Another massively stupid aspect of the Clinton campaign...

[Mr. Reactionary]

I think it was easy to believe that all the progress the country had made on things like gay rights over the last eight years meant the country was heading full-steam towards becoming a more progressive place. I know I was feeling like "history" was happening in an irreversible way with more and more people jumping on board.

Turns out we were wrong. We didn't want to believe that these working-class whites just didn't give a damn about the rights of their even more vulnerable neighbours. All the progress of the last few years was just incidental because these people had chosen to trust Barack Obama over the corporatist establishment figure Mitt Romney. So this election was definitely a sh-tty way to learn that progress and justice are not inevitable

Most white people don't really care about the rights of those who have been Othered.

Anyhow, what I am explaining is why I think progressives did not see this loss coming and why the mistake was made. We assumed that the swing voters of the Rust Belt cared about the progress America had made with regards to social justice, and that it was the inevitable march forward to the right side of history. I'm not saying they should feel like they've seen progress personally (although the job numbers should speak for themselves). I'm saying the country did turn corners on things like gay rights. Turns out, though, that these Obama '12/Trump '16 voters didn't really give a sh-t about equal rights one way or the other. But Democrats were not really open to the possibility of the firewall falling because we thought the progressive march forward could only gain steam, not crumble away.

We were wrong, because it turns out that these people were never voting for the march forward that we thought they were voting for, even when they did vote Democrat.

1.) Assuming that Malia Obama is automatically more vulnerable than an aging factory worker is a significant reason you lost.

2.) Is there a name for the pretentious lefty religion that includes this belief that it is preordained that whatever democrats want will in fact occur during some inevitable utopian millenial kingdom ... other than Marxism i mean.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I do think part of the democratic problem is that they took progressivism too far, and the country finally said "ENOUGH!".

- They told us that we had to let people into a bathroom of a gender not their own simply because they woke up and suddenly felt like it - no transgender surgery or official paperwork required.

- They told us that partial-birth abortion was a good thing.

- They told us we had to get rid of the hyde amendment - something the country supports by a wide margin.

- They told us that freedom of religion didn't exist in the public sphere, and that we shouldn't even say "Merry Christmas!" in public.

- They legalized SSM through unelected judges.

- Hillary said that the republican party was the political enemy she was most proud of making.

- Hillary compared the pro-life movement to terrorist groups.

- They told us to simply ignore the fact that Hillary endangered the country by using a private email server

- They told us to not consider ISIS to be an Islamic organization.

- They told us that a majority of people who didn't support Hillary were deplorable individuals.

- They told us to completely ignore the fact that our border with mexico is not secure.

- They told us to value political correctness.

- And they told us to ignore the fact that our entitlement programs are about to become extinct, or only offered the solution of raising the payroll tax cap, which will pass congress on the proverbial 12th of Never.

Really, this was all part of them becoming completely tone deaf to a huge chunk of the country, especially in the family values, working class Midwest and south.

If family values mattered one iota Donald Trump would not be the President-Elect.

Encouraging folks to form and maintain marital nuclear families is the single most important step to a more stable and prosperous nation.

Too many families are something other than two-parent marital families.  In the aggregate, the two-parent intact marital family is the only type of family structure that can provide the sort of stability, security, and investment in children that maximizes the possibility of success (i. e. being a self-supporting, reasonably well-adjusted adult capable of stability in relationships) and mitigate problems that do occur.   I believe that the PERMANENCE of the Great Society programs have undermined the institution of the family by giving folks incentive to have children out of wedlock and disincentive to marry, and we are impacted by this in countless ways.  There are a lot of stories about heroic single mothers that are highlighted.  There are more stories of single mothers whose children are beyond their control that are not told because they undermine a narrative liberals are vested in.

[PresidentSamTilden]

1.) Assuming that Malia Obama is automatically more vulnerable than an aging factory worker is a significant reason you lost.

More vulnerable in what way? Is she not statistically more likely to be abused by the criminal justice system? Is she not more likely to lose out on a job because of her race? Was she not more likely to be born into poverty, into a broken family? Her dad was raised by a single mom, after all...

How is an aging factory worker more vulnerable in this society than an average African-American? Because he might lose his well paying job that he got out of high school and have to work for poverty wages? Welcome to the lives of young americans, african americans, hispanic americans, literally everyone except old white people, lol.

[Mr. Reactionary]

1.) Assuming that Malia Obama is automatically more vulnerable than an aging factory worker is a significant reason you lost.

More vulnerable in what way? Is she not statistically more likely to be abused by the criminal justice system? Is she not more likely to lose out on a job because of her race? Was she not more likely to be born into poverty, into a broken family? Her dad was raised by a single mom, after all...

How is an aging factory worker more vulnerable in this society than an average African-American? Because he might lose his well paying job that he got out of high school and have to work for poverty wages? Welcome to the lives of young americans, african americans, hispanic americans, literally everyone except old white people, lol.

Malia Obama is a smart, pretty young woman with a famous last name and powerful, millionaire parents. If you think she is worse off than poor people just because she has a hypothetical 15% more likely chance of some cop being unnecessarily rude to her, then I have to disagree. In reality, people are not statistics. They are individuals subject to an infinite combination of hardships. Being the President's daughter transcends race. When you lump a bunch of different people into boxes and tell them that they are all the same as everyone else in their box, you are "other-izing" the world.

[PresidentSamTilden]

Malia Obama is a smart, pretty young woman with a famous last name and powerful, millionaire parents. If you think she is worse off than poor people just because she has a hypothetical 15% more likely chance of some cop being unnecessarily rude to her, then I have to disagree. In reality, people are not statistics. They are individuals subject to an infinite combination of hardships. Being the President's daughter transcends race. When you lump a bunch of different people into boxes and tell them that they are all the same as everyone else in their box, you are "other-izing" the world.

All that is true.

But my point wasn't really about Malia Obama. I was really just that example to say that there is a difference between races in this country. That difference is evident in poverty, healthcare, and criminal justice. Individual people are not statistics, this is true, but the aggregate combined with U.S. history tells the tale.

The idea of thinking of the white working class as some special, vulnerable group does not jive with reality. It seems like just another way of pushing white supremacy. "Hey- other groups are improving from total disenfranchisement and poverty, and now we have to COMPETE with them?!? Somebody call Trump!"

[Fuzzy Bear]

1.) Assuming that Malia Obama is automatically more vulnerable than an aging factory worker is a significant reason you lost.

More vulnerable in what way? Is she not statistically more likely to be abused by the criminal justice system? Is she not more likely to lose out on a job because of her race? Was she not more likely to be born into poverty, into a broken family? Her dad was raised by a single mom, after all...

How is an aging factory worker more vulnerable in this society than an average African-American? Because he might lose his well paying job that he got out of high school and have to work for poverty wages? Welcome to the lives of young americans, african americans, hispanic americans, literally everyone except old white people, lol.

Malia Obama is a smart, pretty young woman with a famous last name and powerful, millionaire parents. If you think she is worse off than poor people just because she has a hypothetical 15% more likely chance of some cop being unnecessarily rude to her, then I have to disagree. In reality, people are not statistics. They are individuals subject to an infinite combination of hardships. Being the President's daughter transcends race. When you lump a bunch of different people into boxes and tell them that they are all the same as everyone else in their box, you are "other-izing" the world.

I agree with the above.

I would also point out that the aging factory worker who is being retrained is often being retrained to apply for jobs in which he will face significant age discrimination.