# What is Trump a symptom of? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 1, 2016, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614 "2016-03-01T09:24:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/21 "2016-03-01T16:23:04Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > But isn’t Trump’s target of change everything but the 1% - building the wall, anti-immigration, etc is his most popular policy? Exactly. It’s bait-and-switch. 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. Trump, after the usual pattern of demagogues other than Communist demagogues, is focusing 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. 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 1, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/22 "2016-03-01T17:15:28Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Josh Marshall at _Talking Points Memo_ [offers a metaphor](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/gop-overwhelmed-by-debt) based on the idea of “programming debt” (the idea that if you slap something together to meet a deadline, you’re going to have to come back and spend more time fixing it later): As has been said on this Board, I forget by whom, “You can’t spend 30 years dry-humping the crazy and then act surprised when the crazy wants to fuck.” ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/23 "2016-03-01T17:39:43Z")
From my standpoint Trump and Sanders are both riding a current wave of anti-establishment. People are flocking to their campaign despite promises that have no chance of coming to fruition. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/24 "2016-03-01T17:49:13Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > From my standpoint Trump and Sanders are both riding a current wave of anti-establishment. [Robert Reich pens an open letter to the Republican establishment.](http://robertreich.org/) Extremely thread-relevant. > [@](#): > > Finally, by squeezing wages and rigging the economic game in your favor, you have invited an unprecedented political backlash – against trade, immigration, globalization, and even against the establishment itself. > > The pent-up angers and frustrations of millions of Americans who are working harder than ever yet getting nowhere, and who feel more economically insecure than ever, have finally erupted. American politics has become a cesspool of vitriol. > > Republican politicians in particular have descended into the muck of bigotry, hatefulness, and lies. They’re splitting America by race, ethnicity, and religion. The moral authority America once had in the world as a beacon of democracy and common sense is in jeopardy. And that’s not good for you, or your businesses. > > Nor is the uncertainty all this is generating. A politics based on resentment can lurch in any direction at almost any time. Yet you and your companies rely on political stability and predictability. > > You follow me? You’ve hoisted yourself on your own petard. All that money you invested in Republican Party in order to reap short-term gains is now reaping a whirlwind. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/25 "2016-03-01T18:04:22Z")
You’ll pardon me if I don’t take a former Clinton cabinet member as unbiased. From my view Sanders is almost as nutty as Trump (albeit without the buffoonery) and he’s getting almost as much support. Sanders might be hampered in that Hillary is a more viable (and better) alternative to what the Republicans are currently peddling. Both candidates are demonizing (Trump: Islamists, Sanders: 1%ers), anti-science (Trump: AGW, Sanders: nuclear power), and nutty (Trump: Mexico will build the wall, Sanders: tax 1%ers at 85%). One difference is that Sanders is attracting the recent liberal outrage (e.g. OWS) whereas Trump seems to be going against the grain of the Tea Party movement. In that regard Trump’s success is more surprising. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/26 "2016-03-01T18:43:03Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > You’ll pardon me if I don’t take a former Clinton cabinet member as unbiased. Biased != wrong. Besides, if Reich had any residual loyalty to the Clintons, wouldn’t he now be endorsing Hillary instead of Bernie? > [@Deeg](#): > > From my view Sanders is almost as nutty as Trump (albeit without the buffoonery) and he’s getting almost as much support. Social democracy ain’t nutty, whatever else it might be. ---
**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 1, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/27 "2016-03-01T18:50:02Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > The starting premise is that this is not rational - to have effectively a joke candidate be taken seriously by the electorate at all, never mind for this long. If you think it is rational then maybe start another thread. > > In a conventional, mature democracy the rise of people like Trump does not happen. So what has happened in the USA? > > Initially I was inclined to think Trump represented a form of protest vote - despite having _policies_ the electorate was attracted on that single protesting issue, but it seems to be more than that. > > Does the cause goes beyond dissatisfaction and into the realm of dysfunction, social, politics or both? > > On my superficial grasp of US politics it’s almost as if all those recent years of GOP/Fox buffoonery over Obama - from Kenya to the new Supreme - have come back to haunt the national party. Is being infantile now normal in US politics? > > I also have a sense, based on little other than the European experience, that there has to be consequences if media is allowed to persist without boundaries; if left to the free market it must inevitably become right wing, and if is allowed to operate without regulation t will become radically right wing. > > IN US terms, the obligation (certainly in the UK) to balanced reporting is, I believe, against free speech provisions in the constitution. > > Or maybe the dysfunction lays in the need for so much money to even think of becoming a politician in the US. > > I don’t know, but this situation is very wrong. I’m curious as to how it came to be? Humans are not rational. Strictly rational debate and rhetoric is foolish if you want power. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/28 "2016-03-01T18:53:41Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Humans are not rational. Strictly rational debate and rhetoric is foolish if you want power. It worked well enough to get many American presidents into office. Lincoln ran on a fairly rational platform. So did TR and FDR and Truman and Eisenhower and JFK and LBJ and Clinton and Obama and . . . well, no Pubs since Eisenhower, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/29 "2016-03-01T18:58:16Z")
Trump’s supporters tend to be less educated, blue collar workers. Those kinds of people are the ones facing the most competition from illegal immigrants in factories, service jobs, carpentry, etc. So his anti immigration stance is appealing to them. Plus trump speaks out against the rigged political system, how the rich own the politicians. Both he and Sanders are popular for speaking out against this fact. Plus trump says he will support Medicare, Medicaid, social security, etc. He is arguably the least plutocratic gop candidate. I like trump. Wouldn’t vote for him but I like him. ---
**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 1, 2016, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/30 "2016-03-01T18:59:50Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > Agreeing with Steve MB and Hamster King. > > The Republican vision of governance only benefits rich, white people - and there aren’t enough of those to win elections. So they had to cultivate a base of people willing to vote against their own interests - using social issues as distractions, and keeping them uninformed using Fox News as a propaganda tool. > > But even the most uninformed voters can see, after a while, that the Republicans aren’t doing shit for them. So instead of voting for one of the establishment guys that is saying the same things that all the other Republicans have for years, and then failed to deliver on … they’re voting for the loud-mouthed, ignorant jackass that they see as most similar to themselves. (Who is, ironically, the only rich, white guy in the race.) > > Basically, Trump is the apotheosis of Republican political strategy. Sew the wind, reap the whirlwind. It’s a bit arrogant to decide for other voters what their interests are. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/31 "2016-03-01T19:01:12Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Trump’s supporters tend to be less educated, blue collar workers. . . . > > \ > > Plus trump says he will support Medicare, Medicaid, social security, etc. Right. The programs that benefit blue-collar workers. Welfare, not so much. ---
**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 1, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/32 "2016-03-01T19:01:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It worked well enough to get many American presidents into office. Lincoln ran on a fairly rational platform. So did TR and FDR and Truman and Eisenhower and JFK and LBJ and Clinton and Obama and . . . well, no Pubs since Eisenhower, for some reason. So politics are rational if they align with your point of view? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/33 "2016-03-01T19:16:47Z")
Casting this as a problem with stemming from crazy Republicans is comforting to the left, I suppose, but Trump’s appeal has nothing to do with Republican ideas. In fact, Trump’s policies are simple blue-collar populism. There are a lot of scared, angry working class people out there, and that’s created a situation ripe for a table-pounding populust to rise. On the left you got Sanders, on the right they got Trump. The reason Sanders is fading is that he’s a bit too much of a principled leftist, a bit too old, and he doesn’t have the media skills that Trump has. I will predict that if Trump becomes the Republican nominee the Democrats are going to lose a lot of blue collar voters to him. Those people were never staunchly Democrat anyway - Reagan managed to pull huge swaths of them into his coalition, but they drifted back to the Democrats after the aristocratic George HW Bush was supplanted by the plain-speaking Clinton, who was also more of a populist in campaign rhetoric while Bush was saying things like, “Message: I care.” Trump should be scaring you Democrats as much as he’s scaring serious Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/34 "2016-03-01T19:22:07Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > So politics are rational if they align with your point of view? Your thesis is that irrationality wins. I say, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. If you want to make a case for the irrationality of the platforms of Lincoln, etc., have at it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/35 "2016-03-01T19:25:34Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Casting this as a problem with stemming from crazy Republicans is comforting to the left, I suppose, but Trump’s appeal has nothing to do with Republican ideas. In fact, Trump’s policies are simple blue-collar populism. And there was a time when “Republican ideas” meant anything but “blue-collar populism.” But the GOP has been steadily trending in that direction ever since 1972, when Nixon employed the “Southern Strategy” and appealed to the “silent majority.” It was blue-collar populism that won the WH for Reagan – remember the “Reagan Democrats”? And they became Pubs not long after. It’s a blue-collar populist party now, only the establishment that made it so appears oblivious to what they’ve done. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/36 "2016-03-01T19:26:27Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Trump should be scaring you Democrats as much as he’s scaring serious Republicans. We’re plenty scared of a Trump presidency alright, but the difference is that Trump’s failures will be the GOP’s failures, and it will mean more Democratic presidents. For the GOP, Trump’s ascension is existential. Liberals lived through GWB and we’ll live through Trump. Once thing that’s hard for me to grasp is when Trump inevitably fails, either as a candidate or the president, what kind of even wackier GOP nominee we’ll get in 2020 or 2024. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/37 "2016-03-01T19:27:04Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > You’ll pardon me if I don’t take a former Clinton cabinet member as unbiased. From my view Sanders is almost as nutty as Trump (albeit without the buffoonery) and he’s getting almost as much support. Sanders might be hampered in that Hillary is a more viable (and better) alternative to what the Republicans are currently peddling. The big issue with the Sanders platform is that it would never get through Congress. While some of it is iffy, some of it (like free college) is standard in other parts of the world. And there are specific proposals. Compare to Trump - whose proposals are “trust me,” “it will be huge,” and “we’ll make Mexico pay for the wall.” That’s the sign of a demagogue - give the masses what they want to hear. Is it any accident that he has started quoting Mussolini approvingly? Is it any accident that he wants to make it possible to sue the press for saying something nasty about him? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/38 "2016-03-01T19:49:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Compare to Trump - whose proposals are “trust me,” “it will be huge,” and “we’ll make Mexico pay for the wall.” That’s the sign of a demagogue - give the masses what they want to hear. Is it any accident that he has started quoting Mussolini approvingly? Is it any accident that he wants to make it possible to sue the press for saying something nasty about him? Trump’s Message: “Your problems are the fault of the establishment in Washington, which has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to come into the country and take your jobs. Elect me, and I’ll smash the system, get rid of the immigrants, make good deals, and we’ll be winning again!” Sanders’ Message: “Your problems are the fault of the establishment in Washington, which has allowed the rich plutocrats to take your jobs. Elect me, and I’ll smash the system, take the wealth from the plutocrats and give it to you, and we’ll have justice again!” Trump is boorish, crass, and ignorant of the the issues on which he speaks. Sanders is radical, extreme, and ignorant of the issues on which he speaks. Both are making emotional arguments designed to play on the core fears and anger of the public. Both are populist demagogues. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/39 "2016-03-01T20:03:48Z")
I think that oversimplifies Sanders’ message. It’s more like “elect me so we can work together to reprioritize government spending to help people get the education they need to compete in the global marketplace and stop giving tax breaks to people and corporations who don’t need them.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614/40 "2016-03-01T20:16:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Trump’s Message: “Your problems are the fault of the establishment in Washington, which has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to come into the country and take your jobs. Elect me, and I’ll smash the system, get rid of the immigrants, make good deals, and we’ll be winning again!” > > Sanders’ Message: “Your problems are the fault of the establishment in Washington, which has allowed the rich plutocrats to take your jobs. Elect me, and I’ll smash the system, take the wealth from the plutocrats and give it to you, and we’ll have justice again!” > > Trump is boorish, crass, and ignorant of the the issues on which he speaks. Sanders is radical, extreme, and ignorant of the issues on which he speaks. Both are making emotional arguments designed to play on the core fears and anger of the public. Both are populist demagogues. What’s your point, that Trump and Sanders are both symptoms of the same thing? What thing would that be? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-trump-a-symptom-of/747614.md?page=3)