Michael Shannon is one of those actors who I absolutely love but rarely cover. It’s not that he’s boring, really, but people rarely interview him and when they do, his quotes rarely make the news. Shannon is currently promoting his supporting roles in two Oscar-baity films, Nocturnal Animals and Loving. He ended up doing an interview with rogerebert.com, seemingly just a few days after the election. Michael Shannon was still depressed about it, and he was feeling particularly harsh towards all of those dumbasses who voted for Trump. You can read the full interview here. Here are the political quotes:
Being told “happy Friday”: “Really? Not so much. It’s not one of my happier Fridays … now that the Orange Man is running the world.”
How to make sense of Trump’s victory: “Yeah, I’ll tell you how to make sense of it: This country’s filled with ignorant jackasses. The big red dildo running through the middle of our country needs to be annexed to be its own country of moronic a–holes. You can call it the United States of Moronic F–king A–holes.
Whether the Trump voters are inherently stupid or good people having a bad time: “I don’t know how people got so g-ddamn stupid. But it’s really weird, because it’s like the last eight years, now it feels like a lie. Like, this has been festering underneath the whole time. Racists, sexists. And a lot of these people, they don’t know why the f–k they’re alive. They know it. They’re doing drugs, f–king killing themselves. Because they’re like, ‘Why the f–k am I alive? I can’t get a job, I don’t know anything about anything, I have no curiosity for life or the world.’ So this Trump thing is like getting a box of firecrackers, or something. It’s like, ‘Well, this will be fun for a little while, this’ll kill some time.’ Because, y’know, the jackass will be amusing on television, stay stupid sh-t. Make everybody clap. Hillary would have been too boring, I suppose. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. It’s the worst. This guy is going to destroy civilization as we know it, and the earth, and all because of these people who don’t have any idea why they’re alive.
I went on strikingly similar rants last Thursday and Friday as well. I started talking to someone about how every state that voted for Trump needed to burn, and that every single person who voted for Trump absolutely deserves the utter sh-t show that is about to happen. I wish there was some way to focus all of his lunacy, his destruction and his stupidity on the people who support him. That was my “happy place” for several days: imagining all of the sh-t that’s going to happen to the people who voted for Trump. The bad news is that it will happen to people who didn’t vote for Trump too. Anyway, Michael Shannon speaks the truth.
This week, Shannon also told Fandango that he only tried to watch Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice one time, on a plane, and he fell asleep. Spoiler! Shannon is actually in that movie.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I want to kiss him.
Join the club! I find him so creepy hot. I’m so glad he’s not a Trump supporter, I knew I liked him for a reason!
I saw him once in Manhattan. The man is TALL!
My bf is flawed but we mirror each other’s politics perfectly; I broke up with him during the elections but missed him too much because we feel the same and see the same. We all need each other to tell the truth right now of all times. I can’t even be around people who are sympathetic to the deplorables. There I said it. They were born not caring about their bodies and certainly not for the planet either. All that self-loathing just gets projected and piled onto anyone educated and not as identifiably “white”. The capable Hllary was just their mud pile. When I traveled and the world hated Americans so obviously I pled my case that I was proudly “counter-culture”; I care about my body, I’m an humanitarian and I’d never vote a bigot into office. Ever. I take comfort in Bernie’s latest proclamations- “we’ll hold the orange thing’s feet to the fire and make sure he uses the infrastructure build up to create jobs for those marginalized by globalization. But if he projects that hatred and anger in a bigoted way we will block him at every turn”.
Michael Shannon actually lives part-time in Chicago, grew up there as well as Kentucky so I don’t think he’s generalizing the middle of the country. Maybe he’s speaking from experience, being from the Midwest/South. If you took away all the cities in those red states, I do believe the majority are Trump supporters. But unfortunately I know they’re everywhere. But Shannon is speaking about an anti-intellectualism/fear of others that’s very true of them, no matter where they live.
Well, I’m from Chicago and moved to L.A. I’ve also lived in Texas and New Mexico, and I completely agree with Shannon. I hardly know a thing about him, but now I’m certainly a fan. To me, he nailed it when he said of Trump voters, “I have no curiosity for life or the world.”
The Trump voters I know are very insular and not very intelligent, even though they are college educated. They go to work, church, get married, have babies, grandbabies and that’s about it. They don’t want to live near THOSE people and certainly don’t want their children marrying THOSE people. They don’t understand what all of us minorities are yapping about it. They are racist but will deny up and down that they’re racist. Everything is about their own family or their church community. They don’t want to dial 1 for English. They don’t want to see billboards in Spanish. Real Americans are white Americans, etc., etc. They don’t spend that much time watching the news, reading about the issues or researching the election. They’ll vote Republican or for whoever says they’re anti-abortion because that’s what their church says.
They hate Hillary but can’t tell you why other than Bill Clinton’s shenanigans with Monica Lewinsky.
@Wtw
Your comment could be used for reference for many, many countries having similar issues at present.
I think you’ve identified the reasons why many voted for Trump/Brexit/emerging-fascist movements and it’s surely not just down to class or level of education.
@Wtw
Thank you. You nailed it.
@WTW totally spot on this describes most of the Trump supporters I am personally acquainted with to an absolute T
wtw- thanks this is the sad truth. I think liberals/progressives can be insular too, so I’ve tried to debate the hate in a meaningful way and get NO WHERE. My debates with the orange thing supporters end with the ugly talking points. When someone kept telling me “drain the swamp” it made no sense because I am such a literal person; how can you drain it when the leader IS THE SWAMP THING.
Really? People voted for Trump because they don’t know why they’re alive? So i guess everyone who didn’t vote for him has worked out the meaning of life. Amazing.
Michael is terrific. And I never get tired of laughing at the sorority girl email. God knows I could do with a chuckle.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-shannon-sorority-girl-video-444661
“Yeah, I’ll tell you how to make sense of it: This country’s filled with ignorant jackasses. The big red dildo running through the middle of our country needs to be annexed to be its own country of moronic a–holes. You can call it the United States of Moronic F–king A–holes.
No lies detected. Michael Shannon is my new hero.
that is one fantastic rant, had me sputtering
Excellent rant ! Is an 11+
I would love to see him ranting this. He’s a fabulous actor. It should be turned into a monologue, studied and performed in drama schools everywhere – seriously.
Not so much. I live in that “giant red dildo”, and can tell you most of these states are so low in EC votes, we aren’t the ones who screwed the election.
Except Texas. They definitely could have been a game changer.
But anyway, enough blaming and pointing fingers. That isn’t a very effective way to change folks’ opinions.
“can tell you most of these states are so low in EC votes, we aren’t the ones who screwed the election.”
But that is the thing, it DID screw the election because electoral votes are not EQUALLY distributed based on population.
Yes, CA has 55 electoral college votes, but we’d have 148 electoral college votes if it was distributed the same ECV/population ratio that Wyoming gets.
*North Dakota: Population: 739,482 = 3 Electoral College Votes = 1 ECV per 246,494 people
*South Dakota: Population: 853,175 = 3 EC Votes = 1 ECV per 284,391 people
*Wyoming: Population: 584,153 = 3 EC Votes = 1 ECV per 194,717 people
*California: Population: 38,800,000 = 55 EC Votes = 1 ECV per 705,454 people
I don’t think the Electoral college is a bad thing, but it needs to be proportional if it is going to have integrity. As it is, the larger the population of a state, the less value a vote has.
Michael Shannon is me. No Fs given. No lies detected
It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it?
Yes, truly. It has rhythm and tempo, emotion, imagery, brute simplicity and complexity intertwined as one outcry of righteous truth.
Ha ha…I was going to write “no lies detected” myself.
But it’s worth pointing out that his rant is an example of what the soft lefties and neocons keep crying about though: meanie liberals hurting conservatives’ fee-fees by calling them “stupid” and “moronic”.
Well….? How else do you explain it?
I thought what he said about it being the inward-looking, incurious element of US society voting Trump was interesting. I think that applies here, too. Parochial insularity, you know?
I also fail to see why anyone should be pulling any punches!
Yeah, there is no other or better way to say it than this!
@ Sixer- Right. He’s pointing to the the anti-intellectualism component, the insularity of the average American.
You know, it’s not lost on me that throughout this entire election, from both leftists and righties, very VERY rarely did I hear anyone talk about foreign policy. Even when it came to the Sanders Libs, never once did they discuss Bernie’s complete lack of foreign policy experience, contrasted with HRC, who probably has the most foreign policy experience of any presidential candidate we’ve seen. It’s just not a concern for most Americans, which I find at best, disheartening and at worst, downright terrifying.
Now we have a president assembling a cabinet of people with little-to-no foreign policy experience and that is no coincidence. Americans just can’t see past their own damn nose. Pathetic.
Kitten this is why I’m okay with the DNC being burned to the ground and starting over. The stupid DNC is legitimizing Trump and telling everyone else to basically shut up and get to work.
To that I say no. There’s no meeting in the middle here. I don’t care if your feelings are hurt. Your feelings < my life. The GOP doesn't get to whine when they spent 8 years being obstructionist asshats and trying to make Obama a one term president. I'm extending the same curtesy they gave us.
I can definitely say I've lost my love affair with basically everyone on the left including warren and sanders (but I did vote for HRC twice).
Sixer, we should be pulling punches for the good of the country. The only people that rant served was him (as an emotional release), the reporter and subsequent bloggers (controversy = clicks), and may be some of the people on his side. We need to end the divisive rhetoric and stop generalizing. John Oliver had a good point on his show following the election:
“For the last eight years, we’ve had a president we could assume would generally stand up for the rights of all Americans. But that is going to change now. So we’re going to have to actively stand up for one another. And it can’t just be sounding off on the internet or sharing think pieces or videos like this one that echo around your bubble. I’m talking about actual sacrifice to support people who are now under threat.”
We can accomplish this if we are drawing lines in the sand like this. We should not reject allies or potential supporters because we disagree with them, don’t like where they come from/live, or voted ‘incorrectly’. Even Hillary conceded that less than half of Trump supporters were ‘deplorables’ and we need to identify and align with those people to ensure America lives up to its highest ideals and affect real change. Even with a moron in the Oval Office real, meaningful change can occur.
Kitten – the first thing I thought was that he is describing that Ugly American stereotype that winds you up so much. I suppose you can take heart that that stereotype lost the popular vote, you know? More nice people than not nice people.
Lindsay – point taken. I was saying to Kitten yesterday that all sensible Americans, liberal and conservative, should be working together to protect the country from the minority of the so-called deplorables. So I think we probably agree?
@Lyndsay
“We should be pulling punches for the good of the country – We need to end the divisive rhetoric and stop generalizing ”
That’s not going to happen. Because at this point, you either side with them, or you’re against them. Divisions are easier to make than to heal, it could take decades before we reach common ground. With this, I am not saying we should not work towards such a goal. But we should also beware that the ones who ‘won’ are pretending that we jump on their wagon, embracing their beliefs.
And that is not going to happen.
I’d be also very wary to give up everything I believe in to appease them.
@ Nicole- “The stupid DNC is legitimizing Trump and telling everyone else to basically shut up and get to work.”
YES. The only thing I will say is that Sanders/Warren/Ellison/Reid are the only Dems who have come out against Trump publicly.
But I’m with you about the Democratic Party and to me, Liberals aren’t much better–I’m so fed up with everyone.
But this is why I’m a registered Independent–because I have trouble finding a place where I feel that I belong. Soft Liberals (Sanders people) tend to be too idealistic for my taste and the Democratic Party is too establishment and lazy for my taste.
@Sixer- I guess I wasn’t as clear as I should have been about my feelings because I think that both of the following are true: Americans as a whole are insular, but we’re very divided both culturally and politically–as you know from the electoral maps. I don’t want to make comments about the rest of the country because I haven’t visited every state but for instance compared to say, Florida, people in the northeast tend to be very well-traveled, thus tend to view the country through a more global lens.
Also, fair or unfair, I think that it’s ok for Americans to criticize ourselves sort of like it’s ok for me to call my mom “crazy” but if someone else called her that I’d clock them 😉
That being said, after what just happened I think it should be open season lol…I said that if he was elected we’d be the laughing stock of the world so it’s not like I wasn’t prepared…
LOL @ open season, Kitten.
No, I agree. Clearly *some* Americans fulfil the stereotype or else it wouldn’t exist. But the stereotype is still offensive because most Americans aren’t deplorables.
No punches pulled! This is why we are here. A large portion of morons running around spewing hateful & untrue stories that they keep clicking on & sharing over & over & over again. We have been too polite & not wanting to ruffle feathers. I looked through a Trumper’s fb page last night and it was lie after lie after lie without anyone calling him out. They cut & pasted a story about when Obama saved the auto industry and gave the credit to Trump! WTF?! We do not need to try and appease them right now- that’s how we got in this mess. We need to call them out and hold them accountable.
I agree that we are incredibly insulated here and do not pay attention to world politics, foreign policy, etc. Ask the average American about Brexit……
When I went to the UK in 2001 someone asked me if American was like a Jerry Springer show and I balked. “No, no no!” Now I am just realizing that she was onto something.
We should not appease this man & his followers. When they come for your neighbor’s rights, please don’t meet them with cookies.
@Kitten, actually Ed Markey awoke from his slumber and poked his head out of his cave to blast Trump on the Bannon appointment. Seth Moulton has been posting stuff on FB and Capuano and Katherine Clark have been sending out emails in opposition to Trump and Ryan. But yes, a lot more of them need to be a lot more vocal. And they need to do everything possible to block his appointments
I was going to suggest a “learn to” to get through the oncoming whatever it is, and I stopped and thought: “why am I assuming these people don’t already do this?” I stopped because I didn’t want people to think I thought they were stupid. Everyone is calling everyone else stupid, I didn’t want to add to the pile.
But the last 8 years have been good to me; I learned how to extract beet sugar, bake all of kinds of bread, make my own anti-wrinkle face cream and shampoo and laundry chop wood, hunt deer and rabbits, cut hair, the list goes on.
Where I live is a very economically depressed area, hell, even our electricity hub station is shut down. I don’t know where everyone located, but people have been calling my area Little Appelachia for a while.
And this is under a good presidency.
I might suggest, in all goodness, for one to be proactive against Trump’s presidency.
Get a “zombie closet” for the spare goods like flour and Spam- long lasting things, so hen the food prices shoot up, and make things from scratch to counter against the no doubt oncoming ridiculous inflation. Learn to bake in a camping setting, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. (This is an amazing useful skill, especially if the electricity goes out for a week. If this can happen under a great presidency, imagine what will happen now.) Gather a bug out bag, like all the crazy preppers do. Even if a militia doesn’t come, at least you have emergency in case of a natural disaster.
A wood burning stove is good so you don’t have to use the expensive furnace.
Don’t let goons just come and get you. Save every penny you can, just in case, so you can get away, especially since the double threat of rising costs and double the taxes are going to dig into savings. This is going to be a horrible four years, I don’t want people to be victims of a terrible regime.
Oh- and buy a tent.
@Nicole
I’m with you. The DNC is over! They had their once chance to either embrace Bernie Sanders or at least work with him as the VP nominee. They blew it and supremely failed to recognize the gross inequities and populace rejection of Neo-Liberalism much less realize the depth they’d have to go to galvanize and change their entire social-economic platform. In all honestly, the corporate elites would never have let that happen. And yet they could have won and possibly be in the exact position of total power the Republicans/Trumpites are in now had they offered Sanders the VP.
“I don’t know anything about anything, I have no curiosity for life or the world.”
^^^This is a huge part of the problem. Agree 100%^^^
You’d be stunned by how many functional adults out there just have no intellectual curiosity or interest in anything outside their bubble. This is why they can see a fake news story and accept it as the gospel. This is why they’re vulnerable to incendiary rhetoric. Because they have the emotional and intellectual depth of a child. But they’re out here, driving cars, holding down jobs, raising children, voting and making decisions. Truth be told they’re not totally fit to be doing these things. And yet. . .
It’s a problem. I’m in a red state. But my city went blue. Sometimes I feel like an intellectual snob. But then a hillbilly will wander in and do something real hillbilly-esque and I’m like, nope we’re not wrong. But how do you save people from themselves? *sigh*
@Radley
“You’d be stunned by how many functional adults out there just have no intellectual curiosity or interest in anything outside their bubble. This is why they can see a fake news story and accept it as the gospel. This is why they’re vulnerable to incendiary rhetoric.”
You nailed it. They also resent people who venture out of the bubble and try to be informed. I’m working class-poor and I had people calling me ‘liberal elite’ only because I’m genuinely interested in knowledge. In their minds, we’re the enemies now, the ones who betrayed their background to join the ‘elites’ (Curious that I only joined the elites after becoming an unemployed person lol).
@Silver Unicorn
I sympathize. I grew up a honors student in a poor/working class area and I was around people who demonized the very act of doing well in school. I was a “sellout” and “stuck up”.
That’s been part of right wing strategy, to stir up anti-intellectual sentiment. An uninformed people are easier to control. I think that’s why they attack the media so much. Knowledge is power. They have a vested interest in keeping knowledge away from the people. Meanwhile liberals tend to dive deep on issues and need people to bring something to the table in order to fully understand. After all, these issues affect us so everyone should be invested enough to get the facts, right? Yeahhh, not so much.
Basically liberals need a 50 state strategy that breaks down issues into very easily digested pieces. Then they can probably get some of these swing voters back. But they’ve gotta take the fight to all 50 states. No more electoral college strategizing. That clearly didn’t work.
“An uninformed people are easier to control. I think that’s why they attack the media so much. Knowledge is power. They have a vested interest in keeping knowledge away from the people.”
Yep, who controls the information controls the world.
That is why tuition fees have been steadily going sky high for years now, working as a state-sanctioned selection of people towards higher education.
They cut the competition off based on money and not on talent/intelligence (add the complete demonisation of critical thinking too; no-one would have voted for Trump if just able to think ‘straight’!).
My grandmother used to tell me that curiosity was the highest attribute a human being could have. She told me that more times than I could count.
I’m suddenly realising how wise she was.
Sixer- What a great sentiment from your grandmother & how very true.
I often think it was a deliberate strategy by the Reagan WH to defund education, knowing that an uninformed electorate was going to be easier to sell on right-wing economic fantasies.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan campaigned for the presidency on a platform that included abolishing the U.S. Department of Education. Reagan literally said that the state “should not subsidize intellectual curiosity”.
Well put!!!
Mine too!! He said it just how it needs to be said.
I agree with every word.
We’re in for a terrible time.
“The hundredth monkey effect is a hypothetical phenomenon in which a new behavior or idea is claimed to spread rapidly by unexplained means from one group to all related groups once a critical number of members of one group exhibit the new behavior or acknowledge the new idea”.
Hundredth monkey effect – Wikipedia
We are duty bound to teach. Because people are ignorant, and not cognizant of their thinking errors, means we can never give up, ever. It takes patience, to listen, and figure out a teaching plan for each individual. Apparently, we cannot rely on schools, or the media, to teach basic civics – not even to Trumps..
DANG. He doesn’t mince words!
We are in for a terrible time. Astonishing how the country lit up in red. Not missing the irony how that looked like an ALARM going off.
This nation needs to take a look at so many things — bring industry back to the rust belt and then those voters will be happier. Unfortunately, that will NOT HAPPEN WITH TRUMP. Nothing will happen for those people over the next four years; in FACT, they will get WORSE. But since they’re all glued to Fox News, they’ll believe the drivel that somehow their problems are still liberals’ fault. Blaming Obama. It’s so sad. SO SAD. And we all have to suffer! So does the world!
Trump’s Twitter alone is enough to recoil in horror. Completely and utterly classless. Narcissistic CLOWN.
Now this is a man that tells it like it is. We are totally screwed and many are too damn stupid to see it coming. Many are too willfully delusional and will not acknowledge the failures – they will deflect – and these people are extremely dangerous.
United States of Moronic F–king A–holes.!
I LOVE Michael Shannon!
I agree with this analysis, summed up in one word:
https://medium.com/@SnoozeInBrief/an-analysis-of-donald-trumps-election-win-and-the-prospects-for-his-presidency-f6a87eef6d70#.36d4xy1tp
I mean…he’s not wrong
That’s exactly what I just mumbled to myself!
Yesssss! 😃
Yeah, that sounds pretty much like what I’ve been saying the past week. He tells no lies.
I told my husband that I was going to send Christmas cards to my friends and family this year that said “if you voted for Trump, F-ck You!”
I don’t know. It is refreshing to hear someone be angry and not say the usual “have hope, we will overcome this” nonsense, but on the other hand, saying that people voted for Trump because they were bored is oversimplifying it. People voted for Trump for various reasons, racism, xenophobia and misogyny being very prominent reasons, but not the only ones. Voter turnout was a major problem aswell.
Democrats need to find a way how to resonate with people, and calling them stupid jackasses isn’t a good idea.
Voter suppression by the GOP in swing states have been huge as well. I want people and especially the media to talk more about how Republicans have been undermining the Voting Rights Act.
One of my cousins and a friend’s son voted in Ohio (Cleveland and Columbus) and what they had to go through just to cast a vote was ridiculous.
How does the process look like in America? Here you automatically get on the list when you turn 18, so on voting day ( which is a sunday, btw, why do you vote on a work day I do not understand) you just show up in your voting place with your id and vote.
I wondered about all the redistricting and robo-calls and such but haven’t heard anything about it since the election. Do you have any articles on the subject to recommend?
Also, while the cons control everything, it’s a concern what kind on shenanigans they’ll get up to in that respect.
I have some I can find for you. It is a bit of a pain to explain because each state sets it’s own voting laws. So there can be 50 different answers.
Locke Lamora – it is Tuesday because it is in the Constitution. All for the benefit of long dead religious farmers. In November there is not a lot of farm work to be done. It is in between harvesting and planting. Polling places were far away and Sunday was out because it was the Sabbath and they had church. So Monday was a traveling day, Tuesday you voted, Wednesday you brought your crops to market and returned home Thursday.
It is a problem though. States, other than Hawaii, always see an increase in voters when they allow early voting and unrestricted absentee voting. Registering to vote is not automatic, some places are making it extremely difficult.
A great site
http://www.fairvote.org/election_information
Redistricting and disenfranchisement
This isn’t done through voter suppression, this is done by keeping the demographics advantageous to the party in power.
http://election.princeton.edu/2013/01/02/gerrymanders-part-2-how-many-voters-were-disenfranchised/
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/27/voter-suppression-is-the-real-election-scandal/
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/north-carolina-voting-rights-law/493649/
As a court ruling stated North Carolina was able to do this with surgical precision
https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights/fighting-voter-suppression
http://saveourelections.org/video-the-vote
http://isthmus.com/opinion/opinion/voter-suppression-in-wisconsin-in-2016-election/
Wisconsin had their own, also highly effective, strategy
http://billmoyers.com/story/voter-suppression-laws-working/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/10/republicans_are_already_suppressing_minority_votes_all_over_america.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/voter-disenfranchisement/
Understanding why Americans don’t vote is also important. Despite the comments on the Collin Kappernack article, the top reasons are not due to a choice:
http://www.ibtimes.com/why-dont-people-vote-8-reasons-why-americans-dont-exercise-their-voting-rights-2440569
http://www.dailydot.com/via/election-day-holiday-too-poor-to-vote/
http://fortune.com/2016/04/04/why-americans-dont-vote/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/17/why-dont-americans-vote-were-too-busy/
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-non-voters/
@ laulau
as far as recent articles go here are a few :
http://isthmus.com/opinion/opinion/voter-suppression-in-wisconsin-in-2016-election/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/07/north-carolina-s-racist-voter-suppression-is-working.html
https://thinkprogress.org/2016-a-case-study-in-voter-suppression-258b5f90ddcd#.a4tshmpij
lol damn, someone else beat me to it
@Locke Lamora
That’s a pretty loaded question because it all varies by state. In general, if you’re 18 or older, you have to register to vote (basically filling out forms) via email, mail, or in person. You must vote in the state, county, and possibly precinct you are registered in. If you move, you have to re-register with your new state/address. In order to vote, you must have an ID with you. This is where it becomes shady.
IDs can be anything ranging from driver’s license, military id, bank statement, paycheck, government check, government document showing the voter’s name and current address, etc. But as of late, more and more states are strictly requiring photo IDs. Republican leaders insists that it’s to “prevent voter fraud” despite the fact that voter fraud is extremely rare to non-existent. And these new laws disproportionately affect non-white, poor, and elderly voters. Most of whom vote Democrat.
Not only that, but conservative lawmakers are pushing harder to reduce both early voting and the number of polling places in areas that are heavily populated by African Americans and Latino voters. People keep talking about how minorities didn’t come out and vote but the reality is that many simply COULDN’T because conservatives are trying to make it as difficult as it can possibly get.
We have to have photo ids ( not having one after the age of 16 is a crime), yet the dead have voted quite a few times in our elections. Mainly in local elections.
I didn’t have to show an ID, just give my address.
@Locke
In Italy it isn’t (or wasn’t) a crime but better safe than sorry… I’ve never heard of anyone leaving the photo ID at home, we always have it with us. It also always had a picture on it, I got my first one in 1980s.
@Kitten
First time I voted in Scotland I was totally thunderstruck that they only asked my address, although I had passport and polling card with me. It seemed strange!
Hey ladies, done my voting duty today and sent my postal vote for the Italian referendum. Polls give the fascists ahead of many points, but I did what I could.
In Canada you should be placed on the voter list at 18 but if not, you go to the nearest elections Canada office and with photo ID and proof of where you live you are then on the list. There are locations for every riding and you can get on the list at any time including Election Day.
On the day you vote you need ID to confirm who is voting and so they can scratch you from the list. A paper with the names is provided with it are folded so you can just fold it back and then you hand the closed ballot to the elections officer at the ballot box, she or he marks off the ballot number and you place it in the box yourself. You also need to sign that you have voted.
Federal and provincial elections are run generally the same way and with many advanced voting days provided both in the riding and nearby.
Also our elections are never fixed, so all this is organized within the six week to eight week period after the election is called.
OMG thank you so much!
I think this part of election muckery is going to be so important to keep a constant bright light on in the years to come.
I keep hearing people rant about the middle of the country. Yesterday, my co-worker was saying that she only wants to live on either the east or west coast. But Trump voters, and people who think like him, are everywhere. Hell, even Trump himself lives in NYC(and will probably continue to live there while serving as president). The idea that the middle of the country is stupid and dangerous, and the coasts A-OK, is just not true.
Yes, I’m not on a coast but am in very blue Chicago/Illinois and the Trump supporters are around in force. They are not the bored, uneducated, disenfranchised being discussed. They are the educated, upper middle class and affluent racist xenophobes that seem to be flying under the radar in comparison.
YES. Did you see my link from yesterday?
I think Trump-supporters are a mixed bag but let’s stop with the sh*t about all of them being poor whites who are suffering economically.
@Kitten
Read the article you posted yesterday and I followed the reasoning until a certain point… then it became self-indulgent and a bit unclear. I can get behind the fact that class divisions can be a source of resentment, but nowhere mentions that white working classes have always been privileged compared to the others… it seemed white-centric and not taking into account that working classes of minorities didn’t vote for Trump. Maybe it doesn’t work to call them stupid but white supremacy has played a big winning factor in Donald Trump campaign.
It’s like Leave voters in UK, they don’t want to be called xenophobic, then it comes out a poll where half of them voted to get out of EU just to get rid of immigration!
?????
I think you might be confusing me with another poster, SilverUnicorn.
The link I posted is actually the very OPPOSITE of what you are claiming. It discusses white isolationism and white paranoia about a new world in which emerging non-white voices are becoming stronger and more powerful.
“nowhere mentions that white working classes have always been privileged compared to the others”
Ummmmmm..the article stated this:
“He’s not tapping into the frustrations of the white working class so much as stoking the fears of relatively affluent people who resist the cultural, religious and demographic changes that are happening in America, and are afraid of losing their place—their identity—in the emerging nation. For all his attempts to portray himself as an outsider, Trump is the ultimate establishment candidate. He is the voice, mainly, of people who’ve benefitted from the rigged system.”
Hi Kitten, I only touched down briefly here yesterday because I had a crazy day, so I missed your link. I will check it out when I have more than 10 minutes to sit down. In the meantime, the quote you just shared, “He is the voice, mainly, of people who’ve benefitted from the rigged system,” really sums it up for me.
In fact we had a heated debate about this in my book club Sunday night (all Hillary voters, btw). One friend absolutely refuses to see this, I don’t know why. She keeps insisting it’s the poor and working class whites who’ve been ignored and are frightened about their economic prospects. Maybe she just doesn’t want to face the fact that women we know, or thought we knew, voted Trump. It’s depressing as hell, to be sure. Lots of factors, of course, as to how we ended up here, but it just can’t be boiled down to one group’s lack of education.
“One friend absolutely refuses to see this, I don’t know why. She keeps insisting it’s the poor and working class whites who’ve been ignored and are frightened about their economic prospects.”
Gah. This is why I’m so fed up with liberals. I hate everyone basically lol…
I am SO tired of the bleeding-heart left’s “let’s save the poor whites because this isn’t their fault, they are just hurting” patronizing BULLSH*T.
Sometimes I think it’s easier for people to blame the Democratic Party for not doing enough to court “disenfranchised” white voters than it is to admit that the Republicans are just BETTER AT THIS. They are better at this nasty-ass game of politics because they don’t worry about anyone but themselves. They are united, they are strategic and they are MASTERFUL at winning. JFC we just watched them pull off a seemingly impossible feat: getting an unelectable man into the White House. Meanwhile, we had the superior, more qualified candidate.
Liberals: “How did it happen?!?!”
Because while the Dem Party was asleep at the wheel, the Republican strategists spent years developing a plan to take advantage of the 2010 census.
What the f*ck is it gonna take for us to start playing hardball? WHEN is the Democratic Party going to start thinking strategically??
Here is the link, Esmom, so you don’t have to go fishing through an old thread:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/democrats-cant-abandon-white-working-class
@Kitten
Oops. No, it wasn’t your link!! GRRR
Sorry for this.
It’s a bit difficult for me to articulate sentences and check links whilst on my mobile, so I just turned my laptop on to reply to your comment.
Btw ladies, thanks for being the voice of the reason and civil discussion here. This is the only safe space where I’m commenting right now. World seems screwed anywhere at the moment.
ETA: Kitten, it seems you had the same problem we had with Brexit people.
Oh no problem SilverUnicorn! I was just surprised because I agreed with everything you said. YES same problem…sigh. Sixer warned us 🙁
After that excellent to and fro yesterday, I was thinking that a better way to put the fall-out from de-industrialisation would be describing as the need to address REGIONAL economic anxieties. Because, you know, de-industrialised areas have problems that need addressing and problems that have been neglected.
What is not acceptable is to appease the racism and misogyny of a proportion of people living in those areas. And in any case, immigration/women working/black advancement are not sources of their economic anxiety and never were.
Class is just another aspect of intersectionality.
I think we could make a Nate Parker analogy here. His misogyny doesn’t get a pass because he is black in racist America.
The racism of a white working class person doesn’t get a pass because s/he lives in a de-industrialised part of the US.
Yes, according to some exit data I’ve seen whites who made $50,000 or less voted Clinton, and whites making over $50,000 voted for Trump, so working class whites have been unfairly characterized during this election. I think it was an attempt for the mainstream media to say that if someone is racist or xenophobic it’s because they’re uneducated or poor. It’s just not true. My own experience with my racist Trump-supporting in-laws reveals this not to be true. They are upper middle class, yet very intellectually incurious. They think they’ve got it all figured out, so why read anything that challenges their views.
There are so, so many wealthy white Trump supporters on Long Island.
Baffling, but they’re there.
Not really surprising. If there is one thing I’ve learned, education and wealth doors not an intelligent(or open-minded,deep etc) person make. One election night when they were doing interviews at a polling station, a saw one Trump supporter who was a doctor. So, there you go.
Lots of good comments, and I’m nodding along..but..I find myself wondering why no one sees the obvious correlation between the fact that educated women tend to reside in urban areas where HRC won, regardless of coastline? It’s the ism that’s the elephant in the room, but a large percentage of his voters were never going to vote for a woman..the hot selling buttons and shirts for his followers were nasty anti-woman slogans, never about skin color or heritage. Listen to the talking heads on CNN or msnbc–woman is the new n-word no one dares utter.
I LOVE what he said. Holy crap. That is profound. How true. So many people with nothing to live for so why not mess it up for everyone else? Wow. Love you Michael!
So many people with nothing to live for
you really are charming people aren’t you? So good, kind hearted and tolerant <3
We get it! You don't like democracy! Stupid uneducated/racist/kkk/white trash/white men/whatever hateful thing you can call other humans. If only we could keep them from voting!
democracy is only a good thing if it turns out the way you want it to, right?
@Maria2
Democracy means you can vote and you also be called out/judged by others for that.
What you aspire to is called ‘fascism’, this term spread worldwide after Benito Mussolini’s fascist party in Italy banned all the other parties as illegal in the 1920s and made protests and dissent illegal too.
So telling others about democracy whilst denying the principles of democracy sounds a bit ridiculous.
Your last sentence maria 2…that was certainly the position that the GOP took in relation to President Barack HUSSEIN (geddit? geddit?) Obama when they did everything they could to stop any sort of bipartisan approach to anything.
@ Maria: why did you vote for him? Please explain how voting for him will make your life, and the life of average, working class Americans, better.
Also, please read this story. It is vital that we ALL read this story.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/17/news/companies/trump-hotel-labor-dispute/
I did not vote for Trump, I voted for Clinton. The reason why I did so, is because the future of our nation is at stake in ways that many Americans never even thought about, while voting for Trump.
It takes either a highly uneducated voter to vote for a candidate like Donald Trump, or a person who will benefit directly from Trump’s presidency, to vote for Donald Trump.
Voting for Trump because a person hates Hillary Clinton, is not a good enough reason to vote for a man who is so corrupt, that he would have no problem dismantling American Democracy.
Do you not understand what is at stake here? Whether we, as voters, understand what is at stake or not, it is very possible that our vote on 11/8/2016, was the most important decision that we have ever made, or will ever make.
Honk for more Michael Shannon! I’ve been in love with him since Boardwalk Empire. His facial expressions say it all, too, and give me life.
Well it’s dificult to say that he’s wrong. Has anyone seen the latest update that Trump actually will go ahead with Muslim registry and extreme vetting ? That’s the president-elect of USA there. What’s next for him ? A special badge ? A special camp ? Oh right, the KS senator who is in Trump team actually said there’s a precedent for the camp.
The sickest thing is that commentators on Dailymail praise him for that.
And just like that, a new salty star in my firmament *swoon*
Also tangentially these Bullsh!t Articles about “gently” telling poor whites they are racist (cause LOL they don’t know!) Is just that B*llshit, and Bim Adewunmi hits an excellent note on this in Another Round podcast as in: the notion that oppressed and marginalized people have to gently discuss with people that deny their humanity is ludicrous! The answer cant and shouldn’t be keep coddling the *sshats that threw a temper tantrum vote
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/another-round/id977676980?mt=2&i=377890497
YES. How about we just stop holding these peoples’ hands and trying to understand them. Seriously.
WGAF?
Softy, bleeding-heart liberals are so f*cking concerned with breaching that divide. Meanwhile, conservatives are only too content to live in ignorance.
So let them.
I don’t recall the Right scurrying around after two terms of Obama wondering how they can appeal more to women and minorities. Nope. They were too busy gerrymandering and appealing to fringe groups like white nationalists and fundamentalists. Why does it always fall on the Left to be the more understanding party, the ones to reach out with empathy and an olive branch?
And as much as my interest in politics grew and peaked with youthful passion it has simmered to a pragmatic acceptance as I’ve grown older. Try as I might, I always come back to political differences being due to a simple difference in sensibility. When you strip away the political ideologies, I think it really is that straightforward. People won’t agree because you cannot change another person’s singular and subjective ability to respond to complex emotional influences, which is what is at the heart of each individual’s political stance.
So two things:
1) HRC still won the popular vote and
2) We’re NEVER going to get those states that always vote Red so why bother?
Right on Kitten and QQ!
People need to stop harping on the socioeconomic class of the people who voted for Trump. I also disagree that a lot of them are simply ignorant. Try selfish, xenophobic and racist. Probably in ways they won’t even admit to themselves. The thing is, there will always be those who don’t give a sh-t about any issues other than the ones they consider important. These people don’t care about social issues, or environmental issues. They care about their piece of the pie and will always look around for others to blame as to why they’re not getting theirs. Then there are those who vote according to their ideologies. Folks so entrenched in their beliefs that they’ll vote for the devil if they think he sees things their way. Reaching out to these folks won’t do a damn thing. They don’t want your olive branch.
Exactly!!!!
I keep calling them self-interested whites. No they’re not all racist or stupid, but they only care about their own privileged bubble.
“YES. How about we just stop holding these peoples’ hands and trying to understand them. Seriously.
WGAF?”
Spot on!!!
I think it has absolutely nothing to do with being kind to these idiots and everything to due with fears that alienating them will carry over to the next election.
Honestly, I think a lot of these Trump voters will be the first in line for a better option when given a chance. The realization that he doesn’t work for them will be particularly swift.
But WHEN was the last time “working class” whites largely voted Blue? Again, “the party of the working class” is not the identity of the Democratic party anymore and it hasn’t been for quite some time.
The working class isn’t the group that swung this election. Affluent whites, fringe groups who have never voted before coming out in droves and voter apathy on both sides of the aisle were much more significant factors in HRC’s loss.
A perfect example: Richard Spencer, a self-described intellectual leader of the alt-right:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas/2016/11/16/trumps-rise-first-stage-white-nationalist-movement-says-alt-right-leader-dallas
“And if you ask them, Trump’s election on Nov. 9 made them the ‘vanguards’ of American conservatism. In short, they believe they just hijacked the GOP.”
Read that and tell me you don’t have shivers down your spine.
Anyway, Spencer is hardly “disenfranchised” nor is he stupid, but he sure as hell is a self-interested, racist white person.
You’re right, I was misinformed about who was voting for him, I didn’t realize so many upper-class/suburban white people chose him… I guess I maybe just assumed low education area white rural voters were Trump’s trump card. I just struggle with the idea that people who have enough and are doing okay would gamble with the future like this.
That article is eerie in the worst way. I remember thinking Romney was completely off the rails (and I’m sure he would have been 9 types of awful), but now…
Sad that you feel this way.
@ Hope: No, it is not sad that we feel this way! It is a good thing. People who voted for Trump have shown that they cannot be trusted with protecting America. Those of us who dissent did everything we could to protect our country, and now we must continue doing the work in order to also protect those who voted for Trump.
Michael Shannon, I love you more and more each day!
That was a righteous rant. He’s such a compelling actor. Anyone else find him hot btw?
People say that he’s creepy but I’ve always found him super-sexy.
Creepy-hot.
YEP! First time seeing him, btw 🙂
Bless him. Glad someone finally had the balls to say it. There were no legitimate reasons to vote for Trump. If you voted Trump, you are either an open racist, bigot, misogynist, and/or xenophobe, or you are ignorant (and a passive racist, bigot, misogynist, and/or xenophobe). I’m tired of the media treating Trump voters with kid gloves.
As an aside, I absolutely adore Michael Shannon. He’s an incredible actor (so underrated) and I really hope he gets an Oscar nom for Nocturnal Animals (still can’t believe he didn’t get a nom for Take Shelter! If anything he should have won that year, he was amazing in that movie)
“There were no legitimate reasons to vote for Trump.”
I think I love you ♥
@JulP
“Bless him. Glad someone finally had the balls to say it. There were no legitimate reasons to vote for Trump. If you voted Trump, you are either an open racist, bigot, misogynist, and/or xenophobe, or you are ignorant (and a passive racist, bigot, misogynist, and/or xenophobe). I’m tired of the media treating Trump voters with kid gloves.”
Exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Take Shelter and his performance in it are amazing. He’s very good in Nocturnal Animals.
More reason to like him. I actually teared up a bit reading this..
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
I really encourage everyone to read that article
Listen- I’m SICK that Trump is our President. I hate him. But I will say that just assuming that everyone who voted for him is a racist idiot does the Democratic Party no good. If they want to win the White House back in 4 years, they better figure out WHY people were desperate enough to look past all Trumps bullshit and vote for him anyway. I really like Michael Shannon but this attitude does not help the situation. In fact, I find it cruel that he assumes that people who can’t find a job and are in places where drug use and suicide are rampant just voted for him for fun. Perhaps they are desperate and the Dems did nothing to convince them that Dems understood or even cared. Certainly Michael Shannon doesn’t care.
This line of thinking makes no sense. And no matter how many white people say it, it does not make it true. If you can look past what he said or agree to even a .00001%. You are a full out racist or a casual racist.
These people are not very smart on top of it. They gobbled down every last disgusting word that he uttered out of his ahole mouth. He said nothing about how he was going to do anything that he said he was going to do. He just yelled out rancid chum to those people and they ate it up. There was nothing coded about what he said. He said that Muslims should be banned, Mexicans were rapist, and admitted to cheating the system. He did not hide behind anything. He said these things in public and on camera.
They also voted for a man who actively participates in a system that has taken their jobs. The clothes that have his names on them are made in CHINA, Not Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc. CHINA. And he chose those places so that he could make the most money in the long run. He could have opened factories in the US but he didn’t because he does not believe in paying people living wages and neither do the factories runners in CHINA.
Here’s the thing: inner cities are getting beat up, people who want to live in the suburbs are getting beat up, and so are people who live in those states that those stupid people voted for. But instead of trying to find someone who truly believed in helping them, they voted for the physical embodiment of everything that has caused them to be in pain. Those stupid people who voted for him or Republicans because of “tradition” have actively been chipping away at their own dreams for the last 40 years because they continue to listen to the racist dog whistles instead of looking at the history of what their vote got them. Stop coddling those people because they do not deserve it.
I am going to say to them the same thing that gets thrown at black people when we protest: stop playing the victim, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, and stop thinking that anyone owes you anything.
It does make sense if you understand psychology and human needs. Read the article and I also suggest you research Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. If you are not able to provide yourself with basic nesesities (house, food, jobs) that is your first priority. Some people, in desperation, voted for Trump and hated doing it. But they are desperate. The ACA really did damage to a lot of small businesses and individuals and if someone was promising to repeal it, people were going to vote for him.
Are there just straight racists out there? Of course. But again, if Dems have any hope in 2020, they better figure out what happened with everyone else that voted Trump. If the Dems can’t reach these people that’s a problem that we need to address ASAP.
I think some of these people believe Hillary is an actual cold-blooded killer tho…
And the democrats have failed a lot of rural Americans. Suicide rates are indicative of suffering that’s happening there.
Absolutely I think a lot of these rural people are blaming the government for things that, in more urban areas they blame the population for… People are dumb and I wish this would lead to people in poverty, and over-looked by the government seeing each other as allies but that might be impossible with this divisive election.
Uh laulau, puhfuckinglease. They were failed by the Republicans they voted for, not the Democrats they didn’t.
And can y’all STOP IT with this lie that Trump supporters are just poor salt of the earth of people who have nothing but a pot to piss in? Time and time again the data shows that even in the primaries, the poorest people supported to Democratic candidates more than they supported Trump. And Clinton won voters making $50k or less while Trump won EVERY income bracket above that.
These people are not destitute. They are just mean.
@ LA
Off-topic:
First, I need to apologize for some of the venom in my last comment. I won’t apologize for all of it because I meant what I said, but some of it was harsher than I was intending. There is a reason why I chose for my new username to be Aiobhan Targaryen and now you know why. Plus, I am a Taurus.
On topic:
I can also suggest that you print out the same articles and pass them along to those same people who voted for Dump and explain that the grass is not greener on the other side. That article you linked to and you yourself want others to gain perspective and see it from those voters point of view, but I can argue the same damn thing from my side as well: that too much focus is placed on white needs and every non-white person is left to rot. I am not sure why I am supposed to sympathize with a group of people that had no concern for me or anyone else.
Those voters could have done exactly what some other eligible voters did that day: not vote at all or write in a candidate. Please do not minimize their actions as if hey had no other choice: they could have voted for someone else, not voted at all, or wrote in a candidate. They voted for a man who spewed racist nonsensical trash that they disagreed with, they knew and felt that he was wrong and even felt bad about liking him….and yet they voted for him anyway. If you feel guilty over liking something, you should stop and question why you like what you like. Their bad choice is not something that can just be forgotten or minimized because they have a sad story to tell. I can acknowledge their plight and will not minimize the pain that they are going through because it is real.
What those people need to acknowledge is that they voted for a man that conned them. Just look at the reports on what is on his team’s agenda. Look at the people he is staffing his cabinet with not one of those people give a flying fuck about their plight. Everyone in Dump’s cabinet of horrors want to tear apart the social contract that has been set up between the government and society and change it into a private business that preys on them and everyone else. They voted for that. They voted for a raging asshole who is a complete failure and has only gotten as far as he has because of his rich daddy. Something that they have never been able to benefit from. They did not vote for change. They stupidly voted for the same damn thing. They voted to give away the last strings of support that they had by voting in a man who wants to get rid of most if not all of government social programs. Pretending to care is not the same as caring. Dump half-assed his caring for those people and they fell for it.
Their choice of president is not acceptable and no matter how many links to sympathetic articles you or anyone else posts about their plight, I will not accept their stupidity and short-sightedness. This was not ok. Stop trying to normalize this. Stop trying to legetimize their actions. They are adults and will be treated like adults. Those people need to be dragged hard and I will continue to do so. What I will also do is try my best to help them and the people that those idiots fucked over for believing in Dump’s lies.
Yes, the Democrats need to do better. This is probably the only thing we agree on. But putting all or most of the blame on the Democrats and not the idiots or enablers who voted for Trump is not an answer that is acceptable. Dump supporters (even the ones that hated to vote for him) have to be held accountable for their actions.
“working-class whites didn’t leave the Democratic Party over insufficiently populist policy and rhetoric. The liberal economic reforms of 1960s—and Medicare in particular—paid benefits to white working-class families throughout the 1970s and ’80s, even as the group moved to a decisive break with the Democrats. No, the proximate cause of the break was the Democratic Party’s close identification with black Americans, who—after the riots of the late ’60s and ’70s—became identified with urban disorder and welfare.
Specifically, whites were bewildered and infuriated with liberals who defended rioting communities.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/11/democrats_can_t_win_white_working_class_voters_the_party_is_too_closely.html
Aiobhan Targaryen
No apology necessary. Im a woman and a rape victim with gay and minority people in my life who mean the world to me. I am just as angry that this man is our President. Ive said things this week that I wish I could take back. We’re all grieving and angry and so sad.
Im not excusing, Im trying to understand so that I can speak to them more effectively next time.
I believe they were totally conned. I also dont think Dems shoulder all the blame, but we can sit here and be mad or try to come up with a game plan for 2018 or 2020. Im choosing to try and understand why people made decisions I in no way agree with, and figure out how I can help them make a different choice 2 and 4 years from now. You cannot expect to get people on your side if you do not understand where they are coming from.
But LA, I think the flaw in your logic is that statistically, not that many low-income people voted for Trump. At least not compared to the white, upper-middle class voters making over $70,000. My parents are a prime example – they HATEHATEHATE Hillary irrationally. I get that she is not perfect. I can understand thinking her hands are not totally clean after 30+ years in politics. BUT, they refuse to look past the Rush Limbaugh rhetoric that paints her as a monster (or, my favorite line from a Trump supporter “Illuminati Puppet Jezebel Witch”). And, I would say there’s a good bit of casual racism that plays into it.
tl;dr: Your logic doesn’t apply to upper-middle class white voters who had a huge hand in voting in the geriatric toddler (thanks for that phrase Kaiser, I will use it to death!).
Yeah 100%! I agree but I’m also not talking about upper middle class people. Trump voters are not a monolithic group. I’m talking about people in rural areas who showed up in record numbers this election. There is a difference in low income urban (meaning people who live in cities) and low income rural voting patterns. The statistics are swayed by the higher number of low income urban voters (who vote dem generally) who live in blue states.
Respectfully, I have to disagree with you somewhat. The people who voted Trump may not consider themselves racist, but they decided that his overt racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and promises to gut everyone’s civil liberties, squash dissent and shut down free press and any other way he can quiet the opposition he sees everywhere were not big enough obstacles to NOT for him and that’s because they probably think it won’t affect them directly, which means it is okay with them if it affects OTHER people directly. And I don’t understand that level of stupidity and I’m not going to be all kumbaya about Trump’s special snowflake voters. Essentially people who voted for him want something for nothing and they absolutely do not care what the cost is, especially if the cost is other people’s lives and rights.
Yes, agreed. They did decide to vote for someone regardless of all of the terrible things he said. But if you are about to lose your house or cant feed your family things are not so simple, are they? You call it stupidity, I call it desperation. My friends parents voted for Trump because the ACA decimated their small business and they had to close it. Keep in mind, small businesses employ the vast majority of Americans. HIs parents are not the only ones in very serious financial trouble because of the ACA. His moms words to him: “I voted for Trump,and hated it. I needed a shower after.”
Im not saying I agree with their votes…my whole point here is, if the Dems want to come back in 2020, they have to figure out why their messaging was not hitting home with these people. WHY did people think they had no other choice but to vote for someone so terrible? Simply writing these people off as stupid is NOT the way to win them back in 2020.
@AJ: As I mentioned above I was misinformed about the demographics of who was voting for Trump vs. Hillary. I feel bad for assuming that was true because I can’t even remember where I got that from, just that it seemed a commonly reported ‘idea’.
It certainly, for me, was easier to have some compassion for rural Americans who were sliding into poverty at high numbers than people who have what they need.
But what if the Trump voters you know are actual racists? Everyone is acting like Trump voters live in another dimension. Some of us have Trump voters as family members and know for a fact that they’re racist. I married a guy who’s a liberal, but his family is mostly made up of Trumpers. I know they are racist, and I’ve never wanted anything to do with them, and I certainly don’t know. I’ve decided to cut them off for good for a multitude of reasons. Tried unsuccessfully to do it before, but I am done now. I feel it is morally wrong to have these people in my life.
Exactly. I know Trump voters – because they are family members – and I openly laugh when they claim “we are not all racist” because they were openly racist, sexist, and homophobic my entire life growing up. I’ve heard them call POC racial slurs; I’ve heard them call women sexist slurs; I’ve heard them call LGTB+ people homophobic slurs. They cannot now claim they are not racist, sexist, or homophobic and say that voting for Trump wasn’t at least in part about that.
Then that is your choice to make. You at least judged them on their own merits. You see them as individuals not some monolithic stereotype of a Trump voter. Let’s not write off 49% of Americans and the majority of the land mass. WTF are bothering to fight if half of us are this awful and irredeemable?
We don’t have to treat Trump voters with kid gloves, we don’t have to pretend we agree, we don’t have to sympathize and we don’t have to easily just let them off the hook, forgive and forget to be nice we do need to learn empathy and understand why they did what they did. Some are undeniably racist, sexist and/or xenophobic, that is going to be a nonstarter. However decent people did vote for him. Those are people we can reach and work with to mitigate the damage of his presidency, help improve the goals of the Republican Party and maybe even be an open minded voter but you have to see them as a person, not a Trump voter and reach them where they are.
Honestly, I think people just don’t understand our problems. There was a lot of “well I gave Obama a shot, but he didn’t do much for me”. Failing to realize that a lot of the Obama policies that WOULD have helped them were blocked by GOP obstruction. They don’t understand that fiscal policies take a while to have an impact (and to have that impact go away). They don’t understand that we are STILL recovering from the recession that was caused by GOP policies.
I do think Trump voters and Republicans blame Obama for all their problems yet don’t even acknowledge that it was not Obama’s fault that he didn’t do much during his presidency due to being blocked hard by the Republicans. They just blame Obama and “Crooked” Hillary for everything. They don’t bother to think beyond the simple rhetoric that is fed to them by the Republicans.
This is why we desperately need to include money in the education budget for civics classes. It is easy to take away people’s rights when they don’t know what they are in the first place. Government and politics is such a complex, contentious, and emotionally charged topic that in the real world you don’t get a clinical, dispassionate, fact and evidence based view at the system as a whole but you can do that in the classroom. If at 17 or 18 you pick up a paper and start reading about politics it is overwhelming. It is like a soap opera that you have missed the first 238 seasons of you don’t know the players and their roles, you don’t grasp the nuances the history involved in certain relationships or overarching alliances and themes. You also can’t get a straight answer from your parents or the Internet because it’s like the Twilight fandom on crack – there are already so many biased #teams, thousands of pages of fan fic masquerading as reality, and some crazy shippers so it is easy to get lost and give up.
Only about 1/3rd of adults can name all three branches of government and another 1/3rd aren’t even able to name one. Most can’t name one current Supreme Court Justice and only 1% could name all (at the time) 9. In New Mexico and Oklahoma 4% of high seniors in a study conducted two years ago could score the required 60% on the US Citizenship Test. That needs to change. It would help improve voter turnout, why vote if you don’t even understand what is going on? We need to remember to be vigilant about our rights and the rights of others. We need to understand the role of government in our lives, how to engage with it and utilize it, and understand it’s responsibilities and it’s limitations.
There was a story about how lower income schools and schools with larger percentages of minority students are getting lessons about how to interact with the police. While it is depressing they are doing so their kids can live long enough to grow up and not gunned down by a “scared” cop, it is a useful class. Kids need to learn that the world isn’t as simple as when they were five. Police are not your friend, they can trick you, they can lie to you, they can intimidate and manipulate you. You should not ever talk to them unless you are reporting a crime. You should know your rights about what the police can and can’t do. You should never let them talk you out of a parent and lawyer being present.
Also, in this dream world there should be classes about media consumption. The most commonly sited new source is now Facebook and a study found that certain news groups with over one million followers were regularly just making things up. On Democratic leaning sites it was 19% of the stories and on Republican sites it was 38%. According to Macedonian teens anti-Hillary, pro-Trump pieces get the most shares, make of that what you will. Anyway, now with news coming from all over the place it is important to test the veracity of the stories and the biases of the writer and publisher. But that won’t happen either, the misinformed are easier to control.
Most excellent post, Lindsay.
Re the article (because I don’t want to register with Cracked but I do want to comment on the article):
Firstly: It’s not just “rural” white people who voted for Trump. Most of my white family are city people, yet they have been openly racist, sexist, and homophobic my entire life. And yeah, they voted for Trump.
Secondly: “they vote for the guy promising to put things back the way they were” – Instead of trying to put things back the way they were, they need to evolve and move with the times. No to working in coal mines. Yes to working in clean energy. Etc, etc.
People don’t like change generally speaking. Major change and uncertainty is scary, nostalgia acts like Photoshop for the past and distort and improve recollections of the past. The known will always hold more sway to people as a whole than the unknown.
Having a job (like coal) you have worked at for decades becoming obsolete is terrifying and it can be daunting to learn new skills.
Anyway, progress and growth is better of course but in the period of enacting change will always cause panic and pushback.
@LA
The answer to your question as to how Democrats can appeal to White working class voters is simple: throw Blacks, Hispanics and LBTQ+ people under the bus and say Whites come first. They don’t care about policy as much as the pro-Whites rhetoric. They come from generations that were #1 to politicians and are now upset that minorities are also being courted.
But again as everyone keeps pointing out to you most working class Whites actually voted for Clinton. Trump voters make over $70,000, don’t live near any Brown people. Their main concern is that their children will not have as much privilege as they did growing up.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/12/a-massive-new-study-debunks-a-widespread-theory-for-donald-trumps-success/
P.S. MOST of the working class are minorities not Whites.
And this is how Trump won. This is so harsh and divisive. It is an understandable feeling and he definitely is not alone but hate begets hate, hostility breeds more hostility. This is not the answer. Calling people that hold sexist and racist ideals dumb f-cks living life’s devoid of meaning and purpose is not going to encourage enlightenment. It puts the people that need to hear his message on the defensive and gets easy applause from people that already agree with him. It is brave to reach out and engage the other side, it is brave to stand up for your ideals in a positive and meaningful way, it is hateful to stereotype 49% of the country that did not vote the way you did to receive pats on the back from the 51% that did. The last thing we need is to create a situation where it is two groups in their own bubbles, with no middle ground or room for basic decency.
There are young Americans in the red states that are slowly pulling away from the “traditional values” passed from older generations. It takes bravery to go against your family, it takes courage to admit your parents are not perfect and their values may be flawed. They are trying to expand their world view and understand the struggles of others. Hearing people write them off as stupid, unworthy of being citizens, a waste of life because they were born in the middle of the country is going to make (and being applauded for saying it) the conservative echo chamber surrounding them look warm and tempting.
Agree.
And Orange didn’t win because he had the biggest vote .it is Clinton lost because some democrats didn’t vote in some areas sadly (and she had more 1 millions votes than Orange)
Lindsay, Don’t kill me I’m French: Agree completely. I voted for HRC. I come from a family of STRONG republicans. Clearly, I don’t agree with their votes this election. But, I also don’t appreciate lumping us all together just because we all live in a flyover state like Ohio. That “big red dildo running through the middle of our country” includes a lot of HRC voters, too.
Fine, encourage enlightenment. However, it’s now going to be at the cost of peoples physical safety and civil liberties. No one should be quiet about that. If you’re a racist/sexist etc you are. You can’t change something you won’t acknowledge. The problem, is that these people now feel the need to assault others. There hasn’t been a day since last Tuesday that I haven’t gotten a text/email/facebook msg about someone being physically assaulted somewhere in the US.
It’s not just about ideals-they are hurting people daily. When is anyone in that camp going to stand up and say, stop putting your hands on people?
I am not condoning violence or violating people’s civil liberties and eroding their rights. I am saying use a little bit of tact if you have such a large platform. Condem the violence, voice your concerns, say you hate Donald Trump for x,y, and z, just do it without calling half the country dumb f–ks with nothing to live for because the live in the “dildo” and should be forced out of the union because they are drug addicted, incurious idiots that no one wants. That is something you say in a rant to friends where you aren’t trying to change minds because they agree and you won’t alienate anyone because they know you aren’t talking to them. He could have given insight to his problems with Donald Trump without delving into insults and possibly made progress. The route he chose is to only speak to people that already agree with him and inflame and enrage those who don’t.
Asking for and actor to tone down the rhetoric is a long way from condoning hate crimes.
“But it’s really weird, because it’s like the last eight years, now it feels like a lie. Like, this has been festering underneath the whole time. Racists, sexists.”
This and aaaaaaall of this. I was feeling numb for days because I couldn’t wrap my head around what happend.
This is so depressing (fair warning) https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-more-things-change?utm_term=.kmL3AqYwE9#.uv9gBYk1RV
All the racist nonsense happening now is just a repeat of post 2008 election. You had to have head your head pretty deep in the sand to believe that in the last eight years racism and sexism was just festering away out and has somehow been pushed back in the shadows. It’s been here, as prominent and loud as ever. Thinking about the women who voted for Trump and oddly enough something Alexis Bellino of the Real Housewives of Orange County years ago when it was delusional, dingy and somewhat funny instead of as horribly depressing as it is now about how a woman should never be President, it would be way too scary, to feel secure she needs the country to be run by a man. I have started to realize just how prevalent it is, how it people use it subtly to great effect, how internalized and subconscious a lot of it is. Also, how horrifying and sickening it was to find out it is hard to find a woman who HASN’T been sexually assaulted or harassed. Then, even worse learned some of the lucky women who hadn’t been victimized internalized the misogyny and rape culture messages and felt jealous or bad about themselves, like they were flawed and not pretty enough to harass or assault.
I second what a lot of commenters her have said. I live in the Midwest, believe me we’re not all dumb racist meth heads who love Trump. It’s very insulting when celebrities speak this way. And while I think there are racists who voted for Trump, I don’t think everyone who did is a racist, and I don’t think it was because they had no “curiosity for life”. Disenfranchised people sometimes make stupid, self-harming decisions. For instance, sometimes, but not always they will drink or use drugs, but that doesn’t make them stupid either. I just think we all need to look at the larger scope for why this happened vs what some other commenters mentioned as pointing the finger.
Most people actually seem to be applauding, which is so gross and awful. It is also why Trump won. Even though the Internet is supposed to connect everyone it is easy to get drawn into echo chambers and not listen to what the other side has to say. Republicans do it too of course but if you care about the country and how we proceed from here understanding how we got here, what made the message so tempting, why people here and the Brexiters feel so angry and unheard. Neither candidate took any state by anything remotely close to 100%. Maybe don’t be so quick to demonize the people in the red states and start passing out halos to the one in blue states.
Also, statistically people who drink and/or use drug tend to have a higher IQ. I have always thought that is because the saying “ignorance is bliss” is actually kind of true. The more you can take in, understand, contextualize, and process all the heartbreak, corruption, hatred, injustice, suffering, ect the more it effects your world view and mental health.
sigh, Michael Shannon. Sigh. *smh*.
If its not ok when Trump calls people names, marginalizing and dehumanizing them, (and it is *not* No no no).
Then why is it ok when you do it?
And I don’t wanna hear some:
But SHE started it!
No, HE started it!
That argument didn’t work when you were 5. Its not gonna work now.
If you think the level of civil discourse has disappeared into nothingness -don’t add to it. Don’t add to the darkness. Or wish for more of it.
You live in this country. You are stuck with your fellow countrymen and women for the long haul. Figure out a way to work with them.
Or you will never have the gov’t you want and deserve.
Hoo boy. Not helpful.
And I am far from a “let’s all unite” mindset. I am seething with a white hot fury over these results. But I also live in the Midwest and I can tell you that we aren’t all moronic f##cling a**holes, and labeling us as that is not going to get anyone anywhere.
suze: absolutely. I’m tired of everyone assuming who I am based on where I live. There are A LOT of reasons people choose to live in the Midwest. For one, that may be where your job is located. A job that you cannot easily get somewhere else. Or you’re there to help care for your elder family members, etc… There are many reasons.
Michael Shannon for President
I LOVE him
It’s worth considering that within some of these bloody red states there are blue diamonds, like the town I live in (Lawrence, KS). So please don’t wish us away…we are holding our own, and it’s hard sometimes, especially now. But yes, there are so many moronic a-holes and I want to claw their stupid eyes out.
My BF is from NE Iowa and his town is also liberal (not coincidentally there is a university there) so I understand. I think Shannon is making generalizations, but it’s coming from a place of frustration. It’s just hard to accept that the middle of the country and the south are the reason why we have white supremacists and inexperienced politicians who will be leading our country for the next four years.
I love this man!!!!! He has guts to tell the truth and not swing the fence to promote himself. I love him. He is my new hero. the jackasses are not just the ones who voted Trump but the ones who didn’t vote at all.
While I agree Shannon’s rhetoric is too harsh, and unnecessarily so, I beg to differ with the “not every Trump support is an ignorant moron” statements.
It’s true, not every Trump supporter is uneducated. Or poor. Or even racist. But every single one of his supporters IS in fact an Ignorant moron (which is separate from how educated you are). This is inescapable.
I will not feel sorry for saying it: If you voted for Trump, you are an idiot. Completely stupid. Don’t believe me? Let me put it this way: If someone chose to let a person operate on him who has no medical training, or got on a plane with a pilot that’s never set foot in a cockpit, that’s dumb, right? Only an idiot would do that.
But this is what millions chose to do with our Presidential vote. Stupid is the only word for it. Or suicidal, maybe.
But painting the whole of middle America this way is not the answer, Michael Shannon, because they didn’t all vote for Trump. That stereotyping is just as dumb as voting for Trump.
America is the dumb and dumber of our generation. It is entirely fair to say that the country as a whole is an idiotic country and that Hillary and Obama counting on it to be “good” and wise went down the drain. As a whole, The worst possible sexist racist ignorant lying person won. He won because people were too lazy or too angry or too dumb or too uninformed or too secretly racist to read between the lines and see the BS. It’s like everyone is waving all over the world that this old ship is going down and they let it happen anyway. It was supposedly a big “f” you to the “elites” and we have seen that in history throughout. It is sad and sickening but lets not now try to normalize what happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if fake news takes over in America and they start to burn books.
^^^^^I mean…this is how I feel.
If I’m being honest and not worrying about hurting peoples’ feelings, everything you said here is exactly how I feel.
And I don’t know how to stop feeling this way. I don’t know how to be understanding or empathetic or kind or even fair to people who voted for this guy. Maybe with time I’ll get there but I’m not there now.
@robyn
“America is the dumb and dumber of our generation.”
I don’t agree with that, because this shift towards demagoguery and rhetoric politics is global. So you’re not alone in that, believe me 😉
^^^And this is what scares me so much. Who’s next….?
we’re not all bad in texas! i definitely voted for hillary and sobbed when she conceded.
WORD.
There is part of me that wants to say that love is stronger than hate and fear, that being divisive like this is only going to make it worse, that we have to find a way to bring these Trump voters around to see that they voted against everything that makes America good, that growing up in South Georgia, many of these people are my family members and I need to understand them better…
And then there’s a part of me that says, hell no! We’ve been playing by the rules on the left for decades, assuming we have partners across the aisle who may not agree on the policies for getting us to the Common Good, but at least agree that’s where the govt should be aiming for. But it turns out they stopped playing by the rules a long time ago (fair play, not stonewalling, some element of dialogue, using structures and processes to get things done etc.).
It’s like we think we’re all playing soccer by the agreed upon rules so we carefully avoid touching the ball with our hands and hand over the ball when the rules say to do so. But then they pick it up, knock us down, and repeatedly smash our faces in with the ball until we’re bloody. And we want to say “give him a chance, we hope they’ll work with us next time now that they’ve voter suppressed and gerrymandered their way into absolute power?” Yeah, not happening.
F#*& that. Shannon’s right. Doesn’t even matter one iota why someone voted for Trump. There were countless left leaning articles all during the election cycle trying to understand the Trump voter’s needs and psychology. Done done done with that. A vote for Trump is a vote condoning and supporting racism, hatred, xenophobia, sexism, and every other vile thing he’s made clear that he stands for.
For the first time ever, my partner and I won’t be going home for Christmas. This election was a watershed moment, different from the ones that came before it.
Sigh, I’m sorry because that is so sad but I hear you..I hear you so much on just not being able to deal. Maybe next Christmas things will have simmered down a bit?
“F#*& that. Shannon’s right. Doesn’t even matter one iota why someone voted for Trump. There were countless left leaning articles all during the election cycle trying to understand the Trump voter’s needs and psychology. Done done done with that. A vote for Trump is a vote condoning and supporting racism, hatred, xenophobia, sexism, and every other vile thing he’s made clear that he stands for.”
This. So sorry you had to suffer this in your family! 🙁
Michael Shannon for president.
He’s not wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, I thought this was a great article:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/im-a-coastal-elite-from-the-midwest-the-real-bubble-is-rural-america
“We, as a culture, have to stop infantilizing and deifying rural and white working-class Americans.”
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That link is awesome! Thank you so much and I will be sharing ♥
I just came across this one, which I also find brilliant:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/
This is a wonderful article. Thanks for sharing the link.
Literally every word of this is true:
“I don’t know how people got so g-ddamn stupid. But it’s really weird, because it’s like the last eight years, now it feels like a lie. Like, this has been festering underneath the whole time. Racists, sexists. And a lot of these people, they don’t know why the f–k they’re alive. They know it. They’re doing drugs, f–king killing themselves. Because they’re like, ‘Why the f–k am I alive? I can’t get a job, I don’t know anything about anything, I have no curiosity for life or the world.’ So this Trump thing is like getting a box of firecrackers, or something. It’s like, ‘Well, this will be fun for a little while, this’ll kill some time.’ Because, y’know, the jackass will be amusing on television, stay stupid sh-t. Make everybody clap. Hillary would have been too boring, I suppose. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. It’s the worst. This guy is going to destroy civilization as we know it, and the earth, and all because of these people who don’t have any idea why they’re alive.”
That oxy epidemic that’s burning a Sherman-sized fire of death through white people? I’ve decided I’m okay with it now. The stratospherically high occurrence of suicide by gun in places like Wyoming? Get after it, assholes. This white girl from Texas won’t fucking miss you.
Wouldn’t it be strange if that bit Trump used when he thought he would lose that Trump names will change to Hillary at the ballot box actually worked in reverse thanks to some Russian plot.
The DNC is hoping the construction bill to go through, see how quickly they got rid
of Reid. Trump is an idiot, he will run this country into the ground before his one term Presidency is over.
I find humor in telling myself that the fires in north Georgia (I live in Atlanta) and NC is God’s punishment against the people who voted for Trump. I’m an atheist so I find quite a bit of humor in this sentiment given that Republicans are the first to scream “God’s punishment” about natural disasters.
Fires are devastating and I wish it on no one … even the vile and misinformed. Apparently, some were set intentionally and some a sign of global warming the Republicans love to ignore.
I live in NC. Yesterday was a code red air quality day due to the smoke from the fires. The kids couldn’t go out for recess at school, no practices, etc. Today is down to an orange. Everyone is bitching about how terrible it is and the smell. I keep thinking, “Yeah, just wait until Trump and Ebell gut the EPA regulations. It’ll be like this a lot.”
Sadly, Shannon speaks the truth.
Totally agree with this! I’m from New York and would like to ask all the Trump voters to a) leave NYC if you live here; and b) not plan a trip here if you aren’t from here. Newsflash: We don’t want you! The City is fun exciting because it is diverse, and clearly you don’t like diversity. So please, exile yourselves and make all of us happy!
As a Bostonian, NYC is sort of like our cooler big brother who occasionally beats us up lol.
But I felt so much pride last week, sharing that blue corner with you guys.
The city is also home to plenty of Trump voters and supporters.
There is no nirvana. Not in this country.
The bit about the last 8 years being a lie really hit me hard, it is everything I’m feeling and more.
On a happier note, his advice to those who don’t know how to talk with their parents who voted for Trump was absolute gold: “F*** ’em. You’re an orphan now. Don’t go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Don’t talk to them at all. Silence speaks volumes.” Refusing to attend a Thanksgiving dinner with outspoken Trump supporters gave me this weird sense of validation.
That interview and rant is going in the top five list of best internet rantings Ive ever read.
The cussing. He said big red d*ildo. If he spat at the end like a granmaw avoiding a curse it would have only made the day golden. You stay golden mad guy.
Republicans have been saying, the thinking goes, that the Benghazi committee was a disinterested, careful look into what happened in Libya on September 11, 2012. And now McCarthy has gone and given away the game, admitting it’s a political stunt. That makes it a classic “Kinsley gaffe”: when a politician screws up and accidentally tells the truth.
The most surprising thing about this quotation is McCarthy’s coining of the word “untrustable.”
RELATED STORY
Gaffe Track: The 2016 Presidential Election in Flubs – when Kevin McCarthy (who was to be John Boehner’s replacement), told the truth about the Benghazi committee.
So here’s the question: Are there people who didn’t think the Benghazi committee was designed from the start, at least in large part, to deflate Clinton? From the moment the attack happened, it was clear to Republicans that it could be used as a cudgel against her, and they’ve done so effectively. Most prominently, the committee hasn’t revealed any serious dereliction on her part, but it has circuitously led to the email scandal that has badly wounded her. Even Republicans who had serious questions about Benghazi can’t have had any misconceptions about the political edge to the process.
Hillary’s campaign was derailed by Republicans, attempting to discredit her – I ask, when they were calling her “crooked Hillary” – where was the opposition?
Whoever made Sanders impossible made Trump inevitable.
Logged in to say that Michael Shannon is the shit and I knew he was one of the better actors in Hollywood when I first saw him on Boardwalk Empire. He simply exudes intelligence and effort.
He is my hero! Tell it Shannon! If the jackasses wanted a president that just says what ever he wants and doesn’t hold back, then they should have voted for Shannon. We’d all be a lot better off right now with him and his potty mouth than with the orange dildo.
I love Michael and am glad he isn’t spouting the “we’ll be just fine” crap a lot of other celebrities are. But there are ignorant and hateful people in EVERY SINGLE STATE who voted for Trump, including people in the large cities. I’m from so-called middle America, and I certainly didn’t vote for Trump and don’t know anyone else who did either. I’m getting really sick of the celebrities who keep blaming us “in the middle” like we’re the ones solely responsible for this mess.
He has been my absolute favorite actor ever since I saw the film ‘Take Shelter’ years ago. I’m so happy everytime he is covered on this (my favorite) site! Also I can totally empathize with his thoughts on this travesty of an election result. Especially the bit about the last 8years being a lie. It feels like we took a huge step forward only to take 2 giant leaps backward.