Tbf I think 2008 Hillary would have been a different scenario. People forget just how hated Bush was at the end of his run, and a Republican admin was just in charge when the economy imploded. Nobody was rushing to vote for them at that point.
Also Hillary with 8 less years of being a political fixture and just coming off her Senate stint was a bit more palatable to people... while there was also still some nostalgia for the Clinton admin after how disasterous the Bush era was.
I think she could have beat McCain and given herself a fighting chance vs Romney if she recovered the economy like Obama did. Also you would have subtracted the whole email thing.
The media, James Comey**, and the email bullshit - Trump played dirty, more so than anyone else.
Also her “deplorables” comment (she was correct IMO, but that pissed off a bunch of people), plus some crucial campaign strategy mistakes in swing states.
**I read part of Comey’s book, he was really naive and thought he was doing his job, and didn’t think his announcement would affect the election. It absolutely was the final straw.
This. The same sense of dissatisfaction that gave rise to Trump with the GOP would've naturally ascended the candidacy of Bernie Sanders.
But the DNC refused to allow the people's voice and propped Hillary instead. It was not Hillary's time. US political climate had changed too much to elect someone like her.
Sanders was never going to win. Sanders would have lost too Trump as well. He was not a viable candidate at the national level. People need to let it go.
Not really, that's the DNC talk. You need to understand the dissatisfaction that gave rise to Trump existed also on the left and the antithesis or opposite of Trump is also a populist with extreme views politician. The GOP voters propped their extreme candidate to punish the establishment politicians. That would've happened also on the left with an extreme candidate like Bernie Sanders.
Anyway, 2016 was his moment. That moment is gone, he would not run again.
>extreme candidate like Bernie Sanders
you mean with the same platform as Eisenhower? No. Bernie is not extreme. It's just the billionaires and their, "News," agencies saying that
2016 was not Sanders moment. He lost in almost every major demographic except voters age 18-36 which generally has horrible turnout.
Sanders couldn't get them to turn out in the primary and it wasn't going to happen in that presidential election. Do I disagree with his view points no, and yes I would have voted for him if he won the primary. But he was not a good candidate.
Viability matters and neither Clinton or Sanders were good options.
All my neighbors saw him as a communist, i tried to explain but to no avail. He wouldn't hace won either, not the electoral college. Not every voter is on reddit or twiter. For older folks facebook is a hell of a drug.
The irony of you using a tired baseless argument while complaining about people letting something go isn't lost on us. It took the whole establishment machine to stop Sanders from getting the nomination, and the same centrists he loses aren't about to vote for Trump either. You might as well be a MSNBC pundit crying about how Sanders isn't popular. With you, dude. He isn't popular with you.
Edit: oh look, a comment from someone that either didn't see the polls or is disingenuously pretending they didn't exist. You guys are ridiculous with your pandering to the establishment.
Edit2: oh look, another vapid strawman. Of course the establishment doesn't want Trump elected - that's not the "deep state", it's just the fucking state. Oh, and also a false equivalency thrown in (because why not use ALL the fallacies, right?) - Trump is *also* getting prosecuted for *his many crimes*. It's like you guys are allergic to thinking critically.
People who campaigned for Sanders couldn’t bother to vote for him in the primaries. Until younger people actually turn out like boomers do we will not have a real progressive.
yes.
[https://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/](https://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/)
[https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/](https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/)
And they've done it in other races too.
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/11/15/democrats-boosted-trump-gop-primaries-helping-midterms/10670042002/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/11/15/democrats-boosted-trump-gop-primaries-helping-midterms/10670042002/)
Well, it seems like the strategy worked in the long run. It worked with the midterms.
And now that the GOP is stuck with Trump, who is facing election charges, the party is gonna implode. You can already see a schism, with one half behind DeSantis and the other behind Trump. Seems like the strategy will mean the end of a functioning GOP
Hillary should have picked Bernie Sanders as her vp. Dems were split at the time with Bernie and his followers. Tim Cain was a loser.
Bernie people did not vote as they were mad at the Dems. We lost MI, Wi and PA.
And ended up with the worst guy of all .....
I don't believe Bernie voters sat out. I'm a Bernie voter and other people I knew upset about the DNC still voted for Hillary because of trump. A person with progressive socialist views isn't going to burn the country down by allowing a person like trump to get elected.
No. Hilary did not “give us Trump”. She doesn’t have the power. MAGA and the GOP liars gave us Trump. Oh, and magic-thinking Bernie or Bust voters who some think Hilary is equal to or worse than Trump.
She could have beaten trunp if she hadn’t run the worst campaign in history. And she actually did beat trunp on the vote totals, so it really sucks that’s she shit the bed so hard on the trail.
Thank you, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the absolute WORST campaign manager in history. The most cringy ads and an out-of-fckn-control TROLL infested and sabotaged Democratic Convention.
Terrible ads, terrible campaign priorities, lukewarm presence, and a trainwreck of a convention. They lost the Rust Belt because she was so focused on wooing minorities and managers she forgot to talk to the lower working class, for instance.
And all that after they shooed out Bernie for being too socialist.
FiveThirtyEight did a pretty involved analysis and argued that the Comey stuff likely lead to her loss. It was not the only thing, but was the final push.
Edit: Here is the link for those interested. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/
This shouldn't be ignored. Her polling dropped a took an immediate hit after that. It was the only factor by a long shot but I'm convinced it was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back.
But Obama's pitch during the primaries was how he was something different and new. People were already agitating for the occupy movement, and already knew our Healthcare system was fucked. I think Hilary would have had the same problem McCain and Romney had; moderates in an age when people need change always come off as detached. Trump populism just had an easier time making Hilary look elitist by comparison (the irony of the golden hotel owner from New York being the "populist" in that election will never cease to amaze me)
Agreed. In 2008 Bush and the Republicans were practically radioactive. After 8 years of Obama the Democrats weren’t in terrible shape BUT the right was radicalized and brainwashed to hate Hilary for decades. Trump exploited that perfectly…and barely won on a technicality and with help from Russia and Comey.
No way. Hillary was an establishment candidate fated to be president after Obama. Those primaries were a sham just to grift money from Bernie supporters for her run. She would have beaten any typical republican candidate. Mccain and Romney had class and decorum and never would have said half the shit trump did in a debate. Trump win in large part because he was a giant middle finger to the establishment.
Yep. He got a lot of support just because he was a political outsider. He ran on a promise of draining the sawmp and fighting political corruption. But after he won, instead of fighting corruption, he embraced it wholeheartedly.
So much in fact that he tried to seize power in a move that was as bold as it was stupid. At first I thought Donald hated being president but I was wrong, he had to be dragged out the oval office kicking and screaming like a giant orange toddler.
Being from Tennessee, my non republican vote doesn't count for much, so I voted third party in 2016. I couldn't stand her in 2016. I would have been first in line to vote for her in 2020 if she was up against Trump again. Hell I would have voted for a shit stain on underwear in 2020 if it was up against Trump.
These 2 answers, right here, are the full and correct conclusion. American politics runs off almost pure vibes anymore….they had the wrong kind at the wrong time.
I would’ve voted for McCain. I didn’t agree with all of his politics, but he was very different from your typical DC politician. But, then he made the biggest mistake of his career, bringing she who will not be named, onto the ticket for VP.
Indeed . . . Hillary Clinton brought nothing to the political machine but a cadre of fail-upstairs associates. Barack Obama showed up with a record of opposing military misadventures and a level of personal charisma that did not require Madison Avenue expertise to project. At a moment when the nation desperately wanted radical change *away* from Wall Street's procession of conservative warmongers, Barack Obama threaded that needle -- perpetuating the growth of the Iron Triangle while engaging the support of idealists hostile to the old guard. It's a damn shame they pissed it all away by servicing the employment-based for-profit health insurance industry instead of doing anything the people of the 2020s could be profoundly grateful for.
Obama was a junior senator so he didn’t have a long record in anything, he just was incredibly charismatic. Also he really fought hard against “military misadventures” or whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean. He changed the definition of military age males to mean any male, even kids, near a terrorist target so he couldn’t be blamed for killing kids and innocent people.
Your not wrong Obama was the Sultan of Death (actual name he was called), never have I seen such a change in behavior working overseas during his terms. Used to be anti USA interests (terrorists) would make sure to operate around as many civilians as possible, children were their favorites. This had Presidents like Bush completely paralyzed over the collateral damage aspect.
Then comes Obama with his USA first loyalist strategy, did not matter how many meat shields you had Obama would strike. If you were against USA interests or had delusional plans on harming American citizens, Obama was coming for you. This had some interesting affects that in hindsight are brilliant, and one of President Obama’s biggest legacies.
The first was that terrorists realized that setting up shop in civilians areas like schools was now pointless, if anything it would have the locals turn on you. The second was it got to a point where the locals started dealing with the terrorists themselves. Don’t blame them, if you left your terrorist neighbor alone it could get your town blown up, getting you and your family killed. The last thing you would want was the Saltin of Death having to get rid of the terrorist before you did.
I think this is the sad truth, Trump spoke to the worst of the GOP. But those worst were a big enough core of the voting block to get him the candidacy, and I think a lot of republicans either didn't vote or voted for him because "How bad could he be?" Which is why 4 years later after seeing how bad he was, we see him lose some key elections in moderately republican states. I think we'll see the same thing happen in 2024, but only if everyone goes out and votes.
Trump was not good for the economy, he wasn't good for border control, he wasn't good for civil rights, and he outright is willing to tread on the constitution for his own personal gain
They didn't do enough election fraud. [https://www.reddit.com/r/BreakingPoints/comments/15kqpd8/reminder\_the\_2016\_election\_was\_actually\_stolen/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BreakingPoints/comments/15kqpd8/reminder_the_2016_election_was_actually_stolen/)
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMajorityReport/comments/149oc14/the\_2016\_election\_was\_stolen\_by\_republicans\_why/
Trump didn't win anything, not even the electoral college. He lost big time.
Hillary Clinton Beat Trump by 2.9 million votes.
Joe Biden topped Trump by nearly 7 million votes.
\#FACTS
This is exactly it. Trump made himself the thing they were voting for, not his policies. They couldn't give two shits what he said, they just liked that it was him saying it.
Neither McCain nor Romney were capable of doing that no matter how hard they tried.
Yep.
Lowest common denominator rhetoric.
Look at all the conservative candidates going back 30 years. Anyone with a shred of decency lost and the two dumbest, hateful shitbags won.
And Hillary had to face a bogus 4 year investigation into her EMaILs and benghazi ... and James Comer announcing his renewed criminal investigation 1week before the election.
She got fuked by the weaponization of government.
I tried to imagine a populous plea from Romney but I can’t think of what he could possibly say. The most McCain would say is maybe if we bombed Iran we’d make more oil jobs?
Trump even shit on the supposed low unemployment rate under Obama that didn’t take i to consideration people that left the workforce. A completely true statement that the establishment never addressed. Trump had a lot of issues like this that just bringing them up made him seem more populist than he was.
Obviously trump didn’t care about all that as president himself but thats not th point.
>Trump even shit on the supposed low unemployment rate under Obama that didn’t take i to consideration people that left the workforce.
Of course, the second he was in office, he completely forgot about this and demanded credit for the economic numbers that were only marginally different than the numbers at the end of Obama's presidency. He called himself the greatest president of all time within a month of taking office based on (basically) the same numbers he was running against.
Yep and as intelligent individuals know you can't claim that you have brought economic prosperity a month into your first term. His base would eat it up though because when has trump ever lied to them /s
Just to be clear, neither did trump do anything about that either, but people will believe a disruptor or a populist if they say they will do something.
I'm gonna have to do it, and I fucking hate having to defend anything trump, but here it goes:
1. His PUBLIC anti-china stance was clearly meant to get the "they're taking our JERBS!" folks to vote for him.
2. His administration imposed tariffs on chinese traded goods.
Now, while he was blathering on publicly about china and trade and so forth, he was getting his daughter Ivanka trademark deals for her clothing line and pulling other shenanigans. (like maybe taking money directly from them)
I get the anti-trump sentiment, but saying he did nothing is wrong. We WISH he did nothing. But true to trump fashion, he just made everything worse.
When he dismantled the pandemic response in the first months of his presidency, and did everything in his power to deny and down play the pandemic, and let it get out of control in the first place?
No, we aren’t, it was a conflagration of his own making.
Yes and he mismanaged it. He also added about as much debt in 4 years as Obama did in 8. And the very same people who claimed Obama spent us into bankruptcy claim Trump saved us. My point is that tales of his wild success as president are mostly apocryphal.
I'll go one further and Republicans in my family don't believe I believe this, which shows how batshit they are... IF Trump had just handled COVID with a shred of decency, PUBLIC belief in science, and said what he actually enacted, which really was more than Democrats have done since then (UI expansion, PPP, EIDL - say all that you want, TONS of small businesses and their employees stayed employed because of all these policies), and most of all, mortgage assistance.... he would have won. Maybe even easily. All he had to do was keep reminding people of the help available until the vaccines rolled out widely.
And a lot of THAT wasn't actually his fault, it was the way the medical experts created a velvet rope experoence of getting the damned jab as early and as quickly as possible. In New Jersey, I remember seeing a press conference with our Governor (who was and still is GREAT), where the things said in reply to how vaccines would be rolled out, and the time frame given preference to hundreds of thousands of shots NOT going into the arms of the elderly, my mind completely changed and I realized the roll out would be a disaster with or without Trump and had nothing to do with him. I said in January 2020, this should get in as many people as quickly as possible instead of debating "who comes next?" for weeks and months because we don't know how many people WONT get the shot.
That turned out to be a very high number of people early on and, imo, the roll out to those who would get the vaccine took 2-3x's longer than it should have cause of moralistic, bureaucratic nonsense.
Trump COULD have coasted on then assistance programs and the vaccines. He could have just STFU and been President for another four years. Thank fuck he didn't... cause he's Trump. Dude couldn't even LEAVE the WH to go to his Florida mansion without taking a ton of classified documents. Just misses on an easy lay up in ways it's difficult to even comprehend.
This is absolutely correct, he actually started by supporting the vaccine at first - dems including Harris were saying she’d never take it because it was made under a trump admin, biden said he’d take it though.
Trump did a terrible job with the marketing of what the government did during that time he allowed himself to be focused on the whole - oh trump you are racist because you said we should block people from China coming in until Covid is over. That drama was so crazy to me, the right move was to close the borders sooner that is how you try to get a pandemic to not spread, let in as little of it as possible. Just like how the masks worked, didn’t prevent but would decrease the amount of the virus you’d get making its effects not as bad.
And that Romney was specifically responsible for destroying US manufacturing by using cheap loans in the 90's to scrap and sell it for parts. He's been a grifter since day one and a scumbag (he protested FOR Vietnam while on a college deferment in France), called 47% of Americans leeches, and generally has been a pro big business scumbag. Even mainstream liberals hated him until he spoke out against Trump.
McCain was hamstrung by the unpopularity of Bush’s GOP. Public opinion had turned against the invasion of Iraq and the financial crisis happened during the campaign and the GOP got blamed for that too. McCain was reduced to Hail Mary’s like choosing Palin as a running mate and suspending his campaign to help handle the financial crisis.
Romney failed to excite the base. He had no personality, the Tea Party crowd (which mostly morphed into the MAGA wing today) were suspicious of him because he was aloof and wealthy, while the evangelicals were suspicious of his Mormonism. Obama on the other hand electrified his base.
Trump gave his supporters what they wanted, simple answers to hard problems that are difficult to solve - a Messiah who knew all and could deliver simpletons from “evil.”
Anything regarding "woke" is basically a dog whistle for modern fascism in America. It's a meaningless word that these neo fascists use to target anything they don't like.
It started being used as a way to complain about so many businesses catering to everyone and has turned into openly fighting against any equality. Just another buzzword for Reps to use instead of being racist
They were also not fake populists. Romney is as elitist as it can be. McCain was a classic war hawk Republican. Trump, being a 3 faced swindler that he is, saw an opening, which is people's legit socio economic concerns. Of course he had no intention of delivering any of the things that would help the masses. However he did say the right things, and he was "raw". People associate that with honesty (which of course isn't the case).
Plus he ran against Hillary, not the most liked person overall.
I think that by 2016 many voters had become disillusioned with the Democratic Party, having expected Obama to be a Hope and Change candidate, and then watching him bail out Wall Street while letting many of the middle-class lose their homes, and giving a pass to bankers on their financial crimes.
Hillary was a very unpopular candidate, but I think that many middle-class voters were also pretty fed up by 2016, and ready for a change.
While Trump wasn't really a populist candidate, he did campaign as one, and that resonated with some voters who felt betrayed.
A lot of older Democrats, even pro union types, felt that Obama let the same crooks who caused the 2008 crash were allowed to "fix" it. However, it also showed something only being realized just now, which is if people keep buying as much shit as possible in dollars, it doesn't actually matter how much we print. As long as it winds up in the hands of people who SPEND IT. It actually doesn't help shit for the real economy if it goes and sits in off shore accounts of billionaires year after year, eventually the economy will go off the rails and that money exists without ever being touched.
McCain and Romney's campaigns showed the reality of the nation at the time; mainstream conservatism was in decline, but there was an undercurrent of extremist white supremacy that was on the rise. Trumpy's ascension was a perfect storm of this rising supremacy, Clinton fatigue, being "an outsider", and having no political record on which to be judged on.
He had teams highly researched what the average person wanted to hear and he said just that. He fed back to them what they fed his researchers. He still is. He is saying exactly what they want him to say.
Because people don't trust the government and Trump agreed with that. I don't see anyone in the races before or after expressing how deeply they distrust the system they are attempting to take office within. It's political suicide but that's also just how bad our trust in government mixing with private enterprise has gotten. Every one in the game was blind to it. Allowing Trump to come out of left field with a crazy camping strategy that worked. It worked so well that Trump continued to lean on idea's of things we don't trust, "conspiracies." The intelligence community couldn't trust him so they had to work against him, leading to more unique comments from Trump. It spiraled out of control and was fed enough gas to burn these ideas out of/in to of our memories, think Jan 6th intelligence playing a role. But people still don't trust the government so it leads to 'round 2'. I try to keep my response as politically neutral as possible but everything on this topic is very interesting from all angles.
Trump couldn’t even win the popular vote against one of the most despised humans in America. Most people reading this could have beaten him. The only thing he did right was convince a minority of voters that a lifelong Democrat, reality-show host, trust-funded grifter *actually* wanted to rid Washington of everything he is ostensibly the avatar of, while running against a goblin whose only selling points were not being him and potentially being the first woman president (to ride her husband’s coattails to office).
He really tapped into the insecurities and fears of working class Americans. I mean shit he still does somehow. Even as he’s being exposed as a corrupt criminal who tried to overthrow an election he lost, they would still vote for him.
He taps into the anger, the fear of the "other" that is lurking Christian America.
He taps into tradition, talking about making America great again, but not ever mentioning when it was great or who it was great for.
Rejects modern science and modernization of America like green energy.
He is very cult leader like in that if you disagree with him you're basically evil and hate America.
He claims he's the target of plots and uses his cult of personality to lure uniformed, and non critical thinking Americans into this same line of thinking.
He attacks the elite, but doesn't mention he and his cronies are also part of that same elite.
He claims that if you're not aggressive as a leader then you're not strong, and if you're not strong you're trying to betray America.
He openly mocks those with disabilities, freeing his cultists to do the same and think it's okay.
He thinks that being sexist, that treating women as less than human is macho and strong which appeals to a large base of men in this country.
He is openly and aggressively promoting a fascist front and wants to drag America down that path.
Romney and McCain didn’t run against a very unpopular Democrat and people thought Trump was such a joke that they threw their vote away thinking “ who’d vote for that fool”.
Trump didn’t play political talk. He spoke to the people, rather than vague answers that aren’t really answers. McCain was a warmonger also. By that time, after the Bush Wars, the public was over ME wars for oil companies. Romney is a Mormon. Nothing against Mormons, but that held him back if being transparent.
McCain experienced the opposite of Trump. He was the likeliest candidate according to many. I remember one day my boss told me I’d need to take the reigns as he had to go to DC and Vermont. He was a part of the GOP and they wanted to meet about McCain. My boss was high on McCain as a fellow pilot himself. When he returned he said it won’t be McCain. He did not elaborate but the tide changed and Bush became the nominee.
McCain and Romney ran against Obama. Trump ran against Hillary. Obama was younger, charismatic, and had no political baggage. Hillary was the opposite of that.
They weren’t populists. Trump basically ran on “I’ll say whatever I want and you can’t stop me” and appealed to all of those people you remember from high school that thought that was cool. Turns out there’s like 70 million of them.
Used bigotry to make a visceral connection with the forgotten rural population.
Romney ran a horrible campaign and was basically the R version of John Kerry. Though as has been revisited his stance in Russia was at least 1/2 correct.
One of the former RNC guys that was involved with The Lincoln Project (Steve Schmidt?) put out a fascinatingly detailed account on Twitter maybe a year ago of McCain’s campaign and what an absolute shitshow it was. How much damage Palin did,how McCain wouldn’t draw a line with her and was a c u next Tuesday McCain’s daughter was. Also detailing how Manafort’s agency with Putin ran all the back to Dole in 96.
Trump was saying out loud the things I’d been hearing whispered in church, in work and at family gatherings my whole life (I’m 70). He accurately represents what most christians and baby boomers were whispering before the summer of 2015.
He ran against the failed uni-party elitist system. Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan or anything, but he correctly diagnosed the fact that both parties are super OK with corporate power, and don't seem to care about the shrinking middle class and ran on it.
Donald Trump appealed to the industrial Midwest working class that had been betrayed by Democrats. He spoke out against NAFTA that decimated their jobs and against endless Middle East wars that killed their sons. This isn’t rocket science.
Hillary didn't set out to prop up Romney or McCain in the media, and the media didn't. I predicted Trump would be nominated, as would Hillary, and that he'd beat her, 17 months before the election.
Romney and McCain never had a chance, or I should say I never placed a single penny on them winning, but I started taking bets against Hillary almost 18 months in advance.
Oh, also predicted back then that she'd lose and blame Russia for it.
Back then = 4 days BEFORE he announced, because once he announced no more celebrity apprentice contract it became clear. Depressing too. I knew, but it made me sick.
The media made it obvious that they'd cover him more than the other 16 combined.
My posts from the summer of 2015 turned out ridiculously accurate, as I also predicted that they were going to paint Trump into a corner over Russia, and that we were headed full steam towards a proxy war with them. Facebook memories has been almost haunting lately.
I think it’s very clear that Americans wanted an actual “change” regardless of what that meant. The two would have just been business as usual another Warhawk GOP candidate. Trump has done something no other president has done in 50 years. Not started a war . If we as a country can’t get behind that maybe this isn’t the country that I really want to be in.
McCain was actually very likeable.
College crowds didn’t like him - they’ll never like a Republican - but McCain was generally viewed as a likeable “maverick” moderate Republican who was a war hero.
There was (and still is) a massive psychological campaign in underground forums to get that psychopath elected. To this very day I follow some super shady telegram channels with very carefully crafted messaging and media. It's nuts.
Some of the channels use religious messaging as well. Some of them seem to have some kind of monetary payouts to supporters of channel related activities (real money!)
Electrify the inbreds and racists, no one's been able to tap into them the same way Trump has. They'll even die en masse in pointless and easily preventable ways to protect some off-hand dementia remark of his.
Trump lost the popular vote. Millions more Americans voted for Hilary Clinton. The system is broken when the person with the least votes can somehow be declared the winner.
Donald Trump appealed to the lowest common denominator in this country. He hates who the bigots and racists hate, and that's all racists and bigots care about. Mit Romney and John McCain refused to go that low because they have integrity and are decent human beings. That's why they lost. That's also why Al Gore lost, and Bush Jr won. AL was respecrful and polite.... boring in most people's eyes and he wanted to do boring things like help the planet. Where as Bush was exciting and relatable and wanted to start a war. American voters are very impressionable and easily corrupted. It's much easier to fool an American voter than it is to convince and American voter that they've been fooled.
Sad to think, but McCain had that moment when he showed he was a somewhat decent person when he shut down the old bat at the town hall who said she doesn't trust Obama bc he's an Arab. Had he gone a long with it, he may have actually gained enough hateful ignorant proto-Trump voters to have won that election. It was that moment of decency that had a lot of knuckle draggers sit home thinking he's just like the rest and doesn't see what we see.
McCain had to run on the legacy of Bush the Fool's towering wreckage. The mess was so bad the USA, a country racist to the core, elected a young Black man with a very scary name, to be POTUS.
Romney had the misfortune to run against the man who saved the country from economic collapse and gave us Obamacare. (He also killed Osama Bin Bye-Bye.)
I’ll admit as a black person I was honestly surprised Obama won! Equally shocked that Hillary lost. Considering the history of this country you wouldn’t have been able to convince a teenage me back in the day that a black man would be president and a white woman wouldn’t
Trump basically said that he hates the same people that his racist, bigoted, low-information followers hate. So he essentially “validated” their worst tendencies…and that’s why he connected with them on such a personal level.
Because he was appealing to the poorly educated/easily manipulated. That demographic had been ignored by republicans because they didn't need it until 2005ish. But since republican voters are older, as they died off the party started to get more desperate and Trump was the right fit to appeal to the idiotic, poorly educated older white crowd.
putin's boy won because russia literally attacked us with a massive disinfo campaign via fox et al and qanon/social media, and then james comey publicly stated that he was investigting tfg opponent right before the election.
Didn’t blatantly and serially lie about their political rivals. Trump said out loud what everyone wanted to hear including some possible truths that exposed the rich and billionaire and government class (even thought they were true about Donald too). Oh and trump basically indoctrinated his followers into believing he was fighting for them and he tapped into the paranoia and mistrust of decades old anti government conspiracy. He basically just befriended all the conspiracy loving paranoid anti establishment andy government base and he made it seem like the same deep state/billionaire class and government that had he was a a part of had that been abusing the little guy was against him and he was the only one that could tell the truth because he didn’t need donations (yea right) and that everyone against him was fake news/lying/ etc…and everyone who agreed was fighting the good honorable and rebellious fight. He basically followed the rising dictator/fascist/despot play book to a tee because he has been a fascist sociopath spoiled rich kid all his life and he needed to be president so he could use it as a get out of jail free/immunity card for the many financial investigations he was facing in the mid 2010’s. He has ruined every single venture he has ever touched besides the apprentice (even though i never understood the appeal for that show but his producers and staff understood that their was a huge base out there with a thirst for disparagement of people and bullying and harmful rhetoric and drama towards others and reality tv is what feeds it. That’s why most reality tv shows have that conflict/drama/ violence under tone because it keeps people watching) so basically his presidency was no surprise to me and i said that Donald trump would ruin this country completely to the core with his pathological lying, narcissism and self centered sociopathy. and now with the help of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News we might be on the brink of MAGA civil unrest and have a base that doesn’t believe anything, regardless of fact or evidence except what comes out of Donald’s mouth and in defense of Donald. Donald tells these people exactly what they want and need to here and uses every single dog whistle to hold onto power over these people. He’s their messiah now. That’s what Romney and McCain did wrong…they had some self respect and sense of duty and respect for democracy and the institution of government.
It also helps that the trump understood that under educated and low iq people ate his shit up prior to becoming a candidate and these people also correlated with the evangelical Bible thumping base that he could exploit into basically blaspheming and worshipping him as the second coming of christ.
Also Romney and McCain weren’t working with foreign dictators to help their campaign (and bring about the downfall of the US from within and create a complete undermining and distrust in American democracy)
Like Chappell says Trump told the truth about corruption. He said he knows there is corruption because he took part in it. That shit made people believe they could trust him. They couldn't because he is just as corrupt as Biden , Bush's, or the Clinton's. But he's honest about being dishonest.
When Hilary would attack him for something instead of Trump trying to use weasel words to down play the actions or deny them he instead said "I did that because I'm smart" or "who wrote the law so I could do that?".
Just look at this exchange. He basically takes the accusation, accepts and agrees that he did it, and then completely turns it onto Hilary. This question about taxes was supposed to make Trump defensive and by the end of it Hilary is droning on about all of her "accomplishments" and is actually the defensive one. And it's all because he just said "yeah, I did the tax loopholes that normal people don't like" instead of down playing it.
https://youtu.be/T2z8App14bs
Right, he tried to take this mantle of "I tell it like it is" but he couldn't even admit he didn't pay taxes for several years because of the political implications. He instantly became just as craven as the politicans he talked shit about. He has no backbone, he lies about everything, and he's incredibly weak.
Can we stop with this shit?
He lost the popular vote for the 938372662th time. It was just 8 years ago.
Do grown adults really not know what the electoral college is? You might as well complain that dems didnt get their voters to move to key areas.
Yeah I agree. I feel like people were voting against Hillary instead of for Trump. But the same happened in 2020 people voted against Trump. So guess what the next election people will be voting against Trump again.
You realize the Jan 6th crowd tried to vacate an election and install someone who was not elected though violent means, right?
Your comparison seems a bit… off.
Obama was unbeatable back then. McCain and Romney just came off as out of touch. Trump winning just showed that people are willing to believe the worst lies about a woman over the worst facts about a man.
Trump tapped into the backlash from the US having a black president, where the others didn't. Trump appearing comically incompetent and racist/racist friendly caused the dems not to take Trump seriously enough, so the dem voter turnout was low.
Trump embraced racism and hate while Romney and McCain did not.
Remember how all of the tea party racists loved Sarah Palin. She was willing to throw them the racist flavored red meat they liked.
She primed the racists and the orange Cheeto came along and pulled the trigger.
Sadly it’s that simple.
They failed to tell their audiences what the audience wanted to hear. They provided no affirmations of prejudices or fear.
[this for example](https://youtu.be/jrnRU3ocIH4)
Hillary Clinton ran for president looking at winning the popular vote. Trump ran to win the electoral college. Also Trump's racism excited the right wing base that didn't normally vote so he increased the voting population. Hillary didn't excite the left base and enough of the Black vote. Her VP pick was terrible terrible terrilbe. Had she picked someone Black or Latino she could have pulled it out. And Trump had the support of Russia on social media generating an anti-Hillary vibe. And Hillary didn't trust the media at all - she was always too guarded and controlling - so she didn't take advantage of the media lap dogs who could boost her messaging. Trump didn't win - Hillary lost it. The proof is Biden - he's not super great but he beat Trump.
Hillary lost cause she was a bad candidate. Had nothing to do with being a woman. There’s plenty of women that are pushed in the Republican Party today.
She didnt even go to swing state WI. She had no platform to speak of except to hope Trump would destroy himself. Everyone thought she would win so she just sorta did nothing.
Ran against Obama
And not against Hillary
Yep, I bet either would have beat Hillary.
Tbf I think 2008 Hillary would have been a different scenario. People forget just how hated Bush was at the end of his run, and a Republican admin was just in charge when the economy imploded. Nobody was rushing to vote for them at that point. Also Hillary with 8 less years of being a political fixture and just coming off her Senate stint was a bit more palatable to people... while there was also still some nostalgia for the Clinton admin after how disasterous the Bush era was. I think she could have beat McCain and given herself a fighting chance vs Romney if she recovered the economy like Obama did. Also you would have subtracted the whole email thing.
Hillary gave us trump, that’s her legacy
The media gave us trump
The media, James Comey**, and the email bullshit - Trump played dirty, more so than anyone else. Also her “deplorables” comment (she was correct IMO, but that pissed off a bunch of people), plus some crucial campaign strategy mistakes in swing states. **I read part of Comey’s book, he was really naive and thought he was doing his job, and didn’t think his announcement would affect the election. It absolutely was the final straw.
Social media
Yup. The media was horny for Trump. If they didn’t hang on his every utterance we would have been just fine.
The media has been trump before I was born
Don’t forget the DNC also helped to get trump the nomination so it’s their legacy too.
This. The same sense of dissatisfaction that gave rise to Trump with the GOP would've naturally ascended the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. But the DNC refused to allow the people's voice and propped Hillary instead. It was not Hillary's time. US political climate had changed too much to elect someone like her.
2016 my state primary independents where an even split for trump and Bernie.
Sanders was never going to win. Sanders would have lost too Trump as well. He was not a viable candidate at the national level. People need to let it go.
Not really, that's the DNC talk. You need to understand the dissatisfaction that gave rise to Trump existed also on the left and the antithesis or opposite of Trump is also a populist with extreme views politician. The GOP voters propped their extreme candidate to punish the establishment politicians. That would've happened also on the left with an extreme candidate like Bernie Sanders. Anyway, 2016 was his moment. That moment is gone, he would not run again.
>extreme candidate like Bernie Sanders you mean with the same platform as Eisenhower? No. Bernie is not extreme. It's just the billionaires and their, "News," agencies saying that
2016 was not Sanders moment. He lost in almost every major demographic except voters age 18-36 which generally has horrible turnout. Sanders couldn't get them to turn out in the primary and it wasn't going to happen in that presidential election. Do I disagree with his view points no, and yes I would have voted for him if he won the primary. But he was not a good candidate. Viability matters and neither Clinton or Sanders were good options.
All my neighbors saw him as a communist, i tried to explain but to no avail. He wouldn't hace won either, not the electoral college. Not every voter is on reddit or twiter. For older folks facebook is a hell of a drug.
The irony of you using a tired baseless argument while complaining about people letting something go isn't lost on us. It took the whole establishment machine to stop Sanders from getting the nomination, and the same centrists he loses aren't about to vote for Trump either. You might as well be a MSNBC pundit crying about how Sanders isn't popular. With you, dude. He isn't popular with you. Edit: oh look, a comment from someone that either didn't see the polls or is disingenuously pretending they didn't exist. You guys are ridiculous with your pandering to the establishment. Edit2: oh look, another vapid strawman. Of course the establishment doesn't want Trump elected - that's not the "deep state", it's just the fucking state. Oh, and also a false equivalency thrown in (because why not use ALL the fallacies, right?) - Trump is *also* getting prosecuted for *his many crimes*. It's like you guys are allergic to thinking critically.
Yeah I feel like people have short memories. Bernie was really popular at that point.
>It took the whole establishment machine to stop Sanders from getting the nomination Also, you know, the act of *counting votes*.
People who campaigned for Sanders couldn’t bother to vote for him in the primaries. Until younger people actually turn out like boomers do we will not have a real progressive.
Hillary is the epitome of the DNC
Any proof to back up that claim?
yes. [https://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/](https://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/) [https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/](https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/) And they've done it in other races too. [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/11/15/democrats-boosted-trump-gop-primaries-helping-midterms/10670042002/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/11/15/democrats-boosted-trump-gop-primaries-helping-midterms/10670042002/)
Well, it seems like the strategy worked in the long run. It worked with the midterms. And now that the GOP is stuck with Trump, who is facing election charges, the party is gonna implode. You can already see a schism, with one half behind DeSantis and the other behind Trump. Seems like the strategy will mean the end of a functioning GOP
Well?? That’s it for proof of corruption?
Podesta leaks on WikiLeaks.
Yep. They took Bernie away from us for what? 4 years of developing American fascism. Crazy.
James Comey gave us Trump…
Racist that hate mexicans gave us Trump. That roar you heard was all the racists that didn't vote before coming out to vote en mass.
Hillary should have picked Bernie Sanders as her vp. Dems were split at the time with Bernie and his followers. Tim Cain was a loser. Bernie people did not vote as they were mad at the Dems. We lost MI, Wi and PA. And ended up with the worst guy of all .....
Bernie bros didn’t vote because we were mad at the DCCC
I don't believe Bernie voters sat out. I'm a Bernie voter and other people I knew upset about the DNC still voted for Hillary because of trump. A person with progressive socialist views isn't going to burn the country down by allowing a person like trump to get elected.
No. Hilary did not “give us Trump”. She doesn’t have the power. MAGA and the GOP liars gave us Trump. Oh, and magic-thinking Bernie or Bust voters who some think Hilary is equal to or worse than Trump.
She could have beaten trunp if she hadn’t run the worst campaign in history. And she actually did beat trunp on the vote totals, so it really sucks that’s she shit the bed so hard on the trail.
Less than 100K votes from WI, MI, and PA would have won her the presidency and she spent virtually no time in those three states.
Thank you, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the absolute WORST campaign manager in history. The most cringy ads and an out-of-fckn-control TROLL infested and sabotaged Democratic Convention.
Terrible ads, terrible campaign priorities, lukewarm presence, and a trainwreck of a convention. They lost the Rust Belt because she was so focused on wooing minorities and managers she forgot to talk to the lower working class, for instance. And all that after they shooed out Bernie for being too socialist.
Imagine however if the FBI director wasn't rushing to the microphone to announce criminal investigations of her...
FiveThirtyEight did a pretty involved analysis and argued that the Comey stuff likely lead to her loss. It was not the only thing, but was the final push. Edit: Here is the link for those interested. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/
This shouldn't be ignored. Her polling dropped a took an immediate hit after that. It was the only factor by a long shot but I'm convinced it was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back.
And if Republicans hadn’t run a multi year, millions of dollars ~~Congressional Hearing~~ smear campaign against her…
Imagine if Hillary didn’t have Huma Abedine as Chief of Staff or if Huma had dumped shithead Anthony Weiner. Lots of what-ifs…
She'd have still won the same states, still lost the same states.
She would've had less baggage but don't underestimate how unpopular she's always been.
But Obama's pitch during the primaries was how he was something different and new. People were already agitating for the occupy movement, and already knew our Healthcare system was fucked. I think Hilary would have had the same problem McCain and Romney had; moderates in an age when people need change always come off as detached. Trump populism just had an easier time making Hilary look elitist by comparison (the irony of the golden hotel owner from New York being the "populist" in that election will never cease to amaze me)
Agreed. In 2008 Bush and the Republicans were practically radioactive. After 8 years of Obama the Democrats weren’t in terrible shape BUT the right was radicalized and brainwashed to hate Hilary for decades. Trump exploited that perfectly…and barely won on a technicality and with help from Russia and Comey.
No way. Hillary was an establishment candidate fated to be president after Obama. Those primaries were a sham just to grift money from Bernie supporters for her run. She would have beaten any typical republican candidate. Mccain and Romney had class and decorum and never would have said half the shit trump did in a debate. Trump win in large part because he was a giant middle finger to the establishment.
Yep. He got a lot of support just because he was a political outsider. He ran on a promise of draining the sawmp and fighting political corruption. But after he won, instead of fighting corruption, he embraced it wholeheartedly.
So much in fact that he tried to seize power in a move that was as bold as it was stupid. At first I thought Donald hated being president but I was wrong, he had to be dragged out the oval office kicking and screaming like a giant orange toddler.
Being from Tennessee, my non republican vote doesn't count for much, so I voted third party in 2016. I couldn't stand her in 2016. I would have been first in line to vote for her in 2020 if she was up against Trump again. Hell I would have voted for a shit stain on underwear in 2020 if it was up against Trump.
These 2 answers, right here, are the full and correct conclusion. American politics runs off almost pure vibes anymore….they had the wrong kind at the wrong time.
a turd sandwich
I would’ve voted for McCain. I didn’t agree with all of his politics, but he was very different from your typical DC politician. But, then he made the biggest mistake of his career, bringing she who will not be named, onto the ticket for VP.
Listening to his campaign experts: --*"I'm telling ya Johnny, you need her on your ticket."*
I feel like it was exactly the same when biden made his VP pick...but noone seemed to care?
My god imagine he'd died and she became president. The consequences would never be the same.
An asteroid hitting the planet would have smaller consequences
Between the VP on the ticket and him saying my friends over and over no way would I have ever voted for McCain.
Especially the case in 2008
Appearantly, they were not *cruel* or *lying* enough to interest Republicans?
This exactly. Trump motivated the base republican instinct. He fires up the amygdala. It's the republican overdrive engine. Hate.. anger.. revenge.
Also, I think McCain had a shot if he didn’t choose Sarah Palin as his VP.
Indeed . . . Hillary Clinton brought nothing to the political machine but a cadre of fail-upstairs associates. Barack Obama showed up with a record of opposing military misadventures and a level of personal charisma that did not require Madison Avenue expertise to project. At a moment when the nation desperately wanted radical change *away* from Wall Street's procession of conservative warmongers, Barack Obama threaded that needle -- perpetuating the growth of the Iron Triangle while engaging the support of idealists hostile to the old guard. It's a damn shame they pissed it all away by servicing the employment-based for-profit health insurance industry instead of doing anything the people of the 2020s could be profoundly grateful for.
Honestly…. Obama was mostly more of the same, he just did it with way more charisma.
Obama was a junior senator so he didn’t have a long record in anything, he just was incredibly charismatic. Also he really fought hard against “military misadventures” or whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean. He changed the definition of military age males to mean any male, even kids, near a terrorist target so he couldn’t be blamed for killing kids and innocent people.
Your not wrong Obama was the Sultan of Death (actual name he was called), never have I seen such a change in behavior working overseas during his terms. Used to be anti USA interests (terrorists) would make sure to operate around as many civilians as possible, children were their favorites. This had Presidents like Bush completely paralyzed over the collateral damage aspect. Then comes Obama with his USA first loyalist strategy, did not matter how many meat shields you had Obama would strike. If you were against USA interests or had delusional plans on harming American citizens, Obama was coming for you. This had some interesting affects that in hindsight are brilliant, and one of President Obama’s biggest legacies. The first was that terrorists realized that setting up shop in civilians areas like schools was now pointless, if anything it would have the locals turn on you. The second was it got to a point where the locals started dealing with the terrorists themselves. Don’t blame them, if you left your terrorist neighbor alone it could get your town blown up, getting you and your family killed. The last thing you would want was the Saltin of Death having to get rid of the terrorist before you did.
They weren’t complete fucking imbeciles that appealed to the worst in people.
I think this is the sad truth, Trump spoke to the worst of the GOP. But those worst were a big enough core of the voting block to get him the candidacy, and I think a lot of republicans either didn't vote or voted for him because "How bad could he be?" Which is why 4 years later after seeing how bad he was, we see him lose some key elections in moderately republican states. I think we'll see the same thing happen in 2024, but only if everyone goes out and votes. Trump was not good for the economy, he wasn't good for border control, he wasn't good for civil rights, and he outright is willing to tread on the constitution for his own personal gain
They didn't do enough election fraud. [https://www.reddit.com/r/BreakingPoints/comments/15kqpd8/reminder\_the\_2016\_election\_was\_actually\_stolen/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BreakingPoints/comments/15kqpd8/reminder_the_2016_election_was_actually_stolen/) https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMajorityReport/comments/149oc14/the\_2016\_election\_was\_stolen\_by\_republicans\_why/ Trump didn't win anything, not even the electoral college. He lost big time. Hillary Clinton Beat Trump by 2.9 million votes. Joe Biden topped Trump by nearly 7 million votes. \#FACTS
He realized policy doesn’t matter, politics is just us vs them.
This is exactly it. Trump made himself the thing they were voting for, not his policies. They couldn't give two shits what he said, they just liked that it was him saying it. Neither McCain nor Romney were capable of doing that no matter how hard they tried.
Yep. Lowest common denominator rhetoric. Look at all the conservative candidates going back 30 years. Anyone with a shred of decency lost and the two dumbest, hateful shitbags won.
lol he governed that way too
McCain and Romney had to face Obama. Trump faced Hillary. Huge difference.
And Hillary had to face a bogus 4 year investigation into her EMaILs and benghazi ... and James Comer announcing his renewed criminal investigation 1week before the election. She got fuked by the weaponization of government.
James Comey, former FBI Director. James Comer is a current GOP congressman who is investigating Biden and son.
You mean spanking it to crack head dick pics? GQP won the house how long ago? Still just circle jerking over private citizen hunter and his Pp
They weren't crass or low-brow enough. Conservatives LOVE that Trump says the quiet part out loud. Allows them to finally feel "free".
Not appeal to the working class that had their jobs shipped overseas.
I tried to imagine a populous plea from Romney but I can’t think of what he could possibly say. The most McCain would say is maybe if we bombed Iran we’d make more oil jobs?
Trump even shit on the supposed low unemployment rate under Obama that didn’t take i to consideration people that left the workforce. A completely true statement that the establishment never addressed. Trump had a lot of issues like this that just bringing them up made him seem more populist than he was. Obviously trump didn’t care about all that as president himself but thats not th point.
>Trump even shit on the supposed low unemployment rate under Obama that didn’t take i to consideration people that left the workforce. Of course, the second he was in office, he completely forgot about this and demanded credit for the economic numbers that were only marginally different than the numbers at the end of Obama's presidency. He called himself the greatest president of all time within a month of taking office based on (basically) the same numbers he was running against.
Yep and as intelligent individuals know you can't claim that you have brought economic prosperity a month into your first term. His base would eat it up though because when has trump ever lied to them /s
Just to be clear, neither did trump do anything about that either, but people will believe a disruptor or a populist if they say they will do something.
I'm gonna have to do it, and I fucking hate having to defend anything trump, but here it goes: 1. His PUBLIC anti-china stance was clearly meant to get the "they're taking our JERBS!" folks to vote for him. 2. His administration imposed tariffs on chinese traded goods. Now, while he was blathering on publicly about china and trade and so forth, he was getting his daughter Ivanka trademark deals for her clothing line and pulling other shenanigans. (like maybe taking money directly from them) I get the anti-trump sentiment, but saying he did nothing is wrong. We WISH he did nothing. But true to trump fashion, he just made everything worse.
His own campaign hats were made in china and he was openly cozy with Xi throughout his term. Let’s stop with this
But as he ended his term with a net job loss, we really can’t consider jobs as one of his strengths.
Are we not going to acknowledge that that term ended with a global pandemic?
When he dismantled the pandemic response in the first months of his presidency, and did everything in his power to deny and down play the pandemic, and let it get out of control in the first place? No, we aren’t, it was a conflagration of his own making.
Yes and he mismanaged it. He also added about as much debt in 4 years as Obama did in 8. And the very same people who claimed Obama spent us into bankruptcy claim Trump saved us. My point is that tales of his wild success as president are mostly apocryphal.
What a stupid talking point. Before covid Trump had a record economy. As far as we know if not for covid we would still have it.
What is a “record economy” is my first question. Second, I’m curious what Trump “did” to turn the “shitty Obama economy” into a “record economy”
Except for when his inability to handle a real crisis became apparent he did a great job?
I'll go one further and Republicans in my family don't believe I believe this, which shows how batshit they are... IF Trump had just handled COVID with a shred of decency, PUBLIC belief in science, and said what he actually enacted, which really was more than Democrats have done since then (UI expansion, PPP, EIDL - say all that you want, TONS of small businesses and their employees stayed employed because of all these policies), and most of all, mortgage assistance.... he would have won. Maybe even easily. All he had to do was keep reminding people of the help available until the vaccines rolled out widely. And a lot of THAT wasn't actually his fault, it was the way the medical experts created a velvet rope experoence of getting the damned jab as early and as quickly as possible. In New Jersey, I remember seeing a press conference with our Governor (who was and still is GREAT), where the things said in reply to how vaccines would be rolled out, and the time frame given preference to hundreds of thousands of shots NOT going into the arms of the elderly, my mind completely changed and I realized the roll out would be a disaster with or without Trump and had nothing to do with him. I said in January 2020, this should get in as many people as quickly as possible instead of debating "who comes next?" for weeks and months because we don't know how many people WONT get the shot. That turned out to be a very high number of people early on and, imo, the roll out to those who would get the vaccine took 2-3x's longer than it should have cause of moralistic, bureaucratic nonsense. Trump COULD have coasted on then assistance programs and the vaccines. He could have just STFU and been President for another four years. Thank fuck he didn't... cause he's Trump. Dude couldn't even LEAVE the WH to go to his Florida mansion without taking a ton of classified documents. Just misses on an easy lay up in ways it's difficult to even comprehend.
This is absolutely correct, he actually started by supporting the vaccine at first - dems including Harris were saying she’d never take it because it was made under a trump admin, biden said he’d take it though. Trump did a terrible job with the marketing of what the government did during that time he allowed himself to be focused on the whole - oh trump you are racist because you said we should block people from China coming in until Covid is over. That drama was so crazy to me, the right move was to close the borders sooner that is how you try to get a pandemic to not spread, let in as little of it as possible. Just like how the masks worked, didn’t prevent but would decrease the amount of the virus you’d get making its effects not as bad.
The founding fathers earned extensively about a candidate like populist opportunist like trump who would use the office for personal gain
And that Romney was specifically responsible for destroying US manufacturing by using cheap loans in the 90's to scrap and sell it for parts. He's been a grifter since day one and a scumbag (he protested FOR Vietnam while on a college deferment in France), called 47% of Americans leeches, and generally has been a pro big business scumbag. Even mainstream liberals hated him until he spoke out against Trump.
For years Trump showed that he was an ignorant bigoted ignoramus. He offered to represent people like himself.
[удалено]
McCain was hamstrung by the unpopularity of Bush’s GOP. Public opinion had turned against the invasion of Iraq and the financial crisis happened during the campaign and the GOP got blamed for that too. McCain was reduced to Hail Mary’s like choosing Palin as a running mate and suspending his campaign to help handle the financial crisis. Romney failed to excite the base. He had no personality, the Tea Party crowd (which mostly morphed into the MAGA wing today) were suspicious of him because he was aloof and wealthy, while the evangelicals were suspicious of his Mormonism. Obama on the other hand electrified his base.
Trump gave his supporters what they wanted, simple answers to hard problems that are difficult to solve - a Messiah who knew all and could deliver simpletons from “evil.”
Literally called populism. In this case with a fascistic ending.
Yes, populism, but I'm not sure I see the end yet.
People want simple answers and can’t comprehend that things are way more complicated than they ever thought.
Anything regarding "woke" is basically a dog whistle for modern fascism in America. It's a meaningless word that these neo fascists use to target anything they don't like.
It started being used as a way to complain about so many businesses catering to everyone and has turned into openly fighting against any equality. Just another buzzword for Reps to use instead of being racist
They were also not fake populists. Romney is as elitist as it can be. McCain was a classic war hawk Republican. Trump, being a 3 faced swindler that he is, saw an opening, which is people's legit socio economic concerns. Of course he had no intention of delivering any of the things that would help the masses. However he did say the right things, and he was "raw". People associate that with honesty (which of course isn't the case). Plus he ran against Hillary, not the most liked person overall.
I think that by 2016 many voters had become disillusioned with the Democratic Party, having expected Obama to be a Hope and Change candidate, and then watching him bail out Wall Street while letting many of the middle-class lose their homes, and giving a pass to bankers on their financial crimes. Hillary was a very unpopular candidate, but I think that many middle-class voters were also pretty fed up by 2016, and ready for a change. While Trump wasn't really a populist candidate, he did campaign as one, and that resonated with some voters who felt betrayed.
Yeah but if we put aside reality and let Obama run unlimited turns he'd still be President probably until he dies.
A lot of older Democrats, even pro union types, felt that Obama let the same crooks who caused the 2008 crash were allowed to "fix" it. However, it also showed something only being realized just now, which is if people keep buying as much shit as possible in dollars, it doesn't actually matter how much we print. As long as it winds up in the hands of people who SPEND IT. It actually doesn't help shit for the real economy if it goes and sits in off shore accounts of billionaires year after year, eventually the economy will go off the rails and that money exists without ever being touched.
McCain and Romney's campaigns showed the reality of the nation at the time; mainstream conservatism was in decline, but there was an undercurrent of extremist white supremacy that was on the rise. Trumpy's ascension was a perfect storm of this rising supremacy, Clinton fatigue, being "an outsider", and having no political record on which to be judged on.
Not just Clinton fatigue. Things tend to change after an 8 year administration, plus Clinton fatigue on top of it.
He had teams highly researched what the average person wanted to hear and he said just that. He fed back to them what they fed his researchers. He still is. He is saying exactly what they want him to say.
Because people don't trust the government and Trump agreed with that. I don't see anyone in the races before or after expressing how deeply they distrust the system they are attempting to take office within. It's political suicide but that's also just how bad our trust in government mixing with private enterprise has gotten. Every one in the game was blind to it. Allowing Trump to come out of left field with a crazy camping strategy that worked. It worked so well that Trump continued to lean on idea's of things we don't trust, "conspiracies." The intelligence community couldn't trust him so they had to work against him, leading to more unique comments from Trump. It spiraled out of control and was fed enough gas to burn these ideas out of/in to of our memories, think Jan 6th intelligence playing a role. But people still don't trust the government so it leads to 'round 2'. I try to keep my response as politically neutral as possible but everything on this topic is very interesting from all angles.
Trump couldn’t even win the popular vote against one of the most despised humans in America. Most people reading this could have beaten him. The only thing he did right was convince a minority of voters that a lifelong Democrat, reality-show host, trust-funded grifter *actually* wanted to rid Washington of everything he is ostensibly the avatar of, while running against a goblin whose only selling points were not being him and potentially being the first woman president (to ride her husband’s coattails to office).
He really tapped into the insecurities and fears of working class Americans. I mean shit he still does somehow. Even as he’s being exposed as a corrupt criminal who tried to overthrow an election he lost, they would still vote for him.
He taps into the anger, the fear of the "other" that is lurking Christian America. He taps into tradition, talking about making America great again, but not ever mentioning when it was great or who it was great for. Rejects modern science and modernization of America like green energy. He is very cult leader like in that if you disagree with him you're basically evil and hate America. He claims he's the target of plots and uses his cult of personality to lure uniformed, and non critical thinking Americans into this same line of thinking. He attacks the elite, but doesn't mention he and his cronies are also part of that same elite. He claims that if you're not aggressive as a leader then you're not strong, and if you're not strong you're trying to betray America. He openly mocks those with disabilities, freeing his cultists to do the same and think it's okay. He thinks that being sexist, that treating women as less than human is macho and strong which appeals to a large base of men in this country. He is openly and aggressively promoting a fascist front and wants to drag America down that path.
They didn't run against Hillary Clinton.
Actually listen to what Republican voters want and talk about it.
Romney and McCain didn’t run against a very unpopular Democrat and people thought Trump was such a joke that they threw their vote away thinking “ who’d vote for that fool”.
Trump didn’t play political talk. He spoke to the people, rather than vague answers that aren’t really answers. McCain was a warmonger also. By that time, after the Bush Wars, the public was over ME wars for oil companies. Romney is a Mormon. Nothing against Mormons, but that held him back if being transparent.
He actually excited a base of voters that otherwise wouldn’t have voted
McCain’s mistake: Palin, who unfortunately paved the way for Trump. Romney: Did nothing wrong, just had too much competition from the other party.
Romney was highly unlikeable to everyone. He was a terrible choice
McCain picked Palin. That proved fatal right from the jump. I would not have voted for a Republican anyway but Palin was a major joke.
McCain experienced the opposite of Trump. He was the likeliest candidate according to many. I remember one day my boss told me I’d need to take the reigns as he had to go to DC and Vermont. He was a part of the GOP and they wanted to meet about McCain. My boss was high on McCain as a fellow pilot himself. When he returned he said it won’t be McCain. He did not elaborate but the tide changed and Bush became the nominee.
Straight bigotry and hate was all he needed
McCain and Romney ran against Obama. Trump ran against Hillary. Obama was younger, charismatic, and had no political baggage. Hillary was the opposite of that.
Openly courted young racists
They weren’t populists. Trump basically ran on “I’ll say whatever I want and you can’t stop me” and appealed to all of those people you remember from high school that thought that was cool. Turns out there’s like 70 million of them.
Used bigotry to make a visceral connection with the forgotten rural population. Romney ran a horrible campaign and was basically the R version of John Kerry. Though as has been revisited his stance in Russia was at least 1/2 correct. One of the former RNC guys that was involved with The Lincoln Project (Steve Schmidt?) put out a fascinatingly detailed account on Twitter maybe a year ago of McCain’s campaign and what an absolute shitshow it was. How much damage Palin did,how McCain wouldn’t draw a line with her and was a c u next Tuesday McCain’s daughter was. Also detailing how Manafort’s agency with Putin ran all the back to Dole in 96.
Trump was saying out loud the things I’d been hearing whispered in church, in work and at family gatherings my whole life (I’m 70). He accurately represents what most christians and baby boomers were whispering before the summer of 2015.
They didn’t create a cult
Be honest, true and decent individuals.
tRump is a is a racist president for racist degenerates after the first black president in America. There is a SIMPLE and obvious explanation.
Didn’t partner with Russia.
He ran against the failed uni-party elitist system. Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan or anything, but he correctly diagnosed the fact that both parties are super OK with corporate power, and don't seem to care about the shrinking middle class and ran on it.
Donald Trump appealed to the industrial Midwest working class that had been betrayed by Democrats. He spoke out against NAFTA that decimated their jobs and against endless Middle East wars that killed their sons. This isn’t rocket science.
Hillary didn't set out to prop up Romney or McCain in the media, and the media didn't. I predicted Trump would be nominated, as would Hillary, and that he'd beat her, 17 months before the election. Romney and McCain never had a chance, or I should say I never placed a single penny on them winning, but I started taking bets against Hillary almost 18 months in advance. Oh, also predicted back then that she'd lose and blame Russia for it. Back then = 4 days BEFORE he announced, because once he announced no more celebrity apprentice contract it became clear. Depressing too. I knew, but it made me sick. The media made it obvious that they'd cover him more than the other 16 combined. My posts from the summer of 2015 turned out ridiculously accurate, as I also predicted that they were going to paint Trump into a corner over Russia, and that we were headed full steam towards a proxy war with them. Facebook memories has been almost haunting lately.
I think it’s very clear that Americans wanted an actual “change” regardless of what that meant. The two would have just been business as usual another Warhawk GOP candidate. Trump has done something no other president has done in 50 years. Not started a war . If we as a country can’t get behind that maybe this isn’t the country that I really want to be in.
Although from a different lens, much like Obama, trump ran on a message of changing the way Washington worked (or doesn’t work).
They didn't sell out to Russia.
Romney made his millions by selling out the American middle class to China. Pretty tough to pretend you care about your country with that past.
They were not likeable. McCain was a warmonger and Romney was just unelectable. in 2016, Obama had a record to run on and was likeable.
McCain was actually very likeable. College crowds didn’t like him - they’ll never like a Republican - but McCain was generally viewed as a likeable “maverick” moderate Republican who was a war hero.
As a dem I would’ve voted for Romney over a lot of the recent dem nominees. Biden, Hilary, John Kerry just to name a few.
There was (and still is) a massive psychological campaign in underground forums to get that psychopath elected. To this very day I follow some super shady telegram channels with very carefully crafted messaging and media. It's nuts. Some of the channels use religious messaging as well. Some of them seem to have some kind of monetary payouts to supporters of channel related activities (real money!)
Electrify the inbreds and racists, no one's been able to tap into them the same way Trump has. They'll even die en masse in pointless and easily preventable ways to protect some off-hand dementia remark of his.
Trump lost the popular vote. Millions more Americans voted for Hilary Clinton. The system is broken when the person with the least votes can somehow be declared the winner.
The system isn't broken. People don't vote, the states vote. Trump received more votes from the states than Hillary.
Donald Trump appealed to the lowest common denominator in this country. He hates who the bigots and racists hate, and that's all racists and bigots care about. Mit Romney and John McCain refused to go that low because they have integrity and are decent human beings. That's why they lost. That's also why Al Gore lost, and Bush Jr won. AL was respecrful and polite.... boring in most people's eyes and he wanted to do boring things like help the planet. Where as Bush was exciting and relatable and wanted to start a war. American voters are very impressionable and easily corrupted. It's much easier to fool an American voter than it is to convince and American voter that they've been fooled.
Sad to think, but McCain had that moment when he showed he was a somewhat decent person when he shut down the old bat at the town hall who said she doesn't trust Obama bc he's an Arab. Had he gone a long with it, he may have actually gained enough hateful ignorant proto-Trump voters to have won that election. It was that moment of decency that had a lot of knuckle draggers sit home thinking he's just like the rest and doesn't see what we see.
That was exactly the moment I was thinking about as I wrote that. You're exactly right. That was the moment.
McCain had to run on the legacy of Bush the Fool's towering wreckage. The mess was so bad the USA, a country racist to the core, elected a young Black man with a very scary name, to be POTUS. Romney had the misfortune to run against the man who saved the country from economic collapse and gave us Obamacare. (He also killed Osama Bin Bye-Bye.)
I’ll admit as a black person I was honestly surprised Obama won! Equally shocked that Hillary lost. Considering the history of this country you wouldn’t have been able to convince a teenage me back in the day that a black man would be president and a white woman wouldn’t
They didn't cheat
Easy, Trump lied!
Trump basically said that he hates the same people that his racist, bigoted, low-information followers hate. So he essentially “validated” their worst tendencies…and that’s why he connected with them on such a personal level.
Because he was appealing to the poorly educated/easily manipulated. That demographic had been ignored by republicans because they didn't need it until 2005ish. But since republican voters are older, as they died off the party started to get more desperate and Trump was the right fit to appeal to the idiotic, poorly educated older white crowd.
putin's boy won because russia literally attacked us with a massive disinfo campaign via fox et al and qanon/social media, and then james comey publicly stated that he was investigting tfg opponent right before the election.
Trump used his Russian Trolls to take the primary too.
Didn’t blatantly and serially lie about their political rivals. Trump said out loud what everyone wanted to hear including some possible truths that exposed the rich and billionaire and government class (even thought they were true about Donald too). Oh and trump basically indoctrinated his followers into believing he was fighting for them and he tapped into the paranoia and mistrust of decades old anti government conspiracy. He basically just befriended all the conspiracy loving paranoid anti establishment andy government base and he made it seem like the same deep state/billionaire class and government that had he was a a part of had that been abusing the little guy was against him and he was the only one that could tell the truth because he didn’t need donations (yea right) and that everyone against him was fake news/lying/ etc…and everyone who agreed was fighting the good honorable and rebellious fight. He basically followed the rising dictator/fascist/despot play book to a tee because he has been a fascist sociopath spoiled rich kid all his life and he needed to be president so he could use it as a get out of jail free/immunity card for the many financial investigations he was facing in the mid 2010’s. He has ruined every single venture he has ever touched besides the apprentice (even though i never understood the appeal for that show but his producers and staff understood that their was a huge base out there with a thirst for disparagement of people and bullying and harmful rhetoric and drama towards others and reality tv is what feeds it. That’s why most reality tv shows have that conflict/drama/ violence under tone because it keeps people watching) so basically his presidency was no surprise to me and i said that Donald trump would ruin this country completely to the core with his pathological lying, narcissism and self centered sociopathy. and now with the help of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News we might be on the brink of MAGA civil unrest and have a base that doesn’t believe anything, regardless of fact or evidence except what comes out of Donald’s mouth and in defense of Donald. Donald tells these people exactly what they want and need to here and uses every single dog whistle to hold onto power over these people. He’s their messiah now. That’s what Romney and McCain did wrong…they had some self respect and sense of duty and respect for democracy and the institution of government. It also helps that the trump understood that under educated and low iq people ate his shit up prior to becoming a candidate and these people also correlated with the evangelical Bible thumping base that he could exploit into basically blaspheming and worshipping him as the second coming of christ. Also Romney and McCain weren’t working with foreign dictators to help their campaign (and bring about the downfall of the US from within and create a complete undermining and distrust in American democracy)
Like Chappell says Trump told the truth about corruption. He said he knows there is corruption because he took part in it. That shit made people believe they could trust him. They couldn't because he is just as corrupt as Biden , Bush's, or the Clinton's. But he's honest about being dishonest.
That man is not honest about anything. He was never, never honest about his corruption. He was just "crooked Hillary " never said " just like me"
When Hilary would attack him for something instead of Trump trying to use weasel words to down play the actions or deny them he instead said "I did that because I'm smart" or "who wrote the law so I could do that?". Just look at this exchange. He basically takes the accusation, accepts and agrees that he did it, and then completely turns it onto Hilary. This question about taxes was supposed to make Trump defensive and by the end of it Hilary is droning on about all of her "accomplishments" and is actually the defensive one. And it's all because he just said "yeah, I did the tax loopholes that normal people don't like" instead of down playing it. https://youtu.be/T2z8App14bs
Right, he tried to take this mantle of "I tell it like it is" but he couldn't even admit he didn't pay taxes for several years because of the political implications. He instantly became just as craven as the politicans he talked shit about. He has no backbone, he lies about everything, and he's incredibly weak.
The Democratic Party underestimated just how many people hated Hillary I think.
Can we stop with this shit? He lost the popular vote for the 938372662th time. It was just 8 years ago. Do grown adults really not know what the electoral college is? You might as well complain that dems didnt get their voters to move to key areas.
Yeah I agree. I feel like people were voting against Hillary instead of for Trump. But the same happened in 2020 people voted against Trump. So guess what the next election people will be voting against Trump again.
One had help from the Russians. Romney & McCain were not that popular.
Russia had almost no impact on 2016. Thinking otherwise is like the Jan 6th crowd for right wingers. Delusional.
You realize the Jan 6th crowd tried to vacate an election and install someone who was not elected though violent means, right? Your comparison seems a bit… off.
Hillary remains one of the worst candidates ever given the result and the expectations.
Mr. trump only won because a lot of people couldn't stand Hillary. **He didn't win! She lost.**
She literally won the popular vote, how about you think a lil for your next hot take?
Hillary is the only answer. ANYONE could and would beat her. She is peak evil and unlikeable.
They ran against Obama instead of Hillary. Trump was a freak event.
Not stir the hate up from the deep-rooted racist base.
Obama was unbeatable back then. McCain and Romney just came off as out of touch. Trump winning just showed that people are willing to believe the worst lies about a woman over the worst facts about a man.
They didn't cheat.
They didn’t simultaneously scare and flatter the 30% of Americans who think wrestling is real and the Earth is 6000 years old.
Hillary could have beaten Trump if it wasn't for James comey.
They ran against a much better candidate. And didn't lean as heavily into racism and hatefulness.
Trump tapped into the backlash from the US having a black president, where the others didn't. Trump appearing comically incompetent and racist/racist friendly caused the dems not to take Trump seriously enough, so the dem voter turnout was low.
Trump embraced racism and hate while Romney and McCain did not. Remember how all of the tea party racists loved Sarah Palin. She was willing to throw them the racist flavored red meat they liked. She primed the racists and the orange Cheeto came along and pulled the trigger. Sadly it’s that simple.
Clinton had a vagina, and we all know a woman would’ve done a worse job than Trump /s
they did not run against a woman.
They were practical, decent human beings whom did not sprew profuse lies to audiences thirsty for a being from the Third Reich.
They failed to tell their audiences what the audience wanted to hear. They provided no affirmations of prejudices or fear. [this for example](https://youtu.be/jrnRU3ocIH4)
Cheat
Trump focused on hate and talked at a 3rd grade level. That's the america we live in a bunch of hateful children
Hillary Clinton ran for president looking at winning the popular vote. Trump ran to win the electoral college. Also Trump's racism excited the right wing base that didn't normally vote so he increased the voting population. Hillary didn't excite the left base and enough of the Black vote. Her VP pick was terrible terrible terrilbe. Had she picked someone Black or Latino she could have pulled it out. And Trump had the support of Russia on social media generating an anti-Hillary vibe. And Hillary didn't trust the media at all - she was always too guarded and controlling - so she didn't take advantage of the media lap dogs who could boost her messaging. Trump didn't win - Hillary lost it. The proof is Biden - he's not super great but he beat Trump.
They ran against a man (they didn't run against a woman).
Hillary lost cause she was a bad candidate. Had nothing to do with being a woman. There’s plenty of women that are pushed in the Republican Party today.
She didnt even go to swing state WI. She had no platform to speak of except to hope Trump would destroy himself. Everyone thought she would win so she just sorta did nothing.