Guest post: "We can't compete with Trump's hate - and we shouldn't"

[JosephineMumsnet]

I'm not sure how many Brexits today is supposed to be worth. I started to lose count at around 3am. Then again, the shock is not quite the same as that of the morning of 24 June. If anything, given 2016's track record, it would have felt odd for the US election to go any other way.

Perhaps I have no right to be upset. After all, I'm not even American and even if I was, every expression of dismay will be that of a member of the smug liberal elite (since that is now what anyone who is not virulently right-wing has become). Even so, the parallels between politics in the UK and US seem to be overwhelming. We are witnessing a thuggish take-over by far-right bullies who pose as anti-establishment heroes, men who pretend to smash up the system while their own dominance remains untouched.

Donald Trump – just like the UK's Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage – is someone whose privilege has exempted him from having to follow the same rules as everyone else. He has been able to pose as a rule-breaker even though the normal rules of engagement never applied to him in the first place. Being a woman meant that Hillary Clinton could never have behaved as Trump did and got away with it. Yet precisely because of this she was dismissed as a member of the elite propping up the establishment. But Donald Trump is the establishment and it is rotten to the core.

George W Bush's victory in 2000 might have been bitterly disappointing – not to mention mired in controversy – but this is a disaster of a different order. Bush may have been racist, misogynist, classist, a warmonger, but he was within the bounds of what one might call a small-d democrat. Trump is not.

The dark turn taken by 2016 politics in both the UK and US has involved a shift to mob rule via the threat of violence. Mainstream UK newspapers call judges enemies of the state; Farage calls for Leave voters to take to the streets to 'get even' with politicians intent on 'watering down' the results of a vague, advisory referendum; a female politician is murdered in broad daylight by a far-right activist; and the man who hinted at the assassination of his female opponent is voted into the White House.

A contract has been broken. The likes of Trump and Farage would suggest that it is a contract that has enabled the elite to exploit the people. They would suggest that doing away with the superficial niceties of political discourse rightfully undermines those who use connections and educational advantage to manipulate others. But dispensing with the niceties means nothing if you replace them with threats and even more lies. It simply leaves us with nowhere to go.

I worry about how the left will respond to this disaster. Following Brexit many of us looked to ourselves, seeking refuge in self-blame. After all, if there's something you could have done, then perhaps you could do it now? But I do not want to see conversations about how Democrats should have listened more to 'the people’s' concerns about immigration and racial diversity. Plenty of those who voted for Trump were not the dispossessed; they were white college-educated men, drunk on years of being told that their dominance was under threat. There is no point in the left attempting to appease people who think this way. You just become a fellow hater, albeit someone whose mediocre, half-hearted hate can never compete with the full-blooded, unbridled hatred of men like Trump.

We need something more solid than that. This morning JK Rowling – whom I'd love as our PM – tweeted this: "We stand together. We stick up for the vulnerable. We challenge bigots. We don't let hate speech become normalised. We hold the line." That is what we must do. That is all that we can do. We know who is put most at risk by Trump's victory. The worst thing we could do is to sell them out on the basis that a politics that represents everyone is just too much to ask.

Rich white men are a minority. They do not have the right to intimidate everyone else into submission. This particular battle may be lost but people with compassion, love and the will to do right are not going anywhere.

[Summertime1]

When I read in the original post 'Rich white men are a minority. They do not have the right'

I had one thought, racist much?

[CaesiumTime]

What does his net worth have to do with anything

[GinAndTunic]

Oh, multi-millionaire Michael Moore? The one who is worth an estimated US $50 million? That one?

[0phelia]

There are serious problems if you are poor (which generally means black/hispanic) in America when it comes to actually getting into the poll station. So, the very poorest generally don't vote and results end up reflecting the middle-upper class view. I agree kaija the poorest would have been most likely to vote Clinton.

Michael Moore explains it very well in his prediction made several weeks before the election in this analysis 5 reasons Trump will win

michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

[Kaija]

It was the "leftovers" that were under discussion, and the idea that it was the poorest that voted Trump in. In fact the poorest were more likely to vote for Clinton.

[Pluto30]

But there's a substantial percentage who voted for neither in those income brackets too. I don't see how it's less relevant that wealthy people voted on par for democrats, because the whole premise of the democrat party is to be the "peoples' party". The stats here show that they're just as likely to pull in wealthy, (presumably white) votes as the republicans.

[Kaija]

It's the under $30k and $30-49k brackets that are relevant here, Pluto, if you're arguing that it's the left behind groups that voted Trump in. Both show clear support for Clinton over Trump.

[Pluto30]

Kaija There's no real disparity in this figures though.

46% vs 50% for $50-$100k
47% vs 48% for $100-$200k
48% vs 49% for $200-$250k
46% vs 48% for $250k+

A negligible difference.

[Kaija]

And yet the lower income groups voted in larger number for Clinton and the higher income groups for Trump.

This "left behind" narrative needs to be treated with some caution.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Rich white men are a minority. They do not have the right to intimidate everyone else into submission

And if the OP reads the Forbes magazine article she will find out

Trump owes his election to what one writer has called “the leftover people.” These may be “deplorables” to the pundits but their grievances are real – their incomes and their lifespans have been decreasing. They have noticed, as Thomas Frank has written, that the Democrats have gone “from being the party of Decatur to the party of Martha’s Vineyard.”

Many of these voters were once Democrats, and feel they have been betrayed. And they include a large swath of the middle class, whose fury explains much of what happened tonight. Trump has connected better with these voters than Romney, who won those making between $50,000 and $90,000 by a narrow 52 percent margin. Early analysis of this year’s election shows Trump doing better among these kind of voters

At the same time, however, affluent voters — those making $100,000 and above — seem to have tilted over to the Democrats this year. This is the first time the “rich” have gone against the GOP since the 1964 Goldwater debacle. Obama did better among the wealthy, winning eight of the 10 richest counties in 2012. In virtually all these counties, Clinton did even better

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

This OP has her fan base but yes , generally does not respond if she doesn't get agreement.

I've posted this on another Trump thread. I expect the OP would recoil in horror from Forbes magazine but this seemed a reasoned analysis by a writer who is not a Trump fan.

The Improbable Demographics Behind Donald Trump's Shocking Presidential Victory
www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2016/11/09/donald-trumps-presidenti-victory-demographics/#36ba92b579a8

America is a nation of many economies, but those that produce real, tangible things — food, fiber, energy and manufactured goods — went overwhelmingly for Trump. He won virtually every state from Appalachia to the Rockies, with the exceptions of heavily Hispanic Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and President Obama’s home base of Illinois

[Batteriesallgone]

This isn't the first guest post where the OP has disappeared when the response hasn't been favourable. I think that's a poor show personally.

[WrongTrouser]

Has the OP been back?

[Southallgirl]

Apparently the Clinton campaign may have seriously taken the Hispanic vote for granted

They not only took the Cuban and Hispanic votes for granted, but they seemed to forget how the electoral college points system operates. But mostly her campaign took for granted that the ailing 'blue belt' States would remain blue. What a berk.

[Southallgirl]

There's also the 'pulling up the ladder' behind them attitude of some immigrants

It's nothing of the kind. It's rather about not ruining it for everyone. Those immigrants already here and have been for some years believe that reducing the quality of services and life for everyone (newcomers and those in situ) is of no value to anyone.

[originalmavis]

There's also the 'pulling up the ladder' behind them attitude of some immigrants.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Apparently the Clinton campaign may have seriously taken the Hispanic vote for granted. The %age of Hispanic voters was lower than Obama got but don't get that in the way of blaming it all on white men and trumpeting Glosswitch's superior intelligence and morality.

Latino leader attacks Clinton campaign for taking Hispanic vote for granted | US news | The Guardian
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/12/latino-leader-attacks-clinton-campaign-hispanic-vote?client=ms-android-samsung

[Inkanta]

'It's because they failed in their fucking smugness to identify and 'read' how desperate some people are. Those voters felt they had nothing to lose by trying DT. And they knew if they had voted Hilllllary it would hv been more of the same status quo.'

Spot on Southallgirl. They just did not see this coming, and they are still smug and condescending about the electorate.

[noblegiraffe]

amateurs can do a bit of simple research into a handful of States

Yeah, I wasn't really reading that sort of nuanced careful analysis, more like 'Trump will win because the people want to stick it to the Establishment'.

Actually, it looks like the people wanted Hillary.

[Southallgirl]

Trump was always the unpopular. Same voting system in place for years, nothing changed there, e.c. known to political analysts and journos. My original point was about how desperately off-mark most of these highly-paid professionals were not to consider a win by the unpopular outsider.

If amateurs can do a bit of simple research into a handful of States, take into account the electoral college system and get it right ........ But I suspect the journalists were all living in the same echo chamber, regurgitating each other's words.

If I made a mistake of a similar magnitude in my job, I would be out. Most of them deserve to be booted out.

[noblegiraffe]

Doesn't matter, does it? I was right, and so that means I saw something coming that the pundits et all didn't. Hurray for me.

Or rather - being right in one respect (Trump will win) doesn't mean you were correct in all respects (Trump will win because he is amazingly popular and Hillary isn't).

[Southallgirl]

Trump won because 2016 is shit

Noble - But you have not demonstrated any inkling or prescience for what you consider to be a catastrophe.

[noblegiraffe]

And in that case, I was right. Trump won because 2016 is shit and that was the shittest possible outcome. Well done me for my insight.

[Southallgirl]

The electoral college system has been in place in USA for decades and decades. You might as well say that previous election results also may not hv reflected popular support, and merely came to pass because of the e.c. system.

It's pointless going down that road because everyone knows that different amounts of votes are ascribed to different States. With that in mind, surely it is incumbent on every political journalist to do a bit of thinking. They just did not catch the vibe, or have enough imagination to consider a win for Trump, because they were too busy being over-confident and propping up the bars.

I can't comment as to why Claig was posting in the way she did, but the point remains - She was right.

[derxa]

Even the senior, very experienced Christiane Amanpour said the same on TV this morning.
Or, they were deliberately fomenting hostility against one candidate
Well in the case of Christiane Amanpour that would be true. Her husband is James Rubin
"James Phillip "Jamie" Rubin (born 1960) is an American former diplomat and journalist, and served as US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Clinton Administration from 1997—2000. He writes a regular column on foreign affairs for The Sunday Times of London, and is contributing editor to The New Republic, writing regularly on foreign affairs.[1] He was Visiting Scholar 2013–14 at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford."
I can only imagine what was said in their house about Trump's victory.