This is a good summary in the article of the real factors behind the Dem losses, not because of the Russians, or fake fake news, or sexism, or racism or ignorance, or because Obama could have won, it was indifference to the American political system and how voters choose their president:
“The postelection map of Republican and Democratic counties mirrored my geographical disconnect. The Donald Trump nation of conservative red spanned the country, to within a few miles of the two coasts, covering 85 percent of the nation’s land area. Yet Clinton won the popular vote, drawing most of her support in razor-thin, densely populated blue ribbons up and down the East and West Coast corridors and in the Great Lakes nexus. As disgruntled liberal commentator Henry Grabar summed up the election result: “We now have a rural party and an urban party. The rural party won.”
“The urban party has been getting beat up a lot, even before Trump’s surprising victory. Not only have the Democrats surrendered Congress; they now control just 13 state legislatures and 15 governorships—far below where they were pre–Barack Obama. Over the past decade, more than 1,000 elected Democratic state lawmakers have lost their jobs, with most of the hemorrhaging taking place outside the cities. As political analyst Ron Brownstein puts it, “Of all the overlapping generational, racial, and educational divides that explained Trump’s stunning upset over Hillary Clinton . . . none proved more powerful than the distance between the Democrats’ continued dominance of the largest metropolitan areas, and the stampede toward the GOP almost everywhere else.”
In the twenty-first century, though, the exploitation of natural resources and the manufacturing of products are more easily outsourced than are the arts of finance, insurance, investments, higher education, entertainment, popular culture, and high technology, immaterial sectors typically pursued within metropolitan contexts and supercharged by the demands of increasingly affluent global consumers.”
A vast government sector, mostly urban, is likewise largely impervious to the leveling effects of a globalized economy, even as its exorbitant cost and extended regulatory reach make the outsourcing of material production more likely.”
Asian steel may have devastated Youngstown, but Chinese dumping had no immediate effect on the flourishing government enclaves in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia, filled with well-paid knowledge workers. Globalization, big government, and metastasizing regulations have enriched the American coasts, in other words, while damaging much of the nation’s interior.”
I truly enjoy all articles from VDH. I agree with this one as usual. I have forwarded the link to several friends who will, sadly, never read the whole article. It takes up their time. Way too much of their time. What a silly world we now live in.
He’s right in every word, particularly this bit:
“…elites rarely experienced the negative consequences of their own ideologies.”
We see this throughout Canada, don’t we?
Yes, it was a great read. I believe Victor Davis Hanson has it right as to why Trump won.
Where is our Trump?
That’s really an interesting take, but if urban elites continue to insist on un-affordable (so far) green technologies, it is the rural folk who, traditionally know how to live on a minimal carbon existence, will reap the benefits.
Even if I accept your pronouncements, fracking or small-scale nuclear occurs just where? Not in urban areas, I’d guess.
The “funny” thing about these leftist elites is that they seem to believe they are the SOLUTION to problems, when they are actually the CAUSE of many of the problems we see today. As Frederic Bastiat said….“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
..and those things called power-lines are the fragile tentacles that make urban existence possible, and they all run across thousands of miles of Trumpland to feed the Clinton Archipelago along the urban margins. Living in a high rise is a bitch when elevators don’t work and you’ve got to haul water. Watch James Cameron’s “Dark Angel” for an entertaining view of your urban future.
We’re not the least concerned, our skills can never be replaced by a robot. Urban cubicle dwellers can’t understand that. A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
…insects…and robots.
I disagree. Its not the urban party against the suburbans party.
Its the Anti-Globalists against the One World Order BS artists and Global Elites.
Britain told the Globalists One World Order BS artists to go to hell, and our vote for Trump is more of the same.
I do not want people I fought and killed 50 years ago coming into North America and telling my family where they can work and live.
If the Voting doesn’t work, Our children and grandchildren will take up weapons and kill the Bastards we should have killed 50 years ago.
what do you consider a skill set relative to the 21st century? The ability to build robots?
Just read it all. Very fascinating. The next time you watch Gladiator, think about this article.
“what do you consider a skill set relative to the 21st century?”
Butt sniffing never seems to become obsolete. That’s Job One in any centrally planned hierarchy. Also fart catching, very much in demand.
We’ll be able to see if Trump is serious about the freedom thing by how much the government shrinks, and how much the taxes drop. If the EPA and the IRS drop their headcount by half or more in four years, that would be a good start. That will be a Sisyphean task, harder than anything Trump has ever attempted before. Made all the harder by the goons in his own party.
I have my doubts he’s up to it, but I’m willing to be convinced. He’s off to a good start by trashing the media, that was a move long overdue.
@UnoMe: ” the real reason that Clinton lost was because she was a terrible candidate running a bad campaign.”
You could frame it that way I suppose. After all she did lose. But really, trying to blame her campaign?? Given that she was a corrupt, screechy, old women with a horrible record of success at anything and no charisma at all, I think her campaign did the best it could. Lipstick on a pig comes to mind. People can still see that you’re a pig regardless of your campaign to convince otherwise.
The world is so much better off that she lost that it is hard to put into words.
As to the rural/urban meme, well there is some merit there but it is short sighted. But note that the word urban means different things to different people. To some, it means “the city” and excludes “the suburbs”. Others lump it altogether into “the metro area”. Regardless, there is a real difference between living outside the city in a house with a lawn in a quiet suburb while commuting into the city and actually living in the city in some walk up flat, row house, or tenement……or, god forbid, in an old factory with a freight elevator and rough brick walls like the hipsters.
In sum, there were many reasons why Clinton lost and far fewer on why Trump won. The most likely cause of Trump’s victory was that Clinton was a horrible (even deplorable) person, not JUST a horrible candidate. When your choices a funneled down to just two, one chooses the best of the two.
“didn’t activate the Obama coalition”
You mean … all the black “folk” who didn’t vote for HER ? Who would NEVER bother getting off the sofa to vote for a ULTRA rich old white woman with a flabby bottom ? You mean THAT Obama coalition ? You mean SHE didn’t play the race card ? What election were YOU watching ? You mean SHE didn’t call Trump a racist, and all his followers RACISTS quite enough ? Really ? What election were you watching ?
SHE didn’t activate the Obama coalition, because SHE couldn’t EVER activate the Obama coalition … SHE’S not black. Have you noticed that ? Pulling packages of ‘hot sauce’ out of your purse doesn’t make HER a black person, nor does it stir the Obama coalition. The Obama coalition is dead. It died in 2012, after dragging Obama past another dull Republican candidate.
SHE lost to a horrible, unectable candidate who stuck his foot in his mouth more than any candidate ever in the history of American presidential elections. Trump is the single most flawed candidate EVER! He WON … because … of the Obama coalition. He won because of the racist policies of the Obama coalition/admin. He won because of the socialist policies of the Obama coalition/admin. He won, because the American people (of all races and religions) were simply … fed up with the direction of the country
According to VDH
“One reason that Trump may have outperformed both McCain and Romney with minority voters was that they appreciated how much the way he spoke rankled condescending white urban liberals.”
“….. her campaign was incompetent. They were in all the wrong areas.”
Ah, Yeah, right. If ONLY she had gone to Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania the people would have rallied to her. HA, HA, HA, HA.
You know full well that is just finger pointing and ass covering (it wasn’t my fault, if she’d only listened to me she would have won). Lame! But, believe what you want.
This is a good summary in the article of the real factors behind the Dem losses, not because of the Russians, or fake fake news, or sexism, or racism or ignorance, or because Obama could have won, it was indifference to the American political system and how voters choose their president:
“The postelection map of Republican and Democratic counties mirrored my geographical disconnect. The Donald Trump nation of conservative red spanned the country, to within a few miles of the two coasts, covering 85 percent of the nation’s land area. Yet Clinton won the popular vote, drawing most of her support in razor-thin, densely populated blue ribbons up and down the East and West Coast corridors and in the Great Lakes nexus. As disgruntled liberal commentator Henry Grabar summed up the election result: “We now have a rural party and an urban party. The rural party won.”
“The urban party has been getting beat up a lot, even before Trump’s surprising victory. Not only have the Democrats surrendered Congress; they now control just 13 state legislatures and 15 governorships—far below where they were pre–Barack Obama. Over the past decade, more than 1,000 elected Democratic state lawmakers have lost their jobs, with most of the hemorrhaging taking place outside the cities. As political analyst Ron Brownstein puts it, “Of all the overlapping generational, racial, and educational divides that explained Trump’s stunning upset over Hillary Clinton . . . none proved more powerful than the distance between the Democrats’ continued dominance of the largest metropolitan areas, and the stampede toward the GOP almost everywhere else.”
In the twenty-first century, though, the exploitation of natural resources and the manufacturing of products are more easily outsourced than are the arts of finance, insurance, investments, higher education, entertainment, popular culture, and high technology, immaterial sectors typically pursued within metropolitan contexts and supercharged by the demands of increasingly affluent global consumers.”
A vast government sector, mostly urban, is likewise largely impervious to the leveling effects of a globalized economy, even as its exorbitant cost and extended regulatory reach make the outsourcing of material production more likely.”
Asian steel may have devastated Youngstown, but Chinese dumping had no immediate effect on the flourishing government enclaves in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia, filled with well-paid knowledge workers. Globalization, big government, and metastasizing regulations have enriched the American coasts, in other words, while damaging much of the nation’s interior.”
I truly enjoy all articles from VDH. I agree with this one as usual. I have forwarded the link to several friends who will, sadly, never read the whole article. It takes up their time. Way too much of their time. What a silly world we now live in.
He’s right in every word, particularly this bit:
“…elites rarely experienced the negative consequences of their own ideologies.”
We see this throughout Canada, don’t we?
Yes, it was a great read. I believe Victor Davis Hanson has it right as to why Trump won.
Where is our Trump?
That’s really an interesting take, but if urban elites continue to insist on un-affordable (so far) green technologies, it is the rural folk who, traditionally know how to live on a minimal carbon existence, will reap the benefits.
Even if I accept your pronouncements, fracking or small-scale nuclear occurs just where? Not in urban areas, I’d guess.
The “funny” thing about these leftist elites is that they seem to believe they are the SOLUTION to problems, when they are actually the CAUSE of many of the problems we see today. As Frederic Bastiat said….“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
..and those things called power-lines are the fragile tentacles that make urban existence possible, and they all run across thousands of miles of Trumpland to feed the Clinton Archipelago along the urban margins. Living in a high rise is a bitch when elevators don’t work and you’ve got to haul water. Watch James Cameron’s “Dark Angel” for an entertaining view of your urban future.
We’re not the least concerned, our skills can never be replaced by a robot. Urban cubicle dwellers can’t understand that.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
…insects…and robots.
I disagree. Its not the urban party against the suburbans party.
Its the Anti-Globalists against the One World Order BS artists and Global Elites.
Britain told the Globalists One World Order BS artists to go to hell, and our vote for Trump is more of the same.
I do not want people I fought and killed 50 years ago coming into North America and telling my family where they can work and live.
If the Voting doesn’t work, Our children and grandchildren will take up weapons and kill the Bastards we should have killed 50 years ago.
what do you consider a skill set relative to the 21st century? The ability to build robots?
Just read it all. Very fascinating. The next time you watch Gladiator, think about this article.
“what do you consider a skill set relative to the 21st century?”
Butt sniffing never seems to become obsolete. That’s Job One in any centrally planned hierarchy. Also fart catching, very much in demand.
We’ll be able to see if Trump is serious about the freedom thing by how much the government shrinks, and how much the taxes drop. If the EPA and the IRS drop their headcount by half or more in four years, that would be a good start. That will be a Sisyphean task, harder than anything Trump has ever attempted before. Made all the harder by the goons in his own party.
I have my doubts he’s up to it, but I’m willing to be convinced. He’s off to a good start by trashing the media, that was a move long overdue.
@UnoMe: ” the real reason that Clinton lost was because she was a terrible candidate running a bad campaign.”
You could frame it that way I suppose. After all she did lose. But really, trying to blame her campaign?? Given that she was a corrupt, screechy, old women with a horrible record of success at anything and no charisma at all, I think her campaign did the best it could. Lipstick on a pig comes to mind. People can still see that you’re a pig regardless of your campaign to convince otherwise.
The world is so much better off that she lost that it is hard to put into words.
As to the rural/urban meme, well there is some merit there but it is short sighted. But note that the word urban means different things to different people. To some, it means “the city” and excludes “the suburbs”. Others lump it altogether into “the metro area”. Regardless, there is a real difference between living outside the city in a house with a lawn in a quiet suburb while commuting into the city and actually living in the city in some walk up flat, row house, or tenement……or, god forbid, in an old factory with a freight elevator and rough brick walls like the hipsters.
In sum, there were many reasons why Clinton lost and far fewer on why Trump won. The most likely cause of Trump’s victory was that Clinton was a horrible (even deplorable) person, not JUST a horrible candidate. When your choices a funneled down to just two, one chooses the best of the two.
“didn’t activate the Obama coalition”
You mean … all the black “folk” who didn’t vote for HER ? Who would NEVER bother getting off the sofa to vote for a ULTRA rich old white woman with a flabby bottom ? You mean THAT Obama coalition ? You mean SHE didn’t play the race card ? What election were YOU watching ? You mean SHE didn’t call Trump a racist, and all his followers RACISTS quite enough ? Really ? What election were you watching ?
SHE didn’t activate the Obama coalition, because SHE couldn’t EVER activate the Obama coalition … SHE’S not black. Have you noticed that ? Pulling packages of ‘hot sauce’ out of your purse doesn’t make HER a black person, nor does it stir the Obama coalition. The Obama coalition is dead. It died in 2012, after dragging Obama past another dull Republican candidate.
SHE lost to a horrible, unectable candidate who stuck his foot in his mouth more than any candidate ever in the history of American presidential elections. Trump is the single most flawed candidate EVER! He WON … because … of the Obama coalition. He won because of the racist policies of the Obama coalition/admin. He won because of the socialist policies of the Obama coalition/admin. He won, because the American people (of all races and religions) were simply … fed up with the direction of the country
According to VDH
“One reason that Trump may have outperformed both McCain and Romney with minority voters was that they appreciated how much the way he spoke rankled condescending white urban liberals.”
“….. her campaign was incompetent. They were in all the wrong areas.”
Ah, Yeah, right. If ONLY she had gone to Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania the people would have rallied to her. HA, HA, HA, HA.
You know full well that is just finger pointing and ass covering (it wasn’t my fault, if she’d only listened to me she would have won). Lame! But, believe what you want.