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发帖数: 5601 | | f********8
发帖数: 5601 | 2 If they had not been so insulated from the rest of the country, they might
have seen this: the vast majority of Americans found them deplorable. This
is the reality the establishment refused to see. | f********8
发帖数: 5601 | 3 写的一针见血！谁有空翻成中文？Blackhole?? | f********8
发帖数: 5601 | 4 Why the Establishment Was Wrong
NEWT GINGRICH·WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2016
One of the most amazing things about Donald Trump’s historic victory was
how badly almost everyone in media and politics misread the country.
Time and again in the months before the election, the establishment
suggested I was either insincere or insane in predicting a Trump victory.
Our differences reflected two very different understandings of reality.
The establishment’s self-reassuring assumption was that the American
electorate was the same as it was in 2008 and 2012, only more so. This led
them to believe that no Republican could win the presidency without doing
dramatically better than Mitt Romney among the groups Romney lost badly--
Latinos, African Americans, and women.
They further assumed that Donald Trump could not possibly do better among
these groups than Mitt Romney, because in their view, Romney was a pleasant,
appealing candidate, and Trump was alienating and offensive.
They assumed that turnout among these demographics would be high. And they
assumed turnout among white males would be low. (After all, their moment in
history had passed.)
The lack of understanding and imagination became self-reinforcing. These
assumptions were used to weight polls, producing results that appeared to
prove the conclusions true.
The political-media establishment then set about talking to itself, and
discovered that apparently everyone it knew was anti-Trump. This explains
why Hillary Clinton and her team thought attacking his supporters was a good
strategy. They really did see Trump voters as a fringe minority.
All of this led almost every voice in politics and the media to believe
Trump would suffer a historic defeat Tuesday night. In the end, their
assumptions proved a house of cards. It turned out that demographics weren’
t destiny after all. Leadership was destiny.
If they had not been so insulated from the rest of the country, they might
have seen this: the vast majority of Americans found them deplorable. This
is the reality the establishment refused to see.
As Pat Caddell reported in his essential essay on “the uprising of the
American people,” Donald Trump’s closing argument was a winning one.
According to Caddell’s research, Americans believe the following by
overwhelming margins:
1. The power of ordinary people to control our country is getting weaker
every day, as political leaders on both sides, fight to protect their own
power and privilege, at the expense of the nation’s well-being. We need to
restore what we really believe in – real democracy by the people and real
free-enterprise. AGREE = 87%; DISAGREE = 10%
2. The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits
, lobbyists and other powerful money interests for their own gain at the
expense of the American people. AGREE = 87%; DISAGREE = 10%
3. Most politicians really care about people like me. AGREE = 25%; DISAGREE
= 69%
4. Powerful interests from Wall Street banks to corporations, unions and
political interest groups have used campaign and lobbying money to rig the
system for them. They are looting the national treasury of billions of
dollars at the expense of every man, woman and child. AGREE = 81%; DISAGREE
= 13%
5. The U.S. has a two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day,
where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the
rewards. We need fundamental changes to fix the inequity in our economic
system. AGREE = 81%; DISAGREE = 15%
6. Political leaders are more interested in protecting their power and
privilege than doing what is right for the American people. AGREE = 86%;
DISAGREE = 11%
7. The two main political parties are too beholden to special and corporate
interest to create any meaningful change. AGREE = 76%; DISAGREE = 19%
8. The real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans
but between mainstream American and the ruling political elites. AGREE = 67%
; DISAGREE = 24%
These numbers describe a reality the establishment is psychologically
incapable of understanding. So they did not realize that the country--and
the electorate--had changed dramatically, in ways that had nothing to do
with demographics. On Tuesday, Americans’ version of reality defeated the
establishment’s version--in the form of President-elect Donald Trump. |
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