The catastrophic election results have left Democratic Party hacks lashing out at, well, pretty much everyone for failing to support their miserable candidate.
On November 8th, Americans issued a stunning rebuke to the urbanite pretensions of the liberal capitalist class by electing crazed right wing strongman Donald Trump to the presidency. In what is certainly a global catastrophe, the Democrats lost all three branches of federal government, while the Republicans continue their spree of Koch funded state legislative takeovers.
Predictably, rather than admitting their failures, liberal elites responded to their defeat by lashing out at various powerless groups. As per usual, the youth served their hallowed purpose as a punching bag, with Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook blaming the loss on millennials who voted for third parties. Aaron Blake at The Washington Post concurred, writing , “Yes you can blame millennials for Clinton’s loss”. Blake explains that despite voting for Clinton by a margin of 55-36 percent, by far the highest ratio of any age group, millennials are to blame because 55 percent of the vote is 5 points less than what Obama got in 2012.
Blake's accusation ties in to another familiar trope, blaming the Green Party. In this year's edition, the Green Party's Jill Stein was to blame. Derided as a “cunt” by the hipsters at Wonkette, Stein supposedly lost the election for Clinton despite receiving about 1% of the popular vote. Blake's colleague, feminist extraordinaire Amanda Marcotte, similarly blamed the loss on "sexist" third party voters who found "the possibility of a female president too threatening." Here it is unclear whether Marcotte is referring to Stein supporters or supporters of Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, but considering that Johnson and Stein are on opposite ends of the political spectrum it seems safe to assume Marcotte blames Stein supporters.
The idea that Stein, with a paltry 1.2 million votes, ruined the election for Hillary while 97,000,000 eligible voters, didn’t vote for anyone, is laughable. Some more serious commentators did in fact note the lack of voter participation and tried to examine it. For example, a commendable investigation into voter apathy by Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times focused on a trip to a black barbershop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When asked why he did not vote for Clinton, one barber responded, "Milwaukee is tired. Both of them were terrible. They never do anything for us anyway.” Another barber responded by saying he had voted on election day, but rather than vote for Clinton he had written in Bernie Sanders.
'I’m so numb,' said Jahn Toney, 45, who had written in Mr. Sanders. He said no president in his lifetime had done anything to improve the lives of black people, including Mr. Obama, whom he voted for twice. 'It’s like I should have known this would happen. We’re worse off than before.'
Tavernise's article dabbled in what some people refer to as "journalism". Others, preferred to respond to the lack of voter participation differently. Astonishingly, Marcotte proposed that the lack of voter turnout was due to a drop in "desperation" because Obama's economic policies have been so successful.
That desperation has declined, and with it declined voter turnout, especially for Democrats.— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) December 9, 2016
Marcotte provides no evidence to back up her highly dubious claim. In fact, far from a decrease in "desperation" wages and employment are at levels well below 2008. Even assuming that somehow voters' lives have improved, there is no available evidence suggesting that this has led to increased complacency.
In another vein, Newsweek's journalist Kurt Eichenwald, referred to those who didn't vote as “refuse 2 vote babies”. An incredible statement when one considers that 40 percent of the voting eligible population did not vote.
Numbers in. If protest voters took election seriously, HRC wouldve won Michigan, Wisconsin and FL, not including "refuse 2 vote" babies.— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) November 16, 2016
In short, liberal commentators responded to their rebuke by blaming powerless members of society. Of course all of this only served as a prelude to Russia scapegoating, a dangerous development that I hope to explore in my next blog post.
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