Not surprised; a day of reckoning was bound to come for the left. Consider that even if Trump had lost, his power base would still have existed afterward. Trump is not the problem, Trump is a symptom.
The American left took its eyes off of what's important, namely the working class, and instead spent its time and political capital on frivolous[0] causes. This is a wake-up call to refocus.
[0] Lots of things some might consider important are frivolous when you're living paycheck-to-paycheck.
This isnt a day of reckoning for the Left. He hijacked the GOP against its own will and destroyed the DNC. That's a collapse of two establishment parties, not one.
Stop. The. Name. Calling. Stop it right now. Even if your demographic breakdown were correct[0], those are your fellow citizens your're referring to. That tone is why the left is in the state it is right now.
Trump is, perhaps, not going to help "those people" but neither, in their minds, was Clinton. They are simply going with the "perhaps" rather than (again, in their mind) certain no.
Arguing to stop the name-calling is about as effective on HN as it would be on the YouTube comments for a John Oliver video. HN is decidedly slanted on this matter. It's business as usual for democrats to call people names if you don't agree with them. Has been for as long as I can remember.
You'd be surprised. The left is no more unified that the right, in many ways, and members of the mainstream left have been cautioning against this derisive labeling issue for quite some time now. See, for example, Rensin's "The smug style in American liberalism" linked to on HN at
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12106004
Sorry, I don't get it. Which part is the name calling?
I also am not sure what you mean by 'fellow citizens' or 'the left'. I'm not American. And Hillary Clinton is not a left candidate, she's centre-right.
I put the racist in parenthesis, so clearly I don't mean all of them. But I think a lot of the sort of poor/working class Mid-Western people are in fact racist. If you listen to some reports of Trump rallies; or if you listen to how a lot of these people viewed the 'black lives matter' movement, I don't think its inaccurate. Or if you look at the very strong undercurrent of racism that permeates all of the US.
Racism has been shamed for many decades, and Trump made it 'in' again.
Racism was a major issue in this election. The SNL's 'black jeopardy' skit was surprisingly observant in this respect [1]. I didn't expect people on HN to just dismiss it like that. Or completely ignoring an argument about how people cutting their nose to spite their face, because it included the word 'racist'.
It's kind of ironic, like I tickled somebody's PC funny bone, when Trump's campagin was all about the freedom to say whatever you want.
My apologies, I had assumed that you were American.
Since this is a thread on an American presidential election, on the American political spectrum, Mrs. Clinton would be considered to be on the left or center-left.
I imagine at the very least he won't treat them with open contempt and hostility. That probably goes a long way for some of these voters.
I'm not a Trump supporter, but I do live in coastal California, and the absolute derision with which I see relatively privileged, affluent, college educated people treat or talk about the working/rural poor in "flyover" country makes me question whether, despite my current views, I too wouldn't vote Trump if I found myself on the receiving end of such hostility.
For starters he didn't walk around calling them uneducated idiots like many on the left have and continue to do.
Bernie and Trump are touching into the same underlying problem that a lot of people have been left behind. They have felt screwed by the system for awhile and this is what we get. Heck, Bernie supporters got screwed again during the primary.
This is also only the start. Wait until we automate all fast food and driving jobs to see what a angry, jobless populace looks like.
Remember when she called them a "bag of deplorables"? Not that trump was exactly statesman like, but I don't remember him insulting Clinton supporters, just Clinton herself.
Trump has words ("the best words"). The words will inspire Congress to pass laws. The laws will (in theory) help the people. Trump will continue traveling around the country, and report back to Congress what is or is not working.
Beyond that it's difficult to say, Trump has promised little but hinted at a lot.
The American left took its eyes off of what's important, namely the working class, and instead spent its time and political capital on frivolous[0] causes. This is a wake-up call to refocus.
[0] Lots of things some might consider important are frivolous when you're living paycheck-to-paycheck.