Campaign watch: Kevin Drum wonders about Trump voters!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2016

We notice a road not suggested:
Kevin Drum has a lengthy post today in which he wonders about the motivations and attitudes driving the many Trump voters.

We think his post is interesting for what it says, and also for something it doesn't.

Drum starts by saying the mighty scourge of offshoring ain't all it's cracked up to be. He then offers his basic nugget:
DRUM (2/15/16): Just to be crystal clear: This isn't a matter of wondering why cool logic doesn't prevail among the electorate. What I'm wondering more about is this: what are the lived, ground-level issues that are galvanizing Trump's supporters? The job market simply doesn't seem to be in bad enough shape—or in different enough shape—to be responsible for a sea change in attitudes. So what is it?
As he proceeds, Drum offers three possible explanations for all that galvanization. "But I still think there's something missing here," he says at the end of his post. "I'm just not sure what."

Drum remains puzzled about Trump voters as he ends his post. That said, here's something he doesn't do. He doesn't suggest that liberals, progressives and Democrats should look for ways to ask Trump voters about their views and motivations.

How do Trump voters see the world? It wouldn't be easy to find out, but it rarely seems to occur to our tribe that we ought to try.

As we noted last week, it's very, very, very rare to see a Trump voter interviewed on Our Own Corporate Liberal Channel. Across the liberal world, though not with Drum, a basic attitude often seems to obtain, in which we try to avoid degrading ourselves by talking to Those People.

In our model, we tell Those People they're bigots and racists. We then proceed to tell them how they ought to vote.

Our tribe may sometimes have retrograde notions about The Way You Make Progress Happen. Aside from calling everyone racists and xenophobes, we also tend to subscribe to the slightly peculiar ideas advanced in this piece from yesterday's Washington Post Outlook section.

The author of that piece, Yoav Fromer, "teaches politics and history at Tel Aviv University." We'll get to his piece by the end of the week. It strikes us as basic, very important, dating back through many years.

38 comments:

  1. Actually, Cosmopolitan asked nine women to explain why they like Trump. The answer of a 52-year-old nurse was typical: "I think he's going to try to make jobs. And I think jobs for anybody is good."

    Another, a 57-year-old unemployed woman answered: "He'll be able to help the women by fixing the economy. I think he's great for women."


    As Dave Barry used to say, not making this up. http://bit.ly/20zHNWo

    To review: one woman likes Trump because he's going to try to "make jobs" And she thinks jobs for anybody is good.

    Another because: "I think he's great for women."

    Happy?

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    1. Yet another said:

      "The women of America? I'm not sure. I don't know if that's my priority. I want him to make money. I want to make money. So, hopefully he can make me money and I care about my stocks, which have lost money, about ten grand.

      And then there was the retired lady who said: "Oh, I don't know."

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    2. I liked the teacher who let the male teacher she was with answer for her. Two of these great teachers who are raising our kids test scores! Why doesn't MSNBC cover that?

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    3. Keep 'em talking and they'll start to go off into the bigot category. In about 20 seconds.

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    4. I'd venture to guess that in the case of the 52 yr old nurse English is not her first language. If she's a nurse then she has some serious educational experience.

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    5. "Here's nine people whose lives will be ruined if they don't toe the liberal PC line. Now let's ask them to give a clumsy fake answer and we can all have a good laugh at their restricted speech!"

      And the liberals just can't figure out the draw hmmm. How well do you think it would go over if a woman being interviewed by a major media outlet said: "I'm voting Trump because I am tired of living under a government that holds racial bias against white people and consistently works against their interests."? Well that is your answer right there but no one will dare to say it out loud on camera for obvious reasons. The PC witch hunt reaps what it sows.

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    6. Of all the people to be afraid of a "PC witch hunt" you'd think Trump supporters would be the least afraid.

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    7. Trump supporters: 30% of the population yet almost no one is willing to publicly admit it. I guess I don't see how that makes them "least afraid" to voice their opinions. Ask black people about homosexuality if you want to hear candid speech.

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    8. I did. Most are all right with it.

      Delete
  2. And another answered, "He's not a socialist, he hasn't made hundreds of millions of dollars through politics, he doesn't dismiss concerns about illegal immigration especially radicalized or easily radicalized savages from the Middle East, he prioritizes veterans, he opposes job-killing trade deals, campus witch trials and words like rape culture and safe space and black lives matter."

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    1. "easily radicalized savages"

      Hint that Bob is a bit off base about some of the bombers.

      Delete
    2. Did Somerby deny that "the other tribe" also throws word bombs around? Where was that?

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    3. Where was the statement or even implication Somerby denied anything?

      Your comment suggests* paranoia. Why you would be paranoid about Bob unless you are Bob is beyond me.

      * "suggests" is a vocabulary word taught to young Howler readers for use in novelizing.

      Delete
    4. "Where was the statement or even implication Somerby denied anything?"

      Here, dunderhead:

      "'easily radicalized savages'"

      "Hint that Bob is a bit off base about some of the bombers."

      Explain that comment as something other than a suggestion Somerby doesn't know (or "denies") who the "bombers" are, that they're really the "other tribe". That's what it is. And of course Somerby has never said the other tribe didn't do that.

      Which makes 6:27 a troll.
      And 10:43 an idiot.

      Delete
    5. Can you understand that something that "seems" or "suggests" something to you might not "seem" or "suggest" the same thing to anyone else?

      Delete
  3. Yeah but Bob, whenever they are interviewed they all sound like racists and bigots!

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    1. No. But the force is strong in @ 6:04.

      Delete
  4. Bob, would you please stop telling this lie that Trump voters are very rarely interviewed on MSNBC? Because it is, actually, a lie. A pleasing one for you, but just flat-out false.

    I've seen easily several dozen interviews, plus a couple of focus groups, on MSNBC in the last couple months.

    You wouldn't find them terribly illuminating because their reasons are pretty vague, but they have been regularly interviewed.

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    1. But it fits his narrative so well!

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    2. Since Bob is not a journalist according to his biggest fans, you cannot accuse him of putting forth a journalist type narrative.

      Therefore he is acting like a Republican Presidential candidate and inventing facts.

      Delete
  5. Well, I'd vote for Trump if I was in a swing state where it would matter, but here's my reasoning. While Trump likes to say he'll kick the shit out of ISIS, I easily see through that as something he has to say; what's the alternative, I refuse to kick the shit out of ISIS? But he is just as willing to let Russia take the wood to ISIS. Trump does not want us to get into wars where there is a chance we can avoid it, even if the enemy does kill some civilians as a result. No one is stopping the UK from going to war against ISIS if they are equally offended. Trump gets that.

    He is correct on lower taxes for almost all except hedge fund managers, who try to co-opt the capital gains coming from not THEIR capital, but the capital of THEIR INVESTORS. There is no end to tax hikes if we continually raise rates to try to pay down the debt and finance reckless spending; it's better that we default on the investors foolish enough to invest in US government debt.

    He's also correct on eminent domain. In fact, eminent domain ought to work for both bridges and factories and sports stadiums, but the one adjustment I would make would be to require no less than 2x fair value, so the homeowners would not merely be compensated but receive a windfall.

    I'm disappointed that Trump is not more educated on how the Fed extends recessions by artificially lowering interest rates, but he does frequently mention our excessive debt, whereas few other candidates even broach the topic.

    Finally, he knows how to win, and proves it by winning now. Few Trump supporters think this is how he will act while in office. Winning an election requires a very different style than governance; he will drop the bombast once the election is over and he's won. And we understand that.

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    1. "it's better that we default"
      "I'm disappointed that Trump is not more educated"

      Ohkayee...

      Thanks, genius.

      Delete
  6. I wonder if Mr. Drum knows that the ratio of employed people to the population hasn't changed since the great recession started? So yes, if you don't count all the people that have given up looking for work-then yes, the economy is doing just great.

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    1. You wonder if Mr. Drum knows.

      We wonder if you know to what extent the employment-to-population number is dominated by demographics rather than frustration.

      We laugh, sadly, at your implication that Drum believes "the economy is doing just great."

      Delete
  7. Referring to radicalized or easily radicalized migrants as "savages" hurts the fee fees of those whose tiny brains are in such a state of dysfunction and irrationality they have begun to identify with people who would like to decapitate them and hate those who would defend them.

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    1. Right, only you and your ilk understand the danger. It was your clueless "nation-building" that created so much of this mess in the first place.

      http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/surge-created-hillary.html

      Delete
    2. My fee fees are not hurt and I don't hate anyone who would defend me. I doubt you ever have worn a uniform defending anyone unless you have put stripes on the sleeves of the PJ's you wear at the keyboard in mom's basement.

      Now, get back to your Anime.

      Delete
  8. "calling everyone racists and xenophobes"

    16% of Trump supporters say whites are a superior race.

    Another 14% say they aren't sure. (Is that really any better?)

    So thirty percent of Trump supporters admit to being either white supremacists or Nazi-curious. Can we stop pretending there's common ground to be had with these people? There's little point to trying to figure out how to persuade literal white supremacists.

    http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_SC_21616.pdf

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    1. Any race can be recognized as a superior race depending on criteria. There is no right or wrong response to the question if one accepts superior as an acceptable adjective to apply to behaviors or aptitudes, and averages of entire groups as defining. "We are all equal" is a spiritual value and a politically correct answer.

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    2. "'We are all [essentially] equal' is a spiritual value and a correct answer."

      FTFY

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    3. "It is my opinion based in my spiritual beliefs that we are all [essentially] equal but the correctness of this opinion depends upon whose opinion dictates criteria." FTFY

      Delete
    4. No, copycat 324, 1245 was right the first time.

      Delete
  9. "Black Lives Matter" the group Hillary Clinton endorses has called for the elimination of the nuclear family, recognizing that their own community with a 75% illegitimacy rate and epidemic child abandonment and neglect has failed in its social obligations. Attempting to re-define those conditions as virtuous, these miserable clowns and their supporters must cast civilization as racist and primitive misery and chaos as "progress."

    BLACK VILLAGES

    We are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, and especially “our” children to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable.

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    1. Black lives matter activists, having been encouraged to obsess over "micro aggressions" are killing themselves.

      In Oakland, Calif., a prominent activist posted the phone number for a suicide prevention hotline on her Facebook page. In Cleveland, a lead organizer confessed on Facebook that he, too, had tried to take his own life. Dozens of others have shared stories of their battles with depression, anxiety and insecurity on Twitter.

      “In the movement you’re just constantly engaging in black death, seeing the communal impact,” said Jonathan Butler, the University of Missouri graduate student whose hunger strike last fall led to the resignation of the school’s president. “You’re being faced with the reality that I’m more likely to be killed by the police, that I’m being discriminated against. You start to see all of the micro-aggressions.”

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    2. Another nothingburger from one of the blogger's many VDARE fans.

      Delete
    3. Make that 2 VDARE trolls.

      Delete
    4. Bob, like Trump, says things that send a tingle up their leg.

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete