The whole idea that there is a “Middle America” that is the basis for Trump’s support is a misnomer. It’s White America. White conservatives like to claim descriptors like “real America” or “Middle America” or “Working-Class America,” but it’s nothing of the kind. The only thing they broadly have in common is that they’re white and they resent the threat of loss of white privilege (while denying that there is any white privilege)
Because that’s part and parcel of being the boss: you pay your dues, and pretty soon it’s you making bank off the labor of others. Conservatives fight to preserve this order because many of them see themselves as one day being rewarded by it.
I’d say that’s fair. To me, Trump comes across like an ill-informed blowhard who is used to running his own family business he inherited. IOW, someone who is used to telling people to do what he wants, when and how he wants or you get fired. Politics doesn’t work like that. Heck, most successful companies don’t work like that (let’s not pretend that The Trump Organization is in the same level as the Johnson & Johnsons and Goldman Sachs of the world). Most of the time it requires a lot of compromise across many stakeholders.
But I can see how if you are a conservative, Trumps uncompromising nature fighting for your particular ideology is appealing. Sort of like a demanding drill sergeant or football coach. You do it the RIGHT way or GET THE FUCK OUT!
And it seems to me that conservatives have an almost pathological aversion to being “told what to do”. Also any implication that their success has been achieved through anything but their own efforts (and conversely that anyone less fortunate is deserving of a “helping hand”). Like they loose their fucking minds. I read these posts by people complaining about “martial law” locking us down because of the virus. And I’m like “Your profile says you were in the FUCKING AIR FORCE! You should a) know what martial law is and is not and b) if you are so “anti-government” or whatever, why did you work for them for so many years?”
You know New York had two Republican mayors in my lifetime who were relatively popular-ish (Giuliani and Bloomberg)?
Plus there are plenty of Republicans in New York and the surrounding area. My wife never shuts off Fox News. I don’t know if they are considered “Middle America” as opposed to “Wall Street elite”. Most of them sound like what leahcim described. Libertarian types who don’t want regulations or tone-deaf analytical quant types whos analysis leads them to “everyone but me can fuck themselves”. Some are actual Wall Street guys bemoaning the fact that they are being treated like the Jamie Dimons and David Solomons of the world while struggling to get by on a couple hundred thousand a year.
IMHO, threads like this could be separated into two branches. The first branch is to vent the collective spleen, and the other is for more concerted answers to the question. [Here's an article](https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-interview-trump-supporters-2017-2) on someone who's actually gone around the country interviewing Trump supporters and lived to tell the tale (2017 blog post reprinted in Business Insider, which slants a bit left of center). Some highlights:
Top three things they liked about POTUS:
general comments (the interviews include a fair amount of nose-holding / negative views of Trump):
multiple pleas for listening:
[quote=“sps49sd, post:93, topic:851773”]
No shit, you’re living in a bubble.
NYC has significant Trump supporters; it is not the bubble you portray. This “Middle America” of yours, which sure looks like a synonym for “Flyover States”, is not as monolithic as most posters in this thread are treating it.
[quote=“sps49sd, post:93, topic:851773”]
I’m actually talking about people I know who live an hour or so from Manhattan. People who live in typical suburban towns in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I don’t need to travel to Iowa or Kansas to meet Republicans.
“Worse” how? The knee-jerk hatred of Liberals and Democrats by the Right is not self-evident to me. Other than that they make associations with “socialism” or “political correctness”, which are apparently so offensive to their sensibilities it drives them out of their minds.
I’ll try. In what way is Biden worse than Trump?
Right at HALF the people in America voted for him… Including the vast majority who live in “Middle America”, and yet you don’t understand why they would have done that?
You need to get out of the bubble that you live in and mingle a bit with the backbone of America. There’s going to be a LOT MORE than just this that you will become enlightened to. Seriously.
I have some acquaintances who are poorly informed in general about politics. They don’t like to admit this, so they retreat to anodyne observations that neither side is perfect, we ought to be talking to each other, and it’s good to give the other side a shot once in a while.
These people are always white, but they don’t hate minorities. They are just exercising the white privilege of disengaging from politics knowing they’ll probably come out OK either way.
27% of voting eligible adults voted for him.
I feel fine dismissing them & their beliefs. What’s more concerning is why the Democrats can’t cobble together enough votes to beat a quarter of the population who backed an obvious con man. Watch Joe fail to do it again this yet, with help from our brilliant Electoral College.
White Americans have higher rates of voting than non-white Americans. They’re not the ones disengaging from politics. But keep lecturing white people about their privilege- Trump could use a few more white working class voters switching sides in the Midwest before November.
I have some acquaintances who are poorly informed in general about politics. They don’t like to admit this, so they retreat to anodyne observations that neither side is perfect, we ought to be talking to each other, and it’s good to give the other side a shot once in a while.
These people are always white, but they don’t hate minorities. They are just exercising the white privilege of disengaging from politics knowing they’ll probably come out OK either way.
Seems to me HMS is referring to a specific set of acquaintances rather than voters in general.
I’ve spent a little time in the “backbone” of America. They strike me as pretty dismissive of the “liberal elites”. So how about you drop this hard-done-by Middle America bullshit pretense? Seriously.
Right, I’m speaking of a pattern I’ve observed in people I know personally. But I don’t think those people are super-rare or unique.
I know Trump has a certain type of base, and a certain type of fringe, and a certain type of nose-holding wedge voter.
The people I’m attempting to describe are white people who deliberately avoid self-labeling, and consume little information about politics and current events at all. They seem to prioritize the idea that everybody has a piece of the truth, nobody is as bad as they seem, and anything’s worth trying once. Plus maybe their dad owns a gun or worked in a steel mill or something.
I think that perspective got a lot of people to a neutral or experimentally supportive position on Trump. Then Trump did a bunch of stupid and horrendous shit, which they missed because they aren’t actively seeking out that kind of information. The left is very angry, which is impossible to miss. Because this underengaged middle is missing the information explaining why everybody is mad at their guy, they dig even deeper into their worldview. They’re not radicalizing, but they’re more skeptical than ever of the left.
All of it hinges on being underinformed and being firmly committed to the principle that people are mostly good and partially right.
It’s fine to dismiss someones beliefs… Once you know what they are and understand them if you disagree with what you find… But the area in RED covers the VAST majority of the country. If you can’t understand why they would then you are very out of touch with reality and common working class people.
What is your understanding of “common working class people”?
ETA: And population density, while we’re at it.
Acreage doesn’t vote.
The area in BLUE covers the vast majority of actual people.
Apologies if it’s been posted, but Nate Silver covered this back in 2016: educated people drove up support for Clinton and uneducated people drove up support for Trump.
Ok, I’ll bite.
I voted from Trump and will so again.
Not because I like him, but because I didnt like Hillary and I dont like Biden.
I wish we had a 3rd choice like a new Ross Perot (Yes, I voted for him).