Dear Democrats, Read This If You Do Not Understand Why Trump Won

I don't expect this to be popular, but maybe one route out of this meme-driven, post-truth, clickbaity echo chamber political dystopia is that we get over the idea that it's terrible to pay (or charge) for news. Twenty years ago it seemed great that the net was disrupting traditional news outlets. Now we've played that out a bit, it seems like we miss the kind of work you can do if you have revenue that isn't coming from advertisers or lobbyists.

I, as a 6" 3' that identifies as a straight non-binary queer Tuvaluan pink unicorn with two horns and a permanent rainbow above my head, and with a slightly left leaning penis with 3 white hairs on my face and with shoe size 9 whose name begins with Hor and with an ID that end in 237 feel totally discriminated by the fact that there never was a president/multibillionaire with these characteristics.

I offer myself to fill those gaps and avoid this heinous act of discrimination.

> Everybody knows where the other echo chamber is.

Brilliant. Thank you for that excellent summation, and no, I'm not being the least bit sarcastic. That's awesome.

> I have no idea how to fix this.

Neither do I, really, but let's not jump to the solution before we're done with the diagnosis. Here's an idea: critical thinking is overtaught. Yes, over. I know the common belief is that there's not enough critical thinking out there. I've said it myself many times, but it's a bit of a "little knowledge is dangerous" kind of thing. I see a lot of people, especially in tech, who know just enough critical thinking to pick apart someone else's argument, find its logical flaws, name its fallacies, then dismiss the whole thing. What they never did - what they've never been taught to do - is listen. Yes, it's a skill, and thus learnable. Very little of what people say is completely right or completely wrong. None of it comes without context. Take the OP, for example. There's sure a lot of Bernie butthurt there, but it's there for a reason and there are other nuggets of truth to be gleaned from it as well. Even the most deplorable Trump supporter has something to teach us, though perhaps unintentionally. Critical thinking is awesome, but sometimes we need to put off the critique of falsehood until we've looked for some truth.

Hillary was definitely an incredibly weak and flawed candidate. I'm of the opinion that Sanders would've walloped Trump. But I do have some input regarding the racial dimension of things...

>I have even seen tweets claiming all Trump's voters (60 million people) are sexist, racist etc. It could just be a simple fact that people value other things more than just sexism and racism.

I see a campaign that ran on hate and anger for the 'other'. A campaign that white nationalists have called a blessing. A candidate endorsed by the KKK. A candidate that tweeted out a picture of Hillary Clinton with a Star of David affixed to her.

Trump relied upon a lot of economic anxiety as well but much of that was codified in racial terms: that Obama was serving the interests of black folks more, that white people were being marginalized in the culture, that brown rapists are coming for their jobs and their daughters. How can a vote for Trump not be seen as sexist, racist, and xenophobic? I'm sick of this shit saying we need to understand the other side and find out why they are so angry. I think it's pretty clear why Trump supporters are so angry. I've been to Trump rallies, I've talked to supporters, and you know what most of it comes down to? They want 'their' America back. They say they want to end corruption and take down the political establishment, but they voted for a candidate who is stacking the whitehouse with slimeball careerists like Pence, Gingrich, and Christie. But that seems to be okay with them, because it's 'their' side i.e. white revanchists.

In a country with such charged racial history as the US, is it really unbelievable that millions have regressive views regarding race? Look at how awful Obama is treated by some of these people - that he's a muslim, he secretly hates America and funds ISIS. And even if the voters themselves aren't racist, they are complicit in voting for a man who undoubtedly is. Where does that leave them?