I don’t think I’m ignoring the root causes. They’re the same causes that have driven others to Bernie Sanders. But Trump’s people have identified the wrong source of those causes, and no one can do anything about that. They’ve found a target for their frustration that makes them feel good and they’re not going to give that up. Like you said, the only way to beat them is on election day. Go Hillary/Bernie!
Long term, addressing inequality basically means taking on and beating the Republican ideology that created it and wants to to preserve it. Given the entrenchment of Republicans in Congress, that seems like a tall task, but if there’s a silver lining to the Trump phenomenon and the clown show that is the Republican primaries, it might be that they’re signs that the GOP is imploding on its own. We can only hope.
You know who else they said that about? (Well, they would have if there’d been another one before him.)
It can be both because he is or has been both. He hasn’t permanently aligned himself with either party because blowing with the wind benefits him more personally. He strikes me as a lone wolf even among his wealthy peers. He doesn’t play well with others, and that will include Congress and world leaders if the nightmare should come true.
I am not so sure they are. Overlapping maybe. At least to my read FWIW. Both are groups that see themselves as being placed into the relatively powerless. Both are reacting to that loss of what they used to expect to have versus what they expect to have now. But Trump’s supporters’ loss powerlessness is more real and of less apparent concern to our broader society.
The ones in the Sanders camp are more often college educated urban and suburban and the ones in the Trump camp are more often non-college educated and rural. The actual opportunities the two groups will have and the influence they have for their size is significant. The former tend to to be anti-authoritarian and the latter very authoritarian. The former is explicitly being listened to by those in power, even if their sensitivities are often mocked. The latter has no reason to believe that their concerns really matter. Many of the future power brokers in politics policy and business will come from the ranks of the former; few from the latter. The former are scared because they may not be able to have jobs as good as their suburban parents had and may need to keep taking support from those parents; the latter are scared because they might have no jobs at all and do not have families that can or will help support them.
The demographics make their actions a bit more understandable, maybe (thanks for pointing that out), but I don’t think it changes the fact that the root cause of their dissatisfaction is the same, that is, a system rigged for the wealthy that results in poorer paying jobs for the bottom XX percent. Fix that and both sides will be better off.
I don’t agree. I don’t believe for a minute that Trump voters have a problem with wealthy people - in no small part because Trump’s “success” appeals to them.
Trump voters are angry that the system is rigged for unworthy, poor people - the Welfare Queens, the Immigrants, the Affirmative Action crowds, the secular Athiests who are persecuting Christians, the Homosexual Agenda throat-shovers.
I suppose one could argue that both Trump and Sanders voters agree that the system is rigged. But they disagree wildly about who is doing the rigging and what the solution should be.
You hang on his every word? And love it when he’s obnoxious?
Like when he calls Mexican’s rapists? Or threatens to close mosques? (Contrary to the constitution!) Says he’ll stop any Muslims from entering the country? Thinks a woman going to the bathroom or breastfeeding is ‘disgusting’?
People like you ARE why your country is where it is politically. You don’t give a shit about the long terms effect of his bullshit on political discourse, or where his over the top rhetoric leads your democracy…so long as it amuses you in the short term!
Yeah, Stupid Republican Idea of the Day has been going strong since 2009 and we’re wondering why Trump appeals to the Republican proletariat? They’ve been well trained.
This is untrue. Adams has said repeatedly that he is mostly apolitical and would be OK with any of the candidates in either party. He thinks Trump will win, and admires his persuasion skills, but that’s not an endorsement.
Well, yes, when the economy is slow, less people are attracted. That’s one way of doing it. And all things being equal, when you have more illegal immigrants, you will have more deportations
It’s not as if there has been some dramatic enforcement crackdown under Obama. There has been a move to reclassify what counts as a “deportation.” Previously, when people were caught at or near the border and immediately sent back, that was merely called a “return,” and not included with “removals” in the deportation stats. But in recent years, this has changed.
I’m in the process of selling my house. I live in a blue-collar suburb that is about 20% white, 50% black, and 30% hispanic; the latter, however is growing rapidly. We went on the market on Thursday, and we had 30 buyers come through in 3 days. I met with all of them to sell them on the neighborhood and answer questions. 90% of the families were hispanic, and 2/3 of them some or all of the people in the family didn’t speak English.
My neighbor is an older African-American woman who has lived in her house for decades; when she moved in the town was mostly white. I watched her try to greet a couple of the buyers who were about her age, para no habla ingles. Later on, she asked me how it was going, and I said we were likely to have multiple offers, and mentioned a couple of groups that had just come and gone, including a young caucasian couple. She gave a sigh, and in a lowered voice said “I think I’m gonna root for the white people.” Is she a racist? I don’t think so; I think she’s an old lady that wants to be able to pass the time with the people next door.
My buddy is looking to go on the house market soon, but is pretty intimidated by home prices in the area. When I told him about this experience, he asked me if illegal aliens are allowed to buy a house. I said that, AFAIK, there’s no legal barrier. My friend, a blue-collar guy, was clearly frustrated. Is he a racist? I don’t think so; I think he’s a guy who wants to buy a house and resents that he may have to compete with people who have broken the law.
I was talking with another friend about the experience and the changing demographics of the area, and he compared it to the urban neighborhood whose public schools he taught in for years before retiring, and the challenge of parents and students who don’t speak English, and how some teachers ended up transferring to other districts because of it. Is he a racist? I don’t think so; he stayed in that district for years, and he is actively involved in his 80% hispanic church. But he’s not blind to the stresses and strains that demographic change puts on a community.
None of those people are Trump supporters, and none of them (AFAIK) has had the kind of dramatic incident that makes someone become strongly anti-immigant. But those are the kind of real-world challenges and frustrations that large-scale immigration poses, and neither party has seriously tried to address. Ergo, Trump.
Except none of those instances are the immigrants actually to blame for the issue. And could each be proven wrong 100% !
The cranky black neighbour doesn’t know that the new buyers won’t warm up once they settle in and love to chat with her. The nervous house hunter thinks competition would be better without immigrants, but he’s wrong the housing market would remain the same only there would be no convenient group for him to blame it on. And it’s way easier to blame immigrants than invest money in education reform to solve the problems teacher see in schools.
This is a fascinating article, not so much for what it says - the discussion of makes a demagogue is very apt - but for the date of its writing. May 7, 2011.
Right. Michael Singer wrote this at the time of Trump’s last flirtation with the presidency. Anybody who still thinks he is doing this to increase his brand needs to read this and see that he’s been planning a presidential run for a very long time. He understood in 2011 that Obama couldn’t be beaten (unlike almost everyone else in the blinkered Republican Party) and saw that 2016 would be ideal to upend the party’s “deep bench.” (Remember the “deep bench”? That group of ideal candidates any one of which could be a great Presidential candidate? Never let them forget.)
Singer is sanguine about the fates of demagogues: they crash and burn. True, and my bet is that Trump will as well. But he doesn’t mention they leave their smell upon the land for decades. Trump’s followers want a demagogue and have gotten him. The rest of us have them pegged correctly.
Any of those groups would be astonished to learn of the power they have on the American economy. Those welfare queens must be rich beyond their wildest dreams. As a secular atheist, I demand my piece of the pie!
Convenient targets for blame are as old as humanity. They’ve been burned as witches when misfortune struck, as if they caused storms and diseases, and now they’re being blamed for a lack of decent jobs, as if they run the economy. Trump’s followers are on a witch hunt, nothing more.
They have reason to be mad, and I sympathize with them for that. They’ve been lied to by their Republican politicians for years, but instead of abandoning them for lying, they’re abandoning
them for not following through on their lies.:smack: Little do they know that keeping foreigners out and banning gay marriage and making schoolkids recite the Lord’s Prayer won’t create better jobs for the working class any more than burning witches will.
Human beings vote – and make pretty much every decision – based on what is immediately apparent to them.
I’m a libertarian, I could make a detailed analysis of how free trade, on balance and all factors taken into account, is indeed good for everyone, including the poor and working class. I can include charts and graphs and have a dozen PhDs sign on. I would be absolutely, completely right. And none of it, not one word, is gonna persuade a guy whose town just lost a factory to Mexico.
And FTR, my neighbors issue isn’t that the buyers weren’t freindly, it’s that they didn’t speak English. If they’ve been here awhile (and they all had) that won’t change once they settle in.
I’m not entirely clear if you’re clear about what I was saying, which, of course, would be entirely my fault. So I’m going to try again. (No promises, though).
I know that Welfare Queens and Immigrants and Homosexuals and People of Color aren’t really to blame for the thirty years of wage stagnation, growing income inequality, housing bubble, jobs moving overseas, medical profiteering, and the Great Recession. But those are the people who Donald Trump and his supporters blame for their problems.
Bernie Sanders and his voters do not blame Welfare Queens, &etc. Sanders claims that the problems in America’s economy are based on bankers and politicians unfairly stacking the deck in favor of their personal bottom line with no regard for anyone else’s welfare. Bernie blames, for example, trickledown economics, corporate welfare, out of control medical insurance and irresponsible tax cuts for being the reason that the economic prospects of most Americans has not grown at the same rate that the economic prospects of the CEO class has grown.
It’s not really true to say that Sanders and Trump supporters have a great deal in common. They might agree that the game is rigged, but they would differ wildly in who they blame for that and what they propose to do about it.
Merneith, you’re right, I wasn’t totally clear on what you were saying so I took my cue from the first reply following it which I thought indicated you were defending Trump and his followers. That’s on me.
As it turns out, we’re in almost complete agreement. I would just clarify that while Trump’s people and Sanders’ people differ in their demographics, both are feeling the same pinch of economic inequality. That’s what they have in common, and it’s not exactly a minor issue to have in common. Where they diverge is where they lay the blame, as you said, and that makes a hu-u-uge (sorry) difference between them. I’m flabbergasted and frustrated beyond description that anyone blames minorities and gays and such for their lot so I feel compelled to rail against them whenever I can. Sorry that you got caught in the fire, and thanks for straightening it out.
While it’s true that many Trump fans are falling for the lie that the Mexicans/blacks/Muslims/“the other” in general are to blame for their woes, while many Sanders’ fans are embracing the questionable assertion that Bad People on Wall Street are the sole problem–these folks are united in believing that their particular bugaboos will never be addressed by the current Government Establishment–even if that establishment changes party labels.
Yes, the Trump fans hate and revile the current Democratic President, and the Sanders fans hate and revile the current GOP Senate leadership. But neither group was particularly happy when the President was a Republican and when the Senate leadership was Democratic. At no time, both groups seem to believe, were their own concerns uppermost in the minds of those in charge of government (federal or state).
Both sets of discontents seem similar in their belief that an election of the usual kind will result in no real change–just more of the same. It’s true that election of ‘establishment’ candidates (for President and for open congressional seats) is unlikely to result in radical, extreme change. But what both groups may have failed to consider is that radical, extreme change may not, necessarily, leave them better off.
A radically non-Establishment officeholder may prove not be particularly interested (in Trump’s case) or effective (in Sanders’ case) in helping out their respective fans.