Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Media Elite still doesn’t get why Trump won the election

Condescension against "red" America, evangelicals, and working-class Americans did nothing but ensure the defeat of Hillary Clinton

Media Elite still doesn’t get why Trump won the election


Like many of my fellow Republicans and evangelicals, I was not initially enthusiastic about Donald Trump as the GOP nominee. Many of us had issues with Trump’s seeming inconsistency over key conservative values; like his support of continued taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. The division among Republicans and evangelicals over Donald Trump was stark.
However, on the day of the election, the vast majority of Republicans “came home” to vote for Trump in historic numbers. This was particularly the case among white evangelicals of whom over 80 percent voted for Trump: A higher number than had voted for known evangelical George Bush. This was also despite lingering questions among many evangelicals about Trump’s Christian sincerity and character. Of note, Trump exceeded Mitt Romney by two points among African-Americans. CNN exit polls also showed that military veterans, a conservative but racially and ethnically diverse group, voted 2-1 for Trump over Hillary Clinton. After reading liberal “elite” Washington Post commentator Gene Robinson (and so many other liberal commentators) offer ridiculous opinions about the election results, I feel compelled to offer the insider account of the truth.

Elite national media and Democratic Party have increasingly marginalized, demeaned conservatives

Robinson took the predictable tact of explaining Trump’s victory solely by racism and bigotry. He said, “Overt bigotry and racism have been socially unacceptable. Trump released these demons from the back room of the American psyche where they had been stuffed. During the past year, I have seen and heard a kind of raw ugliness that I hadn’t witnessed since the dying days of Jim Crow in the segregated South… Trump was the candidate not of working-class America but of WHITE [Robinson’s emphasis] America. It is hard not to see his victory as partly, or perhaps mostly, a reaction to the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, the first black man to occupy the White House.”
Interestingly, Robinson’s defamatory and condescending cry of “racism” at those who voted for Trump (including the preponderance of Veterans) becomes the epitome of the reason Hillary lost.
For over two decades, the elite national media and Democratic Party have increasingly marginalized and demeaned the views and concerns of conservatives. This is particularly the case with working class conservatives, and sincere Christians. It is the case with a number of issues, but particularly true with Christian issues like life and marriage. On those issues, particularly the life of the unborn, religious freedom, and traditional marriage, Hillary Clinton was completely at odds with most conservatives. This became crystal clear in the third debate when she passionately supported partial-birth abortion, and claimed she would only choose Supreme Court Justices holding these views.
The liberal media, generally holding the same worldview, never attempted to understand that – or why – Hillary might well lose due to these extreme liberal views. This also held to be the case with the scandals over Clinton’s use of a private server to send and receive classified emails (and lie to Congress about it) as well as the Clinton foundation.

Most of the media appeared to protect seeming criminal behavior on the part of Sec. Clinton

Most of the media appeared to protect seeming criminal behavior on the part of Sec. Clinton. This, while lampooning Trump at every turn. Over the past few decades, this type of biased coverage for liberals and against conservatives has not gone unnoticed by most Americans. When Trump went after the media at the end of the campaign, many conservatives applauded him. This is due to the many years of perceived liberal media bias against conservatives. Trump became the victim of what many in red-state America had felt for decades: Media’s abuse of calling conservatives racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. without reasonable justification; just as Gene Robinson is doing now.
In many ways, this election became the culture clash between the values of red and blue America. The Democratic Party, previously identified as the party of working class Americans, has become – over the past few decades – ruled by elites. A party which now demeaned traditional working people with the help of many in the media.
During media coverage of the election, viewers were fed the constant marginalization of Trump supporters as solely “working class whites without a college degree” (usually accompanied by a bad picture of a worker with mud and dirt covering their body). The clear message: Trump supporters were uneducated and unsophisticated who just didn’t understand the issues like the “elites” in the media.
The culture clash played out in the election beyond the characters of Trump and Clinton. Many felt Clinton and the media marginalized traditional values of religion, patriotism.
Continued below...

Abundantly clear to those living in “fly-over” red-state America that the elites in politics and media hold their values in contempt

In viewing the map showing election results by county, tiny blue (Democratic) areas in the major urban centers are surrounded by the vast red majority of the landmass of America. It has become abundantly clear to those living in “fly-over” red-state America that the elites in politics and media hold their values in contempt. This is particularly true for working class Americans and evangelicals.
Hillary’s condescending use of the term “deplorables” for Trump supporters became the battle-cry for all those feeling the marginalization by blue-state elites. Unfortunately for her, in addition to her scandals coming to focus in the final days of the campaign, the problems with ObamaCare and the economy became clear as well. She tied herself to Obama, and it came back to bite as working people realize they had lost under Obama.
Trump did not win due to racism, and to claim such by the liberal elite media is not only insulting, but will only guarantee similar election results in the future. The silent majority of Americans has spoken, and it’s time for the media and Democratic Party to look in the mirror and spend a little time in self-reflection. Condescension against “red” America, evangelicals, and working-class Americans did nothing but ensure the defeat of Hillary Clinton. As British historian Paul Johnson noted:  “America is a God-fearing country with all that implies.”

Col. Bill Connor -- Bio and Archives | Click to view 5 CommentsBill Connor billconnoronline.com,  received his Bachelor’s of Arts from The Citadel in 1990. After serving over ten years as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army he received his Juris Doctorate from University of South Carolina in 2005.

He is currently an attorney with Hamilton and Associates in Columbia, South Carolina.

In May 2008, he returned from a yearlong combat deployment in Southern Afghanistan. During that time, he served as Joint Operations Officer for the Southern Region of Afghanistan developing and implementing the US advisory effort for Afghan National Security Forces. This effort occurred during the 2007 Taliban spring/summer offensive.

Due to success in that position, he was promoted to take command of the US advisory effort in the volatile province of Helmand. Shortly after arrival in Helmand, he was promoted in rank from Major to Lt. Colonel. In addition to command of US advisory teams, he was the senior American working with the United Kingdom senior staff. Upon return from Afghanistan, he published the book “Articles from War,”a memoir of his experiences and thoughts in Afghanistan.

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