The Observation Deck

The video below is a good analysis by a liberal as to how and why Trump won.

It could also apply to how and why the Against 64 movement got an even higher percentage of the vote than Trump (48.5% vs 47.3%)

48.5% of Lakewood Voted Against 64 and Against 100% of Lakewood City Hall.

Tom Bullock likes talking about "bullies" and "civil discourse" and being "neighborly" all the while he looks down his nose and lies to your face with his blue blazer and a smug smile.

"If your on the right you're a freak, you're evil, you're, you're stupid, you're a basket of deplorables. How do you think people are going to vote if you talk to them like that. When has anyone every been persuaded by being insulted or labeled."

The 48.5% who voted AGAINST CITY HALL were labeled "Tin Hat Conspirators" by City Hall.

"It's time to stop ignoring your opponents or worse yet trying to silence them."


Warning, this guy uses a lot of F Bombs:

Video removed, link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs

Brian, by coincidence (?) one of my very favorite daily bloggers wrote today about how the political class and other elites use “political correctness” divisively….

Click here for Charles Hugh Smith’s “The New Nobility Uses Political Correctness to Fragment the Precariats”

Now, it’s not entirely relevant to your post, but it is in some ways. Smith (like Marx) posits that there are two classes of people: the working class who sell their labor to make a living, and the “elites” whose wealth alone or whose control of the political machinery generates ample income without having to labor. Further, Smith posits that today’s working class is composed roughly of two “factions,” (1) lower- and middle-income wage earners, and (2) “technocrats” (like you and I) who use “knowledge” to earn somewhat higher incomes.

And here’s the key, according to Smith. The elite, with a complicit media, have convinced the technocrats that they (we?) have more in common with the elite than with the “simple” wage earner (aka “deplorables”), when in fact that is not at all the case. And “political correctness” is a major factor in that cleaving strategy.

The fact is, workers are workers, whether at the job site or in an office. And even today’s (often) higher-income technocrat is just a pink slip away from economic catastrophe. But finally, in this election, just enough of the technocrats saw through the fiction and the media falsehoods to turn away from the “establishment.” And came to realize that the Democrats are just as establishment as the Republicans. Just enough came to realize that decades of productivy increases and other economic gains have accrued almost exclusively to the so-called elite (check out the chart). The same thing happened earlier this year with Brexit.

At any rate, it’s an interesting and short read. I really like Charles Hugh Smith. He’s not someone you can pigeonhole ideologically, and he’s a very intelligent man. Check him out, FWIW….

Mr. Liston,

Your post and link are quite relevant to mine.

I like your quote: "But finally, in this election, just enough of the technocrats saw through the fiction and the media falsehoods to turn away from the “establishment.” And came to realize that the Democrats are just as establishment as the Republicans.

But I would argue JUST ENOUGH "lower-and middle-income wage earners", saw through the fiction and the media falsehoods to turn away from the “establishment.”

Trump's message was simple--don't trust the "elites" they have sold you out.

Mr. Smith:

"The absurd elevation of politically correct speech acts that anyone in the New Nobility can utter with practiced ease has a curiously profitable result for the New Nobility: the urban liberal Precariat willingly embraces his/her servitude and despises his/her fellow Precariats, thereby serving the interests of the New Nobility while fragmenting the only truly progressive class identity."

I think this would apply to so-called "conservatives" too.

We have been played like fiddles by the ruling Ds and ruling Rs for years.

47% of voted said ENOUGH to both parties' "establishments."

Bullock et al. will continue to play 51.5% of Lakewood's "fiddles" until they wise up.

Brian says: “But I would argue JUST ENOUGH lower-and middle-income wage earners saw through the fiction and the media falsehoods to turn away from the “establishment.”

Brian I think we’re both right, you more so than I. The conventional wisdom (quite properly) is that significant numbers of lower- and middle-income voters switched from Obama to Trump, eschewing Hillary as “establishment.” The irony is that the media and the New Nobility (and Miley/Cher/Whoopi/Spike/Lena/Rosie/Barbra/etc.) label these former Obama voters as racists for their Trump vote. Huh? But what Charles Hugh Smith is saying is that the somewhat-higher-income technocrats, many who have historically been browbeaten by PC speech and other “practiced utterances” into thinking (quite improperly) they’re more like the 1%ers than the lower/middle class, well just enough of them wised up and “defected” to Trump as well. And of course the media and pollsters, being complicit, sure didn’t see THAT coming, because it’s even less apparent and more nuanced. And there are those who are saying that it will be the defection of the technocrats (not just their lower-income brethern) that will ultimately derail globalism (ala Trump/Brexit).

It’s easy to browbeat someone with PC speech. It’s easy to label Trump voters (or anyone for that matter) as racists or xenophobes, because it’s not possible for one to prove indisputably that he/she is not. Logicians will tell you: it’s not possible to prove a negative. It doesn’t matter if you voted for Trump for example because he’s for school choice. You can still be labeled a racist, and you can’t possibly prove you’re not. So it was easy for the NYT to pick up that gauntlet, and for so much of the rest of the liberal MSM to follow suit.

And you’re right Brian. Progressives aren’t the only ones impugning others to divide and conquer. Conservatives do it too, generally by labeling people who don’t believe as they do as “uninformed.” (BTW IMO the snowflakes also think they’re better informed, by virtue of a recent college education.) With respect to the hospital vote, too many people bought into it, not enough trusted their gut feelings. Too many people believed that the loss of 1000 Lakewood jobs was a worthwhile price to pay to secure “the future of health care.” As if anyone knows what the future of health care really is. The only safe prediction I can make about health care is that if it continues on its current trajectory, it will bankrupt us. How it will be delivered in 2026, I have no idea and nobody does….

Tim Liston wrote: With respect to the hospital vote, too many people bought into it, not enough trusted their gut feelings. Too many people believed that the loss of 1000 Lakewood jobs was a worthwhile price to pay to secure “the future of health care.” As if anyone knows what the future of health care really is. The only safe prediction I can make about health care is that if it continues on its current trajectory, it will bankrupt us. How it will be delivered in 2026, I have no idea and nobody does….

Mr. Liston,

I agree.

On April 13, 2015, I wrote to City Council and the Mayor:

Is anyone really good at “long term sustainable” healthcare solutions?
The notion that you as our City leaders must come up with a silver bullet or wave a magic wand to achieve a long term sustainable solution for the City’s healthcare needs in such short order is neither realistic nor advisable in an industry that is by all accounts ever changing. If we look back at what has happened and may happen with the deal the City cut in 1996 that our leaders and CCF back then believed would last for 30 or 60 years, we see that CCF/LHA has come to us twice prior to change the deal – promising both times long term sustainability and now less than 5 years later CCF/LHA say we have to close the hospital. Subsidium p. 7 “current lease partner unwilling to renew under current conditions.” So apparently CCF is not so good at long term planning either yet you are being asked to put all our eggs in their basket. Why would we end that 30 year deal 18 years into it when we have a financial guaranty from a world class financially viable fulfillment partner for at least another 11 years?

JOB posted it here on April 14, 2015: http://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewt ... ssi#p94128

The "trust" in Lakewood "leaders" has been broken--and the 2016 election results prove it---when we count the "Under Votes", 54.5% of Lakewood voters did not vote "For 64" and the corrupt Master Agreement.

54.5% of Lakewood voters don't trust what 100% of our elected leaders.

The blogger I cited in my initial response to Brian’s OP above, Charles Hugh Smith and his Of Two Minds blog, well he made WaPo’s Russian Propaganda list. He’s thrilled! But anybody who has read his (almost) daily posts for years (as I have) or any of his books (ditto) knows that CHS is thoroughly non-partisan and certainly non-Russian. Oh, and extremely intelligent.

It’s humorous to read the Democrat’s and their MSM toadys' litany of reasons that Hillary lost: Bernie Sanders, Vladimir Putin, James Comey, fake news, Julian Assange, White Supremacists, vote tampering, the Electoral College, third-party candidates, “Fox News in every bar,” misogynists/xenophobes.... Whew.... The list is endless….

And the blaming, the character assassinations and off-the-shelf narratives continue to this day. Witness, from another thread “(Trump) is in favor of anyone that has screwed someone for profit or for racial reasons at the expense of other normal people…. Money is all that matters.”

Wow. Just wow….

Sure, Trump made some people, want to throw things. Me included. But Hillary and her decades-long crime spree, and her sense of entitlement and holier-than-thou affect, made a large swath of people want to vomit in their mouth. Including "normal people." Likewise the “I’m smarter than you” posturing of progressives in general, which turned many working class white people into Trump (notice I didn't say Republican) voters. (Obama won Michigan by 17 points in 2008.) And it got so over-the-top that it made significant numbers of even upper-middle-class people realize that they have more in common with the so-called “deplorables” than with the elites.

The DNC knew it was taking a chance with Hillary, and they took it anyway. That's why they lost. But my point to this post is to point out the incessant blame-spewing and hate-mongering that still continues. As the Dems consider how to recover, I would guess that a hard left turn will be strongly considered. Many Dems think Bernie would have won, and they might be right. That could make things really interesting.

I don't get all the Democratic hand-wringing. Hillary won the popular vote by fairly big numbers. She lost a handful of crucial states by fairly narrow margins - and yes it would have been better if she had taken the time to campaign there. To me it's a simple fact that Trump didn't win by much. The big failing was they didn't take Trump seriously enough, but aside from that the D party is fine.

I'm one of those people who hope that the electoral college that will do the job intended by the founders, but I know that's unlikely to happen.

Funny thing, Hillary told Trump in their last debate that he should accept the outcome of the election and that it had been done the same way for years and years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeVUL6lRuTQ

It is time that this country accepts the outcome and starts working together, otherwise we ALL lose.

At least in Lakewood, there appears to be solid evidence of questionable activity with the votes. It is on the Deck.

Wow, Just wow. I judge people by their character. Trump is hideous. He proves it by many of his picks. I cannot stand pushy people.
It is not about party it is about the man. I will not give him a pass, just like some of our elected officials in Lakewood. Sure I want the country to function properly but I will never like the man.

Yes character, but look at the possible results of his business dealings with Taiwan. Because of China, it could push us into recession - or worse.

This was no ordinary candidate and fits the definition of what the electoral college was meant to correct.

From what I read here and elsewhere I'd say Dems have already reached the "bargaining" phase of K-R's five stages. That's quick progress. "Depression" is likely to last a lot longer though. Especially knowing that Dem failure to defeat Trump was a self-inflicted wound....

Maybe the Deck needs a "cry room" too!