To quote my previous article of Nov. 4, posted on this blog two days ago:
“What the preceding analysis suggests is that Trump’s ability to turnout a highly disaffected white working class base in the Pennsylvania to Wisconsin geographic ‘arc’ may prove the determining factor in the election. Whether Hillary can neutralize that turnout by counter-mobilizing suburbanites, minorities, and millennials (the least likely) in those same great lakes region ‘swing states’ is the fundamental question in this election”
This election was, as I continually have said since summer, a ‘rebellion of the working class’ against the political elite of both Democrat and Republican parties. Trump was able to mobilize and turnout his base of non-college educated working class (combined with the traditional conservative rural, small town, small business base) more effectively than Hillary Clinton was able to turn out her base of suburbanites, minorities, college educated, and women.
More white non-college workers switched from Democrat and voted Trump in 2016 than they switched and voted for Reagan in 1980.
Clinton Latinos turned out to vote significantly less than they did for Obama in 2012. Obama’s Latino margin over Romney was 44%; Clinton’s only 36%. Women over 45 went for Trump, and millennials turned out in less percent for Clinton in 2016 than for Obama in 2012.
The states that put Trump over the top were once heavily working class and Democratic Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, with Michigan and Minnesota likely to follow as well when the final vote is tallied. These are the states most severely impacted by free trade, offshoring of jobs, and declining living standards.
Public Opinion polls totally mis-forecast the US election, as they did with the UK Brexit referendum vote last June. They predicted a 3-5% vote in favor of Clinton. The popular vote was in favor of Trump.
For a more in-depth analysis, and ‘what happens next’, see my follow up article to be published later today.
Dr. Jack Rasmus
Good article, however, as it turns out Hillary Clinton garnered more popular election votes than did Donald Trump. The count is still incomplete and most of what remains to be tabulated is from California which, depending on the area, mostly votes at least 2 – 1 for Clinton. Clinton, for obvious reasons, did not excite any enthusiasm for her “constituencies”, and the turn-out election went for Trump in key swing state areas. Of course, let’s not forget the massive voter suppression operations in which 30 Republican controlled state legislatures passed numerous laws to make voting more difficult for their opponents; long lines in poor and minority urban neighborhoods; and the fact that reactionary owned companies supply the vote tabulators and the decreasing number of touch screen voting machines that feature secret computer codes that mean that even honest election officials cannot find out how these machines work. It is not just the sentiment of the electorate, though that is certainly important, it is also the many ways in which American elections are truly rigged to benefit the far-right.
[…] The following is my follow up article, soon published, analyzing the Trump election win and its consequences. Dr. Jack Rasmus « Trump Elected President in USA’s ‘Brexit 2.0’–As My ‘Election 2016’ Prior Article Predi… […]