# Help me understand the anger of Trump voters / working class white people. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 8, 2016, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320 "2016-03-08T19:54:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/241 "2016-03-19T02:35:50Z")
It doesn’t. The economy doesn’t benefit from restricting outsourcing either. But it does hurt some classes of workers, and those are the workers who are supporting Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/242 "2016-03-19T16:37:25Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Sweden and Denmark don’t share America’s proud tradition of being dumb as shit. [44% of Americans possess a college or equivalent degree compared to 39% of Swedes and 36% of Danes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment). So please tell me how Americans are uniquely “dumb as shit”. :dubious::rolleyes: > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I’ve seen no evidence of this at all. History has shown time and time again that the one voting block most pandered to in this country are working class whites. Any group of people with the right to vote are pandered, if working-class whites have been pandered to more then any others it’s because they’ve made up the largest portion of the American population. > [@](#): > > They have more clout than any other group in this country other than rich businessmen. Erhm no. The upper middle-class professional/bourgeois caste is vastly more influential in national, state, and local politics. > [@](#): > > Perhaps you’ve forgotten the insanity that was the 2008 presidential election. Remember Hilary Clinton trying to convince America that Obama was too unelectable to win the general? Her claim had nothing to do with minorities and other “fringe” groups, and all to do with appealing to [uneducated, blue-collar whites](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=467259&highlight=clinton+uneducated+whites). You know, the kind of folks who politicians on both sides have to pay lip service to in order to win the swing states. The whole wearing a button down flannel and rolling up your sleeves schtick is part and parcel of American politics. And proceeds to stab them in the back once elected to office. Perhaps these elected officials should continue to fight for their interests rather then just shoot off a gun or go to a bar. Better yet, we need genuine working-class candidates who can better pursue their own class self-interests. That said, it’s regrettable Hillary Clinton wasn’t the nominee in 2008-she might potentially have stopped the collapse in the WWC vote for Democrats. > [@](#): > > I actually think the pandering that has gone on is one of the reason we see such anger from working class whites. It has raised their expectations and made them feel extra entitled. And it’s right they should-what they need is more political consciousness not less and more anger not less. > [@](#): > > Yes, they are taking the brunt of outsourcing and economic trends…but so are many minorities. Why the difference in outrage levels? Because minorities have a lot of experience feeling disenfranchised and alienated from power. So much experience in fact that they are generally too cynical to fall for charlatans like Trump. Working class whites, apparently not so much. [The evidence says you are wrong and that blacks and Hispanics are much more optimistic then whites](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-surprising-optimism-of-african-americans-and-latinos/401054/) which makes sense because they started off from a much lower bar. It would seem to be the solution here is to raise expectations for all Americans not bring the white working-class down to the lowest common denominator. Furthermore the evidence suggests that poor whites are less active in politics compared to blacks of the same socioeconomic level which makes sense given the past generation of efforts at racial political mobilization of the black community, the black population’s concentration in urban areas, and their greater involvement in networks such as churches. Consider for example that [black voter turnout exceeded white turnout](http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-election-2012-minority-voter-turnout-frey) in the last Presidential election. If one remembers that voter turnout is heavily correlated with income and education level as well as that blacks have disproportionately lower socioeconomic status, it suggests that there is a significant turnout gap between working-class blacks and whites and that they are the ones most disillusioned > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > But that is still more clout compared to other demographic groups. Consider many of the socially conservative legislation that has come out in recent years concerning abortion and gay marriage. It’s not middle-class yuppies being catered to by this stuff, and it’s not blacks and Latinos either. What nonsense. Plenty of middle-class people (remember that upper middle-class professionati of West Los Angeles or Manhattan aren’t the only or even the majority of the American bourgeoisie-they also include evangelical small business owners in the small town South) are socially conservative and of course, until recently, blacks and Latinos disproportionately supported gay marriage bans whenever it was put to a vote. > [@msmith537](#): > > It sounds like the viable solution the people you describe want is to fix America to a idealized, culturally homogenous, Norman Rockwell version of the 1950s agricultural/manufacturing town. A racially and sexually egalitarian version of a “Norman Rockwell” (who let’s remember was quite liberal if one actually looks at the political message of his paintings) America should absolutely be the goal. Societal atomization has been a disaster-we need to restore organic communities of individual regularly involved in community life and a genuine sense of [heimat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimat). > [@](#): > > It’s more than just “individual responsibility”. I get that rural folk are big on self sufficiency. Running a farm, you are responsible for doing stuff, otherwise it doesn’t get done. It also allows you to be largely self sufficient. The vast majority of people considered rural by the US Census aren’t farmers but residents of small towns. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/243 "2016-03-19T16:40:13Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Why would anyone want to do that? To me, \*that \*would be the soul-deadening existence that would make me turn to drink, drug, or suicide. Goddamn, I really hate the post-1968 party system sometimes. Were my impression of American liberalism solely derived from you, I’d be a Stalinist or Strasserist by this point. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/244 "2016-03-19T17:51:49Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Goddamn, I really hate the post-1968 party system sometimes. At least it’s an ideologically coherent lineup now. That is, neither party is ideologically united, but we now have all the more-or-lefties on one side and all the more-or-righties on the other, with little overlap in the middle, any more, no Blue Dog Democrats or Rockefeller Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/245 "2016-03-19T18:26:09Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > … if working-class whites have been pandered to more then any others it’s because they’ve made up the largest portion of the American population … Agreed. They have been losing that position thus have been pandered to less and less. And are angry and resentful about it. > [@](#): > > … [The evidence says you are wrong and that blacks and Hispanics are much more optimistic then whites](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-surprising-optimism-of-african-americans-and-latinos/401054/) … Cynicism and optimism are not antonyms. They are independent traits. I personally am very optimistic about the future (my own, my family’s, and the country’s) and am very cynical of politicians who promise simple solutions for complex problems. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/246 "2016-03-19T18:57:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > At least it’s an ideologically coherent lineup now. That is, neither party is ideologically united, but we now have all the more-or-lefties on one side and all the more-or-righties on the other, with little overlap in the middle, any more, no Blue Dog Democrats or Rockefeller Republicans. [This excellent Jacobin article](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/the-myth-of-the-moderate-republican/) indicates that the ideological polarization of the past generation or so has been exaggerated-even in the 1960s most Republicans were quite conservatives and Democrats rather liberal. And the current party coalitions to have plenty of people in odd places-you have large numbers of working-class voters who love Social Security, Medicare, and protectionism voting Republican on the basis of cultural issues and “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” Michael Bloomberg or Joe Lieberman types voting Democrat because they find the Republicans icky. > [@DSeid](#): > > Agreed. They have been losing that position thus have been pandered to less and less. And are angry and resentful about it. More importantly they’ve been largely screwed over by the socioeconomic policies of our bicoastal elites in the past generation or so. And thus rightfully they are angry and resentful about it. > [@](#): > > Cynicism and optimism are not antonyms. They are independent traits. I personally am very optimistic about the future (my own, my family’s, and the country’s) and am very cynical of politicians who promise simple solutions for complex problems. And it seems to me whites are just as cynical about most politicians. They are supporting TRUMP not so much because they believe his promises but because they want to [make our elites squeal](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-heart-of-the-trump-matter/): > [@](#): > > So while the logical part of my brain says that Trump is a self-aggrandizing charlatan, I find it hard to think through the abiding sense of anger and despondency that I have developed and most of my friends and family have developed. We are governed by people that we have come to hate, and at the moment, Trump looks like the only way to even have a shot at making them hurt like they’ve made us hurt. That is a tough proposition to turn down. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/247 "2016-03-19T21:58:28Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > [44% of Americans possess a college or equivalent degree compared to 39% of Swedes and 36% of Danes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment). So please tell me how Americans are uniquely “dumb as shit”. :dubious::rolleyes: Because educated or not, Americans cling to a lot of ideas that are backward, arrogant and Amero-centric. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > A racially and sexually egalitarian version of a “Norman Rockwell” (who let’s remember was quite liberal if one actually looks at the political message of his paintings) America should absolutely be the goal. Societal atomization has been a disaster-we need to restore organic communities of individual regularly involved in community life and a genuine sense of [heimat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimat). According to your link: Heimat - The specific aspects of Heimat — love and attachment to homeland — left the idea vulnerable to **easy assimilation into the fascist “blood and soil” literature of the National Socialists** since it is relatively easy to add to the positive feelings for the Heimat \*\*a rejection of anything foreign, that is not necessarily there in the first place. \*\*It was conceived by the Nazis that the volk community is deeply rooted in the land of their heimat through their practice of agriculture and their ancestral lineage going back hundreds and thousands of years. The Third Reich was regarded at the deepest level as the sacred heimat of the unified volk community—the national slogan was One Reich, One Volk, One Führer. **Those who were taken to Nazi concentration camps were those who were officially declared by the SS to be “enemies of the volk community” and thus a threat to the integrity and security of the heimat.** [/quote] So did you mean an overinflated sense of nationalism with a sprinkling of jingoist xenophobia? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/248 "2016-03-19T22:36:59Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Because educated or not, Americans cling to a lot of ideas that are backward, arrogant and Amero-centric. And what makes you think the rest of the world doesn’t hold similar ideas? > [@](#): > > According to your link: > > Heimat - The specific aspects of Heimat — love and attachment to homeland — left the idea vulnerable to **easy assimilation into the fascist “blood and soil” literature of the National Socialists** since it is relatively easy to add to the positive feelings for the Heimat \*\*a rejection of anything foreign, that is not necessarily there in the first place. \*\*It was conceived by the Nazis that the volk community is deeply rooted in the land of their heimat through their practice of agriculture and their ancestral lineage going back hundreds and thousands of years. The Third Reich was regarded at the deepest level as the sacred heimat of the unified volk community—the national slogan was One Reich, One Volk, One Führer. **Those who were taken to Nazi concentration camps were those who were officially declared by the SS to be “enemies of the volk community” and thus a threat to the integrity and security of the heimat.** So did you mean an overinflated sense of nationalism with a sprinkling of jingoist xenophobia? [/QUOTE] I see that you’ve only quoted the portion of the article on the way Heimat was appropriated by the Third Reich and the Nazis. You might as well say next that both Christianity and the theory of natural selection are evil because both of them were appropriated as much by Hitler and co. for their ideological purposes. Not to mention that I explicitly called for a “racially and sexually egalitarian” conception of heimat. > [@](#): > > People are bound to their heimat by their birth and their childhood, their language, their earliest experiences or acquired affinity. For instance, Swiss citizens have their Heimatort (the municipality where the person or their ancestors became citizens) on their identification. Heimat as a trinity of descendance, community, and tradition—or even the examination of it— highly affects a person’s identity. > > Heimat found strength as an instrument of self-assurance and orientation in an increasingly alienating world as Germany’s, Austria’s, and Switzerland’s population from the days of the Industrial Revolution made a massive exodus from rural areas into more urbanised communities around the countries’ major cities (Landflucht). Heimat was a reaction to the onset of modernity, loss of individuality and intimate community.[2] Heimat began as an integral aspect of German, Austrian, and Swiss identity that was patriotic without being nationalistic. Regional identity (along with regional dialect) is an important foundation for a person’s Heimat. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/249 "2016-03-23T06:32:51Z")
> [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](#): > > I guess blaming TARP on ‘the Dems’ is all about perception not reality, because I hope you’re aware that TARP was signed into law in October 2008 by George W. Bush I know that but politics is perception not facts. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/250 "2016-03-23T16:36:31Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Why would anyone want to do that? To me, \*that \*would be the soul-deadening existence that would make me turn to drink, drug, or suicide. You said it: TO YOU. Unless you want to outright delegitimize the people who aspire to a stable, safe, familiar environment. The goal ISTM should be a society where everyone can live as exciting and expansive a life \*\*or not, \*\*as they freely choose. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/251 "2016-03-23T19:04:16Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Which in theory should make enforcing the law cost-free for Democrats since Republicans are so much worse. But if anything the Obama administration has been even more lenient than Bush or Clinton was. Wages simply are not rising. Companies can even now use visa programs to reduce their labor costs in direct violation of the law, as Disney is doing: > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html?_r=0) > > And not just Disney, according to the article. It’s become standard practice now to fire American tech workers and replace them with foreigners. The loophole they use is to have another company hire the foreigners, who their own workers train to replace them. Disney is a poor example. It has historically always been about keeping labor costs down. Roughly 80% of its work force is temporary (i.e., independent contractors) to avoid paying for benefits as much as possible. Becoming a permanent employee is a big carrot used to motivate employees, but in reality rarely happens. There’s no conflict for them in hiring cheaper foreign workers as long as they can get away with it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/252 "2016-03-23T20:11:04Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Disney is a poor example. It has historically always been about keeping labor costs down. Goes back along way, too – when Walt was alive he was a fierce and vicious union-buster and very heady-handed in management. The Magic Police State. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320.md?page=12)