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Why is Trump so Popular?

 
 
 
S

SLD

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I regret to report the economic anxiety theory of Trumpism is back

In David Brooks’s new column, he asks the American elite if they’re the baddies. But he’s actually telling them a comforting fiction.
www.vox.com www.vox.com

I think there’s a lot of theories that seek to explain this in Economic terms v. Racial/sexual terms. This article critiques the economic dislocation theory as sounding good but it‘s simply not backed up by data. Trump’s popularity is explained best by racial and sexual divides than economic. He points out that Trump’s support comes from relatively well off rural whites, people with decent jobs at least.

I think I would add religion to the mix, which drives sexual views and racial views as well. Church is still one of the most segregated places in America. This article doesn’t discuss it. But obviously Trump’s support is drawn from conservative Christians. There’s a sign in an Alabama lawn that says, Trump Appointed by God.

I used to think that the growth of nones and freethought would have a huge impact on voting trends, but it hasn’t happened. A recent article noted that most of the nones actually are drop outs from liberal standard Protestant denominations, and not so much from fundamentalist Evangelical Christians. This makes sense , since such groups are likely to be more educated and tolerant than fundies. Thus fundamentalists still hold a grip on society.

I also know many people who voted for Trump even though they despised him, just because he’s a Republican and they support Republican policies. Two I know are indeed conservative Christians belonging to mega churches. Both though are well off educated whites. Not working class by any means. I also know two white women supporters, neither particularly well educated, one with multiple ex husbands, both in their 60’s. They don’t just hold their noses, they adore Trump. But again they are both conservative Christians. They love Jesus and they love trump.

The one thing I haven’t found is professional women who support Trump, doctors or lawyers. And I know quite a few. It’s either rich housewives who don’t work, or uneducated evangelical women. I’m sure there are exceptions.

In the end, I think economic theories shouldn’t be entirely discarded. That doesn’t conflict with racial or sexual views. Minorities and non traditional males are an economic threat to these people. It’s thus both a racial/sexual alienation and economic issues. Add religion to the mix, and you have an explosive mix.
 
There isn't going to be a simple one size fits all explanation for this. If a politician is popular with mainly one demographic for one main reason, that might win them a seat on the local city council. But if you want to be president, you're going to need to be popular with a broad spectrum of people with many different prerogatives. I doubt all Trump voters see the man in the same way, or expect the same things from him. We're talking about a political coalition whose radical fringe is expecting him to seize direct control of the military and forcibly expel the child-eating dark government cabal from Washington on a promised day of judgement, but whose average voter probably has no idea that whole conspiracy even exists or thinks it's just a mean old lie that the media came up with to tar a great man's reputation, and for themselves, just wants to see a loud man stick it to China and "the libs" for closing down the local tire factory.
 
Politesse said:
There isn't going to be a simple one size fits all explanation for this.
Click to expand...
No? Here's one, and I defy you to falsify it:

LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

The lowest common denominator is still the common denominator - and it would be hard to imagine a lower one than Trump.
 
Elixir said:
Politesse said:
There isn't going to be a simple one size fits all explanation for this.
Click to expand...
No? Here's one, and I defy you to falsify it:

LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

The lowest common denominator is still the common denominator - and it would be hard to imagine a lower one than Trump.
Click to expand...
If it comforts you to think of things that way, I suppose that's within your rights, but it isn't really going to help you understand the Trump phenomenon, only to dismiss it. And as you may recall, seeming easily dismissable was one of Trump's key advantages during the overpopulated churn of his first primary season.
 
Politesse said:
it isn't really going to help you understand the Trump phenomenon, only to dismiss it
Click to expand...
If you think I don't understand the Trump phenomenon, you might want to review my posts from fall of 2020, and see that I have correctly predicted his behavior at every turn while all the conservatives and some of our more moderate "leftists" were skeptical of my predictions.
And if you think I am dismissive of the danger he represents.... well, I am curious about how you got that impression, but not so curious as to request that you explain.
Suffice it to say that "lowest common denominator" is a simple, one size fits all explanation for "this", and having such an explanation in hand does nothing to solve the problem.
 
I just started reading a book called, "White Trash. The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America." The book was written shortly after Trump won in 2016 and the author attempts to explain why so many white working class people became die hard Trump supporters. I haven't read enough of it to have a strong opinion, but I think the author is probably going to make the point that the white working class as been looked down on by the more educated professional class since Europeans, primarily the Brits, literally shipped them to the US to get rid of them, where they became indentured servants and were treated almost as poorly as slaves. I'm hoping to learn a lot more as I read the book.

These people were literally called trash among other things by the British elites, who thought if they got rid of them, it would make Britain better. They also thought these people could be used as an experiment to see if the low class jobs could be done in order to develop the US.

These days, it's not so much about income, as it ishow these people feel they are being perceived by the so called liberal elites. It's interesting to me that these white people have such a persecution complex, when most Black people have been treated much worse and have to work harder in most cases to become part of the more educated class.

I agree that religion has a lot to do with it. I know some nurses who were big Trump supporters, most likely because he told them what they wanted to hear when it came to religion. I've heard some say that they know that Trump was a sinner, but they forgave him, as Jesus would want. My late mother was an evangelical who always voted for Democrats but her church friends often tried to convince her that Obama was a Marxist or a Muslim etc. and she should vote like they do. I'm sure they were Trump supporters, but my mom had dementia when Trump was elected and my sister never helped her vote in 2016, despite her mind still being intact enough to know that she despised Trump. But, I digress. Black evangelicals must be smarter because very few Black folks supported Trump and I've personally known some very conservative, Black Christians.

Now all of these white folks are very religious. One lives across the street from me. He's a very dear person, but I think he gets all of his "news" from Fox or similar propaganda sources. He's working class, but not poor. He's a very caring person who somehow believes the bullshit he hears about Trump.

There are also the more wealthy, like my brother in law who voted for Trump twice, simply because and I quote, "he put more money in my pocket".

And, there are people who will always vote Republican, even if Satan, if there was a Satan, was the candidate. I think we are trying to figure out the Trump cult, not why every voter voted for Trump.
 
southernhybrid said:
It's interesting to me that these white people have such a persecution complex, when most Black people have been treated much worse and have to work harder in most cases to become part of the more educated class.
Click to expand...

The LAST thing the white "underclass" wants is to be lumped in with the Blacks, Hispanics and other POC. That's a big part of their vulnerability. Trump tells them that they are "my people" (i.e. they send him money), thereby making them part of a phony "elite" that the fucktard-in-chief has created as a special class just for them, no nigras allowed. This assures them that they're better than those coloreds that the leftist elite like to embrace. In return for their fealty and money, he helps them quash the hopes of any POC hoping to become part of the terrible, scary "more educated class".
Part of that effort is to denigrate educated people in general while deriding POC as part of the vilified "lefty elites".

Trump is popular because establishment is and has been (for a long time) horrible.
Click to expand...

Trump IS the horrible establishment. Has been for decades. But his followers are uniformly too stupid or misinformed to realize it.
 
A better question is "Why do people vote for Trump? Lets not forget that Trump, even though he won an election was less popular than his opponent, Hillary Clinton. He was also less popular than Joe Biden. So asking why Trump is "so popular" is neither an accurate nor a meaningful question because it assumes a false premise.

The first thing we should recognize is that Trump is going to get a lot of votes because he is a right wing Republican. That's his largest bloc of voters, Those are votes he essentially inherits.

The second largest bloc of voters are those who perceive themselves as victims. His popularity is pretty much a cult of victimhood. Hitler's was identical in this regard. These are people who think he is going to restart the coal mines and restore the local factories from which they are now unemployed. Discussing global macroeconomics is not one of their specialties. In this group I would also include the hallelujah Jesus crazies who think someone like Trump is a savior that's going to restore the order of those good old days.

His third largest bloc of voters are uneducated and undereducated voters easily swayed by propaganda. To a degree these are also part of the cult of victimhood because these are not folks easily reemployed or able and willing to relocate to keep jobs and remain competitive.

And Trump is dumb but he perceives himself as super intelligent. I would make this bloc his fourth largest.
 
Trump gives people permission to express their worse behaviors. That is why they support him.

For 60+ years, people have been shamed for being racist, sexist or whatever by "modern society" and they are resentful... And it will be very difficult to get them to start being ashamed for being bad people again.
 
Historians are going to have a rich field of Trumpiana to sift through. I suspect there will be more Trump bios than FDR bios at some point -- although he probably won't top the multiple thousands of Lincoln books. Every historian will have to look at our national sickness and ask how this man could actually squat in the White House for four years (please, no more than four...) Some of it will always be a mystery to me. Whatever hold he has on his audience, and he mesmerizes them, it's lost on me. He's vile. I first saw and heard him in late 2011, going on about Obama's phony birth certificate, and I took his full measure in about two minutes time: a sleazy ball of belligerence and ignorance who had no shame in lying. Instead he was gleeful in getting away with the lies. Some guest on MSNBC recently called him the most talented political showman in our history. I guess that's true, but Jesus, you have to be devoid of character judgment to not know what a conman he is, to not sense the inner rot and the disordered psychology. He's "unpresidented" (my second favorite Trump spelling goof, after the immortal "hamberders.")
Moogly gave a pretty good list in post #9 of why certain groups respond to him, to which I would add those who think he's fearless and a strong international leader. Never mind that our NATO allies loathe him but that Putin's a bosom buddy.
I have evangelical Christian relatives who would walk through fire for Trump, largely because he delivered the death blow to Roe. But here is a man who has clearly never read the Bible ("my favorite book"), spouts angry rhetoric which clearly contradicts the most basic Christian dogma, hungers for revenge, worships himself....Antichrist, anyone? These kinfolk frown on anything that goes beyond PG-13 --- while Trump has said fuck on national radio! (To Limbaugh, in 2020.)
Again, I'll never understand the appeal. With his increasing hunger for a Revenge Presidency, he would be multiple times the danger he was in 2017 if he ever got in again. I don't think we can imagine the lethal effect on democracy that a second Donald term would bring. He'd move fast and aggressively and fill the exec. branch with ruthless sycophants.
We need a faster court docket for this bastard.
 
AdamWho said:
Trump gives people permission to express their worse behaviors. That is why they support him.
Click to expand...
That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Too much emotion, too little intellect. He makes them kings and queens, masters, rulers, president of their sixth grade class.
 
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AdamWho said:
Trump gives people permission to express their worse behaviors. That is why they support him.
Click to expand...
Right. He has the mental development of that sixth grader who is disruptive in class. Trump is just telling all the other arrested development, sub-literates that they don't need adults and don't need to be adults. He's the asshole version of Peter Pan.
 
Why is Trump so popular?

He was the first Presidential candidate to say verbatim what AM radio has being saying for decades. People like Romney, Bachman, Rubio, Gingrinch and all the other fuckwits would speak in polite code saying "Border security is my priority". But if you've been listening to Limbaugh for decades, Trump is the first person to "tell it like it is" about those Mexican rapists. And unfortunately, Limbaugh was fucking popular.

This clip is seven years old (I hope I got the timestamp right). It goes for a fucking hour, but you only need to watch 5:10 until 7:20. The reason hasn't changed. If you started listening to Limbaugh when you were 30, you'd be the age of a typical Trump supporter right now. He's popular because AM radio was/is popular (YMMV) and Trump was the first the ctrl-c/ctrl-v that sort of rhetoric.

 
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