Why Trump Won

[Lisnpuppy]

Having read through the entire thread the essential question has not really been answered imo.

The reason Trump won and HRC lost , is the 'fly over states' which HRC took for granted and Trump did not. These states are the same ones that Obama dimisively referred to as 'clinging to their guns and the Bible', forgetting that at one time they were the core of Democratic voting pool. At one time the Democratic Party was the champion of the little man versus corporate America....no longer. Through wiki leaks we learned in what contempt the inner circle of the DNC held the working class, Catholics and even the far left of their own party. Oddly enough the party of FDR now is more in line with the coastal elites than their former base. What astonished me was when HRC told West Virginians that coal was a dead industry and would be fazed out....talk about being tone deaf to the interests of her former constituents. Last but by no means least Americans were tired of the more than forty years of scandals dogging the Clintons, she and now even Bill have lost the teflon quality that allowed them to push past incidents that would have resulted in indictments for lesser mortals.

 

(My coloring above)

 

As a West Virginian I feel the need to step in here. Now, Hillary was kind of dumb for saying that how she did. However most people don't know what else she has also said which is that she planned to help coal workers with retraining for other, equally well paying jobs. West Virginia's coal industry is a hot mess and not likely to improve. The fact is, coal jobs are becoming fewer and fewer for many reasons and most of the jobs will never come back to West Virginia. It is the stubbornness of the State and many of its people that feel some kinds of visceral connection to coal regardless of how badly coal treats West Virginia (and really always has but I guess they all forgot about the Mine Wars) and a complete "hide my head in a hole" attitude refusing to see the decline in coal jobs, increase in cost of production and the use of other, cheaper fuel.

 

In 2015 West Virginia University did report on the coal industry here (and WVU gets much money from coal, so if they wanted to have them all chuck money at them this report didn't endear coal to them.) In WVU's report (found here an article on it http://wvutoday.wvu.edu:8002/n/2015/05/28/wvu-report-shows-coal-industry-faces-nearly-39-percent-decline-in-coal-production

and the mentioned paper here http://www.be.wvu.edu/bber/pdfs/BBER-2015-03.pdf

and another article about it here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/04/19/coal-industry-energy-fallout/82972958/ )

 

they found that coal production, especially in the southern part of the state (which I live) suffers of many factors. The rising use of natural gas, the loss of easy to mine coal, the age of the mines which are not up to modern tech or safety standards (which will cost more jobs), the type of coal present here, and there are places to get coal easier and cheaper. The jobs were going down before Obama and anyone else. The regulations are not what is killing West Virginia's remaining coal resources (which is estimated as a 200 year supply and that does not take into consideration how hard it will be to mine) are becoming harder and harder to get to in a safe manner both for humans and the ecology. My husband works for Workers Comp here in WV and the amount of new black lung cases still exist. And let's face it...any of you who may have physically seen mountaintop mining will know that there needs to be a better way and something more for this situation.

 

The days that one here can say, "My granddaddy mined, my Paw mined and I'm gonna mine" are over. No regulations or lack thereof will save West Virginia's miners. If West Virginia wants to compete in this brave new world then there needs to be a realization that retraining is a must and alternate plans for jobs other than mining need to be started and implemented more soon than later.

 

Mining jobs are not going to return to West Virginia (especially in Southern West Virginia) and will keep declining as time goes on. Maybe Hillary should have chose her words more carefully (less sound byte worthy), but if anyone believes Donald Trump is going to bring mining jobs back are still drinking that Trump Tower Kool-Aid.

[Aurielius]

@Lisinpuppy

I would not contest that the coal industry needs to modernize. What I was attempting to illuminate was HRC's lack of personal connection with the blue colar workers who she expected to vote for her.

[Harbringe]

 

(My coloring above)

 

As a West Virginian I feel

 

I think your missing the point about the coal reference , really its symptomatic of the Dems completely missing the picture and the establishment media as a whole missing the picture.

 

Even before the election was held the Republicans were pretty much admitting defeat , the Dems and media were in an almost celebratory mood and if you watch media coverage of election night you see they start off all happy and laughing and then it turns to stunned looks , they were so enraptured by their own narrative (that they created) that they never imagined they could be so wrong.

 

And what do they do once it dawns on them they actually lost , do they look at themselves and ask what they did wrong , no they start blaming others and their biggest target is white people (racists) , because in their narrative if your white you have to be a racist or because you didn't vote for a woman your a sexist. Well here's some facts , only 1% more whites voted for Trump than Romney and these people are the demographic (swung back) that voted for Obama twice , giving him the largest vote totals ever. 43% of white women voted for Trump (so much for glass ceiling) and in the minority vote among blacks his share was up 8% , hispanics up 9% and asians up 11% and this over the base they usually get. So are these people racist , because without them Trump could not have won all those swing states. Yet the Dem/Progressives and media are still trying to spin their own narrative. And they have to do that because its the only way they can legitimize themselves.

 

I'm used to Republicans/Conservatives being out of touch and you know I've knocked heads with them , but I keep asking when did the script flip because its now the Dems/Progressives that are out of touch. And if they dont wake up it could get very much worse for them.

[kvnchrist]

Trump won because everyone else failed the American public and they were tired of it. bottom line!

[Lisnpuppy]

I didn't miss the point. It may not seem to be significantly related but I didn't misunderstand a darn thing. MY point is that there is a massive amount of evidence that coal jobs are going, going, gone and to say you will save them/bring them back is incorrect and not being straight up on the matter. I personally can't connect with Trump because he makes these wide reaching statements how he is going to fix it all and be some comb-over messiah when there is and has been evidence to the contrary regarding the coal industry in West Virginia. Someone who says they are the only ones that can help and knows so very much about business SHOULD know this and speak plainly and honestly about the predicament people here are in. A good businessman would have plan a, b, c and onward.

 

Also I point out that there are many dems elected in WV including the governor-elect Justice. So why would WV vote in a republican president not being able to connect to dems as some of you say, but then vote for a democrat governor who ran against a pro-Trump/pro-coal ticket (and the other guy was named COLE for god's sake)? And WV has done this most of my lifetime.

 

The people of this state deserved better. But Trump won because he gave the angry masses false hope. When people are desperate they believe much.

 

And lets remember the popular vote from this election. I think Hillary made plenty of connections.

 

Anyway, I said my piece. Enjoy.

[HeyYou]

I think Donald was talking about coal in general, not WV specifically. After all, WV is not the only state that produces coal......

[Lisnpuppy]

I think Donald was talking about coal in general, not WV specifically. After all, WV is not the only state that produces coal......

Many of his statements were in direct response to Hillary's comment that was made in regard to WV.

 

Also in several speeches he mentions West Virginia directly. Even if he were speaking to coal in general, that dog won't hunt either.

[HeyYou]

 

I think Donald was talking about coal in general, not WV specifically. After all, WV is not the only state that produces coal......

Many of his statements were in direct response to Hillary's comment that was made in regard to WV.

 

Also in several speeches he mentions West Virginia directly. Even if he were speaking to coal in general, that dog won't hunt either.

 

I didn't watch the debates, or, any of the political coverage on the boob toob for that matter...... I already knew that I did NOT want HIlary as pres..... so, it just didn't matter. :) So, probably not as well informed as I could be. :D

[Lisnpuppy]

@HeyYou

 

I took a very active interest in everything this year.

 

These were not the droids I was looking for.

[TheMastersSon]

He's not even waiting until he's in office to forget about his campaign promises, overnight we went from a border wall to a border fence. According to the article this represents a "softening" of Trump's immigration policy.

 

"I'm good at this."

 

http://www.kitco.com/news/2016-11-14/Trump-Shapes-White-House-Hires-Establishment-Figure-Firebrand.html

 

If Trump was supposed to be the change candidate I think we'll have to keep searching for one. At least people now understand who the actual drivers are in illegal immigration in the U.S., and it's not Democrats.

Edited November 14, 2016 by TheMastersSon