He means that when rural white voters said that they think they're getting the short end of the stick when it comes to globalism, the Democrats blew them off as racists/ignorant/whatever. If the Democrat party was truly diverse this opinion would have been respected enough that it wouldn't be a surprise.

I think Sanders did a much better job of reaching that demographic, so I'd argue it was represented, but the Democrat party decided other priorities were more important by selecting Clinton.

This is exactly what I mean. Clinton really lost a lot of support by only going after social issues that, for all intents and purposes, have already been solved. Sure, there are a lot of racist people who voted for Trump! But there is ample law and policy in place to protect the rights of minorities and LGBT.

Trump went after issues that actually matter. Be careful, I'm not saying LGBT rights and racism don't matter, I'm just saying they aren't really the centerfold of America anymore.

> But there is ample law and policy in place to protect the rights of minorities and LGBT.

The degree to which people believe this is striking. The reality is that these protections are very recent developments and are today easily reversed, particularly by an administration that cares less than usual about the details of how the federal government is run.

How many actual federal legal protections exist now? To me it seems like there hasn't been much change in federal law, some at state levels, but in general it's that people are more accepting because they think Cam on Modern Family is funny.

Quite a lot of rests on the courts. The Supreme Court has a set of case law related to minority rights, which it could reverse--as it did with the Voting Rights Act.

The national legalization of gay marriage happened via the Supreme Court just last year. There is no reason at all it could not be reversed under a new court.

A lot more rests in Department of Justice policy. Look at what Justice has been doing to investigate and clean up racial bias in municipal police forces recently. They have consent decrees with Seattle, Cleveland, and others to try to change the way they do policing.

A new administration could easily abandon every one of those agreements, and the goal of removing racial bias from policing generally. It might even be likely--senior people in the Trump campaign have praised racial profiling as an effective and useful police tactic.

So it sounds like things haven't really been progressing through legislation as much as through judicial and executive action and maybe those things aren't as permanent as hoped?

Correct.

Edit to add: in general, social progress must be continuously defended. Nothing is every "done" in a democracy.

>The national legalization of gay marriage happened via the Supreme Court just last year. There is no reason at all it could not be reversed under a new court.

Yes, there is; it's "stare decisis". Even Dred Scott has not been reversed because of it.

Hillary has been recorded to be racist herself. She also went from being pro civil union, no pro gay marriage to pro gay marriage - after the fact. Beyond that seems very weird. The lying about 'landing under sniper fire', her weird convulsion-like episodes and the fact that people are repeatedly fired from their jobs for talking about it.

Political donations are not supposed to be tax deductible and yet the Clinton Foundation carries on existence as a 501c3; double dipping so that a majority of her income as one of the most wealthy politicians comes in tax deductible while she pays not taxes on it.

In light of the blatant collusion and conflicts of interest released in her emails she should've been barred from running in the first place.

>> Trump is labeled racist, sexist and misogynistic because of his words and actions. As are most people.

The difference is that he does not pretend to be non-racist, non-sexist and not-misogynistic. A lot of people do.

[edit] I am not american, but somehow I can understand that he won the election. He is a honest hustler among a bunch of good liars. He won't stab you in the back. Maybe in the chest. But you will see it coming.

I would like to see you try.

And I mean that with no sarcasm. I would genuinely like to see you make the case that he is not racist, sexist and/or misogynistic.

I'll bite. The majority of insults Trump hurled were targeted at individuals. Insulting someone even if race/sex/gender is included is not by itself racist, misogynistic or whatever. It is just hitting where you know it will hurt the most - which is good tactic IMO.

And he was careful never to insult big parts of the electorate - it was usually the left that generalized.

All of his big gaffes were either towards non citizens or specific citizens. He never had his basket of deplorables moment.

It was between him and Megyn Kelly, the latino judge, the khans.

And we get to the "grab them by the pussy" - and we end in the messy world of human courtship ... where we are all sexist and objectifying the objects of our desire. Both sexes included.

Of course the assaults are assaults ... and I won't defend them. Somehow they disappeared from the media in the last few days though.

Trump is a dirty fighter. But I think that the majority of his sexism, racism or wherever is mostly opportunistic strikes where he sees weakness.

And I mean that with no sarcasm. I would genuinely like to see you make the case that you are not racist, sexist and/or misogynistic.

Let's here it then.

There's plenty of evidence to the contrary.