Hillary was a pretty awful candidate and up against a historical obstacle. That said, you may be right - rewarmed “constitutional conservatism” or standard issue GOP bromides weren’t going to flip Rust Belt states. Trump read the audience better, without a doubt, in a way others did not.
That said, it wasn’t his wave. Trump just happened the be the guy who finally courted them, but he didn’t start this. Anecdotally, the overwhelming amount of people I know who voted for Trump were not pro-Trump - they gladly admit they hold their nose (and their gag reflex) to pull the lever for him.
Agreed. Supposedly (I say this because the story is probably apocryphal), Robespierre once looked out of a hotel window to see an angry mob beginning to take shape in the street below. He told his companion, ‘A mob of angry citizens is forming–I must go lead them!’ The point being, he didn’t know what they were upset about, but he recognized that, whatever the cause might be, their anger provided him an opportunity to acquire power and influence. So too with Mr. Trump.
She indeed was an awful candidate and is an awful person ( 2 different issues imo).
I read an interesting take on Russia ‘throwing’ the Presidency to Trump. Gist was that since she did indeed win the popular vote, the Wiki Leaks did not ‘give’ him the victory, as there is no way the Russians could have selectively chosen the combination needed to secure the EC victory.
Either way, there sure seems to be a veil over the true hacker. I have felt all along that it seemed suspicious that a top spy agency would leave tell tale fingerprints over an action like this. I realize some - smh and bismark screamed Russia’s guilt, but in the same way ISIS claims every terrorist act, Russia is not beyond projecting more strength than they have. Economic prowess for decades, carrier fleet, etc
It’s not at all clear to me how Obama’s election could be characterized in this fashion. What overlooked, marginalized, angry demographic did Obama 1) identify, and 2) demagogue to?
My school teacher wife relayed this story to me, from the school she taught at back then.
A black woman came in the wrong direction in the pick up line after school. A white teacher - on car duty, went over to tell her that the flow went the opposite direction for the children’s safety.
Instead of acknowledgement of a non biased policy aimed at safety, she received
“We in the White House now, and all kind of shit gonna be changing.”
Anecdotal? - yep
Reasonable? - not to anyone I know
I think you’re reading too much into my analogy. I’m not suggesting Trump is the equivalent of Robespierre in any respect other than being a cynical political opportunist. Didn’t intend to imply he was going to start lopping off heads.
Well, there’s no denying Obama enjoyed record turnout among AA voters, and I would agree this owed in large part to his race. But in what way did Obama demagogue to AA voters? Can you present excerpts from campaign speeches in which he whipped crowds into an angry frenzy by playing to their sense of racial injustice? Did he lead AA audiences in chants of ‘Black Power,’ or any similarly-coded phrases?
Far from such demagoguery, Obama was acutely aware that he had to present himself as ‘the least threatening black man in America’ to avoid alienating the white vote needed to win the election.
You are predicating demagoguery on how he presented himself rather than how he was perceived.
I am basing it on how he was perceived rather than how he presented himself.
Reason for this is that it was not himself that voted him into office, but the people who saw him for what they wanted him to be.
We see the same things with Trump right now with the white nationalists. Every question you have asked about whether Obama engaged in demagoguery could be asked of Trump and the answers would be the same, because it is not them that have presented themselves as such. It is the disenchanted that feel he represents what they want.
Neither one of them are actual demagogues themselves.
edit: I also have to throw a pre-emptive bullshit flag on the possibility of dog whistling claims. Trump was way too bad of an orator by all accounts for that to be even remotely possible.
I’m on board with everything up until you said this. I do believe Trump is a demagogue–or at least attempted to be one. Not with the white nationalists, mind you. And you are correct–he is far too poor a speaker to be definitively bound to the demagogue label, but he also was deliberately inflammatory (one of the hallmarks of a demagogue), and deliberately populist, and deliberately whipped people up (in my opinion more so than an average politico, but I acknowledge it could be disputed). Obama didn’t try to be inflammatory…he just WAS because his politics were so left and his viewpoint so skewed, imo.
Ok. But was the mob angry before either decided to lead them?
I’m looking at it like the difference between a surfer and a musher. The surfer is going to ride the wave, which is going to be there whether the surfer is or not. The musher leads the team through command, otherwise the dogs are going to tear each other up.
The Trump presidency and everything that we’ve come to accept from Trump was built on the foundation that the Obama presidency laid out for him. Obama stoked the fires of racial tension and tapped into the anger of black people and minorities, demonized blue collar workers(cling to their guns and religion), attacked media when criticized(wanted to suppress them as well) and we wonder why Trump’s actions have been accepted.
That’s what they said during the primaries where he defeated the best of the best that the republicans had to offer. And then they said it again when he was facing what some here called a sure defeat against Hillary Clinton.
But…as you can see for yourself it didn’t hurt him and yes this is a different world Mufasa.
Don’t forget the smug arrogance that increased, non-stop, from day one, and continues even post Trump win. I can’t stand Trump’s personality, but when it comes to arrogance, he’s not even remotely in Obama’s league.
And non-inflammatory? -if I had a son, he’d be like Trayvon Martin? yeeeeah, right.
True and doing so simply because he was black proved to be disastrous. Putting the corrupt and inept Hillary in the oval office simply because she is a woman would have been just as bad (although it would have been difficult to top Obama’s incompetency).
