The Only Possible Way to Understand White Trump Voters

[SimpleDon]

From Medium is this interesting article by a reader of the web site, Jack Luna, The Only Possible Way to Understand White Trump Voters.

This Labor Day weekend, many of us observed what appeared to be a nationwide pride parade devoted to worshipping the first aspiring American dictator, He of the Golden Manhattan Penthouse, President Donald Trump.
You’ve probably seen the photos of pick-up trucks and other vehicles with “Trump 2020” banners streaming down main streets and highways across America.

The vast majority of Republicans and conservatives aren't racists. Racism is idiotic, with no basis in evidence. Luna is trying to find an explanation for what we have seen from white conservatives over the last four forty years that so many Democrats call racism.

For many around the world, the blind support so many functional American adults continue to show for President Trump even now — four years into a presidency that has been disastrous by almost every measure — is completely and totally mysterious.

For example, why does it seem like no amount of logic, evidence, or factual information about Trump has any impact on the support of a typical white Trump voter?

He goes on to recount Trump's many sins, deviations from "family values," his racism, and his utter incompetence governing the nation.

He thinks that he has the answer.

... the whole Trump brand, and by extension his 2020 campaign, is nothing more than a white coming-out party

After decades of watching LGBT supporters celebrate pride month, Black people marching to demand equal rights and justice, Native Americans trashing the legacy of Christopher Columbus, and leftists staging radical and shocking performance art — and, perhaps just as importantly, seeing these movements validated by the mainstream media — only to have it all topped off with eight years under Barack Obama, the first Black President in American history, millions of alienated white voters have come to idolize President Trump for supposedly giving them “their turn” to show pride and assert their white identity in a way they’ve either never felt or else haven’t been able to feel in a long time. ...

Of course this will strike many Americans, including other white Americans, as incredibly juvenile: minority identities had to risk shame, fear, and physical injury in order to acquire the still-unsatisfactory rights and recognitions they have today, and so for millions of white people to imagine that they deserve the same sort of attention without having to take on any of the risk is both offensive and cowardly.
White people are not oppressed.
White people have not been deprived of their identity.
The existence of white people is not being threatened.

What’s important to recognize about all this, however, is that many white people have been manipulated to feel that this is true and these feelings have been channeled politically by the Republican Party into mobilization efforts. ...

Trump supporters feel alienated, and this feeling is compounded when the left dismisses their complex feelings as pure racism and/or unvarnished white nationalism.

He goes on to say that Democrats haven't figured out how to reassure whites to vote Democratic "without also having to fight a rear-guard action against others on the left who accuse them of not being anti-racist enough."

He continues,

What I’m saying is that millions of white Americans understand themselves as neither racist nor nationalist, and right now they’re voting for President Trump despite his significant failures and shortcomings simply because Democrats haven’t figured out how to connect with them emotionally.

He goes on to say that the Democrats need to embrace white pride to manufacture a landslide for Biden to avoid civil unrest and violence after the election if Biden just ekes out a victory and Trump can claim that his re-election was stolen from him.

A landslide is needed to shock some sense into the Republican party.

I left him at this point as he devolved into a discussion of a civil war, Hitler, and whether Trump could overcome his own innate incompetence to organize his own brown-shirt type paramilitary force.

It seems to me that he has at the very least defined the appeal of Trump for non-racists and those who are not white nationalists.

Would the progressives and the blacks in the Democratic party tolerate Biden saying,

Nobody should be made to feel ashamed of being a white American. I’m not ashamed. And if ashamed is what you feel, you’ve been listening to people who don’t understand the values of the Democratic Party — because we stand for liberty and justice for all, including millions of honest, hardworking, white Americans like yourself.

With the polarized politics of today, I doubt it.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes America. Put lipstick on because unless you do you'll be found out to be pigs.

'nuff sed.

 

[repoman]

The problem is that Trump is really a shabbos goy.

 

[rousseau]

That pretty much nails it. If you drill down to biology we should see at least some of our population being completely and utterly self-interested without regard to logic. I don't know if racist is the right word, it's something deeper.

It's the same in Canada too - these people are convinced that the Liberals are giving all the money to brown people and not hard-working, white, Canadian-born people. Social media doesn't help.

 

[ronburgundy]

From Medium is this interesting article by a reader of the web site, Jack Luna, The Only Possible Way to Understand White Trump Voters.



The vast majority of Republicans and conservatives aren't racists. Racism is idiotic, with no basis in evidence. Luna is trying to find an explanation for what we have seen from white conservatives over the last four forty years that so many Democrats call racism.



He goes on to recount Trump's many sins, deviations from "family values," his racism, and his utter incompetence governing the nation.

He thinks that he has the answer.

... the whole Trump brand, and by extension his 2020 campaign, is nothing more than a white coming-out party

After decades of watching LGBT supporters celebrate pride month, Black people marching to demand equal rights and justice, Native Americans trashing the legacy of Christopher Columbus, and leftists staging radical and shocking performance art — and, perhaps just as importantly, seeing these movements validated by the mainstream media — only to have it all topped off with eight years under Barack Obama, the first Black President in American history, millions of alienated white voters have come to idolize President Trump for supposedly giving them “their turn” to show pride and assert their white identity in a way they’ve either never felt or else haven’t been able to feel in a long time. ...

Of course this will strike many Americans, including other white Americans, as incredibly juvenile: minority identities had to risk shame, fear, and physical injury in order to acquire the still-unsatisfactory rights and recognitions they have today, and so for millions of white people to imagine that they deserve the same sort of attention without having to take on any of the risk is both offensive and cowardly.
White people are not oppressed.
White people have not been deprived of their identity.
The existence of white people is not being threatened.

What’s important to recognize about all this, however, is that many white people have been manipulated to feel that this is true and these feelings have been channeled politically by the Republican Party into mobilization efforts. ...

Trump supporters feel alienated, and this feeling is compounded when the left dismisses their complex feelings as pure racism and/or unvarnished white nationalism.

He goes on to say that Democrats haven't figured out how to reassure whites to vote Democratic "without also having to fight a rear-guard action against others on the left who accuse them of not being anti-racist enough."

He continues,

What I’m saying is that millions of white Americans understand themselves as neither racist nor nationalist, and right now they’re voting for President Trump despite his significant failures and shortcomings simply because Democrats haven’t figured out how to connect with them emotionally.

He goes on to say that the Democrats need to embrace white pride to manufacture a landslide for Biden to avoid civil unrest and violence after the election if Biden just ekes out a victory and Trump can claim that his re-election was stolen from him.

A landslide is needed to shock some sense into the Republican party.

I left him at this point as he devolved into a discussion of a civil war, Hitler, and whether Trump could overcome his own innate incompetence to organize his own brown-shirt type paramilitary force.

It seems to me that he has at the very least defined the appeal of Trump for non-racists and those who are not white nationalists.

Would the progressives and the blacks in the Democratic party tolerate Biden saying,

Nobody should be made to feel ashamed of being a white American. I’m not ashamed. And if ashamed is what you feel, you’ve been listening to people who don’t understand the values of the Democratic Party — because we stand for liberty and justice for all, including millions of honest, hardworking, white Americans like yourself.

With the polarized politics of today, I doubt it.

The author is right that they don't see themselves as racist or nationalist, but he's wrong in thinking that they are not racists and nationalists. They are just Dunning Kruger style racists who are also unaware of their racism and the fears and biases it fosters. Whites and straight people continue to overwhelmingly dominate society's positions of wealth, power, and privilege. The only whites who need to be "reassured" or have the Dems "embrace white pride" are people who are racists and nationalists. The narrative of the right that paints leftists desires to end centuries of oppression as anti white or anti straight are so transparently dishonest and full of shit, that only those who pre-disposed to want to believe them would do so. Anyone who buys that message is expending lots of effort to avoid thinking rationally about it b/c they want to believe it. And note the statement "only to have it topped off with eight years under Obama, the first black president". Obama was a "black president" in pigmentation only, and not really even there. What exactly could be "topped off" by his being president, other than racist fears based in beliefs about those with such pigmentation.

Biden is fucking as white straight male as they come. The Dems still went with a white straight male who in most ways akin to the moderates of 50 years ago. There is no one who could sincerely believe the Dems are out to destroy the whites, unless by "destroy" they mean dethrone from their position of undeserved domination and ability to harm those not in their group, which is something that only white nationalists would not welcome.

 

[Trausti]

When all you have is a hammer . . .

 

[ideologyhunter]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

 

[Trausti]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

Yeah, right!? Who gave these uppity blacks the right to think for themselves? Where are the white liberal women to correct them on their wrongthink?

 

[TSwizzle]

I left him at this point as he devolved into a discussion of a civil war, Hitler, and whether Trump could overcome his own innate incompetence to organize his own brown-shirt type paramilitary force. .

I left at this point, his opening gambit.

This Labor Day weekend, many of us observed what appeared to be a nationwide pride parade devoted to worshipping the first aspiring American dictator, He of the Golden Manhattan Penthouse, President Donald Trump.

What drivel.

 

[ideologyhunter]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

Yeah, right!? Who gave these uppity blacks the right to think for themselves? Where are the white liberal women to correct them on their wrongthink?

Gee, you're right. I forgot the nuanced critical thinking that can go into the voter's decision to support a fellow who told us for six years that Obama wasn't a true American. Wasn't an American at all.

 

[ronburgundy]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

It's not clear Trump has hardly any black supporters who are not just general lifelong Republicans.
Trump gets about 10% of the black vote, which is basically the same as prior GOP candidates other than Obama opponents. That corresponds to 10% of blacks Americans who consistently register and identify as Republicans over the past 25 years.

So, then the question is why do even 10% of black Americans support the GOP? As with other ethnic groups, it's mostly men who lean Republican. So, part of it may be those people for whom the "traditional values" (aka misogyny and anti-LGBT) are more appealing to them than the racism is aversive. Then, there also is the nationalistic pro-military sentiment that while is prevalent among white racists and sometimes tethered to racist xenophobia is not in itself inherently racist. Then there are the economic aspects of conservative ideology and pro-capitalism that are more tied to Reagan era conservatism than Trump populism, such as why Colin Powell aligned with the GOP, though he strongly opposes Trump.

 

[TV and credit cards]

"He thinks like us." From the mouth of a Trump supporter. They all watch Fox News together. They all rail about the stuff Fox tells them to rail about. Trump goes on Twitter.

But they are racist. Why should any one of them be so vehemently opposed to Obamacare? It doesn't square.

 

[Worldtraveller]

"He thinks like us." From the mouth of a Trump supporter. They all watch Fox News together. They all rail about the stuff Fox tells them to rail about. Trump goes on Twitter.

But they are racist. Why should any one of them be so vehemently opposed to Obamacare? It doesn't square.

If you closely examine the word before 'care', that will tell you all you need to know about their opposition.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

Yeah, right!? Who gave these uppity blacks the right to think for themselves? Where are the white liberal women to correct them on their wrongthink?

Black Trump voters are like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders.

 

[Trausti]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

Yeah, right!? Who gave these uppity blacks the right to think for themselves? Where are the white liberal women to correct them on their wrongthink?

Black Trump voters are like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders.

‘Cause blacks living in Democrat cities are doing great. Amirte? They should just keep voting for more of that.

 

[Deepak]

‘Cause blacks living in Democrat cities are doing great. Amirte? They should just keep voting for more of that.

How provincial to think that you know better than Black Americans where their interests are best served in trying to exist. Not simply a facile claim, but bordering on absurd.

 

[Testy Calibrate]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

Yeah, right!? Who gave these uppity blacks the right to think for themselves? Where are the white liberal women to correct them on their wrongthink?

Gee, you're right. I forgot the nuanced critical thinking that can go into the voter's decision to support a fellow who told us for six years that Obama wasn't a true American. Wasn't an American at all.

worse, the ones who believed him

 

[skepticalbip]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

Candace Owens' explanation is that a growing number of blacks are waking up, thinking for themselves, and escaping from the Democrat plantation.

 

[crazyfingers]

The answer is obvious. Trump voters are either ignorant morons or ethically corrupt.

40% also believe in creationism. Similar to Trump's approval rating. https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx

 

[marc]

How the frig do you explain the black Trump voters?

Candace Owens' explanation is that a growing number of blacks are waking up, thinking for themselves, and escaping from the Democrat plantation.

Owens is a sell out, who claimed for right wing audience that she had no memory of race issues before Obama tore the country apart... apparently forgetting she got a settlement from the Stamford board of education for racist attacks.