Two (other) things that actually surprised me about this primary season.

[DanTex]

Aside from the fact that Trump is a nominee, of course. But like Obama said, there's a pretty clear trajectory towards Trump starting from Sarah Palin and then the teabaggers. But what I didn't see coming:

1) The GOP has turned anti-free trade. Not the elites, but the base has. This is new. I've seen polls showing that before Trump, most GOP voters were pro-trade, and now most GOP voters are anti-trade. And I've seen it on social media, the same kind of right-wingers that used to call liberals idiots for not understanding the "free market" are now saying that NAFTA and TPP are job killers.

My take is this. The GOP base was always motivated by "social issues", code words for racism, misogyny, homophobia, and hatred of bicoastal liberals. They bought into the free market stuff because the people selling it were also selling racism. But Trump managed craft his anti-trade message in xenophobic terms, which made it easy for them to buy in. It's those evil Mexican rapists who are taking our jobs. It helped that Obama is pro-TPP and Republicans thinking anything Obama is bad, but more, it speaks to Trump's skill as a racist demagogue.

2) Segments of the far left hate Hillary so much they are embracing Trump. I say segments, because it's not the whole far left: Noam Chomsky is maybe the quintessential American far leftist, and he has been very clear about the importance of electing Hillary over Trump.

But there is definitely a segment of the far left out there that is pro-Trump. Assange, for example. It's obviously amplified on social media: here on DU we have seen a number of our former boardmates break off to a new forum because they weren't allowed to advocate for Trump here. But it's not just JPR and reddit. TYT, which has a fairly wide audience for alternative media, has people advocating Bernie or Bust (though Cenk is not one of them).

How large the pro-Trump leftist vote will be in the real world, remains to be seen, but it surprised me to see people who I thought were basically like me politically just further left, turning into Trump apologists.

[BSdetect]

1. I have not met or seen any such people

but I suspect they are victims of social media / tweet points

Crap gets into their brains easily thru tweeting

No real depth to their understanding?

I hope you are wrong about their possible numbers and their existence

[CincyDem]

2. Quick comment on the far left

I think there's a continuum on anarchy on the left. In some ways, moving forward and supporting a society that is constantly growing, changing, adapting to new technologies...it some ways that's a controlled anarchy. There seem to be more than a far number of folks on the far left that are willing to sign up for the uncontrolled anarchy part. They view any approach that changes the system from within to be a form a total capitulation. Their approach seems to be "if you don't want to blow up the system, then you must be 100% happy with the system". It's all black/white with no sense of gray.

Net, your point #2 doesn't surprise me because, IMHO, we have always had a burn it to the ground element on the left that is so anti-system...and they see HRC as the system. These are the folks who sell the "there's no difference between them" message. And they were around in 2000, that's for sure.

[DanTex]

3. I agree with that.

2000 was my first adult election. I was not politically involved, didn't even vote, but if I did, it might have been Nader, he had a kind of appeal to people not paying attention. But W's presidency woke me up pretty quick to the "both sides are the same" fallacy.

But, still, I'm surprised this time around, and I see some differences. One of them is Trump, who, as bad as Bush was, is considerably worse.

Also, I don't remember in 2000 leftists saying that we needed to elect Bush in order to stop Gore, something that is happening now. Nader did say that Bush would be better because it would force the Democratic Party to reform, but leftists on social media/youtube are making the argument that electing Trump is necessary to keep Hillary out of office, not just to teach Dems a lesson. That's basically what Assange is saying (and doing), and he has followers.

Of course, my views are influenced by what happened in DU, which is my main outlet for political discussion online. I didn't see coming that so many DUers were serious about electing Trump over Hillary. DU is not the real world, but it's not totally separate. Remember the Bernie or Bust people at the convention. Not the people outside protesting, that always happens, but actual delegates disrupting to the point that Sarah Silverman had to shut them up.