I would add that if these people found they could not vote for Clinton ... they could have at least came and voted for the Democratic Senate candidate. It is perhaps a sign that they thought she would win without their votes that they did not cast that vote for divided government against Trump. (Yet had the election seemed that close, they might have voted for Clinton over Trump.)
It is the loss of all those candidates that makes me think that in truth, it was not Clinton herself as much as a mindless vote for change. Seriously, if the issue was that Clinton was insufficiently honest and trustworthy, why did Feingold, whose peers often called the conscience of the Senate, lose by more. This makes me think the motivation was people angry at their own situation or at what they perceived were scary changes that werechanging their country in ways they viserally were reacting to.
Consider the intense feelings which I think all of us are feeling now. In their case, this was alphified by 8 years of alt news that distorted everything that happened. There meshed with the fact that many in the rust belt did not see the economy improving - or if they did, they saw it helping others, not them. Also, every social issue we saw as historical gains -- they saw as against their view of what should be.
The unfortunate thing is that their inchoate anger was there when a dangerous demogogue, with media ties, emerged. The US has had demogogues emerge before, but something always happened to keep them from gaining the Presidency. Now, what makes it even worse is that they control both houses of Congress.
I also worry that Trump's attack on Obama is completely intentional. The RW sewer attacked Obama and all his administartion for 8 years. I think that Trump is both following that sewer and worse he might strateigically be trying to eliminate as credible any reasoned voice that exists against him -- and no one is more credible than the wonderful former President.
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