Trump Thread

[Husar]

Bernie Sanders adheres to the same concept of "identity politics" as the mainstream Democrats, if you consider that to mean emphasizing subaltern perspectives and policy implications for their groups. Indeed, once blacks and Hispanics had time to learn about Sanders, he became more popular among them than with white people. The argument is that he means it in a practical way, while other Democrats tend to be opportunists

Well, I'm also pro identity politics in the wider sense, but I think these aims should be realized as part of a wieder focus on equality and same rights for everyone and not be the only front goals of a bunch of tiny, selfish movements that are only concerned about their own niche issues with politicians catering to all of them individually. That's what made some poor white people feel disenfranchized and maybe not even entirely unjustified.

The overwhelming share of Trump's vote was cast by party-line Republicans and pseudo-independents. Has anyone shown more than a handful of Democratic > Trump voters (not Bush > Obama > Trump voters), or at a higher rate than in previous elections?

Trump was and is well-liked by the middle and upper classes, stop imagining his voters as destitute hillbillies. If you want to make the case that a strong economic-reform platform can peel some of them away and neutralize the worst instincts of enough of the rest, that's reasonable, but don't resort to fairytales about who they are or how they view the world.

I think that goes largely without saying, but I thought US politics were all about that part of the people who may actually consider switching their votes. After the election everybody talked about how he got the votes of the disenfranchised workers in the rust belt or midwest, so they're the ones I'm focusing on since their needs would probably be better served by Sanders' politics than by Trump's.

Plus I would expect Sanders' ideas to give the African Americans more social mobility and so on. Utopia would be close indeed!