I believe that I've posted this story before; Tiger Woods and Dan Jenkins
When Woods was busted with his pants down, a string of waitresses and porn stars behind him, his marriage now up in flames, his agent said to the press "Hey, give the kid a break."
Woods was 31 or thereabouts.
Jenkins was aghast and wrote about it. He said that in his lifetime kids were 22 year old pilots, 21 year old navigators and 19 year old waist gunners making a slow bombing run over Dresden or Berlin. They weren't very welcome, he reminded readers. The claim that Tiger Woods was a kid and that excused his infidelities rather upset him.
The fact that coddled college students (more coddled than every before) need safe zones and speech codes, even Play Doh sometimes, certainly didn't play well with MOTR voters. Even the vast majority of my seniors (in high school) are fairly aghast at the idea of safe zones......and they are just a year away from college. Trump didn't really speak out against those college kids, but Hillary and Bernie certainly spoke to them....encouragingly, at times.
In the late 60's and early 70's college kids marched, chanted, sat in and protested while their cohorts slogged through rice paddies. Republicans won 5 of the next 6 elections.
In 1980, college students marched, chanted and warned that nuclear war was near if Reagan was elected. Republicans won the next 3 elections in a row.
Safe zones? Speech codes? "Make America Great Again" hats as harrassment? American flags as harrassment? College kids are on the "march" again....or at least the ones we see on the tube? Harambe halloween costumes as microaggression or cultural appropriation?
Another boon for conservatives?
Is there a quiet working middle class that sees such youthful behavior as unproductive sloth and indicative of a failing cultural liberalism? Do they respond against it with their vote?
I don't know. But I do know that if I was setting chokers in the woods, laying pipeline in North Dakota (when the protesters get cold and go home), or punching the timeclock in Tennessee I just might respond that way.....even if I wasn't a Trumpie.
And if the voice of those folks (like it or not, after Bernie, Hillary was their voice) had ethical concerns up the wazoo and answered, "What does it matter?" when asked why there wasn't more done when a consulate was under attack and seems just a bit too Harpy-ish, I might hold my nose and vote for the other, other, way other voice barking on some other channel. I can sort of understand it.
He didn't get mine, but I think I can understand why so many wavering voters....in exactly the right swing states.....did pull that lever.
Hillary essentially said, "Things are fine, stay the course. The other guy is an idiot!"
Donald essentially said, "Things are a mess. Those idiots are to blame!"
In swing state after swing state things did seem like a mess to the undecided voter. That, they could decide upon.
That things were in a mess (right or wrong) isn't the issue.....it seemed that way to too many MOTR voters and Hillary was promising more of the same: Speech codes, safe zones, Plah Doh and costume censorship. OK, it's an over simplification but voters frequently vote for simple reasons after complex consideration. In the end, it was the simple reasons that were the story of this election......not the complex ones.
Tip O'Neill (no relation to Tank) is credited with saying, "All politics are local." Hillary's message was global, wide and (she thought) cerebral (I didn't find it that way). Trump's was local and emotional. Where it counted, THAT counted.
I will have to think about that: Are marching, chanting, Safe Zoned college students the harbinger of Republican runs?