WASHINGTON, D.C. Nov. 14 (DPI) – Longtime Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson posed an important question in a recent column: After decades now of elections in which the state of the economy has been the central issue for voters, is it possible now that other matters – particularly hot-button social issues – are motivating the electorate more?

After last week’s midterms, which saw Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, Samuelson pointed out that in other times the state of the economy would have played a more decisive role in an election. But this year, voters were driven as much by the divisive leadership and bombastic rhetoric of Donald Trump as any economic indicator, Samuelson suggested.

And reader comments – nearly 700 over two days – suggested that the politics of inequality and division motivated voters more than ever before.  The most popular comments were often angry and hostile – even hostile to the columnist, who was simply serving up a relevant question to readers.  The most popular comments:

It may not be the economy, stupid,  but it could be the stupid economy, an economy where the 1% continue to gain at everyone else’s expense, where there’s no job security, it’s not possible for most Americans to make it without a single paycheck, let alone save for retirement, where so many are just one health problem away from bankruptcy, and we ride onward towards economic and ecological catastrophe plain for even the “little people” to see in the forms of climate change and unsustainable deficits (to pay for unecessary wars and tax cuts for the rich).  Really kind of surprised that a decorated economist apparently can’t see any of this, and thinks that table scraps cast in the direction of the masses ought to be enough to sustain the unity of the nation.

False equivalence from Sanuelson…Clinton called Trump supporters deplorables, but only after Trump led the RNC convention in screaming attacks on her and her safety, with their “Lock her Up” attacks. And that was just the start…Trump and the GOP have unleashed racism, religious bigotry, contempt for women, contempt for the rule of law, and an unprecedented avalanche of lies and distortions.
Hatred and fear are what the GOP has to sell…and we are left with the whirlwind.

Unlike you and the false equivalence mantra I place most of the blame with Trump and the Republican party. Trump has gone out of his way to divide the country and right wing media, and Fox in particular, have been actively assisting.  Well any American with a brain can see the right gave a huge tax cut to the rich that they then want to pay for by cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Maybe all the rightwing voters who were told every day of Obama’s presidency that the national debt was a huge problem have not quite figured out how it is then wise to give a huge tax cut to the rich and make the debt soar so the rest of us will have to pay it back.
I think it is still the economy and the problem is that trump and the Republicans have rigged it for the rich so that when the inevitable recession comes the austerity that will make everyone’s lives miserable will be caused because of the tax cut so the rich could get richer.
It is the economy and trump and the right have shafted every American except for the rich and that doesn’t sit well with anyone who has figured this out which means most people.