“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel: A progressive’s answer to Trumpism
As election 2016 winds to an end, it’s hard not to begin looking beyond Nov. 8. With Donald Trump behind in the polls and lashing out at the media, there is rampant speculation that Trump is laying the groundwork to launch his own media empire in the wake of his likely defeat. Yet, if he loses, Trump’s next move may well be less important than what’s in store for his supporters, whose long-simmering pain and rage have exploded into plain view.
It would be easy to dismiss Trump’s supporters as “deplorables” and simply move on. But while Trump has undeniably incited racism, misogyny and ugly behavior among his base, it’s critical to understand the context in which their fury has come to the fore.
The U.S. and global economies are in the midst of a tectonic shift. This election — along with Brexit and the spread of nationalism across Europe — has made it impossible to deny that millions of people are desperate for solutions and demanding to be heard. They are tired of being ignored by the elites who have failed them. For Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, the lesson of 2016 should not be that Trump voters are irredeemable. It should be that by paying more attention to the plight of blue-collar workers, and offering inclusive solutions to the great challenges roiling our country and the world, they have a real opportunity to expand the Obama coalition of minorities and young people who make up the Democratic base today.
Eugene Robinson: Don’t forget: Hillary Clinton is blazing a momentous trail
Not enough has been made of two obvious facts: Hillary Clinton, if she wins, will be the first woman elected to the White House. And it will have been the votes of women who put her there.
Think, for a moment, about what a remarkable milestone that would be. Consider what it would say about the long and difficult struggle to make the Constitution’s guarantees of freedom and equality encompass all Americans. The first 43 presidents were all members of a privileged minority group — white males. The 44th is a black man, and the 45th may well be a white woman. That is a very big deal. [..]
Like any woman who runs for office — or, for that matter, seeks a corner office in the business world — Clinton faces scrutiny in ways men never do. What was she wearing? Did she sound “shrill” — as opposed to “bold” or dynamic” — when she raised her voice? Did she smile enough? Did she smile too much?
Male candidates simply are not critiqued in this manner, unless there is something bizarre about them that cannot be ignored (such as Trump’s hairstyle). The next woman nominated for president by one of our major parties will have a lighter burden because of the poise with which Clinton conducted herself and her campaign.
Owen Jones: Elizabeth Warren is the US president we need, but can’t have – this time
If only it were Elizabeth Warren on the brink of taking the White House. At a New Hampshire rally, tearing remorselessly into the misogyny of Donald Trump, Warren was a reminder of what could have been. The US presidential election has not, to say the least, showcased the best of the US: the country of the anti-slavery movement, the suffragettes, the labour movement and the civil rights movement. Instead, the racism and bigotry that infests significant swathes of the country has been distilled into human form and paraded for a global audience. Hillary Clinton is the only means to stop the victory of a candidate who could send the last remaining superpower hurtling into a political death spiral. But although the Bernie Sanders movement has shifted the Democratic party to the left, let’s not pretend a Clinton presidency would provide an alternative to a society rigged in favour of Wall Street and corporate America. [..]
Despite the earlier hopes of many American progressives, it will not be Warren in the White House next year. But both Warren and Sanders have risen to prominence for a reason. Growing numbers of Americans are disenchanted with a society where so much wealth exists alongside so much insecurity. Trump – although sadly not Trumpism – will almost certainly be defeated at the polls by the decent American majority next month. But President Clinton may swiftly find herself under pressure from an emboldened progressive movement – one with very little patience.
Richard Wolffe: Brexit, Harry Truman, a late October surprise: Trump is running out of options
Donald Trump used to spend most of his campaign rallies citing his awesome polls in what passed for stump speeches during the primaries. He was up, and his rivals were down. He was a winner, and all the governors and senators were losers.
But now the polls aren’t so gold-plated, and he thinks they’re mostly all wrong.
“Even though we’re doing pretty good in the polls, I don’t believe the polls anymore,” the GOP nominee said last week in Colorado Springs. “Believe me folks, we’re doing great. If we keep our spirit, and we go out and win, this is another Brexit, believe me.”
This is the last resort of losing campaigns: the grasping at straws that comes with the sinking feeling that all the time, money and hopes have been for naught. In their final throes, campaigns cling, sometimes bitterly, to an outlier poll, while they mutter darkly about the elites, or the media, or the polls themselves.
Heather Digby Parton: Where will Donald Trump’s violent and dangerous rhetoric lead after Nov. 8?
As he sinks further in the polls, Donald Trump is ratcheting up his insistence that the election is being rigged against him in every possible way. The media are all conspiring with “Crooked Hillary,” mass voter fraud is being plotted as we speak and the polls are all phony and designed to keep his voters from turning out on Election Day.
Last week in Colorado Springs he said:
Voter fraud is all too common, and then they criticize us for saying that. But take a look at Philadelphia, what’s been going on, take a look at Chicago, take a look at St. Louis. Take a look at some of these cities, where you see things happening that are horrendous.
You’ll notice he only mentions cities with large African-American populations. He’s not even trying to be subtle about it. And that could spell some trouble for his campaign and the Republican Party, which is under a consent decree that goes back to the early 1980s, when the Justice Department barred the GOP from “ballot security efforts” due to its unseemly habit of intimidating voters in minority areas. The RNC is prohibited from challenging voters at the polls through “caging” and other vote-suppression efforts without following a designated process. [..]
Trump and his supporters’ loose talk goes way beyond normal campaign rhetoric, and it’s aimed directly at people who are armed to the teeth. It’s hard to imagine anything more irresponsible.
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