How did Trump win the election? - AKA: How did Hillary screw the pooch?

[The Lizard Queen]

So there's been a lot of talk in the last few days about this subject, but let's put it to the Kiwis.


We saw something completely unexpected on election day. In a single night we saw the supremely confident Democrats self-destruct, and at the same time, we saw a broken, struggling Republican party take over every aspect of the country. The House. The Senate, the Supreme Court, and even the majority of state governments are now under Republican control, and Trump now leads them all.

Was it fate? Was it charisma? Did people rally behind Trump's vision, or did people just hate Hillary that much?

How did Trump go from an underdog, hated by every major media outlet and half the country, to President of the United States, and possibly the most politically powerful president ever?
What factors were involved, and what will come of it? What did we learn from this mess?

 

[Ninja_Warrior]

Voter apathy. He energized his base, whereas Clinton ran a campaign where she energized no one, that made a huge difference.

 

[Robotron]

The media tried to paint Hillary as the underdog by shitting all over Trump and that ended up delegating the Underdog role to Trump.

 

[DuskEngine]

Voter apathy. He energized his base, whereas Clinton ran a campaign where she energized no one, that made a huge difference.

Dude you were right the whole time

 

[Ninja_Warrior]

Dude you were right the whole time

TBF It is kind of my job to predict this type of outcome.

 

[ICametoLurk]

Hillary

 

[Cheap Sandals]

Hilary failed to show the link between economic and social justice. She slung mud and whined about being a woman when she should have been explaining a visionary platform. Instead the Americans could vote for either a no-vision corrupt warhawk or a flawed guy who actually seemed invested in his beliefs and willing to make changes.

 

[Mike "Bubbles" Smith]

Voter apathy. He energized his base, whereas Clinton ran a campaign where she energized no one, that made a huge difference.

I'm not sure if I'd say that Trump energized his base. There were die-hard fans of Trump, sure, but overall he suffered from a bit of the same issues Clinton did where people didn't show up. Check out this graph:

https://twitter.com/ckilpatrick/status/796766885664661504

Trump preformed slightly worse than Romney and McCain, but the real story is that nobody fucked cared about Clinton. None of the "Obama Coalition" showed up to vote for Clinton. Clinton underperformed among practically every demographic, especially white men and interestingly enough, black women:

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/796734506577313792

So why did nobody vote for Clinton, especially not minorities? I honestly think you can sum it up in four words: America Is Already Great.

You have a period in time where we're bombing seven different Middle-Eastern countries through executive overreach, more people are getting deported than any other administration in history, mass shootings happen with such frequency that it makes your head spin, massive wealth inequality, police brutality, failing safety nets, a crumbling health care system, jobs hemorrhaging to developing nations courtesy of corporations, and Clinton had the unmitigated gall to claim that America is "Already Great."

The democratic establishment got so far up its own ass with identity politic bullshit and the need to secure "her turn" that by the time it came for the country to make a choice between them and the loudmouth reality TV star, they picked the loudmouth reality TV star.

This isn't a story about Trump winning. Trump is Luigi winning by doing absolutely nothing. This is a story about Hillary Clinton completely and utterly failing to beat what should've been the easiest fucking candidate to beat.

 

[Electric Eye]

What I'm getting from this election cycle is that liberals decided complacency with the system and ignoring the working class and unemployed was a good idea and thought said working class and unemployed were just using economic anxiety as a dog-whistle for sexist and racist beliefs.

Let's see how well authority ignoring the working class for any reason has worked in the past:

Hmmm... seems like nothing happened at all! Let's now get back to writing tumblr posts and tweets about how this is the straight, white, cis males' fault.

(Note: since I will likely have to clarify anyway, I do not think Trump getting elected is even remotely as disastrous as the above posted revolutions turned out to be.)

 

[charmaide]

There's two reasons why Trump won: a need for change and systemic corruption.

What do I mean? Many people see Trump as someone that will bring change to the US, being someone that was a campaign contributor to politicians in the past. There is an increasing amount of corruption within our government, most notably money in politics, monopolies and business deregulation, among other issues that have plagued the country for years or even decades. While I don't think Trump will tackle those items, it'd be nice to have legitimate progress in the US (but to establish term limits for representatives/senators would be nice).

It doesn't help that Clinton had many missteps in her campaign, such as the Pepe incident, ignoring the working class/working poor, and playing identity politics (alongside losing a good chunk of reliable Democrat voters, such as millennials, black and Latino individuals and liberals). It seems Clinton was almost doomed at the start when those emails surfaced of collusion between her campaign and the DNC, robbing voters of the candidate that they loved, Senator Bernie Sanders. I would bet if Sanders was on the ballot instead of Clinton, the Democrats may retain the Oval Office for four more years.

One thing's for certain: this'll be an interesting four years, provided that the electoral college is in Trump's favor.

((Edited to add in missing word.))

 

[HG 400]

Trump just had better memes.

 

[Judge Holden]

Dem activists were put off by the betrayal of sanders, dem core voters were put off by clinton's utter loathesomeness and the SJW shit put out by her media friends, repub activists were energised by trump winning against the establishment, repub core voters voted to keep hillary out of the white house and to fuck with SJW shit.

 

[Tranhuviya]

Kek intervened on humanity's behalf.

 

[Taargus]

Both parties just had their campaign strategies backfire horribly at the same time. GOP was effectively punished for leading its voters on with racial scapegoatery and vague promises when an outsider easily took advantage of the situation. Dems/left media focused on Trump in an attempt to draw in moderates, gave him far too much attention, then proceeded to roll out an unbearably shitty candidate and lose

 

[Roland MT-32]

Trump won because the liberal elite is thoroughly disconnected from the white working class of the rust belt. When you live in a community that's been utterly decimated by the policies of the elite, you're already going to be inclined to vote against that elite. When that elite not only ignores your needs, but also insults and degrades you, you're gonna be really, really inclined to vote against that elite.

 

[Cosmos]

Many people see Trump as someone that will bring change to the US

Yeah, the argument I've been seeing is that people wanted change above all else. Two candidates- Bernie and Trump- promoted change, although what that entails is very different between the two of them. But instead of nominating the candidate that embodied change and renewal, the DNC went with Hillary Clinton, the very definition of an establishment stooge.

 

[NG 070]

Yeah, the argument I've been seeing is that people wanted change above all else. Two candidates- Bernie and Trump- promoted change, although what that entails is very different between the two of them. But instead of nominating the candidate that embodied change and renewal, the DNC went with Hillary Clinton, the very definition of an establishment stooge.

I read somewhere, in some think piece-y article, that Bernie Sanders was basically the Democrat version of Donald Trump: he was anti-establishment, he wanted to blow out the corruption, and he energized the disenfranchised that had been ignored by both establishment Democrats AND Republicans in office. His socialist-lined ideas also resonated with the disenfranchised, albeit not the blue collar working class, but the young college age students/young adults who have been left with an economy in shambles and most reduced to finding little to no work upon graduating and getting eyeballs deep into debt. Much like how the the working class came to see Trump as the balm to soothe their ills, this group saw Bernie Sanders as that.

Of course, the DNC proved itself to be just as corrupt as the GOP, if not even more so, and they wanted to push Hillary Clinton for all the wrong reasons, completely ignorant of the fact she's got just as bad of a rep sheet as Trump does.

In doing so, they alienated both a potentially powerful voter base and the prospect of luring away Republicans who didn't like Trump. Thanks to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's ladyboner for her progressive points agenda to get them chicken tendies, the DNC sabotaged itself and put all of its eggs in the Clinton basket, without seeing the forest for the trees. After how they treated him, I highly doubt Bernie will want to run for them again in 2020 (if he's even still well enough health-wise by then to make a second attempt), though I suspect in the next 4 years, some Bernie-lite person will spring up. If that's the case, then you better hope the DNC will be willing to give them a shot instead of trying to attempt Hillary 2.0 with Michelle Obama like some people are already speculating. (Although if you want my bluntly honest opinion, maybe Michelle Obama wouldn't be the worst choice, but I hope to God the DNC comes up with something better between now and then)

On a semi-related note? You tell people to "vote with your conscience" for months on end, people will do just that. The people who disliked Hillary and Trump equally had Gary Johnson or Jill Stein to choose from, who were arguably better than the big two clowns. Jill Stein in particular is a complete antithesis to Hillary in so many ways, and frankly, she's everything Hillary should have been, IMHO.

 

[Heimdallr]

It's really not that hard.

Hillary! is one of the worst candidates the dems have put up in recent years. Al Gore and John Kerry were fantastic compared to her.

She was deeply unlikeable,arrogant and presumptuous and a constant cloud of corruption surrounded her.

Also, this was Trump's election. It was he after all who got everybody so interested in the election.

 

[JU 199]

Dems misunderstood election theme, it was about establishment backlash and the economy. Trump ran to the left on trade and to the right on immigration and won. Hillary could never counter him because she was inherently compromised. Her attacks couldn't change that.

I thought Hillary would win because polling indicated so and she had advantages. Turns out she was the weaker candidate. That's saying something.

 

[TowinKarz]

The dems ignored a large voting block that they had been marginalizing for years for not being progressive enough and thus, distasteful to associate with (poor/lower middle class rural whites) but arrogantly assumed they'd still have those votes because poor people never back those uncaring rich-cat Republicans. When they DID, because they were tired of being ignored, the Democratic strategy was to try and shame them back to the fold by calling them racist hicks.