This is the last and final segment of my three-part article “How New York Times Handed the Election Over to Trump.”
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Map: USA Today. Map showing USA’s Rust Belt.
Donald Trump is now the president-elect, like it or not.
We may not like his hairdo, and we all know he is not someone who we would be proud of to see as America’s president. But guess what: we said the same thing about George W. Bush, and celebrities pledged they were going to leave America, if Bush became president. To my knowledge, no one left.
Why is Trump the next president of America? Because Hillary Clinton and her corporate Democratic Party and their New York Times and CNN didn’t have a clue how angry the ordinary Americans were. In fact, they took Americans’ votes for granted, projecting Hillary Clinton…oh, Hillary Clinton…who could beat her? She would be the next American president…and a woman first…history in the making!! Gloria Steinems and Rachel Maddows jumped up and down in joy.
And Hillary called Trump supporters “deplorable.” Hillary’s campaign advertisements focused on Trump’s character and his stupid remarks and ugly body gestures. Instead, the campaign should have told American voters what new measures Hillary was planning to take, to address their serious economic hardship, and their growing fears and frustrations. Obama and New York Times were busy churning out “rosy” employment numbers, until November 7. They would not admit that Obama’s global warfare and TPP, and Hillary’s Goldman Sachs and Wal-Mart, were sucking America dry.
New York Times and DNC from Day 1 excluded, ridiculed, and undermined Bernie Sanders’ countrywide, grassroots revolution that demanded real change — to help the ordinary men, women, and their families. War industries and global polluters and bank tycoons hated Sanders and his nonviolent revolution. They all rallied behind Hillary and DNC. Just the same way Koch Brothers rallied behind the Republicans.
New York Times columns and reports did not talk about Hillary Clinton’s dubious connections with Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart, and Exxon. Or, her nexus with the private prison industry. The paper did not challenge her to made her Goldman Sachs speeches public.
From early on, poll after poll showed that a Bernie Sanders candidacy would easily beat Trump, and a Hillary candidacy would perhaps not. That public opinion poll was always shoved under the rug by New York Times, and also by MSNBC and CNN. If it was mentioned, it was cursory.
New York Times in particular did its best to undermine a Sanders candidacy. It was truly sad to see how the world-renowned paper stooped low — to promote its pro-war, anti-labor union, pro-1% status quo. It brushed aside any voice of dissent — either from the Republican side or from the progressive Democratic side.
It is definitely NOT only racism. It is definitely NOT only sexism. It’s definitely NOT Hillary’s mass-deleted emails. Of course, racists and sexists all voted for Trump. But all those who voted for Trump were not racists and sexists.
A large number of Trump’s voters were simply angry, disillusioned, working-class Americans who thought they were fooled and cheated by the Clinton-Obama-DNC leadership who kept outsourcing American jobs to Mexico, India, China, Africa, Pakistan…everywhere, who let the Wall Street criminals go scot-free, who failed to solve the global terrorism problem.
Obama voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania — key swing states — voted for Trump. Do you think millions of Rust Belt voters were all racists and sexists? If you think so, you don’t know America very well. They may not have college degree, some may have guns, some maybe conservative Christians, and they may not have the political analysis correct, and they may have been brainwashed by right-wing media, supported by Heritage Foundation, and Koch Brothers.
But do not question their values, and do not question their intelligence. Do not question their normal, family-based, peaceful life — just like yours or mine.
Hillary Clinton lost to Trump — simply because of Hillary Clinton.
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Agree with your analysis. People who voted for Trump are a mixed bag. All of them are not consciously racist, but when a society is structured on the foundation of race then you cannot but live a segregated life and believe in some negative views about the “blacks”, some of which may even be correct. These unintentional racists are just like us (by “us” I mean the educated upper class) in India, who are all unintentional casteists. The blunder the DNC made was to marginalize Sanders and his millions of supporters. Sanders threatened their interests, so they had to muzzle him. Both Trump and Sanders, in their very different languages, were speaking for the ordinary Americans (though Sanders didn’t differentiate between “Americans” and “immigrants”, and in any case Sanders and Trump live in different worlds). But the DNC believed that they could win with Hillary and Sanders was dispensable. It was beyond their imagination that Trump could literally trump Hillary.
Absolutely. Thanks for your supportive, articulate comments.
Very well argued. Agree with you. The people who voted Trump into power are a mixed bag. Certainly there were a large number of older white frustrated racists, but there were many moderate Americans who had simply lost all faith in the feckless DNC, who they knew had muzzled Bernie Sanders to make way for Hillary. Ironically, both Bernie and Trump were speaking for the large mass of Americans who were exploited by the same establishment that supported and financed Hillary’s campaign, though the cultural character of the two masses might have been somewhat different. But Hillary clearly had nothing to do with the masses (though that’s not what her campaign speeches would say. But people are not fools!). She was for herself and for the rich elite-controlled institutions that had become thoroughly corrupt and undemocratic by now. …. Yes, it is Hillary who lost Hillary.