Having run fundraisers and done grassroots work in the wake of Sandy, I have to weigh in and say that Staten Island, like some small towns in New Jersey, has a real bigotry problem. It's there, blatant, and nasty. The hatred of Obama was all about color, and the issue isn't the 'disenfranchised middle class,' it's an attitude of white privilege and resentment of minorities.
16
The utter lack of objectivity is as evident in the comments here as it is in comments to political articles in the Wall Street Journal.
11
If a version of this article had been written before the election, anyone, even the political talking heads, could have read these comments, seen the disparaging comments about Trump supporters and known why he was going to win.
This is the best PR the Republicans could possible have. You literally can't buy this quality at any price.
This is the best PR the Republicans could possible have. You literally can't buy this quality at any price.
7
Another archaeological expedition outside NYT Metro's Park Slope/Williamsburg comfort zone. Fails on so many cultural and socio-economic levels.
11
Bella, Trump is Trump. In view of what we are witnessing the your are being fatuous and as foolish as the Weimar Jews. Witness, the hate crimes the past couple of days across the nation directed at people of color and on anti-Semitic Blogs. Look at the 'drain the swamp talk' - code for the ''Hollywood Jews'' and ''Black Rappers bringing heroin to our small towns.''
The media is guilty of rolling over when Comey was fooled into implementing a national coup engineered by Giuliani and a cell of corrupt FBI officials who in deed if not intent colluded with coordinated communication with Russian officials high within the Trump campaign. What is needed and sorely lacking from the Times and the Democratic Left, including Elizabeth Warren isn't telling us to 'volunteer for Planned Parenthood.' Just tell us to wear our yellow stars and go in peace. No. This is existential. The U.S.A. is at stake and for 120 million pre-condition Americans, so are our lives. Not Our President Elect!! Just Say "NOPE." We need "NOPE" signs in every window, every house and business that disagrees with the fascist, dystopic coup that is trying to take over the nation, and hasn't stopped its hating and campaigning. Don't believe the lies use your eyes.
Bella's "I don't know something just made me believe Trump, just doesn't reassure me. It's the kind of nitwit statement many will disclaim in retrospect - way too late.
The media is guilty of rolling over when Comey was fooled into implementing a national coup engineered by Giuliani and a cell of corrupt FBI officials who in deed if not intent colluded with coordinated communication with Russian officials high within the Trump campaign. What is needed and sorely lacking from the Times and the Democratic Left, including Elizabeth Warren isn't telling us to 'volunteer for Planned Parenthood.' Just tell us to wear our yellow stars and go in peace. No. This is existential. The U.S.A. is at stake and for 120 million pre-condition Americans, so are our lives. Not Our President Elect!! Just Say "NOPE." We need "NOPE" signs in every window, every house and business that disagrees with the fascist, dystopic coup that is trying to take over the nation, and hasn't stopped its hating and campaigning. Don't believe the lies use your eyes.
Bella's "I don't know something just made me believe Trump, just doesn't reassure me. It's the kind of nitwit statement many will disclaim in retrospect - way too late.
18
The NYT Bottom Line: Those who deviate one iota from the NYT political philosophy are racist, uneducated, haters, baskets of deplorables.
Got it.
This portends well for the Right. In other words, the Left can continue to run the slimiest, most corrupt candidate, lose, and wonder why it lost. Ultimately it will blame the winner on being racist, etc. Never mind the fact the U.S. voted for Obama not once, but twice. Talk about being narrow minded...
Got it.
This portends well for the Right. In other words, the Left can continue to run the slimiest, most corrupt candidate, lose, and wonder why it lost. Ultimately it will blame the winner on being racist, etc. Never mind the fact the U.S. voted for Obama not once, but twice. Talk about being narrow minded...
11
I'll make it a point to shop at the Bella Chic boutique the next time my dog is invited to a costume party.
4
I'm guessing that most of these women are too young to remember when classified employment ads were classified first by sex and then by position. Seriously, "Help Wanted Men" and "Help Wanted Women" could come to a workplace near you.
12
“They will say ‘Benghazi,’ but they don’t really know what that is.”
Yep. Same with the whole email non-scandal. Republicans managed to create enough smoke to fool some voters into believing that there had to be a fire, even if those voters could never really explain exactly what it was that Clinton had done wrong.
Yep. Same with the whole email non-scandal. Republicans managed to create enough smoke to fool some voters into believing that there had to be a fire, even if those voters could never really explain exactly what it was that Clinton had done wrong.
21
“Every day of this election I hated Trump,” Ms. Bonilla said. “But I hated Hillary more.”
Correct. Two completely vapid, uninspiring candidates. But one was clearly an egotistical snake oil salesman, a scam artist who preys on those who are feeling hopeless (by reinforcing that sense and then convincing them he is the one who can alleviate it, pretty much scam artist 101)... the other one was just as entitled, but slightly more outward looking. I think the right choice is obvious. Not sure how all of these women missed it. God help us all.
Correct. Two completely vapid, uninspiring candidates. But one was clearly an egotistical snake oil salesman, a scam artist who preys on those who are feeling hopeless (by reinforcing that sense and then convincing them he is the one who can alleviate it, pretty much scam artist 101)... the other one was just as entitled, but slightly more outward looking. I think the right choice is obvious. Not sure how all of these women missed it. God help us all.
24
There's a segment of the population who will always be taken in by the strident, tough-sounding, over-promisers. Add lying and incompetence and you've got George W. Bush and Donald Trump. What happens next? Our nation gets into a war with attendant casualties, the economy goes in the tank and the Party is over. Rinse and repeat.
18
Ladies, along with the 40 million or so others who voted for Trump, he just sold you all the Brooklyn Bridge. Wanna buy a bridge cheap? Vote for me. Fools. You got suckered by a carpetbagger, and didn't bother to look at his actions of the past. Seduced by words. "Poets, priests and politicians, have words to thank for their positions". - Sting 1980
28
Pants Suits are out for a while.
5
not for me
16
Trump, the attention-whoring, carnival-barker clown, now with Giuliani, Ryan, Gingrich, Rubio, Christie, McConnell et al dangling from his sweaty, ill-fitting ruff, continues to run roughshod through our streets and psyches testing his formula as he exploits the fears of the white, mentally vulnerable who feel their lives and traditions may be subject to unwelcome "others".
28
True, but when you get inside this article, you don't see an English surnames, so all of these people are in fact "the other" and their parents, grandparents, etc. were the dirty dark immigrant others that white people used to complain about.
18
"their parents, grandparents, etc. were the dirty dark immigrant others that white people used to complain about."
And now they treat brown people the way white people used to treat them, which in a way is even worse because their own grandparents' oppression is within living memory. There is no excuse for their bigotry.
And now they treat brown people the way white people used to treat them, which in a way is even worse because their own grandparents' oppression is within living memory. There is no excuse for their bigotry.
24
Don't be so sanctimonious, NYT. There are plenty of narrow minded bigots on the Upper East Side living in all-white coops. They're just better at hiding it.
37
Difficult to find any credibility in a woman who is first voting at age 37.
63
Please know that not all of Staten Island supported Trump. The north shore of SI was almost 100% blue and there are many of us here that are horrified by the election results.
40
Having lived on Staen islkand, the northern part is pretty liberal, travel south you travel into right wing racist land. Been that way for decades. Remember Eric Garner? Most of Staten Islanders had no problem with a cop choking to death a black man for selling loose cigarettes. Just a taste of what's to come regarding the Justice Department headed by either Giuliani or Christie. Justice handed out under the boot of a thug cop, with the Feds blessings.
15
As Van Jones said, this election was a "whitelash" and now we can put to rest forever the description of our society as post-racial.
23
A few anthropological notes missing from this rather superficial feature piece. Ask these women (especially those with Italian surnames) how they ended up on Staten Island. They are likely children of immigrant exiles from Brooklyn and Queens, their parents construction workers and butchers and seamstresses fleeing from black and Latino "others" moving into their old neighborhoods in the 1970s. Before the Verrazzano Bridge, Staten Island was as close as one could get to a white ethnic homeland within commuting range to the last few high-paying blue collar jobs in Manhattan. This is changing as more Asian and Caribbean folk move to Staten Island, but old identities die hard. (Check out the Belt Parkway traffic on Christmas and Easter in the direction of cousins in Suffolk County, the eastward arm of white flight.) I used to say as an uppity Italian-American teen, to the consternation of my dad and male cousins, that the only difference between a black teen boy and an Italian teen boy was a union card. These gals are their sisters, whose only distinction from the black and brown ghettos their parents and grandparents left behind is their white get-out-of-town card. Yet aside from the red sauce at Sunday lunch, and the string of Catholic sacrament parties for their kids, there's not much else that sets them apart in worldview from the blue-eyed Protestant desperadoes in flyover country.
40
Excellent comment. And I am one of those "White teen boys with a union card" who is now an adult and recognizes the extra privilege I was given and vow to work towards applying those same privileges to all people.
9
Greetings from a Staten Island exile in flyover country. My Congressman is a black Muslim, We just elected the first Somali woman to our state legislature. Our blue eyed protestants are known for taking in refugees from all over the world - we have one of largest Hmong and largest Somali communities in the country. And you don't know much about Staten Island either. The influx of Italian Americans came after the bridge not before, When my mother grew up in Tottenville many of her friends were from Sandy Ground - one of the nation's oldest communities of free blacks in the U.S. It was a Democratic stronghold.
6
"there's not much else that sets them apart in worldview from the blue-eyed Protestant desperadoes in flyover country."
Don't be silly; there's organized crime.
Don't be silly; there's organized crime.
3
Staten Island is an enclave of simmering racism. Sorry but that's the truth. Its only for NYPD, FDNY and Sanitation Dept. officers who are white, sprinkled in with a few Mafia types. You don't mess with them
37
Greenfield,
Your attempts to stigmatize Italian-Americans demonstrates what a racist imbecile you are.
P.S.: This "article" is absurd and should never have been printed.
Your attempts to stigmatize Italian-Americans demonstrates what a racist imbecile you are.
P.S.: This "article" is absurd and should never have been printed.
12
In other words, you are less likely to get mugged or shot than you would be in the other 4 boroughs.
6
What makes Staten Island's support of Trump so unsettling to me is that it comes in a land of civil-servant affluence. This is a place filled with 50-year-old retired cops, firefighters and sanitation workers whose jobs let them build very comfortable middle class lives and provide for their families. A high proportion are tax-free. But they hate the same government that's given them those jobs and they won't recognize a single positive thing that President Obama has done for the middle class. They are the same guys screaming the loudest for smaller government -- as long as their job isn't privatized. They, along with their buddies who've been successful in the private sector, are united in their contempt of anyone who wants to climb the ladder alongside of them. They can't fathom that Eric Garner got anything less than what he deserved. There isn't the slighted recognition that an "illegal" might here illegally because he is striving to provide the best for his family. But there is absolute adoration for our convicted tax-cheat congressman, Michael Grimm.
There is no civil discussion with these people. It's Trumpland. They got theirs, and they're not sharing it with anyone. They are bully pigs at the trough, shoving aside any weakling who dares to angle for sip of what they have.
They are my neighbors, and they make my skin crawl.
There is no civil discussion with these people. It's Trumpland. They got theirs, and they're not sharing it with anyone. They are bully pigs at the trough, shoving aside any weakling who dares to angle for sip of what they have.
They are my neighbors, and they make my skin crawl.
89
I agree with you Joseph reason: I grew up in a section of Philadelphia that was very much like Staten Island. In a city where half of the population is black the white guys were always complaining how blacks were given preference in hiring in city jobs. It's as if the only people who could be good cops or fireman where Irish Catholic guys. Don't you know it's their God given right! Please!
When the Trump campaign started it started to remind me of people I use know from the Catholic high school I attended. These guys, a good portion of them anyway, were like Trump. Making fun of handicap, blacks girls etc. although they were teenage boys back then a good portion of them I'm sure held onto those beliefs. So I'm sure a lot of these women are married or date guys like that. That why they can tolerate someone like Trump
When the Trump campaign started it started to remind me of people I use know from the Catholic high school I attended. These guys, a good portion of them anyway, were like Trump. Making fun of handicap, blacks girls etc. although they were teenage boys back then a good portion of them I'm sure held onto those beliefs. So I'm sure a lot of these women are married or date guys like that. That why they can tolerate someone like Trump
16
This sort of "reporting," (cough, cough), this sort of tripe sophomoric headline, designed to capture the eyes of the little brain, troglodytes among us, is emblematic of all that is wrong with the NYTs, a formerly great icon of journalism. I beg thee: Get thee to a nunnery. Make space in the internet firmament, in the world of journalism, for a serious journal up to the task at hand. Shorter Version: Serious people (and serious news sites) attend to serious things. You embarrass us; you embarrass yourself.
7
@Greg You just embarrassed yourself! This NYT article has started an honest conversation on the issues exposed by the ugly partisanship of this election. The comments here tell of the social/ethnic/sexist divide in OUR! country. Let the dialogue begin! It's long overdue.
9
You just sound sore that the Staten Island racism is being aired for what it is.
5
53% of White Women voted against Hillary Clinton. 94% of Black Women voted for Hillary Clinton. Just another day in White Privllege Land. Nothing to see here... move along.
14
"White Privilege Land"? Have you ever seen the make-up of this country? Furthermore, 94% sounds like a race-based vote to me.
10
How about those Southern states where whites vote 90-95% for white candidates? Does it sound also like a race-based vote to you? How about the almost 70% of white that voted for Trump? Also a race-based vote? Or it is just a race-based vote when blacks vote for whites?
12
Any article that looks down its nose at Waffle House already has 2 strikes against it.
16
Ah, Staten Island, a landfill among boroughs. I am nostalgic for the days when it regularly threatened to secede from New York City. Perhaps now that so many of the locals are addicted to heroin and other opiates their behavior will become less obstreperous.
25
The sad truth is that some of the Trump voters on SI will have to deal with heroin addiction in their adult children. Once their savings are obliterated by failed rehab attempts and there's no Obamacare to rely on, they're going to look back fondly on the pre-Trump years.
12
First I did not vote for donald (he will always be lower case "d"), I voted for Hillary.
I hope that our 45 President is successful. The Obama administration I feel is going to be remembered for this, the sovereignty of states. New York born and raised I now live in California. For me the most important things, beautiful weather and gun control.
Meet the Press, Face the Nation, CNN, national news,Fox News, is being replaced with Duck Dynasty. That is the reason RNC had that guy at the convention.
Gina you should not bad mouth Waffle House, I like Waffle House.
I hope that our 45 President is successful. The Obama administration I feel is going to be remembered for this, the sovereignty of states. New York born and raised I now live in California. For me the most important things, beautiful weather and gun control.
Meet the Press, Face the Nation, CNN, national news,Fox News, is being replaced with Duck Dynasty. That is the reason RNC had that guy at the convention.
Gina you should not bad mouth Waffle House, I like Waffle House.
4
how can any woman say she was undecided?
glad I don't live there.
glad I don't live there.
13
No surprise that many people in Staten Island voted for Mr. Trump. (I lived on Staten Island for 5 years.) Many, many narrow minded and bigoted people live there. Mr. Trumps xenophobic and racist rhetoric resonated well with the people on Staten Island. Glad I am no longer there.
24
"He's 70 years old. He doesn't have to do this. He is doing this because he wants to help us."
That's one explanation. The other is that he is a hollow narcissist whose one consistent personality trait from childhood on has been been a burning desire to be perceived as "better" than anyone else around him, principally through the use of boasting against a background of shiny over-the-top gold-plated props and women from a glamor photo shoot, which results in a cartoonish form of self-aggrandizement at the expense of everything - every single thing: facts, honor, logic, principal, decency, consistency, empathy, politeness, common sense, humility - which everyone else takes for granted as a functioning adult member of a cooperative civilization in order go from having his own really big airplane to the better, even bigger "more prestigious" presidential 747 that taxpayers happen to provide to the "winner" of the biggest contest this pageant-happy buffoon could see on the horizon. If the position of United Nations Secretary General happened to come with a yet larger double-decker A380 jet and residence surpassing the size of the White House then Trump, the man obsessed with having his picture taken with Miss Whatever, would undoubtably have spent the past two years running for that instead.
That's one explanation. The other is that he is a hollow narcissist whose one consistent personality trait from childhood on has been been a burning desire to be perceived as "better" than anyone else around him, principally through the use of boasting against a background of shiny over-the-top gold-plated props and women from a glamor photo shoot, which results in a cartoonish form of self-aggrandizement at the expense of everything - every single thing: facts, honor, logic, principal, decency, consistency, empathy, politeness, common sense, humility - which everyone else takes for granted as a functioning adult member of a cooperative civilization in order go from having his own really big airplane to the better, even bigger "more prestigious" presidential 747 that taxpayers happen to provide to the "winner" of the biggest contest this pageant-happy buffoon could see on the horizon. If the position of United Nations Secretary General happened to come with a yet larger double-decker A380 jet and residence surpassing the size of the White House then Trump, the man obsessed with having his picture taken with Miss Whatever, would undoubtably have spent the past two years running for that instead.
30
To Ms. Bonilla from a fellow Columbia alum....
You really don't have to convince us That you weren't attracted by his bigoted , divisive rhetoric by noting that you supported Sen Booker.
Good luck w that Ms. Bonilla!
To others calling Mrs. Clinton hard, abrasive and such .... Fyi: women who speak up have historically been tagged as such. Oh, and I forgot, nasty. Of course, the crudest, most vulgar, truly obnoxious human to ever run is better than Hillary. Hypocrisy much?
Talk about cutting your noses to spite your faces, spittingwhile lying down facing upwards and all the other cliches. I pray I'm wrong but if not, ..... We told you so.
You really don't have to convince us That you weren't attracted by his bigoted , divisive rhetoric by noting that you supported Sen Booker.
Good luck w that Ms. Bonilla!
To others calling Mrs. Clinton hard, abrasive and such .... Fyi: women who speak up have historically been tagged as such. Oh, and I forgot, nasty. Of course, the crudest, most vulgar, truly obnoxious human to ever run is better than Hillary. Hypocrisy much?
Talk about cutting your noses to spite your faces, spittingwhile lying down facing upwards and all the other cliches. I pray I'm wrong but if not, ..... We told you so.
16
"In NYC's Trump Stronghold, Some Neighborhoods Go Strongly Blue . . . On Staten Island's North Shore, Hillary Clinton's support was strong."
So read the headline and subhead of today's Staten Island Newsletter of DNA Info/New York, a citywide online daily that reported the entire election results for the borough, not merely those that confirmed expectations and conformed to the usual "Forgotten Borough" cliché.
In St. George and other neighborhoods of the North Shore's 61st Assembly District, which is the island's the oldest and most diverse sector, Clinton's share of the vote was 67 percent; in my election district, it was 80.8 percent.
Yes, the focus of the Times story is Staten Island's still mostly outlier politics versus the norm in the other boroughs. But an interesting sidelight is how this borough's growing diversity --- as in the rest of America --- is changing the borough's political profile, enabling the election and re-election of an African-American City Council representative and an openly gay state senator.
So read the headline and subhead of today's Staten Island Newsletter of DNA Info/New York, a citywide online daily that reported the entire election results for the borough, not merely those that confirmed expectations and conformed to the usual "Forgotten Borough" cliché.
In St. George and other neighborhoods of the North Shore's 61st Assembly District, which is the island's the oldest and most diverse sector, Clinton's share of the vote was 67 percent; in my election district, it was 80.8 percent.
Yes, the focus of the Times story is Staten Island's still mostly outlier politics versus the norm in the other boroughs. But an interesting sidelight is how this borough's growing diversity --- as in the rest of America --- is changing the borough's political profile, enabling the election and re-election of an African-American City Council representative and an openly gay state senator.
6
As an Black-American who has lived on Staten Island for over 10 years I can not tell you the amount of racism that I have experienced, and this was after having lived in the South. Its no secret that Staten Island is predominantly Republican, but I think everyone, especially other New Yorkers would be shocked to know how bad it really is, now you a little glimpse and can draw your own conclusions.
47
A correction to my just-submitted comment: The 61st Assembly District's openly gay representative in Albany is a member of the Assembly, not the State Senate. My apologies for the error.
1
I grew up on Staten Island. I busted my butt to get good grades to get into an Ivy League college and as far away from that rock as possible. The happiest day of the life was the day I packed the car and went off to college and never looked back. I vividly remember the talk at Space Odyssey roller rink after report cards came out in middle school - "How many did you fail?" the girls would ask each other. If you passed all your classes much less aced them you were regarded as an unpopular oddity. You can hardly blame them. They got that attitude from home. Hair, clothes and make-up were important not education. I knew smart girls who hid their intelligence and who were not allowed to go away to college. I struggle mightily with disdain for these women. I also know that many of them are caring, kindhearted and would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. And sometimes surrounded by "Minnesota nice" - I miss their honesty and warmth. I don't miss their ignorance and I resent that their fear has lead the rest of us to this horrible place. I find it in my heart to pity them.
50
Things haven't changed much, I'm afraid.
5
they could have left, Rita.
you chose well.
you chose well.
4
You just described the academic attitudes of the west and south sides of Chicago. Where 80+ years of Left rule has done nothing to help. When Trump said "What have you got to lose?", it resonated.
4
Finally a thoughtful article that seeks to explain Trump voters on his own terms. Not preconceived notions of angry white voters in trailer parks. Its a pity the Times waited until after the election to publish this piece.
13
New York City doesn't allow trailer parks, so we have Staten Island instead.
4
Making decisions based on "who you hate more" is not a strategy for supporting good governance.
I wonder if any of these women has ever actually been politically active. Having contrary opinions doesn't qualify. I mean — have they ever fought for anything, or simply fought against others who do.
Many women don't like other women. Many men don't like other men. And quite a few of them are wrapped up in their own grievances.
Donald Trump is not going to help them. He like beauty queens and authoritarian heads of state and hates fat people, Muslims and nasty women. Remember?
I wonder if any of these women has ever actually been politically active. Having contrary opinions doesn't qualify. I mean — have they ever fought for anything, or simply fought against others who do.
Many women don't like other women. Many men don't like other men. And quite a few of them are wrapped up in their own grievances.
Donald Trump is not going to help them. He like beauty queens and authoritarian heads of state and hates fat people, Muslims and nasty women. Remember?
29
Having spent the first eighteen years of my life in Staten Island, I often thought of most of its residents as being rather similar to the Beverly Hillbillies. Lots of money, big houses, and nice cars. But ignorant and uneducated. Unlike the Clampetts, they were more racist than Archie Bunker.
39
Rich people don't live on Staten Island. Rich people arrange their lives to avoid ever having to set foot on Staten Island. What you saw were the ostentatious fruits of organized crime, not wealth.
20
The personal hate of these women has wrecked the many many achievements id the past 8 years. Hoping they understand the damage they have created long term . It ia doubtful their victory will result in New factories, shiny new roads, lots of America made goods they can actually afford plus clean air and renewable energy sources. They might just realiZe their folly when their lifestyle will not be supported by the Trumps.
20
This piece, relying as it does on exit polls, continues the practice of trying to represent voters by anecdote. It really doesn't help that the anecdote is about a Trump supporter.
People vote for someone for many reasons. Sometimes, they haven't analyzed what those reasons actually are. Speaking to a reporter will produce a more rational opinion than might be the reality.
That is true for people of all political stripes. You can find people who represent whatever point of view you want to depict.
This is the kind of piece that needs to go away if the news media are to have any credibility for the future. You are not really revealing truth any more than you were revealing truth when you reported that Trump voters are the uneducated and biased. Keep pieces like this on the human interest pages or on the opinion page.
People vote for someone for many reasons. Sometimes, they haven't analyzed what those reasons actually are. Speaking to a reporter will produce a more rational opinion than might be the reality.
That is true for people of all political stripes. You can find people who represent whatever point of view you want to depict.
This is the kind of piece that needs to go away if the news media are to have any credibility for the future. You are not really revealing truth any more than you were revealing truth when you reported that Trump voters are the uneducated and biased. Keep pieces like this on the human interest pages or on the opinion page.
2
Right in your own back yard, New Yorkers! Of course, Staten Island is like New Jersey to the Manhattan resident. It's clear that the bombardment of Trump and his followers by the NY Times only further enraged his supporters. They quietly voted for him and probably lied to the exit pollsters.
12
Terrific piece. Too bad nobody was doing this kind of reporting BEFORE the election.
21
"Many of the women I spoke to conformed to none of the clichés of the Trump voter; they held graduate degrees." On Staten Island, there are far too few of these women or men. I don't agree with them, but I respect them. As for the rest of the Trump voters, far too many take pride in their ignorance.
7
Oh, please! Staten Island is, and has always been, a hot bed of racism.
59
I am a white woman from Staten Island and I am such an outlier there..
15
Me too. I feel your pain and kinda wish I could afford to move.
5
Finally, after the election the NYT has seen fit to present a more accurate cross section of Trump supporters. It does the public a disservice when the NYT and other historically important news sources decide to stick to a politically polarized narrative, presenting one point of view as the correct one and demonizing the other. In this election, even people who had voted in the past for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama became disgusted with the way in which CNN and the NYT and similar news outlets anointed Mrs. Clinton at the expense not only of Trump supporters, but of Bernie Sanders supporters. This not only raised the degree of animosity towards the idea of voting for Clinton, but also increased suspiciousness towards what the NYT saw fit to print. The net effect of all this? Increased readership at sites like Breitbart, and increased openness to outsider candidates.
17
I agree heartily with Ms. Bonilla in your article, although my response was to choose not to vote. Hillary Clinton reminds me of Marcia Clark, the OJ Simpson prosecutor: another white woman in a pantsuit who snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory and struck many people, women in particular, as hard, unsympathetic, abrasive, and just plain obnoxious. She and Clinton are the "yin" to the "yang" that was Mitch Romney: a mealy-mouthed, flip-floppin' fella who lacked as many masculine attributes as Clark and Clinton lacked feminine ones. Advice to Elizabeth Warren: use the voice tone of a loving mother and not an evil step-mother; dress respectfully and think hard about pants; smile like you mean it; look at those who speak to you, not over their heads; and keep your jaw locked safely in your neck--don't protrude it all the time like you're ready for a fight. People will still listen to you, take you seriously, and vote for you, and really, you won't be betraying anyone whose confidence matters.
5
Mrs. M, I feel for you because if this really is a woman speaking like this to another woman in power, in your words, misogyny is showing. To think that after all the callous, whiny, confrontational, hysterical tweets and disrespectful evil things done and said by this President-elect including caustic remarks made to just about everyone including disrespecting the Military, the Office of the President, the Pope and in front of His Eminence Cardinal Dolan makes one say those words to an erudite strong and progressive Stateswoman with the resume of a leader and the character of a great schoolteacher saddens me even further.
With the number of people who have made similar comments in support of this man who by most standards of presidents before him was the most “uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament” in history, we have decades before this ceiling will be smashed. If women can't be 'hard' and abrasive without being called 'obnoxious' and receiving this degree of biting advisement ("use the tone of a loving mother?" -clearly you haven't seen all sides of Senator Warren) ...even if this unsolicited meant as 'helpful advice' is from a 'New Yorker,' the US and our education system has far more work to do to support women in their efforts at equality. Thankfully Massachusetts feels far differently; I'd have her as my ally any day of the week.
With the number of people who have made similar comments in support of this man who by most standards of presidents before him was the most “uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament” in history, we have decades before this ceiling will be smashed. If women can't be 'hard' and abrasive without being called 'obnoxious' and receiving this degree of biting advisement ("use the tone of a loving mother?" -clearly you haven't seen all sides of Senator Warren) ...even if this unsolicited meant as 'helpful advice' is from a 'New Yorker,' the US and our education system has far more work to do to support women in their efforts at equality. Thankfully Massachusetts feels far differently; I'd have her as my ally any day of the week.
24
And what numerical rating do you think our new President would assign to Janene Lombardo? Or to you, Mrs. M?
10
Don't waste your sympathy, which I imagine is in short supply, on me, Alyson. I am not misogynist even if I disliked a candidate who was female, albeit one whose behavior showed every sign of lack of morals and personal responsibility. There is the notion among those like you that it is acceptable and indeed rhetorically warranted to put a label on everyone whose opinion differs from yours, as if you had been consulting a diagnostic reference of human character ailments: this one is a Misogynist, this one a Xenophobe, that one simply Unfit to Govern. How convenient that a college education provides you with the ability to inflict ad hominem assaults without having to use the racial and ethnic epithets with which the rest of the English speaking world are stuck. Don't think that they don't know that they've been insulted when your diagnosis turns on them, though--or that they won't retaliate in the voting booth. And if you're going for name-calling based on classical languages, get it right: I was equally critical of Mr. Romney, which probably just makes me a Cynic.
2
These same women would have voted against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 70s. And they continue to wonder why they make less money and are disrespected by the likes of men who mirror Trump.
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Men make more money because they are willing to take higher paying more dangerous jobs which women are not willing to take. Men and women doing the same jobs get the same pay. Try to recall the last time you saw a woman out pouring concrete, working as a mechanic, electrician, coal miner, etc. Women outnumber men in college because at the margins, women would prefer to barely make it through clean, safe college programs than take low status but higher paying hard work in the skilled trades. It is a choice.
2
"Try to recall the last time you saw a woman out pouring concrete, working as a mechanic, electrician, coal miner, etc."
I'm trying to recall the last time I saw a man doing those jobs; they've gone to machines or become obsolete. You're not helping yourself or our country by buying into the fiction that those jobs are coming back, not even for ignorant sexists.
I'm trying to recall the last time I saw a man doing those jobs; they've gone to machines or become obsolete. You're not helping yourself or our country by buying into the fiction that those jobs are coming back, not even for ignorant sexists.
7
The subheadline about the "vast, distant American territory of the Waffle House" reflects just the kind of patronizing attitude toward working class people that lost Ms. Clinton the election. It has no place in the NY Times, even if used in irony.
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Uh oh, the morality police have arrived.
7
They'll never figure that out. Michael Moore probably got more people to vote for Trump than any Trump TV ad.
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I completely agree, this election was all about giving the middle finger to the coastal snobs who think they know what's best for all of us.
14
No, I did not vote for Either Hillary or for Donald. I voted for Jill Stein. She had the same agenda as Bernie. The democrats are now reaping what they have sown. The manipulation of the system to promote their anointed one and doom Bernie also doomed the democrat machine. To those who say "Hillary would have won but for third party voters like you" I reply, "No, she was not for America, she only wanted to promote herself." Even if Hillary had won we would have been stuck in the same old morass of senseless never ending wars and economic stagnation.
15
Your comments are reminiscent of the saying about "cutting one's nose off to spike their face". How nice for you to say that the Democrats are reaping what they have sown. Unfortunately for you, the third party voters are "reaping" as well. You are still part of this country and will be on this wild ride along with the rest of us.
In theory it is all well and good to cast a ballot for someone who cannot even garner one electoral vote or write in a name for the sake of taking a stand. But in reality, when you refuse to vote for one of the viable candidates, you are casting your vote for the other. There is no way that you didn't know that Jill Stein wasn't going to win. You effectively deprived Hillary of your vote, thereby giving it to Donald.
In theory it is all well and good to cast a ballot for someone who cannot even garner one electoral vote or write in a name for the sake of taking a stand. But in reality, when you refuse to vote for one of the viable candidates, you are casting your vote for the other. There is no way that you didn't know that Jill Stein wasn't going to win. You effectively deprived Hillary of your vote, thereby giving it to Donald.
24
My question for you and others who voted for Jill Stein and therefore helped hand all of the levers of government over to those who will do everything in in their power to sabotage and overturn environmental laws over the course of the next four years is this: what exactly is the purpose of the so-called "Green" party? Because if its purpose is to save the environment, you're certainly doing a hell of a job!
6
@diana "No, she was not for America, she only wanted to promote herself." au contraire Hillary has always been for America, good government, families, women. children,the elderly, health care for all, civil rights since she began as a young law student over 40 yrs ago! She never gave up in spite of the right's unceasing vendetta trying to catch her doing something, anything wrong or indictable! A little homework with an open mind might enlighten you.
5