As a white professional-type deep in the sticks of a red state, I think it’s fair to say that I’m acquainted with more Trump voters than most liberals. My mind is as boggled as anybody else’s that so many people are willing to vote for such an obvious joke of a candidate, but I think those voters can be divided into some fairly distinct categories that may help understand them.
[ul]The Nose-Holders. They don’t defend Trump, but they feel like he’s the only choice because their chosen conservative principle is the only thing that matters. It’s usually abortion or guns or possibly taxes. In my area it’s often the EPA and bringing back coal jobs. (I know, I know.) They figure that as long as Trump puts right-wingers on the SCOTUS, we can deal with whatever else comes along. This is probably the majority of the Trump voters I know personally.[/ul]
[ul]The Killary Haters. They don’t defend Trump, but they believe that Hillary is far, far worse. She is personally responsible for Benghazi, Syria, ISIS, the economy, the death of Vince Foster (and a few dozen others), teen pregnancy, and male pattern baldness. There is nothing so ridiculous that you could make up about Hillary that you couldn’t get 1/3 of them to believe. The notion of Hillary as President is far more ridiculous to them than the notion of a Trump Presidency is to most of us.[/ul]
[ul]The Believers. Maybe the toughest category to define. They’re not terrible people, but they believe the things that Trump says. They don’t have any preconceived hate for Mexicans (they really don’t), but Trump has convinced them that they’re dangerous and need to be stopped with a wall. They know that people need jobs, and that Trump is a businessman and probably knows how to create more jobs. They’re not hateful people, and they don’t like everything Trump says, but the things he says feel true to them. Their knowledge of the issues is generally about an inch deep.[/ul]
[ul]The True Deplorables. They wish that the blacks, the gays, the Muslims, the uppity women, and most of all the liberals would shut the hell up, and Trump is going to shut 'em up. They’ve definitely been unfriended more than once. They love bumper stickers. They hate Hillary at least as much as the Killary Haters do, which can make them hard to distinguish between in the wild, but the TDs hate is directed far less specifically. These are the ones who pack the rallies.[/ul]
[ul]The Fuck-It-Allers. We’re all screwed, both candidates are just as bad, the whole thing is pointless and you’re silly if you think otherwise. This usually leads one to stay home or vote Johnson, but for a few this seems to add up to a vote for Trump for what I’m sure are very silly reasons.[/ul]
Troll Voters - I’ve come across many people, typically young white males, that want to upset “the system”, stir the pot, reboot America, that are driven only by the Nelson Muntz “Ha ha!” appeal of being an annoying thorn to any collective portion of society. Any excuse for a dumpster fire.
I think there is also a “Any Change is good” subset, which I don’t quite fit under any of your categories, although they may be considered a combination of the Killary Haters and Believers with a touch of Fuck-it-all.
Their view is that things are real bad, and its all the establishment’s fault. They don’t have any idea of what a Trump presidency would be like, but they figure it can’t be any worse than things are now. They obviously don’t have a very good imagination.
ETA: more or less the same group that Gargoyle put up.
The Dunning-Krugers: They don’t know what’s involved in being President, but it must be pretty easy, right? You just kind of wave your hands and Congress obeys your every wish. The rest is just speeches and Easter Egg hunts at the White House. So some rude, crude lout with street smarts should be able to handle the job just as well as those East Coast ivory tower politicians.
Edit: I guess this might be a subset of the Believers?
I’d lump the Troll Voters and the Any Change Is Good types in with the Fuck-It-Alls–in fact, I’d probably edit the definition to focus on them because they’re the most irritating subset. (They really don’t like being told that being willing to blow up the system might be the ultimate position of privilege.)
I’d definitely put the Dunning-Krugers in with the Believers.
Honestly, I’m not inclined to see any meaningful difference between people who hated and feared Mexicans before Donald told them to and people who hate & fear Mexicans because Donald tells them to. I certainly don’t see any reason to think one group, hateful, and the other, not.
They are still terrible people, even if their root problem is that they’re morons and easily influenced.
I like the OP’s taxonomy. Most of all, I like that it’s a taxonomy. Our political rhetoric tends to go in circles about who X’s supporters really are. The obvious truth is that they fall into a bunch of different groups, even though there’s overlap.
Somewhere in the taxonomy, there needs to be acknowledgement of the role that attraction-to-authoritarianism plays.
Trump’s appeal to that type of person is that he never admits he’s wrong and never admits that he has no solution, no matter what the problem. Grownups realize that this makes no sense as an operating policy. But people who crave the Wise Father delude themselves that ‘never wrong’ and ‘always in control’ and ‘knows the solution to all problems’ CAN exist in a member of our species.
Theoretically even a non-bigot might be an authoritarianism-craver. But in practical terms it’s more likely that yearning for the Wise Father goes along with Tribalism (from which we get bigotry and xenophobia).
The idea that a uniquely “authoritarian” mindset drives Trump is psychobabble rubbish. Ironically an article that argues for this supposed phenomenon disproves it’s own thesis when it displays a table that plainly shows that blacks and Hispanics have the highest authoritarian scores of any demographic, yet they hardly are rallying around Trump.
Huh? You can’t argue that Trump acts like an Authoritarian, he really doesn’t seem to understand the limitations of powers of the President at all. And also I can tell you that online Trump supporter forums are absolutely Authoritarian, they instantly ban and delete any dissenting comments, no free discussion or criticism of Trump is allowed. It’s a total echo chamber, and that does seem to appeal to some people.
Not that I know of, but he employs a lot of people. Around 22,450 according to this article from CNN Money, with the number expanding to 34,000 when including those whose jobs are peripheral to Trump’s enterprises.
I’m not sure whether it’s psychobabble rubbish or not, but to it seems unsound to claim that lack of black and hispanic support refutes the hypothesis. Did authoritarian Jews support Whatshisname?
It’s entirely possible for someone who is quite authoritarian to be anti-Trump, as septimus implied with his comment about authoritarian Jews who were presumably anti-Hitler, but an authoritarian who’s accustomed to being on the top of the heap in this country would be pro-Trump.
I’ve known them in other colors too, but those happened to be whatever color was the majority one in their country. I call them the mental teabaggers: they’re always dreaming of teabagging anybody they encounter.
I do, the ones who reached the conclusion on their own are much more likely to be anybody-but-me-phobic and are a lot less likely to be swayed back. The ones who are easily swayed… well, they’re easily swayed in any direction. They’re easily taken by anybody. They’re as likely to buy racism as crystal pyramids or the theology of prosperity. As obnoxious as many of them are, they are also walking through life with a big target painted on their faces.
Oh sure, we all fantasize about the Benevolent Despot who is able to implement the exact political agenda we support without the inconvenient opposition getting in the way. I’m sure there are Canadians who still believe Justin Trudeau will usher in a golden age of liberalism.
But most of us manage to retain a strong enough grip on reality to realize that this really is just a fantasy, that such a despot doesn’t (and couldn’t) exist, and even if he or she did the whole “power corrupts” dynamic would kick in very quickly and it would not end well.
So long as he was ranting about “those foreigners from the East”, some did. Many German Jews had found themselves being greeted by Cousin Ivan who had fled the Revolution and now expected Cousin Hans to kindly help him get settled in Germany, yes? So, foreigners from the East were enough of a problem within the Jewish community that some people would hear that message about keeping them out and agree.
In general, Spain is pretty friendly to our Latin American cousins (or at least less unfriendly than to other people). But we’ve had instances of immigrants from Latin America coming over with a plane ticket, their newly-refreshed Spanish citizenship and the clothing on their backs, and expecting some second cousin to house them. The second cousins’ reactions tended to be of the “hm, no?” variety, specially when the Atlantic-hopper hadn’t even given any warning.
But Trump isn’t talking about “foreigners from the East”, he’s jumped to yellow stars of David straightaway.