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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
and yet, 2 things to note
a) he's posting sober! hello pepparz
b) he's right, actually
the democrats lost middle america. it wasn't a "kkk victory" -- the kkk just bandwagonned.
i gotta get a hike in before dark but yeah
dems had no interest in the proletariat this season.
WARREN 2020
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I don't know that this is entirely accurate. Yes, the Dems opted for a neoliberal approach and counted on their working class appeal to stay in tact. They chose a wealthy aristocratic candidate who didn't speak to the true needs of the people as much as a democratic candidate facing a ridiculous an inexplicably strong opponent should do. This is true.
BUT... for one thing, the odds were against ANY Democrat winning. For a Dem to win after two-terms of Dem? Almost without precedent. Trying to recall my elementary history, and failing, but it's happened... what, once? In the history of the country?
ALSO... The media failed to provide the right kind of coverage. There are economic reasons for this that I can soeak to from having real world experience in news media. One of them is that all but a handful of newspapers are having a god awful time financially. They're transitioning -- even small town publications -- to online hybrid formats, and that means they need clicks to sell ads.
So instead of getting news about candidate platforms, we got the same "emails v. tax returns" stories over and over and over again, pockmarked by slanted editorials that demonized Trump and only served to piss off those of his supporters who can, y'know, read.
The big story of the cycle should have been "What EXACTLY will you do about the Affordable Care Act?" Trump's lack of a plan should have been highlighted and broadcast across all platforms, and Hillary's expansion programs and plans for continuation and improvement of ACA should have as well.
For what it's worth, ACA is the meat of this election. Hospital's and care providers across the nation have undergone exhaustive re-jiggerings and in some cases brick-by-brick reconstructions of billing and service practices. BILLIONS have gone into this. I've spoken with and interviewed hospital administrators from multiple states about this, and the consensus is... they don't want to have to do that again. Nobody wants repeal/replace except for the population of people who don't want to be fined for not buying insurance (which they don't buy because they don't have the money). Hillary was invested in ACA, and should have used this fact -- that the change has been made and people don't want to/can't afford to go back -- and so should my fellow journalists.
The republicans knew this was the case, which is why you'd e hard pressed to find a single congressional Repo candidate who supported repeal/replace but would actually tell you what s/he wanted to replace it with.
Health care accounts for so many jobs. It's such an important issue. ACA is flawed, and if the focus had been placed on what the candidates planned to do about it, the narrative would have had substance. Instead, all the average person knew about was "emails and tax returns." So all those people who cant afford health care or the fine for not having health care (more people fall into this category than most would believe), voted with the information they had and one candidate wanted to do that. Emails was a nice distraction scandal for people to focus on when they should have been asking themselves, "How exactly is a program that is the law of the land in 50 states going to be repealed/replaced and am I sure I WANT it to be repealed/replaced if I have no idea what anyone wants to repeal/replace it with?"
When I was unemployed, I received free Medicaid through ACA. Millions did. Yes it was a hassle, yes it took time, yes I had to go a few months without insurance when I was awaiting redetermination, but t saved me THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. It may have saved my Fucking life during that year. If ACA is actually repealed (and it will take time for this to happen, but with bodies in every branch, it eventually will) all those people who are either unemployed or work at McDonald's but only make $13,000 a year -- those people who receive free State benefits will have NOTHING.
Those people ... the McDonald's workers and the lower class rural Americans with families ... turned out and voted for "Repeal/replace ACA" over "that crook with the two email account" in DROVES.
My profession FAILED. We failed because of a fucked market. We failed because we're desperate too. We failed because we were all too busy delivering snarky editorials on HuffPo and talking down to the little man about why the emails didn't matter and we looked arrogant and decidedly anti-Trump.
Trump USED his own hatability against us. Notice, only ONE nationally distributed news outlet recommended Trump. He took that and ran with it, told everyone the media was the bad guy and deliberately baited the media into smearing him for his racist/sexist/xenophobic antics and we bought into it and ended up looking crooked.
We also failed as people. All of us. The Dems were so divided from the start, and shots were fired in the primaries that aren't usually fired until the general. Bernie Sander played a huge role in this (no, sorry Facebook meme-generator, he wasn't the holy fucking spirit, and he did great harm to his adoptive party.)
Hillary won the pop vote. So it wasn't like she got crushed.
All we had to do was grow up a bit, and this could have happened differently.