General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders: Its a tragic mistake to dismiss anti-establishment voters as deplorable [View all]LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)And Clinton did not say that all supporters of the Unspeakable were deplorable. She said about half were.
I don't think that a number can or should have been put on it; but there is a certain proportion of his voters who are fascists, racists and white supremacists. The Unspeakable is, after all, far from non-establishment in the usual sense: he is a billionaire, who inherited a significant amount of his wealth.
But there is undoubtedly also a certain number of people who voted out of hope, however misguided, that the Unspeakable would help them economically or with jobs.
Doubtless the largest number of voters for him are just people who always vote Republican.
I would guess that the largest number of disaffected, anti-establishment citizens worth courting are in that 45% of Americans (and about a third of Brits), who don't vote in general elections at all: some through laziness, some through voter suppression, but some because no candidate speaks to their needs.
What concerns me - not about Bernie, but about some of the people who interpret the results - is that there are some people who think that it may be worth the left 'addressing the concerns' of far-right voters to the point of accepting racism and brutality to minorities of all sorts. This was the case for a long time in the past. The Democrats attracted a reliable Southern (and to some extent elsewhere) vote by accepting Jim Crow. They lost much of it to the Republicans as a result of becoming a party of civil rights. I don't think that, even to get reliable Democratic majorities, it's desirable to go back to the days of George Wallace and Orval Faubus.
And it affects us all, including non-Americans. I am really worried that The Unspeakable and his 'victory' (really the Electoral College's failure) will be used to embolden neo-fascist movements in Europe, including the UK what with fucking Brexit.