13 remarkable quotes from people who voted for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump

13 remarkable quotes from people who voted for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump

President Trump won the 2016 election because of a small number of voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — voters who in many cases had also cast ballots for Barack Obama.

But how can a person vote for two such fundamentally different candidates just a few years apart?

1. A Michigan woman:

“Obama is more like your best friend who has parties and has Beyoncé over, and then Trump is like your dad. He's going to come whoop your ass because you didn't do what you were supposed to do and get it done, yeah.”

2. A Michigan man:

“I just, she never like went away and like rebranded herself. She just stayed. She was like a piece of [expletive] that wouldn't go down the toilet. She just like, she was done being secretary of state. You knew the next step was she was just gearing up to run for presidential, and she never got away. And then there always like with her and her husband, just always some kind of scandal of them d‑‑‑ing people over.”

3. A Wisconsin woman:

“I voted for Obama too, because, I mean, there's always been a white person, obviously, in office. I mean, he was of African descent, so I voted for him thinking I would change a little bit of the race issues that we had going on and make the colored people feel better, like they have a black person in office.”

4. A Wisconsin woman:

“I thought it was funny when he announced he was running for President, to be honest with you. Yeah. I really chuckled. I was like is this seriously who we have to vote for?”

5. A Wisconsin man:

“I'm still, to this day, amazed he's our president. I think about it sometimes, and I can't believe it. Like I'll see him on TV, and I just can't believe he's the president. … I mean, one minute he's on this thing — you know, 'You're fired' and all that stuff — and the next thing he's, you know, we're sending missiles over to Syria. And I just, I'm just, I'm wowed.” (Again, this man and everyone else here voted for Trump.)

6. A Wisconsin woman:

“They made Trump, I think, — I, well, I shouldn't say it was the media's fault, it was pretty much his mouth's fault — but he made himself look like a very mean, cruel person that just was very racist. And I thought he would, everyone was going to vote for Hillary because of that.”

7. Michigan man:

“Well, on top of that, she had an earwig in, and they were feeding her the answers.” (This was a conspiracy theory pushed by the Drudge Report and others. A woman on the panel seemed to agree, responding: “Right, well, that's what I'm saying.")

8. Michigan man:

“She just didn't care what she said to people, and, you know, avoided every issue that was out there, and didn't really want to really answer any questions. And, you know, it was all sideline, political."

9. Wisconsin man:

“I think they all lie, but Trump was more — is more obvious.”

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10. A Michigan man:

“There were quite a few opportunities for him to stand up to defend things, and all he did was just roll over and show his belly every time.”

11. A Michigan woman:

“And I always thought that Obama is a really nice guy. Trump is not. But Trump is going to be a better president, because Obama was not.”

12. A Michigan man:

“Oh, you know, Obama is like a very entertaining speaker. Like he's captivating, and but he, yeah, he just, he tries to appease everybody.”

13. A Wisconsin woman:

“I didn't always like listening to Hillary. I didn't always agree with what he said, but I could listen to his like speech and stuff a wee bit more than Hillary's. Like anything she said just turned me off.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/04/13-remarkable-quotes-from-people-who-voted-for-both-barack-obama-and-donald-trump/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.3d152d9058c2


Wow. Just think, these people will be voting again one day....

I think I like #11 best. They're all so endearingly clueless & random, bless 'em!!!

Like, well, you know, like wow! man, like pass that spiff, doood...

13 empty-headed American airhead voters...
With less than one functioning brain between the whole 'bakers' dozen'.        

2 and 4 I sort of agree with

5, 9 and 13 can totally see being reasonable voters

the reality is Hillary LOST, trump didn't win because he was trump he won because he wasn't Hillary, many trump voters said they would have voted Bernie, really they were just voting against the established political powers.

Dems lost cause they didn't listen to the people and instead stuck their head in the sand and kept running with their puppet.

I think Labor in the Uk is doing similar with corbyn, democracy is just a popularity contest after all

veya wrote:the reality is Hillary LOST, trump didn't win because he was trump he won because he wasn't Hillary, many trump voters said they would have voted Bernie, really they were just voting against the established political powers.

You've been drinking some of that RW Kool-Aid there, veya.

The reality is, Hillary WON.  She got over 3-million more votes than Trump.  I can understand someone saying Trump succeeded in overcoming the popular vote, but one cannot make any generalities based upon popularity.  Clinton was the more popular.

America is not a democracy, despite the pablum fed to the public.  There are many artifices and devices in the Constitution to assure that the popular vote is not determinative...the electoral college being one of them.  You've swallowed the pablum and then some if you believe that winning political office in America means popularity.

The real lesson here is that Republicans have studied, and figured out how to get around the influence of popularity, or democracy.  Republicans are not popular, but they have learned to manipulate the system to get around their lack of popularity: gerrymandering, voter suppression, dominating local and state political offices, manipulating the EC, and even recruiting Russian help.  Theirs is a triumph, not of popularity, but of manipulation.

So I would advise you not look to the voters to ascertain how Hillary lost, or Trump won.  Look to the artifices and devices in the Constitution, and how Republicans have truly mastered them.  Frankly, it's quite an admirable engineering feat.

She didn't officially win but she won on single vote counts. That's similar to what happened in the U.K. between the Tory vote and ukip.

Thankfully the voting system worked and ukip didn't get in. But we got stuck with the tories instead.

eddie wrote:She didn't officially win but she won on single vote counts. That's similar to what happened in the U.K. between the Tory vote and ukip.

Thankfully the voting system worked and ukip didn't get in. But we got stuck with the tories instead.

The reality is, Hillary WON.  Winning means scoring better.  She got over 3-million more votes than Trump.  

We should distinguish between saying Trump succeeded in overcoming the popular vote, and the popular vote itself.  The real point is, one cannot make any generalities based upon popularity.  Clinton was the more popular.

Clearly, in the eyes of the people in modern times, winning the popular vote is the more legitimate.  So Republicans love to obscure the difference between popularity and succeeding.  Veya was borrowing from RW arguments...saying that Trump's success was related to the popularity factor.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

I really could dine out for months on going into Milton Keynes and seeking similar quotations, though in a UK political context!

(Note to our American and Australian buddies: Only someone who has the grave misfortune to actually live near Milton Keynes could even begin to understand and appreciate the fully intentional irony of this post!)

@Quill
is she president?
no, so she lost

And Trumps success was do to Hillary's lack of popularity compared with other potential and past Democratic candidates. she is no Obama. And interestingly Repubs got same number of votes as in Obama's second term, but Hillary got a lot less votes than Obama did. therefore Hillary lost because she could not convince enough Democrats to turn up to polling booths out side of cities


AND Clearly the op is about 13 people that voted Dems when they had a good candidate

Plus I only see people saying popular vote is more important when their side loses,
we have a similar system here that gives greater weight to individual votes in rural areas because it is NOT popular vote that counts, never has been, it is the number of seats won and less individuals live in the rural seats. that's the game that they way it is scored, nothing magically changed this time then when Obama won. Just like tennis individual points total does not decide the winner it is who can take the most sets to win the match.

veya_victaous wrote:@Quill
is she president?
no, so she lost

And Trumps success was do to Hillary's lack of popularity compared with other potential and past Democratic candidates. she is no Obama. And interestingly Repubs got same number of votes as in Obama's second term, but Hillary got a lot less votes than Obama did. therefore Hillary lost because she could not convince enough Democrats to turn up to polling booths out side of cities


AND Clearly the op is about 13 people that voted Dems when they had a good candidate

Plus I only see people saying popular vote is more important when their side loses,
we have a similar system here that gives greater weight to individual votes in rural areas because it is NOT popular vote that counts, never has been, it is the number of seats won and less individuals live in the rural seats. that's the game that they way it is scored, nothing magically changed this time then when Obama won. Just like tennis individual points total does not decide the winner it is who can take the most sets to win the match.

But this was a vote on a national leader
Not regional
So its then not a real democratic vote
When you vote as a nation for a leader, its based on the most votes or it should be.

Dont get me wrong, Hilary is an idiot, but she got overall more national votes than Trump on a vote to lead the nation.

What has regions got to do with that?

well it never has been and there is no 'real democracies' on the planet.
it is based on the regional electorates that each win, some of the reasons are logistical as it allows quicker vote counting

And Purely 'most votes' creates city centrism where b there is no investment in rural infrastructure or needs because you will garner more votes in large cities.

In Australia for example it means if you win from Newcastle to Wollongong (less than 400km out of 2000km of east coast with Sydney in the center) you have about a third of the votes then you only need Melbourne and you've won.
Don't need to ever invest a cent in western, southern or northern Australia.

veya_victaous wrote:well it never has been and there is no 'real democracies' on the planet.
it is based on the regional electorates that each win, some of the reasons are logistical as it allows quicker vote counting

And Purely 'most votes' creates city centrism where b there is no investment in rural infrastructure or needs because you will garner more votes in large cities.

In Australia for example it means if you win from Newcastle to Wollongong (less than 400km out of 2000km of east coast with Sydney in the center) you have about a third of the votes then you only need Melbourne and you've won.
Don't need to ever invest a cent in western, southern or northern Australia.

Again hat has regions got to do with a majority national voting for a national leader?

What has cities got to do with a majority national vote for a national leader?

Is your only reason a supposed claim to bias between cities and rural areas, even though this is about a leader and not a political party itself? Does then not the rural area have a bias over the cities then based on a minority?

Again the only true fair way is based off a majority, regional geography has nothing to do with a majority voting for a person to lead the nation. As how can you have a minority rule a majority?
That is not democracy.

veya wrote:@Quill
is she president?
no, so she lost

In a non-democratic state.  What Hillary lost is the office, not the popularity.  All you are doing it highlighting the difference between the popular vote and the way one becomes president in a non-democratic state:

Hillary won the popular vote.  Trump won the presidency.  End of...

That settled, the point I am making is that you can't say that Trump has the people with him.  The people are against Trump.

Likewise, you can't say that Trump has any mandate.  It is a contradiction in terms to say anything is a mandate when the majority of the people are against it.  Trump won because the electoral college put him in office; the electoral college does not create mandates when it comes to policy.

Having a president that the majority of the people oppose will inevitably cause tension.  Will it cause an upheaval?  Most certainly, unless the ship rights itself very quickly--I'll give it one election cycle.  This situation has come about because of deception; the longer it goes, the weaker the deception and the more inevitable will be the correction.  We are already seeing demonstrations; what is next?

Thorin wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:well it never has been and there is no 'real democracies' on the planet.
it is based on the regional electorates that each win, some of the reasons are logistical as it allows quicker vote counting

And Purely 'most votes' creates city centrism where b there is no investment in rural infrastructure or needs because you will garner more votes in large cities.

In Australia for example it means if you win from Newcastle to Wollongong (less than 400km out of 2000km of east coast with Sydney in the center) you have about a third of the votes then you only need Melbourne and you've won.
Don't need to ever invest a cent in western, southern or northern Australia.

Again hat has regions got to do with a majority national voting for a national leader? the constitution of the USA

What has cities got to do with a majority national vote for a national leader? the reason the constitution was written the way it was by men wiser than you

Is your only reason a supposed claim to bias between cities and rural areas, even though this is about a leader and not a political party itself? Does then not the rural area have a bias over the cities then based on a minority? as individuals yes, as groups no. it i supposed to be balanced the USA is currently not balanced it is meant to periodically adjusted to account for changes in demographics

Again the only true fair way is based off a majority, regional geography has nothing to do with a majority voting for a person to lead the nation. As how can you have a minority rule a majority? Wolf will tell you that is not fair His area would never have a new road Built if that was the case
That is not democracy. yes it is still democracy just not first past the post democracy each electorate is a democracy in it's own right then it is democratic based on the majority of electorates

the thing you always miss is your opinion on what is fair doesn't matter, it is what it is because that is the agreed laws of the USA

it's not my opi9non of what is fair or right either it is just what it is

Original Quill wrote:

veya wrote:@Quill
is she president?
no, so she lost

In a non-democratic state.  What Hillary lost is the office, not the popularity.  All you are doing it highlighting the difference between the popular vote and the way one becomes president in a non-democratic state:

Hillary won the popular vote.  Trump won the presidency.  End of...

That settled, the point I am making is that you can't say that Trump has the people with him.  The people are against Trump.

Likewise, you can't say that Trump has any mandate.  It is a contradiction in terms to say anything is a mandate when the majority of the people are against it.  Trump won because the electoral college put him in office; the electoral college does not create mandates when it comes to policy.

Having a president that the majority of the people oppose will inevitably cause tension.  Will it cause an upheaval?  Most certainly, unless the ship rights itself very quickly--I'll give it one election cycle.  This situation has come about because of deception; the longer it goes, the weaker the deception and the more inevitable will be the correction.  We are already seeing demonstrations; what is next?

you like the democrats have missed the point by a country mile

She is LESS popular than Obama that is why she was not popular enough.
For Any democrat (or city focused politician) needs to be more than just more popular than the their opponent in the popular vote alone. they need to have the broadest appeal across all national demographics. Hillary had high appeal in a minority of demographics, which is not good enough

She was less popular because she was the target of a non-stop defamation campaign that dates back to the late 80s/early 90s.

Think about it -- how many times has she been under Republican investigation? Google "Whitewater." They've thrown everything they could at her, including the kitchen sink.

How many times has she actually been convicted of a crime and sentenced?

Either she's as slippery as Trump, or ... wait for it ...

IT WAS ALWAYS JUST BULLSHIT!

Which do you think is more plausible?

By the way, the "evil ambitious woman" meme has been used to help at least one serial killer evade justice: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/nyregion/new-york-city-real-estate-heir-is-acquitted-of-murder-in-texas.html

Investigate for yourself and judge for yourself.

I think she is slippery, but then I think most of them are. Perhaps she didn't do all or most of what she's accused of, but she ain't no Snow White and neither was her husband.

They're all corrupt. It just depends which type of corruption you can live with.

veya_victaous wrote: the constitution of the USA

the reason the constitution was written the way it was by men wiser than you

as individuals yes, as groups no. it i supposed to be balanced the USA is currently not balanced it is meant to periodically adjusted to account for changes in demographics

yes it is still democracy just not first past the post democracy each electorate is a democracy in it's own right then it is democratic based on the majority of electorates

the thing you always miss is your opinion on what is fair doesn't matter, it is what it is because that is the agreed laws of the USA

it's not my opi9non of what is fair or right either it is just what it is

1) Which as seen the US constitution allows for someone to gain the Presidency from a minority vote, hence it requires changing.

2) What has that got to do with anything here?

3) So you think a person elected from a minority over the majority is democratic? I would beg to differ.

4) Again when it comes to a national vote, the regions should have no application to the outcome of the vote. Each regions have their own elected senators, of which then people regionally elect to govern them in these areas. Again this is about a national leader not a regional leader, hence the absurdity of basing this regionally and not nationally.

5) As to rural and city, you can again vote locally for elected leaders. So your point is moot. What you are doing is placing those rural above those who live in cities based on population density

Ben Reilly wrote:She was less popular because she was the target of a non-stop defamation campaign that dates back to the late 80s/early 90s.

Think about it -- how many times has she been under Republican investigation? Google "Whitewater." They've thrown everything they could at her, including the kitchen sink.

How many times has she actually been convicted of a crime and sentenced?

Either she's as slippery as Trump, or ... wait for it ...

IT WAS ALWAYS JUST BULLSHIT!

Which do you think is more plausible?

By the way, the "evil ambitious woman" meme has been used to help at least one serial killer evade justice: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/nyregion/new-york-city-real-estate-heir-is-acquitted-of-murder-in-texas.html

Investigate for yourself and judge for yourself.

Nah I remember back in the 90's protesting(attending concerts ) against her and Bill for their Ultra right wing attempted to Americanize Australia.
She has always been about pushing corporate interests over the populace that didn't want it. But so are pretty much all US politicians.

Plus she is just another party hack
Bernie would have been better


And she is way more slippery than trump, trump is just an idiot, Hillary is smart.

Thorin wrote:

veya_victaous wrote: the constitution of the USA

the reason the constitution was written the way it was by men wiser than you

as individuals yes, as groups no. it i supposed to be balanced the USA is currently not balanced it is meant to periodically adjusted to account for changes in demographics

yes it is still democracy just not first past the post democracy each electorate is a democracy in it's own right then it is democratic based on the majority of electorates

the thing you always miss is your opinion on what is fair doesn't matter, it is what it is because that is the agreed laws of the USA

it's not my opi9non of what is fair or right either it is just what it is

1) Which as seen the US constitution allows for someone to gain the Presidency from a minority vote, hence it requires changing.

2) What has that got to do with anything here?

3) So you think a person elected from a minority over the majority is democratic? I would beg to differ.

4) Again when it comes to a national vote, the regions should have no application to the outcome of the vote. Each regions have their own elected senators, of which then people regionally elect to govern them in these areas. Again this is about a national leader not a regional leader, hence the absurdity of basing this regionally and not nationally.

5) As to rural and city, you can again vote locally for elected leaders. So your point is moot. What you are doing is placing those rural above those who live in cities based on population density

Not me, well worn Constitutions of nations that span continents
I say NO Vote, Skynet for all