Yes It Was Racism, Stupid

As long as we're focused on 2016, turns out people like me were right -- it was racism "racial anxiety," not economic anxiety, among white voters that led to Trump's victory:

"Economic factors played a much smaller role, suggesting that Trump’s rise was shaped more by cultural and racial concerns than by economics. For example, white working-class voters who displayed economic fatalism — measured through the belief that getting a college education is 'a gamble' — were only twice as likely to prefer Trump.

And economic hardship among white working-class Americans actually predicted more support for Hillary Clinton, not Trump: Although not highly statistically significant, the survey found that '[t]hose who reported being in fair or poor financial shape were 1.7 times more likely to support Clinton, compared to those who were in better financial shape.' This finding rebukes the common sentiment that poor white Americans came out in droves to put Trump over the top in 2016."

In the American media "working class" is coded entirely as meaning "white people."  That's pretty much the heart of the problem.

But if only liberal elitists like Hillary had gone to Pennsylvania more often then she wouldn't have lost to a down-to-earth, man-of-the-people New York real-estate mogul / reality TV star.