What do you want to be when your grow up?
The Democratic party of 2016 has failed. It lost the confidence of the working class. The best analysis I’ve read so far, and I know it’s early, comes from this Huffington Post article. If we don’t figure a way out of this problem, the country is in for a very bleak future of war, hatred, xenophobia and recriminations.
From this article I learned what the number one middle-class job is in 29 states. Can you guess what it is? I wouldn’t have been able to.
Still Skeptical After All These Years 
To put it another way:
FDR:
I welcome their hatred…
Hillary Clinton:
I welcome their speaking engagements.
There was a lot to like about HRC, and even some similarities between her and Roosevelt. In the world of politics we are often judged by that one weak link, though, and its a hard thing to get around.
I think that this generation has something to learn from studying the last time this war was fought. We are now starting to understand the context in which FDR said those words, and the meaning is far more significant in context.
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Thanks, Jeff 1089, for that interesting historical analogy, and for reminding us that politics has long been not only contentious but approaching violent.
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That was an interesting read. We need to do some critical thinking.
There is deep seated motivation for lashing out at the status quo. Trump and his team took full advantage of that anger. He was their voice of outrage. Hillary represented the status quo. Being a woman was not enough. She carried too much negative context from her years in politics, both real and conjured up in ads.
What the Trump supporters don’t realize is that he and congress will not do anything to make their lives better. Republican admins have had no good ideas for the common man whenever they’ve ‘governed’. Don’t expect them to magically come up with any this time. In fact, the only people who will benefit are those already well off. The lives of the common Trump voters will continue to erode. Their anger will return after this short lived jubilation.
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I agree, Jim, the scales will fall from their eyes soon enough, but what I fear most is the long-term effects of science denial, superstition and prejudice on the Supreme Court and American culture. I am so glad to have your input here.
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I read the article so I know the answer to your question, and I’m stunned too. My guess beforehand was something along the lines of retail sales and service.
Bad as the Democrats have been, I’d have preferred another 4 years of the status quo to the rule of a frighteningly ignorant tyrant.
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The painful truth of this election is that America embraced racism, sexism, hatred, bigotry, etc. It might feel good to imagine that if only the Democratic Party had done X, Y, or Z, then Trump would not have won.
I am not arguing that there aren’t any problems with the Democratic Party, but frankly that problem is much less critical than for us to figure out what happened to America where a father is happy to elevate a man who would be happy to grab the p******* of his daughter. The list goes on and on.
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Alas, jwhester, I think the common man places much more value on his own economic status than on any long-range concern over mere ethics or behavior. Here is a comment I submitted on another blog concerning the moral qualities of the coming Trump administration:
Caleb Crain, writing for The New Yorker, opens with these discouraging words:
The efficacy of a representative democracy has never been more in doubt since Tocqueville’s comments two centuries ago. Logic, in fact, would seem to find this form of government quite impractical, something Crain’s article explores at length.
It is apparent to me that elections are much more visceral than cerebral, and politics much more an art form than science. Political science is an oxymoron. The “robotic” Hillary, similarly to the technocrat Jimmy Carter, chose the wrong approach. They worked very hard to limn the most practical solutions to economic and social challenges. That isn’t what appeals to the common man. No, they just want someone to fix the problems and not bother them with the details. They want someone like the avuncular Ronald Reagan who opted for grand solutions while disdaining the details or the costs (e.g., Star Wars). They are like teenagers, they want attention but not a lecture, praise but not control. They want Christmas but they don’t want to worry about the prices.
The next four years, I submit, will be the start of the realism phase, and it will be painful. The only question is, what kind of personality will emerge from it?
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FYI, the full article by Crain is at this link:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/07/the-case-against-democracy
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If you have 100 votes you might have 100 reasons for those votes. True freedom of action requires understanding more reasons; not less.
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Jim, Yes, indeed, what now. Trump is now asking for another delay in his Trump University trial. He should never have been given the first delay, which kept his crimes out of the news while Clinton’s non-crimes were all some people even knew about her. Trump was right about one thing: the election is rigged. Rigged in his favor. While the judge in Trump’s trial allowed it to go undercover, Comey’s revelations without content kept Clinton’s front and center. But, as you say, What now?
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Indeed, Helen. At first I thought Comey’s actions made a sort of sense. He was summoned to testify before Congress because the Republicans politicized the email issue. He should have refused to discuss this tempest in a teapot subject right then because it was an on-going investigation. Once having done so, he felt compelled to follow up. Seen in historical hindsight, Comey will go down in history as having seriously altered the political course of the nation and the world. There oughta be a law, but we can forget about that for at least four years.
The Trump U issue will be interesting. I feel like we have a skeleton in the national closet and feel embarrassed that the whole world gets to watch us make fools of ourselves.
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