2016 Postmortem

Are some of Trump's voters racist? Yeah.

But many of them are simply people who used to be Democrats and are now sick and tired of a party that no longer even respects their existence.

We just had a Democratic convention in Philadelphia. We had a parade of diversity on that stage. We talked about the plight of migrants and immigrants. We talked about the problems facing the inner-cities and gun control. We talked about women's rights. But no one said a word about rural whites who have seen their jobs vanish thanks to free trade agreements that the presidential nominee's husband signed into law. For years there was warning. Bernie Sanders, Michael Moore, various politicians from the Rust Belt was warning the DNC of their problem in failing to out reach middle class whites.

When a party or politicians no longer respects your issues, you tend to get angry. You tend to stop voting for them. This can't be explained by simple racism. You are talking as if middle class whites in rural Pennsylvania and Michigan need to "sit down and shut up. Your issues no longer matter in a changing America!" That's the attitude they perceive coming from the Democratic party.