Democrats need to stop believing this myth about Trump's base. Hint it's the culture, stupid

[DemocratSinceBirth]

The big myth about the 2016 presidential election was that economic suffering drove most of Donald Trump's "base" directly into his hands in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The story goes that while Democrats were tied in knots about identity politics, Trump's attacks on China, free trade and open-ended immigration appealed to struggling workers who believed he could bring back their jobs.


The problem with the narrative is that we keep learning it is not true.

...

A just-published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by the political scientist Diana Mutz found that white, Christian, male voters were attracted to Trump out of fear that their social status keeps dwindling. It was, in fact, Trump who was focused on identity politics, not simply the Democrats.
Mutz's research found that members of Trump's base believed they faced more discrimination as white males than most other groups, such as Muslims. "For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country, white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race," she writes.

...

Studies suggest that some of Trump's voters will not change their minds in response to any kind of economic policies. The only way for Democrats to win those voters over would be to turn their backs on core constituencies, like college-educated, working women, African-Americans, and immigrants, who have been vital to the party for decades.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/28/opinions/trump-base-economy-myth-opinion-zelizer/index.html

Deplorables are at war with moderninty and liberal democracy. I'll take the other side.

[SCantiGOP]

1. Post needs a link to the story

N/T

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. TY, My bad.

[aikoaiko]

3. That's one basket...and then there's the other basket.

Sure, the hard core Trumpian base are deplorables.

It is that other basket that we can and should win over.

I know these aren't two discrete categories and they probably blur together at some point.

"I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and don't get complacent, don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, he's done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

"But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

[Garrett78]

13. Hillary was being diplomatic, and even so she got ripped for that statement.

[wryter2000]

16. The other basket?

Why are they all white? Sounds like one basket to me.

[Me.]

4. So Glad This Is Finally Coming To The Forefront

we've been head in the head with, and asked to bow down to, white man economics for a couple of years now. It was self-serving and pushed as an agenda that the truth is now putting lie to. Thanks for the share.

[AmandaRuth]

5. I've been saying this for years

and it was reinforced after dealing with my trump voting relatives, they ARE NOT voting against their interests, racism and sexism IS their interest.

Thankfully, I really don't invite people like that into my inner (or outer) circle, so my friends do not carry those beliefs.

My feeling is this -- take no prisoners, offer no quarter - if we can get back to jump, where all are considered equal, in all areas of life, then we can talk about our differences between economic policy, environmental issues, and so forth. Until then, deplorables can GTFU, and I have NO problem saying that.

[liberal N proud]

6. Trumpkins are bread in hate.

[ProudLib72]

7. I'm not about to get all touchy feely with these idiots

They're scared that their privilege is disappearing? Fuck their feelings.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. In a million years I can not imagine my mom and dad wearing shirts like that...

In a million years I can not imagine my mom and dad wearing shirts like that or my friend's moms and dads wearing shirts like that, even without the Trump logo, and my parents were working class as well as my friend's parents. They were postal workers, school cafeteria workers, and construction workers.

[ProudLib72]

9. The divisiveness started well before Rump

We wanted to ignore it and tell ourselves that it was only a few idiots. It turns out we were dead wrong. The liberal response has always been "You're feeling ignored? Well, tell us how we can make it better." Then it turns out that the idiots want to strip all minorities of their rights and return to the Jim Crow era when whites were ascendant. Well, some people are going to get their feelings hurt, but we have to choose whether we want to regress or progress. So fuck their atavistic feelings. When their feelings are predicated on xenophobia, racism, and misogyny, we can safely say they need to be relegated to the garbage heap of history.

[theaocp]

10. Goose/gander

They. don't. get. to. bitch.

[47of74]

12. Me neither

I'm not one of those tolerant, understanding liberals that conservatives love to go on about the second a progressive stands up to their bullshit. I'll call them out and while others might have a problem with villainizing Republicans I sure as hell don't. They stood up to be counted with the enemy of everything our country stands for so they can kiss my ass if they don't like how I respond to them.

[Lunabell]

11. I think the younger generation is getting it.

They're more inclusive and open minded. I hope it shows at the ballot box.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. EMBRACE Progessive (very socially liberal and medium socialist) economics and social policies.

Refund public education and pay public school teachers high salaries such as professionals entrusted with the future of our children and grandchildren deserve.

Climate Change: re-join the World. Foster sustainability and the jobs of the future. (hint: China and Europe are busting a gut developing green technology.)

Health Care: Single Payer, Choose Your Own Doctor, Allow doctors to charge above Single Payer fee, but all people in any area should have the lowest fee for that are met (nobody but nobody should lack for preventive, remedial, or palliative health care).

Reinstate and extend equal rights for LGBTQAU throughout society.

Gun Control: Extend background checks to ALL sales, even private sales. No sales of assault-rifle mass-killer type weapons (existing ones can be kept and maybe even resold until a way can be found to take them out of circulations without "grabbing" them, perhaps buyback from agency whenever an owner dies or wishes to get rid of one).

Increased intake of refugees commensurate with international responsibilities: 44 so far this year is ridiculous.

Livable minimum wage: Raise to $15 one dollar a year if not faster.

Cooperative non-belligerent foreign policy: no more MAGA: Make America Go Alone.

Secure the election systems from top to bottom, which may require some level of enforced federal control or at least standards. Get rid of Gerrymandering, Voter Suppression, and dirty tricks.

Fact & Science & Evidence based policy making and legislative standards. Reinstate scientific freedom to speak out. Reinstate multiple scientific studies. Refund NOAA and other agencies.

Look into Basic Income and Basic Housing free for all who need. It works wonders and cost less in every jurisdiction that has tried it.

So much more.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. We should do most of those things because they are the rights to do.

But I doubt it will move many Trumpees.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. Leave Trumpanzees in our dust. USA is progressive, liberal & Democratic absent gerrymander & vote su

USA has a progressive, liberal and Democratic populace. It appears smaller than reality only because of voter suppression, gerrymandering, dirty tricks and (this election cycle) treasonous collusion between the Trump Gang, Republicons and Russians.

Despite all that, Hillary won the election by 3,000,000 votes.

[certainot]

15. that's pretty much a "duh", but there is still a bigger "duh" if that study didn't blame talk radio

for a big part of it.

white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race," she writes.

that and other bullshit are what 50 mil/week are being told all day every day by 1500 radio stations that democrats and media scholars have stupidly ignored for 30 years.

sam nunberg even explained that the trump team studied talk radio in 2014 to prep for the election - (by gabriel sherman- new york magazine 4/3/16)

[BobTheSubgenius]

17. Julian Zeliger's summation is not the first I've read with the same thesis.

It's a very likely, and totally believable analysis. It's so much less defensible than economic hardship or uncertainty.

[JCanete]

18. There is a lot of assumption in saying that to only win over these voters would be to

turn our backs on these other constituencies. for starters, nobody is trying to win 80 to 90 percent of them. We need what, a 5 percent shift? and that would be an astonishing achievement. But to look at the biggest swath of Republican voters and think that says a damn thing that is useful about our message....its absurd to think if we changed our message entirely and started directly pandering to racists that we'd even pick up a large chunk of the republican base...so I have no idea what this person is claiming that would actually achieve. Its a silly conclusion.


I love this quote..."studies suggest that some Trump supporters will not change their minds in response to any kind of economic policies." No shit? What a bold statement to make. For that matter, isn't it a given that 10 percent of republican voters actually did vote their best interests to some degree? A progressive economic message would actually be anathema to them.

What by the way is social status? It has no economic component? Of course it does. That kind of social privilege comes with being at the front of the line for good jobs(remaining good jobs), moving up the ladder, getting a better loan, etc. Financial security is a part of it.

Of course that economic reality cannot be allowed to persist...its just that we dont have to feed into the narrative that these people are imagining..that they are going to lose what they are clutching onto so tightly if they support democrats. We could present a scenario in which they also win, but we suck at this because we aim low and target them, and not at the head of the problem. We let this suspicion about our agenda persist...we let the dividing and conquering continue...rather than to show them who is really standing in the way of their safety and economic insecurity. We kind of have to point to the corporpations to do that. We kind of need to present the media that sells all that hate as doing so with an obvious agenda funded by...yeah, people and corporations with financial interests.

And at first if we did this, maybe we could siphon a couple percentage points at the most moderate margins. Again..that's what an election comes down to. Those who are steeped in their ways and love their racism more than health-care aren't going to be reachable. They aren't up for consideration.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. If we turn out our core constituents we don't even need one of their votes

African Americans
Latinos
Women
College educated whites.

[JCanete]

23. but we need a plan going forward that isn't going to allow us to be divided amongst ourselves,

the way say, the Bush administration used "family values" and gay marriage. If we don't figure out a way to put ourselves on the same side of the issues(and that is a matter of tackling those universals), we'll be discovering new rifts we didn't necessarily even see coming.

[pansypoo53219]

19. evolution SUCKS! MAKE AMERIKA WHITE AGAIN! WE WON'T CHANGE!