# The Obama-Trump voters **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 7, 2017, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948 "2017-11-07T04:50:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [November 7, 2017, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/21 "2017-11-07T16:25:10Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Trump. “Character voters”. Well, OK, I guess that’s all sorted out, then. It works if you think of it as, “Character that \*bothers \*you.” Trump had character issues, but they weren’t of the type that bothered his voters - or, at least, they grimaced but still voted for him anyway. Hillary’s character issues were of the type that did indeed bother Trump voters. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/22 "2017-11-07T16:28:23Z")
And like I said, career politicians are judged by a different standard than outsiders. And as unfair as it is, women are judged differently from men. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/23 "2017-11-07T16:34:18Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Guizot pretty much nailed it. We often over-analyze the motivations of voters. In my opinion, most don’t give two shits about policy. They just vote for who the personally like better and/or has charisma. Really? Sounded like a bunch of CT claptrap to me. “The media felt guilty when Trump won (for giving him so much free press), so they tried to dress up these voters in retrospect as some kind of noble working class–all of which was just to justify more media bullshit “analysis.”” Puh-lease!! There is something to be said about the voters voting for the candidate who reaches them on an emotional level, the person they would rather “have a beer with”, but you don’t need to be “the shiny new thing” to do that. Now, it may often be the shiny new thing that touches peoples’ emotions, but it’s the touching emotions part that is in play, not just being shiny and new. And that Economist article is awful. Firstly, the only evidence they offer about the motivation of Trump-Obama voters is one anecdote, and then they suddenly switch to “working class white voters” if the two groups were synonymous. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/24 "2017-11-07T16:38:19Z")
True, but the fact that 7% of voters went for Obama then Trump is pretty intriguing. I think it also exposes the danger of a pure base mobilization strategy, especially for Democrats. Democrats do not vote reliably, so you either win these swing voters or you lose, unless you can find that rare candidate like Barack Obama who can bring them out. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/25 "2017-11-07T17:08:46Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > True, but the fact that 7% of voters went for Obama then Trump is pretty intriguing. I think it also exposes the danger of a pure base mobilization strategy, especially for Democrats. Democrats do not vote reliably, so you either win these swing voters or you lose, unless you can find that rare candidate like Barack Obama who can bring them out. Oh, I think there’s a real story to be had on this subject. But this article kind of comes across as: “Hey, Ian, have we got anyone over there in Penn-sil-vain-i-a who can tell us what those whacky colonists are up to now? Get them to bash off a piece and we’ll put it in the next edition.” ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/26 "2017-11-07T17:18:05Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > There is something to be said about the voters voting for the candidate who reaches them on an emotional level, the person they would rather “have a beer with”, but you don’t need to be “the shiny new thing” to do that. Now, it may often be the shiny new thing that touches peoples’ emotions, but it’s the touching emotions part that is in play, not just being shiny and new. And that Economist article is awful. Firstly, the only evidence they offer about the motivation of Trump-Obama voters is one anecdote, and then they suddenly switch to “working class white voters” if the two groups were synonymous. Compelling argument. I think Joe Biden would fit that bill well. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/27 "2017-11-07T17:43:47Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Compelling argument. I think Joe Biden would fit that bill well. Maybe. I’d consider him a good candidate, but he did miserably in the 2008 primary. After two terms as VP, maybe that would be different. And more evidence against the “shiny new thing” argument: Hillary was the overwhelming favorite right out of the gate for the Democrats, and although Bernie did remarkably well, she still beat him handily\*. She was the epitome of the “not-shiny old thing”. But she had cache with name recognition and ties to Bill. \*Yeah, there was some not-so-above-board shenanigans between her and the DNC, but I can’t see how that was the deciding factor. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/28 "2017-11-07T17:50:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > “Trump is a racist” is fine. “Immigration enforcement is racist” is not, even though that’s probably what’s motivating Trump. You recognize that racism is motivating Trump on immigration, yet believe this isn’t true of his supporters. I personally find that hard to swallow. Here’s a more practical take: Immigration enforcement is racist, but we can’t call it racist because racists don’t like being called racist. Hell, even David Duke won’t call himself a racist, so how is this argument ever going to find purchase with Joe the Merely Economically Anxious Plumber? That’s the honest truth. There is no politically viable approach that involves telling people ugly truths about themselves. People will believe that water flows uphill if the alternative is admitting a defect in character or intellect. Obama won because he told us we were all brilliant heroes who deserve better government. The Democrats need to start lying like that again. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/29 "2017-11-07T18:03:44Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Both the GOP and the DEMs learned that a shinier objects gets all the attention. … The 2016 election proved that sometimes shiny is enough. So did the primaries, where the \*lack \*of any significant accomplishment by a major candidate on each side allowed them to present themselves as shiny, and the candidates who had gotten their hands dirty doing actual work as corrupted. Many of their voters remain enraptured with the shininess even today. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/30 "2017-11-07T21:10:11Z")
How can we attribute 2012 to then-President Obama (already!) being the “change” candidate??? Get real. Nor was he the “shiny object”. I am a middle-of-the-road voter. I have voted for Republican candidates for President, and Democratic candidates for president. I’ve voted in every Presidential election starting in 1980, so that’s a fair history of voting. I have not always voted for the winner (7 - 3). I voted for a candidate and then against him in a second election only once (George H. W. Bush). I can tell you that I, and others like me, vote for whom we do based upon how we feel about the individual candidates. Usually, that’s a function of what they’ve been saying about what they want to do. But it can also be a function of who they bring with them to the table (for example: I might have voted for Sen. McCain, but never got the chance once he selected the Mouth From Alaska as his VP). But it most certainly isn’t just, “Oooh, shiny object!” I can’t understand why Democrats don’t realize why they lost this election. President Trump made a concerted effort to convince a relatively stalwart section of Democratic voters that their interests would be served better by voting for him (the “white”, middle-class, blue-collar voter). He pandered to them economically, as well as ethnically. Not shockingly, he was successful (Hillary Clinton’s assertion that her policies would put a bunch of West Virginia coal miners out of work, as if that was a good thing, certainly helped underscore the difference in their policies). He swung that demographic in his favor in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, and won all four states. All of those voters were people who had spent years voting for Democratic candidates, because of the strong ties between their unions and The Democracy. How is this so hard to comprehend? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/31 "2017-11-07T21:26:47Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > How can we attribute 2012 to then-President Obama (already!) being the “change” candidate??? Get real. Nor was he the “shiny object”. In comparison to Romney, yes, he was. > [@](#): > > I can’t understand why Democrats don’t realize why they lost this election. President Trump made a concerted effort to convince a relatively stalwart section of Democratic voters that their interests would be served better by voting for him (the “white”, middle-class, blue-collar voter). He pandered to them economically, as well as ethnically. It’s okay. You can say “deplorable”. You’re among friends. > [@](#): > > Not shockingly, he was successful (Hillary Clinton’s assertion that her policies would put a bunch of West Virginia coal miners out of work, as if that was a good thing, certainly helped underscore the difference in their policies). IOW, many people in West Virginia either liked being lied to or couldn’t even tell. So should the Democrats lie harder next time? Is that the lesson you want the Democrats to learn? ---
**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:** [November 8, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/32 "2017-11-08T00:35:38Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > No one is calling policies bigoted that aren’t. There is just a huge group of people in denial. The immigration example is a very obvious one: it involves treating people differently due to their country of origin. It involves saying that people who are born in the U.S., which is not under their control, are more worthy of equality than those that are not. > > There is this tendency by the Republicans to pretend things that have bigoted undertones don’t. And that is a huge problem. Why in the world does the party that can’t hold onto any minorities think that they know what bigotry actually is? > > Maybe we’ll have to lie to all these people to get our country back under control. I really, really hope not, but desperate times may call for desperate measures. But I’m not going to let this ignorance spread that liberals call things bigoted that aren’t. We don’t. All men (humans) are created equal. > > Trump ran on bigotry. And that resonated with a lot of people. That’s the story. That’s really all there is to it. So they voted for Obama. So what? When a guy spouts bigotry and you vote for him, you voted for bigotry. > > All this persecution complex because some of us will actually call out your bigotry has to stop. I’d rather die than allow bigotry. There is nothing intrinsically bigoted about enforcing national borders. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/33 "2017-11-08T00:46:08Z")
With the promise of a giant mythical fear mongering wall. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/34 "2017-11-08T00:54:48Z")
> [@](#): > > There is nothing intrinsically bigoted about enforcing national borders. Which is why Obama did it to a greater degree than Bush. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/35 "2017-11-08T02:56:28Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > There is nothing intrinsically bigoted about enforcing national borders. No, but that can be done quietly without ostensibly whipping up racial anxieties. Obama deported more than any president previously. I never argued with or objected to enforcement of immigration law, but the scapegoating of illegal immigrants was utterly unnecessary. It’s just an excuse to be racist. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/36 "2017-11-08T04:25:13Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Here’s a more practical take: Immigration enforcement is racist, but we can’t call it racist because racists don’t like being called racist. Hell, even David Duke won’t call himself a racist, so how is this argument ever going to find purchase with Joe the Merely Economically Anxious Plumber? > . We can’t call immigration reform racist in 2017 for the same reason we couldn’t call opposition to gay marriage homophobia in 2008. Although immigration isn’t so cut and dried an issue that liberalization is guaranteed as time goes on, so the analogy is imperfect. But the point is that no politician can get away with calling the vast majority haters. Clinton proved you probably can’t get away with subtly implying that 45% of Americans are haters. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/37 "2017-11-08T04:27:03Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > So did the primaries, where the \*lack \*of any significant accomplishment by a major candidate on each side allowed them to present themselves as shiny, and the candidates who had gotten their hands dirty doing actual work as corrupted. Many of their voters remain enraptured with the shininess even today. Your best post ever. One thing we should do is train voters out of “shiny” and just run good candidates with records of accomplishment with a minimum of skeletons in their past. The Presidential election is rapidly turning into the Supreme Court, where nominees have to be young, with not much of a record, and manage to say nothing interesting during the process. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/38 "2017-11-08T04:27:33Z")
I think a fair chunk of that seven million can be explained as swing voters voting for “change out the bum in charge” when the economy is down and “keep the present bum in charge” when the economy is up. To get rid of Trump; keep up the stories about him being a crook, or don’t; but definitely hope the Fed decides to hike interest rates in the fall of 2019, because that’s what will make the difference with enough swing voters. ETA: Oh, and the _Economist_ is written by anonymous twenty-something twerps fresh out of Oxbridge, and their editorials are profitably used by being recycled into attic insulation without being read. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/39 "2017-11-08T06:08:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > One thing we should do is train voters out of “shiny” and just run good candidates with records of accomplishment with a minimum of skeletons in their past. Good idea. “We” will get right on that! Would complete by next week be fast enough, or should “we” be more aggressive? 😉 > [@](#): > > The Presidential election is rapidly turning into the Supreme Court, where nominees have to be young, with not much of a record, and manage to say nothing interesting during the process. So why did the old fogies win the nomination less than a year and half ago? (Assuming you mean the primaries, not the the election. But it should apply to both, per the original idea.) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948/40 "2017-11-08T09:03:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > …So why did the old fogies win the nomination less than a year and half ago?.. Stealth. The fogies come in on little cat’s feet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-obama-trump-voters/800948.md?page=3)