Posts by Neil
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to ,
There was a general discontent with the government. The recession hit lower income Americans hard. There are millions of people living hand to mouth over there. It was going to be difficult for the Democrats regardless who fronted them.
There was a complex entanglement of race and class. Obama managed to overcome this in 2008 but the reasons he did aren’t obvious. He won over white voters but then as you say the recession hit and also the series of killings of young blacks. That brought the racial divide into the spotlight and most likely shifted some white voters away from Obama as they didn’t appreciate the position he took – in support of young blacks.
So how the Dems go about creating s coslition to win in 2020 is a diliemna. The first step is to capitalise on demographic changes in states like Florida. But of course Trumo is set to stop Latino immigration.
The last thing the Dems should be doing is believe Sanders could have won and base their next move in that.
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Trump and Bannon have been scheming together over a few years now.
Clinton's favourablilities were high when she was Secretary of State. They started to go down just as Bannon began a disinformation campaign against her. He had a book published last year that has been used as a basis to attack Clinton. Lying, corrupt, warmonger etc. It was all from Bannon and repeated endlessly by people who weren't concerned if the Dems won or lost.
I think it's highly likely they set out to poison the relationship between the Clinton and Sanders camps. There may not have been any collusion with Assange and Putin but they certainly amplified each othes message.
The meessge Clinton was a poor candidate with unpopular policies was just Republican propaganda.
Some of this was the usual craziness on the internet but a large proportion was a deliberate and well planned campaign of disinformation.
I don't believe that on the whole people are sponges that just absorb what the internet tells them. But all of Trump's messages must have fallen on enough fertile ground to swing the election.
And because of the electoral college system it took a tiny fraction of voters being receptive to that message to overturn the popular vote.
I'm astonished and dismayed by how well the anti-Clinton campaign worked. It was parroted by many on the left and I'm concerned that Sanders and the DNC will take the wrong lessons from this.
This nexus of Trump, Bannon, Assange, Putin and Assad is terrifying and one of the unfying factors is misogyny. Many people believe crazy things about Obama but it seems many more were willing to believe a lot more crazy things about Clinton.