years?

I don't doubt the sincerity of Hillary Clinton's pro-woman policies but would these really have made her a smarter choice for women than Bernie Sanders? Bear in mind she represents the continuation of the neoliberal status quo. Now people have called the downturn in America since 2007-8 a 'man-cession' because it's hit the manufacturing industry particularly hard, but it's also said that recessions/depressions in general affect women, as the primary carers of children, even worse than they affect men, particularly in a country with such a rudimentary welfare state. It's certainly not helped in terms of closing the gap between men's and women's pay (or, if it has helped at all, it's helped in the wrong way, i.e. by lowering men's wages rather than raising women's).

Class trumps gender...

!!!

 

[vimothy]

the thing that was new for this election (to me, anyway) was all these predictor percentage sites: 538 stating clinton with a 71.6% (or whatever) chance of winning, the ny times gauging it at 89%, etc. they come off as so declarative, people started to get hung up on them and seemed to convince themselves that the election was one way when it was really quite another way. i know those percentages are based on an aggregate of polling data but it's different from just seeing poll results.

I watched the Big Short recently and there's an interesting parallel with the models that underpinned the securitization alphabet-soup that was ultimately patient zero in the '08 financial crisis. Mathematically, it was impossible for Trump to win (even though common sense tells you that this is ridiculous), just as mathematically it was impossible for a pool of subprime mortgages to go bad (again, despite common sense). In both cases people used numbers to convince themselves of what they wanted to be true.

 

[droid]

How can you still be banging this drum? there were serious problems with polling, and 'liberal' groupthink undoubtedly played a part in some of the wilder predictions, but the pre-eminent US analyst gave Trump a 1 in 3 chance of winning. That is very, very far from 'mathematically impossible'.

In both cases people used numbers to convince themselves of what they wanted to be true.

Oh, the irony!

 

[Benny Bunter]

https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class

'Isn’t what happened to Clinton unfair? Of course it is. It is unfair that she wasn’t a plausible candidate until she was so overqualified she was suddenly unqualified due to past mistakes. It is unfair that Clinton is called a “nasty woman” while Trump is seen as a real man. It’s unfair that Clinton only did so well in the first debate because she wrapped her candidacy in a shimmy of femininity. When she returned to attack mode, it was the right thing for a presidential candidate to do but the wrong thing for a woman to do. The election shows that sexism retains a deeper hold that most imagined. But women don’t stand together: WWC women voted for Trump over Clinton by a whopping 28-point margin — 62% to 34%. If they’d split 50-50, she would have won.

Class trumps gender, and it’s driving American politics. Policy makers of both parties — but particularly Democrats if they are to regain their majorities — need to remember five major points.'

funny one this, but a pretty typical response. She correctly identifies the problem of masculinity in the first part of the article; the need to appeal to WWC 'manly dignity', she wishes that 'manliness worked differently', but then her 'five major points' do nothing to address these issues and she doesn't mention women again.

"But women don't stand together" - true, but we need to be asking why not? Its no good just saying its all so unfair, then just rolling over and accepting it, there needs to be systemic change.

 

[firefinga]

The alt-right are internet trolls with little political significance outside of the febrile imagination of a few twenty-something, twitter-addicted journalists.

Steven Bannon now the president of the USA's chief strategist. Can't get any more politically insignificant, can you?

 

[firefinga]

"But women don't stand together" - true, but we need to be asking why not? Its no good just saying its all so unfair, then just rolling over and accepting it, there needs to be systemic change.

working class women have far more in common with other working class men than they have with middle class women. I mean it's not THAT difficult.

 

[Benny Bunter]

working class women have far more in common with other working class men than they have with middle class women. I mean it's not THAT difficult.

an overly simplistic viewpoint, overlooking the fact that women occupy a subordinate position to men in all economic classes, in all races, in all societies across the world. Its called patriarchy.

 

[firefinga]

an overly simplistic viewpoint,

Nope, an accurate one. It's just something a guilt-ridden middle class'er can't stomach.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Nope, an accurate one. It's just something a guilt-ridden middle class'er can't stomach.

I'm not middle class for a start.

And you clearly have never gave a moment's thought to the issue, so why weigh in?

 

[firefinga]

And you clearly have never gave a moment's thought to the issue, so why weigh in?

I have, and I am hitting the bullseye apparently.

 

[firefinga]

BTW, this must have been the first big election the working class is considered as the key factor again after how many decades now of the "elections are being won by and for the middle class" mantra?

 

[Benny Bunter]

what I'm saying is, the divisions between women do not begin and end with economic class. Thats over-simplistic.

 

[baboon2004]

working class women have far more in common with other working class men than they have with middle class women. I mean it's not THAT difficult.

It doesn't seem that cut-and-dried though, given that working class women have voted overwhelmingly for an upper class man. Internalised misogyny definitely has a place here - is there any research on American women's general attitude towards a female president? It's all v difficult to judge though, in the absence of any other female presidential candidate in history.

 

[firefinga]

It doesn't seem that cut-and-dried though, given that working class women have voted overwhelmingly for an upper class man.

Yes, but Trump made them believe he was speaking for them, for the "working class" as a whole. I am sure he appeared to them as the "benevolent" capitalist/entepreneur who will bring back jobs.

 

[Corpsey]

That HBR article makes the point that working-class men (and women?) dislike the professional classes but admire the wealthy.

It's hard to tell as a non-American but I feel like Trump's accent and bearing doesn't really 'code' as upper class. He comes across more like a working-class guy who's made himself rich. And he can make YOU rich too!

Benny - yeah, I thought that, she doesn't suggest that these ideas about manliness and a woman's role should be changed. It's an interesting/depressing quandary for liberals, that their progressive values are probably not shared by a great proportion of the electorate.

 

[baboon2004]

Yes, but Trump made them believe he was speaking for them, for the "working class" as a whole. I am sure he appeared to them as the "benevolent" capitalist/entepreneur who will bring back jobs.

yeah, point taken. but had clinton adopted trump rhetoric, would she have won....i dunno. problem is he's a blank slate onto which people can project any fantasy they want, whereas she has a record that would undercut any protestations of caring for the working class.

 

[firefinga]

yeah, point taken. but had clinton adopted trump rhetoric, would she have won....i dunno. problem is he's a blank slate onto which people can project any fantasy they want, whereas she has a record that would undercut any protestations of caring for the working class.

Absolutely, but she didn't even appear trying that much (appealing to the working class, that is).

 

[Mr. Tea]

That HBR article makes the point that working-class men (and women?) dislike the professional classes but admire the wealthy.

It's hard to tell as a non-American but I feel like Trump's accent and bearing doesn't really 'code' as upper class. He comes across more like a working-class guy who's made himself rich.

It's amazing how few people seem to know or care that he inherited a portion of his father's business almost certainly worth over a hundred million dollars (*Doctor Evil face*) in 2016 terms. But then, his greatest skill is getting people to believe whatever he says, especially when it's about himself.

 

[vimothy]

Oh, the irony!

Meaning?

The 'pre-eminent US analyst', assuming you mean Nate Silver, gave Clinton a 71.4% chance (and not '1 in 3' - which suggests a precision that is clearly not warranted). He deserves credit for being less bullish and perhaps more honest about the limitations of his models than most. He was also an outlier. For example, the Huffington Post's model gave Clinton 'a 98.2 percent chance of winning the presidency', stating that 'Donald Trump has essentially no path to an Electoral College victory'. In the UK, the Independent ran the following headline a few days before the votes were cast: 'Can Donald Trump win the election? Here’s the mathematical reason why it’s impossible for him to become President'.