Summarizing my impressions regarding presidential elections, in general, 2016, in

particular.
In my life time, political parties have become more polarized. Regarding platforms,
they're either more reliably conservative or progressive. Voters have clearer choices.
Voters, though, aren't more polarized. They just don't need to switch parties as much
based on issues.
Accordingly, the number of swing states has been cut in half (more than that, really).
Battleground states, though, are not mostly comprised of swing voters per se. Precisely
because of the party-sorting mentioned above, swing states are much more so
comprised of voters that can be variously mobilized, much less so of voters that can be
persuaded.
The notion of large numbers of independents or swing voters or persuade-ables is
increasingly a myth.
HOWEVER, presidential primaries ARE driven by persuasion more than mobilization. And,
derivatively, this issue-based persuasion very much can carryover into an enthusiasm
surge, such as Trump enjoyed, or a gap, such as Clinton experienced.
So, issues very much inuenced Trump's turnout, whether it was his anti-immigrantion trade protectionism - anti-terrorism triad, which appealed to trumpkins, or scotus
appointments, which provided a rationale for gop loyalists.
Also, issues very much inuenced Clinton's enthusiasm gap, as they were mostly
lacking, her primary issue being that Donald was scary on social and foreign policy; she
failed to emphasize why anyone should vote FOR her rather than merely against Trump.
She shouldn't be so hypercritiqued, however, to the extent that we lose sight of the fact
that she will, when the 2016 tally's nal, have broken all historical popular vote records
(except for Barry's).
So, issues very much matter. HOWEVER, they matter much more so for voter
mobilization, intra-tribally, not so much for voter persuasion, inter-tribally.
When the analysts decipher it all, I'm predicting that Trump will not have stolen near as
many Barry-voters as Hillary will have idled (for lack of ideological fuel, i.e. did not speak
to their issues).

With that in mind, how many of those idled Barry-voters are experiencing Non-Voters'
Remorse?
Before the election, the African American Research Collaborative polled 1,200
African-American registered voters representative of the national black voting
population. Only 20 percent of black voters said they were more excited to vote in 2016
than they were in 2012, compared with 54 percent who said they were more enthusiastic
about voting in 2012.
Exit-polling has now conrmed this enthusiasm gap!
While enthusiasm was down, the perceived importance of voting for the president was
HIGHERthis year than it was in 2012 56 percent of black voters said it was more
important to vote in 2016, compared with only 8 percent who said 2012 was more
important!
That makes for a rather strong case for the probability of a large measure of non-voter's
remorse, no?
Post-election, the Washington Post partnered with the Schar School of Policy and
Government at George Mason University to survey Americans. Among the questions we
asked was: How do you feel about the election of Donald Trump as president?
The question was open-ended but far more (almost 2:1) non-voters said they felt upset,
terrible, scared or shocked than happy and hopeful. Non-voter's remorse?
Now, for an election that turned on slightly more than 100,000 votes, from three
battleground states, out of 125 million or more cast, how much of a stretch would it be
to imagine that any three out of just Milwaukee, Detroit, the NC Research Triangle,
Philadelphia or Miami-Broward-St.Lucie could ip the 2016 outcome based on
Non-voters' Remorse?
Would they stay home if given a do-over?
Would they be apathetic given the appointments of Bannon and Sessions?
No, a do-over election wouldn't take place in a vacuum but the demographics would be
there for the plucking, no matter how many trumpkins might turn out (and Trump has
already maxed out the McCain and Romney turnouts vs Hillary's suboptimal Barry-voter
recruitment).

Perhaps mid-term elections will exact a rebalancing, although off-year elections seldom
favor candidates of the young, poor or people of color, especially those practically
disenfranchised by cynical voter suppression efforts.