2016 U.S. Presidential election

Trumps plan for 1st 100 days:

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-...

According to Reuters, huge increase in number of first time voters - http://reut.rs/2eBEn4k

If you can get the full poll (I can't find it, altho they said they were releasing it on Tuesday) and it had a proper breakdown should give some answers (mainly if it's people voting for Trump who hadn't before or voting Clinton bc they shat it about Trump), especially if you can compare to 2012.

re: "working class"

I'm not telling anyone on here anything that they don't know, but when the media talks about working class voters in America, it's very, very much a cultural definition of class - income doesn't really play into it, never mind a structural understanding of class. So when they interview these disenfranchised white voters, that could very much mean small business owners, the (truly) self-employed, or those that have retired from such positions.

That said, from experience, I think we're kidding ourselves if we don't think Trump drew support from truly working class people - especially in predominantly white rural and suburban areas.

Also, Jesus, I just had a look at that NPR link about Trump's first 100 days. I know, really, it's not like under Clinton there wouldn't have been many of these same policies (and, other, differently bad policies), but that's a fucking onslaught. There's not remotely enough organization to resist all that at once.

This comparison with Brexit might be useful for that. tl;dr: no clear relationship with economics, lots of indication it's about authoritarian vs other-regarding values (though I don't think it's very convincing on where those values come from... basically arguing a handful of high/rapid immigration areas experience culture shock, then white people elsewhere vicariously hate on immigrants too).

Edit: of course there being no relationship between Trump vote and income doesn't mean that millions of lower income people didn't vote for Trump, it just means they didn't do so in any different proportions to higher income people.

The Democrats who spent the election painting Trump as pretty much Hitler are rapidly reversing course now that the election's over and done with. We've got Clinton urging people to give Trump a chance to lead, Obama saying that he's rooting for Trump to succeed in leading the country, and Elizabeth Warren hoping that her and Trump can put aside their difference and work together. This sort of shameless opportunism and disingenuousness isn't surprising to see, but the speed at which it's taken hold is a bit startling. It'll be interesting to see if this election outcome strengthens Sanders types, given what a complete joke the argument of Clinton's electability has turned out to be.

First, this will be short since I'm on a short break at work. So sorry for the sloppiness. And this happened around 10:15 a.m.

But I have to repeat The Who: "The kids are alright!"

I work, teaching EFL/ESL in San Francisco's Financial District, along Montgomery Street a.k.a. "Wall Street West" where banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America were founded, and thousand and thousands of kids just marched down the street. It looked like all the city's high schools cleared out because the procession of quickly and spiritedly marching students took several city blocks.

Office workers flooded out of high-rises and cheered the youth on. Food workers came out of restaurants with massive pans and metal ladles to beat a rhythm as they celebrated the kids too. Same with the ubiquitous construction workers. Granted 85% of the city voted the traditional Democratic Party line for political hack Hillary, but just the same it was inspiring. Like a massive street party.

Gotta go back to work, but one of my left-liberal co-workers just said "we should all do a general strike so we can go out and join the kids." Now that's the spirit!

The early voting numbers were being reported as a huge turn-out amongst latino 1st time voters, with Florida reporting 100,000 new voter registration. So as you say, it could be either/or. The interesting thing is Trump's ability to GOTV without much of a field operation at all. Even if his vote was down vs Republicans in 2012, it really puts into question the importance of ground-level, professional political operatives.

Also, your point re: income disparity with low income african americans is something i hadn't considered and an interesting point.

As Chilli pointed out above, small business owners who run say, plumbing or construction companies have consistently been referred to as blue-collar/working class throughout the 2016 cycle.

A broader question--putting aside questions about whether the worldwide, right wing nationalist wave is fascist, protofascist or authoritarian nationalism--it seems the function it serves for capital is more or less the same. The traditional ultra-left analysis has historically been that these movements appear as a way of both disciplining the national bourgeoisie and as a reaction to a strong worker's movement. It's easy to see the first part in play as a reaction to the global crisis, but there really isn't much of a rise in working class militancy, at least in the West. Unless we (and more importantly, they) see things like the increase in POC militancy as an existential threat to the current order, how do we explain the dramatic rise of the far right? Like, honestly I don't know...

I'm not sure if you are being rhetorical here, it it vary obvious that they do see things that way, they go on endlessly about SJW's and complain about how everyone is too sensitive and clearly consider tolerance of LGBTQ, POC etc to be the cause of all the problems with the world today

I'm not convinced by Kaufman's argument that the vote had little to do with personal economic circumstances, at least not how he counterposes that to his authoritarian personality theory. The LSE data are from August, which seems like a long time ago, also he tends to compare extreme Trump supporters with extreme Trump opponents. According to the exit polls from two days ago, 78% of those who say their family is worse off today voted for Trump (24% of those who say they are better off) ; 79% of those who think the economy is in a poor state voted Trump ; 63% of those who believe life will be worse for the next generation voted for Trump. So if the exit polls are accurate, then there is fairly strong evidence that personal financial situation played a role.

Of course that does't change the fact that most Trump voters (and EU Leave voters) are relatively wealthy, and the theory of a white working revolt as a result of losing out from globalisation is crap. I think the relationship between economic crisis and Trump's victory (and Brexit) might be as follows. Economic crisis and austerity have created a climate where available resources suddenly seem very limited compared to before 2008 - there isn't enough for everyone. In that context the message blaming migrants and minorities (and "Brussels" in the EU referendum) strikes a chord with racist whites who believe that they are entitled to more. While most people vote the same as previously, the hard right are suddenly able to mobilise a segment of relatively poor racist whites who did not bother to vote previously, and that tips the balance in favour of the hard right. This politics also resonates particularly strongly with people who subscribed to right-wing authoritarianism, which is what the LSE's Kaufman sees.

So I probably could've phrased that much better. Obviously, the 'alt-right' etc see things this way, but by "they' I was asking if the bourgeoisie see these movements as existential threats as they stand today.

I'm not demeaning movements like the street level of BLM or the Latino 2006 general strike, etc, but doesn't it seem like Trumpism is a bit of a sledge-hammer/champagne glass for these movements?

Trump had previously displayed a sympathetic attitude to Erdogan's post-coup crackdown, and Erdogan has already reached out to Trump to congratulate him on his victory as well as to discuss the possibility of greater cooperation between the two countries in the "war on terror", etc.

Kinda wonder what all this might imply for the PKK, the PYD, and their Democratic-confederalist project in Rojava?

Trump says he would arm "the Kurds" to fight Daesh. He could mean the KRG peshmerga. He could also mean the YPG.

He has also pledged to hit the Islamic State, not Assad.

Who the fuck knows if he means any of it.

I'm kinda surprised that nobody here has mentioned the millions of people throughout the country in the streets protesting the Trump victory. My only criticism of this is the fact that such protests would likely not be taking place if Clinton had won the election despite the fact that she is a devote neoliberal who supports austerity and has never seen a U.S. military intervention against a weak foreign nation that she hasn't been absolutely giddy about, nor the fact that her political party under the Obama administration has overseen immigration policies that have done nothing but add to the militarization of the U.S./Mexican border and have also seen record numbers deported, policies that in their implication are every bit as xenophobic and racist as those proposed by Donald Trump. But then again, maybe most of this anger is not so much in support of Clinton as it is against the blatant vileness of Donald Trump, as well as disgust with the American political establishment and possibly even capitalism itself. With things starting out like this I think it is safe to say that we are in for a very interesting next four years.

Yeah, exactly, with that guy who the fuck knows.

Also, I always hate it when the uniformed, typically those on the right, racially essentialize the Kurds by referring to them in terms of a single homogeneous ethnic group ("The Kurds") regardless of the political affiliation of the specific Kurd's that they are referring to.

You're surprised because you're not paying attention.

You obviously didn't read these:

#372

#386

#427

i don't think the bourgeoisie are that unified or organised, i think "fascist" movements are opportunistic, they take on certain roles with in capitalism yes, but they do it because they get the opportunity, not because they bourgeoisie decides to use them.

in the early 20th century they would no have been able to take power because of the opposition from the left and because the state and society was not structured in a way that would allow them to. when the state defeats a revolutionary movement it destroys the ability of the left to oppose fascism and makes the state more vulnerable to a fascist take over, by removing plurality of political views, removing freedom to descent etc

trump is not like fascists of the 30s who had paramilitary organisations interdependent of the the state etc but he does have some of the same advantages, the left has been successfully repressed, there is a strong fear among the right that cultural change is destroying society etc

Thanks for this--very helpful, and yeah, I think I fall into the trap of anthropomorphising the ruling class and imaging them as being organized and working toward a common goal. Thanks for the reality check.

A lot of stories going around on social media and some news networks about racist harassment and violence since the Trump victory.

Does anybody feel like the ongoing narrative about the "white working-class" voting in Trump is just a convenient way of blaming the "stupid workers"?

It's not just you, it seems to be a common trope.

Thanks for pointing that out, I've been trying to keep up with this thread but somehow I totally missed those. It's probably has something to do with the fact that I have a cold and haven't gotten nearly enough sleep recently.

Get some rest, comrade.

x

I say goddamn, SA is on fire

word

It pains me to agree with you Jesuit, but agree I must.

x

It might be a decent idea to split this thread between pre-post election with a really short intro so that a) it can go on the front page. there's some really good stuff here from the past few days, and it might even draw a little traffic. and b) anyone looking for a libcom analysis of Trump's election doesn't have to first dig through 350 some odd posts from before election day.

I'll totally volunteer to help if it's a pain in the ass.

The CNN exit poll has 10% first time voters and 56% Clinton 47% Trump. That poll can give a state by state breakdown on most questions so be interesting to see if that varies in the rust belt & Virginia
http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/national/president

Is the same data available for previous years? I'd assume usually first time voters massively lean Democrat on the basis of young people being more likely to vote "left", and first time voters (probably?) majority being people where it's the first election they've been able to vote.