Trump Supporters

Salena Zito spent some time in Pennsylvania to learn about Trump supporters first hand.

It's a good piece. Here are some excerpts:

In interview after interview in all corners of the state, I've found that Trump's support across the ideological spectrum remains strong. Democrats, Republicans, independents, people who have not voted in presidential elections for years — they have not wavered in their support.

Two components of these voters' answers and profiles remain consistent: They are middle-class, and they do not live in a big city....

While Trump supporters here are overwhelmingly white, their support has little to do with race (yes, you'll always find one or two who make race the issue) but has a lot to do with a perceived loss of power.

Not power in the way that Washington or Wall Street board rooms view power, but power in the sense that these people see a diminishing respect for them and their ways of life, their work ethic, their tendency to not be mobile ...

These are voters who are intellectually offended watching the Affordable Care Act crumble because they warned six years ago that it was an unworkable government overreach. They are the same people who wonder why President Obama has not taken a break from a week of golfing to address the devastating floods in Louisiana. (As one woman told me, “It appears as if he only makes statements during tragedies if there is political gain attached.”)

Voice such a remark, and you risk being labeled a racist in many parts of America. ...

It is no surprise that white identity politics is, if not rising, as least more visible today. The Progressives, especially the culture warriors, have been using identity politics as a political arsenal for decades. At some point, it was probably inevitable that some whites would surrender to the Progressive agenda and embrace identity politics themselves.

That said, I think the vast majority of Trump supporters are not thinking about "white identity" themselves, but are concerned about the racism that's been used against them for the last couple of generations, and which seems to be getting worse. That's a legitimate concern, and no one needs to adopt white identity politics to address that.

Zito's claims make sense to me: Trump support is in large part about being on the losing-but-right side in the culture wars, and it's about the unjust economic consequences of that for the future. She notes that Trump supporters themselves are more likely to be employed and solidly middle class; it is their children and grandchildren they fear for.

5 comments:

Grim said...

Democrats like James Carville are running a hazard that their people might start believing the flattering propaganda they're putting out. The claims that this is really about white people not being comfortable with non-white people coming into power not only look obvious counterexamples (Clarence Thomas being only the most prominent), but also dismiss the ideology of their opponents.

I'm bothered a great deal by the idea that everything I believe about what the Constitution is for and what it says is about to be swept away by a narrow Progressive majority on the Supreme Court. Five people who always vote in lockstep will deem themselves fit to rule more than a hundred million voters' convictions about the Constitution permanently illegitimate. If Harry Reid wins the Senate, he's said he'll do away with the filibuster. Perhaps 40-45% of American voters will find themselves without any representation that matters at the Federal level.

What's going to happen then? Nullification crises, obviously, as such voters shift to the states to assert their political will (and at the state level the Republican party has done very well this last decade). The Federal courts will, of course, rule in favor of the Federal government against all the states. So the states will have to actually defy both the executive and the courts. And that looks like one step away from real violence.

That's what I see as worrisome, but what I hear is that I must be worried about having to share power with people who don't look like me.

Eric Blair said...

Well "That don't look like me" canard is real bullshit, otherwise, how in the world would have Nikki Haley been elected governor of South Carolina.

Or Tim Scott elected Senator?

It's the big lie constantly repeated. If there is one, Goebbels is laughing in hell right now.

Texan99 said...

I saw a Trump sign in a neighbor's yard today, first I've noticed in the neighborhood.

Ymar Sakar said...

The New World Order, the educated elite Born to Rule types, are the ones that control higher strategy in the Leftist alliance. It only makes sense that the same applies for the Alt Right, where most people are neutral and consumers of white supremacy beliefs and cultures, they are not the creators of the idea, any more than Stalin created Marx's ideals from scratch. They borrow the power of what is currently in vogue, and use the opportunity to strike. Now of all times, they must take advantage of the gap and the conflict in factionalism.

It was the Democrats who first benefited from white supremacy and eugenics in the USA, but then discarded it due to political issues. Without a mainstream party to rely on for protection, people could only go to the KKK or Storm Front or David Dukes or the various other internet white eugenicist philosophers (no the Dixiecrats didn't go Republican).

douglas said...

"Perhaps 40-45% of American voters will find themselves without any representation that matters at the Federal level."

There's got to be a good 25% already (maybe more) like me- Red in a state so heavily blue that my choice for Senator is between two completely repulsive and corrupt Democrats. My vote for President (if I make one) won't matter either- hasn't for quite a while.

So, you're probably right in the assessment that the migration patterns will continue to reinforce the division by state, and eventually, things will have to reach a boiling point of some kind.