We lost.
Because misogyny. (See image above)
Because racism.
Because xenophobia.
Because of voter suppression.
In North Carolina:
Even after a federal appeals court struck down the state’s outrageous voter-suppression law in July, saying that it targeted black voters “with almost surgical precision,” officials were scheming to work around it. On Monday, the state’s Republican Party issued a news release boasting that cutbacks in early voting hours reduced black turnout by 8.5 percent below 2012 levels, even as the number of white early voters increased by 22.5 percent.
Those probably all contributed. But the answer is probably simpler than any or all of those reasons. We lost because the American people really don’t give a shit. And half of those that do care don’t have a clue about policy—nor do they want to get one.
A mere one-quarter of all eligible voters elected Donald Trump, while 75 percent either didn’t bother to vote or voted for someone else. Some comfort must be taken from the fact that of those who did vote, more voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump.
But what disturbs me more than the percentage of people who did not care enough to vote, since that is pretty normal, sadly, for our electorate, is the triumph of ignorance.
The Washington Post finally got around to writing about some of Trump’s conflicts of interest on Wednesday, after devoting untold column inches to the nonexistent conflicts posed by the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. Regular readers of Daily Kos knew about Trump’s indebtedness to the Chinese and the Russians and the German banks, but the mainstream media, especially cable news, seemed to ignore the problems that this debt would create, if it covered them at all.
Included in the comments on Wednesday’s Post article is the claim that Hillary Clinton sold the Russians 20 percent of our supply of plutonium. Now the writer of that comment appeared very proud of himself for popping that little factoid into the conversation, totally unaware that not only did Hillary Clinton not sell the Russians plutonium, she was never in a position to do so, and in any case, it was uranium, not plutonium. And there actually is a difference. The claim originated in the conspiracy novel Clinton Cash, was publicized by Brietbart, and repeatedly debunked with clear explanations by multiple nonpartisan fact checkers.
A personal acquaintance challenged me to admit that Hillary Clinton was guilty of something (anything) based on a partial transcript of James Comey’s testimony to Congress:
Comey enumerated all of the crimes that were committed back in July, but then said he wouldn't recommend that she be charged because he couldn't prove criminal intent. If that's okay with you, then I really wonder about your concern for the rule of law. If it pleases you that Hillary Clinton escapes again (and you know in your heart that she's guilty of some of the things she has been charged with), that is really sad.
She was sure that a lack of criminal intent was only a technicality that prevented a prison term for Hillary, but she was actually guilty enough to warrant jail time. So, my friend knew enough to read the testimony, but did not have enough legal knowledge to provide any context for that testimony, or to know that criminal intent is an essential element of any crime. Nor did her right-wing sources bother to provide that information. Even though one of them, Judicial Watch, has been on a notorious Clinton witch hunt for years, and claims to know something about the law.
The bubble that surrounds her (and so many other Trump voters) presents just enough information and highly flawed analysis that they feel confident in their knowledge. Even though that knowledge is pitifully shallow and always incomplete, it inflates their fears and stokes their anger.
And while Fox News may have catered to this demographic—hell, they created it—other cable networks have followed along, presenting superficial, extremely misleading headlines that confirmed the fears of the Trump voters.
Many years ago, before Rupert Murdoch began commercializing government in search of profit, those of us interested in the nuts and bolts of public policy had to read books and magazines (usually those without pictures) as well as newspapers. Television would provide broad outlines of policy disputes, but any in-depth coverage was only found on PBS, that boring channel whose nightly lineup included the The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. No commercials, no graphics, simply talking heads who explained one major story or issue every evening. There may not have been many of us who knew anything about policy, but our knowledge was rooted in reality.
Today the half-truths of Fox News are not restricted to that channel. They appear not only in the right wing websites online, but all over AM talk radio. The fact that most of Trump’s supporters were rural voters was no surprise to me. Out in the rural areas of America, people will often drive 20 minutes to buy a carton of milk. AM radio is their constant companion, in their cars and trucks and in their shops and kitchens. It is all they hear, and all they know. Not unlike high school sophomores, they are proud of their newfound knowledge, which is just great enough to know that everyone else is wrong.
Or hell, maybe it was just our time: