via WCPO.
It’s no secret that I have had little to no patience with those who keep trying to explain the “reasoning” of Trumpholes. All the excuses, all the hand-wringing have gotten an oh, please from me. Why? Because I don’t buy the excuses, never have. I was right here, in rural nDakota, I saw what happened. I heard people talk. I know what motivated them – hate, and fear born of losing their oh so precious privilege, with the fear of losing white privilege higher than any other. Bigots, misogynists, combinations, they were all upfront about their motivations. That could not have possibly been more fucking clear during the whole damn near never-ending election process. Oh, but all those Trumpholes with that ugly center, they didn’t like being disparaged or looked down upon, so they started claiming this, that, and the other for their vote. To which, my response was “bullshit.” And now, there’s a study. Yes, a fuckin’ study was undertaken to discern the true motives of Trumpholes, and guess what? Why, they are misogynistic, hateful fuckbuckets! Wow, who woulda ever guessed. For Chrissakes, the idiocy, I, it’s ohhhh.
Facts, however, as a rather more illustrious predecessor of President Trump once remarked, “are stubborn things.” Interestingly, on the very same day that Sanders offered his evidence-free defense of Trump voters in Boston, the latest data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) was released.
Philip Klinkner, a political scientist at Hamilton College and an expert on race relations, has pored over this ANES data and tells me that “whether it’s good politics to say so or not, the evidence from the 2016 election is very clear that attitudes about blacks, immigrants, and Muslims were a key component of Trump’s appeal.” For example, he says, “in 2016 Trump did worse than Mitt Romney among voters with low and moderate levels of racial resentment, but much better among those with high levels of resentment.”
The new ANES data only confirms what a plethoraofstudies have told us since the start of the presidential campaign: the race was about race. Klinkner himself grabbed headlines last summer when he revealed that the best way to identify a Trump supporter in the U.S. was to ask “just one simple question: is Barack Obama a Muslim?” Because, he said, “if they are white and the answer is yes, 89 percent of the time that person will have a higher opinion of Trump than Clinton.” This is economic anxiety? Really?
Other surveys and polls of Trump voters found “a strong relationship between anti-black attitudes and support for Trump”; Trump supporters being “more likely to describe African Americans as ‘criminal,’ ‘unintelligent,’ ‘lazy’ and ‘violent’”; more likely to believe “people of color are taking white jobs”; and a “majority” of them rating blacks “as less evolved than whites.” Sorry, but how can any of these prejudices be blamed on free trade or low wages?
Okay, there’s all the stuff most of us already knew. Can we finally stop fucking pretending that these people were simply suffering from economic wounds? They are horrible, immoral, nasty assholes. Now, if the rest of the liberal/lefty/democratic side can finally get this through their unfortunately thick skulls*, perhaps the Resistance could gain some solid ground.
*In particular, I am sick to death of Sanders making excuses for these Trumpholes.
The Intercept has the full story.
The economic hardships claim is bullshit on every level.
Even if I grant a liberal asshole that a bunch of Chitler’s voters were sad about their money, they still have all their work cut out for them to show what in Trump’s past or present made the non-racist voters think he’s the guy to fix their problems.
Saad:
Which wouldn’t work on any level. I know a lot of people who voted for him would be outraged to be called a bigot, but the truth is right there -- at bottom, no matter what they declare, there was a group of people they wanted beaten down.
I’m actually surprised at this. I figured most of them would be creationists.
The prejudices themselves can’t be, but economic distress can exacerbate the overall damage of prejudice on society. (A tiger who is hungry and desperate is more dangerous than one who isn’t but I wouldn’t want to be locked in a cage with either.)
Bigots will be bigots and assholes will be assholes, but if you offer them the choice between beating down the people they hate and not losing their livelihood, at least some of them might have to think first, and that might be sufficient to swing an election.
@1, Saad:
Well, rises in fascism usually start during specific kinds of economic hardship. Claiming that economic hardship “causes” fascism is a bit like claiming a spark causes an explosion and ignoring the underlying powder keg, but it’s definitely a risk factor.
I doubt any of them exactly thought about it. However, two things are clear:
1. When the most repugnant of bigots experience economic shock (that is, sudden but prolonged loss of stability), they tend to turn to fascist strongmen, for reasons even they couldn’t explain.
2. In the face of a two-party system, the evaluation of any candidate can only be seen in light of the other. For all the horrors of Trump, we have to remember that he was being evaluated in comparison to Clinton, and she was a corrupt toady of the corporate aristocracy who represented everything wrong with the Washington establishment.
Now, that’s not a commentary on what any voters thought or did. I’m not here to coddle Trumpholes. However, if we want to win elections we need to accept political realities. People make irrational decisions; they tend to make irrational decisions in specific ways, and those patterns can be managed and mitigated or even exploited. Exactly what “reasons” the Trumpholes have or think they have are irrelevant to the broader scheme of what strategies win elections.
Trump offered the same con white aristocrats have been running for centuries: “Yes, I will support the supremacy of the aristocracy over everyone else, but I’ll also support the supremacy of white people over everyone else! White peasants, support me and I will give you the racial supremacy you think you deserve!” It’s the divide-and-conquer tactic that race itself was invented to support.
While Clinton offered, essentially: “Yes, I will support the support the supremacy of the aristocracy over everyone else, but you have to vote for me or else the racist will win!” Nationwide, that’s a bit of a tough sell. It would have been better to offer up a candidate opposed to the stranglehold of the oligarchy who could genuinely promise economic reforms and economic recovery— not because the Trumpholes are motivated by economic reasons but simply because (a) that candidate would win, and (b) all else being equal, economic reforms are actually a good thing.
Perhaps to express the relationship between economic concerns and Trump more coherently:
Being impoverished does not justify committing crime. Poverty is not an excuse for committing crime. Poverty is essentially never the immediate cause of any individual crime. Poverty is almost never the motive that drives someone to commit a crime. If a robber says: “I did it because I’m poor,” they’re probably just saying what they presume a liberal wants to hear or what they think might get them a more lenient sentence. And yet, addressing poverty reduces crime.
Similarly, economic distress doesn’t justify supporting Trump, doesn’t excuse Trumpism, isn’t the immediate cause of Trumpism and is not the conscious motivation behind voting for Trump. A Trumphole who says: “I did it because of economic reasons” is not being truthful. And yet, an economic recovery (or a candidate articulating the reforms that would lead to one) would have kept Trump safely away from power.
Jessie Harban @3
Why? Even within a 6000 year old world view, if “evolution” can be used in a derogatory way, it will. Creationism does not support rational thought.
Jessie Harban,
Yeah, but that doesn’t explain your reason for not voting for Clinton.
Who says I didn’t?