TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2024
He cites two obvious reasons: Why would anyone on the face of the earth have voted for Candidate Trump? Those of us in Blue America sometimes seem to be baffled by that question.
Thom Hartmann is a good, decent person. He's also a substantial progressive thought leader—and he has been for twenty years.
That said, why would any decent person have decided to vote for Trump? Could there possibly be any imaginable reason?
Two weeks ago, Hartmann went on C-Span's Washington Journal and seemed to say, "Sadly, no." For better or worse, this is where some of us in Blue America seem to have alighted:
MODERATOR (11/17/24): I'll go back to something you mentioned earlier. You mentioned that, since the 1960s, the Democrats have been the party that supports racial minorities, according to your assessment. But also, I want to look at this chart here about the distribution of white voters in particular.
The Democrats have not won the vote among white Americans since 1964. Overwhelmingly over the years, white voters have voted Republican, and Democrats have lost support among white voters even since Barack Obama in 2008. And what do you think that means for the future of the party and the party's dynamics?
HARTMANN: Well, I think what that reflects is the deep racism that is still extant among white people in America, you know. And certainly, the Trump presidency, and even his successful campaign in 2016, frankly shocked me.
[...]
I don't have an explanation beyond for this very clear racial division which has existed since 1964, beyond just the shocking reality that at least half of America, and arguably a little more than that, is just deeply racist.
So declared Brother Hartman. To view the tape of the fuller exchange, you can just click here.
As Hartmann puzzled out the larger picture, it sounded like everyone who voted for Candidate Trump just had to be racist.
Actually, it sounded like they had to be deeply racist. Hartmann used that term two separate times.
Question! Could there possibly be some other reason why people may have voted for Trump?
We voted for Candidate Harris ourselves. We never considered the possibility of voting for Candidate Trump. That said:
In our view, there are roughly a million reasons why someone might have voted for Candidate Trump—might have decided to vote against our own favored candidate. In our view, the fact that we Blues are routinely blind to this possibility says something quite dire about Us as a political entity.
Why might people have voted for Trump? Let's give Bill Clinton a chance to answer. He recently spoke with Andrew Ross Sorkin—and he himself won two White House elections, first by 5.6 and then by 8.5 points.
Why did the Red team win this time? According to the New York Times, he offered this observation:
Bill Clinton on the Election, D.E.I. and One of His Regrets
A month after losing the presidential election, Democrats are still unpacking what went wrong. Speaking at the DealBook Summit on Wednesday, former President Bill Clinton blamed a lack of time.
When President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, he said, “nobody had a plan because nobody knew what was going to happen.” He added that a primary “would have been total chaos.”
Ultimately, he said, Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t able to adequately introduce herself as a presidential candidate. “What happened was Kamala Harris was a stranger to them,” he said of voters.
Did Candidate Harris lose some votes because she got into the race so late? We'll guess that she probably did.
As of this very day, the number of people who voted this year stands at 115.2 million and counting. Could Harris have won some people over if she'd only had more time to campaign?
Almost surely, she probably could have! Still, how could someone have voted for a person like Trump without being "deeply racist?"
In our view, the possible reasons go on and on, then on and on and on. The fact that we Blues can't grasp that fact says something quite grim about Us.
Why was Trump able to nose past Harris in the nationwide popular vote? He beat her by less than 1.5 points—but how did a person like Donald J. Trump ever get any votes at all?
On Sunday's Meet the Press, Candidate Trump—he's now president-elect—told Kristen Welker that we won the election two different ways.
Below, we'll show you what he said. First, let's note these points:
In our view, the interview established two basic facts. The former candidate—the president-elect—remains a stunningly disordered person. Also, Welker doesn't approach certain very basic questions in the most helpful way.
Can anyone here play this game? As broadcast in the edited interview, this is the way one exchange started:
WELKER (12/8/24): And sir, I don't have to tell you this, because you've talked about it. It comes at a time when the country is deeply divided, and now you're going to be leading this country for the next four years. For the sake of unifying this country, will you concede the 2020 election and turn the page on that chapter?
TRUMP: No. No, why would I do that?
Indeed! On the one hand, a person could say that Welker made the former candidate go on the record. In the absence of any serious attempt to offer evidence for his assertion, he still asserts that the 2020 election was stolen!
On the other hand, we have no idea why Welker thought the former candidate might suddenly reverse himself on this foundational claim. But she went ahead and framed her question that way, failing to ask why he's never offered some sort of "white paper" laying out a justification for this deeply inflammatory assertion.
For our money, Welker's approach to this topic involved the usual swing and miss. The former candidate simply blustered ahead with what seem to be a set of implausible fantasies about the last two elections:
TRUMP: No. No, why would I do that?
WELKER: Sir, Democrats have control of the White House now. They didn't in 2020. If they are going around stealing elections, why didn't they do it this time—
TRUMP: When you say Democrats have control now—
WELKER: Of the White House! So why didn't they steal this election? Since they have more power now?
TRUMP: Because I think it was too big to rig.
WELKER: So you won't—
TRUMP: It was too big to rig.
According to the incoming president, the Democrats tried to steal this year's election. But it was "too big to rig!"
Question! Does that mean that this year's vote count is fraudulent and phony too, just like the vote count from 2020? Did the Democrats alter the vote count to some extent but just not enough?
Also, in what way did the Democrats try to steal this election? That's a deeply inflammatory assertion. What was Trump talking about? Also, why wasn't the gentleman asked?
What was the gentleman talking about? Perhaps because she was caught by surprise, Welker didn't ask! As a result, the gentleman simply plowed ahead with his unsupported assertions, as he's largely been allowed to do for the past thirteen years.
(We're dating back to his arrival on the Fox News Channel as mother of all birthers, with Greta van Susteren assigned by Fox to serve as his prime enabler.)
Is "something wrong" with Donald J. Trump? Over here in Blue America, our tribunes have agreed that they must never ask!
That said, with regard to the former candidate's apparent disorder, it got even worse than that. In Sunday's edited broadcast, the visibly angry former candidate was even shown saying this:
WELKER (on voiceover): I also asked the president-elect about NBC News's reporting that President Biden is considering preemptive pardons for some of the people who have clashed with Mr. Trump, including Senator-elect Adam Schiff, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and former Congresswoman Liz Cheney. As part of his response, Mr. Trump lashed out at the January 6th committee, accusing it of unfairly targeting him and even of destroying its records, which the committee denies.
[Videotape begins]
TRUMP: Cheney was behind it. And so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee.
WELKER: We’re going to—
TRUMP: For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.
WELKER: So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail?
TRUMP: For what they did—
WELKER: Everyone on the committee you think—
TRUMP: I think everybody—
WELKER: —should go to jail?
TRUMP: Anybody that voted in favor—
Near the end of that exchange, Welker interrupted former candidate in mid-statement two times. This kept him from completing his thought about who exactly should be headed to jail.
Who exactly should go to jail in the mind of this angry person? Is it "everybody on the" January 6 committee? Is it "anybody who voted in favor" of that committee's report?
Is it "anybody who voted in favor" of conviction during his second impeachment trial? Due to the interruptions, it was never exactly clear who this angry fellow meant.
That said, he angrily asserted that everyone from Cheney on down should be going to jail for something—for whatever it is that he alleges that they unlawfully did.
(And what exactly were their crimes? Welker didn't ask!)
We can't necessarily blame Welker for failing to nail this angry man down on these angry assertions. But these angry assertions continue to survive the kinds of questions typically directed at Trump and at his supporters.
Trump wants them all to go to jail! Beyond that, he's now telling his supporters that the Democrats (somehow) tried to steal this election too!
In these ways, this angry person's unsupported claims continue to rocket through the culture. For ourselves, we always vote for the Democrat anyway. But it never would have crossed our mind to vote for a person like this.
That said, could there possibly be some defensible reason why other people might have? It seems to us that the possible reasons go on and on and on.
At one point in this interview, Trump actually named his top two reasons. Why did so many people vote for this guy? Here's what the fellow said:
TRUMP: We have a country now that's overridden with crime, that has millions of people that shouldn't be here, that should be in prisons in other countries, that should be in mental institutions. We have drug lords being dropped into our country and told never go back to their country. I'm looking to make our country great. I'm looking to get—bring prices down. Because, you know, I won on two things, the border and—more than immigration.
You know, they like to say immigration, I break it down more to the border, but I won on the border, and I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost—you know, who uses the word? I started using the word—the groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that.
That oration is larded with the standard array of claims which are either plainly false or are simply unsupported. But the gentleman said that he won on the border and that he won on groceries.
For some of us Blues, it hurts to say this, but he also won on President Biden. For the record, President Biden is the reason Harris got in so late.
The angry man says he won on the border. He says he won on the groceries.
He also won on President Biden! Tomorrow, we'll start with those three points, with many miles—along with many additional reasons—to go before we sleep.
Tomorrow: The border and the groceries oh my! But also, President Biden.
"the number of people who voted this year stands at 115.2 million"
ReplyDeleteTypo? The total is just over 152 million.
And "the groceries"? I bet the number of visits to grocery stores made by Trump in the past 20 years could be counted on one hand. Maybe even by Jon Tester.
ReplyDeleteA couple of things - I looked for a "white paper" from Trump about the basis for his claim that the election was stolen, and found one. This was a few years ago. It's probably still out there. It was about 11 pages long. What I remember about it was that it emphasized the Dinesh D'souza "investigation" - I don't think D'souza is credible about anything. His findings were based on speculation, and unproven assumptions. Others, I believe have debunked his theory.
ReplyDeleteAs for welker, she could have asked Trump what evidence he had that the Jan. 6 committed destroyed evidence, or otherwise deserved to be prosecuted. That's a basic question. In the portions cited by TDH - that doesn't appear.
The problem with any reporter interviewing any politician, but particularly Trump, is that they can always dodge, deflect and filibuster. Plus I don't think that the media stars who do the interviews are that skilled -
My earlier comment was bounced. Maybe because I linked to a CNN story about Dinesh D'souza, a criminal ironically convicted over illegal political donations; has admitted under threat of lawsuit that his bullcrap 2020 election fraud movie "2000 Mules" was "flawed". Just like all the experts looking at it said it was. Same old right wing noise machine pointing at the left with three fingers pointing at them. Sure DiC was at the viewing party.
DeleteDems lost Congress by less than 8,000 votes in three districts. A true Trumpian Man Date to go along with his 1.4% margin of victory. Easily manipulated racist asses are gonna vote for easily manipulated racist asshole leadership.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans don't spend every minute of every waking hour devising ever more devious methods to suppress votes and gerrymander districts for nothing you know.
DeleteJoe Rogan had that 3-hour interview with Trump. He asked at one point what the evidence was for Trumps claim that the 2016 election was stolen. Trump at first, in his style, tried to dodge the question, saying that he'd get him the evidence after the interview, and that Rogen "wouldn't believe" how convincing the evidence was. Rogen didn't let him get away with this, and asked again what the evidence was. Trump gave 2 examples
ReplyDelete(1) the changed the rules of voting in various states without getting legislative approval; and
2) the ad signed by 51 CIA (or ex-CIA) agents that the Hunter laptop story was probably a Russian psy-op.
As fire as I'm concerned neither of these things proved, or even evidenced that the election was "stolen." Pathetic.
Politicians and others rationalizing their support for Trump never want to address the issue of this ginormous level of BS that Trump perpetuates, while undermining something I thought was important, faith in the electoral process in the US. They'll deflect or dodge the issue.
I'll add, however, that I agree with TDH, there are numerous reasons aside from 'racism' why so many voted for Trump.
So many "grievances" loop directly back to racism. DEI is at core stopping the blahs from getting ahead of the white man. Killing affirmative action. Stopping/reversing immigration. Critical race theory, not a thing in real life, becomes all consuming on the right. Punching down the trans like big strong men with tears in their eyes would do. Etc.
DeleteSomerby keeps saying this:
Delete"In our view, there are roughly a million reasons why someone might have voted for Candidate Trump"
But he still has not listed any of those reasons. If there are so many, he could presumably list a few and yet he doesn't.
There are reasons and there are excuses. A few people do come right out and say they are trying to preserve the purity of the white race and protect its women from despoilment by minorities, but most will refer to more socially acceptable explanations. The problem is that the people who cite things like "Trump will be good for the economy" or "Trump will end the Ukraine war" have clearly not thought through those reasons. And when a reason is held superficially but is contradicted by the facts, many times over, the reason itself comes to seem like a plausible excuse for indulging one's racism, and not an actual reason at all (largely because the reason is untrue and has been shown to be bogus).
There are a million disqualifiers that should cause a thinking person to avoid voting for Trump. Lying is chief among them. Somerby never explains why these disqualifiers do not sway people's votes. I believe it is because they are not motivated to disqualify Trump because they WANT to vote for him, largely because he satisfies their racial concerns -- he hates the same people and he is promising to remove the "riff-raff" from our society, by force.
If Somerby were a more honest thinker, he would acknowledge that our history not only includes that civil war over slavery, but a long history of Jim Crow and lingering racial discrimination. But Somerby chose to express vague concerns about the 1619 Project and dislikes school disintegration. These attitudes make me question whether Somerby himself is capable of assessing the deep racism in our society. I doubt he can think objectively enough, getting past his own racism, to judge how other people feel.
And don't get me started on sexism/misogyny. That's a topic Somerby is entirely unqualified to discuss and it is arguably as embedded in our culture as racism is.
Oh, please, please, please! Tell us all about your views on sexism/misogyny -- we're just dying to know!
DeleteAnonymouse 6:16pm, can she email that to you?
DeleteI mean… she’s here writing screeds on how Somerby is inadequate as to addressing all her pet poodles. Meanwhile, both we and SHE are here reading Bob’s take every day.
“Punching down the trans like big strong men with tears in their eyes would do. Etc“
DeleteIronally, both sides of that equation are big strong men.
Ironically, no one really believes the snowflakes bullying trans people are big strong men.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:10am, meomyo, but you’re wrong. Scroll up.
Delete"But he still has not listed any of those reasons. If there are so many, he could presumably list a few and yet he doesn't."
DeleteHe has many times. What are you, stupid?
You are correct Cecelia, most of the folks punching down on poor little trans folks are mean ass "christian" women. I only know one trans person thru my daughter. Probably one more than most folks. He was Lesley until he got out of college, and is now Les. Seems happy, has a nice girlfriend, and mom still loves him. It took a bit of adjusting, but who really fucking cares? Also my real name is Pat.
DeleteI have been friends with a trans person for over forty years. People didn’t know she was trans. She lived a normal life. That makes this current fuss seem like persecution without any basis.
DeleteMeeMao, I think your formulation of “punching down on them” (trans people) is condescending as hell. It also brings to mind the professional woman boxer who quit after the first punch from a transwoman whose gloved hand was wider and a half than her head. This woman *was a champ in a sport that didn’t get its only league till the late 90s.
DeleteWas she your friend's cousin?
DeleteAnonymouse 12:39am, yes.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/world/olympics/boxer-quits-gender-angela-carini-imane-khelif.html
LOL.
DeleteA phony anti-trans story hoovered-up by gullible fools who thought Dinesh D'Souza was an honest broker.
Both fighters in your story are women.
Perhaps you might want to seek out media sources that aren't in the business of discriminating against trans people, lest you look like an even bigger fool than the one you play on the internet.
Anonymouse 8:26am, they’re both women because transwomen and you say they are women. End of story. Now THAT is Orwellian.
DeleteWomen shouldn't be allowed to compete with other women if they were born with a penis - because they have ten times the amount of testosterone than the other women and it's not a fair fight.
DeleteCool story Soros-bot.
DeleteRepublicans will try to provoke Democrats into making arguments like "both fighters in your story are women", ie. women who were born with a penis are biologically the same as women who were born with a vagina.
DeleteBecause all parties love to see the opposition support unpopular ideas based on imbecilic reasoning.
It's easier to do with Right-wingers, because other than the bigotry, they don't believe anything they say.
DeleteXY chromosomes don’t care about your feelings.
DeleteI do not of course know Les' particulars. My understanding is over 90% of trans surgery is folks having both men's and women's genitalia; choosing to remove their breasts, add testosterone, and identify as male. They can't help that Cecelia and God are prone to errors.
DeleteMeeMao, your statement might be forth uttering when a champion male boxer bows out after one punch from a transman.
DeleteA banned Russian boxing org claimed she was XY. Olympic committee says a woman. Who you gonna believe, the BS right wing hate machine again aligned with Russia and Trump, or the International Olympic Committe. Or maybe just be your usual racist self and go with the blond over the dirty Muslim.
DeleteI would vote for Tim Scott over any Democrat.
ReplyDeleteI would not vote for any black Democrat. That makes me racist. Or white Democrat. Still racist, because no chance I'm voting for a black Democrat.
Let my admission of racism keep you warm tonight, Demmies.
I will not find a Republican voter who isn't a bigot, because there isn't one and never has been.
DeleteRight back at ya, lady.
Republicans deliberately distort the meaning of the term racism in order to evade efforts to address racism. It is a sign of racism when they undermine anti-racist efforts by doing that, as @9:11 illustrates.
DeleteRepublicans think they can't be racists, if they didn't personally kill Medgar Evers.
DeleteTrump never admits that he was wrong, but he has no real evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, so an interviewer can always embarrass him by asking if he still thinks it was stolen. But, embarrassing Trump is the only reason to ask that question. It no longer matters. What matters now is his appointees, his policies, his behavior going forward, etc.
ReplyDeleteNote the preposterous excuse offered for asking the question: "For the sake of unifying this country, will you concede the 2020 election and turn the page on that chapter?"
Would the country really be unified if Trump conceded the 2020 election? Of course not.
Let's see. Is lying either bigotry or white supremacy? No? Then it really means absolutely nothing to Republican voters, like David in Cal.
DeleteGod forbid Trump lie about not giving reparations to black people, because the howling from the Right about dishonesty will hit a fever pitch.
Past behaviors don't matter. A retired actuary might tell you that past behaviors do matter as predictors of future behaviors.
DeleteLet's move on from the past and get about the serious business of serious people to tackle the budget:
Deletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qkm-kV9dl7I
Can't wait to see the look on those retirees and veterans who voted for Trump and his crack team when they get the bad news.
Trump voters don't care about inflation, because they know nothing about economics.
DeleteFox News will blame it on Jimmy Carter signing the Community Redevelopment Act, and economically anxious Republican voters, who aren't just a shit pile of bigots (hat tip mainstream media) will have a new talking point they can flood social media with.
Were documents from the Jan 6 committee destroyed or not? Conservative stuff I've seen seems to be pretty definite that some documents were destroyed. But is that really so?
ReplyDeleteGo fuck yourself, Dickhead in Cal. If that treasonous lying bastard you support cared about preserving the record, maybe the fucking coward would have agreed to testify under oath to the committee. Why don't you fucking ask Jack Smith where his documents are, you fucking treasonous lying bastard?
Delete@7:29 Whether Trump testified is irrelevant. I do not know whether or not records were destroyed. I would like to know. I also don't know if destroying such records would be a crime. Here's what I do know.
DeleteThe J6 Committee isn't obliged to obey the law just for the sake of Trump. They're obliged to obey the law for every American. If people we elected as lawmakers intentionally violated the law, that's terrible, and IMO they should be punished.
David in Cal,
DeleteWhy don't you ask Dinesh D'Souza or Donald Trump, if you want to know the truth?
Documents were not destroyed.
DeleteI believe the going Orwellian euphemism is the documents in question were "not archived". You gotta love it.
DeleteThe documents were eaten by Haitian immigrants.
DeleteIf you had a few patriotic molecules circulating in your Trump-addled brain you would be considerably less concerned about Jan 6 committee documents and very concerned about the missing classified documents that were once housed in empty folders found at Mar a Lago. You would be asking why highly classified government documents were found in a bathroom there. You would be asking why Trump ignored the FBI's three requests for documents he should not have possessed and then had resort staff that had no business handling them hide them for him. But you and your traitorous right wing media sources do not express any concerns about Trump mishandling over 100 highly classified documents and disobeying the authorities attempting to secure them. So fuck off in your attempts to paint the Jan 6 committee unfavorably when your orange Jesus purposely mishandled highly classified documents that shouldn't have been in his possession, some of which appear to be missing.
DeleteHow does the right wing noise machine convince dickhead in cal that their lying about J6 docs is more important than the fucking autogolpe that begat the investigation? What is wrong with these morans?
DeleteIn David in Cal's addled brain, he thinks the Republican/ National Party will look at him as one of the good ones.
DeleteHe's doing his fucking around now, but he'll find out.
David, the destroyed evidence claims all trace back to Trump's insistence that he offered to provide 10,000 National Guard troops to provide security on January 6. The J6 committee said it found no evidence that any such offer was ever made beyond a possible off-the-cuff remark by Trump. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, in 2023, raised the issue when he requested records of transcribed interviews and received...transcriptions!...instead of the raw video.
DeleteThe story took off from there. Before long, Trump was running around claiming that Liz Cheney personally destroyed all the evidence! Of course, she did no such thing.
Long story short, the committe released a report. All of the supporting evidence for that report is archived and available. There are also documents that were not included in the archive, some for security reasons, but mostly because they weren't material to the findings of the committee.
The key to understanding the mindset of DIC and the traitorous right wing media outlets that he chooses to define his world is this: under no circumstances is Trump ever to be viewed as anything other than a victim.
DeleteQiB: The Emily Litella of this blog's comment section will be thanking you, as always, for providing the facts here, so that he can move on and search out his right wing outlets for more misinformation to be upset about. Rinse and repeat.
DeleteWhether Trump testified is irrelevant
DeleteTo you it's irrelevant, Dickhead, because you don't give a shit. You don't give a shit that he was indicted for multiple felonies for his plot to steal the election. You cheerfully went to the polls and voted for him again, handing him the power he already proved he was willing to abuse. Watch him now. You ain't seen nuthin yet.
@11:28 and MeeMao seem to think a crime is OK if some other crime is more serious.
DeleteWe have seen the documented plans for an autogolpe which VP Pence would not follow thru with; and he is now banned from the Republican Party for his inaction. We all saw an actual violent insurrection that attempted to prevent transfer of power. But to Dave only the felon's word, the one behind the coup attempt, and nobody else's is proof it must be true with no other evidence. Haitians eat cats, dogs, and ducks. Dave eats shit and asks for seconds.
Delete2:06 Here is what I think, for the record. DIC is the Johnny Appleseed of easily debunked misinformation, for which multiple easily debunked comments by him have been corrected with facts, over the span of literally years now, by QiB and others. See 4:11 AM. Your schtick , DIC , is old and tiresome. Why don’t you clean up your act? Admitting that Trump’s crime was worse than the purported but debunked misdeeds by the January 6th committee would be considered a step in the right direction but your need to engage in bad faith arguments always takes precedence.
Delete
ReplyDeleteEveryone knows the 2020 election was stolen. It's common knowledge.
There are gigatons of evidence, but the best evidence is the hysterical reaction of the Democrat establishment (including all the Soros-bots here) every time it's mentioned.
The best evidence that there is no such thing as a Republican voter who isn't a bigot, is that those who call that a lie haven't been able to identify one in over 6 years of trying.
Delete