"Why Trump Won & Clinton Lost" by Robert Parry in Common Dreams.org

Following is a link to an article that is being widely distributed, including by author Richard Heinberg of the Post-Carbon Institute. It is my opinion that now is an important time to do things such as try to understand why this happened and get to the grief beneath the anger that so many Americans feel. When we do that, we could be better at mobilizing people, such as we did to stop the American War on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

This is not a time to ignore the changed moment that we are in history, which will impact not only humans, but animals, plants, and the rest of beloved life here on our common Earth.

Link to article by Robert Parry: Why Trump Won and Why Clinton Lost

When our own security services release emails to Wikileaks to bring down one of our presidential candidates, you know you have a problem ... Reading those emails, which have been acknowledged as accurate, makes me wonder how anyone could have voted for Hillary over Bernie and then continued to support her ...

I, like most of you, hold my breath as Donald Trump takes office ... I would have not chosen him in a million years ....

But hold on, ... Today I read about choices of cabinet members who I whole heartedly agree with, I read Putin's statements about renewing reasonable relations with us and averting WW3, I read statements from Canada and Mexico about renegotiating NAFTA, and this just in ... The TPP is dead!

Yes, stay vigilant but do try to ignore messages of hate and division which might be engineered and non productive ...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RhVFY_FRQsY

Following is a link to Richard Heinberg's thoughts following the election.

He is at the Post-Carbon Institute in Santa Rosa.

corrected link:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2...-the-election/

Quote:

---

Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

Following is a link to Richard Heinberg's thoughts following the election.

He is at the Post-Carbon Institute in Santa Rosa.

---

The article, although interesting reading, failed to mention the most important reason why Clinton lost: The Electoral College.

I have lost count of the number of published articles from all kinds of sources who list their opinions as to why Clinton lost the election to one of the biggest creeps of all time. But they all ignore the most obvious one, which is the Electoral College.

We do not live in a democracy. We live in an oligarchy. There is a well documented study by a prestigious university that was published a couple of years ago or so asserting this fact and I posted it here on Wacco. You can find it easily if you do an internal search or a wider search through the Internet with Google.

The United States was NEVER a true democracy, no matter how loudly people scream that it used to be. The American people never directly elected any of our presidents because the US Constitution does not allow it. Electors choose our president, not the popular vote.

We need a nationwide movement to reform the Constitution of the United States and eliminate the Electoral College and begin, finally, after 241 years of history, to elect the president by a direct popular vote.

This is one of the most important things that we need to embark on as a nation, as a people, if we want a true democracy. This is the second time that the wrong person was elected president in the previous 16 years. In 2000, 'W' Bush was elected by the Electoral College but lost the popular vote and then proceeded to ruin this country, just Trump is beginning to do now and will continue to do for the next four years.

Quote:

---

Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

Following is a link to an article that is being widely distributed, including by author Richard Heinberg of the Post-Carbon Institute. It is my opinion that now is an important time to do things such as try to understand why this happened and get to the grief beneath the anger that so many Americans feel. When we do that, we could be better at mobilizing people, such as we did to stop the American War on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

This is not a time to ignore the changed moment that we are in history, which will impact not only humans, but animals, plants, and the rest of beloved life here on our common Earth.

Link to article by Robert Parry: Why Trump Won and Why Clinton Lost

---

I can't say I really agree with the analysis. Nor that there is any reason to point to.

I will say their are countless reasons, and a few I see as important:

1. We dared to elect a black man president- twice- bringing out a lot of the racism and hatred in our country.
2. We dared to nominate a woman- just replace "racism" with "sexism".
3. We dared to nominate a woman who had more baggage then the Atlanta airport
4. We had "Bernie" . As much as I agreed with him on many issues (and disagreed on many more), this was in theory not in practice. No better then electing Electing a self proclaimed socialist (and a Jew to boot) was going to cause as big or a bigger backlash then electing a black man or a woman. Bernie would have destroyed the democratic party as surely as Trump is destroying the republican party.
5. Too many people were wrapped up in their own little realities- and thought Trump couldn't possibly win. Leading to many Dems, independents, and libertarians choosing not to vote.
6. America has lost site of what the reality is in much of this country...not by numbers but by space. We're increasingly concentrated in cities and the surrounding environs- and we have little understanding of what life is like in huge swaths of America. One of the things I hate about Sebastopol- we are in such a damn bubble. We don't know- and seemingly don't care what the realities are elsewhere because of course, we have it all figured out.

And now of course I see Elizabeth Warren (who I greatly respect) and others being bandied about for 2020. A revolution in politics will fare no better then a revolution in the streets. We have an entrenched congress and judiciary- radical change can not happen. We also have an entire country of divergent views to contend with...

For better or worse the only way forward, IMHO, is the center- and to keep nudging that center farther left. Hillary in many ways was the perfect candidate for that, except for the stench of "insider" and "corruption".

We keep looking for "the reason" Trump one. It's not hard to understand. Look in the mirror. And drive across this country and talk to people. People laughed at me for months when I said Trump very well might win. But I grew up in one of the swing states he swung. I know how far away virtually everyone I know is from their understanding of day to day reality.

Remember that Gingrich's house was talked about as a revolution. I think that's likely to be the revolution we'll get. Hillary's showing was good enough that the result could have tipped either way. It won't take a ton of voters shifting to that group for a Democrat to be president. But the more consequential changes require both houses - like we have in this state. I feel like a more defensive posture is good enough - continue social changes like support for gay marriage and social support systems, which are (were) coming along slowly. But more importantly in the short run, keep the regulatory state in place - just work on its inefficiencies. The things that regulations are supposed to prevent need preventing.

The more significant leftish goals, like single-payer health care and, which I think will soon be inevitable, the equivalent of a guaranteed minimum income, fall into the category you mention; many attracted to Trump would find those too revolutionary (and too challenging to their self-image as tough and independent) to tolerate for a while.

My guess is that there will be enough outrages, petty and significant, to keep people's focus till the elections in two years. I'm hoping, and reasonably confident, that the current turmoil will result in a flock of candidates that can take back the house & senate. Time for the younger group to seize power.