Support NeoGAF

[sturgboski]

Your obvious disdain and condescension towards Trump voters shows that you're incapable of figuring out how to reach them in 2018. That's the only thing that matters right now.

So what is the best approach? Run a white nationalist who claims that only he can solve all the ills of the nation with no actual policy when the righting is on the wall that he actually wont do any of what he promises for the "working man" and instead will deliver to the 1%?

I mean, I am really trying hard to understand here because that poster described Trump's platform pretty accurately and since being elected every move he has made AND most of his statements have been "thanks voters, I told you all a bunch of bullshit and you all ate it up and voted me in as you are all suckers and I am only going to enrich the people like myself."

Is there spite and racial resentment in some Trump voters? Hell yes, nobody's denying that. But the sentiment that that's the only motivation is not only bullshit but dangerous as it writes a lot of people off as unreachable when that is the opposite of what Democrats need to do. Especially for lapsed Obama voters. They're not racist. Why didn't they turn out?

They didnt turn out because liberals are the worst. The majority of them dont understand or cant see the big picture. They rather throw their vote away at a 3rd party candidate who has as much chance of winning as I do of establishing a colony on Mars or not vote at all because the top of the ticket was not their ideal candidate, messiah, exciting, whatever other reason. Republicans get it. How many of them stated they disliked Trump but would still vote for him so as to ensure the Republicans win the presidency. Liberals seem to not understand that notion, the notion that having the party that can actually win the white house (again, never going to happen with a 3rd party) that hues closest to my beliefs is voted in. So what she didnt excel at your purity test (and I do not want to open up trials for Bernie here either), the point was that having her in the office would cement, protect and build on the ideals that you support. Instead, liberals are terrible and threw it all away in protest.

 

[metalslimer]

Lol at the notion that just because white people were pissed that HRC put a spotlight on minorities she wasn't figating for everyone. White people apparently just need to be coddled that much.

 

[Shao Kahn on the Lawn]

Lol at the notion that just because white people were pissed that HRC put a spotlight on minorities she wasn't figating for everyone. White people apparently just need to be coddled that much.

How about the notion that she rarely stepped outside of population centers while campaigning? Rather than listen to us, perhaps Hillary could've listened to the other Clinton in the household (You know, the one who won the Presidency twice and oversaw an economic boom).

 

[RPGCrazied]

You think you are getting $15 an hour and free college under Trump?

 

[Slayven]

Lol at the notion that just because white people were pissed that HRC put a spotlight on minorities she wasn't figating for everyone. White people apparently just need to be coddled that much.

Must be nice

 

[Melkezadek]

Voting to achieve the first female President and against the first unrepentant fascist wasn't historic?

When you put it like that, it makes the fact that people couldn't tell the difference between them even more ridiculous.

Also leads me to believe that sexism is deeper ingrained than racism.

 

[Adam_Vania]

pretty convenient this article doesn't even mention that Clinton was a Wal-Mart director for 6 years yet blames Trump for things her company did. that's the NYT for you.

 

[Big Baybee]

pretty convenient this article doesn't even mention that Clinton was a Wal-Mart director for 6 years yet blames Trump for things her company did. that's the NYT for you.

Fake news, amirite?

 

[dramatis]

pretty convenient this article doesn't even mention that Clinton was a Wal-Mart director for 6 years yet blames Trump for things her company did. that's the NYT for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html

But yes, of course the NYT is totally shilling for Hillary Clinton.

 

[capitalCORN]

pretty convenient this article doesn't even mention that Clinton was a Wal-Mart director for 6 years yet blames Trump for things her company did. that's the NYT for you.

It's an opinion piece?

 

[royalan]

pretty convenient this article doesn't even mention that Clinton was a Wal-Mart director for 6 years yet blames Trump for things her company did. that's the NYT for you.

Oh for fuck's sake, not everything Hillary Clinton touches becomes "hers." Like, there's nothing admirable about this kind of thinking. Hillary Clinton served on the board at Wal-Mart over 25 years ago, and she was a low-level board member that entire time.

But sure, let's talk about what she did there:

Fellow board members and company executives, who have not spoken publicly about her role at Wal-Mart, say Mrs. Clinton used her position to champion personal causes, like the need for more women in management and a comprehensive environmental program, despite being Wal-Mart’s only female director, the youngest and arguably the least experienced in business. On other topics, like Wal-Mart’s vehement anti-unionism, for example, she was largely silent, they said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html

This serious allergy to context is going to have us so fucking fuckity fucked.

 

[dynamitejim]

Oh for fuck's sake, not everything Hillary Clinton touches becomes "hers." Like, there's nothing admirable about this kind of thinking. Hillary Clinton served on the board at Wal-Mart over 25 years ago, and she was a low-level board member that entire time.

But sure, let's talk about what she did there:


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html

This serious allergy to context is going to have us so fucking fuckity fucked.

Trying to move a large Corporation a bit left: bad.

Throwing minorities under the bus to appeal to the racists in the WWC: good.

So many "Progressives" on the Left saw how well White Populism worked for Trump and now they're jonesing for some of their own.

 

[Sunster]

"The silent m̶a̶j̶o̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ gullible morons"

 

[BajiBoxer]

Trying to move a large Corporation a bit left: bad.

Throwing minorities under the bus to appeal to the racists in the WWC: good.

So many "Progressives" on the Left saw how well White Populism worked for Trump and now they're jonesing for some of their own.

It's very frustrating. As a white working class man, Clinton's plans were pretty far superior for me personally to anything I can recall being proposed before in presidential campaigns.

 

[jorma]

Lol at the notion that just because white people were pissed that HRC put a spotlight on minorities she wasn't figating for everyone. White people apparently just need to be coddled that much.

This fight is purely in your own head mang. The dems were on record before the election saying that they don't care about losing blue collar votes because they figured they'd get two moderate republican votes for every blue collar vote they lost.

Calling that absence of coddling is just too much.

 

[Angelus Errare]

When you put it like that, it makes the fact that people couldn't tell the difference between them even more ridiculous.

Also leads me to believe that sexism is deeper ingrained than racism.

White women got voting rights before black people got equal rights. Women's Suffrage movement was all about white women and excluded any WoC.

Racism runs much deeper.

This fight is purely in your own head mang. The dems were on record before the election saying that they don't care about losing blue collar votes because they figured they'd get two moderate republican votes for every blue collar vote they lost.

Calling that absence of coddling is just too much.

Moderate republicans are predominately white...

 

[Melkezadek]

White women got voting rights before black people got equal rights.

It helps that they are 50% of the population. Would be hard to keep that up, I imagine.

I also imagine it's harder to spot. Hearing people salivate over the possibility over Biden running despite him being to the right of Hillary, made it that much more obvious to me.

Oh that and all the projection of "I'm not just voting for her because she's a woman! that was tossed around. I'm not saying it was the only reason, but I think it played a bigger role in the election that most care to admit.

 

[User Name Here]

At its ugliest, whites’ resentment is channeled along race lines, often toward groups that many white people believe compete against them for resources — or don’t deserve resources at all. Grappling with this idea of who deserves benefits is a longstanding, difficult conversation.

Well they won't have to worry about that once the Republicans cut benefits to the point where they're useless.

 

[nel e nel]

Here's a great article looking at how this economic decline has been going on for over a generation:

http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump

The middle has fallen out of the American economy—precipitously since 2008, but it’s been falling out slowly and cumulatively for the past 40 years. Far from a statistical oddity, 1974 marked an epochal turn. The age of economic security ended. The age of anxiety began.

In the three decades following World War II, the United States experienced both high levels of growth and rising levels of equality, a combination that confounded historical precedent and the theories of conservative economists. By 1973, the share of Americans living in poverty bottomed out at 11.1 percent. It has never been that low since.

By the early 1980s, the Treaty of Detroit had been unilaterally repealed. Three signal events—Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker’s deliberately induced recession, President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air-traffic controllers, and General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s declaration that his company would reward its shareholders at the expense of its workers—made clear that the age of broadly shared prosperity was over

.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Well they won't have to worry about that once the Republicans cut benefits to the point that they're useless.

Republicans will just blame PoC draining the system like they always have and advocate to cut it even more.

 

[Crocodile]

None of those groups came out to vote in any numbers significant enough to swing the election so why should they be catered to? If they can't be bothered to help themselves when the Dems pander to them for years, why pander to them?

The fuck is this post? PoC and Women are the backbone of the Democratic party. The Democratic party hasn't won the overall white vote in decades

According to wiki in % less white people voted for Trump than for Romney(58% vs 59%), more black and hispanic people voted for Trump than for Romney(8% vs 6% and 29% vs 27%) despite the latter being called rapists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016#Voter_demographics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012#Voter_demographics

Democratic turnout was down (relative to population growth) which is going to skew some of these percentages. Either way, PoC soundly rejected Trump.

Conservatives: not the only ones capable of scapegoating minorities.

I "love" how so many are willing to let people who affirmatively voted for fascism get to skate on free while those who voted against it have the take the fall. Says quite a lot.

People keep asking how she ignored these places so I keep repeating the same fact about how she didn't by not bothering to visit. For whatever dumb reason she decided not to engage in retail politics.

There are a lot of Obama voters that didn't vote for Clinton. The racism argument doesn't quite work for those people.

LOL are there people who still subscribe to the "they voted for Obama so they can't be or become racist" idea. That's not how things work. He's one article on the subject that might be good thinking fodder for you.

 

[WiiredShawn]

It seems like a lot of people in this thread are trying to pin the blame of Hillary's loss on X or Y thing. You're being counter-productive.

Racism among white voters was relevant.
Commitment to party over country was relevant.
Economic anxiety among WWC was relevant.
Hillary not showing up in rural areas and swing states was relevant.
The DNC refraining from supporting Sanders was relevant.
Sanders not being able to connect with certain minority groups was relevant.
Neo-nazis and oligarchs conspiring to slander Clinton's name into the dirt was relevant.
Clinton focusing too much on "Not Trump" was relevant.
Voter apathy was relevant.
Big media outlets pushing for a horse race instead of discussing policy was relevant.
Electoral college bullshit was relevant.
Democrats having a hard time getting their messaging right was relevant.
Republicans being able to convince uneducated voters to vote against their own self-interest was relevant.
Naive progressives going third-party to "stick it" to The Man was relevant.
Democrats thinking that they had the election "in the bag" regardless was relevant.

All of these things are true. This election was a perfect storm.

At the same time, it's possible to see that it really wasn't that surprising. Look back at Reagan: His platform and appeal was really similar to Trump's. They're old, white, successful men who are good actors and told white people that they would restore America to its "glory days." They capitalized on racist sentiment (Reagan's welfare queen, Trump's Mexican rapists, etc.), Christian anxiety over an increasingly secular world, and the boogeyman of "big government". They distilled a complex world into simple aphorisms. They spoke "like the common man" while winking at the rich.

And this is how that worked out for each of them:

Everything mattered, but only a few things are needed to tip that scale back. Democrats need someone who will look at everything that went wrong, with seriousness, and address the biggest problems.

 

[ThatCrazyGuy]

pretty convenient this article doesn't even mention that Clinton was a Wal-Mart director for 6 years yet blames Trump for things her company did. that's the NYT for you.

Its her company?

 

[Aaronology]

Do people really think these people would have voted for Bernie Sanders over Trump? The progressive, lets raise taxes (for good stuff, but people wouldn't realize that) socialist over Trump's let's get rid of Hispanics, lower taxes, and bring back your old jobs where you made a decent living rhetoric?

Yes. Even though there is little evidence that Sander's platform would have fared better. The WWC didn't vote for Zephyr Teachout in New York. They didn't vote for Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. They didn't vote for Sue Minter in Vermont, Bernie Sander's own goddamn state. They didn't vote for Ted Strickland in Ohio. They rejected CA's Prop 61 and CO's Amendment 69. As I said before in a thread that has now been locked, across the board democrats left of Hillary who ran economic populist campaigns lifted directly from Sanders were defeated, along with the progressive initiatives championed by the far left. White candidates like Feingold and Strickland who ran on platforms focused entirely on the white working class in overwhelmingly white majority states were rejected. But Bernie, like his supporters, continue to whine that if only the Party had focused on the "economic anxiety" of white Americans 2016 would have been different, conveniently ignoring all the BernieCrats on the ballot who did just that but were rejected by larger margins than Hillary.

 

[WiiredShawn]

Yes. Even though there is little evidence that Sander's platform would have fared better. The WWC didn't vote for Zephyr Teachout in New York. They didn't vote for Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. They didn't vote for Sue Minter in Vermont, Bernie Sander's own goddamn state. They didn't vote for Ted Strickland in Ohio. They rejected CA's Prop 61 and CO's Amendment 69. As I said before in a thread that has now been locked, across the board democrats left of Hillary who ran economic populist campaigns lifted directly from Sanders were defeated, along with the progressive initiatives championed by the far left. White candidates like Feingold and Strickland who ran on platforms focused entirely on the white working class in overwhelmingly white majority states were rejected. But Bernie, like his supporters, continue to whine that if only the Party had focused on the "economic anxiety" of white Americans 2016 would have been different, conveniently ignoring all the BernieCrats on the ballot who did just that but were rejected by larger margins than Hillary.

My question is: Why are voters rejecting these candidates? Is it simply their policies? Are they even really informed about their policies or their long-term ramifications? Do Republican opponents come in with solutions that sound slimmer and sexier and more immediate? Do people think that these solutions "aren't necessary yet"? Do Republicans just inspire better voter turnout? Are the candidates just "boring" and "uninspiring" to Democrats in those states? Do business interests in those states try to undermine progressive platforms?

The empiricist in me says that correlation =/= causation. Just as Clinton's loss to Trump isn't purely a matter of policy, we need to figure out where the disconnect is and address it.

 

[KingV]

Oh for fuck's sake, not everything Hillary Clinton touches becomes "hers." Like, there's nothing admirable about this kind of thinking. Hillary Clinton served on the board at Wal-Mart over 25 years ago, and she was a low-level board member that entire time.

But sure, let's talk about what she did there:


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html

This serious allergy to context is going to have us so fucking fuckity fucked.

What is a low level board member?

Like the board is who the CEO answers to. If you are on the board, you have a lot of influence, period. Though I agree she can't be personally held responsible for every ahitty thing Walmart did. There is a voting system.

 

[capitalCORN]

What is a low level board member?

Like the board is who the CEO answers to. If you are on the board, you have a lot of influence, period. Though I agree she can't be personally held responsible for every ahitty thing Walmart did. There is a voting system.

The CEO is part of the board of directors. You have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[commedieu]

The CEO is part of the board of directors. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Shh. I want to see where it goes.

 

[capitalCORN]

Shh. I want to see where it goes.

Sorry.

 

[Aaronology]

My question is: Why are voters rejecting these candidates? Is it simply their policies? Are they even really informed about their policies or their long-term ramifications? Do Republican opponents come in with solutions that sound slimmer and sexier and more immediate? Do people think that these solutions "aren't necessary yet"? Do Republicans just inspire better voter turnout? Are the candidates just "boring" and "uninspiring" to Democrats in those states? Do business interests in those states try to undermine progressive platforms?

The empiricist in me says that correlation =/= causation. Just as Clinton's loss to Trump isn't purely a matter of policy, we need to figure out where the disconnect is and address it.

My purpose of bringing up those failures is not to convey that "progressive ideals are doomed" but rather economic populism by itself is not the answer across the board. You hit on points I believe are all relevant. Teachout, for instance, was outspent when you factor in her opposition's PACs. Money is important to these races and the disdain for donors by the far left is tiresome. Posts like:

Please run a genuine candidate who isn't taking huge corporate donations and fights for everyone next time.
Thank you.

...are incredibly frustrating to read. People like Sinfamy have no answer for the losses of "genuine" candidates like Minter or Teachout or even Feingold. Bernie himself has repeatedly criticized Clinton for not appealing to the WWC but has remained notably silent on the defeats of far left candidates in his stable who followed his rulebook to a T and did even worse than her. His own state rejected the gubernatorial candidate he stumped hard for and backed. Like you, I would like to see us on the left collectively take a step back and try to earnestly examine what went wrong and what's going wrong. The incessant finger pointing by people still smarting over the Democratic primary is a useless waste of energy.

 

[Socreges]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/opinion/sunday/white-resentment-on-the-night-shift-at-walmart.html

There's a bit more at the article, but I think generally the point is that corporatism has ravaged the working class of the country. The notion of unions has been eroded by corporations, and soon with automation more of these jobs will disappear. Ironically, it doesn't look like Trump's policies will stem the tide on corporate overreach, and it's weird that anyone thought they would. To be fair, both sides of the aisle were pretty entangled with corporate interests this year.

To be fair, I'd guess the vast majority that voted for him do not understand the structural problems. They see it as a competition for resources and that minorities/immigrants are less deserving of those resources.

 

[chillybright]

which isn't true either, since it's been proven that raising wages for the lower and middle classes stimulates the economy more than anything else and CREATES jobs, since all of that money is spent and poured back into the local economy...rather than sitting in a mutual fund somewhere.

If you want to help those who do not have jobs, advocating for a living wage is the best possible thing you can do to create positions.

Receipt?

 

[Prototype Viktor]

Please run a genuine candidate who isn't taking huge corporate donations and fights for everyone next time.
Thank you.

But no one ever votes for Vermin Supreme

Spoiler

since corporations are people, people are corporations and Bernie was a sellout and a fuckboi

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

What kills me is some of these people who feel like this and say this shit will immediately say shit to POC telling them to "Get a job"...


But then get mad when they do and blame them for you not being able to get the so called job you want? Stop fucking voting against your interest and maybe this wouldn't be a problem. Like when these improvised neighborhoods were dumps like fucking Jersey back in the day , they wouldn't even bat an eye at these conditions. But now it's a fight for us to recognize their pain while they BLAME us for their situation? At that point..I'm sorry but I'm bating my eyes too. I'm already at the bottom so I really have nothing reach across for. I don't understand why it's liberals fault for trying to show them that they aren't the only ones who's going through this, and their first thought is well "don't fucking tell me how to think".

 

[Freshmaker]

Please run a genuine candidate who isn't taking huge corporate donations and fights for everyone next time.
Thank you.

That only works if people vote for said candidate.

 

[Cyrano]

Worth noting that until wages scale with inflation, the poor will still be poor. By the time most minimum wages raise to $15/hour, it won't be enough. The "fight for $15", while it will help, it's not solving anything.

 

[RPGCrazied]

Worth noting that until wages scale with inflation, the poor will still be poor. By the time most minimum wages raise to $15/hour, it won't be enough. The "fight for $15", while it will help, it's not solving anything.

You will never seen $15 an hour. Your best chance with that was with Bernie. Trump does not want to raise it. He flat out said no during the debates.

 

[Aytumious]

The more you keep driving this "she didn't greet them " narrative, the sillier it sounds.

I'm not sure why you're so keen on ignoring the other reasons they voted for him. They like what they heard and it had nothing to do with their issues.

So you think Obama is a fool for this?

I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated that I would win Iowa. It was because I spent 87 days going to every small town and fair and fish fry and VFW Hall, and there were some counties where I might have lost, but maybe I lost by 20 points instead of 50 points. There's some counties maybe I won, that people didn't expect, because people had a chance to see you and listen to you and get a sense of who you stood for and who you were fighting for.

 

[Cyrano]

You will never seen $15 an hour. Your best chance with that was with Bernie. Trump does not want to raise it. He flat out said no during the debates.

The minimum wage will slowly increase no matter what. It has to in order to keep wage slavery as an order of the day. The scale at which it increases however matters little if the increases are static. Inflation ensures this.

Or, maybe a simpler explanation - if the price of a loaf of bread increases to $15 (and it will over time), it doesn't matter if you're now making $15 an hour, because everything else is now just as expensive, if not more so, than when people were making $8 an hour.

 

[Shao Kahn on the Lawn]

So you think Obama is a fool for this?

His sentiments are obviously far less relevant than a fifty year-old quote by MLK that gets trotted out whenever a white liberal says the same thing.

What would President Obama know about creating a winning coalition in a US presidential campaign?

 

[Prototype Viktor]

You will never seen $15 an hour. Your best chance with that was with Bernie. Trump does not want to raise it. He flat out said no during the debates.

Ha
Ha ha
Haha ha ha ha ha

Spoiler

maybe if money had no meaning anymore. You'd never get free education and $15 a hour take your pick

 

[Unknown Soldier]

we still on this rigged primary bullshit, huh?

let it go, people didn't want Bernie Sanders

that's why he didn't get votes

Sure, let's take this logic to the end

let it go, people didn't want Hillary Clinton

that's why she didn't get votes

 

[capitalCORN]

Sure, let's take this logic to the end

let it go, people didn't want Hillary Clinton

that's why she didn't get votes

But Bernie would have surely succeeded!

 

[Unknown Soldier]

But Bernie would have surely succeeded!

Well if neither Bernie nor Hillary had a chance, then the Trump Presidency was already inevitable. If you're willing to accept that, then I guess we have nothing to argue about.

 

[capitalCORN]

Well if neither Bernie nor Hillary had a chance, then the Trump Presidency was already inevitable. If you're willing to accept that, then I guess we have nothing to argue about.

I think the disturbing portion to note is that the threat of fascism still resulted in record low turnout.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I think the disturbing portion to note is that the threat of fascism still resulted in record low turnout.

Lesson learned. In a two-party system, the third party is staying home.

It's amazing how the Democrats didn't realize this at all.

 

[capitalCORN]

Lesson learned. In a two-party system, the third party is staying home.

It's amazing how the Democrats didn't realize this at all.

I'd say it reflects more on culture and society than Dems. And most certainly on the long con the Reps have been playing with Fox News, rendering even the most dry delivery to become a loaded partisan message. Hence the total distrust of mainstream media by MAGAs, and their reliance on an endless feedback loop of soothing misinformation.

 

[HeatBoost]

This is the ultimate issue at the core that I don't understand about people who claim they want this less-conscionable Mr. Burns to straighten out the crooked business in Washington

Choosing a crooked businessman to straighten out corrupt politics is like hiring a mountain lion to protect your livestock. I guess people are just that much more stupid than I thought?

 

[Muppet of a Man]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/opinion/sunday/white-resentment-on-the-night-shift-at-walmart.html











There's a bit more at the article, but I think generally the point is that corporatism has ravaged the working class of the country. The notion of unions has been eroded by corporations, and soon with automation more of these jobs will disappear. Ironically, it doesn't look like Trump's policies will stem the tide on corporate overreach, and it's weird that anyone thought they would. To be fair, both sides of the aisle were pretty entangled with corporate interests this year.

This year? Welcome to the Reagan presidency onward. Corporations and banks have owned politicians since the mid 70s. It's just been getting progressively worse with the installation of more neoliberal economic policies which just further reinforce corporations' and banks' power. Now corporations and banks have become so powerful that they are no longer clandestine in their schemes to undermine labor. They are overt that they are the new nobility. The 2 major parties each are aligned with a different subset of industries and their interests. They act as proxies for that subset of industries. It just so happens that certain industries' economic policy interests are sometimes at odds with that of other industries. That's where you get Republicans versus Democrats. The parties only align themselves with the social interests of different subsets of the general population to gain power, from at which point they throw a bone to the portion of the electorate that put them in power while further reinforcing the power of the industries the are proxy for. This is how America politics works at a mechanistic level.

 

[airmangataosenai]

Trying to move a large Corporation a bit left: bad.

Throwing minorities under the bus to appeal to the racists in the WWC: good.

So many "Progressives" on the Left saw how well White Populism worked for Trump and now they're jonesing for some of their own.

Would it really be throwing anyone under the bus though? From what I gather no one is saying to champion different policy even, just better emphasize messaging which reminds WWC voters that they, you know, benefit heavily from welfare and social safety net progeams too.

Not that Clinton is at fault for this, it is mainly the media and surrogates which get list on this point. Clinton and Obama are usually careful in how they present this information.

Ironically despite his reputation of opposing identity politics, Sanders is tge one with the most jarring quote on this issue.

https://youtu.be/z6IlGoeDIUQ

I think the disturbing portion to note is that the threat of fascism still resulted in record low turnout.

Why do people keep repeating this? Turnout was up over 2012. It had the third highest turnout of any election since the 70s.