[Peace-discuss] FW:] who are the Trump supporters?

Wed Nov 18 16:37:22 EST 2015

An article in today's WSJ carries some interesting figures on who the Donald Trump supporters are. They center on white, blue collar workers.  I started to summarize some of the statistics, but I thought the full article is really worth reading. I'm reprinting it below.

A couple of comments: The results show a general anger and a twisted class consciousness in its most primitive form. Some might see a sign of hope in that, but we should remember that far right, including fascist, movements often play to that sentiment. (I don't think that the Trump movement is by and large fascist, but it shows the potential in a time of greater crisis here.) These results show the effect of the many decades-long campaign on the part of every important institution in the US against any sort of class consciousness. This campaign has at its base the fact that class consciousness in the US has always been weaker than in other industrialized countries. 

This, by the way, is also the only demographic group whose death rate has increased in recent decades, and that increase is due to an increase in suicide and substance abuse. In other words, while abusing and outright killing themselves, they're also supporting doing the same to others.

The biggest surprise of the presidential election so far is the emergence and persistent strength of  <http://topics.wsj.com/person/T/Donald-Trump/159> Donald Trump. Although Ben Carson is remarkable in many respects, he is the latest iteration of a familiar figure in Republican primary campaigns: the favored candidate of conservative evangelicals. 

By contrast, Mr. Trump is the staunchest champion of the white working class that American politics has seen in decades. 

Thanks to a recently released  <http://publicreligion.org/research/2015/11/survey-anxiety-nostalgia-and-mistrust-findings-from-the-2015-american-values-survey/#.VktqBXarRiw> survey, a collaboration between the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution, we can now identify with much greater precision the sources of Mr. Trump’s support and the sentiments of his supporters.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 39% of the white working class backs Mr. Trump, twice his share of white college-educated voters. Fifty-five percent of his supporters are white working class, compared with 35% for the rest of the Republican field and only 32% for Mr. Carson.

Among Mr. Trump’s white working-class supporters, the demographic group most likely to back him is composed of men ages 50-64, with no more than a high-school education. Compared with other groups in the PRRI-Brookings survey, these men are the least likely to believe that immigrants strengthen the U.S. and the most likely to believe that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens. More than other voters, they are disturbed by the rising prevalence of non-English speakers in the U.S. And many blame Chinese imports and corporate outsourcing for U.S. job losses.

The outlook of core Trump supporters also reflects an identity shaped by class and race. These voters are least likely to say that government is looking out for the interests of the middle class or of white men, and the most likely to affirm that there is discrimination against these groups. Fifty-three percent believe that police officers generally treat blacks and other minorities the same as whites.

Mr. Trump’s working-class supporters espouse classic populist sentiments. Seven in 10 say that everyday Americans, not the “experts,” best understand what the government should do. By a 2-to-1 margin, they believe that politics and elections are controlled by people with money and by big corporations. Forty-four percent say that too many people today are afraid to say what they really think; no wonder Mr. Trump’s castigation of political correctness has achieved such resonance.

A comparison of Mr. Trump’s core supporters with white college-educated Republicans and Republican-leaning independents highlights the distinctive sentiments of white working-class Americans. Only 30% believe that immigrants strengthen the country, compared with 51% of whites with college degrees. Fully 60% of Republican-leaning white working-class voters believe that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks, compared with only 36% of white college-educated voters who are likely to participate in Republican primaries and caucuses. Fifty-three percent believe that blacks would be better off if they just tried harder; 42% of whites with more education thought that way. 

Among white working-class voters surveyed, 72% believe that the Confederate flag symbolizes Southern pride rather than racism; only 45% of white college-educated voters agree.

The survey’s most striking finding is the loss of optimism among white working-class voters with Republican leanings: 62% believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s, and only 42% believe that America’s best days lie ahead. Sixty-eight percent believe that hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people. In this respect, white working-class voters are in harmony with white college-educated voters (58%) and the electorate as a whole (64%). The long stagnation of wages and household incomes has eroded belief in the American dream.

Although the Trump phenomenon has surprised nearly everyone, it becomes intelligible against the backdrop of recent American history. For decades, white working-class men have been the most volatile element in the American electorate. Changes in the economy have hit them hard, and administrations of both political parties have done little to protect or compensate them. They have lost status in our society and even in their own families, many of which have crumbled. Practitioners of identity politics often have fingered them as the adversary, and upscale environmentalists have been all too willing to ignore their economic concerns. 

Since the late 1960s, white working-class voters have deserted the Democratic Party in droves and now form a key component of the Republican base. For most of this period, the Republican establishment has held these voters with social conservatism and a tough-sounding foreign policy. But now working-class voters are in full revolt against policies—trade treaties, immigration reform and crony capitalism, among others—that they see as inimical to their interests. Establishment Republicans, caught flat-footed, are left hoping that this is all a bad dream from which their party will awake in time to choose a nominee who shares their economic views.

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  <http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=18035953/grpspId=1705060375/msgId=32565/stime=1447875132> 
  <http://y.analytics.yahoo.com/fpc.pl?ywarid=515FB27823A7407E&a=10001310322279&js=no&resp=img> 

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