Rum Doings Episode 229: Emergency Election-o-Horror Episode
by John Walker on Nov.09, 2016, under Rum Doings
In our 229th ever Rum Doings, our topic is, are plastic pegs an abomination or the saviours of the washing line?
This is a slightly shorter emergency episode, responding to the US election result as soon as we were both alive again this morning. It’s glum, obviously, but you do get to hear Nick say words that you’ll have never heard before (his family and friends included).
We talk about what isn’t going to happen, how there won’t be a wall, what limits Trump will operate under. And then we talk terrifying worst-case scenarios. But the good news is, it all ends with lovely cute Toby chatting his madness at us.
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[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/229_rumdoings.mp3]
November 9th, 2016 on 10:31
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
November 9th, 2016 on 10:57
I second Hotel’s comment
November 9th, 2016 on 11:39
Will Trump’s inability to govern really be that much of a handicap? It never seemed to do Reagan much harm.
November 9th, 2016 on 11:41
Sorry, I over-panicked, I won £10 from my mate Phil. Please remove one ‘a’ and three of the ‘h’s. ‘hs’
(How do you pluralize an ‘h’?)
November 9th, 2016 on 17:31
Does Farage really make movements successful by his involvement? Or is it more that he’s been able to latch onto popular trends and ride them to success? That would be the investment banker’s way, after all.
November 9th, 2016 on 18:57
Nick should have stuck with his monkey theory of elections.
November 9th, 2016 on 19:39
In general I think all pundits (including Nick) who told us with certainty Hillary would win yesterday should have to wait at least one day to explain to us how the Trump presidency will go.
November 9th, 2016 on 22:39
I think John is right. Trump won this election, in large part, thanks to racial resentment among white people.
This worked at the government level where Republicans worked to gut the Voting Rights Act, purge voter rolls in largely black and latino districts, enact onerous photo ID requirements and limit the window for early voting. It was also a huge factor in voter intentions. Trump’s biggest economic demographic wasn’t the laid-off steel worker, but the white suburban voter earning $70000 a year. Everyone expected white men to vote for Trump, but the “surprise” of this election was that white women broke in Trump’s favour, too. His violent misogyny was something to tolerate in order to get that wall along the Mexican border and the blockade on Muslims immigration.
Social progress is slow. It took until 1995 for a majority of Americans to approve of interracial marriage. For a lot of bigots, what changed was the social shame associated with being openly racist. Trump’s magic was making it OK to be a bigot, to let these people feel free to ~tell it like it is~. That’s why, even if his term in office is a complete failure, he’s fundamentally damaged the political discourse of the United States.
November 10th, 2016 on 15:04
“I think John is right. Trump won this election, in large part, thanks to racial resentment among white people”
The parts of the country where Trump did best with the white working class are the parts of the country where, in 2008, the white working class voted for Obama.
It’s easy to call everyone racist. A pity the data are more complicated.
November 10th, 2016 on 23:26
Ha ha, remember a few years ago when I said it was only just beginning? The floods comes, traitors. You are going to keep on losing and we will keep winning. You should wake up every morning knowing that you will never be happy again, that everything you care for will be eradicated in your lifetime. And you will never understand why.
I can’t wait for Trump to drone strike you and your family.
November 11th, 2016 on 17:21
“Trump won this election, in large part, thanks to racial resentment among white people.” – https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw_MUhPWEAAGFi8.jpg
I am glad we get to read everyone pretend that empiricism can be totally disregarded for their pet sociological theory to explain the outcome of an election. Never mind the need to study political science, to perform actual anthropological study of real life Trump voters (who tragically manage to evade reductive, one-sentence caricature) etc. Just go on social media and continue with inept liberal signalling, it is a strategy that has proven very successful over the last 10 years.
November 12th, 2016 on 07:58
Hitler’s Ghost: You realise, of course, that Trump does not represent you, nor care about your opinion? He thinks you and everyone like you is an imbecile. That was the entire point of his latest scam, and that you think that falling for it so fully means it’s time to show off only makes it more embarassing.
Anyway, in unrelated news, would you like to buy a bridge? It’ll make you a great profit and it’ll get rid of all those people you don’t like. You know the ones I mean. Yeah, them.
November 12th, 2016 on 08:54
Thanks for the emergency pod.
Nick: I think most people were too sanguine about Clinton’s viability. She epitomizes the smarmy neoliberalism which presided over this era. Because of that, and because even now so many are too embarrassed to admit Trump preference, I expected Trump to win more handily.
Also, I don’t know that Sanders would have beaten Trump. I preferred him, but he was so unproven on the national stage that I’m not confident about that counterfactual. I also think my resentment of Clinton makes him seem more viable to me than he actually was. An explicit democratic socialist on the national stage in the USA? I’d like to believe we’re ready for that.
John: Trump won because neoliberalism’s dying, not because bigoted voters supported him (which they did). Mark Blyth has been insightful about this for years. He gave an overview of what he calls Global Trumpism in late September. I invite you to watch a couple minutes of the lecture which is all worthwhile (6:16 to 8:54, linked to timestamp). This story is true to what I see in my area (Midwest). Blyth responded to the election in another video on Watson’s YT with a fellow polisci professor (Wendy Schiller), if you want more of that stuff.
fwiw, referencing the above anecdote, Sanders actually did address Gary’s concerns, but Clinton saw to him. Maybe he would’ve grabbed more swing votes and/or motivated more Dems to come out, but I’m dubious.
November 17th, 2016 on 07:40
Economic anxiety was a predictor in Trump support, but not the strongest: https://twitter.com/b_schaffner/status/797949625751707648