Thread:Charlemagne255/@comment-3180503-20161104023625/@comment-3247345-20161127051453

However, I'm confused as to exactly how maintaining the divisions doesn't just pave the way for more Trumps.

Divisions didn't cause Trump, the rot in the two party system did. The middle class is dying and no one in the mainstream was doing anything about it. Trump rose from the ashes of a party that Bush discredited. Hillary had the nomination handed to her by a DNC that was completely in her pocket.

The two party system by its very structure breeds polarization, and to win a candidate needs to be able to secure the support of his/her own base and then flip and gain enough votes from outside their natural base. It takes political skill to do that but system tends to select for people that have it if it's free and fair. This election was different because the Republicans didn't have anyone that could unite the base because it was in such disarray after Bush, with the only thing uniting being opposition to Obama. The Democrats were in better shape but their insiders decided to rig the primary for Hillary because they pretty much promised it to her after Obama's term. That prevented their most electable candidate, Bernie Sanders from running.

The Republicans didn't have an electable candidate in the normal sense and the Democrats shafted their's. I think at the end of the day Trump won the  swing states because he wasn't stained with the failed policies of both parties over the last 35 years or so.