[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=gogogosandiego]This is timely.
“Meanwhile, a few things did correlate with support for Trump: a voter’s desire for their group to be dominant, as well as how much they disagreed with Clinton’s views on trade and China. Trump supporters were also more likely than Clinton voters to feel that “the American way of life is threatened,” and that high-status groups, like men, Christians, and whites, are discriminated against.”
That’s very interesting. But of course, the studies are by social scientists at universities so they are to the dismissed as elitist.
Maybe CArenter will tell us exactly what she heard from the horses’ mouths.[/quote]
FWIW, I don’t disagree with that post, and I’ve never dismissed someone because they were social scientists or “elitist.” BTW, in 2015, this same publication, The Atlantic, claimed: “Class, not ideology, has boosted Trump’s unconventional rise.”
But this is yet another example of how you project your thoughts, opinions, and perspectives onto other people. It also states the following in that article:
“Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than $50,000 a year.”
…which goes against your entire narrative about Trump’s voters being a bunch of dumb, white, unemployed rednecks (the majority of them make pretty decent money).
“For example, a March 2016 NBC survey that we analyzed showed that only a third of Trump supporters had household incomes at or below the national median of about $50,000. Another third made $50,000 to $100,000, and another third made $100,000 or more and that was true even when we limited the analysis to only non-Hispanic whites. If being working class means being in the bottom half of the income distribution, the vast majority of Trump supporters during the primaries were not working class.”
But I would argue that Trump’s support is not based on “racism,” but survival instincts. Remember that almost 30% of the Hispanic voters voted for Trump, and this was after spending a year and a half hearing about how they were “racist, xenophobic bigots” or “white supremacists” or “Nazis” if they voted for him. I’ve known a lot of immigrants in my time, and know very few legal immigrants who favor illegal immigration. The conflating of illegal and legal immigrants is often offensive to those who’ve spent years of their lives and thousands of dollars (and taken English classes, studied for the test, etc.) to become U.S. citizens. And they are the first group to bear the brunt of the burdens caused by illegal immigration — they compete directly for the same jobs, housing, public resources, etc.
Americans (defined as U.S. citizens, including U.S. citizens who immigrated here) are trying to protect a particular way of life, one where dedication and hard work can provide economic and social opportunities that are seldom found in other countries (though that’s changing more and more these days). They want to protect their “tribe” (U.S. citizens, not necessarily race-based) from what they perceive as an attack on their culture, economy, religion, and way of life. That is a perfectly natural response to what they perceive as a rather vicious attack against them, and this belief is not unfounded…your (and Pri’s and zk’s) many posts provide ample evidence of what they’re talking about.
You can label them any way you’d like, but they are acting no differently than any other group of people would act if they were in the same situation.
