[quote=@Vilageidiotx] I don't think it was a protest vote in the sense you are thinking. I do not think that people voted in enough numbers to "stick it to the man" just for the sake of being spiteful. Like, I don't think the working class was throwing a tantrum. That's not the best way to view it and, if that becomes the narrative on the left, this is going to keep happening. Cracked (of all fucking websites) did a good article about what was happening [url=http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/]here[/url]. The electoral map tells the tale. Her firewall cracked in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. This fits neatly with a map of the manufacturing "rust belt" [img]https://unitedstateshistorylsa.wikispaces.com/file/view/1-2-rust-belt.png/476395584/1-2-rust-belt.png[/img] This is a part of American that, for the most part, fell and fell very hard. In its prime Detroit was a model city. Now it's literally a burnt out husk we all pretty much make fun of. Flint's water is so fucking poisoned it's a goddamn emergency. St Louis was the tenth largest city in the entire fucking world in 1900, now it's a graveyard that's hemorrhaging people. The rural part of these states aren't great either. Hundreds of little farm towns have devolved into unemployment traps and meth dens, where people who can move to a city have packed up and left, leaving behind those who are more or less stuck. That's the American midwest, the part of the United States that gave the election to Trump. For most of them, most policy decisions are pretty much academic, things they can talk about but can't necessarily touch. They are interesting because they have a pretty even spread of conservatives and liberals, but also because that sort of thing isn't what moves them. It's doubtful they switched because of racism, because these areas went for [url=http://freedomslighthouse.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012electoralmapresultsfinal110812.jpg]Obama pretty hard[/url]. It can't be because they are too right wing, because [url=http://2zflh133zbp5116bt01wv589.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016-democratic-primary-results.png]Sanders[/url] did pretty well there too. I think it goes like this: Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and miffed a lot of old union guys. Obama came in promising change and he swept those states because he was telling an anti-elite, anti-wealth story. Hillary Clinton comes up, a wall street corporatist selling the TPP, and talking about green jobs while brushing off concern about declining industries, and she faces off against Sanders who, though he is a Jewish Atheist Socialist, manages to do very well in these places because he had a message of holding the elites to task, opposing the TPP, and bringing jobs back. Sanders message doesn't carry enough of the country though, so Hillary becomes the nominee and takes her pitch against Trump, who though he's a questionable figure, he opposes TPP, he promises to stave off immigration, and he promises this will bring back jobs. Hillary does pretty much exactly what she expects to do everywhere else in the country, but the rust belt collapses for her and she loses. That's it. They voted for the policies they think will directly affect their lives. I've seen culture wars narratives and racism narratives bandied about for explaining this election, but the map just doesn't spell that out for me. The map tells me that the midwest voted against globalism and wall street, not to be spiteful, but because they think it'll make a difference in their lives. I disagree, but I absolutely see where they are coming from, and I think the worst thing the left can do now is demonize them. Didn't I, like, literally poke at them a couple of days ago? I mean, I have seen people doing it. I've done it myself. [/quote] I have to repasta this to Facebook, to get under the skin of the aforementioned Hillary people.