November 8, 2016

"The fact that so many informed, sophisticated Americans failed to see Donald Trump coming, and then kept writing him off, is... a sign of a democracy in which no center holds."

"Most of his critics are too reasonable to fathom his fury-driven campaign. Many don’t know a single Trump supporter. But to fight Trump you have to understand his appeal. Trump’s core voters are revealed by poll after poll to be members of the W.W.C. His campaign has made them a self-conscious identity group. They’re one among many factions in the country today—their mutual suspicions flaring, the boundaries between them hardening. A disaster on this scale belongs to no single set of Americans, and it will play out long after the November election, regardless of the outcome. Trump represents the whole country’s failure."

Writes George Packer in "Hillary Clinton and the Populist/The Democrats lost the white working class. The Republicans exploited it. Can Clinton win it back?"

Packer challenges his readers — New Yorker readers — to understand the identity group Trump was able to see and willing to rouse to self-consciousness. With references to Thomas Frank's "Listen, Liberal" — a book I've blogged here, here, and here — Packer blames the Democratic Party for letting this group slip out of its hands.

To President Bill Clinton, speaking in his last SOTU in 2000, "[e]ducation was the answer to all problems of social class."
(His laundry list of proposals to Congress included more money for Internet access in schools and funds to help poor kids take college-test-prep courses.)

“My fellow-Americans,” the President announced. “We have crossed the bridge we built to the twenty-first century.”

In our conversation, Hillary Clinton spoke of the limits of an “educationalist” mind-set, which she called a “peculiar form of élitism.” Educationalists, she noted, say they “want to lift everybody up”—they “don’t want to tell anybody that they can’t go as high as their ambition will take them.” The problem was that “we’re going to have a lot of jobs in this economy” that require blue-collar skills, not B.A.s. “We need to do something that is really important, and this is to just go right after the denigration of jobs and skills that are not college-connected.” A four-year degree isn’t for everyone, she said; vocational education should be brought back to high schools.

Yet “educationalist élitism” describes the Democratic thinking that took root during her husband’s Presidency. When I asked her if this had helped drive working-class Americans away from the Democratic Party, she hedged. “I don’t really know the answer to that,” she said.

85 comments:

MadisonMan said...

A better politician than Hillary!! might be able to reel the WWC back in. But Hillary!! would rather just complain that she isn't polling >50% and put them in a basket with other deplorables all the while running a Stronger Together campaign.

Has there been a weaker campaigner for President in my lifetime? I'm not sure.

Rusty said...

In a word No. The democrats have sold out the working class and the middle class.

cacimbo said...

The Democrats entire campaign for the last three Presidential elections has been built on accusing Republicans of being misogynist racists. Until they come up with a platform based on something other than the politics of division I don't see how they win back the WWC.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

No, because the Democrats are synonymous with the coastal elite and they completely loathe everything about the white working class and its culture. You can't slur people all week and then expect their ass in the pew on Sunday.

Freder Frederson said...

The democrats have sold out the working class and the middle class.

While this may be true, the Republicans have sold them out too, well rather they have never cared about the middle and working class. And if you think Trump cares about the middle and working class, you are sadly mistaken. He is a grifter who is exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself.

hawkeyedjb said...

For Hillary, Job One is to wreck the coal industry and all those icky, well paid jobs that come with it. Does anyone imagine that is the only productive industry in her sights? Perhaps all those unemployed working class drudges can become diversity administrators or Obamacare hotline helpers.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Instead, Hillary shrugs *deplorable*.
All Clinton world cares about is power. That is why you often hear Clinton speak of adding to the army of government employees. The democrat party only cares about the next election, and the fancy hollywood parties in-between, and inside the beltway mega-bucks.

hawkeyedjb said...

For Hillary, Job One is to wreck the coal industry and all those icky, well paid jobs that come with it. Does anyone imagine that is the only productive industry in her sights? Perhaps all those unemployed working class drudges can become diversity administrators or Obamacare hotline helpers.

MayBee said...

I'm having trouble figuring out who is saying what here.

CJ said...

Mitt Romney won every segment of voters, as divided by income, except those making less than $35,000/year, which he lost by such a large margin that he lost the country by 3.5%.

I suspect that quaint statistic in 2012 was just a stop on the realignment of the parties - the Democrats will own the poor and the extremely wealthy and everyone else will be Republican.

There are plenty of other ways to divvy up the electorate, and Democrats have certainly had fun doing that, but in purely economic terms, Democrat Party support is a barbell.

MayBee said...

" In our conversation, Hillary Clinton spoke of the limits of an “educationalist” mind-set, which she called a “peculiar form of élitism.” Educationalists, she noted, say they “want to lift everybody up”—they “don’t want to tell anybody that they can’t go as high as their ambition will take them.” The problem was that “we’re going to have a lot of jobs in this economy” that require blue-collar skills, not B.A.s. “We need to do something that is really important, and this is to just go right after the denigration of jobs and skills that are not college-connected.” A four-year degree isn’t for everyone, she said; vocational education should be brought back to high schools."

Is this Hillary saying this in a conversation?

If so, I agree with her. But this don’t want to tell anybody that they can’t go as high as their ambition will take them.
doesn't sound like anything the Glass Ceiling Candidate has said that I've heard on the campaign trail.
Instead, she is promising free college.

Brando said...

I'm sure some fresh layer of bureaucracy will do the trick. Or maybe some infrastructure programs! Gun-clingers love them some infrastructure.

rehajm said...

This seems less like exploring the hows and whys of Dems losing the working class and more about softening up people to abandon the inequality themes of the Obama era and begin to accept the Clinton era theme of liberal intellectual superiority and elitism.

Inequality as a meme is dead.

Unknown said...

Is there anything left to Republicanism outside of Trumpism? Are they really just going revert to free trade, amnesty, and war- mongering? Trump is a flawed person, but all Americans owe him for sticking a knife in Jeb Bush and that whole worldview. I actually heard Limbaugh quote Assange yesterday to the effect that a part of the establishment allied against Trump is American weapon manufacturers. Limbaugh!
Hard and heretofore heretical truth-telling is the only way Republicans survive.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

His campaign has made them a self-conscious identity group.

Yeah, we can't have that, now, can we? That'd be harmful to democracy and downright dangerous. What's that you say? The Democrat party and all nationwide Democrat electoral victories are specifically built around creating, hardening, and harnessing self-conscious identity groups of one form or another? Oh, well, nevermind--carry on, then.

[Or: "it's only bad when Republicans do it!" Maybe even: "it's bad when white people do it, how dare they!?"]

Quayle said...

This is the election of "the problem is out there!" - "The problem is those guys!"

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Quayle said...

One more from Solzhenitsyn:

“It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”

Our so-called educated people are very poorly educated indeed, judging by their intollerance.

Curious George said...

"Freder Frederson said...
And if you think Trump cares about the middle and working class, you are sadly mistaken. He is a grifter who is exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself."

How so?

David Begley said...

Borrowing from Tucker Carlson, today's Dems are a coalition of the ultra rich and the poor.

BN said...

"A four-year degree isn’t for everyone, she said..."

Reeducation camps are just as good.

Lyssa said...

MayBee, I was thinking the same thing. Is he describing a private conversation between him and HRC? That doesn't sound at all like the public persona that Clinton presents.

buster said...

I expect that the election result will be deplorable.

rhhardin said...

The elites who went to schools with honor codes support Trump.

MadisonMan said...

For Hillary, Job One is to wreck the coal industry and all those icky, well paid jobs that come with it.

Job One is actually to feather her nest even more.

More money. More power.

That's the Clinton way. The same family holding the reins of power for more than 25 years. What could possibly go wrong?

SGT Ted said...

The Democrats, along with the self-professed elites in the Universities, have created and nurtured the Identity Politics framework in order to blame the white working class for all the ills in America. The WWC is routinely blamed for all racism/sexism/homophobia in the US, as well as economic inequality and is mocked as too stupid and inbred to know their own interests.

Then they wonder why the WWC is now giving them the finger and fighting back.

Josephbleau said...

Hillary will win today and the fruits of her victory will be ashes.

Curious George said...

"Freder Frederson said...
And if you think Trump cares about the middle and working class, you are sadly mistaken. He is a grifter who is exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself."

Nothing hurts the middle and working class more than unfettered illegal immigration. Who's for that? Who profits from that? The Hildabeast and the Democratic Party top to bottom.

Now again, how is Trump "exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself."

traditionalguy said...

How did Hillary lose us? Let me count the ways.

NO BORDERS. No Law. No military strength. No truth spoken in public. No resistance to our extermination by the Caliphate. No Second Amendment. No Constitution. No God except her spirit is seances.

FullMoon said...

Curious George said...

"Freder Frederson said...
And if you think Trump cares about the middle and working class, you are sadly mistaken. He is a grifter who is exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself."

How so?


Simple really, by spending a fortune flying his jet around the country, neglecting his business, losing his TV show, losing, Macy's, pissing off most of his rich friends, losing business at his hotels and golf courses, being ridiculed by celebrities and MSM.
All ways to exploit poorly educated middle and working class i.e. taxpayers and enrich himself (in the fertile mind of financial genius, FF.)

Remorse said...

"Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right" by Arlie Russell Hochschild.

Darrell said...

Go out and vote for Trump now. You'll regret not having done so later.

William said...

I'm a New Yorker subscriber and a member of the white working class. I read the Packer article last week. It struck me as extremely condescending. In any event, we're not monolithic or even homogeneous the way blacks or Ivy graduates are. There's quite a large variance in our attitudes, voting patterns, reading habits, etc, but we're the one group of people in America that it's ok to stereotype and caricature. On Halloween, you can put on a fat suit, blacken a few of your teeth, and go as a Trump supporter, and no one will object.

PatHMV said...

The second sentence quoted is simply not true, and part of the problem: "Many [Trump critics] don’t know a single Trump supporter." I guarantee you, they do. But the Trump supporters they know understand that if they were to let that information slip out, in their circles, they would be ruined. They would become socially ostracized, criticized, and accused at some point of being a Nazi sympathizer. So they keep their mouth shut, and say the things one must say to exist in the "polite society" of the supposedly educated elite.

sunsong said...

It is fitting that the misogynist Trump be defeated by a woman. Madam President!

Robert Cook said...

"One more from Solzhenitsyn:

'It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.'

"Our so-called educated people are very poorly educated indeed, judging by their intolerance."


That's wonderful. I don't much visit Salon.com anymore, but I did yesterday, and one of their writers published a screed declaring that anyone who doesn't vote for Hillary Clinton is DEAD to her.

She sounds like a crazy person!

I certainly deplore Trump and think he is manifestly unfit to hold any office, much less the presidency. However, I also deplore Hillary, and consider her unfit to be president. I voted this morning, for Jill Stein. I would never scorn anyone I know for voting for either Clinton or Trump. I would consider them to be mistaken in their judgment, but one must accept that everyone one knows and likes does will have divergent opinions from one's own.

mishu said...

The democrat party is all about biological features now. This is how they aim to divide the country and take what's theirs.

Anonymous said...

Why Clinton will win Florida

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Can they really be so obtuse?

The Democrat party is all about creating identity groups.

Prominent people in the Democrat party routinely and openly celebrate the demographic decline of the white working class and encourage illegal immigration so as to facilitate that decline.

Colleges have stopped requiring students to learn about Western Civilization or, even worse, indoctrinate students with a distorted, inaccurate picture of it. (Apparently the majority of incoming freshmen believe that slavery was a uniquely American institution.)

The Democrat party creates a situation were all politics are identity politics and demonizes whites and then marvels when whites start acting as an identity group!

Who could have seen that coming?

If Donald Trump loses you can expect to see a lot of hate speech laws passed. Trump will probably have to leave the country as the full force of the federal government is used to destroy him as a demonstration of what happens when you cross the globalist PTB.

bagoh20 said...

If you are middle class, and apparently everyone claims they are now days, yes, you have been ignored in fact while being lauded in rhetoric, but did you really expect some politician you never met gave a shit about you? Did you really? You keep giving them more and more power bought from you with nothing but words, which they usually don't even write themselves. Wise up. Everything you give them: power, tax money, support, they either pass on to their circle or actively use against you. Keep your money, keep your power, support yourselves and your circle with it. Washington DC is not a part of your family, they are not your friends. They don't even like you.

todd galle said...

I went to the polls around 0730 or so, and for the first time I had to wait in line. I was voter #48, and the line was continually replenishing itself. This is in small town New Cumberland, PA. I knew probably half the people there and everybody was remarking about how unusual it was. Don't know what to make of it, but turnout seems heavy in central PA.

mockturtle said...

The truth is that the 'informed, sophisticated Americans' aren't as informed and sophisticated as they thought.

PB said...

That they didn't see Donald OR Bernie coming demonstrates conclusively they are out of touch with the needs of the economy and the nation.

Birkel said...

bagoh20:

Leviathan actively hates all those who live outside Leviathan's grasp. It is hatred.

Dislike underestimates the matter considerably.

Birkel said...

mockturtle:

You are correct. Distributed networks are more resilient. The self-called elites prefer to accumulate power and thereby must - of necessity - weaken the system. It becomes brittle. Eventually the system breaks irreparably.

Just as Soviet apparatchiks could not have known all that was needed, neither can American versions. But hubris blinds Leviathan to its own failings.

Big Mike said...

There used to be a center. His name was Romney.

Henry said...

White Working Class.

Took me a minute.

I was thinking that Trump supporters were all W C Fields.

Come to think of it, Trump is kind of like W C Fields. He's like W C Fields and Ralph Kramden put together. Thus his appeal.

Michael K said...

"they completely loathe everything about the white working class and its culture"

And the middle class, at least that part of it that does not work for the government in one way or another.

When Obama pushed the "Stimulus" in 2009, the Democrats who had a majority in both houses, purposely excluded jobs for "burly men" at the demand of their feminist supporters. Now we read about the desperate need for infrastructure but that requires burly men and they are not the Democrats' favored group. No coal, no oil, no pipelines, no bridges, no highways.

Plenty of teachers union members, though.

James Wolf said...

The Dems are the part of the wealthy elite, their stooges and the poorest of the poor, just like a third world country. And they want to make their new voters feel at home.


Also, like all good Marxists, the bourgeois middle class is their ultimate enemy.

Big Mike said...

I voted this morning, for Jill Stein. I would never scorn anyone I know for voting for either Clinton or Trump. I would consider them to be mistaken in their judgment, but one must accept that everyone one knows and likes does will have divergent opinions from one's own.

Why, Cookie, that's the most reasonable thing you've written about your fellow commenters in a while.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Also, addressing "no center holds."

Hillary Clinton's campaign manager was asked by his brother if he wanted to attend a "spirit dinner." When there was speculation that this was some sort of satanic ritual supposedly respectable media outlets informed us, in effect, "no you stupid yokels, its not a satanic ritual, its a dinner where the quests consume the bodily fluids of the cook who is an artist" as if that made everything alright.

I would actually have preferred that the people running the Democrat party were Satan worshipers. That would at least demonstrate some self-respect. Instead they debase themselves and call it sophistication.

If your "set" sends out invitations to such "entertainment" and you do not act with revulsion and immediately denounce the person doing so as depraved then you have no standing to criticize anyone and are the reason that the center no longer holds.

Remorse said...

"I would never scorn anyone I know for voting for either Clinton or Trump. I would consider them to be mistaken in their judgment, but one must accept that everyone one knows and likes does will have divergent opinions from one's own."

That's a rational point of view.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Bagoh2o,

Very well said. Unfortunately, the people that believe this most fervently are also the people who, out of cynicism and disgust, want nothing to do with politics as it currently exists in America.

Biff said...

PatHMV said...The second sentence quoted is simply not true, and part of the problem: "Many [Trump critics] don’t know a single Trump supporter." I guarantee you, they do. But the Trump supporters they know understand that if they were to let that information slip out, in their circles, they would be ruined. They would become socially ostracized, criticized, and accused at some point of being a Nazi sympathizer. So they keep their mouth shut, and say the things one must say to exist in the "polite society" of the supposedly educated elite.

You have described my professional life quite accurately. Three months ago, I was at a professional event in Manhattan, and a group of colleagues with whom I've regularly and profitably collaborated were "deploring" Trump voters. From long experience, I have learned to be very careful and discreet about my politics. While trying to maintain an air of good natured objectivity, I merely suggested that HRC was a flawed candidate and that at least some Trump voters might have reasons to vote for Trump besides naked racism and ignorance. For the first time in many years, I have gone three months without hearing from anyone in that circle. I recently sent a note about a common interest to some of them, and I received a lukewarm reply from only one. These are people who used to reach out on roughly a weekly basis when we weren't actively working on projects together.

I have little doubt that if, in contrast, I had said that I am a card carrying member of the Communist Party and that only Bernie Sanders was worthy of my vote, it would be seen as a professional asset. I work in technology and science/medicine often with academic clients in the Northeast. I am in the professional gulag.

isthmus legend said...

--Hey, I'm special. I think I'm sophisticated and informed. Why can't the deplorables see how great I am?--

Keep telling yourselves that. Keep injecting that confirmation bias emotional heroin into your arms.

When a progressive uses the word "educated" what they really mean is they were dumb enough to take out loans for $55,000 and squander 4 years of their lives to acquire a piece of paper that is worthless. They weren’t smart enough to get into the engineering school, so they went the sophisticated route and majored in history. They could have achieved similar results by going to a library and taking a few online classes for 1/10th the cost. They might see themselves as educated and sophisticated but no one else cares.

MAGA

chuck said...

> letting this group slip out of its hands.

Democrats drove them out with a flaming sword.

SGT Ted said...

"Freder Frederson said...
And if you think Trump cares about the middle and working class, you are sadly mistaken. He is a grifter who is exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself."

Well, the Democrats have proven they don't much give a shit about the WWC by their actions in turning them into the Enemy. So, what else is there?

carrie said...

Hillary Clinton represents the whole country's failure. Thank God for the secret ballot--as Biff said, a lot of Trump supporters don't admit it publicly.

shiloh said...

The media knew far right wingnuts er birthers, 10thers, deathers, truthers, teabaggers, secessionists, 14thers or as Once, twice would say hillbillies were bat shit crazy. They just didn't realize how much and how many.

So yes, "they" didn't see it coming.

To be fair, they also didn't see the Bernie movement as well.

Indeed, Americans are pissed at wealth inequality, social justice inequity, legislative inaction, etc.

>

In a nutshell, far right primary voters still haven't recovered from America easily electing then re-electing gasp! the first Socialist, Marxist, Islamo-fascist, Communist, wealth distributing Muslim born in Kenya who wakes up every morning hating America and Americans ie Barack Hussein Obama.

And they said fuck it, might as well go with our true heart's desire ie a nihilistic egomaniac, pathological liar, misogynistic bigot reality show host.

>

Speaking of hyperbole ~ ONE CHANCE TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Keep hope alive!

sunsong said...

The GOP caters to their donor class. They don't care about WWC voters. It's all about money and power to them. The Dems have followed suit - but Bernie shamed them this year. We will see if Hillary followers through on taxing the rich...

Ron Winkleheimer said...

So Wikileaks has revealed that at least some portion of our "elites" engage in depravity that would have revolted Caligula. My question is, if they are willing to this, what won't they do?

Rick said...

CJ said...
I suspect that quaint statistic in 2012 was just a stop on the realignment of the parties - the Democrats will own the poor and the extremely wealthy and everyone else will be Republican.


Democrats will own everyone who makes a living off government, low incomers from welfare and employment like ACORN's Children and the rich through crony capitalism. If the rest were Republican the results could remain competitive, but they aren't. You omitted government employees. Once you add bureaucrats and school employees (including Higher Ed) government beneficiaries outnumber the rest. When leeches outnumber the hosts failure is only a matter of time.

JAORE said...

"Most of his critics are too reasonable to...".

This is the point at which my BS meter pegged, began smoking and expired in a shower of sparks.

MarkJ said...

"It is fitting that the misogynist Trump be defeated by a woman. Madam President!"

Sunsong, your display of unconditional fealty to your Fuehrerin is heartwarming.

Anonymous said...

mockturtle: The truth is that the 'informed, sophisticated Americans' aren't as informed and sophisticated as they thought.

They have to keep telling us how informed and sophisticated they are, otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell.

"Most of his critics are too reasonable to fathom his fury-driven campaign.

I'm sure that by some in-group definition of "reasonable", that statement makes sober sense, instead of being top quality unintentional satire.

Henry said...

Caligula was not easily revolted.

Robert Cook said...

"Well, the Democrats have proven they don't much give a shit about the WWC by their actions in turning them into the Enemy. So, what else is there?"

Third parties.

Robert Cook said...

"In a nutshell, far right primary voters still haven't recovered from America easily electing then re-electing gasp! the first Socialist, Marxist, Islamo-fascist, Communist, wealth distributing Muslim born in Kenya who wakes up every morning hating America and Americans ie Barack Hussein Obama."

Talk about sounding like a crazy person! This is either someone convincingly mocking the mindset of those who do hold such opinions, or it is an egregious uh..."mistake in judgement."

BJM said...

Pauline Kael call home.

Anonymous said...

Freder Frederson: While this may be true, the Republicans have sold them out too, well rather they have never cared about the middle and working class. And if you think Trump cares about the middle and working class, you are sadly mistaken. He is a grifter who is exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself.

You know what's funny? The sort of people who'll spend months tapping out endless versions of "A is just as bad as B and will sell you out, too", and yet, completely illogically, are still furious at people for choosing to vote for A rather than B.

(When called on this, they tend to retreat into concern-trolling mode - "I, an informed, sophisticated person, am just trying to educate you out of your delusions". However, since the attribution of true-believin' on the A-voter's part is in most instances a complete projection by our informed, sophisticated Concerned Citizen, it just makes him look even stupider.)

Fernandinande said...

so many informed, sophisticated Americans failed to see Donald Trump

"That coiled tail is possibly less endearing when you know it’s a purpose-bred genetic defect, which in its most serious forms leads to paralysis."

damikesc said...

Why is the WWC becoming racially conscious a bad thing?

Spend years discussing how racist and bigoted they are and how they are the cause of all problems and we'd be idiots to continue taking it.

Dusty said...

Like always Democrats chose the GOP nominee in northeast open primaries.

Karlito2000 said...

The phrase 'the center can not hold' comes from Yeats' poem 'The Second Coming'. Written shortly after World War I, some have come to view it as a premonition of the coming of Hitler.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"The Dems have followed suit - but Bernie shamed them this year. We will see if Hillary followers through on taxing the rich..."

Not the remotest chance.

mockturtle said...

That poem by Yeats has spawned more book titles and political applications than just about any I can think of.

RichardJohnson said...

"Most of his critics are too reasonable to...".

JAORE in response:
This is the point at which my BS meter pegged, began smoking and expired in a shower of sparks.

Indeed. Given how his critics have called Trump a Nazi, Russian tool, misogynist, Islamophobe,racist etc.- and more- Trump's critics appear most concerned with listing reasons to demonize him. Reasonable? Oh yeah.

RichardJohnson said...

"Most of his critics are too reasonable to...".

JAORE in response:
This is the point at which my BS meter pegged, began smoking and expired in a shower of sparks.

Indeed. Given how his critics have called Trump a Nazi, Russian tool, misogynist, Islamophobe,racist etc.- and more- Trump's critics appear most concerned with listing reasons to demonize him. Reasonable? Oh yeah.

hombre said...

It's not just the WWC. It's people who care about corruption. Trump has pulled the plug. The Clinton regime will be recognized for what it is - every day. The Democrats, the GOPe, the mediaswine and most particularly Hillary voters are either corrupt, amoral, at best, or ignorant.

A Clinton administration to a greater extent even than the Obama administration will be a shameless, giant "fuck you," to honest, hard working people.

Rusty said...

Freder Frederson said...
The democrats have sold out the working class and the middle class.

While this may be true, the Republicans have sold them out too, well rather they have never cared about the middle and working class. And if you think Trump cares about the middle and working class, you are sadly mistaken. He is a grifter who is exploiting the middle and working class to enrich himself.


What you fail to realize Freder is that our government doesn't do anything FOR you. Our government does things TO you. It then behooves us as citizens to make our government as less intrusive as possible. Bureaucrats don't create the wealth that creates jobs for the middle and working classes individuals do.
They're ALL grifters, Freder. The object is to elect the one who's grifting ambitions can be controlled. That leaves the Clintons out of it.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

HACK ATM AND BECOME RICH TODAY

I wonder if anyone ever reports being a victim of this scam to the police. You see news articles relating stories of people who have had their pot stash stolen calling the police, so my guess is yes.

Comanche Voter said...

Consider the possibility that many of our sophisticated, informed, educated elites could not and do not know the difference between their posterior and third base out there in the "deplorables" world. They also couldn't figure it out with both hands, a Girl Scout guide, and a seeing eye dog to help them. But then they love them some gubmint.

Lydia said...

MayBee and Lyssa:

Hillary did mention vocational training in her acceptance speech at the DNC, I think. And this piece at NPR looks at her basic stump speech during the campaign and this was part of it:

We're going to make this economy grow but we're also going to make it fair. We're going to have more advanced manufacturing jobs. I think we made a mistake years ago when we eliminated what used to be called vocational education. We've got to return technical education to our high schools, our community colleges. There are right now more than a million jobs that can be filled by people who are machinists, computer designers, tool and die makers. But for whatever reason they haven't been given the chance to get that training. And maybe they've been told, you know what, the only future is to go to a great university like USF. Well, that is true for a lot of people, but it's not true for everybody, and we need to make the hard work that builds America the kind of great work with respect and purpose that is going to attract a new generation.

Birkel said...

Lydia:

I agree that Hillary lies easily. Which set of lies do you choose to disbelieve?

Lydia said...

I've no idea if they're lies or not. I was just responding to MayBee and Lyssa's questions about whether she'd ever talked about this stuff.

Birkel said...

Lydia:
Do not be ashamed. The lies are too many to sort. It's not just you.