and treats foolish assertions as facts. Or refuses to fact check.

Too damned many.

I forgot another reason - Trump gave them permission to express their deeply held bigoted beliefs.

and that pretty much sums it up. No matter how much I tried to convince them they were wrong, they just smiled and called me a liberal. Oh yeah, and explained they saw it on the news. Guess which one? And the winner is.... Fox!!!

They don't like smart people. They don't like successful women.

I pretend to be one of them who has discovered that Trump lied to "us." I give them some facts such as Trump himself saying he first thought that "Drain the swamp" was "Hokey." Then he said he didn't' need it anymore and appointed 3 Goldman Saks guys to run the Treasury and other financial departments. That builds my credibility with them because I Google it right there. Then I point out that they are privatizing things so his billionaire cabinet can make even more money. By this point they have been pissed every time. Some will say that Hillary would have been worse at this point but I respond that Trump promised to be a lot better!

I blame the RW media since they helped Trump lie to "us." I blame Mitch McChinless and Eddie Munster for lying too!

These are people easily manipulated since they already have been to vote for Trump in the first place. I am trying to take their base away one deplorable at a time!

It's really not that hard. The goldman saks thing works every time.

Thanks for your efforts and the advice.

Sigh... regrettably, I hear the same yammering points coming out of the mouth of my best friend. She hasn't admitted it yet, but I strongly suspect (much to my broken heart) that she voted for trump. Even while claiming she's scared to death - she quickly adds "but I remain hopeful!" The same shit I've heard on hate radio and Pox Noise and other assorted CONjobbers comes out of her mouth as well as her text messages.

"I do want a woman president. Just not THAT woman." I've heard that empty talking point as though from an endless loop soundbite.

"Hildebeast." I questioned her on this one and she claimed she'd never heard that before. I had to press forward: "Girlfriend, I'D never heard this one before until YOU TEXTED IT to me just the other day!"

"Babykillers..." hissed under her breath, she probably didn't think I'd heard. I DID. "I've never killed a baby in my life, girlfriend..."

"Did you see those FOOLS!?!?!?!?!?" spoken with full-on disgust and a curled lip after those heroic Congressmembers staged a sit-in over gun control. "Fools? Um ... nope. Didn't see ANY 'fools' anywhere... But I DID see a group of courageous, gutsy patriots in a sit-in on the House Floor - led by the national treasure John Lewis."

She hates President Obama. Claims he's been a disaster for her and her family. "Such a disappointment!" Unfortunate, 'eh, that her son was able to stay on her health insurance program - ONLY because of the Affordable Care Act, which she actually has said she really appreciates - nothing any republi-CON did for her! When I pointed out that the only way President Obama has been a "disappointment" isn't even his fault or his doing. It's the fucking GOP that's blocked and obstructed and "party-of-NO'd" him literally from the very night of his first inauguration!!!

Now, she's on about how wonderful the Electoral College is, and how that silly trump-opposition is confined to a sliver of the coasts. Yeah? California? California is a "sliver"? HELLO? THE BIGGEST STATE IN THE UNION, with the BIGGEST population, the BIGGEST Congressional delegation, the BIGGEST population of the fastest-growing demographic in the country, the BIGGEST economy that - as a state - ranks in the top ten nations' economies, and yep, the BIGGEST Electoral College delegation? THAT sliver, you mean? Where OUR voices don't even rate the same as the sparse population-states like Wyoming?

This fucking election has really torn a scab off. Personally miserable and terribly regrettable. It's adversely impacted my friendship with my best friend.

I decided to really question the value of my friendships and realized they were actually acquaintances. Maybe long term acquaintances but sadly, very sadly not true friends. I just can't be friends with a person who cares so little for other people, the environment and just about everything else that is important to me. I am not willing to "shut up about all that political shit"' just to make them comfortable. I'd rather be alone. Sometimes you have to empty the cup before it can be filled with something really good.

All that from many of my former classmates. Almost word for word. The baby-killer thing really got to me since I know that some of them have had abortions... some more than one abortion. But Hillary is a baby-killer.

And yes, I'm having issues with my best friend as well.

Thanks for sharing this! I'm wondering if maybe we have yet another "tell." You say your people are echoing my friend almost word for word? Hmmmm...

See that tells me about packaging. And marketing. They're all saying the same things? "Almost word for word"? That is, it's not just the same sort of theme or general theme or complaint. These are specific wordings and phrasings that are carefully coordinated and Frank-Luntz-focus-tested and approved. These friends of ours seem, evidently, to be getting these same parroted talking points from the same sources. Hmmmmm...

And then I want to try to figure out where they're getting this from. What/who are they (apparently) all watching/listening to? Radio? Hate radio undoubtedly. limbaugh? Cable? Pox Noise? If they read, it's probably the internet, and which sources? Breitbart? Drudge? Alex fucking Jones? There are other crackpots and propaganda crankers and would-be perception managers generating this shit that people we care about swallow whole without even chewing. They're nicely softened up, already, and easily baited.

Back in the bush/cheney days we used to grouse and gripe about what was called the "blast fax" and the "mighty Wurlitzer." Organized and coordinated propaganda campaigns - on a daily basis, that pushed memes and framings and catchy ways to word things. Pushed the sloganeering - stuff you could use to argue your point in the elevator or the checkout line or while waiting for the bus or some such. Quick hits. Soon came to be referred to as "bumpersticker politics" - slogans or phrases or points you could make that would fit on a bumper sticker. Making the most of the low-information short-attention-span recipients. They're already dumbed down. So exploit the hell out of it for fun and profit and White House appointments!

And by all means repeat, repeat, repeat, and then repeat as necessary. Cuz repetition is important. Why do you think trump repeats himself and all his favorite little buzz phrases all the time - usually by threes? Anybody remember how dubya himself talked about how a big part of his job was "to kind of catapult the propaganda"? Once you have the message pre-written, massaged, tested, and okay'd, spread it far and wide! Sell the hell out of it! You've already got the script. Now take it on the road! (Especially if you photograph well!)

Gotta know the enemy. Know and understand what they do and how and why. With what means. The more you dig down, the more vulnerabilities you can find. You better believe Vladimir Putin is a freakin'-ass MASTER of this game. He was head of the KGB forcryingoutloud!

I am attaching a link to a crazy page for the purpose of letting you see one place the baby killer thing may have come from. I'm sure there are others. This one shows 1.6 million shares.

PROPAGANDA
http://canonclast.com/article/presidential-candidate-hillary-clinton-is-poised-to-be-the-largest-baby-killer-of-all-time/

Obviously we need to get much better at spreading the truth about Trump. No lies necessary.

Let that one sink in for a minute.

And how many of those were generated by hired hands and other assorted paid nogoodniks?

We ABSOLUTELY need to get much better at spreading the truth about Trump. And unlike with him and his, WE have the truth on OUR side. Demonstrably and provably. And yes with evidence.

It's devious thinking we need. More than anything else. That has to be the underlying foundational concept, and our "bible" - boiled down into two words. Devious thinking. That's how they win. That's how they roll our professionals in the media and the party system. Again and again. It's thinking outside the political box. Because that, unfortunately, is the currency of the day, that trump is bringing into "office" with him. And, like with Chris Christie, he'll surround himself with people of like mind. He won't have many people pushing anything other than the "Gospel of The Donald." People who either agree an assist OR generate the material and use it to lead the offense. Win at all costs. They don't come more devious than Steve Bannon, or kkkarl rove, or Roger Ailes, or lee atwater, or Ralph Reed, or grover norquist, or any of those nasty, scheming, devious thinkers. Those types for the most part are all over on their side of the aisle.

And I know and support the "when they go low, we go high" creed. That's the high road and the better way. But sometimes, seems to me, we need some Dark-Siders, too. Or Dark Side thinking, the better to outwit and outthink and out-maneuver the bad guys.

KNOW your enemy. That's another thing that Mad-Eye Moody always warned Harry Potter, in the "Harry Potter" books. He'd repeat "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" And he'd also usually follow that with "You've GOT to KNOW!"

Besides, it's not such a bad thing to know where the underbelly is. It's a good thing to know. It's a most useful thing to know. It's where they're vulnerable.

We have been sadly lacking in vigilance and spreading Trump truths just the way they spread Hillary lies. When going one on one with them going high probably is the way to go. The more you stir a bucket of shit the more it stinks. But there's a limit and spreading truth over lies IS going higher.

There have to be people who are good at this. Brock was when he worked for the right. He should do training sessions.

Because learning the truth takes too much time and effort. It's easy to accept what is in front of you rather than what is beyond your sight of view.

How are we supposed to know who these snobby coastal elites are and what they're saying about anything, anyway.

of people, and they were not rural, red state folks. The belief that Hillary was somehow crooked or corrupt was very widespread, even if the specifics - Benghazi, child prostitution out of the pizza parlor, that sort of thing - were not believed. If you try to rebut the Benghazi or emails stuff, the response was always something like, "Well, maybe she didn't do those things but she's just... crooked. I don't trust her." Even when the alternative was an ignorant, bigoted (and unquestionably crooked) boor like Trump, they couldn't get past their unshakable belief that Hillary was disastrously corrupt in an undefinable but horrible way.

I have my own theory about how this came about, which might start a flame war, so I won't mention it. However, this belief was clearly a real thing and I have no doubt it cost an awful lot of votes.

A lot of people didn't want to vote for a woman, so they looked for excuses not to.

Another part of it is the effect of 20 years of almost subliminal misinformation propagated by the right wing. The thing that might get me in trouble is my suspicion that there were some things Hillary (and Bill) did over the years that, while perfectly legal, perhaps gave those false notions a bit more of a toehold, like the Goldman Sachs speeches. Did those things add real fuel to a phony fire?

Flame away...

more than most. Misogyny? Very possibly. And I think once an idea, whether true or false, gets widespread distribution in a society it's almost impossible to make it go away. "Crooked Hillary" wasn't just a Trump slogan, it was a pre-existing meme that he took advantage of. I can't prove it but I wonder whether the normal mistakes and flaws of all politicians are less acceptable when the politician is a woman.

The vague idea that Hillary is corrupt was more important than the certain facts of Trump's corruption.

But that's partly because the media rarely talked about the actual trial involving Trump University, but talked ceaselessly about Hillary's emails.

said on Bill Maher that Hillary lacked an ingredient that helps female politicians - virtue.

Since Maureen has a track record of being .. well, an idiot .. she was sort of onto something but she didn't even say it as if it were wrong or unfair. She didn't seem to understand the implications of the point she made :Which just further confirmed her idiocy.

But she was right I think, I have been musing on that unfair standard since she first said it which was shortly before the election.

Hillary's alleged corruption was nothing more than the ordinary spinning and obfuscating that all (male) politicians have engaged in since forever. For them it's considered standard operating procedure and it's why politicians tend to be held in low regard, but when a female politician behaves the same way it's not spinning and obfuscation, it's intolerable corruption. Same double standard that applies in every other aspect of life. Women have to be twice as good to be considered half as good.

Someone here said what if Hillary had 5 kids by 3 husbands, she would have never run in the first place.

grabbing men's junk there'd have been a horrendous scandal and she'd have been forced to withdraw from the campaign altogether.

No.

And they actually voted for it.

Gore was VP and his vote wasn't needed for passage and Edwards wasn't in the Senate yet (it passed in 96 and he was elected in 98) I think your point is otherwise well taken but on these specifics you are wrong.

often enough, it will be believed.

Also, there are all these farmers and ranchers who never ever hunt but Hillary was going to take ALL THE GUNS and they might need them ever few years to kill a coyote that gets in their chicken coup or grabs a guinea hen

Actually all the farmers and ranchers I know (including all of my relatives) ABSOLUTELY hate hunters and people who open carry with a white hot passion.

I mean, priorities.

Indigenous inhabitants and chattel slavery. No reparations for either crime have ever been made. So there are limits to what one can expect of a land where racism is as American as cherry pie (to borrow a line from H. Rap Brown).

on their instincts — misogyny and racism (make America white . . . er, ah . . . great again).

America was founded on a Capitalist trade war. Now, it just so happens that under modern Capitalism, it's usually been white men who were the Capitalists. What's that old Mel Brooks line about being the king?

and Fundamentalist Christians constitute only a thrd of all American Christians.

And aren't all those women televangelists and priests great ?

Conservative in the Catholic context = "women should be completely subservient" and "women should not be allowed control over anything, especially their own bodies".

Southern Baptists + Catholic Church = just under half of America according to Pew.

Last edited Sun Jan 1, 2017, 02:21 AM - Edit history (1)

Orthodox Judaism separates men & women at Temple and contains a prayer in which the men thank God for "not making me a woman". In addition, women are required to cover their hair and take ritual baths.. I could go on, but I'll let you do your own needed research.

First of all, there s no formal distinction between "conservative" Catholicism and any other. Secondly, there is certainly no mandate that "women should be completely subservient to men" or that "they should not be in control of anything".
Like Evangelical protestants, they are against abortion, and "artificial" birth control", the latter being something 98℅ of American catholics ignore.

A young guy at work, 25ish, voted Trump. And when he told me I raised an eyebrow and he said "well better than Hillary". I just looked at him and he said "she's a liar" and I said "and...Trump???" And he said "all politicians lie".

WTF? How do you counter that. Hillary's a "liar", but it's okay that Trump is a pathological liar.

With the exception of some anti-abortion and anti LBGQ rights RW religious folks, you've nailed the ones I also have to wade through.

Economically they're by a majority repressed, but according to them that's all the fault of the liberals, and tax and spend Democrats. It's never been due to their voting against the programs they rely on to survive, because that would go against what they've always been told to believe. It's difficult to express to people in blue states how brainwashed these people are now.

Currently, I'm in Arizona (temporarily) after living my entire life in coastal California. For the first time I'm encountering large numbers of extremely brainwashed people who ABSOLUTELY believe copious amounts of nonsense re Obama, the Clintons and "liberals" but excuse dump's cataclysmic flaws. Fox watchers and Rush listeners all. The cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy as they try to condemn the mote in the Democrats' eye while excusing and justifying the log in dump's is just surreal. Their brains--including among some obviously otherwise intelligent people--are altered beyond the point of no return. 30+ years of outright propaganda and lies have brought us to this point. I don't see a way out as things stand. History will have to repeat itself with a major depression and war before these fools undergo a shock big enough to wake them from their brainwashed stupor.

I even call him dump, too.

Thank you!

…knew spread lies about her. They gave her a thoughtful, fact-based critique.

No politician is perfect and pointing out true imperfections based on behavior and the record is not lying.

Really not fair to paint progressives who criticized her with the same brush as the Pizza-gate Benghazi-ers.

Highly progressive left-wing people sat in my living room and assured me that Hillary is almost as bad as Trump. That's not fact-based.

just spreading negative crap on Hillary.

about, for example, the Goldman Sachs speeches - not because they believed this to be actual evidence of corruption, but because it didn't seem to be a very good idea in light of the already existing cloud of suspicion, however unfair. I was one of those people. I never believed Hillary was crooked, and although I started out supporting Bernie I supported her 100% after the primaries. I defended her but I worried about the spin.

.. a site called jackpineradicals.

The site was started by some disgruntled/banned DU Bernie supporters, later joined by many who left here when HRC was declared the nominee (and they could no longer post their BS about her).

According to them, Hillary is suffering from a half-dozen fatal diseases - and they constantly berated her for lying about her "condition" throughout the campaign. They also insisted that HRC had many of her political adversaries murdered, as well as many Democrats who were "on to" her crimes and were about to go public. They were all over the pizzagate story until they realized they were being laughed at for believing it. They also insisted that Clinton's "thugs" had beaten-up Bernie on the night of the Convention to make sure he conceded - and they threatened to kill his grandchildren for good measure if he didn't campaign for Hillary.

That's just the tip of the iceberg - there was no story about HRC they didn't spread, no matter how vile or how utterly ridiculous.

They self-identify as "progressives", and they spread their bullshit on other sites and on FB as well.

blowing the extent they go to spread disingenuous negative stories about Hillary.

Like they'll never be held accountable so why not? I feel they're being held somewhat accountable right here right now, though.

ANd other fake left 'news' website

...not the work of a real progressive.

It's more likely a RW front.

I'm talking about real progressives. The ones in the trenches. They actually really give a damn about actual issues---not just my team uber all games.

Progressive and share fake news about the Clinton's on twitter and Facebook and we're lo key ok with trump winning because the dnc was 'so unfair' etc.

….I've been seeing gratuitously snide from some posters for quite a while now.

not have been from real progressives, just people who played progressives online.

but even though he had eight years he never got around to it....

They NEVER ask themselves, "Is that plausible?" Nor to they do anything that resembles fact-checking.

There are two underlying reasons for this. One is that public schools, even many of the very good public schools out there, simply don't teach critical thinking. They just want you to parrot back whatever you're fed. Private secular schools are a bit better at teaching critical thinking, buy most parochial schools, especially those run by fundamentalists, completely abhor independent thinking on the part of the students. Home schoolers, ditto.

The second is religion. Even liberal Protestant sects can have an undercurrent of "Believe what we teach, don't question it." And it's a raging river in huge areas of organized religion.

And so young people are told by all the adults around them just to believe. When it comes to some of the pure stupidity that shows up on the internet, they believe that also.

Thus you get people who believe whole-heartedly in the points in the OP, as well as other points made in this thread. Plus, too many people were never, ever going to vote for a woman, not even Mother Teresa, were she alive to run for office. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton was for a lot of reasons never going to be able to overcome that generic and intense dislike of a woman candidate. Someday some other woman will. I just hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Im sure progressives probably do spread false hoods but...

i dont frequently see evidence of this like I do from right wing entities.

Or as they say in men, determined.

or after the mandatory gender reassignment surgeries after killing all the coal and oil jobs?

We don't need very red, rural community in the midwest.

We need blue and purple communities in the upper midwest to turn out to vote for Dems in higher numbers.

It was Marion county Iowa where the Independence Day parade was led by the county gop chairs float flying the stars and bars.

As for your question:
"Was this before Obama took their guns and turned them gay or after the mandatory gender reassignment surgeries after killing all the coal and oil jobs?":

No it was after he turned all houses of worship to mosques and all were required to pledge allegiance to Allah.

And unless and until the progressives figure out a way to stop this hateful propaganda from being the only thing on the am airwaves, we will continue to be governed by the alt right and worse. This has gone on way way way too long.

...(Arkansas) and yet her opponent was born and grew up among the "coastal elite", but that doesn't matter to them.

One grew up in a middle class environment, the other grew up in a millionaire environment, yet they chase "him".

that it was an election of two evils.
Unbelievable.

In my experience it is not just the poorly educated who believe these crazy conspiracy theories. I have an uncle who is an engineer and he thinks that the Clintons have been murdering people since the 1990s (remember the Vince Foster conspiracy theory?) and that Clinton allowed U.S. soldiers to die in Benghazi. He also believes that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation to soften up the American public for gun confiscation, that Obama is a Muslim and a communist and that he was nothing but an "affirmative action case" and had other people do his work for him through college and law school. This uncle also thinks that the Democrats want to put "hardworking Americans" in gulags as punishment for being successful. I have a friend who is a doctor who also believed the Benghazi conspiracy theory and thinks that the Democrats support giving handouts to poor people who then live in mansions, drive luxury cars and eat steak and lobster every night.

People believe this nonsense because it fits the preconceived narratives that they grew up with. If you grew up thinking that black people are intellectually inferior then Obama must have succeeded in school through the charity of liberal whites. If you think that all poor people are lazy and immoral then they all must fit the Welfare Queen stereotype and are out to scam the system. If you think that professionally successful women are all “bitches” who are ruthless and cruel, then it is easier to believe that Hillary Clinton is a murderer. On the flip side, if you think that powerful white men are destined to rule over others and that women are naturally attracted to them even if they claim not to be, it is easier to gloss over Trump’s bragging about groping women and other indiscretions as “locker room talk” or “boys will be boys.”

I mentioned that my uncle is an engineer and my friend is a doctor to point out that I am not sure if this is a problem with education. Both of the individuals I mentioned are well-educated and intelligent in an IQ sense at least. But they still believe in wacky conspiracy theories because it fits the narratives that they grew up with. In both cases they grew up in very conservative households.

I am not sure how you fix this problem other than through calling people out on their nonsense and putting an end to false equivalence in the media. The media is often quite bad at this. I am all for giving multiple voices a chance to speak but when one side is outright lying and cynically spreading misinformation they have to be called out on it. You will never convince everyone but you might be able to convince enough people to win elections.

genetic origins of racism and sexism deserves a serious discussion.

Looking back, I think it was a mistake to simply unfriend or unfollow people on FB who posted ridiculous lies about Hillary (and ridiculously positive lies about Trump, like the video of how he saved little kids' lives from cancer - the opposite of the truth about the Trump Foundation.)

All we have is the truth, but it's powerful if we each stand up and insist on the truth. It could become a movement.

FDT.

that those kinds of ideas were incorrect/misleading with links to fact checkers and the like, but it did no good.

What shocked me was that several of them were reasonable about other topics in years past, even when the topics were political in nature! Even the liberal-minded ones seemed to despise Hillary Clinton and promote all kinds of crazy ideas like the Clintons were regularly murdering people!

EDIT: I went away with the feeling that those people didn't like Hillary Clinton for other reasons, but they didn't want to state them. They instead promoted falsehoods just to help take her down.

"A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves."
Edward R. Murrow

states swung this in his favor.

conversations from dumphans..

"She lies, cheats, and steals.. at least trump is better".. in essence

It's nauseating the way they get sucked into lies about Hillary.



And, our US Fucking Media only enabled..

snip//

Fuck you, members of the media.

Fuck your constant pursuit of ratings, of quarterly profits, of giving this tinpot cumdumpster a platform with which he can influence a large part of our country

Fuck you for buying into the idea that racism should be afforded an equal platform with equality, for calling a Nazi anything other than a Nazi.

Fuck your smarmy think pieces attempting to normalize a new hegemony, fuck your cowardice in the face of totalitarianism, fuck your CEOs and VPs and executive producers who are willing to feed the innocent to the depraved in order to forestall their own demise.

Fuck you for not doing your job.

https://medium.com/ChrisWarcraft/fuck-you-donald-trump-c644ae3dd94c#.ic2dae5n8

Fast Walker http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028414347#top

"Where there's smoke, there's fire!" in reference to the repeated Republican investigations (more like Spanish Inquisitions) of her and the right-wing media accusations.

Yet Trump's openly deplorable actions/comments didn't seem to bother them as much.

I don't have much education/background in psychology, but maybe there's a psychological aspect to it?

I've also seen African American co-workers act friendlier to openly racist white co-workers and they later told me, "At least I KNOW where they stand. It's the people who try to hide their racism that you have to look out for!"

believe all the hounding. The angelic repubs in Congress wouldn't have an agenda! And, as mentioned earlier.. it's the m$m..

If they did their fucking jobs and called them on their lies then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

As for people who would rather be around racists then those who are suspected .. well, whatever!

I must live in a bubble.. no friends or family who are racists or bigots.

Wait till the gop starts taking away their SS and Medicare.. maybe then they'll wake the fuck up.

One guy repeatedly argued against various Republican policies over the years, very rarely finding fault with Democrats. Yet he was one of the smoke/fire people in regard to Clinton.

Lots of people didn't trust her according to various polls.

I'm looking for psychological studies on this weird behavior (in another window), assuming it exists.

People's perception of motivation could play a role too. Going back to my former AA co-workers, they would also say things like, "Joe's just an ignorant redneck" to explain some of his racist comments.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/04/as-clinton-recovers-in-polls-trust-issue-simmers/?utm_term=.a41bec984dcd

In the latest full Washington Post/ABC News poll, conducted before the first presidential debate, just 33 percent of voters called Clinton "honest and trustworthy," to 62 percent who said she wasn't. Forty-two percent of voters considered Trump trustworthy. After the debate, a follow-up poll found more voters believing she had told the truth. But among the voters who thought both Trump and Clinton had bobbled their facts, more voters thought Clinton had done so on purpose.

the Hillary hate seeped into their psyche..

Although.. This many did vote for her.. just too many believing the lies.. repub or dem.

My main approach has been trying to understand how she didn't win an electoral landslide against that asshole idiot!

Polls from months ago had me concerned, but I figured that she'd pull way ahead after the debates and after more people were exposed to both of them.

Flabbergasted pretty much describes my emotions about it, but curiosity too.

Comey's BS didn't help at all! I'm convinced of that! It's sad to me that polls showed a close enough race for Comey to have an impact, though.

on election night.. like someone close to us had actually passed on.. in my case and others I've heard and read about.

There are several contributing factors.. the hate on Hillary and lies drilled into the viewers for over a year enabled by the m$m and whomever else contributed.

The Russian hacking and wikileaks kept the m$m busy sensationalizing that while they were busy making drumpf seem normal and making racism ok and his being a sexual predator not that big of a BFD.

The Voter Suppession and Voter purging was substantial.. I read it was larger than drumpf's win in some states like Wisconsin.

And, I wanted to say one more thing about the "Where there's smoke there's fire" people..

That's a copout .. it only means they're letting someone else do their thinking for them. Lazy.. they don't want to think for themselves.

It's not like polls showed Hillary leading by 10% in the days before the election, so I wasn't quickly shocked. It was more like low-voltage shock for many months culminating in a massive jolt on election night.

I'm very disappointed in this country. I'm aware of the many terrible things that have happened in this country's history, but I still expected better than this.

I think he cost her 4 points. Without the Comey letter she would have won by 6 points, even assuming the race closed towards the end, and won by 333 electoral votes, about the same number as Obama in 2012.

Of course, the race never would have been that close if not for Comey's press conference in July. And he absolutely would have held that press conference, Bill Clinton's meeting with Loretta Lynch not withstanding.

I don't even think that there ever was a legitimate basis for an FBI investigation. But Congress demanded one and Comey complied.

It seems too simplistic that just repeating a persuasive message should increase its effect, but that’s exactly what psychological research finds (again and again). Repetition is one of the easiest and most widespread methods of persuasion. In fact it’s so obvious that we sometimes forget how powerful it is.

20+ years of propaganda...the 'pukes hated Hillary for not being a Stepford First Lady + realized early on that she was likely to run for president. So, they set out to "poison the well" by fabricating a narrative that's been endlessly repeated for the past couple of DECADES.

Despite this, if 'Murikans could think critically and were given factually accurate information, the strategy never could have worked.

apparently aren't even taught at Tufts and Harvard, at least in their respective economics and law schools!

I'd actually feel better if Anthony Scaramucci is just a liar!

me of the first time I heard Rush Limbaugh. I had heard about him word-of-mouth but never listened to him during the day because of work. One day I had the day off and was looking forward to hearing him after all the fuss.

After listening, I was actually embarrassed for him. It was so ignorant and low brow and petty, snarky, pure lunacy. I thought for sure it would never last. I was shocked to find out that our military was forced to hear him on their radio with no alternative voice. Same with the Midwest. He was their representative voice. Your explanation shows that their special brand of idiocy really does resonate with the isolated flyovers.

Now Rush doesn't seem nearly as extreme as the outright insane and unprepared people taking over their party. Rush is almost mainstream now compared to the current creeps.

YES, that is why I found Bernie's obsession with smearing Hillary so damaging and unforgiveable. The way he held Democrats hostage with attacks on Hillary and our party only fed their ignorance since no one ever has to prove anything they accuse her of. It was difficult watching his prolonged ego trip that is now resulting in diminished security and lifestyle for so many.

Sanders was not vetted and was in fact treated with kid gloves by the Clinton campaign VOX had a good article on the potential lines of attack that Sanders would be exposed to if Sanders was the nominee. http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders One of the more interesting observations in the VOX analysis is the fact that Sanders have been treated with kids gloves compared to what Sanders would face if he was the Democratic nominee. I strongly agree with the VOX's position that the so-called negative attacks against Sander have been mild. Form the article: