this election may have been the new 1960.

[unblock]

in 1960, part of jfk's narrow victory over nixon was attributed to his televised image, particularly during the debates: bronzed, clean-cut, looking directly into the cameras. meanwhile, nixon was sweaty, with 5 o'clock shadow, and looked at the reporters rather than the camera.

it is said that the radio audience thought nixon won, but the television audience strongly went for jfk.


now, toxic trump is certainly no jfk when it comes to just about anything, but put aside trivial things like policies and competence and focus just on campaigning tactics.

it could be said that this was the first presidential election where social media transformed campaigning, just as television first transformed campaigning in 1960.

arguably, we lost because toxic trump worked social media to his advantage, and we came off like nixon's sweaty upper lip and shifty eyes.


beyond any discussion about candidates and policies and republican cheating, we need to figure out how to work social media to our advantage.

[dhol82]

1. I think right wing hate radio and Fox had more to do with it.

Without 30 years of anti- intellectual propaganda, it could not have happened.

Clinton had 30 years of rabid criminal propaganda directed to her. Tough to fight against it.

Started with Reagan and the loss of the Fairness Doctrine.

Not sure how to fight that at this point.

[unblock]

2. Sure, there were many factors and certainly that was a biggue

But I think this was different. Mostly because hate radio was self-selecting, and many people avoided it.

This time, the networked gleefully broadcast not only donnie's twits, but also random user responses.

Then facebook became a place where every right-wing piece of garbage gets seen everywhere.

Suddenly the insular, right-wing world became the whole world.

[dhol82]

5. First, people only avoided it in areas where they could

In the rust belt this was the only form of information.

The idiot msm only added to the indoctrination. They were preceded by 30 years of softening up of the electorate.

[Takket]

3. Trump won by telling half the country what it wanted to hear

which is a very very sad thing........ our half heard all the racism, misogyny, hate and evil and just assumed that the other half would be with us in rejecting it all. So imagine my disappointment to find that not only was it accepted, but it was WANTED.

[dhol82]

4. Yup. That was a bitch!

[WilliamH1474]

6. I think he did tell them what they wanted to hear

But I strongly believe it had more to do with his economic message of lies, and the "close the border" bs.

I think people out of work and the "scared" masses wanted to believe that he was going to save them from losing their jobs to Hispanics and save them from Terrorism. Hillary had a great message, but it was not really well known (besides in Democrat circles) and she came of as wanting more refugees and open borders.

There was a lot at play this election, and I pray the DNC really gets to the bottom of what went wrong instead of laying all the blame on Comey and the Russians.

[area51]

7. With the orange psycho and his finger on the nuclear button,

this commercial comes to mind.