My friend the non-voter and why so many stayed home.

[Willie Pep]

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who I have not seen in a while. We eventually started to discuss politics. He talked about how much he dislikes Trump because he is a racist and a misogynist who mistreats women. He also mentioned that he is very worried about Trump's ties to Russia and the people he is choosing for his administration like Jeff Sessions and Rex Tillerson.

I assumed that he voted for Clinton but then he stated that he didn't vote at all! Not even in the other races. When I asked him why he said that he felt that Hillary was too corrupt. The emails were the big issue for him. My friend typically votes for the Democrats and is a big fan of Obama because he sees him as a good man with strong moral qualities. He isn't super left-wing. He even said that he disliked Sanders because he thought he was too much of a socialist for his liking. So he is not a Bernie or Bust guy.

I wonder how typical my friend is for the group of people who usually vote for the Democrats but sat out this election. He is an older Millennial in his early 30s and a college graduate but not affluent.

Do you think that my friend fits the profile of the typical non-voter from 2016? Do you think my anecdote shows the effectiveness of the email story in hurting Clinton? What I found interesting was how much emphasis he put on the moral integrity of the candidates.

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting anecdote and I wanted to see if this could help us discuss why so many people who should have come out for the Democrats stayed home.

EDIT: Oh and to complete the demographic profile, my friend is a white guy and a practicing Roman Catholic.

[bettyellen]

1. It was all emails and "everyone hates her" repeated over and over again for months.....

Trump was every bit as disliked but they never led with that or had the balls to ask him that. Our media and voters were completely manipulated.

[MaeScott]

40. PROPAGANDA done well.

[hollowdweller]

41. Months? YEARS.

The GOP has spent years making Clinton toxic. I think one of the reasons Obama got elected in the first place was the GOP spent so much time softening her up that they were caught off guard when he won.

[Hoyt]

2. Willie Pep?

[Willie Pep]

4. Yep!

I couldn't think of a good handle so I chose my favorite boxer. That is a great picture. Sandy Saddler was another great!

[putitinD]

3. millions just like your friend stayed home, for the same reasons

[brush]

43. Funny how an allegedly intelligent person fell for the email crock

The fact that the email crap was bull-horned from the left as well as the right didn't help.

There were many on this board who were continually insisting the indictment fairy was coming at any moment and that they could never vote for Hillary because of that.

[check077]

45. This!!!!!

+1000000

[Doreen]

5. So some of these non voters claim

to not like Trump but they listen to him enough to believe him about Hillary's emails. I do not like or trust that man but I will listen to him and believe him. I still think non voters just do not have any right to complain. Get out there and study each of the people who are running do your own damn research on them not just listen to other people flapping their opinionated gums about it. THEN VOTE!!

[tblue37]

14. They didn't need to believe Trump. The MSM ran with RW anti-Hillary propaganda

24/7.

[napi21]

22. You can't really blame the MSM totally The REAL BLAME lays with the Pubs They HATE her, &

Bill I think they're still pissed that they impeached him, but the Dem Senate wouldn't convict him, and to make matters worse, his popularity was a lot higher than theirs, and still is. Maybe that's one of the reasons they hassled Hillary so much............payback for Bill. They tried to hammer her on any little thing they could find (or make up) and would NEVER give up. As much as I think Hillary would have made a good Prez, I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to 4 or 8 years of Congressional hearings.

[Joediss]

28. Joediss

Amen.....

[LibraLiz1973]

6. I have ZERO respect for anyone who didn't vote

Blah blah blah, "she was corrupt." I'm sorry- Trump is the most corrupt motherfucker alive and the evidence of that was on full display during the campaign. He's a bad man and anyone who had a thumb up their ass and made excuses about not voting can fuck right off.

For the record, they wouldn't have voted for Bernie either, because he's too progressive. No matter which one was the candidate (Clinton or Sanders) the end result was ALWAYS going to be Trump, unless people did their civic duty. This election was a wake up call for all of us. Does anyone really believe the racist backwood dirtbags who call the Obama's gorillas and chimps were going to vote for Bernie, a Jewish man? Or Hillary, a woman? They were ALWAYS going to turn out to vote for the orange fuck because he spoke their language.

We lost this election because WE FAILED TO FULLY COMPREHEND the hatred in this country. Trump saw it, understood it, tapped into it, used it, and rode it all the fucking way through election day. And nothing he's done since indicates he or his followers are going to have any kind of a change of heart. We should all be afraid. This isn't good.

Straight up, anyone who voted for him is a fucking idiot. 98.999% of his voters are racist, bigot, homophobic, gun-toting weasels who "want their country back." That's code for "White man needs power". They're balls out suppressing human beings purely because of the color of their skin and/or the religion they practice.

And the people who didn't vote at all? Well, those fucking morons got that orange piece of shit where he is today- because they were too goddamn ignorant and fucking selfish to do the right thing. They're also gullible as hell and lazy as shit. I hope they enjoy what's coming. Those of us in touch with reality can clearly see it's not going to be good.

We've had the discussion you're alluding to 9,879,486 times here on DU since the election was over. People seem to fall into two camps: it was stolen or Bernie should've run. The Bernie thing is shameful and does nothing but further open the gaping wound this election left. He wouldn't have won either.

As for it being stolen... Do I think there were major widespread problems? I do. Do I think Russia paid a pretty penny for disinformation sites to put up fake stories? I do.

But you know what else I think? The Republicans sat and did nothing during the gathering storm while Trump rose to power. He played this country like a fucking maestro. We all thought he was a joke. Turns out, the joke was on us. The masses really WERE dumb enough to believe him.

Hillary won the popular vote. Bernie may have, if he'd been the candidate. But, like her, he would've been fucking toppled by the red states and their fear or hatred of DIFFERENT.

[oasis]

17. +1000

[Nonhlanhla]

34. +10,000

[BlueMTexpat]

39. To continue the trend,

+100,000!

[check077]

46. Agree!

+1000000

[Historic NY]

7. Hopefully by the time his 60 he will realize his mistake....

for us already there, time is slipping away, the head of steam is dissipating. Obama's 2 terms follow by Clinton could have achieved a lot beyond the SCOTUS. The roll back to before Bill Clinton's terms will be devastating.

[LibraLiz1973]

10. ding ding ding! You nailed it

People who didn't vote were essentially voting agains their own best interests- as well as they interests of everyone they know and love.
We're fucked as a country. I have ZERO confidence or faith in DT. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure he's going to fuck us sideways. Giving him power of the supreme court....... Jesus. Can you say HORRIBLE CHOICE?

[Historic NY]

15. Bill Clinton said it best and it fell on deaf ears............

“You have more at stake in this election than people like me. I have more yesterdays than tomorrows. You have got more tomorrows than yesterdays and you better show up.”

Those professional leftists will keep complaining....they had a chance at a pony but now they get nothing. Perhaps in 2020 or 2024 or 2026 , Democrats might get back to the top when people get another belly full of Republicans.

[dionysus]

18. I don't think he'll do anything any of the other rethugs wouldn't do.

That is bad enough already, i suppose.

I think his laziness in this case will save us from some of the trouble rhat otherwise would befall us...
Hey, i'm a the-jagged-broken-glass-is-half-full kinda guy...

[LibraLiz1973]

21. I think his stance on Russia guarantees he'll do things they wouldn't

That one thing sets him apart. You'd have thought that was impossible, but apparently there really IS a way for the Repubs to go lower.

[bettyellen]

49. And China- I'm wondering if his deals were going bad there or they wanted to recall loans or

Something that makes him want to discredit them by making them appear to be big enemies. Something is going on there and seeing his taxes would help.

[LibraLiz1973]

8. Sorry for the bitchy tone, BTW

It isn't intended toward you. The closer we get to Friday the more of my filters go down.
I am just so goddamned disappointed in the idiots who got us here that I can't even be nice anymore.

[Willie Pep]

11. No worries.

Almost everyone at dinner was giving my friend the business for complaining so much about Trump while failing to vote. If he knew Trump was so bad why didn't he vote? Even if he didn't like Clinton very much why not hold your nose and vote for her just to keep him out of office? He kept bringing up the emails though and the Clinton Foundation and speeches to Wall Street. I think he bought into the "they are both equally bad" meme.

[LibraLiz1973]

20. That's some Fox News BS

They aren't equally as bad.

To begin with- no candidate is ideal. None. I'm of the opinion that if you're in so deep that you can launch a bid for the Presidency, you stepped on a lot of necks to get there. It takes a certain kind of person to want that responsibility- and a large part of it is ego driven. Especially within the last 30 or so years, you can see the difference the celebrity of it has made. (Thanks Reagan!)

Real talk- Trump and Clinton aren't even comparable and anyone who says they are is ignorant.

Donald is a man who has done NOTHING with his privilege. Nothing. He bought beauty pageant. He joked about how he grabbed women by the pussy. He cheated on his wives. He cheated thousands of contractors and workers out of money. He filed for bankruptcy 6 times. He was saved from bankruptcy more than that by his daddy, who used to go into the Trump casinos and purposely lose money so Donny could pay the rent. He isn't charitable. He calls women fat pigs. He mocks the disabled. He gives every one of his adversaries a mocking nickname. "Little Marco." "Lyin' Ted." "Crooked Hillary". He's coarse and crude. He never showed his fucking tax returns (to this very moment I can't believe people voted for a man they had NO CLUE who he really is, what he earns or what/who he owes). He hates everyone who doesn't love him. On his best day he's seriously unstable. On his worst, he's psychotic.

Clinton didn't come through for Benghazi- but according to Colin Powell, the ambassador who was killed wasn't doing his job properly either. I would say A LOT of people weren't doing their job- and that includes the President and congress. Four lives were lost in Benghazi. During Bush's tenure there were 13 embassy attacks that resulted in 60+ deaths. Where were the hearings?

Oh, right.

There weren't any.

Next up is her paid speeches to Wall Street. Look, I agree on this one. It was stupid. She KNEW she was going to run, which makes it incredibly short-sighted and completely illogical for her to have made those choices. I believe she thought it would be easy this time (running for President). She was VERY wrong. I still voted for her because- unlike the idiots who thought they were making some big stand against corruption by sitting at home and picking boogers- I could clearly see the difference between the two candidates. For me it was a no brainer.

People who trash the Clinton Foundation are uninformed. That's more Fox news propaganda. Damn near EVERY bs story that came out about the foundation was easily disproven. Again- let's compare. Trump's charity doled out than 30k. Just as an example... The Clinton foundation gives 88% of what they raised (over 220 million) back out in 2016. So... where's the fire? What was wrong with the foundation? The Clinton foundation gets either an A or a B+ from every charity review I could find. Trump got fucking shut down by the New York AG because HIS charity wasn't even legit!!!!

Trump got caught buying portraits of himself with charity money. He got caught paying over 250k from said charity to settle his legal problems. He gave 25k to Pam Bondi (Florida AG) from the Trump charity-- and everyone knows it was to keep her from investigating Trump U.

Hillary had a PROVABLE and very well documented history of helping others. There is NO proof Trump has ever helped anyone-- and reporters spent MONTHS trying to find where/when he donated to charity. They came up with jack shit. So IMHO any fucker that brings up the Clinton Foundation as an argument for not voting for her is a straight up idiot. They let the most crooked piece of shit ever get elected because they didn't want to vote for a woman with the last name Clinton.

On to the emails. I have never been able to give two crooked fucks about this. Plenty of her emails WERE there and all they told us was that she's boring.

Republicans in power spent tens of millions of dollars- money that could've been used to help, say, Veterans- to investigate every single thing she ever did. Those investigations went on for years- and they never. found. shit.

Donald has been accused of rape by a girl who was a minor at the time of the incident. Donald's first wife said one night he got violent with her and "it felt like rape." She never retracted that statement.

He's a provably horrible person, the absolute worst. But they were both equally bad, apparently.

Serious eye roll with that one.

Finally, I had to laugh when that Russian shit leaked against Trump. In it we learned that they had a file on Hillary as well- but unlike Donald, they didn't HAVE anything to blackmail her with. What I got from that is that our government tried to fuck her and failed. And the Russians tried to, and failed. because at the end of the day, she REALLY IS just a political worker bee.

No one who sat at home (refusing to vote like they were still a damn toddler) should be proud of themselves. The differences between Clinton and Trump were massive. And for everyone who thought there would be "no difference" between the two, I point to:

Exhibit A: She would never sit around like a psychopath to whine and tweet every single morning
Exhibit B: She would never have criticized our intelligence agencies and then praised Russia
Exhibit C: She would never have attacked CNN like that
Exhibit D: She would never have tweeted comparing the press to "Nazi Germany"
Exhibit E: She never had one of her supporters (Omarosa) go on TV to declare that Trump haters would one day have to "bow to President Trump."

I could go on and on and on and on. The differences were night and day. Anyone who ignored that will have a heavy weight to carry on their shoulders when this shit goes WAY south.

[brush]

44. The emails/Clinton foundation were both fake scandals. He just doesn't want to own up to fucking up.

[SylviaD]

53. AMEN! nt

[2naSalit]

9. I heard a lot of the same from

two groups... a bit unusual, I never heard anyone under 30 claim they neither voted in the past or had no intent this past election. I know intelligent women over 40 who said all the negative memes about HRC and gave no indication who they would vote for or would respond to my protest of voting for the other with, "Yeah, weeelll... he might do the right thing... you never know, and I don't want four more years of Obama!" Seriously, several women said that to me, I don't speak with them anymore.

I know too many aged 45+ who just don't vote. As for those who don't vote at all, it suddenly makes me question their level of intellect, with some it's obvious that the concepts involved in understanding any law or any ordinance is far too complex for them so they glaze over and fall to sleep. The smarter ones either say they are too busy and think they have no efficacy and some fancy romantic notions of themselves as some kind of outlaw and it wouldn't matter if they did and they don't want to serve on a jury either and won't register for that reason... some never even get a driver's license so they can't be found.

It's quite a mixed bag, there also are many with whom political conversation should be avoided all together, trust me.

I am at a loss for answers that aren't immediately contested, even though something different must be done immediately of we risk losing everything, and I mean everything quickly.

[Blue_Tires]

12. Please slap your friend in the face with a dead trout

and then cut off all contact...

[Kablooie]

13. The right has a huge, raucous, screaming propaganda machine.

The left has some magazine articles news papers and Web sites that people sometimes look at.
It's no wonder conservatism is sweeping the nation.
People are battered day after day with extremist messages so of course many people succumb and believe.
If you do nothing you still hear the propaganda but you have to actively search out the alternative views.
Until this is stopped or the Democrats develop an equally effective message machine I fear the public will remain under the spell of the Republican's lies and manipulations.

[TeamPooka]

16. Keyword repeated through post "He". Just another guy making excuses for their sexism.

[JI7]

19. these type of people are followers . they try to act like nobody is good enough but their reasons

are usually from just talking points.

[ConSciousReset]

23. United steel workers

Almost every one at my Union plant voted trump. It's the first time I've seen so many go Republican.

[BainsBane]

24. Emails

It's incredible that anyone can even cough up that excuse with all the shit we've seen since the election.

[m-lekktor]

25. I have a neighbor who didn't vote because she knew here in Connecticut Hillary

was going to win with a huge margin and her vote wouldn't matter one way or the other, which actually ended up being true , but still....

She would have voted for Hillary if she had voted.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

36. Yes, I think the electoral college discourages people from voting

Just look at the results of this election. 3 million more people voted for Hillary and we still got Trump. I think that just reinforces that notion that their votes don't matter unfortunately.

[m-lekktor]

37. I completely agree.nt

[Trust Buster]

26. 46% of eligible voters did not vote after a crazy man spent 18 months spewing hatred and lies.

The turnout problem was not born during this election, it has HISTORICAL roots. Hey, an alcoholic always has a justification for drinking.

[LexVegas]

27. Does he pay his parents rent or stay at their house for free? nt

[dawg]

29. What a terrible thing it would have been, to have had a President who used email.

And on the wrong type of server, no less.

Honestly, I bet she jaywalks too. And driving late at night, when there are no other cars around, you just *know* she doesn't wait for red lights to change.

[Paladin]

30. I've crossed off all Hillary-haters and non-voters from my "Friends" list.

As far as I'm concerned, they've put this country in true jeopardy.

[kcr]

31. This sounds like the typical voted for Trump but won't admit it

They didn't want you, their liberal friend, to think badly of them.

[Vinca]

32. This is what I don't get. Assuming for the sake of argument Hillary is corrupt, why would you

choose to allow a person to win the office who is too irresponsible to be around buttons for nuclear weapons? Which would you prefer? The end of the world or emails on a private server? Jeez Louise they drive me nuts.

[hollowdweller]

42. Because he's new

I don't think a lot of people were paying that close attention. However they have heard the right wing narrative on Hillary since the 90's so they had an opinion about her.

[betsuni]

33. That doesn't make any sense.

Trump: Racist, misogynist, mistreats women, Russian ties, administration choices. Bad man with bad morals?
Sanders: Too socialist. Nothing about morals.
Obama: Good man with strong morals.
Clinton: Corrupt because EMAILS. Bad woman with bad morals.

Therefore, even thought both Obama and Sanders strongly supported Hillary Clinton for president, Clinton is the same as Trump. WILL NOT VOTE BECAUSE MORALS.

Okay then.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

35. Your friend is too picky.

The point is to vote for the best person for the job from the people who are running. You can't expect things to be perfect, but when you get the chance to make things better or prevent things from becoming worse you ought to participate.

[MichMary]

38. The problem was

that both of them were disliked by very, very large segments of the population.

Most of the people who supported Clinton understood the seething hatred for her, and wanted Twitler to be her opponent because they believed he was the only R that she could beat handily.

If there is a lesson here, maybe it's "be careful what you wish for."

[azmom]

47. The media kept pounding the fact that they

we're both unlikeable and that people didn't want to vote for either candidate.

It was almost like the media didn't want people to vote.

There needed to be a bi-partisian effort urging people to do their civil duty.

[ribrepin]

48. My son who is a big Ron Paul type

stated that he didn't vote because Donald Trump is crazy and Hilary had too many legal problems. His only problem with Hilary was that she had too many legal problems. The campaign against Hilary WAS effective. He's in his mid-thirty's and not religious.

[otohara]

50. Was He Bombarded w/anti-Hillary Memes?

I had to sign off FB for 3 months because my son's progressive Millennial friends were passing around the same shit the right-wing/Russians were passing around.

There was a lot of pressure to not vote or go 3rd party

[onecaliberal]

51. Sorry but after watching that maggot during the primary and thinking you should give him any

Chance to win by sitting home is the epitome of lacking critical thought. Is your friend ready to give up every right we fought for in the last 50 years including the new deal?

[Generator]

56. I weep for humanity

[Iggo]

52. And he's not stupid because....

[CTyankee]

54. I have a good friend who also didn't vote this election time. I was stunned because I figured all

Dems would vote. He was a big union guy when he worked and was shop steward. He's not afraid of a fight. Now I'm kinda mad at him...

[SaschaHM]

55. If you have the capacity to acknowledge that Trump is a racist misogynist...

with a history of mistreating women and that doesn't motivate you to take preventative action, you really don't care about those issues as you would like to put on.