>And these people felt hated and alienated long before Trump, and nobody really did anything to bring them back into the fold over the last 4 or 8 years.

I see your point, but let's not pretend here - that crowd was given ample opportunity to become economically stable since the times of Obama. Example: job retraining in Coal Country. Obama rolled out the red carpet for them, offering retraining, upskilling, everything under the sun. But no, those people just wanted to work in the mines, even though everyone and their cousin knew those mining jobs were not coming back. That group clung to their old ways, and when Trump said he'd bring the jobs back, they voted for him. The jobs never came back, and they voted for him again anyway.

>The Republic may well fall as a direct result of your kind of attitude. Being so absolutely certain of how right you are isn't going to help you.

It'll fall because a bunch of people who voted for "muh economy" didn't see the error of thinking a 6-time bankrupt conman would help them. My kind of attitude? Bugger off, my kind of attitude calls a spade a spade. "This fat makeup-wearing career criminal who inherited hundreds of millions yet bankrupted 2 casinos and declared personal bankruptcy 6 times is TOTALLY THE GUY WHO IS GOING TO REINVIGORATE THE US ECONOMY" I mean, where'd your common sense go? Oh yeah, people fell for this twice now. As if plenty of evidence from the first go-round wasn't enough.

Do I blame them? Yes, I absolutely do. Do I blame Democrats for managing to snatch defeat from what should have been an easy victory? Yeah, I absolutely do.