# 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:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/21 "2016-03-08T22:38:34Z")
Like all countries, we have average and below average understanding of general things, and here it is always “how the government works”. I believe most people don’t understand how an election works over how important it is to be popular and support celebrities. All of his supporters I’ve asked never answer my questions, like, how is Trump going to achieve that? I get, “He’ll fix it. He will.” :rolleyes: They think presidents can just conjure up new tax laws and demand better oil prices, but they don’t understand that presidents CAN’T do these things. They can’t build walls with junk bonds either. They are angry because they don’t understand how it works. Period. So along comes a celebrity with inherited money… ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/22 "2016-03-08T22:41:22Z")
Back to the anger issue: Everyone has a grievance, but some folks feel that their grievances aren’t taken seriously. They will rally around someone whom they feel does speak for those grievances. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/23 "2016-03-08T23:03:12Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How does taxing and spending in order to create a dependency class advance the position of the working class? Assuming that’s a real question, by not letting them starve in the dark when their corporate masters decide their jobs can be done much cheaper overseas? I believe, however, you are starting from a false premise (paraphrased, the primary goal of taxing and spending is to create a dependency class). Have you ever seen a bona fide party document that states this objective? Could you share this document with us? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/24 "2016-03-08T23:14:34Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Assuming that’s a real question, by not letting them starve in the dark when their corporate masters decide their jobs can be done much cheaper overseas? > > I believe, however, you are starting from a false premise (paraphrased, the primary goal of taxing and spending is to create a dependency class). Have you ever seen a bona fide party document that states this objective? Could you share this document with us? You believe the Democrats tax and spend class warfare politics are truly well intentioned? Yet you don’t see how those same policies incentivized moving production off shore and into the black/gray market with illegal labor? Rewarding stupidity, destructive behavior, and sloth does exacerbate resentment. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/25 "2016-03-08T23:36:29Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The average blue collar/working class white person is a proud, simple folk. They don’t have aspirations of working in some fancy Wall Street hedge fund or launching some app in Silicon Valley. Although he heard that nerdy kid from freshman year who “didn’t quite fit” might be up to something like that. > > All working class people really want is to go to their job, earn enough to pay their bills, have a beer with their pals and do some barbequing with the family on the weekends. Possibly send Junior to State U so he can do a bit better. > > Now in the past, they have always been able to find a job and so long as they put in the work, they could keep it. The only people who had trouble keeping jobs were people who slacked off or showed up drunk and got fired. Maybe people from the minority sections of town who always seemed to be in some sort of legal trouble. > > So for these people, as more and more jobs get shipped overseas and work gets harder to come by, they lose their sense of pride and become very resentful. They don’t understand concepts like globalization or industry disruption, but they understand not being able to pay their bills and they see the government working very hard to give more entitlements to the very people who in their minds weren’t willing to put in the work in the first place. So as they become “those people” they despise, they don’t think “yes, we could really use those social safety nets”. They think “I can find a job because ‘those people’ are lazy and shiftless dragging everyone else down and those fancy double-talking politicians are letting it happen.” I think there’s a lot of truth to this. Another facet I would like to mention is that the ideology of capitalist society tells us that if you are willing to work hard, you can have a decent life. Economic changes which drive down the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled labor not only hurt these people in the pocketbook, they also strike at their self-image as a “hard worker”; since the system rewards those who work hard, there must be something wrong with _them_ if they get laid off and can’t find another job. This blow to their self-esteem makes them even more anxious than the economic realities of their situation would warrant, and more vulnerable to appeals based on fear and scapegoating of the Other. Also, the changes in the global economy which have hurt the white working class have coincided with, though aren’t directly related to, the trend in recent decades for increased rights and respect for minorities of various kinds. This makes the uneducated worker susceptible to the argument that the civil rights movements have somehow caused their economic problems, and reasserting the dominance of straight white Christian men over society will in in turn solve these problems. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/26 "2016-03-08T23:48:02Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You believe the Democrats tax and spend class warfare politics are truly well intentioned? Yet you don’t see how those same policies incentivized moving production off shore and into the black/gray market with illegal labor? > > Rewarding stupidity, destructive behavior, and sloth does exacerbate resentment. You answered my questions with unrelated questions, and your last statement lacks specifics. Fail. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/27 "2016-03-08T23:52:27Z")
The source of their anger? Progressives think they are a bunch ignorant, racist idiots. This is not some crazy notion they have, it’s 100% true. Some progressives will try to be polite, but eventually when the mask slips this how they know they are viewed. They work hard, follow the rules of the American Dream and don’t get much traction. No one is really looking out for the interests of the white middle class / under class. The democrats aren’t; and the plutocrat fellating Republicans certainly are not although will try to keep them in line with racially with tinged dog whistles and appeals to patriotism. Good jobs that will pay the bills are very, very hard to get. Low skilled jobs like lawn care and construction helper etc. you could rely on in the past if you were in a pinch are harder to get and are filled will immigrants. Progressives tend to discount white working class frustration on this score as if it’s no big deal. For many in desperate circumstances it’s a very BFD. They have been “handled” for so long by the GOP elite they have scuff marks. They are poorer than ever and realize they have been bullshitted. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/28 "2016-03-09T00:09:53Z")
Maybe they should try not being racist idiots then? ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/29 "2016-03-09T00:12:02Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I’m singling this statement out, because I think it speaks to the core of what a lot of Trump supporters believe. Now most of this is based of anecdotal, so take it as you will. > > The average blue collar/working class white person is a proud, simple folk. They don’t have aspirations of working in some fancy Wall Street hedge fund or launching some app in Silicon Valley. Think you can manage to be any more condescending? Slee ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/30 "2016-03-09T00:22:52Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > You answered my questions with unrelated questions, and your last statement lacks specifics. Fail. Fail? You overestimate your weight in the audience. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/31 "2016-03-09T00:45:11Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Fail? You overestimate your weight in the audience. No doubt. I will leave you to your continued sloganeering. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/32 "2016-03-09T01:01:50Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How does taxing and spending in order to create a dependency class . . . . . . apply to anything in real life in this country? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/33 "2016-03-09T01:03:44Z")
> [@moldmonkey](#): > > In the thread about underestimating Trump supporters, it was brought up that rather than class or intelligence being an indicator of whether a person will support Trump, it is their way of thinking. Trump supporters tend to be rule following, black and white thinkers. They feel they have to been following the rules and their position in life is worsening. They are realizing that the American dream/exceptionalism is going away if it ever existed and they are mad. They are mad at the elites so they pick an outsider. It doesn’t have to be logical. Along with the anger, there is also a lot of fear for the future. That may be so, but it can’t be race/class-irrelevant, either. Trump has a significant demographic base among the white working class and nobody else. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/34 "2016-03-09T01:04:52Z")
some of it: they look at what Trump shows of his life to people, men want to be him, women want to be with [a guy as rich as] him. he’s one of the few billionaires who likes to be around “regular folk,” whereas other billionaires only mingle around other rich people. Trump loves [selling shit to] ordinary people. and yes, there are probably a lot of people who think he’ll stop the changing demographics of this country ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/35 "2016-03-09T01:07:43Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > But assume I’m not a bigot. > > Assume I don’t mind gay and trans people; were I gay or trans, the Democrats would be fighting for me – but I’m not gay or trans. Were I black, hey, the Democrats are out there championing affirmative action and agreeing with Black Lives Matter – but I’m not black. Were I female, they’re pro-choice and want women to earn more money on the job – but I’m not female. They’re more tolerant of Muslims? I’m not Muslim. They want to expand benefits for people who aren’t working? I’m working. > > Even if I have no _problem_ with any of that, what would they do for me? Raise my taxes? Take away my guns? Give me a lecture on checking my privilege? > > What’s in it for me? > > (Don’t get me wrong, I still vote for Democrats – but it’s not because I think they’re out to better my situation; it’s because I think the alternative is worse.) That’s a different discussion, and I don’t think it’s particularly related to Trumpism (which was what I was talking about). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/36 "2016-03-09T01:08:20Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > I kind of understand this. I get the sentiment. What I don’t get is the grouping. It is an us vs. them, but in reality the “them” are the rich plutocrats of the world like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson. I think the average working class white person has a lot more in common with a working class African-American or Hispanic person than they do with Charles Koch. Why they would think the opposite is what I don’t get. Well, because among other things Marx got wrong, a social class is not merely a set of people of the same economic status or economic function. It is also a sociological entity. People of the same class do not just work at the same kinds of jobs or earn the same level of income, they live in the same kinds of neighborhoods, go to the same schools, socialize with each other, marry each other, and absorb a similar outlook growing up. The white and black working classes are really two different social classes, and will remain so until socialization and neighborhood and intermarriage between them is a great deal more common than it is now. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/37 "2016-03-09T01:23:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Even me? 😛 Yeah, I think racism is definitely a big part of this…I agree with much of what iiandyiiii said in the first post in this thread. But there is another large element to all this. However, in most of these threads it’s only the racism angle that’s talked about. Well, here, as I’ve posted before in this forum, is another angle: Trump’s base is what Donald Warren, writing in 1976, called Middle American Radicals or MARS. As [John B. Judis writes:](https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/74221/return-middle-american-radical) > [@](#): > > While conducting extensive surveys of white voters in 1971 and again in 1975, Warren identified a group who defied the usual partisan and ideological divisions. These voters were not college educated; their income fell somewhere in the middle or lower-middle range; and they primarily held skilled and semi-skilled blue-collar jobs or sales and clerical white-collar jobs. At the time, they made up about a quarter of the electorate. What distinguished them was their ideology: It was neither conventionally liberal nor conventionally conservative, but instead revolved around **an intense conviction that the middle class was under siege from above and below.** > > Warren called these voters Middle American Radicals, or MARS. “MARS are distinct in the depth of their feeling that the middle class has been seriously neglected,” Warren wrote. They saw “government as favoring both the rich and the poor simultaneously.” Like many on the left, MARS were deeply suspicious of big business: Compared with the other groups he surveyed—lower-income whites, middle-income whites who went to college, and what Warren called “affluents”—MARS were the most likely to believe that corporations had “too much power,” “don’t pay attention,” and were “too big.” MARS also backed many liberal programs: By a large percentage, they favored government guaranteeing jobs to everyone; and they supported price controls, Medicare, some kind of national health insurance, federal aid to education, and Social Security. > > On the other hand, they held very conservative positions on poverty and race. They were the least likely to agree that whites had any responsibility “to make up for wrongs done to blacks in the past,” they were the most critical of welfare agencies, they rejected racial busing, and they wanted to grant police a “heavier hand” to “control crime.” They were also the group most distrustful of the national government. And in a stand that wasn’t really liberal or conservative (and that appeared, at least on the surface, to be in tension with their dislike of the national government), MARS were more likely than any other group to favor strong leadership in Washington—to advocate for a situation “when one person is in charge.” > > If these voters are beginning to sound familiar, they should: Warren’s MARS of the 1970s are the Donald Trump supporters of today. Since at least the late 1960s, these voters have periodically coalesced to become a force in presidential politics, just as they did this past summer. In 1968 and 1972, they were at the heart of George Wallace’s presidential campaigns; in 1992 and 1996, many of them backed H. Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan. Over the years, some of their issues have changed—illegal immigration has replaced explicitly racist appeals—and many of these voters now have junior-college degrees and are as likely to hold white-collar as blue-collar jobs. But the basic MARS worldview that Warren outlined has remained surprisingly intact from the 1970s through the present. Now, that analysis **includes** racism as an important element, but racism is not the whole explanation. (And it would be better for the above to say “working class” than “middle class,” they’re the ones to whom it mainly applies.) As for Trump, his authoritarian style appeals to the MARS psychologically, and, after the usual pattern of demagogues other than Communist demagogues, he is focusing most of the MARS’ attention on the “below,” even though it is really the “above” (that is, the 1%, not the government except to the very considerable extent to which it acts as their agents) who is to blame for their declining job prospects and economic marginalization and disappointed white entitlement. (The only “above” Trump regularly blames is the political establishment.) And his approach works, it appeals to them, just as George Wallace’ strategy of blaming the blacks and biggummint did. Put another way: Trump is a symptom of the same disease of which [white working-class Americans are dying](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=774700). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/38 "2016-03-09T01:30:47Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > And if Salman Rushdie shows up? Then he will not be turned away . . . on account of his nation or color. Of course, the gatekeepers might place some phone calls. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/39 "2016-03-09T01:32:01Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > But assume I’m not a bigot. > > Assume I don’t mind gay and trans people; were I gay or trans, the Democrats would be fighting for me – but I’m not gay or trans. Were I black, hey, the Democrats are out there championing affirmative action and agreeing with Black Lives Matter – but I’m not black. Were I female, they’re pro-choice and want women to earn more money on the job – but I’m not female. They’re more tolerant of Muslims? I’m not Muslim. They want to expand benefits for people who aren’t working? I’m working. > > Even if I have no _problem_ with any of that, what would they do for me? Raise my taxes? Take away my guns? Give me a lecture on checking my privilege? > > What’s in it for me? Vaseline. Pubs don’t use it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320/40 "2016-03-09T01:34:45Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > You would be living in a better world - more just, more kind, more generous. Your children would grow up seeing that social justice works to make life better for all of us. Better educational opportunities for the majority of our citizens will lead to increased earning potential and new discoveries. Better economic choices will mean better economic prosperity for everyone - including white men. Your daughters will have bigger futures. Science will be bring advances to everyone - inlcuding white men. Diverse points of view will lead to richer cultural and artistic growth. Will be the land of opportunity for all our children. > > This sounds like a fairytale - but it’s already true. We live in a better world today than our parents did, and they grew up in a better than their parents. The things that make our world special all come from the efforts of previous generations to grow and change beyond the constraints of oppressive generations. Life is better today than it was forty or even twenty years ago. Our future is brighter and closer - because we jettisoned centuries of ideas about religion, race, and gender. > > We’re on a golden path but we couldn’t be here today without the efforts and participation of white men who looked at the oppression faced by different races and genders and thought, “that’s not right.” Making the world a better place for all our fellow travelers is an act that improves the lot of everyone who witnesses it. > > White men are not the enemy. The enemy is the people who seek to divide us by appealing to fear and jealousy. > > That’s the answer to your question, “What’s in it for me?” That question is actually about your soul. > > Will you be one who lifts your fellows up into the future, or will you be the crab, pulling your compatriots down into captivity? That’s what this election is about. What kind of soul do you have? What kind of world do you want? When you die, how will be remembered? Will you be a generous person? A kind person? Will you leave the world a better place? > > If the answer is yes, well - you’ll see your reward all around you. Or, better still, this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-the-anger-of-trump-voters-working-class-white-people/748320.md?page=3)