Why wasn’t this the end of his candidacy in 2016 or prior?

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Trump is an emblem of just how badly the Democratic party dropped the ball. They should have had it locked away, some combination of running Hillary and selling out to international corporations and subbing support for identity politics in for actually supporting the working class got us here.

Meaning - if you *really* can't stand Trump - clean house and do better next time.

That’s the thing.. Democrats aren’t perfect politicians either and there’s a lot of house cleaning to do on both sides. They’re just not overtly cruel like trump and trumpists.

I do like how this whole circus is bringing new blood into politics. Women, minorities, immigrants, Indigenous people, and maybe most importantly, scientists. And since US politics is widely watched around the world, especially here in Canada - WAY more so than our own politics - this whole circus is having a beneficial affect here (and likely elsewhere) as we strive to elect better candidates. Still not perfect, though.. Ontario elected Canada’s trump (Doug Ford aka dog food) as Premier and the city I live in elected an equally idiotic mayor than ran on two pie in the sky sensationalist platform promises that will literally cost Billions of dollars more than promised to fulfil/be impossible to do.. but sensationalism still gets the stupid vote and most people are stupid soooo :/

I don't get it either. I hear what you are saying Techstep, and I agree, but it doesn't seem like the full answer.

I understand that many people, my husband included, just didn't like Hilary, with a passion. She wasn't a likable person, but we have elected unlikable people before to be president. I wonder if some of the real serious hatred for her wasn't because she was a woman...in the same manner that the real serious hatred for Obama was because he was black.

I know everyone had their own excuses as to why it wasn't gender or race, but my personal opinion is that it was.

Any other candidate would have been booted out of the ring with any one of the things our current president was accused of. That part is a mystery still. We should have had Jeb Bush or some other moderate running. They still would have won.

I'm not even sure how much of winning elections has to do with overt cruelty. I know that the Robert Sapolsky interview I posted suggested that people respond much more to viscera than to logic but I think the viscera in this case is less about Trump berating or insulting people and more a direct personal one of 'I can't pay my bills' and they were looking, at least back in 2016 who understood the 'I can't find a job' or 'I'm trying to support a family on $11 an hour where I used to make $30 an hour' bit.

I don't know your level of familiarity with Mark Blyth, this is a lecture he gave in fall of 2016 called 'Global Trumpism' about the populism phenomena across the west at that point. He also has an updated version of the same talk from August of 2019 called 'Global Trumpism and the Future of the Global Economy':

Hilary represented a few things to different people, 1) Benghazi and 'Oops! There goes my email records!', 2) defending her husband against sexual assault charges, 3) the choke collar on speech that was already tightening, 4) and I think this was the most important - she represented sort of the nested Davos aristocracy which common people were getting the sense were wringing the financial life out of them through exporting jobs over small efficiency or wage decrease gains.

It seems like there's a lot in the air right now that everyone's bigoted, it's this year's parade floats unfortunately and it's boring its way into everyone's skulls. The trouble with hidden bigotry is we'll always be asked to defer our own eyesight to those who can either see it better than we can or run with apophenia better than we do and, quite a lot like Abrahamic religion, our thought leaders and decision makers get replaced by visionaries and prophets (Helen Pluckrose gave some amazing lectures on the topic recently).

I understand your four points. But I think her being female underlies (under laid?) the intensity of the dislike/hatred caused by these issues. There was an intense over-reaction to these things.

I am sorry, techstep, that I cannot watch your videos. This is just not a way I can learn. Makes me cringe like fingernails on chalkboard. Are there transcripts available?

Unfortunately nothing satisfactory that I saw, maybe a few articles around on his ideas on this but I'm working ATM so I didn't get a chance to review them to see how they hold up.