Global, thanks for engaging!
What you highlight there actually goes to the point I was trying to make about an invisible wall, an inability to actually pay attention and listen to the grievances of the other side and not just dismiss them outright. On your side, everything under Obama was just peachy! Nothing to complain about! Therefore, these people, roughly half the population, must just be haters.
I was not talking about reading "radical websites" when I referred to alternative media. Some of the alternative media, in fact, almost all the ones I personally pay attention to, are run by liberals. One of them is headed by a happily married gay lifetime democrat! Check out Dave Rubin of "the Rubin Report" channel on Youtube, for example. They have worked for the mainstream and been disgusted over the years about the blatant spinning as opposed to simple old-fashioned news! They detected the rise of the alt-right long ago, as an over-reaction to extreme leftist regressive nonsense that shuts down any and all dissent. The conservative ones are also good: they also are very much anti the alt-right, but do not swallow the propaganda the mainstream spews.
The complaints I see a LOT from those people who had resolved to vote for Trump despite all of his huge faults can be grouped in the following head-points:
1. Money matters: Obamacare, industrial jobs
-There are a lot of folks for whom Obamacare sucked. Their premiums went up 40% and when they couldn't pay them they were fined. Obamacare is a good thing overall, but hasn't been easy for EVERYBODY. Ignoring those who have found themselves on its sour end doesn't help. Hilary promised them nothing. She didn't even speak to their concerns at all.
-Lots of those guys in the rustbelt lost their jobs overseas. Trump gave them easy answers. But Hilary again simply assumed they did not exist.
2. Immigration and Terrorism
-Obama and his government refuse to acknowledge the "Islam" in Islamic terrorism, at a time when the West has seen unprecedented terrorist attacks. They have also encouraged a culture that curtails all discussions about it with PC bullying screaming "Islamophobe" at anyone who wants to discuss it, including clear liberals like Sam Harris and Bill Maher who were victims of this bullying.
To many of these folks, the government seems like it is willfully ignorant. Of course I know there is a big difference between mainstream Islam and the Wahabi nonsense. But acting like terrorism is completely disconnected from the religious teachings is silly. So a lot of these folks are afraid that Europe is being overrun by terrorists from the middle-East who are hiding among the refugees! Obama made it seem like he was planning to bring in a whole bunch of them to the U.S. right around the time Europe was getting attacked!
Before you scream "Islamophobe", just look at Kenya. We have always happily welcomed Somali refugees...but what happened when we started getting attacked by Alshabab? Of course the welcoming attitude changed quickly. Is it because Kenyans are haters? Is it because they believe all Somalis are Alshabab? That's nonsense. Kenyans are just fearful.
So are Americans.When all this PC crap is going on, Trump shows up and voices what many average Americans are thinking: Stop letting these folks in until we have a way of vetting them and separating the refugees from the terrorists!
Rather than responding with open dialogue about how this is unworkable etc etc, they start screaming "Racist! Islamophobe!" So those people thinking these thoughts are left with the impression that Trump is the only who gets that there is an urgent problem! Not the Dem government, not the Republican party big-wigs...just Trump! And then you're shocked they end up quietly voting for him???
-Immigration from Mexico is also a big concern though from my reading nowhere near as much as immigration from the mid-East. This is simple xenophobia, in my opinion, like in S.A. The left's identity politics is responsible for this fear of the "browning of America" you refer tom in my view. They act like it is a sin to be white and male and like if you fall in this demographic, you just don't matter: Shut up and check your priviledge! Most of the people I've read are all for STOPPING immigration, not for the deportations if the people already in U.S. are not criminals. In my view, the PC crap I refer to below, is responsible for there being no NUANCED discussion where people fall in the middle.
3. Wars and the Hawkish establishment
American global adventures have created the disasters that have Syrians desperately trying to escape the mid-East. Everyone understands that now.
Trump comes along and tells them that he is also sick of them wars. He wants to concentrate on building America. During that time, Clinton who is known to be responsible for the destruction of Libya ("Hillary's war") seems to be escalating tensions with Russia, a nuclear power, by floating scary things like declaring no-fly zone over Syria. So now you have many people who believe she is leading their country into a direct confrontation with Putin, which no one knows how it'll go...nukes may start flying at some point!
4. Culture wars, Runaway PC culture and Supreme Court Appointments
Obama has been ramming certain policies down the throats of conservative bases with executive actions: Forcing Christians to buy arbotifacents for their employees, and recently attempting to force everyone to allow transexuals who have not undergone surgery to use female bathrooms. At the same time, you have stories about some poor christian woman getting sued somewhere for refusing to bake a cake, photograph, or otherwise serve in some way at a gay wedding which she believes is wrong.
At the same time PC culture has gotten extreme in the last 8 years to the point that comedians and speakers are getting banned from speaking at UNIVERSITIES! The universities have caved to this nonsense with "safe spaces" and what-not. Only the University of Chicago was brave enough to announce to its applicants that all viewpoints are allowed at universities, will be debated and no one has a right to be protected from views they disagree with because that kind of exposure to alternative ideas is exactly what universities are for! Imagine a university having to defend such a policy which should be a given at a university of all places. A very liberal university at that...what kind of culture is that? People are getting hounded out of their jobs for saying one wrong thing.
You may think that these issues are trivial, but that's YOUR worldview. To these people, the fines and lawsuits especially, plus the executive actions, were signs of a government that was getting ready to persecute them for being traditional and holding on to their beliefs. Their only hope? The Supreme Court! Who controls it? That's right...the person who makes the appointments.
So they have to decide who they want picking the judges with the power to allow them to be bullyied by the government in this way or not. Who do you think they'll pick?
I read a LOT of people who absolutely hate Trump and were FURIOUS at the Republican party for allowing him to get that far, but they were going to vote for him anyway FOR NO OTHER REASON than the Supreme Court appointments. It was that important to them.
ETC ETC ETC
You don't have to agree/accept these views, but the point is that these views are important to the people who lined up to vote for Trump! Trump understood that and tailored his message to speak to their deepest concerns.
The left ignores all that with the "they have nothing to complain about, it must just be hate" line to their own detriment. Many liberals have seen this and woken up, thankfully, so they are starting to create avenues for genuine discussion which brings these groups together and address the issues openly so maybe there's hope.
But like I said, the dismissive "it's all just racism" is silly and arrogant. It keeps you from talking to people in a way that will get them to vote for you! You end up calling them "a basket of deplorables".... Shooting yourself in the foot. And then shocked they told you to shove off! SMH!!!
Topic: What a year What a year what a period to be alive in the West (Read 6163 times)